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The sun, the moon and the truth, as the saying went.
He should have known he wouldn't be able to keep it a secret. But James still didn't have to find out like this . Not in the middle of a mission, all because he had realized a moment to late that one of the older Hydra officers looked familiar. Not from the lips of such scum. Not with the words:
"You think you're so mighty, soldier? Spitting on your training only to follow a black Captain America like his neutered lapdog, following and obeying even the bitch that murdered your own spawn! You're no alpha and you never were, just a bedlam attack dog and nothing else!"
The wretched little creature might have gone on, but the new falcon shot him, blatantly scared of the way the former Winter Soldier had frozen. He also called the captain to their position just in case, but James didn't outwardly react and ultimately they didn't talk about it in the enemy base at all...
But Zemo never once deluded himself into thinking that the former assassin had somehow missed the critical point in there and he was proven right before night fell. James only just waited long enough for everyone else to go to bed before he came into Zemo's own.
When he did, Zemo was preemptively naked, but he doubted that it would work now and rued being right so often when James only sat in his bed, belt still buckled, with no signs of sex being imminent. Admittedly, he could switch fast. But he generally did that without talking first. And now:
"What did he mean?"
Against better knowledge Zemo tried to evade the obvious, but a metal hand around his neck slowly tightening, digging harshly into his throat at that, squeezed a minimum he dared to utter from his lips:
"I was pregnant, James, and Hydra does not grant omegas the right to choose what grows in their womb or not so they call it murder if any action someone like me undertakes results in a- a fruitless end to a pregnancy. Whatever the intention. I would really rather not revisit what happened, however. If I may choose that much."
The pressure on his neck loosened, unevenly like a mechanical stutter and James' tone lost its edge of anger to his shock, but still:
"He said it was my spawn, my child you- I- you were-?!"
Now the hold dropped. Or rather James tore his hand from his neck as if burned and all but jumped off the bed to top it off. But Zemo could only pray to a god he had long lost his faith in that James would keep his assumption and believe that he had impregnated Zemo in Riga or since.
Just for a moment as the former Winter Soldier fled his room, it almost seemed possible...
Bucky couldn't believe it. He couldn't even picture it, Zemo pregnant with his baby!
But then he tried to imagine it, curled up tightly in a corner of his room and definitely not shaking, tried to envision this impossibility, Zemo round with a baby belly... And when he tried to create the image in his head, his mind recollected it instead: A belly so huge it seemed ready to pop from its tiny frame, skin stretched taut, with thick, bouncing milkbags sloshing on top like- what the fuck? Why would he ever- such dirty, degrading- no. Oh, fuck, those were their words.
He could almost see it before his inner eye:
"Bring the bitch and show it to our esteemed general, Soldier."
The crate. A kid, a fucking kid in a crate, but clawing at it like it was shelter when the Soldier dragged it out by an ankle, and host and guests amused, all except one. One who cringed and pretended, another bumping his shoulder in genuine cheer.
"Talk about a crazy blessings in disguise, baron! Your son turns out a bitch and you want to die from shame, but then it bonds the Soldier and now? We'll have more of them! Honestly, to think that an omega would be your greatest contribution to our cause... But we'll have more Winter Soldiers!"
The Soldier registered everything. The drunk unknowingly provoking a fight, the baron hiding his fury and doubt, the concern when he looked at the omega. Not the. Its. That was ITS omega and the baron had no claim on the little one. Helmut, he had heard the man whisper before. Its omega was Helmut. But also 'the bitch' according to its Handlers and its Handlers made the decisions and gave the truths.
Its Handlers owned everything, too. But then it felt the dainty little ankle in its flesh hand and heard the crack of- NO! It whirled around and instantly picked up its omega, holding the little one still to inspect its fingers. One nail was broken from clawing at the ground and blood welled from the bed. Shit.
But it couldn't wait, so it carefully bit off the loose part, ignoring the omega's shriek - it would get worse if the split nail got caught on something and ripped even further into the flesh. The Soldier had to prevent further damage. It didn't even ask for orders on that, it had to do it and it was not explicitly forbidden. The Handlers in their mercy generally let it do what it had to for its omega as long as it didn't interfere with fulfilling their orders.
It didn't now, the Solider still delivered its omega, holding the little one firmly as its handlers and their associates and investors kept drinking, laughing and talking about it and the little one. They eagerly discussed how they had taken the bonding in stride and figured that they just had another tie to make sure the Soldier always came back, another opportunity for experimentation, a reward for missions done well and some amusement.
The Soldier carefully relaxed itself when they started talking about Handlers fucking its omega in front of it and testing that it would help them cuckold it, holding its own omega open for them to fuck. Its brain tingled with phantom electricity if it got possessive. It was the possession, not the possessor. It didn't get to feel possessive.
So it relaxed and waited and registered the silent hatred and disgust in the baron's well shielded eyes. Less shielded, when they loudly reported finding the omega pregnant and how amazed everyone had been to learn and have it confirmed in every repeated test that the Soldier was indeed the sire and the embryo showed signs of the supersoldier serum.
All the newer members, partners and investors ate it up. Not as much as they enjoyed the new round of champagne by that point, but their eyes did glow as its Handlers laid out the plan to cut out the fetus as soon as it was ready – so as not to damage the omega's fertility with a hard birth - and have the Soldier fuck it day and night until it was pregnant again. Heats helped but the wait wasn't needed to achieve conception after all.
That way they would maximize the output for as long as the omega could provide and starting in maybe twenty years max, training time included, they would have a whole new row of Winter Soldiers.
The Soldier didn't have an opinion on there being more Soldiers - it never had an opinion, those were for Handlers. But at the same time... the idea of mating so much, being so close to its omega day and night, and creating fruits of their union? It made a part of it buzz with happy feelings that should probably be forbidden.
But the Soldier loved its omega. Even though it didn't remember what that meant. It just felt right in a way entirely unlike the feeling of doing right when it obeyed its Handlers to the dot and they were pleased with It. And that was the best combination it knew, because Handlers were rarely truly pleased and even when they were the feeling could be muddled by it being uneasy with what it had done to get there. Like when it did something that made its omega uncomfortable, but the Handlers were satisfied that it obeyed anyway.
It always would. And the same held true now. Because its omega was sickly with discomfort in its arms in front of them, but one of their guests wanted to see them mate 'for proof that it fit in that tiny hole' and its Handler nodded and instructed it.
That didn't feel right in that place deep inside. Its omega was heavily pregnant, hurt to boot and utterly miserable; enough so to try struggling against it even after every time that that had failed before... And the Soldier didn't want to make it worse, didn't want to make its omega cry again, but... the Handlers had ordered sex.
So it gave its omega one peck to the temple for comfort - a strange impulse it decided not to question lest it uncovered a malfunction it would then have to report to its Handlers - and held the little one with its flesh arm while it used the metal one to release and straighten out its penis. Once that was erect it gripped its omega with both hands again to place the little one on it.
This was not the first time in its intact memory that it had been ordered to demonstrate copulation with its omega during a 'party'. After all the main purposes of them were networking, eliciting investments and raising troop morale, any of which could prompt such an order. But the drunker the guests were the more dangerous the orders became and its omega had never been this round and miserable before...
No, it had its orders hesitating now - in public of all settings - would only incur the most horrible punishments for them both.
The Soldier steeled itself, adjusted the wiggling omega in its hands to face the guests so they would have the best view of the little one's belly and already swollen breasts as its Handlers had instructed and lowered his mate onto its erection. It dared go slowly the first time, too nervous even to enjoy the tight clutch of the too dry hole - its erection was leaking precome which covered part of it and it had been secretly stimulating the little one's mating mark to provoke slick production but that only got it so far while the little one's body knew it was pregnant and mating any more would be pointless.
Its omega struggled harder, shrieking to accompany the desperate flailing of limbs, and thankfully that entertained the guests enough to distract them from how long the Soldier was taking. Suddenly inspired by its memories from other such times, it readjusted its hold to squeeze one of its omega's breasts to ensure their distraction as it penetrated its unwelcoming mate at a snail's pace to not rip the little one open.
Ironically the omega's flailing almost inched his mate down faster than its own actions now, but at least the tactic worked and the new instructions shouted by the guests and approved by its Handlers were for 'honking' its omega's 'tits' and pinching their nipples while it gradually seated the little one, shifting to prepare his mate or the thrusts it knew were coming.
By the time it was ordered to 'get fucking' the omega was almost slick - mostly from the Soldier's copious precome - and it was an immense relief to not have to tear its omega as much as it had feared. Which altogether made its head smart with a phantom burn...
But it obeyed and the guests were happy to watch it bounce its omega on its cock, making the little one's breasts hop up and down on top of the stiff belly holding its first of many fruits. Below their notice and almost unnoticed by itself, it also mouthed at its omega's beautifully defined mating mark.
The Soldier belonged to the Handlers. But licking and gnawing at that mark on the omega's neck always made it feel like - for all that it was the possession, not the possessor - this was still ITS omega
...Fuck.
Zemo didn't know how much reprieve he could hope for or what exactly this would do to James, but it still came too fast for him to feel ready.
'This' being a supersoldier in his door with eyes like he had drowned in blood and a breath like he had thrown it right back up. 'This' being the devastating certainty that James knew and there was no going back or sugarcoating anything anymore. He had remembered. Enough of it, for sure. Now how much exactly...
"You were a kid."
Ah, too much.
"Everyone was at some point."
"No. When you were pregnant. That wasn't this time, it wasn't some months ago. You were pregnant by me as a KID!"
...He should have set some words aside earlier. Maybe then they wouldn't cloy to his throat quite so badly now.
"That was the Winter Soldier, not you. He is... part of you, no doubt. But you are not the same."
Silence followed what words he had found and when it hung for too long between them he dared to look up to find James' mouth opening and closing again and again as though there was just too much say. 'You're worried if you open your mouth, the horrors will never stop.' That was what he had told James once, bitterly realizing a moment later that he was talking about both of them.
He felt the same bitterness now. A bitterness born from a life in the realm of Hydra. As its future member, future asset, toy, specimen, victim and finally its enemy. Who could finally fight back and still had to learn that control was an illusion when he was blindsided all over again and could not save anything or anyone.
"What happened to the baby?"
For a moment he was startled, having forgotten about James in his self-pity. Then he had to wonder if James had forgotten their earlier talk, but... Well, he supposed he had not been forthcoming on the details. Now their were due, but at the same time:
"There was none."
James' face pinched before it drooped into a frown, then built itself up, nearly aggressive and surely about to call him a liar before suddenly realization set in and ripped his eyes open in pain:
"Did they have us do something that made you... lose it?"
It would be so easy to say yes. But he didn't doubt for a moment that James actually meant 'did they make me do something that made you lose it' and he couldn't put that on him. So:
"No. I did something that made me lose it."
The frown was back, but flickering and easily broken by a nauseous swallow.
"You lost it on purpose, didn't you? That's why he said you killed my baby... You had an abortion – a late one by the size of you and your breasts growing like that. And yeah, Hydra really aren't the type to allow people bodily autonomy, least of all omegas - or supersoldiers they wanted to use, like their hotly anticipated new Winter Soldiers. They must have been so livid when- you-"
But James noticed that he wasn't following the train of thought he was spinning and let it run out as he went back over what he might have gotten wrong. ...Zemo spared him the guessing game:
"It wasn't specifically my pregnancy I meant to terminate. By all accounts they would have just punished me and ordered you to rape me until I became pregnant again, this time with more precautions to take even the last of my options away, so I- ...I just couldn't bear the fate they planned for me, so I pleaded with my father's butler when we were taken to the castle laboratory for another round of tests and he freed me from my cage and went to keep watch so I could escape. But even then I knew I couldn't run from them, not for good, so I took a cable from your chair and hung myself with it instead, back where it had all begun."
James swallowed again, harder, eyes glazing over like he was picturing the version of Zemo he had remembered, a pregnant child, hanging from his chair. Or maybe he just finally understood how the overlapping scars on his neck - that James so often mouthed at when he wasn't paying attention in the afterglow - had once come to be.
He all but had to shake himself to look Zemo in the eyes again, visibly struggling to keep a grip on himself and figure out all the parts he was missing:
"You're alive..."
"Yes. It seems your former self sensed me dying through the bond, or so my father told me later, and all the brass meeting upstairs that had been keeping you on standby was shaken from their congratulatory circle jerk by your screams before you stormed down to find me. Fast enough to bring me back, as it turned out, but not fast enough for the tumor in my belly. My body expelled it, at last trying to save itself instead of just betraying me more as it had for months. It had a pulse when it came out, as I understand, but it was still too premature and succumbed the same night."
He looked up with his face hardened against letting anything through and almost saw the 'so there was a baby for a time' on James' face, but the supersoldier swallowed it back down. Maybe he understood that it was never a baby. Just an unfinished monster with both past and future made of blood and tears.
"...I'm sorry."
"You had orders. I knew what they did to you if you didn't obey. By a civilized country's understanding, that made us both victims of a rape committed by Hydra, not either of us."
And that was it. It seemed. The silence stretched so long he almost thought the sun would come up before another word fell between them or that James would just quietly shuffle out to leave anything else for good. He was actually rather shocked when the former Winter Soldier did speak again:
"Do you relive it when I fuck you?"
Huh. To think...
"No, James. It's different enough."
He didn't say how it was different but he heard James choke and could almost smell bile. James understood how it was different. But pushing his bitterness aside he reminded himself that he didn't want to break the man, so before his mate could flee entirely he had to add:
"I was innocent then, but I am not anymore. We are both different now, James. And if I found myself with a child from you in my belly now, after everything, I would keep it safe and sound for as long as I could."
He would only ask to be allowed to make their middle name Carl, in memory of their late half-brother, but before he could decide whether to say that now or leave it until the day, James had already escaped his presence. Perhaps it was too much all at once. But this had not gone nearly as bad as it might have and maybe...
Just maybe they could figure this out in way with him and his alpha side by side as equals at last, to maybe have a family after all. A family where the father didn't need an enslaved supersoldier reanimating his dead son while his colleagues cursed and started hitting it, almost sabotaging it, before he realized that Hydra was evil and family came first.
James could be nicer in bed of course, but Zemo was willing to make concessions for his goals.