Sitting on the edge of the couch, she held the file in her fingertips, peering down onto the words written on the paper. Her other hand continued to clench into a fist, her fingers moving the ring that sat there as she toyed with the rock on the gold band. She was examining the documents she was peering down at, but she had no idea what it was she was supposed to be looking for. Frowning, her brow pinched and her eyebrows knitted together as the man sat across from her cleared his throat, moving to fold one leg over the other, the leather chair squelching as he shifted in it.

"You're struggling, aren't you?"

Peering up and looking across to him, she saw that he had tossed his own folder onto the coffee table in front of him. His hands sat on the arm of the chair he occupied and her gaze met his. She sighed in frustration and stood up, tossing the folder on top of his.

"I don't understand it," she complained to him, pacing he length of the sofa, hands on her hips. She crumpled up the white shirt she wore tucked into her short a-line green skirt that sat over thick black tights on her legs. "I've tried to understand it, but all of it's redacted."

"You need to have more patience and understand what you're looking for," he responded and sat forwards slightly.

She scoffed and turned to look to him with a narrowed state. "That's easy for you to say, but not all of us were commanders of EKO Scorpion."

Despite everything, his lips arched at hearing her say that. He had to admit that he found it rather entertaining whenever she got so frustrated with things. He had wondered why he had agreed to work with her, knowing that she had none of the skills that he had. She had been persistent, however, and he knew that his plan would take a long time to come together. It would be months, if not years, until he had all of the tools he needed. But he was a determined man and he knew that she was nothing but determined too.

"You're learning," he said to her.

"Not quick enough," she said and moved into her kitchen.

The apartment was on the small side and he had to admit that he found it quite cramped, but he knew it was more low-key than the apartments and houses he owned. He would need to be low-key for the plan to work. He didn't want to attract any attention.

"I'm going out," she said after banging the cupboard doors and he finally stood up.

"Why?"

"Because there is no food in here and we can't keep living off expensive takeout that you insist on ordering because pizza isn't good enough for you."

Her voice had a tone of distaste to it and he knew that she was in a foul mood. He had lived with her long enough to work out when she was annoyed or when she just wasn't in a talkative mood. She reached for her coat from the hook on the door leading into the hallway. Shrugging into the brown mac, she pulled her chestnut locks from under its collar, her curls bouncing down her back as he also stood.

"I'll come and help," he said to her.

"You don't need to."

"You'll need someone to help carry the shopping back," he said.

Again, this was something he had rarely done back home. He rarely did his own shopping. She had wondered what his life must have been like back home when they still had a home. Their paths had rarely crossed and she knew that she was nothing like him. They had all laughed at her behind her back when she had first joined their circles. She had been warned that joining Sokovia's high society wasn't an easy thing. But she had been determined to do it for him.

"Fine," she said.

He grabbed his own black jacket from the coat rack as she flung her brown bag over her shoulder. He fastened his coat up and pulled on his black boots as she slipped into her own white pair of trainers that hardly complimented her outfit, but were comfortable for the walk.

They left the apartment quietly, him holding the main doors open for her as she snuck out and instantly felt the cold air against her cheeks. It was October and the air was turning. She looked around as they came out to the street and she looked at the sea in front of her, smelling the salt from it as the waves crashed up against the walls, spray being flung over it and landing on the pavement in small specks.

They walked in silence along the footpath, keeping a good distance from the seawall. Her hands laced together in front of her and she found herself playing with the ring that was sat there once more. She knew that she had been in a foul mood the entire day and had taken it out on the man walking next to her with his hands in his pockets.

"It should have been today."

He looked to her, his eyes moving down onto her as she continued moving down the pavement. It was quiet. It was hardly the weather for tourists to visit and the night was looming over them, the sun dipping low ever since the clocks had gone back. She was squinting in the direction of the sun, her eyes downcast as he finally realised what she was talking about. Nodding his head once, he lifted his eyes up and looked straight ahead.

"I should have remembered."

"Why?" she questioned him back. "It…you didn't need to remember. I shouldn't have been acting like a bitch all day."

"You haven't been acting like a bitch," he denied and she chuckled darkly before looking up to him, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her mac.

"I have been acting like a bitch," she responded. "I've snapped at you all day and I shouldn't have. It's just that…today's been hard."

They hardly spoke of their emotions. He knew that wasn't healthy. As a soldier he had been trained to keep his emotions in check and not let them get the better of him, but she was no soldier and he had never found it right to keep things hidden anyway. His wife had taught him that much. So, despite the fact they hardly discussed how they felt, he knew she struggled. He would sometimes hear her in the middle of the night leave her bedroom and sneak into the living room. He would find her sat on the couch in silence, peering out the window and into the darkness of the ocean beyond them. He would only hear her because he struggled to sleep and, on nights when he did sleep, he would wake up in a cold sweat. The nightmares would always plague him.

"Sit down," he said to her.

It was more of a command than a request. It always was with him. He was a man who was used to getting his own way. She sat down on the bench overlooking the ocean from a slight hill as he perched next to her, leaving a small gap between them.

"I…I don't really know what to say," she said to him, but she didn't look at him. She chose to keep her eyes set on the breaking waves, the noise of seagulls echoing in her ears. "I mean, what is there to say?"

"You can say what you like to me, Amelia," he promised her. "I know that you keep things bottled up."

"Because I don't like to dwell," she retorted. "But…today…it shouldn't be like this. I shouldn't be here with you. I should be back in Sokovia and marrying Lukas. I should have had that…instead…I have this…living in the apartment we were supposed to rent together while we figured out married life."

"He liked it here," he said to her with a knowing nod. "Whenever he returned to Sokovia he would tell us of the little beach town on the coast of Norfolk…he thought that it was the best place ever, despite the fact he had townhouses in Paris, Milan and New York."

"Can I tell you something?" she said and looked to him as he nodded. "I hated the townhouse in Paris. The first time he took me there I just remember wondering who could possibly have designed it."

He chuckled, despite himself and the situation. Nodding his head, he leant forwards and laced his fingers together, his own fingers twirling his wedding band around his finger. "He always did have questionable taste in design."

"He wanted to bring that horrible dog statue he had there to the apartment here, but I told him there was no chance that was coming with us."

"I remember it. I think that I tried to persuade him not to buy it at an auction we went to," he retorted and she nodded her head, her smile returning to her face as she could just imagine Lukas's face defending his actions to buy something so ghastly. "I also remember everyone wondering what he was doing moving into a two bedroom apartment in a remote English town."

She nodded. She could only imagine that.

"But he would have done anything for you, Amelia," he concluded.

She sniffed once more and dabbed at her eyes, trying to stop tears from falling down her cheeks. She shouldn't cry. She had to be strong and she had to keep her composure.

"He did," Amelia recalled, tucking her hair behind her ear but finding that it blew straight back into her face due to the breeze. "And I know that he was your best friend and you loved him too."

"When you grow up with someone, it's hard not to love them like a brother," he admitted to her. "But I never imagined him settling down with someone like you."

"Why's that?"

"You know why, Amelia," he replied.

And she did know why. She had met Lukas while she had been travelling in France. She had been a PR executive for a top travel agency and had decided to take a holiday while she had been on business in Paris. It turned out that had been the best decision she had made. She'd met Lukas in some café as she sat reading and sipping on a coffee while eating a croissant. He had been frantically looking for a phone charger after being out all night while on a friend's stag do.

She had given him one and he had sat with her as his phone charged. They had gotten talking and one thing had led to another. Before she knew it, she had agreed to dinner with him that night and he had come back to her hotel room. She had expected it to be a one-night fling. She hadn't expected anything else. He had left the next day after asking for her number following a breakfast of pastries and coffee in bed courtesy of room service. She didn't think that he would call her, just that he wanted to appear polite and as gentlemanly as possible.

She'd told him that she lived in London in a flat-share with two other girls. She hadn't given him the address, but she had told him where she worked. She'd gone back to her normal life after he left her that morning. He had to go back to his friends, needing to get to the airport to get on the private plane back to Sokovia. She hadn't expected to find him outside of her office the following week with flowers, claiming that he had just been in the area.

He later admitted that had been a lie, telling her he hadn't been able to get her out of his mind. He stayed in London for months, dating Amelia and telling her all about his life in Sokovia. He told her that he came from money, but she hadn't understood that until she went to Sokovia and visited his friends and family.

Nodding her head, Amelia remembered the first time she had gone with him to some formal dinner. "Because you all despised me," she said and he shook his head.

"Not all of us," he responded.

"It's fine, Helmut," she said, turning to look up to him. "I didn't fit into your world in high society. We can't all be Barons and Baronesses."

"I admit that it can be a cruel world," he agreed with her on that point, sitting back and folding his arms over his chest. "And Lukas had previously only dated models and socialites."

Amelia scoffed and shook her head. "I know," she replied. "He told me everything…warned me what people would say and told me that we could back out. But how could I keep him from going back to his friends and family? He loved them."

"But he loved you more," Helmut replied and Amelia watched him as he spoke. "I remember whenever we would meet up, you were all that he could talk about. I wondered if he was being hasty when he said that he was going to propose to you, but he was adamant that this was it. Lukas had always been impulsive and usually that led to mistakes."

"Complete opposite to you then."

"I think that is why we got on so well," Helmut confessed. He thought about everything meticulously. He was considered and never rushed into anything. Sometimes Amelia found that to be exhausting, never imagining herself to have anything in common with the Baron she now found herself working with.

"He always talked about you," Amelia said. "And you were one of the most accepting friends when I came to Sokovia."

"Hard not to be accepting of the woman who my best friend intended to marry," he replied. "Although I do question why he was so keen on moving into a small apartment in a remote town like this where the nearest decent restaurant is miles away."

Amelia laughed and that and rolled her eyes. "You're such a snob," she said to him. "He questioned it to begin with, but he soon fell in love with his place. You know, he wanted to buy one of the houses on the cliffs that cost over a million pounds, but I told him there was no chance we were doing that. We didn't need a massive house and I wanted things to be equal…for me to pay…not for him to provide for everything."

"You always have been stubborn then," Helmut said.

"I think everyone would say as much," she nodded in agreement and the sun finally dipped over the ocean, any heat that it had been emitting disappearing with it and causing Amelia to pull her coat tightly around her body.

Helmut's lips arched as he remembered the first dinner that Lukas had brought Amelia to. She had been wearing a dress from a high street designer, the women in the room gossiping about it and laughing about how she had done her own hair herself. Lukas had kept her shielded from their comments, of course, his arm not once leaving her waist as she stood by his side and floundered like a fish out of water. And, as Helmut spoke with his father in the corner, he had seen Heike go up to her.

His wife had embraced her warmly and offered her nothing but pleasant comments about her gown and how her hair looked lovely. But, unlike the fake smiles Amelia had received that night, Heike had been genuine. She had asked questions about Amelia, showing an interest in her job, letting her talk about the small seaside town where she grew up and how she wanted to go back there one day and move out of London. His loving, doting wife had done nothing but accept Amelia. She had taken her under her wing and helped her navigate Sokovia's social circles.

"And then we lost everything," Helmut concluded and Amelia nodded her head.

"It's not fair," Amelia whispered. "None of it is fair."

"It isn't," he agreed with her. "But if it cannot be fair then we will do what we can to make it just."

Nodding her head, she agreed with him on that point before she knew that the reminiscing would not get them anywhere. Moving to her feet, she began walking without another word. Helmut watched her for a few seconds before also standing and following her, his footsteps soft next to hers as they lapsed back into that comfortable silence they had grown accustomed to.

…

Amelia had cooked them dinner as Helmut finished reading over the files and making notes. She wasn't the best cook, but there was something homely about her meals. They warmed Helmut's stomach and filled him. There was no pretence or finesse with presentation as she dished up the lasagne and they ate it in silence, the noise of the radio humming in the background. They had finished their reading and she had tided up the dishes as he tided up the folders and they called it a night.

He went to the guest room and shut the curtains, turning on the bedside lamp. Removing his watch, he left it on the table next to the alarm clock and looked around. The room was small, a double bed sat against the wall and a wardrobe on the opposite wall that Helmut had taken for his own. A chest of drawers sat next to it with a mirror on it and all of his toiletries that he didn't leave in the bathroom. He had no personal items with him, but Amelia had hung up prints that she had bought with Lukas while they had travelled together.

The duvet was thick and covered in a patterned floral cover that he was certain Amelia had chosen. The furniture was a soft grey colour and there was a throw on a chair in the corner. Amelia had told him that she had hoped that could be a reading corner eventually because of how it was tucked into the corner and she wanted a bookshelf to go in the guest room. She hadn't envisaged really using the guest room, but then Helmut had moved into it.

He knew that he would hardly get any sleep that night. Sitting on the bed, his legs stretched in front of him as he picked up the book from the bedside table. He flipped it open to he page he had left it at, but his eyes just scanned over it as he imagined what his wife would say.

"Honestly, you could read something a bit lighter, Helmut."

But he enjoyed non-fiction books. Heike enjoyed fiction, preferring to lose herself in her own thoughts. He didn't know how long he tried to read for before he heard sobs from the room next door. He closed the book and laid it down next to him. He knew that it was Amelia. She was crying. He had heard her before. He usually left her, not knowing if he should intrude. He would cry, of course, but never openly sob as she did.

She tried to remain calm and composed in front of him, not knowing if he heard her at night. If he did, he rarely said anything. But then he heard a loud smash from her room and out of instinct, he stood up and moved through the small hallway, knocking on her bedroom door.

"Amelia, are you alright?" he questioned.

There was no response and he dared to push the handle down. He walked into the room and saw that the duvet cover was turned back and her lamp was on. She was knelt on the ground, surrounded by a smashed vase as she tried to pick the pieces up.

"I knocked it over," she said to him, her voice shaking.

He didn't know if she was telling him the truth or not, but he didn't question her as he knelt down next to her and heard the voice from her phone. She was doing exactly what he did when he was alone and wanted to hear his wife's voice.

"Amelia, sweetheart, do you really have to work so close to your fiancé's big day? Your father and I are here and Lukas has picked us up from the airport and seems fine with you working so close to his birthday …but don't push things. Just get on the next flight as soon as possible, okay? I saw that there was a flight leaving Heathrow tonight. Can you at least try to get back? We love you."

The voicemail ended and Helmut pressed the end call button for her, not sure if she knew he had heard it as she continued placing the pieces of the vase into a pile before she grunted under her breath.

"You've cut yourself," he commented, seeing the blood fall from her fingertips.

"I'm fine," she promised him with a firm voice before Helmut noted that the photo frame had also fallen.

"Leave it," she urged from him.

But he didn't. He picked it up and looked at the smiling faces of Lukas and Amelia up the Eiffel Tower.

"I said leave it," she reiterated to him and reached to snatch it from him before he saw her red-tinted cheeks that were stained with tears and her puffy eyes. She looked down onto the photo frame and bent at the waist, doubling over as Helmut watched her, hearing her loud sobs echo through the room.

He moved a hand to the small of her back, letting it sit there as she held the frame tightly to her chest and he ran his hand up and down her back. She was still dressed in her white shirt and green shirt, her tights torn from catching on the broken vase. Her hair fell into her face as she shook her head. He looked up and spotted the dress hanging from the wardrobe door and he gulped. It was a pristine white with puffed out skirts and a bodice decorated in intricate floral patterns. The sleeves were long and there was a mesh material from the chest up to the neckline. It was her wedding dress. It was the dress she had been supposed to wear on that very same day.

"Will it ever stop hurting?" she managed to question, turning her gaze to look up to Helmut. Her eyes moved over his face as he softened his gaze and looked over her. He felt his throat clench and his mouth dry out as he longed to tell her a sweet little lie. But he couldn't do that.

"I don't think so," he said to her, knowing that wasn't the answer she wanted.

"Do you…do you ever want it to end? Wonder why we were spared?"

"All the time," Helmut promised her.

Shaking her head, she sniffed and tried to compose herself as Helmut stood up, making sure he didn't stand in the broken vase. He offered her his hand and she looked to it for a few moments before lacing her fingers against his and letting him help her up. She was slightly uneasy on her feet as she dropped the photo frame onto the end of the bed and looked to the man in front of her who still held her hand that wasn't bleeding, a thumb swiping over her knuckles slowly.

"Let's get that cut sorted," he urged from her.

"I can do it."

"I can help," he retorted. "Come on."

She didn't bother arguing as he led her by the hand through to the bathroom and bandaged her up. She sat on the side of the bath as he crouched in front of her and took care of her. They were silent as he completed the task before returning to their own rooms with a muted goodnight. Helmut watched her close the door to her room before he went back to his own and he wondered just how much she could truly take if they were to go through with this plan.

...

A/N: So I noticed not many Zemo stories out there, but I find him to be a really interesting/complex character and so somehow I've ended up writing a Zemo/OC story! It's going to be a slow burn this one, but would love to know if anyone is interested in it continuing? Do let me know!