Work Text:
Yelena never wanted this.
She never wanted to be dragged into these fights that weren’t hers. She never wanted to make new friends just to watch them turn to the dark side. She sure as hell never wanted to be part of a team with all the pressure of trying to save the world.
But she has to admit, it did come with one perk: she met some pretty damn cool people.
Bucky didn’t have the heart to go back home to DC yet. She can’t blame him for it. In DC, he’s still a politician. He’s a public figure – an important figure; a figure that people want to hear from. He’s going to be bombarded by questions from everybody who finds an opportunity to ask them, and right now, with everything so fresh in their minds, that’s something neither of them would willingly put themselves through.
So Yelena invited him to her home instead. It’s not much – she doesn’t have money to blow on some big fancy three-story house – but she’s got a couch and a fridge of mostly unexpired food and there’s a roof over their heads, so it will work for tonight, at the very least.
They don’t talk much. That’s the only reason Yelena invited him: she knew he wouldn’t talk her ear off, and she knew that the alternative (Alexei, who also invited him over) would annoy the shit out of him, as that alternative is apt to do. This seemed like a better idea for everyone (except Alexei).
They should probably go to bed. She’s sure they both know it. It’s late. It’s been a long few days. They’re both tired. They could use a good twelve hours of sleep. But instead, they’re both seated on the couch, with Fanny lying down between them. At least Fanny has some sense: she’s fast asleep, snoring softly in a way that usually brings a smile to Yelena’s face. Right now, she doesn’t have that in her.
Bucky yawns, and he covers his mouth with his flesh hand. She finds it interesting, watching with hand he uses for different things. Sometimes, he uses different hands for the same thing. She’s seen him hold a gun with the left and the right hand, for example. He must be ambidextrous. That’s cool. That’s a neat skill to have in this line of work.
Fanny lets out a contented sigh in her sleep. Bucky reaches over and scratches her head with his flesh hand. It’s kind of funny; Fanny’s on his left side. It looks a bit awkward to reach over and pet her with the right hand.
“You can tell me if I’m keeping you up,” Yelena says. It feels wrong to speak, like they’re supposed to sit in silence the way they have been for… hours, maybe, at this point? But she is sitting on his makeshift bed for the night. She should probably make sure he knows that he can kick her out at any time.
But Bucky just shakes his head. I don’t mind, it says. I’m not ready to sleep.
At least they’re in the same boat, then.
Yelena looks down at Fanny, still fast asleep. She gently scratches the dog’s butt. Fanny doesn’t seem to notice. She never does, when she’s this sleepy. (Is it weird to be offended that Fanny chose Bucky to give her face to and her actual owner gets the butt side?)
Bucky scratches under her chin. Fanny huffs quietly, happily. She’s such a spoiled little pup.
“What did you say her name was?” Bucky asks.
“Fanny.”
“Ah.”
Fanny, of course, remains oblivious to everyone and everything around her, just the way she likes to be. She would have been a terrible Widow. That’s one reason Yelena likes her.
Bucky yawns again. This time, Yelena yawns, too. Stupid contagious yawns, trying to trick her into thinking she’s tired when she so clearly isn’t.
“I named her after Nat,” Yelena adds. In case he was wondering. He probably wasn’t.
Bucky huffs. “Was Nat’s real name Fanny?” It sounds like a joke. It also sounds like an actual question. It's kind of cute, like he’s not sure if he can laugh at it or not.
“Mm-hmm,” Yelena hums. “Fanny Longbottom.”
Bucky looks over at her. She looks at him, too. This is the first time they’ve done this in… quite some time. She hadn’t realized that until now. She hadn’t realized how much ignoring there had been going on until it stopped. It feels weird, now, to look at him. It also feels kind of nice. He has nice eyes. They’re a pretty shade of blue – fitting, for an objectively pretty man.
“Nat’s name was Fanny Longbottom?” Bucky repeats, dumbfounded.
Yelena laughs at that. It feels nice to laugh. “It was a fake name,” she says. “One of her civilian identities.” She found her old license when she was going through her things, after…
Well, after.
Bucky’s mouth forms a silent oh. It makes a lot more sense now, she’s sure.
That’s the end of that exchange. It was a short one, but it’s all she’d expected. She’d be surprised if Bucky expected anything more, either. Now they can go back to sitting in silence and looking at Fanny.
Except Bucky doesn’t look back down at Fanny; he keeps looking at her. And if he’s going to look at her, then she’s going to look at him, too. It still feels kind of weird, after so long not looking at each other. She’s been so stuck in her head, thinking about everything that’s happened, thinking about all the ways it could have gone differently, could have gone better. It’s harder to do that when she really remembers she’s not alone. It’s harder to do that when she knows that anything she blames herself for, Bucky’s doubtlessly blaming himself, too. It puts things into perspective a little.
Yelena offers him a small, half-assed smile. He gives her a small, half-assed smile in return.
“You knew Nat,” she says. It’s equal parts a question and a statement.
“A little bit,” Bucky says.
Yelena nods slowly. That doesn’t surprise her. Natasha knew a lot of people. She really made something of herself when she got out of the Red Room. It’s always been impressive, but it’s even more so now; even more now that Yelena understands just how hard it is to do.
“I don’t know if I’d be here without her,” Bucky admits.
Yelena furrows her brows.
“She was supposed to turn me in,” Bucky says. “She made a different call.”
Yelena smiles softly. “That sounds like her.” Paying it forward, maybe. Isn't that what she said Clint Barton did for her?
“She seemed like a good person,” Bucky adds.
Yelena shrugs. “The Red Room did a lot of bad shit,” she says. “At least one good thing came of it.” Natasha could never undo the damage the Red Room did, but by god, she tried her damnedest to do it anyway.
“Two,” Bucky says.
Yelena squints, cocking her head to the side. What…?
Bucky gestures to her with his head. “Two good things.”
Yelena huffs a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, okay.” What a joke.
Bucky reaches over, resting his hand on top of hers. “I'm serious,” he says, gently, sincerely.
Yelena looks down at their hands, resting one on top of the other on Fanny's side. He really put his hand there. He really put his hand on top of hers. That's… weird. Is it weird? Maybe it's not weird. Maybe it's just… nice. She’s not sure.
She raises her gaze to meet his once more, and she shakes her head solemnly. “You don’t believe that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t,” she insists. “You don’t think I’m a good person, because if you did, you never would have made me join your team.” It’s obvious. It’s been obvious since the beginning. He didn’t assemble a group of heroes. He wasn’t trying to rebuild the Avengers. He grabbed the first handful of fucked-up individuals he could find, and he threw them in a room together and hoped for the best. And, to his credit, it did work, but she’s not delusional enough to think he believes in her, that he sees her as a good person, and it’s an insult to her intelligence that he’d even think she’d fall for that.
Bucky shakes his head. “That’s not why I wanted you on my team.”
Yelena raises a brow, silent, skeptical. He made it pretty damn clear what he wanted in a team by the people he chose. He wanted the bad guys. He wanted the villains. She doesn’t know why – maybe the moral superiority, knowing that he was the good guy among them, the closest thing to a hero in this ragtag group he assembled. She can’t claim to understand the ‘why,’ but she knows damn well what he was looking for, and he got it.
“I didn’t pick you because I thought you were a bad person,” Bucky says. “That’s not why I picked any of you.”
“No?” she asks, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Who does he think he’s fooling?
“I picked you guys because I knew I couldn’t handle a real hero,” he says. “I couldn’t make a new team of Avengers who had never done anything wrong in their lives, because I wouldn’t belong there. I wanted – I needed – people like me: people who came from a bad place; people who have done bad things and who have had to live with the consequences.”
Yelena doesn’t know what to say to that, so she doesn’t say anything. She lowers her gaze to Fanny, still comfortably curled up between them, completely oblivious to the tension around her. Is it tension? Is that the word for it? It feels wrong, like she’s implying that it’s bad. It’s not bad. It’s just…
Tense.
In a not-bad way.
It’s uncomfortable, really. That’s what it is. It’s uncomfortably real. It’s uncomfortably personal. She’s not used to that. She doesn’t have many personal conversations, exhausted monologuing to her dog aside. She doesn’t know how to do this.
“I didn’t know if I was making the right choice with some of them,” Bucky tells her. “I didn’t know if your dad would be a good fit. I didn’t know if I’d be able to tolerate Walker long enough to get the job done.”
Yelena frowns. “I like Walker.” He’s like the little brother she never had. (She’s not sure if he’s actually younger than her, but he’s sure as hell not like an older brother to her.)
“I’ve known him longer than you have,” Bucky says simply.
Yelena purses her lips. Whatever that means. (She wonders briefly if this is something she could google. Having famous teammates opens up a whole new world as far as snooping goes.)
“I didn’t know if I was right about some of them,” Bucky says again. “But I knew I was right about you.”
Yelena looks up at him, her brows furrowed. What does he…?
“I know you,” Bucky says. “As soon as I heard about you, I knew I needed you on my team.”
“Why?” It’s an innocent question, but it’s a challenge, too, in a way. Why did he want her on his team? What could he possibly have seen in her that convinced him that she needed to be a part of this?
“Because I know you,” Bucky says again.
Yelena cocks her head to the side, eyes squinted as she looks at him. What…?
“You were forced to become a monster,” Bucky says. “You didn’t have a choice. You were stolen by these people – people with agendas; people who didn’t care how they got what they wanted as long as they got it, and who didn’t care who they had to hurt or who they had to use to get their way – and you didn’t get a say in what they turned you into.”
She can’t look at him while he says this. She can’t look at him while he lays her life out like this, exposing her darkest secrets that truly never were a secret to begin with. She can’t look at him, and yet, she can’t force herself to look away.
“I know that story,” Bucky tells her. “I’ve lived that story. I’ve had to do terrible things that I’ll never forget – and some terrible things that I’ll never remember, either. That’s not easy to come back from. And it’s not easy to talk about, because nobody understands. Nobody knows what it’s like to carry out all these murders, these assassinations, these mass casualty attacks, and to not bat an eye throughout any of it, and then all of a sudden, it hits you, all at once. You’re free, your body is your own, your mind is your own, and it all comes flooding back.”
Yelena nods, slow, pensive, as she lets his words sink in. “But you knew that I would.”
Bucky nods, too. “I’ve been forced into a lot of court-ordered therapy with people who don’t understand – who can’t understand – and it’s not…”
“It’s bullshit,” Yelena finishes for him. Of course it is. The only thing more bullshit than therapy is therapy that you don’t even want to go to.
Bucky cracks a smile at that, just a little bit, just barely enough for her to notice. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s bullshit.”
Yelena cracks a smile, too. She’s not sure why. It’s not exactly a happy conversation. But talking to him, talking to somebody who understands, to hear from someone else’s mouth the trauma she’s been through and to know that there are other people like her, other people like the rest of the Widows… It’s nice. He’s nice. When this all started, she thought it was going to be a miserable waste of time, but now that it’s over, she’s glad she got dragged into it. She’s glad she was forced to make some friends. (And it certainly doesn’t hurt that this friend has quite a nice smile.)
Bucky lowers his gaze, but that slight smile on his lips remains. She lowers her own gaze, and her smile persists, too. It’s only then that she remembers, really, that Bucky’s hand is still lying on top of hers. She’s gotten so comfortable there, with the softness of Fanny’s fur beneath her and the warmth of Bucky’s hand on top. It had faded to the back of her mind, a quiet comfort, but now it’s as though it’s taken center stage in her mind.
She looks up at Bucky. He’s looking at their hands, too. He must see her head move, because he looks up at her, too. Another quick glance at their hands, and he quickly moves his away, letting it lie on his lap instead.
His metal hand is lying on Fanny’s neck, resting comfortably where it naturally falls. She glances at him, and his hand, and then him again. Would it be weird to reach for it? To assure him that she didn’t mind his touch – that she liked his touch, even? That she reveled in the comfort of that gentle human contact when the life she leads so rarely allows for it?
Maybe it would be weird. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t care, either. She reaches over, a rather obvious movement with how far his hand is from hers, and rests it on top of his. His hand is cold. She knew it would be. She’s still not sure she expected it.
Bucky looks down at their hands. Can he even feel it? Does his metal arm have feeling? Probably not, she reasons. This is probably really stupid in his mind. Maybe she should have thought this through a bit more.
Bucky raises his gaze to meet hers, and there's a look of… awe, almost, in his eyes. There's a look of vulnerability that she's never seen from him. She can't imagine why — she's not doing anything he didn't do himself no more than five minutes earlier – but she can see it as plain as day.
So Yelena takes her hand off, only to wedge it beneath his, clasping their hands together. Bucky looks down at their hands, then back up at her, his eyes squinted slightly as though he's trying to puzzle her out. She almost wonders if she made a mistake, but he was the one who started this. She's just playing his game.
“I spent years trying to save the other Widows,” Yelena tells him. “I've seen a lot of people who have been through the same thing. It's not much of a comfort when you all went through it together.”
“Do you still talk to any of them?” Bucky asks her.
Yelena shakes her head. “It's not much of a comfort,” she says again. “It’s a reminder of what the Red Room did to us – what they turned us into.” Some of these women she's known nearly as long as she can remember, but she doesn’t know them, and every reminder of that is a reminder that none of the years they spent together were ever truly real – that until recently, none of their lives were real.
Bucky nods sympathetically. “I can imagine.”
Yelena sighs and lets her head fall backward, gazing up at the ceiling. “We both got dealt a shitty hand.”
Bucky huffs. “Yeah, really.”
“You seem like you're doing alright, though,” Yelena remarks, then adds teasingly, “Congressman Barnes.”
Bucky chuckles, a bit sheepishly. “Yeah, that's…” He sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Well, it was an idea.”
“A good idea?”
“I didn't say that.”
Yelena cracks a smile. She looks over at Bucky, who gives her a smile in return – a real smile; the most genuine smile she's seen from him. He should smile more often. It suits him.
“What's next for you?” she asks. “After this whole… political…” She gestures vaguely. Whatever he wants to call it. She doesn’t know American politics; she's Russian.
“I don't know,” Bucky admits.
“President Barnes?” she asks teasingly.
Bucky chuckles and shakes his head. “No, definitely not that,” he says. “I'll probably lay low for a while.”
She can't fault him for that. The political landscape in just about every country looks like a nightmare these days. She wouldn't want a part in it, either.
“Back to Captain America?” she guesses. He seems to have an affinity for dudes in stars and stripes.
Bucky shakes his head once more. “He’s working on assembling a new group of Avengers. I don't want to get roped into that.”
She didn't know they were rebuilding the Avengers. She wonders how Natasha would feel about that. They're going to try to save the world, but they're replacing her and her team to do it.
“With another friend, then?” Yelena asks. She suspects she knows the answer he'll give. If his experience acclimating to the real world has been anything like his, making friends isn't the easiest thing.
“I, uh…” Bucky rubs the back of his neck, a blatant show of discomfort at the question. It confirms her suspicions even before he says it. “I don't have any other friends.”
She scoffs, putting on a show of incredulity because really, the situation could use some levity. “What am I, then, chopped liver?”
Bucky huffs a laugh. “Are we friends? he asks. “Is that what we are?”
“I would hope so,” Yelena says. “I do not open my home for just anybody.” She doesn’t tend to open her home at all, really. This is a first for her. She’s never let somebody stay the night before.
“Well, thank you for opening it for me,” Bucky says.
“Any time,” Yelena says – and, for the most part, she really does mean it. Any time she’s home, if he wants to swing by, as long as her social battery isn’t entirely spent, she’d gladly welcome him back. It’s nice to have a friend.
Her gaze drifts to their hands, still clasped together on Fanny’s side.
A friend.
She’s not so sure.
“What about you?” Bucky asks. “What are you going to do after this?”
Yelena shrugs halfheartedly. “I don’t know, either,” she admits. “Now that Valentina’s…”
Bucky nods understandingly. She’s glad he understands. She’s glad she didn’t have to finish that thought. She’s glad she doesn’t have to think too much about the utter directionlessness of her life right now.
Yelena risks another glance at their hands. Has he noticed that she keeps doing this? Does he think this is excessive? Worse, even: does he think this is obsessive? It’s not supposed to be. This is just so unreal to her, so much so that she wants to make sure it is real before she bases her thoughts or her actions on it. But it looks real. It feels real, that chill of his hand in hers. It has to be real.
So she raises her gaze to meet his once more. “I am going to sleep until at least noon,” she begins, “but are you doing anything after that?”
Bucky gives her a weird look. “Um… Leaving, I guess?”
“But you don’t have anywhere to be?”
“Uh…” Bucky’s confusion doesn’t waver. “Not emergently?”
“We should get breakfast in the morning,” she decides. It’s not a question; not an invitation. They should get breakfast, and, if she has it her way, they will get breakfast. She will speak it into existence, and her confidence will convince him to agree.
Bucky raises a brow, a teasing smile on his lips. “I thought you were going to sleep through the morning.”
Yelena rolls her eyes lightheartedly. He’s not even wrong, which is the worst part. “Okay, then we should get breakfast in the afternoon.”
“Do places sell breakfast in the afternoon?”
“Oh, yes, there is a great diner that has breakfast all day,” Yelena tells him. She loves the place. She doesn’t know if she could live here without it. She’d probably have to sell her apartment and move if they ever closed the place down.
Bucky shrugs. “I wouldn’t mind some afternoon breakfast.”
Yelena grins. “Good.” It will be nice. It’ll be nice to talk to him in a normal setting for once. No fighting, no world-ending catastrophes, no sleep deprivation and utter exhaustion from the aforementioned. Just a nice, normal breakfast date.
Date?
Is it a date?
It’s not a date. That would be a bit presumptuous of her. It’s still a breakfast date, though, in her mind. It’s a breakfast date that’s not a date. Does that make sense? Probably not.
Bucky yawns, and he covers his mouth with his human hand. He has to use his human hand. His other one is still clasped in hers. How does he feel about that? How does she feel about that? She doesn’t even know. She doesn’t know what possessed her to take his hand like this. She’s glad she did, though. She knows that much, at least.
“Are you tired?” she asks. It’s a stupid question. Of course he’s tired. She’s not sure why she asked it.
“A little bit,” Bucky admits. “You?”
Yelena shrugs minutely. “A little bit.”
Bucky nods. She nods, too. That was great. That was a great conversation. A lot happened there.
Yelena’s gaze flickers down to their hands again. She hates to ask this, but… “Do you want me to let you sleep?”
Bucky’s gaze flickers down to their hands, too. It’s not just her that’s doing it, then. She wonders if he’s done it before and she’s missed it. Has the thought of their touch just been sitting in the back of his mind the way it has hers? Does it mean something to him the way it does to her? Could he tell her what that something is before she goes insane?
Bucky meets her gaze once more. “Do you want to sleep?”
No, she wants to say. The last thing I want to do is sleep. It doesn’t matter how busy or chaotic the last few days have been. It doesn’t matter how goddamn tired she is – and she is very goddamn tired. She knows she’ll spend the night tossing and turning, her dreams filled with the worst terrors her mind can conjure. Every night is the same: a constant evolving remix of the Red Room’s greatest hits.
But aloud, all she says is, “It’s up to you.” She’ll have to sleep eventually. It will be worth it when she wakes up, when those nightmares are gone and she’s awake and alert and refreshed, but the actual act of going to sleep will never be a comfort.
Bucky’s gaze flickers to their hands again. Yelena’s gaze flickers to their hands, too. They probably should go to bed. She knows that. She’s sure he knows that, too. But this is just so nice. It feels so right. How could she put an end to this when she doesn’t know if this is ever going to happen again? How could she rush the night away knowing that tomorrow may be the last time she ever sees him?
Finally, Bucky says, a bit reluctant, a bit disheartened in his tone, “I guess we should.”
He’s right. Of course he’s right. She’d just been thinking the same thing. But she doesn’t want to. She’s fairly sure he doesn’t want to, either.
They sit there together a short while longer – no more than a minute or two – before Yelena finally stands up. She has to. She can’t keep hogging his couch like this. Their hands separate, and somehow, her palm feels colder without the cold of his metal hand against it.
Fanny lifts her head to look at her, and Yelena gives her a sad smile. Fanny doesn’t notice. Of course she doesn’t. She’s a dog. She doesn’t understand anything that’s happening right now.
Bucky scratches the back of Fanny’s neck, then he stands up as well. Fanny seems to have decided that there’s enough going on for her to take an interest, because she hops off the couch and looks between Bucky and Yelena expectantly. She’s going to be very disappointed when she realizes that all that’s happening is that they’re going to sleep.
“Do you need anything?” Yelena asks him. “Another pillow or blanket, or…?”
Bucky shakes his head. “This is fine.”
Yelena nods slowly. That’s… great. That’s really great.
She clasps her hands behind her. It doesn’t feel quite as nice as holding Bucky’s hand, but it does make her feel less awkward, giving herself something to do with her hands like this.
She looks up at Bucky, and she really has to crane her neck to do it. Has he really been this much taller than her this whole time? It hasn’t felt like it. Maybe it’s just because they’re standing so close. Have they stood this close before? Have they been standing this close since he stood up? He seems really close to her – so close, even, that if she were to just stand on her toes and lift her head a little bit, her lips could probably reach…
No.
That’s weird.
That’s a weird thought.
She’s not going to do that.
It’s quiet for a few moments. It’s still for a few moments. She likes that. She likes the stillness. There hasn’t been much of that recently, but right here, alone with him, it’s still. She revels in that.
Bucky rests his hand – his real hand, she notices absentmindedly, not the metal one – on her arm, and a chill runs through her body. She looks up at him, trying to meet his gaze, trying so hard to meet his gaze, but she can’t help the way her eyes fall to his lips instead. It’s because they’re lower, she tries to tell herself, and they’re easier to look at. It’s because it’s less intimidating than looking him in the eye, she tries to tell herself.
She’s a liar, through and through.
“Thank you,” Bucky says quietly.
“Don’t mention it.” She forces a smile, trying for lightness as though she can’t feel the weight of his touch, the weight of his presence with every fiber of her being.
Bucky looks down at her, a soft smile on his lips uncharacteristic of the badass warrior she knows but so very fitting for this new side of him, this gentler side of him, the side of him that she’s only just started to get to know but would gladly sit with for hours if she had another chance.
She really hopes she someday has another chance.
“Yelena?” he says quietly.
“Hmm?”
“Can I…?” He trails off, a bit timid, a bit unsure, but he tries again. “Would it…?”
Yelena cocks her head to the side, brows furrowed ever so slightly.
Bucky huffs, an almost self-deprecating kind of laugh, a wordless acknowledgment of his obvious nerves and the discomfort they’re causing, and tries again. “Would it be weird if I kissed you?”
Yelena can feel her eyes widen even as she tries to quell her reaction. He really just asked that. He really initiated it, after she’s spent such an embarrassing amount of time thinking about it – or trying not to think about it, more accurately. He wants to kiss her. And, perhaps more romantic than anything that’s transpired between them, he wants to know how she would feel before he does it.
All she says is, “I guess we won’t know until we try it.”
Bucky smiles, and in a moment, that smile is against her lips, a slow, gentle kiss that she feels herself melting into. She rests her arms over his shoulders, and his hands make a home of her waist, holding her as he steps in to close the space between them.
She wouldn’t have taken him for a calm, intimate lover. If she’d thought of it before, she would have expected a rough sort of passion behind his moves. But this stillness, this tranquility in his movements, in their movements, feels like a protective blanket wrapped around them, allowing her just for a moment to live in a world where all that matters is the taste of his lips on her own.
She closes her eyes, letting the feeling wash over her. This is just… perfect. She never would have thought when this all began that this is something she’d wanted, something she’d needed, but now, to have it, to have him in her arms, his lips on her lips, she’s never been so sure that she’s right where she belongs.