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She tucks herself into him, wrapping herself around his form, and feels his arms circle around her in turn.
They grip to each other in the dark like this. Night after night. Clinging so desperately to one another in the secrecy of her room.
She’s holding him like she’s trying to keep him together and if she can just hold on tightly enough she can do it again - she can piece him back into something whole and pull him out of the depths with her.
She knows he’s holding on to her just as tightly because he knows she’s falling apart too.
For now it’s only this. Only an embrace. The comfort of holding another after so long without it.
She’d forgotten how desperately she needed it. How having him in her arms makes the aching, empty parts of her feel like they are slowly filling up. The gentle pain of hunger, the weakness that comes with it starting to ease as she lets herself soak up his touch.
They’re careful not to touch skin to skin. He’s afraid of what might happen if they do; what she might see, but it doesn’t matter. She can still feel him under the soft layers of fabric. How solid and whole and real he is with her in the bed.
When she wakes he’s still there; her tether, smiling at her from across the pillows, their legs tangled up together. His eyes are brown and warm and his smile is small and hopeful, and she feels it like fingers circling around her heart and clenching, gently.
It’s a sort of soft panic, this feeling she’s starting slowly to find the words to explain.
–
The others don’t question it, their growing closeness; all of them slowly and tentatively finding their way to fit together their disparate abrasive pieces into this strange little whole.
Making a vase from a pile of broken plates.
A bad metaphor, she thinks, wincing, holding a little baton of carrot out steady for Guinness to nibble on. Ava would have a better one.
It’ll take time - it still feels uncomfortable, like itchy fabric, like they’re making little static shocks as they brush against each other - she hears Walker and Bucky exchanging snapping swears in the kitchen.
“What did you call me?” Walker asks, affronted, following him but Bucky’s long gone, leaving behind his little trail of muttered curses in several languages Walker doesn’t speak.
“He called you a dick,” Yelena supplies, watching Guinness’ little twitching nose.
Walker’s expression is resigned, frustrated.
“Figured as much,” he says, and stalks off in the other direction, nearly knocking over Bob on his way into the kitchen.
“Sorry,” Walker snaps at him, his tone still a little sour even when his words are kind.
“Sorry!” Bob blurts back, even though he’s done nothing wrong.
As he approaches, Yelena looks up at him, and realises that there’s one broken piece that doesn’t feel uncomfortable at all.
His expression is a little clouded, but as he meets her eyes the clouds break, and his eyes light up. There it is again. Hope.
Her heart patters softly as he takes a seat beside her on the floor, crossing his legs. He has nothing in his hands, and as he settles beside her she realises he’s come with no questions, no orders, nothing more than himself - happy simply to join her as she does whatever it is she’s doing.
She tries a leaf, instead, but Guinness doesn’t care - altogether more focused now on sniffing at her socks instead. Bob watches this quietly a moment.
“We should make him a room, too,” he says, reaching into the small bowl and plucking out a half-cut tomato to offer the little creature.
Bob’s broken pieces don’t need to be fixed for them to fit together, Yelena realises, they already do.
–
They sit on her bed, Bob fiddling with a stray thread on his cuff, and she knows he wants to say something. Their usual comfortable silence is different now. Something is sitting in the air between them.
Yelena is more of a ‘just spit it out’ sort of person, so she speaks.
“So, what’s goin-”
“I remember,” he blurts out, cutting her off.
She blinks, taking in his quiet panic, and realises what he means.
“... how much?” She asks, “all of it?”
His eyes glitter as he nods.
“All of it,” he says, “I… I’m sorry, Yelena, I didn’t. I didn’t want to hurt you. Any of you.”
“We know,” Yelena says, “why do you think we came for you?”
He breaks. His tears fall and she wraps an arm around his shoulders and lets him cry.
“How did you know?” He asks eventually. “That you wouldn’t just die? How did you know you’d be able to find me?”
How did she?
“Well I didn’t have a choice. Bob, we punch and shoot. We couldn’t fight you,” she says flatly, “and…”
He tilts up, looking at her, searching.
“I felt you,” she admits, saying it aloud and realising it for the first time herself. “I knew.”
He blinks away the tears; a smile breaking through.
He doesn’t need to say more, doesn’t need to ask her what she means, because he already knows what she means. She reaches for his hand before he can pull it away, and her skin touches his.
–
Natasha. The last moments of her life with Natasha, not that the Yelena before her knows this is the final time she’ll ever see her.
She watches herself amongst the wreckage whistle for her sister, and she watches Natasha, far away and just out of reach, whistle in return. Her sister is so beautiful.
She watches herself turn, following the others with a smile, a nod. Then she watches Natasha, watching them leave, her own expression so much less sure.
She sees the sadness, the sliver of regret on her sister's face as they leave her behind. Watches her sister as they depart into the sky, and as Natasha turns to greet the oncoming sirens, Yelena’s eyes meet brown eyes instead.
Bob looks at her across this moment of unrecognised grief and shame through the smoke, his face speaking an apology his words don’t have to.
He pulls his hand back and that same expression is still on his face as they are back on her bed, in her room.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” he says, “I’ll learn to control it.”
Yelena shakes her head. She didn’t think her heart could break again, but it does.
“It’s ok,” she says, and offers him a small smile, “it was one of the better rooms.”
He nods.
After a moment of pulling herself back together, strengthening, Yelena makes a decision.
“Let’s see if it’s every time,” she says decisively, and reaches for his hand again. He tries to stop her, but she’s too quick for him a second time and her fingers circle around his. His hand is warm, his touch is gentle.
She exhales; a little relief, and a little sadness, when nothing happens.
He frowns.
“You’re disappointed?” he asks, curious, surprised. She’s surprised, too. She hadn’t expected to be.
“I … missed her voice,” Yelena admits, smiling, “thank you. For letting me see her again.”
His expression is conflicted. He hadn’t realised something good could still be found in all those dark places, had he?
Neither had she, until that moment.
Still - with their fingers still laced together, and no more sorrow filling up their minds, Yelena makes another decision.
She leans forward - brushing her lips against his parted breath.
She feels the twitch of his fingers in her grip; a tiny reflex of shock that matches the spark she feels on her lips. A gentle ripple in her body, in her heart, but the vibration that follows much deeper, much stronger.
The soft panic is growing. Alexei says she is full of light, and in this moment she believes it, because that’s sort of what it feels like. Like light is filling up her chest as she meets his eyes again.
That tiny hopeful smile breaks across his lips as she kisses him again.
–
The shift is slow; it takes nights and nights of sharing warmth before it happens, but she knows that this is where they’ve been headed all along.
In the dim light, in the weird part of the night where dangerous things are allowed to happen, she feels his body against hers shifting, testing.
His lips are in her hair, and she feels his breath, his soft exhale as he pushes against her - the gentle pressure of his length through his clothes pressing at her thigh. She finds his lips, explores his kiss as their tangle of limbs knots closer.
They are inching towards one another, circling one another, tentative and unsure, to something more.
–
He swallows as she holds over him, his eyes a little wide, searching her face. His expression shifting and hard to read. Hopeful, tender, soft and … afraid.
She feels it, the tether bound between them that seems to linger in her gut, tugging at her and drawing her down and into him. When had it truly started to feel like this? Probably from the start, if she was being honest, and that’s why she’s glad he looks afraid.
She’s scared too. She can’t explain why it’s different with him. Why that aching connection between them just keeps getting stronger when she’s never really felt like this about someone before. It’s never been like this. Not like it is with him.
“You… you’re sure about…” he’s hesitating, awkward, “you’re sure you want to do this?”
She laughs.
“Bob.” She gives him a flat look.
Nearly naked, straddling him in the bed, the answer to whether or not she wanted this to happen was surely pretty obvious at this point. His smile is small in response, lighting up that dimple in his cheek, and her laughter seems to make him feel a little less afraid.
“Sorry,” he winces, “it’s just … I’m not sure I deserve…”
She raises a brow, and leans down, kissing him to stop that thought before it goes any further.
“Bob,” she repeats, “none of us deserve anything. We’re shit.”
He’s smiling a little as she pulls back.
“You know this, you’ve seen it,” she says, “I’ve seen yours, you’ve seen mine. It’s…”
She kisses him again. She’s not gotten any better at explaining this stuff.
It was easier just to show.
This time he’s ready for her kiss, catching her lips with his own. His hand slides up her back, but his fingers are shaking a little as they do.
“It’s ok,” she says, reaching between them, sliding her underwear down across her hips and wriggling free, “I’m here.”
He takes in a breath as she laces her fingers with his own, feels them digging into her hand already as she presses their clasped grip down into the mattress.
Now it’s her turn to hesitate, as she reaches for his length and circles her fingers around him his lips part in a rasping gasp.
No turning back now, she thinks, meeting his eyes and feeling his gaze locking into her own, you do this or you don’t.
“I’m here,” he says, as if he knows how afraid she is too.
She braces, bites her lip as she guides him into her. His sound as she does nearly breaks her - a soft exhale filled with a desperate sort of relief as his brows draw together.
“I’m here,” she repeats as he hilts deeper. His grip on her hand tightening, almost painful, with every inch.
It stings a little as she takes his girth, and she can feel him pulsing inside her already. It feels so right, and that’s even more terrifying.
She rocks against him, a careful, testing circle of her hips. He moans as she does. His face is mottled red, blood rushing to his cheeks, lids heavy and breath turning ragged already as she bucks against him now in steady, small movements.
He murmurs as she rides him, her own heart beating so hard, her blood racing and thumping and filling her up with the overwhelming feeling of it all. Not just the aching, hungry desperation in her body rushing with the thrill of finally being fed, but another, bigger feeling underneath it.
His eyes are trying so desperately to hold on to her own; to watch her face as she moves, and she takes him in too - watches the crumbling of his face as he steadily comes apart beneath her, until his eyes wrench shut and he lets out a whimper from deep in his throat.
He’s mine, she thinks, a little deliriously, as she lets herself drop down, cradling his head and pressing kisses into his neck as she works her hips against him now desperately. The hungry feeling she can still just barely understand herself growing so enormous she can only move faster, harder to try and end it.
His hand slides down her back to her hips, guiding with her, moving against her too - meeting her desperate thrusts with his own, matching her rhythm.
They kiss, a mess of teeth and tongues, reckless and honest as they drive together towards the edge of it.
His cry echoes in her throat as he twists beneath her, fingers digging hard into her hand and her hip as he comes inside her.
She quakes a little, a flutter flooding her thighs and her stomach - her own little end unexpected, following behind him.
A wave of peace and emptiness of a warmer, needed sort washing over her.
He is panting as she pushes back a little sweat damp hair from his brow; smiling up at her.
“Fuck,” she concludes, because she has no idea how to speak about it; the big, warm feeling sitting in her stomach as she looks down at him.
He laughs a little; and she can feel it shake through her body too.
“Yeah,” he agrees, because he doesn’t know how to say it either, and he releases her hand, pulling her into his arms instead as they lay there, letting the heat gently drain away.
–
In the morning light they lay together. He strokes his fingers down her arm, no longer afraid to touch her.
She knows he is battling sadness; she can feel the tugging on the tether pulling away from her; the precipice of despair clawing at him whether he wants it to or not. A catatonic low to follow the high.
“How… how is it going? The…”
She gestures a little; meaning everything. The treatments, the medication, the withdrawal in his mind if not in his body, the therapy, the rehabilitation.
He offers her a small, fracturing smile.
“It’s ok,” he says, adding quickly, “it’s not… I’m… it’s not you…”
She knows that already. He’s never had to explain it; the drops that still come that she’s learnt just to weather with him, and sit with him until they pass.
Just like this moment of intimacy, finding the balance will take time.
“It’s hard,” he admits, “y’know, trusting it? When you know, people have used it before to…”
He gestures at his own head now. She knows they’re having half a conversation, the real bits of it that neither of them really have to say out loud being allowed to sit there in the spaces between their words.
“Yeah,” she says, “I really do.”
He takes in a breath, and he looks so doubtful.
“You’re definitely sure you want this?” He asks again, self effacing. “It’s ok. If you don’t.”
She fails to resist the urge to reach across and gently swat his nose. He scrunches up his face in response, blinking and surprised, but it at least makes him smile properly.
“Bob,” she says firmly, “stop asking me. I want this, and you need to stop believing my rooms are any better than yours.”
“I…” she trails a little, and attempts to put it into words, “you’re kind of the only one I’ve ever wanted, I think.”
Admitting that aloud is strange. Not that she’s ever really had anyone to talk to about any of it.
“Bad rooms and everything,” she adds.
Bob takes her hand in his own, now, and brings it to his lips, kissing her knuckles.
“Maybe we can make new ones,” he says, and it’s the most hopeful thing she’s ever heard him say, “like we did for Guinness.”
She smiles, and then kisses him, feeling the tug of his sadness a little lighter as he tangles his fingers in her hair.