Chapter Text
Yelena felt that she had spent plenty of time in the former Soviet Union. There were no more crumbling, gray buildings she needed to see whizz by the window of a train that smelled like cigarette smoke and sadness.
And yet. She had gone soft, and when Bob asked her to join the team for just this one diplomatic visit, she’d acquiesced.
Riga was nice in the spring, she thought; the city was so green it was nearly shocking, full of blooming lilacs and soft, perfect leaves unfurling on the limbs of every tree. It reminded her of D.C., or somewhere she’d gone on a mission for the Red Room in freshly-independent Poland. A city relishing in its freedom.
She’d never been to Latvia. At least not that she could remember. It was tiny, so small that if she hadn’t had an extensive education in world geography (and in particular, the former USSR) she was sure she’d have never heard of it in the first place. Bob had liked the flag on their way in.
“The maroon’s nice, isn’t it, Lena?” he’d said, voice loose and happy in a way she didn’t hear it often enough. She even let the краткое имя slide, if only to avoid hurting his feelings. Forget going soft—she’d become sentimental in the six months since the disastrous events in New York.
“Mm,” she hummed, not looking up as she finished strapping a band of throwing knives under the fuzzy cloth of the sweater Bucky had helped her decide on for the trip. “I can appreciate the simplicity.”
Now, as she sat in her empty hotel room, she agreed privately with Bob. The maroon was nice. That didn’t make her any less afraid of walking around a city where she was likely to hear Russian on the streets.
It was a cowardly thing to think, she knew. Bucky was managing; he’d shaken hands with the President, eaten the Estonian delegation’s weird smoked fish, and smiled while doing it. It was just a language. Her native language. He’d been tortured for years by a series of words she’d known since childhood, and she was the one hiding away from it all.
Her phone buzzed, muffled in her duffle bag. It took her a moment to dig it out.
Папа: little one
Папа: how did you fly? I hope good.
Елена: the flight was easy. thank you
She didn’t feel at all bad about leaving Alexei behind for this particular mission. Diplomacy was generally more his speed than hers, to be sure, but it would have been a ridiculously idiotic idea to bring the Red Guardian to the Baltics. Nations so wounded by the Soviets wouldn’t take kindly to him, she imagined.
That was the entire point of the visit, actually. To demonstrate to the world (and the European Union) that the New Avengers were friendly, bipartisan, and interested in nothing but the betterment of humankind.
A point she would have been able to get across if she could just leave the fucking room.
JBB, senior citizen: Where r u
Yelena: will you stop texting like a young person it’s making me feel crazy
JBB, senior citizen : Will stop when u show up to ur commitments on time
Well. He wasn’t wrong, exactly. They had dinner at 19:30 sharp with the Lithuanian delegation and she was late. Evasion time.
Yelena: trying to figure out my outfit
JBB, senior citizen: I literally picked ur wardrobe by hand get ur ass down here u крыса
Yelena: am not a rat. pls have some respect
Not that she deserved it, cowering in an office chair that probably cost several hundred USD. Her life had shifted so entirely that nothing really affected her anymore, but the feeling of the leather against the calluses on her palms pulled her mind back to the present.
“Okay. Okay. You can do this,” she muttered to no one. Weak sunlight filtered through the sheer curtains on her window, illuminating her path to the door. “This is so stupid. Pull it together, you fool.”
Somehow, negative self-talk didn’t improve her mood. Bob would have something to say about that.
A knock rang quietly in her ears and it took her a moment to process that it was coming from the hall. “Yelena? I thought we could go down together, if that’s alright—”
Yanking open the door, she took a deep breath and gave Bob the closest thing to a smile she could conjure. “Yes, please. Thank you.”
He flashed her a real grin for that, teeth white and a little crooked. “What else are friends for, right?”
—
The Lithuanians were nice. Affable, genial, amiable. Benevolent. Her frantic bathroom break had lent her the words in English for these people, thanks to Google Translate and the restaurant’s free wifi.
A fist was closing around her neck, and she wasn’t sure how to loosen it.
The men at the table nearest to her were speaking in rapid Russian, discussing one of their companies and its newly acquired assets. The word made her twitch each time she heard it, and she’d escaped to the toilet before the main course even arrived.
After a few drinks, everything went smoother.
She’d been cutting back on alcohol, wary of the ghost she’d met in Bob’s maze of shame. That didn’t stop her from knocking back a shot of Riga’s famous Black Balsam liqueur, then another, and another. Bucky flashed her a look that said I’m worried about you in that super-subtle way of his that involved too much eyebrow movement, and Bob practically stared at her from the other end of the long table.
After laughing too loudly for the final time, Yelena drained the last of her beer (Third? Fourth? Who was keeping track anymore) and pushed her chair back. The wooden legs screeched against the floor in a way that made her wish she’d just stayed home, sequestered in her one-bedroom apartment with her cat Mishka and a lifetime of horror movies to catch up on.
“Well, I hate to cut this party short, but I think I’d better—” she cut herself off, wincing at the thickness of her accent. “—go. Jetlag, you understand.”
The delegates nodded politely and she wished they’d sneered instead. Tell me I’m disgusting, she thought, mind disorganized and unsure which language to think in. Tell me you hate me.
Bucky followed her out, abandoning Bob to the dessert course without a backwards glance.
“Леночка,” he began, tone low and questioning. “Talk to me.”
His metal hand was gentle as it curled around her shoulder. She knew her cheeks were red, hot with alcohol and embarrassment.
“It’s nothing. I’m so—I know this is important, I’m sorry. I’ll do better.” She rounded out the vowels as she spoke, blending the words further from plain English than she would’ve liked. “Простите меня. Простите.”
She hadn’t meant to slip like that, but he took it in stride like he did all her fuck-ups. “You don’t need to apologize. What’s wrong?”
The air on the street was cool in the dimming evening light. Wind stirred the hair she’d tucked behind her ears. The girl smoking outside the restaurant wore a tan trench coat and a bored look, thoroughly disinterested in their conversation.
“It’s. Ridiculous, you know?” Bucky looked nice in his button-down, a navy blue that brought out his eyes. It was a shame that his face was all wrong with worry. Yelena fixed her stare on the little horse logo stitched on his chest. “So dumb.” She felt herself laugh, heard the hoarse sounds as it bounced on the cobblestones.
Bucky was weighing his options, but it only took him a moment to squeeze her arm before speaking with finality. “Stay put for a second, will you?”
As he popped back into the dinner, Yelena did as she was told. That’s how it was when the Winter Soldier gave her an order, no matter how large a part of her mind knew he was no longer that person; something in the basic chemistry of her brain said that he was never, ever, to be ignored.
She was still standing there when he slipped out the door.
“Take a walk with me.” He was being kind. It made her want to tear her hair out.
Closing her eyes, she nodded.
—
The city was beautiful but she didn’t have it in her to appreciate it.
They’d walked in easy silence for a full five minutes before Yelena broke, eyes fixed on the ground. “I haven’t heard this much Russian since before—she died.” They’d barely even spoken in their native tongue at the end, but the point stood. Even Alexei didn’t bother anymore. “Since the Red Room.”
Bucky nodded, hands in the pockets of his slacks. She didn’t need to hear him say it to know that he understood.
“Not to make it about me,” she tacked on, hoping it would alleviate the guilt. He laughed at her.
“Even if you were, which you aren’t, it would be okay.” His hair was nicer than it had been, now that she’d bullied him into using twenty-first century styling products. If she liked men in any real way, she would have had feelings for him, she was sure. “You’ve been going hard for months. It’s alright to have feelings about things sometimes, you know?”
She hadn’t been working that hard. There had just been too many fires to put out, people to help, and narratives to correct for her to take a break—right? It was easier like this, thinking about her life as a series of unrelated missions that left her far too busy to consider the grief Natasha had left her or the sucking hole in her chest. Falling into her despair was not a possibility, not anymore. People needed her.
“I have feelings. Plenty of feelings, actually, not that they do me any good—” Yelena gestured as she spoke. The bravado she normally pulled on like a well-worn coat was nowhere to be found and she came off as insecure instead.
“Nothing wrong with dealing with your feelings, then. In fact, I support you working through them.” After a moment, he added, “Maybe not by getting drunk at a diplomatic event, but I’m not your keeper.”
—
Bucky’s idea of managing her emotions was taking her to an incredibly depressing bowling alley.
“I’ve never been bowling,” Bob said, seeming contemplative. “Are you supposed to be this angry?”
“Oh, you’re so funny. I’m laughing, see?” Yelena pulled a face as she feigned hysterics. “Hilarious.”
She wasn’t angry. Frustration was normal, especially when one was losing as spectacularly as she was.
Bucky’s ball took down all ten pins with ease, and the smile on his face was smug enough to make her consider smacking him. “You’re only down by twelve. Stop being such a sourpuss.”
Twelve points. A humiliating margin, really. Her phone buzzed as she moved to grab her ball from the rack.
World’s worst lesbian: What did you do with the pickled garlic?
World’s second worst lesbian: why do u need it?
World’s worst lesbian: Making salad for my hinge date. Not that it’s your business.
World’s second worst lesbian: fuck off. its in a sour cream container on the top shelf
She’d put it there to hide it from Ava, and now she’d told the bitch exactly where it was. After tossing her phone in Bucky’s direction, she took her turn, rolling an offensively lime-green ball down the lane with annoyance.
As it tipped into the—желоб, it took down two pins and sent a third tottering before it finally fell.
Gutter. That’s the word. She should remember it by now, considering she’d lost so many turns to it.
“Ugh. This is a stupid game.” Bucky laughed as she slumped in her seat, one of those swivelly chairs made out of ugly orange plastic.
“It is not,” Walker claimed, seeming offended by the implication. He’d brought two fizzy drinks back with him from the bar, complete with chemically-red cherries skewered by tiny cocktail swords. “It’s an ancient pastime and a clear demonstration of physical prowess. That’s why you suck so bad, get it?”
Motherfucking—asshole, dickhead, drunkard. That last one did not sound as good in English as it did in Russian, but she didn’t care. Then, the bastard laughed.
“Jesus, I’m fucking with you.” Apparently something on her face had clued him in to her mood. “Who pissed on your parade? I had a wonderful time at the naval base, not that any of you asked.”
“Spare! Take that, John, I’m winning now!” Bob pumped his fist in the air as he bounced back over to the score table.
“Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts. Bucky’s about to take you down—”
—
Yelena ended up tying with John for last place.
Being the sourpuss that he was, Walker dragged Bob back to the hotel early to do—whatever it was that those two did together. She tried not to think about it too hard. It was quiet on the street as she walked back, Bucky on her left.
“I had fun tonight,” she said, relishing in the cool breeze as it rustled her hair. “Thank you.”
He bumped her shoulder with his own. “What else are fellow former-assassins for?” A small smile crept onto her face.
After a few minutes of amicable silence, a distant siren cut through the night. Her eyes cut to the origin of the sound, and Bucky cursed as he saw what she did—a column of smoke and the glow of fire somewhere across the river.