Work Text:
*
Yelena looks at people and only sees ways to kill them. A throat unguarded. The narrow gap between ribs, where a knife fits just right. It’s not personal. It never was.
For too long, she was a machine, calibrated for efficiency, nothing more.
She tells herself it’s different now, that she’s different now.
But at a briefing, someone passes her a tablet, their fingers brushing. Her mind calculates: twist the wrist, drive the palm upward, fracture the sternum.
In the kitchen, Bob laughs too loud with his back turned. She feels the weight of the fork in her hand, imagines it sliding clean between vertebrae C5 and C6.
Even alone, her mind runs drills. Entry. Kill. Escape. Over and over, like a program stuck on a loop.
And she hates it—hates that violence is the only thing that ever came easy.
*
“You ever think about what you want?” she asks, her legs dangling over the edge of the rooftop.
Yelena shrugs, settling beside her. “Right now, I want to strangle Valentina. After? I don’t know. A nap. Another dog, maybe.”
Kate laughs. Yelena smiles, helpless against it.
“No, I mean long-term. Like, a house. A person.”
The air shifts. Yelena’s smile doesn’t hold. “Why?” she asks. “You’re building a future now?”
“Trying to.” Kate glances over. “With you in it, maybe.”
Yelena looks down at her hands. They’re clean for once, no blood, no bruises.
“You deserve someone who wants more,” Yelena says eventually.
“You think I don’t want you?”
“I think you want all of me, and I don’t know how to give that.”
Kate needs someone who meets her where the world burns bright—who wants loudly, easily. Yelena doesn’t know how to explain that not wanting doesn’t mean not loving.
Silence.
Kate exhales, the sound of someone letting go without making it a fight.
“I don’t think I was built for this,” Yelena whispers. “I’m trying. I tried. You made me want to try.”
Kate’s eyes shine in the city light.
Yelena doesn’t cry. She just stands up, hands in her pockets, like she’s just cold and not falling apart.
The rooftop stays behind. Kate doesn’t stop her.
Yelena walks away with the weight of a thing she almost understood.
*
“Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way,” Valentina says, sliding a black box toward the center of the table. “New phones. Encrypted, synced to our system. Try not to lose them.”
Yelena reluctantly takes hers.
Next come the folders. Mel walks around the table, handing them out one by one.
“Inside, you’ll find your weekly schedule,” Valentina says, “Briefings, training, photoshoots, interviews, the usual PR circus. And psych evals.” Her eyes flick to Bob, then quickly away. “You’ll also find the official version of what happened in New York.”
Yelena flips her folder open. Several pages long, carefully vague.
Valentina clasps her hands. “That’s what you tell the press, and anyone who wasn’t there. Until the Watchtower is rebuilt, you will stay at the same address. Questions??”
No one answers.
*
Yelena doesn’t sleep much.
She doesn’t like not knowing who is moving when she isn’t. Doesn’t like the forced close proximity, either—too many bodies, too many sounds bleeding through thin walls. Valentina probably picked the shittiest safehouse she could find, like she wanted to recreate the Vault situation, see how long it would take before they started trying to kill each other again.
Yelena knows she should be able to trust them. But they’re more like a pack of dogs forced to cohabit—move as one, watch each other’s backs, and the moment you make the wrong move, they all turn on you.
“Hey—” A hand drops on her shoulder.
Yelena’s knife is already at his throat before she’s even fully facing him.
“Jesus,” John says, eyes wide, hands raised.
She holds his gaze. Two seconds—maybe three, long enough for the threat to register. Then she lowers the blade, slowly, without blinking.
He startled her.
He walks like a dump truck in boots, and somehow still managed to get close enough to touch her.
At night, Yelena lies awake, counting footsteps in the dark. Ava is near silent. So is Bucky. But Alexei? Bob? John? They’re loud. They breathe and move like they’re trying to remind the world they’re still alive.
Yelena knows she’s slipping. Her guard’s been down for months, maybe even longer. The proof’s written across her body—new scars, freshly-healed bones that still ache.
Recklessness. Or, maybe… she just doesn’t care the way she used to.
John clears his throat, carefully lowering his hands. “I take it you don’t want any coffee.”
Yelena blinks.
She can smell it now. Which means it’s brewed. Which means John has been in the kitchen long enough to make it. And she hasn’t heard a thing.
She checks the window as John pours coffee into his mug. Grey light. Morning. Definitely morning.
Shit.
Before she can say a word, the air ripples and Ava phases straight through the cabinets. John yelps, jerks back, his coffee spilling down the front of his white shirt.
“Fuck—!” he stumbles. “Goddamn it.”
He slams his mug down, harder than necessary. “You know what? Make it your damn selves. Fuck.”
He chucks the coffee pot into the sink with a clatter and storms out of the kitchen, footsteps loud all the way down the hall.
Ava watches him go. “Jerk.”
*
Yelena spreads her legs, one arm slung loose over the side of the couch. “So this is the part where I talk?”
The woman doesn’t answer.
Yelena sighs. “Great.”
She reaches for the nearest thing—a houseplant on the side table—and plucks a leaf, rolling it between her fingers with a deliberate calmness.
Yelena’s eyes scan the room: warm tones, big windows, colorful frames. A carefully staged coziness that feels just a little off.
The leaf flakes apart in her hand.
Finally, the woman clears her throat. “Therapy’s optional,” she says. “You chose to be here.”
Yelena shrugs. “Figured it might be entertaining.”
She lets the quietness stretch, eyes fixed on the beige wall. This could take a while. Silence between two people has never been uncomfortable for her.
“We’re both wasting our time,” Yelena says.
The woman doesn’t blink. “I’m here to listen. What you say—or don’t—is up to you.”
Yelena sighs, long and theatrical. “I was wrong. This is boring.”
The scratch of a pen against paper.
“Seriously?”
“What made you come here?”
Yelena flicks a torn piece of leaf to the floor. “Didn’t Valentina give you my file?”
She takes the silence as a yes. “You know what’s up, then. Child assassin, mind-controlled, blipped, dead sister. Just spin the trauma wheel, pick one topic.”
She thinks, briefly, about what’s not in the file.
The woman offers the faintest smile. “It’s not up to me. You get to decide what matters today.”
Yelena scoffs. “Is that what they teach you in therapist school? Let the client do all the work?”
“No,” the woman says, still smiling. “We learn how to ask the right questions.”
A pause. “Do you ever put into words what happened to you?”
Yelna frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… do you talk about it? Say the things that hurt out loud?”
“I think so.” Yelena shifts on the couch.
“You think so?”
She shrugs. “I mean—I don’t hide what I think. I’ve yelled at Alexei more times than I can count. Told my entire team exactly what was wrong with them. In public.”
Another scratch of the pen.
Yelena exhales. “So, yeah. I talk.”
The woman hums, a slightly skeptical sound that immediately puts Yelena on edge.
She drops the mangled leaf. “This?” She gestures to the room. “Not exactly helping, in case you were wondering.”
“What would help?”
Yelena shakes her head. “I don’t know. I just know I’m angry.”
“What makes you angry?”
Yelena doesn’t answer right away. When she does, her voice is flat. “I’m angry that she chose to die. Threw herself off a cliff. That I came back and she was gone. That’s it.”
She doesn’t say how, after the Blip, she couldn’t look in a mirror without flinching. How every time she jumps out of a building, she wonders if it feels anything like falling did for Natasha, if she had time to regret it.
If Natasha thought about her, in her last moments.
“It’s normal to be angry,” the woman says. “You lost someone without getting to say goodbye.”
Yelena closes her eyes and sees an empty grave. Her sister’s name everywhere, printed in headlines, whispered like a legend. A hero.
“How do you grieve someone when there's still a chance that the universe spits them back out again?”
The woman leans forward. “You’re not sure she’s really gone?”
Yelena swallows hard, forces herself back into the room. “Can you really be sure, when miracles are measured in billions? I was dead to the world for five years, and now I’m not.” Yelena bites the inside of her cheek. “Do you think she’s really gone?”
“She mattered to you,” the woman says, meeting her eyes. “And that’s what grief is. The cost of mattering.”
Yelena laughs, bitter. “Nice line. You use that on everyone?”
“No”
Yelena scoffs. “No?”
The woman doesn't answer.
Yelena leans back, yawns loudly and starts counting the leaves left on the plant.
The rest of the hour drags by, neither of them filling the silence. When the clock finally ticks over, Yelena stands, stretching like she just woke from a nap.
“Same time next week?” the woman asks.
Yelena pauses at the door. “We’ll see if I’m bored enough.”
*
Thunderbolts assembled
Bob
[📹 link: shaky cam of Alexei trying a hoverboard-looking device and falling
caption: he flew too close to the sun 🕊️]
You
…
Alexei
TECHNOLOGY SHOULD NOT MOCK MAN
Ava
That’s not even fancy tech
That’s for children
*
Not to make it a competition, but Yelena knows firsthand: Red Room training wipes the floor with S.H.I.E.L.D.
But Ava’s not easy. One blink and she’s behind you. Two, and your ribs are already bruising. It’s like being bothered by a fly—if the fly could crack your jaw and vanish before you could hit back.
They are moving faster now. Yelena’s breathing harder, but she doesn’t mind. There is something almost euphoric in it—the edge of not knowing what happens next, a challenge that doesn’t fold in the first minute. It’s fun, and Yelena hasn’t had that in a long time.
Every O.X.E. mission has felt like being on autopilot. But this? This makes her think.
Yelena watches her. Ava might be the most dangerous one on this team, if she ever lets herself be. But to strike, she has to be solid—real. And when she’s real, she can be hurt.
Yelena feints, Ava phases out. Yelena syncs herself to her rhythm.
This time when she reappears, Yelena lands a clean hit to the ribs—hard enough to knock her back. Gotcha.
Ava hits the mat with a grunt, then rolls to her feet.
“Bitch,” Ava mutters, but there’s amusement buried in her voice.
Yelena grins. “You started it.”
Ava’s mask retracts. She’s flushed, strands of hair stuck to her face. “You always get that smug over one hit? That’s cute.”
Yelena arches a brow. “Someone’s bitter.”
One breath and Ava’s gone, then behind Yelena, fingers catching her collar. The world tilts, Yelena twists, grabbing Ava’s wrist as they both go down. They land hard, tangled, chests heaving.
Yelena laughs, hoarse. “Alright. That was good.”
“Not so bad yourself.”
They stay like that, catching their breath.
Yelena tilts her head, eyes on Ava. “You’re dangerous,” she says, voice low.
Ava meets her gaze. “Right back at you.”
*
Yelena has been watching him do this all week, trying to piece it together, his face lit by the pale flicker of the TV, eyes blank as the footage loops again. That shadow swallowing New York, the silhouette in the sky—him, but not really.
The others have been careful, dropping pieces of the truth like breadcrumbs. But there’s not much left to romanticize—the New Avengers’ screen time is fading, replaced by rising death tolls and the cost of infrastructure repair.
She knows what it’s like when the memories rush back all at once. That sick, crashing wave of horror when you realize you’re the monster in the story, even if you weren’t really the one doing it, just a passenger in your own body. Watching, powerless.
So she’s here when Bob finally crashes out.
She finds him curled into himself, shoulders hunched, knuckles white, digging into the fabric of his hoodie.
Yelena sits down silently on his bed, watches the way his hands are trembling.
When she reaches out, it’s gentle, but Bob flinches, his elbow knocking into her hand as he jerks away like a wounded animal.
“Don’t—don’t touch me. Please.”
For a heartbeat, his eyes flash gold. “I’m not safe,” he says, almost to himself.
Yelena doesn’t move. “No one here is.”
At least Bob looks at the damage like it’s something foreign. She can’t remember when it stopped feeling wrong for her.
His jaw clenches. “You don’t understand.”
“I do.” Her voice is quiet. “And I know what comes next. You’re going to say that makes you a monster.”
“I don’t have to say it, we all know what I did. There—there are guards outside my therapist’s office. I’ve killed people, in Malaysia. In New York.”
Yelena tilts her head. “Do you think I’m a monster?”
His eyes snap up. “What? No.”
“Yet I’ve killed people too. Way more than you,” she says simply.
He opens his mouth, but she cuts him off. “And I don’t even remember why. I just remember how.”
Yelena keeps going. “Bucky’s killed a lot, too, so has Ava. Do you think they’re monsters?”
They were all just people, once—until something or someone broke them. The only difference being how young they were when it happened.
“Do you trust them?”
Bob hesitates, pulling at the edge of his sleeve. “Yeah. But—”
“So why not you?”
His face twists. “It’s different.”
“How?”
“I’m powerful enough to destroy the planet,” he whispers.
“But you didn’t,” Yelena says. “And you won’t.”
“You’re only saying that to make me feel better.”
That part’s true. And just as she knows what Bob needs to hear, Yelena knows what to do next.
You can trust me.
She shifts, reaches for him again, slow and careful. Her hand brushes his forearm, and this time, he doesn’t flinch or pull back.
Can I?
“You won’t,” she repeats quietly. “You’re not alone anymore. I—we won’t let it happen again.”
Bob’s entire body is now shaking with silent sobs.
No, not really.
*
Ava had killed Antonia, one bullet to the head. Years of suffering—maybe a few good moments—ended, just like that.
Quick. Like a snap of the fingers.
Sometimes Yelena thinks about it—how simple it would be to stop being someone broken.
She lets herself fall.
Wind screaming in her ears, gravity pulling at her ribs.
It’s a feeling her body never quite gets used to.
Suspended halfway—not alive, not dead yet. Her mind, blank.
At the last moment, she pulls the chute.
And wonders, as always.
What if, one day—
*
The safehouse is dead quiet when she gets back. Everyone’s off doing whatever Valentina’s “skill maintenance” assignments require this week.
She’s spent weeks cursing Valentina for making her share space with these people. Now she hates the quiet more than she ever hated them.
Because this kind of silence is dangerous. Makes the wrong things loud.
It reminds her of the loneliness. Every time she used to come back from tracking leftover Widows, or from some O.X.E. mission, to an empty room. No voices. No movement. No nothing.
There was Kate, for a while. But… yeah.
She knows another way to shut it all off, one that doesn’t involve jumping out of anything and calculating terminal velocity.
Safer, in a way.
She rummages through Alexei’s stash, expecting something awful but effective. Instead, all she finds are a couple of dusty bottles of weak Georgian wine and some mystery brew that might be kombucha.
She sighs, grabs it anyway, and heads to the kitchen to raid the beer packs sitting in the fridge.
By the time she sinks into the couch, head tilted back, one leg hanging off the side, her buzz is steady.
She lets her thoughts wander, too incoherent to really be harmful. She doesn’t know how long she stays like that.
Until…
There’s no sound of a door opening, just a shift in the light, a silhouette in the hall.
She knows it’s Ava before her brain fully catches up. And—oddly—instead of shame, she feels relief.
She doesn’t blame Ava for hesitating in the hallway. Yelena wouldn’t want to deal with herself either.
Still, Ava doesn’t leave.
And… maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s the therapist’s voice, echoing in her head.
Do you talk about it? Say the things that hurt out loud?
Or maybe—maybe because it’s Ava. Ava, and the way she doesn’t interrupt the silence. Doesn’t rush over to her. Doesn’t ask her what’s wrong.
Yelena starts talking.
About the dread.
The emptiness that settles deep inside, the kind you can’t shake off.
She talks until the glass slips from her hand and lands on the floor without breaking.
She talks until she glances over and meets Ava’s eyes.
And something in her chest clenches—because Ava doesn’t look freaked out. There’s no pity or disgust.
She doesn’t share, but Yelena sees it anyway, in Ava’s eyes. A quiet understanding.
Then Ava moves, taking her gently but firmly by the arms. Yelena doesn’t resist—she’s glad for the touch, even if it’s through the layers of Ava’s gloves.
Something in her wants to beg her not to leave.
But her head is spinning, her tongue is too heavy, and all she manages is a low, slurred sound.
*
She doesn’t remember getting to bed, but she wakes with a blanket over her legs and a glass of water on the nightstand.
*
Ava doesn’t mention it, doesn’t look at her weird when Yelena’s handed a glass of champagne at some fancy restaurant the following week. She simply takes her own and nods along to whatever grand tale Alexei’s telling over appetizers.
It’s the way she doesn’t not care, even if she’s doing everything not to interfere or pry. And Yelena feels it, the comfort of being seen and not judged.
She rolls her eyes at Alexei’s story, then lets her gaze drift back to Ava. Always the same posture: back straight, arms crossed, eyes all around the room like she’s bored and looking for an escape.
Like she’s a guest at their table, a stranger, not part of the mess.
But, also—
Ava tilts her head when Alexei talks. There’s a small smile ghosting her lips. And when her blue eyes meet Yelena’s across the table, there’s shared amusement.
Even when she pretends she doesn’t belong, Ava gives herself away. And Yelena doesn’t miss it.
*
Kate Bishop 🍕🎯
[📸 attachement: 3 pictures]
lucky just tried to eat fanny’s kibble
fanny is filing charges
You
let her handle it
she is a trained operative
*
Yelena’s not surprised Bucky understands what this is. He doesn't ask what she needs, just stands there, solid and quiet. A human punching bag, but one that’s able to hit back.
He moves with precision, slipping past her elbow, catching her with a low sweep. Yelena doesn’t even try to stay on her feet—she crashes to the mat hard enough to feel it in her spine, her ribs, her teeth.
Bucky doesn’t offer a hand.
She pushes up, legs shaking, and comes at him again. She throws a punch that he ducks easily, then he pivots, landing a clean hit to her jaw.
“You’re not pulling your punches,” she says, tasting blood.
“You’re not avoiding them.”
She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Her ribs are screaming, but still, she keeps going.
She keeps going until pain is the only thing louder than her thoughts. Until the ache in her muscles almost drowns out the one in her chest.
Bucky catches her wrist mid-swing, then. Doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t twist, just holds it.
“Yelena.”
She breathes through her teeth, chest heaving, eyes stinging. She yanks her arm free and turns her face away, but it’s too late—she’s crying.
She sinks to the mat, knees drawn up. Bucky crouches in front of her.
“I’ve been there,” he says softly. “It gets better, I promise.”
Yelena meets his eyes. She never sees the Winter Soldier—that name that haunted the Red Room like a ghost story. She sees Bucky. Just as she sees Bob.
But when she looks at herself—she only sees a Widow. She doesn’t know how to see anything else.
Yelena stares at the blood on her knuckles.
“If you say so.”
*
The sun is down, but the air’s still warm.
Ava passes her half a sandwich without a word, their elbows brushing in the dark. She doesn’t talk unless she needs to, and for reasons Yelena still can’t really explain, it’s easy with her. Easier than it should be.
“This almost feels like a vacation,” Yelena says, voice low.
Ava laughs under her breath. “You did buy olives.”
“They’re good olives,” Yelena shrugs. “If I’m going to kill someone, I may as well enjoy my dinner properly.”
She lies on her stomach, riflescope trained on the apartment four buildings away. Two windows lit, but the man has not moved in forty-seven minutes. Either asleep, or pretending to be. People underestimate how hard it is to do nothing convincingly.
She bites into the sandwich, chews slowly, eyes never leaving the building.
“How long do you think before he figures out he’s being tracked?”
Ava doesn’t answer, just leans back on her elbows, letting her eyes trace the skyline. Casual, but they both know it’s a mask. Their target’s security is everywhere, eyes and ears in every shadow.
There’s a strange comfort in that—the assurance that someone’s got her back. Yelena’s worked in teams before, with other Widows. It was all pretense, their loyalty lasting only as long as the mission required. One command, and they’d all—herself included—turn on each other without a second thought.
Funny, how fragile trust is. Natasha trusted Barton, and look how that ended.
Their comms crackle.
“Team two, shift in twenty,” Bucky’s flat voice says in her ear.
Yelena rolls her eyes to the starry sky. “You really have a way with words, Bucky.”
*
“How about this one?”
Ava leans in, grimaces. “It’s awful.”
Yelena looks down at the postcard she picked at random. A flamenco dancer mid-twirl, oversaturated red and orange, the words ¡Viva España! splashed across the sky in Comic Sans MS.
“What I’m hearing is that it’s perfect.”
Right now, they’re just two tourists killing time. The shop smells like sun-warmed plastic and cheap sunscreen, a fan clattering overhead, the heat clinging to their backs. Yelena feels a flicker of compassion watching Ava sweat beneath the oversized hoodie thrown over her suit.
Outside, the sky is postcard blue. And not far behind them, in the building they surveilled last night, a body is cooling on the floor.
“Do you know this one?” Yelena asks.
Ava tilts her head, listening to the old song playing on the radio behind the counter.
“No,” she says. “Should I?”
“Really? ” Yelena pretends to be scandalized. “That’s Cascada, summer 2005 hit. I shouldn’t be the one educating you on trashy Eurodance.”
Ava snorts. “Again. Raised in a lab.” She snaps the brim of Yelena’s Yankees cap with her thumb and forefinger, flicking it clean off her head.
“Hey!” Yelena says, scooping it up. “Rude. You sure that’s not a barn you were raised in?”
*
Hey Bob!
Greetings from Madrid.
We’re sunburnt. Saw a statue of a dog named Paco.
Wish you were here to suffer with us.
—Yelena ☺
*
“You’ll all be wearing comms,” Mel’s voice cuts over the chaos. “No one talks off-script, and if you freeze, I will be in your ear telling you what to say.”
“Comforting,” Yelena mutters as someone dabs concealer over the bruise on her cheekbone.
It feels like standing in the middle of an ant farm: people moving with trays, yelling into headsets, knocking into each other, stepping on cables. Somewhere, a camera flashes for no reason. Someone drops a curling wand with a curse.
“This is my formal wear!” Alexei protests as two men drag him back toward the wardrobe. “This is historic!”
A stylist crouches in front of Yelena, tilting her chin with two fingers. “Cheekbones like razors,” he mutters, more to himself than her.
Yelena resists the urge to grab his wrist—one more comment, and he’s going through glass.
“Twenty minutes!” someone shouts.
Another layer of something gets pressed into her skin. She wonders what would happen if she walked out there with the bruise showing.
A second stylist joins the fray, spraying down her hair and combing it back flat.
Yelena had insisted on the slicked-back look—and threatened Valentina to make it happen. Same with the outfit. Tonight, she is wearing what she wants, Watchtower reopening be damned.
Across the room, Ava looks like she didn’t fight at all—she’s out of the suit, looking more exposed than Yelena’s ever seen her, in a dress that screams PR-approved femininity.
Someone shoves an earpiece into her hand.
“Ten minutes!”
“Audio check, everyone say your name,” Mel’s voice chirps in her ear.
“Walker. Loud and clear.”
Another hit of spray across Yelena’s scalp. Her nose twitches.
“Barnes.”
“Red Guardian reporting!” Yelena winces, her eardrum cracked in half.
“No need to yell, Alexei. Bob? Yelena? Ava?”
“I can hear you,” Yelena says. “Barely. Deaf by Alexei.”
“Same,” Ava mutters.
“... Bob?”
Yelena scans the room, spots Bob, stiff as a board while two women are yanking at the sleeves of his jacket. He’s touching his earpiece like he’s a spy in a James Bond movie.
“Yeah—yeah. Sorry.”
“Five minutes!”
Someone hands John a pair of oversized scissors.
Yelena adjusts her earpiece and thinks, not for the first time, that being a New Avenger feels less like saving the world and more like surviving the show.
*
“Think anyone would notice if we sneak out?” Bob asks.
Yelena scans the room—Valentina is mid-speech, glass raised like a queen addressing her court, every eye on her. Good.
“There are two guards for every door,” Ava says. “We could try the lift.”
Yelena nods and pulls the comms out of Bob’s ear, dropping it in a plate of hors d’œuvres—no need for Mel to clock them mid-conspiracy.
“Act natural,” she says, already moving. “Or, try to.”
She’s with the worst people at pretending to be casual on a social outing, but it could be worse. She could be doing this with John. Or Alexei.
“Let me do the talking,” Yelena whispers as the guard steps into their path.
Yelena keeps a casual smile, hoping Bob isn’t sweating too obviously behind her.
“I’m sorry,” the guard says. “You’re not supposed to leave this floor during the gala.”
Yelena tilts her head. “What’s your name?”
The guard straightens. “Thomasz.”
“Thomasz,” she repeats slowly, leaning into his personal space just enough that he takes a step back. “How long you been working for Valentina?”
“Two months,” he says, hand inching near his holster.
“Ah. So you understand what’s at stake tonight.”
“We were briefed that no one leaves,” Thomasz repeats.
Yelena smiles. “Briefed. And you think that’d include our moves?”
His eyes flick between her and her companions.
“That’s New Avengers-level clearance, Thomasz,” she adds, her voice dripping with condescension. “Classified. You think they’d hand that info out to whoever’s guarding the elevator?”
She lets the silence press on him while Valentina’s voice echoes behind them.
“Or,” Yelena says eventually, tilting her head toward the main room. “you could ask her directly. But she’s mid-monologue, and… you know how she gets.”
Thomasz hesitates, then steps aside.
“Thank you, Thomasz.” She gives him a wink as she brushes past. “I’ll remember you.”
Let’s hope Valentina doesn’t get you fired for that.
The elevator doors slide shut behind them. Bob exhales like he’s been holding his breath the entire time. “Okay, that was terrifying.”
“That was easy,” Yelena smirks. “Try talking your way past someone who’s seen your face on a kill order.”
“Uh, does anyone remember where anything is in this building?” Bob asks.
They all stare at the panel for a moment—dozens of numbered buttons, most marked restricted—until Ava slips a badge into the reader and presses one at random.
Bob squints at the badge. “Is that...?”
“Thomasz’s,” Ava smiles.
Yep, definitely fired.
*
The elevator dings open to a floor not quite finished. Yelena steps out, eyes scanning the space.
Glass walls, rows of workstations—some still wrapped in plastic—and lab equipment shining under the fluorescent lights.
Behind her, Bob hesitates. Ava doesn’t move at all.
“This place stinks,” Ava says, voice too flat to be casual.
Yelena turns back toward the elevator. “Let’s try something else.”
*
“You’re children,” Ava smiles, her back pressed against the glass wall of the conference room.
Bob doesn’t answer, too focused on whatever monstrosity he’s doodling on the whiteboard. From Yelena’s angle, it looks suspiciously like all of them. One of the blobs might be Alexei, given the beard and alarming size.
Bob’s phone buzzes. Then Ava’s. Then Yelena’s.
None of them react, Yelena still spinning lazily in one of the chairs.
Ava picks a tabletop mic up. “You’re all deeply disappointing,” she says, her voice morphed into an uncanny imitation of Valentina—American accent and all—”And I expect you back at your post within the next five seconds.”
Yelena snorts.
“That’s so her!” Bob laughs, then stops abruptly. “Oh. She’s gonna kill us, isn’t she?”
Ava doesn’t break character. “Mr. Reynolds, enjoy your last evening of freedom. You’ve just volunteered for Siberian retr—”
Ava shifts her weight and her mouth twitches. Yelena doesn’t miss the sharp breath that follows. “You okay?”
“It’s just the stupid heels,” Ava says, dropping the mic back onto the table.
Yelena doesn’t push. Ava’s been tense the entire night—Yelena can guess why. Without her suit, Ava can’t use her powers in a safe way. And there’s also the way she tugs at the edges of her dress—one that Valentina picked. Elegant, slit high at one side, way too revealing for someone who’s used to not being seen at all.
A loud bang.
All three of them jump.
Silence. Then, another bang, followed by a burst of color through the windows.
“Fireworks? Seriously?” Ava says, lowering her pocket pistol.
Yelena doesn’t drop her knife, but her grip loosens. Fireworks. Just another detail Valentina conveniently forgot to mention.
Bob glances between the knife and the gun. “Where the hell do those even come from?”
Yelena shrugs, flipping her butterfly knife around her fingers. “You think I trust security? I’ve got two more on me.”
“Beat me by one.” Ava grins, sliding her pistol back somewhere along her inner thigh.
They move closer to the windows. Above them, the night sky blooms with color—bright reds, blue, and golds bursting in graceful arcs.
*
The B-Vengers
John F. Walker
Guys. Not cool.
Where are you?
Had to make a speech with Bucky AND Alexei.
You
[📸 selfie: Bob throwing a peace sign, Ava giving the middle finger, Yelena pointing at the drawing behind them]
Alexei
THEY REFUSED I SING NATIONAL ANTHEM 😤😔😔
John F. Walker
Is that drawing supposed to be Valentina with my shield
Bob
maaaaaybe
Ava
Yeah, your “shield”
🌮
John F. Walker
Anyway.
Gala’s over. Waiting for you on the 82nd floor.
You
🫡
aye aye captain
*
They all move into the Watchtower the following day.
Most of the team doesn’t bring much. Ava has one duffel bag. Bob shows up with even less—the clothes on his back and a toothbrush in a Ziploc.
Alexei needs an entire truck.
Not even for essentials. Just junk. Old stereo equipment, mismatched furniture that reeks of stale tobacco and garage mold, half the boxes labeled in Russian, most not labeled at all.
His room is already a mess, with dust on every surface like he’s been living there for years. And amidst the chaos, set apart like they’re worth something—pieces from Ohio. Arranged neatly on his shelves, like in a museum exhibit.
Yelena’s standing there, arms crossed tight over her chest, staring down at a photo frame.
Her own face looks back at her. Six years old, blonde pigtails, grinning too wide for a kid who already knows how to lie on command. Natasha’s beside her, with her freshly dyed blue hair, an arm slung casually over her shoulders. And Alexei. Wearing that fake-dad smile he used for the mission, the one he probably thought made him look warm.
She hears him shifting behind her—digging through one of the dozen boxes still unpacked.
She remembers the screaming, him turning away. And now here he is, surrounded by scraps of a life he threw away, holding onto it like it ever meant something.
Yelena steps farther into the room. Everything in her wants to send it all flying, to crush every frame under her boots. But she doesn’t. She can’t.
Because this—this pathetic little shrine—is all she has left, too.
"Why do you keep all of this?"
“For remembering,” Alexei says. His voice is soft. It only makes her angrier.
“You don’t get to miss it,” she snaps. “You abandoned us.”
Alexei doesn’t argue. They've had this conversation before—more than once—but he keeps treating it like he didn’t hand them straight into Dreykov’s claws. Acting like he isn’t the reason she doesn’t know if the violence in her is something they carved into her, or if it was always there, waiting.
“You’re not my father.”
It wasn’t real.
“I know.”
It was real to me.
“But you’re all I’ve got.” She doesn’t mean to say it out loud, but it’s the truth.
She hates that the only family she ever had was this. A father who only thought of them as a mission. A sister who got out and left her behind, twice. A mother who built the technology that stole her free will.
She spent years angry with Natasha, and now she’s gone. No time left to make it right.
But Melina’s still here. So is Alexei. What’s left of her family. Not by blood. Not by choice.
She hates that even now, even after everything, she wants it to mean something, too.
*
Kate Bishop 🍕🎯
[📸 selfie: Kate with a black eye and her left arm in a sling]
LA crowd is tough
You
wtf
name. last known location.
Kate Bishop 🍕🎯
you're an avenger now
pretty sure there’s a no-murder policy
You
ha
very funny kate bishop
i’m an avenger
i avenge
*
Yelena wanders the Watchtower hallways, mapping the place, searching for any hidden camera. Valentina said there aren’t any inside their private quarters, but she doesn’t trust that snake.
Valentina also sent them the building plans, as a gesture of good faith. Or, more probably, to prevent Ava, Bob, and her from sneaking onto the restricted floors again.
She doesn’t trust those blueprints either—and she won’t until she’s walked every hallway herself, checked every corner, every locked door.
Yelena finds herself at the far end of the floor, standing in front of Ava’s door.
She could hack the system or pick the locks, but that would take time. And Ava and her phasing… that’s a shortcut she wouldn’t mind having.
The door opens before she can knock. Ava stands there, alert despite the late hour. She’s in her suit, as always. Yelena can’t imagine how uncomfortable it must be to try to sleep in that, wonders if Ava even does—but it feels too personal to ask.
“Hey,” Yelena says, “want to help me check some floors? I could use a partner.”
Ava doesn’t answer right away. Behind her, Yelena glimpses her room—empty space and bare walls, the only personal touch a worn teddy bear on the bed. Yelena’s eyes linger on it for a moment.
“Sure,” Ava says eventually.
They move through the corridors in tandem, Yelena scanning every vent, the narrow gaps between ceiling panels and light fixtures—anywhere a camera or mic might hide.
Ava phases inside the locked rooms, slipping in and out without a sound. “This one’s empty, too.”
Yelena doesn’t know exactly what she expects to find. She knows Valentina isn’t stupid—she wouldn’t hide anything obvious in a building full of spies and a woman who can literally walk through walls. But she has learned not to trust the obvious.
They turn around another corner, the hallway looking like all the others.
The private quarters span ten levels, but all of them have settled on just one. She wonders which floors the original Avengers lived on, if Natasha ever called this place home.
Suddenly, she can picture it: her sister, hair wet from the shower, stealing someone’s leftovers from the fridge and pretending it wasn’t her. Late-night conversations on couches, mission debriefs, all the arguments and quiet moments.
The time Yelena had with Natasha was so brief it barely counts—a handful of months stretched across a lifetime. But the people that used to live in this building… they knew her longer. They saw pieces Yelena never did.
It’s a strange kind of ache, walking through a place where other people built memories.
Where her sister existed in the background of lives Yelena was never a part of.
*
“You ever run into her? Natasha?” Yelena says, trying to keep her tone casual.
She knows Ava doesn’t like talking about S.H.I.E.L.D., but she asks anyway.
Ava thinks for a moment. “Maybe once or twice. She was in a different world. I wasn’t an agent, just… a weapon, hidden in a lab and brought out when needed.”
Her eyes drift, unfocused, like she’s watching something no one else can see.
“I saw her once at the Triskelion, a few weeks before HYDRA took over. She was walking like she owned the place. People moved out of her way.”
Yelena lets out a soft laugh. “Yeah, that sounds like her.”
“She didn’t see me. I doubt she even knew I existed.” Ava doesn’t say it like a complaint, just a fact, but Yelena feels the weight of it anyway.
She doesn’t rush to fill the silence. Then: “She would’ve liked you.”
Ava gives her a look. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” Yelena says, nudging Ava’s shoulder. “She had a thing for strays.”
Ava smiles. “Guess that makes two of you.”
Yelena straightens, mock offended. “Who says I like you?”
Ava hums.
*
John’s face is a mess, nose split down the middle, blood crusting over his upper lip, one eye already purpling like a fruit left to rot.
“What the fuck was that?” he croaks, wincing as the med bay light flickers overhead.
“That,” Yelena says, arms crossed, “was you fucking around and finding out.”
Bob’s brow furrows. “Should we go after her?”
“She needs space,” Yelena says. “She’ll come back.”
John grits his teeth. “Well, hopefully she doesn’t beat up any civilians while she’s out there finding herself.”
“Like you did?” Bucky says, voice even.
“I didn’t—he wasn’t a civilian.”
Yelena turns and walks out, the door hissing shut behind her.
*
It takes Ava almost a week to come back.
*
“Am I real?” Ava asks, voice quiet. “Because more often than not, it feels like I’m not.”
For a moment, Yelena doesn’t know what to do with herself.
She’s been trained for this—trained to soothe, to comfort just enough to lower defenses. To weaponize gentleness when violence would draw too much attention.
The silence stretches. Ava is right there, and Yelena just sits with her.
She looks at Ava, and her question still lingers in the air.
Am I real?
And Yelena—she doesn’t answer. She just moves.
Her fingers reach for Ava’s face before she fully understands the impulse, thumb brushing under her jaw.
Skin. Bone.
There. She can feel it under her thumb. A heartbeat pulsing where it always does.
That means alive. Proof.
And—threat. Because it also means: a doorway to silence.
If she wanted to, she could crush Ava’s windpipe in one clean move.
She’s done it before. Seduction was just another weapon.
They taught her how to guide hands, how to whisper in every language. How to make someone feel wanted right before they died. Men, women, it didn’t matter. It was always the same—learn their patterns, find their cracks, aim for the kill.
The memory of it coils under her skin. Her stomach turns.
Yelena swallows and keeps her touch gentle.
“Feels pretty real to me,” she whispers.
This isn’t manipulation, there’s no performance here, a raw, unscripted moment, frightening in its realness.
Just her. Just Ava.
She feels the tremor in her own limbs. Not from fear of Ava—but from the familiar shape of the moment. The sequence she’s supposed to follow, drilled into her bones by the Red Room.
Because it works. It always has.
Target opens up.
Ava starts talking, turning herself inside out.
Shares a wound.
The file Ava mentions, the one full of unredacted horrors, is far too familiar.
You listen.
Yelena knows what it’s like to beat yourself up over something you cannot change or control. To flinch at a face that’s supposed to be yours.
Mirror the pain.
“The classified mission logs,” Ava says, “the pictures and all the experiments… going through them, it was like looking at someone else’s life. Like—”
“Like you’re a ghost in your own story,” Yelena finishes.
Build trust.
“Can you keep doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Touching me.”
Make the next move.
She’s done this a dozen times before. And every time, it led to a clean exit.
But not here, not today.
Yelena hesitates, not because she doesn’t want to, but because she does. And that real want—not for leverage, not for survival—is uncharted territory.
She wants to move, and so she does, shifting to straddle Ava’s outstretched legs. Then, before she can second-guess it, she asks—off-script, untrained, entirely her own:
“Can I?”
Ava nods, and Yelena lets her hand move again, over the fabric of her suit, down the line of her shoulder, with a softness that’s both practiced and entirely new. A softness that used to mean manipulation, but now means something else.
Something she doesn’t have words for yet.
Ava shifts, a subtle lean into Yelena’s touch.
She has a Widow’s hand on her. And her eyes are closed.
Something inside Yelena breaks.
Do you know what these hands have done? She burns to ask.
That they still twitch, in my sleep, searching for a knife?
That sometimes she wakes with her fingers curled like she’s still choking ghosts?
Of course Ava knows.
A Widow’s hand on her.
She can feel it, the tremble, just beneath the suit. She could pretend she doesn’t notice. But she does. She always does.
And her eyes are closed.
Vulnerability offered like an open palm.
Yelena’s fingers move again. She reaches for Ava’s chin, tilts her face gently.
“Look at me.”
Ava’s eyes open. And the look she gives her… Yelena feels like she’s being undressed and understood all at once, in a way that’s disarming, almost unbearable.
In a way that cannot be trained to fake.
Ava’s hand moves, reaching for Yelena, slow and uncertain. And phases through her arm.
She sees Ava flinch, sees the embarrassment on her cheeks.
“Try again.”
The second time, Ava’s hand doesn’t pass through.
It lands. Right here, on her shoulder.
Yelena doesn’t breathe for a second. She feels the pressure of fingers through fabric, the weight of wanting.
And—
Yelena’s not thinking clearly anymore. Not really thinking at all.
Everything in her is piercing blue eyes and that touch.
She reaches up, not fully consciously.
Just—guides Ava’s hand higher, until it rests against her cheek.
Cool glove. A pulse somewhere between them, maybe hers, maybe not.
This isn’t manipulation.
She wants to melt.
Not a mission.
Lean forward.
Just this.
Close the distance.
Just: please don’t pull away.
“See?” Yelena’s voice is barely a whisper.
Just—a hope.
“I’m real too.”
That maybe, just this once, existing doesn’t have to hurt.
*
The B-Vengers
Booooob
[📸 link: tumblr post with Ava in her suit, smoking ruins behind her
#girlboss #worse than a problem #ava starr supremacy]
Yelena
“worse than a problem” LMAO
Ava
What did I do
John F. Walker
That picture is from a classified op.
Booooob
and yet
3k reblogs
John F. Walker
Mel really needs to do her job better.
*
Ava sits on the edge of the table, back straight like it’s a test she doesn’t want to fail, her eyes fixed on some point just above the floor—unblinking.
Her suit is peeled down to her waist as techs are running scans over her with quiet, clinical voices. Yelena recognizes the tension in every inch of Ava’s body. It’s the same one she carried the day she beat up Walker—right before disappearing for five days. But this time, it isn’t anger.
It’s fear.
Ava never really talks about the experiments that S.H.I.E.L.D. did to her, but it doesn’t take a genius to fill in the blanks. And now, here she is—letting Valentina’s little team of scientists poke around like it’s just another Thursday.
Yelena wants to punch someone. Preferably Valentina.
She’s said it before: if Valentina ever forced Ava out of the suit again, Yelena would kill her. No hesitation.
But today, Ava said it was her choice, that she asked for this. She also asked Yelena to stay. So, Yelena’s here.
No one talks to her. Maybe they know better.
One lab coat fastens a small device behind Ava’s ear. “This is a neural monitor,” he says. “Just to check the impulse latency.”
The man steps back. “We’ll begin with baseline tests. Can you phase your hand through the table?”
Ava nods, jaw tight. Her gloved hand phases through—she pulls back before they ask her to.
They whisper to each other, writing notes. Ava keeps staring at the floor.
“Again, please.”
She does it again. And again.
“You can put the suit back on now. We’ll move to the next stage.”
The next room is bigger—a maze of panels with red sensors, some thicker than others, arranged in a narrow, winding path.
“We’d like you to follow the marked route and phase at each wall. Every full circuit, you’ll hold your phasing through one more obstacle.”
Ava’s mask snaps into place.
At first, it’s clean. She glides through the panels without effort—vanishing and reappearing like clockwork.
“Try to maintain the state longer.”
Yelena shifts, catching a flicker in Ava’s shoulders.
“You said you can hold it for one minute,” a voice says. “We’d like to see that full capacity.”
Yelena straightens. “And the point of that is?”
Ava raises a hand—not to the techs, to Yelena.
It’s fine. So Yelena forces herself still.
This time, Ava disappears completely. No flicker, no blur—just absence. The only sign of her path being the red sensors turning green as she phases through the panels.
She reappears near the end, but not cleanly. Her form wavers at the edges, unstable. She stumbles, nearly colliding with the wall, then catches herself. The sound she makes isn’t pain, exactly, but it’s not far.
Yelena looks at the clock. 43 seconds.
“Again,” someone says, scribbling.
Ava doesn’t move.
“Stop the fucking test,” Yelena snaps. “She’s done.”
“Ava?” a man calls, ignoring her. “We’d like to get a few more data while—”
Ava flickers, but not in the way she usually does when she’s phasing. Her outline twitches, limbs doubling, then correcting, like her body trying to exist in two places at once.
The mask hides her face, but the panic is written in everything else: the jerking of her shoulders, the short, shallow breaths punching out of her chest.
Ava reaches for the release on her mask—misses, her hand phasing straight through her own head.
Yelena is already moving. Her fingers find the latch, and the mask retracts with a hiss. Ava’s face is damp with sweat, eyes wide and unfocused. Her lips part, like she’s trying to say something, but all that comes out is another breath, sharp and broken.
Behind them, the lab coats start apologizing. Yelena doesn’t hear a word.
“Ava,” Yelena says. “It’s okay. You’re here. You’re with me.”
Ava blinks, then she sways. Yelena catches her before she can fall.
*
She hasn’t said anything since the lab—just nodded when Yelena asked if she wanted to punch something.
So Yelena brings her to the gym.
And, of course—ironically—John’s here.
He glances up, mid-punch, but he says nothing. No smug comment, not even a raised brow.
Maybe he remembers the last time Ava had that same look in her face. Maybe his nose does too.
Ava doesn’t seem to see him, or if she does, she doesn’t care. She heads for the other bag and sets her stance.
Yelena sits on a bench nearby, eyes fixed on Ava’s fists as they start to move. Every hit lands solid, all bone and rage.
John quietly drifts to the far side of the room.
*
The bar is tucked into the quieter edge of Golden City, the kind of place you don’t find unless someone tells you where to look. Good thing they have Bucky with them.
"Your social skills are terrible,” Yelena snorts.
Ava raises an eyebrow. “Do I need to say it? Raised—”
She gestures dramatically as the entire table finishes in unison: “—In a lab!”
"I wasn’t trained to blend in," Ava adds. "My job was to be a literal ghost."
Yelena sips her drink. "Well, ghosts don’t get free drinks."
Ava rolls her eyes. “Why don’t you bother Bob? He’s worse than me at this.”
“Bob’s a lost cause,” Yelena says without missing a beat. “You? You’ve got potential.”
Bob raises his hands in a surrender gesture. “Not arguing with that.”
Yelena points her chin toward the counter where a man and a woman are laughing. “See them? Bet I could get both their numbers in under five minutes.”
Ava looks over, unimpressed. “Why would you want to?”
“Practice,” Yelena says. “Plus, all of you are single. You could use the lesson.”
If she’s being honest, Yelena has her doubts about Bucky, and John’s still wearing his wedding ring, but she doesn’t feel like teasing them tonight.
"I’d rather get shot than flirt with one stranger," Ava mutters.
Yelena leans in, elbows on the table. “That’s because you’ve never done it right.”
Bucky glances up from his drink, eyeing her sideways. “Please don’t cause an international incident.”
"Relax," Yelena waves him off. "Diplomacy’s my strong suit."
Which is exactly why Alexei had not been invited to this friendly visit in Wakanda.
Yelena rises from her seat, dragging her leather jacket off the back of the chair and slinging it over one shoulder. “Watch and learn.”
It’s easy, this part—when it doesn’t matter. A friendly smile, a light touch to the arm, the suggestion of something that looks like fun. Three minutes later, Yelena’s back at the table, tossing a napkin onto the table, two scribbled numbers on it.
“Double kill,” she says with a smirk.
John lets out a low whistle. “Show-off.”
Yelena slides him the napkin. “Here, you could use some fun. They’re not really my type.”
John blinks. “My wife—”
“Ex-wife,” Ava says. She glances at the napkin. “Still not sure what we’re supposed to be learning from this.”
Yelena clocks the challenge in her tone, and that’s all she needs.
“Alright,” she says. “Maybe you just need a demonstration up close.”
She leans in, one arm draped over the back of her seat, the other resting casually near her drink.
“You make eye contact,” she says, catching and holding Ava’s gaze. “Keep your posture relaxed. Then you choose a pick up line—doesn’t have to be a good one, you just have to say it with enough confidence.”
Yelena tilts her head, batting her eyelashes in mock exaggeration. “So… what’s a woman like you doing sitting alone in a place like this?”
Ava arches a brow but doesn’t look away. “Maybe I just enjoy my own company.”
That gets a laugh out of John.
“Next, the compliment,” Yelena says, her smile curving slowly. “Preferably something true. Like: God, your accent makes everything sound ten times sexier. ”
Ava’s mouth twitches like she might actually laugh, but she keeps her composure.
“Then,” Yelena continues, voice dropping lower, “if the person’s receptive…”
She slides her hand across the table, close enough that her fingers rest just shy of Ava’s.
“Or, you can go for the bold approach.” Yelena nudges her foot forward under the table until it brushes lightly along Ava’s calf.
Now that gets her a reaction. Ava’s breath hitches and her eyes finally flick downward, then back up.
Yelena leans back and takes a sip of her drink. “See? Easy peasy.”
Ava groans, turning her face just enough to avoid Yelena’s eyes. Her ears are visibly red. And she is smiling now. Bucky mutters something into his beer.
“That was ridiculous,” Ava says, “and I doubt it can work when you’re wearing this.” She gestures down at her suit.
Yelena shrugs. “Some people are into that.”
Her voice is steady, her face unreadable, but her chest tightens with a familiar, off-script ache. And her leg is not quite pulled away under the table.
With the couple at the bar, it was easy and practiced. But this is different. She can’t pretend otherwise. She likes that. The way she always feels lighter when Ava’s eyes are on her. The way there’s no rush of adrenaline, no thrill of the game. Just this unbearable softness in her ribcage that says: Please stay close to me.
“Alright, rookie,” John says to Ava, smirking. “Your turn. Pick someone.” Bucky elbows him in the ribs.
Ava narrows her eyes at him, then shifts in her seat, scanning the room. “Fine.”
She stands. The table erupts with cheers.
Yelena raises her drink, grinning, and Ava rolls her eyes. Her shoulders are stiff, but her stride is confident as she walks across the room. Yelena nearly chokes when she sees who Ava’s heading toward—a Dora Milaje.
There’s always a moment.
Ava says something, the tall woman blinks and gestures vaguely toward the back of the room. Ava nods, then turns on her heel and walks straight back to their table.
That heartbeat before everything changes.
“I panicked,” Ava says calmly.
For Yelena, it’s in this bar in Wakanda, watching Ava’s pathetic attempt at flirting.
“She thought I was looking for the toilets.”
Yelena bursts out laughing. Ava kicks her under the table.
Fuck.
Yelena’s in love.
*
The B-Vengers
Booooob
[📸 screenshot: John, Bob, Ava and Bucky standing in front of a statue, eating street food
caption: “ who let these people into wakanda 💀”
45k likes]
You
told mel this picture would do numbers
Thunderbolts (Rebranded™)
Mel
Anyone cares to explain why “#lgbta-vengers” is trending right now?
*
Yelena wakes with the weight of existing on her chest, the kind of heaviness that makes her limbs useless, her mind a buzz of static. She lies there for a while, staring at the ceiling, trying to push her thoughts away.
She thinks about falling, about the bottle of vodka in her closet. About the sting of Bucky’s fist catching her jaw, the brief clarity in the moment before pain settles in.
But then—Ava’s face.
She drags herself out of bed. Doesn’t brush her hair, doesn’t wash her face, only throws on a hoodie and pads barefoot down the hallway.
She knocks once and doesn’t wait for an answer before sliding the door open, not wanting to give herself time to turn around.
“Hey,” Yelena says, voice flat. “Can I crash here today?”
It’s too early to be decent, but Ava’s already awake, her back against the headboard. Yelena knows she looks like hell, probably smells like it too. But she doesn’t feel shame, never with Ava.
“Sure,” Ava says. “I’m free all day. You can…”
She gestures awkwardly at the other side of the bed.
Yelena climbs in and buries herself under the blankets, still warm and smelling like Ava. Like her soap and the leather of her suit.
She closes her eyes and waits for the dark to take her.
*
Yelena wakes up to the sound of Ava and John arguing.
She only catches a few words, her brain fuzzy. Ava’s voice is tense in a way Yelena rarely hears.
“—reschedule. I told you—”
John’s reply is muffled. “Valentina—”
“—don’t care about that old hag.”
John mutters something that Yelena can’t catch. Ava replies too quietly to hear.
Yelena’s stomach knots, and she can’t tell if it’s guilt or something else. She hadn’t meant to cause trouble, she just… she just needed a place to not fall apart.
Footsteps fading. Silence, for a moment.
Then, the familiar sound of Ava phasing through the wall. Yelena doesn’t open her eyes, feigning sleep. Ava sets something down, and the mattress dips beside her.
*
Yelena wakes again in dim light, a soft gray stillness that makes it hard to tell how long she’s been asleep. She’s alone, and her body still feels weighted, slow.
She rolls onto her back and finds herself staring at the wall across from the bed. Pictures. A whole mess of them. Yelena’s glad Ava put something up there, her room used to feel way too sterile.
Yelena pushes herself up, dragging the blanket with her. She stops in front of the wall, eyes tracing over the collage.
There’s a blurry selfie of John and Bucky. A picture that Yelena snapped on a mission just to annoy Ava. Another of Ava, asleep with a book open on her chest, Bob’s head barely visible in the corner. She doesn’t remember who took that one. Maybe her. The infamous photoshoot with John riding his taco shield.
And there, an older picture of Ava. Tiny, with pigtails and round cheeks, sitting on the lap of a man Yelena assumes is Bill. The same teddy bear from Ava’s bed is clutched tight in her arms.
Yelena sits back on the mattress.
A soft whoosh, and the scent hits her—warm and familiar. Mac and cheese. Yelena’s stomach flips, then sinks. She thinks about Kate, too kind for her own good, and the way she used to sit on the kitchen floor when Yelena couldn't sleep, heating up leftovers and talking about nothing.
She wants to throw up.
Ava sits beside her, offers a plate, two packets of hot sauce sitting at the edge. “Hungry? That’s your favorite, right?”
Yelena hesitates, then nods. She hadn’t realized the pit in her stomach was hunger.
They eat in silence. The food is good, and she hates how much she needs it.
When her plate is nearly empty, Yelena glances back at the wall. “I like your new decoration.”
Ava smiles. “Thanks. Helps me remember that all of it happened. That I was here.”
Their conversation—the one they had in that same room, in this same bed—flashes through Yelena’s mind.
Am I real? Sometimes, it feels like—
Like you’re a ghost in your own story.
Ava nudges her with an elbow. “You want to help me pick out more pictures? I was thinking of covering the entire wall. Maybe even start on the other one.”
Yelena swallows. “Yeah,” she says. “Sure.”
*
They sit with their shoulders brushing, Ava’s phone balanced between them. Her camera roll is a chaotic mix, and Yelena’s in more pictures than she expected. Sometimes in the background, sometimes not.
Ava scrolls with quiet focus, occasionally pausing to save one in a special folder.
There are a dozen unread notifications and missed calls at the top of her screen—Valentina. Mel. Bucky.
Yelena tilts her head. “Your schedule wasn’t actually clear today, right?”
Ava only smiles.
*
She’s not supposed to be here. She’s supposed to be in the lab, standing beside Ava as the final test of the quantum stabilizers runs.
It’ll be fine. You don’t have to be there.
Yelena swears under her breath and wipes blood off her blade in an angry swipe. The window to apprehend the targets was razor-thin—perfect timing, Valentina had said. No way to reschedule.
One day, Yelena’s going to kill her.
By the time the Quinjet lifts off, her foot’s bouncing and she’s grinding her teeth.
She types the message, deletes it. Types it again.
Bucky glances over from across the bench, not saying anything.
Yelena hits send.
how did it go?
*
She tries not to stare. But it’s strange, seeing her like this—just sweatpants and bare arms. Breathing skin.
“How’s it feel?” Yelena asks, not looking directly at her.
Ava flexes her fingers, glancing down at the new quantum regulators on her wrists—slim, slightly glowing bands.
“Lighter,” she says. “Weird, but good.”
Yelena tilts her head, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You look shorter, without the suit.”
Ava raises an eyebrow. “I’m literally the same height. Two heads taller than you.”
Yelena scoffs. She starts wrapping her hands, the long band of cloth winding over each knuckle with precision.
“They ran the tests a dozen times,” Ava says. “I’m stable, even under stress load.”
Yelena whistles low. “Guess that means you can officially stop dressing like you’re in one of Bob’s emo bands.”
Ava smirks. “Guess so.”
“Next time you get cleared for life-changing new quantum tech,” Yelena says, dropping to one knee to adjust the straps of her ankle brace, “try doing it when I’m not halfway across the planet, yeah?”
“You were busy saving the world,” Ava replies. “I figured you’d forgive me.”
Yelena snorts. That last assignment felt less like heroics and more like cleaning up Valentina’s mess again. But it did was good PR. “We’ll see how forgiving I feel in five minutes.”
A short silence settles between them as they finish getting ready, the ritual familiar.
Ava checks the quantum wristbands one last time. Yelena ties her hair back, then steps onto the mat, light on her feet despite the injury. Ava follows, plants her stance and raises her hands.
Yelena starts circling. “Don’t think this means I’ll go easy on you.”
“You wouldn’t insult me like that.”
They start slow—half-speed, more warm-up than anything serious. Yelena knows Ava’s rhythm, has memorized it in bruises. She knows how her weight shifts a half-second before a strike, how her breath catches before she vanishes.
Ava still phases, still slips through Yelena’s punches like smoke, and it’s still annoying.
But the lines of her body aren’t hidden anymore, there’s no more suit to shield. It’s all there, visible. The curve of her back when she pivots. The flex of her arms as she counters.
Yelena blocks a strike, catching Ava’s wrist for half a breath before Ava phases free.
They break apart, both breathing harder now. Ava rolls her shoulders out, sweat beads glinting along her skin under the dim light.
And then Yelena sees it—the uneven, darker edge of a scar along her bicep. Another higher up on her collarbone.
She doesn’t mean to stare. But it hits her, the sudden memory of the Watchtower gala, Ava in that dress. Yelena had watched her all night, and yet, she doesn’t remember the scars.
What she does remember: the concealer, dabbed over her own jawline just before the reopening, soft sponge brushing over a fresh bruise.
Ava had hidden her pain, Valentina had hidden something else. All of it deliberate. All of it meant to erase the parts that made them real.
Yelena’s chest tightens.
A fist snaps toward her face.
She dodges, half a beat too late, Ava’s knuckles grazing her temple. Yelena blinks, adjusts her stance. Ava’s already moving again.
“Thought you said you weren’t gonna go easy on me,” Ava says, mouth pulled into a lopsided grin.
“I got distracted,” Yelena replies.
“By what?”
Yelena doesn’t answer, lunges forward. This time, it’s her punch that grazes skin.
Ava phases just as Yelena shifts her weight into a shoulder strike. She lets the momentum carry her, drops into a controlled roll, and comes up on her feet again with a wince, her ankle aching.
“Still cheating,” she mutters.
Ava rolls her eyes. “You say that every time I win.”
“You haven’t won yet.”
*
“Colombia,” Ava says. “Knife, six inches. I was nineteen.”
Yelena looks up, towel in her hands, half-distracted as she dries her hair. “What?”
Ava runs a finger along the faint scar on her bicep. “This one, I don’t remember.”
Yelena flushes, caught—of course Ava had noticed her gaze lingering during their sparring.
“I have one I don't remember getting either, “ Yelena hesitates, then lifts the hem of her shirt, just enough to reveal the small scar on her stomach. “Probably from when they had control of me. I woke up with random stitches more than once.”
She keeps her shirt lifted a moment longer, thumb absently brushing the edge of the scar. “Natasha had one just like this,” she adds. “Same spot. Hers was from the Winter Soldier.”
A long beat passes. Ava doesn't offer condolences. She just follows the motion of Yelena’s hand with her eyes, then shifts her gaze lower—to Yelena’s thigh, where the edge of a recent scar gleams pink.
“That one’s still fresh.”
“Yeah,” Yelena says. “Malaysia, same lab we saw in the Void. Guy almost blew my head off.“
She exhales and shifts her weight, pointing at the other thigh. The scar there is deeper, more jagged. “DIY surgery in the middle of a Moroccan street. Had to dig a tracker out of myself.”
Ava huffs—more breath than laugh—something like respect in it.
Yelena’s hand drifts, almost without thinking, to her right arm, her fingertips brushing over a scar so faint it’s barely visible—just a thin silver line that catches the light at the right angle.
“This one…” she says, voice lower now, “Natasha was the one to patch me up. Clean job.”
They both go quiet. Their bodies—clean now from the shower—are maps of old and new damage, bruises blooming like watercolors on wet paper.
“And your ankle?” Ava gestures toward the brace, eyebrow raised.
Yelena laughs. “Tripped over a kettlebell this morning.”
Someone really should do something about the mess in that damn gym.
*
The B-Vengers
Booooob
[📹 link: fancam, Ava mid-spar with Ayo
caption: sapphic intensity levels: off the chart
#anekacomegetyourgirl ]
You
Bob.
Ava
This is cyberbullying
Booooob
this is marketing #melapproved
John F. Walker
Ava you did flirt with a Dora Milaje.
Booooob
“flirt”
BBarnes
Not the only woman Ava flirted with that night
Ava
Oh my god Bucky go back to sharing your boring articles
Alexei
????
John F. Walker
Maybe if you didn’t call Shuri “tiny czarina”, you would’ve been there to witness it.
*
The cuffs bite into her wrists, bolted to her headboard. Yelena’s body jerks.
Hands press her down, the cold kiss of steel against her scalp. They peel her open. She doesn’t feel it—just hears it. A soft tear, like paper.
Here’s her brain, black and wrinkled.
Someone laughs. “Prune,” they say. “She’s all used up.”
Yelena tries to scream, but there’s cotton in her throat. She tries to fight—but her arms are pinned. The cuffs.
The room floods red.
She’s standing, gun in her hand. Her body won’t obey, her fingers won't open.
The hallway stretches, fluorescent lights above her. Snowflakes melting in her hair.
There’s a girl at the end of the corridor.
Anya. Yelena knows what’s coming.
The little girl turns. Brown skin, pigtails. Bright blue eyes.
Yelena’s arms rise. The muzzle finds the center of Ava’s forehead.
“Do it,” someone says.
She pulls the trigger.
*
She wakes up with the gun already in her hand. Shadows crowd the edge of her bed—tall, human-shaped.
Yelena doesn’t move, blinks once. They’re still there.
Another blink. One shadow tilts its head.
Her thumb finds the safety. Click.
She flicks the light on. The room stares back, empty. Of course it’s empty—Yelena knows that—but she checks the closets anyway, the bathroom, under the bed.
Only when she’s inspected every corner does she realize the gun never left her hand.
*
Yelena moves on autopilot—pan, oil, whatever she can find in the fridge that might resemble food. She’s not hungry, but that isn’t the point.
She just needs something to do with her hands
Yelena looks up when she hears the footsteps. Ava moves quietly, but not quiet enough for her to miss. There’s something in the way she holds herself tonight—shoulders tight, gaze flicking quick like she’s bracing herself for something.
Ava tries to lean against the table. Her elbow phases halfway through the edge, and she jolts forward, knocking her chin with a soft, embarrassed sound.
It’s not a tech malfunction. Yelena knows it’s nerves.
She sets the pan aside and crosses the kitchen without thinking. Ava’s face is warm beneath her fingers, and Yelena touches her like she’s done a dozen times before—like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Hand at her chin, thumb brushing lightly against skin.
She feels the tension there, the tightness in her jaw. The hesitation—Ava almost, almost leans in, then stops herself, starts to pull back.
Ava just needs a little push. So Yelena offers an opening.
“You don’t have to pretend with me, you know.”
Ava’s eyes flick down, then back up. Her voice wavers when it comes, barely above a whisper. “I just… I’ve been thinking about things. About how I feel when you’re around.”
Yelena knows, of course she knows. The way Ava watches her, like just existing in the same space as her is enough. Like Yelena is enough.
She thinks of a rooftop in Brooklyn.
You’re building a future now?
Trying to. With you in it, maybe.
Kate crying. Bucky in that hotel room in Wakanda. You’re allowed to be happy, you know.
“I don’t mind that you see me,” Ava says, eyes not quite meeting hers. “Because you make me feel things, and I don’t know what it means yet, but I don’t want to keep pretending it’s not there.”
Ava stands there, not asking for anything more than what Yelena’s already been giving her.
Yelena can do this.
She wants to try.
So she doesn’t run. Doesn’t deflect, saying that Ava deserves more than what she can offer.
Yelena simply says:
“Okay.”
*
The outdoor pool is hidden behind the compound, no lights, just moonlight bleeding across the water’s surface. Yelena climbs the fence without asking why they’re doing this.
Ava’s already at the edge, pulling off her clothes until she’s just in a black tank top and compression shorts. She sets everything down in a careful pile.
“Get in,” Ava says.
Yelena raises a brow. “Seriously?”
But she pulls off her jacket and ripped jeans, leaves her shirt on. The cement is rough beneath her bare feet.
She follows Ava into the water without flinching, letting herself sink. Then rise. Her body floats just beneath the surface, hair fanning out behind her. Ava’s beside her, both of them weightless.
“For me,” Ava says softly, “it used to be the quantum chamber. That was the only place I didn’t feel pain. Or anything, really.”
Yelena says nothing, just gazes up at the stars.
“I’d lie there for days. No thoughts. Just... stillness.” Ava pauses. “Swimming’s the closest I’ve found, outside the machine.”
Yelena slowly flips onto her back. The water hushes around her ears, muffling the world.
“I didn’t learn to swim until I was almost twenty. Once I was stable enough, S.H.I.E.L.D. forced me to. Said I was a liability if I drowned during a mission.”
Ava exhales. “The lack of gravity, I—I kept phasing through the floor of the pool. Felt like I was dying every time.”
Yelena closes her eyes. “Why bring me here?”
“You looked like you needed something quieter,” Ava says.
They keep floating in silence.
*
Kate Bishop 🍕🎯
hey
quick question
the scarlet witch's dead dead, right?
You
yes
why?
Kate Bishop 🍕🎯
just asking dw
You
kate please do not mess with this universe's reality
Kate Bishop 🍕🎯
i won’t
You
you promise?
Kate Bishop 🍕🎯
yeah :)
omgggggg ur gonna hate me
*
Yelena still doesn’t know by what miracle she got Ava to agree to go shopping with her.
Ava stands in front of the mirror in her usual grey sweatpants and a black shirt—looking like she’s wearing those default clothes from an O.X.E. training inventory.
Yelena flips through a rack and pulls out two dresses. “Pick one.”
Ava doesn’t look away from the mirror. “You’re assuming I’m wearing one tonight.”
“I’m assuming you’re not going to show up to Alexei’s ridiculous limo party looking like that .”
That earns her a dry look, but Ava doesn’t argue. She adjusts the quantum band on her wrist like it’s too tight, although Yelena knows it’s something Ava does when she feels exposed.
“You just need something that feels like you. And maybe…” Yelena nudges Ava’s hip with hers, “a little help from someone who has excellent taste.”
Ava huffs, but takes the red dress.
Yelena disappears into the stall next to her with her own stack—trousers, a pressed white shirt and a burgundy tie.
Some autotuned pop song buzzes from the ceiling speakers. “You know this one?” Yelena asks, tugging the tie loose.
A pause. “You know I don’t,” Ava says.
“I thought Bob made you sit through the golden era of pop.”
“He tried, I escaped.”
“You ghosted Britney Spears? That’s criminal.”
“Yeah, well, it was torture.”
“No, Criminal. That’s the name of the song.”
Ava laughs. Yelena’s smile lingers as she buttons the cuffs of her blouse, looking at her reflection.
The first thing Yelena ever bought for herself was a vest, one she picked out because it had many pockets and no one could stop her. That feeling—of choice, of self—had stuck with her ever since.
Yelena can’t truly know what it’s like—to wear the same thing every day because your body’s too unstable for anything else. But she can guess.
When Ava steps out, she’s in the dress, the quantum bands still glinting against her skin—there, but no longer the first thing you notice.
Yelena gives a low whistle. “See? That’s the one.”
Ava looks at her reflection, then back at Yelena—her tie slightly crooked, hands in her pockets and trying not to look too smug.
“You sure this isn’t too much?”
“Oh, it’s definitely too much,” Yelena says, grinning. “But you’re gonna look amazing.”
Ava raises an eyebrow. “This just so you can stare all night?”
Yelena shrugs, not denying it. Then, softer: “But seriously. If you don’t like it, we’ll find something else.”
Ava runs her hand along the seam of the waist. “No, I like it.” Then, she steps closer. “Hold still.”
Yelena blinks, but obeys.
Ava reaches up, tugging gently at the knot, straightening it. When she finishes, she smooths the tie flat against Yelena’s chest, her fingers lingering just enough to make it obvious she knows exactly what she’s doing.
“If you weren’t already mine,” Ava says, looking straight into Yelena’s eyes, “that would’ve done it.”
Yelena’s breath catches. That’s—new.
Before she can say anything, Ava leans in and presses a kiss to her cheek. Soft, barely a brush, but it’s the first time Ava’s ever initiated anything like that.
Yelena’s heart swells, because it’s easy to forget how much Ava holds back, how long it takes for her to move when no one is giving orders.
“I don’t know what’s more red,” Ava continues, still close, casually dusting Yelena’s shoulders. “My dress, your tie, or you.”
Yelena exhales, a little stunned. “You’ve been practicing.”
Ava smiles. “I have a good teacher.”
*
You
you named your team yet?
Kate Bishop 🍕🎯
was thinking something like
the young avengers
unless you guys copyrighted it haha
You
you are not gonna believe this…
*
The door sticks, its frame warped, probably from a blast—the wall around it scorched black. Yelena leans into it, shoulder-first, ignoring the flaming pain, and it gives with a creak.
She steps inside. The place is dark and quiet—until the sound of paws skidding on tile breaks it. Fanny barrels into her legs, whining, tail a blur. Yelena grits her teeth as pain flares across her ribs, but she drops to one knee anyway, pressing her forehead to the dog’s.
“Missed me, huh?” she whispers, her voice hoarse.
There’s a small shift in the air, almost silent. Yelena looks up.
Ava stands in the hallway, and Yelena feels herself breathe again.
“You look like shit,” Ava says, voice strangled.
That's rich, coming from her—face streaked with soot, cuts everywhere on her arms, a split lip. Her posture says exhaustion, but her eyes… her eyes are locked on Yelena like she can’t believe she’s real.
Yelena starts to rise, but Ava crosses the space first. She kneels and pulls Yelena in, arms wrapping high around her shoulders to avoid the ribs. Yelena closes her eyes.
Ava’s still for a moment—then she tugs the zipper of Yelena’s jacket down and eases it off her shoulders without a word.
Yelena lets her, lets Ava peel away the bruised, burned layers like she’s done it a hundred times. Maybe she has.
She leans in. Their foreheads touch first, then their noses. Ava’s palm cradles the side of Yelena’s face, thumb brushing the edge of a cut. The kiss isn’t urgent. It’s barely even a kiss at first—just the press of mouths. It deepens slowly, the way sleep settles in when you’re safe for the first time in weeks.
They both smell like smoke. Sweat. Blood.
Yelena’s hand slips under Ava’s shirt, just to feel her skin, to know she’s warm. Alive.
A lot of people died.
Yelena cries. She buries her face against her neck, breath catching. Ava holds her tighter, one hand braced carefully beneath the ribs, the other gripping the back of her neck.
Outside, New York is ashes, the Watchtower is gone—again.
It doesn’t matter.
Because Ava is here.
There’s them.
This world, their world, is saved.
They’re still here.
Healing, together.