Chapter Text
Immediately after the end of the press conference on the wrecked streets of Manhattan, Valentina plastered on a fake smile and beckoned the team to follow her into the Tower. Yelena spun around to look at the others—who all seemed even more confused than she was—so she took a risk and followed. Everyone complied willingly too, and it was only until the elevator door closed that all hell broke loose.
“What the hell was that, Val?” Bucky demanded, low and dangerous.
“Are you seriously making us a team, like, officially? CIA-sanctioned and funded?” Walker sounded almost hopeful, and Ava scowled at him.
“Who cares? She ambushed us. I’m not working for her.”
“It’s better than not working at all! Didn’t you see how the civilians applauded us just now? We could do something good here!”
“You? Do something good?”
“Didn’t we just save Bob?”
“Please! It was a fluke; we didn’t know what the hell we were doing!”
“Come on, you guys, no arguing! We are New Avengers now, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes!”
Everyone ignored Alexei’s interjection, and suddenly Bucky stepped in front of Valentina and bore down on her so much that she took a step backward, right into Bob, who made himself small in the corner of the elevator.
“Val, I’m giving you one minute to make a case for yourself, or I am going back out there with every piece of evidence I have on your criminal violations, including Bob if I need to.”
“Wait!” Yelena burst out. Her mind had been churning for the past few minutes but this threat against Bob was too much—the poor boy was suddenly pale with fear. “Bucky, let’s just talk about it. This New Avengers thing could work, I think.”
“You think?” Bucky repeated derisively, but Yelena positioned herself staunchly in front of Bob, and reached an arm out in front of Valentina for good measure so she wouldn’t get murdered before Yelena had actually thought this through—and they managed to make it to the penthouse without any casualties.
Good. Progress. When the elevator door slid open, Yelena grabbed the sleeve of Bob’s sweater and pulled him in behind her, while the others filed out, fuming and irritated and eager in turn. Only Valentina appeared calm, stepping around the debris from the bar that Bob had destroyed while in Sentry mode and reaching the staircase so she could address them with a bit of height.
“Let me explain.” Valentina said, all diplomatic. “As I told you earlier, I was going to announce the Sentry—Bob here—to the media as my brand-new creation for global protection. But given the circumstances of his, well, condition, and given the fact that you five showed up so beautifully to defend the city from the very thing I was trying to create—it made sense to introduce you as my brainchild instead. After all, the world adores their superhero teams. You’ve had first-hand experience, haven’t you, Congressman Barnes? Cap’s best friend and comrade-in-arms for the better half of the century; don’t you miss the thrill of being the hero?”
Yelena watched curiously as Bucky flinched at that comment, then tried to shove it down and neutralize his expression as if he hadn’t reacted.
“We are not going to work under you, Val. Team or no team.”
“You don’t exactly have other options, Congressman.” Valentina said with a sickly sweet smile. “You think you can turn me in with just Bob as evidence? He signed up voluntarily for an experimental medical procedure; Project Sentry was no crime at all. No, I’m afraid the only evidence left of any crimes I may or may not have committed are standing right here in front of you. Yelena, Ava, John,” said Valentina as she turned her deceptive smile on them, “Whatever Congressman Barnes chooses to do, we’re in it together. Does federal prison sound fun to you?”
Walker took a step back with a horrified look on his face, clearly never having considered that possibility. Ava shot Yelena a worried look, and Yelena swallowed too, desperately not wanting to be locked up now that she had finally found a purpose to live for, but Bucky couldn’t, he wouldn’t—he was looking at them with such a strange, pitying expression, and she couldn’t quite decipher it—
“Fine. You win. What are your terms?”
Valentina’s lips curled in triumph.
“I will provide all the financing; whatever you need—suits, tech, weapons—I’ll get them for you. In return, you just do your Avenging with a couple of covert missions for me on the side. It won’t be any fuss at all. In all honesty, all I need are some heroic faces to legitimize my operations, and aren’t you a good-looking bunch?”
They ignored her comment. Everyone was staring at Bucky now, who seemed to be the only one with an actual free choice to make, but Yelena’s mind was still turning, and she was beginning to see the cracks in Valentina’s razor-sharp façade…Valentina clearly needed them just as much as they needed her. Any terms set by Valentina could be renegotiated.
“We have some conditions too,” said Yelena abruptly. “We decide on our own what are missions will be. If we do anything for you, we will have to agree with it. We won’t kill.”
“No killing, got it.” Valentina agreed easily. “That’s totally fine since Yelena, dear, you already eliminated all my remaining liabilities in Malaysia so efficiently.”
Yelena’s heart thudded at the mention of her most recent murders—thirty or so scientists and research assistants, if she remembered accurately—and felt ashamed as everyone’s eyes fixed on her. Only Bucky’s gaze was unjudgmental, but perceptive and almost appraising; he understood what she was doing now.
“No killing.” Bucky repeated steadily, picking up where she had left off. “No human experimentation, no illegal scientific research, no collateral damage, if we can help it. We work with you, not for you. Otherwise, we will turn you in. We’ll find a way.”
“Those terms are amenable to me, Congressman—or should I say, James, since I assume you are resigning. You just wanted a public role, didn’t you? And now you’ve got one much more suited to your abilities.”
Bucky nodded tersely but didn’t respond.
“Wonderful. In that case, team,” Valentina opened her arms towards the rest of them, “Welcome to the New Avengers Tower! The penthouse has a kitchen, living area, bar, screening room, even a rooftop swimming pool. Gym and training rooms are directly below, and then there are the living quarters—take your pick and get settled. Anything you need, just let Mel know. Needless to say, I am absolutely thrilled to begin our partnership together.”
There was a moment of silence as everything sunk in. They were Avengers now. The sun setting over New York now flooded the penthouse with a faintly unreal, orange glow. Yelena looked around at these still-unfamiliar faces and her dad, of all people, and wondered how her life had taken such an unexpected turn since she showed up on Alexei’s doorstep a few days ago, soaked and depressed.
“Wait, Director—Ms de Fontaine—ma’am.” Bob piped up from behind Yelena, and raised his hand. Everyone whipped around at him, like they had forgotten he was even there. “I know I’m not a New Avenger or anything, but I think I was—or I am—homeless, and it’s just um, can I live here too?”
Oh, poor thing. Yelena raised her chin at Valentina, daring her to say no. Her smile just widened.
“Of course, Bob. Of course.”
It turned out, before they got started on the business of Avenging, they first had to settle the business of living together while adequately suppressing the urge to murder each other – which was starting to look like an impossible feat.
On the first night, Ava phased into Bob’s bedroom by accident and caused a shrieking hysteria that took three super soldiers physically overpowering him, and Yelena shouting reassurances at the top of her lungs, to subside. Nobody got much sleep that night.
The next morning, as a general exhaustion hung over the breakfast table, Walker blithely offered to lead the team with Bucky and suggested that they do updated Cap-and-Bucky promotional photoshoots, just like Steve Rogers had done during the Second World War for the US Army’s propaganda division. Bucky gripped his coffee mug so hard that it broke, then he left the table, slammed his bedroom door shut, and didn’t re-emerge for the rest of the day.
The third evening consisted of Alexei having a tad too much vodka over dinner and blathering non-stop, for three consecutive hours, about every single mission he’d ever done as the Red Guardian, which included descriptions of ‘wild nights’ spent with Melina in their Ohio home so vivid that Yelena wished she could be brainwashed again just to wipe them from her mind. His behaviour got so abysmal that Walker picked him up and threw him bodily into rooftop swimming pool, which he was not too happy with (once he came to his senses).
On the fourth day, Yelena offered to cook lunch for everyone, but nobody was impressed with her mac-n-cheese and sriracha combo. She had to throw most of it out, and she spent the afternoon feeling so utterly forlorn about it that she didn’t pay attention during their sparring training and got an incredibly well-aimed punch to her face by way of a vibranium arm…her nose didn’t stop bleeding for hours and it made her feel worse that Bucky looked so damn guilty about it every time she caught his eye.
It had seemed like their cohabitation could not get any worse, but then on the fifth day as they were watching Forrest Gump, Walker made an insensitive joke about physical disabilities which made Ava so mad that she lost control of her phasing and literally disappeared from their plane of existence. Bob hurriedly pressed pause on the movie as everybody glared at Walker.
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Walker protested, hands in the air.
“Yeah, you’re the pinnacle of goodness, you are.” Bucky snarled, grabbing at the air above Ava’s seat as if she was just there but invisible; his fingers closed over nothing.
“Come on, the joke wasn’t half-bad! Isn’t it funny that—”
“Shut up!” Bucky and Yelena yelled at the same time.
“Walker, up you get.” Alexei demanded, plucking Walker up by the scruff of his shirt and making him yelp. “You come with me to look for Ghost girl, now.”
“Jesus, calm down!” Walker ducked and squirmed out of his grip. “She probably just phased to another room!”
“Yeah, and you’re gonna find her and apologize if she did.” Bucky said vehemently. “Search this floor. Yelena—”
“Coming. Let’s check downstairs.”
“Can I help—?”
“Stay here in case she comes back.” Yelena said to Bob, trying to sound kind because everyone else sounded so damn irritated all the time, then she followed Bucky out of the screening room and towards the stairwell.
“I swear, if Walker does one more goddamned stupid thing, I’m throwing him off the building.” Bucky muttered as they jogged down the stairs. Yelena was not feeling so cheery herself, but Bucky’s extreme exasperation was amusing to her, especially when they never got much other emotion out of him.
“It wouldn’t be a good look for our team.” She commented. “Did Steve ever threaten to throw Tony Stark off the building?”
Bucky didn’t answer, and looked stoically forward so that she couldn’t read his expression either. She’d expected that; she had been trying to get him to talk about his history with the Original Avengers, as they had taken to calling them, for the past few days, but he was faithfully reticent. She was still curious about what made him react so severely to every mention of Steve Rogers.
“Ava!” She called out now, not wanting to push Bucky too far and get on his bad side too. They had a teammate to find, and Bucky was clearly worried as he started banging on the walls and calling out her name.
“Ava, come out if you can hear us!”
No response. They reached the training rooms on the floor below and started checking them one-by-one, though Yelena thought it rather a fool’s errand, given that Ghost could very well be invisible and intangible.
“I think this should be the first thing on the R&D list.” Yelena suggested as they walked. “Design regular clothes for Ava that has the same functionality as her suit, so that she can control her phasing even when off-mission.”
“Yeah. I’ll add it to the list when Val releases this quarter’s budget to us, which she hasn’t yet.” Bucky said darkly, and Yelena made a sympathetic noise. He was in charge of the administrative side of things, which flew past her head sometimes. Since moving into the Tower, it had felt like a kind of Disneyland, where things she needed appeared right when she needed them. So her mind just moved straight to ideas and designs, which she had plenty of, and was eager to share.
“In fact, we should design civilian clothes for all of us. Imagine, jackets tailored to your arm, or with armbands for Walker to carry his shield. I could get dresses with in-built holsters and pockets—you know, I actually modified a vest by myself once? It had so many pockets.”
“Huh.” He responded minimally, but now that they were walking parallel to each other, she could tell that he was really listening.
“I gave it to Natasha before she left in 2017, to find Steve.”
Bucky glanced at her.
“2017, huh? Right before Thanos.”
“Yeah.”
“I think I know what you’re talking about, actually. It was army-green, right?”
His response was so nonchalant, but it stopped Yelena entirely in her tracks. She stared at him, heart pounding.
“You’ve seen it?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“You mean you’ve met Natasha?”
“Sort of. We fought side-by-side in Wakanda. Your sister and Steve—they were leading the charge against Thanos’ army. Didn’t you know that?”
She knew about Thanos, but not this. Natasha had never mentioned knowing Bucky; she’d only talked about fighting the Winter Soldier, the time she got shot in Odessa and then afterwards in DC and Berlin. She had thought that Bucky—this Bucky, well-adjusted and normal Bucky—had no memories of her sister, and even if he did, they would be marred by the years of brainwashing. But to think that he had fought alongside Natasha in the greatest battle of their lifetime and hadn’t even bothered to tell her about it—
She was suddenly so overcome with grief that her body lashed out of its own accord, and she punched Bucky in the arm. Unfortunately for her, it was his vibranium arm and it redirected the kinetic energy right back at her, sending sparks of pain from her knuckle all the way to her spine.
“Ouch, that really hurt!”
Bucky grimaced. “I know it does. Maybe don’t punch me next time?”
“It’s just—it’s just—” The pain made Yelena’s frustration pour out of her undeterred. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Natasha?”
“I don’t like bringing up the past,” said Bucky, short and direct.
“But—I have so little of her already.” Yelena insisted, and with a slight horror she felt tears springing to her eyes, even though this was so not a good time. It was senseless, but what she suddenly wanted was a hug, one of Alexei’s bear hugs or Melina’s soft embraces, something to ground her back into herself; but there was no one here except Bucky, and she couldn’t exactly launch herself at him. She took a shuddering breath. “Nobody who knew her as an Avenger ever told me what she was like, not even Barton.”
Something in Bucky seemed to soften, even though his expression was as closed-off as ever.
“Look, Yelena. I didn’t know her well. We just happened to be there in Wakanda together; she was close to Steve, not me.”
“Did Steve ever tell you stories about her?”
“…Yes.”
Yelena waited with bated breath for Bucky to elaborate, but he was averting her gaze—which didn’t stop her from recognizing the grief written across his face, because she had seen the same expression in the mirror, every day for the past three years.
“Bucky, please.” She pleaded, but he shook his head.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“The past is over, Yelena. You should stop fixating on it too.”
Frustration rose in Yelena at his words, even as she tried hard to control it; she didn’t understand how others could just swallow their grief and pretend it didn’t exist, when her own grief washed back over her every day as predictably as the tide. It was so unfair. Bucky was hurting every day too, it was obvious, but she hated that he could hide it all—and hide Natasha—from her.
“What about Steve!” She demanded all of a sudden, latching onto the thread she hadn’t pulled on until now, knowing it was cruel but not knowing how else to rid her chest of that godawful ache. She felt almost satisfied to see Bucky flinch at the name. There, now you know what it feels like.
“Yelena—”
“You don’t talk about him either, and why is that? Don’t you think it’d be nice if we could all talk to each other about the people we’ve lost, and maybe, just maybe, we’d feel better afterwards? I know they’re gone, but it doesn’t mean they’re gone from our minds. You’re acting like they never existed! I love Natasha so much, I can’t go a day without thinking about her—so why can’t you talk about Steve? Don’t you miss him at all?”
She was shouting, and the words falling from her mouth were unbearably harsh, but she couldn’t help herself. Bucky just stood there and took it, terrifyingly silent, so many different shades flitting through his eyes that she couldn’t quite understand what he was thinking—when there came a bang on the roof above them. They both startled.
“Bucky? Yelena?”
“Oh God, Ava.” Bucky tore his gaze away from her and glanced upwards. “Can you hear us?”
“I’ve been hearing you for the last few minutes! Have your arguments a little louder, why don’t you? Because I’m totally fine and I’m totally not suffocating to death while you’re going at it.”
Yelena grimaced; Bucky sighed. The simmering tension between them abruptly passed and faded into nothingness.
“Can you breathe right now?” Yelena asked, a little concerned at how it sounded like Ava was literally behind concrete panelling.
“So far, yeah. But this air vent is tiny. I suppose I’m lucky that I didn’t phase myself inside a wall or anything, or I’d be very dead.”
“Why the hell are you even in the roof?” Bucky went on his tiptoes to rap on the ceiling above them, trying to work out where Ava was exactly.
“I can’t control it! Walker said something and I just went poof and ended up here.”
“Can you phase yourself out?”
“I’m trying, but the accidental phasing must have used up all my energy. Can you just get me out, please?”
Bucky and Yelena exchanged a look, and if he still saw tears on her cheeks, he ignored it, just as she ignored the pain creasing the corner of his eyes.
“I suppose we need an axe.” Yelena suggested.
“And Walker.” Bucky agreed.
“He can apologize with his actions.”
“Exactly.”
“Keep Ava company, I’ll get him.”
Ava tapped on the ceiling, an unenthusiastic little rhythm. “Thanks, guys…”
So Yelena hurried back upstairs, and the team spent the rest of the afternoon hammering away to rescue Ava from the ceiling. By the end of it, when Ava hopped down, covered in concrete dust but otherwise unharmed, she smiled to see Walker looking thoroughly filthy from the manual labour and genuinely apologetic. The team had a civil, even joyous dinner together for once, passing around cans of beers and toasting the fact that they made it five days with only one near-death experience. Yelena was so pleased to see everyone getting along for once, she almost forgot the conversation she had with Bucky, and the ache in her chest from knowing that the wounds inside of each of them were still far from healed.
Yelena now understood why Natasha always insisted she never did fighting poses, because that wasn’t a fighting pose, apparently, but a stance, for ‘absorbing the force of the fall’ and ‘better fighting form’ and whatever. At least, that’s what everyone said when they went for a group sparring session in the Tower one evening, with Bob supporting on the sidelines.
“Milochka, not like that! You must fall with better form! Watch me.” Alexei had shouted at her from across the mats, and she had bristled because he wasn’t even her partner; she was fighting Walker, which was elementary.
“Stop giving me advice!” She yelled back as she slid on the ground, grabbed Walker’s ankle and tugged. He twisted in the air to avoid falling down, so she punched him in the throat instead to get him winded.
“You’ll hurt yourself!”
“My goodness, she’s a grown-up, let her be!” Ava scolded Alexei as she phased right in front of him and hit him in the stomach, which made Yelena feel quite vindicated until she saw Bucky stride over with purpose.
“Alexei’s right, actually, you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep falling from high places and landing on your feet. You’ll need to absorb the force, like this.”
Bucky crouched a little and, oh wonder of wonders, did Natasha’s ridiculous little fighting pose. Yelena gaped.
“You’re posing.”
He frowned at her. “I’m not posing. I’m breaking the fall.”
“You’re posing! You’re a total poser!”
“Don’t be silly.”
He didn’t entertain her remark and turned back to supervise Alexei and Ava’s fight, while Yelena spun around towards Walker for some affirmation.
“He’s such a poser, right?”
“Absolutely.” Walker sniffed. “And not just in battle. I’ve never seen a man who runs his hands through his hair so much. Like, we get it, you have luscious locks for a hundred-year-old man, but do you have to flaunt it so much?”
“I heard that.” Bucky said loudly, without turning back. Walker gave her a conspiratorial grin.
“So easy to wind him up.”
“I know.”
“But he’s kind of right, you know? I had a sniper friend in the 75th Ranger Regiment who fell out of a tall tree once and only lived because he landed properly. It’s a little flamboyant, but it works.”
“Oh, now you’re all ganging up on me.” Yelena scrunched up her nose at him. “It looks so ridiculous!”
“Breaking all the bones in your body by landing poorly is ridiculous.” Walker countered. “I’m going to throw you in the air now, try to land like Bucky taught you—”
“Ugh!”
Yelena was strong and agile, but there was really no counterattack to a super soldier lifting you from the ground and tossing you into the air like a rag doll. She tried to land on her feet out of spite, and twisted her ankle.
“Ouch!”
“Yikes.” Walker winced on her behalf, and held her up by the elbow while the rest of the team stopped to watch them curiously. “Sorry, but it was kind of your fault.”
“My poor milochka, you know you should listen to your Daddy—”
“Shut up!” Yelena said through gritted teeth, hiding the pain as best as she could because everyone’s eyes were on her and she was not about to be proven wrong about a fighting technique of all things.
“Go sit with Bob.” Walker said almost kindly, but she glowered at him.
“I’m fine. It’s just a sprain. I’ll shake it off.”
“Take five, Yelena.” Bucky echoed. “I’m not letting you fight with an injury.”
“It’s not an injury.”
“Yelena.”
Bucky’s low, stern voice was what did it for her, since she had been slightly afraid of him getting mad at her since the day of Ava’s accidental phasing. Still, she huffed as she stomped over to where Bob was sitting, collapsing to the ground with considerable melodrama.
“They’re so annoying!”
“They care about you.” Bob suggested.
“No, they don’t. Nobody really cares. Except my dad.”
“That’s not true. I care.”
Yelena exhaled slowly, turning to look at Bob properly. “You’re so sweet it hurts, Bob. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“…No.”
“Well, it’s true. I’m glad you’re here. You’re the only normal one among us.”
Bob laughed a little uncertainly. “It’s because I’m useless.”
“Useless? Not at all!”
“I can’t activate the Sentry because I’m scared the Void will come back out. You guys don’t need anyone to…do the laundry or cook dinner, because Val is providing everything, so I’m just kind of…I’m just kind of here, you know?” Bob gestured at his current state. “Sitting. Watching.”
“Providing moral support.” Yelena insisted.
“I don’t think these guys need moral support.” Bob glanced over at the rest of the team. Alexei and Ava were in a headlock now, Ava channelling quantum energy through her suit to counter his strength, while Walker and Bucky were punching at each other, quick and brutal, vibranium clanging against titanium shield.
“No, but I do.” Yelena admitted. “I need someone to fight for. Dragging you out of the Void was the first time in my life I ever felt like I was doing something right. And so you being here just reminds me that I can still do good.”
“Of course you can, Yelena.”
She gave him a small smile, and he smiled back. It was a gift to have Bob here, someone with no ego or repressed grief of some sort; someone who Yelena could just talk to, like a regular person. Yelena nudged him playfully.
“Can you let me do something good?”
“What?”
“I want to teach you self-defence.”
“Oh…I don’t think I’m capable.”
“What if you meet the scary chicken-suit man again, and Bucky isn’t there to punch him in the face? You’re going to need to know how to protect yourself!”
Bob blinked at her. “I think you misunderstood my Void memory. That chicken-suit man was me. Well, me on meth.”
“Oh! Still,” Yelena stood up, favouring the ankle that wasn’t sprained, and tugged Bob up despite his protests, “everyone needs to learn self-defence. Little girls in the Red Room, we learned it as early as we could. I was six.”
“…You were a competent six-year-old. I’m incompetent.”
“No self-disparaging words, Bob.” Yelena reminded, and he clamped his lips shut. “Alright, don’t worry. Just try to punch me, and I’ll teach you how to block it.”
They spent fifteen minutes practicing various ways to block punches or simply dodge out of the way. Bob wasn’t too terrible. He was hesitant and his reaction speed was a little slow, but he made up for it by his willingness to learn. Time passed quickly, and Yelena soon forgot that she had been put on the bench; or that she had a sprained ankle, for that matter.
“This is fun!” She said excitedly when Bob finally blocked one of her favourite moves—slamming her elbow into someone’s face. She’d used that on Alexei once, she recalled in satisfaction. “Bob, you’re doing so well!”
“Thank you.” He sounded awed. “You’re a really good teacher.”
“Well, growing up in a spy academiya has its perks, I suppose.” Yelena stretched her arms, observing Bob and pondering what else she could teach him. “Do you think you could try to use your powers?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried it since that day, and the Void might come back out.”
“Could you try to bring out your powers one-by-one? Not turn into the Sentry, but just use one power, like super strength, for example. Imagine how helpful that’d be if you ever ran into trouble!”
“There’s enough super soldiers on the team, you wouldn’t need me.” Bob deflected immediately, but Yelena refused to give heed to it.
“Just try it. Come on, give me a punch.”
“I might hurt you.”
“You won’t!”
Bob aimed at her face. She caught his fist before it connected; it didn’t have any force at all.
“It’s not working.”
“Maybe you have to believe in yourself to get to your powers.” Yelena suggested. “Close your eyes and imagine being that strong.”
Bob tried again, but the effect was the same.
“I don’t think I can do it, Yelena. I’m not good enough.”
“Bob.” She reminded firmly, and he stood up straighter.
“Right. No self-disparagement.”
“Just try one more time. You’re capable, alright? You have all this power inside you, all this strength, you just need to—”
Bob closed his eyes and aimed at Yelena’s stomach, and this time she didn’t even have the time to register the punch before she found herself flying backwards, the entire training room blurring in her vision until her body smacked into the opposite wall. She crumpled—not onto the ground, but onto something warm and solid.
“What the hell, Bobby!”
…Was that Walker? Yelena opened her eyes to find herself sprawled on Walker’s lap, and he was cradling her head as he yelled at Bob.
“Don’t…not his fault.” Yelena tried to protest, but she felt woozy. Walker looked down at her in shock.
“Christ, I can’t believe you’re still conscious. If I hadn’t caught you before you hit the ground, your head would be smashed to pulp.”
“…Thanks?”
Her head did hurt. She blinked as the different colours in her mind converged into fuzzy images, and suddenly Walker’s face was replaced by Alexei’s.
“My baby! Are you alright?”
“Careful, Alexei.” And that was Bucky. “Give her space, let me check for injuries first.”
“I’ll go for the medics.” That was Ava, she thought, and for a few minutes she drifted in and out of a haze, hearing voices but not able to catch any words at all.
When she came to, she was propped up against a wall and everyone was crowded around her. She searched for Bob immediately.
“Bob! Are you alright?”
“Am I alright? You fainted, Yelena!”
“I’m fine.” Yelena looked fiercely at everyone else for a moment. “I’m fine, it’s not Bob’s fault, and you better not be blaming him.”
“Alright, we’re not.” Walker said impatiently, but Yelena felt the need to make it clear.
“It’s not Bob’s fault he got experimented on and given powers he can’t control.”
“Yes, we all agree on that.” Bucky interjected. “Settle down, will you?”
“Okay.” Yelena said, resigned and frankly in quite a lot of pain. She breathed a little and rested against the wall, looking down at herself—Bucky was wrapping a makeshift splint around her leg, tightening it as he went along. She grimaced.
“You broke your leg. It’s very lucky Walker caught you.” Alexei explained, and he was right next to her, hand on the top of her head and stroking her hair as Bucky worked. It made her feel like she was six again, and suddenly she felt all choked up. “Does it hurt?”
“A little.” She admitted. “I thought Ava was going to get the medics.”
“Our budget doesn’t cover in-house medics yet.” Bucky said grimly as he did the finishing touches, knotting the linen into place. “An ambulance is coming, but I’m just immobilizing your leg until they get here. Don’t worry, we did this all the time in the forties before plaster casts were widely available, and it worked a charm.”
Yelena tried not to squirm too much—but whatever he was doing, it hurt like hell. She breathed and tried to be calm and just focus on the others gathered around her; it still felt surreal that she had a team now, and that she wasn’t binding up her wounds all by herself. Bucky tapped her knee lightly when he finished.
“That’s it, you got through it. Alright, Lena?”
“I’m alright—I’m just really grateful I didn’t live in the forties.” She gave a shaky laugh. “I would really prefer a plaster cast. And an ibuprofen, for that matter.”
Due to her broken leg, Yelena was confined to administrative duties for the next four weeks—her very least favourite kind of work. Still, she didn’t want to let the team down, not when they had been so kind to her despite her penchant for getting herself unnecessarily into both scrapes and arguments, so she took to it with as much gusto as she could summon. Luckily, administrative work was something Bob could do as well, so she took him under his wing and they spent a large part of those four weeks together in the control room, eating snacks and reading through mission alerts.
One bright and beautiful Saturday morning, a signal came in that wasn’t from Mel or Valentina for once. Yelena put down her packet of cashew nuts to peer at the message on the screen.
“Code 505.” She read out. “What does that mean?”
“Wait, I’ve got the instructions manual right here.” Bob flipped through the enormous booklet that had been gathering dust in the control room since they started operations; none of them had seemed interested enough to actually read it. “Signal codes…right. Code 505 is a distress signal.”
“Who sent it?”
He kept reading. “Transmissions can be traced by running the GTLP, meaning the Geographical-Temporal Location Programme, over the original coding.”
“Right.” Yelena cleared her throat and leaned towards the screen—she still wasn’t quite used to speaking to a disembodied AI system. “Run the GTLP, please.”
“Running.” The pleasantly neutral American voice responded. “Signal transmitted from New York City, 1949.”
Yelena stared at Bob, wondering if she heard it wrong.
“1949?”
“But that’s not possible.”
“It must be a prank.” Yelena decided. “Did it come with a message?”
The message flashed on the screen for them to read, and Yelena scanned it quickly; it was either drafted extremely cryptically, or it was some gibberish that someone came up with to throw them on a loop. It wouldn’t be the first time someone from the general public tried to sabotage the New Avengers; they weren’t very popular. She shrugged at Bob.
“I don’t understand it. Do you?”
“Something about a stone and a dance?” Bob read it too, a couple seconds slower than her. “No, it makes no sense to me.”
“Well, we’ll escalate it to Bucky later along with the rest of the alerts that came through this morning, but I still think it’s a prank.”
Yelena and Bob finished sharing the packet of nuts, received a couple more run-of-the-mill mission alerts from Mel, and wandered back upstairs when lunchtime rolled around. It was the weekend, so technically the team was off duty given that they had worked through the week, but it hadn’t taken them long to realize that none of them had any friends in the city. So everyone still hung around the Tower on weekends, and by the second weekend Walker had announced that he would be cooking up Saturday Specials—he had become something of a culinary enthusiast since his wife left him, apparently—and this was the one area where Yelena felt like his cockiness was truly justified. She was blown away every single Saturday, and this routine was unequivocally Yelena’s favourite event of the week.
Today, Yelena and Bob were greeted by the most enticing aroma as they went into the kitchen, creamy and spicy and tangy at once.
“Ooh, what’s that?” Yelena asked, making a beeline towards the stove.
“Tom yum,” replied Walker, stirring at a pot with vigour. “Ready in five.”
“It smells divine!”
Yelena approached the pot and tried to steal a taste with a spoon she grabbed from the counter, but Walker slapped her hand away.
“I said, ready in five.” He repeated, though her positive reaction seemed to please him. “Get out of my kitchen please, I need to focus on getting the garnish right.”
Yelena rolled her eyes at him, but did as he said, heading towards the dining table with her tablet. Might as well get official business out of the way now so she could enjoy Walker’s Thai food in peace. Bucky was already sitting at the dining table, reading some sci-fi novel, and Yelena went to sit opposite him.
“Bucky, we’ve got this morning’s report.” She prompted, and he tore his attention away from his book rather unwillingly. “Five standard mission alerts from Mel, nothing you guys haven’t already done the past few weeks. There was also a distress signal with a timestamp that read 1949, but it’s probably a prank. You don’t know anyone from 1949 who might need our help, do you?”
Yelena asked it as a joke, part of the usual banter about his age, but Bucky suddenly went ghostly white. She stared at him.
“Wait, you do?”
“Give me the message.” Bucky demanded; his voice had gone all wobbly. Yelena watched him curiously as she passed her tablet across the table.
“It seemed like gibberish to me, to be honest.”
But she watched as Bucky read the message and suddenly stood up, his entire body tensed and trembling. His eyes, which had seemed cold and distant for all this time she had known him, now swirled with emotion. He fixed his panicky gaze on her.
“Oh my God. Oh my fucking God.”
“What?” He seemed frozen and it made her freeze up too, wondering what on earth could scare him so much. “Bucky, what is it?”
“Steve.”
He said it in a whisper. Beside them, Bob repeated in wonder, “Steve Rogers?”, as Bucky handed the tablet back to her and sank into his chair like he had lost all the strength in his body. Yelena read the message again, and her heart raced, the meaning of it abruptly becoming clear in light of Bucky’s panic:
LOST STONE GOT DANCE GPS DESTROYED CAN’T COME HOME SGR