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Neither of them were fans of talking, especially talking about feelings.
Alexei was the only one who seemed to enjoy that, but the rest of them always shut him out.
Bob only seemed to be able to do that with Yelena, but she wasn’t a fan of it, and she only accepted it when it was desperately needed.
So, at first, it was very hard to form a bond. Sure, a bond had started in the void, but beyond that… it was difficult to turn this bunch of misfits into a team.
Bucky did his best. Really, he did, he did actually think that one, the world needed them and two, they had what it took to be an Avengers team.
But it was difficult for Bucky. Still, he did it.
At the end of the day, the team wasn’t perfect, very far from it. But it was a team that worked, under Yelena’s leadership. Bucky helped her with that, and she seemed to appreciate the effort.
They worked together well, even if behind closed doors they were a chaotic mess and the only ones who were actually friends were Yelena and Bob.
Bucky was okay with that. He thought so, at least, and then something happened, something changed, and it was all because of a dad with bow and arrows.
✽
It was 3AM on a Tuesday night.
Bucky couldn’t sleep, as it happened from time to time, so he grabbed his kindle and made his way to what they called The Operations Room, but really it was the one room where bad things happened, the one with a bar, which they added things over the months, couches and armchairs.
He sprawled on a couch and read for half an hour before Yelena showed up.
They were both in pajamas, but her hair was messier. And judging by the look in her eyes, she didn’t have insomnia, she had a very bad dream.
Yelena sat down on the couch next to him, close enough to touch but she didn’t. Bucky put his kindle down and leveled her with a look.
‘Wanna talk about it?’
She shook her head. ‘Talk to me about something else.’
‘Like… what?’
‘Anything. Tell me a story.’
That… was new. She never did anything like this before. But… Bucky was willing to make this work, and he had quite a few stories to tell.
‘Pick one.’, he said with a small smile. ‘The one where Steve and I skipped highschool one day and just walked around Brooklyn, talking with as many people as we could, or the one where I played hide and seek with Sam’s nephews and absolutely obliterated them.’
Yelena chuckled, and she opened her mouth to answer, but didn’t get the chance to.
The elevator doors opened, and they were both very startled, they instantly got up from the couch.
Clint came out of the elevator. He was relaxed, dressed casually, in a hoodie and a dark jacket, a backpack on his back. He was also grinning.
‘Hey, guys! What’s up?’
Bucky was the first to snap out of it. He made his way to the man’s side and shook his hand.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was in the neighbourhood.’, Clint shrugged. ‘A friend needed some help and my flight’s in the morning. Thought I’d check in on you guys.’
Then, his eyes moved to Yelena, who was still rooted to the spot, evidently tense.
‘Still wanna kill me?’, Clint asked her with a tight smile.
‘No.’, she said after a moment. ‘No, I…’, she shook her head, relaxed her stance. ‘Sorry.’
‘That’s good to know.’, he smiled at her, genuinely, before turning to Bucky. ‘Got any snacks?’
He snorted, but made his way to the bar.
‘How did you get in?’, Yelena asked.
‘I have my ways’, Clint said cryptically, but then he chuckled. ‘I’ve lived here for quite awhile. And whatever Valentina changed in the building, she didn’t change quite everything.’
‘There’s a very small open hatch in the basement.’, Bucky told her. ‘It leads to the vents.’
‘That’s the one.’, Clint nodded. ‘It’s weird being here without Friday, though.’
‘What are you really doing here?’, Yelena asked.
She was back to sitting on a corner of the couch, Clint on the other. Bucky dumped a bunch of snacks on the coffee table, handed them each a soda, and sat down across from them, on the floor.
‘Really, I just have a few hours to pass.’, Clint said easily. ‘I wasn’t even going to wake you up, if you were sleeping, but you’re not. So…’, he shrugged. ‘I don’t know you guys very well, but you were important to people who were important to me.’
Slowly, very slowly, Bucky managed to look up at Yelena. She was already watching him. Whatever nightmare she had was still leaving its mark, but in her eyes, there was a new sort of pain.
Bucky didn’t know much. She never told him, but he knew something had happened between her and Clint and Kate, at one point after Natasha died. He kinda… wanted to know now, which was surprising to him.
Yelena didn’t know a lot, either. She probably knew more than most people knew about the Winter Soldier and Srg. Barnes, but still, she never really asked. Bucky found himself wishing she’d ask, which was even more surprising to him.
Bucky took a deep breath and turned to Clint.
‘You helped a friend out? Cause I’ve been keeping an eye on Kate Bishop.’
‘You have?’, both Clint and Yelena asked.
Bucky shrugged. ‘She’s pretty good, for a kid. Her team, too.’
‘That’s why I was here.’, Clint said slowly. ‘Lila wants to join.’
‘Who’s Lila?’, Yelena frowned.
‘My daughter.’, Clint chuckled. ‘It’s a long story, but… She’s moved here for college, got mixed up with Kate accidentally and… Hell, who am I kidding? Lila’s gonna join Kate’s team.’
They were all silent for a long moment. ‘Well, I’ll keep an eye on them both.’, Bucky eventually said.
‘And Kate has my number.’, Yelena added. ‘She can call anytime.’
Clint smiled at them both, saying a grateful ‘Thanks, guys’. Then he relaxed in his seat and leveled them with a look.
‘So how’s your team doing? I only know what I saw on TV. How are you guys holding up?’
Both Bucky and Yelena looked away from Clint, quickly.
Still… Bucky found himself wanting to talk. Not to Clint, necessarily, but to Yelena. He looked at her, saw her looking down at her lap, where she was fiddling with her fingers.
‘We’re a good team.’, Bucky slowly told Clint. ‘We work well together, we get shit done. Valentina is a massive problem, but at the moment we’re managing it well. We’re not talkative people, though.’
Clint snorted. ‘I can imagine. It ain’t good, though, for a team.’
Bucky smiled sadly. ‘I heard that in Steve’s voice.’
‘Yeah, buddy, me too.’, Clint laughed.
Yelena finally looked up, and she looked at Bucky. ‘You have his shadow over you, always.’
‘And you have Natasha’s.’
She nodded. ‘How could we possibly ever live up to that?’
‘You’re doing pretty well, from what I’ve seen.’, Clint said, making both of them turn to him. ‘You are a team. You get shit done. But… you’re people, too. And people need to talk to each other.’
‘Look, I don’t wanna go all vintage Avenger on you’, he went on, ‘but I’ll tell you this. My Avengers? We were a mess. We could never agree on a thing, not even on what food to order on a Tuesday night. But… I had Natasha to talk to. Steve had Natasha, Tony had Bruce, Thor had Steve. It worked. It shouldn’t have, but we worked like that.’
Slowly, Bucky nodded. ‘Bob has Yelena. Yelena has Alexei, and Alexei has Yelena.’
‘Ava has me.’, Yelena went on. ‘Who do you have?’
‘Who does John have?’
‘Ava.’, Yelena said quickly. ‘In the past weeks, he goes to her. I don’t know why, but it works. So who do you have?’
Bucky took a deep breath, and ignored how he felt his hands shaking a little.
‘I had Sam, for a while. He’s not… answering his phone as often, anymore. But… I was just about to tell you about how I absolutely obliterated Sam’s nephews in a brutal game of hide and seek.’
It took a moment, but Yelena smiled. ‘I’d like to hear that story. But I…’, she hesitated, leaned forward, locking her eyes on Bucky’s. ‘I think I’d much rather hear the story of what you did when you were on the run from the government with Steve, of what you did in Wakanda, of what happened when Steve disappeared off the face of the Earth after The Blip, of how you had a hand in Sam becoming Captain America, of how you got to be a Congressman.’
‘And I’d like to hear of how you were raised in the Red Room.’, Bucky nodded. ‘I was there, but I never crossed paths with you or Natasha.’
Yelena was shocked by that. Bucky went on, with difficulty.
‘And I want to know what happened when the Red Room fell. And what happened to you with Clint and Kate. And how you got to work for Valentina.’
They just kept looking at each other, a lot of emotions in both of their eyes.
‘Later, though.’, Clint startled them. ‘I mean, that’s gonna take awhile. Could you wait till after I’m gone?’
Yelena was the first one to laugh. She relaxed, looking at him.
‘So tell me, how is Kate Bishop doing?’
With that, they went on to talk about other things, easier things. For the next couple of hours, they just ate chips and drank soda, talking about this and that and funny memories and embarrassing ones and it was a pretty good night.
Clint hugged them both before he left, and he told Bucky where he had stashed guns and arrows in the building.
When it was just Yelena and Bucky, alone again, she took a deep breath and grabbed his hand. It was the metal one. When she spoke, she didn’t look at him, kept looking at the closed doors of the elevator.
‘Since this started, you have been helping me a lot with leading this team. It’s about time I started helping you, too.’
‘Okay.’, Bucky managed to say.
‘And it’s about time I admit I’m going to need your help with other things, too.’
‘Okay.’, he said again, managing to sound stronger.
She turned to look at him. ‘But I am not, and I will never be your love interest.’
Bucky rolled his eyes. ‘We were having a moment, you had to go and ruin it.’
Yelena moved to walk away, but he didn’t let her, he held onto her fingers tightly, and he smiled when they locked eyes.
‘I didn’t obliterate Sam’s nephews in hide and seek. I let them find me over and over again, just to make them happy.’
‘I know.’, Yelena said after a moment, a small smile in the corner of her mouth. ‘I don’t know you very well, but I know that. And I know you miss Steve something horrible.’
He nodded. ‘About as much as you miss Natasha.’
‘Did you know her?’
He shook his head. ‘I saw her once, when she let me and Steve go, even if she was on the other side. But… Steve told me stories, if you’d wanna hear them.’
‘Yeah.’ Yelena breathed out shakily. She was close to crying. ‘Yeah, I want that.’
Bucky did something impulsive, and he let go of Yelena’s hand in order to hug her. It was good that he did, because she started crying against his chest, and she held onto him tightly, and she let him hold her for a long while.
She was the one to stop the hug, when her cries turned to sniffles. Then, Yelena glared at him, poking his chest with her index finger.
‘This did not happen, Bucky Barnes.’
‘Taking it to my grave.’
‘Good.’
They left, and both of them slept for so long, the rest of the team got worried.
✽
Four months later, as Doom was wreaking havoc on their planet, as they were standing beside a whole bunch of other superheroes, Yelena grabbed his fingers again.
‘This is insane.’
He snorted. ‘Welcome to the Avengers life.’
‘They’re all insane.’
Bucky grabbed her fingers tightly, grinning at her. ‘So are we, doll.’
It got him a slap to the back of he head and a few weird looks from the people around him. But it also got him the unspoken words he could read in Yelena’s eyes, I’m glad you’re here with me , and that was all that mattered.