yelena
JULY 10TH, 2028
“Why don’t you just call me Bucky? Literally everyone else does.”
Yelena clicks her tongue, flexing the toes of the foot that she still has inside of her boot before tapping her fingers against her thigh, “Your parents chose a perfectly reasonable name for you and you went with Bucky. I could say something about how that’s an interesting test of your judgment and self worth or I could just continue to call you James.”
“I think Bucky’s a fine name,” John interjects.
“If you’re going to hump him, please do it in private,” Yelena says, looking from the boys to the window. The ground isn’t visible anymore and all she can see for miles upon miles are stars.
“Woah, I’m not gay,” John retorts, to which Yelena rolls her eyes.
“Don’t sound so offended, Walker,” she says, glaring at him. She doesn’t know why Valentina puts her faith into this idiot but she’s this close to beheading him on this aircraft.
“Я начну ему голову,” Antonia threatens lowly from her seat. A smile cracks on to Yelena’s face. (I will kick his head in.)
“Я думал о том, чтобы обезглавить его,” Yelena admits, amused when she sees Antonia smiling a little bit, too. (I was thinking about beheading him.)
Yelena’s known Antonia for years post-Taskmaster. She’s mostly quiet and predominantly speaks Russian, but she’s fluent in every language that Yelena’s spoken to her in. Despite that, they haven’t spent much time together while Antonia’s recovered from the mind control, which was far more impactful than Yelena’s ever was. She knows that Antonia spent a decent amount of time working with Melina on the Widow initiative, but their paths rarely crossed.
She also knows that along with Melina, Antonia survived the blip, unlike Yelena. She assumes that that’s where her and Melina’s shorthand comes from.
“I hate when they do that,” John grumbles to no one.
“Это такой позор,” Yelena responds sarcastically before readjusting, “Do we need to go over the plan again?” (That’s such a shame.)
“That’s a good idea, actually,” James finally speaks up.
“Oh, thank you, I was fully seeking your approval,” Yelena retorts, “We should be in and out. There’s no reason to sit around and dilly-dally.”
“You know, you sound more American every time I see you,” James interjects, to which Yelena narrows her eyes.
“What does that mean, James?” Yelena asks. He only sits back in his seat with a smug look on his face.
Yelena brushes it off and continues, “Antonia is staying on board and monitoring the carrier. We’ll get information as needed from Alexei and Melina back in Russia. John, you’re monitoring our exits. We need to make this as efficient as possible. And Barnes, you’re coming with me. Efficiency is key.”
“Why am I just monitoring exits?” John whines, not unlike the whining he did when positions were assigned in the first place.
“Because so far, you can’t be trusted to do anything else,” Yelena retorts, “You have to earn your acclaim with me.”
“I can’t believe they put you in charge,” John says.
“You сука-”
“John, I’m not above breaking your arm again,” James warns, shutting the blond up almost immediately.
They arrive at the location - a SHIELD ship in the middle of the Arabian sea. Antonia brings them close enough so that Yelena and James can drop in and get on the top deck.
Adrenaline carries them through the first part of the mission and finding the room with the drives that they need, but Yelena’s stomach turns when James makes a comment through their earpiece.
“Daisy Johnson’s on board and I think Nat’s here, too.”
Yelena’s ears perk up at the first name, not remembering her in her research. She also doesn’t appreciate the way her stomach drops at the mention of her sister.
“We need to stay out of Natasha’s way,” Yelena hisses, not wanting to dwell on the topic anymore. She needs to not deal with Natasha right now. It’s the best for everyone.
James doesn’t say anything in response and Yelena’s suddenly far more appreciative of his presence. She quickly makes her way into the control room that Valentina directed she go to and makes quick work of hacking her way in.
Hacking was never her forte, but it’s not a hard thing to crack and she finds herself bypassing the firewalls within minutes.
“Nat’s only a couple of floors down, we need to get moving,” James says next, and Yelena’s a little more than surprised when she finds that his voice isn’t coming from her earpiece and instead from the entrance of the room.
Yelena huffs, she didn’t know she sucked this bad at getting past firewalls. She gets the information onto the drive regardless and quickly erases any evidence that she’d been there in the first place.
“Let’s go,” she says, pulling the drive out. “We have to get back to that plane before John sends it into the ground.”
James shakes his head, but there’s an amused look on his face as he holds the door open for her and Yelena slides the drive into his hand.
“I don’t know how he was Val’s first addition to the team,” James comments, following her out of the room, “Fucking idiot.”
“I still don’t know how I ended up here again,” Yelena responds quietly, not enjoying the way the comment rolled off of her tongue with no provoking. She’s supposed to be a spy, she’s supposed to be marble, she shouldn’t be spilling like that.
“Val can be convincing,” James responds as they round a corner close to their access point.
Yelena’s blood runs cold when their footsteps stop and she can hear footsteps down a hall nearby. God, if that’s Natasha…
She sucks in a breath, waiting for them to stop. James checks his tracker - what it is really or how it works is beyond Yelena’s comprehension, she’s pretty sure that it came from Wakanda - and quickly pushes open the door to the stairwell.
Someone must be close.
Yelena’s quick about her exit, using her grappling hook that she used to use to get in and out of Kate’s apartment to get to the top of the stairwell. It doesn’t work as well in such close corridors, but it does the job nonetheless.
Bucky’s quickly behind her, pounding up the stairs in a fashion that she wouldn’t prefer because they’re definitely going to be found now, but she guesses as she ascends that this is more a time-saving strategy than a spy-strategy. It doesn’t mean that she likes it any more, though.
She gets to the top of the stairs without much of a problem and shoves open the door, relieved when she sees John only twenty meters away with the hook to get back on the plane in his hand.
Yelena runs up - running is faster with her new leg, it’s bizarre - and is the first to go up and on to the plane again.
She throws the hook back down for James and John, and once they get James up, Yelena notices a figure in the door of the stairwell.
She can’t see the person closely, they’re mostly covered by shadows and they’re too small for Yelena to know who they are, but she knows. It’s Natasha. It has to be.
Yelena can’t help but wonder why she’s just sitting there, why she’s not queuing up a Quinjet to follow them and take them down and execute them all, but they don’t linger long enough for Yelena to sit and figure it out.
She instead ends up sitting in the back of the plane, focusing on a mark on the roof of it. It’s dark, like someone scuffed it in a past life, and she finds herself staring as her mind runs rampant with thoughts of her sister.
She doubts that this will be the last time she sees her.
-
JULY 11TH, 2028
“Everything go okay?”
Yelena looks to her mother, who’s wearing more concern on her face than usual.
“Did Natasha call?” Yelena asks quietly as Melina fixes her flyaways, “I think she was there. Well, James said she was there.”
“She was,” Melina nods, “Your father said he’s joining you next time, and I don’t think I can convince him otherwise.”
“Oh good,” Yelena mumbles sarcastically, following Melina into the house.
Alexei’s in the kitchen, humming along to some Russian song playing on the radio that Yelena doesn’t know the name of, and wearing a maroon apron that’s smudged with god-knows-what.
“Yelena,” he opens an arm for her and pulls her under it and into his chest, “I heard everything went well and you got the stuff!”
“Da, Papa,” Yelena squirms but his grip only tightens before he releases her, “Что вы делаете?” (What’re you making?)
“Бефстроганов из свинины! Рецепт твоей мамы!” Alexei cheers, “Она позволяет мне готовить больше, разве это не чудесно?” (Pork stroganoff! Your mother’s recipe! She’s letting me cook more, isn’t that wonderful?)
“It’s something,” Yelena mumbles. At least it smells good and isn’t burning. “Я собираюсь пойти в душ. Длинная ночь, да?” (I’m going to go shower. Long night, yeah?)
"Он будет готов, когда ты будешь,” Alexei responds, but not before pulling her in for another too-tight hug and sloppy kiss on her head.
Yelena cringes.
She walks into her room and quickly strips out of her shoes and pants before using the air pressure valve on her prosthetic to get her stump loose.
She slides her stump out of it, breathing in relief as it’s finally freed. Yelena doesn’t know when it happened, but at one point she stopped caring about wearing her prosthetic so often and since then, taking it off at the end of the day has been a regular longing. Especially since she had it on since yesterday.
Yelena then rolls her liner off, holding back a gag at how sticky it is with sweat. She hates this part the most.
She then carefully grabs a towel from the hook on her door and makes her way to the bathroom, hopping slowly thanks to the fact that she’s still exhausted and she doesn’t want to slip.
Yelena turns the shower on as soon as she’s in the bathroom, always having enjoyed the way the room would grow warm and steamy, especially in cold winters. While she waits for that to happen, she rinses off the liner with warm water and soap so that it doesn’t get actually disgusting before letting it hang upside down on the counter.
She waits until the mirror gets foggy to take off the rest of her clothing and she doesn’t bother staring at her stump like she does some other nights. Tonight it’s just gross and wrong and a fucked up reminder of what she doesn’t have, even though the toes that no longer exist tingle painfully.
It’s nights like this that she’s most thankful for the shower chair, however humiliating it is, and as soon as she hoists herself into the shower, she sinks into it and lets the water fall over her.
Yelena can’t help but think of her sister. Natasha’s been plaguing her mind since last night (and if she wanted to admit it to herself, also the night before that and the week before that and honestly every day since she left).
She wonders if Natasha’s disappointed in her for everything and if she misses Yelena. There’s an aching feeling in Yelena’s chest that Natasha’s mad at her, but she’s pretty sure that if she entertains that thought right now, she thinks she’ll spiral.
Her mind wanders from Natasha to Kate. Yelena would’ve kept up with Kate, but she thinks it’ll hurt too much. They left things on the wrong foot and knowing that Kate is doing anything but well with her goals would make all of this a waste.
Yelena knows that she needed this time away from her life, to reset and find herself outside of the chaos that has been the last two years. And she knows that Kate needs the time outside of taking care of Yelena through her cancer and that Kate wanted to move her superhero-ing life along.
It just sucks, Yelena can’t help but think as she slowly uses the crap bar of soap to wash off her body. She then lathers it in her hands so that she can wash her face and is tempted to scream her frustrations into her hands until she remembers how not soundproof this house is.
(Don’t ask her how she knows that, she’s still trying to scrub memories of her stupid parents getting involved in stupid activities from her brain.)
The nice thing about having no hair is that Yelena doesn’t have to spend much time washing it, she just has to shampoo it very quickly and rinse it out and she’s done. She hasn’t decided whether that’s a curse or a blessing yet, though.
Yelena closes her eyes again, trying to shut her brain up. It’s just making her sad.
She reminds herself instead that today went okay, that she’s home (or as home as she can be), and that she’s about to eat half-decent food.
Ten minutes later, Yelena finds herself with one of her crutches in her right hand and dressed in PJ pants and one of Kate’s old t-shirts as she goes into the kitchen.
And then she sits at the table with her mother and father and some slightly burnt pork stroganoff and a healthily filled bottle of vodka, and breathes a little easier.
This will be okay.