Chapter Text
It was dark outside, so Bob and Walker had decided to have an early night. Their day had been very hectic so making sure they had a good night’s sleep was important.
Bob was in Yelena’s room again watching Cucumber sleep. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Bob believed the treatment had already started to work. The little guy had eaten happily before going to bed. That hopefully meant he should recover in no time.
He sat cross legged on Yelena’s bed as he dried his wet hair with a towel. He had showered quickly not wanting to be away from the little guy for too long. Using Yelena’s bathroom with the door open so he wouldn't be to far away if anything happened to the guineapig. Bob knew Cucumber wasn’t a human baby so there wasn’t much that could go wrong while he was in his enclosure, but you could never be too careful.
Yelena had some of his clothes stashed away at the bottom of her set of draws so changing after his shower wasn’t a problem either. Plus, he knew she wouldn’t mind him being in her space as it was pretty normal for the two of them to invade the others living quarters.
Soft brown hair pressed against his forehead as he heard a notification come from his phone. Prior to going to shower he had left an extremely long voice note to Yelena telling her about his day. He had wanted to keep her informed so she didn’t get unnecessarily worried. But Bob had a habit of rambling, so his message ended up being a bit excessive. Towards the end he was pretty sure he started to sound a bit insane.
While he had been recording the message he was surrounded by the woman’s belongings and her familiar scent that always lingered around her room. It must have influenced his brain because he had started to spout out an unrehearsed love confession. Bob’s cheeks coloured as he put the towel he had been using away. He had meant every word, but he wasn’t sure if Yelena had wanted to hear all that mushy stuff right now.
Grabbing his phone and unlocking it Bob went straight to see what the blonde woman had sent him back. His hand trembling as he clicked the app.
Bob didn’t know what he had expected since he did tell her she wasn’t obliged to write back. He understood she was busy and he did send…a lot. But when his dark eyes landed onto a photo of her, he took a deep breath.
She was inside some sort of confined space filled with cleaning supplies which was kind of strange, but he didn’t remotely care since it hadn’t even been the first thing Bob noticed about the image. His eyes had been immediately drawn to Yelena’s face.
Yelena’s hair was messy like she had been running her hands through it.
And the camera was angled so that Yelena’s bright green eyes were looking up at him. It was similar to what Yelena looked like from Bob’s point of view whenever she peered up at him through her thick lashes due to their height difference.
Bob smirked. Had she done that on purpose?
Continuing to take in every small detail of the photo, Bob then noticed that her lips were in a small pout. Her bottom lip looked slightly raw like she had been chewing on it. And she had a slight pink blush dusting her cheeks. She looked really pretty. It was one of Bob’s favourite expressions that she made. Usually, whenever he teased her playfully or she was trying to get Bob to do what she wanted.
Bob’s neck and the tips of his ears burned.
She had her hand in a peace sign right next to her face. It was so cute. Enough to make his stomach churn.
He was getting a truck load of cuteness aggression. So much so he had to grab one of Yelena’s pink side pillows to shove his face into it letting out a muffled groan. He didn’t want to wake Cucumber up.
Was Bob overreacting over a normal photo?
Trick question. No he wasn’t because there was no such thing as a picture being normal when Yelena was in it.
Was he crazy? Maybe. But he didn’t care. She had been thinking specifically of him while she took that photo. Keeping him in mind as she posed and made different expressions into the camera. He was like the luckiest man on the planet.
Before he continued to lose his mind, he remembered there had been a text attached to the image. Quickly he dropped the pillow he had been gripping into his lap and picked his phone back up. His heart stuttering.
I’m glad everything went well with Cucumber, I trust that you’re taking good care of him, Bob. The story you just recounted sounds very tiring, so please get some rest as well. I love you more! and I really want to be able to tell you again in person since I’m very bad at expressing myself over text. But for now, I hope this picture of me in a dusty janitor’s closet after listening to your message is enough <3
I. Love. You. More.
Bob squeezed his eyes shut laughing to himself. He flopped backwards onto Yelena’s bed. She was always so competitive.
He would have to tell her when she got back that it wasn’t humanly possible for her to love him more than he loved her. Bob grinned hugging the pink pillow to his chest.
He was about to turn his phone off and go to bed when he noticed that he had received another text.
Bob’s eyebrows raised when he read the display name.
Bucky? The super soldier never texted him.
I hope Cucumber is doing well; I heard about his condition. Our training clearly has been working, well done for noticing something was wrong. Good quick thinking. We’ll be back tomorrow so we can continue with our sparring exercises then.
Bob blinked slowly. He smiled feeling a bit shy about the praise. Mel must have let Bucky know about what had been going on while he was away. It was really sweet of the older man to send Bob such an encouraging message. Especially when he hadn’t done anything particularly special.
Maybe this was what it was like when you did well on a test and your dad gave you a pat on the back and offered to take you out for ice cream the next day.
Bob was excited for tomorrow. He closed his eyes thinking about all the things he had to look forward to and eventually fell asleep. Soundly mumbling to himself as Cucumber did the same from inside his enclosure.
//+=+//
The sound of harsh footsteps broke Yelena out of her slumber. Her eyes opening wide and her breathing remaining steady. She had never been a deep sleeper. Her handlers had taught her to always be ready for anything. That meant being able to spring into action conscious or not.
Ava was still sleeping softly next to her as Yelena swiftly threw the covers off of her bed. The widow’s feet glided across the carpet as she moved towards the closet. She grabbed her gun off of her suit. Slipping it into the waist band of her pyjama pants.
Mr Jacobs' hotel only had four floors, and the team were given rooms on the highest one. He had clarified that his branches were usually larger, but he decided to downsize this particular hotel because there were only a few small towns and safehouses in the area. The man sounded embarrassed while he said it. Apologising for having his ‘special guests’ stay in such small rooms.
Yelena had rolled her eyes. The man had been authorised by Valentina, so she set her suspicions aside and just believed he was just some idiot hotel owner who did politics on the side for now. Even nodding along to his spiel about how he would tell them all about the mission he had called them for later.
As the noise on the roof got slightly louder, Yelena decided it was time to bring those suspicions back to the front of her mind and go investigate herself.
Because there was no way she was letting a loser like Mr Jacobs pull the wool over their eyes just because Valentina’s employees did a crappy background check.
The noises from earlier had stilled for a moment before the footsteps continued from beyond the ceiling. From her experience Yelena guessed that there was around four to five people all in combat boots trying to make their way into the building via the roof. They had to be newbies to this whole double life thing because their attempt at being stealthy was laughable.
Shaking her head, Yelena made her way over to Ava’s side. Softly she shook the woman’s shoulder. She didn’t want to wake the whole team up on the slim chance her assumptions had been wrong. But Ava was quiet and always efficient at what she did. Plus, her phasing ability would be a big help.
“Mhmm,” Ava mumbled cracking one eye open as she turned to lie on her back, “What…?”
Yelena placed a finger over her mouth and pointed towards the roof with her hand that was holding the gun. It was a bit unnecessary, but it showed Ava that this was a work-related wake up call.
Ava’s brown eyes sprung open as she craned her neck to look up at the roof. She didn’t need to be told what to do next. Ava silently stood on the bed laying her palms flat against the ceiling. Her hands phased through the hard material as she pushed herself upwards. A few seconds went by before the British woman fell back onto her bed.
“About four guys dressed in black uniforms,” Ava whispered getting up to grab a gun from her suit as well, “They had half their faces covered, but it was obvious that they were scrambling for a way to get into this place.”
Yelena nodded.
“What do you think their next move is going to be?”
“Before I ducked one of the men had suggested going through a window.”
Yelena actually laughed out loud at that.
So bad! They didn’t know a thing about infiltration.
Ava smiled back shaking her head.
“They didn’t have a plan and looked way out of their depth,” Ava continued, “They kept mumbling, but the one thing I did make out, is that they mentioned Bucky’s name.”
Yelena frowned. Just Bucky? Not the whole team? That was pretty insulting.
“We should just re name ourselves Winter soldier and friends,” Yelena grumbled as she grabbed her suit off of the floor. Since the threat wasn’t imminent, she decided that they had time to suit up, “While they’re confused, let’s just take them out before they can even get in.”
Ava agreed as she put her armour on, “I’ll phase us both up and then we attack right off the bat.”
It sounded like a good plan. The intruders, or well hypothetical intruders since they hadn’t managed to get in yet, would be easy for the two skilled woman to knock out on their own.
“Then we get them to rat on Mr Jacobs. Ask them if he was the one who hired the group,” Yelena explained zipping up her outfit before moving to stand next to Ava on her bed, “And if it wasn’t Jacobs then he’s still our client and we can still get information about who really sent them.”
Ava nodded before phasing herself up. Almost immediately her hand’s poked back through the ceiling for Yelena to grab on to. The brunette then easily pulled her directly onto the roof.
As soon as one of Yelena boots that Bob had laced up for her made contact with the wet roof, one of the disguised men had turned around and announced their presence to the others.
“Holy shit!” A rough voice spat out, “We can't even get in, how come they just appeared out of thin air.”
Not wasting any time Yelena and Ava just charged right at the group. Anyone who knew anything about combat would have used the fact that the two women were outnumbered to their advantage. But not these dummies.
Instead, they kept bumping into each other!
“I’m supposed to always go left!”
“It’s too late, just stop pushing into me!”
“Eagle three stop trying to hide behind us!”
“Brad-er no eagle one? Just-Move!”
Yelena had disarmed ‘Brad’ after he attempted to shoot her during close range combat…for some reason. Surprised by the fact that the blonde woman had sent his weapon flying, the man tripped over one of the other guy’s feet. Ava then finished ‘Brad’ off with swift kick to the back while he was down.
He was still alive since the new avengerz agreed not to kill anymore. But he definitely wouldn’t be getting back up for a while.
A round of bullets then went off, but instead of making anyone scream in pain all that could be heard was metal hitting the ground as Ava had phased through the ‘surprise’ attack one of the other guys had cleverly decided to send her way.
“That’s ghost you dumbass! We read about her before we-“
“I thought that was the other one!”
“Boys you are so bad at this!” Yelena gleefully sang as she ran towards the tallest man of the group dodging his punches. He then tried a change of tactic. Yelena in response dropped into a split as the man had tried a kick to the head. Smoothly she jumped back onto her feet.
“Okay! At least one of you is sort of trying,” Yelena said supportively, “Still not very good, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Bro she’s flexible!” Brad from earlier murmured as he nursed his side with wide eyes and dirt on his cheeks.
Yelena rolled her eyes with a smile. How did these guys even get hired?
“What an astute observation,” Ava called back casually as she kneed the man who had tried to gun her down right in the face. His lip exploded as his legs shook from the impact. Not finished she kicked the man’s shins causing him to crumble onto the roof. He let out a shaky scream.
Getting desperate now the large man Yelena had been taunting reached out to just try and grab the widow.
Yelena clicked her tongue.
That was the wrong thing to do as she tased him as soon as he got close. Then she sent him tumbling using both her legs to slam into his chest. Due to the force of her kick he fell backwards into the man behind him who had been trying to hide from her line of sight. They both moaned as they made contact with thick concreate.
Ouch.
They would definitely be waking up purple and blue.
Yelena turned around to find Ava tying up ‘Brad’ and ‘dumbass’. She moved aside so Ava could do the same to the other two she had just dealt with. Before Yelena could gloat Infront of the group of losers, her communication device blinked.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Widow. Bring Ghost and meet me in Mr Jacobs’ office on the first floor,” Bucky’s rough voice instructed calmly.
“Huh? Did Jacobs do something bad or is he asking for us?” Yelena asked confused.
“You and Ava tied up the men on the roof, right? So just leave them there I’ll send Alexei to watch them. I need you both here with me. It’s better to explain then”
How did he know they were on the roof?
“Just tell him we’re coming,” Ava said taking her mask off, “It’s Bucky, we should have known he’d be ten steps ahead already."
Yelena nodded, she couldn’t really argue with that. When you were Bucky’s age you had to be that good or it would just be embarrassing.
“Okay we’re making our way down now.”