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Vodka burns like a bitch going down, but that’s exactly how Yelena likes it.
She stares into the empty shot glass and imagines she can see her eye reflected back at her. It has been emptied and refilled and empty again at least five times—she lost count after that—and yet the pain in her head hasn’t been dulled yet. It’s still there, knocking lightly against the inside of her skull, and she refills the glass and empties it again, relishing in the burn.
Nope. She slams the glass back down. Not gone yet.
The bartender is watching her carefully now, an old rag limp in his hands. “You want anything else? Water, or soda?”
“No,” Yelena says bluntly, shooting him a glare that makes him scurry to the other side of the bar. Even though it’s late, there are still people here, and she keeps track of him out of the corner of her eye as he makes small talk with the people over there. She snorts and pours herself another glass. Americans.
Someone slips into the seat beside her, bringing with him the smell of outside and leather, and Yelena doesn’t have to look to know who it is.
“You came,” she says quietly, staring at the drink in her hand.
“Of course I did,” James says, his words just as quiet as hers. “Your message sounded pretty urgent. What’s going on?”
“Since when did the Winter Soldier develop feelings?” Yelena asks, turning to glare at him too. She remembers him as the Soldier, remembers the way he used to tear people to pieces without even blinking, and that was how he was the last time she saw him, so forgive her for being a little taken aback.
James meets her gaze unflinchingly, a startling clarity in the blue of his irises that she doesn’t recall seeing before. “Since I stopped being him. And can you not look at me like that?”
“Why? You scared or something?”
“No.”
“Sounds like you are,” Yelena says.
“I’m not,” James says, and he reaches over and takes the bottle from her, putting it on his other side, out of her reach.
“Hey,” she protests.
“Just finish that and quit,” he says, pointing at the glass in her hand. “Getting drunk isn’t gonna do you any good.”
“You aren’t my father,” she mutters.
“Ask me if I give a shit.” The frankly bored expression on his face tells her that he doesn’t.
Yelena rolls her eyes and downs the shot and hopes but—no, the pain is still there. Fuck. “I—I just wanted—I wanted to ask you some questions.”
“About what?” James asks, lacing his fingers together on the table. He isn’t wearing any gloves, she notes with some surprise, so the dark silver of his metal hand is on full display, a sharp contrast with the pale skin of his other hand. On the metal hand shines a gold ring, visible against the gray.
The words don't want to come up yet, so she stalls for time. “You got married?” she asks, nodding to the ring.
The corner of his mouth goes up. “I did.”
She already knew the answer, of course; the ceremony was on the news in twenty-six countries. “How’s he doing?”
“As much as I wish you did, I know you didn’t call me here to talk about Sam,” James says, shaking his head, but he’s smiling. Once she makes it clear that she’s not going to say anything to that, he says, “He’s good. Knows I’m here, but doesn’t know I’m meeting with you in particular.”
“What’s wrong with him knowing you’re meeting me?” Yelena asks. “Don’t you trust him?”
“Of course I trust him. He actually told me not to tell him who it is,” James says. “And stop avoiding the question. What did you want to ask me?”
She scoffs. “Jesus. So insistent.” Before he can berate her again, she asks, “What can you tell me about John Walker?”
Immediately, James’s face goes hard as stone. “What do you mean?”
Yelena sniffs and looks down at her empty glass. “I can’t tell you… a lot about what’s happening. But I need to know who he is. What he is. And who he might be working for now.” She doesn’t know for sure if he’s working for Valentina, but she needs confirmation. Because if Valentina hired John Walker—
“He’s an idiot, for starters,” James says. “I don’t like him, but he's not a bad guy. He helped us take down the Flag Smashers last year.” Before Yelena can say anything, James adds, “I don’t know who he’s working for now, though. I haven’t heard from him in months.”
“Fantastic,” Yelena mutters. That doesn’t help her at all.
“Why do you want to know?” James asks, alarm vaguely present in his tone. “There’s something else, isn’t there? What is it?”
Well. Now she might as well tell him, right?
“I got hired for a job,” she says, sniffing again. She pulls her phone out of her pocket, her fingers fumbling—she’s drunker than she realized, even if she can't feel it—and opens the file from Valentina before setting the device on the bar. She’ll probably get shot if Val finds out she’s showing this to Captain America’s husband, but she can’t find it in herself to care.
James slides the phone closer to himself, and she watches as he takes in the information on the file, his eyes growing wide. “Yelena—”
“I know,” she says, laughing bitterly and wishing she had more alcohol to drown whatever it is that she’s feeling. “I think Walker is working on something related to this. I don’t know for sure, but my employer has mentioned him before.”
“This is—”
Yelena knows exactly what’s on the screen. It’s a photo of Clint Barton. Attached to it is a message from Valentina: By Christmas. No later. It’s signed by a V.d.F., and for James Barnes, it might be enough to track down who it is, but Yelena doesn’t have high hopes for him.
Besides, the message is clear enough. You don’t have to be an ex-assassin in order to figure out what it means. James just happens to be one. Can’t say the same for myself, she thinks.
“Is this because of Natasha?” James asks.
“He has to pay,” Yelena whispers.
“No, he—” James stops, restarts. “This is not the way to do this. Revenge is not the way to do this.”
“How can you be so sure of that?” she asks sharply.
“Yelena,” he says softly, his metal hand on her shoulder, and suddenly she’s back in the Red Room, another girl’s braid in her hand, a scream tearing out from one or both or neither of them, pain making her body go numb.
Yelena, a faceless man snarls as the Soldier yanks her away from the girl, his cold hand bruising her skin, cracking her open and making her bleed—as if she ever stopped bleeding the moment she set foot in there. You were told to get into formation, the man says. You know what happens when you disobey orders.
She's bleeding, bleeding, bleeding, her veins emptying and then refilling with pain, agony burning her from the inside out. Her lungs aren't working. She can't breathe. She's choking on nothing and everything at the same time and the burn from the vodka feels like a gentle kiss compared to the fire inside her head. She can't breathe. The oxygen is too much. Her vision is going dark. She can't move a muscle. She can't breathe. She can't—
“Get the fuck away from me,” she spits, wrenching herself out of his grip and aiming a punch at his ribs. James twists out of her reach, his hand slipping from her shoulder as he gets up, metal fingers dragging across the bar. He looks ready to fight or run, and she can’t tell which one it is. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the bartender reach for his phone, but James holds out his flesh hand in a placating gesture.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I’ve got this handled.”
The Winter Soldier is a better person than she is now. How funny. How fitting.
Before she can react, he’s grabbing her and yanking her outside, to a back alley where it looks like shit and smells even worse. He lets her go as soon as the door swings shut behind them.
“Don’t touch me,” she snaps, stepping as far away from him as she can manage. Already, her mind is trying to dredge up images of a silver fist slamming into her ribcage, of countless men bending her into the shape of a killer when she was only supposed to be a child. Whether James was in his right mind or not, he contributed to her pain, to Nat’s pain, and her memories won’t let her forgive him so easily, not even when he’s an American hero.
These heroes are all full of shit anyway, Yelena thinks bitterly, steadying herself against a wall as phantom pain blooms along her lungs, bruises springing up like May daisies.
“Natasha wouldn’t want this for you,” James tries.
“You didn’t fucking know her,” Yelena spits, her eyes burning as she looks up at him. “You were there to torture her and me and all the other little girls and you didn’t fucking know her. So don’t act like you know anything about what she would want for me.”
“I knew her enough, all right?” James looks stricken, but he’s trying. “While she was on the run, I knew her. She would go with Sam and Steve to visit me. I knew her. And she forgave me.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and Yelena feels a stab of envy at the sight of it. "She knew everything I did, and she forgave me."
“And yet,” Yelena says, “your friends still let her die. Clint Barton still let her die. He has to pay for what he did.”
“No,” James says, shaking his head firmly. “It wasn’t Barton’s fault.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit.”
“And who told you that?” Yelena throws up her hands. “Barton came back. Natasha didn’t. Can you honestly tell me that you’ve never thought about making someone pay? I mean, fuck, you’re an Avenger, now.” The word tastes bitter on her tongue—those people killed her sister. “You’re telling me you never thought about avenging anyone?”
Something flexes in James’s jaw, and he averts his eyes. “Steve made his choice. Natasha made hers. We need to respect that."
"We?" Yelena scoffs. “You’re a fucking coward,” she sneers, turning on her heel. “This was a mistake.”
“Yelena,” James says, but she’s inside before he can go on. She never wants to lay eyes on him again.
The bartender looks about two seconds from telling her to get out, but another glare sends him away. And now that James is gone, she can have her vodka back. It’s a relief, even though it’s the cheap American stuff that tastes like bleach. Maybe that’s why it's not working as it's supposed to, why she can’t get drunk, why the pain is still ever-present for her.
Before she refills her glass, she stares at the bottom of it. Only this time, it’s no longer her eye staring back at her.
The name for what it is sits on her tongue, but she swallows it down with the rest of the bottle. She sets a hundred-dollar bill on the counter and slips out like a ghost.
She'll face whatever it is later—when the job is done.