Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s a matter of some debate, afterwards, as to who was actually the first to spot Melina in the Watchtower.

John will swear up and down that he saw a cleaning lady coming out of Alexei’s suite who must’ve been her. Ava, of course, will counter and say that she saw a woman in the emergency stairwell a week before that - only a glimpse, of course, and with too-light hair, but who else would’ve been sneaking through there at two in the morning, not stealing anything? Bucky will have a few different instances of someone getting just barely caught on security footage around Alexei’s rooms late at night, but everyone else maintains that that doesn’t count as seeing it himself. Also, there’s no way to prove that it’s Melina on camera, besides ‘who else would want to be there?’

The first person to actually catch her, though, is Bob.

It’s kind of a ridiculous situation that leads to it, and he knows it’s ridiculous. It’s been a handful of weeks since what Bucky calls “the Incident” and Alexei calls “the Assembling of the Team”, and in that time, pretty much every night Bob has either been woken up by Yelena coming down to his suite to crawl into his bed, or he’s given up on sleep on his own and gone to crawl into her bed. Literally nothing has happened besides sleeping - if it had, he might’ve known where he stood enough to just cut to the chase and join Yelena from the beginning every night. As it is, they’re stuck doing this weird dance.

Which is fine! He would rather be doing this than not having anything to do with Yelena at all. She’s kinda become...everything to him, since the Thing that he’s only remembered in bits and pieces so far. He’s not gonna mess that up, no sirree.

But anyway, it’s because of this that he’s out of bed at one in the morning, creeping up to Yelena’s floor. He takes the stairs, because the elevator is kinda loud to enhanced ears at night, and he doesn’t want any of the Super Soldiers Three catching him at this. It’s dark, and he’s a little fuzzy from not sleeping right, but he’s mostly sure that he’s counted the number of levels right. Yelena’s is the topmost residential level, where her sister used to live way back when.

He opens the stairwell door quietly and slips inside, and the first thing he notices is that there are lights on. The second thing is that there are rugs and old Soviet propaganda posters on the hallway walls, which are definitely not part of Yelena’s decor (she doesn’t actually have much decor yet). The third thing is the smell, not unpleasant, but a distinct mix of vodka, CK One, and a floral scent he can’t identify. The fourth thing is the pile of stuff on the floor a few feet away - a lab coat and scrubs that look like what they wear in the labs downstairs, a short black wig, and something shimmery that he takes a moment to recognize as one of those facial disguise things.

Bob freezes. There’s an intruder in the Watchtower; he should do something. But he’s not sure what that something should be - he’s been told in no uncertain terms to stay out of fights, so he probably shouldn’t try to handle this himself. Should he go for Yelena or one of the others and risk the intruder getting away? Should he find a panic button and sound the alarm and risk having to confront the intruder himself?

While he’s debating with himself, he hears voices speaking Russian down the hall. One of them, male, might be Alexei’s; the other is a woman’s and definitely not Yelena’s.

Then a woman comes around the corner towards him, still talking in Russian, wearing a black combat jumpsuit and with dark hair pinned up on her head. She looks kind of like if the lady from The Mummy was his mom’s age and gave the impression of being very deadly, and she smiles back over her shoulder at someone. The someone she’s smiling at comes around the corner too, and turns out to be Alexei in a bathrobe, and he grins and plants a big smooch on the lady, and she starts to kind of twine herself around him, and Bob yelps, understandably startled.

The two of them separate, spotting him.

“Who is this?” Mystery Lady asks in accented English, and “Bob! What, what are you doing here?” says Alexei, and “Bob? Why are you...wait. Mama?” says Yelena.

Wait. Says Yelena. Who’s just come in behind him from the stairwell.

Bob twists around to face her. “Yelena? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know!” She gestures broadly. “I was going...downstairs like I do when I can’t sleep, only then I heard you as I was coming past this door, and when I came to see what was wrong I saw my mom is here somehow without telling anybody.”

“I told Alexei,” Mystery Lady - Yelena’s mom? - interjects.

“That doesn’t count. I hadn’t heard from you in months and now when I do it’s because you broke in to see him and not me.”

“I tried to tell her --” Alexei offers.

“You are leader of New Avengers,” Mystery Lady says. “It is better if you have plausible deniability about continued connections to the ex-Widow network.”

“I don’t care about that,” Yelena says, her voice shaking. “I just wanted my Mama.”

At this possibly least opportune moment, the stairwell door bursts open and Bucky, John, and Ava all pile in, knocking Yelena aside and into Bob. He catches hold of her without thinking about it and then doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and the other three all stumble to a halt as they presumably spot Alexei’s hand still on Mystery Lady’s waist.

“What are you all doing here?” Alexei rumbles.

“Silent alarm went off,” Bucky says, rotating his shoulders restlessly. “Indicated a situation on this level.”

Yelena gestures with the arm that’s not pinned between her and Bob. “Look, I was going by and heard Bob yell, okay? Figured it was an intruder.”

“Well, uh, you would yelp too if you wandered onto the wrong floor and saw Alexei randomly making out with somebody!” Bob says defensively. “No offense, man.”

“I take little bit of offense,” Alexei says. “We are married, is not so shocking.”

“You were fake married for three years in the ‘90s and haven’t lived together in years,” Yelena says, rubbing her temples like she’s trying to either ward off a headache or hide.

“So we are good at long-distance,” Mystery Lady says. “‘Lena, are you going to introduce your friends, since they are here?”

Yelena sighs. “Ahh sure. Why not. Melina, these are my new friends Bob, Ava, Bucky, and John, which you probably already heard about from the news and Alexei. Everybody, this is my mom, Melina Vostakoff.”

“You need to increase security in this place,” Melina says casually. “It’s ridiculously easy to get in and out, I tell Alexei every time.”

“Every time?” Yelena interrupts, breaking away from Bob to advance a few steps down the hall. “How many times have you been here without letting me know?”

The argument descends into Russian at that point. Alexei shoots the rest of them a shooing signal that probably means the three of them need to work this out without an audience, and Bucky starts to nudge the rest of them out. Bob hesitates, feeling vaguely like he should help Yelena...but he doesn’t really have any idea what that would look like, so he shuffles back to his floor to try to get back to sleep.

In the morning, when he ventures down to the common area to try and find some breakfast, he finds Yelena eating buttered bread with a bunch of stuff piled on it, and Melina making enough eggs for a small army. She loads him up with a bunch when she sees him, and with Bread With Stuff, and some kind of oatmeal, and the others get more of the same when they turn up. Whatever fight was being had last night seems to have been resolved.

Melina disappears without a trace sometime later in the day, but Yelena doesn’t seem super bothered by it.

“She’ll be back,” she says, stretching out on the couch with her feet in Bob’s lap. “She’s got this whole operation, life, thing going on. I never expected her to stay. Just to actually let me know if she’s coming is all.”

Bob doesn’t really get it, get Melina. Why would anyone choose to miss out on time with Yelena? Why would anyone not grab all the time they could with the person they loved? 

But he decides he doesn’t need to get it, with how happy Yelena and Alexei are when Melina drops by again (still breaking in and disguised) a few weeks later and greets everyone like she was barely away.

Chapter Text

The greatest days of Alexei’s life have always begun without fanfare.

The day he was chosen to be the Red Guardian. The day he first met Melina and the girls (though he would only come to truly appreciate that later). The day he first saw the Avengers on a tiny prison TV and realized his Natasha was one of them, fighting alongside Captain America, no less. The day his girls came for him, and he saw Melina again. The day Yelena came back after a year away, heralding the start of something new and glorious. All had begun as completely ordinary, even boring days, and this is no different.

He’s just finished an afternoon workout (in a gym actually built for supersoldiers; he could get used to this), and stops at the common floor because that always seems to have the best snacks. When he arrives, there are people talking just out of sight, which makes him pause. ‘Lena and Bob are out on some sort of errand, and John and Ava are sparring downstairs still. Bucky is here, and one of the voices sounds like his, but who is there for him to be talking to?

“...tried to call him, you know? To explain things. But he never picks up or calls back. It’s not like I don’t understand why he’s mad, I’d be pretty ticked off if it were the other way around. But it’s not like I planned on this.”

“I know, Buck,” an older-sounding voice says, and Alexei peers around the corner to see an old man with silver hair combed flat, wearing a tan jacket, sitting across from Bucky in the open-plan living area. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you couldn’t retire like you wanted. I was real proud of you getting into Congress.”

“Yeah, well, that wasn’t ever really gonna be a great fit,” Bucky says, shrugging his left shoulder. “And...it might not seem like it, but I’ve got a pretty decent team here. Even Walker. It’s not the Howlies, or your lineup of Avengers, but I think we’ll do some good. Sam can have his team and call ‘em whatever he wants and handle the aliens and magic and apocalypses and whatever while we tackle the ground-level stuff. Or at least we could have it that way if he would just listen .”

“I’ll talk to him,” the older man says. “See if I can bring him around. It’s not gonna do anybody any good to have Avengers split up and not talking to each other again.”

“Thanks, Steve,” Bucky says, and Alexei freezes.

After the Blip, Captain America had disappeared, with no explanation given. Everyone knew that his Natasha and Iron Man were dead, and the Vision, but they had never announced any such thing about Captain America. Just that he was gone, retired, nothing more.

But if he had somehow become an old man - Alexei had no clue how, but there were many strange things in the world, Melina had gotten a message from Natasha near the end of the Blip that hinted at time travel - that would explain a great deal. And who else would Bucky ask to mediate with Sam Wilson and address as Steve?

And now that he knows that the real original Captain America is right there, not a hundred meters away, there is nothing on earth that could deter him from bursting into the living area with a cry of delight. “Captain America! A great honor to meet you again.”

The Captain looks nonplussed, and Bucky tenses. “Alexei,” he says. “Didn’t know you were here.”

“Somethin’ the matter, Buck?” the Captain asks carefully.

Bucky hesitates, then says, “Steve, this is Alexei Shostakov, one of my new team. I mighta mentioned him.”

“Yep. Natasha’s dad, right? And the Red Guardian.” The Captain stands and shakes Alexei’s hand, his grip strong, if perhaps not quite as strong as it once was.

There was a time when being recognized as a father before being recognized as the famed Red Guardian would have deeply irritated Alexei, but under these circumstances, he finds that he doesn’t mind. “Yes. And her sister, my Yelena, is now on this team.” He hesitates - perhaps he wasn’t right after all, perhaps the Captain won’t remember... “It has been long time since we last met.”

The Captain nods. “About forty years ago, right? I was supposed to be retired, but I ran a few covert missions in your neck of the woods. You were pretty tough.”

Alexei thinks he might just burst with sheer joy and vindication. Year, years he’s been telling that story, and so few have ever believed him. But he had known who his opponent all those years ago had to have been, had recognized him from the old American propaganda films he had been shown during his training.

“Wait, what?” Bucky says, startled. “You were going on missions in the ‘80s?”

The Captain shrugs. “Sometimes there was no one else SHIELD could send. A few times I just wanted a chance to look for you - I’m sorry I couldn’t find you and get you out. But yeah, a couple of those times I ran into the Red Guardian.”

“ What? ” That’s Yelena’s voice, from behind him; Alexei turns and sees that she and Bob have returned. She looks stunned. “You mean those stories about fighting Captain America were true ?”

“Who fought Captain America?” John asks, coming in from the elevator with Ava, the two of them leaning on each other.

“Alexei. He used to tell us bedtime stories about it,” Yelena says blankly.

“That’s impossible,” Ava interjects. “The 1980s would have been smack in the middle of when he was frozen.”

“Yeah, well, after the Blip he got sent on a quick time-travel errand and decided to stay in the ‘40s and retire,” Bucky says, growling a little. “Except apparently he wasn’t completely retired and went runnin’ around sometimes in the next few decades without anyone watching his back. You punk, I told you not to do anything stupid.”

There’s a small ‘thunk’ as John drops his water bottle. “You’re Captain Steve Rogers,” he says weakly.

“These days, it’s just plain Steve,” the man in question says firmly. “I’m not here to pick any fights with anyone.” He looks meaningfully at both John and Alexei. “I’m just here to visit a friend.”

Alexei, to his own deep internal pride, recovers first. “Of course, there will be no fighting. We are colleagues, yes? Fellow supersoldiers, opposite but equal.”

“Alexei,” Yelena starts behind him, but he forges on.

“You two have not seen each other in long time, da?” he says, gesturing between Bucky and Steve. “Always the way with people like us - big things happen, we get busy, we do not talk, but then we find each other again. You will stay for supper - big Russian meal, give you chance to catch up.”

“Uh--” Bucky says.

Alexei gestures to Bob, still standing beside a Yelena who doesn’t seem to know where to look. “Bob, you will help me? What is status of dinner supplies?”

“Um...” Bob looks from Alexei to Yelena to Bucky to Steve, who gives him an encouraging nod that seems to be what he needs. “Um, I got all the stuff we would need for solyanka a couple days ago, ‘cause I was gonna give that a try...and I’ve been keeping the stuff for pelmeni around since that was such a hit before.”

Such a smart boy. ‘Lena chose well with this one. Alexei rubs his hands together. “I will teach you now. ‘Lena, Ava, I will make you list for trip to the store if we do not have enough with extra supersoldier guest.”

“Alexei...” Bucky says slowly. “Maybe we should just...”

Steve puts a hand on his shoulder. “It’s fine. Dinner sounds great.” He looks over at John, who is looking like he wants to steal Ava’s ghost power and disappear. “At ease, son. I’m not about to bawl you out.”

For a short second, John reaches for the brash arrogance he uses like his shield, and then deflates. “Kinda figured you’d think I had it coming,” he says.

“From what I’ve heard, a lot of people made choices they should’ve have in that mess,” Steve says calmly. “You were one of ‘em, but you weren’t the only one. If Bucky says that’s done - which he has - then it’s done. I’ve got no fight with you.”

John slumps in relief, and Alexei leaves them to it, satisfied that all is well. He can reminisce and swap stories with Captain America later. Right now, his mission is food, the great equalizer that will keep everyone content so they do not spoil this glorious occasion.

(Later, after many bowls of solyanka and many stories and a healthy amount of vodka even though it doesn’t have the same effect anymore, Alexei and Steve will end up challenging each other to arm wrestle, despite Yelena’s and Bucky’s misgivings. Alexei is cautious at first, not wanting to break his older opponents bones, but when they lock their hands together, he can still feel a strength beyond ordinary men pushing back at him, and he knows victory, if it comes, will not come easily.)

Chapter Text

They’re halfway through The Incredible Shrinking Man when they get the call from security.

John isn’t sure whether or not to be annoyed by this. On the one hand, the only part of the movie he’s really interested in is Ava’s snarky commentary. On the other hand, they’d been watching it just the two of them, everyone else busy with this and that, and she’d ended up curled up against him, and even if it was just because there was no one else available and she needed touch to ground her sometimes, he was going to enjoy it while he could.

Except now Ava is up and pacing as she talks to some guy who works the front desk downstairs.

“Just run it through your scanners or whatever you’ve got down there. I don’t see what your problem is, “ she says, clearly reaching the end of her patience.

“We can’t, ma’am. The courier is saying he was instructed to deliver it straight to you - hey!”

Another voice comes over the intercom. “Hey! Ms. Ghost lady, I mean Ava. I gotta delivery from Dr. Pym for you, but this new place you got has some very impressive security, I’m takin’ mental notes, y’know, for improvements we can make at X-Con --”

The front desk guy interrupts. “Ma’am, do you want me to engage lockdown protocols?”

Ava sighs. “No, he’s not a threat, he’s an...old friend. X-Con is his security company. Send him up. I think I know what’s in the package anyway.”

“Ma’am,” the front desk guy starts.

“Look, if it is something nefarious, we’re likely better equipped to deal with it than you lot,” Ava says. “But it’s not. So send him up.”

Withiin another couple minutes, the elevator dings, and John starts to wonder if the security team needs retraining on threat analysis, because the man who steps out is possibly the least threatening person he’s ever seen. He’s staring around at everything with wide, awed eyes, and when he spots Ava, he greets her with a big grin and a wave. “Ey! Long time no see.”

“Indeed,” Ava says, in a tone somewhere between amused and uncertain. “The last time wasn’t exactly on the friendliest of terms.”

“Yeah, but you’re totally tight with Dr. Pym and the Van Dyne ladies these days, so no hard feelings. Oh, speaking of which.”

He holds out the cardboard box, about the size of a carry-on bag, that he’s brought, and John instantly revises his threat analysis, because the box has about half a dozen different hazard labels slapped all over it, and warnings like DANGER, PERISHABLE, HAZMAT, and KEEP UPRIGHT ^ written in Sharpie in the space that’s left.

John moves without even thinking about it to put himself between Ava and the box, but she takes it before he can.

“Oh, there’s no need to look like that,” she says, catching his expression. “It’s fine. It’s just something I take to prevent quantum instability. Usually I pick it up in San Francisco, but now that I’ve got a...permanent address, I would’ve thought Hank would just mail it.”

She looks back at Luis. “I’m not sure which confuses me more, that he felt the need to send this by courier across the country, or that he employed you as courier. No offense.”

“Oh, none taken,” Luis says quickly. “And I did ask about mailing it, not ‘cause I wasn’t interested in a trip to NYC, because I’ve been thinking about hitting up the Museum of Modern Art to check out their Rothko gallery --”

Ava clears her throat.

“Right, yeah, anyway, I asked Dr. Pym, I was all, ‘Yo, how come you can’t mail this, bro, UPS has gotta be way cheaper than comping me for a cross-country road trip,’ and he was all, ‘I can’t, bro, ‘cause of this incident in 1970’, so I asked about what happened in 1970, and apparently, these mail room dudes tampered with a shipment of his and got real sick, and then they said they didn’t have it, and then when he got back to his lab it’d been robbed, and so he never trusts important stuff through the mail anymore.”

“Huh,” Ava says after a long moment.

“Oh yeah, that was probably Steve and Tony,” says Bucky from the corner, making John startle, since he didn’t even notice him come in.

“What?” he says, because he’d thought he heard all the insane Steve Rogers stories when the man himself came to dinner a handful of weeks ago, but this isn’t ringing a bell.

“When they were running around with the time travel thing at the end of the Blip,” Bucky says, like that’s a normal string of words. “They had to make a detour to a SHIELD base in 1970 to grab the Tesseract and some of Pym’s tech. Steve told me about it after, and he faked a mail room emergency with one of Pym’s deliveries so he could get in and grab the stuff.”

“Oh, that’s really good to know,” Luis says. “You good if I tell Dr. Pym about that? ‘Cause as much as it is very cool to visit New York and get to catch up with Ava here and all her superhero friends, I can’t be makin’ this trip every few months, y’know what I’m sayin’? I gotta run a business, and we been hoppin’ ever since Scotty’s autobiography came out.”

“ Look Out for the Little Guy , da?” Alexei comments as he strolls in. “Very inspiring. I have asked our PR team if we do something like that, but they are...evasive.”

“Yeah, no one wants to read about all the stuff we did before this, Dad,” Yelena says, coming in behind him with Bob. “Why are you even bringing that up again - oh. Hi. Did we know we were getting a visitor?”

Ava takes a deep breath. “All right. This might as well happen. Everyone, this is Luis, he’s a...friend of a friend. He’s come to deliver a supply of quantum healing particles that I have to administer on a regular basis to keep my body stable on a molecular level and let me control my phasing without being in constant agony. Luis, these are...well, you probably know who they are from the news.”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Luis says, nodding. “And can I just say, it is a very great honor to meet all of you. I know a lotta people might not think you guys are the real deal, but us ex-cons gotta stick together, am I right?”

“Technically, not everyone here has been convicted of a crime,” John says before he can stop himself, and then wishes he’d said almost anything else.

“Right, yeah, I heard all about Mr. Barnes getting pardoned,” Luis says, not batting an eye and by all appearances completely oblivious. He turns towards Bucky. “I mean, Senator Barnes, that is. And by the way, sir, I was very sorry to hear you wouldn’t be running for Congress again, I would’ve voted for you if I were one of your constituents.”

“...thanks,” Bucky says after a pause. Then, “How’s Scott doing these days, I take it he couldn’t make it out here.”

Ava’s making some kind of rapid gesture at Bucky as he speaks, but neither he nor Luis seems to notice.

“Oh, he’s doing great,” Luis says. “He’s got that book thing goin’ on, y’know, and he’s doing all these events for that, and for a little bit there it was kinda rough with him and Cassie, that’s his daughter, ‘cause she was all like, ‘we gotta help these dudes that came back from the Blip and got no place to go’, and it is very true that a lotta infrastructure for helping out the homeless went away when the population went down in the Blip. But Scotty was all like, ‘I missed five years of your life, and  now that I’m back you’re not the cute little kid I remember, but my heart is all confused and still wanting you to be all little and innocent.’ And then, they got in kinda a tight spot with Dr. Pym and the Van Dynes, with that Quantum Realm place that Ms. Van Dyne was stuck in for a long time, ‘cause she’d met this other dude while she was there, y’know, and he was gonna come conquer the planet or something --”

“What?” John yelps, and he’s not the only one.

“Oh, no no no, it’s all good, they got it handled,” Luis says quickly. “Yeah, that dude got totally wiped out. It’s just that Scott took a major beatdown, like a lotta broken bones, and he’s mostly good but it’s not great if he’s in a car for long periods of time still.”

Ava nods. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she says, “but I’m glad he’s all right.”

“Yeah.” Luis nods. “And I was supposed to tell you that next time you need a resupply, you oughtta drop by San Francisco and catch up, or if you got tired of being an Avenger, you could just come and stay.”

John freezes, he doesn’t even know why, but Ava shakes her head. “I truly appreciate the offer, but...I’ve found something good here. I think I’ll be staying for the foreseeable future. Although I might visit if Hank continues to be recalcitrant about mailing the healing particles.”

“All right, you got it.” Luis checks his watch. “Ah, man, I gotta go, I got an Uber coming in five. Scott and Hope wanted me to liaise with some of the other super people around here what with that whole anti-vigilante thing they got goin’ on. Great to meet you guys, hopefully we’ll cross paths again without, like, the end of the world happening.”

In the wake of his departure, the others wander back to whatever they were doing before, but John lingers as Ava plays with the tape on the box. 

“That guy was...a character,” he finally says.

Ava laughs. “Yeah. The whole lot of them are, really, but Luis is unique. The rambling was actually rather brief this time; he was on truth serum when I witnessed it before.”

John tries to imagine that and finds that he can’t. Instead, he says, “I didn’t, uh, didn’t know you had...people. Out there somewhere.” He knows her parents are gone, he’d assumed so even before she said it outright just because of the ‘grew up in a lab prison’ comments, but he’d just assumed that she didn’t have anyone else she could be with now, like the rest of them.

(Although apparently Bucky and Yelena and Alexei also have people out there to some extent, if recent events are any indication.)

“I don’t know if I would call it that, exactly. But yeah.” Ava tilts her head at him. “I meant what I said earlier, though. I want to be here. I spent my whole childhood trapped; I don’t stay anywhere I don’t want to be anymore.”

Something warm and unnamed fills John’s chest, and he wants to say something, but he can’t guarantee it won’t be something stupid, so he just nods.

Ava pats the box. “I’ve got to put this in my suite. D’you want to get The Incredible Shrinking Man going again for when I get back?”

And John still doesn’t get that movie, but he nods, and he does, on the off-chance that, when Ava comes back and curls up against his side again, it won’t be because he’s the only option available.

Chapter Text

Bucky knows a pattern when he sees it.

Ever since he and his team got dubbed the “New Avengers”, old acquaintances, friends, and family members have been coming out of the woodwork. It’s been long enough since Luis dropped by that, honestly, he’s been expecting to come around a corner and find an army buddy of John’s or a childhood friend of Bob’s any day now.

So when the five of them get back from a mission and arrive at the common floor to hear Bob, out of sight, say to someone, “Hey man, I don’t think you’re supposed to be here,” he’s not exactly surprised, but he does go on alert. If Bob didn’t let this person in, and the rest of them only just got here, how did they manage to get up to this area?

Yelena doesn’t hesitate, charging forward with her widow bites already firing up, but then he hears her skid to a halt and say, “Wait, what are you doing here?”

With another few strides, the living area comes into view, and Bucky does a double-take himself. Clint Barton is sprawled on the couch in suspiciously tactical clothing, with an unfamiliar dark-haired girl sporting a purple archery suit and a bow next to him.

“Oh good, you’re here,” the girl says, looking at Yelena. “The place was empty when we got here, and then this guy showed up and I was just about to ask him where you were.”

“On a mission in Bosnia,” Yelena says. “Uh, is this supposed to be some kind of payback, for that time I broke into your apartment? Because I thought you were over that.”

“Also, Clint, I thought you were retired,” Bucky contributes, rather than delve into any of that.

“I am,” Clint says, and gestures at the girl. “She’s Hawkeye now. I just check in every now and then.”

What was it with superheroes having apprentices and successors and all that these days? Why couldn’t they just retire like normal and everybody else deal with it?

“But today we ran into some trouble,” the girl says. “The AVTF hasn’t bothered me too much so far - it seems like Fisk mostly has them going after this one guy and his allies, there’s some kind of messed up vendetta going on - but then today I took Clint out patrolling and of course we got stopped. We had to run for it and this was the best idea we had for somewhere to go for help.”

Right. Them. Bucky had been aware of the AVTF’s general existence, since he lived in New York and wasn’t completely oblivious, but he hadn’t been paying much attention. He had his hands full already with this bunch.

But that probably wasn’t such a great excuse, he thinks.

“Yelena’s basically the only other super...person I know besides Clint,” the girl says, and an odd expression crosses Yelena’s face for the briefest moment. “And Clint said he knew you--” she gestures to Bucky “--back in the day...”

“We didn’t really have the chance to get to know each other all that well,” Bucky says. “But we should’ve kept in touch.”

“It’s fine,” Clint says, waving a hand. “We both wanted to leave all this stuff behind us, although I’ve only had slightly better luck than you on that front.”

“Um,” Bob interjects. “How do you guys all know each other again?”

Yelena gestures between Bucky and Clint. “Took Captain America’s side in the Avengers breakup.” Between herself and Clint, “Valentina told me he’d gotten my sister killed and sent me to assassinate him. We worked it out.” Between herself and the girl, “She teamed up with him and tried to get in my way. I don’t actually know how you two met.”

“It’s a long story,” the girl says. “Involving a black market auction, Russian tracksuit mafia, an old ninja suit, some LARPers, and my mom’s connections to organized crime. Oh, and I’m Kate Bishop, by the way. And, uh, preemptive apology, we might’ve fried some of your security stuff with electrical arrows to break in here.”

“We need a better security system anyway,” Bucky sighs. One of these days, someone a lot less friendly than Melina Vostokoff or these two is going to take advantage. “Not that you’re not welcome.”

“Wait, you said Fisk,” Yelena says. “Wasn’t that who your mom was...?”

“Yep,” Kate says. “We thought he’d gotten shot, but clearly he’s fine now. And somehow he’s managed to get elected mayor .” She makes a disgusted face at the last part.

Bucky remembers meeting the man briefly at a New Avengers gala. Something about him and his wife had felt off to him, but he’d been distracted by trying to keep his team (or himself) from doing anything irreparable to the new Mental Health Commissioner.

“I have heard things about this Wilson Fisk,” Alexei comments darkly. “I knew man in prison who had cousins in organized crime here. One of them was killed in...ugly way. Later, we hear rumors it was this Fisk, but there is not much to do about it from Siberia.”

“Oh, I can do you one better: he murdered the NYPD commissioner and no one seems to have batted an eye,” Kate adds.

“Wait, what?” Bob says. “When did that happen?”

“A few weeks before you guys got announced as the New Avengers. Or that’s what I was told.”

“Ah, yeah, half of us were wrapped up in Valentina’s assignments around then,” Ava says. 

Bucky tries to remember what he was doing a few weeks before the Incident that would’ve had him unaware of something like that. None of it seems all that important now.

“Look, I didn’t even know about it till Kate told me,” Clint says. “It got hushed up insanely fast. It wasn’t exactly public, and I don’t think the real story traveled very far. Most everybody seems to think Gallo opted for an early retirement.”

“Okay, clearly we need to do something here,” Yelena says, taking the words out of Bucky’s mouth. “Even aside from the anti-vigilante stuff, this is messed up.”

Kate nods. “There’s some people working on taking him down. Or trying to,” she says. “And we’re helping each other out when we can. Jack’s still locked up, but we’ve got the Punisher (that feels really weird to say) and Daredevil and some friends of his, and this guy who swings around and calls himself Spiderman.”

Bucky flexes his metal fingers. Something about that last moniker is ringing a bell, but he can’t place it. For some reason, it makes him think of the airport in Leipzig, and that makes him think of Clint going against Natasha on his account, and that galvanizes something in him.

“We’ll help,” he says. “However we can. Count us in.” Around him, the others are nodding agreement.

“Hey,” Yelena says. “Do we actually have a formal process for adding people to this team?”

There’s a soft intake of breath from Alexei, as Bucky frowns. “I don’t think so. Val just went public with us and here we are.”

“Yeah, but Valentina has to do what we say now if she doesn’t want to go to prison,” Yelena says, warming to her subject. “So why can’t we add these people? If they’re official Avengers, then they are not vigilantes anymore and Fisk cannot do anything to them.”

“You really want to recruit the Punisher,” Ava says dubiously.

“It’s not like he would be the only one with blood on his hands,” John points out contrarily. 

“We’re all operating under a no-kill protocol,” Bucky mentions. “Or at least a no-public-deaths protocol. Anybody we sign on as a temporary New Avenger for amnesty would have to do the same thing. This guy might not even want in under those conditions.”

Clint shrugs a shoulder. “I’m not taking you up on it - I’m getting out of town, back to my family - but for what it’s worth I think this is a good plan. Then again, with my track record of spontaneous Avengers recruitment, that probably goes without saying.”

Bucky takes a deep breath. Apparently this is a thing they’re doing. “Okay. Logistics. What’s this gonna look like? Are we gonna be putting any of these people up in the Watchtower for some period of time?”

“Some of them have apartments that are still safe,” Kate says. “But some of them would probably appreciate getting to stay here. At least for the free rent. And it would probably look more legit that way, since I guess you guys all live here. I’d say...around six to eight people?”

“We’re gonna need to speed up construction on those extra residential levels,” Bob says.

“This floor has a couple of rooms. Or it could,” Yelena muses. “And...hey Bob.”

“Yeah?”

“You okay with moving to my floor, or you want me to move to yours? We should be able to put a couple people in whichever one we leave empty.”

“Um...” Bob stammers for a moment, like they didn’t all know alreaady that he and Yelena had slept separately maybe half a dozen times in the past several months. “Yours, yours is good.”

“Cool. John, Ava, you guys okay to share a floor or you want us to keep pretending you haven’t already started doing that?”

Bucky’s eyebrows raise. That, he hadn’t already known about.

Ava and John both look incredibly flustered for a moment, then exchange glances and seem to come to a consensus. “I’ll move my stuff up to his,” Ava says. “I haven’t got as much.”

“You shouldn’t have to move,” John argues. “I can handle hauling my stuff, it’s fine - supersoldier, remember?”

“Actually, Ava’s right,” Bucky says, intervening before this can escalate. “If she and Bob move, that frees up the lowest levels above this floor, so we’ll have all the new people consolidated. John, you can help if you need to exercise your chivalry that much.”

Alexei lets out a roaring cheer, clearly delighted at this new development.

Clint, at this point, stretches and stands, handing Yelena a slip of paper. “I’ve gotta go if I want to get out of town. Don’t be a stranger, okay? Keep in touch. Don’t make me make Kate bug you.”

“He will,” Kate says seriously. “And I will. Okay, we should probably work on how we’re gonna get everybody here without the AVTF figuring out something’s up...”

* * *

Within a week, the Watchtower is at capacity, and Bucky can barely take a step without tripping over a vigilante. They’re only able to make the announcement of so many additional Avengers look legitimate if they take them on missions, which is how Bucky finds himself on a jet headed to a disaster site in Chile with Yelena, Kate, and a surly woman called Jessica Jones.

“A putty arrow? Really?” the latter says as Kate enumerates to Yelena the various trick arrows she’s carrying. “When has that ever been useful?”

Bucky’s inclined to agree, but they both have to eat the words not long after. Kate manages to keep a whole building from collapsing on people with a couple of those ridiculous-sounding putty arrows. 

Maybe, he thinks, as he and Yelena and Jessica hustle people to safety, not every superhero succeession has to be a disaster.

Chapter Text

It’s probably very wrong of her, but Ava desperately wishes the crisis alarm would go off and send them all out on a mission. Any mission. She doesn’t care.

John’s Olivia is here visiting with their son, and Ava has felt like she’s about to come out of her skin ever since they arrived.

It’s all Valentina’s fault, she decides. Valentina had hired image consultants for the lot of them, and the image consultants had decreed that “divorced father in a relationship with a new woman” just wouldn’t do for a hero meant to represent patriotism and American values. They’d insisted that John get back in touch with Olivia, and their perfectly coiffed leader, Helen, had looked down her nose at Ava’s hand intertwined with his.

“It doesn’t have to be real ,” she’d conceded eventually. “Just make the public think it is, and I suppose you can do whatever you want on your own time, as long as you make sure it stays private.”

Later, Ava had raged, pacing back and forth in their suite, flickering with intangibility. Her pride rankled at being anyone’s dirty little secret, but the desperate, lonely part of her hadn’t been able to even consider giving John up entirely.

Olivia, when contacted, had absolutely refused to reenter a relationship with John, even a fake one - small mercies - but the whole affair had gotten the two of them at least talking again, and they’d started trying to work out some kind of visitation arrangement for their son, Eugene. 

That messy business with Wilson Fisk had put things on hold for a while, but now that’s done and the extra people they’d recruited/sheltered have more or less gone back to their lives, and Olivia and Eugene are here, right now. And Ava feels like she’s about to lose her mind.

No one else seems to have a problem with this. The whole team had been there to greet them when they showed up, and they’d all been nice and polite and welcoming. Alexei had started talking to Eugene in Russian in a silly voice and made him laugh. Bob had offered snacks, and Bucky had called her ‘ma’am’ and thanked her for making the trip north. And Yelena had hauled Ava away with the rest of them as they retreated to give the picture-perfect little family “some privacy, okay? No lurking.”

John had told Olivia they’d need to do their catching up on the common floor and not go up to his suite because it was a mess and not childproofed. The suite in question was as military-standard neat and tidy as ever - it just also happened to have all of Ava’s things, since she’d moved in while they were playing host and never moved out. She’s still not sure whether to be happy he didn’t ask her to move out or hide her things on account of this, or resentful and worried that he doesn’t seem to want Olivia to know about...whatever they are.

(She wants to call him hers , but she hasn’t had much luck with people being hers, just hers, to keep.)

Rationally, she doesn’t really think that he’s going to want to go back to Olivia. He told her he wouldn’t. She was restless and on edge already when they got up this morning, and he stopped her and cupped her face and said, “It’ll be fine. You’re overthinking it. Don’t stress out.”

And that had helped, until Olivia had actually arrived, pretty and put together and carrying Eugene on her hip, looking like everything Ava can never be. 

She hates feeling like this. She wants to be glad for John that he gets to see his son again. She should be the kind of person who would be okay with him being with someone else as long as he was happy. 

Instead, on impulse, she phases into a nearby structural beam and slips downward until she reaches the common floor, emerging in the room that once was a storage room and then was Luke and Danny’s but now is converted into guest space. Olivia’s maroon suitcase is currently standing in the corner; she’s staying tonight and tomorrow before flying back Sunday, and nobody involved had wanted her to have to navigate getting a hotel room in New York. 

Ava creeps out of the room and down the hall, staying out of sight but peering into the living area. Eugene is on John’s lap while John reads him some kind of board book, and Olivia watches with a little smile. It’s the complete opposite of the scene she glimpsed in the void, and so domestic it makes her teeth ache.

The book comes to an end and Eugene scoots off John’s lap towards some brightly colored toys. John follows him with his eyes and lets out a deep breath. “He’s getting so big.”

“Uh-huh,” Olivia says. “He’s gonna be as tall as his daddy by the time he gets done. Tall as you were before, anyway.”

There’s a silence, and then John says, “Maybe this is the part where I’m supposed to say I’m sorry for taking the serum, but...I’m not.”

“It was around that time that things started to go wrong,” Olivia says, her tone neutral.

“I dunno if I would’ve done anything different without the serum,” John maintains. “Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to catch up to that Flag Smasher guy, and maybe that would’ve kept everything else from going down in flames the way it did, but after Lemar...things were going to break down one way or another.”

“If it had turned out that way,” Olivia says quietly, “you might’ve been a little more willing to be present. To be with us. But if you still wouldn’t change anything, then maybe that’s not a priority for you.”

John huffs out a sigh. “It’s not that, it’s - I’m doing some good here. Finally. This feels like where I’m supposed to be. I wouldn’t want to change that.”

Eugene staggers over to him, holding out a wooden block, and John takes it and starts fiddling with it. “I do wish I hadn’t been a piece of trash to the two of you in the process, though.”

“If that’s supposed to be a segue into an attempt at rekindling--” Olivia starts, and Ava’s not proud of it, but her heart freezes.

“No,” John says immediately, and it starts beating again. “Nah, that was all on the PR team. I’m not looking for anything like that. As long as I can see Eugene, try to do better with him - that’s a lot more than I ever would’ve thought I would get, at one point.”

Olivia nods. “We’ll need to talk about how that works - I can’t keep making the trip up here every month, even with the ‘New Avengers’ covering the airfare.”

“Yeah.” John nods as well. Silence falls again. Ava starts to wonder if she should feel guilty about eavesdropping and retreat back upstairs.

“I’m glad that - you seem like you’re doing better,” Olivia says after a moment. “Seriously, you’re doing so much better than...before. That’s not why I’m not getting back together with you.”

“It’s okay,” John says. “It’s fine. Look, I messed up, and you got out and moved on, and it’s not a problem, could happen to anyone.”

“I did think about it,” Olivia tells him. “When I started seeing stuff on the news, and I knew you were turning things around. But...part of it’s the stuff you said, and a lot of it’s that...I did the army wife thing for years, never minded it. Did the celebrity wife thing for a little bit, and that was tough, but we made it. Did the secret agent wife thing for a while, and that might’ve been the least favorite. I can’t do all three at once, especially not raising a kid in all this.

“Also,” and now she sounded amused, “you talk about me moving on, but clearly you have, too.”

John sputters. “I - what - what’re you talking about?”

“Your teammate, Ghost. Every single press conference you’re both in, you look at her the way you looked at me when we first got together.”

John makes a choking sound, and then sighs. “That obvious, huh?”

“Yep.” Olivia stifles a laugh. “Very obvious. To the point that I was very confused when your publicity people first tried to reach out to me about a reconciliation.”

“Yeah, that was a whole mess.” John drags a hand down his face. “Look. I want to be in Eugene’s life and do right by him, and I love Ava. Those don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

Ava momentarily phases and then catches herself, suppressing an involuntary yelp. Her feet are stuck in the floor up to the ankles (thankfully only stuck and not fused). She barely cares. John just said he loves her.

He has yet to say it to her face, but he said it right there like it came completely naturally. She can’t think. Her brain won’t function.

“Somebody there?” he calls out, and Ava doesn’t trust her phasing to hold for a quick getaway through the walls right now, doesn’t have time to run if she’s getting her feet unstuck first. That only leaves one option.

“Just me,” she calls out, getting her feet back under her and emerging from the corridor, heading for the kitchen area with a passing wave. “Sorry, don’t mind me, just forgot something down here and needed to grab it.” Now, of course, she has to come up with something plausible to grab, which she hadn’t yet thought through.

Olivia twists around towards her. “You’re...Ava, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice to meet you again.”

Ava nods and starts rummaging in the novelty mugs cupboard, looking for one she can pass off as hers and desperate for a quick getaway from this awkwardness. Then Olivia continues, “You don’t need to all hide away, you know. There’s nothing all that private happening here. Besides, if this is gonna keep happening, we should probably find out now how you guys are with Eugene.”

Her tone is perfectly innocent, but Ava still isn’t completely sure that Olivia didn’t know she was listening in the whole time. Unfortunately, the last point she’s making is a good one.

Ava knows nothing about toddlers, but she comes around the kitchen peninsula anyway, moving slowly and cautiously like she’s approaching a live explosive instead of a small child.

“Hello there,” she says uncertainly, waving at Eugene. He looks up from what he’s doing and stares at her, eyes wide and mouth open. “Now what,” she mutters in John’s general direction.

He pats the floor next to him. “Getting down to this level is a good start.”

When the rest of the team ventures down to figure out what’s going to happen for dinner, Ava has a toy duck perched on her head and has somehow found herself entertaining a toddler by phasing her hand through various objects. Eugene is unbelievably fascinated by this and keeps handing her things to watch them drop through to the floor and then laughing like crazy. It still feels very, very weird, but Ava almost thinks she could get used to it.

She still doesn’t have a clue what to say to Olivia, by the end of the weekend. The tense, jealous part of her doesn’t really go away. But it feels a little more like, someday, she could learn how to coexist with John’s Norman-Rockwell-family-that-was.

(For now, perhaps she can work on the slightly more immediate issue of John’s confession regarding her without admitting to having eavesdropped.)

(The idea that she could just come out and tell him that she loves him doesn’t occur to her for longer than she would ever admit.

Chapter Text

Yelena should have seen this coming.

She should have at least considered the possibility that this could happen, given certain events of the past several months. But as it is, she’s completely blindsided.

It’s a quiet Saturday afternoon, and Bob, who of the two of them has seen more movies, has insisted that “you have to see Chicken Run , it’s great, you’ll love it, I can’t believe it wasn’t included in your cultural competency training”. Yelena has acquiesced, because she tries to support him when he takes a stand on something but also because it sounds fun, and they’re heading down to the common floor to steal blankets and snacks to take up to their suite.

(Yes, Yelena could just get her own blankets to keep around, but where would be the fun in that?)

Then they enter the living area hand in hand to find it already occupied by two people Yelena doesn’t know, a middle-aged couple. The woman is standing around awkwardly, looking out of place but harmless, but the man, with his folded arms and twitching mustache, puts her on edge somehow. She knows about men like that, who grab hold of any little bit of power they can get and use it to make others miserable.

There’s also the fact that Bob absolutely freezes in his tracks when he sees them, his hand clenching tightly around hers for a moment before pulling away so he doesn’t crush her fingers.

“Mom? Dad?” he says hesitantly.

That’s why they look vaguely familiar. They’re older than they are in any of Bob’s shame rooms, and his mother is a lot thinner, like she’s been wasting away, but Yelena recognizes them now.

“Wha - what’re you doing here?” Bob asks, and Yelena would quite like to know that herself. She shifts slightly, ready to get between them and Bob if need be. She doesn’t technically have any weapons, but she’s never let that stop her.

“Is that any way to talk to your folks after disappearing for over a decade, Bobby?” his father says, taking a step closer. “All this time we worried, and now you turn up and it seems like you landed right on your feet.”

“I didn’t ‘turn up’,” Bob says, shaking his head. “I was never gonna go anywhere near you again.”

“It’s true,” Yelena says, folding her arms to match Mr. Reynolds and giving him a polite smile with an underlying promise of disembowelment. “We were talking about options for maybe a team-building vacation and he vetoed Disney World because he didn’t want to be in the same state as you.”

Mr. Reynolds shifts his attention to her and looks her over. “So, you must be Bobby’s little girlfriend.”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Bob says, hands fisted around his sweater cuffs.

“The tabloids sure seem to think that’s what she is,” Mr. Reynolds smirks. “Or at least that you’re her boy toy, which --”

“George,” Bob’s mother says quietly, and tentatively approaches. “I’m sure what he means is that it’s very nice to meet you,” she tells Yelena, and then, “Oh, Robert. You’re looking so much better. Oh, I’ve missed you so much, I’ve been so worried.”

Yelena has heard Bob mutter “I always make things worse” to himself on bad days too many times to entirely trust this woman, at least not so easily, but when she takes another step forward, Bob meets her halfway, and she hugs him tightly, with him holding her like she could break.

“I missed you too, Mom,” he says quietly.

George clears his throat and taps his wife hard on the shoulder. “That’s enough, Annie. We’ve got business to talk about.”

Annie pulls away reluctantly, and Bob shakes his head again. “I don’t think you and me have any business anymore.”

George tuts. “You’ve got a pretty short memory still, I guess. I’m talking about the five thousand dollars you stole when you took off the last time.”

Bob pales, and Yelena thinks she sees his shadow get just a couple of shades darker. “Wait, that’s what this is all about?”

“Five grand is a lot of money, Robert,” George says. “But I’m guessing you’ve got that to spare these days - or at least you’ve got pals who do.”

Yelena can hardly believe what she’s hearing. “So, okay, wait just a second because maybe I’m not understanding all this - your son - your only kid - has been missing for more than ten years, could have been dead for all you know --” and very nearly was “--and now that you’ve found him again, you want to shake him down for money?”

George gives her an amused, women-don’t-understand-these-things look, and shrugs. “A man’s gotta own up to his mistakes, isn’t that right, Robert? A man has to make it right. And if you don’t, I bet there’s some people who’d be very interested to hear about what you used to get up to.”

“Statute of limitations in Florida for theft doesn’t go past five years,” Yelena says, having possibly asked a few questions while they had a lawyer in residence. “And none of us care about any of that.” In fact, they’ve all done way worse, and the others will probably be as impressed as she is that Bob got one over on this horrible man.

George just chuckles. “I’m not talking about the law. I’m talking about the press . D’you really want it to get splashed all over the gossip rags that your boyfriend stole from his own parents? I don’t think so.”

He turns back to Bob. “I can give you a day, ‘cause no one your age has cash lying around anymore, but that’s it. And you’re putting us up in your new digs; there’s gotta be guest rooms somewhere.”

Bob, usually fidgety and with his gaze shifting in all directions, stays still as stone and looks George in the eye, his shadow dark but growing no darker. One eye develops a slight twitch. “No,” he says firmly.

Yelena is so proud of him she could die. Worried, still, but proud.

No one is looking at her, so she surreptitiously slides her phone out of her pocket and opens the group chat. Just in case. Backup is always good.

But if Bob needs/wants to take care of this himself, she’s going to give him space for that, so she doesn’t send anything just yet. She wants to take his hand for moral support, but a man like George Reynolds will only take that as a sign of weakness on Bob’s part.

And there cannot be weakness right now, as George moves into Bob’s space, radiating aggression. Bob is more than a head taller than him, even if he doesn’t always give that impression, but his father doesn’t seem to notice.

“You think you can talk back to me?” he snarls. “You really wanna be this stupid? You can give me the money that’s mine, with a little extra for the backtalk and the giving your mother gray hairs all this time, and we can all be friends, or you can keep this up and I will ruin. your. life. What’s it gonna be, Bobby?”

Behind him, Annie is biting her lip, her hands twisted together in front of her. “Robert, just...don’t make it worse. Just give him what he wants and then...maybe we can make up for all the time we missed.”

Bob looks torn, but shakes his head. “I’m not gonna give in to him, Mom. I’m not afraid anymore. You don’t have to be, either.”

“You’re not afraid anymore,” George mocks. “You still trying to be the hero, Bobby? Would’ve thought living in a building full of actual superheroes would’ve taught you a thing or two about what you really are.”

Bob’s shadow is growing darker, spreading. Yelena starts rapidly texting the group chat.

“You’re pathetic. Nothing. You were a loser before and you’re a loser now,” George spits. “And sooner or later this bunch’ll figure it out too and kick you out --”

He shoves hard at Bob’s shoulder as he speaks, and several things happen at once:

George yelps from the pain of smacking his hand into a human brick wall, but never has time to pull away.

The shadows intensify. Bob’s eyes turn dark and then roll back in his head, as do George’s.

Annie, realizing something is wrong even if she doesn’t know what, screams.

Yelena grabs Bob’s hand in both of hers.

The elevator dings pleasantly, and four very volatile superhumans, halfway geared up and on high alert, spill out, presumably in response to Yelena’s text Intruder on common floor about to release Void, has civilian hostage .

Bob’s eyes return to normal, his face filling with horror. Yelena wraps herself around him murmuring “it’s okay, it’s okay, you’re good, I’ve got you” over and over.

The shadows retreat. George snaps back to normal and momentarily looks very discombobulated.

Then he goes tumbling backwards, because John has punched him soundly in the face.

“I can do that all day,” he snarls, and wraps an arm around Bob from the other side.

Bucky visibly winces at that for some reason, but strides forward to glower down at George. “I’m gonna guess you’re George Reynolds,” he says flatly.

“Wh-wh-what was that?” George gibbers.

“Nothing that anyone will ever believe you about,” Yelena says. “And just a taste of what will happen if you touch him again.”

“The Void’ll have to get in line,” John growls. 

“Oh, yeah, absolutely, you get to have a turn while I run and get my widow bites,” Yelena says. “Maybe Ava, too.” Her widow bite cuffs might be a little buried just at this moment.

“Who let you up here?” Bucky demands. “I specifically put you on a no-access list when we set up here.”

Annie clears her throat. “I’m afraid it was my fault,” she ventures. “The girl at the front desk was very new, and she saw I was on a list to be allowed up immediately, but George...wasn’t, so she was going to make George wait, but he wouldn’t let me go up unless he came along...and I wanted to see Robert so much...”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Bob says. He’s breathing hard and leaning into her and John, and Alexei and Ava who’ve joined in on keeping him grounded, and Yelena has her own opinions on whether it’s okay, but Annie isn’t the enemy, and she’s been through enough today.

George is starting to sit up. “Who d’you think you are?” he demanded, feeling at his jaw gingerly. “Telling your employees who in their family they can and can’t see.”

Ava snorts. “You think Bob’s here because of a job?”

George gives the four of them holding onto Bob a beady look. “That’s what I’d like to think, anyway.”

“Bob is here because he is family,” Alexei rumbles like an avalanche. “I may not be native English speaker like you, but I think you do not know what that word means.”

George starts sputtering, but Bucky cuts him off. “Leave,” he says coldly. “While we’re still asking politely. If any of us ever hears anything of you again, I know a very good lawyer, and that’ll be just the beginning of making you regret it.”

The man scrambles to his feet and makes for the elevator, and Annie starts to follow in his wake.

“Mom,” Bob calls out, and she stops, half-turns. “You don’t have to go with him. You can stay, and-and get out. We can help.” He swallows hard. “We could get to know each other again.”

Annie hesitates for a long moment. Then, as Yelena’s heart sinks, she slowly shakes her head. “Not today,” she murmurs, and then she turns away and leaves.

The moment the elevator doors close on the Reynoldses, Bob’s whole body sags. Bucky comes and joins the group hug that’s on the verge of becoming a group effort at keeping a very dense superhuman upright. Yelena buries her face in Bob’s sweater and tries to breathe with him, with everyone, as she process the past ten minutes.

“I’m sorry,” Bob says eventually.

Yelena pulls away a little, needing her face free to say, “None of that was your fault.”

“The Void --”

“Only hurt one person who really had it coming, and then we were able to bring you back before it could escalate,” Yelena says firmly. “That’s pretty good.”

“You should’ve alerted us sooner,” Bucky grumbles as they start to slowly separate from each other. “We would’ve shut that down before it started.”

“I wanted to give Bob a chance to handle it himself,” Yelena says, then directs a pointed look at Bob as she adds, “And you did. You stood up to him. You did good. It’s not a bad thing that you needed help at the end.”

“This calls for team celebration! Renewing of bonds!” Alexei declares. “Where did we leave board games after Catan tournament with Defenders?”

“Um,” Bob says, and his hand finds Yelena’s and gently squeezes. “Can we maybe later? We were kinda getting started on a, a...”

“Date,” Yelena says, since it’s both true and the best word to make sure they get this to themselves. If Bob still wants to do this, then she’s definitely not going to let his jerk of a father’s intrusion derail things. “A date. With Chicken Run .”

“Yep. Right.” Bob nods. “If that’s all good with everyone?”

And of course, no one’s going to say no.

(They should probably actually talk about what they are to each other at some point, if only because “two highly codependent people who share a bed and call the same group of people family and are affectionate in a way that has tabloid reporters speculating on their engagement” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue when the question comes up with other people.)

(But that’s not a problem for today. Today has already had enough problems, and the only things either of them needs to deal with right now are animated chickens and the promise of board-game-based chaos later on.)