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“YELENA, IT IS SO AMAZING HERE! TUNDRA IS BEAUTIFUL AND I EVEN SAW A REAL POLAR BEAR! I WISH YOU COULD EXPERIENCE IT TOO! YOU SHOULD HAVE JOINED US ON MISSION!”
“I’m good, thanks dad”, Yelena replied easily, smirking against her phone as she strolled down a hallway in the New Avenger’s Tower. “How’re the other’s holding up?”
”AH, WALKER AND AVA ARE LOVING IT!”, her father carried on heartedly, his chipper voice drowning out faint muttering coming from the background.
“Yeah?”, asked Yelena, stifling a chuckle. “Give them my warmest regards then, especially to Walker.”
“WILL DO! BYE SÓLNYSHKA, I LOVE YOU!”
“I love you too, dad. Talk to you after the mission, bye.”
Yelena disconnected the call just as she entered the common area, shoving her phone back into the pocket of her sweatpants. The large, open room which combined the kitchen and living area of the New Avenger’s shared living space was eerily quiet and empty, save for one person. Bob was standing with his back towards her, leaning over the sink and obviously busy cleaning the dishes. He seemed perfectly occupied and yet Yelena’s observation skills as a spy slash assassin told her that he was aware of her presence and had most likely heard at least her end of the conversation with her father.
She smiled, unhurriedly making her way towards him with her hands buried in the pockets of her hoodie. When she reached the kitchen, she wordlessly grabbed a towel and started drying the plates Bob had already cleaned and put into the rag to dry, bumping her shoulder against his upper arm. She looked at him in the corner of her eyes and caught a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
”Hey”, she said softly and he returned the greeting with a hum of his own. They worked together for a bit, neither of them feeling the need to interrupt the comfortable silence between them with pointless talking.
”So they all got there save?”, asked Bob when they’d already worked halfway through the pile dishes. Yelena hummed affirmatively. ”Alexei sounded pretty happy to be there.”
She chuckled, nodding her head even though he wasn’t looking at her at the moment.
”Yeah, they really should send him on missions to the North Pole more often.”
”Especially if John’s with him you mean?”
They both laughed.
”Where’s Bucky?”, Yelena asked after another short silence.
”Dinner date, I think.”
She turned her head towards him, eyebrows raised.
”Didn’t even know Sam was in the state.”
”Yeah, he apparently has some event-thingy coming up, so I’m guessing we’re not gonna see Bucky a lot this weekend either.”
Yelena rolled her eyes as she turned back towards the task at hand.
”That’s just silly. I know he’s salty because of the whole lawsuit thing, but now he’s even avoiding the tower when his boyfriend’s literally living here full time?”
”Bucky says he wants to keep their relationship out of it as much as he can”, Bob replied. Yelena hummed doubtfully.
”That’s gonna get tangled up in it no matter what, I’m pretty sure he knows that. I think he just wants to avoid meeting any of us.”
”That’s sad.” Bob glanced at her with furrowed brows as he handed her another plate. “We’re a pretty important part of his partner’s life now too, aren’t we? Shouldn’t he want to get to know us?”
”Admit it, you just want his autograph”, she teased him with a toothy grin. He huffed a laugh out through his nose, turning back towards the dishes with a shake of his head.
There was another pause of their conversation, this one, Yelena noticed, a little less comfortable than before. Somehow it felt charged, as if Bob wanted to say something but was, for some reason, holding onto it.
”Yelena”, he finally said, confirming her suspicions, the modulation in his voice making it sound like the preface of a question.
”Hmm?”
”Were you and Alexei always this close?”
Her movement of putting another clean plate on the pile next to her paused for just a millisecond, but she knew he’d noticed. She didn’t answer right away, taking the time to think her answer over.
”No”, she ultimately replied with plain honesty. “When I was a kid we were. I was a daddy’s girl, growing up back in Ohio. We didn’t see anything from each other for a long while and didn’t reconnect until about five years ago… well, ten, if you count the Blip, which I’m not. But we didn’t really grow close again until after my sister died.”
Bob didn’t reply anything and seemed lost in his own thoughts after she’d ended. She side-eyed him with curiosity. “Why are you asking?”
He shrugged one shoulder.
”Was just wondering… you seem to get along so well now, but what I-… uhm, the- the things I’ve seen of your-… uhm, your past…”
He trailed off, his eyes cast downwards and skipping around nervously.
”It’s okay, I don’t mind”, she assured him, knowing what he was hinting at. She knew he’d also seen the glimpses of her past she had to relive while trapped in the Void. The trauma the Red Room had put her through and her more recent feeling of loneliness. Him knowing of these things didn’t make her uncomfortable though. In the past it probably would have, but she found it a little easier to trust other people these days. She heard him let out a small, relieved breath.
”Yeah, uhm, those things I’ve seen, they just don’t really line up with him in your life, and I was wondering… how could a father like him have allowed for his daughter to go through this stuff?”
The sentence sent her stomach into knots, but she willed herself to stay calm. Bob had seen fragments of her trauma, but he didn’t, couldn’t know the full story. She cleared her throat which had suddenly turned a bit dry.
”He’s not… really my biological parent, you know.”
She felt and saw him turn abruptly from the corners of her vision, could clearly picture the dumbfounded look he was giving her right now.
“… I didn’t know that”, he stated after a moment of astonished silence, tearing his eyes away from her again just as abruptly, as if fearing that staring for too long could offend her.
”Yeah, we were kind of part of a… spy sleeper cell installed in the US by the Red Room. Him, my mom, my older sister and me. It lasted for like, three years. My parents succeeded in the mission they were sent there to complete, and we fled to Cuba before being picked back up by the Red Room.”
”How old were you?”
”Six”, she replied as off-handedly as she could. She felt him shift beside her in an obvious effort not to react with too much shock.
”Six!?”, he repeated, aghast. “You were part of a sleeping cell at six years old?”
”Actually I became part of the cell when I was three, I left it at six.”
Their conversation had moved into territory she didn’t really want to explore too badly tonight and she hoped he’d drop it soon. He did, thankfully, allowing for the charged silence to return while he mulled over these new revelations.
”And I thought my family history was complicated”, was the final result. Yelena snorted, shaking her head with a grin.
”Yeah, don’t try a tragic backstory battle with me, you’ll lose.”
She wiped the towel over the last plate and put it away, drying her hands before bunching it up and lazily dropping it onto the counter. She crossed her arms and leaned against the countertop with a sigh, regarding him. The expression he met her with as he raised his head was guarded but thankfully not overly sympathetic or afraid. Not that she had expected it to be, from him of all people.
”How about we order a pizza?”, she suggested, her tone of voice back to carefree cheerfulness. “I still have some movies on my watchlist to catch up on. We gotta take advantage of the fact that Ava’s not here to hog the remote.”
It took a second, but ultimately, a smile, albeit a soft and unsure one, opened on Bob’s face and he nodded.
”Sounds good.”
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and was about to turn away and make her way into the living room when him calling her name made her pause in her tracks and turn back.
”Ye-“
He cut her off by pulling her into a tight hug, her face tucked against his shoulder. She froze for a moment, then let out a huff and returned the hug.
”I’m fine”, she said, her voice muffled against his sweater.
”I know…”, he said, though he sounded hesitant. “It’s just-… if you’re not, you know where to find me.”
She smiled, tightening the hug before he let her go.
”Yeah, I know.”