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The chill creeping its way across the farm had finally reached Yelena’s bones.
Her back cracks loudly as she twists amongst her blankets. Her face buries further into the frills and fluff of the guest bed she had been placed in by the Bartons, sunlight slithering its way further and further along the wood panel flooring surrounding her. Sleep had never fully reached her, leaving her tossing and turning throughout the night. However, the constant coughing, footsteps, and quiet phone noises emanating through the drywall left her with the impression that she wasn’t the only one.
Her eyes finally crack. For a moment, her brain wires on. Tension ripples through her body. The anticipation of being attacked fills her with a sudden need to move. Her leg juts out, bumping into the only other thing rolled amongst the fabrics. Fanny’s tail thumps loudly, her head perking up above the blankets.
“Hey girl,” Yelena mumbles.
The tension ripples away. The sunlight creeps along the shadows in the corners of the room, bats away the uncertainty lying past the bed spread. Fanny jumps up. Her tail waves through the air, alert. Her eyes wide with a joy only a dog could possess this early. Yelena’s body braces as Fanny flops onto her.
“Good morning-”
Fanny nudges closer to her, tongue beginning to wash over Yelena’s face. Laughter bubbles out of her chest. The dog's tail swishes back and forth.
“I get it, I get it. It’s good to see you too.”
Yelena carefully shoves her nose away, tilting her head out of Fannys reach. Her body shakes against the excitement oozing from underneath her fur. Despite being in close proximity to her the entire night, it was as if Fanny had been away from her for months, years even. Subconsciously, her hand strokes the fur along the dog's forehead. A sense of calm settles inside of her chest.
It had been two weeks since the events inside of Valentinas vault, since Bob had “become” the Sentry. Since she had merged her two lives: farm her and Thunderbolt her. At first, she hadn’t been sure if she wanted the two to connect. Her life on the farm, their lives on the farm, were peaceful at last. Nobody could find them out here amongst the trees. But she also knew they deserved that same peace as well. She could accept that their need to be safe could blend with hers.
Especially now, as Fanny stands and shakes herself off, letting Yelena curl further into her blankets. The air beneath the duvet was warm. For once in her life she didn’t feel the need to leap from her bed and stand at attention. She felt the need to roll over and fall back asleep. For a brief moment, she considers doing just that, before Fanny lets out a long, low whine.
“Fine,” Yelena mumbles once again. “We’ll get up.”
The dog's body shakes with excitement as she jumps down. Yelena follows, slower than her. The floor is significantly colder than she expects; her entire body shivers and folds into itself. After a moment, she pushes herself up with a second shiver. Goosebumps ripple to attention along her arms. Snatching a sweater off of the floor, she sets off towards the door.
Silence greets her in the hallway. Morning light drifts in through the window above the stairs, dust clinging to the air around her. The subtlest of snores drift from Bucky’s room across from hers, but beyond that she can’t pick up on anything else. Yelena shuts the door behind her and stretches, making her way to the stairs.
Fanny prances after her, tongue stuck between her lips, her ears high on her head. The farm is mostly quiet this early. A few widows scatter the grounds. Two spend the mornings collecting eggs from the chickens and scaring away the snakes; two spend the mornings amongst the cows in the field. They scatter hay, refill water troughs, and sit with them if the weather permits. The rest sleep, the house across the way dark as night against the rising sun.
Yelena revels in this quietness. She pauses to watch the house through the window. Curtains on the second floor are either left open, blinds pulled up so sunlight can catch cats in window sills, plants craving the rays, and a few stray heads on pillows, or tightly closed against the elements. Yelena could name every sleeping body and where in the house they are. Keeping track of the girls was her job when they first relocated here. Helping them find jobs, find therapists, find purpose was her job. Finding homes, comfort, and foods they liked was always Nat’s job. Yelena believed she was better at it.
Fanny bumps against her knee carefully. Her wide eyes gaze up at her like two moons in the sky. Her hand reaches down, brushing a few of the wild hairs by the dogs eyebrows, settling them from sleep.
“Bacon?” She whispers to the dog, whose ears jump, and tail twitches. Yelena smiles. “Bacon it is.”
The two set off again. Quietly, they descend from the third floor. Fanny’s nails click against the boards. The second floor is just as quiet as the third. She pauses, taking count of the doors around her. Clint and Laura’s door is shut, the echo of his snoring slipping beneath the frame. The rest of the rooms are silent, two doors ajar though she chooses to believe they’re awake somewhere in the house or in the bathroom. Yelena creeps down the hall, reaching down to grab Fanny by the collar to prevent her from running down the stairs. The second the dog spots the front door, Yelena knows she’ll be bolting for it. She runs through her list of to-do’s:
1) Grocery Shop
2) Send that email to Valentina about the old Avengers Tower
3) Ask Melina to-
A quiet sob sneaks out from a nearby room.
The sound makes Yelena twitch. Her footsteps die out, Fanny halting next to her.
The sound is guttural, pained. It settles deep inside of her stomach and tilts. Nauseating, she thinks. Her neck twists as she attempts to figure out where it’s coming from, when a second sound catches her attention.
“It’s alright.”
The voice is sweet, soft, drifting from the ajar door down the hall from her. Yelena moves subconsciously, her steps as quiet as possible. Fanny stays put as if she knows to wait. Her gaze searches the crack in the room, reaching the glowing lamp next to the bed. Ava sits with her back to the door, hunched slightly. Her hair falls around her face, cascading like a waterfall to hide her. Resting in her lab is Antonia's head. The blankets, typically tucked beneath the mattress, are wildly thrown around the bed or wrapped tightly around her body. Ava strokes her cheek. Her knuckles brush along the top of her bone, her other hand placed delicately on the top of her head.
“It was a nightmare,” she whispers, tilting down closer to her. “You’re safe.”
The sob that gushes from Antonia’s chest feels as though it stabs Yelena, her throat tightening.
“It hurts,” Antonia chokes. Her voice wavers, sounding almost foreign to Yelena.
“I know. I know it does.”
Ava pulls her closer, wrapping her arms carefully around her shoulders. Her body shakes against the violent sobs. She rocks Antonia gently, a movement only familiar to Yelena from watching Melina and Natasha interact with the little widows. Yelena feels her stomach churn viciously. The sobs reach somewhere deep in her memories, finding identical sobs she had let out into her pillow at the Red Room. As quietly as possible, she reaches out for the doorknob and slips the door shut. The moment is theirs. Nobody should be able to look in on it.
She takes a step back, her hand reaching out for Fanny, who happily moves to her, leaning against her leg and shoving her head into her palm. For a moment, she counts. She counts as long as she needs to, to force the racing memories back, to let her nausea subside. Fanny licks at her palm and places a paw atop Yelena’s foot. The weight is comforting. She lets out a long sigh and pats her head once.
“Умница.”
Fanny’s tail swishes, brushing against her leg. She nudges the dog towards the stairs, trying to signal to Fanny to move. Reluctantly, she steps away from her and begins descending the last staircase. Yelena’s heart flutters in her chest. The nausea subsides and she follows down the stairs. Her steps are silent, her hand grasping the railing for support. Though, she feels herself bump into Fanny. The dog is rigid, front paw in the air, her eyes trained on the living room.
Yelena freezes. The TV drones on quietly, Modern Family reruns illuminating the dark room. Alexei’s face glows. His smile is wide, cheeks reaching up to his eyes. His joy is immeasurable, though he is silent. No booming comments about something a character says, no shaking laughter that is so contagious Yelena’s body folds in two. He is stiff and as quiet as he is capable of being. Slowly, her eyes drift to his shoulder, and she catches Melina. Her eyes are closed. Her head rests against him, a blanket draped across her as she curls closer to his side. The chair off to the side is full as well. Nat snores softly, her cheek resting against the blanket folded on the cushion behind her. One of the little widows is curled in her lap, a stuffed rabbit clutched in her arms like her life depends on it.
A slight smile ghosts along her lips. Her feet begin to back into the stair behind her when Fanny decides to sneeze. Alexei automatically lets out a quiet “bless you” before he looks her way. His joy manages to grow an immense, unreasonable, amount.
“‘Lena.”
She flinches. Her eyes scan the sleeping bodies around him. “Quiet.”
“I am as quiet as a mouse. Why are you up so early in the morning?” He pulls Melina closer to him, shifting away from the empty seat on his other side. “Come, sit. Watch the modern families with us… Well. Me.”
Yelena hesitates, but Fanny decides to bound down the rest of the stairs, her joy almost equal to that of her fathers. Her tail swishes aggressively, her head coming to rest on his knee. He grins down at the dog and pats her head enthusiastically.
“I cannot believe such a dog owner would force you to be up so early in the morning, щенок.” Alexei glances Yelenas way.
“She’s the one who decided she wanted to come downstairs.” Yelena creeps along the living room. “I’d prefer to still be in bed.”
Fanny slowly lays down at Alexei’s feet, stretching out the length of the coffee table. Yelena takes her place on the couch, pulling her legs up to her chest. Her fathers arm wraps around her shoulders and he tucks her into his side.
“That little adopted child,” he begins. “She is quite the sassy one. She reminds me of when you were just a baby.”
Yelena rolls her eyes, her head dropping to his shoulder. “You say that every single time we watch this show.”
“Eрунда! This is the first time. You are thinking of Melina. She is the one always comparing you and Natasha to these characters.”
Quietly, she snorts and shakes her head.
In a few hours, the house will be awake and chaotic. Full of life and joy. In a few hours, Yelena will be making bacon and pancakes, telling children to sit down in their chairs, and inviting the rest of the Thunderbolts to the chaos that is the farmhouse kitchen. But for now, she curls closer to her father. Her eyes slide shut as he kisses the top of her head. She feels him shake with the subtlest laughter he can let out at the show. The tension leaves her, her mind shuts off.
And her body chooses to rest.