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Bob Reynolds wasn’t jealous. He really wasn’t.
Okay, maybe he was. But only a little bit.
After much whining and groaning and predictably petulant behavior, the team had successfully managed to pressure Val into giving them some time off for the holidays. This pressure, of course, had mostly involved threatening her with an onslaught of memes referencing her dirty laundry and all the ways they could ruin her Christmas by exposing it on social media. So with two weeks of relative freedom now stretching out before them, Yelena had decided to fill up her vacant schedule with every festive activity imaginable.
And by every activity, she’d meant every activity.
Her schemes for week one, scribbled in bold red ink in her daily planner, read as follows:
Sunday: Breakfast With Santa at Callaghan’s Diner (include group photo op even if Bucky complains)
Monday: Holiday shopping spree/peppermint facials w/ Ava, NO BOYS ALLOWED!!!!!
Tuesday: Wreath-making workshop at the community center w/ Walker. He needs an artistic outlet for all that manly aggression
Wednesday: Ice skating at Rock Fella???? (Idk what it’s called) w/ Bob
With it being Wednesday, Yelena had whisked Bob away to Rockefeller Center for a good old-fashioned ice skating session. And despite falling on his ass half the time and dragging Yelena down with him, he’d had a great time. More than great, actually (although that had had nothing to do with Yelena collapsing on top of him more than once). He’d been on cloud nine the whole way back to the Watchtower, definitely not paying too much attention to the flush in Yelena’s cheeks or the way her eyes were twinkling or the cute little laugh-snort thing she did when she was teasing him about his abysmal coordination skills. This had been, by far, one of the best days of his life.
So the axe to his giddy mood came as nothing less than a killing blow.
Before returning home, Yelena insisted on popping into Callaghan’s for some of their supposedly “world famous” spiked peppermint hot cocoa. Bob, who considered refusing any request from Yelena a crime of the highest order, naturally went along with her. Then they decided they were both hungry and might as well stay for a bite to eat. So far, all was well and good.
Until he showed up to take their order.
“If it isn’t my favorite New Avenger!”
God, this guy just had to lay it on thick.
Oblivious as usual to the metaphorical steam blowing out of Bob’s ears, Yelena beamed up at their waiter. He was unfortunately a regular fixture at Callaghan’s, equally unfortunately named Jasper (Bob had never been able to break the Twilight association after Ava and Yelena had forced the team to marathon the movies).
“If it isn’t my favorite waiter-slash-aspiring novelist.”
Jasper, a generic hipster type sporting a mop of dark curls, a layer of scruff, and a pair of Buddy Holly glasses, grinned down at her. “Eh, not quite ‘aspiring’ anymore. I actually finished the manuscript last week.”
Bob’s stomach plummeted past ground level when he saw Yelena’s eyes light up with admiration. “Oh really? Are you gonna let me beta-read it?”
“Do you have time in between saving the world every week?”
“Oh, we twisted the boss’ arm. We’re free from superhero jail until after New Year’s.”
Jasper’s grin widened, and then he did the worst possible thing he could do in that moment. He rested his arm against the booth they were sitting in and leaned. “If you really mean it, I can send you the Google Drive link.”
Yelena’s eyes had the audacity to sparkle. “Please. I need something to scrub my brain clean of the Colleen Hoover-shaped stain on my neurons.”
Jasper leaned in even closer. “You don’t strike me as a Colleen Hoover person.”
“I’m not,” Yelena snorted. “Ava and I read her ironically for our two-woman bad-book-of-the-month club.”
Bob gritted his teeth as he watched the exchange continue. What was he, a department store mannequin? The minute Jasper had appeared, Yelena had forgotten he was alive, and now they were chatting each other up as if he wasn’t even there. If this was an isolated incident, maybe he wouldn’t be three seconds away from telekinetically catapulting his hot cocoa at the waiter’s head. But Bob had been keeping track. This happened every time Jasper was on duty, and especially when it was just him and Yelena. It was almost like the jerk was doing it on purpose.
“Ahem.”
Yelena blinked as if waking from a spell.
Bob cleared his throat again. “Uh, sorry to interrupt. Just...Lena, did you want to order?”
He could’ve sworn Jasper was glaring at him now, but Bob couldn’t bring himself to care. Besides, he was starving, and he wasn’t sure how much longer the pair of them were going to carry on with their agonizingly saccharine flirt fest.
Yelena let out a breathy laugh, which would’ve made Bob’s knees go weak if he wasn’t so preoccupied with the rage now simmering in his gut. “Right, yeah. We did come to the food place to eat food.” She laughed again. “I’ll, uh, have the chicken shawarma special?”
Jasper, still leaning, scribbled her order on his notepad.
“And for you?”
He was smiling at Bob now, all sickly sweet on top, but with a condescending sneer lurking just beneath the surface. Fine, two could play this game. “I’ll have what she’s having,” Bob said, returning the smile with one of his own. He made sure to hold eye contact for a moment too long before returning his attention to his drink.
Jasper, unfazed, schooled his features into a pleasant at-your-service mask. He finally ceased his accursed leaning and took their menus, refusing to so much as glance at Bob. “Sure thing. I’ll get those to you right away.”
Yelena flashed a grin at him. “Thanks, Jazz.”
Then Jasper winked, and Bob had to restrain himself from ripping the booth’s mini jukebox off the wall and flinging it across the room.
“No problemo,” the waiter was saying, raising his hand in a mini-salute. “Anything for New York’s best and boldest.”
Ugh, what a suck-up. Bob was almost surprised he didn’t vomit.
Bob, who had been giggly and chatty and the most adorable puppy of a man all day, fell suddenly quiet on their way back to the Watchtower. At first Yelena chalked it up to him simply being on the verge of a food coma. They’d stuffed themselves full, after all, and the spiked hot cocoa wasn’t doing either of them any favors in that department. But when he ignored several terrible holiday puns Yelena had stolen from Alexei (Bob loved Alexei’s stupid dad jokes for some reason), that was when she knew something other than slowly-digesting chicken shawarma was to blame.
She could’ve waited until they’d settled in, or maybe given Bob some time to decompress after their earlier outing. His social battery did have a tendency to run out much faster than hers. But Yelena was never good with letting things sit, not when there was an opportunity to resolve an issue quickly and efficiently. And although Bob was far from the targets she’d apprehended in her former life, his behavior was getting a bit too weird for her taste. The last thing she wanted was for some unspoken grudge to wreck their friendship with awkward silences. Yelena hated awkward silences. She never quite knew how to decipher what they meant. They were almost as uncomfortable as walking in on Ava and Bucky making out on the couch, which was becoming far too frequent of an occurrence these days. (Those two really needed to learn the concept of privacy or else she was going to order Walker to dropkick them both off the roof).
“Are you mad at me or something?”
Bob turned around, closing the refrigerator door behind him after placing their leftovers inside. “What?”
Yelena crossed her arms—more of a defensive measure than anything else. “You’re being really quiet and it’s weird. Are you mad at me?”
He got that ‘startled deer’ look in his eyes that told Yelena he was about to run. “Um...no?”
She widened her stance, blocking his path out of the kitchen. “Okay, well, even if you aren’t, you’re definitely hiding something.”
Bob blanched. “W-What? No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m—”
“Spill it, Reynolds.” She looked him straight in the eye.
Bob swallowed nervously, his eyes darting left and right as if searching for an alternate escape route. After finding none, he at last deflated, the tension in his shoulders melting as he slumped in defeat. “Fine. You really want to know?”
Yelena nodded. “That is kind of the point, yeah.”
Bob inhaled, clenched his jaw (which definitely did not make heat flare in the pit of her stomach), and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, so,” he started, avoiding her gaze, “What’s um, up with you and that waiter guy?”
Yelena blinked. Of all the things she’d been expecting him to say, that hadn’t been one of them. “Waiter guy? You mean Jasper?”
Bob’s mouth twisted. “Unless there’s another waiter guy I don’t know about.”
Yelena frowned. There was a hard edge to Bob’s voice she’d never heard before. “There’s nothing ‘up’ with him. Why do you think there is?”
Bob let out a laugh, cold and brittle. Coming from him, the sound was unsettling to say the least. “Come on, Lena. Isn’t it obvious?”
Yelena heaved a sigh. “Bob, you know I’m not the best at people, okay? When I was in school, before the whole Widow thing, there was this girl I thought was my best friend until Tasha told me that she was just pretending to be nice to make fun of me.”
Bob’s face fell. “Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like talking about it for obvious reasons.”
He tilted his head at her, a realization suddenly dawning in his eyes. “So you...you really don’t know.”
Yelena huffed and lowered her arms. “I don’t know what?”
“That Jasper is flirting with you?”
She let out an odd choking sound, somewhere between a cough and a wheeze. “He’s what?”
Bob’s face suddenly broke into a smile. Why the hell was he smiling? “Lena, you really didn’t know?”
Yelena shook her head so hard she swore she could hear her brain rattling around in her skull. “Um, no? I just thought he was being nice!”
Bob bit his lip (which directed even more heat towards her abdominal region), clearly holding in a laugh. “Lena, he’s definitely into you.”
She mentally flipped through an album of every interaction she’d had with the admittedly sort-of-cute waiter, running the information through the filter of this unexpected context clue. “How do you know that?”
Bob’s cheeks flushed. “Because I...I just know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Now his ears were turning pink. “I know because I...” He shuffled his feet and glanced at the floor. “Look, he was leaning, okay.”
Yelena was at a complete loss now. “Leaning? What the hell do you mean, leaning?”
Bob looked up, meeting her eyes. “I mean, like, y’know. Leaning.”
“Bob, you literally just repeated the word.”
“Okay!” He threw his arms up in the air. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
She crossed her own arms again. “Well, show me, then.”
The color drained from his face. “What?”
Yelena rolled her eyes. “Are you deaf? I said show me. You know, this magical leaning thing that apparently means someone is flirting with me.”
Bob bit his lip again, then shoved both hands into his hair. “Um, okay. Um...”
Yelena took a step towards him. “Well?”
He let his hands drop to his sides. And then, after a beat, his eyes—deep, blue, and utterly mesmerizing—met hers with an intensity she wasn’t expecting. Yelena’s heart did a somersault in midair and landed somewhere between her toes.
“So, like...leaning is different from just standing close. Or hugging.”
She swallowed, her throat now thick with some unnamed emotion. “Okay.”
Bob took a step forward. “Hugging’s very different.” He took another step, still holding her gaze. “Hugging, that involves arms and hands.” Another step. “Leaning is whole bodies.” Another step. “Moving in, like this.”
And then there was no more space between them.
Yelena froze in place, her eyes still locked with his. The heat in her stomach began flooding into her limbs.
Bob tilted forward. His breath was a whisper against her skin. “Leaning involves wanting.” His head dipped down. “And accepting.” His mouth was inches away from hers. “That’s leaning.”
His gaze flicked to her lips. And that’s when it hit her.
Bob had been jealous.
Yelena wanted to melt into the floor. Whether from embarrassment at her once again failing to notice what to anyone else would have been obvious, or glee at the revelation that Bob (sweet, bashful, kind-of-hot-when-he-did-that-jaw-clenching-thing, blue-eyed Bob!) liked her enough to even get jealous, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that he was staring at her mouth and that he looked exceptionally cozy in his new Christmas sweater and that it was so cute the way his hair curled up around his ears and that she actually liked that he was invading her personal space and that maybe she wouldn’t mind doing a bit of leaning herself and finding out if he tasted like peppermint cocoa—
Whoosh.
“Ava!”
Bob jumped half a foot into the air.
Yelena whirled around and came face-to-face with her other teammate. She was wearing a mischievous smirk along with an opulent red faux fur jacket that Yelena assumed was an early Christmas present from Bucky. The old man had a terrible weakness for splurging on his new girlfriend, and it was going to drain his bank account soon unless somebody put a stop to it.
Yelena, however, had other things on her mind currently. Distinctly Bob-shaped things. And Ava, ever the tactless menace, had just ruined their moment. “Do you mind?” she snapped, glaring daggers at her friend.
Ava offered Yelena an apologetic grin. “Sorry for the jump scare. I challenged Bucky to a race up the stairs.”
“And you cheated!” Bucky gasped as he appeared behind her.
“Well, it’s your fault for falling for it, babe.”
“You promised you wouldn’t phase.”
“I had my fingers crossed.”
“That doesn’t count!”
“In what universe?”
“All of them!”
“Oh my god,” Yelena groaned. “You two are insufferable, you know that?”
Bucky shot her a withering look, but it didn’t last long because Ava chose that moment to pounce. She grabbed the lapels of Bucky’s jacket and crashed her mouth to his, earning from him a surprised squeak that sounded less like a super soldier and more like one of Alpine’s cat toys.
When Ava pulled away, breathing hard, the smirk settled back on her lips. “Mistletoe, idiot,” she said with a wink, inclining her chin towards the ceiling. A small plastic sprig hung just above the border between the living area and the kitchen. Alexei’s doing. Of course.
Yelena caught Bob’s face flushing beet red.
Thankfully, neither Ava nor Bucky noticed. “Come on, we’ve still got presents to wrap,” Ava declared, looping her arm around Bucky’s and steering him into the hallway.
“I was gonna get a snack first.”
“Later, babe. Those two are clearly in the middle of something and we just interrupted them.”
Okay, so, maybe Ava had noticed.
When the other pair finally disappeared, Bob cleared his throat. “So. Um—”
Yelena didn’t let him finish.
Taking a cue from Ava, she latched onto Bob’s sweater, leapt up onto her toes, and kissed him soundly on the lips.
She barely had time to register what she was doing before she chickened out and pulled back. Bob’s (gorgeous) blue eyes were as wide as saucers, and he was...shaking? “L-Lena?”
Yelena took a deep breath. Holy shit, she’d actually kissed him. “Um. So.” She paused, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “I think maybe I know now why I didn’t notice with Jasper.”
A little crinkle appeared between Bob’s eyebrows, and it was so disgustingly adorable that Yelena had to fight the urge to tackle him into the kitchen counter.
He was still frowning. “Notice—” He coughed. “Notice what?”
Yelena swallowed. “You know. The, uh, leaning thing.”
Bob rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh.” A beat. “Why?”
Yelena flexed her fingers, just now realizing that they were still curled around Bob’s sweater. She forced herself to meet his eyes. “Because he isn’t you.”
She heard Bob’s sharp intake of breath. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
She expected him to say something else, to ask her to elaborate further. But instead he moved, bringing one hand up to cup her jaw and the other to rest on her waist. Before she could blink, Bob pulled her close, angled his head, and lowered his mouth to hers. For a split second, Yelena’s brain short-circuited. But then it registered Bob’s lips moving gently against her own, and with a sigh, she let herself sink into him. Her palms flattened atop his sweater and began roaming across his chest. The hand on her waist snaked towards her back. Soon Bob’s arm was looped around her, and her arms were wrapping around his neck, and his fingers were threading through her hair and hers toying with his curls, and everything was so warm and soft and wonderful and wow. He did, in fact, taste like peppermint cocoa. Yelena stood as high as she could on the tips of her toes, pressing even further into him. She was never detaching herself from Bob ever again. She refused. No force on earth could drag her away from him and his amazingly perfect kissing skills, or this blessed moment in time where he was cradling her in his arms and somehow, miraculously, no one was interrupting—
Unfortunately for them, their lungs had other ideas.
Bob broke away first, gulping in a much-needed breath of air. His thumb was still stroking Yelena’s cheek. “So, uh...”
“You’re a really good kisser.”
He blushed. “Um...thanks?”
Yelena leaned into him, touching her forehead to his. Bob nuzzled her nose, which sent delicious little tingles running down the length of her spine. “You could do it again.”
Bob blinked. “What?”
Yelena smirked and nodded up at the ceiling. “Mistletoe, idiot,” she whispered against his lips.
Bob smiled. “Oh,” he whispered back.
And after that, she didn’t need to say anything more.