Archive of Our Own

Certain sounds always snagged Bob’s attention before he could stop them.

For one, yelling and arguments. 

Growing up in a hostile home where his parents constantly fought and got physical had made him impossibly alert to it. So, whenever Alexei got louder than usual, or Walker and Ava slipped into one of their arguments, Bob braced himself instinctively. Still, once he understood he was safe, the panic ebbed just as quickly as it had come.

Secondly, loud noises.

Like whenever Walker and Bucky decided to spar, and one of them took a hit harder than expected that Bob could easily pick up no matter how far they were, or when Ava appeared out of nowhere to make someone curse and nearly drop whatever they were holding. But again, once he saw that everyone was fine, the instinctive panic drained away in a slow, familiar wave.

And lastly—something that had only started affecting him in the last few months—the soft chime of the elevator and the Avengers logo parting open were enough to tell him Yelena was back.

Because it meant she was back.

Even though she was a Black Widow and more than capable of taking care of herself, Bob still couldn’t stop the fear from flickering through him, because she was also just human. Unlike him, still so incompetent with the team aside from chores and comms. So whenever she walked through that door, his chest eased and tightened all at once, because Yelena being home always mattered more than he knew how to say—

“Hi, Bob.”

Especially when she greeted her like that.

It was enough to send something warm and impossible to name through his chest as he tried to school his features. He had to stop himself from springing up the second she spoke, settling instead for dog-earing the page in his lap before rising with a warm smile.

“Hey, Yelena. Welcome back.”

It’s then she smiled, and it’s always enough to make his knees weak.

“Where’s the other? Still out dealing with big potatoes things?”

Bob chuckled at her relatively new usage of measurement. “Yeah, something like that.”

If you counted Alexei loudly championing their team somewhere on the other side of the city while the rest of the others were out handling another disaster together, then yeah, something like that.

“Watcha doing?”

“I just finished the dishes and laundry, so I’m reading this new book Bucky recommended,” Bob said, lifting the worn paperback slightly as proof.

Yelena snorted, flinging the laptop onto the hard kitchen counter without a care in the world. It was no surprise, given that Valentina’s money was paying for every resource the team used; she didn’t bother treating expensive things gently.

“I bet it is boring.”

Bob huffed a small laugh while he followed her to the kitchen.

“It’s actually The Hobbit.”

“See?” she said, deadpan. “Boring. You know what you should read? Ревизор.”

“Re…vizo-or?” Bob repeated carefully, mangling it on the first try.

She looked at him with instant delight while grabbing one of the instant mac and cheese cups from the wall cabinet she had specifically claimed when they were forced to live at the Watchtower. 

 “No, no. Ревизор. Try again.”

He tried once more, slower this time. “Rye… vee… zor?”

That only made her laugh harder, and Bob felt his ears go warm.

“Close enough,” she decided, though the smirk on her face said otherwise. “What is that in English again?” She clicked her tongue, searching for the word. “Ah. The Government Inspector, I think. Very fun. I enjoyed it a lot when I read it shortly after being freed from the mind control of the Red Room.”

Bob blinked, then tilted his head.

“What’s it about?”

Yelena’s mouth curled, all wicked amusement.

“I can’t tell you. That’s spoiling the fun,” she smirked as she tore open the packet and dumped the orange powder into the cup. Bob watched as if the fate of the universe depended on whether she measured the water correctly.

“That feels unfair,” he huffed.

Yelena glanced at him over her shoulder.

“You will survive. I promise it’s funny. At least, that’s how I remembered it to be. Been too long.”

Bob hesitated, then asked carefully, “Would you…uh…want to read it again?”

Yelena paused with the spoon halfway to the cup. Her expression went faintly unreadable, and there was something that flickered, but before he could place what it was, she turned back to pop her cup into the microwave.

“Read it again? What, with you, Bob?”

He nodded, suddenly very interested in the floor. “If you wanted.”

“Mm…okay.”

“Okay?”

“Mm. Okay.”

Yelena nodded, turning and leaning back against the counter.

“Yeah, it would be fun reading something classic rather than what I’ve been reading lately.”

Bob blinked. “And what have you been reading?”

Yelena’s mouth twitched. “A lot of unholy fanfics.”

Bob frowned slightly, the word unfamiliar on his tongue. “Fan…fic?”

“Mm, fictional stories made by fans, hence the 'fan' and 'fiction.' There’s a lot of conjecture online regarding us,” she said.

He stared at her, bewildered. “What?”

Us? Us as in the New Avengers or us as in me and you?

“Yeah, and there’s also super graphic artworks,” she chuckled, entirely too casual while she licked her spoon. Bob had to try his hardest not to let his mind wander then. “I mean, did you see the one with Spider-Man and the ten Mysterios? Super graphic. Mm. Yes.”

Bob stared at her for a long second, completely lost.

“What?” he echoed because again, he had no clue what she was even talking about.

Spider-Man?

As in the vigilante who was recently released from Bellevue Hospital?

Why would anyone be making super graphic art like that about Spider-Man?

And why was Spider-Man apparently the subject of whatever Yelena was talking about?

She laughed before setting her spoon aside and grabbing her laptop.

“Don’t look at me like that! You should have seen Walker’s face when I showed it to him,” she chortled. “Did you know that Spider-Man has seen it himself? He was so funny, stammering about it. Said it’s hard to unsee it.”

“You’ve… met with Spider-Man?”

Yelena nodded as she set her laptop back onto the counter.

“Yes, about a month ago at my office. Before he was hospitalized,” she said, never looking up from her laptop.

“Your office,” he repeated.

“Mhm.”

“The one that was located in Brooklyn?”

The one he’d only ever heard her mention in passing and never had enough courage to ask about it properly.

Yelena gave him a look that was equal parts dry and affronted. “The one and only, because I can’t do anything here without either being spied on potentially or interrupted. Ah! Here it is, I knew I had it saved somewhere.”

She turned the laptop toward him with the kind of casual confidence that made Bob immediately suspicious, and the second his eyes sent it up to the processing part of his brain, every coherent thought in his head seemed to short-circuit at once.

Even with her warning, he had not been prepared for something that explicit.

Jesus Christ. 

Penises. 

Penises everywhere, no matter where he looked.  

“That’s uh…q-quite intense,” he stammered, looking away, but he didn’t think he’d ever unsee it every time he blinked.

“I said it was graphic, didn’t I? You should see the fanfics. They’re much, much worse,” she confessed, sounding oddly delighted. He had no idea why she was so happy about that, and he figured it was better not to ask. “I like to send the deranged ones to Walker for fun just so I can get a rise out of him. Mm, did you know about Stucky?”

“Stucky?”

“The ship between Bucky and Steve Rogers. You put the two names together, and that's a ship name,” she mused. “There’s also some good SamBucky ones, I have to admit, but the most unhinged and crazy ones usually are with Spider-Man. Lots with Deadpool. Did you know he wears a mask no matter what? So stuffy, I don’t know how he does it.”

“I mean…it’s for the whole anonymous thing, right?”

“He’s not that anonymous now,” she retorted with a twinkle in her eyes as she sang out softly, “I’ve seen his belly button.”

Again, what does that mean?

A hot, strange feeling prickled in Bob’s chest before he could stop it, sharp enough to make him go still. Jealousy, maybe, though he barely understood why, and the worst part was that he wasn’t even sure what exactly he was jealous of.

The fact that she seemed to be fascinatingly infatuated with talking about him?

Of her going out of her way to look at very graphic artwork of him?

Or the fact that she…saw his belly button?

He frowned slightly, caught between confusion and a reluctant, embarrassing thought that he was probably reading far too much into it. When he realized Yelena was still waiting for a response, he offered a simple one.

“Uh…”

The microwave finally dinged, sparing Bob from having to process any more of Yelena’s deeply alarming explanations at once. Yelena took the cup out carefully and turned back to him with the kind of satisfied look that suggested she knew exactly how much she had wrecked his peace of mind.

“I know, right?” she said, going to pour two glasses of water.

Bob just stared, still trying to recover from the fact that people were making fictional works of them and the utterly unhelpful fact that Spider-Man apparently had entire categories of people making strange, impossible things about him and others online.

And he hated how he found himself wondering…

Were there any between him and Yelena?

What is their “ship” name if they had one?

For educational purposes, of course.

Bob quickly decided that this was a line of thought he absolutely did not need to explore any further, especially not while Yelena was standing there looking far too amused with herself. So he cleared his throat and, with a little too much force, steered the conversation back where it had started.

“So… about reading together?”

Yelena handed him a glass of water and then clapped her hands together.

“Right! Yeah, let’s read Ревизор together. I’ll get a Russian copy and an English one so we can see how they butchered the translation,” she stated with open glee while pulling off the lid from the steaming cup. “Right. I need more cheese and hot sauce.”

Hopping off her seat, Yelena crossed the kitchen with the same self-confidence she seemed to bring to everything, but before she could get far, the laptop on the counter suddenly lit up and began to ring.

Bob stared at the screen for a few seconds, then looked up. “Yelena?”

“Mm?” she called from the pantry.

“You have a… video call?”

She appeared in the doorway with a bag of chips in hand.

“From who?”

Bob squinted at the screen. “Someone called Spidey_friend_616?”

Yelena’s face lit up with instant recognition. “Oh, that’s Spider-Man. Answer it for me.”

Why was Spider-Man calling her, and why did she somehow look so happy?

Once more, he shoved those feelings deep down and just nodded.

“Um, okay.”

Bob clicked accept and waited, still a little too aware of the wreckage in his chest.

When Spider-Man’s face appeared on the screen, Bob froze. The mask was red and black, the lenses bright and unreadable, and for one startled second he just stared at the fact that this was really Spider-Man, right there on the screen like this.

He looked almost as surprised to be on the call as Bob felt to be seeing him.

“Oh! Uh…hey?”

Bob gave a tiny wave. “Hey.”

“Uh, you must be Bob, right? The mysterious man?”

He chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, Spider-Man, right?”

“That’s me. Hey, is Yelena there?”

“Give me a minute,” she sang out, coming back soon with a variety of cheeses and a large bottle of siracha sauce. She then turned the laptop towards her, waving. “Hi. Glad to see you recovered well.”

“Oh, wow,” he chuckled. “It’s so weird seeing you like this.”

Yelena arched an inquisitive brow while Bob decided to take a sip of his water. “Like this, how?”

“You know,” Spider-Man chuckled. “With clothes on.”

Bob let out a strangled sound, and the glass in his hand burst apart before he could even register the fact that it was happening. Water splashed over his fingers, and for a split second all he could do was stare at the glittering shards scattered across the floor.

Yelena’s gaze snapped to him instantly, sharp with concern as she shot up from her seat. “Bob?”

“Yelena?” Spider-Man asked on the other end of the line, anxious. “Hey, is everything okay?”

She was at his side in an instant, one hand steady on his arm and the other already checking his fingers for cuts. Even now, after everything, after all the ways the team had learned what he was and what he could do, she still checked on him like he was something fragile enough to worry over.

The fact that she did make his heart race wildly.

“You okay? What happened?”

Bob nodded quickly, trying to breathe normally. “Y-yeah. Sorry.”

“Are you hurt?” she asked, turning his hand over and inspecting it.

“No, it’s going to take more than that to hurt me,” he huffed, trying for a joke and missing the mark completely. As a matter of fact, she did not look amused. Her eyes searched his face, then flicked down to the broken glass again.

“What happened?”

“Nothing, I just… uh, used too much force, by accident,” Bob said, wincing at how flimsy that sounded even to him. He glanced toward the screen, embarrassed all over again. “Sorry to disturb your meeting.”

She waved it off. “It’s fine, probably small baby potato stuff. Right, Spider-Man?”

“Yeah. I just wanted to follow up with you and your meeting with Captain DeWolff.”

“Should you really be back up and working so soon after getting shot?” she asked, her gaze flicking over to the screen for a moment before it was back on Bob. He wagered a small smile; he could see the wheels turning before Yelena finally dropped his hand to head back to her screen.

“I’m fine now, I swear!”

“Mm,” she hummed, dumping copious amounts of cheese and sriracha sauce into her bowl.

“Is that why your online alias is ‘macaroni fiend’?”

“Yep,” she nodded. “And to answer your question, I already dug through all the records that Damage Control tried to scrub and sent it over. Did she tell you that she came by my office the other day?”

Spider-Man’s shoulders loosened on screen tremendously. “Yeah, DeWolff said the same thing when I spoke to her, but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything else I needed to know, or I missed anything.”

“No, everything is okay over here. Where’s your friends?” Yelena asked, eyes still on the screen as she stirred the absurdly orange mess in her bowl. Bob frowned a little, mostly because he had no idea who she meant by that, until Spider-Man answered.

“Helping. Mostly.”

“That’s good. It’s not good to be alone, is it? You don’t look so sad all the time anymore.”

“Oh, uh, yeah? Thanks.”

Bob stayed quiet, watching the exchange and failing to ignore how natural it all looked. Yelena and Spider-Man clearly knew each other well enough to talk like this, which was, for some reason, deeply irritating to Bob in a way that felt unfair and childish.

Not wanting to wallow any longer, he got up and decided to clean up the broken glass before he had time to think too hard about what was making him so uneasy. He thought he had it all under control…till Spider-Man said something that turned this entire thing on its head.

“Also, I still can’t believe that’s your office when you have a perfectly good space right now.”

Yelena’s mouth twitched. “Hey, it’s a very efficient office. Were you not relaxed like I promised?”

Bob looked between them as Spider-Man gave a short laugh.

“The first time you told me to meet you there, I really thought you were joking.”

Yelena only shrugged. “I was not joking.”

“And you really did tell me to take my outfit off.”

“Leotard," she corrected through a mouthful of mac-and-cheese. 

“It’s not a leotard!” Spider-Man exclaimed.

“It’s close enough to one. And if it makes you feel better, you saw me naked,” Yelena said, entirely too matter-of-factly, as if that was meant to settle anything at all. The words hit Bob like a spark to dry tinder on a hot summer day. Before he even understood what had happened, the air around him seemed to tighten, and the whole Watchtower gave a low, ominous shudder.

The lights overhead flickered hard enough to make the kitchen seem to lurch, and Bob was on his feet before he could even think about it. At almost the exact same time, Yelena shot up beside him, her face tightening with alarm.

“Bob, what is going on?”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out that felt usable, not with Spider-Man still on the screen and Yelena looking at him like that. Shame, embarrassment, and a fresh, humiliating kind of panic crashed together all at once, and before either of them could say anything else, Bob turned and darted out of the kitchen.

Stupid, jealous little Bobby.

He ran as fast as he could back to his room, each step feeling too loud, too heavy, like the Watchtower itself was judging him for what he’d just done. By the time he shut the door behind him, his chest was heaving, and the shame had already started to curdle into something meaner and much crueler.

What, do you really think someone like you deserves her?

The thought came piercing and nasty, like it had been waiting just under the surface for the perfect moment to strike. From all around him, the rumbling and flickering of the lights only grew. Somewhere, something exploded, but he couldn’t help it, and he hated it.

He hated how petty and stupid his possessiveness felt, hated that he’d let it get under his skin when he had no right to any of this in the first place, hated that the whole Watchtower still seemed to tremble with his own shame.

What did Yelena mean by that?

Have they really seen each other naked?

In her office? Why were they even naked?

A sinister thought slid in before he could stop it, cold and smooth and far too eager:

Maybe you should make Spider-Man disappear.

For one awful second, it almost sounded reasonable, like the cruel part of him had been waiting all along to offer a solution, to drag the vigilante somewhere dark and quiet and keep him there until the ache in Bob’s chest finally stopped.

It was tempting to humor it that he hadn’t even noticed the shadows in his room growing—

Then came the knock.

“Bob?” His breath hitched when the knock became firmer. “Bob, talk to me.”

His throat tightened. “I’m fine, Len—”

“чушь! You're not fine, so open this door, Bob,” she snapped, banging louder.

“Yel—”

“I swear I’ll break it.”

That was enough to make him fumble the lock and crack the door open, just enough for her to come in. Not because he’s scared of the door breaking but the possibility of Yelena getting hurt in the process.  

“Lena, it’s—”

Yelena caught his hand before he could finish, her grip firm and warm.

“It’s not nothing. You’ve been acting strange since Spider-Man—”

His jaw tightened at the sound of Spider-Man’s name alone, a hot, ugly wave of jealousy flaring so fast it nearly stole his breath. He felt it before he understood it—the prickling heat behind his eyes, the sudden brightness bleeding into the edges of his vision.

Yelena saw it too.

Her eyes widened, not with fear, but with startled realization, like she’d just uncovered something she hadn’t expected to find. Bob swallowed hard, humiliation and panic colliding in his chest as he looked away for half a second and then back again, forcing the words out through a throat gone dry.

“What do you mean when you said that he saw you naked?” he finally questioned. 

“What?”

“And what do you mean when you said that you saw his belly button?” he continued stammering outward. It’s like once he started, he didn’t know how to stop it. “And why were you asking if he relaxed? And why haven’t we ever seen your office? And—”

“Bob…are you jealous?” she asked, mouth parting slightly.

The question hit harder than any accusation could have. For a second, he just stared at her, mortified, because even now, even with his eyes burning and his face hot and his thoughts a mess, the answer was sitting there in plain sight.

“N-no,” he lied instantly.

Yelena’s expression didn’t change, but she did arch a brow that basically called out his bullshit.

“Bob.”

He let out a broken breath and looked down, at anywhere but her.

“I mean— I don’t— it’s stupid.”

“Mm.” She tilted her head. “You are acting very stupid, yes.”

That should have made him feel worse.

Somehow, it only made him want to laugh and disappear at the same time.

He swallowed, fingers curling uselessly at his sides.

“I know I have no reason to be like this. It’s just—” He stopped, jaw tightening again, and the only reason he felt grounded was that her hand was still wrapped tightly around his wrist. “You said he saw you naked.”

Yelena blinked once, then huffed out a short, incredulous laugh.

“Oh. No, Bob. You got it all wrong.”

Bob looked like he might combust on the spot. “It’s not funny.”

“No, Bob,” she said, stepping closer. “You are funny. Very funny. But also very bad at listening.”

He frowned despite himself, confusion briefly cutting through the shame.

“What does that mean?”

Her mouth twitched, just a little, and there was that fondness in her eyes that only calmed him down further. “It means if you let me explain, you might stop trying to murder him in your head. My office? It’s in a баня.”

“A…banya?” he tried to pronounce.

“Yes. A Russian steam bath. A sauna,” she clarified.

“Your…office is in a sauna?”

“Mm. At 3250 Brighton Beach in Brooklyn.”

“W-why?” he asked, still stumped.

“That way, people get to enjoy a nice, relaxing soak, and for me? I get to see that they don’t have any weapons and everyone wins. Plus, it’s nice to get away from everyone once in a while, and you know I don’t trust Valentina enough to hold my meetings here.”

The gears in his head were still turning ever so slowly.

“So when…you said you saw his belly button…and…”

“He had his shirt off but kept his boxers on,” Yelena said, like that explained everything. “I was already in the water, very far away from him. There’s no need to be upset because I saw a stomach.”

“I’m upset because I thought—” He stopped, face heating all over again. Now that he had nowhere to run and the misunderstanding had been cleared, he suddenly felt like wallowing. “I thought something else happened.”

Yelena’s eyebrows lifted a little, and then her mouth tilted into something wickedly amused.

“Like what?” she asked, delight practically dancing in her mouth.

Bob made a strangled sound and looked away so fast it was almost comical. “Nothing.”

“Mm.”

“It was nothing.”

“Bob.”

He covered his face with both hands. “I thought you meant…I don’t know! Something else.”

“Something else,” she repeated, dragging the words out. In that moment, she decided to close the distance, pressing her body closer to him. “I don’t know, Bob. I think you will have to be more specific than that.”

He groaned. “Yelena.”

That only made her smile wider. She stepped closer and closer until he could feel the warmth of her before she even touched him. “Let me get this straight. You thought something inappropriate was going on between Spider-Man and me in my office?”

“T-this was before I found out your office was a sauna!”

“So yes, you did,” she quipped. He made a miserable noise in the back of his throat, which was answer enough. Yelena laughed under her breath, not cruelly, just with elated disbelief. “I didn’t think you’d have such a wild imagination, Bob.”

Bob closed his eyes. “Please stop talking.”

“Okay. But only because I want to do something else.”

Stepping up onto the toes of her boots, she caught the front of his shirt and yanked him down just enough to meet her halfway. The movement was confident, measured, as if she’d decided something and seen no reason to wait for permission from the air between them.

Then she kissed him, eyes still half lidded and finding his.

It wasn’t frantic or seeming to be in the heat of the moment. It was warm and sure and so utterly, impossibly direct that Bob forgot how to breathe for one long, stunned second. Every thought he’d been clawing at went blank at once, his whole body going rigid before melting under the sheer force of it.

When she pulled back, it was only enough to look at him.

Bob stared at her, dazed and red-faced and entirely undone.

“I…”

Yelena licked her lips and then coyly tilted her head to the side, loving the way his whole face had gone pink now. “And if you want to see me naked, Bob, you only have to ask. Preferably somewhere with a real bed, not my office.”

He stared at her like she’d just changed the laws of physics.

“You mean…like…r-romantically?”

Yelena’s mouth curved into a slow, knowing smile. “Yes, Bob. Romantically.”

His breath caught. “You…like me romantically?”

"To have sex with you? Or do you prefer making love?"

"M-making love?" he squeaked, and he hated the way she pressed her belly to him, knowing that she could feel what exactly was hardening and how useless his composure had become. 

She let out a soft chuckle, warm and full of disbelief, like she couldn’t quite believe she had to spell it out. Her hands slowly intertwined with his, then squeezed them. “Yes. I thought I hinted it.”

Bob blinked. “When?”

She tipped her head.  

“Just before, when I said there’s a lot of conjecture online, but you didn’t say anything, so,” she shrugged. "I talked about the orgy Spider-Man fanart."

“I was processing!”

She snorted. “Clearly.”

He looked thoroughly overwhelmed, which only made her smile widen further.

“So,” she said, leaning in just enough to make him go still again, “does that mean you want to see super graphic artwork and stories about us then? Because let me tell you, many, many people ship us online. The Black Widow and the mystery man. Not that you’d know, seeing as you’re such a bookworm.”

His eyes widened. “W-wait, there are many people that actually ship us?”

She nodded. “Mm.”

Bob stared at her. “And we...uh, have a ship name?”

"Oh, yeah." Yelena’s grin turned wicked. “Boblena.”

He made a strangled sound, and because Yelena wouldn’t let go of his hands, it went straight to covering his face, half mortified and half delighted, while she laughed softly. To think he’d nearly spiraled himself into a panic over a misunderstanding, when she’d apparently been quietly inviting him all along.

“So,” she said, “are you going to keep blushing, or are you going to kiss me properly this time?”

And what choice did he have but to laugh helplessly and do as she pleased?

Though he did have one more comment he had to make before then. 

"Does that mean...I...I can come to your office sometimes? You know, just to...see it?"

God, was he being sly?

Judging from the way Yelena burst out laughing, he wasn't, but that's okay. 

Especially when she tugged him back down, their lips brushing over each other while she reached to hook her fingers at the waistline of his brown slacks. 

"You'll be doing a lot more than seeing, Bob, but yes. Right after this."

This time, he's not complaining when his Black Widow deepened their kiss. 

To think that he wanted to murder Spider-Man would lead to this.