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“Why is it that every time you come back from your supposed ‘office,’ you smell like you’ve been to a salon?”
Yelena glanced up from her laptop, her nose scrunching with visible disgust at Walker’s uncalled-for observation out loud. Leave it to Discount America to turn something nice into an interrogation.
“First of all,” she said slowly, “that is deeply unsettling. Why are you sniffing me, John?”
“I’m not—”
“Second,” Yelena continued without missing a beat. “Why are you even asking such pointless questions? What, are you jealous I smell nice, and you like cheap cologne and very bad, stale coffee?”
“I do not,” he protested and then paused, looking at the others. “Wait, do I?”
“And thirdly, despite no one believing me, my office really is at a sauna,” she finished.
“Yeah, okay,” Ava snorted from where she was currently taking apart her gun on the coffee table, each piece laid out with precise, practiced care. “And my office is at an animal shelter that also lets me name the kittens after people who annoy me. I’m up to my twenty-third John.”
Walker gave a humorless laugh, taking a seat adjacent. “Ha. Ha. Very funny.”
Ava didn’t look up from the gun’s slide. “Thank you. I didn’t work hard, actually.”
“Those poor cats being named after him,” Yelena said, shaking her head. “How many Alexei’s?”
Alexei brightened immediately, walking over from the kitchen to join them in the common room with a bowl of Wheaties. “Ah! Many, I hope. It is a strong name. Very strong and noble name. A name for great hunters and even greater protectors!”
Ava’s mouth twitched. “Six.”
“What, only six?” Yelena asked, arching a brow.
“Six is good,” Alexei beamed. “In the name of Red Guardian, they will grow big and fearsome.”
Yelena only rolled her eyes before turning her attention back to her laptop. It’s not her fault that her office was actually at a Russian bathhouse and no one took her seriously. Her fingers resumed their quick, restless tapping over the keys.
The quiet held for maybe another three minutes—broken only by the soft clink of Ava reassembling her gun, Alexei’s aggressive cereal crunching, Bob reaching quietly in the corner, Bucky turning the back from the packets Mel gave him this morning, and the occasional tap of Yelena’s keys.
Then Bucky finally decided to break it once more.
“What are you researching, Yelena?”
Yelena didn’t glance away from the screen. “Damage Control.”
Walker’s brows pulled together. “The…department?”
“Yes, Walker. Not the emotional state you leave every room in.”
Ava made a noise that might have been a laugh.
“Why?” Bucky asked.
Yelena clicked into another file.
“If there’s any connection between the attacks on Damage Control.”
Ava frowned. “I heard about it on the news. Is it concerning enough for us to look into it?”
Yelena hummed for a moment, scrolling through another incident report before shaking her head. “Not yet enough to be a big-potato threat. But this is the fourth attack on a Damage Control facility this month. I wanted to look into it, seeing as whoever did it got access to restricted servers.”
Walker leaned back in his chair. “What, like a hack?”
Yelena pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s the thing. They did not break in through a hack. They used valid credentials. Thirty employees at the Waystation logged into systems they should not have even known existed.”
Bucky crossed his arms, attention sharpening. “You think somebody was controlling them?”
“No.” Yelena clicked open a grainy security still and turned it over to them. An employee stood perfectly motionless in a hallway, as if waiting for something. “From what I can see, it looks more like possession. Ghost, demon, angry little supernatural parasite. Pick one.”
Alexei chose that moment to chime in around a spoonful of cereal.
“Like leshy?” he asked, milk and cereal bits sprayed inelegantly and everyone flinched back in immediate, collective disgust except for Yelena, her attention still focused on the security footage.
“That’s what I thought,” Yelena mumbled.
“Like what? The fuck is a leshy?” Walker asked.
“A leshy is a forest spirit. Tall, tricks travelers, possesses people sometimes,” Yelena answered, glancing up. That was when she realized that Bob, who had drifted up from his comfortable spot that overlooked the city, got up and made his way to hover awkwardly by the sideline. “But that’s not the point.”
Walker lifted a brow. “Then what is the point?”
“I was getting there.” She pulled up a different screen, her tone flattening into focus. “Whoever—or whatever—did this knows its way around Damage Control. It searched the same term every time without fail and then leaves.”
Bucky leaned forward. “What is it?”
“V-Max.”
“V-Max?” he repeated.
“Yes.” Yelena’s fingers sped across the keyboard. “But nothing comes up when I dig through the records. It could be anything, especially if Damage Control is involved. Maybe alien tech, secretive weapon program, launch codes. Could be anything.”
Walker’s gaze narrowed at the screen. “My money’s on a weapon program.”
Ava raised one hand slightly without looking away from the pistol she was carefully reassembling. “Launch code.”
Yelena considered that, then grimaced. “Could be anything. I spoke to Spider-Man—”
“Wait, Spider-Man? The vigilante Spider-Man? From Queens?”
Yelena stared at Walker, arching a brow. “Do you know another Spider-Man?”
Alexei sat up so quickly his spoon clattered against his bowl.
“When did you talk to him? I have always wanted to fight alongside Spider-Man!”
“Today. In my office.”
Ava glanced over and finally tucked away her gun. “Right. The one at the sauna.”
“It is called a banya,” Yelena corrected, affronted. “I even saw his belly button, so he’s not that anonymous anymore. Anyway, Ava, you should come by sometime, very relaxing and good for the skin.”
“Guys,” Bucky cut in, calm but firm. “Focus.”
“Yes, yes.” Yelena turned back to the laptop, opening a map of the city crowded with colored pins. “I spoke to him, and I have been doing a little research—using traffic cameras, street cameras, anything I can access without triggering seventeen angry federal alerts.”
“Yelena,” Bucky chided, hands on his hips.
“What? It could be bigger potato sizes,” she huffed. “And Val doesn’t need to know.”
Walker leaned closer despite himself. “What did you find?”
Yelena’s expression flattened. “A teenager.”
Bucky’s brow furrowed. “A teenager?”
She nodded, dragging one of the pins across the map. “Every time she was in the area, that is when something happened. Not always right at the facility, but close enough that it is suspicious.”
At that, she turned the screen toward them.
The footage was grainy, washed in the sickly yellow glow of a nearby streetlamp. A girl stood at the edge of the frame in a dark green hoodie, the hood pulled low over her head. Her face was impossible to make out, swallowed by shadow and bad camera quality, but long hair spilled down her back in a loose curtain.
Walker stared at the screen. “You got a name?”
“Not yet. Cameras catch her face, but nothing useful comes back. No phone registered to her. No school records I can access. No social media. Either she is very careful, or someone made sure she is difficult to find. We have to presume she’s dangerous. Because look.”
Yelena pulled up another feed. This one was from inside the Damage Control building during the last attack: shaky security footage of alarms flashing red over a white-tiled lobby, employees pouring through the exits in a panicked crush.
For a few seconds, it looked ordinary with people running for the doors.
Someone fell; another person grabbed them and pulled them back up. Then a woman near the front stopped. Her head tipped slowly backward, chin lifting toward the ceiling as though someone had hooked a finger beneath it.
Her body went still for one strange, suspended second.
Then she turned and sprinted directly back into the building without any fear she had displayed seconds ago. Yelena then fast-forwarded and changed the camera feed again. This time, a man fleeing down a stairwell jolted to a stop, head snapping back at the same unnatural angle. He pivoted on his heel and ran upstairs, toward the sound of breaking glass and screaming.
Again.
A security guard at an emergency exit.
Again.
A young employee dragging someone injured toward the doors.
Again.
Each time, it’s the same pause, then a sharp turn back toward the compromised building. It’s uncanny, and it could be something that’s an Avenger-level threat if they didn’t get a handle on the situation soon.
Bucky stared at the screen. “How many?”
“About six…what can I even call it? Jumps?” Yelena threw out with a large frown. “Episodes?”
“Well, whatever it is, we need to start digging and assess the situation,” Bucky muttered, glancing at all of them. “Find the girl so we can take her in for questioning and whatever V-Max is.”
“Great,” Yelena said brightly, though there was no real humor in it. “Group project. My favorite.”
“Speak for yourself,” Walker grumbled.
“Oh my God, have you never heard of sarcasm, Walker?” Ava snickered.
Yelena snapped the laptop shut and rose from the couch, slipping it under one arm as she headed toward the control room with the other in tow. “I’ll pull the Waystation personnel files and cross-reference—”
Suddenly, the large Avenger logo turned, and every head turned in that direction just as Mel stepped out. Instantly, Yelena and the others were confused and alert. After all, she usually didn’t just appear without a warning.
Bucky stopped mid-step. “Mel? What are you doing here?”
Strangely, she didn’t answer right away.
She stood beneath the revolving Avengers insignia with her hands loose at her sides, posture almost too still. Her eyes found Yelena’s, and for a second, something in them felt wrong. It’s not vacant exactly, but distant.
Yelena’s grip tightened around her laptop. “Mel? What’s going—”
Then everything went dark.
It had been almost a year since Bob had been—“gifted,” as Valentina liked to call it—with his powers and immortality, and there were a few things he had learned to live with. Things he had gotten used to.
Memorized.
The sounds of the city, for one: car horns several streets over, pipes groaning in the walls from Brooklyn, neighbors arguing through apartment windows all the way from Staten Island, and the distant sirens that never seemed to stop.
When it first happened, it was hard.
The noise was so unbearable that he thought he was losing his mind. Every sound arrived at once, layered over itself until the world became an unbearable wall of noise, and he finally learned to separate them.
How to let most of it blur into the background and hold onto one thing at a time.
Usually, it was Yelena’s steady heartbeat.
So it was why it caught his attention when it suddenly pounded hard against his senses—one frantic, uneven burst—before settling back into its familiar rhythm as though nothing had happened.
At the same moment, Mel swayed where she stood, catching everyone’s attention.
“Mel?” Bucky called, already moving right before her knees buckled. He dove forward and caught her just before she hit the floor, one arm braced around her shoulders as the other kept her head from striking the tile. The folder she’d been carrying scattered beside them, papers sliding across the polished floor.
For one awful second, nobody spoke.
“What’s happening?” Alexei asked, looking around, perplexed.
“What… happened? How did…how did I get here?” Mel inquired, her brows pitched together.
“What do you mean?” Ava questioned.
“Mel, what do you last remember?” Bucky asked once she was steady on her feet again.
“I…I was getting lunch and then…I’m suddenly here? But I don’t remember how,” she mumbled.
“You don’t think…”
Walker couldn’t even fathom finishing that question, and no one could blame him.
Revolution and hot-curling anger curled in Bob’s gut as he whipped his head around and stared at Yelena alongside everyone else, who had gone eerily quiet. He knew, without knowing how, that the person standing in front of them wasn’t her.
Not when she then smiled, all teeth and not a single ounce of warmth at all.
“Woah,” she whispered, giggling as her gaze drifted slowly across the room—past them, through them, taking in something none of them could see. She shook her head, loose and disbelieving, a lock of blonde hair falling across her face. “Let me tell you, you do not want to be in this head. Oh, she’s got issues. Serious abandonment issues.”
“Lena?” Alexei’s voice came out smaller than Bob had ever heard it.
Bucky shifted subtly in front of Mel and the others.
“That’s not Yelena,” he said, quiet and certain. His eyes never left Yelena’s face. “Who are you?”
“And the person who looks like he cares so much,” Yelena continued without answering his question, tilting her head at Alexei, “is the very reason she has abandonment issues in the first place.”
“Выйди из моей дочери.”
“Your daughter, huh?” Her gaze flicked over him with open, clinical interest. “And here I thought I was bad. You think you still have the right to call her your daughter after giving her to the Red Room? And she so pathetically accepts you back into her life despite what you did?”
Alexei went rigid.
Ava moved before anyone else could speak. Her gun was in her hand in one smooth motion.
“We asked you a question.”
Yelena’s eyes slid down to the weapon, almost seeming bored.
She let out a small sigh and then strode over to the kitchen, placing the laptop down on the counter. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she said. “She’s still human at the end of the day. Ava, was it? You two seem close in her memories. I guess that’s what trauma bonding does to a person.”
Bucky’s stare sharpened. “You’re that girl, aren’t you?”
For the first time, the thing wearing Yelena looked genuinely delighted.
“That’s cute, Bucky,” she professed, opening up the laptop. “You did research on me? Well, I did some on you all too. It’s why I figured she would be the best target. Well, alongside what I hope is valuable information after finding out Spider-Man and I are close.”
“What do you want from Lena?” Alexei thundered, his voice echoing through the common room. For the first time, the smile on Yelena’s face faltered, but it wasn’t with fear. It was with something colder. Her fingers paused above the laptop’s keyboard.
“What I want?” she echoed. “I want to know where V-Max is.”
“You're out of luck; she doesn’t even know, let alone us,” Walker snapped. Yet she ignored him, refocusing her attention back onto the laptop, which meant there was something more that this person who possessed Yelena wouldn’t say.
“Did you know this body is being held together by caffeine and pure determination to carry on her sister’s legacy? I’m impressed, really, the things one would do for their family. I’m sure Yelena would understand.”
Then the floor shuddered beneath them.
At first it was subtle—the low, uneasy vibration of pipes in the walls—but then the kitchen island rattled hard enough to make the plates on it from earlier skitter across the counter. A glass toppled from its spot beside the sink and shattered against the tile.
Then the lights started to flicker as the shaking grew stronger, and the furniture scraped and moved several inches.
Everyone turned to look at the culprit.
And Bob?
He stood with his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white. His shoulders were rigid, chest rising and falling too fast, something dark and furious pulling at the edges of his expression.
“What do you want?” Bob finally gritted out.
“And you must be Bob,” Yelena chirped happily, looking up from the screen. “So many thoughts surrounding you, I'm amazed. Did you know that Yelena’s still recovering from her previous mission? She’s currently housing two cracked ribs, and it’s a pain to even breathe without hurting, you know.”
With that, Bob watched in horror as she drew in a breath that was slow and deliberately deep.
Yelena’s face pinched.
Bob heard it then: the stutter of her heartbeat, the barely swallowed hitch of pain. Anger surged through him so sharply that the lights above them burst all at once, showering the room in sparks.
The person—thing—inside her brightened.
“Oh,” it said, twisting Yelena gently at the waist as if testing the limits of a borrowed jacket. “There it is. Right there.”
It pressed a palm just beneath her ribs, and they watched as Yelena flinched.
Ava took a step forward, gun lifting.
“Get your hand off her.”
“Technically,” the girl wearing Yelena said, smiling wide, “it is already my hand.”
Bucky’s metal arm flexed. “You’re hurting her.”
“In my defense, I thought possessing the only non-emo-looking person would be easiest,” she said, affecting a pout that looked wrong on Yelena’s face. “Imagine my surprise when I found an entire filing cabinet of trauma in here.”
“Get out,” Alexei gritted out. “Please. Use my body—”
“No. I like this mind and body a lot,” she retorted. “Even though she constantly feels like she’d be discarded if she’s not helpful. I mean, crazy, huh? I bet none of you knew that about your leader.”
“You don’t get to talk about her,” Bob snarled, taking a step forward, and the floor started to crack right beneath his feet.
“Oh, wow. You really are the strongest there is,” Yelena laughed.
“Don’t,” Bucky warned, stepping closer. “Leave him out of this.”
“Why?” Yelena asked sweetly. “He is already in it.”
She tilted Yelena’s head, studying Bob with an intimacy that made his skin crawl. “You listen to her heartbeat, don’t you? When everything gets loud. You looked for her first, and that’s why you knew when I jumped into her body. A shame, it didn’t need to play out like this if you didn’t catch on.”
Bob went very still at her declaration while Ava’s eyes flicked to him, sharp and surprised. Walker looked between them, brows bumping together alongside Mel, Bucky, and Alexei.
“Stop using her voice,” he whispered.
Yelena’s mouth softened around a cruel imitation of a smile as she finally hopped off the counter seat. She tilted her head, which was so Yelena-like. “Or what? Are you going to make the building collapse and kill everyone here? Let that monster inside of you come out and make this worse? That’s what you are secretly, right? That’s why you’re here. To make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“Bob,” Bucky muttered.
“But it’s okay. No matter if you’re a monster, I’ll still be here. We stick together from now on.”
For one horrifying second, it sounded right.
The cadence was wrong, the warmth too carefully placed, but it was close enough to the things Yelena had said to him in quiet corners of the tower—when the noise got bad, when he woke up shaking, when he was convinced that everyone would eventually see what was underneath him and leave.
His fists shook at his sides, and he could feel his head pounding.
“You’re not Yelena,” he said, forcing the words through his tightening throat. “Stop talking like her.”
The thing inside her blinked slowly.
“Aren’t I?” she asked. It took a step closer, Yelena’s boots quiet against the floor. “I could talk like her if you wanted. I could tell you your hair looks silly when you are upset. I could tell you to breathe.” Its smile sharpened. “I could tell you that you are not a monster, Bob.”
Bob’s eyes burned.
“Don’t.”
“Oh, but she means it.” The stranger’s voice softened, nearly perfect now. “She has been meaning to tell you for a while, and you knew that, huh? You just can’t believe that someone like her would ever—”
A sharp crack split through the room as one of the walls cracked.
“She’s messing with you,” Bucky chimed in next. “Hey. Look at me.”
Bob didn’t.
He couldn’t take his eyes off Yelena’s face.
The thing watched him unravel with naked fascination.
“She would stay, you know,” she pressed on. “Even if you broke everything in this room. Even if you let the Void out. She would stay because she knows what it is like to be used for something she never chose. Makes you wonder…what would the world be like if she wasn’t there anymore?”
“Bob, don’t listen to him,” Walker muttered.
Bob didn’t.
Once more, he couldn’t.
“Get out of her,” he snarled, willing his voice to be calm and steady.
“Bob,” she whispered breathlessly, and that had the man seeing red. He was so close to forgetting himself—to letting the anger rise, to giving the Void even the smallest opening. “Now you care? When you’ve been ignoring me all week, mm?”
“You’re not Yelena,” he snarled, willing his voice to be calm and steady. “Stop talking like her.”
“Aren’t I, though?” she questioned coyly. “I could talk like your Lena…if you want.”
The windows all around the room shattered.
“Bob!” Ava bellowed, but it felt like she and the others were millions of miles away.
“I missed you, you know. A lot. There were times when I’d think of apologizing to hear your voice again, but then I got stubborn. And you know how I am when I’m stubborn. Bad habit,” she hummed, and the words landed with brutal precision. “And you were right. I should have come to you. I should have told you I was scared instead of going to that mission, getting hurt and then getting into a fight with you over it.”
The room groaned around him. Broken glass lifted from the floor in trembling pieces, hovering inches above the tile.
“Bob,” Bucky said, closer now. “Listen to me. That isn’t her.”
“What. Do. You. Want.”
“I told you I wanted information, but it seemed this was a dead end as well,” she sighed, clicking her tongue. She stepped away again, throwing herself on the couch before leaning forward and placing her elbows on her knees. “Thought she’d know the identity of the man who's been getting in my way, but nothing. Aside from seeing his belly button.”
Bucky’s expression hardened. “If it’s a dead end, then let Yelena go.”
“Oh, I will,” the stranger in her body stated, settling deeper into the couch. She kicked one leg over the other and nodded. “In due time. I am in a bit of a rush, you see, but before that, I have two conditions if you want her back.”
“Anything,” Bob said immediately.
The others exchanged looks, but in the end, they all nodded.
“Hey, now,” Yelena chided, lips forming a soft, teasing pout. “You haven’t even heard the conditions yet. Have I taught you nothing? How can you be Earth’s next protector if you’re willing to agree so easily, hm?”
“What is it?” Alexei asked, voice scraped raw.
The thing looked around the room, lingering on the way they had arranged themselves between her and Yelena without even thinking about it. Her smile went smaller, and if Bob didn’t know any better, it almost looked...
Sad.
“I wonder if this is what it is like,” she mused, looking at each of them and then finally settling onto Bob. “To be so cherished. I guess love only comes when you’re human. Unless you are one of the lucky few.”
“Stop stalling,” Walker snapped.
“Right.” Her eyes brightened again, and then she held up one finger high. “Condition one: this interaction stays between us for as long as possible.”
Bucky frowned. “What?”
“The fewer people who know what I’m capable of, the better.”
“Yeah,” Walker said. “Not happening.”
“I was afraid you would say that.”
In one fluid movement, Yelena drew a pistol from the back of her waistband and raised it to her own temple. Everyone stilled, couldn’t even draw a breath of air as she chuckled, arching a brow slyly.
“What about now?” she asked.
Ava’s breath caught. “Put it down.”
“She’s already researching you before you showed up,” Bucky affirmed calmly.
“It will only be a matter of time before she figures it out anyway,” Walker joined in.
“Then let her come to her own conclusion when the time comes,” Yelena replied. “I just need to buy myself some time without more interference. I already have Spider-Man and the NYPD on my ass.”
Bob’s voice was tight. “Fine.”
“Bob—” Bucky started.
“And the second condition?” Bob asked, never taking his eyes off the gun.
Yelena’s smile softened further into something almost wistful.
“I want a confession.”
“A confession?” Bob echoed.
“Mm, yes,” Yelena maintained, lazily waving the gun in his direction. “From you.”
Bob blinked. “Me?”
“Mm-hm. You.” Her gaze fixed on him with unnerving certainty. “I’ll let you in on a secret: she already has a hunch. Deep down. She has for a while now. But to think a Black Widow would be scared to acknowledge it? It’s ironic, right?”
Walker frowned. “What the hell is she talking about?”
The stranger’s smile sharpened, Yelena’s thumb resting dangerously close to the safety.
“And I want you to say it out loud. In front of everyone.”
Bob’s throat tightened. He knew what she meant. Of course she knew; she had crawled through Yelena’s memories and found every carefully buried moment Bob had thought belonged only to them.
“Why?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Because I said so.”
Bob stared at the thing wearing Yelena’s face, at the gun pressed against her temple once again, and tried to find any part of this that did not feel like a trap. He could try to use his powers and try to subdue her, but he didn’t know the extent of what she could do.
Not to mention, she might hop into someone else’s body.
“And if I do both…you’ll leave?” Bob asked.
“Yes, without hesitation.”
Bob took a deep breath, the air catching painfully in his chest. There was no good time for this. There never would have been. Not with everyone watching, not with Yelena’s body held hostage by a stranger, not with a gun at her temple.
But there was no time like now to get it all out.
“I’m sorry, Yelena. You were right. I was worried about you going alone. Not because I don’t trust you—I do. I know you can handle yourself better than almost anyone.” His hands trembled at his sides. “But because I was scared of losing you.”
Yelena’s face gave nothing away.
Bob swallowed. “I was scared that if something happened to you—if you got hurt, or you didn’t come back—I would let the Void out. To see you again because I knew you’d be in one of my shame rooms.”
Bucky’s expression softened despite himself. Ava lowered her gun by an inch, still ready but no longer aiming quite as steadily. Alexei and Walker stared at Bob, stunned by what they just heard.
Yet Bob looked only at Yelena.
Watched as the being in her body went still.
For the first time since she had taken Yelena, the smug amusement slipped entirely from her face. Her eyes flicked across the room as she took everyone in. From Bucky, tense and ready to move. Then to Ava with her gun lowered but still unwilling to give up. Next to Alexei, devastated and furious all at once; and finally back to Bob.
Something shuttered behind her eyes, and Bob couldn’t help but recognize what flickered then.
Longing.
The aching kind that came from seeing something you had never been given and had stopped believing could exist: people who stayed, people who fought for one another, a family chosen instead of assigned.
He’d know that well, seeing as Yelena and the others were the first people who had made him feel like he belonged anywhere at all.
“You really mean it,” she whispered, lowering her gun and tucking it back in.
Bob didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Yelena’s smile came back, but it was small this time, almost nauseatingly wretched.
“Must be nice,” the stranger murmured. “To not be alone anymore.”
Yelena swayed where she stood, her knees buckling as though the strings holding her upright had suddenly been cut. Bob was moving before anyone else could breathe. He caught her by the arms, steadying her as her full weight tipped into him.
“Yelena,” he said again, softer now. “Hey. I’ve got you.”
Her head lolled briefly against his shoulder as she let out a low moan.
“Что случилось?” she murmured, but could barely compose herself before Bob pulled her tightly into his arms. He was careful at first, terrified of pressing against her cracked ribs, terrified of hurting her after she had already been through too much.
However, he couldn’t hold himself back anymore.
Not when he heard her familiar heartbeat.
His arms wrapped around her like he was trying to make sure she was real, that she was here, that she had come back. Yelena made a small, startled sound against his chest as she whispered his name.
“You’re okay,” he whispered, though he was not sure whether he was telling her or himself. “You’re here. I’ve got you.”
Her hands slowly found the back of his shirt, curling into the fabric.
“What happened? Are you okay?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” Bob said quickly, swallowing around the tightness in his throat as his eyes burned. “I’m okay. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about these last few days and ignoring you, and we got into this big fight and—”
Yelena shushed him softly, one hand sliding up between his shoulder blades.
“It’s okay, Bob,” she murmured. “Hey. It’s okay.”
“But—”
“No.” Her grip tightened in the fabric of his shirt. “Stop apologizing right now. I demand it.”
A shaky laugh escaped him.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
“You are doing it again,” she snorted, pulling back just enough to look at him, and then confusion spread across her face when she took in the state of the room and where she was standing. “I…I don’t remember standing here before. What the hell happened here?”
The room went quiet then.
Bucky’s eyes flicked to Ava, then Walker, the wordless exchange so quick Yelena might have missed it if she had not been looking directly at them. Bob’s chest tightened. They could not tell her yet.
Who knows what else that…thing could do.
Bucky opened his mouth, clearly about to offer one of his careful, practical lies that he was probably already brewing since the moment that he stated that they had to keep this from Yelena.
Yet before he could, Bob spoke up, “I did it.”
Yelena’s eyebrows drew together.
“What? When?” she asked, eyes widening as she searched his face and then the others, alarmed. “Why can’t I remember? Is everyone okay? Did the other side come out, Bob? What happened? What triggered it?”
Bob’s hands came up to rub at his arms, as if he could scrub away the lingering fear beneath his skin. “It… it got out. A little. And you…we were all here, and I just…” He swallowed. “I don’t remember everything very well either.”
It was not a good lie. Bob knew it was not. But Yelena was still unsteady in front of him, and the thought of telling her that someone had used her body, her memories, her voice—he couldn’t tell her.
Not yet.
Yelena watched him for a long moment.
Then her shoulders loosened as she let out a long-winded sigh. “It’s okay.”
Ava blinked. “It is?”
“What, what?” Walker muttered.
Yelena gave a small shrug, assessing the damage for a few more seconds.
“Well, it is not our paycheck this is coming out of, and from the looks of things, Mel seemed fine alongside everyone else. So for now, we can leave it be. Simple. And if Bob doesn't want to talk about it yet, then we can wait until he does. I guess if you’re here, Mel, you can let Valentina know. Now come on, Bob. Let’s decompress you, yes?”
“Oh. Uh…o-okay,” he nodded, following right after her like a little puppy.
In that moment, all of them wondered how they could have been so blind to what had been right in front of them—the way Bob watched Yelena, the way she always seemed to let things slide when it concerned him, no matter how concerning it was.
The quiet tenderness neither of them had named.
And all of them wondered how she would react when she learned the truth of what happened.
Judging from what they knew about her?
It wouldn’t be long.