Chapter Text
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Yelena twisted her head over to Walker, who was watching her with one eyebrow raised.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she snapped, gesturing to the man who could still be seen in the distance. “I’m chasing after him!”
“You know your ankle is broken, right?”
Was he serious?
Of course she fucking knew.
She felt it before she even hit the ground, the sharp, sickening snap in her ankle telling her exactly what had broken. She was also willing to bet her Widow Bites that he heard it too, so this entire conversation just now?
Pointless.
“Thank you, I did not know the searing pain that’s currently coursing through my entire body,” she snarled. With a shaky breath, she shoved herself upright, biting back a hiss as pain shot up her leg. The man she had been chasing was getting farther away by the second, and she refused to let a broken ankle be the reason he escaped.
She took one limping step forward.
“Jesus, do you always have to be an asshole?” he called after her.
She froze, slowly turning back to him. “Excuse me?”
“Just go back to the Watchtower.”
For a second, she only stared at him.
“What?”
He rolled his eyes like she was the one being unreasonable. “I’ll catch him for you.”
“Mm, no. I don’t think so,” she answered flatly, whipping her head back toward the fleeing man. He was still within range—technically—but the street between them was too crowded. One bad angle, one civilian stepping into the line of fire, and a shot meant for his leg could become something else entirely.
“Too fucking bad.” He gave a short, disbelieving chuckle. “What, you think I’m going to murder the guy?”
Rather than answering, she just stared at him, and Walker’s expression faltered.
“You fucking think I’m going to murder him?”
She didn’t think anyone would blame her for thinking that.
At the end of the day, he had beaten a man to death in broad daylight on national television. Then he’d spent the next several years working as a mercenary for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine—right up until a few weeks ago, when that same woman had announced to the world that they were the newest Avengers.
So, no.
She didn’t exactly think she was being unreasonable, but she wasn’t going to argue with him.
“We’re going to fucking lose him!” Yelena snapped, turning toward the retreating figure again.
“I said I got it.” Walker’s voice lost some of its bite. He looked at her ankle, then back at her face. “Just…stay here and call for someone to get you, okay?”
“No way! And why are you being nice to me?” she quipped, suspicion rising. “Are you going to let him go and tell everyone you lost him because I was too slow? Is this what this was all about?”
This had been her mission assigned to her personally.
Her lead, her target, her mess to clean up if things went South. Walker had only been there because he’d insisted on tagging along—or, more likely. After all, someone at the Watchtower had decided she apparently needed supervision.
She should have known there had to be an angle.
Walker did not do favors. Not without expecting something in return, anyway. And she was not about to let him swoop in at the last second, steal her target, then make her look incompetent in front of everyone back at the Watchtower.
He narrowed his eyes behind that stupid helmet, and she watched his shoulders pull tight beneath the suit. “Holy shit. Is it really so hard for you to accept that I want to help because we’re a team?”
A team.
It’s almost laughable.
Just a few weeks ago, they had been sent to kill each other in the Vault. Now they were living in the same building, wearing the same stupid little “A” label and expected to somehow measure up to people neither of them could ever replace.
Yelena knew the public wanted symbols and heroes they could trust.
Shiny, hopeful faces to stand where the old Avengers once had.
Where her sister had once been before she gave up her life to bring everyone back.
To bring her back.
However, she and Walker were not that.
They were leftovers, the replacements, the people with too much blood on their hands and nowhere else to go. They happened to be there when Valentina’s plan fell apart, and she realized she couldn’t control the narrative anymore, so she decided to come up with this on the spot.
Betrayal turned them into a team against their will.
So again, how was she supposed to trust Walker or anyone else, for that matter?
“I’ve got it handled,” she gritted out, even as she shifted her weight and nearly buckled.
“Yeah, with your one good leg. I’m sure this is going to end greatly.” Walker tipped his helmet toward the direction the man had fled. “Go ahead. Let your pride be the reason the guy illegally building black-market weapons tech gets away.”
Her jaw tightened.
“I hate you,” she muttered, balling her fists.
“Fine. If you want to hobble after him and make this worse, be my fucking guest,” Walker said. “Call it in, Yelena.”
For a few seconds, they only stared at each other, neither willing to be the first to blink. But the ache in her ankle pulsed harder with every breath, and the target was already disappearing into the city.
She exhaled sharply through her nose and dejectedly lowered her head.
Fine.
Her ego could survive the hit.
“Finally,” Walker exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Call Bucky or someone.”
“But I’m tagging along.”
Walker stopped dead. “Are you crazy?”
“This is my mission,” Yelena reiterated, as if that explained everything.
He groaned, dragging a gloved hand down the front of his helmet.
“I’m close to knocking you out.”
“Either this or I’ll chase him on my own without your help,” she threatened while holding his gaze, chin tipped up despite the pain radiating through her leg and now up her thighs. She was not bluffing. He could see that much, apparently, because his shoulders sagged beneath the suit.
“Fine.”
Even though it pained her—physically and, somehow, emotionally—to accept it, Yelena knew what he was offering. Yet there wasn’t any other choice, and with a muttered curse in Russian, she finally shifted closer, bracing a hand against his shoulder as she carefully climbed onto his back.
Walker rose to his feet with far less effort than she wanted him to have.
“Do not say one word,” she warned, wrapping an arm around his neck.
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“You were absolutely planning on it.”
“Okay,” he admitted, starting forward, “I was kinda planning on it a little, but not anymore.”