Archive of Our Own ^beta

Yelena intends to join Walker in the front seat, she really does. In the short time she’s known him, she gets the impression that he should not be left up there on his own to call the shots. 

But when she hears the crunch of boots getting closer behind her, she finds herself hopping into the back instead, pulling the door closed behind her, and latching it shut. She’ll just have to trust Walker not to make a fool of himself. Or that they get lucky. The latter feels likelier. 

Bob, who climbed in only moments before she did, pulls off his mask as he settles in, flashing her a grin and a thumbs up. Yelena can’t help but return the gesture and smile back – though she has to resist the urge to reach over and push the hair from his eyes. Not helpful. She takes a seat on the bench opposite him, instead, so that she couldn’t reach him even if she tried. 

Ava is peering out the grate that separates the back from the front seats; she glances back long enough to be sure they’re both inside, and then she gestures something that Yelena guesses means sit down and shut up before the front of her helmet clicks back into place.  

And the truck begins to pull forward. So far, so good, right? 

They exchange silent glances – or at least, she assumes Ava is sharing in that, based on the way she tilts her head. Who knows where she's looking, when her helmet is closed like that. Bob looks… a little anxious, but overall optimistic. Like he’s sure the worst of it has passed. 

Yelena’s starting to feel more and more reassured about this too – before the truck comes to a stop again. Ah. A checkpoint. Great. 

Well, that should be fine as long as Walker responds like a normal human being, annnnnd oh no, they’re fucked; is he trying to start a fight?

“Oh, damn,” she sighs. She would’ve really liked to make it out of here.

From her periphery, Yelena sees Bob start to rise, to reach for the latch securing the back doors, and – she lunges for him, grabs his arm, and pulls him back before she can think twice about it. 

“No.”

Bob blinks, brow furrowing, disoriented by her interjection but moving to right himself and reach for the doors again. “I can help, I can–”

“Get yourself shot? Yeah, let’s not throw ourselves at their mercy, huh? Have some faith.” 

Even as she says it, she feels like a complete hypocrite, because she very much does not have faith in John, and she's already thinking of what she’s going to need to do when this goes south, but – that doesn't matter. What matters is Bob not flinging himself headlong into certain danger. 

“I can distract them,” he insists, but Yelena tightens her grip. 

“You,” she says, “are staying put. Right here. And not dying today. Got it?” As noble as it is to embark on a suicide mission to save their asses, she’d rather he not.

Bob squares his shoulders and opens his mouth to say something – and then there’s a loud bang and Walker floors it amidst shouts. Bullets start to ricochet along the exterior of the truck. 

“Great going,” Ava says. 

“I don’t need your sarcasm right now!” Walker shouts, then yelps as a bullet shatters the front side mirror. 

“Yelena?” Bob, worried. As he should be. 

“Yeah, I know,” she mutters. She looks around the interior. What do they have – guns? Another bullet pings against the truck, and it sounds like something else breaks, though she doesn’t know what. Guns, guns, and… more guns. And a group of assholes that only know how to shoot and punch. 

“Yelena?”

– and a turret. 

“We need to do something,” he says. “Shouldn’t we at least try… forcing them back?” He hefts his borrowed gun, and the way he holds it reminds her that he is not trained in how to use it.

“Alright,” Yelena says, “yeah. Give that to me.”

He frowns and tightens his grip on the gun. “I can help–”

“Yes,” she says, “you’re going to man the turret.”

Bob blinks. “Really?”

“Really?” Ava echoes, calling back from the front. 

“Yes, really. It’s – more stable, easier to aim.” Should be. “I don’t see you coming back here to help!”

“Captain America here got himself wounded,” Ava calls. “I’m going to take over.”

Walker’s complaint comes immediately. “I’m a super soldier, I don’t need to be babied–” 

“I don’t believe that works that way–”

“Oh and what do you know?”

“Enough, move over.”

“Genius plan, yeah – how?”

“What – we’re on an incline,” Yelena protests. “Don’t swap seats now!”

But the wobble of the truck and the sound of continued bickering suggests her words fall on deaf ears. Fuck it, she can only fix one problem at a time.

Bob, thankfully, is a little less distracted by the commotion up front, and is already starting to figure out how to access the turret above them – one-handed, as the other is loosely holding that gun still, and oh boy Bob has a lot to learn about how to handle those.

“Alright,” she says, “let’s do this while we still can.”

“Got it. What are you going to do?” he asks. 

She glances at the doors. There’s no easy access to outside – good for preventing things from getting in, but also means that, outside of the turret, they can do jack shit to anyone out there with things closed up like this. Is it worth it to open themselves up to that risk? Plus, these aren’t exactly precision weapons – though the amount of ammo they have for them might make up for that. Yes, she decides, screw it, she has to try.

“I,” she says, “am going to open up the back and see if I can’t pick off whoever’s sitting behind the wheel.” It’s a stupid plan. She’s almost certain to get shot. But if their tires blow, they’re sitting ducks, and without doing anything, that’s an inevitability.

Bob nods, and hands his gun to her. “–be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” she says.

There’s a little furrow in his brow when she says that, and he opens his mouth as if to say something, but then he shakes his head and climbs up to the controls to the turret.

So: she grips a handle near the doors, unlatches them, and lets the one not at risk of banging against the rock wall swing open, steeling herself against the sudden rush of wind. Then, she takes aim. 

The way the road winds works to their benefit; they’ve got enough of a lead that the pursuing trucks only come into view briefly before they’re whipping around another corner, so it’s mostly the footsoldiers outside of the vehicles that pose a problem – and they’re pretty easy to take care of.

The soldier up on the hill – downed. 

The one that stumbles from the back of a truck with a grenade in hand – too easy, and she’s pretty sure the resulting explosion sends the truck behind him careening off the path, too.

And the one that peeks out of the passenger side to get a better shot? Nailed him right between the eyes. 

The truck takes a corner and swings wide enough that Yelena has to lower the gun to fix her grip on the handle and not slide out, and then they’re off the path to the plateau at last. For a moment, she thinks they might actually be pushing them back; getting enough of a lead to get out of here. 

And then the night is filled with the roar of engines and helicopter rotors, and spotlights sweep over them. 

Shit. Shit. 

Bob’s voice filters down from above, slightly strained. “…they’re gaining on us.”

A hail of bullets rain down around them.

“Yeah, I know,” Yelena snaps. Alright, alright, what more can they do, how do they find an edge here? “Ava?” she calls out. “Can you maybe phase into–”

“Too far, too fast, too likely to end up beneath their tires rather than in the truck,” she snaps. “Also a little busy up here.”

“Yeah, alright,” Yelena mutters, “it was worth asking.”

So it's up to them, then. Sure, they can definitely neutralize a whole fleet of well-funded soldiers in tank-like trucks and armored helicopters. Great. Hey, at least they'll all die together. A bunch of useless assholes in one shared grave. 

Well. Assholes and Bob. He must have the worst luck in the world to have ended up here with them.

Yelena aims for the driver of the nearest truck, already knowing what's going to happen before she pulls the trigger – the bullet hits the window head-on, but it stays as sturdy as ever. One of the helicopters, then? But no matter where she aims – window, door, rotor, fuel tank – It does nothing. Which is great, because she’s pretty sure she sees the outline of a rocket launcher looking through the open helicopter door.

They're getting pretty close, too. 

“Can we do something about our tail?” Walker hollers . 

“Oh, great idea, I hadn’t thought of that!” Yelena fires back. She sits back to reload. “Let me just–”

And she takes a bullet to the lower ribcage. 

It doesn’t pierce, she can discern that immediately, but it does hurt like a bitch, and it winds her briefly, makes her reel back – and let go of her hold. Her stomach twists like she’s in freefall as the rocky path flips her into the air, and she begins to slip out of the truck –

And then there are arms around her waist, anchoring her, pulling her away from the open door.

“Thanks,” she gasps out when she regains the ability to speak. 

Bob, arms still wrapped tight around her waist, eyes wide as he stares down at her. Damn, he’s stronger than he looks.

“You’re hurt,” he says, “shot, you’re–”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine,” Yelena grumbles. The wheeze as she says it is less than convincing. 

“–you’re not a super soldier too, are you?” That worried expression hasn’t gone away, but he slaps a wavering smile over it. 

“No, just a regular assassin in a stolen bulletproof vest,” she says, and shimmies to sit up again. “Let me go, let me go, they’re catching up.”

He balks at this. “Yelena, no, you’re lucky that didn’t kill you.”

“I’m not going to stay lucky if they catch up, now let go.”

He isn’t budging, though, arms locked tight around her. No matter how much she pushes at him, he’s not letting her go. Jesus, he is strong. 

“Bob, we don’t have time for this, they’re – I have to try.” Even if it’s wasted effort. 

“Don’t go back to the doors,” he says. “You use the turret. “I’m no good at it, we both know that. Can’t have you getting hurt just because I’m too stubborn to admit that.”

“–alright,” she concedes. It’s not like she’s been making any headway against them with her current methods. “We should get the door closed, though. Or they’ll just keep shooting through it.” She meets his eyes. “Together?”

Bob nods. There’s a measure of relief in his face, though this feels to her like they’re just delaying the inevitable. Still, he loosens his grip, and she scrambles to rise. 

He follows close behind as she creeps along the back of the truck, stopping just before it opens up. 

“Alright,” she says, “I grab it, you help pull? And… don’t let me fall, yeah?”

Bob nods, his fingers closing around her arm in preparation. 

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he mutters. 

The shooting resumes the moment Yelena peeks out, and… props to Walker, or Ava, or whoever’s driving right now, because they swerve to avoid it, which does keep Yelena from becoming a human sponge. Though it also means she has to be a little more careful with her footing.

Yelena slides across the gap and begins to grab for the handle on the open door. As she does, another rain of bullets descents on them, so close that they spark against the metal, and from her periphery, she can see Bob stumble back and throw up an arm to protect his face –

And then he wobbles. 

Yelena reaches for him as soon as she sees his footing falter, but her fingers close around empty air, because Bob, sweet fool that he is, uses his last moment of stable purchase to pull her back inside, while he falls, tumbling right out of the truck. 

“Bob!”

Yelena is already calculating what the damage would be at this speed, if there’s any, any chance she could do something if she jumped out after him, tried to help him up. The odds are – bad. Really bad. She’d be paste as soon as her feet touched the ground – and yet. Even so, she’s steeling herself, mapping out which way to roll, how to somehow reach him before he’s crushed even more beneath those OXE trucks. 

But… what should be happening isn’t. Though he somersaults a few times, he still seems in control of himself, and uninjured enough to wobble to a standing position and splay out his hands, one in front, one behind – and everything stops.

Everything.

Around them, the engines are still running, but the wheels are rotating uselessly in place, gouging deep ruts into the earth. The helicopter blades aren’t turning, just… shaking, like they’re fighting against some invisible force – that is, nevertheless, keeping them aloft.

“What’s happening back there?” Walker calls out, just as Ava says, “we aren’t moving, why aren’t we moving–?”

Yelena doesn’t bother trying to explain it. How could she?

Bob turns back to look at them, and even from here, she can see his eyes wide with surprise – and this is when the OXE soldiers realize that there’s a stationary target that’s easy to hit and they open fire. 

She cries out, a wordless sound of panic, and reaches out uselessly. 

He’s turning, kneeling, dropping into a crouch with his arms protecting his head, but she knows that won’t help, that even the OXE vest won’t be enough to save him, not with how many there are, how close. 

Down he goes, the force of all that gunfire kicking up a cloud of dust that obscures him for a moment. When it stops, when the dust clears – he’s still there.

“What,” Yelena gasps, “the hell–?”

He looks just as confused, standing with trepidation, looking down at his hands, his arms, at the numerous little holes in that OXE gear. 

And then that rocket launcher comes into play, aimed directly at him. 

“Bob!” She cries, as though expecting him to – what? He has no way of diverting it, and he can’t exactly dodge it. 

He whirls, even so. This time, there’s a strange confidence to the movements, and when he waves his arm, the rocket freezes mid-air, straining like the helicopter above it. When his fingers clench, it moves again – soaring back to where it came from, with predictably explosive results. The remains of the helicopter pitch and take a sharp dive down into the immobile line of trucks, and the resulting blast, so close to Bob, makes him fly back –

No, not back. Up. And up and up and up. He’s not being thrown, he’s… flying? His momentum slows eventually, but by the time that happens, he’s a distant dot in the sky. 

For a moment, the night is still and silent.

And then he falls. 

Slowly enough at first that she thinks he’s controlling it somehow, but then he picks up speed and it becomes clear just how wrong she is. Faster and faster, he speeds back down to earth. 

“Where is he going?” Ava wonders aloud. 

“Are we even sure that’s him?” chimes John. 

“Just – follow, follow,” Yelena urges, craning her neck to try to trace the path his arc makes through the air. 

Dutifully, the truck springs to life again, and after a momentary stutter, they're chasing after him.

“I don't know if this is a good idea – he’s falling pretty fast,” Walker says. “We won’t want to be too close when he hits the ground.”

“Then keep some distance,” Yelena snaps, “but move.”

Walker is – maybe just a little bit right. Bob, streaking through the sky like a meteor, is still a good distance ahead of them when he makes contact with the ground again, and even so, the truck rocks at the impact, shocks straining to absorb it. 

They come to a stop at the lip of the newly made crater he’s left, and Yelena scrambles out before the brakes are fully engaged. Even so, Ava is the first to make it down there, phasing out of the front seat and stumbling down the curved side of the crater ahead of her as Yelena imagines what horror show awaits them

She peers over the edge to see that he’s – remarkably intact-looking, but so still, so–

“He’s breathing,” Ava calls up. 

Oh, the relief is dizzying. 

She descends gracelessly, only barely managing to keep her footing in her haste. Ava is flipping him over, and for a moment, Yelena is transfixed by the gentle rise and fall with his chest. He's out cold, but decidedly alive.

“How?” she breathes. 

Walker, who has now made it to the edge of the impact site, begins to join them at the bottom. As he descends, she gets a glimpse of that damage Ava referred to; his nose is… slightly askew, and purpling already. Eh, he’ll live.

“Went through medical trials, he said,” Walker muses.

“Experiments to make him… ‘better,’” Yelena recalls.

“You’re a super soldier,” Ava says. “You recognize any of this?”

“I can’t fly, if that's what you're asking.”

Ava rolls her eyes. “Clearly not,” she says.

When Walker reaches them, he kneels briefly to feel the strength of Bob’s pulse at his wrist before continuing. “But… durability, sure. The rest of this? No, no idea. Seems stable, though. For now.”

Yelena fishes in her pockets and procures the papers she'd pilfered. “Here,” she says, pushing them towards the others. Project Sentry adorns each one. 

Walker whistles lowly as he looks over one of the papers. “They really did a number on him.”

“‘The power of a thousand exploding suns’…” Ava reads, then squints down at Bob. “Didn’t really feel like it was that powerful, though. Maybe one exploding sun, if that?”

“Yeah, was that it?” Walker wonders. “Or is there more to the experimentation?”

“Why don’t we get him out of here, get us all out of here, and we can find out?” Yelena says. 

“Agreed,” Ava says. 

Bob is heavy, in the way that a grown man in full tactical gear ought to be, but together they hoist him up and begin to carry him out of the hole. 

“Maybe,” Walker starts, “we try waking him up so he can go for round two if anyone else follows us?”

“I think,” Ava says, looking in the direction they came from as they finally reach the top, “that stunt might have taken care of that, for the time being.”

“Someone’s going to come looking eventually, though,” Walker says. 

“So let’s not stay,” Yelena says. Much as she’d like Bob to be conscious again, to check in on him, she doesn’t love the idea of forcing him awake. 

They pause to examine Bob, which mostly consists of prodding at him under the OXE gear without fully removing anything. Nothing seems bent out of shape, his ribs don't have any more give than they ought to, and there’s no signs of any bleeding, either. There might be some bruising that they're cursory poking around doesn't spot, but for all intents and purposes, he is no worse for wear. So, the others help Yelena guide Bob into the back of the truck, and close the doors behind them.

“Where are we even headed?” Ava asks, settling behind the wheel again.

“Somewhere far away from here,” says John.

“Yeah, obviously,” Yelena mutters. “Just drive until we reach somewhere… less empty than this and we’ll figure it out from there.”

“Suppose that’s almost a plan,” Ava says, and she starts the engine. 

So Yelena makes herself comfortable.  

Bob takes up half of the bench, legs splayed out while Yelena props his torso against her, gently cradling his head.

“So, what,” Walker says, “we find a way back to civilization, clear our names – well, my name; you two don’t have a stellar reputation already–”

Yelena lazily flips him off with the hand not pressed to Bob’s forehead as Ava mutters, “oh, fuck off, boy scout.”

“–and then… what? What comes next?”

“Split up,” Ava says. “Valentina’s after all of us; if we stick together, we’re an easy target. Harder to chase if we divide her attention.”

“Yeah, but … then there's less we can do when she does catch up,” Walker says.

“You want to stay together?”

Even without seeing his face, his embarrassment is evident in his response. “Well… it’s strategic, isn’t it? Stronger together?”

“With the numbers Valentina has on her side, I’m not sure how much of a difference that'll make,” Ava says. 

“I don’t know, I think we did… alright back there,” Walker says. “Gooooo Thunderbolts.”

Yelena snorts. 

“I mean,” he continues, “it would have been better if we’d gone with my plan from the beginning, but even so, not too shabby. And we have more options if we stick together.”

“And what does our resident assassin think?”

“Yeah,” Walker says, “you’ve been awfully quiet back there.”

“Just seems a little preemptive,” Yelena says. “We don’t know how far we’re going to get. Might catch up with us before we even get the opportunity to decide.”

“But?” Ava prompts. “Assuming she doesn’t, when we find signs of life, are you planning on striking out on your own, or staying?”

Yelena looks down at Bob. 

She’s more used to solo work now than anything else, but she has no intention of leaving him on his own. He never should have been wrapped up in this in the first place. And… she’s not all that practiced with fighting to protect someone. Of course, Bob might not need protecting now, but that isn’t something she really wants to put to the test, and the odds of avoiding that do seem better as a group. And… 

“…I guess we do have a better chance of smashing Valentina’s teeth in if she doesn’t corner us alone,” Yelena says. 

Walker makes a triumphant noise. “See? Outvoted.”

“Yeah, not how this works,” Ava says. “I don’t really do things by committee.” And then she sighs. “...but I see your point. Until Valentina is dead – or, until you do something so colossally stupid that I have no choice but to abandon you to save myself – you can count me in. Then once she’s dead, we can go our separate ways, and you can play happy family again.”

“...right,” Walker says. “Yeah. Sounds like a plan.”

When it falls silent, Yelena turns her attention back to Bob, still sleeping peacefully in her arms. 

“What did you sign up for?” she murmurs. “Is that what makes you suicidally brave, or is that recklessness all you?”

She thinks of how surprised he looked when he fell from the truck and stood against that barrage – not exactly the reaction of a man who knows he’s bulletproof. And yet he’d thrown himself in the line of fire for them – for her. He’d chosen to try and save her rather than himself. Like a fool. A sweet, stupid fool.

And now he’s here, with them. Unconscious, but… apparently unharmed. She hopes so, anyway. 

Yelena doesn't know many comforting words. She wishes she did. It feels like the time for them. 

“It’s going to be okay,” she murmurs, brushing hair from his clammy forehead. “We’re here. You’re safe. I’ve got you, solnyshko.” Sunshine. What her mother had called her, sometimes, in the midst of a fever dream, a nightmare that left Yelena sobbing and clinging to Melina, her false-mother, her only mother, desperate for comfort. “I’m here,” she says. “I’m here. Stay with me.”

It works – or she’s just lucky – because his breathing remains steady and even the whole way. 

He begins to stir just before they reach the first signs of life in the form of a mile marker. 

“Hey,” she whispers, “hi.”

He mumbles back something she can't make out, but he leans into her touch, so she combs her fingers through his hair and hums a half remembered melody for this last leg of their journey.

They ditch the truck in a ravine once the lights of civilization appear on the horizon. It might be overlooked in the dark, and yet, if spotted, it would raise a lot of uncomfortable questions. Of course, Bob is still wearing that OXE tactical gear, but nothing to do about that now. Doesn't feel right to strip him of it, after what he’s been through. Feels like it would leave him vulnerable – even though he fell from the sky and doesn't seem to have a scratch on him. 

The vacancy sign of a motel glows in the distance, just past a gas station with half the pumps taped over. That’s where they’re headed. 

Bob is groggy at this point, but at least semi-aware. Enough that when she urges him to stand, he does, though she has him sling an arm over her shoulder and she bears some of his weight as they walk. 

“We could keep driving,” Walker says. “It’s not too late to go back to the truck.”

“No,” Yelena says. “Bob still isn’t fully recovered from that fall. He needs to rest.”

“Right, and if Valentina or anybody else shows up, they’re just going to catch us sleeping, no way to defend ourselves, no contingency plan…”

“We have a contingency plan,” she says. “We have Bob.”

“Bob who’s currently drooling on your shoulder,” Ava points out. 

“He’s not drooling,” Yelena protests, offended. “He’s just leaning. Look, you saw what he could do, just… give him time to regain his strength. Waiting here is way less conspicuous than driving through in that truck. Someone would definitely notice that.”

The others consider this.

“I’m alright with that,” Ava says, after a moment.

“Yeah,” Walker mumbles, “but you can phase out at the first sign of trouble.”

“And you’re just going to have to live with that possibility.”

“Or die because of it.”

“Sure, or die,” Ava agrees. “If that’s what you feel like doing.” 

“Again,” Yelena says, giving Bob a pat on the back, “contingency plan.”

Bob sighs contentedly at the extra physical contact, leaning closer to her. 

As they get closer to the front of the motel, Walker asks, “who’s paying?”

Ava shrugs. “I don’t use cash.”

“Yeah, and I don’t carry a wallet when I’m working,” Yelena says. 

“Are you – so it’s all up to me, then? 

“Dime store Captain America, saving the day again,” Ava says breezily.

“Real Captain America, for a while,” he mutters. But he rifles in his pocket and pulls out a wallet, then pushes past the front doors. 

After a moment, Ava follows, then Yelena, still supporting Bob. They wait by the doors, and from here, Yelena catches only bits and pieces of what John is saying –

“That’ll be enough, thanks. Oh, uh – my buddy LARPed too hard. Hah, yeah, first time. Yeah. Noon check-out is fine. Yeah, you too, thanks. Night.”

“What the hell is ‘LARP?’” Yelena asks when Walker returns.

“Don’t worry about it, it doesn’t matter,” he says. “There’s three rooms open. I get one to myself, obviously.”

“What's obvious about that?” Ava asks. 

“I’m paying. Therefore I get my own room to sleep in without worrying about a knife in my back.”

“Oh,” Yelena says, “trust me, if I wanted to kill you, separate rooms would not stop me.”

“Nor me,” Ava says. 

That gives him pause. “...noted. Yet somehow, I still think I’m going to sleep better in a different room. You two can work it out from there. One room for the ladies, and one for our injured friend here?”

Yelena exchanges a glance with Ava. She’s not…entirely opposed to the idea, and despite a flash of discomfort on the other woman's face, it doesn’t seem like Ava will put up too much of a fight.

And yet.

“Actually,” Yelena says, “I think I'll stick with Bob.”

The others look… mildly surprised. 

“Look at him,” she says. “He saved all our asses. Doesn’t feel right just leaving him alone like this.”

Ava shrugs, but there does seem to be a small amount of relief in her expression. “Works for me.”

“We meet at dawn, discuss options then?” Yelena says. It must be close to midnight already, and dawn can’t be that far off, but they don't have the luxury of sleeping in when Valentina is probably devising new ways to kill them. 

“Think he’ll be ready to pull those tricks again by then?” Ava asks. 

“Eh, probably,” Yelena says. “He’s looking better already. Aren’t you, Bob?’

“Mmh, what–? Yeah, sure, sure,” he mumbles, then readjusts the arms around her shoulder and lets his eyes droop closed again.

John hands a key card to Ava, then to Yelena. 

“Dawn,” he reiterates. 

And then off they go. 

She and Bob have the bad luck to be rooming on the second floor, and it takes… a little while to guide Bob up the stairs. 

“Left foot, right foot, left… your other left, oh-kay, don’t lean so much, allllmost there, and… theeeeeere we go.”

Thankfully, it’s easy to unlock the door with one hand, and there’s only a few more steps to take before she helps him flop onto the – single, of course – bed.

Yelena takes a moment to stretch, then gives Bob a once-over. 

“Bob?” she says. “How are you feeling?”

Bob lets out a long exhale and flexes his fingers against the sheets. “Tired,” he says at last. “Really tired, not… normal tired?”

“Mmm, it might be normal considering you blasted a helicopter out of the sky and then turned yourself into a meteor.” She’d imagine that sort of thing takes up a lot of energy. “Is there anywhere that hurts?”

He pats along his body. “Don’t… think so?” 

That’s not as definitive as she’d like. Right then. First things first: get him out of that tactical gear and check him for injuries they may have missed.

“Bob, let’s get this gear off, alright?”

He nods, and lets her shimmy his boots off while he busies himself with unbuttoning and unzipping the vest. She sets both aside, and he lifts his hips to slide the OXE pants down. There's no blood stains on the scrubs he has on underneath, though there is a tear or two. 

“The rest of it now,” she says. 

His brow lifts in surprise. “The rest – all of it?”

Yelena nods. “Need to make sure there isn’t anything we overlooked.” The odds seem pretty low considering what he's been through, and yet…

Bob hesitates, then grabs the bottom of his shirt and shucks it, tossing it to the side. 

He is… remarkably more fit than she would have guessed from seeing him run around in his scrubs back in the vault. No, stop, don’t stare, just… check him for injuries. 

“That’s new,” Bob says, frowning down at himself, eyes locked on his midsection – and those surprising defined abs. 

“Is it?” she asks, hoping to convey the tone of someone who’s noticing that for the first time, and not that she’s been staring a little.

Bob gives his abdomen a little pat. “Huh,” he says. 

“You kind of suspended a rocket in mid-air today, I don’t think abs are, uh, that strange, considering.” She just wants him to stop staring, because as long as he’s doing it, it is very hard for her to look away, too. “Nearly done, just need the pants.”

That makes him stop prodding at himself. “My pants?” he balks. 

“Yeah, that is part of all of it.”

He hesitates, and Yelena frowns. 

“What, does it hurt? Are you injured? Do you need–”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just–” He sighs. “...if it’s necessary,” he mumbles, then begins to tug the pants down. It’s only when she spots the beginnings of a happy trail that Yelena realizes why he was so reluctant. 

“Woah-kay, that’s–” She supposes she ought to have expected that he wouldn't have underwear on beneath those scrubs, but the reality of it still surprises her. “Hang on–”

Yelena ducks into the bathroom and grabs a towel, then returns and tosses it his way. She waits until she can tell from her periphery that he’s stopped moving around so much to turn back. 

The pants are off, and the towel is draped loosely over his midsection. He’s sitting up again – and his face is faintly flushed.

Hers might be, too. Nice going, Yelena.

“Ssssorry,” she says, “I didn’t think – well.” Now she can’t stop thinking about it.

“No, you’re probably right,” Bob says, “good to check.” He swipes a hand through his hair tiredly. “What’s the prognosis? Am I going to live, doc?”

Some of the awkwardness melts away as she laughs, and her shoulders relax.

“Think so,” Yelena says. “I have no way of knowing if there’s any internal damage, but… no bruises, no punctures. Though it looks like that serum saves you from injury, but not from dirt. You’re grimy. And sweaty.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles. 

Yelena just snorts in response. She’s sure she isn’t faring much better in that regard, either, and she doesn't have the excuse of catapulting herself into the earth at top speed.

“You think you can handle a shower right now?”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding, though his head flops a little as he does it.

Bob sits, then begins to stand – and only makes it a step or two before he wobbles and pitches to the side. He catches himself on the mattress, but she still tucks herself beneath his arm and helps him back to a sitting position 

“Should the room be spinning right now?” he asks. 

“Nnno,” she says. “Right, you wait here.”

Yelena makes sure he isn’t at risk of teetering over any further, then stands and looks around the room. Ah, there, that’ll work. She drags a chair from the little office nook into the bathroom and plunks it in the middle of the shower. It’s cushioned, which means it’s probably going to get extremely mildewy and gross, but she doesn’t intend to stay long enough to face those consequences.

Then she returns and holds out a hand to Bob. He takes it, and lets her help him up, leaning his weight on her as he did before; one arm around her, the other holding that towel.

Together, they make their way to the bathroom. 

“Sorry about this,” he says. 

“Bob, if the cost of not getting shot to death is helping you walk around, that’s not exactly a steep price.”

With how loosely he’s holding his towel, she gets a glimpse of ass in the mirror as they pass it. Good god. Is that new, too? Either way, the baggy scrubs really didn’t do his physique justice.

She turns on the hot water, and helps him sit in the chair beneath the main stream. Then she steps back and strips off her own outer layers until she’s down to a thin undershirt and panties; things that shouldn’t be too much of a pain to dry, later. 

And she follows him in.

When she slides the curtain closed behind her, his head lifts sharply.

“Yelena? What are you doing?” There’s a note of mild alarm in his voice. 

“Getting you clean, one way or another.”

Oh, good, there’s complimentary soaps here. Yelena reaches for one of the bottles. Body wash. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he protests. 

“Yeah because I’m going to let you slip and concuss yourself after surviving a miniature army,” Yelena says. An uncool way to die, if ever there was one. “Here, take this.” She passes the bottle down to him. And… there, hanging on the shower curtain, is a washcloth. She hands that to him, too. 

That done, she moves behind him, grabs the bottle of shampoo, and sets to work. It’s standard motel quality, cheap and over-fragranced, but it lathers up well enough. 

Having him sat here in the chair, still drained from his earlier exertions, brings back memories of returning to the Red Room, coming back from missions – the bad ones. Successes, still – always a success, or she wouldn’t be here now – but sometimes at the cost of significant pain and lingering disorientation. Besides the standard debriefings, she’d never had anyone to look after her then; it was always up to her to get herself back in fighting form. She wonders if this is what it would have been like. Then again, there wasn’t really anyone she would have trusted to be this close to her. 

Is he comfortable with this? The set of his shoulders is… a little stiff, admittedly. They have only just met. And all he really knows about her is that she’s a former assassin and a mercenary. Yelena supposes it’s natural to be nervous. She doesn’t want him to be nervous, though. To see her as a threat to him. Even if that’s wisest. In fact, she wants – what, for him to trust her? Why? And who’s to say that what she wants is worth a damn here?

Yelena drags her nails along his scalp, trying to gently scrape off whatever dirt might linger there after the initial scrubbing. He sighs, and she squares her shoulders and resists the urge to keep running her fingers through his hair just because. Keep it professional. 

Though he does seem to relax a little when she does it. So maybe it’s fine? She’s never really taken care of someone before, either. It’s… new. Is she doing it right? Should she be… gentler? Or is this good enough?

She leans away to let the water wash over him, rinsing the suds from his hair, sending them cascading down his back. She allows herself a moment to admire how that looks – but only a moment. He’s… vulnerable. Disoriented. It’s not right. And it shouldn’t – affect her this much. It never really has before. Bodies are just… bodies. A burden, a target, but never something to admire.

“How’re you holding up?” she asks. “Still feeling alright?”

“…yeah,” he says. “Steadier now.”

“Good.”

Conditioner isn’t strictly necessary for de-griming him, but hey, it’s provided, so why not? Besides, he’s still scrubbing at his arms, so there’s time for it. She works it through his hair. The scent of something citrusy gets stronger. She glances at the label. Bergamot.  

“You have nice hair,” she remarks, moving back to stand in front of him. 

“–yeah?” He reaches up to run a hand through his hair and oh she should not be pausing to stare at how that makes his muscles flex and ripple.

When he lowers his hand and looks up at her, she realizes how close they are – and, hang on, those are pretty dilated. Should she be worried about that? She grabs his chin and tilts his head up for a better angle, staring into his eyes. 

“...Yelena?’

“Checking your pupils,” she says. She tilts her head to the left and to the right, watching how his eyes react to the changing light. Seems normal. “Is the room still spinning?”

“–no,” he says, “no, not anymore.”

“Hmm.” Well, his pupils still seem pretty dilated, but they are reacting normally to the light, so maybe that's fine. Though – 

“You look a little red.”

“You do, too,” he says softly.

“Am I? Maybe it’s the steam.”

She straightens, and reaches to adjust the temperature, but his fingers close around her wrist; not tight, just… there.

Yelena looks down at him, and a few wet strands of hair untuck themselves and fall in her face. Bob lets her go, and reaches up and pushes them back. It’s – strange, how she wants to lean into his touch. He pulls back before long, though, so she doesn’t have to worry too much about what that means.

“I think,” he says quietly, “I can – finish up by myself. I’m… up for it now.”

She tilts her head, brow furrowing. “You sure?” He really is flushed. Could the heat be making him lightheaded? 

But he nods, and slowly stands – without wobbling this time. “See? Steady.” 

…though his towel does slip just a touch. She has to tear her gaze away from the dip of his hip and the extra inch of hair that reveals.

“If you’re sure,” she says.

“I am, honest.”

She nods slowly. “If that changes at all, just say something. I'll be right outside.” 

“I will,” he says, “really, Yelena, I’m – fine.” He smiles a little as he says that, a lopsided grin that makes her stomach flip.

So… she pulls back the shower curtain and hops out, grabbing a dry towel before shutting the bathroom door behind her. 

Once that barrier is between them, she peels off her wet underthings and tosses them aside, paying little mind to how they soak the carpet they land on. She’ll worry about drying them later. For now, she towels off, then pulls the rest of her gear back on, despite the discomfort of lacking that base layer. Now dressed, Yelena glances around the room. 

Ah. His clothes are all out here, still. Maybe she should make herself scarce while he changes. 

“No more dizziness?” she calls. 

“No, still fine,” he answers. 

Right. Some part of her is still reluctant to go, not entirely convinced that his earlier fatigue is entirely gone, but… what’s the alternative, insist that she help him finish showering? Hang around until he comes out of the bathroom and changes out here? No. Even if that idea seems strangely tempting.

A walk would be good. Maybe she can bug Walker for his wallet, see if there’s any vending machines on site. 

“I'll be back soon,” she says. “Just going down the hall for a minute.” 

“Got it,” he calls. 

She only needs to be gone long enough that she won’t have reason to stare when she comes back. 

He’s just – he’s – she doesn’t know what it is, exactly, why she gravitates so strongly towards him, but… she does. She finds her gaze drawn to him when he’s around – and if she were to count how many opportunities she’s found to touch him already, well, she ought to be concerned by that number. But she isn’t. It feels… natural. 

He put himself in danger again and again because he wanted to help. How long has it been since someone’s done that for her? And without a hope of withstanding the threats they were facing – so far as he knew, at least. 

And when he looks at her through his eyelashes, she wants – 

She wants. 

What exactly is she supposed to do with that?

Yelena shakes her head. Right. Time to find Walker. Pestering him ought to ground her. 

She makes sure to grab the key card, and off she goes. 

As soon as the bathroom door clicks shut behind her, Bob pulls the knob hard to the side, switching over to cold water. He cannot go out there and face her in the state he’s in.

She’s only trying to help. No, she is helping – dragging his sorry ass around, cleaning him up, checking in on him… and here he is, half-hard and still thinking about the weight of her in his arms, the scrape of her nails on his scalp, how the wet fabric of her clothes had clung to her… 

Like an ungrateful creep. 

He can’t go out there like this. But he also can’t stand here forever, and the cold water only does so much. The thought of going back outside when she might not be fully dressed yet – doesn't help. And he can’t do much about this problem while she’s in earshot. 

Augh.

Bob drops the soaked towel on the equally soaked chair with a sigh and swipes his hands through his hair, rinsing the last of the conditioner out. 

When Yelena calls through the door, he startles a little – and then relief sets in. She’s heading out for a bit. Perfect.

“Got it,” he calls back. He’s… probably not going to strain himself if she leaves. Probably. 

He listens carefully until he can hear what he thinks is the door closing. Right. He can’t expect to have very long; she could return it any moment. He’ll have to be quick. 

Bob clamps a hand over his mouth and hopes the water will help drown out the noise if she does come back sooner than expected, and then wraps his hand around his erection with all the determination of a man with a goal in mind, and no intention of savoring the moment. He just needs it – done and out of his system.

Which shouldn’t be too difficult. Even that initial touch is momentarily overwhelming. It’s… been a long time since he was afforded the privacy to do this. All that testing meant being hooked up to monitors, and if his heart rate happened to spike – say, if he wanted to relieve just a bit of tension – that meant eyes on him. When he begins to move his hand, he can already tell he won’t be able to hold out long. Good. 

Bob focuses on the motions and tries not to think about her – or how the water had left her clothes damn near see-through.

It’s hard, though. Not only because of how she looked, though, god, she just may be the most gorgeous woman he’s ever laid eyes on. But the care. No one’s been soft with him in… he can’t even remember how long. Bob can’t recall what it was she was saying in the truck, but… he knows she was saying something, quiet and gentle and – sweet, he wants to think, though why she would be, to him, he doesn’t know – as she combed her fingers through his hair.

His breathing hitches at the thought, and his pace grows rougher. 

He’s reading too much into it, surely. Into the press of her nails against his skin, into how closely she watches him sometimes, into the way it seems almost like affection.

– and even so, it means Yelena is still at the forefront of his mind when he reaches his peak. He tenses and shudders, glad for the hand over his mouth because that gasp might have been embarrassingly loud without it. 

He allows himself only a moment to recover, pressing his forehead against the cool shower tiles and panting as he lets the water wash away his shame.

Then he shuts off the water and steps out of the shower. He grabs the last towel on the rack, wraps it around himself, and cracks the door, peering out. Empty. 

Bob dries off quicker than he’s ever had need to before, and slips back into the lab scrubs. Sure would be nice to have underwear, but he supposes that would be too much courtesy to expect from people who shoved him into a box and tried to incinerate him.

He’s trying to make his hair less of a mess when a soft beep signals Yelena's return, and she opens the door carrying an armful of assorted little packages, which she dumps onto the bed.

“What’s this?” he asks, abandoning his fruitless efforts and padding over to her. 

“Visited a vending machine,” she says. “Not exactly a feast, but it’s something.”

Bob whistles lowly, looking over the bounty she’s brought. Jerky, potato chips, a foil packet of pop tarts, soda… gum?

“Seems like a feast to me,” he says. “Why, not enough for you?”

Yelena laughs. “It’s more for you; I’m used to going without, for a while.” So is he, but that doesn’t bear mentioning. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I grabbed–”

“–everything?”

“Hardly. Figured you might be starving after… all that.” She waves a hand in the air. “And Walker wasn’t really paying attention to the total, so.”

“Walker?”

“Yeah. Borrowed Walker’s wallet,” she says, and a self-satisfied grin tugs at the corners of her lips. 

“He paid for this?”

“Yeah, he acted annoyed but I think he went off to ask Ava if she wanted anything right after, so.” She shrugs. 

“So he can be decent,” Bob murmurs.

“Maybe he's too tired to be a dick,” she suggests. “Or maybe he’s in a good mood because you saved all our asses. Surviving a near-death experience can do that.”

Bob blinks. “I didn’t… do much of anything,” he mumbles. It was all – instinct. Reaching deep for that feeling that he could do something, that he could help, but when it came down to it, he was just… reacting. It all happened so fast that he’s not even sure what to call what he did, and even still, it left him with a weariness unlike anything he’s ever felt before. 

“I think we remember things pretty differently.” Yelena rips open a packet of M&M’s and tosses a handful into her mouth. “Give yourself some credit.” She bumps him with her shoulder.

Oh, that small amount of physical contact should not send a shiver up his spine.

Yelena sits on the edge of the bed, so Bob does the same, careful to put some space between them.

“Oh, here,” she says, and she passes him one of the soda cans. A lemon-lime soda in a brand he’s never heard of before. “I was hoping to find some ginger ale, but this was the closest they had. Still, might help.”

“Thanks,” he says, accepting it. “Uh, why?”

“Supposed to settle the stomach, isn’t it?”

“…why does that matter?”

She shrugs. “Youuuuu kind of smelled like vomit earlier, so…”

Great, so he reeked of puke. Very charming. 

When Yelena reaches for the pop tart packet, he tries to discreetly sniff the collar of his scrubs. He doesn’t… think he smells anything. Just gets a faint whiff of bergamot from the motel shampoo. So maybe it’s fine now. 

He turns his attention back to the soda. It's room temperature, but she went to the trouble of getting it for him, so he pops the tab and takes a sip.

“So,” he says, setting the can on the bedside table, “what are we doing here? And… where does here happen to be?”

“Few hours drive from Val's vault,” she says. “Some little town out in the desert. Didn’t pay attention to the name. It’s a rest stop – literally, you were dead asleep for most of that and you still weren’t fully awake by the time we spotted buildings. Our odds felt better if we weren’t barreling along in a paramilitary truck while waiting to see how long it would take for that to change.” 

“We stopped here for me?”

One step forward, two steps back – sure, maybe he somehow managed to stumble into doing something helpful by stopping their pursuers for a while, but pausing while they’re running for their lives has to overwrite that, right?

“Mmh, sure,” she says. “Though we all climbed up that elevator shaft together, and we’ll ache less after some sleep.”

That makes sense. Still –

“I’m awake now,” he points out.

“Yeah, but with how unsteady you were before, you probably shouldn’t be. We’re planning on regrouping in…” She casts a glance at the digital clock, near where he set the soda. “...a few hours. Sunrise.”

“And… what’s the plan then?”

“Go on the run? Take the fight to Valentina? Haven’t really decided yet.” She bites into one of the pop tarts, then pulls the other one from the foil packet and hands it to him. 

Cinnamon. He takes a bite, swallows, then says, “you’re pretty calm about this.”

“Eh, it’s not the first time someone’s wanted me dead,” she says, “and if I play my cards right, it won’t be the last.”

He huffs out a laugh. Yeah, she must be used to this sort of thing by now. The life of an assassin has to be pretty exciting. “It’s my first time.” Other than some scuffles that aren't really noteworthy. 

“Good thing you’ve got me to guide you, huh?”

Bob is lucky. But – what does that mean, they’re sticking together? For how long? He wants to ask, but… god, is there any way to do that without sounding like he’s completely lost without her help? He is, but she’s already gotten him this far, what right does he have to expect any more from her?

Yelena rolls her shoulders then hops off the end of the bed. 

“You eat. Try to sleep. Vending machine didn’t have toothbrushes, so mint gum will have to do. I,” she says, “am going to see if I can fix my clothes.”

And she scoops up her wet clothes from the floor, and closes the bathroom door behind her. Moments later, Bob can hear the sound of water against tile – wringing them out? – and then a hairdryer. That’s one way to dry wet clothes, he supposes. 

Bob takes another minute to finish off the pop tart, pops a stick of gum into his mouth, then pads over to the light switch, flipping it and bathing the room in partial darkness. The bedside lamp is still on, after all, and there’s a strip of light under the bathroom door that illuminates the room. Even so, this level of dimness does remind him of that bone-deep exhaustion he hasn’t quite managed to shake off. 

Bob slips into bed, but leaves the lamp on.

He should sleep, he knows that. It’s just… hard to make his mind stop racing. All those moments he thought he was going to die – falling down the elevator shaft, running through the halls with gunfire echoing around him, falling from the truck, facing down those mercenaries…

And Yelena. At the heart of it all, Yelena. 

Pushing Walker back. Catching him. Pulling him along with her. Tying them together. Supporting his weight. Washing his hair. Picking out food for him. Reassuring him. Quick-witted and sharp-tongued and lethal, and yet so, so gentle with him. 

A compassionate assassin. He wouldn’t have thought that was possible, but Yelena seems to be a woman of many facets. 

And then, of course, there’s whatever has been done to him.

Sure, he remembers lots of talk of possibilities, of great potential and the capacity for grand deeds; ‘you could change the world,’ they’d said, ‘you could be a hero.’ 

So he’d let them make a guinea pig of him, taking bloodwork and scans and measuring his heart rate as they made him do tests. He’d let them poke and prod as they pleased, took the pills they gave him, tried not to flinch at the injections, and followed their every instruction. 

And it worked. His body is – different now. Though he’s not sure exactly what he’s capable of now, he can feel that what he did back in the desert wasn’t a one-time thing.

What does he do with that?

He’s got powers, sure – does that make him a hero? Him? He’d always assumed that if those tests had amounted to anything, figuring out what to do next would come naturally. That he’d know how he could amount to something. But instead he just feels –

Tired. Uncertain. And just as much of a burden as ever. That isn’t how a hero should feel, is it? 

He thinks until all of the flavor has been chewed out of his gum, and then he sticks it on the empty foil packet and thinks some more. 

Eventually, the hairdryer shuts off, and moments later, Yelena emerges from the bathroom, outerwear in hand, wearing her now-dry underclothes.

Bob glances away. Even in the dim light provided by the lamp, the outline of her chest is… still pretty visible. Not as see-through as before, but… enough. 

“I notice that you’re not asleep,” she says, “despite my advice.”

“Just… thinking,” he says. “I haven’t been stateside in… months. I don’t have a place to stay, or any of my documents, or a phone, or even a plan.”

He glances back up just in time to watch something go soft in her gaze. 

“You got kind of screwed over, huh?” she murmurs. “I know the feeling.” She shuts off the bathroom light and comes to sit on the bed, near his feet. “But hey, you’re not completely fucked,” she says. “You can do things now. You can fly and… freeze, sort of? You know–” 

Yelena waves her hands in the air, and though the motion is vague, he can glean what she means from it, thinking of how he’d managed to – push? Pull? Hold everything in place, for a little while? Freeze doesn’t sound exactly right, but he doesn’t know what else he’d call it. 

“That’ll be useful. I’ll just fly my way through a rental application,” he says dryly. 

Yelena snorts. “You joke, but it might help,” she says. “You’ll be on the cover of magazines in no time. They pay pretty well for that, yeah?”

“They must,” he agrees. “You think I’m… able to do that, though?”

“Maybe not now,” she concedes, “but if you keep honing those powers, why not?”

And that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? Why not? Why wouldn’t he be a hero, gracing the covers of magazines?

Because he’s him.

“I just,” he starts, struggling to articulate these new doubts he has, and how they mix with a lifetime of old doubts, “I don’t know, that’s always been the sort of thing the Avengers do, and I guess I can’t believe I could ever be like them.” Laughable. “And I keep thinking – worrying – about Valentina and what might come next…” He sighs. “I don’t know how you do this.”

“‘This?’” Yelena repeats. 

“Y’know. Hero stuff.”

And she laughs, throwing her head back.

“Oh, you are funny, Bob,” she says, and he tries to ignore how those words spark warmth in his stomach. “But no, I don’t do heroics.”

He angles his head. “Really?” It’s just one word, and yet it’s dripping with sarcasm, but – come on, after what he’s seen today, she’s going to say she’s not a hero?

“What?”

“Yelena.”

“What? We needed to get out. We worked together. It was purely self-serving, no heroism involved.”

“And hauling around some… useless, sweaty, vomiting lump, that’s not heroic?”

“Okay, first of all, you aren’t useless,” she says. “You got us back to the top of the vault, and you stopped us from getting blown up. It’s not – hard to give a shit about you and not want to leave you for dead.”

He disagrees – but she looks a little uncomfortable, now, so he doesn’t press the point any further. 

“Alright,” he says, “alright. Not used to heroics. But you are used to… taking care of people after they’re smart enough to knock themselves unconscious?” He’s probing, now, and he probably shouldn’t be, but – he’s fascinated by the contradictions between her words and her actions.

Yelena laughs again, but fainter this time. “No, never done that before, either. Which is probably for the best. And if you’re using this as a chance to bring up my terrible bedside manner, I don’t want to hear it, thank you.”

She meets his gaze – and then glances away abruptly and runs a hand through her hair. 

“Did I… do okay, though?” Her voice is quiet. “I really am only used to taking care of myself after a job, and I... suppose... that maybe you’re not used to stripping down so someone can check you for injuries. Or having someone else bathe you. So.” She looks back at him. “...sorry. If that was too much. Too… bossy.”

“I like when you boss me around, though,” he says immediately, and then regrets it when she narrows her eyes at him. “I mean – things tend to work out when you do, that’s all.” Smooth. But there’s a small smile on her face now, so maybe it was worth it. 

“Mmm, noted. I’ll make sure to do it more.”

Oh, please. He – can’t think about that or he risks another embarrassing erection, so he pivots instead. “I can’t say I make a habit of letting someone else… check me for injuries or clean me up, but… really, I should be thanking you, for taking the time to think about me. So… thanks.”

“You can thank me by not putting yourself in danger again,” she says.

“I can?”

“Uh-huh. I’m really good at keeping myself alive, but not so much at keeping other people alive. Kind of the opposite, actually. So I’m glad you’re... maybe invincible? But don’t go pulling stunts like you did earlier on my account, okay? I mean it.”

“What, even though I’m maybe invincible?”

“You didn’t know that when you pushed me back into the truck, though, did you? I was about to jump out after you.”

He blinks. “You were? Why?”

And now she pauses. “Be...cause you fell out and would have died?”

“But you would have died if you’d followed me.”

“‘kay,” she huffs, “so don’t pull risky moves like that and I won’t have to almost die, I guess.”

Yelena says it lightly enough, but if she means it… she’s the most heroic ‘non-hero’ he’s ever met, regardless of how she frames it.

Maybe next time he can save her – but… less clumsily. Without falling on his ass in the process. …no, that’s so presumptuous. Why would there even be a next time? 

And yet–

“Hey,” he says. “Is there any need for, I don’t know, some half-formed powers in the life of an assassin? Maybe cut down on your travel time with some flight?”

Yelena laughs. “I do like tall buildings,” she says, “and I hate all the fuss of traveling by plane.” She makes a face. “So many people, ugh.”

She flops back onto the bed. The motion makes her undershirt ride up, and he glances away immediately, but soon finds his gaze returning because – he’d seen an outline of something there before, in the shower, but he didn't think much of it. It could have been anything; an old wound, a tattoo…

But no – this is a bruise, fresh and stark.

He sits up straighter. “Yelena, you’re hurt.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says. She glances down at the mark. “I told you, nothing to worry about.”

“This is – where you got shot?”

He leans closer, hand hovering over the bruise.

“Mmhmm.”

Bob doesn't even think twice about pushing her undershirt farther up, until he can see the entirety of the mark, and begins to map it out with his fingers. He’s not a doctor, but even if the bullet didn’t break the skin, it could still be a – what are those called – a hematoma, that’s right. Bleeding under the skin. 

“It still looks like it hurts.”

“Sure, I guess,” she says. “I’ve been though worse.”

It’s dark, and it has to hurt, but she’s right. It could have been so much worse. If the vests were thinner, or if their aim was just a bit higher…

“You shouldn’t strain yourself, still,” he mumbles. It feels… normal enough. Not like there’s fluid build-up anywhere. By all accounts, just an average bruise. “You need to let it heal.”

Yelena props herself up on her elbows.

The motion makes him look up – and he realizes his position for the first time. Leaning in to be nearer to her, palm splayed over her ribcage as her shirt is pushed up to her chest… and very, very close.

He pulls back. “–sorry,” he says, “I… sorry.”

She’s watching him intently. “That’s also new,” she says. “Having someone check my wounds.”

“Well... we’re both breaking a lot of ground together today, huh?” he says, with an awkward little chuckle. 

She nods slowly, and then – 

“You have the temperament for it, you know,” she says. “Heroics.”

Oh.

He… doesn’t know what to say to that. For her to think that about him… 

Before he can mull that over too long, she crawls to the other side of the bed and slips under the covers. 

“Alright,” she says, “switch off that light? We don’t have long, and we really ought to sleep.”

Bob reaches for the light switch, then pauses. If he can flip the switch with his powers… well, it’s a simple enough task that it couldn’t hurt to try, right? And he’ll have to practice what he can do eventually.

He tries to dismiss the little thought that maybe she’ll be impressed, too.

So he digs down into that feeling, that same sense of possibility, that the world is malleable under his hand, and the soda can on the end table wobbles. He tries again – 

– and he immediately feels a new wave of exhaustion wash over him. 

“Hey, hey–” Yelena puts a hand on his arm. “You okay?”

“...yeah,” he says. Nothing hurt but his pride. 

“Don’t push yourself too hard,” she says. “We can always figure out how it works later.”

He swallows thickly. “You think so?”

‘We.’

“Sure, it can’t be that hard. Once you’ve rested, anyway.”

He switches off the lamp by hand. 

She wants to stay together, she isn’t leaving.

“Might… take a while,” he says. “You, uh, planning on sticking around that long?”

He winces as the words leave his mouth, and he’s glad for the darkness, so he can’t see her expression in response.

“Well, I’m not going to just strike out on my own while Valentina wants all of us gone.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, “that is a problem, isn’t it?” It’s very practical. And… somehow he's disappointed that that’s all it is.

“Mmh. The sort of problem I’m pretty good at solving, though. …Valentina’s probably got to die,” Yelena says, as casually as if she was remarking on the weather. “Maybe blackmail could be an option, but it’s so messy and imprecise and even though we do have information on her, it’s probably way less trouble just to kill her.”

He supposes maybe he should be alarmed to hear that, but it’s hard to drum up sympathy for a woman he only knows by virtue of arranging for all of their deaths. 

…and, alright, it’s kind of hot. Sue him. Gorgeous women talking about murder might get him going a little. 

“Sure,” he says with a yawn. “Great. Kill Valentina. Sounds like a plan.”

“Then we can find you a place to stay,” she murmurs, “though… if you don’t mind some company, maybe…”

She says something else – or at least, he thinks she does, but for the life of him he can’t quite tell what, as he slips into the oblivion of sleep.

He wakes in darkness some time later, to warmth.

He’s still groggy, and it takes him a moment to orient himself, but when he does, he freezes. Yelena is asleep, still, but so close that they’re practically spooning. 

No, not practically; they are spooning. There isn’t even an inch of space between them, his arm loosely thrown over her body – annnnd his erection pressed against the curve of her ass. Nice going, Bob.

Okay. This is… bad, but fixable. He begins to extricate himself, first by pulling back his arm. Slowly, slowly, slowly, inch by inch, careful not to make any sudden moves. This does not rouse her, thank god – though she does shift a little, and he sucks in a breath as the motion inadvertently rocks her ass against him. Jesus fuck. 

Bob presses a hand against the mattress for purchase as he tries scooting back. Carefully… carefully…

He makes it about an inch before she twists around and throws her arms around his neck.

“Warm,” she mutters.

He can feel the softness of her chest, the peaks of her breasts flattening as she presses herself against him once more.  

“Heyyyy Yelena,” he starts, “uh, there’s a whole bed to your right, in case you’re in need of space... maybe you’d… be more comfortable there and I can just…”

But when he tries to move back more, she grabs the front of his shirt.

“Quit moving.”

“Kinda need to... scooch back a bit. If you could just... let go.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. Stay put.” 

“And, uh, why not, exactly?

“Warm,” she repeats, then yawns. “Thought you said you liked it when I’m bossy,” she says, still not moving away.  

Oh, he does. A little too much, actually; it’s a wonder she hasn’t felt the evidence of that already. 

“Yelena, please…”

“‘s not dawn yet, you should sleep.”

“Yyyeah but I sort of... can’t?” Not with her there. Every nerve on his body is on high alert, and he is keenly aware of everywhere she’s touching him.

“Try harder,” Yelena murmurs. She shifts, and now he can feel her breath against his neck.  She sounds like she isn’t fully awake yet. Maybe he can just… wait her out?

So Bob goes very still, counting each second that passes. It’s better than thinking about how warm she is, how soft, how close. He waits until her breathing has steadied again, and waits a few minutes more, just to be safe. 

He holds his breath and very, very slowly starts to shimmy backwards – 

“Bob, what the hell?” She sounds more awake than ever. “What happened to sleeping?”

Damn it.

“I just – I can’t – maybe I need to get up to piss, you think about that?”

“Do you?”

He hesitates. “...no.” Shit. He should have just said yes and hoped that she would roll back in his absence, but the idea of blatantly lying to her is somehow unbearable. 

“Okay, so? Sleep, and stop… wriggling. It’s disruptive.”

He’s disruptive? If only she knew. “You’re just... very close.”

“Yeah?” It comes out defensive. “It’s freezing, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m wearing barely anything–” Oh, he’s noticed. “–and everywhere except where you are is cold as hell.” A huff. “But if you need space, fine, I’ll move away.” And she pulls back, no longer encircling him with her arms. 

Which is what he wants – needs – for both their sakes. It’s the only way to hold on to the last scrap of dignity he has that lets him look her in the eye. But she sounds – kind of hurt? Why she would be, he doesn’t know, but regardless, that’s not what he wants, either. 

As she begins to roll away, he reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder. She scoots away, out of his reach, but from the shuffling noises, he can tell she’s facing him again. 

“What?” she grumbles. “It’s not a big deal, I’m already going.”

“You’re not–” he starts, then falters. “I don’t want... to make you uncomfortable, is all.”

“...Bob,” she says, “I was sleeping very deeply before you started wiggling away. If you want space, it’s fine, it’s–” A sigh. “I was too close, I get it.” And then, so quietly he almost doesn’t catch it: “...was just too much.”

For the first time she sounds – uncertain. And he’s taken by a sudden need to ease that uncertainty, to make her understand that any fault here lies with him. She’s been nothing but good to him, and here he is, making her feel guilty about trying to sleep without freezing her ass off.

“You didn’t do anything, it’s – me, I’m…”

“Yeah, I get it, you want me out of your little bubble, it’s fine.”

“No,” he says, “that’s not–” He’s just making this worse.

“...no?” There’s a rustle of blankets. “Okay, wait, you don’t want me near, but… you also do? Clear this up for me, what exactly do you want?”

She sounds – exasperated? Irritated? Tired.

“I just might... want you close a little too much, is all,” he says. 

“...come again?”

And it all spills out in a rush.

“You’re – Yelena you’re hot, alright, and you’re close, and your underwear is – you know it's kind of see-through, right? I know, and it’s hard enough not to think about it when I can't feel every inch of you, and I’m – Jesus, I’m just trying not to press my hard-on against your ass, that’s all. It’s not you doing anything wrong, it’s me.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and he feels a sense of dread sink into the pit of his stomach. God damn it, he fucked it up, like he fucks everything up.

“...Yelena?”

Finally she speaks. “That’s what this is about?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I know, I know, you’re just being nice and trying to help me out and I’m a creep that pops a boner from just petting my hair, I know–”

Yelena pushes at his shoulder, and he doesn’t fight the motion, letting her direct him until he’s lying flat. That accomplished, she straddles him, settling over his hips – and then lowers herself and grinds against him. 

The knowledge that there’s two layers of clothing between them does absolutely nothing against the addictive friction – and the warmth radiating off of her cunt. He can feel it even now, even more so when she does it again. 

And again. 

And again.

“This?” she finally says. She rocks back to make space to palm him through his scrubs. 

“Ye-ah,” he breathes, voice breaking, “I’m sor–”

But he doesn’t get a chance to finish because Yelena leans down and swallows the rest of the word. His mind goes blank, his world reduced to this, to her mouth on his, and to the slow rocking of her hips. 

“What,” he says when she pulls back, “what was – why–?”

“You keep apologizing,” she says. “Needed a way to make you stop. You weren’t listening to words.”

“Oh,” he says, and chooses not to fight the instinct to immediately repeat the apology. “I’m sorry–”

A huff, and then, another kiss. Oh, she’s soft. His hands shoot up to her waist, then settle on her hips.

When she pulls back, she’s breathing a little heavier than before. 

“…sorry?”

She kisses him again. Fuck, he’ll do nothing but apologize for the rest of his life if she’ll do that every time. His head feels pleasantly fuzzy, and he really would be content to just stay like this, baiting her into lavishing this kind of attention on him, but –

“Why,” he pants, “why this method, exactly? Not that I’m complaining, I’m not.”

“I just... want to.”

“Oh,” he says. What a strange thing for her to want. “–wait, is it because of the serum?” It’s fucked with other parts of him, so that isn’t too far-fetched, is it?

“Is it–?” And she laughs, a sound that shakes her whole body.

He’ll give himself a little grace for getting even more turned on by being laughed at, considering she’s absolutely stunning and she’s currently still sitting on his dick.

When her laughter dies down, Yelena kisses him again, and this time when she pulls back, she nips at his lip a little.

“I didn’t, uh, say sorry that time,” he says.

“No,” she says, “but it’s about the same.”

“Sure,” he says, “right. …what is?”

Yelena sweeps some stray hairs from his forehead before she answers, and leaves her hand there, fingers tracing slow circles on his temple. “Thinking I want you only because of some serum?”

“You want me?” he repeats dumbly.

Which – okay, yes, he hears how that sounds given that she’s still rocking herself against his cock, he knows it’s a stupid question, but actually putting into words what all this means floors him.

"You think too little of yourself. I don’t want to hear that or your apologies.” Don’t apologize, don’t be self-deprecative… shit, she couldn’t have chosen a better way to ensure that he’ll be drowning in kisses before sunrise. “Besides, I know what it’s like when my mind isn’t my own,” she says, breath ghosting across his lips. “This isn’t that, this is just... you.”

“Just me, huh?” It takes a monumental amount of willpower not to lean up into her and close that gap. “Just me doesn’t usually get this kind of warm welcome, is all."

“You usually take a bullet for someone, then?”

“Nnnnno,” he says, “first time for that. If that’s what, uh, gets you going, though, maybe I should–”

And she kisses him again. “No, once was enough, no more of that.”

“Right. Got it. ...maybe remind me how else I should get the attention of a renowned assassin?”

Yelena laughs again, low and soft and he thinks maybe he might be a little bit in love with her. “I think,” she murmurs, “you already have it.” Oh, he definitely is. 

“Right. So I’ll just… keep apologizing? And keep earning that attention?” 

And she hesitates. She doesn’t pull back, no; they’re still nose-to-nose, their breaths intermingling. Just… pauses. 

“…maybe I do this no matter what you say,” she whispers. “Or... we do this even if you don’t say anything?”

Bob can’t agree fast enough. “Yeah no yeah, that’s uh – sounds great to me.”

And now he lets himself lean up into her until their chests are flush. Yelena cups his face in both her hands as she pulls him in for another kiss. They take their time with this one – and with the next, and the next. 

Slow, languid, like there’s nothing in the world they’d rather be doing than this. When she opens her mouth to him, a vague, dim part of his brain is thankful for that gum, because he’d hate to think about what he would taste like otherwise. Terrible, he supposes. As it is, when his tongue sweeps over hers, she tastes like – mint, mostly. He hopes the same is true for him.

When they break apart, it takes him a minute to catch his breath, but as soon as he’s able, he asks, “can I touch you?”

“Please.”

So he lets go of her hips and finds the front of her underwear – and Yelena swallows his groan with another kiss when he realizes how wet they are.

When he presses his thumb against her clit through the fabric, it’s her turn to gasp. He presses a little harder, and she ruts against his hand. Bob dips his fingers beneath the waistband of her underwear to feel her directly, then hesitates. 

“Can I–”

He hasn’t even finished asking when she answers, “yes.”

So he runs his fingers down her slit, coating himself in slick, and traces her entrance. Yelena whines impatiently and he bites back a grin. The angle is awkward, but she shifts to accommodate, canting her hips until he’s able to slowly press a finger into her.

He gives it a few experimental thrusts, but the way she squirms feels… eager for more. He draws back and runs a second finger through her folds, then traces around her entrance again. She bucks her hips a little and he takes that as encouragement, but even so, is careful when he dips into her cunt again, mindful of this new pressure. As he begins to move again, he presses his palm against her clit. She whimpers, and Bob swallows thickly, the sound going straight to his dick. 

He repeats the motion, and she buckles. He uses the opportunity to shift them so they’re back on their sides in a move that’s… surprisingly easy. He misses the weight of her on him immediately, but if she keeps grinding against him, he is going to cum in his pants.

This, though – this ought to let him keep the focus on her. And he does, adjusting his pace with every new little noise and jolt of her hips, aiming to find what satisfies her. Yelena laughs breathily against his mouth, then begins to drop little kisses across his face, along his jaw, down his neck, everywhere. It’s distracting in the best way possible. 

He curls his fingers in a way that makes her clench hard against him, and she bites down on the spot that she had been kissing, just below his jaw – a pleasant sort of pain. Then she places a hand on his chest. 

“Bob,” she pants, “wait, wait, hah–”

He does immediately, pulling back and out of her, suddenly worried. “Yelena?” he asks. “Are you okay, was that too much?” 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she assures him, panting a little as she does. “I just want – here, take – take this off,” she says, pulling at his shirt.

Before he does so, he brings his fingers to his mouth, and god he has to struggle not to moan at the taste. But: she’s asked him for something, and he will not ignore her request. So he pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it to the side.

“And the rest,” she says, “quickly now.”

“There’s just pants,” he says with a soft chuckle.

“I know,” she says, “take them off. I want to feel you. And I want you to fuck me.”

He blinks. “–Yelena?”

“I want you,” she repeats, “to fuck me.”

And he wants nothing more than to do just that. But–

“Yelena, I don’t – uh, exactly have a condom on me, it’s not safe.”

Yelena reaches for him, placing her palms on his cheeks. 

“If some super soldier serum changed your whole physique, I think maybe you’re, ah, clean. And I am, too, and I don’t have ovaries, so.” She rubs soothing circles against his cheekbones. “We’re safe on both counts. Yeah?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Good enough for him. 

“Now get those off and c’mere.”

Her eagerness makes his movements clumsier than usual, and he fumbles to free himself from the scrubs knowing she’s waiting for him. By the time he’s managed it, her undershirt is no longer just pushed up but removed entirely, and her underwear presumably also thrown somewhere

Maybe his eyes have adjusted to the darkness by now, or maybe there’s just enough moonlight filtering in from behind the too thin curtains, but either way, he’s glad, because it means he’s not totally blind right now – though he still wishes he could see her in full.

Still, it’s enough that when he pauses to gently cup her face, he can see her smile up at him. He dips down and kisses her, and as he does, he lets a hand trail down and across her chest. He can feel her pulse – it’s racing. His must be, too. He wonders if she can feel it as starkly as he can. Feels like it’s damn near hammering out of his ribs. 

She breaks the kiss, breathing going shaky when he slides his cock against her folds, readying himself. When he does it again, she sighs, voice hitching just a little at the end. He aligns himself with a hand, tip at her entrance. 

“Ready?”

She nods, and he drops his head a little to press his forehead to hers. 

He goes slowly, letting her adjust to the stretch with short, shallow thrusts, little by little, as she sighs and whimpers – “Bob,” she pants, one hand fisting in his hair, “Bob, Bob–”

His name has never sounded so sweet. 

And then, finally, he bottoms out. He stills, giving her another moment to adjust, and brushes a strand of hair from her now-sweaty forehead. “You holding up okay?”

“Fine,” she says, and when she presses her lips to the tip of his nose, he can feel that she’s smiling. “I’m not fragile, Bob. You can move.” She punctuates this by wiggling her hips a little. 

And he knows that, he does, but – the sharp breath she takes when he begins to move does seem to suggest that she isn't quite accustomed to this, whether ‘this’ is the size or the act itself, and the last thing he wants to do is hurt her. So he does move, but… carefully. 

Although, not quite as consistently as he intends. He means to keep a steady pace, honest, but it’s hard when so much of his focus is going to not immediately losing it and blowing his load like he’s some inexperienced teenager. Maybe his pride ought to be more wounded by that fact, but Yelena is… Yelena. Should he really be expected to keep it together around her?

Still, he does what he can to make up for his sloppy technique, keeping one hand at her clit and the other roaming around, finding which spots elicit the strongest reactions from her, and the noises she makes suggests she isn’t too bothered by the inconsistent tempo he’s set. For his part, he’s happy to swallow each little gasp whenever he alights on a particularly sensitive spot. 

Her chest, he finds, is very responsive to his touch – Yelena’s breath hitches when he cups the swell of her breast and she melts into him when he lingers there, gently stroking and tweaking her skin.  

He kisses her again as he quickens his pace, and she hooks a leg around him. 

Bob thumbs at her nipple, then pinches it lightly. She clenches around him – fuck – and his hips stutter.

“Yelena,” he pants, voice strained, “I can’t – I’m not going to last much longer–”

“‘s okay,” she murmurs, “don’t go, I want it all.”

Oh he wishes he could see her. He wants it with an intensity that strikes upon something deep within him, and – the lights in the room begin to spark on, first dim and then quickly growing in intensity until he can see, at last, and god, god, she’s gorgeous. He’s never seen a prettier sight. 

Her hair all mussed; her lips parted and ready to meet his; her eyes half-lidded and her pupils blown wide, all attention on him. Hell, if he were just a bit more of a fool, he could almost mistake that look for – love.

She tugs at his hair. “Bob,” she sighs, “I want – I need – kiss me?”

And what can he do but oblige? 

It’s – tender and it’s sweet; maybe strangely so, considering he’s still fucking into her messily, desperately, but he could drown in this. Bob sweeps his tongue over her lower lip and Yelena tightens around him, and that does it, at last – he unravels, spilling into her, his hips snapping out the last few, stuttering motions he can handle before he’s fully spent. 

And –

The lights blow, sending them into sudden darkness once more.

That – isn’t the most pressing issue, though. Because Bob Reynolds is not a quitter, and even as he’s seeing stars, he rubs at her clit and gently kneads her breasts and gives his goddamn all into every single one of those kisses until he can feel her come apart around him. 

The noise she makes, ragged and almost a sob, is music to his ears. 

Once again, he wishes he could see her, but it’s too dark for that now, and that would mean pulling away from her, anyway. He doesn’t feel like she’s of a mind to let him go. And really, he wouldn’t want that, either. It’s hard to say who’s pressing against who – at this point, they’re holding onto each other so securely that there isn’t even a breath of space between them.

After some time, she pulls back, but only enough to kiss his face, his neck, his jaw… and as his breathing steadies, he angles his head down and kisses as much of her as she can reach – her forehead at first, and then, when she tilts her head up for him, he dusts them across her temples, her nose, her cheeks, making his way back down to her mouth.

He can’t get enough of her, of their tongues intertwining, of her arms around him… it’s like nothing he’s ever experienced. She’s like nothing, like no one, he’s ever experienced. He’s pretty sure he’s been kissed more times tonight than he has the entire rest of his life. It’s – addicting. He could die here and now and be happy. 

The thought of what she might look like now doesn’t help – slick with sweat, arms wrapped around him, his cum dripping out of her cunt – brings words to the tip of his tongue – ‘Can I follow you forever? I think I’m in love with you.’ Probably not what he ought to say; he hasn’t even known her for a full day yet. Even if – well, even if it might be true. 

Something else, then. Something… wiser. 

He’s… not exactly ready for round two and likely won’t be for a while, but he’s still thinking of asking if she’d be interested in throwing her legs over his shoulders and letting him clean up the mess they’ve made when there’s a knock at the door.

They both still. Maybe they misheard?

But it comes again, clear enough that it’s obviously coming from their door, not from anywhere else. 

“I’ll get it,” Bob says immediately.

“You?” she asks. 

“Bulletproof, remember?” he says. 

Yelena snorts. “That probably won't be necessary,” she mutters. “Someone who wants to kill you doesn’t normally knock first.”

“What,” Bob says, sliding out of bed on slightly shaky legs and searching the floor until he can find his pants, “assassins aren’t usually ones for niceties?”

“Not usually, no,” Yelena says.

There’s another knock, quicker and firmer this time, and he can hear her shuffling around, presumably searching for her discarded clothes as well.

“I’m shocked,” Bob says, “shocked.”

He pulls on his pants and starts heading for the door, not bothering with the shirt in the interest of haste.

It’s a little easier to see when he opens the door; the window at the end of the hall has no curtains to dim the moonlight that spills through, so Bob can see Walker standing there, fist raised like he's about to knock again, clearly enough. 

“Finally,” Walker says, “I was beginning to wonder if something had happened. Nice to see you up and about, Bobby.”

Bob’s jaw clenches at the nickname. “Bob,” he corrects.

“Yeah, Bob,” Walker agrees. “Anyway, where’s Yelena? I need to talk to her.”

Walker makes as if to push the door open, and Bob’s hand catches it before that can happen. Dark though it may be, under no circumstances is he going to let Walker catch a glimpse of an undressed Yelena.

“...could you open up? It’s… kind of important.”

Walker pushes against the door again, and Bob’s grip tightens, preventing that. The wood of the door groans in protest. He won’t deny that there’s a flicker of satisfaction at the fact that it doesn’t budge an inch. He does not remove his hand from the doorframe.

“You can wait,” he says mildly. “Yelena will come out when she’s ready. In the meantime, why don’t you tell me?”

“O…kay,” Walker says, brow furrowed. “Well… I woke up when the air conditioning stopped and saw that the electricity was out, so I left the motel to see if it was just the building or if anywhere else was affected. Got an answer to that pretty quick; some buildings nearby seem affected, but there’s others down the street that seem just fine. But, more importantly, I discovered that there’s someone out in the street shouting–”

Yelena appears then, ducking under Bob’s arm, and now he lets go of the door. A quick glance shows that she’s back in her gear, fully dressed once more.

“Yelena! Great timing,” Walker says, shooting an annoyed glance Bob’s way, and folding his arms. “Hey, do you have any idea why there’s someone shouting your name up and down the streets?”

“My name?” she asks. “Only mine, no one else’s?”

“Yeah, I didn't get a great look at him, but it was an older guy, red suit, bushy beard–”

Yelena sucks in a breath through her teeth. “Oh, damn – you… wait here, do not follow me.” And then she takes off running.

“Is that a ‘yes?’” Walker calls out after her. This does not receive a response, and Yelena soon disappears from view. “...should we be concerned?”

“She said not to follow her,” Bob says, “so it sounds like she’s got this.” That doesn’t stop him from worrying, of course. Why is someone calling for her, and – is it good that she seems to recognize him, or is that worse?

“Y’know,” Walker muses aloud, “she doesn’t have any authority here, and there’s no real reason not to go take a look.”

“You want to irritate an assassin, be my guest,” Bob says.

“...mmh,” Walker says. “Maybe not.”

They don’t have long to wait, anyway. Soon enough, a beam of light heralds Yelena’s return; she’s carrying a flashlight, bright enough that the surrounding area is pretty clearly illuminated, even as she’s still ascending the stairs.

“Well, she’s not dead,” Walker says, then turns to look back at Bob – and then he squints at him. “Did you land on your neck?”

“My neck?” 

Bob reflexively moves to cover the spot Walker is staring at with his hand. What is he–? Ah. That’s… probably where Yelena bit down, earlier. 

Thankfully, Yelena is now close enough for Walker to address her, rather than press the point.

“So?” he asks. 

“I took care of it,” she says. “We should go. Now.”

“What, you kill him?”

“What? No. He’s – I know him, it’s fine, but if he was able to find us, Valentina definitely will, so we should go.”

“And who exactly is he, anyway,” Walker begins – but he’s interrupted by a voice that's so loud, Bob has to glance around the hallway to be sure that it’s not coming from upstairs. 

“YELENA!”

“Christ, Yelena, I thought you said you took care of it?”

“I did take care of it,” she says, “I got us a ride.”

“With – okay, great, and are you going to do something now? Before he wakes up half the town?”

As if on cue, the voice returns, somehow even louder now.

“Yelena! It’s all ready for you and your team! Oh, what a thrill – this will be glorious!” This is punctuated by boisterous laughter. 

“I,” she says, “have shit to grab.” She waves a hand. “You prepped for a walk, why don’t you see if you could shut him up?”

Walker opens his mouth, then closes it and shakes his head. “Fine,” he says. 

As he walks off, Bob is pretty sure he hears him mumble something about ‘having to do everything myself’ and ‘they don’t even do check-outs this early.’

Yelena groans. “Right, let’s make sure we’re not leaving anything important and wake Ava up.”

Though with how loud this mystery person is, he’d be surprised if Ava weren’t already awake. 

“So who, uh, who is that guy?” Bob asks, following her into the room. “A ride, and…?”

“It’s…” Yelena sighs deeply, and pinches the bridge of her nose with the hand not holding the flashlight. “...my dad.”

“Your–? Oh.” Right, Walker said the guy was wearing a red suit. Superhero suit he assumes, then, not a three-piece. “So… heroics run in the family?”

“He’s not – and I’m not–”  And then she seems to notice that he’s grinning at her, and she whacks him lightly on the shoulder with a scowl. “Very funny.”

She straps something onto her wrists – those things she used to electrocute some of the mercenaries, he thinks? – then turns to him. 

“Well, go on, get dressed. Put your shirt on.” Then her eyes roam over him. “Or don’t, your choice. I wouldn’t complain.” The implied praise makes him giddy. “But, grab the rest of that gear, at least? Might come in handy. Plus… you looked good in it.”

He did?

That praise is more than implied, and it stops him in his tracks for a moment – and then he crosses the room to close the distance between them, catches her hand, and pulls her towards him. 

She lets him, offering no resistance at all, just blinks up at him. “Yeah, hi?”

“Hi,” he breathes. Just one word, and yet, she graces him with a soft smile. “You, ah… liked the tactical gear?”

“...I did,” she concedes. “Fit you better than the scrubs, for one. And very… striking.”

Yeah, he is definitely bringing that with him. And figuring out an excuse to wear it every damn day.

“You know,” he says, “striking or not, it’s still a little early to be meeting the parents, don’t you think?” He regrets it as soon as the words leave his mouth. That’s – awfully presumptuous, isn’t it? Sure, they were just fucking like rabbits and clinging to each other like a lifeline, and yes, it was so recent that she probably still has his cum in her, but that doesn’t mean that this – means anything. “Sorry,” he says, “that was dumb.”

But she laughs, her nose scrunching. Ah. Cute.

“Oh, well,” she says, so close to Bob that he can feel her breath ghosting against his skin, “after almost dying, I figured, why wait? Life is short, we may as well skip a few steps.”

We.

Oh, he wants to kiss her again.

He thinks the same desire strikes her, because her smile falters and her breathing hitches and she looks up at him through her eyelashes. His heart rate picks up and he begins to lean in –

– and he nearly jumps out of his skin when Ava phases in just a foot away from them.

“Not to interrupt this touching moment, but are we in imminent danger or not?”

“You did,” Yelena mutters, “and we are not.”

Bob releases Yelena’s wrist, but she does not step back, nor does she put even the smallest amount of distance between them, instead remaining just where she was when Ava appeared – hand on his chest, head angled up to meet him halfway.

“Mmh. Should I assume we have a way out of here?”

“Yeah, we’ve got a… car.”

“Love that hesitation,” Ava says. “Can’t wait to find out what nonsense we’re walking into.”

“Hey,” Yelena says, and now she turns to look at Ava, “it’s a free ride, and it’s… a little less suspicious than riding around in a truck with a turret.”

“Sure, sure,” Ava says. “Don’t take too long, hmm? I’m not really itching to get killed because you two lovebirds have gotten lost in each others’ eyes.”

Yelena scowls – and then she turns back to Bob, leans up, and abruptly presses her lips to his and tangles her free hand in his hair. His hands find her waist immediately, settling there so easily it’s like it’s what he was made for. 

When Yelena breaks the kiss, there’s a smirk pulling at her lips. “We,” she says, “will be down soon.”

Ava just shakes her head and leaves the room – the conventional way, this time, no phasing. 

Only when she’s gone does Yelena step back. “...much as I want to do that again, we really, really need to get going.”

“Right, of course,” he says, like he isn’t obsessing over the fact that she kissed him in front of Ava, no hesitation, and what that might mean.

It's difficult to focus enough to actually get ready, to pull his shirt back on – sorry Yelena, but it’s less suspicious looking this way – and to gather up his gear and pull those OXE boots on. 

“Be on alert,” she says. “Valentina might have people after us sooner rather than later.”

“Almost forgot we’re in mortal peril,” he mutters, tucking the rest of the tactical gear under his arm.

“See, you are getting used to this,” Yelena says. 

“Is the next step knowing what to do about that peril?”

“Only sometimes,” she says cheerily.

“Right,” he chuckles. “Think it’ll take a while before that comes naturally to me, anyway.”

Yelena straps on the last of her equipment and regards him for a long moment. 

“...it helps when you aren’t alone,” she says softly. “And… we can stick together from now on, yeah?”

“Me and you?”

She hesitates, just for a second, then nods. 

“Yeah,” he says, “we’ll figure it out.”

The smile she gives him in return is radiant.  

“Alright, come on, then,” she says, and she holds out a hand to him. “Before they come looking for us again.”

So Bob takes her hand and follows Yelena and her light.