This is the longest assignment heâs ever been on, months spooling into years.
The iron fist of HYDRA was more accustomed to short-term operations, get in and kill someone with maximum efficiency and then get out,
but when operations require a subtler touch, thatâs when the Red Room gets involved. HYDRAâs assets combined with the chameleonic wiles of Dreykovâs widows, their social manipulation: each wife embedded in an American home paired with muscle, their hulking soldier-husbands parcelled out like human weapons.
Hers is handsome and polite, and he barely spoke that first year at all, behaving more like a mute automaton she could order about: Fix the spare tire. Replace the light bulbs. Get rid of this dead body for me.
But the more time they spend away from headquarters, the more time that he spends on this assignment and isnât reset, his brain thawsâ
Her husband slowly seems more human. Social graces are necessary, of course, to maintain their cover: he learns how to smile, how to carry on a conversation. The first time they dare to host a backyard barbecue, itâs as nerve-wracking as if it were a white-knuckle mission, but he manages it. Cracks jokes with the other husbands. Their life goes on.
And then, today.
The soldier returns home with a heavy slope to his shoulders. He smells of gunpowder and blood. Finding his young blonde wife in the living room, he drops a duffel bag on the floor, and wearily settles on the sofa next to her with a sigh. Knee bumping against hers; his thigh warm against hers through his jeans.
His head is tipped back, looking at the ceiling.
He knows the shape of her and yet he doesnât. Heâs slept in a bed beside her for years. Theyâve kissed, for show â a chaste peck on the lips in front of neighbours or colleagues â but he doesnât steal a kiss if no oneâs looking. Heâs pressed his fingers into the meat of her leg to dig out a bullet, but doesnât know the kind of noises sheâd make if his fingers were inside her otherwise.
This, this is their marriage.
âLong night,â Jonathan says.
(Whatever name was redacted from the Winter Soldierâs original files, decades ago, heâs just Jonathan now. Jon. Thatâs the name on the passport, the fake driverâs license, the mortgage papers. They never breathe the name Yelena Belova between them, either. Theyâre not allowed to.)
This assignment was incredibly strange at first, playing at being married was⌠uncomfortable. It didnât feel like it fit her. But it wouldnât be the first time she felt out of her comfort zone, so she just swallowed it all down and dealt with it one day at a time.
One day turned into a week turned into months⌠and a rhythm was found in this neighborhood theyâd been dropped into. It was like something straight out of a movieâ rows of identical houses with impeccable lawns, pools in the back yard, and two cars in every driveway. If she had to pretend to be someoneâs wife⌠at least it was in a decent area.
They had wholly separate lives outside this perfect little picturesque play they put on for neighbors. Never shown as starkly contrasted as when Jon walks in the door that night in a state she has seen him in plenty of times by now. Her eyes sweep over him as he trudges inside, drops his bag on the floor and himself on the couch.
âArenât they all?â she quips back at him, as she reaches up and drags her fingers through his hair. Itâs one of those strange little things thatâs become habit over time, tiny affectionate touches that let other people read what they needed them to. Sometimes, she just did it out of habit now.
White picket fences, green backyards, American pie. (Everything sheâd thought sheâd wanted, once upon a time, but now twisted and gnarled and fake.)
When Mary reaches out and touches him, he jolts a little, just the smallest infinitesimal flinch which sheâll recognise because she knows him and his tics and movements; otherwise, heâs usually too still and quiet, too good at mastering his reactions.
A skittish wild animal, simultaneously spooked yet soothed by that touch.
âItâs taken care of,â Jon says, without elaborating on what it is. Mary already knows. The assignment theyâd received earlier via dead drop, taking out some physicist, a professional rival to Russiaâs own science programme. He wasnât entirely sure what had landed that quiet, inoffensive bespectacled man on the hitlist or what sort of work he did. He didnât ask questions. That wasnât part of the job.
âWeâll have to clean the car,â he says, still ticking through the to-do list as if on autopilot. âAnd I think I got nicked.â
Not a bad injury, not enough to lay him out, but heâs felt a twinge of pain and part of his shirt sticking uncomfortably warm and wet to his skin the whole drive back. On his shoulder, where he couldnât get to it easily.
She isnât offended when he flinches away from herâ she gets it. Touch is never exactly a whole net positive in their line of work. It get muddied between punishments and jobs where fist fights arenât uncommon.
âGood,â sometimes, they take the hits together, other times not. It all depends on their explicit instructions whenever they get new assignments. In some ways, receiving their newest set of instructions is a little like getting a gift. A new surprise in every box. âDid you get blood in the seats again?â A common occurrence in their line of work.
She hums a soft noise and sweeps her eyes over him, âWhere? Do you need stitches?â
Sometimes he drifts back into the curt monosyllabic sentences heâd used for most of their first year together, only communicating the bare minimum — his handlers hadnât built him to be a talker — but itâs never meant to be rude.
(Some details, though, make the picture of him strange, the puzzle pieces not quite fitting. Where sheâs had to work on her accent with careful training over the years, smoothing out the Russian syllables, the American accentâs always come easily to her husband. In its place is a lingering awkwardness in even his textbook-perfect Russian, the consonants ever so slightly off.)
He scoots a little forward, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it onto the coffee table. Rolls his shoulder, testing the range of motion. One of his arms is fake, a skin-coloured prosthetic to blend in and hopefully not stand out around the neighbourhood with it; but on the flesh-and-blood side, the shirt over his shoulder is damp with blood. âI canât tell,â Jon admits about the stitches, and thereâs the faintest flicker in his expression which— might be sheepishness?
âIâll get the peroxide and weâll get it cleaned in no time.â They always have an assortment of chemicals on hand, some basic things for first aid, some others more specifically tailored to some job or other. Car seats are pretty easy to clean, as bloodstains go.
She doesnât mind the short answers, it cuts out the fluff and gets straight to the point and more often than not, thatâs the best case for them. Sheâs certainly the talker between the pair of them, but itâs all for show. Part of a Widowâs training is using words and physicality to advantage for information⌠the Winter boys were built for higher efficiency in assassinations. Two sides of a coin and all that.
With the jacket out of the way, the wound is already obvious even before she urges him to take his shirt off, too. Sheâd cut him out of it if she had to, and it wouldnât have been the first time. Time was, he wouldnât have even done this so easily for her. Theyâre deep in this cover now, though, and Mary⌠how foreign that name still feels aside⌠finds it harder to turn the play off even when itâs just the two of them alone the longer they linger here in assignment.
âIâll be right back,â she says softly, disappearing for long enough to grab supplies to clean and stitch his wound.
As she leaves the room, Jon reaches obediently for the hem of his shirt and carefully hauls it off so sheâll be able to reach it better, wincing slightly as it pulls at some of the dried blood, the scabs tugging. It rips some of the scabs open — heâs bleeding again — and he crumples the tattered fabric of the shirt in his human fist, now sitting patient.
He waits on the sofa, straight-backed and motionless while Maryâs gone, with barely a flicker or tic of muscle. It makes him look like a clockwork soldier whoâs run down, stationary and watchful with no one around to give him orders, content to sit and wait in silence for as long as it takes until she returns. He could sit there for hours.
Mary comes back with the supplies, unphased by the rigid way he sits and waits for her. "Dammit," she mumbles under her breath when she sees the new line of blood rolling slowly down from the wound. With the soft sigh of an exasperated wife, she swipes the fresh blood away with the cloth she'd grabbed. "You are so messy, Jon," she chides him lightly, but there's an amusement in her tone too.
She takes her time, because no ticking clock or imminent danger is pressing the matter, and she's as gentle as she can be as she cleans up the long-dried blood from his back. She knows he would never show it if any of it pains him anyway, but she still likes to afford him that much.
"Cold," she murmurs in soft warning as she pours a bit of liquid disinfectant along the wound, the cloth pressed just under it to catch the excess that rolls down his shoulder. The house is so quiet, she can hear the soft bubbling of the peroxide as it works against the gash that she's realized she will probably need to stitch, at least a bit, until his healing kicks in a bit more. It was deeper than he realized, probably.
She knows him well enough by now, after years on assignment, sleeping in the same bed, pulling each other out of the fire, that she can read his reactions:
itâs small, but Jon twitches, with the faint jolt of indrawn breath as the disinfectant sears into his skin. It burns, it cleans, it scours, and he bites down on the sensation. Anyone else would be screaming, howling, thrashing in pain.
But the Winter Soldier turns off those parts of himself. Like turning off taps, shutting doors, retreating to the safety of a small room in the back corner of his mind, far away from it all, dissociating. Heâs staring straight ahead and not quite registering much, just —
âYouâve had worse,â The flat, American voice she has been using is always at the tip of her tongue after all this time, but she finds that her natural accent slips through with those words, and she isnât even really sure why. She does miss it, though. Her real voice.
Sheâs grown used to how easily he can turn things off within himself. She can do it, too, but not in the same way, not to the same extent. He can compartmentalize to a degree she finds herself often wishing for. Sheâs never said so out loud, because she already knows he would tell her sheâs wrong. That she shouldnât wish for such a thing.
Once she has cleaned the wound, she readies the needle and smiles, itâs soft and itâs sad, and it doesnât reach her eyes. âStitching you up now,â she whispers, her accent still present. She can be a little more herself with him. Alone.
It should perhaps raise a small alarm for him, a chiding reminder in their handlerâs voice: Stay in-character. Stay in the voice until it becomes yours, until your accentâs perfect even when inebriated, until you dream in English. Donât risk breaking character.
But Jon finds that he likes the sound of the Widowâs real voice. Itâs warmer, a little deeper in a way which doesnât fit the high lilting accent of the American suburban housewife; like this, she always sounds a little looser, a bit less stilted and affected and practiced. Like him with his English in general.
âAppreciate it,â he says after a moment, quiet, tilting his head to look back at her over his shoulder. He doesnât need to thank her — itâs her job — but he has noticed how sheâs moving slower, more careful to not jostle him, to not cause any extra undue pain in the treatment. Not all of the agents would have bothered. In the past, some of them hadnât.
She knows how it feels, stuck under someoneâs thumb, every move you make scrutinizes to the fullest extent possible. Their lives havenât been so different, and now they really were the same all the time.
Once sheâs done, she works at putting all the supplies away, throwing out the trash, collecting the tools into the kit, but she doesnât miss the look back at her over his shoulder. Her lips twitch in a smile, âJust doing my job,â she answers easily, but there is a hint of something brighter beneath those words shining in her eyes.
Now that the immediate problemâs been taken care of, shirtless but stitched-up, Jon disengages wordlessly into another part of the house. The way he often seems to vanish when she isnât looking, a cat disappearing and then reappearing underfoot,
(not a man but a ghost)
and after some time in their bedroom and bathroom, he re-emerges looking a little less frayed around the edges. Heâs washed off his hands, thrown some water in his face and hair. He tossed his ruined shirt into the laundry basket (a separate one they keep for their quote-unquote âwork clothesâ; often in need of more heavy-duty bleach or sometimes outright disposal), and then meandered back downstairs into the dim light, wearing a loose clean white undershirt and comfortable sweatpants, no longer reeking of gunpowder. Ready for bed, mostly, but:
âI have some notes on the operation, but Iâll transmit them to our handler tomorrow. Do you need anything?â
Maryâs not the tepid housewife wringing her apron and waiting for her man to come home â sheâll have her own lethal tasks, tomorrow and the day after and the day after, their work never ends â but some part of him still itches at having had an evening away from her. Not all of their jobs called for two people, but they did their work better when they were together, when he had someone to watch his back; this wound probably wouldnât have happened otherwise.
She's grown used to the way he just...melts out of view. He's arguably even better at it than she is, which is rather impressive. He has a tendency to materialize from nowhere just as easily.
While he gets a little cleaner, Yelena goes to the kitchen to pour them both a drink. It doesn't do much for him, of course, but it's the pretense of a nightcap at the end of their day. Pretending, even when seemingly no one but the two of them are around, because eyes and ears existed everywhere and they couldn't risk being found out.
She joins him back in the living room, holding a glass out to him before she takes a long sip from her own. Vodka. The good kind, it burns smooth down her throat.
"I don't think so. I haven't received any instructions in a few days," she says, sinking onto the couch. "It makes me uneasy." She does drastically better when she has work to do, being without it makes her restless.
If theyâd been hosting company with anyone else in the house, he might have played at being a good husband: an arm wrapped around her on the couch, a fond touch of her thigh, massaging her feet after a long day, all the little domestic rituals to keep up appearances. But as Mary takes the seat beside him, Jon reaches out and accepts the glass of vodka and heâs careful to not overstep, not crowd into her space, not demand too much.
His knee bumps against hers where sheâs settled. Thatâs all.
âUneasy. Why?â he asks, simply. Pressing for more information; he finds it easier to nudge others than to be talkative himself.
âThere was an idea,â the Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine says. âThe idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people, to see if they could become something more.â
Thereâs a sardonic edge to her voice as she echoes Furyâs now-famous speech. Bucky wonders, distantly, how the world found out about it, but Steve said it had happened on a SHIELD helicarrier and thereâs probably audio and video recordings. SHIELD famously monitored and recorded everything.
See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could.
Heâs been dodging the Contessaâs calls for a while, but he canât really afford to avoid the CIA directorâs attention; not when sheâs armed with government connections, able to dangle his ongoing pardon like a carrot on a string. And Sam had said Keep an eye on her, which is how Buckyâs now here, at this meeting, at an eye-wateringly expensive Manhattan restaurant. An entire private roomâs been booked out for them.
Itâs an eclectic group milling around beforehand. Heâd glowered in John Walkerâs direction, radiating such constant withering hatred until the other man finally looked away, awkward. The quiet, dark-haired woman introduced as Ghost looks like she wants to fade into the background, a wallflower disappearing into the wallpaper.
They make for a strange party before the last three of their number arrive, all Russian: a tall, burly man with his arm slung paternally around a blondeâs shoulders (a familiar blonde), before she wriggles out from under his elbow. Thereâs another dark-haired woman behind them, scarred expression silent and stony-faced as Val launches into introducing the entire group to each other. Barnes, Walker, Starr, Shostakov, Dreykov, Belova.
Buckyâs barely processed it before theyâre all sitting down, and he finds himself sitting across from the woman heâd once known as Mary, staring at her.
âThe pitch is,â Val continues, âthat thereâs a vacuum in the absence of the Avengers. Letâs call it an opportunity space. Directory Fury was right about some things: there are problems that the good ole US of A canât address directly with its agency resources, or canât be seen addressing directly, and we require people of a certain skillset. You, ladies and gents, are that skillset.â
His grip has been tightening on his glass of wine. Heâs not really listening. The directorâs set down pamphlets about the Thunderbolts Initiative in front of all of them, distributed by a particularly harried-looking personal assistant, the group now sifting through what can only be described as marketing material.
Heâd never even known Yelena Belovaâs real name. He hadnât been allowed to; he hadnât had one of his own, and she wasnât allowed to say hers while they were on assignment. And itâs her, because of course itâs her, he canât forget a face that he woke up to for years, that he saw over the breakfast table for years, that he lived with. Back when they werenât them. Back when HYDRA and the Red Room both still had their claws sunk in deep.
He breaks the stare first, gaze ducking down to his plate of (really, truly, stupidly expensive) steak while their recruiter keeps talking.
Yelena had avoided her as long as possible. After the manhunt she'd sent her on with lies about Clint Barton, Yelena didn't particularly want to work with Contessa again, but it was much harder for her to say no when her father got involved too. "Someone has to make sure you do not break a hip," she'd told him, annoyed, because she's almost certain de Fontaine had done it all on purpose. One more thing to the pile to drag her into this hot-mess of a so-called 'team'.
She mutters a swear under her breath as she shoves Alexei's arm off her shoulders and settles at the table. If nothing else, she can eat on the woman's dime and then kindly tell her to fuck off. She sips almost carelessly at the wine in front of her, squinting over the rim of her glass as Contessa continues.
In an odd turn of almost-politeness, Yelena's hand shoots up into the air, not unlike a student waiting to be called on by a teacher in class... except Yelena doesn't wait to be called on as she drops her arm and says, "You want us because we are killers, yes?" Blunt. Immediately to the point. She barely glances at the pamphlet in front of her.
"Oh, Yelena, don't be this way- we get to work together again, as a family, it will be great, we--" Alexei practically croons in her direction, but whatever else he might have said is lost in a muffled mess as she splays her hand across his face and shoves him slightly away from her. "Shut up, old man, no one asked you."
It is really a family reunion for these two.
Despite her display, she has been locked on him since the second she'd walked through the door. Had Contessa done this on purpose? Did she even know? Alexei certainly never knew about that particular mission, and Yelena had never had reason to inform him of it. She isn't sure she would, even now.
His eyes drop and he seems to suddenly find his steak very interesting. Try as she might, she hasn't been able to stop looking at him, and something under her ribs squirms uncomfortably as their host's voice fades somewhere into the background. She sips at her wine again, and wishes it were vodka.
His own wine sits untouched beside his plate; it wouldnât make a dent in his superhuman constitution. (Truly, if only it were vodka.)
âWell, yes, if youâre gonna be uncouth about it,â the Contessa says, with a roll of her eyes. âYes, Belova, we want you because youâre killers. You can work in the shadows. You can make the sort of tough calls that our shiny heroes in their shiny costumes canât be seen making.â
Sam. Sam, with Captain Americaâs gleaming reputation to uphold. Meanwhile, here, the entire world had watched John Walker beat a man to death live on-stream, blood splattering on the shield. These are the people Bucky would have to work with? Heâd hung up the Winter Soldier mantle, and hadnât ever wanted to return to that part of himself.
But he does admittedly have a skillset.
Buckyâs started sawing away at the steak (gleaming vibranium arm, custom Wakandan design, far outshining the everyday prosthetic Mary once knew), and he chews and swallows, silent, while the conversation mills and flows around them. He and Sam had agreed that heâd come to listen to the pitch and gather some information but he probably wouldnât sign up, but —
Sheâs here.
After swallowing another bite, he finally looks up. âWhat kind of dirty work?â he asks, bluntly.
âIt should be familiar to you,â Val continues. âContrary to what the idealists say, some of the worldâs worst villains canât be taken care of with regular law and order. How many of them slip trial? Theyâve got judges in their pockets, they bribe their way out of sentencing, or they get luxury cells and then let out early on good behaviour. For godâs sake, Wilson Fisk is mayor of New York now. So the traditional route just doesnât always cut it anymore.â
Even despite himself, even after everything, he has to admit: there is a slight appeal to it.
She listens as Contessa speaks, but her attention is more taken by him. Jon. James. Bucky. Ziminy Soldat. Whichever name and mask he's wearing now. She bites her tongue to stop commentary to him coming out of her mouth. Not here, now. Maybe later after this sham of a dinner is done she can corner him.
The mention of Wilson Fisk causes a frown to flicker across Yelena's features. It tugs her memories back to Kate and the bad news she'd had to break to her about her mother. Everything about it had been such a mess, in the end. "Fisk is mayor?" She wrinkles her nose. "Disgusting."
âMm-hm,â Val confirms, an assenting noise with no judgment either way. Unlike the others with their wine, sheâs already drinking expensive champagne; preemptive celebration, counting her eggs before theyâve hatched. Itâs cocky and confident and probably not even off-base. The others donât look like they have much choice; Alexei is raring to have something, anything to do again, and ready to sign on the dotted line.
âPolitics, sweetie,â the Contessa continues, âis an ugly business. Honestly, talking to senators is the worst part of my job; Iâd prefer the criminals. It is interesting when theyâre one and the same, though. Donât even ask me how Fisk got elected.â
âDoes that mean,â Bucky asks, âthat you want us to assassinate the mayor of New York?â
âOh, god no! Weâll figure out the first mission later; probably some warlord somewhere. The first question, really, is: are you interested? The money, kids, is very very good.â A beat, âAnd, yâknow, blah blah civic duty for God and country and whatever. Protecting the common citizen from unsavoury elements at the very tip-top. Thereâs no Avengers anymore. Someoneâs got to step up.â
Bucky swallows another bite of steak. He looks like heâs looking at the director, but out of the corner of his gaze he keeps sneaking glances at Yelena. Yelena Belova, and the man beside her is apparently her— father? He has so many questions, and he doesnât know where to start with them. Catching her afterwards isnât exactly going to be the easiest thing if he turns down this offer. Hey, Contessa, thanks but no thanks, but could you get me the phone number for the cute Russian blonde?
They just need to get through this pitch meeting and gather as a team and he needs to pull Belova aside and then—
His thoughts glaze out after that point, running into a blank. He doesnât have a specific plan after that. Itâs okay, heâll improvise.
"Politics is bullshit," Yelena says and she feels her father kicking her under the table. Ow! She mouths sharply and shoots him a dirty look. She can't help turning her attention back to Contessa at her vaguely brushed over 'God and country' schtick, "You do know this is not our country, right?" Her tone is deadpan as her eyebrows shoot up and she gestures with her thumb between herself and her father.
"Come now, Yelena, we do live here-" "It's little more than a work visa-" "You think she can't make sure we do not get deported? Darling, please, she has connections-" "Could you pass it? Can you even pass the test to become a citizen here, old man?"
Valentina tinks her fork against her glass to get everyone's attention back to the important conversation at hand. "As adorable as your family squabbles at my table are," she smiles sweetly, the way a shark might smile sweetly, "you let me worry about the paperwork, all you have to do is sign on the dotted line."
Yelena reluctantly drops her argument with her father and sips again at her drink. She needs something stronger, at this rate.
Thereâs an awkward beat of hesitation, then, so many of the prospective recruits (soldiers and mercenaries and assassins and former SHIELD agents) shooting each other trepidatious looks, waiting for someone else to be the first one to pull the trigger.
âIâve already signed,â Walker offers, and Bucky just outright chokes on a laugh.
âAs if that helps,â he mutters, and he knows if Sam were here, heâd be kicking him under the table, reminding him to behave. Play nice. Get the intel.
But the scruffy-haired blond manâs words seem to have sparked something and dislodged the first rolling boulder, because Starr chips in, âSure. Fine. Iâm in hiding; itâs not like Iâm doing anything else, anyway.â
Alexei says âYes, I am in,â quick off the draw.
Which just leavesâ Barnes and Belova and Dreykov still undecided. Antonia, unnervingly quiet beside the other two Russians she came with, only has eyes for Yelena, and is watching her carefully. Sheâll obediently follow her lead, too, and do as the other woman does.
And for the first time all evening, Bucky finally lets himself more openly look at Yelena and outright catch her gaze; for a moment as if there isnât anyone else in this crowded dining room, the entire world narrowing down to just her, her expression, her decision. Thereâs a crinkle at the corners of his eyes, a knowing look, a sardonic tilt of his head. He canât let her vanish, now that their paths have happenstantially crossed again.
âWhat dâyou think?â he asks her. (Challenging. Inviting.) âCould be fun.â
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the soldier and the widow.
The iron fist of HYDRA was more accustomed to short-term operations, get in and kill someone with maximum efficiency and then get out,
but when operations require a subtler touch, thatâs when the Red Room gets involved. HYDRAâs assets combined with the chameleonic wiles of Dreykovâs widows, their social manipulation: each wife embedded in an American home paired with muscle, their hulking soldier-husbands parcelled out like human weapons.
Hers is handsome and polite, and he barely spoke that first year at all, behaving more like a mute automaton she could order about: Fix the spare tire. Replace the light bulbs. Get rid of this dead body for me.
But the more time they spend away from headquarters, the more time that he spends on this assignment and isnât reset, his brain thawsâ
Her husband slowly seems more human. Social graces are necessary, of course, to maintain their cover: he learns how to smile, how to carry on a conversation. The first time they dare to host a backyard barbecue, itâs as nerve-wracking as if it were a white-knuckle mission, but he manages it. Cracks jokes with the other husbands. Their life goes on.
And then, today.
The soldier returns home with a heavy slope to his shoulders. He smells of gunpowder and blood. Finding his young blonde wife in the living room, he drops a duffel bag on the floor, and wearily settles on the sofa next to her with a sigh. Knee bumping against hers; his thigh warm against hers through his jeans.
His head is tipped back, looking at the ceiling.
He knows the shape of her and yet he doesnât. Heâs slept in a bed beside her for years. Theyâve kissed, for show â a chaste peck on the lips in front of neighbours or colleagues â but he doesnât steal a kiss if no oneâs looking. Heâs pressed his fingers into the meat of her leg to dig out a bullet, but doesnât know the kind of noises sheâd make if his fingers were inside her otherwise.
This, this is their marriage.
âLong night,â Jonathan says.
(Whatever name was redacted from the Winter Soldierâs original files, decades ago, heâs just Jonathan now. Jon. Thatâs the name on the passport, the fake driverâs license, the mortgage papers. They never breathe the name Yelena Belova between them, either. Theyâre not allowed to.)
no subject
One day turned into a week turned into months⌠and a rhythm was found in this neighborhood theyâd been dropped into. It was like something straight out of a movieâ rows of identical houses with impeccable lawns, pools in the back yard, and two cars in every driveway. If she had to pretend to be someoneâs wife⌠at least it was in a decent area.
They had wholly separate lives outside this perfect little picturesque play they put on for neighbors. Never shown as starkly contrasted as when Jon walks in the door that night in a state she has seen him in plenty of times by now. Her eyes sweep over him as he trudges inside, drops his bag on the floor and himself on the couch.
âArenât they all?â she quips back at him, as she reaches up and drags her fingers through his hair. Itâs one of those strange little things thatâs become habit over time, tiny affectionate touches that let other people read what they needed them to. Sometimes, she just did it out of habit now.
no subject
When Mary reaches out and touches him, he jolts a little, just the smallest infinitesimal flinch which sheâll recognise because she knows him and his tics and movements; otherwise, heâs usually too still and quiet, too good at mastering his reactions.
A skittish wild animal, simultaneously spooked yet soothed by that touch.
âItâs taken care of,â Jon says, without elaborating on what it is. Mary already knows. The assignment theyâd received earlier via dead drop, taking out some physicist, a professional rival to Russiaâs own science programme. He wasnât entirely sure what had landed that quiet, inoffensive bespectacled man on the hitlist or what sort of work he did. He didnât ask questions. That wasnât part of the job.
âWeâll have to clean the car,â he says, still ticking through the to-do list as if on autopilot. âAnd I think I got nicked.â
Not a bad injury, not enough to lay him out, but heâs felt a twinge of pain and part of his shirt sticking uncomfortably warm and wet to his skin the whole drive back. On his shoulder, where he couldnât get to it easily.
no subject
âGood,â sometimes, they take the hits together, other times not. It all depends on their explicit instructions whenever they get new assignments. In some ways, receiving their newest set of instructions is a little like getting a gift. A new surprise in every box. âDid you get blood in the seats again?â A common occurrence in their line of work.
She hums a soft noise and sweeps her eyes over him, âWhere? Do you need stitches?â
no subject
Sometimes he drifts back into the curt monosyllabic sentences heâd used for most of their first year together, only communicating the bare minimum — his handlers hadnât built him to be a talker — but itâs never meant to be rude.
(Some details, though, make the picture of him strange, the puzzle pieces not quite fitting. Where sheâs had to work on her accent with careful training over the years, smoothing out the Russian syllables, the American accentâs always come easily to her husband. In its place is a lingering awkwardness in even his textbook-perfect Russian, the consonants ever so slightly off.)
He scoots a little forward, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it onto the coffee table. Rolls his shoulder, testing the range of motion. One of his arms is fake, a skin-coloured prosthetic to blend in and hopefully not stand out around the neighbourhood with it; but on the flesh-and-blood side, the shirt over his shoulder is damp with blood. âI canât tell,â Jon admits about the stitches, and thereâs the faintest flicker in his expression which— might be sheepishness?
no subject
She doesnât mind the short answers, it cuts out the fluff and gets straight to the point and more often than not, thatâs the best case for them. Sheâs certainly the talker between the pair of them, but itâs all for show. Part of a Widowâs training is using words and physicality to advantage for information⌠the Winter boys were built for higher efficiency in assassinations. Two sides of a coin and all that.
With the jacket out of the way, the wound is already obvious even before she urges him to take his shirt off, too. Sheâd cut him out of it if she had to, and it wouldnât have been the first time. Time was, he wouldnât have even done this so easily for her. Theyâre deep in this cover now, though, and Mary⌠how foreign that name still feels aside⌠finds it harder to turn the play off even when itâs just the two of them alone the longer they linger here in assignment.
âIâll be right back,â she says softly, disappearing for long enough to grab supplies to clean and stitch his wound.
no subject
He waits on the sofa, straight-backed and motionless while Maryâs gone, with barely a flicker or tic of muscle. It makes him look like a clockwork soldier whoâs run down, stationary and watchful with no one around to give him orders, content to sit and wait in silence for as long as it takes until she returns. He could sit there for hours.
no subject
She takes her time, because no ticking clock or imminent danger is pressing the matter, and she's as gentle as she can be as she cleans up the long-dried blood from his back. She knows he would never show it if any of it pains him anyway, but she still likes to afford him that much.
"Cold," she murmurs in soft warning as she pours a bit of liquid disinfectant along the wound, the cloth pressed just under it to catch the excess that rolls down his shoulder. The house is so quiet, she can hear the soft bubbling of the peroxide as it works against the gash that she's realized she will probably need to stitch, at least a bit, until his healing kicks in a bit more. It was deeper than he realized, probably.
no subject
itâs small, but Jon twitches, with the faint jolt of indrawn breath as the disinfectant sears into his skin. It burns, it cleans, it scours, and he bites down on the sensation. Anyone else would be screaming, howling, thrashing in pain.
But the Winter Soldier turns off those parts of himself. Like turning off taps, shutting doors, retreating to the safety of a small room in the back corner of his mind, far away from it all, dissociating. Heâs staring straight ahead and not quite registering much, just —
âHow bad is it?â he asks.
no subject
Sheâs grown used to how easily he can turn things off within himself. She can do it, too, but not in the same way, not to the same extent. He can compartmentalize to a degree she finds herself often wishing for. Sheâs never said so out loud, because she already knows he would tell her sheâs wrong. That she shouldnât wish for such a thing.
Once she has cleaned the wound, she readies the needle and smiles, itâs soft and itâs sad, and it doesnât reach her eyes. âStitching you up now,â she whispers, her accent still present. She can be a little more herself with him. Alone.
Right?
no subject
But Jon finds that he likes the sound of the Widowâs real voice. Itâs warmer, a little deeper in a way which doesnât fit the high lilting accent of the American suburban housewife; like this, she always sounds a little looser, a bit less stilted and affected and practiced. Like him with his English in general.
âAppreciate it,â he says after a moment, quiet, tilting his head to look back at her over his shoulder. He doesnât need to thank her — itâs her job — but he has noticed how sheâs moving slower, more careful to not jostle him, to not cause any extra undue pain in the treatment. Not all of the agents would have bothered. In the past, some of them hadnât.
no subject
Once sheâs done, she works at putting all the supplies away, throwing out the trash, collecting the tools into the kit, but she doesnât miss the look back at her over his shoulder. Her lips twitch in a smile, âJust doing my job,â she answers easily, but there is a hint of something brighter beneath those words shining in her eyes.
no subject
(not a man but a ghost)
and after some time in their bedroom and bathroom, he re-emerges looking a little less frayed around the edges. Heâs washed off his hands, thrown some water in his face and hair. He tossed his ruined shirt into the laundry basket (a separate one they keep for their quote-unquote âwork clothesâ; often in need of more heavy-duty bleach or sometimes outright disposal), and then meandered back downstairs into the dim light, wearing a loose clean white undershirt and comfortable sweatpants, no longer reeking of gunpowder. Ready for bed, mostly, but:
âI have some notes on the operation, but Iâll transmit them to our handler tomorrow. Do you need anything?â
Maryâs not the tepid housewife wringing her apron and waiting for her man to come home â sheâll have her own lethal tasks, tomorrow and the day after and the day after, their work never ends â but some part of him still itches at having had an evening away from her. Not all of their jobs called for two people, but they did their work better when they were together, when he had someone to watch his back; this wound probably wouldnât have happened otherwise.
no subject
While he gets a little cleaner, Yelena goes to the kitchen to pour them both a drink. It doesn't do much for him, of course, but it's the pretense of a nightcap at the end of their day. Pretending, even when seemingly no one but the two of them are around, because eyes and ears existed everywhere and they couldn't risk being found out.
She joins him back in the living room, holding a glass out to him before she takes a long sip from her own. Vodka. The good kind, it burns smooth down her throat.
"I don't think so. I haven't received any instructions in a few days," she says, sinking onto the couch. "It makes me uneasy." She does drastically better when she has work to do, being without it makes her restless.
no subject
His knee bumps against hers where sheâs settled. Thatâs all.
âUneasy. Why?â he asks, simply. Pressing for more information; he finds it easier to nudge others than to be talkative himself.
thunderbolts prelude.
Thereâs a sardonic edge to her voice as she echoes Furyâs now-famous speech. Bucky wonders, distantly, how the world found out about it, but Steve said it had happened on a SHIELD helicarrier and thereâs probably audio and video recordings. SHIELD famously monitored and recorded everything.
See if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could.
Heâs been dodging the Contessaâs calls for a while, but he canât really afford to avoid the CIA directorâs attention; not when sheâs armed with government connections, able to dangle his ongoing pardon like a carrot on a string. And Sam had said Keep an eye on her, which is how Buckyâs now here, at this meeting, at an eye-wateringly expensive Manhattan restaurant. An entire private roomâs been booked out for them.
Itâs an eclectic group milling around beforehand. Heâd glowered in John Walkerâs direction, radiating such constant withering hatred until the other man finally looked away, awkward. The quiet, dark-haired woman introduced as Ghost looks like she wants to fade into the background, a wallflower disappearing into the wallpaper.
They make for a strange party before the last three of their number arrive, all Russian: a tall, burly man with his arm slung paternally around a blondeâs shoulders (a familiar blonde), before she wriggles out from under his elbow. Thereâs another dark-haired woman behind them, scarred expression silent and stony-faced as Val launches into introducing the entire group to each other. Barnes, Walker, Starr, Shostakov, Dreykov, Belova.
Buckyâs barely processed it before theyâre all sitting down, and he finds himself sitting across from the woman heâd once known as Mary, staring at her.
âThe pitch is,â Val continues, âthat thereâs a vacuum in the absence of the Avengers. Letâs call it an opportunity space. Directory Fury was right about some things: there are problems that the good ole US of A canât address directly with its agency resources, or canât be seen addressing directly, and we require people of a certain skillset. You, ladies and gents, are that skillset.â
His grip has been tightening on his glass of wine. Heâs not really listening. The directorâs set down pamphlets about the Thunderbolts Initiative in front of all of them, distributed by a particularly harried-looking personal assistant, the group now sifting through what can only be described as marketing material.
Heâd never even known Yelena Belovaâs real name. He hadnât been allowed to; he hadnât had one of his own, and she wasnât allowed to say hers while they were on assignment. And itâs her, because of course itâs her, he canât forget a face that he woke up to for years, that he saw over the breakfast table for years, that he lived with. Back when they werenât them. Back when HYDRA and the Red Room both still had their claws sunk in deep.
He breaks the stare first, gaze ducking down to his plate of (really, truly, stupidly expensive) steak while their recruiter keeps talking.
no subject
She mutters a swear under her breath as she shoves Alexei's arm off her shoulders and settles at the table. If nothing else, she can eat on the woman's dime and then kindly tell her to fuck off. She sips almost carelessly at the wine in front of her, squinting over the rim of her glass as Contessa continues.
In an odd turn of almost-politeness, Yelena's hand shoots up into the air, not unlike a student waiting to be called on by a teacher in class... except Yelena doesn't wait to be called on as she drops her arm and says, "You want us because we are killers, yes?" Blunt. Immediately to the point. She barely glances at the pamphlet in front of her.
"Oh, Yelena, don't be this way- we get to work together again, as a family, it will be great, we--" Alexei practically croons in her direction, but whatever else he might have said is lost in a muffled mess as she splays her hand across his face and shoves him slightly away from her. "Shut up, old man, no one asked you."
It is really a family reunion for these two.
Despite her display, she has been locked on him since the second she'd walked through the door. Had Contessa done this on purpose? Did she even know? Alexei certainly never knew about that particular mission, and Yelena had never had reason to inform him of it. She isn't sure she would, even now.
His eyes drop and he seems to suddenly find his steak very interesting. Try as she might, she hasn't been able to stop looking at him, and something under her ribs squirms uncomfortably as their host's voice fades somewhere into the background. She sips at her wine again, and wishes it were vodka.
no subject
âWell, yes, if youâre gonna be uncouth about it,â the Contessa says, with a roll of her eyes. âYes, Belova, we want you because youâre killers. You can work in the shadows. You can make the sort of tough calls that our shiny heroes in their shiny costumes canât be seen making.â
Sam. Sam, with Captain Americaâs gleaming reputation to uphold. Meanwhile, here, the entire world had watched John Walker beat a man to death live on-stream, blood splattering on the shield. These are the people Bucky would have to work with? Heâd hung up the Winter Soldier mantle, and hadnât ever wanted to return to that part of himself.
But he does admittedly have a skillset.
Buckyâs started sawing away at the steak (gleaming vibranium arm, custom Wakandan design, far outshining the everyday prosthetic Mary once knew), and he chews and swallows, silent, while the conversation mills and flows around them. He and Sam had agreed that heâd come to listen to the pitch and gather some information but he probably wouldnât sign up, but —
Sheâs here.
After swallowing another bite, he finally looks up. âWhat kind of dirty work?â he asks, bluntly.
âIt should be familiar to you,â Val continues. âContrary to what the idealists say, some of the worldâs worst villains canât be taken care of with regular law and order. How many of them slip trial? Theyâve got judges in their pockets, they bribe their way out of sentencing, or they get luxury cells and then let out early on good behaviour. For godâs sake, Wilson Fisk is mayor of New York now. So the traditional route just doesnât always cut it anymore.â
Even despite himself, even after everything, he has to admit: there is a slight appeal to it.
no subject
The mention of Wilson Fisk causes a frown to flicker across Yelena's features. It tugs her memories back to Kate and the bad news she'd had to break to her about her mother. Everything about it had been such a mess, in the end. "Fisk is mayor?" She wrinkles her nose. "Disgusting."
no subject
âPolitics, sweetie,â the Contessa continues, âis an ugly business. Honestly, talking to senators is the worst part of my job; Iâd prefer the criminals. It is interesting when theyâre one and the same, though. Donât even ask me how Fisk got elected.â
âDoes that mean,â Bucky asks, âthat you want us to assassinate the mayor of New York?â
âOh, god no! Weâll figure out the first mission later; probably some warlord somewhere. The first question, really, is: are you interested? The money, kids, is very very good.â A beat, âAnd, yâknow, blah blah civic duty for God and country and whatever. Protecting the common citizen from unsavoury elements at the very tip-top. Thereâs no Avengers anymore. Someoneâs got to step up.â
Bucky swallows another bite of steak. He looks like heâs looking at the director, but out of the corner of his gaze he keeps sneaking glances at Yelena. Yelena Belova, and the man beside her is apparently her— father? He has so many questions, and he doesnât know where to start with them. Catching her afterwards isnât exactly going to be the easiest thing if he turns down this offer. Hey, Contessa, thanks but no thanks, but could you get me the phone number for the cute Russian blonde?
They just need to get through this pitch meeting and gather as a team and he needs to pull Belova aside and then—
His thoughts glaze out after that point, running into a blank. He doesnât have a specific plan after that. Itâs okay, heâll improvise.
no subject
"Come now, Yelena, we do live here-"
"It's little more than a work visa-"
"You think she can't make sure we do not get deported? Darling, please, she has connections-"
"Could you pass it? Can you even pass the test to become a citizen here, old man?"
Valentina tinks her fork against her glass to get everyone's attention back to the important conversation at hand. "As adorable as your family squabbles at my table are," she smiles sweetly, the way a shark might smile sweetly, "you let me worry about the paperwork, all you have to do is sign on the dotted line."
Yelena reluctantly drops her argument with her father and sips again at her drink. She needs something stronger, at this rate.
no subject
âIâve already signed,â Walker offers, and Bucky just outright chokes on a laugh.
âAs if that helps,â he mutters, and he knows if Sam were here, heâd be kicking him under the table, reminding him to behave. Play nice. Get the intel.
But the scruffy-haired blond manâs words seem to have sparked something and dislodged the first rolling boulder, because Starr chips in, âSure. Fine. Iâm in hiding; itâs not like Iâm doing anything else, anyway.â
Alexei says âYes, I am in,â quick off the draw.
Which just leavesâ Barnes and Belova and Dreykov still undecided. Antonia, unnervingly quiet beside the other two Russians she came with, only has eyes for Yelena, and is watching her carefully. Sheâll obediently follow her lead, too, and do as the other woman does.
And for the first time all evening, Bucky finally lets himself more openly look at Yelena and outright catch her gaze; for a moment as if there isnât anyone else in this crowded dining room, the entire world narrowing down to just her, her expression, her decision. Thereâs a crinkle at the corners of his eyes, a knowing look, a sardonic tilt of his head. He canât let her vanish, now that their paths have happenstantially crossed again.
âWhat dâyou think?â he asks her. (Challenging. Inviting.) âCould be fun.â