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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.