Chapter Text
PART I
Things are better.
They’re not good. The Void inside her isn’t gone. The woman who tried to kill her now schedules her photo ops. Natasha’s still dead.
But now, when she wakes up at witching hour in a cold sweat, she can go upstairs instead of to a vodka bottle. There’s nearly always someone in the common room, also unable to sleep, also unwilling to face their Void alone. They don’t talk about it. But someone will put on some trashy reality show, and someone else will rustle up the Avengers-branded cereal that keeps arriving at their door by the truckload. Alexei will talk through whatever they put on, and Ava will complain about it, and John will call the reality contestants idiots, and then everyone will call him an idiot, and Bob will nod and smile and cheerily admit he has no idea what is going on. And Yelena will sit, and eat sugary cereal that they can sell for ten times its production cost because it has her face on it, and feel that aching chasm inside her grow a little smaller.
On the rare nights the common room is empty, she’ll check her phone. There’s always a message there. Always.
Kate: Tell me you’ve watched the latest episode of Origins????
Yelena: Yes. I’m rooting for the mysterious masked one. Good riddance, Stingray.
Kate: What??? Stingray was GREAT. You’re just jealous because he has way more electricity than your little bracelets.
Yelena: Says the girl who doesn’t even have a collapsable bow yet. You can’t keep hauling that huge thing around, Kate Bishop, it’s really awkward-looking.
Kate: It is NOT.
Kate: Maybe a little.
Kate: Clint promised me one for my birthday, alright? I’m holding out.
Yelena’s stomach rebels against the third bowl of cereal. She’s been working through a lot of ghosts since Val’s ad hoc announcement of her ‘New Avengers’, and Clint Barton keeps falling to the bottom of that list. Messaging Kate isn’t helping keep what almost happened last Christmas stashed in the vault Sentry had cracked open. And it was an ‘almost’, she keeps reminding herself. Because if it wasn’t, it might have been the Shame Room she was unable to escape from.
“Why?” she had drilled Val in between press interviews and, to her horror, a ‘superhero styling session’. She had plenty of style already, thank you very much. “What has Barton done to you that you risked sending me after him?”
Val had shrugged, nonplussed. “Well, if you’ll excuse the girl talk, I thought handing you your sister’s killer on a platter would bring us closer.”
“Make me indebted to you, you mean.”
“Potato, potahto.”
“He didn’t even do it.” The words are bitter ash. A part of her still doesn’t believe them. He could have fought harder, not run off when Natasha had needed him. If they were as close as everyone said, why hadn’t he found the magical combination of words to make her stop?
She always catches herself at that part. This whole ‘take care of her mental health’ thing might be new to her, but even she can recognize projection when it’s right in front of her nose.
“Oh, I didn’t care about that.” Val had raked her eyes up and down Yelena like she was selecting which lobster in the tank she wanted boiled for dinner. “But—and this is just between us, because we’re such special gal pals—I tried to recruit him, and he said no. And I don’t like heroes I can’t control.”
Kate: You there?
Yelena blinks. She has got to stop zoning out like that. Disassociating. If she doesn’t get a hold of herself, it’s going to start happening in battle, and she’s going to get herself killed. Or someone else. She’s not sure when the latter became the scarier outcome.
Yelena: If you mean if I’m still in this overblown tribute to Stark’s ego, yes. Where else would I be?
She stares at the last sentence, then deletes it before she hits send.
Yelena: If you mean if I’m still in this overblown tribute to Stark’s ego, yes.
Kate: I figured.
Kate: So…
Yelena: Don’t use the ellipses, Kate Bishop, you know that I hate that.
Kate: We have known each other for months now, you have got to stop using my full name. SO, when do I get an invite???
Kate: It’s my birthday, Yelena. AND IT’S AVENGERS TOWER.
Kate: Come on, before Sam takes it over. You know he’s going to eventually, right?
Suka, can Yelena get through just one day without hearing the name Sam Wilson? As much as she wants to sit in the clouds of New York and call herself an Avenger, every time someone talks about Captain America, she’s reminded that it’s not the full truth. She may have enough dirt on Val to somewhat even the playing field, but she’s still a pawn, being used to sell the American dream and breakfast cereal.
But, for now, she can live with that. Once she finds the right angle to take out Val once and for all, Sam can come to the Tower, they can talk it all out, and Bucky can stop moping in the shower and using up their hot water.
Kate: Let me come over and watch Origins with you. Birthday treat. Aren’t you interested in seeing which hero is going to win a spot on the Avengers?? They’re literally going to be your new roomie.
Kate: Until Sam kicks them out. NO WAY is he letting that slide.
Kate: Although Clint likes reminding him his way in was getting lapped by Original Cap, so what does he know about recruitment?
Yelena hovers over her reply. She likes texting Kate, so sue her. It doesn’t mean she’s ready to see her in person.
Yelena: Your birthday isn’t for another two weeks. You don’t get to milk the entire month. Birthday rules.
Then she tucks her phone away before she can read Kate’s indignant reply.
She’s not sure which Avenger’s rooms she’s ended up in.
It’s her second apartment here. The first she had picked at random, only to find a series of holes in the wall. She’d pushed aside the dresser, curious, only to be slapped in the face by her sister’s faded handwriting. Stop shooting arrows in here, idiot.
She’d shown up in Bob’s rooms with a suitcase two minutes later. “Get out, Bob. We are switching apartments.”
Bob had promptly yanked the several pairs of sweatpants he was storing out of the wardrobe. “No problem, Boss.”
And now… well, she has no idea. She’s scoured the room for any identifying marks, but everything has been covered in a fresh coat of paint. The furniture is generic. She’d expected there to be a squabble over who got Stark’s old quarters, surely the most extravagant in the building, and had been surprised to find that all six Avengers’ living quarters had been created equally. Which means these rooms could have belonged to the god from space, or the angry one, or…
“Okay.” Yelena pushes back the covers and grabs a dressing gown. “It’s a common room night, then.”
She takes the stairs, preferring to crack the door and check who’s in there rather than letting the elevator doors announce her presence. There’s no crashing of Alexei attempting (breaking) dishes, or Bob actually doing dishes, or Ava softly humming as she raids the pantry. Just a dark shape hunched over the kitchen bench, hair falling in his eyes.
“For the last time, Bucky—no limbs in the dishwasher. It is so unsanitary.”
That dark shape looks up, revealing the furrow in his brow. “I’ll stop using it to clean the arm when Alexei stops using it to clean his knives. Or when Walker starts using it at all.”
“Hey, you try and make this lot stick to a dishes schedule. I have met guinea pigs with better cleaning instincts.” She takes a pew at the kitchen counter, legs dangling from the barstools they keep there for breakfast. "So. You met with Sam."
Bucky sags. “I guess.”
“Ah, I see it went well.”
“No one likes the sarcasm, Yelena.”
“Excuse you, everyone likes the sarcasm, I am very funny.” She leans further over the counter. “And you’re reading.”
Bucky brandishes the stack of papers in front of him. “They told me to read the packets. So I read the packets.”
“Thought you didn’t have to do that anymore, now that you’re not some big important congressman.”
“I was never that important, trust me. Did make some good contacts, though.”
"I can see that, if they're willing to send you documents you very much should not have." Yelena scans the top page. “You’re still looking for how to separate us from Val. The legal way.”
“Yeah,” Bucky mutters. “But she’s good. No traces, nothing.”
“Pretty much everyone in this building spent months destroying those traces, did you forget that? I know you have memory issues.”
Bucky levels her with a look. “Ha.”
“See? I’m funny, I make you laugh. And as for taking Val out legally—do you remember what she had us doing before posing? Exploding labs, killing people, everything else we don’t want the world knowing about. They’ll take our faces off the cereal boxes.”
“What a shame,” Bucky deadpans. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
Yelena snorts. “It’s so American. To take Russian enemies and claim them as their own the moment they can make a profit. Val keeps insisting on me and Alexei getting elocution lessons, as though I can’t speak English better than their entire House of Representatives.”
“I can attest that’s true.” Bucky sighs, pushing away the packet. “They did the same thing to Steve, you know. Said he was ‘too Brooklyn’. Wanted something higher class to appeal to the masses. His original accent never did quite come back.”
“Uh-oh, Steve Rogers talk. So things with The Enemy—”
“Don’t call him that.”
“—went that badly, which we told you it would, because we all agreed, as a team—”
“More like Val’s circus act.”
“—that it was best to let Sam Wilson fight his battles with not us.”
The dishwasher beeps. Bucky withdraws his still-steaming arm, ignoring Yelena’s sound of disgust. “Sam has more of a right to the Avengers’ name than we do.”
“I don’t care. Val gave it to us.”
“To cover her ass.”
“By covering ours. Look, I don’t like it either, okay? When I asked for something more ‘front-facing’, I was thinking, oh I don’t know, rescuing hostages from behind enemy lines, or cats from trees, or whatever…” She trips over the words, whatever Natasha used to do. “Whatever was going to get me away from the exact kind of der'mo the Red Room used me for. And it worked. We can do good, now. Isn’t that a win?”
“Depends who’s defining ‘good’.” Bucky clicks the arm back into place, the plates whirring as they adjust. “I’m trying, right, to do some good, with what I’ve been given. And I keep thinking I’ve found the answer. Making amends for what the Winter Soldier did just created more pain. So I think, okay, I’ll stop fighting altogether and make change at a higher level. And then I find out Congress is just people with their own agendas pushing around people’s rights like shuffleboard.”
“Shuffleboard, okay, nice reminder we have a centenarian on the team.”
“And now, here…”
“You’re an Avenger.”
“According to the wrong people.”
“And Sam Wilson is the right people?”
“Yes. Maybe. It’s complicated.” Bucky starts working his way through the stack of dishes in the sink, rinsing them out and refilling the dishwasher. “Sam has always walked away from government agendas. So did Steve. The Avengers were important because they didn’t follow what governments ordered them to do, they just did what needed to be done.”
“Val’s agenda doesn’t have to be ours.”
“Easy to say that now. When SHIELD went down, the original team barely got two years before the Sokovia Accords. And they became fugitives rather than allow themselves to be controlled.”
“So, what, you’re planning on becoming a wanted fugitive, again, instead of staying with the people who have proven they'll have your back?” She reads the look on his face. “Oh, yeah, very mature. Run away instead of staying with a team that could actually use your help.”
“Sam needs my help.”
“Does he? Where were you when he was taking on the big evil red president?” Yelena leans back in her seat, surveying him. “Hm, I can tell this is really eating at you. Considering you’ve just done a week’s worth of Walker’s dishes.”
Bucky pauses in his work, blinking at the soapy water like he’s just realized it’s there. “Goddamnit.”
“I’m personally very happy. They were starting to smell, it was gross.”
“Next time, I’m dumping them in his room.”
“Just when I thought you two might be getting along. Guessing The Enemy isn’t pleased about that either.”
“He has reason not to be. And John and I aren’t getting along. I tolerate him, barely, now that he’s stopped pretending to be Steve. Raised my opinion of him by about twelve per cent.”
“Oh, twelve per cent, so generous.” Yelena claims the packet, now splashed with dishwater. “I know this version of The Avengers isn’t ideal. I am not stupid, Bucky Barnes. So I will find a way to take Val out, the not-so-legal way, and then we focus on how everyone’s underpants are in a twist about copyright issues.”
Bucky hesitates. “Val gone would be… good.”
“Yeah, duh.” When he doesn’t continue, she prompts, “Well?”
“And when she goes…” He’s back at dishes, but Yelena’s not going to stop him. Even Bob can’t tackle them all the time. “Please don’t take this the wrong way—”
“Almost a guarantee someone will take something the wrong way.”
“—but I might go, too.” Bucky gestures around the Tower with a soapy hand. "I don't belong here."
“What, you don’t like it? With the free accommodation and the free food and the great… okay, somewhat tolerable company?”
“It’s not you, and it’s not the team. I just don’t want to get trapped somewhere, not again. I haven’t had choices in a very long time. I want to keep it that way.”
Yelena gets it. What she wouldn’t give to have the years back of her life that were stolen by those with agendas.
Bucky swallows back the ghosts of his past. “Val isn’t the kind of person who enjoys others having dirt on her. We’re looking to take her out? She’s definitely looking for ways to stop us from doing exactly that.”
“Well, we’ll just have to find our window fast.” Yelena shoves away the pages, not caring when they land in some errant soap bubbles. “And that window won’t be in a Congress packet.”
Bucky clenches his jaw. “I’m not an assassin,” he states. “Not anymore. I still think that if we can prove what she’s done, take her out that way—”
He cuts off as there’s a shimmer in the far wall, a split second before Ava walks through it. She stares them both down, annoyed. “Why wasn’t I invited to this party? Alexei and Walker are munching cereal in the Games Room, I swear a helicarrier engine is quieter.” She flicks her gaze between them, raising an eyebrow. “Am I interrupting some smoke-and-mirrors talk?”
Yelena speaks first. “No,” she decides. “I’m just reminding Congressman Barnes—”
“Would you stop calling me that?”
“—that we don’t need his skin flakes—”
“It doesn’t flake.”
“—in with our clean dishes.”
“Ew.” Ava makes her way to the couch, flopping down on the soft cushions. “For once, the Russian one and I agree on something. Origins Watch Party, anyone? See who they’re going to force on us?”
Yelena slides the soggy remains of the packet into the bin, eyeing Bucky. Just between us, right?
He sighs, but nods. Good. If there’s a way to take Val out, Yelena’s already vowed to take it. Even if it ruins everything she’s set up for herself here.
As long as no one else goes down with her.
“Why do civilians even live in New York anymore?” Yelena finishes clearing her floor, ushering the shell-shocked hostages down the stairs. “Don’t take the elevators, you’ll get trapped and then we’ll have to come and rescue you. Again.”
“Yelena,” Bucky’s voice crackles over her comms. “Front-facing.”
“Oh, says the big scary man with the staring problem.” Still, she makes an effort to smile. “You will be safe now, okay? There are first responders waiting for you outside.”
None of them look at her, which, fair—not everyone had their fears tortured out of them before their eighth birthday. “This floor is clear,” she relays to the team. This mission has gone surprisingly well. Almost as though they’re starting to get this team thing down. Maybe even enough that Bucky won’t leave after all. Yelena’s so tired of losing people.
“So’s the floor above.” Bucky’s voice becomes doubled, both in her comms and then right in front of her as he rounds the corner. The comms automatically reduce the doubling effect as he comes into range. “How are the rest of you doing?”
“Car is still secure.”
“Yes, thank you, Bob. Keep watching the car.” Yelena turns to Bucky. “How many?”
“Hostages? Seven.”
“And hostage-takers?”
“Just a couple. Went down easy enough.”
“Huh.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Something.”
“Something. Thanks, very specific.”
“Sh, I am the funny sarcastic one, remember? This is not our first hostage situation. Not even our first lot of Flag Smashers.”
“No. Or mine. Sam and I used to…” Bucky breaks off, a pained look on his face.
“Hey, uh-uh, no divorce talk on missions.”
“Don’t call it a divorce.”
“A messy break-up, whatever, we can eat ice cream and cry over it back at the Tower. Right now, can we focus on how all of this is pretty weird?”
Bucky runs his eyes over her floor, even though she’s expertly cleared it. “Weird how?”
“Like how none of us have been shot yet. Like all these guys are deliberately bad shots.”
“Or,” Bucky counters. “We’re just getting better at not being shot.”
“No, that’s definitely not it. I’m just saying,” Yelena indicates the now-empty lab behind her. “I cleared out a lot of labs like this for Val before she tried to have us all kill each other.”
Bucky absorbs that. “You think there’s something here she wants hidden? Or destroyed? That makes no sense—why send in us? She has to have figured we’re looking for leverage on her. Why risk us actually finding some?”
There’s a bang as the door behind them opens, both of them whipping their guns towards the sound.
“Woah!” John brandishes his shield, ready for impact.
“Walker, we’ve talked about this,” Yelena scolds him. “Do not suddenly enter a room with the people with the guns.”
“Who will shoot you with them,” Bucky adds.
John lowers the shield, affronted. “I just cleared my floor, came to help you guys out.”
“We were done ages ago,” Bucky snipes back. “What took you so long?”
“My floor was higher than yours, it took longer to get to. Obviously.” He flicks his eyes between them. “Are you guys having secret talks without me?”
“No,” Yelena groans at the exact time Bucky says, “That’s not your business.”
“Because no one actually elected you official leaders,” John protests. “I’m still saying we should put it to a vote.”
“Alright, children,” Ava barks in their ears. “Stop bickering over who’s the biggest on the cereal box and come and help me!”
“Where are you?” Yelena demands, just as Alexei breaks in.
“And more on the second floor! I would take them all out in one punch—”
“Get to the point, Dad.”
“—but I could use a distraction, something to get them away from the hostages first. Then the Avengers can sweep in and show them the might of—”
“Distraction incoming,” Yelena cuts him off. She looks to Bucky. “That hair’s pretty distracting.”
“Okay, it just grows like this, I don’t know what you want me to do. At least I don’t spend an hour putting eyeliner on before battle.”
“Oh, pot, kettle. I’ve seen the nighttime Winter Soldier looks, all raccoon chic.”
“Girls, you’re both pretty,” Ava snaps. “If Barnes is going to Alexei, Belova better come back me up on Floor Three, preferably before we have to explain to the news why we have dead hostages.”
John throws his hands up. “I am also here. Also useful.”
“Debatable,” Bucky mutters, but he’s already moving to the stairs. “I’m going to help Alexei. Yelena, to Ava. John—sweep the top floor, make sure we haven’t missed anyone.” A pause before he adds, “And check the labs. Just in case there’s anything… interesting.”
“I’m watching the car!”
“Thank you, Bob,” five voices say in unison, and then they’re moving.
Yelena doesn’t bother with the stairs. She locks a grappling hook to the railing and jumps, bringing it up short when she reaches the third floor. The door is locked, but a controlled blast from her Widow’s Bite overrides the electronic security system. She kicks it open, gun ready, only to see an empty corridor. “Hello? Ava? I’m here to shoot bad guys.”
“You’re late. I took care of it.”
“But I already did the big dramatic superhero entrance.”
“That would have been perfect two minutes ago. I heard something below, going to check it out.”
Yelena sighs. “Would a little appreciation kill anyone? No? Alright, I’ll come down…” She trails off when she hears a noise from the room next door. “When I’ve finished up here.”
She enters the room gun-first, doing a quick sweep. At first glance, this lab doesn’t look that different from any of the others above, all white sterile walls and equipment. Then she notices the dividing glass wall between her and the room’s other occupant.
“Hey!” She doesn’t lower her gun, even as the man cowers. White coat, glasses, no Flag Smasher symbols in sight. “Are you alone in there?”
The man glances at her for a microsecond before returning his gaze to the floor. “No, it’s just me. I locked myself in here.”
“Okay, well, unlock yourself so I can get you out with everyone else.”
He doesn’t move, hands shaking. Front-facing, she reminds herself. Like what Natasha used to do. That’s who Yelena is now, right?
She stows the gun. “You’re safe now,” she promises, making her voice soft. “Ambulances are waiting out front. My team is taking care of the Flag Smashers, they're no longer a threat.”
Still, the man doesn’t look at her. His shoulders are rigid, as though he’s caught between two impossible decisions. Jesus, Yelena’s proud of her reputation, sure, but she’s trying not to be scary.
“Can you come with me?” the man asks. His voice is strained. Which, sure, he’s just been a hostage but…
“The way is clear,” Yelena reminds him. “My team won’t let anything happen to you. I need to finish checking this floor in case any of your colleagues are in danger.”
“There’s no one here but me,” he replies quickly. Too quickly. “Please, can you walk me outside? Just in case?”
Alarm bells are sounding in Yelena’s head. She keeps her expression neutral. “Okay,” she agrees. “Of course I’ll escort you out, Mr…”
“Um, Frank,” the man says, with just enough of a pause for Yelena to be sure it’s a fake name. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
He places his hand on a scanner and then the glass wall between them slides open. “Cute trick,” Yelena remarks.
“Yeah, it’s practically impenetrable. For when we’re testing anything explosive or toxic. You know.”
Yelena does know. Dreykov had pumped plenty of toxic into her skull before she’d been freed. It hadn’t always been that way. For decades, it had been the tried-and-true formula of psychological conditioning. And then Natasha Romanoff had defected to the States, and Dreykov had decided he needed a more secure method of controlling his Widows.
Yelena had never told Natasha she was the reason the Red Dust was needed in the first place. She hoped she had died without ever finding out.
But she keeps all of that off her face, choosing a reassuring smile instead. “Not testing anything toxic in there today, I hope.”
“No,” the man assures her. “Nothing like that. It’s safe to—”
Yelena doesn’t let him finish his sentence. As soon as the glass wall is open, she grabs him by his coat sleeves and yanks him back into the testing chamber, slamming his hand down on the scanner to seal them in.
“What are you doing?” Not-Frank struggles, trying to lunge for the scanner, but Yelena easily tosses him further back into the room.
“Okay, clearly-fake-name-Frank.” She takes in the lab, which is suspiciously bare. Like it had been stripped before her team arrived here. “This clearly isn’t Flag Smashers. Why did Val want us here?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He’s edging sideways, crab-like, putting on a show of backing away from her.
“So first you give me a fake name, then you lie to me, and now you’re trying to hide things? Frank, Frank, that is no way to make friends.”
“There’s nothing—”
She doesn’t wait to hear him out. Instead, she easily pushes him aside, ignoring his protests as she jerks open the drawer he was trying to shield. “Aha! Is this holopad important, maybe? Hiding a present from me?”
Not-Frank’s desperation is growing. “It’s nothing, just a personal device.”
“What did I say about lying? Come here, I need your face.”
He tries to escape her, but he doesn’t stand a chance. Within seconds, Yelena’s wrestled him into a headlock and is holding him over the holopad to unlock it.
“This is not very good security,” she chides him, pushing him away to scan through the files. They’re sparse, mostly equations and diagrams. “Taking the office home with you? What will Mrs Frank say?”
“It’s just a personal project, it’s nothing—”
“And do you call all your hobbies Project Doomsday? So dramatic.” Yelena squints at the next set of equations. “And what do you need with all this vibranium?”
As though she’s hit a button, Not-Frank seems to lock down. His jaw clenches, his face shuttering. “I won’t tell you. Ever.”
Yelena considers him. “Hm, because Val will hurt you if you do? Well…” She fires up her Widow’s Bite. “What if I were to say, I don’t know, something like—I’ll hurt you if you don’t.”
His lip quivers as he takes in the Bite, but he stands firm. “No.”
“First floor also cleared,” Ava’s voice echoes in her ear. “By myself. Again.”
“Second floor has also been defeated!” Alexei jumps in. “The Winter Soldier and I are an unstoppable force.”
“Yelena?” Bucky prompts.
“Third floor is…” Yelena rakes her eyes up and down Not-Frank. “Interesting. Anyone else notice how not-at-all-scared these so-called hostages were?”
“And what did you want instead?” Ava retorts. “Teary thank yous?”
“Would that be so bad? A little gratitude?” Yelena is still surveying the holopad. “Val wanted us here. And last time that happened, we nearly got burned to death. Bob?”
“I did not like nearly being burned to death.”
“I meant check-in.”
“Oh, right. Still in the car.”
“Walker?”
There’s silence over the comms.
“John?” Yelena prompts.
Nothing.
Both she and Bucky swear in Russian. “Where was he last?” Bucky demands.
“He was checking the top floor.” Yelena tucks the holopad under her vest, secure under the Kevlar padding. “You, Not-Frank—don’t go anywhere.”
“I’m not a part of whatever you think I’m a part of.”
“I think you’re a liar. And Frank? If you’re going to be a liar—at least be good at it.” Then she twists his wrist until he yelps, using his fingerprints to open the glass wall even as she fries the scanner with her Widow’s Bite.
“What are you doing?” Not-Frank goes beserk, trying to wrestle away, but it’s too late.
Yelena squeezes through the small gap she’s made between the glass panels. “You wait for me here, okay?”
“No, stop!” Not-Frank tries to follow her, but he’s too big. With the fried scanner, he’s trapped. “You can’t just leave me here!”
“Hm, but you lied to me, so I’m going to.” Yelena offers him a cheery wave. “Bye, Not-Frank. Thanks for the info—I’ll be sure to let Val know where I got it.”
She has absolutely no intentions of letting Val know anything of the sort, but the wail of despair she gets from Not-Frank is worth it. So. She may have just found the thing that finally gets rid of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. She could be free. Her whole team could be free.
If one of them isn’t already dead.
Yelena bursts back into the stairwell, sighing as she spots her dangling grappling hook. There’s a reason she likes to start at the top of a building and work her way down. She could unhook it, reload it, and fire to pull herself up, but she doesn’t have the time. So she starts running.
“Top floor, sure,” she mutters. “Couldn’t be the lobby, could it? Nope, always has to be in the most inconvenient—” She breaks off when she hears the deafening shriek of high tones and static. The exact frequency needed to debilitate Ava.
She moves faster.
When she arrives, everyone is frozen. On Yelena’s side of the lab, Alexei and Bucky are perfect statues, weapons drawn but unused. They protectively flank a hunched-over Ava, blood dripping from her ears as she uses the wall to keep herself up. Splitting the lab in two is another of those glass walls—the one Not-Frank had called impenetrable. And on the other side of that impenetrable, indestructible glass, are four armed CIA agents, a kneeling John Walker, and a standing Val with her gun to the back of his head.
“Yelena.” Val’s tone is all smiles and welcomes, as though this is a party she’s pleased Yelena’s chosen to attend. “Lucky last. Now we can begin.”
Yelena’s hand twitches toward her gun, even though she knows it’s useless. All the guns on Val’s side of the room are trained right on John. The only one who might be fast enough to save him is bleeding out of her eardrums, signaling that Val has already factored in Ghost’s powers.
This was a trap. And they’ve walked right into it.
Bucky’s finger flexes against his trigger. “What do you want, Val?”
Val tuts at him. “Now, see, I think conspiring to take me down behind my back loses you first-name privileges. You really think I wasn’t going to bug that Tower?” Her eyes rake down Bucky’s body. “Although you’re so gosh-darn cute, I might let you get away with it. Which one of you girls has been working him over with the Dyson?”
Yelena turns her attention to John. He’s breathing hard, blood trickling from a cut above his eye, the cowl and shield dented and discarded in the far corner of the lab. His eyes flick up to meet hers, angry and defiant, but she’s all too familiar with the undercurrent of shame there as well. She felt it every time she failed in front of her instructors in the Red Room. And also sometimes when she succeeded, and the others were beaten in her place. “Let him go, Val. Don’t make us hurt you.”
Val responds by pushing her gun harder into John’s skull, the super-soldier unable to hold back a wince. “You know,” she muses. “I like to pride myself on contingencies. A solution for every outcome and every problem. And yet, in all my hours and hours of planning, never once did I consider the lot of you teaming up.”
“That is because you are small-minded American,” Alexei shoots at her. “You could not see the potential, the glory of—”
“Shut up, or I’m putting a bullet in this one’s kneecap. It’s my turn to talk now. And you’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”
“First time for everything,” Bucky mutters. His eyes are pinballing between the CIA agents, Val, and John, looking for a way out. Yelena knows he’s not going to find one. Val’s thought this through too thoroughly.
“Fine,” Yelena agrees. “I’m hungry and I want a shower and I’m not sure if we cracked a window for Bob before leaving him in the car, so let’s get this over with.”
Val offers her an approving smile. “That’s my girl. Let’s all be nice to each other, alright? Especially as I brought gifts.”
On cue, one of the CIA agents stows her gun and reaches for a briefcase on the lab bench. There’s a shuffling as everyone readjusts their weapons, Ava even pushing herself off the wall for a better shot, but it’s not a gun that Val takes from the briefcase. It’s a loop of dark, almost-black metal, with no distinguishing features.
“We have a very bored Sentry waiting in the car park,” Yelena reminds her. “Don’t make us activate him.”
Val doesn’t even pause. “Please, if I didn’t figure out how to actually use that mess, you certainly haven’t.”
“You sure?” Yelena pushes. “I’d be very curious to see what’s in your Shame Room. Bet it’s not all flowers and rainbows.”
A muscle twitches in Val’s jaw. “We all have ghosts.” She flicks her eyes at Ava. “No pun intended. But there’s no need to bring out the chicken mascot. You’re all walking away from this.” The metal loop clinks open in her hand, as though she’s undone an invisible clasp. “As long as you cooperate.”
She goes to fasten it around John’s throat, and he moves, and the agents fire.
Everyone on Yelena’s side of the glass surges forward, but there’s nothing they can do. The bullets hit, and John collapses with a scream of pain as Val clasps the metal ring around his neck.
But it takes more than a couple of bullet grazes to stop a super-soldier. John’s on his feet a second later, almost slipping in the blood, and lunges for the nearest gun.
It should work. Yelena’s seen him fight and, sure, he’s not her first choice of teammate, but at least he can pack a swift and hard punch. She’s already pulled her own gun, ready for the moment when Val loses her leverage and they attack.
It should work. It doesn’t.
Yelena isn’t able to do a thing but watch in disbelief as the CIA agent catches John’s fist as easily as a baseball to a glove, before sweeping his legs out from under him and sending him crashing back to his knees. John raises shaking hands, prodding at the still-bleeding wounds with disbelief. “What did you do to me?”
“You got more serum,” Bucky breathes. “Made more super-soldiers.”
But Yelena’s one step ahead of him. “No, they didn't. Take that off him, Val. Now.”
Val gives her a motherly smile. “Always so quick on the uptake, Yelena. But never quite quick enough, are you? Did you really think I’d let you sit up in your Tower—that I bought for you, by the way, you could show some gratitude—plotting how to take me down? That I would just let that slide without repercussions?”
Yelena can feel her teammates’ eyes on her, the collective what the hell radiating throughout the room, but her own gaze finds Bucky’s. She reads her thoughts on his face. We messed up. Badly.
Ava straightens up, staring daggers at both sides. “Is someone going to explain what the hell is going on?”
“Gladly.” Val pulls a tablet from her purse, wrinkling her nose as she steps away from the growing red pool under John. The bullets have grazed rather than hit, going by the amount of blood, but even so, the serum should have been slowing that by now. It’s not. “I already told you—I pride myself on contingencies. You don't want to play ball with me, after I gave you a home, a team, a purpose? Fine. We’re doing things this way now.”
She fiddles with the tablet as John seems to catch up to what Yelena’s already figured out. “Go,” he tries, and his eyes are on Bucky. “I’ll handle this, just—”
“Walker, Walker,” Val interrupts him. “No one is buying a heroic sacrifice out of the Captain America from Temu. Level One is removing powers—very useful for any wayward heroes who are coming at me. Level Two is… well, it’s this.” And she hits a button on the tablet.
“I mean it, just leave me—” John stops talking, and Yelena would have a quip ready about that being a feat in itself if her teammate’s limbs weren’t locking up, freezing him in place, a muscle jumping in his now clenched-shut jaw.
“Val,” she warns, and that tone of voice has sent hardened assassins running for the hills.
Val just smirks. “You’re cute when you’re trying to be protective. Not a natural look for you, is it? But there’s no need to be jealous. I have one for each of you.”
One of the agents fiddles with something Yelena can’t see, and a small window appears at the base of the glass barrier. Val slides the briefcase through it, already opened to show the four waiting collars.
There’s a brief beat of silence, the room collectively holding its breath at the ultimatum. Bucky shifts his grip on his weapon, as though re-running the odds. Ava takes two steps back like she's preparing to flee, and Yelena can hardly blame her.
Alexei steps forward, placing himself between Yelena and the briefcase. “You will not be putting one of those things on my daughter.”
Val shrugs, nonplussed. “Alright, well, if you really want me to demonstrate what Level Three is…”
And she hits a button, and John stops breathing.
Ava curses as she backs up toward the door, still on the verge of running. Alexei’s arm flies in front of Yelena, in a move she would usually scoff at if she didn’t feel frozen in place, as torn as the rest of them. She can’t give that level of control to Val. Not over her, not over any of them. But if she doesn’t…
“You need all of us,” she tries. “We’re the sole reason you weren’t impeached, or worse. You can’t just go around killing us off.”
But Val holds up a finger. “Correction. I’d have a hard time killing you. Or him, if we’re being honest,” she jerks her head at Bucky. “Black Widow’s sister and Captain America’s… friend. But the rest of you?”
Yelena does not look at John. Connection is weakness, the Red Room had pushed into her skull, every single day until the Graduation Ceremony confirmed it. The only thing that matters is your target. The mission. The greater purpose.
She’d tried that path. All that had happened was Val using it against her. A purpose, a mission, and a target. Based completely on a lie. One that might have wiped out the very person Natasha had given up everything for.
“The rest of you… well, to be frank, you aren’t trending that well in optics. The freak with a creepy mask—”
“Hey,” Ava snaps.
“—the fat Russian Cap-wannabe—”
“You suka, it is all muscle!”
“—and this one?” Val sends a heeled shoe right into John’s gut. He doesn’t react to it. He can’t. “Well, he has a niche audience, I’ll give him that. But not big enough for me to really bother keeping him around.” She frowns at her heel, which now has a speck of blood on the cream toe. “Damn. These are Prada.”
Yelena plays her trump card. “Alright. I’m getting the scary void man up here.”
Val laughs in her face. “Bob? Sure, unleash him, see how well that turns out. If he can get here in time, which… I don’t know, looks like he might be cutting it close.”
“Yelena,” Bucky murmurs, and he’s looking down, and Yelena’s done pretending she can’t look either. John isn’t gasping for air—the collar won’t allow that—but his face has turned terrifyingly pale, a touch of blue at his lips.
Even though every muscle in her body screams at her to do anything else, she picks up one of the collars.
“Lena.” Alexei’s hand grabs her arm in warning. “You are free from people owning you. You deserve to be free from people owning you.”
“Says the man who trafficked her into child slavery in the first place. Fine, don’t do it. Let Walker die and my backup will fly in to detain the rest of you. And I don’t think he has much longer, Lena.”
For the first time, Yelena allows herself to meet John’s eyes. She’s not expecting the apology she sees there.
The New Avengers were not her choice of family. But neither was Natasha. They were thrown together by higher powers who wanted to use them and then dispose of them, and they’d banded together and said no, we’re worth more.
Yelena lost that first family. She’s not losing the second.
Forcing away the specter of Dreykov in her head, she clicks the collar into place. “Now let him go, Val.”
“There, was that so hard?” Val jabs at the tablet again, and Yelena breathes in relief at the same time as John does. For three gasping, ragged breaths.
Then Val turns off his breathing again. “The rest of you, now, or he dies.”
Something in the simplicity of the statement breaks the tension in the room. Alexei squeezes Yelena’s arm as he follows her lead, reaching for a collar. Yelena finds herself unable to watch as he clicks it shut.
“Fuck me,” Ava mutters, and then strides to the front of the room and takes her turn without so much as a pause. As though, if she hesitates, she’s going to lose her nerve. “I knew I should have left you all to be incinerated.”
“Bucky,” Val prompts. “Do you really want to lose another Cap?”
Yelena turns to look at Bucky. He seems to be unable or unwilling to move, and a crack forms in a piece of Yelena’s heart she wasn’t even aware was there. He’d been right. He’d wanted to leave and she should have let him.
She steps forward. “Not him.”
Val raises an eyebrow at her. “I made my ultimatum very clear.” She turns to the agents. “Did I not make it clear? I’ve been told I have wonderful elocution. You two really should take those classes I recommended.”
“You don’t need him,” Yelena tries, even though John looks on the verge of unconsciousness, and they don’t have time for this. But she can’t help but hear Bucky’s words echo in her head.
I haven’t had choices in a very long time. I want to keep it that way.
“Use us,” she continues, and she gets one shot at this—John doesn’t have time for a second attempt. “We’ll be his bond. You know it’ll work, or you wouldn’t have ambushed us this way. And we’ll cooperate better if we have at least one teammate with free will who isn’t a Void-bomb waiting to happen. You touch us, Bucky comes after you. And vice versa.” She locks eyes with Val. She can do this. Natasha would have been able to do this. “Mutually assured destruction.”
Val considers her for three, far-too-long seconds. Then she fiddles with the tablet, and John collapses forward, pulling in air so fast he retches on it. “Fuck, Bucky—”
Yelena has barely half a second to be indignant that’s not her name on his lips, she’s the one negotiating for his life, before she realizes she hasn’t won. Not by a long shot.
Val’s finger hovers over the tablet, gaze boring into Bucky. “Well, kitten? What’s it going to be? Collar or his life? Because if you make me go to Level Three again, this time I'm not turning it back off. Final chance in three, two, one..."
Slowly—enough to show that his flesh hand is shaking—Bucky locks the final collar into place around his throat.
“Wonderful,” Val beams at him. “Now, one final thing. I don’t doubt the first thing you’ll want to do the second you leave this room is find some tech genius to disable these.” She grabs John’s hair, yanking him back. He seems to be able to move again, but he’s so breathless and pale that Val maneuvers him with ease. “So, fair play to let you know—I have agents staking out that pretty, oh-so-easy-diversity-points wife and son of yours.”
John's expression turns even more panicked than when he couldn’t breathe. “Don’t you dare touch them.”
“Oh, threats already? You need another lesson in what happens when you make those, now?” She slides her finger up the tablet Yelena has already decided she is dropping into the closest volcano, and then Yelena’s on the floor.
Very crappy way to die, her brain provides, but she can’t move her mouth to form the words. She can’t move anything, aware of four prone bodies scattered next to her. She’s fallen right next to Bucky, her fingers splayed over his. She can breathe, at least, so she supposes this is Level Two. Not fun.
There’s the click and whoosh of the glass wall retracting, the footsteps of the agents packing up their equipment. Val’s finally exposed, and there’s not a single damn way she can take advantage of that.
She leans into Yelena’s field of vision, and Yelena decides she hasn’t hated a face this much since the Red Room. The second the collars are gone, she vows to peel it off Val’s skull. “And as for you, Nutcracker—don’t forget this is what you asked me for. You wanted to be front-facing? You’re as front-facing as they come. Avenger. Hero. The Black Widow. This is exactly where you wanted to be. Don’t fuck with me, and you and your team of kooky misfits can stay on the cereal box and out of an unmarked grave.”
Val goes to straighten up, before slapping her forehead like she’s forgotten something. “Oh, right. And just in case these nifty little collars aren’t enough—I’m very aware that Barton enjoys bringing his three baby birds to New York whenever he checks in on Bishop. Something else to think about next time you sit around your Tower discussing how easy you think it is to end me.”
She leans in closer, so her next words are right in Yelena’s ear as she retrieves the holopad stashed under her vest. “I own you, now.”
Then there’s the clicking of heels, and Val's leaving. “Hang tight, everyone. You’re staying there until I decide I’m safely enough away. And don’t think there’s a Bluetooth range, or anything else you think you could exploit. Well, there technically is, but I like to cover my bases and made sure it stretched somewhere past the moon.”
Yelena can’t turn her head to see her leave. None of them can. They just have to wait.
“Guys?” Bob’s confused voice crackles in her ear, too loud. She can’t move to turn it down. “Are you going to be much longer? I finished all the comics I brought with me. At the end of this one, the Avengers all get shawarma. Can we go get shawarma? It sounds good!”
Her fingers are still on Bucky’s, the cool vibranium soothing under her too-hot skin. There’s a twitch beneath her, and her breath catches, hoping this is it, that Val will let them go. But no dice. It only seems as though the collar isn’t quite as effective on the arm as on the rest of Bucky’s body because, after a moment, he manages to curl his hand around hers.
Both of them are back where they never wanted to be, without choices, working for someone else’s agenda. But at least this time, they have a team. They’re not alone. Because things are better.
But they’re not good.