âIs Walker also getting a personalized house call?â Yelena doesnât know why, but she hopes not. Itâs a feeling she can quite articulate or fully realize. Bucky seems to care in a way that others do not. Alexei and Melina love her. Yelena knows that. If she up and disappeared (again), itâs been proven that someone would give a shit. But Bucky isnât her parents. Heâs her teammate, and â on a good day â her friend. His care is disconcerting to the woman who had grown up as an unloved girl. Yelena wants to thank him for checking in, but she doesnât know how. Instead she just rises on short legs and drifts into the studioâs kitchen, leaving him in the living room.
Pulling two glasses out of the cabinet, Yelena unscrews the lid to her vodka bottle and evenly pours two doses. She hates tequila. Thatâs one thing sheâs learned while on her journey of self discovery post subjugation. Itâs only really tolerable in a margarita, but the margarita must have a lot of salt around the rim and some fruity flavor to dull the liquor in it. Vodka goes down easier. Returning to the living room, Yelena grabs the coasters and pushes one towards Bucky. The circular piece of wood is painted to look like a tiny Captain America shield. She had seen a pack of Avengers themed coasters and gotten them for a laugh. Her own is the Iron Man arc reactor; the Black Widow one has been removed from the pack and rests inside a drawer instead. She was going to throw it out but couldnât bring herself to.
When she takes a swallow, Yelena manages to not cough from the burn. Sheâs gotten good at drinking by this point. Setting it back down on the coaster, green eyes are trained on Buckyâs face. Itâs familiar this point, be it clean shaven or lined with dark stubble. She knows him, Yelena likes to think, even if to a small extent. âOut of everyone, you donât need to worry about me.â Much to her surprise, her tone is softer than expected. Thereâs no venom behind the words. âSee, I land on my feet. Very hard to kill.â Easy to turn to ash, though. âBut thank you. That⌠itâs nice of you to check in.â
Of course sheâs heard of the explosion. Everyone has, even if theyâre not in the game. Yelena says, âI was invited.â No one knows that except Yelena and the Avengers coordinators. âI think they wanted another Black Widow on their roster, like how She-Hulk fills Bruceâs shoes. I laughed at them, told them no. I am not a Natasha replacement. I guess I made a good choice.â She picks up her glass to occupy her hands. âIâm sorry to hear about Sam. Is he okay? Having people you love die is â well, itâs a special kind of pain.â It hurts more than a gunshot, thatâs for sure.
The laughter was out of place, but Bucky couldnât help but to give her a soft chuckle at that as he quickly shook his head. âFuck no.â If he were being honest, he wouldnât care if Walker ended up unexpectedly kicking the bucket on one of their future missions. He couldnât stand the other man. But Yelena was a different story. He wasnât really sure what heâd do if something happened to her. He didnât even wanna think about it. And that definitely scared him.
There was another awkward silence as he sat there and sifted through those thoughts on his own, watching quietly as she made her way over to the kitchen. He was broken from his thoughts when he glanced down and saw that her coaster looked like a miniature Captain America shield, and he once again couldnât help himself as he gave her a soft smirk. The longer he stared at it the more his smirk started to fade into a small, reminiscent smile until he finally just grabbed his glass and threw the liquor back in one swig. Of course it burned, but he didnât flinch. Alcohol didnât exactly sting the way it used to after years of never ending torture and the super soldier serum that still coursed through his veins.
He slowly set his glass back down and carefully watched her as she spoke. He wasnât expecting her voice to sound so soft, and he got lost in that thought for a few more beats of silence before he finally responded. âIâd argue against that, actually. I know that what S.H.I.E.L.D. did had to be... difficult, for you. It would have been difficult for me.â They shared that trauma when it came to subjugation and mind control, and he was telling himself that that was why he cared so much. Because he knew gut-wrenching it must have been to lose control of herself like that all over again.
âYou were?â Bucky was too, but that was obvious. Even if he was currently contracting with the Thunderbolts, Sam of course still extended the invitation to come to the meeting. He didnât know that theyâd asked Yelena, though. He explanation made sense, and he nodded softly as he took in her next words. His eyes drifted back down towards the coaster as he just stared at the familiar symbol and swallowed. âHeâs alive, technically. The mutants resurrected him. As for if heâs okay, I donât know.â