Chapter Text
The seventy-first floor becomes Yelena and Bucky’s.
It’s a gradual process, the filling in of the space. It takes time to make it feel lived in, to get used to being safe. Yelena no longer has to sneak into his room in the middle of the night and hope no one finds out. Instead, there is one bedroom and a shared bed and the freedom to be with each other in privacy. Instead, she goes to sleep in Bucky’s arms and wakes curled up next to him, warm and comforting and her favorite place in the world.
They cook meals together, breakfast and baking and the frequent mac and cheese that Bucky teases her about and pretends to hate, but gladly stocks the kitchen with. He learns there are Russian foods he doesn’t hate, and Yelena finds the ones that don’t remind her of the Red Room but instead of Ohio, of peaceful days when she was once innocent. Bucky kisses her and asks her to tell him more stories of her family. He teaches her his mother’s chocolate chip cookie recipe and tells her of his poor, happy childhood in Brooklyn. They sit on the balcony on warm nights and watch the city drone by beneath them.
The kitchen fills with hot sauce and mac and cheese and dorky fridge magnets that Yelena’s started collecting from different cities around the world, determined to find the tackiest ones. And photos also begin to warm up the space: team selfies from the jet or movie nights, various shots around the world. One that he took of Yelena at the beach a few weeks after her recovery, having been determined to get her some fresh air and out of the tower. She ran her fingers through the sand and sucked in deep breaths of the salt air and smiled at him, and he snapped the shot with an answering smile of his own.
“I look rough,” she said, laughing. She isn’t particularly vain, but it was the truth. She was still bruised and thin, though on the mend and sleeping better now that Siberia was behind them.
“You look happy,” he corrected, twirling a strand of her hair and making the picture his phone’s wallpaper.
“Cheesy old man,” she ribs him. “Wanna build a sand castle?”
There are shots of Yelena that he’s taken to collecting, and ones that the team has started to sneakily collect and send in the team group chat. Yelena complains there’s no damn privacy in this tower even after moving from the main floor, but she secretly saves them. Some make it on the fridge, others are for her only.
There’s one of her sleeping on Bucky’s shoulder after an interminably long press conference. Both of them are passed on one of the benches inside the jet, and Ava captions it me when Walker’s in charge of the meeting. His response has several curses.
Another is early in her post-Siberia recovery, when she was still unsteady on her feet. Bucky has his arm around her as they watch a movie on the main floor’s couch, cozied up under several layers of blankets.
Her favorite is one Bob took on a team outing to Liberty Island, some stupid PR opportunity Val wanted them for. Yelena had never seen the Statue of Liberty up close, and it was dizzying. She’d gone to the water’s edge, looking out at New York spread before her, trying to get a grasp of how normal it was to be here with the team, touring. It felt wrong to be enjoying the day instead of working a mission, but she wasn’t cleared yet for the field and Bucky was trying to delay that as much as possible. He threatened Valentina within an inch of her life that he would quit and take Yelena with him if she ever tried to get them involved in something like Siberia again.
As Yelena gripped the railing, Bucky slid in beside her. Leave it to him to notice she’d snuck away from the group tour.
“You good?” he asked, hushed.
She nodded. “It just feels weird sometimes. To do things like this instead of fighting.”
“I know,” Bucky answered, and she knew he did, could resonate with every conflicting thought she had. “It takes a while to enjoy it. But we’re here. We made it out.” Her words after the mission, repeated now between them like a mantra when needed. When he wakes in a cold sweat, her name on his lips. When the dark, tempting lull of the void settles over her like a blanket and she is nothing but numb.
Yelena leaned her head on his shoulder, winding her arms around his metal one. A part of him she no longer flinched from.
“We made it out,” she repeated.
The picture is of them from behind, the city skyline framing them as they hold each other. Bob captioned it not even paying attention to Lady Liberty, smh and Yelena laughed and typed back it’s overhyped. But the picture is stuck to the fridge now, and she feels that same warmth each time she sees it.
When she has bad days, she no longer hides behind forced jokes and feigned indifference—he can read her like a book by now, and all it takes is those knowing blue eyes for her to crumble. Instead of drinking alone, wallowing in a bottle of vodka in the solitude of her room, she sinks into him wordlessly, holding him close, listening to his heart beat in his chest and reminding herself that they’re alive. He can share the darkness; he can handle the very darkest of her moods without flinching.
The heaviness doesn’t go away, but it’s lighter. She’s more accustomed to its weight, and it is much easier to bear with Bucky at her side. She puts it into words sometimes, or lets the silence speak for itself. But it’s healing, this vulnerability, and she knows she can trust him with the worst of her days. They’ve both seen the worst of each other, and there’s no turning back now.
The seventy-first floor also fills with the team; just because the tower’s moved around doesn’t mean Yelena’s annoying, loud, and overbearing family don’t bother them. Movie nights are just as consistent, and if someone smells baking they will promptly invite themselves over. She didn’t have it in her to limit the elevator access, and she’s glad she didn’t.
Ava drops in frequently—literally, in her case, sometimes phasing through the ceiling and landing in the living room, which has given Yelena several heart attacks. Sometimes it’s advice that Ava grudgingly asks for, other times something funny or interesting she wants to share. She and Walker aren’t quite where Yelena and Bucky are yet, but things are continuing well. Their care for each other is obvious enough, and they’re increasingly dependent on one another. Ava would probably rather die than admit that, but Yelena sees it easily and calls her on the bullshit.
“You love him,” Yelena says suddenly one night, and Ava’s so startled she actually flickers.
“Fuck no, Belova,” she insists forcefully. Yelena elbows her with a grin.
“You do, Ava,” she says, not backing down. “It’s so obvious. And he loves you.”
Ava rolls her eyes. “You’ve been watching too many romcoms.” But her expression is distant and a little wistful, and she doesn’t tell Yelena to shut the fuck up when she starts listing the evidence.
Bob improves. He starts training with the team and continues intense therapy to gain more control over his emotions. He opens up about more of his past, tragic and funny stories interspersed during varying game nights or over a drink. The team helps, shouldering the responsibility to make it easier on her. Yelena no longer has to run herself ragged trying to make sure Bob is okay. It’s feasible that he could get cleared for low-stakes missions sometime in the near future, though this puts everyone on edge. It’s not easy to forget their ordeal in the Void.
Ava and Walker bicker the same as always, their favorite way of letting off steam. But on stressful missions or days when Ava’s in more pain than usual, they’re less careful to conceal affection. Walker will squeeze her shoulder or grab her painkillers. Ava will sit so close to him that they’re touching, legs and shoulders brushing, and occasionally touch his arm. She calls him John more than Walker now, and everyone pretends not to notice the subtle intimacy between them.
Alexei is the same as ever, boisterous and overzealous and constantly buying stores out of the Thunderbolts Wheaties boxes. Yelena rolls her eyes at him and indulges him in speaking Russian and buys him his favorite vodka. Slowly, in bits and pieces, they speak about Natasha, broaching the subject like a landmine. But as each story or reminiscence unfolds, it heals something in her. It’s freeing to speak about Natasha with someone who also knew her, who understood her spirit and sacrifice and the gaping hole she left in the world.
There are pets eventually: a sorry-looking mutt Yelena finds on a mission in Canada and can’t bear to leave behind. Walker is less than thrilled when she brings the bedraggled creature onboard the jet, but it doesn’t take much for him to let up. Yelena names her Fanny, a laugh bubbling up when she explains it to Bucky. He smiles in that soft way he always does when she’s brave enough to bring up pieces of her past, and readily agrees to keep the dog.
Stuffed animals and dog toys and treats start to accumulate on the seventy-first floor. Yelena and Bucky buy Fanny plenty, but a lot are gifts from the team, who have quickly developed a soft spot for her. Bob, in particular, loves taking her for walks and spending time with her, calmed by the dog’s steady loyalty and cheer.
There’s the bright white stray cat Bucky comes across in an alleyway one day and can’t help but bring home. Fanny is surprisingly indifferent to the cat’s presence. Yelena is immediately smitten, and so the cat stays. Another member of the Thunderbolts, she insists, and Bucky rolls his eyes at her affectionately. He christens the cat Alpine, and the cat joins them on the couch now when they watch movies and when they go to sleep. Fanny sleeps at the foot of the bed and follows Yelena loyally around the house. Both animals seem to sense her bad days, staying close when she needs it.
There are still nightmares. Yelena wakes in bone-deep terror, her throat raw from screaming, images of the Red Room imprinted on her eyelids. Sometimes she dreams she’s on Vormir, running toward that cliff as Natasha falls, screaming and begging and pleading, but she can never get there fast enough to stop her. She can’t ever change it. Sometimes it’s Bucky in her dreams, tortured or dying or turned permanently into the Winter Soldier, his metal hand locked around her throat.
Bucky coaxes her out of her panic, his hands gentle and grounding, waits until she can draw a full breath before wrapping her in his arms, murmuring reassurances. She no longer fears being alone in the dark of her room, because now it is their room and he’s always there.
Yelena sometimes wakes to the cold air of the room that indicates the covers have been torn off. She will roll over to find Bucky locked in a nightmare, speaking in low broken tones she can’t make out. She whispers his name, runs a hand down the scars and muscles of his bare back, waiting for him to come back to her so she doesn’t startle him awake.
When he inevitably returns to reality, jerking upright, his shoulders heaving, he’ll blink at her as the fog dissipates, his frame slumping.
“Lena,” he’ll whisper, and she will crawl into his lap and let him hold her as tight as he needs. She kisses his jaw tenderly, whispers James into his ear, waits until the tremble fades from his limbs.
Intimacy gradually becomes easier, though there are still some panic attacks, some hesitancy on her part. Forgetting the past is difficult no matter how much she loves him, and it isn’t so easy to undo violence against one’s body. He is limitlessly patient, moving slowly, comforting her when she spooks. She learns there are things that she can do and enjoy, positions that don’t jolt her violently into a flashback.
“You’re perfect, love,” Bucky whispers into the quiet of the night, his mouth caressing the delicate skin of her neck. He kisses her scars and reverently traces the ones from Siberia, the newly healed skin that reminds them both how close it was, how precious this reality of being together is. It’s hard to take anything for granted when it was almost all taken.
They go back to Cambodia as civilians this time, taking time off and only the bare minimum in weapons. Yelena finally gets to see Angkor Wat, and the picture of her and Bucky in front of the sprawling temple complex also makes it on the fridge. The team privately jokes it’s as if they are on a honeymoon. They jet around Southeast Asia and eat everything in sight and relax. They feel like real people again.
They’re gone for weeks, but when they return, Yelena isn’t sad. It feels right to return to her and Bucky’s life on the seventy-first floor, to see the team again.
When she visits Natasha’s grave, she doesn’t have to ask Bucky to come with her. He’s there, silent and sure, while she takes her time and cleans up the stone, blows her sister a kiss. She can still hear Nat’s voice in her head, clear as day, feel her arms around her in that white expanse between life and death. Nat would probably make fun of her for talking to a tombstone, but it comforts her all the same.
“I miss you, Nat,” Yelena says quietly, her voice steadier than normal. The realization that she isn’t alone in the world helps. Nat is gone, but not everyone is. And she’s happy; how can she begrudge her sister such peace? “Tell Steve I’m keeping Bucky out of trouble. Or trying to, at least.”
Nat’s death brought her and Bucky together in a strange sense. Yelena thinks often of that night in the kitchen when she’d drunk herself into a miserable stupor. It was the first time she saw Bucky’s softer side, realized the truth of his character. He doesn’t leave when things are hard; he comes closer, steadying her, never wavering.
But the loss is still there. Nat and Steve are gone, and Yelena’s whistle rings out softly across the cemetery, forever absent of an answer. She has to finish it herself now.
Bucky is waiting with open arms when she’s done, enveloping her in his scent and strength. She clings to him on the quiet drive to the old house in Ohio, stares out the window at the place where she was once an innocent child, untouched by the world, and thinks of the time that has passed since. It’s creaking in the wind, the lawn unkempt, a few years since anyone last lived there and lovingly cared for it. It isn’t even that big, but it once held the closest thing to family she ever had.
No, she thinks as she nods to Bucky, ready to drive away. That’s not right.
With the house in the rearview mirror, she knows it’s not the only family she’s ever had. She’s sitting in the car with Bucky, and they will drive home to the rest of her family for dinner in an obnoxiously large penthouse building where Walker will say something stupid and Alexei will be sharing Soviet stories. Ava will be ordering everyone around in the kitchen and Bob will be dutifully cleaning or preparing food. They will look up and welcome her and Bucky back, and everyone will sit to eat. Bucky will hold her hand under the table and later he will tell her he loves her for the thousandth time, and the sound of it will never get old. She loves him, and she loves the freakish assembly of anti-heroes who have wormed their way into her heart.
Ohio was hardly the only family she’s ever had. Not even close.