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It was past three am when Yelena had somehow managed to stumble silently back to the Watchtower. She swore to herself that she wouldn’t get like this again, that she could just have one drink and it would all be okay. The first one or two drinks were good, they helped her feel more relaxed; happier even. But there’s a limit, a point where it no longer feels good. Yelena didn’t know that limit.
Today had been hard. Her and Walker had been sent undercover as corrupt officials looking to buy some black market arms but, of course, it just had to go sideways. Arms dealers are already on high alert for any potentially suspicious behaviour and her and Walker weren’t exactly the best at undercover. Yelena struggled to make things up on the spot while Walker couldn’t stop running his mouth. And then he slipped up.
The first blow was quick, Yelena wasn’t ready for it. One swift but strong punch to the abdomen had knocked her to the ground. She looked up from the floor to see her attacker was the arms dealers bodyguard; a young woman- quiet, auburn hair and very unassuming- but she was trained, Yelena could tell. Trained really well.
The woman brought down her foot to try and stomp on her head but Yelena quickly forced her body to move to the left to avoid it and managed to heave herself up to face her attacker properly.
Walker had taken the two arms dealers, both of whom were trying to shoot at him and evade his attacks simultaneously.
When Yelena fought she didn’t think just reacted on pure instinct- regurgitated information that had been forced fed to her so young. The woman tried to reach behind her for a weapon but Yelena raised her foot and matched her blow to the abdomen. She fell backwards but that apparently didn’t stop her from sweeping her feet out to knock Yelena off hers. The fall hurt. It didn’t matter. The gun slid across the floor as the young woman tried to crawl out to get it but Yelena grappled her and managed to restrain her underneath herself and balled up her fist and broke the woman’s nose. The blood stained their faces. She landed another two punches before a shot rang out behind her followed by a pained shout from Walker. Oh fuck, he’s hurt.
Her brief moment of hesitant worry was enough for the woman beneath her to twist her body with enough force to slam Yelena into the ground, causing the wind from her lungs to be knocked out. Yelena frantically tried to gain the advantage she’d just lost, instinctively looking around for the next attack as she fought for the air to enter her body again. She saw the woman scramble up trying to gain her ground, the blood from her broken nose probably smudged across her eyelids and forehead. In one spur of purely adrenaline fulled energy, Yelena launched herself towards the gun. Steel touched her skin and she didn’t hesitate this time as she pulled the trigger.
The body fell like a doll; graceless and lifeless.
Somehow she couldn’t force herself to look at the young woman whose life she had just taken and instead rushed over to Walker to see what was wrong. Red blood painted his left thigh, just above his knee, and had soaked that area of his suit causing it to uncomfortably cling to his skin. The bleeding seemed to have slowed though, the serum’s enhanced healing kicking into effect. He’d live but it was painful nevertheless. Yelena wrapped a piece of cloth around his wounded thigh and slung his arm over her shoulder to help him get up. She looked around, they were alone now, the arms dealers had escaped and her, Walker and the team had just lost 4 months worth of work.
The way back was silent. Yelena didn’t speak. She didn’t want to speak with Walker about the mission. She didn’t want to speak during the mission debrief with Val. She thought of the girl she killed the entire time, she wasn’t sure why- the image of her just stuck in her mind. She wasn’t that much older than her. Was that young woman like her; indoctrinated into a world of crime at a young age? Had Yelena taken her chance of becoming something else? She thought of her sister. She didn’t want to.
The bar she wandered into that evening was dime, sketchy and the drinks were all lukewarm but that didn’t bother her. The memories were a wound- red and raw around the edges and alcohol tasted like relief.
She had practically dragged her body up the stairs to the main level, her head feeling heavy on her shoulders. She opened a door to a room, still as quite as ever- years of training can’t be undone even when you’re drunk- and braced herself against the wall as she shoved off her shoes, closing the door behind her. Sleep called out to her and she was pulled in closer and closer by it, close enough to collapse into her bed until…
There’s someone in her bed.
She looked blankly at the figure, brain clouded by thick fog that made figuring out who it was a more difficult task than it should be. It took her a second before…
Walker.
What?
Oh fuck. This isn’t her room.
The realisation came in slowly, like waves on a beach, and the alcohol dulled the feeling of embarrassment she had for walking into someone else’s room. It was almost funny until she noticed another figure in his bed.
You.
Now she was staring- looking down at you and him next to each other, alseep, in his bed while you wear his clothes.
She didn’t get it.
You two? Since when? Why? How did she not notice? The longer she stared the more questions that she didn’t have answers to appeared like who else knew? How did this happen? And fuck she’s still staring.
A distant part of her brain was telling her to leave, that this was a huge invasion of privacy and that even if this was a mistake, it was still a betrayal of trust. But the scene seemed to hold her in place, paralysing her.
He’s wrapped around you in what could only be described as desperation, head tucked into that junction between your neck and shoulder while his arm is wrapped around your waist and his hand is gripping at the shirt on your chest in some subconscious act of trying to keep you from disappearing. And you’re holding his hand there with your own, reassuring his subconscious. Clothes laid scattered around the room that she hadn’t noticed beforehand and Yelena could see an outline of your lips in wine red on his neck.
It’s close. Intimate.
Walker had kicked his leg from out under the thin covers. Yelena saw the fresh bandage covering his wound, you had probably done it.
She could imagine your skilled hands as you touched him to inspect the wound, the careful swipe of antiseptic across the red surface as you whispered soft mindless praises to calm his racing mind, your hands feathering over his skin as you draped the white cotton around his leg.
The situation before her had a strange pull on her that she didn’t quite know why. Maybe because she had stumbled across something not meant for different eyes to see, something she couldn’t understand because this was only meant for the two of you. An uncomfortable feeling settled in her stomach, she didn’t know what to make of it.
Yelena had to will her body to actually begin to move. She slowly stalked backwards, eyes never leaving your sleeping figures as she prayed that neither of you woke up right then. She picked up her shoes by the door before sliding it open and leaving just as quietly as she had entered. Her room was the next door down the hall, it was a simple enough mistake to make, sure, but she mentally scolded herself for drinking that much. It is not how they trained you, you’re smarter than this she berated herself silently.
Finally walking into the right room, she collapsed into her bed the alcohol helping her almost instantly fall asleep as the image of you and Walker lingered in the shallow waters of her conscious mind.
Next morning, she woke up and immediately regretted it; everything was already too bright and too loud and the headache hit her like a goddamn freight train. No, she just wouldn’t get up today- all that saving the world shit could wait one day for her to recover.
Yelena dragged a pillow over her head letting its weight fall onto her face providing her with some mild relief from the splitting headache. The sensory deprivation left her alone with nothing from the outside to distract her from her thoughts.
At first she could only focus on the pain from her headache but soon it faded into that quiet pain she was use to and her mind turned silent. But never for long. It started working; thinking. She hated that. The thinking. The remembering. Her mind would bring her to the place she hated the most. Her past. The alcohol was meant to stop that, even if it was just for a little bit.
She tried to take control of her own thoughts, steer them towards something more recent, towards the memory of last night. Or rather the fragments of last night. The memory she found in her mind of you and Walker asleep together was strange. So strange that she could almost convince herself that she had imagined the whole thing, that it was a strange vivid dream brought on by the effects of too many drinks and just brush off that whole night.
But she couldn’t.
It started with glances. She noticed how during those PR meetings with Val about public image and promotion, Walker would glance over at you to try and catch your attention whenever he thought something was wrong or stupid or funny and you’d return the sentiment. But sometimes he would just glance at you just to see you and he’d somehow soften when he did. No one else was suppose to notice but Yelena had. Or after your training session how you’d always look to him first for approval, to make sure that he thought that you did good. And he’d always have a small smile on as he watched you spar with the others, like he was proud of his girl.
She picked up on other things.
How during sweeps of buildings, Walker always stayed close to you; the one too many glances over his shoulder to make sure you were safe, the way he made sure to just graze your arm when he put his hand out to stop the team because he thought he heard something, to reassure himself you were safe; alive. Some could argue it was his military instinct, the need to protect his team but they hadn’t stumbled across a secret they weren’t meant to know. She saw how you were the only one he didn’t argue with when he was challenged on his decision for a mission. She’d never say it out loud but it was nice to see him tamed for once.
And then there were the missions.
Those were maybe the worst. They were when you showed the most vulnerability towards each other- tethering on the edge of professionalism.
The one that came first to her mind was that mission to an old American military base. The whole team had been sent to the middle of a forest in northwestern Washington to retrieve some documents that apparently had important intel on them- it was strictly need to know as, of course, most things were with Val- and it was meant to be a simple and straightforward extraction mission.
Turns out the base wasn’t as abandoned as you all had thought.
As soon as you guys made it past the chain link fence, the guards were there waiting for you. Non-stop gunfire raining down on you and soldiers at every single turn made getting the documents a nightmare. And a smoke bomb made it so that finding your way out of the lower level of the base was hell.
None of you had managed to escape unharmed; all of you sporting a variety of new cuts and bruises. You, however, had ended up with a bullet lodged in your shoulder and, as the injured one, walked quietly at the back of the team with Walker keeping his hand around your waist the entire time to support you.
Yelena couldn’t tell if fate was playing a joke on her or if she had purposefully placed herself closest to you two as some sort of twisted punishment but she could hear your soft laughs at his jokes in an attempt to keep your mind off of the pain. To the outside eye it wasn’t anything to warrant suspicion about but Yelena saw what it meant.
Walker’s voice wavered with emotion- the sort of strong emotion you’d hear from a person at an alter- whenever he spoke to you and your constant reassurance that you were alright sounded more like it was coming from a wife than a teammate.
A silence fell over the team, not an uncomfortable one but one born of fatigue. Everyone was walking at their own pace with each of their minds preoccupied with something different. The sound of wind walking thought the gaps in the tall, green tress the only noise to be heard for miles to come.
Walker’s voice reappeared, snapping Yelena out of her thoughts. She wished she didn’t turn to see.
She watched him lean in closer to you and kiss you. Not passionately like a lover would. But desperately like a man who physically could not live without their opposite. His other hand clutching your face, pulling you in as close as possible. Yelena immediately turned away. She felt like an intruder- a thief stealing glimpses into private moments. That foreign feeling bubbled up inside of her but she ignored it, pushing her way to the front of the team.
The flight back to the Watchtower was a long one. You had passed out on the examination table after removing the bullet yourself and Walker had to then take over and stitch you up. He didn’t leave your side after that. Meanwhile Yelena tried to pull any excuse she could to avoid having to sleep or be on the main level, choosing to arrange the whole weapons unit down below instead. The familiar feel of the guns in her hands lulled her into a routine allowing her mind to mull over what she had seen; you two shouldn’t have thrown cation to the wind like that and risked your relationship, not to mention the misconduct on a mission. It was dangerous to get attached in this line of work, she had been taught that from when she was a little girl, and today was living proof of that. She wasn’t sure what that uncomfortable feeling she felt was. Maybe jealousy. Maybe something else.
This relationship would eventually have to come out Yelena knew it, you two probably knew it. But for now, all she could do was watch from a distance as you two loved each other in secret.