Chapter Text
“So, you don’t have some sort of secret plan to betray us once we get to New York, right?” Ava asked, a question that came with no preface whatsoever and interrupted what was easily the longest, tensest, and most awkward silence that the lot of them had managed to sustain in the (admittedly brief) time they’d known each other.
Yelena picked her head up, despite the protest from the muscles in her neck and back. She’d been hunched over in her seat on the jet, forearms braced against her knees, staring straight down at her folded hands for the better part of two hours. No one had said a word since they left the safehouse, aside from a gruff reminder from Bucky to buckle their seatbelts.
The silence was meditative. Yelena elected not to think about Bob, about their argument or the things she could have said differently. She elected not to think at all, really. Carefully, methodically, she filed away the guilt and the anger and the hurt and the worry, shoving it all into some dark, faraway corner of her mind. It was surprisingly easy, for once. There were times when she truly hated the machine part of her brain, but there were other times– times like these– when the deafening noise of it worked in her favor to drown out distractions. This was no time for guilt or regret. Those kinds of things made you hesitate. Hesitation got you killed.
So she let her mind go blank, passed control over to that practical, functional, ever-observant side of herself, and for two hours stared at her hands and systematically categorized everything she knew about Valentina– her plans, her scope of influence, her connections in politics, in the media, in foreign affairs, the missions she’d given Yelena, down to the most trivial instruction, her research in Malaysia– until an interruption presented itself.
“Just, you know, since we never really ironed out where you stand in all this,” Ava continued as she adjusted her posture, her suit squeaking against the seat.
As Yelena lifted her gaze, she found Ava was regarding Walker with something a little more exhausted than just skepticism on her face. Walker looked around for a moment before realizing that he was, in fact, the target of her question.
“Me?” he asked, pointing at himself.
“Who else?” Ava countered impatiently.
“What did I do?” Walker huffed, opening his arms. Yelena shook her head as she rubbed the back of her neck. Her spine made a fun little pop as she sat up straighter.
“You mean aside from the hidden agenda to take me out after our mission was completed?” Ava asked.
“Uh, as I recall,” Walker drawled slowly, “we both had hidden agendas. So…”
“No, see– my mission was to take out a rogue operative,” Ava said with a nod at Yelena, explaining slowly like Walker was six years old, “and then to wait for further instructions. Your mission, as I recall,” Ava echoed, “was to take out the Red Guardian, and then to stab me in the back… while I was waiting for further instructions.” She folded her hands in her lap, looking at Walker expectantly. “Did I miss anything?”
“I mean, I would have shot you, not stabbed you,” Walker muttered, crossing his arms.
“Do you seriously think that’s what I’m concerned with right now?” Ava asked sharply. If Walker wasn’t sitting out of arms reach, Yelena was fairly certain she would have hit him.
“I don’t really know what you’re concerned with, honestly,” Walker said, shrugging dismissively. “We’re on the same page, okay?”
“And what page is that?” Ava challenged.
“Uh… let’s see. Valentina sucks, boo human experimentation, yay democracy?” Walker replied, counting on his fingers. Ava ran a hand down her face. Yelena glanced between Bucky and Alexei, aiming for an expression of get-a-load-of-this-guy, but she was a bit too distanced from herself at the moment to tell if she was making any kind of expression at all, really. Alexei leaned closer to her.
“That is… pretty good page, no?” he asked hesitantly.
“For Walker, I guess,” Yelena muttered.
“Not a high bar,” Bucky commented under his breath from the pilot’s seat. Yelena almost laughed at that.
“Hey, I’m here, aren’t I?” Walker snapped. “What do you want, a pinky promise? Here– scout’s honor,” he said, holding up three fingers.
“Of course you were a boy scout,” Yelena said, rubbing her forehead.
“Eagle scout,” Walker corrected.
“Oh, forgive me, how could I be so wrong,” Yelena deadpanned, clasping her hands together to dramatize her penance. Walker scowled at her.
“Eagle scouts are still boy scouts,” Bucky noted over his shoulder. “It’s just a higher rank.”
“Please don’t tell me you were a boy scout,” Yelena said.
“I wasn’t,” Bucky replied, thank god, but he glanced sideways and caught Yelena’s eye as he said it. His expression was cold. “Steve was,” he added quietly. The name felt like a jab, intentionally sharp. From that back corner of Yelena’s mind, guilt reared its head.
Nobody cares who saves the world, as long as it’s saved. They die, and they get forgotten. Like the Avengers, like Tony Stark, like Steve fucking Rogers–
She looked away, clenching her jaw. Whatever remaining insults she had intended to lob at Walker over the matter, they died on her tongue. Whatever apology she owed Bucky, it died there, too.
“You know, Russia had scouting, also,” Alexei noted, leaning forward. “Though during Civil War, troops were replaced with, ah… what was– ah! Young Pioneers!”
“Wow,” Walker said, entirely disinterested.
“Is pretty much just scouts but with more communism,” Alexei explained.
“Oh my god,” Yelena muttered, ducking her head.
“But, ah– of course, as Mister Walker says,” Alexei backtracked, “yay democracy, eh?”
“Could we try to stay on topic for more than ten seconds at a time?” Ava asked, throwing a hand up in the air in exasperation.
“What was topic?” Alexei asked. Ava groaned, tipping her head back until it thunked against the metal wall of the jet behind her.
“Walker. Valentina. Potential threat of betrayal,” she said in monotone.
“Betrayal is a little dramatic,” Walker muttered, crossing his arms.
“She’s got a point, though,” Yelena said. She twisted in her seat, trying to work out a knot in her back.
“Wh– now you, too?” Walker demanded, Yelena raised her eyebrows at him.
“Don’t look so surprised,” she said dismissively. “When have I ever taken your side?” Walker rolled his eyes, but Yelena was finding it difficult to conjure up the energy to be annoyed at him.
“I don’t get it. You trusted her pretty quick,” he said, jerking his thumb toward Ava next to him.
“Yeah, she wasn’t threatening to arrest all of us back there every two seconds and turn us over to a sociopath,” Yelena pointed out with a vague wave of her hand.
“No, she was just trying to cut and run, which is way more noble,” Walker scoffed.
“I wasn’t claiming to be noble, you ass,” Ava snapped. “You’re no bloody saint yourself.”
“I’m not saying I’m a saint–”
“Oh, sure, captain boy scout–” Ava taunted. Walker’s face turned a lovely shade of red.
“Eagle scout!” he corrected. Christ, he made it so easy.
“No one cares!” Ava shot back.
“We’re really doing this now?” Bucky asked, turning halfway over his shoulder from the pilot’s seat. “On the way to confront Valentina?”
“No better time than the present, right?” Ava asked bitterly, glaring at Walker.
“Yeah, pick a fight ten thousand feet in the air, that’ll go great,” Walker said, returning her glare with equal venom.
“Perfect height to drop you from,” Yelena noted. She’d kind of meant it to be an inside thought.
“No one’s dropping anyone out of this plane,” Bucky said in his very best I’m-in-charge voice, though honestly, he sort of sounded more like an exhausted parent threatening to turn the car around.
“He’d probably survive,” Yelena pointed out. Bucky shot a tired look in her direction.
“That’s not the point,” he sighed, shaking his head when she just shrugged at him.
“Thank you!” Walker said, leaning back in his seat.
“This is a military jet, we can’t be seen throwing Walker out of Air Force property,” Bucky explained, facing forward again.
“Oh, for fuck’s– this is ridiculous,” Walker muttered under his breath.
“Look, I’d sincerely rather not drop you out of a plane,” Ava said, which Yelena sort of doubted was entirely true.
“You sure?” Walker challenged. “Sounds like you’re real excited about it to me.”
“Oh, come off it,” Ava said, sitting up straighter. “You’re the only one here who still has something to gain from Valentina, so sue me for being skeptical, alright?”
“I’m hardly the only one–” Walker started, but Ava cut him off, her tone growing sharper.
“No, don’t go trying to deflect onto the rest of us,” she snapped. “You’re the only one still holding onto Val’s bullshit. Yelena’s trying to keep Bob safe, Alexei wants to be a hero, Bucky has a duty to his bloody constituents or whatever, and I’m getting pretty fucking sick of assholes in power taking advantage of other people’s desperation.”
It was a little jarring to hear it laid out in so few words, boiled down like that, just the barest bones of motivation. Compared to the rest, Yelena couldn’t help but feel like her own noble cause here was a bit more selfish than the rest. She crossed her arms stiffly, watching Ava with narrowed eyes as she leaned further into Walker’s space.
“I know why I’m here,” Ava said. “I know why they’re here. But you? Last I checked, you were dead set on that clean slate of yours.” Walker’s jaw tightened at the mention of his bargain with Valentina.
“God forbid I want to do something with my life,” he said, his words clipped. “This isn’t exactly where I pictured my career going.”
Yelena barked a laugh, reacting before she had the chance to censor herself, but Walker’s glare was kindling a fire in her cold chest. She wasn’t sure if it was irritation or anger that would bubble to the surface first.
“You don’t get to play that card,” she said. Anger, then. Fine. She could work with anger. “You think you’re the only one with– with fucking dreams? Aspirations?” She said the words the same way one might say rainbows and unicorns. They were just as fantastical, weren’t they? “We all wanted to do something with our lives! Bob wanted to do something with his life, too, and the person who destroyed his future is the one you’re crawling toward to save yours–”
“You’re acting like I’m the one who put him there! We all made our own choices,” Walker said stiffly. If Bucky hadn’t been so adamant about each of them wearing their stupid fucking seatbelts, Yelena would have lunged at him. In hindsight, that was probably the reason he was so insistent.
“Uh– we?” she echoed incredulously. “You’re really going to say that to me? Hello?” She gestured to herself. “Enslaved child assassin?”
“Well, you were just a kid, so,” Walker muttered, waving her off.
“Oh, so that’s a good thing now?” Yelena scoffed.
“I just think it might be nice to know that you didn’t know any better,” Walker replied simply. Yelena blinked at him. She wasn’t sure if it was the dismissiveness or the sincerity that took the wind out of her sails, but she deflated regardless, slumping down in her seat.
“Thanks, I feel way better,” she deadpanned. “What’s your excuse?” Walker opened his mouth, frustration returning to his expression, but Bucky managed to intercept.
“Knock it off,” he interrupted– again, much like an exhausted parent. Yelena considered reminding him that retirement was a perfectly valid option, and one that could potentially reduce the number of gray hairs he was sprouting, but she tabled that for a later date. “No one here has a right to judge anyone else on how they got here,” Bucky said. “We’re here. That’s something.”
Yelena scowled, biting back any number of childish retorts; tell that to him, he’s the one being a dick! Why am I getting scolded? None of this mattered. She wanted this to be done, wanted to be there already, wanted to see Valentina in handcuffs with a bag over her head getting shoved into a police car. She wanted to get it over with. And still despite that, the thought of what came next twisted in her stomach, made her palms sweat. She pushed it from her mind, shoved it back into the dark.
“I don’t need you to come to my defense,” Walker muttered. He pulled off the scolded child look much more naturally than Yelena, she’d give him that.
“I’m not coming to your defense, Walker,” Bucky said, his tone taking on a more serious edge as he turned fully to face them. “You made your choices, you got yourself here. Now what? You’re looking at Val to fix it?” he asked, raising his eyebrows expectantly.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t have done the same for a clean slate,” Walker challenged
“I don’t get a clean slate,” Bucky shot back. “Not then, not now. No one does.” Walker rolled his eyes, looking down at his hands, but Bucky didn’t back off. “That guilt, that shame, it never goes away. You live with it, you make amends, you try to repair the damage you did. What’s Val gonna do, John? How’s she gonna undo your mistakes? Is she gonna stick the shield in your hand again? Fix your marriage for you?” A muscle in Walker’s jaw twitched. “Talk your wife into coming home, get your kid back, convince him you’re a hero?”
He said it all so casually, so blunt, that Yelena didn’t register it at first for what it was. Didn’t realize what Bucky was really asking, what he was doing, what specific knife he was twisting to make his point.
And when it dawned on her, when she looked over and met Walker’s eye, she found there was no fire burning in her chest. No vindication, no retribution. She expected some part of her– some mean, bitter, immature part, the part that made her ruthless, made her cruel– to feel some amount of glee at that; at knowing there was no picture perfect life, no Norman Rockwell family. His life sucked just as much as the rest of them. Ha-ha, loser, just like us! Sucks, doesn’t it?
But then Walker just shrugged, a sad sort of smile on his face, twisted out of shape by defeat. By shame. And Yelena had to look away first, focusing her gaze down on his hands when she couldn’t look him in the eye any longer. There were little details slowly crowding in her head, waiting to be slotted into place in the mental profile her machine-brain was keeping on John Walker. It was all… off. He still wore his wedding band, fidgeted with it idly, traced the shape of it with his thumb. He’d made them dinner. Told her to wash up. What was she supposed to do with that, now? It didn’t fit anywhere.
Bucky’s voice shook her from her thoughts.
“You can put yourself on a new path, now,” he said, his tone softer than before. “All of you can.”
“What about you?” Yelena asked, meeting his gaze. He frowned, a wrinkle forming on his forehead.
“What… what about me?” he asked in reply. Yelena wiped her palms on her pants, shrugging stiffly.
“If you do this, that’s… I mean, that’s no more congressman, right?” she asked hesitantly. Bucky’s frown deepened. “Unless this counts as a citizen’s arrest, you’re, uh… operating a little outside of your job description, don’t you think?”
“A little,” Bucky agreed. He sighed, pushing his hair back. “I don’t know what comes next for me,” he admitted. “Seems like I’m not cut out for politics, though. Too impatient.” Yelena offered him a sympathetic smile– as sympathetic as she could muster, at least.
“Well, don’t sell yourself short,” she said. “You stuck to your guns on the whole do this the right way thing for a while, there. Longer than me, but… that’s not saying much,” she noted sheepishly. “Never really crossed my mind. So that’s something, huh?” She didn’t know quite why she was trying to comfort him, but regardless, Bucky breathed a laugh.
“Maybe,” he sighed. “But the world is changing. Back in my day, it was easy to figure out the right thing to do, you know?” he mused, leaning against his armrest. “Enlist. Go to war. Shoot some bad guys. You come home, you’re a hero. You die… you’re a hero then, too. Most of the time, anyway,” he added quietly. “It’s a new world.”
“You sound like a news headline,” Ava noted lightheartedly. Bucky shrugged.
“Guess I’ve gotten used to giving speeches,” he said.
“I just can’t believe you actually said back in my day,” Walker mumbled.
“Well, I’m a hundred and ten, I think I’ve earned the right,” Bucky pointed out.
“It’s not all doom and gloom, though,” Ava argued, leaning forward. “In terms of heroes, I mean. Your buddy seems like he’s doing well for himself.”
“Who, Sam?” Bucky asked. A smile crossed his face, but he quickly schooled his expression. Ava nodded. “Eh. He’s alright.”
“There are lot of pretty weird people in New York, also,” Alexei added. Yelena couldn’t really argue with that.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Ava said.
“He means vigilantes,” Yelena clarified on Alexei’s behalf. “That city, it’s like it attracts them.”
“It doesn’t attract them, it creates them,” Bucky corrected with a laugh. “City’s a breeding ground for cheesy aliases and radioactive nutjobs.”
“Weren’t you and Rogers from Brooklyn?” Yelena asked.
“Case and point,” Bucky said.
“They might be cheesy, but they get the job done,” Ava sighed, adjusting the seam on her suit where it connected to her glove. Yelena couldn’t fathom how she wasn’t sweating her ass off in that thing. “Can’t argue with results.”
“I’m pretty sure vigilantism is, like… generally frowned upon, in a legal sense,” Walker said.
“Yeah, so is covert operations,” Yelena argued. “The difference is, no one’s making thank you cards for us the way they’re doing it for that spider-guy in Queens.”
“Everyone’s got a gimmick,” Bucky muttered under his breath.
“Well, we’re not exactly saving kittens from trees,” Ava said.
“We are working to make difference!” Alexei argued, opening his arms.
“Yeah, now,” Yelena mumbled, rolling her eyes.
“Now is more than never, eh?” Alexei asked, patting her shoulder with the back of his hand. She didn’t look at him.
“One good deed doesn’t make a vigilante,” Ava pointed out.
“Now you sound like a news headline,” Yelena said, shaking her head.
“In trying times, people want to see someone take action,” Alexei said, a wistful smile on his face. “A hero is more than just someone to cheer for. Hero is hope. A light in the darkness.” He looked at Yelena, that crooked smile spreading wider. “It is hard to trust that things will get better, but it, ah… it is easier to believe when you know someone is trying.”
Yelena opened her mouth, expecting that same mean, bitter part of her to take over like it always did, but nothing came out. The longer she looked at him, the less fake it seemed; the pride, the certainty, the performance of it all. She couldn’t help but notice the new wrinkles around his eyes, the gray in his beard and eyebrows. She didn’t remember him looking this old. How do you have the energy for it, she wanted to ask. How can you still want it that bad?
Aren’t you tired?
“It’s not that simple anymore,” Yelena said quietly, looking down, looking away, looking anywhere else, knowing– feeling– Alexei was still looking at her.
“It was never simple,” he said. “It was just… ah…”
“Different,” Bucky supplied. Yelena clenched her jaw. “People don’t know who to trust these days.”
“That doesn’t seem so different,” Ava said.
“Well, take it from someone who's been around a while,” Bucky sighed. “Captain America used to punch Nazis. Now he’s fighting the President. Sends a different kind of message, doesn’t it?” Ava made an uncertain sound.
“Depends on who you ask,” she said. Bucky shrugged.
“But Valentina’s not a Nazi, and she’s also not a big red rage monster,” Walker interjected, holding up a hand.
“Again, depends on who you ask,” Ava mumbled. Yelena felt the corner of her mouth tug upwards.
“Okay, what–” Walker paused, pinching the bridge of his nose and letting out a measured breath. “What I’m saying is, it feels a little less cut and dry than just, you know… do the right thing.”
“Sure, because everything we’ve done up until this point has been super cut and dry in that regard,” Yelena said flatly.
"I’m trying to take some accountability, here,” Walker said, irritation seeping into his voice. Yelena held back a laugh.
“Are you?” she asked. “That’s really not coming across very well.”
“Look, you and I do this job for very different reasons–”
“But it’s still the same job, isn’t it?” Yelena interrupted, her voice steady. “We’ve got the same blood on our hands. It doesn’t matter why we’re here. I was operating under the delusion that what I was doing for Valentina was the worst she had to offer,” she said. Or maybe confessed was the better word for it. Saying it out loud, it felt a lot stupider than it seemed in her head. The logic fell apart almost instantly. “Maybe that was naive, but it all felt like the type of shit she’d delegate, you know? The stuff she wouldn’t dirty her own hands with. Come to find out, she’s saving the fun part for herself, picking homeless drug addicts off of the street and killing them for sport. And I helped her do that.”
The truth of it settled over them, heavy in the air. The next breath she took was unsteady. When she swallowed, she tasted bile. She shoved it all down, stared Walker dead in the eye.
“I can compartmentalize a lot, but I do have a line,” Yelena said. “And this crosses it. She knew it would. That’s why she didn’t tell me, didn’t tell any of us. Unless, of course, you knew?” she asked, raising an eyebrow, but from the look on Walker’s face she knew the answer already.
“Of course I didn’t know,” he snapped. Any other time, that tone would have made Yelena seethe, but for once, for this, it was a relief. “Jesus. Do you really think I would have gone alone with any of this if I knew what she was really doing?”
“I don't know,” she said simply. There was no bite to it. That seemed to take Walker off guard more than anything else. “I don't know you. Maybe you’re as crazy as she is.” She watched a muscle in Walker’s jaw tense and release, watched his expression shift slowly from anger to irritation to something that could almost be mistaken for determination.
“I’m not,” he said, his voice low. “I thought I was–” he faltered, shaking his head. “I wanted to help people, doing this. Defend our national security, eliminate threats. What she’s doing is wrong, this whole Sentry thing. She’s hurting the people she’s supposed to protect just to stay in power. I don’t stand for that.”
Yelena narrowed her eyes at him, studying him like a target. She wanted to believe him. Under all of that nationalistic pride and blind faith in patriotism, there had to be something real, right? And for once, when she parsed through the bravado and looked past the theatrics, the stupid uniform, the do-it-yourself shield, the air of arrogance and superiority, she actually came to the conclusion he wasn’t putting on a show, here. Wasn’t posturing, wasn’t playing the part. He meant it. Huh.
“Good,” she said. “Now’s the time to prove it.”
Walker set his jaw, held her gaze, and then nodded at her. She bit back a remark on how they were finally agreeing on something for once.
“Listen,” Bucky said, crossing his arms. “I know my political career has been… short.” He glared at Walker before he had a chance to scoff. “But I can tell you no one feels safe with Valentina in charge. The whole world knows she’s lying, they just don’t know about what. Right now, people want the truth, and we can do something about–”
Bucky’s be-a-hero speech was interrupted by an alarm sounding behind him in the cockpit, a rapid beeping accompanied by a little flashing light to the right of the main controls.
“What is that?” Yelena asked, craning her neck to look over at the console. “Are we crashing? Tell me we’re crashing. That would be the perfect icing on this shitshow of a–”
“Would you relax? It’s an incoming radio transmission, we’re not crashing,” Bucky cut her off, rolling his eyes heavily as he turned around in his seat.
“Oh,” Yelena muttered. That made sense, she supposed. The alarm for oh-fuck-we’re-crashing would probably be significantly louder. He flicked a few switches, but with his back turned, Yelena couldn’t see what he was doing. “Who’s–”
The radio in the cockpit crackled to life, popping and buzzing with static. From the look on Bucky’s face, he was just as surprised by that development as the rest of them.
“You’re a very difficult man to get a hold of, Congressman Barnes,” Valentina said, her voice filtering through the speaker. “Is that still your title, or does this whole ordeal count as your two week’s notice?”
Yelena thought that the first time she heard Val’s voice again after everything, she’d feel… more. Anger, bitterness, disgust. Something. Instead, she just felt something cold spread in her chest, her whole body going still.
“Is this thing on?” Valentina asked. There was a thumping noise like she was tapping on a mic. “Honestly, with how much we pay for those Air Force jets, you’d think the radio system would be harder to patch into, but,” she sighed heavily, enough for it to crackle in the speakers. “I guess most of the budget went into the engines–”
“Miss Fontaine,” Bucky interrupted. Valentina let out an even heavier sigh.
“It's Du Fontaine,” she corrected tiredly. “Why does everybody insist on– ugh. Whatever. I don't know why I bother with you people anymore.”
“What do you want, Val?” Bucky asked.
“Okay, straight to the point. I can admire that. I just thought you might like to know I'm aware you're on your way,” Valentina explained. “All of you.” Yelena stiffened, tapping her fingers anxiously against her knees. “But I thought maybe instead of letting you embarrass yourselves by charging in here, guns blazing, or whatever you plan to do, we could have a little chat instead.”
Bucky threw a glance over his shoulder, catching Yelena's eye with a skeptical expression.
“A chat,” Bucky said slowly.
“There’s a perfectly good landing pad on the roof here for a quinjet,” Valentina said. “Priority spot. We even validate parking.”
“She's just gonna shoot us out of the sky,” Yelena said, trying to keep her voice low, but her voice clearly reached the radio anyway.
“And add ‘friendly fire’ to my current list of supposed crimes? I don’t think so,” Valentina scoffed. “Come on, let's not make this more complicated than it needs to be. I think you'll be very interested to hear what we have to say.”
“Un-fucking-likely,” Ava said, crossing her arms, but Yelena’s focus caught on one very specific word, there.
“Who’s we?” she asked, leaning forward.
“Did I say we?” Valentina asked. There wasn’t a hint of sincerity in her voice. “Ah, well. I thought maybe it’d be a fun little surprise, but I got ahead of myself. Too many irons in the fire, you know? Hard to keep track–”
“Get to the point,” Bucky said impatiently, his voice dark.
“Wow. Pushy,” Valentina huffed. “You really know how to ruin the suspense.” Yelena would have rolled her eyes, but she felt cold and jittery, now, her heart thudding harder and harder with the growing feeling that something was wrong, wrong, wrong– “Robert?”
All the blood drained from Yelena’s face, blood rushing in her ears.
No.
“Don’t be shy, now. Come say hello.”