clandestinement | Early release

Early release - for worthallthis

They survive, in the end. That much is a miracle in and of itself. They survive, mostly intact, still themselves. And then comes the parting. There is no option to stay, to make a real life - so long as they remain, the connection to the place they came from remains, a flaw in the walls of reality that could be pried open or slipped along, the whole cycle restarted on new ground. There is no option to choose a new world to settle on. It's home, or death.

They promise to find each other on their own worlds, so like one another as to be nearly indistinguishable. It will not be the same. It's the best they can do with the hand they've been dealt. Yelena, the one who had walked two years in another world, who had faced monsters and the awful temptation of power, has the easier task in 2023.

Yelena, the one in his time, is still a tool of the Red Room, still under the thrall of a poison that will not have a certain cure for years. The serum distilled from her older counterpart's blood and cerebral fluid may work. There had been no sure way to test it. "It will take years for the neural pathways to repair themselves, if this doesn't work," the older Yelena had warned. "At least two, probably closer to three."

But even before that comes the problem of tracking her down. There is no intel on where the Red Room is, in his time. It moves, and the Widows are drugged both coming and going, aware only of their entry and extraction sites. The older Yelena can only tell him where she will be. It's nearly three months between his date of return and the date on which a suitable mission will present itself - one on which she will be alone, without the risk of other Widows, victims all of the Red Room's poison, interfering. Without the red dust, there is no guarantee of freeing them, and she's not willing to sacrifice them to secure her own early release.

And so: Bern. Yelena, younger, still the Red Room's plaything, is set up in a small apartment, paid for under the alias of one of her handlers, under the pretense of being a young mistress. One with a minor admin role at a scientific institution that is hosting a large conference, at which - regrettably - one of the speakers will suffer a fatal heart attack tomorrow. Tonight, she is running through the plan one last time, accounting for last-minute scheduling changes - nothing that speaks to any interference. Her target's schedule remains the same. Her exit window will just be a little tighter than she'd prefer.

In the living room, her handler is watching television. He'll have nothing to do tomorrow; it's two days before she'll be extracted, if all goes to plan, time built in to go to ground and take down the trappings of this identity.

No one is expecting any visitors.

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Yelena's borrowed one of the books he's already finished, and is sprawled out on her stomach on her bed when he comes in, chin propped in one hand, reading through it. She glances up when the door opens, and blinks at the nudge before marking her place with a brochure she'd swiped from the gift shop solely for the map inside.

She rolls to her feet before bending to pull her own boots on, sliding a short knife into the sheath in the left as she does - not out of concern that this is the world's most convoluted assassination attempt as out of long habit. She may never feel comfortable unarmed. If she does, it won't be for many years.

"Okay," she says. "Lead the way."

There's no questioning the knife; he has three on his person right now. That's just good sense, really, to never go anywhere unarmed. There are some probably bad habits she has which are never going to be challenged by him, and that's one of them.

He leads her out, then up, climbing the stairs to the top deck, and from there out along the side of the ship using a strung rope. It's a convoluted trip, but it ends with them on a rooftop devoid of any oversight or spotlights, near the back of the ship. He's laid out a blanket and some snacks in a gift box, in lieu of a proper basket.

The stars are really spectacular back here.

For a moment, Yelena doesn't even notice the snacks, because the stars...

"Oh," she says, barely more than a short exhale, head tilting back to take in the expanse of the Milky Way above, like a glittering river of light she could fall into, vast and impossible and more beautiful than anything she can remember seeing, than the memories of fireflies dancing in a back lot that smelled of the distilled essence of summer. Than anything, certainly, that inhabits the dull grey expanse of the last several years.

She doesn't even notice the tears that well up, spilling from the corners of her eyes and down her cheeks.

Since the stars are the real reason he brought her up here, Winter smiles at her expression, quiet, letting her look for a minute while he just settles back on his heels.

Until she starts crying, then he maybe panics a little. She's not supposed to be crying! He's aware of the phenomenon of "good crying" given that's mostly what he does, but he has no idea that's what this is. "Yelena?" he asks worriedly.

She jolts a little at the sound of her name, brought abruptly back to attention. It's only then that she realizes her cheeks are damp, and reaches up to dash the tears away with the heel of her hand. She rolls her shoulders, forcing a grin into place that doesn't quite fit with the lingering tremor of awe in her chest.

"I'm fine," she says. "My emotions are just wobbly still. A little."

A moment's pause, and she adds, "It is beautiful. Thank you for bringing me out here."

Edited 2024-01-08 03:28 (UTC)

"I hoped you might like it," he says, just a little shyly. "I used to love the stars, I think. Before. All this." He gestures vaguely at himself. He's gotten more and more memories back since coming back into this world; he's not sure how much is there being more things here to remind him, and how much is having the serum back, repairing damage to his brain.

He drifts over to the blanket and pats it gently. "Sit?"

"I haven't had much chance to look at the stars," she admits. "Just a few training missions, in cold weather survival."

She gives herself a shake, and comes to sit next to him on the blanket - not as close as his Yelena would, but closer than she might have at the start of this.

"There were other missions in remote areas, but it was...after. I didn't really look for beautiful things then."

"It took me a long time to look for beautiful things again, too," Winter agrees quietly, leaning back on his metal hand for unwavering support while he looks up. "To even recognize them."

Frankly, even for a large chunk of his time in Gloucester, he hadn't looked. Hadn't bothered. Not really until cutting out ornaments for a Christmas tree, movies about dinosaurs and heroic robots, and reading books to little children, had he thought much about things more than just for their practicality or people more than whether they were his to protect and love or not.

"I'm glad you can now," he continues. "I think. I think beautiful things are important, too."

His Yelena might have comically gaped at him for the mere suggestion.

"They're nice," she hedges. She's not ready to commit to important, not yet. Important things can be used as leverage, can be taken away. She doesn't think he's inclined to do that, but the habit of hiding anything she cares about is deeply enough ingrained that it will take a while to break.

Even if the truth had been streaming down her cheeks not two minutes ago.

"Were the stars the same there?" she asks. "On this other Earth?"

Yeah, she's not hiding that one, but she's also right that he's not inclined to take anything away from her. If anything, he wants to give her everything he can. He doesn't comment on it, no matter how inane calling them "nice" sounds right now.

"Sometimes. Sometimes the fear entity things changed the sky, especially near the end. It was all fake, though. The changes only happened above our town, not the rest of the world, so it had to be."

"Like skies from alien planets?" Yelena asks, and in spite of herself, she sounds a little intrigued. From what little he's shared about the world he'd come from, she's certain the illusion of another sky must have been somehow horrifying, like an operation set up to break down its victims' sense of reality. But divorced as she is from anything related to the Dread Powers, it sounds a little bit amazing, too.

"I heard that when the Chitauri invaded New York, some of the people near Stark Tower were able to see through their portal into another part of the galaxy."

"I'm still annoyed they didn't wake me up for that," Winter comments. "I would've loved to see it. I looked it up in the news once I got back, but it wasn't the same." Not that the him who existed in New York in 2012 would've appreciated a portal to another part of the universe, but maybe he could look back on it now and be amazed.

He looks up at the stars again. "Mostly the fear entity things took the stars away. One by one, until there was nothing. Just endless nothing. It was kind of awful, actually."

"That does sound very creepy," Yelena replies, with a shudder that's only half feigned. "Which probably was the point."

She pauses a moment, then carefully leans over enough to bump him with her shoulder. "Maybe after we have executed your plan to save the world, we can find a spaceship to steal and take a joy ride to Pluto."

Winter smiles at that, but the touch and the idea. He leans back just a moment against her shoulder, just enough to let her know it was appreciated. "Steal one of the purple alien's spaceships," he suggests. "Travel the universe. It'll be fun." It's not likely, not really, but maybe they could get as far as Pluto.

"I hear they have very nice beaches in Alpha Centauri," she says, mock solemn. It's a nice dream, heading out into the stars. Away from Earth, from the monsters who were her masters, and the family that left her behind, and all the threats that have or might have been.

And maybe they'll die before they have any chance at all, but for the moment, it's fun to pretend they'll make it.

"I have a feeling. I should be sharing more of my sci fi novels than I have been," Winter comments. He hadn't known she was so interested in space or the stars; he'd just hoped for something beautiful to show her.

He nudges the flimsy cardboard box over to her. There's a variety of snacks in there, mostly of the sweet or salty variety, but there's a few little packets of the sour candies she seems to enjoy, too.

"I wouldn't complain," she says to that, though the thought of reading for pleasure is still a little foreign. She's familiar with fiction - but even the pieces that had been enjoyable had been part of her training, paths to cultural competencies that would make her a better infiltrator.

She sits up a little straighter, inspecting the box before pulling out one of the little packets of candy.

"I didn't know they even had these on board."

"They don't. I was saving them for a special occasion," Winter admits with a little shrug. "Thought this might count." Which means he'd had them in his bag all this time.

He leans over once she's made her choice to pluck out one of the (only slightly stale) chocolate chip cookies he'd filched from lunch. He is pretty reliably drawn to the sweet stuff.

It's warming in a way that teeters close to that earlier bout of tears, but she manages to keep from sniffling this time. "It does," she says. And then, "You're very thoughtful."

For a moment, she wants to ask if his Yelena liked sour candies, too, if she enjoyed stargazing and joking about alien adventures. But she isn't sure she wants the comparison, and quashes the urge. As long as she doesn't know for certain, she can pretend this is just theirs.

Winter is proud of himself for coming up with something nice for her, and carries that feeling for the final week of the cruise. He made her happy. He maybe even suggests star-gazing again before it's time to pack up.

But then land is visible from the railing, which Winter leans on to see, Yelena by his side. "Looks like we're going to have to work on our speeches for the wizards here soon," he comments quietly to her. It's almost time to find them. He's actually kind of nervous. A lot of their plan depends on Strange actually listening to them.

She leans against the rail next to him, and bumps his shoulder gently with her own, and leaves it there rather than pulling away. There isn't much she can add to his story - she's never seen this other world he'd spent so much time in, never met this other version of herself, or any of the people from the future who gave him the information he's operating on - but she can at least offer support.

"If they argue too much, we can hit them with my Widow's Bite and run," she suggests - not entirely seriously, because she's not entirely certain people with magic won't be immune to electrocution. Still, it helps to have a backup plan in place, even if it's a terrible one.

"Only if we can steal the time stone before we do," Winter says with a wry little smile. "Though I guess Wanda destroying the mind stone could be enough on its own." He'd much rather have two stones destroyed than one, though. The time stone being a giant fucking "undo" seems pretty important to get rid of. "I'd plan a full infiltration if I knew how to get around magic."

"I am not any help there," Yelena admits. "A magic heist sounds cool, but I only know magic exists because of the things you said. And Thor, on the news."

She pauses a moment, then offers more seriously, "If you tell me more about the wizard we're going to see, though, I can help with how to approach him."

Winter considers a moment, watching land get ever so slowly closer. "Smart. Pushy. Had nerve damage in his hands that he compensated for with his magic. Calls himself a. A doctor. Not sure if that meant he was actually a doctor or if it was just a stupid name like Spider-Man or Captain America."

He frowns. "When he was in Gloucester, briefly, at the start. He was always trying to get me to remember more."

"Because he thought it would help you?" she asks, and there's a bit of an edge to her voice. She doesn't have the terror of doctors that he does - but she also doesn't think much of their ethics. "Or because he did not like you not giving him the attention he thought he deserved?"

Early release - for worthallthis

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