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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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?"

"I don't know, honestly," Winter admits. "I don't think I knew him, really. In his time. We'd maybe met in passing, during a big fight. But he wasn't there long enough for me to really find out more." He considers his own metal hand a moment, then adds, "I was trying to teach him self-defense he could do with the nerve damage, though. Tricky."

Yelena's fingers drum absently on the rail, mapping out the beat of the last song she'd listened to.

"If he is a real doctor," she says, then pauses a moment before continuing. "If he is a real medical doctor, it will be easier to find him. There are registries, for the state. We can look there first."

"I do have the street he's supposed to be on," Winter says with half a smile. "If we don't find him there, though, we'll try hunting the old-fashioned way." The joys of having Steve from the future feeding him intel.

(He does miss Steve, but... this Steve isn't his Steve, either. And Yelena comes first, by a lot. Yelena needs him more than Steve.)

She blinks at him, then laughs quietly. "Having intel from the future takes all the fun out of things," she says, nose scrunching.

Searching for a single person in a very large city: not actually all that fun.

"Do you think you can convince him he will not be able to protect the stone on his own? He sounds very arrogant."

Which, doctor. Not exactly a surprise.

"Not as bad as he could be. Or he wasn't, from the time he came from," Winter allows. "Could be worse now, in the past." Which sounds so nuts. It always sounds nuts.

He pushes up from the railing. "Wanna go get our stuff? I'm ready to be off this boat." It's been a nice cruise, but he's antsy. With their first goal so close, he wants to get moving. See if any of his plans are even feasible.

A part of her doesn't. Once they step off the ship, she'll be stepping fully into a world she doesn't understand - gods and monsters and magic, not politics and sabotage and bullets. But she owes him for freeing her, and even if she were to turn tail and run, the gods and monsters and magic would still be there.

At least this way, she might have a hand in influencing things.

And so she flashes him a bright grin, and rocks back from the railing, turning to head below with a little skip.

"If we get out with the main group of passengers, we'll be harder to notice," she notes.

At least these gods and monsters and magic are killable. After Gloucester, anything seems a little more doable, in the end. A little.

Doesn't mean he's not still nervous, too, though.

He follows after her. Most of his meager things are already packed up, anyway, it's mostly just doing a final sweep and wiping their prints off the solid surfaces, which both of them are practiced enough at doing that it doesn't take long.

As she suggested, they drift off with the bulk of the other passengers, but drift away before they have to go through customs with its scanners and actual metal detectors. There's a hidden length of fence to scale behind the building that Winter remembers from some mission or another, and a camera that's easy enough to avoid, and then they're loose in the streets of New York.

In spite of everything, once they make it past the fence and the cameras, and vanish into New York proper, there's a slight bounce in her step. She's never actually been to New York, not even on a mission - other parts of America, certainly, but not here. And while there are certainly things she'd rather avoid, it's not like they could accidentally stumble into Avengers Tower.

It's not like Natasha would even recognize her if they did.

"Do you want to find this doctor right away?" she asks. "Or do we have time to get lunch?"

"The only timeline we have is to be in Sokovia before the Avengers, in six months," Winter says. "I think that leaves us time for lunch."

He looks around thoughtfully. Nothing is particularly familiar, despite having apparently grown up here. It's been almost a century since then. And he's pretty sure he didn't stay for food for the missions he'd been here on. So he says, "I don't know where is good to eat. But we can experiment. What kind of food do you want today?"

She doesn't even need to think about the answer.

"Pizza," she says, flashing him a quick grin. "I have not had it in ages, and I've never had real New York pizza."

"I'm not sure I have, either," Winter admits, and starts scanning the streets for a pizza place. It's much... busier than the fractured memories he has of the city, it's a little disorienting. "When did pizza even come to New York to become real New York pizza?"

Yelena considers the question for a moment, then rolls one shoulder in a little shrug. "I have no idea. Probably it was a marketing thing, and then the idea just spread until it took on a life of its own. Still, it sounds like fun, doesn't it?"

"I'll find us one," he promises, still scanning the signs lining the street.

Then he pauses, remembers how the world actually works these days, and pulls out his phone to search for the nearest one. There are... in fact several. He turns at the next corner towards the closest.

She's content enough to follow along in his wake, bright tourist curiosity masking her careful analysis of the path they take, the people they pass. There are enough other people on the street to serve as camouflage, which is a blessing and a curse both.

They don't stand out, but if anyone did pick up their trail, or somehow guess where they might be going, they'd be difficult to spot.

Winter hasn't spent a lot of time in crowds since his return to this universe. It's... not as bad as he thought it might be, really. He navigates the people more easily than he'd imagined, finds the right side of the street so they're not going against the force of the crowd, and then finally ducks into an awning-covered doorway with a small hand-painted sign reading, "New York's First And Best Pizza!"

Winter sincerely doubts it's the first, but it does have a feel about it that he finds comfortingly familiar amidst the old Bucky memories.

For all that she's happy to play tourist, Yelena's first concern as they duck into the restaurant is to scan the small dining room - old tables with checkered plastic tablecloths, meant to give people a place to sit and eat a slice of pizza if they're not inclined to eat and walk - and the open kitchen, noting the exits and any source of possible threat.

It doesn't take her long, and her only comment is, "It smells delicious."

Winter does the same, but then he steps inside, and relaxes a little. There are places he can sit and see the whole open plan of the place. Two exits, easily covered. And it does smell good. He moves right up to the counter. "What toppings do you want?" he asks her, looking up at the menu. There are a lot of toppings.

Anchovies and pineapple are going to be hard nos, but he could go for just about anything else, he thinks.

"Peppers, sausage, and bacon, definitely," she says, gaze scanning over the menu. So many options. "I'm good with mushrooms, too, if you like them."

And she would be happy to load up with plenty more toppings, but those make a good starting point.

Early release - for worthallthis

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