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 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.

That seems to be enough to be going on with, for now. Winter has never had peppers on his pizza before but he's willing to experiment to an extent. He does order extra cheese, as well, then lets Yelena pick a table, knowing she'll pick one with good sight lines, while he gets their drinks from the fountain along the side wall.

Then it's just settling in for their pie to bake. "Do you want to look for a hotel next? Or go straight to the wizard?" He's not terribly worried about opsec. One, this is New York, people talk about weird shit in New York, and two, the only people who might want to stop them are on the other side of the galaxy right now.

She ponders the question for a moment, swirling her straw in her cup and listening to the faint clatter of ice against waxed cardboard.

"Hotel first," she decides. "It will give us a slightly stronger position to work from, establishing a base first, and not showing up on his doorstep with our luggage and flyaway hair."

Winter pauses with a little frown, puts his hand to his hair. It is not flying up at all (right now, anyway). "My hair is fine," he complains at her, mostly not seriously. "But it's a solid plan. We'll do that." He's perfectly happy to take a back seat to Yelena's ideas when she has them, especially when they're good ones. He might have gone straight there, just focused on getting the mission done, but she has a point.

Even if his hair is fine, thank you.

Her nose crinkles a little, even as she struggles - and fails - to keep the corners of her mouth from turning up in a little grin.

"Your hair looks very nice," she allows.

"It regularly tries to eat combs," Winter confides, which she has probably seen on the cruise ship, or at least overheard as he curses at it quietly from various bathrooms. "I work hard to keep it looking nice enough to be out in public."

She's definitely heard the cursing, and seen the bedhead. The corners of her mouth still twitch in amusement at the mental image of his hair literally devouring a comb.

"Maybe we should find you a better detangler," she suggests, only halfway teasing. It would be a nice, simple project, something more normal than trying to save the world.

"Find me what?" Winter... has not really used a lot of fancy hair things. He's never heard of detangler. His hard work to keep his hair tamed largely consists of the combing and lots of hair ties. She's probably seen him rocking a braid once or twice, too.

She blinks at him briefly, then huffs a quiet laugh. "It's something you put in your hair to make it easier to comb out and keep from snarling. We will find you some, and then it will not be quite as big a struggle to keep it nice."

"You might need to show me how modern people actually do their hair," he says, a little sheepishly. "I know about shampoo. But if there's more than that, I haven't ever tried it." And nobody had really thought about it, back in Gloucester. His hair hadn't been a total disaster all the time, so people must've just assumed he knew what he was doing.

"There is a lot more," she says, and gives him a quick little grin. "But we'll start you off easy. I don't want to overwhelm you."

The bell over the door jingles, and she looks up, watching as a small gaggle of teenagers flood into the shop, bickering amiably over the best pizza slices to pick.

"I appreciate that," he tells her gravely. This might be a joke, too. It's hard to tell. (It is. He's fairly sure he won't be overwhelmed by hair stuff. He's gotten a lot better about small choices in the past few years of freedom.)

They're distracted from both conversation and teenage girls by the arrival of their pizza, which Winter is glad for. He's hungry. Getting used to his serum's appetite had been a big problem in his first month or two back in this universe.

She may not have a supersoldier's appetite, but Yelena's hungry enough herself that the pizza does thoroughly distract her. She says nothing except to ask him to pass the chili flakes for a good fifteen minutes.

Eventually, though, the pizza's gone, and they've had a little time to relax. It's time to move on. "We should find a hotel next," she says. "More anonymous than a private rental, I think."

"I'm better at hotels anyway. Motels, even, but I don't know if they even have those in New York." They probably do, he just has a hard time imagining it somehow, putting the familiar slightly-scuzzy feel of a motel together with this city.

As they head out of the pizza shop, he has his phone out again, checking for lodging nearby. "Do you want your own room this time?" he asks. After the weeks of the cruise keeping them in such close quarters, he wouldn't blame her.

"Probably," Yelena says. "But we might need to fight a family of cockroaches for a bed, and I refuse to engage in insect warfare unless there is really no other choice."

The slight quirk of her smile suggests she's mostly joking, but only mostly. She can endure a lot, but roaches are just disgusting.

She's quiet for a moment, considering the question. A part of her does want a chance at privacy, but--

"I'm fine with sharing. We have a very long road ahead of us, enacting your plan, and there's no way to know how long it will take us to convince the wizard. And besides, your snoring isn't that bad. Spending the extra money for two rooms would be a waste."

Winter looks affronted. It's about half in jest, and the other half exaggerated for the joke. "I do not snore," he sniffs at her. "Rogers would have said." He thinks. He's pretty sure. Rogers was biased as all hell, but he also liked to tease.

Hell, Yelena would probably have said. He'd shared her room more than once, too.

She grins, broad and bright, and reaches over cautiously to pat his arm, still testing the waters of what is allowed, and what they're both comfortable with. "Don't worry," she says. "It's kind of cute."

He lets her. He heaves a big, theatrical sigh at it, even, showing he's taking it in the spirit it's meant. "Well. As long as it's cute. Come on, there's a hotel down that block with vacancies that doesn't look too fancy." He doesn't think either of them wants to deal with more fancy after the cruise.

They get checked in, a single room with two double beds, even get their meager luggage tucked out of the way. Winter peers out of the heavy curtains in the direction of where he's been told Doctor Strange lives. He's... nervous, to be honest. But they should probably get moving.

She takes a little time to freshen up, to wash her face and redo her hair, fixing it up in a crown of braids that's flattering and, far more important, will keep it out of her face if it comes to a fight.

Hopefully, it won't. She has no idea whatsoever about how to fight a wizard.

She finds him at the window when she comes back out, and watches him for a moment, head canting slightly.

"Having second thoughts?"

Early release - for worthallthis

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