Early release - for worthallthis

[musicdied]

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.

Comments

[musicdied]

She reviews his notes. She reviews the books and movies, too, approaching both like she's expecting to be tested, and anticipates pain as a consequence for failure. His Yelena had lost that by the time she'd met him, had relearned how to consume fiction for pleasure rather than cultural context.

The shops, at least, are familiar, almost easy - there's an ocean of choices, yes, but she can approach it like a mission, building an identity. She has the parameters for this: clothing that will make her look harmless, that she can alter to suit her needs. Things easily rumpled, so it looks like she's had them a while. The choices aren't the ones his Yelena would have made, but there are similarities enough - she'd branched out, developed her own taste, but had never quite abandoned that practical streak.

The necklace that vanishes into her pocket when the clerk's eyes are turned is a piece of pure frivolity - and a testing of limits.

She finalizes her purchases, and ducks out to meet him, carefully scanning the street beneath the guise of checking her phone. They haven't seen any sign of pursuit yet, but that's no excuse to get sloppy.

[worthallthis]

Winter offers her the paper cup of coffee as she approaches. It's whatever her favorite had been, back in Gloucester. "Trade you for the clothes bags," he offers. He can just tuck the handles onto his metal elbow and ignore them, until they head back to the car. The weight will be negligible. "Find anything good?"

[musicdied]

She switches the bags to one hand, then holds them out for him, taking the offered cup in the other. She sniffs at it, expression showing more curiosity than wariness, followed by a hint of surprise at the sweetness of the scent. It's not off-putting - just the opposite - merely unexpected.

"A few things," she says. "And a sweater for you. It will bring out your eyes. And it gets cold on the water at night sometimes."

[worthallthis]

"Thanks. I like sweaters." Which she can probably tell, since he almost always has at least one heavy layer like that on him. Even now, he prefers to have more clothes than less. "I'll add it to the luggage before we get going again. Also got lunch. Sort of. It's a pretty measly lunch." But it will be tasty. He gives the little paper bag of pastries an inviting shake.

[musicdied]

Her gaze follows the motion of the bag, and she cracks a small smile - she hadn't missed, over the past several days, that he has a bit of a sweet tooth.

"There's a park just down the street," she suggests. She'd noticed it more for the good sight lines than as a place to relax, but it had a couple of small tables, and had been mostly empty when they passed it by. "That would be a nice place to eat before we move on, yes?"

[worthallthis]

More than a bit of a sweet tooth, really, especially now that he has the serum back and craves calories. He doesn't have to think about what he eats, for the most part. He can just eat.

"That's a good plan. Also a nice dose of real plantlife before we're stuck on a boat for a week," he adds, knowing that the cruise ship is going to have potted trees and decorative flowers and not much else.

[musicdied]

"Maybe someone will have a dog we can pet." It's playful, but there's a hint of genuine joy at the thought. She likes dogs. Her father had promised her one once, before--

She shies away from the memory, turning with a slight skip in her step towards the park.

[worthallthis]

"Maybe. I don't have a lot of experience with dogs," Winter admits, but he doesn't sound averse, either. He follows along amiably, letting Yelena take the lead. "Alley cats, sometimes. Never as a pet."

[musicdied]

"I've never had a pet," Yelena says. "But I learned how to handle dogs for an assignment. They're nice. And much less likely to bite than people."

There are no dogs in the park. But the sun's shifted enough that they can find a place to sit in the shade, with good sightlines and a pair of small songbirds playing chase through the trees.

[worthallthis]

"Well. Cats might bite if you aren't careful," Winter supposes as he settles on the bench, bag of clothes beside him, and offers Yelena one of the pastries he'd bought. Chocolate-filled, of course, and plenty big for what they are. "I don't remember if I ever got bit by one but I know to be cautious. What assignment of yours involved dogs?"

[musicdied]

She beams at him as she takes the offered pastry, with a heartfelt, "Thank you."

She may not, in either incarnation he's met, nearly match his sweet tooth, but that doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy a treat.

It's a moment before she answers his question, because sampling the pastry takes precedence. She doesn't get this sort of luxury often, and so she's going to appreciate it while she can.

"I was sent to get close to a low-level embassy functionary, in order to get access to their system to pull some intel," she says. "He had a taste for blondes, a history of sleeping with the help, and loved his dogs more than life itself. I would be happy to have pushed him of a building, but the dogs were very nice. And smelled much better."

[worthallthis]

Better get used to it, Yelena. Winter is likely to try to spoil you, the way Meredith and Kate and the other Yelena did their level best to spoil him with nice things. His methods just mostly involve food, at this point, because that's what he knows best.

"Sounds like an ass," is what he says. "Did you get to spend a lot of time with the dogs instead of him?"

[musicdied]

Yelena nods, both in agreement and in confirmation. "The cover was caring for the dogs. I was just sad that when the mission was over, I couldn't take them with me."

[worthallthis]

"Well. Maybe later," he offers, "once we've dealt with the genocidal alien and the Red Room. You can get a dog or two. There's nobody to say you can't." She's free. The only thing stopping her right now is the mission he's offered her, which frankly he thinks she would do even without him once freed regardless.

Hell, even if she wanted to get a dog right this minute, he'd find a way to make it work.

[musicdied]

Her head jerks up, and for a moment, she just looks at him, blank-eyed and uncertain.

"No," she says slowly, and there's a hint of trepidation in her voice - she hasn't fully considered what it really means to be free, not yet. Not in more than bits and pieces, immediate choices interspersed between the things she can treat as mission prep, as building an identity. "I suppose there isn't."

A brief pause, and then she huffs a brittle sort of laugh. "I will hold you to that. Dogs. Big fluffy ones, that look scary but really will just love you to death."

[worthallthis]

"Whatever you want," Winter promises easily. He's sure he won't have anything in him to tell her no to anything. Especially if in this hypothetical future with dogs in it, she's still sticking with him. "You have to name them, though," he adds. "I am terrible at naming things."

[musicdied]

"I don't know if I am any better at naming things," Yelena admits, nose crinkling slightly in amusement that, while muted, is a little less fragile than her laughter had been.

"But I can try. They will maybe just have to live with having people names. Or being all flowers."

There is, in fact, a fluffy creamsicle cat that's probably still visiting the backyard of the house on Lark Street, hoping to be fed by the woman who had insisted on calling him "Daisy".

[worthallthis]

Yeah, Winter might be thinking about that cat, now. Though he does know that cat is getting fed elsewhere, too. They didn't leave him to starve.

"I let a teenage girl name me," Winter admits with half a smile. "I was going around calling myself the asset. And the Winter Soldier. This kid shortened it to Winter, and it just. Became my name."

[musicdied]

"It's a good name," Yelena says. "I like it. It's like..."

She pauses, fingertips of her free hand drumming idly against her thigh as she tries to put it into words.

"Like taking something they tried to use to make you theirs, and making it yours instead."

It feels a little like what her sister's doing, far away on the other side of the ocean, making the title the Red Room forced on her into a symbol of heroism, something that promises little girls they can be more than what other people would make of them. She turns that thought over in her head for a few seconds, then pushes it firmly out of her mind.

[worthallthis]

Winter tilts his head thoughtfully. "Never actually considered it like that. Kinda like it." It's an interesting angle. Maybe Steve would have appreciated that. "Mostly I think, at the time. I wanted to be me, not the. The person I was before. Especially since at the time I hardly remembered what that person was like. It was very important that I be myself."

It still is, frankly, but he's secure enough in who that is now to not be prickly about it.

"Also I think HYDRA maybe did something so that when I heard my old name. It freaked me out," Winter adds. He's pretty much over that now, though.

[musicdied]

"Operant conditioning," Yelena says, nodding slightly, as though it makes perfect sense. Which it does - it's an effective enough tool, if you don't care for the well-being of your subject.

"I think I will enjoy the blowing up HYDRA parts of your plans almost as much as the blowing up the Red Room parts."

[worthallthis]

Honestly, Winter never cared to learn the name of whatever was done to him. So he just shrugs at that, and then gives her knee a gentle little pat for the sentiment. "I know I'll enjoy it. But then, I am more fond of explosions than I probably should be."

He has a bite of his pastry, finally, and then suggests, "You can be whoever you want, too, now."

[musicdied]

"The last time I wanted to be someone, I was still a little girl," Yelena says. It isn't, strictly speaking, true - but those bright childhood daydreams hurt far less than her later imaginings, that in some other life she might be someone who was loved, and safe, and worth saving.

That parts of that are true, or at least were true of some future self who might now never come to be, is its own kind of pain.

"I think probably the dinosaur parts of who I wanted to be are impossible, and I'm a little old to be a prima ballerina."

[worthallthis]

"The dinosaur parts?" Winter asks, squinting over at her. "Digging them up or being one?"

Because if she actually likes dinosaur bones, too, they're gonna have to hit a museum once they're stateside again. For sure.

[musicdied]

"Being one," Yelena replies. She rolls one hand in a complicated little shrug. "Paleontology is very cool, but when you're six years old, growing up to be a velociraptor sounds even cooler."

In truth, even at twenty-six years old, if offered the choice between being a paleontologist and being a velociraptor, she'd choose the velociraptor every time.