[Leipzig AU] to do something good

[from_the_outside]

"I know what you're doing, you know," Sharon says, as she and Nat stroll over a bridge, making their way toward the Landungsbrücken. Evening is settling, cool and blue, over Hamburg, and they'd spent the day shopping and gossiping, then decided on a walk by the piers before finding a spot for dinner.

It's a blatant attempt by Nat to cheer her up, and it had worked a treat. She'd needed to get out of her apartment, out of the Center, out of Berlin for a little while; to stop stewing over being barred from Wakanda and trying to manage Ross's annoyance with Steve and Stark. 

She feels better than she has since before they first got the news about Lagos, and, judging by Nat's smiles and the mischievous sparkle in her eyes, she thinks her friend is feeling the same way. Which is why Sharon nudges her leg with a shopping bag and grins. "And I love you for it. This was a great idea."

Comments

[marvel_npc]

"Wouldn't be able to make it," she says, without hesitation. "But Sam'll be here in about an hour."

[marvel_npc]

Sharp interest flashes through her eyes. "Oh? Who else did she call?"

[marvel_npc]

Natasha meets her eyes.

"I think that's for her to say, if she wants, isn't it?"

[marvel_npc]

"Oh, fine." She waves her hand, fondly indulgent. "Keep your secrets. Go talk to your friend. I will find more vodka; I'm sure Yelena has finished that bottle."

[marvel_npc]

"Good idea. We're going to need it."

Natasha turns and goes back outside to find Sharon.

[miss_american_pie]

* * * * *

She's barely sat down before the glass door swings open and Alexei comes through. For a moment, they stare at each other.

"I came in here because I didn't want to talk," Yelena points out. Reasonably, she thinks, all things considered.

[marvel_npc]

He looks down at her, a small smile on his face. So stubborn, his little girl.

"Okay." Slowly, he moves to her side and lowers himself to the bed. The uniform creaks a little, but nothing gives way. "We, uh... we just sit."

[miss_american_pie]

She watches as he crosses the room and settles on the bed, a hard set to her jaw. There isn't a chance in hell he'll actually obey his own words and keep quiet, but she doesn't throw him out, just casts a grudging glance at her hands, dangling between her knees.

(He had been the best dad. The tallest, the strongest. She still remembers the way he would pick her up and spin her around when he got home from work, or how he would chase after her, making monster noises, until she screamed with laughter.)

[marvel_npc]

It's too quiet in this room. Everything unsaid seems to hang between them. He doesn't like the quiet.

(Even in prison it had never been quiet. Maybe especially in prison.)

Alexei clears his throat, loudly, and glances at Yelena to see her reaction.

[miss_american_pie]

She lifts a hand, warning.

"Don't even think about it."

[marvel_npc]

"How about I tell you a story?" he suggests, hopefully. "Can I do that?"

[miss_american_pie]

"Why would I want to hear a story?" she asks, then realizes she's fallen into his trap.

"прекрати говорить со мной – why did you come in here? No, wait, don't answer that. I don't want to talk."

[marvel_npc]

"No, no, you don't have to talk," he assures her. "Just listen."

Alexei draws a deep breath and calls up the memory. "So there I am, ice fishing with my father. Now, it's very cold day in this little ice shed. Cold even for Russia, you know?"

He glances over at her and nods to the bottle she's brought with her.

“'Keep the vodka by the fire,' my father would say to me."

[miss_american_pie]

He doesn't listen, and so she reaches for the vodka, taking a deep swallow and letting it burn all the way down as he begins talking about – what, ice fishing? What does that have to do with anything?

"Please stop talking," she interrupts, shaking her head over and over. "Please, no. I don't want to talk."

[marvel_npc]

Probably he should leave, but it is important that she know, that she understand.

"Please, wait. Please. Please," he insists. "There is a reason why I am telling you this, okay? Trust me."

She sets the bottle aside - out of his reach, which is rude, but he will let it pass, caught up in the story that he is telling.

"I am reaching for fish," Alexei tells her, gesturing with his hands. "Oh! I lose balance. Ah! Splash! My hands go in the river." He looks at her as she scoffs.

"In this weather, frostbite sets in quick. So my father, he go toilet on my hands."

[miss_american_pie]

She exhales and keeps her gaze straight ahead, hoping he'll just get it over with quickly –

But then he says that and her whole body cringes, along with her soul. "Oh my God," she groans, disbelieving, and puts her face in her hands. "Oh my God."

[marvel_npc]

Yes - she is understanding! His voice rises, both with the peak of the story and with the thrill of connection.

"Urine is 35 degrees Celsius," he informs her, triumphantly. "Staves off the frostbite!"

[miss_american_pie]

She curses at length, silent and vicious in her head, and rips her hands away to glare at him. "How is this relevant?" she demands.

He can't possibly be this much of an idiot, can he?

[marvel_npc]

Alexei stares at her.

"You know. Fathers."

[miss_american_pie]

The thing she hates the most is that she actually understands the point of this stupid story. It's that fathers will do anything for their children, isn't it? To keep them warm and safe. "No," she mutters, looking away, rejecting it.

Rejecting him, just like he'd rejected her. "No." She breathes, then rounds on him. "You have done nothing but tell me how bored you were."

Her eyes are locked on his and she punctuates each word with a tight gesture, trying to hammer it into his brain. "I was the chore, the job you didn't want to do. But to me?"

(Singing in the car, laughing after dinner, chasing fireflies, falling asleep on his chest as he read to her – )

"To me, you were everything."

[marvel_npc]

He stares at her in silence.

Yes, he had hated Ohio, the house too large for their little family, having to hide his true self and who he was every minute of every day, pretending to be American with every breath --

-- but he had never hated her, or Natasha, or--

Only when she turns her face away does he realize he's been silent too long.

[miss_american_pie]

She hates that he proves her right. "Exactly," she says, sitting back and looking sightlessly into the room over her folded hands. "You don't care. You don't care."

Even now, after they'd hauled him out of the hell that is the Seventh Circle, he'd pulled Natasha aside, not to ask about either of them, but to keep pushing his stupid story about Captain America. Which isn't even possible!

The muscles in her jaw set. "The only thing you care about are your stupid glory days as the Crimson Dynamo, and no one wants to hear about it."

[marvel_npc]

It hurts to think that she doesn't care about something so important to him. About him.

"It's the Red Guardian," he whispers, barely audible.

[miss_american_pie]

That's it.

"Get out," she orders, and glares at him, her voice lifting to a yell. "Get out!"

[marvel_npc]

He gets heavily up from the bed and starts across the room. Rarely has he felt so defeated, not in any fight, ever. Surely there must be something he can do, or say, to make her understand.

Alexei makes it two steps before he stops, inspiration rising from the murky spaces of memory.

"I can't remember, if I cried," he starts, rubbing the bridge of his nose to help himself recall. How did it go, again?

"When I read about his widowed bride!" He finds the melody and turns back to face her as he sings. He's not foolish enough to try to sit by her, not now, so he crosses over to the sofa instead and drops down on it as he keeps going.

"Something touched me deep inside, the day... the music... died."

Yelena's watching him. Alexei smiles at her. Softly, he continues, "And they were singing--"