This Side of Paradise

By Ninazadzia

"Are you lonely?
Passion is crashing as we speak
You seem so lonely
You're the ground my feet won't reach
So if you're lonely
Darling, you're glowing
If you're lonely, come be lonely with me…"

~ This Side of Paradise, Coyote Theory

Four Months Earlier

Diomede Islands – Russia

"Sergeant," John Walker called, "over here."

Bucky had repeatedly told him not to bother with formalities—as far as he was concerned, his first name 'James' was stiff enough—but ever since joining the Thunderbolts, it looked like Walker was trying to turn over a new leaf, at least with him.

Still—Bucky couldn't help but roll his eyes. He turned to Yelena and Antonia, going, "I'll be right back," before he turned on his heel and walked in the direction of the ice shed.

Yelena's eyes remained fixated on him, square on the back of his head. This didn't go unnoticed by Antonia.

"It's rude to stare, Yelena," she mused.

Yelena snapped back to reality, shaking her head. Under her breath, she switched to Russian. "Be honest with me—did I do something to get on Barnes' bad side?"

Antonia, to her credit, dropped her voice as well, and also switched to Russian. "Not that I've noticed. Why?"

Yelena shrugged. She turned back around really quickly, and checked to make sure that whatever Walker and Barnes were scoping out still held their full attention, before she turned back to Antonia, and switched to English. "He's acting strange."

Antonia furrowed her brow—as much as her skin would allow, at least, given the scarred tissue. "How so?"

Yelena had to think for a moment.

Truthfully, it wasn't any one thing—hence her wondering if she was reading too much into it. It were the little things, here and there, that she'd noticed those last few weeks. He never seemed to sit next to her on the jet, or at dinner. He was at the point where he was cracking jokes with Alexei and Walker and even Antonia, who was about as no-nonsense as he was—but Yelena, the self-proclaimed comedic relief of the team, had yet to so much as get a snicker out of him. And she refused to believe that he didn't find her funny.

And then there were moment where she thought she caught him looking at her—whether it was a passing glance or a long, lingering stare, she couldn't say—only for him to quickly avert his gaze. It was as if something as simple as making eye-contact with her was painful.

Still, she decided to bite her tongue. "No specific reason. Just wanted another woman's opinion."

Antonia cracked a small smile. "I've spent my whole adult life operating as Taskmaster. I don't know if my opinion qualifies."

"Yes, see, exactly my point." She playfully smacked Olga's shoulder. "You get it—from one mentally-altered assassin to another."

Yelena didn't need to elaborate more—they both knew what she meant. That feeling, even under the spell of chemical subjugation and mental manipulation, as if you constantly had to watch your six, and notice even the slightest shifts in energy or body language—as if any given moment, you would be made, and you had to brace for impact.

Antonia understood it. And on some level, Yelena knew that Barnes did, too.

"Yelena."

This time, Barnes was calling for her. "Speak of the devil," Antonia muttered under her breath, shooing Yelena away.

She took a deep breath as she walked up to the shed. From a distance, she couldn't quite make out what Barnes and Walker were crowded around. As she got closer, and caught a glimpse of the black uniform and dark, raven hair, her stomach dropped.

She didn't recognize her at first, the body in front of her. It would take them a few weeks to identify the Widow—and even then, they would only be able to trace her identity as far back as 1996, when she was first brought to the Red Room.

"Anybody you know?" James asked.

Yelena swallowed the lump in her throat, and shook her head. They were deep into the Arctic circle, tracking Vibranium—and as a result, the body had been semi-preserved, frozen as if she was in cryotherapy. As if all they needed to do was thaw her out, and she would be good as new, like Steve Rogers was when they found him.

"Judging by the fact that we didn't see any footprints"—Walker motioned to the snow leading up to the cabin—"if I had to hazard a guess, she's probably been here for a while."

Yelena's eyes flitted to the palm of her hand—it was balled into a fist, as if she was clutching on to something.

She pointed to it. "Is it just me, or does it look like she's holding something?"

James gingerly stepped forward, and cracked her fingers, releasing a piece of parchment paper from the Widow's fist. On it were a few words, written in Russian.

"You might want to look at this," James said, handing it to her. His hands barely brushed against hers—almost as if he was going out of his way for them to not make physical contact. "My Russian is rusty these days."

Yelena scanned the sheet of paper. Whoever the Widow was, at the very least, Yelena could exhale a sigh of relief—because judging by the note, she was one of the Widows that had been freed by the antidote, sometime during the Blip.

To whoever finds me—

The rumors were true, but you won't find Vibranium here. Not anymore. Consider this my penance, for all of the pain that I've caused.

Fuck you, Putin. Glory to the Avengers, and glory to Natasha Romanoff.

Yelena had to fight back tears. She looked down from the paper, and then quickly shoved in back in Barnes' direction, forcing him to take it. "This is a dead-end. There's no Vibranium here—we need to move."

As they walked back towards the jet, James was the only member of the Thunderbolts who made eye contact with her. He saw the tears welling in her eyes, the way she reacted after reading the note. And while his Russian may have been rusty, he still had a decent working vocabulary of the language, and knew the alphabet—he was able to read the note just fine. And he, of all people, could understand why Yelena was upset.

It looked like he wanted to say something to her, as they stepped onto the jet. And there was a moment, right as they were gathering their things and packing it in for the day, when they were somewhat alone together.

That was his opening. It would have been so easy for him to say something, anything, just to show that he could relate, and that he cared.

But he remembered the flashes of blonde hair he'd seen in his dream the night before, and Strange's warning. And while he knew it wasn't valid—that what happened in his universe didn't necessarily dictate what happened somewhere else—instead of taking a few minutes to talk to her, he turned his back on Yelena, and walked towards the jet.

Unnamed Remote Island, Indian Ocean

Day Eight

Fortunately for James—and unfortunately for her—Yelena didn't have a good poker face.

They were sucking on fish bones after scarfing down an assortment of tropical fish Bucky had caught that afternoon. They'd barely exchanged five words since he'd come back with food—partially out of hunger, but as time wore on and as they finished their meals, there was no denying it. Yelena was never quiet for this long.

He set aside the last of his fish bones, finally mustering up the nerve. "Listen. I wanted to apologize, for earlier…"

Yelena exhaled. "No, James," she said, turning to face him, "you really don't have to."

He shook his head. "But I want to…" he trailed off, noticing the look on her face. "…Unless there's something you want to say first?"

She thought a moment before replying. She thought about that moment she caught him looking at her, on the Diomede Islands, after they found that Widow.

"I just wish you would've told me sooner," she said gently. Her blue eyes glimmered as the fire danced in front of them. "I mean, I've spent the last five months thinking I was crazy, that I said or did something wrong—"

His stomach dropped. She was right, and he knew it. "Jesus. I'm so sorry."

"—I get it, James, I don't blame you." She turned to face him. He couldn't tell if her eyes were glassy from the sting of the smoke, or because she was about to cry. "I just wish I would've known. I mean you were so friendly to me, that first time we met up, and then it just changed—I could tell something was different. I just didn't know what."

He nodded. "I get that. For what it's worth, I debated telling you, at first."

"Really?" she raised an eyebrow. "Why didn't you?"

"Well, for one, Strange himself wasn't entirely convinced—said that the intel he had was that 'Captain America' and 'Black Widow' had a child together in an alternate timeline, and the only reason he was talking to me instead of Steve was because his source explicitly told him I was that universe's Cap."

Yelena nodded. "That and it's not like Steve Rogers is really around these days."

"That too," Bucky conceded. "But we also didn't know which Widow it was—I mean I figured it was probably you, because I'd already had a couple of dreams at that point, but part of me wondered if it would turn out to be Nat or someone else."

The second the words escaped him, he wanted to put his foot in his mouth.

"Were you hoping it was going to be Natasha?" Yelena asked.

Bucky didn't respond immediately, and that was all the confirmation Yelena needed.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me, James."

"I—I don't mean it like that, it's just, given that I'm technically your superior—"

"—what? You're worried you'll be Me-Too'd by Multiversal proxy?" Yelena couldn't help but laugh. She couldn't tell if she was amused, pissed off, or a combination of the two. "Let me tell you something, James, because apparently it wasn't obvious enough—Natasha was not the biggest fan of yours."

"Believe me, I'm well aware of that—"

"—And from what I've heard, apparently, the feeling was mutual. So, that—" she wagged a finger at him, laughing hollowly. "That's just fucking great. You didn't even like my sister that much…"

"…c'mon, Yelena—"

"…but apparently, she'd still be a preferable Baby Mama to me."

Now it was his turn to wag a finger in Yelena's face. "Okay, first of all—for the record, you said it yourself—Baby Mama by Multiversal Proxy."

She shrugged. "Fine, whatever."

"—and second of all, I know Nat wasn't particularly fond of me, but I have no idea what you're talking about. I didn't dislike her at all."

"Really?"

He shook his head. "Nope."

"That's interesting." She threw the last of her fishbones in the fire. "Because the way Nat told it—you were quite the ladies' man, back in the day. Said she could always count on you to flirt left and right with every woman on the team, except for her."

He couldn't help but laugh. "That was her take on it, huh?" he shook his head. "No—see, we worked together twice, maybe three times before she passed away. And, sure, when I wasn't actively under Hydra's mind control, I tried to get to know my teammates—but nothing flirty. Not with anyone, but especially not with her. She got that part right." And then he paused a moment before going, "Same, honestly, with you."

"With me?"

"Yes, Yelena. Especially with you. I just—before the war, before Hydra, Nat's absolutely right. I loved to flirt, I would flirt with anyone who would let me. But when I came back, when my mind was mine again… let's just say it's not something I'm particularly practiced at, anymore. So it's not something I'm going to do, especially not if I'm trying to make a decent impression."

He let his words hang in the air for a moment. She turned his words over in her head, the insinuation palpable. And then he dropped his voice before going, "is it really the craziest thing in the world?"

She knew exactly what he was talking about. Still, she played dumb. "Is what the craziest thing in the world?" she asked. She was only then noticing just how close his face was to hers.

"You called it an atomic bomb, earlier."

She nodded, her throat dry as sandpaper. "I already told you. Involuntary hysterectomy. Motherhood is a no-go everywhere, as long as I'm a Widow."

He shook his head. "That's not the part I'm talking about."

She opened her mouth to respond. But before she could say anything, Bucky's eyes darted to the left, right behind Yelena.

A split second later, she heard it—the rustling coming from behind them, in the jungle.

Yelena whipped her head around just in time for Bucky to throw a spear over her shoulder. Glowing red orbs caught the spear, and hurdled it off towards the ocean. As Yelena and Bucky both jumped to their feet, immediately getting into fighting position, a distinct, female voice yelled, "Whoa, stop, it's me! It's just me, I'm sorry I'm so late, I got held up—"

Yelena and Bucky froze, just as she stepped into the light of the fire.

Whatever shock was written on their face was mirrored in the face of the woman across from them. Her jaw was dropped, her green eyes wide and bloodshot, as if she hadn't slept for days. Her copper red hair was strewn in a messy half-up, half-down do, and her crimson red robes—reminiscent of the robes Doctor Strange always wore—had singes and dirt on them, indicating she was coming straight from a fight.

Bucky knew the face of the woman in front of him—and while Yelena had never met her before, her reputation preceded her. Which is what made it all the more shocking, given that last Yelena had heard, she died a matter of months ago.

"Bucky? Yelena?"

Wanda Maximoff extinguished the glowing, magic red orbs from the palms of her hands.

"You know me?" Yelena managed.

"Sort of—well not you, obviously, your variant, I can explain later, we don't have time right now—what are you doing here?" She looked around the beach, panic setting across her expression. "Where's Stephen?"

Author's note: Aaaaaand coming at y'all with another fun cliffhanger ;)

First and foremost I wanted to thank everyone who has left a review + feedback on this so far—it means more to me than y'all know, this is seriously the most inspired I've been to write in a LONG time and it makes me so happy to see y'all are engaged with this story + seem to like it so far.

In case you missed it last week, I'm updating weekly every Sunday—going to try and keep myself as consistent as possible—and at the time I'm sitting down to the type this, I have - I shit you not - 33,000 words written of this fic. I'm going to keep updates to about 2000-3000 words each and try to stay as consistent as possible/write ahead when I can (I'm in my last semester of grad school and have a lot of assignments due between now and the end of May, so this is more for my own sanity than anything else).

That all being said, tease for next week: Wanda explains to Bucky and Yelena how she found them on the island. She begins the long, convoluted story of what the hell is going on in the multiverse, and specifically, how a Captain America variant of Bucky started this whole mess.