Chapter Text
“Pivoting!” Valentina clapped loudly from where she stood at the end of the conference table, “Thanks to a handful of psychotic fans on Twitter who decided to go hunting through the Nevada county clerk’s online database, Bob and Yelena’s marriage records are now public knowledge, which means we have to start pivoting.”
Yelena exhaled through her nose. She had always considered herself a private person; even if there wasn’t much of a private life to speak of, she’d always appreciated that it was one of the few things that was hers and hers alone.
May as well have that ripped out from under her too, she thought sardonically. A tithing paid to the public in exchange for her status as one of their saviors.
She looked over next to her to where Bob was blankly staring at the table in front of him, his fingers anxiously picking at the cuticles around his nails. Yelena felt a sharp pang strike her in her chest.
He hadn’t even been formally introduced to the public as a member of the team yet. The whiplash of going from relatively unknown to having his personal life unearthed and vivisected for the public’s greedy consumption in the space of 24 hours made her head hurt to just think about.
Valentina slid into her seat as John raised his hand. She reluctantly nodded her head in his direction.
“Cool, so, why were we all called into this meeting?” he asked, gesturing to the entire team at the table, “This has to do with Yelena and Bob, not the rest of us.”
“Oh, you think this isn’t going to blow back on you guys just because your names weren’t on the marriage license?” Valentina questioned dryly, “The next time any of you come face to face with a member of the press, this is all they’re going to want to ask about. We have to get everyone on the same page and present a united front until this all blows over."
She leaned forward onto the conference table on her elbows. “So, here’s the story. Our little lovebirds over there have been secretly seeing each other for a while now, okay? Of course, you all knew, but stayed quiet to respect their privacy. And now you’re just so thrilled for the two of them to finally be able to go public with their love and eternal devotion and all that crap.”
“And when we’re asked about the Vegas of it all?” Ava prodded.
“Well, that’s just an eager young couple jumping at the chance to privately elope in the wedding capital of the world, right?” Valentina answered smoothly, “Young love is a hell of a drug. One that thankfully sells well, too.”
She turned her attention to Bob and Yelena. “Which means we’re absolutely going to start selling the hell out of you two. The request for an annulment has been officially withdrawn for the time being.”
“Great, so when’s our shoot for the cover of Vogue?” Yelena asked sarcastically.
“Oh no, we can’t hit the mainstream media like that, we need to be more subtle for this to be convincing,” Valentina replied as if the question were dead serious, “No photoshoots, no sit down interviews with the press. But you’ll be seen out in public together, frequently. And you’ll pretend not to notice the paparazzi when they’re following you, just like you’ll pretend not to notice your fans taking their own shitty photos with their phones to be posted on Twitter for the rest of the rabid fandom mob to consume. You need to give people the illusion that these private moments are being stolen away from you instead of force feeding it down their throats.”
She paused to take a sip of her coffee, as casually as if she’d just been discussing the weather outside instead of her ruthless plans for the mass manipulation of public perception.
“It’s genuinely frightening watching you work sometimes, you know that?” Bucky groused.
“I’m going to take that as the compliment I’m sure you intended it to be, Barnes,” Valentina replied, “The closest we’ll get to doing official press is when you two make your formal debut as a couple at the New Avengers anniversary gala later this month. By then, the press and the public will be stupidly in love with how stupidly in love you are with each other.”
“But, we’re, uh,” Bob briefly glanced over at Yelena, “We’re not in love. We’re just friends.”
Ava let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like a poorly covered laugh.
“Oh, I couldn’t give less of a shit what you two actually do in your private time,” Valentina clarified, “But the second you step out of those front doors? You better be giving the performance of your life to sell the public on how head over heels you are for each other. That’s our only clean way out from under this.”
Yelena looked over to Bob.
At first glance, his attention was seemingly in tune with the conversation happening around him; but one look at where his hands were still folded in his lap showed her that he’d already picked the corner of his thumbnail bloody. A deep ache formed behind her sternum.
A clean way out from under this. That’s the least she could do for him now.
She lightly kicked at his foot under the table, scraping up as much resolve as she could get her hands on before he turned his attention to her. She nodded at him resolutely.
I’m here. We can do this.
A thousand thoughts were still squirming behind his eyes, but his hands momentarily stilled in his lap. He firmly held her gaze as he nodded back, and Yelena finally let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding on to.
“Okay,” she ventured to the rest of the table, “So when’s our first...pap walk? Is that what you call it?”
-----
“What do you mean you’ve never seen When Harry Met Sally?” Bob asked incredulously as he slid Yelena’s cup of tea over to her, “It’s, like, the best rom-com ever made.”
“Since when are you an expert on rom-coms?” Yelena inquired, one eyebrow raised, “I thought your favorite movie was Jurassic Park.”
“I contain multitudes, Lena,” he answered as leaned forward onto the kitchen island.
She chuckled, turning her gaze to look out the floor-to-ceiling glass windows at the city lights twinkling in the dark outside. It wasn’t even that late yet; nowhere near the early morning hours when they usually shared in their insomniac tea ritual.
But once they learned that their first steps into the public eye would be taking place the next day, they tacitly agreed that even attempting sleep was going to be a lost cause for them both. May as well spend the evening strategizing how to survive the coming weeks together instead.
“I’m just saying, if you’re trying to figure out how to look and act like you’re disgustingly in love with someone, Billy Crystal’s performance is the blueprint,” he explained further.
“I don’t need to watch a movie to teach me how to do that!” she refuted, “Do you know how many missions I’ve pulled off that have relied on my ability to act convincingly? I’m going to be fine.”
“I’m still gonna make you watch it,” he murmured as he took a sip from his mug.
Yelena pushed herself off her bar stool and started making her way around the kitchen island towards him. “What I do need to know is where you feel comfortable with me touching you.”
Bob let out a sharp cough as he choked on a mouthful of tea. Yelena paused as he tried to suppress the hacking that was shaking his entire chest.
“You good?” she prodded once his sputtering finally died down.
“Uh, yeah, I-I’m fine,” he stammered as he wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his sweater, “I, uh, just, uh…w-where you’re going to be…touching me?”
“Normal couples perform public displays of affection all the time,” she tried to calmly walk him through her logic, “We need to do the same if we want the act to be convincing. That means I need to know if there’s anything in that vein that you feel uncomfortable with, like areas of your body where you don’t want to be touched.”
Bob still looked slightly dazed as he slowly nodded. “Okay.”
“Like, for example, you can pretty much touch me anywhere that isn’t my chest, my crotch, or my butt,” she continued, “I don’t care if I’m still legally your wife - no playing grabass, okay?"
The joke that she’d hoped would break the tension only seemed to make it set in further; a deep flush of red bloomed across Bob’s cheeks.
“Of course, I-I would never,” he reassured, “And I, uh, I guess the same rules a-apply for me.”
“Oh, and don’t shove your tongue down my throat when you kiss me, please,” she advised, “Though that’s more of a personal request than a hard and fast rule.”
Now Bob froze entirely in front of her, his mug paused perfectly halfway to where he was lifting it to his mouth. “Wh-When I kiss you?”
“Yes, when you kiss me,” she reiterated. Damn it, she really hadn’t meant for this conversation to feel like pulling teeth. “We’re going to have to kiss one another at least every once in a while when we’re out in public. It’s an important part of selling the act. Strictly business.”
“Yeah, um, totally,” he set his mug back down and forced his stiffened muscles to at least appear like they were relaxing, “Strictly business. I-I’m fine with that. I can do that.”
Yelena narrowed her eyes at him. Despite his attempt at a nonchalant pose, arms crossed and bodyweight leaned against the counter, his jaw was clenched so tightly she could see the muscle holding it together twitch.
She let out a small huff and stepped back slightly, folding her arms behind her back. She was going to rip this bandaid off now, whether he liked it or not.
“Great. Kiss me, then,” she challenged.
The muscle in his jaw jumped as he blinked at her. “...what?”
“Kiss me," she shrugged coolly, "You said you can do it, so do it."
He paused, eyebrows furrowing as he stood up a little bit straighter in front of her. “Wait, um...no. You kiss me.”
Now it was Yelena’s turn to blink at him. “What?”
“You kiss me first,” he dared, “I mean, i-it’s strictly business, right? So you shouldn’t have any trouble with it.”
“I don’t have any trouble with it!” she retorted, maybe a little bit too defensively. Where was this coming from?
He nodded at her. “Do it, then.”
Yelena’s hands clenched into fists at her sides as her own cheeks began to flush. She wasn’t the one who needed to be tested here; it wasn’t as if she’d never had to share a deeply intimate moment or private caress with another person for the sake of a mission.
And it’s not like she hadn’t kissed him before, even if she didn’t remember it.
The realization intruded on her thoughts with all the grace and subtlety of being whacked over the head with a shovel. Her mind reeled from the impact, flailing inside her skull as it tried to maintain its equilibrium. She shook her head lightly.
Strictly business. She clung to the thought with white knuckles, trying to ignore the knot that was quickly tightening in the hollow of her chest. This was strictly business.
She took one swift step forward, quickly and briefly pressing her lips to his before immediately stepping back.
(God, she could be such a coward sometimes.)
“There!” she declared, as if that was somehow going to be the end of this conversation.
Bob drummed his fingers on the counter next to him. “Yeah, I, um…I don’t really think that’s gonna do much to sell us to the public, Lena,” he quipped.
“Okay then, you show me how it’s done, Romeo!” she snarked in response.
His fingers immediately halted their movement on the countertop; the air around the two of them stilled, as if the trivial action of his digits had commanded it to do so. His eyes remained steadfastly trained on her. The edges of his pupils slowly ate away at the deep blue of his irises the longer he regarded her.
Yelena tried to take in a steady inhale, only for the thick air to catch in her throat.
Before she could attempt another breath, his hands had already encircled her waist and tugged her towards him; he leaned forward to catch her lips where their bodies met flush in the middle.
Her eyes fluttered shut, unable to stop the tingles that poured down her back as he kissed her intently. She instinctively raised herself up on her toes to meet his lips where they danced across hers with the same fervor. Her fingers buried themselves into the tangled curls at the nape of his neck.
Muscle memory.
His hands slipped beneath the hem of her sweatshirt when he tried to pull her closer, his palms pressed firmly against the bare skin at the small of her back. She had to suppress the shiver that tried to run up her spine at the contact. Her heart hammered against her ribcage.
She felt dizzy. She felt drunk. It was too much.
(It wasn’t enough.)
Was this what it had felt like? Had he kissed her like this at the altar, after they'd pledged their lives to one another before the eyes of God (and a tacky Elvis impersonator)?
Bob abruptly stepped back from her and ended the kiss as quickly as it had started.
Her skin immediately went cold at the sudden loss of him, goosebumps rising across her arms as if the temperature of the room had somehow dropped by a dozen degrees. Her hands trembled as she pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt over them.
“So, um…” he started, voice shaking slightly, “Does that…does that do?”
She swallowed and nodded her head as she drifted back down to Earth. What the fuck just happened? “Yeah. Yeah, I think that'll be convincing enough.”
“C-Cool. Yeah, uh,” his eyes flew around the room, looking for something to busy himself with. He pointed at her cup of tea. “That’s probably cold by now, I’ll just…”
He reached over the counter to grab her mug, scooping up his own with the other hand and making his way over to the microwave. She watched him work away as her awareness poured itself back into her body. And then, the cold slap of remembering.
It was just an act they were trying to sell. Well, one that she had specifically challenged him to sell.
She winced with a sharp inhale.
Strictly business. Right.
Yelena exhaled slowly as she tried to detach herself from the memory, painfully ripping it away from where it had already dug itself beneath her skin. Her fingers twitched beneath her sleeves.
“Hey, um, can I tell you something?” she asked. His attention immediately snapped to where she stood.
She shrugged, forcing out a light chuckle as reality finally landed on her with a thud. That kiss didn’t mean anything. A kiss between them would never mean anything besides good press.
And that was a good thing, if she thought about it from a purely logical standpoint. An assurance that their friendship would still remain preserved and unscathed by this additional layer of mess that had been forcibly thrown atop them.
“I actually really like rom-coms, so…you wouldn’t have to force me to watch any of them, really,” she admitted earnestly, “But if you tell anyone about that, please know that I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
One of his eyebrows quirked up. “When Harry Met Sally, then?”
She nodded, and a small smile crept onto Bob's face. “Okay, go get it pulled up on the TV,” he instructed as he pulled the mugs from the microwave.
They settled into their usual movie night positions, curled up beneath their own throw blankets on either end of the enormous couch. Yelena cradled her now steaming cup of tea in her hands and kept her eyes glued to the screen as the movie went on, hoping to give off the impression that she was intently paying attention to the plot as it played out.
She didn’t want to have to admit that the only thing her mind could really focus on was greedily replaying those same 10 seconds over and over again on a loop, her skin still tingling where her best friend had touched her.