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Okay, so today had been… how could Yelena describe this without swearing? She couldn’t. Today had been a fucking shitshow and she really wanted to die right now. That, basically.
She, Ava and John had been on a mission this afternoon, which had gone surprisingly smooth. No casualties, no buildings being smashed to pieces. Some group of shady people in an even shadier building somewhere near the edge of the city that they had to investigate. Pretty standard stuff for the three of them as they had been working for Val prior to this whole ‘New Avengers’ thing.
It had gone wrong on their way back to the tower. A group of people who were definitely not fans had spotted them in the streets and tried to pick a fight. Again, standard stuff. They kept it professional and gave them minimal attention. But then a young man, probably in his twenties, had targeted Yelena specifically and made a nasty comment about Natasha.
“It must’ve been really convenient for you when Romanov died. Bet you were always gunning to replace her.”
Not even ten seconds later Yelena had the guy in chokehold and John and Ava had to work together to pull the two of them apart while the other people watched and yelled. To make matters worse, while John was trying his best to calm down the guy Yelena had just attacked someone else decided to call him a murderer and a fascist. Now John was only one of those things but he really didn’t need to be reminded, he knew.
In the end Ava had to pull both her teammates back and just pull them along until they were out of yelling distance from the strangers. Luckily they weren’t followed.
So yeah, today was going awesome.
When they got back to the tower everyone was in a sour mood. They immediately made their way towards the couch and dropped down. A minute later Alexei came into the living room and was greeted with three loud sighs.
“So, how was mission?” He beamed in that overly energetic way he always did.
“Fuck off Alexei,” Yelena cursed. “What did I do?” The man exclaimed. John quickly waved off his teammate's rude remark. “Nothing, Alexei. We just bumped into some assholes on the way back,” Ava explained.
“Ah, I see,” the man mumbled to himself. He then loudly clapped his hands and declared, “Do not worry, I have perfect fix!” before exiting the room.
“Should we be worried about that?” John asked.
“Eh,” Yelena shrugged.
Two minutes later Alexei returned to the living room holding some weird black box with a cable attached to it. He placed it in front of the tv and when Yelena looked at the weird box she saw that it was a radio. A very old one.
They curiously watched Alexei plug the fossil of a radio in and fiddle with some knobs until he actually got it to work. Yelena had no idea what channel her dad had connected the thing to but it definitely wasn’t music she had ever listened to. It was awfully joyful and loud. He gave the thing a pat and turned towards the couch again.
“See! Perfect fix!”
Yelena pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, Alexei, this is worse. Please turn it off.”
“No, this is good music. You listen to it, you start feeling happy,” he explained. “Now I am going to the supermarket. If you want to turn off music you can get off the couch and do it yourself, but if you are smart you keep it on and you will see I was right.” With that Alexei was out of the room again.
For a long time Yelena, Ava and John sat in the living room without exchanging a single word. The horribly joyful music continued to play all the while. Though the sound of the radio mildly infuriated her it seemed that no one in the room was bothered enough to stand up and actually turn the music off.
Quietly accepting her fate Yelena went on sulking, replaying the event from earlier that day. After reviewing her actions from every possible angle and view point she came to the conclusion that it would be best if she would just sink into the ground and disappear forever. Sadly she couldn't do that though (that was Ava’s shtick) so she closed her eyes instead and leaned her head back on the couch.
While the music continued relentlessly it remained the only sound in the room. Had she not known that John and Ava were sitting on either side of her she might have believed she was alone on the couch. She tried to focus and listen for the sound of breathing but Alexei had put the volume of the radio too loud, it almost managed to overshadow even the sounds of her own slow breaths.
A dark cloud of disappointment hung over her, she felt like a failure. Yelena was well aware of all the people who believed she and her teammates should be behind bars, not playing heroes for the government, but not often had someone come up to them in public to shout curses and threats at them. She did not blame those people. They weren’t heroes, they were criminals.
“Alright, I've had enough of this,” a voice broke through the lifelessness that hung in the room. Yelena recognized the voice as John's though she could not see him as she still had her eyes closed. She assumed he was referring to the music and when she heard him stand up she expected the radio to be turned off within a few seconds.
Or not, apparently.
Okay, this was taking longer than expected. Surely John knew how to turn off a radio? Of course he did, so why was she still hearing that god awful music? And then suddenly it stopped. Finally, Yelena thought to herself. But a moment later the silence was interrupted again with static and then the music continued again. It was a different song, definitely an improvement from whatever weird channel Alexei had put on.
Slowly she opened her eyes. Her vision was all blurry and at first she could only see vague shapes moving around but when her eyes finally managed to focus again she was no longer sure if she was even still awake.
…What the hell?
Yelena stared at her teammate with an expression of utter confusion. John was dancing. John. John F. Walker was dancing in the living room to the shitty happy music blasting from Alexei’s little radio. And even more he was smiling. Grinning from ear to ear as she watched him clumsily sway from side to side and twirl around once and then another time.
Still bouncing on his knees he made his way towards Ava, who looked about as horrified and confused as Yelena felt, and he pulled her off the couch leaving her standing there unsure of what to do.
“Did you eat something wrong today?” She huffed out. John rolled his eyes and gave her a middle finger.
“I didn’t, but I’m tired of sitting around and moping over shit that already happened so just shut the fuck up and dance.”
“No thanks,” Ava mumbled. She was about to fall back onto the couch but John grabbed her by her wrists and pulled her further into the living room. Letting go of one wrist he twirled her around.
“C’mon!” He pleaded. “Try it!”
And to Yelena’s surprise (and maybe Ava’s as well) Ava laughed out loud, not mockingly but a genuine laugh, and let herself be twirled around another time before grabbing John’s wrist and reversing the roles.
She then let go of John's wrist and twirled around, moving along the living room and humming along to the song. The movements were unpracticed and it was obvious that Ava didn’t dance a lot but a smile was starting to creep on to her face as well.
“You’re being really fucking weird right now do you know that?” She said as she playfully punched John in the side.
“I know, don’t tell Alexei.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Yelena was still on the couch, still confused and still sulking. She was convinced her teammates had been possessed because this was weird (and maybe she was a little jealous of the fun they seemed to be having but that’s not important). “We still have one witness left though,” John pointed towards Yelena, who realized with instant horror what was about to happen. “No, no,” she pleaded. “I swear I won’t tell Alexei.”
But Ava was already standing in front of her with her hands extended as an invitation. Yelena gave her teammate a sour look. “Can’t you just let me sulk on the couch for another hour?” She pouted, knowing the answer would be no. “You can do that later,” Ava grinned as she wiggled her fingers to direct Yelena’s attention back to her hands.
“Come on, just try it,” she urged. Yelena considered it. “You can’t be any worse than John,” Ava added. John rolled his eyes yet again.
She could give it a go. This day already sucked so she really didn’t have much to lose besides her last strand of sanity which was already moments away from snapping. But if Alexei saw her she would never hear the end of it. Wait, Alexei wasn’t even in the tower. She eyed Ava and was met with a big smile and a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Fine,” she huffed out eventually. She took Ava’s hands and was immediately pulled off the couch. “Woah!” She cried out.
Yelena let her teammate guide her, a little unsure and very embarrassed. Ava held on to her hands and led her around the room the way two small children might dance together.
This was dumb. Her cheeks felt hot and her face was probably bright red right now. She looked at Ava and an awkward chuckle escaped out of her throat. What had her life come to? She thought. But it was fun, this was fun and John and Ava were right because she did feel better.
Choked up awkward chuckles soon turned into full on laughter. The air was light and warm and eventually Yelena had to drop down on the floor so she could catch her breath again. Ava joined her on the floor and John sat down on the couch.
“That was fun,” she huffed out.
“We are fun,” Ava smiled.