Yelena X Reader - Blog Posts

Luck

Summary: The reader is content in her relationship and her sexuality, but when a coworker brings up some painful questions, she has to wonder if Bucky and Yelena are missing something vital from their relationship because of her.

Pairing: ace!Reader x Bucky Barnes x Yelena Belova

Word Count: ~7.3k

Warnings: poly relationship, mentions/discussion of sex (not smut, no description), angst (happy ending), acephobia, biphobia

A/N: This turned out to be an incredibly cathartic and personal fic for me to write. I would love to hear any feedback and hope you enjoy it!

There was something about the way people looked at her when she told them, that made her keep the secret for years. 

She knew she was different, and sometimes she felt broken for it.

She didn’t know how to explain it, and so for years she had kept it a silent secret, hiding the truth of her singular nature, her virginity, no matter how socially constructed it was, and her solitude. 

But Y/N was comfortable being ace, content and happy.

And until Bucky Barnes had come into her life, she had been convinced she might simply be alone forever, content that it might be that way. But Bucky had been understanding in a way that no one else ever had been or tried to be. Their relationship had come on slowly, like waves against a craggy shore. Bucky needed something slow, something that might have seemed agonizingly slow to anyone else. 

But she had enjoyed it, had liked hand holding that turned to cuddling that turned to kissing. And so when Bucky brought up sex - she felt comfortable enough to tell him the truth. 

She’d panicked a little, worried he wouldn’t get it, would write her off the moment she said it. It had happened in the past with people she thought she could trust. 

He’d listened and understood and told her it didn’t change anything. Bucky had been thoughtful, listened carefully to her explanation that she didn’t feel sexual attraction. He’d been prepared to figure something out when she told him she could have sex with him, would enjoy it too, she just wouldn’t ever suggest it. It wasn’t a need for her, like it might be for him. 

You just have to tell me what you need. 

And it worked, because working through needs and wants and freedom was something Bucky had been learning too. That this choice was always his to initiate seemed not only to work for him but encourage him.

Y/N met Yelena at the strip club she worked at as a bartender. Yelena had been chasing someone in the club, smashing glass and knocking over tables, arsenal of weapons strapped around her small body. Y/N felt a connection with her almost immediately, and not just because she’d stopped a man from stabbing her. 

Somehow she had fit between her and Bucky so well, it was like Yelena had always been there. 

Yelena vaguely knew of Bucky, knew that Bucky had known Natasha at some point, however blurry and distorted those memories might be. 

Introducing them had been easy, and falling into the current relationship had been even easier. 

She didn’t question why or how either of them had accepted it, each of them wanting it as bad as the other. She didn’t consider why it worked, why they accepted it. Never questioned if something might be missing. 

The relationship worked. 

That was all that mattered. 

~

It was usually a mistake to try to explain her relationship to people who did not know her well. Not only was she in a poly relationship, but she was also asexual. 

It confused people. 

“I mean,” the new hire Y/N’s training starts to ask, tilting her head to the side. “How does it work then? Don’t you hate sex? Oh, they’re asexual too, then?”

With her back turned she rolls her eyes and finishes polishing the glass in her hand, “They definitely don’t hate sex. And I don’t hate sex. It's just not a need for me. I could go forever without it.” 

“Oh,” the woman says, eyes trained on the currently empty dance stage. “I kind of thought that was the point though. Of being asexual. Hating it.” 

“Like anything, it's a spectrum. Some people are sex repulsed, some don’t mind the idea if it makes their partner happy. And anything in between. It’s individual.” She shelves the glass in her hand, wishing she hadn’t brought it up, had settled on an easier answer to the question so are you seeing anyone?

She should have left it at a simple yes, and fielded all the follow up questions with I’m a private person, sorry. 

But she had liked the new hire, gotten along with her for the past two weeks of her training period. She seemed open, and cool, and was also queer. But she knew better than that, that being queer did not preclude people from having other biases and stereotypes. 

“So you do have sex with them? How often?” 

She stiffens. 

It's not something people who don’t fall onto the ace spectrum get asked. The question hurts, reminds her of all the little holes inside her, all the things that she thought were broken about herself for years. 

She tries to laugh it off, finally turning to meet her eyes, “I’m not answering that, sorry.” 

The giggle that escapes the new hire, Lisa, makes her cringe, so she sets about turning all the liquor bottles so their labels face outwards, anything to avoid looking at the other woman. 

“Clearly you’re attracted to them-,”

“Yeah, I am,” she tries not to snap. “I can tell when someone is hot but that doesn’t mean I want to fuck them. That’s what asexuality is, lack of sexual attraction,” she tries to explain patiently. “I’m more attracted to personality anyways-,”

“Then what’s the point?” Lisa cuts her off. 

“Of what?” She asks leaning against the counter as one of the regulars approaches the bar. Lisa takes a minute to flirt for a tip and make his drink before sending him off again. 

“Attraction I guess?” She turns to her, crossing her arms and raising a brow. “Like, if you don’t ever really want to have sex with them, then what’s the point?”

She doesn’t know how to respond and so she shakes her head and turns away, wiping the counter down. 

The point? She loves them. She’s attracted to them in every other way, was happy to make sure all their needs were met. And it worked well, she thought, that Bucky and Yelena had each other too. 

Luckily she’s saved from answering or thinking about it too much as a wave of customers approach the bar and one of the girls takes the first dance of the night. She smiles and chats like she always does, efficient and friendly, harsh when a drunk becomes too much. 

She likes her job, likes the quick pace of it. She likes how she doesn’t have to think, despite Lisa’s words hurricaning around her mind, an endless loop.

It’s a question she had asked herself so many times, while she was coming to terms with what she thought her identity might turn out to be. 

What’s the point of being attracted to someone if you don’t want to sleep with them? 

She still doesn’t really know. She doesn't like the cracked feeling that springs up in her chest at the thought. 

Love, she tells herself harshly. Intimacy and safety and warmth, that’s the point. 

Sex didn’t make a relationship complete. 

She tries to remind herself of all the ways she isn’t broken, of all the ways she’s capable of love, that physical love is not the ultimate expression of love. That she isn’t broken because she doesn’t feel a particular pull to the act.

Bucky and Yelena love her as she is, accept her as she is. 

She’s devoted, she loves both of them in spades. 

Bucky because he’s warm and protective and gentle. 

Yelena because she’s funny and loyal and soft under the shell she wears.

She’ll go home to them after this shift, shower off the smell of the club, slot herself behind them in their king size bed, beam with happiness when one of them would inevitably turn and tuck her closer. 

Certainly she has a type, she smiles to herself.

Loyal and protective with a hard exterior that hides a heart of gold. Not to mention that they’re both formerly brainwashed Russian assassins. The bond she had watched them form over it had been when she worried the most. People with shared trauma either jived well or they decidedly did not. 

Lucky for her, Yelena’s firebrand reckoning with the world for the loss of her years and her sister contrasted well with Bucky’s quiet path of amends, hardly spoken of but which helped remind Yelena to temper herself. 

Lisa does fine during their shift and Y/N thinks that she can probably handle her next shift alone, or at least without training wheels. Their shift ends at midnight, the closers replacing them at the bar. 

She’s glad to be heading home, wants desperately to be away from Lisa and the thoughts that she makes shift around in her mind. She drifts to the dancers’ changing room, where she keeps her bag and coat. The girls greet her as she enters. She knows most of them well after years of running the bar. 

Lisa follows, the conversation between them now pleasant, about how she’d done well and could fly solo, about the customers.

She thinks the conversation between them earlier was a fluke, a little misunderstanding that they didn’t have to talk about anymore. 

But as she’s shrugging on her coat, Lisa turns and says, “Like, sorry for bringing it up again, but I was thinking - isn’t one of your partners a girl? Do you prefer sleeping with her? Have you heard of compulsory heterosexuality? Maybe-,” 

This was the worst part of it. The boxing in, the suffocating labeling that people tried to foist onto her. The assumption that she hadn’t already thought of that, that she’s confused and that a veritable stranger knew her better than she knew herself. 

“No,” she says simply, cutting Lisa off. “It’s not that. It’s not them, it's me.” 

“So then you’re bisexual.” 

The word almost sounds dirty coming out of her mouth. 

One of the dancers notices. “Hey,” Nicole, one of the veteran dancers snaps. “Fuck off. There’s nothing wrong with being bisexual.” 

“Of course not,” she answers in a tone that suggests there is. “I’m just trying to get an understanding of Y/N’s relationship.” 

“It's not yours to understand,” Nicole says, standing to join Y/N, looping their arms together. “Fuck off, new girl, before I drag you out of here.” 

Lisa looks shocked for just a moment, before opening her mouth. Y/N continues, not letting the other woman continue whatever thought had occurred to her, “Look, I’m not pressed about labeling myself, or what I feel, or my relationship. I’m attracted to both of my partners, and I don’t feel sexual attraction to anyone.”

Nicole squeezes her hand, reassuring and warm and she’s never been more grateful. She remembers Nicole sitting on the floor behind the bar on a slow night, hiding from the manager and listening to her talk about her sexuality without any judgment, curious and supportive. 

After that night, Nicole got free drinks whenever she wanted them. 

The conversation seems to be over as Lisa shrugs and moves to grab her bag. She’s about to sigh, tension draining away as Nicole pats her arm when Lisa says quietly, “I just wonder what they get out of it.” 

She pauses, Nicole’s fingers tightening against her skin again. “What?”

Lisa shrugs. “Just like, if they fuck without you, and they’re happy…like why do they need a third?”

She blinks, automatically putting out an arm to stop Nicole from lunging forward to throttle the girl. 

“Guess it's good it doesn’t affect you then,” Y/N says stiffly.

“Not trying to be rude. Just saying. Do they fuck without you around?” 

She swallows and answers, not sure why she’s entertaining the question. “They do. I know that they do. It makes sense for us, for our relationship.”

Y/N has had sex with Bucky and Yelena seperately, and on several occasions together. 

But more often than not, they had sex with each other. 

It never makes her feel like she isn’t valued, like she’s the annoying third to an otherwise stable two person relationship. 

Is it possible she misjudged the situation so badly because sex wasn’t important to her? 

But Yelena also has a low sex drive, so much so that Y/N had thought she was ace as well. But Yelena hadn’t wanted to label herself and so she had let it go. 

Either way, she and Bucky needed sex in the relationship where Y/N did not. 

She wants to comment that maybe the conversation is inappropriate for work, but the dressing room of a strip club had heard much worse than this minor embarrassment.  

“You don’t have to answer her questions,” Nicole says. 

“It’s okay.” 

Lisa raises a brow, and Y/N hates that she’s thinking about it now. If there’s something she’s missing. If she’s as incomplete as she’s always feared she was.

No, she thinks viciously, stopping that line of thought. She isn’t incomplete, but maybe she’s wrong for their relationship, if their needs aren't being met. 

Needs could be overlooked in any relationship, why not theirs? 

“I’m just saying, maybe you should think about it. Maybe you should talk about it with them. It's not fair to them after all if you’re withholding something they need because you might be confused.” It hurts to hear but she finds herself nodding anyway. She keeps a hand pressed into Nicole’s arm. 

She decides that that should be the end of the conversation, before the panic choking her bubbles up and sends her spiraling. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ve got a train to catch.” 

“Sure.” 

Some of the other dancers approach her as she heads for the door but she waves them back, says she’s fine.

Outside in the cool midnight air, she takes a deep breath, holding in the panic, the anxiety swimming around in her stomach, the worry that her partners were lacking in something vital and she hadn’t realized it. 

A burning shame builds up and cascades over as she stands there with her back pressed against the brick exterior of the building. She feels stupid. 

Has she really spent years coming to terms with who she is for a few awkward questions make her question everything all over again? 

She thought she handled this years ago, had come to terms with her identity. 

Clearly not, if it was this easy to uproot her again. 

But no, she’s secure in herself, as being as she is. The real worry is the thought that she’s hurting the people she cares about, that she’s not good enough for them, that she’s not enough for them. 

Back when it had just been her and Bucky, he had always met her after her shifts and walked her home. 

It had taken him months to kiss her, months after that to ask her about sex. 

Bucky was not from this era, how could he be expected to understand her? Understand this part of her? 

But he had, where the woman inside the club hadn’t even tried. 

“I don’t want you do anything you don’t want to,” Bucky said, licking his lips nervously. “I never want to make you uncomfortable.” 

The fact that he asked, that he was worried at all soothed her. No one else had ever cared enough to ask, to reassure her, to make sure she would always be comfortable too. “I don’t hate it…I just don’t feel a need. I want to, if you want to. It makes me happy to make you happy.”

And it had, and it does. 

She could enjoy it, she just didn’t feel the need, the want.

She enjoyed it just fine once it was initiated, but mostly because the person she was with liked it so much. 

She liked kissing much better, liked cuddling, liked the feel of skin against skin, the warmth and comfort of another presence. 

The remembrance of Bucky waiting for her all those months ago, only makes his absence now more keenly felt, even though he’d not accompanied her home in months. Not since she assured him that she would be okay, that his waiting for her made her feel a loss of autonomy, like her skin did not belong to her.

And so, he had relented, let her download a walk home app, though his worry had been renewed the day she met Yelena. The club smashed to pieces, a knife nearly lodged in her side. She had pointed out to Bucky’s great chagrin that the near death experience had not occurred on her walk. 

Y/N’s  independence is important to her, but her safety is important to Bucky. Now, she wonders if her rejection of his presence pushed him away. 

Did she push people away? 

She shoves away from the wall, hoping that the dancers rip Lisa apart as she walks to the subway station. 

The ride is short but only makes her heart pound harder, watching the late night revelers sway with the rock of the train. Usually, it would make her smile. But tonight as she watches couples flirt and laugh, she feels empty.

It only reminds her of the missing thing inside her, the want that she’s told should be there.

Maybe that missing thing will be enough to drive away the people she cares about most.  

~

The apartment is dark. 

She doesn’t turn on the lights, creeps through the living room on silent feet. In the bathroom, she avoids her reflection, avoids thinking about herself at all as she strips off her club clothes and climbs in the shower. 

Once she towels off and changes, she crosses the hall to slip into bed behind Bucky, who’s normally closest to the door, a protector against the night. 

But when she pushes the door open, she can’t seem to bring herself to step over the threshold. 

They’re curled together. She can see the blonde of Yelena’s hair over the curve of Bucky’s shoulder. Their breathing is steady and even. There’s a space for her, very deliberately left. She aches to fall into it, to press her forehead against Bucky’s back and curl her arm around his side to clutch at Yelena’s fingers. 

Instead, she closes the door, picks up a blanket from the end of the couch, and lays down there instead.

Her skin feels empty, but she tells herself it’s better than feeling too much. 

~

She’s woken by the stroke of fingers against her arm, the top of her shoulder, and then the dip of her collarbone. 

“Did you fall asleep here?” Comes the gentle accented words of Yelena. “That was very stupid of you. You know to come right to bed.” 

She blinks her eyes open, blurry vision taking a moment to clear. 

Yelena’s face is free of makeup, her long hair loose around her shoulders. She reaches out to pinch a piece between her fingers, tugging gently on the strand. “No. You looked too peaceful to disturb.” 

Yelena’s brow furrows, she shoves Y/N’s shoulder. “No. You do not disturb us. Never.” 

She tries not to feel the acid in her stomach curl at the word us. An us she suddenly feels she’s not a part of. “Okay,” she says simply instead, sitting up to take Yelena’s hand between her own. Her gaze is still hard, penetrating, like she can see to the center of her. Yelena opens her mouth but Y/N quickly cuts her off. “Where’s Buck?”

“Sleeping still.” She keeps peering at her, like she could read her thoughts if she looked hard enough. “What’s wrong?” 

She tries to look surprised, but by the way Yelena rolls her eyes it’s a poor attempt. “Nothing, Lena,” she says, lifting her hand to press a kiss to her palm. 

“If you are going to lie, at least be good at it,” she says but doesn’t press further. “No more sleeping on the couch.” Yelena stands and crosses to the kitchen. “Come help me make an American breakfast. I want the whole thing today.” 

“Should we make mimosas too?” 

“Of course,” she shrugs in that very particular Yelena way, with the lift of her shoulders and purse of her lips, brows sneaking up her forehead. 

Y/N feels a pulse of love spike within her, telling her to forget the emotional wariness that Lisa’s questions had inspired. She stands from the couch, stretching before she folds the blanket back into its spot over the sofa’s arm. 

When she turns toward the kitchen, Yelena is eyeing her again. 

Sometimes she hates living with two former spies. They miss nothing. 

She smiles, walking toward the counter where Yelena is cracking eggs into a bowl. She knows that she’s still suspicious by the way she watches her. 

Thankfully she doesn’t say anything else and they fall into an easy routine. 

An hour later they have a complete spread before them, pancakes, eggs and toast, sliced fruit, avocados, bacon and sausage. 

If there was one thing she adored about Yelena it was her tendency to overindulge, filling up all the gaps inside her with things she wanted, missed out on, and wanted to try. 

It led to mornings like these, where they were already tipsy by the time the food finished cooking, where she grips Y/N’s hips and pats flour onto her cheek. 

“Next time you will make biscuits and gravy for me,” she says, pushing her back into the counter, hands cupping around Y/N’s wrists where she braces her hands against the stone. “I have not gotten to try them yet.”

She leans forward and pushes her nose into Yelena’s cheek, “Sure.”

Yelena pulls away to raise her arms above her head and wiggle on the spot, smiling. 

It makes Y/N smile, eases the worries and insecurities swirling around inside her. 

They’re just settling down at the breakfast table laden with food when the bedroom door opens and Bucky emerges, scrubbing sand from his eyes before he takes in the spread. “Hungry this morning?” he asks, voice gruff with sleep and amusement. 

Bucky stops by the table, kissing the side of Yelena’s head. She waves him away, “Ah, stop that. Get a plate.” 

He sends her a gentle smile and moves off to get the plate. 

She tries not to let her heart sink, tries to remember if he’s always missed her at breakfast, had always only given a kiss to Yelena. Bucky knows she likes greeting kisses, enjoys them in fact. 

She keeps her expression carefully neutral, her eyes turned down, as all the light she’d felt cooking with Yelena drifts away. 

A foot kicks at her ankle under the table. 

“James,” Yelena says. “Something is wrong with your girl. She won’t tell me what. She did not come to bed with us.” She loves the way Yelena’s accent sounds when she says the word girl, rounds out the syllables until they're soft and malleable and warm. 

The warmth is slighting undercut by being called Bucky’s girl, like she’s being siphoned off onto someone else, like she’s not also Yelena’s. 

Bucky turns from the cabinet, plate in hand, watching her carefully. “Why didn’t you, doll?” 

Had he even noticed? Would he have brought it up if Yelena hadn’t? 

Something like shame wells up inside her. For overthinking everything over comments made by someone who did not know her, who did not know her people. Y/N wants to lie all the anxieties eating at the inside of her skin at their feet and let them reassure her, but she worries that she’ll see pity instead and everything bad in her mind will be confirmed. “I didn’t want to disturb you,” she says quietly instead.  

Bucky is looking at her closely now too, but he’s not as good at reading her as Yelena is and so he just frowns.

He sits down at that small, worn kitchen table and peers at her. So she swallows and lifts her head, “Nothing is wrong. I really just didn’t want to disturb you. There wasn't any room anyways.” 

“Liar,” Yelena says into her glass, slouched back in her chair, not looking at her. 

“Prove it,” she snips back.  

“So shove us over next time,” Bucky mediates. 

And that dreaded us is back. Us versus her. She feels like an outsider all of a sudden. How did she ever expect to be equal among them when she did not participate equally in the relationship? 

All she can see now is how complete they are with each other, how utterly unnecessary she is.

She tries to stop the thoughts, tries to derail the things making her second guess everything about them, all of the other differences she’d always ignored, told herself didn’t matter. 

It wasn’t only about sex, though that was a big part of it. 

They share life experiences that she will never know, that she will never be able to relate to. Between being literal super people and former assassins, they also bonded through the recent loss of the most important people in their lives. The grief and turmoil they worked through everyday, how could she ever hope to understand, to compare? 

They match and she does not. 

In so many ways, she does not belong. 

When did that happen? When did they stop fitting together?

Have they ever? Was she that oblivious to everything? 

“See she keeps making that face,” Yelena says, not even looking at her as she digs for a stray piece of fruit at the bottom of her mimosa glass with one finger. “Like someone has just punched her.” 

She swallows and tries to control her face, tries not to let the hurt well up into her eyes. 

Bucky reaches out gently, always so gentle, like a giant in a model village. He touches the inside of her wrist, leans forward to lift her hand and press a kiss to her pulse point. 

It makes her want to cry, reminds her of their first couple months together where everything was shy and newly strange in the best way. When she thought everything would work out because Bucky was so old fashioned and slow with romance, that all he had to do was ask her for what he needed and she would be glad to give it. “Sweetheart, tell Yelena what happened so she can beat up whoever hurt you.” 

“Someone has hurt you?” Comes the indignant response immediately. Yelena slams her glass into the table with enough force to crack it.

“No,” she says immediately before Yelena can barrel out the front door and stab the first person she sees. Y/N turns Bucky’s hand in hers to squeeze his fingers. “Really everything is fine. I’m just feeling a bit off.” 

Yelena shoulders loosen and she slouches back down into her chair but you notice the knife in her hand that she had indeed snatched up off the table. Like she really would go fight someone with a dull kitchen blade.

She holds out her hand for it and Yelena reluctantly drops it into her hand. “You would tell me if someone has hurt you?” 

“Yes.”

Yelena relaxes at that. 

Bucky chuckles, lets go of Y/N’s wrist to load up his plate with food. 

She only picks at the food on her own plate, regretting the mimosa already as her stomach tightens and curdles around it. 

Before last night, she would have watched Yelena and Bucky with affection, how he turned toward her fully when she was talking, how they gravitated together, the gentle way Bucky laughed when Yelena exaggeratedly told a story. 

She didn’t feel jealous. 

No, she felt abandoned though everything is still the same, like a ship had sailed without her and she’d been so stupid that she hadn’t even realized it, standing on a shore with an empty horizon. She feels more than stupid, like she’s standing on the shore and the ship had sailed away months before. 

When breakfast is over and Yelena disappears to get dressed, something about meeting up with Kate, which likely just meant breaking into Kate’s place to scare the shit out of her, Bucky helps Y/N with the dishes. 

He leans into her, presses a kiss to her temple. “Whatever it is, we’re here for you.” He nudges his nose against her temple until she looks into his eyes. 

Her heart gives a painful thump as she bumps her forehead against his shoulder. “Bucky, it’s really nothing. I’m just in my head about something.”

“I’m in my own head all the time too. ‘M here if you need me.” 

She smiles, feels just a bit lighter at the way he presses close to her side, keeps contact with her like it gives him strength. 

Yelena passes them on her way out the door, her fingers hooking into Y/N’s  pajama shorts to press a hard kiss against her mouth before she smiles and disappears, Kate’s bow slung over one shoulder and a baseball bat in her hands.

Bucky drops a kiss to her hair, and Y/N watches her lean up into it. 

It makes Y/N smile, and the slam of the front door is almost comforting, the sounds of home. 

Where Bucky is all gentleness with her, Yelena is aggressive, like she wouldn’t always be able to give her love, so she gave it as forcefully as she could while she was allowed. 

But she can’t chase those stupid words away. 

What did they need a third for? Wasn’t she just complicating things for two people who deserved simplicity?

Even though she and Bucky had been together before Yelena came into their lives with the force of a hurricane, maybe she was only ever supposed to serve as the glue that stuck them together. 

She can’t help but feel like she was now the pulled stitch, the last piece of the puzzle that suddenly did not fit.

They would be better together without her, their relationship would certainly be easier. 

~

She avoids the pair of them all week, lucky that her schedule at work kept her away, that Bucky was busy with Sam in Louisiana for a few days, that Yelena was preoccupied with whatever she and Kate were up to, then liberating one the the widows who happened to be in New York. 

But they notice the change in her, because of course they do. She tries to act as normally as possible but Bucky and Yelena notice almost everything, even the slightest difference is something monumental to them. 

They notice that she sleeps on the couch, that she smiles only when necessary, that she’s melancholy, though she tries not to show it. 

Spies. They tend to know more than anyone wants them to. 

Yelena goes so far as to show up at the club, glitter framing her eyes, lips painted red, neon lights dancing around her head as she approaches the bar with a knife in her hand. “Who?”

“What?” 

“Who is hurting you? Who makes you so sad?”

She has to swallow back the burn in her throat as she lies to her, “Yelena, honey, nothing, no one.” She’s grateful that Lisa isn’t working though she’s never brought up the subject of her relationship again. Nicole likely threatened her. “Everything is fine.” 

The look in her eyes says she does not believe her, that she will fight whatever has made the minute changes in you.

“Solntse,” she says. “You know I would kill everyone here for you, yes?” 

She nods and Yelena nods back. 

“You don’t have to be sad alone,” Yelena says, “You taught me this. Remember?”

She had, when the force of her grief for Natasha had almost drug her under. 

Again, she nods, her throat so tight she can’t speak.

“I will leave you now,” she says, watching the other bartender struggle to help all the customers. “Bucky will walk you home. You will sleep with us tonight.” 

She opens her mouth to protest, but Yelena waves the knife at her, catching the attention of one of the bouncers. “No. This is happening.” 

And before she can get a word in, she blinks and Yelena is gone, slipping away so easily that the bouncer looks confused too. 

Sure enough when she leaves the club that night, Bucky is waiting for her at the corner, like he used to every single night. 

He falls into step beside her and wraps her fingers between his own. 

“Mind if we walk or do you want to take the train?”

“We can walk.” 

And so they do, silence stretching between them. It reminds her of the worries stirring inside her, that she’s let fester for the last week. She’d thought that they would ease over time but she had not stopped worrying.  

That she would never be enough, for anyone. 

Maybe for a time, but never for forever.

Bucky is the one to break the silence as they approach their apartment building. “Lena wants to have a movie night. She has the movie picked out.” He pulls her to a stop in front of their stoop, cups her jaw in his hand. “You haven’t been yourself lately. We’re worried about you.” 

She swallows but doesn’t look away from him. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m trying to get over it.” 

“Y’don’t have to do it alone, y’know? We’re here.” 

She turns her head and kisses his palm gently. “I know.”

Bucky nods but looks worried.

When they reach the apartment and Bucky throws open the door, they find Yelena already tucked on the couch, blankets spread over her legs, a big bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. “Heeeey!” she says, dragging out the word and smiling as she excitedly points at the TV. “Movie night! Since you love this couch so much,” she snarks. “Sleeping on it all the time now.” 

Bucky shucks off his jacket as he crosses the room, settling on the sofa and slinging one arm over the back. 

They’re both looking at her now, waiting for her to come inside, close the front door. 

But she suddenly can’t find it in herself to move. 

She stands there like an idiot, watching the pair of them, how Bucky reaches out and presses the tips of his fingers into Yelena’s shoulder, and she can’t imagine how she’s supposed to fit between them on the couch even though they’ve left a clear space for her between them. 

Yelena says her name. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, stepping inside, closing the door gently. “Sorry I’ve been so weird lately. But I’ve been thinking and -,” She looks away from them, down at her toes. “I-,”

“Are you leaving?

The question is asked so gently, softly. 

But Yelena’s voice is hard steel underneath and so Y/N knows that means she’s breaking on the inside. She knows if she looks up Yelena will have that pouted mask of indifference in place. She knows that Bucky’s eyes will be wide, his shoulders stiff. 

Neither of them, for all their training, could hide anything they felt. 

“No,” she says quietly. “I don’t - I’m worried I’m…” she hesitates and then decides to come out with it. “I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t,” comes the fierce reply. “Stop being stupid and sit down.” 

Bucky shifts forward on the couch, “Doll, tell us what’s bothering you.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to break up with me,” she admits suddenly. “Are we happy? Do we work together? I thought we did. I was happy. But -,” she paces, can’t look at them still. “Then I had to explain to someone what being ace means and how it’s different for everyone and then she asked…what’s the point? And I have to ask you that too because I can’t stop thinking about it. What’s the point?”

Silence stretches between them when she finally stops talking. Painful and loud.

The anxiousness that’s been drumming at the inside of her chest all week threatens to burst out of her. 

“Point of what?” Bucky breaks the silence, the timber of his voice crush, weighed down. “Us?”

“No.” She looks up, shakes her head violently, “No. No, not you. I - I love both of you. What’s the point of me? I can’t - maybe I won’t ever be able to put as much into this relationship and maybe it’s selfish of me to ask you to accept that about me. If you need more. And…if you’re happy together and you can meet all of each other's needs then why -,” She swallows and continues even when her voice breaks, “Why do you need me?”

When neither of them answers, she panics, the yawning blackhole of insecurity swallowing her up.  “And I’ve been feeling lately like maybe I was just meant to bring you together. There’s so much the two of you share that I won’t ever be able to understand. Maybe I don’t belong.”

She presses her lips together then to avoid saying more, to avoid sounding even more pathetic than she already did. 

Y/N closes her eyes and leans back against the closed front door, counting backwards from ten, crossing her arms over her chest to keep her ribs from coming undone at the seams. 

“Who made you believe this?” Yelena asks, her voice angry. “I need to know so I can kill them.” When she’s upset her accent deepens, and Y/N imagines the scrunch between her brows but can’t bring herself to open her eyes. 

Something touches her shoulder and she nearly jumps out of her skin. But it's just Bucky, who has stood and drifted over on silent feet. 

“Who?” He asks and there’s a quiet anger in his voice. 

She lets him untuck her arms and guide her to the couch. 

Yelena doesn’t touch her, just sits forward and stares and waits. 

“It doesn’t matter who. She didn’t say anything that isn’t kind of true.” 

“So you believe this is true? You want to take my home and family away from me again because of this? Because of lies from a stranger?”

She shakes her head, “No, Lena, of course not. Of course, I wouldn’t abandon you. I just have to know if this dynamic is right.” 

Bucky squeezes her fingers, heads off Yelena’s fiercely building energy, “‘s not true, Y/N. What this person said isn’t true.” 

“No,” Yelena says, her voice still harsh, but she takes Y/N’s other hand and her grip is gentle. “It is not.” 

She feels so stupid in that moment, her neck and face warm, the people she desperately loves holding either of her hands.

Yelena scoffs, “You will tell me who.” 

“No,” she says, knowing that would literally put someone’s life at stake. 

Bucky takes a gentler path, as is his habit with her. His heart is loyal and soft and breakable. She has to wonder if she’s the one to have broken it now. 

“Remember when you first told me you were ace?” He asks, his thumb stroking slowly over the back of her hand. Yelena’s shoulders drop next to Y/N, and she knows there’s some form of silent communication going on above her head as the pair of them look at each other. 

“Yes-,”

“And I told you that it didn’t matter to me,” he continues. “Yelena said the same thing when we told her, remember?” Bucky waits for her to nod before he continues, “Did we do something to make you think that wasn’t true?” 

“Of course not-,”

“Because honey, this works because of you. You make us complete.” She feels Bucky tangle his fingers with Yelena’s, their hands pressing along the curve of Y/N’s spine. “You belong with us. You give us everything we need. Sex? That isn’t why ‘m here. That isn’t why we're together.”

Yelena is nodding, her head against Y/N’s shoulder. “It is because I love you. We love you.” She shrugs against her, “You give us everything anyways. You always give everything you have. More than that. And its not like I have a high sex drive either.” 

And she knows that’s true. 

Yelena rarely brought sex up. 

Bucky was usually the one to do it, and he preferred it that way, liked the control it gave him over his life. He’d made a point to always tell both of them what he needed, when he needed it.  

She’s quiet for a moment just breathing and letting herself absorb the heat of both of them, letting herself absorb the truths being given to her. “I just don’t want you to miss anything. Or feel like you aren’t getting everything you need. I want to be a part of you.” 

Yelena laughs suddenly, turning her head to press her forehead into Y/N’s arm, nuzzling against her with her eyes closed. “We would be fucking miserable if it was only the two of us.” Yelena is laughing, she can feel her smiling against her arm, “Our life experience makes both of us bitter bitches. We would be miserable without you.” 

Y/N tries not to smile, because it was true. 

Bucky pokes the corner of her mouth. “We get everything we need. Even if we never had sex, we get everything we need. And sweetheart? What's the point? God, the point is that I fucking love you. That you are everything I’ve ever needed and you understood me when no one else was trying to.”

Yelena is nodding again, her fingers gripping Y/N’s. “You make us better people,” she says quietly. “You take care of us. You tell us all we have to do is ask for anything we need and you will give it. And you do. Anything. You give everything.” She pushes her back until her back is pressed against Bucky’s chest, his arms automatically wrapping around her. 

Yelena slips forward, curling into her embrace. She’s overwhelmed by their presence, by their renewed acceptance. Bucky holds both her hands while Yelena tips her face up to kiss her carefully. 

She wants to cry for being so lucky. She cups Yelena’s jaw, kissing her back with the fierceness she knows the other woman craves.  

It had never been this easy before, with anyone else, of someone saying, I see you and it's okay. I love you as you are. You are enough. 

“I’m not broken,” she says out loud, because it's important in that moment. “I won’t change.” 

“We know, solntse.” 

“I’m sorry,” she says. 

“We know that too.”

Bucky kisses the side of Y/N’s head, let’s Yelena lean up and kiss him before he asks, “Now, who made you believe you were?”

She sighs, brushing a strand of Yelena’s hair behind her ear. “I’m not telling you. It would put that person in serious danger. I’m pretty sure Nicole kicked her ass already anyways.” 

“Remind me to buy Nicole some flowers. We can invite her for dinner and she can tell us.”

Lucky, she thinks again, so lucky, to have found two people who so completely understood her, who accepted her without question. Two people, who only asked for what she was comfortable to give. 

Yelena fits herself against Y/N, tucking her head under her chin while Bucky wraps his arms around both of them. 

“What movie did you want to watch, Lena?” She asks, curling her hair around a finger, touching the corner of her jaw. 

Yelena looks up, her eyes going to Bucky and then back to Y/N, “You pick.” She settles back down against her. 

So she clicks on something random on Netflix and calls it good enough, knows none of them will be watching it anyways.

She pets Yelena’s hair, feels Bucky’s fingers against her arm, occasionally twitching out to touch the top of Yelena’s head. 

“It was Lisa wasn’t it?”

She sighs and Yelena laughs, knowing she guessed correctly. “I’m going to hide the knives.” 

“Like I need a knife.” 

“Don’t kill her.” 

“Ah, no, of course not,” she says, shrugging. “Maim, maybe a little.”