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There she is. Stroking the hair curls out of his pained, crying face, tears dried out of his cheeks, nose puffin red. The syringe is still poking out of his left arm, even after he injected the shot. Yelena carefully takes it out, putting a tissue on the wound before it bleeds out. He has no medical alcohol to disinfect, and she even wonders if he knows that he should disinfect open wounds. Instead, she just uses the bottle of vodka laying on the table to clean his arm, better than nothing, she thinks, very mindful of her actions. He's completely knocked out, must be doing that regularly.
She woke up in his room not long ago. He found her as he was getting out of the bathroom.
"Bob?" she called, naturally.
He seemed younger, sadder, sicker.
"No, not Bob, ma'am, I'm Miles. Miles Miller."
He debated throwing her out of his room politely, or maybe not politely. He had a gun ready in his locker in case she was reticent. He really didn’t wanna have sex with any client tonight, as pretty as she was.
Yelena's face was all but aroused. It was confused, empathetic, caring. He ended up weeping in her arms, on the floor, clutching to her like he never clutched to anyone, not even his mom, no hookers, no one, his whole body craving the physical touch, the emotional attention, everything he never had. Something in him wanted to trust her heartfully. And so, he did.
Then the real cravings hit him harder than a truck and his hand crawled back to his stash, fumbling through the bottles and syringes.
Yelena didn’t stop him.
She knew there was no point. This kind of addiction couldn’t be stopped like that. She just needed to be there for him.
Sometimes, she thought about Bob's addictions. She wonders if she had stepped in an older memory of him, in the Void maybe? Or something else, time related. Then she realised this mustn’t even be the 21st century. This was multiverse related, and it wasn’t her Bob, but it didn’t matter. Sometimes, she wondered if there was a possibility for her to come back in time, take care of the younger Bob, addict and hurt, kiss his tears away and comfort him through the worst.
This one seems so fragile, yet so strong inside.
What happened to him? Her heart is so ripped out by this sight.
He wakes up an hour later, confused and groggy.
"You stayed," he realizes as he wrinkles at Yelena, who's still holding him firmly.
"I'm not leaving you." And she means it.
"I—" He doesn't know what to say, what to ask. Why? Who are you? My guardian angel? Am I dead?
He rubs his eyes, standing up slowly, he recovers pretty quickly. Yelena follows him up.
"You— You shouldn't be here, a lady like you— It's not safe," he blurts out.
"It's okay..." Not Bob. Miles. Yes. "Miles. I've seen worst. Besides, I have no other places to be."
That makes him think for a moment. He's utterly confused, but Yelena is too! She just knows that whatever version of Bob this is, she can't bring herself to give up on him.
"I’m Yelena. You look like a friend of mine," she confesses. "His name is Bob. He went through hell too."
"Oh you don't know what I’ve been through," Miles dryly answers with a laugh.
"Maybe. Still. I'm here now. Not leaving," she repeats. Unless Dr Strange drags me out of here.
The doors cracks. Someone is listening to them. Yelena and Miles share a look before he storms out of the room. No one in the hallway. His jaw tightened. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.
“You really shouldn’t be here,” Miles pronounces sombrely, before leaving.
Laramie, or Dwight (his real name), looks at the runner of the hotel disappear out of his sight, followed by that blond girl. Their conversation didn’t make any sense, but she seemed Russian. A commie? This hotel has more to hide than it shows. For now, Dwight had a mission. Uncover whatever is happening there.
The hotel is vintage, and the mood makes Yelena uncomfortable.
“I told you; I just fell, this shit happens when you get old,” the priest they found laying on the ground with blood on his head shouts at them. Then he points Yelena with his finger with a judging face. “And who are you? A hooker? A new client?”
"No!" Yelena sputters before Miles has the chance to answer. "I'm... I'm Miles's girlfriend."
Now... Why did she say that? She doesn't let panic overwhelm her.
"You have a girlfriend?!" The priest wonders with pity. Miles is definitely wondering if this isn’t just a whole new kind of hallucination where his brain creates him the perfect girlfriend coming out of nowhere. None on this makes any sense! His mouth twitches. "Apparently." Yelena looks at him with insistence. "I mean yeah she— she is— she—" he looks out for a plot. "She came from Missouri to meet me."
The priest is suspicious.
"What, you think Miles can't sleep with beautiful girls too?" she spats at him while crossing her arms as if she is affected by what that man thinks of her.
"No, no, huh," he walks away from them with a pained grunt. “I don’t care, to be honest. You’re all so weird here, I need to get out of here…” He stops by the table to catch his breath.
“No, you can’t leave,” Miles suddenly panics, shaking his head. They both look at him with curiosity. “Father Daniel, please, I—I need to talk to you, in private—”
“Miles, I’m sorry, I don’t have time for this, you understand, kid? Whatever you did with your—” He looks at Yelena with confusion. “Girlfriend or whatever—”
“This isn’t about this!” he interrupts with energy.
“Miles, you’re alright?” Yelena worries, stepping closer, she can’t bring herself to touch him the same way she does with Bob, but she really wants to hold him. He seems like he’s about to breakdown.
“You don’t understand—”
“Miles, kid, okay, listen.” The priest takes a deep breath. Something in the way he talks. Something in the way anything is happening. This guy isn’t more a priest than Yelena is a Saint. “Miles, look, I’ll need you to help me with something. I need the master key. You give me that, I’ll—We’ll sit and talk, is that okay with you?” This has the audacity to make her laugh out loud, so loudly Miles looks at her as if she just disrespected the whole Christianity.
“Sorry, it’s just—” she smiles, crossing her arms. “That’s just really convenient, don’t you think so? The old man trick, you accidently fell down and knocked over the whole bar? Then you need the master key, the key that opens any door here? You’re gonna make us believe all that is just a coincidence? Tell us, what’s your plan?”
Miles doesn’t understand. The priest pursues his lips. This isn’t going the way he wants.
“Look, little girl, you aren’t going to tell me—”
“Or maybe I am. What do you need the master key for?”
“I told you; I need it to get back to my room! Miles, don’t you want to confess or something? You’ll let this girl get you away from salvation?”
This scene is all too familiar to her. Valentina manipulating Sentry. She isn’t going to let that happen again. Not in any universe. She steps forward and takes Miles’s hand. He didn’t expect her to touch him. He’s so surprised he doesn’t react “If you’re not gonna tell us anything, you shady priest, then you’re not getting any master key.” She starts dragging him away, away… where? She doesn’t know but he’s right about something. They can’t stay in this hotel. It stinks.
“Wait! Please— We got off on the wrong foot.” The man follows them, limping a little. Yelena doesn’t stop. It’s Miles who does. “Yelena, you two, listen to me!” he cries out, stopping them on their track. “I can’t keep this for myself anymore— I—”
He’s struggling to find his words through the tears. They’re all silent. Her heart is throbbing. “Miles…” She gets closer to him; her palm touches delicately his cheek to wipe the tears away from his face. He’s so, so young. His big doe eyes meet hers, tired, distressed, pleading. But also, something else. Trust, worry, hope.
“You lucky bastard,” the priest jokes out of blue. “You’re really dating this nice gal; this isn’t a lie?”
She ignores him, focusing solely on her guy. “What did you wanna show us?”
The hidden corridor. The atrocities he had to witness. The movies he had to make and send to his bosses. The priest wants to know everything about the last movie he made. Miles tells him everything. Yelena just watches. Not in horror. Just stunned by the shit this Bob had to go through. He isn’t exactly Bob. He just looks like him. He’s him. In the face and everything. The drug addiction and the pain. The will to become someone better. This one had given up hope, until today. Until her. Did the multiverse bring her there for a reason?
They find the last room. A girl who’s kidnapped. A man enters to save her. He’s shot dead. Miles is too shocked by whatever is happening to react when the gun is pointed toward the fake mirror. Yelena screams his name, jumps on him. They fall on top of each other as the glass shatters just above their heads. Miles’s body runs hot too, his form is so small, thin, she wants to cradle him in her arms. He smells burnt ashes, sweat and vinegar.
“Look what we got here,” the woman pointing the gun rifle at them sings. “A couple of pervs.”
They stumble on their feet, Yelena stepping in front of him. This Bob isn’t bulletproof. In every universe, she’ll step in front of him. To protect him. He’s crying again, silently, shell-shocked. Jesus. She can easily knock down the woman. But she doesn’t want Bob… Miles… to be hurt by a stray bullet. So, she raises her hands like an innocent girl would do. Good thing she isn’t wearing her full geared-up suit.
“Who the hell are you?” the stranger asks her with disdain. “What are you two plotting?”
“It’ a hooker!” the girl who was kidnapped (seems like she isn’t anymore) screams from the room and the other woman just rolls her eye.
“I’m—I’m not a hooker. This is all a misunderstanding,” she whimpers. “We can explain.” She needs her to be out of Miles’s way.
The other contemplates her proposition. “Let’s tie them up,” the teen girl proposes.
“Yeah, let’s do that.”
“I should have talked to the priest, I should have given him the key,” Miles repeats in litany since they’ve been tied up.
The ropes are tied neatly. Nothing out of Yelena’s expertise though. “Don’t worry, Miles, I’ll get you out of here,” she promises discreetly. He glances at her with perplexity.
Their abductor sits in front of them while the little girl is playing around. She doesn’t have the gun in her hands anymore. Too confident. She doesn’t see any of them as a threat. Really, really good thing.
“So… who are you?” she asks Yelena.
“I’m Miles’s girlfriend.”
The woman whistles. “This loser has a girlfriend? The heck. Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not! You don’t know him.”
“Yeah, I don’t. But what I know, is that your guy here, is running a pervert hotel and you seem to be aware so what the hell?”
“Are you gonna kill us?” Miles mutter in his chin, shaking.
“Maybe,” she answers slowly, putting a cig out of her pocket to light it up. “You’ve seen things I didn’t want you to be see tonight.”
“Please, don’t hurt her!” he suddenly begs. “She didn’t do anything wrong, I—I am the one who was in charge of the—the mirrors and— the corridor—please, don’t hurt her—"
She guesses in any universe; Bob will try to protect her too. That makes her stomach flutter.
“Okay, but she still saw what happened so… How do we do with that?”
“Look, hey,” Yelena intervenes. “Miles and I don’t want any harm, we were about to leave this place, run away, start a new life. We really don’t care about any of this, I swear, we won’t be telling anyone.”
“Start a new life…” he repeats in awe, the concept too strange for him.
“I can’t trust you.”
“You can.”
“You’re very bold for someone who is tied up.”
“Because I know I’m telling the truth.”
“You know,” the little girl says with a little voice. “It won’t matter when he arrives. No amount of begging is ever enough with him, Emily.”
“What— First of all, don’t say my name, and second, what did you do—?!”
Emily rises to her feet, panicked. Okay, that’s Yelena’s cue to get the hell out of her. She kicks Emily in the knees until she falls down, untying her hands in seconds. The little girl screams. Yelena doesn’t have much time. She unties a dazed Miles and they both make a run. Before they manage to the door, some boss music starts playing in the jukebox. Seriously? Then freaking Thor, God of Asgard, steps into the hotel with armed man. Big grin on his face, bare torso.
The priest and another woman are held hostages. “Father, Darlene!” Miles calls them.
“Thor?” she asks in disbelief.
He smiles at her, chewing on something, pointing a gun at her face.
“Sweetie, that’s very nice of you to call me a god.”
Okay.
Only one person has the right to call her sweetheart, and it isn’t this cheap version of the strongest Avengers. She knocks him with a swift punch to the ribs with her foot, then to the face. He’s tougher than he seems and dodges her hit, smile dropping. It doesn’t matter.
“Miles, to the ground!” she shouts. The gunned men point their weapon at her. Finally, some fun for the black widow. She does a backflip, throwing their guns away with precise feet kick dropping to the ground with the spider pose that her sister loved so much. These men are just gangsters. They know how to scare people and wheal their weapons in threatening way, but they don’t know the art of kicking asses.
“Kill her, oh my god!” Thor commands.
Miles steals one of the guns she threw earlier and points it at the leader.
“Nobody moves!” he then proceeds to kick fake Thor’s face, who scrambles on the ground in pain, nose bleeding. “And no one touches my girl.”
She smiles at him. Surprisingly, he smiles back.
“What?” Darlene babbles with surprise, still held at gunpoint by the other men.
“These two are overkill,” Daniel complains.
Their captors change their target to Miles and Yelena. Darlene uses this opportunity to kick him in the balls. He screams in pain. Yelena comes to her help and disarms him. “Good job!”
“Thanks,” she says, breathless. “Do I know you?”
“I’m Miles’s girlfriend,” she says it again with a smug, just because she loves the reactions, as she’s dodging a bullet aimed at her head and dropping to the ground, toppling the last guy standing.
“Oh.”
At least, she doesn’t judge her. Yelen jumps on the rest of them, knocking out those who are still trying to stand up. The priest shoots in the face the last woman standing who is in Thor’s team. Now, all the mobs are squirming in pain on the ground.
“Who the hell are you?” the priest asks again, dumbfounded.
“Did you serve in the army or something?” Darlene wonders in a sweet voice.
She can’t tell them she’s a trained assassin. Actually, she doesn’t have time to tell them anything because something catches her attention from behind. The teenager she ignored until now put her hands on one the stray guns.
It’s pointed straight at Miles.
Time slows.
Thor is laughing.
Darlene screams.
Miles just has the time to lift his head.
Death is awaiting.
Yelena doesn’t think twice.
She shoots the teenage girl. One bullet to the head. Her body loudly drops on the ground, smoke coming out of her wound.
Thor’s face crumbles.
No matter the universe, she won’t let anyone take Bob, or Miles, or whoever version he is, away from her. Not even a child.
They let Darlene and Daniel deal with Thor and whatever issues they have to deal with. She grew fond of them.
“I am not worth saving,” Miles tells her when they’re out of the hotel.
“I don’t know what you’ve seen,” she starts with sincerity. “But I know you have remorse, regrets, which means you’re worth saving, no matter what you did. Shit happens. I myself killed, destroyed families, yeah… as long as we’re alive, there is still room for growth and hope, change and recovery, redemption is never far. Take my hand et let’s get the heck out of this place.”
He hesitates, takes a deep breath, nods his head. “Okay, Yelena. I’m in.”
They take one of the gangster’s car and fly away.
To somewhere far, far, away.
**
Two months have gone by. Strange didn’t bring Yelena to her world yet. So, she lives with Miles now. They share a room. Nothing weird happens between them. They just sleep together. She realises Miles’s night are nothing but restless. Nightmares eat him out, but she’s there, she’s not letting him alone. Addiction doesn’t leave too, so she helps through his bad days, the cravings, the needles, the disinfection, the aftercare. Like her Bob, this one is good at making her food when she forgets to eat. The more they spend days together, the more he opens up to her, the horror he’s seen, the war. She tells him about her black widow program. He doesn’t judge. At all. In fact, he opens up even more to her. Now, he smiles daily. A real, genuine smile. She struggles with this life, this time period, everything. He helps her through it. She tells him about Bob. He’s curious. It makes him cute. She fell in love with Bob once, and she keeps falling for every version of him. She still hopes someday she’s gonna see him again. Come back to the Watchtower, to her dad, to her friends, to her heroic life. For now, she’s trying to piece everything together and find a place with Miles, in a world that doesn’t wait for the broken.