Work Text:
As a welcome silence greeted Valentina as she and Mel filed into the elevator of her New York place, the CIA director felt a switch in her head finally turn off.
In the hours since the press conference announcing her so called New Avengers, Valentina had thrown on the most plastic smile in her arsenal, and got to work on damage control. Crafting a halfway decent public image for five of the biggest losers she'd ever employed plus meek little Robert, meant piecing together all the scraps and pieces she could find on each of them to form a strong enough foundation that could stand the test of time. One that most importantly, would keep people from looking in her direction ever again.
This was going to take time. An annoyingly long amount of time. But as the quiet hum of the elevator began to seep into her bones, allowing her to finally somewhat relax, she could feel herself begin to come back to earth.
And then just like ink seeping through paper, Valentina could feel her awareness of Mel's emotions slowly sink into her awareness.
She'd been putting out fires all day, but Valentina had felt the tension practically radiating off of her for hours. Other matters had taken precedence though, so she'd filed the observation away to the back of her mind for later. Later had arrived however, and she still couldn't quite put her finger on what was bothering her assistant so much. Some would say she was reading too much into it, but she and Mel were like one person. Where Valentina ended and Mel began was anyone's guess. She could pull apart Mel's various micro expressions and moods better than her own sometimes, it was a two way tether that almost always rendered results.
But now? She was getting nothing. And it bothered her immensely. The need to know itched insistently under her skin, pressing her to pull apart the already fraying thread. Why? Why was she being so uncharacteristically quiet?
"So..." Valentina began.
"So..." Mel echoed, plastering on an indulgent smile.
It was a reluctant one though, one that only served as fuel to the fire of Valentina's annoyance. She didn't appreciate being patronised, and she certainly didn't appreciate her assistant throwing her toys out of the pram when they had important things to be focusing on. Namely strangling the last of the life out of the impeachment hearings.
Valentina narrowed her eyes, turning her entire body around to face Mel. She let out a noise of impatience, watching with some satisfaction as Mel's smile fell away and her face tightened in anticipation. "What is it?"
"What is what?" Mel blinked, causing Valentina to sigh.
"Clearly you're holding back on something." Mel opened her mouth to retort, but Valentina was quick to stop her in her tracks. She waved a dismissive hand at her. "We both know that your lying requires the tiniest bit of work, so let's skip the dancing around and get straight to the point."
Mel squared her shoulders, a frown forming on her brow Valentina would have been half tempted to press away under any other circumstance. "How did you know I called Bucky?" Valentina blinked in surprise, her brain rushing to catch up with the rest of her.
"What are you going on about?" Valentina could tell she already knew, she just wanted verbal confirmation from her.
"You knew that I called Bucky. You knew him and the others were on their way. How Val?" Mel pressed, her mouth forming into the same tight line that it always did when she was upset.
Valentina shrugged carelessly as the elevator door pinged, opening up into her penthouse. "I bugged your phone." She walked straight out of the elevator, leaving a wide-eyed Mel alone to register her blunt form of confirmation.
"You-" Mel followed after her, keeping up with her long strides as she headed to the kitchen. Mel huffed in annoyance. "Why am I surprised?" She muttered to herself, completely incredulous. "This is just- You bugged my phone!"
Valentina rolled her eyes at her assistant's dramatic tone, heaving a heavy sigh as she turned away from her. She needed some wine after the day she'd had. "Do you want something to drink?" She asked over her shoulder, walking into her kitchen in search of some.
"When did you bug my phone?" Mel demanded, following closely behind her.
"Oh well-" The corners of Valentina's lips twitched upwards as she located one of her more decent bottles, setting it on the kitchen counter as Mel stood directly across from her, sulking like a child. "Do you remember the first time that we-"
"Then?!"
Valentina nodded absentmindedly, her attention otherwise occupied with searching for a wine bottle opener. She opened up a drawer, then another, and another, her frustration mounting as she came up empty. "Where the hell is the god damn bottle opener?" she cursed, huffing in irritation.
"Do I dare ask what else you saw?" Mel queried.
"Oh unclench." Valentina rolled her eyes. "I didn't even see that much. Though that friend of yours really should just dump her boyfriend for good. What is that the fifth time she's taken him back now?"
Shaking her head to herself, Mel made her way over to her. She pulled open a drawer on her far right, pulling free the elusive bottle opener. She grabbed the wine, her displeased frown still firmly fixed in place. Valentina waited for her to say something, anything, but to no avail. She rolled her eyes at Mel's insistence on her little tantrum, taking a step back from her as she tried to open up the wine bottle. "Do you think you're special? That you're an exception? Is that it?"
"Consider the subject dropped Val." Mel sighed in resignation, her eyes drooping slightly from tiredness as Valentina went to grab two wine glasses.
"I work in intelligence Mel." Valentina retorted, her tone growing more and more irritable the longer she spoke. "You have to keep your eye on the ball. Whether the person's Gary from accounting or the woman physically incapable of opening a bottle of wine."
Mel forcibly slammed the bottle opener down on to the counter, the slope of her shoulders rigid with tension. As she drew in a steadying breath, Valentina realised that her hand was shaking.
"It's not just the phone bugging, is it?" Valentina murmured, slowly drawing close to Mel. She felt a momentary pang of embarrassment for not seeing it, but quickly shook the emotion off. She placed her hand atop Mel's, the other finding its way to her waist. She settled her chin on Mel's shoulder, satisfaction swimming comfortably in her chest as she felt Mel relax against her. If everything else in her world had been shaken to the point of unrecognizability, at least this was still the same.
Mel shook her head, her eyes closing momentarily as she spoke. "All-" She drew in a shaky breath. "All of those memories Bob put me in... I can't shake them Val."
Valentina had an inkling about the kind of memories Robert's darker half had plagued her with. Mel's background check at the beginning of their working relationship had dredged up a history her assistant had neatly filed away, only occasionally granting admittance through that particular door to her. The incarcerated mother, the alcoholic father, those years as a runaway Mel didn't even know she knew about, had she seen them all?
As Mel turned around to meet her gaze, Valentina swallowed uncomfortably at the pure emotion swimming in her eyes. Mel felt things so loudly. Try though she did to hide it, Valentina could read her unease around the world of grey she was soaked in like it was second nature to her. Tiring though it was, Valentina could handle that. But when it came to other, far more complicated emotions-
Valentina shook herself out of her thought process, unable to even let herself think about it as she neatly filed it away.
Valentina moved away from Mel, opening up the wine bottle with ease and pouring the both of them a drink. "Here," she handed Mel's glass over to her, urging her to drink. "-you look like you need it more than I do."
A small smile tugged at Mel's lips at the remark, her eyes never leaving Valentina's as they both took a sip of their respective drinks.
Once Valentina had had her fill, she sat her glass back down on to the kitchen counter. She closed the distance between them, her hand reaching out to smooth down a strand of Mel's hair. "You're here." She spoke quietly, eyes baring into Mel's as she took Mel's glass from her and sat it next to her own. "The past is gone. All the nightmare slideshows in the world from Robert won't change that."
Valentina let herself cup the side of Mel's face, her heart thumping all the more loudly in her ears as Mel leaned into her touch once more.
"Everything's back to how it should be."