It’s 2am, I just woke up, I have a headcanon about Bob and Yelena and a need to shout into the void about it.
So, we know that in the time before they met, Bob and Yelena both ended up travelling. Yelena while she was under chemical subjugation in the Red Room, carrying out missions, and Bob was drifting, looking for drugs and ended up in Kuala Lumpur. They’ve both probably been all over the world. Which leads into my headcanon:
For Yelena, what she remembers about the places she’s been to is broad brushstrokes. Views of cityscapes, tourist attractions and important buildings she’s infiltrated, a lot of vast and bustling crowds, all things she’s seen from a distance. She spent so much time focused on the details of the missions she was given that she didn’t think about the details of anything else. Especially with the chemicals muddling her brain, what she remembers are the large, distinctive things she’s seen.
Bob, on the other hand, remembers a lot of small details about the places he’s been. He had a lot of gaps in his memory due to his mental illness and how much time he spent on drugs, but what he remembers is small interactions- the faces of the people who were kind to him, sold him drugs, animals he met on the street, places he stayed. He didn’t pay much mind to anything beyond that, and if he ever did, it’s lost to the holes in his memory.
And one night, in the newly remodelled Avenger’s tower, likely after one or both of them has a nightmare and they’re talking together, they realise that they’ve visited a lot of the same places. But, when they compare notes, they realise they have two very different pictures of these places.
So what do they do? Keep talking. It’s therapeutic, to them at least, takes their minds off of the horrors lurking in the corners of their vision.
So it becomes a routine, when one has a nightmare and finds themselves in the company of the other, they pick a place, and discuss. Sometimes they bounce their memories off each other to complete a picture of what that place is like fully. But sometimes…
Sometimes it’s Yelena who talks. She makes Bob box mac ‘n cheese after a nightmare, the kind of cheap meal they’re both used to. And she tells him about city skylines. About flickering lights and back alleys. Tells him about crowds moving like swarms of bees across roads, how she used to count the number of seconds in between them stopping and moving. How she used to press her stomach to the top of a building at look straight down at the markets below, noting what colours the awning were each day. And he’ll press his chin into the palm of his hand, leaning against the counter as he eats, and lets her voice wash away the sound of the Void’s whispers.
Other times, Bob talks. On nights when his hands aren’t shaking, he’ll make her hot chocolate, like his mother did for him on her good days. He tells her about what it was like on the ground in these places, the faces he saw there. The people who sold him drugs, the people who gave him shelter for a night. He tells her about the animals, too, because he knows she likes them. About the orange tabby who sat on a corner by a harbour and only accepted fresh fish. About the fat old bird who hopped between the legs of patrons at a cafe, looking for scraps. And she’ll lean back in her chair, letting the heat from the mug in her hands warm her. Letting the drink overpower the taste of blood in her mouth as he talks. She never looks away from his face.
don’t know why I’m posting this it’s like 2am and I have to get up tomorrow lmao imma regret this in the morning
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