CHAPTER TWELVE:

TWO YEARS LATER

I wake up to barking and I groan a little, not opening my eyes just yet. Five more minutes. I feel Yelena stir awake and mutter something but I don't listen, eyes still closed. 

"If I can't see you, you can't see me, eh?" I hear her ask. I stay in the crook of her neck and I hear her giggle. "You really don't want to get up, do you?" I shake my head silently. There's a moment of silence in the whole of the house before Fanny, the dog, starts to bark again.

"What time is it?" I ask her.

I can feel her move a little, looking to the side at the clock. "Midnight." 

"What?" I ask her, a little shocked.

"Yeah, you won't believe how quick you fall asleep after-" She goes to finish her sentence when Fanny barks outside our door again. "Shall I or you?" She asks me.

"I guess I can..." I say, opening my eyes and looking up at her. She has a little smirk on her face with a raised eyebrow. "What does she even want this early in the morning?" I groan as I get up.

"Maybe she just wants her mommy?" Yelena asks. I walk over to the door and open it up, our dog runs through quickly and onto our bed, stealing my place I'd been in before- right in Yelena's lap. I close the door and sigh. "Hey- maybe she's just scared because she's never seen you without clothes on before." The girl shrugs.

"Oh- well I'm not the one who took them off, now am I?" I ask as I lay back down next to her in the bed. The smirk reappears, overly proud of herself. I stroke Fanny a little, quickly noticing she wasn't reacting like she normally would. 

"What?" Yelena asks.

"I didn't say anything..." I say, yet still trying to see what is wrong with our dog.

"You're thinking and not saying what you're thinking out loud- quite worrying, to be honest." She says, earning a raised eyebrow from me. I look over at the window for a moment and I get up. "Where are you going, eh?" She says, also getting up.

I pick up my shirt and put it on, then my shorts. "I'm gonna go take a look outside." I say, turning to her as I do the buttons of my shirt up.

"You think the fact that Fanny actually wants you to stroke her is because she's scared?" She asks, doing the bottom two buttons up. 

"It's better to be safe than sorry." I say, going to do the top two buttons up but she stops me.

"You'll look like you're going for a job interview." She tells me. 

"There's also hickeys all over my chest." I see a smirk play on her face and I shake my head in disbelief at the girl. "You're enjoying this." 

"Oh shut up and kiss me." She demands, I smile down at her for a moment but do so, leaning down and kissing her on the lips. I feel her snake her arms around my shoulder and after a moment pulls away. "Did you hear that?"

I look at her in confusion. "Was I meant to?"

"You should probably check outside." She says.

"Put some clothes on." I smirk at her before walking away. I walk down the stairs of our house and see Fanny rush down with me. "So you wanted a walk? You wanted a dang walk?" I ask the dog. She looks up at me and mutter a line of curse words as I go to open the front door, stopping dead when I take a look up at who was at the front door.

"Hey, Air. Love the shirt- very, I slept with your sister vibe" Nat says. "Who's this?" 

"Fanny..." I say quietly, looking at them all. Nat kneels down, saying a little hello to our dog. "Nice vest." I tell her. I see a smirk on her face as she looks up at me.

"Dorogoy?" Darling? I hear Yelena call from upstairs. "Is everything okay?" 

"Yeah..." I turn to the stairs where I see a still naked Yelena. "Love, I think we should put the kettle on, don't you?" 

↠

"We didn't mean to barge in like this." Steve says. I roll my eyes as they crowd around me and Yelena's living room. Wanda stood very still next to Vision while he phased a little.

"What's up with him?" I ask, nodding over at the robot.

"Was stabbed by an alien's weapon." Bruce says, I look over at him.

"When were you back in town?" I ask.

"Hey, don't sound so disappointed." He says.

"Does the name Thanos mean anything to you?" Nat asks, bringing us back to the subject in hand. I sit down on the couch and shake my head, more interested in my dog who probably needed to pee. "Thanos is coming, he's from outer space and he wants to wipe out half of civilisation." 

"Nice guy, then?" Yelena asks, walking in with mugs of steaming drinks, handing one to each of them, other than Vision. 

"He's only going to be able to do it if he collects all six Infinity Stones." Steve says.

"Then get rid of it." I say, I guess easier said than done.

"Yeah, let's just put it in a dumpster while Vision dies in the corner." Rhodey remarks.

"You've obviously already thought about this through, so why are you here?" I ask, a little irritated.

"Our only option thought of was a flight to Wakanda." Steve says.

"So you flew to Ukraine?" Yelena asks, sitting down next to me. The whole room is silent. 

"Look, Air is a trained medic-" Wanda begins.

"On the human body, not a robot." I stop her. "Isn't it obvious? Destroy the stone and back up all of Vision's memories and stuff onto a USB stick. Have a nice flight to Wakanda and get Tony Stark to help make a new Vision. Happy days- bye bye, the door is over there." I say, pointing the way they came.

"Can you not be an annoyed asshole for a whole minute?" Wanda asks.

"Do you want me to reply back in the annoyed tone and call you out or nah?" I ask her. She moves back next to Vision silently. 

"Stark's missing." Nat says.

"The one time the world needs him. Damn!" I say, still not caring.

"We still need a way to destroy the stone." Rhodey says. I look over at the Infinity Stone in Vision's head and sigh.

"The Infinity Stone was described by Tony like a computer. One of the simplest ways to fry a computer is to give it a overpower it." I explain.  "Actually- that sounds like a dick move from my mouth. Never mind." I say, interests rise in the carpets of the living room. 

"You're saying to short-circuit an Infinity Stone." Bruce says.

"Yeah..." 

"I understand, what Aerus is trying to say is it will have to be destroyed by a power of it's own." Vision says. "And I think they're right." I look up at him and he gives a little smile off but I barely even do anything back. 

"It's not the worst thing I've heard." Yelena agrees.

"It's too high in price." Wanda says quietly.

"Then you take the flight to Wakanda." I say. "Surely they can help you there. But to destroy the stone, using basic common sense, that's on you." I tell her.

"Are you going to fight with us?" Steve asks.

"I don't know." I say.

"What?" Yelena asks.

"We said we put a pin in this." I turn to her. "No more fighting after the widows were done with."

"Half of the world is at risk. And you're gonna sit here on the couch while I give you hickeys?" I sigh and I can feel Nat's eyes on me as my lover says it. She turns to her sister. "Either way I'm going."

"Absolutely not!" I protest.

"Not to be against Aerus' protection policy on her girlfriend, but we could use all the help we can get." Rhodey says. 

"Fiancé." Yelena corrects. 

Nat looks at me with a face of pure shock. "Look, if you were around I would've said something-" I begin.

"You're getting married?" Steve asks.

"Surpriseeeee." I say quietly, not making any eye contact with Wanda or Natasha. 

"We're fighting." Yelena says, making it very final.

I sigh, sitting up right. "Fine. We're fighting." 

a/n- only publishing this because we need to talk about brunette Florence and how my friend is now questioning their own sexuality...