Pulling Me

Part Thirty-Six. Set it Up

Y/N got ready quickly, knowing that Maria had already texted them before they ran upstairs to be ready in ten. A quick shower, some borrowed clothes, and they were out the door. They ran into Wanda on their way, watching as her demeanor was noticeably different.

"Hey! Sorry, I haven't really gotten time to talk with you since you got here last night. How're you feeling?" Wanda rubbed her arms, trying to fray away from the awkwardness creeping up on her.

"I know. I've been out of it, honestly. This is a whole new world for me," Y/N responded, eyes glazing over the same way they had multiple times in the past 24 hours. They weren't sure anyone was really understanding how big this was for them. Yes, okay, maybe they had their time and run-ins with the Avengers years ago, but never this.

They'd seen the look Wanda gave them out of the corner of their eye during the meeting earlier in the morning. Everything that they'd done had happened after Wanda, but Y/N was sure she wondered if they'd hidden stuff from her when they were together.

But it didn't matter. Wanda had hidden her own stuff, gone off on her own journey. The more they were around her now, the less they seemed to worry if she was upset with them. All they cared about now was Yelena. Saving her, getting her home, being with her.

Yelena.

That's it.

"I hadn't really thought about how... weird this must be for you. You're in social media now, right?" She asked though she knew the answer. Wanda had been following them for quite some time now.

Nodding, they agreed. Social media was a different beast, but nothing like the Avengers. Their day-to-day was focused on whatever task their companies had set for them. Now, they were set on whatever task Nick Fury assigned them.

The two walked down to meet with Maria in the lower-level offices. She'd already had everything set up and ready to go. Y/N looked around at pictures, maps, and files. Some pictures were snippets of Yelena, some of Y/N. The maps traced around the area where she was taken.

"What's this?" they questioned, pointing at the file with their name on it.

Maria looked up from her own stack of papers, "You're more than welcome to look through it. It's filled with the research Nick did on you eight years ago."

Their eyebrows shot high enough to stick to the ceiling. Wanda made her way over to the file, curious as to what had been so important that it garnered so much attention from SHIELD. As Y/N flipped through, Wanda watched over their shoulder.

Pictures from each time they happened to be in the same vicinity as the Avengers. Pictures from meetings they held when they'd created a group set to villainize the set of superheroes. Lastly, they flipped through pictures of Gianna.

A lump grew in their throat at the sight of her face. Wanda's eyes widened, remembering the pictures that Y/N had shown her in college.

Anger was boiling again the same way it always did when Gianna was brought into the mix. Y/N was trying to move on, be happy, but this shit kept coming back to haunt them.

"Why the fuck are there pictures of her in this file?" Their voice shook and nearly crumbled along with them. Wanda placed a hand on their shoulder, wondering if she should take the pain a bit as she did before.

She decided against it. Y/N might be upset if she did anything like that without them asking. So she waited, watching as Maria looked up from her work.

"You know why. I don't really have the time to go through all of this with you, Y/N. You know what happened to her. You know what you did in the aftermath. That's the file. Can we get to work on this now?" She pointed to the screen in front of her.

Still seething, Y/N looked over at the screen. Yelena's face was plastered across it. The hatred brewing inside began to fade.

She looked different. Something about the way her face laid and the look in her eyes was off. Y/N couldn't put a pin in it, but they could tell something was wrong.

Maria had found footage of her in Manhattan, scouting through the streets. The snap of her on the screen showed her at the corner of 8th avenue and 55th street. It was far from where she'd been taken, which made them wonder how Kate and Clint's search had gone.

"Well, she looks okay. No bruises or cuts. No broken bones. Nothing visible, at least," Wanda tried comforting them. It helped a bit but not enough.

The look on her face was eating away at them. This wasn't the girl they knew, the one they had begun falling for. Who was that?

Maria began letting the tapes roll. The three watched as she scaled walls while the cameras cut as Nick and Maria had followed her around. She appeared to be searching for something, but they couldn't figure out what.

If she'd been sent to take out Y/N, was there a new target in mind knowing the Avengers had them? Or was something else at play?

"What now? We have her. So shouldn't we just send the team in on her?" Y/N questioned.

Maria fast forwarded, showing that the time stamps were hours behind. These were tapes they had on her. At some point, she'd taken to the rooftops and stayed out of sight. Sam Wilson had been sent out to scope for her but had not yet reported anything.

Y/N asked if they could steal Maria's seat. The program she was using was similar to the one they'd used in their Avenger tracking days. She shrugged, allowing them to sit and take a stab at it.

They thought about what they knew about Yelena. What had she told them? What had they told her? In all reality, they didn't know much about her. She'd always let them do the talking.

So what could they use to help here? Where might she go? Who might she see?

"...Brandy," they mumbled.

Wanda stepped up, quiet and careful to not disturb their train of thought. Y/N flipped through streets, doing their best to find where her apartment was located. It wasn't far from theirs, which they'd check next.

Nick and Maria had lost her around 9:00 am. It was now 1:00 pm. She might've made it in there at any time. They zoomed through the time stamps.

Nothing.

Maybe their apartment building? She knew their sister lived there. More zooming.

More nothing.

"Fuck!" They slammed the table next to the keyboard. Grabbing hand fulls of their hair, Y/N tried racking their brain harder. Where would she go?

"Y/N..." Wanda hesitated, "Look."

The two looked up, feeling Maria step in to see. There she was, but not where they were expecting. "I'm calling Nick to get this to Clint and Sam. You two go get ready. We're out in 10."