Chapter Text
"This is surreal" Ava says dropping her bags on the floor of the old stark tower. The new headquarters was drenched in morning light as five of the six members of the thunderbolts enter their new home. "This is all ours?" Bob asks fidgeting with his backpack straps. "with some persuasion on my part this is ours now" Yelena states walking deeper into the new thunderbolt tower. "Where's John?" Bob asks, "Said he needed to talk to his ex wife, didn't eleborate much" Bucky mumbles dropping two black duffles on the ground. "Well what now?" Yelena smirks "I call dibs on the biggest room" She shouts before racing up the stairs "No you don't!" Ava follows after the assassin and Bob walks up the stairs to find a room. Bucky smiles fondly, his team his family. Alexei shoves his shoulder "you going soft Winter soldier?" Bucky rolls his eyes before picking up his bags and walking off to find his own room.
Ava and Yelena argue about the biggest room but Ava wins with her phasing powers. "Thats cheating!" Yelena states Ava sticks her tongue out at one of their team leaders. The blonde rolls her eyes before picking the next room over that happened to be right across from Bob's self assigned room. Yelena drops off her bags before peaking into Bob's room, spotting the depressed boy sitting in the middle of his single bed next to the window. Yelena has taken the boy under her watch keeping her promise of never letting him feel alone again. "Hey hows it going?" she asks leaning against the door frame. Bob turns around his eyes big and doe like staring at her startled.
"fine" he mumbles "are you really?" Bob doesn't meet her eyes. Yelena shakes her head sitting beside him on the bed. "I know its new, a lot is new with this team, but you're not alone Bob, and I'm right across the hall if you need anything" she says wrapping an arm around him Bob nods "I know" "Yelena there's a hot tub!" Alexei yells from downstairs. The blonde rolls her eyes, "do you want to come see the hot tub?" Yelena laughs Bob shakes his head as he pulls at the cuffs of his sleeves. "I just want to be here for a minute" he mumbles. Yelena nods "alright, call me if you need anything" she pats his shoulder before standing up. Yelena catches Bob pull his headphones over his ears before laying back on the bed. She leaves him be, as she goes to go see her dad downstairs.
"Yelena! Yelana! look!" Alexei shouts pointing at the balcony, The assassin rolls her eyes but smiles and listens to her dad's excitement. The afternoon pasted as the sun started to set, some of the group found themselves sitting around in the living room chatting. "Never though i'd be here" Ava states laying back on the purple couch. Walker mumbles in agreement, the boy scout captain America showed up not even an hour ago before pulling Bucky aside. Yelena only caught some of the convertaion words like "Restraining order" and "Custody battle" came up. Yelena decided to tuned out the rest of their converstaion. "Where's Bob?" Alexi asks, "upstairs he needed some space" Yelena states absent-mindedly as she scrolls through her phone seeing funny guinea pig videos and the horrors in the world.
Bob ascended from the stairs at that point headphones over his ears the faint sound of blasting music being heard. "speak of the devil" Walker states gaining a sharp jab to the side from Ava. "How are you settling in Bob?" Bucky asks. Bob shrugs "fine" he answers before sitting next to Yelena. The blonde opened her arm for Bob who took that as an opportunity to snuggle into Yelena's side confusing most of the crew. "why is bob allowed to do that but we can barely touch you with out being judo flipped?" Ava asks crossing her arms.
Yelena sighed and clicked off her phone "because unlike you all I actually like Bob's company, plus he doesn't say stupid shit and he hasn't tried to kill me" Walker was about to correct her when Yelena glared at him "that thing doesn't count, Bob himself, not Sentury, not that thing, Bob has never tried to kill me and I appreciate that in a friend" Yelena patted the side of Bob's head "he's also nicer than all of you combined" no one could disagree with that.
Yelena typed out a message on her notes app before handing it to Bob. "how are you doing?" it read, Bob looked at Yelena then took her phone and responded "not great, here's good" he typed quickly. Yelena nodded "When Yelena was little" Alexei started making everyone mentally groan. "She found this kitten, named it whiskers and babied that little guy for weeks, she didn't tell anyone she found the fur ball, Melina found out because she found the gray kitten drinking her coffee. don't you remember?" Yelena rolled her eyes "his name wasn't whiskers it was Wisk like the thing for cakes and you two took wisk away from me said we couldn't keep him because you were allergic" Alexei scratched his beard, "I don't remember that" Yelena elected to not respond turning back to her phone.
The first night was rough, majority of the thunderbolts have nightmares so on several occasions through out the first week they'd run into each other at different times of night. Usually the kitchen. The first encounter Yelena had was her stand in the kitchen drink what was hopefully water when John walked in hair a mess and bags under his eyes. Neither said anything, nothing needed to be said a silent understanding. Yelena just passed over the bottle to him and left for her room. In the same night Bob was alone in the kitchen knife in hand thoughts clouding his judgement when Ava came up behind him and carefully took it away from him. The two stood in the kitchen in a tense silence Bob let a few tears slip from his eyes and Ava, despite not being the best with physically affection, opened her arms for the boy who just stood there and hugged her. its safe to say the next day John put in a lock on the drawer with the knifes and Yelena had a talk with Bob about saying something before doing something.
Nights and Days were messy at first, learning how to maneuver around each others different schedules proved challenging. Yelena self-proclaimed her full time job is to watch Bob since Valentina is paying for their logging and food, Yelena and Bob stay at home mostly except for the occasional walk and grocrey store visits. Yelena ordered Alexei to find something to do because him being in the tower 24/7 was driving her nuts. So the Soviet got a job stocking shelves at a supermarket where he bothers customers constantly, everyone is suprised he's kept this job this far. Ava doesn't have a job but she keeps herself busy in the lab under the tower tweaking her suit and making new teach that hopefully will be useful in the furture. And Walker trains, a lot, to the point Yelena thinks its unhealthy but nobody stops him, nobody says anything, the man is clearly not in a good head space. Lastly Bucky is trying his best to keep his and Yelena's new team looking good for the press and is dealing with Sam Willison screaming at him over the phone at least once a day. To say Willison isn't thrilled about the thunderbolts is an understatement.
Overall over the course of six months, Nightmares, friendships, emotional bonds, and new routines have been worked on and adjusted. Everyone here is out of their comfort zone, everyone here is out of their mind half the time, but everyone here understands in some capacity and maybe that's why he though it would be the safest place to go. Peter Parker has just been kicked out of his apartment and lost his job for the third time. He decided to crash in his usual abandoned building only to find lights on at the top of the tower. He should have just left, this is stupid he thinks before ringing the bell.
A man in a fancy suit opens the glass door, "may I help you?" the bell hop asks to the boy with a duff bag in his right hand and a backpack over his left shoulder. Peter couldn't speak, why was he here? for help? for friends? The bell hop called someone and before Peter knew it he was being taken up the elevator to the top floor, the nostalgia itself was nauseating as each floor moved passed them. He knew this was going to be hard, how was he supposed to explain himself to a group of new heros? should he keep his identity a secret? Peter didn't have time to ponder all those questions before the doors opened in front of him. Once at the top the two guys in suits took his arms leading him into the newly renovated and decorated living room. The sudden elevator opening startled half the thunderbolts as they all drew their weapons only for Yelena to call them down.
"What should we do with him?" one of the guys asks Yelena who looks at Peter with concern, He seemed familiar but she didn't know from where. The blonde looked back at her crew, Ava and Walker both mumbling to get rid of him but she doesn't care about their options sure their her team doesn't mean she has't to trust their judgement. Yelena looked at Bob who's eyes we fixed on the brunette with a duffle bag in hand and a backpack on his back. "Bob?" she asks the brunette looks at his friend before nodding. "leave him here" Yelena states the two suited men leave in the elevator leaving the scared boy in the middle of the room.
"What's your name?" Yelena asks "Peter, Peter Parker" he mumbles "well Peter what can we help you with?" the man takes a deep breath, "do you know of Spider-man?" Bob was next to Yelena in seconds "Spider-man? you mean the Spider-Man?" Peter nods "do you know him!" Bob says his eyes lighting up. "I umm, I sort of-" Peter paused himself debating weather to tell these total strangers who he is, They aren't total strangers to him, he knows Yelena is Natasha's sister, He's seen Walker on the news, and he's fought Bucky, or the winter soilder, in the past but Peter can't seem to see the super soldier anywhere. He knows who they are but can they be trusted?
"well?" Yelena asks getting Peter's attention again. "I'm Spider-man and I have no where else to go" he says without thinking. Yelena takes a step back, Walker wanted to scoff tell the kid to leave but he also had no where else to go knowing his reaction would be hypocritical he kept his mouth shut. Ava wanted to laugh but kept her lips shut, and Bob looked like a little kid high on sugar. "really! I love Spider-man, I have since I was in college, well before i dropped out but I wanted to be just like you for awhile then-" Bob's face dropped. Yelena placed her hand on his shoulder. "Well Spider-man why come to us? we are nothing special" Yelena states gesturing to her team.
"I umm- I don't know, when i was homeless in the past I crashed here, before it was abandoned and then after as well but- You know what? I should go, you guys clearly don't need anymore problems I'm just-" Bob surprisingly was the one to reach out this time. "You can stay, he can stay right?" Bob looked back at his team. "No he-" Walker started but Yelena cut him off, "of course, Bob how about you take him to a spare room upstairs" Ava and John look at her in disbelief.
Bob smiles and takes Peter's hand dragging him upstairs. "You don't seriously trust-" the blonde turns around "of course I don't, Spider-man? really? no that guy is up to something but we keep him under this roof we can set him straight if he pulls anything. Bob is to trusting but he also can't be killed so its safe to say Bob is the best person to keep an eye on him. We just need to keep an eye on this spider-man and the second he steps out of line well do something about it" Ava, Alexei and Walker nod understanding. A new challenge has entered their group and Yelena won't be giving in to easily.......