the unraveling of natasha romanoff

avengers tower

They meet a soldier by the name of Rhodey at the airport the next day. Kate's quick to inform Yelena that he's also War Machine, whatever that's supposed to mean, and Yelena's more focused on how Kate remembers all of these people.

She's only ever had to remember her training, and aside from her family (which she was told to forget), she's only recently gotten used to having to retain knowledge on who people are. Most of the time prior to this, they were too dead for her to think of committing them to memory.

Rhodey (god, what is it with these Avengers and the dumb nicknames?) takes them on a flight back to New York City. He's fine, Yelena thinks. He's polite and has some nice jokes every once in a while but for the most part he's quiet and just talking to the pilot.

He's also understanding to the fact that Kate and Yelena want to spend a night at their place, even taking them to Grills' so that they can retrieve Lucky and Fanny and saying that they should bring him to the Avengers Tower to piss off Tony. That gets a little laugh out of Yelena, especially being from what she's heard about Tony Stark.

The next day, though, after sleeping in their own bed with Lucky and Fanny, Kate and Yelena get ready for the day.

"You know, you don't need sixteen knives on you at all times," Kate comments, watching as Yelena checks herself out in the mirror.

"Kate Bishop, you won't be saying that when you inevitably accidentally piss off another mob boss and need a quick way to disarm them," Yelena replies, opting today to just do a single braid down the back of her head, "What are you gonna do, tell them to wait as you whip out your bow and arrow? Unpractical."

"Impractical," Kate gently corrects, "and no , I would let my kick-ass girlfriend do that while I protected our dogs."

Yelena shrugs, "Good point."

She can see Kate smile proudly in the reflection of the mirror as she finishes off the braid, pulling it tight and secure.

"Are we bringing the dogs?" Kate asks, fiddling with a - of course - purple flannel and slipping her keys into her pocket.

"We can," Yelena ties off the braid, turning back around and looking at Kate. Lucky's sitting at her feet, one paw on her shoes as if he's telling her to stay, "We'll only be gone for the day, though. And I'm thinking if we do what Captain America was telling us, we'd get to bring them with us."

Kate smiles, seemingly taking the answer and crouching down and kissing Lucky's head, "No tearing the house apart, alright? And be nice to Fanny."

Yelena looks at her dog, whose splayed out on the couch and snoring, not giving a single shit about what's going on.

"Let's go get breakfast, then we'll go see this Tony Stark ," Yelena says, pulling on a light jacket that she reworked to have all sorts of hidden compartments. It's kind of her pride and joy, if she's being honest.

"You can't wear the murder jacket," Kate says, grabbing her phone off of the counter, "We're not doing any murdering today."

"But it looks good," Yelena pouts, "Пожалуйста, детка?"

Kate clenches her jaw and Yelena smirks, knowing she won.

"You can't just speak Russian to get your way," Kate whines, "It's unfair."

"I could do it in six other languages if you'd like," Yelena teases, tugging at the jacket proudly, "Come on, Kate Bishop, let's go get something to eat."

Kate obliges, obviously not willing to argue it any further, and they walk a couple blocks to their favorite bagel place. Yelena gets herself something new off the menu, as she always does, and Kate orders the Classic Bagel (including cream cheese, lox, lettuce, tomato, and onion). Yelena tried it once, and while it was okay, she doesn't think it was good enough to be a favorite.