the unraveling of natasha romanoff

kate's apartment

Yelena's gotten good at living in the city in the past couple of months.

Disappointingly, like all of her other skills, that's due to her Red Room training, but she rationalizes that as long as her knowledge isn't being used to harm, she's doing better than they ever were.

(At least, that's what keeps her from going insane about it.)

She has some takeout from a hole-in-the-wall Chinese place tonight, and she made sure to grab extra fortune cookies for Kate (apparently, she has a collection going of the little fortunes. Yelena's not sure if she'll ever understand it).

She kicks the ground as she walks, finding herself kicking a pebble up the street as she walks. It's bare tonight, she assumes that has to do with it being a Tuesday night and post rush hour.

She walks by a store, surprised when she sees a little photo of Natasha on the front display.

The Black Widow Shopped Here! is in bold underneath her picture, and Yelena smiles softly, even though an ache settles itself in her chest.

She studies the signature on the photo, one she's seen time and time again. It's loopy yet refined, and something about it screams Natasha even though it reads Black Widow . She stops, trying to collect her thoughts, but all that comes out is a barely-there, "I miss you, Natasha."

Yelena forges ahead and arrives at Kate's apartment sooner than later, trying to focus now on her present. She has a key to Kate's apartment, she has for a while now, ever since she started to become a more permanent fixture in New York and in Kate's life.

Her heart skips a beat thinking about it, truthfully, it was weird when Kate gave it to her. She had gotten so used to sneaking in and now she could just walk in like any other human, taking the elevator and walking down the hall and unlocking the door with the 26 (crookedly) on it.

The weirdness dissipated after some time, as things do, but every once in a while Yelena finds herself marveling over how things have changed again.

The lock clicks open and Yelena slowly opens the door, smiling softly to herself when she hears music playing on the TV and sees Kate in the kitchen, singing to herself. Well, Yelena smiles until she realizes that Kate's in the kitchen.

"This place was already burned down once, Kate Bishop, don't make it twice."

Kate whips around, her smile not leaving her face as she finishes the verse she was singing. She walks over to Yelena, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she presses her thumb to Yelena's bottom lip, getting something on it.

"What is that?" Yelena asks, putting the bags down before moving her finger up to wipe it off, "It's so sweet."

"Frosting," Kate replies, kissing her quickly, "Red, to be exact."

Yelena crinkles her nose as she shrugs off her coat, "Why do you have frosting?"

"Because," Kate sing-songs, walking back into the kitchen and reemerging with a little white cake that has words on top in red frosting, "Happy birthday, babe."

The cake reads Happy Birthday Yelena! and Yelena's eyebrows raise, "Who told you it was my birthday? I don't even remember the last time I thought about it!"

"Clint did," Kate responds with a shrug, cake still steady in her hands, "apparently Natasha never forgot it. April 9th , you're an Aries, like me."

Yelena disregards the aries comment, last she checked that was a clothing store and has nothing to do with her. But the Natasha bit has her biting her lip, trying to hold back the emotion bubbling in her throat, "Thank you."