not how it's supposed to go

are we out of the woods yet?

-

"Kate Bishop, lower that music before I kill you."

Kate turns it up, reverberating something like "Up on the roof with school girl crush, drinking beer out of plastic cups" out of the speakers downstairs and Yelena buries her face in her pillow, aggravated.

She didn't exactly sleep last night, almost as if she's anticipating something, but it's currently seven o'clock and the sun is starting to set and nothing has happened. She's over it, she hates it, and she wants to sleep all of her irritations away.

"Kate Bishop!" She yells, hoping this time she gets the message. She doesn't get irritated with Kate easily, but when she does Kate always respects her boundaries and she loves her for that.

"Sorry, детка," Kate calls back, turning down the music and Yelena smiles softly to herself. She moves around on the bed, trying to find a comfy spot and groaning when Fanny takes that as needing to leave the bed immediately.

The music playing downstairs proceeds to fade into the background and she can feel herself dozing, world growing foggy and eyes shutting on their own.

That's until there's a little jiggling heard at one of the windows by the bed and then someone landing, to which Yelena opens her eyes. She doesn't move, knowing only two people - one of them being herself - enter through that window.

"Shit, were you sleeping?" Peter's mask recedes, revealing a wild look in his eyes that fades quickly into concern.

"Why can't you two enter like normal people?" Kate calls up the stairs and Yelena snorts, burying her face back into the pillows and relaxing.

She hears the window close and Peter pads around the apartment, talking quietly with Kate. After ten minutes of trying to fall asleep again and failing completely, Yelena gets up out of bed and runs her hands through her hair, trying to look at least a little put together despite still being in PJs.

She stands at the railing looking over the main area of the apartment and Kate looks up, face lighting up, "Hey, you're up! What do you want for dinner, we're ordering out."

"Anything," Yelena responds, trying to curb a yawn with her palm lazily, "Not pizza, though, we have that too often."

Peter nods, "You guys are addicted. Mr. Stark rarely ever gets pizza and every time I come here, I think it's because you guys ate the city's stock of it."

"Please, we're in New York," Kate retorts, scoffing, "You can't run out of pizza in New York ."

"Sure," Peter responds, getting up off the couch and grabbing the TV remote, "When are you guys leaving for Clint's?"

"Two days," Yelena replies, still up on the balcony. She leans over the railing, smiling at how Kate takes the entire couch as Peter sits on the armchair.

"Wanda's flying in tomorrow, too," Kate adds, "and apparently she's getting Tony to pull strings so that she can be pardoned. Something along the lines of he owes her enough to do her this one solid."

Yelena finally decides to go downstairs, rolling her eyes when Fanny gives her an excited greeting at the foot of the stairs, "Привет, мой любимый предатель." (Hello, my favorite traitor.)

"Be nice to her," Kate chastises from the couch, watching the TV intently as Peter continues to flip through channels.

"I have not even taught you half of those words, Kate Bishop," Yelena retorts, stretching out her arms before walking over to the couch, staring her girlfriend down.

"It sounded mean," Kate replies, moving her legs out of the way for Yelena, "did you ever learn about tone ?"

"Of course I did," Yelena scoffs as she sits down, "Have we figured out what we are ordering for food yet?"

"I vote Chinese," Peter suggests, finally stopping on the news, making Yelena groan. She hates the news. It's all boring and could be better summarized in sixty seconds rather than eight hours (and if it couldn't, she probably didn't have to know it).

"Next up, this week's episode of Avengers Activities. Thank you for watching tonight, we'll see you tomorrow." The broadcast ends with a little jingle before going to commercial and Yelena looks away, eyes falling on Fanny and Lucky, who are playing in the corner of the room.

"I'm good with Chinese," Kate says, leaning her head back and looking at Peter behind her, "you excited to go to MIT?"

"Yeah," Peter says, continuing on about something relating to his girlfriend, but Yelena tunes it out, instead opting to find a place to order from.

She taps on her phone, trying to think as she scrolls through options. Chinese takeout is normally good, but she's not sure what she's in the mood for; the place three blocks down has better sesame chicken and rice, but the place four blocks up has better lo mein (and therefore better opportunities to spice it up the way she likes it). It's a hard decision. She knows Kate will be fine with whatever and Peter will get what he always gets, whatever it is.

Yelena hands the phone over to Kate when she's done, now looking to the TV. Her mind is elsewhere, though. She can't help but think about how Natasha's been notably absent from her dreams recently, replaced instead with the occasional nightmare or the total opposite, something involving her early life with Melina and Natasha (Alexei made his occasional appearance, but the former were far more present) or Kate.

Very little has happened since the dream where she disappeared, and she and Kate moved on from it. Kate blames it now on her not looking close enough, but Yelena's a trained assassin and knows too well how Kate lies.

"Lena, Clint's calling you," her phone is forced back in her hands and she immediately puts it to her ear.

"What do you want, Barton? We're going to see you in 48 hours," Yelena says immediately.

" Have you checked the news recently? " Clint asks.

Yelena raises an eyebrow even though he can't see her, "We have been watching it for a while. Same old boring bullshit, why?"

Clint's quiet for a second, and Yelena's almost sure that he turned his hearing aid off or something.

" Okay. Um, heads up, then- "

"They're talking about Natasha again," Kate interrupts, and Yelena looks to the TV, heart dropping when she sees a photo of Natasha on screen.

"There are reports that former Avenger, Natasha Romanoff, was seen in Iowa. What're your thoughts, Darryl?"

"Natasha was spotted in Iowa?" Yelena asks into the phone after a minute.

" Wait, spotted? " Clint asks, " I was just calling to tell you her motorcycle is missing-"

He's silent for a long minute and Yelena hates how she has so many thoughts but none at all.

One finally sticks; what is going on?