After almost 18 hours straight of traveling, Kate and Yelena are on the edge of what used to be Sokovia. Which, from Yelena's research, was an almost dead country until the Avengers blew it up to stop a Tony-bot from demolishing Earth or something of that cadence. Either way, it's a dead country.
"Where the hell are we?" Kate wonders aloud from the driver's seat. They're currently driving through what feels like an endless forest on a path that hasn't been used in god knows how long.
Yelena clenches her jaw, uncertainty settling in her stomach. She hates being uncertain, she's always known more than she should and she hates breaking that streak. Breaking that streak is how people get hurt and people that are hurt are less valuable.
Her displeasure is only amplified when Lucky leans forward in the back seat, panting loudly in her ear, and she gently pushes his snout away, "Lucky, your breath is awful."
"Be nice to him," Kate replies, "Oh look, a house."
"I'm plenty nice," Yelena grumbles, crossing her arms and sitting back in her seat. She doesn't need niceness lessons right now. "Я самый хороший человек на свете, черт возьми." (I'm the nicest person alive, for fuck's sake.)
"I don't know what you just said, but I don't think it backed up your point," Kate says as she finally stops the car.
Lucky bounces to the front seat, right on Yelena's lap, eagerly awaiting his release and she groans, cursing again as she grabs his leash and lets him out of the car, making sure to not let him run off.
Kate gets out as well, praising Fanny for sitting patiently in the back before grabbing her leash and following Yelena to the front of the house.
"It looks deserted," Kate comments, glancing at the house nervously.
Yelena shrugs, "There are worse ways to die, Kate Bishop."
"Why do you always think we're gonna die?" her girlfriend responds as Yelena knocks on the door.
A quippy response about how she's always been more comforted by death than scared of it, or something about how she's always been told her life doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things sits on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn't say it. Now isn't the time.
She knocks again and sighs when there's no response. Dead end.
"Guess she doesn't live here," Yelena says softly, turning toward Kate.
"She could just be out getting groceries," Kate replies, hopeful tone to her voice.
"The place looks deserted, Kate," Yelena shakes her head, painful reminder of the path they took being overgrown and barely existent on the forefront of her mind, "This place doesn't look like it's been touched in years."
Her heart admittedly aches at the realization, and she and Kate sit down on the stairs of the house in a dismal silence. Lucky's cuddled up against Kate and Fanny against Yelena, their leashes on the brink of tangling, but she can't find it in herself to care.
She got all of Natasha. She got the information she wanted and she guesses that Wanda moved prior to them getting here because this place feels deserted.
"We could always explore Europe," Kate says, her fingertips dancing across Lucky's fur.
"I've been to Europe," Yelena huffs, scratching behind Fanny's ear, "It's okay."
"I've been, too," Kate says, "but I've always wanted to go with someone I loved and have more fun than the BS trips my mom brought me on."
Yelena nods, moving over and resting her head on Kate's shoulder. She and Kate haven't been the kind of people that say they love each other all the time, despite telling each other only two months into their relationship. Them loving each other kind of just is , and Yelena is more than okay with that. She knows Kate loves her and Kate knows that Yelena loves her.
"What was your favorite Natasha story?" Kate asks, wrapping her free arm around Yelena.
"Um," Yelena presses her lips together, "I liked the ones Clint told me. She... I only remember her as my sister and it was nice to know that she still had a family side... even if-" Yelena's voice cracks and she has that garbage pain in her nose telling her that she's going to cry, but she sucks it up, "-even if I wasn't always a part of it."
Kate presses a kiss to her head, "I'm gonna yell at her, you know? If she ever came back or we end up wherever she went, I'm gonna tell her that she should've treated you better. You deserve so much, Yelena, and I'm sorry you've been on the back burner for so many years."
Yelena can't help but smile at Kate's euphemism, "What do back burners have to do with anything?"
"It's a-" Kate notices how Yelena's laughing and cuts herself off, "You're such an ass."
Yelena laughs quietly, smiling as Kate presses her lips to Yelena's head again, kissing her softly. Lucky rests his head on her leg, pouting up at her like he's the one getting emotional.
"What do we do now?" Yelena asks after a while of sitting.
"I don't know," Kate responds, holding Yelena a little tighter, "What about your parents? Don't they live in Russia?"
"Yeah," Yelena huffs, scratching Lucky's head gently, "I still can't... I haven't forgiven them for last month."
Last month, in the midst of a visit to her family and retrieving Fanny, Yelena let it slip that she had a girlfriend. She expected a little overprotectiveness if anything, they had kind of been hovering since Natasha's death (well, if you can call calling once a week hovering), but she didn't expect for them to chastise her for having a girlfriend.
One thing led to another and now she hasn't heard from them in a month (not that she's tried reaching out, but it still hurts). She and Kate have something in common there, as it seems.
It actually makes sense now with the whole Natasha thing and her not telling Yelena she was gay. She might've thought Yelena would've responded similarly to their "parents."
"'M sorry, babe," Kate mumbles against her hair, nails gently scratching at her arm. They're quiet again for a few minutes before Kate starts to stand, "Wanna get going? I'm hungry."
"Yeah, why not?" Yelena gets up as well, smiling at how Lucky dances around them as he realizes they're going somewhere.
Just then, they hear what sounds like leaves cracking unders shoes by the side of the house and both look at each other.
Yelena's been around Kate long enough to read the look on her face and it's clearly saying that she thinks they're gonna die.
"I should've brought my bow," Kate mumbles, holding on a bit tighter to Fanny's leash.
Yelena smirks, reminding herself to make fun of Kate later for having such a limited weapon. Maybe when this all dies down she can finally teach Kate some hand-to-hand combat.
She instead hands Lucky over to Kate and unveils a small knife that she keeps in her jacket pocket (she calls it her just in case knife, she even engraved it herself, much to Kate's horror).
The perpetrator walks up from around the corner and Yelena immediately recognizes her as the woman in the newspaper cutouts, Wanda Maximoff.
"What are you doing here?" her voice is accented, and though it's not as much as Yelena's, it's still noticeable.
"We're looking for you, actually," Kate says, "You're Wanda, right?"
"Depends on who's asking," the woman replies and Yelena can't help but like her already. Too bad she can't tell Natasha that. The woman looks at the girls, narrowing her eyes at Yelena, "You're Natasha's sister."
Within ten seconds, Yelena rollercoasters through sixty different emotions before landing on one, "How the hell do you know that?"
Some kind of red misty aura floats around Wanda's fingertips, "It's a long story, but the short version is I've seen your sister's memories before."
Kate leans forward and whispers something along the lines of Wanda manipulating reality, but that doesn't really help much because what the hell .
Maybe she should've been listening when Kate was rambling on about all of the Avengers over the past week.
"Um," Wanda tugs at the sleeves of her sweater and Yelena notices now that Wanda has her hair in the same braid Natasha used to sport all the time. "Are you guys hungry? I can explain myself and then you two can - um..." she looks unfocused, as if there are a hundred things on her mind, and she clears her throat, "sorry, I haven't been around people in a while and your thoughts are loud - you two can tell me why you're here."
Our thoughts are loud? What does that even-
"Yeah, we can do that," Kate says, nudging Yelena with her arm, whispering a quick, "вам это не нужно." (You don't need that.)
"Откуда мне это знать?" Yelena retorts, tightening her grip on her knife, "Красное блестящее дерьмо не совсем успокаивает, Кейт Бишоп. Как и все ваши мысли - громкая чушь. И она давно не была среди людей? Она опасна?" (How am I supposed to know that? The red sparkly shit isn't exactly assuring, Kate Bishop. Neither is the whole your thoughts are loud bullshit. And she hasn't been around people in a while? Is she dangerous?)
"Hey," Kate faces Yelena towards her, peeling Yelena's attention away from Wanda staring at them arguing (though she can still feel the woman's stare) and says, "Hey. Listen. I can't understand your ranting. Your sister trusted her, just give her a chance. Okay?"
Yelena furrows her eyebrows, not exactly enjoying being ridiculed like a child. Her eyes drift back toward Wanda, who looks unbothered by the two of them.
Kate grabs her shoulder again with her free hand, "Хорошо?" (Okay?)
"Хорошо," Yelena responds lamely, putting her knife back in her jacket and taking Fanny's leash. (Okay.)
Wanda's moved a bit closer now and shoots them a bit of a look that Yelena can't help but get mom-vibes from.
"Я также говорю по-русски," she says simply and a sheepish look crosses Kate's face. (I also speak Russian.)
Yelena wasn't expecting it either, in all fairness, but she's had the ability to keep a straight face down since she was seven.
They follow Wanda inside, dogs on their heels, and as they're walking up the stairs, Kate looks at Yelena, "I didn't know she spoke Russian."
"Yeah, no shit," Yelena retorts as they walk inside. Wanda sits down on the couch, motioning for them to sit as well.
It's an awkward silence for the first couple of minutes aside from the sniffing from the dogs, who are more than curious about their surroundings. Kate lets Lucky off of his leash and Yelena lets Fanny off of hers, both of them immediately going to Wanda.
"Um, the golden's Lucky," Kate points out, "and the other one is Fanny. She's... she's named after one of Natasha's aliases... and I'm Kate Bishop. I've been working with Clint and obviously you know who Yelena is."
Wanda scratcehs at Lucky's fur with an amused smile on her face, "So why are you here now?"
"I wanted to know more about Natasha," Yelena says, "I would've come sooner had I known you existed."
Wanda nods, "It wasn't exactly advertised. The people who knew were going to know eventually because we pretty much lived with them, but we both didn't want to come out on a more public scale."
"I'm her sister ," Yelena responds, making a gesture at Kate, "and I obviously don't care if she's gay or not."
"She was scared, Yelena," Wanda replies, "and she didn't want to run you off after finding you again."
"She did, though," Yelena retorts, "I got maybe ten calls from her over the two years we were in each other's lives again and saw her three times. That doesn't sound like being present."
Wanda sighs, "I'm sorry, Yelena."
"I didn't know you existed until all of that Westview shit happened," Yelena says, tone a bit snappier than originally intended, "I deserved better."
Wanda, to Yelena's shock, nods, "I know. I told her that."
Wanda takes a deep breath, obviously trying to find the words, "Natasha wasn't always the best at expressing her feelings. She got better as time went on, but she was way better at avoiding things if they weren't in her face. I don't really know how to explain it because I couldn't understand how she categorized things. But she did... and I'm sorry that you got caught in the crosshairs."
Yelena can't help it this time and rolls her eyes, "That's it?"
"What else do you want from me?"
"My sister died. Sacrificed herself for god knows what, and her girlfriend is giving me a fucking essay about her! Seriously, for someone who should be super empathetic with all the witch shit, I thought you'd be less robotic," Yelena exclaims, burying her face in her hands.
She hears Kate mutter something about how Wanda was friends with a robot but she ignores it, irritated and exhausted.
It's quiet for a few minutes until Wanda breaks the silence, "I'm sorry."
Yelena doesn't bother picking up her head, "You said that already, сука."
"I know," Wanda responds, "Natasha and I loved each other. We were going to get engaged when we didn't have to be on the run anymore, but... a couple weeks before the blip, we had an argument and Vision and I decided to spend some time exploring Europe. We'd done it before and had some spots that we missed, and then the blip happened before we could make up."
She pauses, and Yelena's not sure if it's for dramatic effect or what, so she looks up, "Then what?"
"I disappeared for five years and when I came back, my best friend and my girlfriend were dead," Wanda's voice breaks a little bit, "I spent some time with Clint, but it wasn't the same... and then I wanted to see Vision, but they tore him apart. Tony was no help because he technically had no authority over the body anymore, and then... that Westview shit happened. "
Yelena hates that she quoted her. Yelena hates that this woman - Natasha's girlfriend - was blipped and has the same absence of Natasha that she does. Above all else, though, she hates that this was kept a secret from her, that she didn't the experience of telling her sister about her crushes or seeing her happy or having Kate meet her.
"I just..." Yelena looks at Fanny, "I don't understand. You brought back your best friend but you couldn't bring back your girlfriend?"
"I didn't bring Vision back, he... was a..." she trails off, obviously thinking hard. Her eyes seem to be glowing red but Yelena swears she's going nuts and seeing things. "I don't know exactly what he was. He wasn't Vision , though."
"Well, if he's a ghost, then why not bring Natasha back?"
"What would it matter?" Wanda exclaims, catching Yelena off guard this time, "They're both gone, and so are my fucking kids, nothing about that is changing. If they were still here, thousands of people would be suffering!"
There have only been a few times in Yelena's life where she's been shocked into silence, and this is one of them.
Wanda clenches and unclenches her fists, eyes fading from red to green (and Yelena's sure of it now being that it's such a stark contrast). She bites her lip, "I'm sorry. I want Natasha back more than anything. I don't know why I was able to do it with Vision and not her, but if I could bring her back... god, I would do it in heartbeat. "
Yelena can't help it this time when she feels a sob settle itself in her throat and she nearly chokes, blinking hard to try and get the tears away.
Someone gets it, she can't help but think, someone wants Natasha alive as much as she does and hasn't just accepted that she's dead. Everyone she's talked to so far has accepted Natasha's death and while she knows eventually, she'll do the same, she can't help but feel comforted that Wanda's in the same boat as her.
"I miss her so much," she finally chokes out and she feels Kate's arms around her in a heartbeat.
She holds on tightly to one of Kate's hands, not wanting her to let go even in the slightest.
She almost forgets that Wanda's there until the woman clears her throat, pleading look on her face, "Can I show you something?"
Kate readjusts so Yelena can face Wanda again, but she keeps their hands together, gently rubbing the back of Yelena's hand.
"What is it?"
Wanda swallows, "I need you to trust me. Which is not easy, I know, but I... I can show you a memory of your sister, if you'd like. It's how I recognized you, actually."
Yelena's nails dig into Kate's hand for a second before she realizes what she's doing and stops, "How does it work?"
"All I do is show it to you. You experience it through my eyes, I don't even have to touch you. And because it's my memory, I don't read anything on you. Unless it's really loud, I can't help that," Wanda explains, and Yelena stiffens, not sure how to process this information.
She's been through worse, "Go ahead."
"Where were you?" Wanda asked, mug of hot tea in her hands as she watched Natasha pace around the safe house. She seemed to be looking for something, but Wanda couldn't tell what it was.
"What're you talking about?" Natasha rifled through a cabinet, finding something and slipping it in her pocket.
"Well," Wanda looked her up and down, "we all got arrested, and then you and Steve show up to break us out and you have a vest ."
"Oh! That," Natsha looked herself over, smiling slightly as she messed with the zipper for a second, "yes. Long story short, I took down the red room."
"Wait, what?" Wanda asked as Natasha grabbed something out of another cabinet and slipped it into a new pocket, "What do you mean? You told me you took it down years ago."
"I thought I did," Natasha replied, finally grabbing a tea bag for herself and pouring herself a glass before steeping the bag, "but when I was at the safe house in Norway, Mason delivered stuff from the Budapest safe house, and turns out, it was a package from my sister. I can show you later, if you want, but basically she was still getting fucked by them and we took them down. You should be proud I didn't die."
"Why should I be proud you didn't die?" Wanda asked apprehensively, "What exactly did you do?"
Natasha hummed, evading the question and deflecting with, "Have I told you about Yelena?"
"Bits and pieces," Wanda sighed, unable to help the smile that crept on to her face at how Natasha ignored her so efficiently, "How is she doing?"
"I mean, for being under mind control for god knows how long and being in that awful place, she seemed okay," Natasha stirred her tea impatiently, "I might go out to Russia soon and see her. Just to check up and set up a stable line of communication."
Wanda nodded, "I'd love to meet her someday."
Natasha smiled sadly, "I would, too. I... I haven't told her about you yet, though. Thought it'd be a little too much, I guess."
"Do you plan on telling her eventually?" Wanda asked, smiling when Natasha sat down on the couch next to her, setting her mug on the table.
"Eventually," Natasha said, taking off her vest and taking her braid out, red hair falling down in barely crimped waves around her shoulders, "but until then, I think we're gonna need some disguises."
"Tell me about your sister first," Wanda prompted, resting one of her hands on the other woman's leg, "I want a story, Nat."
"Alright..."
The room fades back in and Yelena glances at Wanda, trying to figure out any way to complain that she didn't get to hear about herself without sounding like a petulant child.
"Sorry I cut it off," Wanda says, "but, basically, she told me the entire story from start to finish about how you reconnected and I think I opened a floodgate or something because she always brought you up from that point on. I knew that you had a love for mac'n'cheese and American Pie before I knew her favorite color."
"Red," Yelena says softly, a little smile on her face despite her heart longing for more of that memory. It was like she was seeing Natasha again.
Wanda nods, "I can tell you guys some more, but I'm starving. Are you guys picky eaters or anything?"
"She still loves mac'n'cheese," Kate offers, and Wanda smiles.
"Mac'n'cheese it is, then," Wanda stands up and walks into the kitchen, "and maybe something for your dogs?"
Okay, Yelena concedes in her head as Kate continues talking to Wanda about something dog-related, maybe Wanda Maximoff isn't that bad.
(She's kind of exactly what Yelena needed.)