Summary: When Natasha, Tony, Steve, and Clint set up an Easter egg hunt for Yelena, Kate, and Peter with a golden prize egg involved, things become quite interesting and grow rather chaotic exceedingly fast.
"Okay, so the area you're looking in is pretty much spanning all throughout the compound," Steve started as he moved his hand in the direction of the large building. His gaze was serious, and he looked as if the fate of the world was relying on these instructions. He swallowed, looking at the three younger people standing there before him.
"This is going to take strength, speed, and intense observational skills, and I hope the three of you are up for the challenge," Steve addressed them. However, the silence and quiet surrounding him as a result of the hero speech aura completely dissipated as Tony groaned deeply.
"It's just an egg hunt. No need to be so dire, Spandex," Tony interrupted quickly before he could launch into some larger, more dramatic monologue than was needed or required from him.
Several of the older Avengers had set up an Easter egg hunt for Yelena, Peter, and Kate. It was a few days after Easter, and they had decided to wait on having the egg hunt so that Clint could be there to help out since he wanted to spend some time with the group after having Easter with his family.
At Tony's interruption, Steve looked almost offended, and Natasha rolled her eyes.
"Look, there should be around one hundred that we hid with half being plastic and the other half being hard-boiled eggs. And there's one gold prize egg with a coupon for a free chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A," Natasha clarified Steve's words, crossing her arms where she was standing next to him.
Yelena met Natasha's gaze with a hidden excitement, already practically tasting the chicken sandwich even though they had not even started. Natasha offered her a gentle smile and a soft wink as an obvious indication of how she was secretly rooting for her. Yelena felt her heart melt at her sister, and she offered her a secret smile as they shared a wordless connection. She mouthed the words "I love you" to Natasha, and Natasha quicky reciprocated.
"I love Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwiches," Kate whispered to herself not too far from Yelena. Yelena raised an eyebrow, terribly unimpressed with the brunette's comment as she removed her focus from Natasha.
"Of course you do, chicken legs," Yelena commented, and Peter snorted audibly as Kate gasped slightly in surprise. Yelena just smirked at Peter, bumping into his arm with her shoulder playfully as she waggled her eyebrows playfully.
"So head out and start searching. Come back here when you've got all the eggs," Clint told them all, nodding to the three standing before the group of the older Avengers. Kate eyed him with determination and admiration as she puffed up her chest a little with a smile.
"Good luck, honey bunnies," Tony told them with a smirk, raising an eyebrow as he kept his hands in his pockets and homed in on Peter's egg basket.
Peter immediately blushed, lowering his head as she grasped his ridiculous-looking rabbit-themed basket that he must have gotten from Aunt May's attic. Yelena had a plain, plastic Walmart bag, and Kate had somehow managed to come up with some weirdly themed fabric bag with far too many band-aids and sticky notes covering it. It was suspiciously purple, which led Yelena to believe that it was surely a Hawkeye-themed bag, but she was not about to expose Kate like that in front of Clint. However, as soon as they were alone, Kate was undoubtedly in for it.
"Three... Two... One... Go," Natasha called, and Yelena immediately took off. Kate almost stumbled as she hurried after her, and Peter rushed alongside Yelena quickly.
Yelena quickly spotted an egg, and she ran toward it, snatching it just before Peter reached it. He groaned exasperatedly, and Yelena raised an eyebrow at him with a fond grin.
"Little Peter, you better up your game. If I find that gold egg, there's no stopping me. I'm getting that sandwich," Yelena warned him as she waved the egg in his face. He withdrew from her but nevertheless smirked slightly.
"May the best man win?" Peter questioned playfully, and Yelena scoffed jokingly.
"You mean may the best woman win," Yelena corrected him with a smirk, and Peter huffed with a grin as they kept walking and started into the compound.
"I'm guessing by the best woman, you mean me?" Kate questioned, waving an egg that she had somehow managed to procure as she gazed at them with pure pride. Peter and Yelena gaped at her in surprise, and Kate just smirked winningly, dropping the egg in her bag as she kept pace with the two.
Yelena raised an eyebrow, rolling her eyes before quickly darting a hand out just in front of Kate and jumping up to snatch a boiled egg from where it was suspended and hanging just above Kate's head. Kate stopped quickly as her eyes went wide, leaning her head back as she tried to keep from getting smacked in the face.
"No. I meant the best woman. That's clearly me," Yelena pointed out, and Kate deflated just a little.
"Okay, so what do you say we split up and look around the compound? We'll meet back here in thirty minutes and count how many eggs we have to see how many left to go?" Peter suggested, and Yelena and Kate shared a glance. They then shrugged after a moment.
"Sure," Kate agreed easily, offering him a smile. Peter nodded to them happily, and Yelena offered them a two-fingered salute.
"Haha, see you, suckers! Good luck, you turd blossoms!" Yelena bid them farewell, and she could hear their audible huffs of offense as she left the both of them behind, rushing along quickly as she started her search.
And so they were off.
.....................................................................................................................
It was about thirty minutes later, and Yelena was finally making her way back to meet the other two. She herself had collected around fifty-three eggs, and she had run into Kate at some point earlier in her search and had to chase her away so that she could keep her area to herself.
There at their meeting spot, Kate was already standing there, looking just as goofy as she always did to Yelena. And given how the kid was trying to look out of the window at the compound toward Clint outside, Yelena's theories were only confirmed.
"Good grief, was your Hawkear bag not good enough? Or do you just have to drool over the real thing all the time?" Yelena spoke up, groaning in exasperation in an attempt to hide her glee at having more material with which to aggravate the girl. Kate jumped out of her skin at the sound of Yelena's voice, quickly trying to pretend that she had not just been very obviously staring out the window.
"Oh, hey! I didn't hear you coming!" Kate sheepishly replied, trying to look casual, and Yelena huffed, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course you didn't. You wouldn't have been oogling if you would have known I was coming," Yelena smugly pointed out, knowing that Kate tried to hide her crush at all costs. Kate almost snorted just as soon as Yelena finished her statement, and
"It's pronounced ogling," Kate corrected, almost laughing at Yelena. Yelena just waved a dismissive hand at her as they stood there and waited on Peter.
"Whatever. I like oogling better," Yelena declared, and Kate huffed a little. However, as she seemed to fully realize what Yelena had said earlier, she looked at her quickly with a combo of horror and defensiveness.
"And I don't have a Hawkeye bag!" Kate cried helplessly. Yelena scoffed, looking down at the ridiculous bag in Kate's hand that was covered in every manner of stickable object to try to cover up whatever was on it.
"Whatever you say, Little Bishop," Yelena replied, and immediately was horrified at herself for letting that nickname accidentally slip out of her mouth. It was far too fond and resembled the manner in which she addressed Peter far too much. She immediately quieted, hoping Kate would not pay attention to it.
However, she could definitely never be that lucky.
"Wait... Little Bishop?" Kate questioned, looking extremely sly as she smirked widely. Fortunately, she spotted Peter coming up from behind Kate, and she saw her perfect opportunity to deflect from this entire incident and to give herself a good excuse for why she said that. Albeit a very much fake excuse.
"Shut up and leave me alone. I saw Little Peter, and I mixed your names," Yelena pointed to the boy as he joined the group, her tone grumpy but not by any means aggressive. Kate glanced at him for a moment, but still looked far too pleased with herself as she looked back at Yelena, which irked Yelena slightly.
"Hi, guys! How many eggs did you get? I got twenty-nine," Peter told them, sounding pretty pleased with himself, and Kate immediately visibly deflated at hearing his proclamation. Yelena felt a sense of satisfaction filling her as she realized that Kate must have obviously not gotten that many eggs. She then just scoffed in reply to Peter, focusing her attention on the conversation at hand.
"Looks like you're going to have to step up your game, Peter Tingle. I got fifty-three," Yelena declared proudly, and Peter's eyes went wide as he took in the number. He then furrowed his brow at Yelena's particular choice in nickname for him at that moment. Kate deflated even more, and Yelena just raised an eyebrow, waiting on Kate's tally. Kate finally sighed unhappily, looking at the both of them as she groaned.
"I got seventeen," Kate declared, and Yelena immediately smirked widely. Peter shrugged, smiling at her kindly.
"Hey, that's a good number! Don't feel bad," Peter encouraged sweetly, and Kate moved her head in a noncommittal gesture.
"Thank you, Peter-Man, but I'm not that great at egg hunting," Kate laughed self-deprecatingly, and Peter shook his head insistently.
"No, no, you're actually really good! Back before the spider bite, I used to have a lot harder time searching for stuff, but something came along with my senses that helps me like... I dunno... It's kind of like maybe seeing things easier? Or being more observant? I don't know. But I think you're doing great for not having spidey senses," he complimented kindly, smiling at her happily. Kate grinned at him.
"Aww... You're so sweet!" Kate told him, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder. Peter shrugged, a goofy look on his face as he looked at her.
"You're welcome, but I'm just telling you the truth—"
"Excuse me, ladies?" Yelena spoke up, interrupting them, and the both of them froze, Peter looking rather offended at being called a lady.
"Finally, you guys shut up... You were making me sick with all that compliment diarrhea," Yelena complained aloud, and they looked somewhat taken off-guard with Yelena's sudden declaration.
"Let's keep our eyes on the prize, okay? Have either one of you found the gold egg?" Yelena questioned, and they both shook their heads. Yelena nodded a little.
"Okay. I haven't either. What do you say we split up again, and we'll text each other if we find the gold egg so the other two can stop searching?" Yelena questioned, and the two younger ones nodded easily. Yelena nodded resolutely.
"Okay, let's head out, then," Yelena told them before turning around and heading out to go look for the egg.
Yelena searched carefully through the new area that she had chosen this time, realizing that it was where Kate had been looking before. She looked all around, searching in the oddest of places as she checked cabinets and under couch cushions.
She finally realized that she must somehow be totally missing something. As she lost herself in thought, she quickly realized precisely who she needed to speak to and who had likely been responsible for hiding the prize egg.
Almost as if she had somehow magically summoned her to her location, she suddenly heard a warm chuckle behind her.
"Looking for something, Rooskaya?" Natasha's voice fondly questioned, and Yelena turned to face her, grinning hugely as she took in the sight of her big sister leaned against the wall nearby, her arms crossed over her chest as she eyed the blonde. Yelena raised an eyebrow as she smirked at her favorite person in the world.
"Yeah. Where did you hide it, poser?"
"Around."
"Come on, tell me," Yelena urged, and Natasha shook her head with a far too wide smile on her face as she attempted desperately to look disappointed.
"Now, sweet girl... You know that I can't be partial. This is a competition, and I've got to treat the competitors fairly," Natasha informed her, and simply by the amount of teasing in her voice, Yelena knew that she could likely wrench some manner of a hint from the redhead.
"You've got to give me something. I've looked almost everywhere already," Yelena stated, and Natasha paused for a moment, growing quiet as she lost herself in thought for a moment. Yelena remained quiet as she waited for Natasha to speak up.
"You're upside down, little one," Natasha finally offered strangely with a smile on her face, and Yelena furrowed her brow for a moment as she considered the words. She let out a breath before looking at the redhead oddly.
"Well, you're feeling cryptic today, aren't you?" Yelena shot back, and Natasha rolled her eyes affectionately as her grin grew much wider.
"Just try it," Natasha told her, and Yelena groaned before starting to move to do a back-bridge.
"Good grief, I'm getting too old for this."
"I know. You're practically a grandma," Natasha affectionately stated with far too much amusement in her voice as she humored the younger woman. Yelena shot her a halfhearted glare before bending over backwards.
"What does that make you then? A relic?" Yelena questioned and Natasha huffed in reply, a smirk on her face as she looked at her.
"Wine because I get finer with age," Natasha declared, and Yelena scoffed with a slight chuckle in spite of herself. As soon as Yelena started to look from an upside-down point of view, she quickly started to realize that the world looked infinitely different, and she could take in an entirely different point of view.
"Hey, Tasha! What... What are you doing, Yelena?" Kate questioned uncertainly, looking at Yelena as if she had lost her mind. However, Yelena did not say anything as she scoured the area.
"She's looking for the prize egg," Natasha pointed out, and Yelena flashed an unhappy glare at Natasha.
"Natashka!!!"
"Well, I have to make the competition fair, detka," Natasha told her with a wide smirk, and Kate furrowed her brow curiously as she approached and started to bend over backwards with Yelena. Yelena barely resisted the urge to groan aloud.
However, as she looked back at the upside-down scene before her, she suddenly realized she saw the egg taped underneath the edge of a cabinet near the floor where someone's foot would naturally be if they were standing near the counter. Her eyes widened, and she quickly realized that Kate must have spotted it, too, as she suddenly started trying to straighten herself.
Yelena wasted no time in reaching out and grabbing Kate's leg, causing her to trip over herself and fall onto the floor. Kate yelped as she hit the floor, and Yelena turned herself, fighting to hurry over to the egg.
Kate grabbed at her pants, and Yelena almost fell on her face, but she caught herself with her hands on the floor. Kate then managed to get up after her, trying to make a run toward the egg. Yelena swiftly reached out, grabbing Kate's bag that was around her arm. Kate paused as she turned to see what Yelena was doing. Yelena snatched a few of the sticky-notes off of the purple bag, and Kate gasped in pure horror. Yelena's eyes widened as she saw the familiar face of Clint Barton on the bag.
"HA!!! I KNEW IT WAS HAWKEYE THEMED!!!" Yelena cackled loudly before yanking the bag to send Kate backward a little. She then surged forward, jumping for the egg and snatching it from the underside of the cabinet. She cackled happily, starting to put it in her bag.
However, as soon as she did, she suddenly felt something semi-hard crash into the back of her head and into her ponytail. She dropped the prize egg from her pure shock.
Yelena's eyes widened and she slowly turned around to face Kate as she reached around the back of her head and grabbed a bit of whatever that the brunette had hit her with. Kate looked absolutely terrified and appeared as if she were currently questioning all of her life's choices that led her up to this point. Yelena looked at the weird, almost moist thing in her hand and realized that she had been hit in the head with hard-boiled egg. Yelena narrowed her eyes.
"What was that?" Yelena questioned, a definitive warning in her voice, and Kate glanced helplessly between Yelena and Natasha in a silent plea to get Natasha to help her. However, Natasha was just watching the both of them curiously and with way too much amusement.
"I'm sorry, look, I don't know what got into me—"
Kate was quickly cut off as Yelena threw an egg at her and hit her squarely in the neck near where her shoulder and neck connected. Kate gasped with slight pain as she froze for a moment, the egg flying apart and landing in her hair partially. Yelena narrowed her eyes, smirking slightly as she started to reach back down for the prize egg.
However, she suddenly was hit by another egg crashing into her shoulder. Yelena's eyes narrowed as she left the prize egg where it sat, turning toward the brunette and withdrawing an egg quickly.
To her pure shock, Kate landed another perfect hit into her thigh. Yelena swiftly threw an egg at her, and Kate yelped as she dodged. Yelena then proceeded to furiously chuck boiled eggs at Kate, a few of them getting far too close to Kate's head.
Before long, Kate dove behind Natasha for defense. Natasha laughed, shaking her head as she tried to move out from in front of Kate. Kate giggled, grasping Natasha's shoulders tightly. Yelena knew that Natasha could dislodge herself from Kate's hold at any moment, and it somewhat irked her that Natasha remained there protecting Kate from any hits. Natasha was smiling way too much, and Yelena narrowed her eyes at them.
"Poser, you'd better move. I'm about to cream that little—"
"Tasha, no, no, no, protect me!" Kate cried, making the mistake of poking her head out from around Natasha's shoulder to look at her. Yelena took her shot, and Kate screeched as she withdrew her head quickly, Yelena's egg effectively missing her forehead.
However, the egg definitely did make contact with someone. It was just the wrong person.
Natasha stopped, and Yelena froze as she gaped at her sister. A large part of her wanted to laugh, but the dangerous look in Natasha's eyes told her that she was definitely about to be in for it. There was a silence, and Kate stepped back from Natasha uncertainly, looking at her worriedly.
Natasha finally opened her hand, wiggling her fingers just a little as she wordlessly requested Kate's bag. Kate very unhappily and hesitantly offered it to her, and as soon as Natasha had it in her hand, she smirked a little.
"So... You guys wanna play hard ball?" Natasha questioned with a smirk as she raised an eyebrow. Yelena's eyes widened and she swiftly grabbed two eggs, throwing one at Kate and the other at Natasha. One hit Kate in the collarbone and the other flew past Natasha as the redhead dodged quickly and easily.
Soon enough, the three of them were launched into an all-out egg battle with Natasha trying to make good use of what little ammo that Kate had available in the bag she got from her and Yelena throwing her own eggs wildly. Kate was hurrying along the floor and trying to scrape up enough egg bits to throw at Yelena.
Yelena was having to hurry and run across couches to try to dodge all of Natasha's scarily accurate throws, and she was having to wildfire her own because she could not stop long enough to aim at her.
However, as they both quickly ran out of eggs, Yelena caught sight of a flash of gold not too far from her. She spun around, looking to the side as her eyes widened.
To her shock, there was Peter standing there with a smile as he held the gold prize egg that he had obviously webbed and drawn into his hand.
"Hi, guys! When I get my free chicken sandwich, I'll make sure to get you guys a milkshake!" Peter told them with a wide grin as he took off running. Yelena and Kate looked at each other for a brief moment before darting after him, trying to catch him before he made it back to the group of older Avengers.
"Meet you guys back at the finish!" Natasha called after them, and Yelena just ignored her as she kept her focus on Peter as she darted through the halls and they rushed back toward the backyard of the compound.
"Come back, you little weasel!" Yelena cried, and Peter just kept running, laughing a bit in between breaths.
Before long, Yelena found herself shocked at how fast the boy could move. Natasha was the only person that she had ever seen that could outrun her for this long. Kate had fallen behind a little mostly because she was almost stumbling over her own feet because of the innate clumsiness that came to her so painfully naturally.
"Wait for me! You guys are way too fast!" Kate cried as she tried to keep up, and Yelena just shook her head.
"You snooze, you lose, Little Bishop!" Yelena replied, the words automatically falling from her mouth as she internally cursed herself for letting them appear again.
"You called me Little Bishop!!!" Kate cried victoriously, panting as she tried to keep up, and Yelena groaned aloud as she fought to get nearer to Peter in the process of replying to Kate.
"Don't get excited! I get you and Peter mixed up because you're practically the same person, just different sexes!" Yelena snapped back, trying to defend herself. However, Kate did not seem too affected by it as she laughed at Yelena.
Soon enough, they all burst out the door to the backyard, and Peter somehow ran even faster, rushing over to Tony. Yelena finally slowed to a stop, realizing he won, and she breathed hard, furrowing her brow in irritation as she glared at the boy. Kate came to a stop next to her, her chest heaving as well.
To Yelena's pure shock, she realized that Natasha had already somehow made her way outside before she had. Yelena gazed at her in silent questioning, and Natasha shrugged a little, grinning slyly.
"Good job, Underoos. You won," Tony praised with a grin, smacking Peter's back affectionately, and Peter was somewhere between shrinking at the nickname and swelling up with pride at having earned the older man's praise.
"Romanoff, you owe me a hundred bucks," he smugly declared, and Kate, Yelena, and Peter all paused, completely confused as they looked between the two. Steve and Clint looked quite amused and seemed strangely as if they were against Tony in this endeavor as they looked at him somewhat smugly.
"Do I, though? I remember explicitly betting you that Yelena would get the gold egg. I don't remember saying anything about her getting it in the end," Natasha commented wisely, and it was then that Yelena realized precisely why Natasha had come to find her. Yelena could not help but grin widely as she realized that she had accidentally caused Natasha to win the bet.
"Hey, wait, I said getting it in the end!" Tony protested, and Natasha nodded her head easily.
"I know. That was what you said. Not what I said," Natasha declared, and Tony furrowed his brow, starting to argue.
"Besides, I know you were going to bring Peter the webshooters. So I'd just hand over the one hundred," Natasha told him smugly, and Tony just stared at her grumpily before fishing out a one-hundred-dollar bill and handing it to her.
"Thank you for your cooperation," Natasha smiled easily, grinning at him. Tony just huffed in reply, wrapping an arm around Peter as he started toward the compound.
"Well, me and the kid have a free meal to go get, so don't wait up," Tony declared, waving a dismissive hand at them. Steve and Clint shook their heads splitting up to go their own ways as well. Natasha then ambled over to Yelena and Kate with a wide smile.
"What do you say we go out to get some Chick-Fil-A ourselves? We just got a generous donation to our cause," Natasha told them, and Kate grinned widely as she launched herself forward and wrapped an arm around Natasha quickly, thanking her happily. Yelena just scoffed as she stepped forward and started pushing at Kate's shoulder a little, wrapping her arm around Natasha as she pulled her into her side and forced her to come along with her.
"Let's go get it now!" Yelena declared, her arm around Natasha tightly. Natasha huffed, rolling her eyes as she came along with her.
As Yelena realized Kate was not following them, she looked over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow. Kate was standing somewhat awkwardly where they had left her, looking awfully uncertain of herself. She must have thought that she made a mistake and that Natasha had not actually been asking her to come along, too.
Yelena simply scoffed at her.
"Are you going to just stand there and try to catch flies in your mouth or are you coming along, chicken legs?" Yelena questioned and Natasha chuckled warmly. Kate's eyes widened and she bounded after them.
"I'm coming! And don't call me chicken legs!"