Kate and Yelena are asleep when there's knocking at the front door.
Kate stirs awake after Yelena incessantly pokes at her side, muttering something about the gun under her bed and someone trying to break in. She pulls at Yelena's shoulder sleepily, missing the pressure of Yelena pushed against her.
"Someone's here, Kate Bishop," Yelena rubs at her eye with the back of her hand, "Should go check."
"You're not going anywhere," Kate sleepily slurs out, "Lay down."
The knocking is heard again and Yelena's eyes flicker in the moonlight coming in through the window, "Go check."
"Ugh," Kate throws the covers off of herself, immediately cringing at the chill in the air and missing her cocoon of warmth, "I don't like you."
"Go check," Yelena emphasizes, poking at her shoulder again, "Gun under bed."
"I don't need a gun," Kate refutes stubbornly, blinking a couple of times so her eyes can adjust to the room.
There's knocking again and she sighs, wanting to put something on over her flimsy t-shirt, but leaving the room anyway and trying not to stumble down the hallway to the front door.
She squints, trying to look through the peephole to see who it is. It's like, four in the morning, who would come at this hour?
(Maybe she should've grabbed the gun.)
There's a woman on the other side, bundled up in a warm coat with some kind of bag slung over her shoulder. Kate doesn't recognize her.
Even though she can practically hear Yelena's voice about the gun under the bed and "You should really be more careful, Kate Bishop," in her ear, she slowly unlocks the door and opens it a couple of inches.
"Can I help you?" she asks, trying not to blink like a crazy person when the onslaught of the hall lights hits her eyes.
"This is where Yelena lives, correct?" the woman asks flatly, hands clasped together at her waist.
Kate furrows her eyebrows, "Sorry, who are you?"
"Melina," the woman states simply, and Kate's face drops.
"Oh!" she recollects herself, opening the door a bit more now, "Um, hi, sorry! You're Melina."
"That's what I said," she responds matter-of-factly, "You did not answer my question, this is where Yelena lives, correct?"
"Um, yeah," Kate nods dumbly, letting Melina in, "let me go get her, hold on a minute."
She locks the door behind her and the dogs finally take the hint, meandering out of the bedroom and wagging their tails when they realize there's another person here.
Kate flicks on the living room light, "Make yourself comfortable."
She then quickly moves to the bedroom, seeing Yelena snuggled back into bed and hating herself for a second that she has to wake her up. If this were literally anyone else, she would've let it go, but this woman is scary.
"Lena," she reaches over and gently shakes her shoulder, "Babe, someone's here."
"I told you to deal with it," Yelena whines, batting Kate's hand away.
"No, Lena," she pulls on Yelena's side, flipping her onto her back, "It's your... Melina. Melina's here."
Yelena's eyes flick open this time, voice incredibly soft as she asks, "Melina's here?"
"Yeah, babe," Kate moves her hair out of her face, "C'mon, get up."
Yelena sits up, blinking at the doorway that's now letting in all of the light from the living room and reaching over the nightstand for her crutches. Kate steps back, not wanting to overwhelm her and make Yelena think she's trying to help before she can ask for it.
"Why is she here at four in the morning?" Yelena mutters as she hoists herself up, letting Kate lead the way out of the room. Kate doesn't get a chance to enter as they end up in the living room.
Melina's standing awkwardly, and Kate's truly never been more scared of someone than she is right now. This is Yelena's mama. The one that she recalls in her kid stories and, despite their rough history, someone important to her. Kate's never liked meeting her boyfriends' parents even when she wasn't fully committed to them, and knowing that she fully intends on not letting Yelena go makes it all the more terrifying.
"Melina," Yelena says carefully, "What are you doing here?"
"You told me that I could come," Melina replies, "The timing could have been better, but..." she looks Yelena up and down, "I am glad I came."
"It's four in the morning," Yelena responds, "Have you slept?"
"Yes," Melina nods, "You're on crutches."
"I have cancer," Yelena shifts uncomfortably and Kate decides she's going to make coffee. They're not going back to bed anytime soon.
"Natasha told me that," Melina responds, and their voices grow more hushed as Kate steps away.
All she's truly figured out is that Melina is a scary woman.
-
Natasha wakes up to her phone buzzing.
She tries to ignore it, enjoying the way that Wanda's holding her right now, but it keeps buzzing and she finally detaches herself.
It's Yelena.
"Yelena, it's five in the morning on a Sunday, let me sleep," she whines, hoping not to wake up Wanda in the process.
"Be glad I didn't wake you up at four," Yelena retorts immediately, "Melina's here. Did you give her my address or did she stalk me?"
"She has your address," Natasha lets her head fall back against the pillows, closing her eyes, "go back to bed, it's too early to be awake."
"Wanda told me that you used to wake up every morning at five to train, calm down," Yelena responds, "Now, what are we going to do about her?"
Natasha whimpers, just wanting to go back to sleep and fully melting when Wanda sleepily grabs at her waist, pulling her just a little closer.
"You're going to pull out the pullout, tell her to sleep for a couple of hours, and then we'll go out for brunch or something later," Natasha instructs, "now can I sleep?"
"No, please, Tasha, just come over and help us, please," Yelena's the one whining this time and Natasha is a little too tempted to hang up.
"I don't know about you because I don't think you and Kate even know about you, but I have a fiancée who's very willing to cuddle me right now and I don't really care to get out of my very warm bed right now," Natasha explains, "so please, just call me at ten and we'll come over."
"ты сука," Yelena retorts and Natasha can hear the pout on her face. (You're a bitch.)
"Night," Natasha says, hanging up quickly before curling back up to Wanda, resting her head on her shoulder and hearing Wanda's breathing.
She's asleep before she knows it and when she opens her eyes, sun is filtering through the window and Wanda's tracing shapes against Natasha's back.
"Your sister called like, six times," Wanda says when she realizes that Natasha's awake, "I picked up, apparently she's waiting on us for brunch?"
"Apparently, Melina's in town," Natasha half-explains, twisting the fabric of Wanda's shirt in her hand, "I thought she wasn't going to come for another week, but she showed up at Lena's in the middle of the night."
"Better them than us," Wanda responds softly, threading her fingers through Natasha's unruly hair, "You're not exactly in the outfit I'd greet people at the door in."
Natasha flushes, "You like it, too. You just happened to put on a t-shirt at some point."
"I never said that I didn't like it," Wanda smiles, "You're a beautiful woman, Natasha. Now, on the mom thing, are we actually getting brunch?"
"It's Sunday," Natasha shrugs, "Great day for brunch."
"Uh huh," Wanda sighs, hands falling completely still as Natasha meets her eyes, "Dorogoy, we're going to have to get up at some point."
"It's warm here, though," Natasha whines, burying herself in the comforters when Wanda slips out of bed. Why couldn't this have happened on literally any other day? Sunday's the day for laziness."
"Apparently not," Wanda walks over to their closet, mulling over some options in her head as she stares. She finally turns around to look at her fiancée, "You know, if you weren't fully naked right now, you'd be a lot warmer."
"The whole naked thing isn't entirely my fault," Wanda responds, handing her a hoodie and some sweatpants, "if I remember correctly, you had a large part in it as well."
"Whatever," Natasha slides out of bed and into the clothing, "we should probably tell Anya about the fact that we're going to brunch."
"How do you think she's going to feel about the fact that we're having brunch with someone that abused her?" Wanda asks softly, the mood of the room shifting completely. The playful air is now gone almost completely, and it send a little chill down Natasha's back.
"I don't know if she knows about how much of a hand Melina had in the mind control," Natasha says softly, "Yelena didn't know that Melina was the main person running it until we took down the Red Room. Chances are, Anya won't even recognize her."
"Whatever you say," Wanda kisses her quickly, "I'm going to go explain this whole thing to Anya and you're going to get dressed in more appropriate clothes to go to brunch in. And you're going to call Yelena."
"You gave me these clothes," Natasha retorts, "and fine, I'll call Yelena."
"Thank you!"
With that, Natasha's alone in the room.
She didn't expect to feel so wary of seeing Melina again. She supposes a part of her forgot that Melina has her own autonomy - and she's sure Melina forgot as well -, so the idea of seeing her in the flesh is almost jarring.
She also doesn't like how quiet the house is now. She had just gotten used to Fanny's tip-tapping throughout the house and the jingle of her collar, so knowing that that's not coming leaves a bittersweet taste in her mouth. It almost makes her want to adopt a cat right now.
Natasha gets up, going into the closet and grabbing a pair of jeans and an old worn SHIELD sweater, knowing it's relatively warm despite having loose threads on almost every single conjoining part of the sweater. She also makes sure to put on socks before grabbing her brush off of the dresser, working out a couple of knots.
She doesn't want to make this call and go get food. She knows she left it up to Yelena and she's glad that Yelena has Melina on her side (for the most part, at least), but she still has unresolved problems with Melina that she thought were buried deep.
Guess not, she hums disjointedly, grabbing her phone off of the nightstand and slipping earbuds in before dialing.
Once it starts ringing, Natasha starts braiding her hair out of her face, much preferring the easy maintenance that braids bring instead of letting her hair roam free.
Finally, though, Yelena picks up, and Natasha holds the hairtie between her teeth when Yelena's voice comes through.
"Good morning," Yelena drawls out, "How'd you sleep?"
"Shut up," Natasha furrows her eyebrows as she continues braiding, "Is she still there?"
"Yeah," she replies, "She ended up sleeping a bit, I think. Kate's showering right now and I'm just in bed, doctor's oders, gross, and I think Melina's watching TV out there. Or I'm hallucinating."
Natasha's stomach twists. She hasn't done enough research on the side affects of chemo to know if that's an actual concern or not. She begs in her head for it to be her sister joking.
"Do you still want to go out and get brunch?" Natasha asks, brushing past the comment in its entirety.
"Yes, please," Yelena sounds a little desperate now and it's kind of amusing, "What time?"
"Seeing as it's eleven now, how about noon? We'll come by your place and figure it out from there," Natasha plans, "how are you doing with the crutches, by the way? The doctors said it might be uncomfortable."
"There's nothing comfortable about them," Yelena replies, "but they do the job. I have to go, I'll see you in an hour."
Natasha stops, a little confused by the sudden tone shift.
But she brushes past it again, "Yeah, okay. See you in an hour."
There's a slight pause before Yelena speaks again, "I love you, Tasha."
Natasha smiles softly, "Love you too, Lena."