“Whatever you’re going to ask, the answer is no.” with Yelena and Kate.
A/N: Thank you for the request!
Yelena and Kate are always an interesting pair to write for, and I try to achieve the proper balance of playfulness, softness, and teasing between them, lol 😂💗 Also, this one was a lot based on a previous fic, so while it's not required to understand this one, if y'all want some context, feel free to click here.
I hope you enjoy!
Word Count: 2.7k+
Yelena let out a contented groan, resting her hand on her stomach as she looked toward the television at the movie that she currently had playing.
She and Natasha had come to the compound for Natasha to work on something. After offering her help and Natasha sweetly telling her that she could just hang back and relax, Yelena had very happily settled down on the couch to look at the recorded movies and put something on for her to enjoy.
“Yelena! Just the person I wanted to see,” Kate’s voice spoke up.
Well, so much for relaxing in peace…
Yelena furrowed her brow, moving her head back as she looked at Kate upside down from where she was approaching not too far away. Yelena groaned, moving her head back upright as she waited for Kate to approach more closely.
Kate moved so that she was in front of the couch and conveniently between Yelena and her line of sight toward the television. Yelena looked at her, taking in the sight of the kid before her.
As soon as she looked at her, she realized that Kate was standing there far too hopefully. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and she looked slightly out of breath as if she had been in a hurry.
Yelena instantly knew that Kate absolutely had to be wanting something from her. However, Yelena was in a terribly lazy sort of mood, and she was most certainly not loving the notion of getting up unless it was for the sake of food or Natasha.
“Whatever you’re going to ask, the answer is no,” Yelena headed her off.
Instantly, Kate lost her hopeful look and had something that was a bit more pleading in her eyes. Kate just sighed, shaking her head as she tried to convince Yelena of something that she had not even introduced the idea of.
“Look, hear me out, okay? I need a ride,” Kate expressed, and Yelena groaned languidly.
“And? Why don’t you ask Natasha?” Yelena questioned, and Kate shrugged with a bit of a frown on her face.
“I would, but she’s busy doing something with D,” Kate explained carefully.
“Lewis?” Yelena thought that over, surprised at Kate’s statement.
Natasha said she had something to do, but Yelena had not exactly expected her to go and work in the lab. That was not what Natasha commonly helped with, and it left Yelena less than perfectly pleased simply because it meant that Natasha was most certainly indefinitely preoccupied.
Worst of all, in that one statement, Yelena got her answer to her next question about Darcy’s availability. She could not even tell Kate to ask Carol because Carol was off in space to help someone or another who had gotten in contact with her. She had to speed away so that she could take care of the emergency.
So that successfully limited Kate’s options to Yelena unfortunately.
“Look, I also… I kind of wanted the chance to spend some time together. Y’know… Just me and you,” Kate confessed, her eyes softening into something almost resembling some manner of admiration that Yelena was beginning to realize only came from Kate when she was looking at Natasha or Yelena.
Yelena instantly looked at her skeptically, trying to fight her urge to give in despite the fact that she already knew she had lost the battle this time around.
Yelena did not particularly mind spending time with Kate despite her halfhearted complaints, but she usually wanted to do it on her own terms because while Kate was always in the mood to do stuff, Yelena was a lot of times not necessarily in the mood to do the admittedly insane and energetic things that Kate wanted to do.
Granted, when it was Yelena’s own idea to do said insane and energetic things, it was a different story, but as it was, Yelena had certainly not thought of this idea and actually had a much less crazy idea in mind for right now.
Yelena was currently very comfortable situated on the couch and watching a movie. If Kate wanted to join her doing that, she would not have an issue at all— of course, she would tease her and playfully complain—but Kate had some kind of idea that involved moving their rear ends farther than just to the kitchen for snacks.
However, something in her tugged just a bit at Kate’s admission of wanting to spend time with her, and Yelena immediately berated herself for going soft. She had not used to be quite that sympathetic when it came to Kate, and she could not believe herself for having sunk this far deep.
Yelena shook her head, just now noticing the duffel bag in Kate’s hands. She cast Kate a suspicious glance, trying to figure out what exactly was going to entail needing a duffel bag. Yelena even noticed a bow-like shape showing through the loose material of the bag, which only served to confuse her further.
“Where do you want to go exactly?”
“Go suit up in your White Widow mission stuff and you’ll see,” Kate grinned, and Yelena squinted a little, not really impressed with Kate’s mysteriousness.
Yelena was quickly beginning to regret her own lack of formidability.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
“Everyone, say hello to Hawkeye and the White Widow,” the librarian introduced, and all of the children wasted no time in excitedly welcoming the two. The chorus of mismatched voices and imperfectly timed words sounded off around the room. Kate wasted no time in happily waving in reply as she offered a wide, toothy grin.
Of all the things that Kate could have dragged her into, Yelena had never expected a conference room area in a library with a bunch of children around the age of eight.
She had quickly figured out what the duffel bag was for. It had been full of Kate’s things with her superhero outfit and her bow and quiver. She had not brought any arrows, but other than that, she was completely decked out.
Yelena herself had gotten dressed and had brought her guns, knives, and even her widow’s bites. For all she knew, they were going on a mission, but as soon as Kate had told her in the car that they were not going to need to kill people, Yelena realized that she had slightly overdressed.
Therefore, she hid the guns in the car and shut the widow’s bites off so that they would not have any potential accidental firing incidents on their hands.
However, as soon as they had gotten in here with a bunch of kids, Yelena was more afraid than she had ever felt around any enemies. Children were way scarier than bad guys because they were completely the opposite of anything Yelena had really faced.
Kate, however, seemed remarkably at ease and even excited about this whole thing, and Yelena made a mental note to ask her how exactly that Kate had gotten herself volunteered for this job. She was surprised that they would not want one of the original six to talk there, but she supposed that they were probably willing to take what they could get.
“Today, they’re going to tell us a bit about their superhero adventures together and for the creative writing contest, you guys are going to submit something related to superheroes. It can have your favorite real superhero or one that you make up,” the librarian explained to the children, and they all nodded excitedly, their eyes mostly trained on Kate and Yelena.
Yelena had seen the signs when she had come in, and to her shock, Kate’s name had been plastered all over the flyers with the name “Hawkeye” accompanying it and the creative writing contest in question in large lettering.
“Now, let’s hear what our heroes here have to say,” the librarian turned over the floor to the both of them and Yelena suddenly felt an inexplicable nervousness gripping at her stomach and chest as she stared at the group of children.
While Yelena would ordinarily take the lead in things, Yelena truly had no idea how to handle this and she was not sure how to even start. She had no real experience with dealing with younger children of this age.
To her shock, however, Kate suddenly stepped forward, looking at the group of kids with a smile as she stood before them confidently.
“Hey, guys! It’s so great to be here today, and I am so excited to have the opportunity to talk to you all and tell you a story! I’m going to be sticking around afterward for any questions if you guys have some, so you just remember all of them in your noggins,” Kate told them, starting off as she moved right into things. The kids laughed a little as Kate made a goofy face and pointed to her head as she accentuated her words.
“So for our story today, I was thinking that I could tell you guys about the time that me, the White Widow here, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, and several other heroes teamed up at Iron Man’s party and fought a bunch of evil aliens,” Kate explained to them, beginning her story as she stuck to the more popular superhero names instead of their true identities.
Yelena knew the story that Kate was referencing. It was the day of the gala that was held in Darcy’s honor after she had discovered her meteor. Carol had been acting as her bodyguard because she knew that the Kree were likely going to invade and try to take the meteor or kidnap Darcy to force her to take them to it since it held a valuable metal within it.
“It all started when a genius scientist named Darcy found a meteor. But not just any meteor. This meteor had a special metal inside of it. But this metal was super important to a bunch of aliens called the Kree, and they were very mean people, so our friend Captain Marvel decided to protect Darcy so none of the Kree would try to capture her,” Kate kept her words mostly simple so that the kids could understand, and Yelena just watched her wordlessly, unsure of what to even try to say as she awkwardly stood behind Kate a little.
“We were all friends with the scientist Darcy, and Iron Man threw a party for her celebrating her big discovery,” Kate moved her hands animatedly, telling her story as she smiled happily. There was genuine adoration in her voice as she doubtlessly thought of Darcy.
“But that night, when the party started, the Kree came and they crashed in, looking for Darcy and the meteor,” Kate started into the beginnings of the action. The kids all gasped as Kate fully captivated them with her storytelling, and Yelena just watched her carefully, her hands behind her back as she stood there quietly.
The truth was that Yelena could hardly think of anything to add to the story as Kate went along.
She honestly could not get past the fact that the girl was doing this so eloquently. Kate could be so awkward in so many ways and Yelena so often had to take charge of situations when it was just her and Kate. But Kate was in her element here and she seemed to be thriving even with a whole crowd of kids staring her down.
It truly brought a different side of Kate to light that Yelena was not entirely sure that she had ever seen before.
“Captain Marvel used to know the Kree and she knew their leader,” Kate simplified, and Yelena raised her eyebrows just a little. To say that Carol knew the Kree was just a little bit of an understatement.
“The Kree came in with super armor that made a forcefield around them. When I tried to shoot my arrows, they just bounced off, and when White Widow here tried to hit them, their forcefield threw her back,” Kate accentuated her words with a movement of her hands, grabbing Yelena’s shoulders as she pushed her back just a little.
At that moment, Yelena shot Kate a slightly unhappy look before choosing to finally speak up with her own additions.
“But I was not hurt, and I practically landed on my feet,” Yelena added, and all of the children’s eyes were instantly on her. She felt slightly uncomfortable, and she shifted a bit. Kate flashed her an excited grin, but at Yelena’s slight discomfort, Kate seemed to understand that Yelena wanted the attention shifted back to Kate at least for the moment.
Kate leaned forward conspiratorially, and she stage-whispered to the kids.
“She landed on her butt,” Kate informed them, and they all laughed mostly because of Kate’s word choice.
Yelena rolled her eyes, but she could not help a slight smile at the fact that she had somehow helped to contribute to the kids getting a laugh even if she was the literal butt of the joke.
“So we weren’t able to break their defenses, and it looked like things were hopeless. But that was when Captain Marvel charged in with her electric superpowers, blasting them back and saving Darcy,” Kate explained to the kids.
“She defeated all of the enemies and we captured their leader, and in the end, all was well, and we all ended up safe,” Kate finished, looking at the group.
However, before the librarian could step up to cue the children to applaud Kate and her story, Yelena spoke up.
“You forgot the coolest part,” Yelena interjected as she stopped Kate, and the kids instantly looked at her along with Kate. Yelena swallowed back the slight nervousness and spoke up.
“Y’know, the part where Captain Marvel punched the leader guy so hard that he flew through the air like Team Rocket on the Pokémon show,” Yelena explained, and the kids all laughed at the sound of her deadpan voice coupled with the inflections of her words. Yelena could not help a slight grin.
“And you forgot the important part where you were almost hit in the head by your own—”
“Okay, let’s stick with the appropriate parts of the story,” Kate told her, grinning nervously as she tried to avoid the more violent parts of the story. Yelena scoffed in reply.
“Why must you be so boring, Katie-Bear?” Yelena questioned, and the kids laughed as they listened to her voice.
Yelena could not help a bit of a laugh of her own.
“Don’t call me Katie,” Kate grumbled under her breath. She then sighed as she offered the librarian a look to try to convince her to go ahead and wrap things up.
“Okay, children, let’s thank Hawkeye and White Widow,” the woman told them.
All of the kids suddenly sounded off, thanking Kate and Yelena enthusiastically. Kate grinned widely as she shrugged in reply, eating up the attention and enjoying every minute of it. Yelena could not help a bit of a smile herself as she eyed them all.
“Feel free to come and ask questions if you want, and then our heroes will have to head home for the day. They’re very busy,” the librarian explained, and the kids wasted no time in hurrying up toward the both of them.
Kate instantly knelt down to their level so that she could speak to them better, and Yelena hesitantly kneeled next to her, not sure how to do this but figuring she would do her best.
“So what’s our first question?” Kate asked, and one little girl quickly spoke up.
“What almost hit you in the head, Katie-Bear?” the kid asked, and Kate froze, not impressed with the nickname at all.
Yelena just laughed heartily as she enjoyed Kate’s obvious unhappiness with the nickname.
Strangely, at the end of it all, Yelena found that she did not regret getting off of the couch and stopping her movie at all. She actually felt an odd sense of accomplishment and warmth in her chest. Even more weirdly, she felt the oddest sense of pride rising within her at Kate’s eloquence at working with the kids, and it made her wonder if that was how Natasha felt when she saw her and Kate doing things.
And truthfully, the pride she felt for her was the most insane part of the whole experience.
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