WHAT: Bonding via froyo and Kate's plushie-making power - then a revelation WHERE: Park in the city WHEN: This afternoon WARNINGS: Nah! STATUS: Complete
For two days, Kate had been creating stuffed things out of thin air, and she was just starting to understand the mechanics. Well, kind of. She still wasn’t entirely convinced there were any mechanics, but surely, there had to be. If there was no off button, there had to be some way to control it and that was what she’d been working on. Now, instead of her weird new power gleaning the surface of her brain and creating things from every stray thought, there was more intention. It was more like summoning in a witchy-type manner now, less just blinking and - oh, what have we here?
But it was fair to say there were some choice plushies lying around the house (Elsa’s house but also her house, sort of??). Some were deeply inappropriate products of fantasy (that had made her face burn red when she’d picked them up to stash away in the closet); some were just concrete proof of the heart eyes she had for her girlfriend - snowflakes, hearts mimicking Sweethearts candy with slightly more inappropriate come-ons written on them, miniature Olafs, plush versions of the snow babies she’d sneezed all over Vallo early last month. There were also various copies of their animals - a stuffed copy of Licorice, an entire horde of little mini Luckys, a nearly life-sized embodiment of Nokk. As she’d gained control, Mobius had been given a smaller gator Loki and a plush Miss Minutes that she was pretty proud of.
All in all, it was a nifty power but ultimately useless. Even if she conjured up a stuffed animal in the midst of a fight, what was she going to do? Hurl it at her enemy and watch it bounce off them harmlessly? She’d hoped the power could include some gnarly insides - smoke bombs, dynamite, something. Instead, her attempts had only conjured up their very undangerous counterparts - a plushie bomb that looked like it had been ripped out of a cartoon had now become a pillow tossed onto her side of the bed.
Thankfully, she was hardly the only one in this predicament. Vallo seemed to be playing another one of its tricks and had saddled a whole swathe of people (mostly Outlanders, but Kate wouldn’t be surprised if there were others) with useless powers, and her bestie was among them - although reading people’s mind just to pick out what animal they were thinking of was arguably much more useless than Kate’s new talent.
It was a lovely spring day, starting to get hotter and hotter outside as they bordered on the start of summer, and Kate had invited Yelena to join her for froyo and commiserating over Vallo being dumb again. She had high hopes that this was one of the few food groups Yelena would not splash hot sauce all over, something she’d yet to encounter and kind of liked testing out, as they waited in line to put in their order.
“What animal is he thinking of?” she asked, nodding toward the man in front of them, their last obstacle before they made it to the counter. “And don’t say dog again. Everyone can’t really be thinking of dogs all the time.”
“Goat,” she started, glancing over at him. “And dog. He’s thinking of a goat-dog hybrid. I don’t really know why, but I suppose it’s better than him going all Doctor Moreau and desiring to create a goat-dog-human hybrid. People think of the weirdest things.” Yelena was thankfully relieved that her new power didn’t give her the ability to hear everything. Though the curiosity was there. Maybe she’d ask Strange or Wanda if either of them had that ability and what was the weirdest thing they heard.
The man eventually walked away and it was their turn next. “I’m buying,” Yelena said, stepping up, and ordering a pecan flavored froyo for her before gesturing to Kate to put in her order.
Well, yeah, when she put it that way, a goat-dog hybrid didn’t sound like the weirdest thing imaginable. For Kate, though, it was really just a trip to realize that people always had animals on their mind, even if it was just tucked away in some little corner. She didn’t think she did, but Yelena had proven her wrong pretty much instantly.
“My treat next time, then,” she relented, before telling the teenager at the register her order - classic strawberry for her. They were rung up and served in short order, handed cups with colorful spoons, and out the door they went.
“Find a free bench?” she suggested, nodding to the park across the street. School had let out not too long ago, and the place was crawling with kids and their parents, but she didn’t mind. Maybe she’d make Yelena push her on a swing at some point.
“Yep,” Yelena replied, making her way to one she had already spotted. All the way over there, she heard the hints of the children’s brains, some of them were very obvious with the way they were hanging on monkey bars and thinking of monkeys, and the ones running around deciding if they wanted to be a bird or something else. (Yelena could only assume the something else was a plane because it would obviously be a non-animal item she couldn’t hear.)
She plopped down and started digging in, almost considering pulling out the packets of hot sauce she always kept in her vest pockets. Just a small prank on Kate. But decided against it, ultimately.
“Ah, that one,” she pointed to a kid nearby, playing some sort of Vallo-esque hop-scotch. “He’s thinking of a purple dragon with gold wings.”
Kate waited with bated breath for the hot sauce to appear and was pleased (and relieved) when it didn’t. Whether or not Yelena really didn’t eat froyo like that or was just being kind, she didn’t know. But a triumphant little smirk appeared on her lips anyway, as if she’d won something, before she shoved a heaping spoonful of strawberry into her mouth.
The dragon description got her attention and her brows raised. “That’s different,” she commented. Most of the animals Yelena had mentioned picking up from people had been the basics so far. “I guess kids are more imaginative than adults. Is it, like, Spyro?”
As if on cue (although it definitely wasn’t intentional), a Spyro plushie appeared on the bench in the small space between them. She hadn’t mastered the power yet, okay? ‘Work in progress’ were the key words.
Yelena raised an eyebrow at the sudden appearance of the plushie between them, and then looked up at Kate. “Do you just think of something and it pops up in your hands just like that? What if I said the words ‘Yelena plushie’?”
Kate huffed, all set to protest. “It’s more complicated than th—”
She was cut off when a small knit Yelena did, in fact, pop up in her hand, causing her spoon to take a disappointing fall onto her jeans. “Okay, yes,” she admitted, examining the tiny Yelena (literally tiny, barely as big as the palm of her hand) decked out in a miniature vest. Normally, her creations looked like something you’d buy at your average Target, but this was different, more Etsy-style handmade, similar to the snowflakes she’d given Elsa during the initial overspillage of weird power.
“But I’m learning to control it,” she insisted. As if to prove it, she handed mini-Yelena off to the real version, set her froyo aside (spoon and all), then held out both hands between them. She closed her eyes, focusing for a moment until another Lucky plushie appeared in her grip. “Ha! See!”
“Aww, Bishop!” Yelena tucked both the froyo cup and spoon into one hand while she took hold of the plushie with the other. “Look at how adorable! You got my vest and tactical suit and everything right!”
Before she could comment on the Lucky plushie, a kid nearby, probably the age of four or five, what the hell did Yelena know, squealed at the dog’s appearance in her hands. Yelena only had to take one glance at him to know he was thinking of a family dog that shared the same breed as Lucky. “Well, I suppose his reaction tells you what animal he’s thinking of.” She took the plushie out of Kate’s hand and held it up for the kid. “That’s okay, take it! There will be plenty more where that came from.”
The tiny Yelena wasn’t really an intentional creation, technically, and Kate certainly couldn’t have physically knit it herself, but she took the compliment, her cheeks going a little bit pink. She sort of thrived on compliments. And the addition of the happy little kid, eyes practically sparkling (maybe really sparkling?) at the sight of her Lucky plushie made her heart happy.
“She’s right, go ahead, sweetie,” she encouraged the little one, waving toward it when they looked uncertain. “I’ve got a ton of them at home that look just like it. You can take it.”
“Thank you!” The high-pitched little voice was sweet and shy, but the way they hugged Lucky to their chest as they scampered off was adorable. Kate could have melted into a puddle right then and there.
“Maybe we should give Spyro to the dragon kid?” she suggested to Yelena. She rubbed the drips of froyo off her leg before picking up her cup again to polish the last bit off. “I mean, I’ve got enough of ‘em at home. Elsa’s running out of places to put them.”
“Yeah, why not?” Yelena said, picking up the dragon, and putting her froyo cup down in its place. She brought over the plushie to the kid who was sitting with his parent, stating, “I have a special ability to sense what kind of animal you like and this is what came to mind. Courtesy of someone who can create animals like this with great speed. Do you like it?”
The kid was shy at first but Yelena was good with people (things you learned to be as a spy) and she chatted for a bit with the kid’s parent, putting them at ease before he finally took the dragon and thanked her.
Yelena walked back and picked up her froyo cup again as she sat back down. “There you go. Another satisfied customer.” And then she paused.
“Kate Bishop. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
There was something very sweet about watching Yelena interact with the little boy and his parent. Sometimes it still blew Kate’s mind how good she was with people, given what she’d spent most of her life doing. She’d never considered that people skills were actually sort of a necessity when you worked as a spy; you had to be able to get in good with people, gain their trust, and Yelena was really good at that. Even after she’d tried to kill Clint, Kate had trusted her, in a weird way, almost immediately.
She trusted her even more now, considered her a mish-mash of a partner-in-crime, best friend, sister, and girlcrush. But she still had no idea what she was thinking and the slow shake of her head and wide, confused eyes probably said that.
“...No?” Her brow furrowed as she looked back toward the little kids who had inherited her creations, then back to Yelena. “Wait.”
Yelena hadn’t said anything, just raised her eyebrows at Kate, waiting for her to figure out what she meant. “Yes?” she prompted.
“We could totally make toys for all these kids,” Kate proposed, face lighting up. “Maybe it would help me get the whole power thing under control?” The kids looked so happy - why not, right?
Well. At least she was on the right track, Yelena thought, turning back to her froyo. “With a profit,” she mumbled around a piece of it in her mouth. She took a moment to swallow before continuing. “I predict their favorite animal, you make their toy. Parents give us the money. Profit.” She started to scarf down her froyo faster because if this plan was going to happen, it better happen before Vallo decided to take back their gifts. There was always a chance of that, of course.
Oh! Kate nearly said ‘duh’ out loud because, yeah, obviously. That was genius. It was the perfect side hustle, now that she’d taken off her Rich White Girl goggles, and saw exactly what Yelena was saying. She’d have happily given the stuff she made to the kids for free, but it wouldn’t hurt her feelings to make a little money off this weird-ass Vallo glitch.
“I’m so in,” she agreed eagerly. “And there are parks like this all over the city, we could be raking it in.” She frowned at Yelena’s scarfing, though; that was just asking for a brain freeze. “Whoa. Take it easy there, slugger, there’s no rush.”
“There is… when Vallo… can change its mind… any ti–” Yelena was in between bites, trying to get it down when, inevitably, brain freeze did hit. She paused for a moment, letting it pass, and then said through gritted teeth. “Let’s get something put together so we can do this soon. Get the most out of it.”
The point Yelena almost made there before she got hit with brain freeze (just like Kate predicted, thanks) was a valid one. She expected this would wear off eventually, like most of Vallo’s strangeness did. If they wanted to put a little business together, now was the time.
“Okay, so what do you want to charge? Like five bucks per toy?” she asked. That was the only part of it she figured they really needed to decide on ahead of time. Other than that, it would probably just be Yelena siphoning their favorite animal out of their brains and Kate doing her best to create it. She hoped they got some unusual ones, like that hybrid the guy in the froyo shop had been thinking about.
“Your brain is not worth five dollars. I’d say it’s about ten.” Yelena finished up her froyo in no time and stood up, taking a moment to make sure Mini Yelena was tucked away in a vest pocket right near her collarbone. It was indeed the cutest thing she saw, and that was the only reason she was tucking it away, not because she was self-centered or anything (she totally was). “We could put together a little stand, write down the price, and a pretty banner. Maybe we can ask Strange to magic it together and in payment, you can make him a plushie of himself.”
Yelena paused to take her empty cup to a nearby garbage can and then returned. “Come on, my Ketsy shop. There’s not much payment in using my spy skills to find out who a local’s secret admirer is, but there might be in this.”