InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "that old lady down there scare"

“Nice face,” Kate laughed, her phone inches away from Yelena’s face as she snapped yet another picture.

Tonight, dinner was in Yelena’s hands. Natasha was staying the night at Steve’s apartment, and Emily was working the late shift at Al’s, so it was just the two of them. Lately, they’d all been doing their best to minimize their takeout consumption, and that meant lots more cooking. This week, there hadn’t been a single night of Chinese, pizza, or sushi. All home-cooking.

For the most part, Nat and Yelena split cooking duties pretty evenly. More often than not, when Kate tried to contribute, it was on Natasha’s nights. The eldest held far more patience with Kate and the major learning curve she was on. Kate knew Yelena loved her, but she had her ways of handling the kitchen, and she didn’t want Kate’s occasional bumbling to interfere.

Except this was Kate Bishop. She didn’t give up that easily.

“Come on, Lena, give me something to do,” she pleaded, jutting her bottom lip out in a pathetic pout, coupled with puppy dog eyes. “I’m not totally inept, I can help if you let me!”

The face in question was as she shoved stuffing into one of the Cornish hen she had picked up for dinner tonight, a tip of her sticking out of the side of the mouth. Yelena rolled her eyes at Kate, and turned away briefly to grab some cooking twine.

“There’s a few dishes in the sink from earlier you can clean up.” Which, really, it was probably a knife and peeler and some lunch time dishes she had left in there. Yelena knew Kate was more than capable of helping her cook. She may have been the kind of person who preferred being the only one in the kitchen, but she still loved having Kate’s company even if she sat around and took pictures and videos of her cooking.

Plus, it was her right as a sister to give her a hard time for a small bit.

“Cop out,” Kate complained with a huff, rising from her seat across the island to get at the sink. There were a handful of dishes and utensils sitting there, all of which she loaded into the empty dishwasher in about two minutes flat. She’d made sure to have all of the appliances upgraded in the weeks after they’d all moved in; this house had been very stuck in the 90s, but now everything was sleek and fancy, and less likely to explode at a moment’s notice.

“Alright, now let me make a vegetable or something. I don’t want to stuff a chicken, but I can at least put green beans on the stove. Maybe even mashed potatoes.”

“Make a vegetable!” Yelena let out a swear word in Russian. Was she upset? Not truly, and the smirk to her lips would tell Kate that easily. “Fine, I’ll leave you with making the mashed potatoes. That’s what I was planning for a side anyway.”

Once she was finished stuffing the second Cornish hen, Yelena went ahead and tied the legs together on both. “What are you going to do if Emily falls sick and you have to make her something, and we’re in the apocalypse and I’m busy fighting zombies?”

“That still leaves Nat to cook for me, so I don’t see a problem,” Kate replied with a grin. She eagerly scooped up a couple of the potatoes they’d brought home from the grocery store, freshly peeled by Yelena, and laid them out on the cutting board beside her sister before turning back to the drawers behind them to find the stainless steel potato masher.

She emerged with it, victorious, and placed one potato carefully before bearing down on it. “Seriously, though, I’m learning. But I’ve always had people cooking for me, so it’s taking some time. And you three always telling me I have to just feel it out is literally zero help.”

“It makes perfect sense to us, pass the butter.” Yelena stuck her hand out for the cup of softened butter she had placed that was closer to Kate’s end than hers. “And I would be dragging Nat with me to fight those zombies, so it would be all up to you. Or… not, I don’t know. You could decide to follow us with flaming arrows.”

“Obviously I’d follow you with flaming arrows, jerkface,” Kate declared, grabbing the cup of butter and slapped it into Yelena’s hand. She fixed her with a ‘no shit’ look before turning back to her task. “If zombies come, no way I’m leaving the two of you to defend me. Especially if they’re those Left 4 Dead ones that freaking run.”

She finished her mashing of the first potato, brushing it aside before grabbing the next one to center on the cutting board.

“We would be defending everyone, not just you.” Yelena gave her the same look back as she brought the cup closer to her. “But then we all get injured and can’t use our hands so now you’re the last person ever to revive us with some delicious vegetable soup and our own hands are depending on it. Then, you’ll have to learn how to feel it out and now to make a vegetable.”

“Wait a minute, why can’t you use your hands in this scenario? That’s a weirdly specific injury in a zombie apocalypse. What, do they only bite hands now? And why is vegetable soup the cure for your weirdly useless hands?”

Another potato down, then a fresh one got pulled to the center. She was being careful with the potato masher. Luckily, it didn’t have any truly pointy parts, but with her luck, the damn thing could slip if she didn’t watch herself.

Yelena shook her head, not looking up from her hens as she applied butter and herbs. “It’s a metaphorical situation, Kate Bishop, which means, it’s completely made up and there are no questions to be asked. Like when people ask how many toddlers you can take on in a fight. Are you going to really ask why you would be taking on toddlers and the logistics behind it?”

She paused, and then glanced over at her sister. “Actually, you would.”

“I like to be somewhat informed,” was Kate’s response. That wasn’t to say she wouldn’t jump into fights on a whim – or that she hadn’t. She was definitely impulsive, and it had gotten her more than one stern lecture from their eldest sister, but she was always fighting something that needed to be fought.

“Especially if it involves toddlers,” she added, turning around to scoop up another batch of potatoes to be mashed. “You shouldn’t just beat up kids without knowing if they’re, like, rabid or evil.”

Her back still to Kate, she smirked slightly, her thought process almost on the same wavelength as the younger girl’s, because oh, she knew how impulsive she could be. “You don’t always need to be informed to run straight into a fight. Open that.” Yelena picked up the pan holding the hens, and tilted her head to indicate the oven.

“No, and a lot of times I’m not. We’re not.” Kate dropped her potatoes on the counter and turned to pull the oven door open like she was asked, allowing Yelena to load in their main course. “But if we can be, we should be.”

Yelena set the timer on both the oven and on her phone. It would be a while before those were done, so she had time to turn to Kate and see how she was doing with the potatoes. “Don’t forget the salt and butter,” she said before turning away.

“So, when am I going to have a fourth roommate? I’ll have to start bringing more groceries home to make sure everyone has enough to eat.” It was a complete tangent on the topic but that was also something that regularly happened if you spoke to Yelena while doing mundane work around the house.

Kate didn’t blink at the change in subject. “I don’t know yet,” she said honestly, transporting the mashed potatoes back into the bowl they’d been originally boiled in on the stovetop. “I don’t know if she wants to live with all three of us. It’s not a small house, but it’s not really a four adults kind of house.”

There was a little fear in there, too, that she was too stubborn to own up to right now. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Emily – she was crazy about her, and it was obvious enough to get her teased by her sisters frequently. But she’d moved in with Elsa, and a month later, she’d been gone. It had kind of given her a complex.

Yelena pulled out a stool nearby to perch herself on as Kate continued to work on the mashed potatoes. Most of her work was done. She’d already had a salad set, the hens were cooking, and it was just the matter of the mashed potatoes before dinner would be done and ready to eat. She fidgeted with the hem of her bumblebee apron while she listened.

“Please, if she’s looking for privacy, she would have it, considering how often half of us aren’t even home.” She had her bartending job that lasted well into the night on the weekends and then the private investigation gig she did for natives of this world. She kept busy a lot of times, and was probably only around in the day.

Kate rubbed her hands together, freshly done adding in the salt to her dish as instructed. Butter came next, dropped unceremoniously into the pot, before she grabbed the potato masher again to mix it all together. It wasn’t going to take as long for these to cook as the hens, but she’d sit tight close by to make sure she didn’t forget to stir every so often.

Heat turned on, she took the stool beside Yelena for the moment, knocking their knees together when she faced her, and shrugged. “She loves you guys, so she’d probably be willing, but I haven’t asked. I don’t want to jinx things this time.”

She smiled and reached forward to poke at one of the bees on Yelena’s apron – something she’d picked up for her as a treat a few months ago, teasing her about how the bees were just as little as her. “I have a great idea. How ‘bout you move someone in first and we can see how that goes before I ask Em?”

“The fuck,” Yelena said, reacting to the last question rather than anything else, like her poking at her apron. That was normal behavior.

“And who the hell would I move in?”

“I don’t know! Some other poor stray like me?” Kate flashed her best innocent-but-amused smile. “Maybe someone you like. I know there’s no romantic interest, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have friends.”

Yelena raised her hands in a very “what the hell” manner. “What the heck? Are you saying I don’t have friends? I already do have friends. So rude, Kate Bishop.” She shook her head. “I lived with Leon and his ex-boyfriend, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” Kate acknowledged. Her attempts at deflecting having obviously failed, she went back to the subject at hand. “You wouldn’t care if Em moved in more permanently, though? Like, it wouldn’t be too many people in… I mean, this is yours and Nat’s house.”

If she was sitting any closer, Yelena would have reached over to slap her over the head because why else would she be asking this dork? It seemed like Yelena spent most of her life chasing after the remnants of her childhood family who she believed were her family even if it was supposed to have been fake. She said it then and she would repeat it now a billion times, that it had all been real to her. Maybe it was because she was so young then but the feelings were still valid.

And now, she chased after any chance there was to grow the family a little more if she wanted to. Their parents weren't here but she’d still found a father figure in Hopper. Even if she never had a brother, Leon had become almost similar to one.

“No, Kate, I would not care if Em moved in. There is plenty of room here, and I’m sure you’ll agree we need more people making noise that isn’t Mango’s screeches.”

“God, that’s true,” Kate agreed emphatically. Mango was loud – cute but loud, and with a houseful of other animals, they had a ruckus on their hands on a daily basis. “Eventually, that bird is gonna antagonize Liho into eating her.” She grinned and kicked at Yelena’s foot before getting up and heading over to the stove to stir at her prize side dish.

Yelena leaned on the counter on one elbow, placing her cheek into her palm. “I highly doubt that. I bought her here, remember? I feel Vallo animals come with an extra bit of magic. I’m pretty sure that’s why she’s smarter than I expected her to be.”

As if she just knew she was being talked about, Yelena heard a loud tweet coming from somewhere inside the house.

“She’s smart, alright,” Kate commented, shaking her head at the sound of said bird making sure her presence wasn’t forgotten. She returned to sit beside Yelena again and knocked a foot against her sister’s gently. “Annoying but smart. Like her owner. Annoyingly smart, even.”

“And you’re just annoying.”

“You love me, though.”

Yelena shrugged. “Sometimes debatable.” She hopped off her seat and crossed over to the section where she kept their booze and opened the cabinet doors. She pulled out a bottle of wine and vodka and brought it over to the counter where they were stationed. Not that she was going to have both together but having options for dinner if they wanted. “So. Ask her whenever you feel ready. If you’re afraid of Vallo doing its usual bullshit, there is no guarantee of that not happening or happening tomorrow or happening in ten years.”

“Yeah, good point.” That was always a fear, Kate wasn’t going to deny it. She’d been here nearly two years now and built this pretty great life for herself – she had Emily, and her sisters, and a whole extended family from worlds adjacent to her own that she wouldn’t have if she ended up back home. She didn’t want to lose that, but part of her was always hesitant to make big moves and test Vallo’s mettle. She never knew what was coming next.

But that was why she should take all her chances. That was what Yelena was saying, wasn’t it? That was what Wanda had said last time she posted on the net, too. Life was about taking chances, and Kate had never been shy about that, but something about Vallo inspired her to second guess herself more often than not.

“Soon,” she decided. “I’ll talk to her soon.” It was vague enough that she didn’t have to jump right this second, but it was firm enough that she knew she would follow through. And if she didn’t, she knew Yelena would hold her accountable.

“Cool.” That was that. Yelena knew not to push any further past that. Well, she probably could but it would be less productive and mostly to be the annoying sister.

She grabbed two glasses from nearby and poured wine for Kate and vodka for herself. “Besides, we have enough people in this world who can magic places to expand a house from the inside or something. Or even make the walls soundproof if that’s also your concern.”

Kate’s eyes popped and her cheeks went hot. “Should it be my concern?” she questioned, her voice high and mildly panicked. She had no shame about sex whatsoever, but that didn’t mean she particularly relished her sisters hearing it. She thought she’d had good control of her volume, but now she was worried.

The expression on her face was absolutely something that Yelena burst out laughing. “Calm down, I was just saying. I sleep like a fucking rock until about seven in the morning anyway, you know this. I wouldn’t notice anyway.” She paused and then said, “Can’t speak for Natasha though, you’ll have to ask her.”

“Nope, that’s not happening,” Kate declared, scrubbing at her red cheek and reaching for the glass of wine Yelena had poured for her. She took an honest-to-god gulp and shook her head. “There are some things you just don’t discuss with Natasha, and my sex life is absolutely, one hundred percent one of those things.”

“She’s not a prude,” Yelena said, rolling her eyes. “Who else are you going to discuss it with anyway? Me?”

Kate considered that for half a second then shook her head again. “Yeah, no. You’re not any better. But I’m not saying she’s a prude, just, like, there’s some things people like to keep private, alright?”

“Yeah, alright,” Yelena gave her a shrug before lifting up her glass of vodka – yes, just vodka – and taking a few sips. “I was just saying though, whatever concern you may have with Emily staying can be rectified with a few magical touches or whatever. Calm down, Kate Bishop.”

“I’m totally calm,” Kate huffed. She was not, but she was trying to get there. She felt a little bad for getting indigent and flashed Yelena an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” she sighed, sipping at her glass of wine. “I know you’re right. We’ll figure it all out. And, for the record, you’re one of my favorite people to talk to.”

“Of course, I am. I give amazing advice.” Yelena got up and went over to the oven to check the level of broth in the pan. Still there, not yet necessary to replenish. Turning back to Kate, she raised her glass to clink it with her sister’s cup. “To me! The one with the excellent advice. Usually.”

“I can’t second that excellent advice part, but,” Kate snarked and lifted her glass to her sister again, “to you, Lena.”