WHAT: Comfort and organizing WHERE: Black Widow House WHEN: Backdated to January 17th, 2024 WARNINGS: Handling some guns, language, mentions of drinking, sads STATUS: Complete
Yelena knew all of Natasha’s hiding spots in the house. Which meant that she could grab anything any time she wanted but the last thing she needed was for someone to stumble across them. Not that she thought either Leon or Chris would poke things and figure it out and go all willy-nilly on gun-swinging, but she just wanted to be careful. And she wanted to stay busy.
Which was easier said than done when her temples felt like twin hammers were swinging in on them at the same time. Yelena left her front door unlocked for Carol to come in while she sat at the foot of Natasha’s bed, a secure container sitting in front of her, wide open. Natasha’s weapons were pretty efficiently packed so it didn’t really need to be put in cardboard boxes anyway, but taking inventory of everything there before she moved them to a secure area would help.
If the Tylenol she had popped would start working right away.
When she heard the front door open, she yelled out “in here” as she sat massaging the sides of her head. But she didn’t really need to because Mango, who had been sitting on her shoulder, had flown off, to probably direct Carol this way. (Another way that Yelena was convinced she wasn’t an ordinary bird.)
Carol hadn’t slept yet. Despite not needing to (thanks, cosmic perks), her exhaustion was palpable. It was only Wanda pulling her into a guest room and forcing her to lie down last night that had gotten her any semblance of rest, and even then, it hadn’t been much. Physically, she looked entirely fine – kind of disheveled but there were no dark circles under her eyes. Despite that, she was emotionally and mentally drained in this incomparable way.
But Yelena was hurting, too. Her sisters were gone, and she needed someone, and Carol was what she had now. She’d made sure Sam had dropped off food for her last night, before her apparent drinking binge, and now she was going to show up. She hadn’t been lying when she’d revealed her promise to Natasha – it had been made a long time ago now, in what felt like another life entirely, but she was holding herself to it anyway.
Mango greeted her at the door before she heard Yelena’s voice calling out. She wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of Yelena putting her sisters’ things away to make room for housemates already, but she’d reeled herself in. This wasn’t her home, and it wasn’t her decision. She was here to give Yelena support and make sure she didn’t shoot herself in the foot with a possibly loaded weapon while nursing a hangover.
“Hey,” she said, watching as Mango fluttered over to perch on Yelena’s shoulder again. “Coming in here without Lucky jumping on me was… weird.”
“Everything is weird,” Yelena mumbled, two fingers rubbing at her temples, briefly before she looked up at Carol. If Yelena was to say she wasn’t a fucking wreck, anyone could tell she was lying from a mile away. No makeup, puffy red eyes from the crying and hair in the messiest bun possible. Well, that part wasn’t too different, she did prefer to keep her hair out of the way generally, whether it was a messy bun or braid.
“Welcome. To the house of… the solitary Black Widow.”
Carol pressed her lips together and closed her eyes for a moment. She could practically hear those words said in Natasha’s voice, see the smirk that only just veiled the loneliness behind it as she stood in the Compound’s living room, existing nearly alone in the quiet times when Carol was gone. It wasn’t a memory – she’d never heard Natasha say those exact words – but she could imagine it all so vividly.
Yelena was very much like her sister.
“Sorry, kid,” she sighed, opening her eyes again. She closed the flaps of the gun container, nudging it aside with her foot and sat down beside Yelena with her arms open. “C’mere.” She wasn’t going to force her into a hug, but she looked like she could use one.
Yelena didn’t hesitate; she leaned over into that hug right away. She loved to tease Kate with a “ugh no, get off of me” as often as possible, but even Kate knew that Yelena was far more touchy-feely of a person than she tried to impress upon people.
As a matter of fact, with her head nestled against Carol’s shoulder, Yelena was crying again.
Carol wrapped her arms around Yelena and held her tight, relieved she’d fallen into her. She was soaking up every hug she’d gotten in the past twenty-four hours. It didn’t fill the void of Emmeline’s absence – of getting to hug her wife, hold her, and fall asleep beside her – but the touch-starved side of her was aching.
While she and Yelena had always gotten along well, they’d never been the huggiest friends. But that didn’t matter. Mutual comfort was very much needed right now.
“You know they love you so much, yeah?” She lifted a hand to rest against the back of Yelena’s head. “No matter how much this fucking sucks and you miss them, you just have to hold onto that. Neither of them would have chosen to leave you.”
“Yes,” she mumbled partially into Carol’s shirt. “I don’t blame them, I blame this fucking world for doing that.” Yelena was absolutely aware that Natasha would not want to go back to that life, the life she had in a fucked up alternative world where she only had her best friend, Clint. Obviously she wouldn’t want to go back to her fate in her world either. Kate, she was sure, would be doing okay. The girl was resilient and she had Clint. And, obviously, some version of Yelena herself there that she tried not to think about because it would hurt her brain.
But that didn’t make it hurt any less and didn’t make Yelena feel any less like she had just lost her family. Again.
“Yeah,” Carol murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of Yelena’s head and squeezing her again. “Vallo’s a bitch. Not even the fun kind.”
Almost everything good Vallo had given them had been taken away. There were still people here that loved her – Yelena, too. Wanda, Sam, and Kamala were still here. Seeing Natasha and Kate gone, Tony and Pepper, James and Francis, it was hard not to fall into that fear that the people who remained would be next.
Yelena gave it a few more seconds before she straightened up again. Unfortunately, the cry, while normally it would have been good to get it out, was not exactly a good choice when you already had a headache. She rubbed one side of her head with the heel of her hand. “Is there a magical cure for hangover headaches this place has? If Vallo wants to be fucking useful, it could at least provide that.”
“Plenty,” Carol chuckled, cracking a small smile for the first time since she’d gotten here. She stood up and rummaged into the pockets of her jeans, coming out with a little vial of a blue-ish-looking liquid and offering it to Yelena between her thumb and index finger. “Perks of running an alien bar? You get the really good stuff. Might jolt you, though.”
Yelena reached out and took the bottle between her fingers, giving it a skeptical look. “Really? That easy?” Or, well, if it jolted someone awake maybe it wasn’t entirely without some consequences. She twirled the bottle slowly between her fingers. “Hope Leon got a vial of this too. He got pretty drunk too.”
At her own mention of his name, she glanced over at Carol as she pulled away briefly to start opening the vial. “I can’t be alone,” she explained. “I don’t want to leave the house but I can’t and don’t want to be alone in here. If they needed to stay somewhere even if Kate and Natasha were still here, I would have given them the guest room anyway.”
“Orcot deserves the hangover,” Carol replied dismissively. She meant that fondly. She loved Leon, but he was a stubborn ass. He may have spent the night drinking away his sorrows, but she was sure he’d find a way to cast disbelief on the notifications eventually.
In response to Yelena’s explanation about bringing the Orcot boys in as housemates, she nodded, a little stiffly. She understood, she really did. And she didn’t begrudge Leon and Yelena consolidating space with Chris. It was sensible; Leon needed a hand with Chris, and Yelena was a good hand to have. Carol had no right to be getting defensive, and she knew without a doubt Natasha would elbow her and tell her to calm down. Yelena was an adult capable of making her decision, and she shouldn’t be alone if she didn’t want to be.
“I would’ve taken you at mine,” she replied, loosening her shoulders. “Kamala and I would’ve. But I get it. This is your home, and you have every right to move in whoever the hell you want. I was being oversensitive. Don’t listen to me, alright?”
Yelena brought the vial to her lips and downed it quickly to make sure she didn’t taste it. Just in case it was bitter like normal human medications were. Though for all she knew, it could taste like hot chocolate. She wasn’t taking the chance.
“I think you’re allowed to be oversensitive right now.”
“And you’re allowed to drink away your sorrows,” Carol replied. “Maybe with a little more moderation next time, but I get the desire to black out.”
She was guilty of it. This time, she’d held herself together. She was determined to do that, to keep her grip on what was in front of her, if only for Kamala’s sake. But when she’d lost Natasha the first time, she’d spent more nights on her ship drinking than she would ever admit. She’d broken her promise, then, too – to go find Yelena, to make sure she was safe if Natasha wasn’t there. Now, she had the chance to make up for it.
“Alright, so,” she spoke up, returning to the secure box she’d nudged aside. “What’s the plan here? I doubt Nat left anything loaded, but we should check.”
“That was the goal, it didn’t actually happen.” Her selfish need to dull her pain was only slight overshadowed by the need to watch out for Leon, be there for him when he was hurting too. She couldn’t relate as far as romantic love went but she didn’t need the experience in order to know he was hurting.
“There’s a chance one might be, especially if she didn’t expect to disappear right away.”
“I would be surprised,” Carol commented, but she reached into the crate to begin inspecting the collection anyway. Basic training way back in the day had taught her how to handle most of the arms of the era, and she’d kept up with it when her memory was gone. She wouldn’t go so far as to call it a hobby, but she’d disassembled and reassembled alien guns in her free time, too, to get a feel for them.
“What about Kate’s bows? Are you putting those away?”
“I can check, but she keeps them in a safe location anyway,” Yelena said, starting to stand from her spot. She ought to check out Kate’s room anyway. Past the simple inspection she had done to clarify if the disappearance notifications were real or not. Once she realized Lucky wasn’t there anymore, she just knew.
“Carol,” she started. “Thank you. For– whoa.” That aforementioned jolt from Carol’s mystery vial kicked in, and the world never appeared clearer. Gratefully, the hangover headache was definitely gone, but she was jumping to her feet now, and nodding fervently. “Okay! Okay. Yeah, that worked. Okay, let’s go get shit together and holy crap, Carol, you have some resourceful clientele!”
For the first time in the last twenty-four hours, Carol grinned, lifting her hand to cover a laugh as the hangover cure kicked in and Yelena practically bounced to her feet. She’d taken it a time or two herself, but it had never had quite that effect. Kree blood and Space Stone energy seemed to influence the way she metabolized things, and she should have known to expect a more extreme reaction from someone with a regular human metabolism.
“Yeah, I’ve got some smart ones,” she agreed with an amused smirk. “Alright, Belova, let’s get moving. Try not to vibrate out of your skin in the meantime.”