Always You

Chapter 3: Safehouse

In the time it took for the Widows to head elsewhere, Yelena had spent their time together attempting to get Y/N and Nat to play tic-tac-toe with her on the dusty walls of the vents that they were stuck in. She had finally coaxed Y/N into playing nearly ten games but was unable to beat them or cause a draw even once.

"What the hell? Are you a witch? I've never not at least drawn a game before," She asked while she watched Y/N draw their line through the Xs that they'd just won for the tenth time with.

"No. It's just strategy. Once you know it, it's not hard," They answered.

Yelena scrunched her face as she looked over Y/N's appearance, "Yeah... something a bitch would say."

"Excuse me?" They asked as their head swiveled in her direction quickly.

"What? I said that's something a witch would say? Can't you hear?" She replied with a smile as she avoided eye contact and wiped down the dusty games they'd played together.

Just as Y/N was going to fire back, Nat grabbed their pair's attention in order to nix the argument, "Do you think they're gone yet?" She asked her sister.

Yelena peered through the grates of the door that led into the vent. It had gotten rather quiet and the subway was abandoned so it was easy to know if someone or something was in the station with them.

"Seems fine to me now," She replied.

Luckily, it didn't take long for the Widows to go on searching elsewhere. The trio had only been in the vents for about twenty minutes before Yelena finally felt it was safe enough for them to make their way out. Nat dropped down first, followed shortly by Yelena, then Y/N.

"Alright," Nat started as the three began dusting themselves off, "Where are we heading?"

Yelena looked up and down the subway station to make sure that they were in fact alone again and the Widows chasing them had finally retreated or at least gone on elsewhere. Once she was sure, she began walking them over to the opening across from where they'd had the car skid down the stairs.

"This way," She finally responded as she took off walking.

Y/N and Nat looked at each other suspiciously. Though Yelena was family to Nat, she still wasn't sure how much she could trust her. It had been over 20 years and Yelena hadn't been out of the control of the Red Room for that long.

Without questioning her, the two decided to follow her anyways. It was clear that she knew much more than they did about what was going on with the Red Room and the Widows. They knew that if they wanted to stay safe, following her was really their only viable option.

"Either of you have another car or means of transportation?" Yelena asked without making eye contact with them as she looked up and down the main road just outside the station.

Y/N rolled their eyes knowing that she'd just caused them to crash their car, "No, Yelena. We don't. You literally just totaled my car and our only option of getting anywhere."

She laughed a bit in response before biting her lip to shove it down again, "Sorry, sorry. It's not funny."

Y/N's eyes widened with anger as they looked over at Nat for help. They didn't often get angered this easily and Nat knew that, but something about Yelena just absolutely sent them over the edge nearly every single time she spoke to them. Nat stepped over and grabbed their wrist before whispering next to their shoulder, "I'm sorry. I don't know what her issue is but I'll make it up to you. I promise."

"Your big Avengers money can take care of getting Y/N a new car, can't it Nat?" Yelena called back while she moved on to looking at cars that they could take for the ride. This time it wasn't with a laugh or even a hint of sarcasm, but with a brutal tone. It was obvious that she was looking to piss Nat off with that statement.

"Alright," Nat said now that she'd finally gotten under her skin as well, "What the fuck is wrong with you? You've had nothing but an attitude since you showed up. I can understand it with me, whatever. I can't change that or what happened with us, but your attitude with Y/N and in general is such shit. What happened to you?"

Yelena smiled as she finally wiggled a car open that fortunately had the keys left inside, "Some people are fucking idiots," She laughed, "Nat, you're driving," She called over to her as she threw the keys to Nat and jumped in the passenger seat while deliberately ignoring answering her questions.

Not wanting to start another argument or irritate themselves any further, both Nat and Y/N jumped in the car. Nat slipped into the driver's seat as Y/N slipped behind Yelena. They wanted to make sure that she couldn't just look back at them easily so they felt that sitting behind her instead of Nat would help with the arguments.

Yelena adjusted the radio to play 80's music before plugging in the directions to her phone, "We need to go here," She stated as she handed her phone over to Nat, allowing her to just follow the phone to go where she needed instead of having Yelena tell her turn by turn.

Nat looked over, "Where is this, Yelena?"

"A safehouse. Can you just trust me and go?" She answered with an irritated tone.

"Kinda hard to do with how you act," Y/N called from the back as they looked out the window. Being able to bite their tongue was getting more and more difficult with her as time went on.

Yelena laughed knowing that for some reason she was getting a sense of enjoyment from irritating them so much, "Nat, your partner is really tense. Maybe you should fix that when we get there. It's not healthy to have so much stress built up."

Both Y/N and Nat's eyes shot open as Y/N kneed the back of Yelena's seat hard. The two had often gotten mistaken for partners but had never actually thought or wanted to act on it. Y/N had actually just gotten out of a relationship with Daisy Johnson five months ago while Nat was still working on her situationship issues with Bucky Barnes. He'd gone off to Wakanda just after the Avengers split, causing an even bigger strain on whatever it was that the two had going on.

Regardless, romantic feelings had never even entered the friendship for either of them.

"Y/N is not my partner," Nat answered with her jaw clenched from annoyance, "It's not like that and it never has been. We're just friends."

Through a laugh and smile, Yelena answered back, "Well that is good to know."

She turned around in her seat to look back at Y/N, "Maybe I can help with the tenseness then?" She winked before wiggling her eyebrows up and down.

Y/N's face scrunched up at the question, wondering if Yelena was ever capable of being serious outside of her work searching for the Red Room and being an assassin. They knew she was Nat's little sister but they expected someone in their thirties to act a bit more adultlike.

Is she serious? They thought. She is just absolutely unpredictable.

"Just think about it," She said with a smirk as she turned back around in her seat.

And annoyingly sort of cute.

Oh for fuck's sake.