Here comes the bridesmaid (Kate x Yelena)

Two

"Hey, Yelena?" Kate asks, trying her best to disguise the falter in her voice, the unease in her words.

Yelena hums through a mouthful of the ice cream she'd ordered for dessert, glancing up with guilty eyes, as if she's just been caught, before the spoon is retreating from her mouth and she starts chewing.

"Why aren't you..." Kate nods her head backwards, heart starting to thud in her chest. "Sat at a table with your family? Aren't you a bridesmaid?"

Kate must've done something wrong, said something wrong, she thinks, when Yelena goes red and ducks her head, playing with the food on her plate. She realises that she took it a step too far, her previous attempt of trying to tread lightly vanishing with no trace that it was ever there in the first place. It isn't any of her business after all, she has no place in asking and she certainly isn't owed an answer. Not now, anyway.

The blood seems to pump even louder around her ears, the tips turning a deep red in embarrassment. Her stomach clenches in a tight, uneasy feeling, creeping up to her chest until it feels like she's suffocating. Like she can't breathe. Until she can, and the sensation is swiftly fading away. The deep frown on Yelena's face concerned her even more than her current state of guilt and Kate filed that information away in her brain to assess later on.

"Hey," she says again softly, eyebrows furrowing, concern laden in her eager eyes. Kate leans in closer, the rest of the wedding completely drowning out all around her. "What's wrong?"

Kate doesn't expect Yelena to say anything, to open up to her. She just doesn't, because they've quite literally only just met. So it's safe to say she's beyond stupefied when Yelena doesn't change the subject or ignore her.

"How do you," Yelena pauses and tries again. "How do you know the brides?"

There's a sense of curiosity wound up in her features, fiddling with the label on her beer bottle, the glass all sweaty and cold to touch.

Kate blinks at her slowly, turning to look briefly at her cousin who's still chatting away. "I don't," she replies bluntly, "I don't know anyone here. My cousin, Peter," she motions to the brunette besides her, "his boss is friends with one of the brides." She shrugs. "I'm just here for the free food."

That earns a lighthearted laugh from Yelena who smiles wholly, crinkling the corners of her eyes and reaching the edges of her mouth.

"He didn't want to come alone so here I am." Kate shrugs, smiling back at her. "What about you?"

"Well," Yelena contemplates lying at first, until she gazes too deeply into Kate's bright, enduring eyes and her walls crumble completely. "The bride, Natasha, she's my sister."

Kate's stomach does a whole 360.

Yelena's back to shovelling scoop after scoop of ice cream into her mouth to distract herself from the rise in her body temperature and the thumping of her heart.

It makes sense now. Kate thinks. Well, not completely, there's one thing still utterly grey.

It's none of her business, Kate knows that. But she's also curious, and once she lets her curiosity get the better of her, there's no stopping her whatsoever.

She drops her voice to below a whisper, leans in and whispers, "why are you sat here on a table with all the non-family members?"