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Peter loves Yelena.
She was a beautiful woman with dazzling blonde hair, sharp nose, alluring green eyes and full lips. Anyone would be convinced she was touched by Aphrodite. She was also quick-witted, reliable and intensely dedicated once she considers you family.
But most of all she was a badass and had saved his sorry self more times than he could count during missions.
(He knows she tolerates him.)
(And likes him in her own way.)
Which was why he was about 80% sure she would agree to this new marketing PR video he had to do for the Avengers brand that Tony put him up to.
“We need to connect to the young masses! Sell the merchandise! The Avengers Tower isn’t going to fund itself! You guys need to put in some leg work.” Says the billionaire (Tony, really?) to Peter two weeks ago.
With a video camera in hand, a ring light, audio equipment he had used Tony’s credit card to purchase and Cassie as his assistant producer- they came up with a plan.
Now, the two of them were in the Avengers Tower’s recreational area. With the pool table and arcade games behind them as a background, they had set up a table and two bar stools. On the table were eight different hot sauces that Cassie had chosen from online and sixteen small sample bowls of mac and cheese split in the middle.
They were quite excited about this new interview format they had come up with, especially after the success of Bucky and Sam’s puppy interview questions that got two million likes in half an hour and a 200% increase in animal shelter donations. If he could convince the crotchety Winter Soldier to be soft on camera, how hard could the White Widow be?
They were just about ready when their two targets stepped into the room.
“What is this?” Yelena was the first to ask. She was in her white widow suit, though her hoisters were empty and there were a lot less knives on display. She tilted her head with a frown, a little confused but her eyes betrayed her as she looked eagerly at the hot sauce bottles. “Bug boy, is this the lunch you promised me?”
“Hi Yelena! Hi Kate!” He greets them with a conspicuous smile.
“Oh no. I don’t like the look of this.” Kate’s eyes were roaming over the hot sauce too, though albeit worried. She was also in her purple Hawkeye suit, without her bow and quiver. “Cassie told me we were doing a normal interview.”
“Welcome to your lunch!” Peter announces. “All you have to do is answer some questions for us before eating them. Oh, its for the Avengers PR thing Tony is making me do. Did I forget to say that?”
“Ah- like the one old man Buck did with star spangled birdie.” Yelena nods her head in understanding.
Surprised that she had not said no yet, Peter continued. “We are calling this ‘Hot and Hotter Ones’. Essentially, we’re interviewing you as you eat mac and cheese with hot sauce.”
Kate takes a tentative seat on the bar stool. “Boxed mac and cheese?”
“Kraft. The best one.” Cassie winks before she goes back to adjusting the ring light.
“Do I get to keep the hot sauce after we are done?” Yelena asks.
“Uh- Sure if you want.” Peter replies, wondering if the woman had looked at the Scoville scale of them. Well, if she wants to keep them, who was he to fight her on it?
“Okay. Let’s do it.” Yelena hops on the bar stool as well. “Be quick. I’m hungry.”
Peter gave them a thumbs up before doing last minute adjustments to his video camera. “Okay, first I’ll introduce the video and then you two will introduce yourselves. Don’t worry, Cassie and I will guide you through everything else, okay? The camcorder will let the recording run and I’ll edit everything after so its fine if you say something wrong or need something cut.”
Kate, ever the good sport, sighs a little but nods. She fidgets slightly in her seat, though still giving a small smile to the blonde beside her. Yelena looked a lot more excited, already holding onto the first hot sauce bottle. She did a little hand dance which made Kate chuckle a little as she looked absolutely ready to dab it into her sample bowl.
Peter counts them down. “3… 2… 1… we’re rolling!”
He pulls down his Spiderman mask before jumping into view first, waving at the camera. “Hey y’all! It’s Spiderman here! Back with another video introducing our Avengers members! Today, we have our White Widow and the better Hawkeye in the hot seat, ready to eat some mac n cheese with hot sauces!”
Yelena’s smirk gets wider while Kate pales a little.
“We’re calling this Hot and Hotter Ones! Stature, who is behind the camera, will be asking eight interview questions to our dear Avengers. After each round, the spiciness level of the mac n cheese increases! Buuuut... don’t worry, we have back up plans if things get too hot. Now, let’s allow our guests to introduce themselves!”
He jumps back over behind the camera.
“Hi everyone. I’m Kate Bishop. The better Hawkeye. I only just realised what we were doing five seconds ago. I can’t believe I got tricked by my own team mates.” The Young Avengers team leader does a small wave before looking at Yelena.
“Yelena Belova. And I was promised lunch.” The Widow shrugged.
“So, you two, an ice breaker question: what’s the spiciest thing you have eaten?” Cassie asks.
Kate wrinkles her nose. “Whatever Yelena puts it in our dinners. I remember the tabasco in the ravioli… that really caught me by surprise.”
“Black pepper sriracha. It was very good. Intense flavour. Made Kate choke in more ways than one that night.” Yelena laughs delightedly while a blush grew on the archer’s face. “Well, I’ve eaten Habanero. And that Korean Samyang Ramen. That was quite spicy to my memory."
“Okay, the first official question. We’ll start easy: How did you two meet?”
“On a roof top.” Kate starts off, looking quite offended at the way Yelena was already flooding her bowl with hot sauce. “Before she joined us, she-“
“Classic Chili Maple…” Yelena bites into her mac n cheese, entirely ignoring the question. “I can eat this everyday.” She mused.
“…’Lena, we need to answer the question first.” Kate smacks away the widow’s attempt to dab the hot sauce onto the archer’s bowl. Yelena just sniggers before allowing Kate to add a pitiful drop of hot sauce into her bowl herself.
“Before I joined, I was a contract killer. Someone wanted me to kill Clint. This one was in the way-” Yelena continues before snorting at Kate’s grimacing face.
“She threw me off a roof top.” Kate finishes the sentence.
“I put you on a wire!” Yelena rolls her eyes as she takes a spoonful of Kate’s mac n cheese.
Peter tries to hide his laughter. This was the story they had heard way too many times about and the argument will never not seize to amaze him, ever.
“So, what’s your favourite thing to do together in the Avengers Tower?”
Kate points to Yelena, who was already busy with the second hot sauce bottle, and winks.
“Kateeee! Come on! Kids will watch this!” Peter groans.
“Okay okay, Tony has this state of the art shooting space where I can shoot 3D moving targets. Its really fun. I currently hold the high score.” She smirks.
“Banjee Ranch… This would be nice on pizza with goat cheese.” Yelena commented, finishing off her bowl. “Kate only holds that score because I do not want to make her sad by beating her at it."
It was Kate’s turn to roll her eyes. She manages a spoonful of macaroni, before letting out a soft cough. The archer looks into the camera weirdly as she pushes the bowl away from her.
“The arcade games are fun. Beating Kate in table hockey is the best.” Yelena finishes answering the question. "Next question! The hot sauce bottle looks cool!” The widow raises a bottle with a sticker of a ghostly looking dog with red eyes.
“Favourite meal one party has cooked, or for Kate’s case, bought, for the other?”
Kate sent a glare towards Cassie. “I can cook!”
“But the food is not edible.” Yelena says nonchalantly as she covers the macaroni with Cadejo hot sauce before taking a bite . “Hmmm~ this kind of hit you at the back of your throat. Would be great with grilled seafood I think.”
“I made ramen that was plenty edible.” Kate retorts as she took a large gulp of milk. She looks away, looking as though she was trying to gather her bearings. She exhales slightly, sitting a little straighter.
“That was after I added some scallions and egg. The boiling water that was meant to be boiled was also not boiled.” The widow gave her a look. “But the best meal she bought was this dinner we had up in Empellón in midtown Manhattan. The Mexican fine dining was heavenly.”
“Well I like anything you cook as long as you didn’t trick me into something spicy.” The archer says truthfully. She looks on with amusement with Yelena already onto the next hot sauce bottle.
“Favourite movie to watch together?”
“We like different things. This one enjoys documentaries a lot. ‘Born to be wild’, ‘Ocean Mysteries’… ‘Artic Tale’ was a sad one.” Kate replies first. She dabs the hot sauce in her bowl before hesitantly putting the spoon in her mouth.
“Ooo~ tomato and indian ghost peppers.” Yelena finishes her bowl in two big bites. “Oh, this hits hard. Черт, это становится пикантным. (Shit, its getting spicy.)”
Kate drinks up the rest of her milk, gesturing Peter for a refill with a pained expression.
“Kate likes ‘Robin Hood: Men in tights’. That one is quite funny, I will admit.” Yelena took a glance at the archer with slight worry in her eyes, though she was still looking two seconds away from laughing. The Widow passes over her class of milk to the archer while Peter gets another refill ready.
“I think we enjoy different things so we just take turns selecting the movies. Though the only thing I can’t stand is the horror stuff.” Kate’s eyes are slightly misty as she downs another half a cup of milk.
“Your thoughts about being called ‘legacy members’?”
“I think its fine, being compared to the original members. But I am not my sister. And Kate is not Clint. We have vastly different personalities.” Yelena looked a little wistful as she finished off her bowl. She clears her throat a little due to the spice and smirks. “Besides we are both better shots than those two old people.”
“Ditto.” Kate croaked out as Yelena hands her a cloth to dab her sweat away. She puffed out her cheeks, letting out a few short huffs.
“Shit, are we halfway there?” The archer hissed.
“Yes, Kate. Hang in there, leader!” Cassie encourages. “For the second half, you’ll take turns answering the question. When one answers, the other has to wear a set of headphones that’s blasted with music.”
Peter hands over the headphones to Yelena first. She accepts it and then starts on dabbing the hot sauce, though she was a lot more careful on the amount this time around.
“Mushroom hot sauce? Weirddddd~” She shouts, forgetting she had headphones in.
“First impressions of each other?”
“She uh-“ Kate fans her mouth furiously with her hand after a pitiful bite of her mac n cheese. “She looked super hot even though it was night out and dark as shit. I ha- had an arrow pointed to her, but couldn’t shoot.”
“Not because she was h- hot! It was not a gay panic moment, o- okay?” The archer continues with a few coughs in between. “Just had a gut feeling she was a good person. Y- Yeah- hot and good.”
She receives the headphones from Yelena.
“First of all, the after kick to this hot sauce is crazy~ My lips are starting to sweat, and we have uh- four to go?” The Widow comments. “I would like it on a baked potato though. With sour cream. Might make that tomorrow.” Yelena takes her first sip of milk. “When I first encountered Kate, I thought she was very annoying because I couldn’t finish the task as quick as I would have wanted.” She gives Kate a few encouraging pats on the shoulder. “But she was also very interesting, which was why I made myself a guest at her apartment a few hours later.”
“What was your first kiss like?”
“With tongue.” The widow replies instantly with a sly smile.
“Yelenaaa…” Peter whined. “Don’t make me edit so much…”
“This caribbean spice is a punch to the throat, I will admit.” The Widow takes a few more sips of milk after the spoonful of mac n cheese. She smiles fondly at the archer who was dancing with her upper body.
“Dancing~ the~ pain~ away~” Kate sings shakily but smiles back.
“When I brought her back to Ohio to meet my parents. We were still friends then. It was snowing and we went to a 24/7 diner for breakfast. She got hit on by the waitress and I got jealous and grumpy. Granted, she looked very cute in her purple beanie… but it was then I really realised I had to act before somebody else did.”
The Widow takes the headphones from the archer.
“Did she tell the Ohio diner story?” Kate asks, wincing as the macaroni went down her throat. “Do I still need to elaborate on it, I’m dying here man…” She finishes her glass of milk once more. “This feels like a bunch of chilli exploded in my mouth and my throat. Damn."
“Okay okay, we’ll let you off this once." Cassie squinted her eyes playfully at her leader. "Now, onto the next question: who said I love you first?”
Kate exhales loudly, looking at her bowl of macaroni and then stares up at the ceiling. “I’m so… fuck me.” Bracing herself, she took morsel and immediately chokes up. “Fuck! Fuck!” She yells. Absolute horror overrides her face as she jumps out of her stool and hops about.
“I think we need some back up, bug boy.” Yelena gestures to the ice box next to Peter.
He nods, opening an ice box and handed over a watermelon sorbet popsicle to the archer.
Kate winds down a little as she bit into the popsicle. “My lips are burning. My stomach is churning. If I die, none of you are getting custody of Lucky, he’s going to Clint.” She finishes the cold stick in a few bites.
Yelena places a comforting hand on the archer’s knee, mouthing a ‘you okay?’. Kate nods, wiping the sweat off her forehead.
“Hah! ’Lena did. Shocking right?” Kate chuckles but it came out more like a pained cough as she pulled down her suit zipper slightly. The red flush from her chest up her neck even more visible. Her face contorts a little as she ponders over her words. “I had an ACL tear after a mission, got sent straight to an operation with Dr Cho. ‘Lena was there after I woke up, acting like a whole drama queen about my injury.” She gave a dramatic eye roll.
“She kissed me, told me she loved me, then ran away. I was still a little high from the pain medication so it sort of felt like it was a hallucination, but Friday caught it on the security cameras.” The archer stops to down a glass of cola. “She ignored me for like two days and I was sulking so bad. I obviously wanted to tell her I loved her too, y’know? I think I really held back on it because I didn’t want to scare her away. But little did I know, she scared herself away by saying those words out loud herself.”
“Bug boy isn’t going to poison you, is he?” Yelena asks as she gave back the headphones to Kate. “I’ll eat your macaroni if you can’t.”
Kate wipes her mouth before kissing the side of the Widow’s head. “I’m good. Just two more spoons, then I’ll have my revenge against those two.” She dons the headphones and gives Peter a thumbs up.
The archer starts chewing the ice cubes left in the glass while Peter asked Yelena the same question.
Yelena’s eyes widened a little, cheeks slightly blushing. “This идиот (idiot) got injured on a mission. I was on another case myself and she decided to act rashly again. The first thing I heard was that she was given priority surgery so I got worried.” The widow glances at Kate who tried to give her a grin with ice cubes in her mouth like a chipmunk.
“See? Like this.” She shakes her head. “We were at a point where I knew things were serious. Like, really serious. And I was falling in love with her, but it only really clicked at that moment when she was lying on the hospital bed. I immediately blurted it out, afraid she’ll never hear me say it because I couldn’t work up the courage to. Then I got scared because I said it and ran away.” The widow bit her lip and tilts her head at Kate with a thoughtful look. “It was stupid of me, to run away. Old Man Buck smacked the senses back into me and I went back to the med bay after day two of moping around. Then this идиот (idiot) told me she loved me too. And all was well after that.”
“I’m surprise you are talking so much! My yapping does rub of you sometimes, huh!” Kate yells, forgetting the loud music was only through her ears.
“Я тоже тебя люблю, маленький ястреб. (I love you too, little hawk.)” Yelena chuckles softly.
“I think that was russian! Were you roasting me again?” Kate squints her eyes.
The widow just rolled her eyes before throwing a dab of the next hot sauce into the mac n cheese bowl. She takes a brave mouthful.
“Argh!” She throws out her tongue before looking more closely at the bottle. “That design is correct. It is a bomb. Oof. What is this? Battery acid?”
“A fear you may have in your relationship?” Peter waves a lychee popsicle stick but the Widow shakes her head.
Yelena tugs at her collar and fans herself for a few seconds. “This one… this one was baaad.” She ran her fingers through her blonde hair before chugging the rest of her glass of milk. “What was the question?”
“A fear you may have in your relationship.”
The widow studies Kate for a moment and she sighs softly before turning back to the camera. She wipes off her upper lip sweat, looking slightly uncomfortable as she thought about the question.
“I’m afraid she’ll see that one day there’s a thousand more people deserving of her than me. That she doesn’t have to settle for someone broken like me.” She fiddles with the hot sauce bottle in her hands. “We have talked about this. But probably will again after this. I think she’ll probably say she’s afraid I’ll run away.”
Kate takes off her headphones. “Was the question like super serious? Or did the hot sauce finally got to your brain?”
“You’ll know in a minute.” Yelena dabs a small drop of hot sauce in Kate’s macaroni bowl. “Be brave, Мой милый ястреб (my lovely hawk). Two more, yeah? After this one more.” She places the headphone over her head.
“Fuck me.” Kate drops her head onto the table. She lifts it up again after a moment and stares at the bowl a moment more. She was sweating profusely, as though she had ran miles, her face and ears in a full flush. With trembling hands, she picked up the spoon before taking a small nibble.
“SHIT!” She exclaims. “A fucking nuclear was set off in my mouth, what the fuck!” She stands up, pacing a few steps up and down and around the table, hacking her lungs out.
Yelena stands up to, hands going up to the archer’s face to check if she was fine.
“I’m good. I’m good.” She wipes her sweat face for the umpteenth time. Taking Yelena’s hand, they sat back down behind the table as Cassie hands her a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
The archer devours the ice cream in two spoons. “Shit. Where the fuck did you get all these? Jesus Christ on a bike! Shit. Dude, just ask me the question before I fucking black out.”
“A fear you may have in your relationship.” Peter repeats as he brought up a paper with the question on it, hoping it’ll help the archer if she saw the question as well.
“This one said some bullshit about her being undeserving of me didn’t she.” She uses her free hand to point at the Widow. “To answer your question… wow, wait did Yelena really answer this? The hot sauce really must have fucking went ham on her brain for her to tell you something in front of a camera.” The archer takes a few more seconds to steady herself, still holding onto Yelena. “Probably her leaving. Like, I already have mommy and daddy issues, you know? And she has ran away before. So I think that, haunts me still. We talk about it. We do. I trust her. But sometimes- man, fuck, the hot sauce… Yeah sometimes its just still there y’know?”
She gives Yelena a tender smile before kissing her knuckles. “I know one day you’ll love yourself like I love you. But till then I’ll just have to keep remind you every day.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “Shit. Its the fucking hot sauce man! I’m going to need some therapy after this macaroni-induced intestinal trauma… come on, hit me with the last question. I want this to be over.”
“What does the future hold for the two of you?”
Kate’s chest visibly heaved as she stared at the bottle. “The Last Dab? Yeah it fucking better be before I shoot someone with an arrow.” She mutters under her breath as she picks up the last spoonful.“Fucking hell, pray for me.”
Kate pops the macaroni in her mouth and swallows as quickly as she could. She twists her body, releasing her hand from Yelena’s before gagging for a few moments. The archer’s torso moves like an inflatable floppy noodle you see at car dealerships before she falls off her chair with a yelp of shock.
Yelena barks out in laughter before she gets out of her seat. Extending her hand, she helps her girlfriend up.
Kate sniffles. “Fuck. What- fucking hell. I’m just going to chuck down cold drinks for the rest of the day. Holy shit.” She downs another glass of cola, then grabs the lychee popsicle from Peter.
“Well. Fuck. Where do I start?” The archer huffs as her mind swirls with her answer. “Cliche to say, but I want to marry her. Despite the fact that she laughed at me before helping me up.” She bites off half the popsicle. “It’s probably going be a long while before that happens. And an even longer conversation. I understand if I have to wait. And I will. I'll wait. And when she’s ready for me, I will be ready for her.”
“I might not have shot her, but she penetrated my heart so wholly, y’know? And I don’t want to know what my life could be without her. She makes me want to plan the rest of my life with her.” The archer finishes her popsicle before blowing her nose. “Damn this hot sauce.”
She dabs the hot sauce into Yelena’s last macaroni bowl.
“You were yapping for sooo long.” The widow rolls her eyes teasingly as she took off the headphones.
“Say more and I’ll not let you kiss me with that hot sauce infused mouth for the next few days.” Kate stuck out her tongue before she takes the headphones.
Yelena steels herself before she chews on her last spoonful of mac n cheese. “Oh at least this did not taste like shit.” She muses. “Still fucking bad though.” She’s finally visibly sweating, using her forearm to wipe her forehead.
“What does the future hold for the two of you?”
“I think that’s a hard question to answer with the jobs that we have.” Yelena remarks solemnly. “Both of us can’t guarantee we’ll always be safe. But we have what we have when we have it. Natasha was the loss of my life, but I think- if it was Kate, I can’t fathom it ever.” She mulls over the question for a second more. “I just know I’ll always come home to her. Even if I have to crawl with my bloodied body on the ground. As long as fate allows it, I’ll never stop fighting to get back to her.”
“We done?” Kate’s eyes finally had some light in them as she passes the headphones back to Cassie.
Peter gives them a thumbs up, eyes a little watery from the answers of the last two questions as he switched off the camcorder. “We’re all good. Thanks for participating. I’ll send you guys the edited video and you can tell me if there’s anything else to cut.”
“Я обожаю тебя. (I adore you.)” Yelena squishes Kate’s cheeks before leaning in, attempting to kiss the archer.
“Ack! Not with your hot sauce mouth!!” Kate falling over again as she squirms away.
Peter and Cassie gave each other a look before laughing. There was much work to do, but they can’t help but feel pleased.