A Penguin in a Suit Ain't Got Nothin' on Me
“Fuck!” Ella spat, tumbling from the couch and onto the hardwoods. At some point during the night she’d wound up half draped over Vladimir and, unfortunately, he came tumbling to the ground with her when she fell. Anatoly faired no better. He shot up from the couch and promptly all but launched himself over the coffee table, proceeding to face plant.
“Who is it?!” Ella called out, trying to untangle her legs from the Russian’s.
“It’s…uh, Francis!” a voice yelled back, and Ella swore again, darting to her feet and heaving Vladimir up with her.
“Hide!” she hissed, yanking Vladimir along by his coat sleeve, pausing briefly to collect Anatoly.
“Nyet! Is one of Fisk’s men,” Vladimir hissed back, gun materializing in his hand. Ella groaned, rolling her eyes.
“He’s a penguin in a suit, I can deal with him. You two go hide. I don’t need him finding you in here,” she whispered, shooing them in a random direction. It was like pushing at two stubborn walls.
“We are here for your protection, not the other way around,” Anatoly snapped, and Ella resisted the urge to strangle him. Francis wasn’t too much of a threat– Ella had spent enough time around him last weekend to know that. He wouldn’t attack unless thoroughly provoked. Two rivals/ex-associates in her living room would justify as sufficient provocation.
“Ella?” Francis called, and it took only a millisecond to register that his voice was coming from inside of the apartment now. Without thinking, Ella shoved both brothers down behind the couch, and strolled into the apartment's entryway.
“You know, people usually wait for the owner of the apartment to open the door,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning nonchalantly against the living room’s doorjamb. She was hyper aware of the deafening silence permeating from behind her. It hung in the air like a taught wire, ready to snap at a moments notice.
“I’m sorry, but I heard some commotion– I just wanted to make sure you were alright,” he said. Ella raised on eyebrow, completely unimpressed. She had no doubt that that was his intention, but still– these people had no concept of privacy. None. Whatsoever. It was actually very disconcerting. Under Ella’s gaze, Francis was trying to keep up the air of the Secret Service, but was coming off as more of an embarrassed mall cop. “Well, I'm just here to give you this,” Francis said, before retrieving a white envelope from his pocket. Ella looked at it for a second, perplexed, before anger and the tendrils of suspicion began to simmer low in her stomach. She snatched the envelope from Francis’s hand, and with a nod he turned to go.
“Nope, nope, you’re staying right there,” Ella ordered, and Francis stumbled backwards as she gripped the back of his jacket.
“What, why?” he asked, confusion giving way to nervousness. Ella said nothing as she opened the envelope because she knew that he knew exactly why she wasn’t letting him leave– yet. Inside, as she expected, was a check. She threw the envelope to the floor and had to read the number on the check three times just to be sure she wasn’t imagining things. She hadn’t seen that many zeroes since tenth grade algebra class midterms.
“Wesley?” she asked, voice low and unfaltering.
“Wesley and my… employer,” Francis said, freeing himself from her grip and turning to face her. His eyes were wide with barely concealed panic, the anxiety making him fidget. Suddenly, there was a soft thump from behind the couch and Francis swerved to look but Ella quickly stepped into his line of sight, replicating the sound with a light stomp of her foot.
“Look, I told him no, and when I say no, I mean it,” Ella said, folding the check neatly and shoving it back into the front of Francis’s suit.
“But ma’am–”
“No. I’m not taking their money and I’m not going to talk, and if they want to forget any of this ever happened, Vanessa can have her art back too–”
“But–”
“What!?”
“Wesley intended the money to be used towards your apartment… or a new one,” Francis rushed out, trying to get a word in between Ella’s rant. She deflated a bit at this knowledge, but remained firm in her resolve.
“I’m fine. I love my apartment– the art was more than enough. If he really wanted to apologize he would’ve gotten me a shit ton of Kraft Mac and Cheese, but as long as he takes my advice about not waiting for friends in dark corners, we’re all dandy. Tell him thank you, but no thank you.” Francis looked ready to protest but only sighed. Ella smiled– wise man.
“Alright… have a goodnight,” he said, before retreating into the hallway and out of sight. Ella quickly checked the doorknob; no damage had been done, leaving her baffled as to how he got inside. “Freaky, personal space invading Men in Black,” she thought. She closed the door, and before she could even clear the threshold to the living room the brother’s were before her, both enraged.
“He could’ve been sent to kill you–”
“But he wasn’t. If he was sent to kill me, do you really think he’d knock?” Ella said, shutting down Anatoly’s argument before it could even begin.
“We do not take chances,” Vladimir ground out, making Ella huff.
“Well I’m not dead, so–”
“But you could’ve been!” Vladimir shouted, grabbing her upper arms. Ella stared, mouth agape as Vladimir heaved in breaths, eyes boring into hers, begging her to understand the weight of his statement. Slowly, a smile began to creep across her face, morphing into the most shit-eating grin he’d ever seen. Before Vladimir could even think to form a question, Ella had her arms wrapped around him in the tightest hug she could manage, and in a sickly sweet voice sang out, “you do care!” Vladimir froze for a moments before hugging her back, muttering darkly over the top of her head.
“Yeah, yeah,” she laughed, breaking away to then hug Anatoly who wore a fond smile. She could tell that they still weren’t the hugging type, but Ella liked pushing boundaries. Another quality her mother had warned her about. “So, are pancakes good for everyone here?” Ella asked, breaking away towards the kitchen.
“Вы чертовски сумасшедший , Эллу,” Vladimir called out.
“I take Russian as yes!” Ella called back, retrieving the mix from the cabinet.
~~~~~~
It was around six o’clock, six hours longer than the brother’s had intended to stay, before they finally left. Stomachs full, they departed, leaving Ella with the numbers to both of their burner phones.
“If anything happens–”
“Call, I got it,” Ella chuckled, all but pushing them out of the door. Shaking her head at the day’s events, Ella made sure the door was locked before retreating to her room for the night. There was a crick in her back from sleeping on the couch/Vladimir, and the adrenaline had really drained her. She wasn’t going into work today– screw the city’s snacking needs. Come morning, though, Ella realized that her tangents were really going to come back and bite her in the ass. She didn’t account for the fact that while Francis wasn’t exactly threatening, he was observant. He paid attention to every word that left her mouth, which Ella found extremely impressive, because half the time she didn’t even remember what she was saying, or what she had said. She came to all of these realizations when, upon opening her door to go check her mail, she ran face first into a tower of boxes– industrial sized boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese. On the box that sat at eye level was a post-it note, with small, elegant handwriting. It read:
“A real apology.
–W.”
Ella bit her lip to hold back a scream, took a few calming breaths, gave the food another longing, aggravated glare, before beginning the process of pushing it all inside.
Russian Translation: Вы чертовски сумасшедший , Эллу = "You're fucking crazy, Ella."