Avengers Oneshots Ongoing

Cruise Day 3 

Kate groaned as she sat up in her bed, her mind still groggy after the gala she and Yelena had gone to. She didn't remember much of what happened. The last thing she could remember was that slow waltz coming on, then nothing. Probably nothing much happened.

'Yelena?' Kate asked as she sat up in her bed. When no response came, she threw her slipper at her partner's face.

Yelena yelped, entangled herself in the blankets as she tried to escape her attacker, then finally sat up in bed: 'And I'm up.' she declared grumpily, glancing at the clock. 'Seriously Kate Bishop? It's only 7 am, why'd you wake me up?!'

'I was up.'

'So?'

'If I have to suffer, so do you.'

'No fair.'

'Seems fair to me.'

'Uh-huh. Wait, why am I still in this dress?' Yelena questioned, looking down to the dress she had worn to the gala.

'Dunno, we must have fallen asleep in our dresses, I'm still in mine as well.' Kate groaned, 'My heels are also still on.' she noted, feeling her poor feet ache on all sides. Yelena smirked:

'Told you to wear sandals.'

'And how did that help you blend in?'

'It did help too. I even got asked to dance with a guy!'

'Sure you did. Hey, what do you remember from the gala? My memory is a bit foggy.'

'Uh... you were talking to a guy? Don't remember. I cursed out a guy in Russian though and after that... it's kind of fuzzy. I think we left the gala and went to a bathroom? Honestly I don't know.'

'As long as I didn't collapse on the gala floor or anything, I was worried about that for a bit when I woke up.'

Yelena scoffed, then frowned: 'Collapsed.' she repeated under her breath, wondering why it felt like Kate had in fact collapsed.

'Wait, I did?!' Kate demanded to know, rubbing the back of her head, which hurt slightly.

'No, no. You didn't. Was just thinking about the word.' Yelena said, shoving it off. 'Get any information about The Spider?'

'Nope.'

'Me neither. Oh yeah: at 7:10 am we need to do our daily check-in with SHIELD.' 

'Can you do it?' Kate asked, brushing her fingers through her hair, 'I'm going to try to save this mess atop of my head.'

 Yelena rolled her eyes but agreed. At exactly 7:10 am she tapped on the call number for Agent Hill. It rang once, then was picked up, making Yelena raise her eyebrows: usually Hill let the phone ring at least thrice before picking up:

'Yelena?' Hill's voice breathed from the other end, slightly tense. For some reason, there wasn't a sound in the background on the other side of the line, where usually you could hear SHIELD agents chattering.

'Hey Hill, how are you doing? Just coming in for my daily check-in, Kate's combing her hair like the princess that she is, but she's good as well.' Yelena answered quickly, plucking at a loose thread.

'Ah, so you just decided yesterday: what the heck, let's ignore all my training?' Hill asked sharply.

Yelena furrowed her brows: 'No, we did everything according to protocol yesterday! We went to that dumb gala; looked around for The Spider, found nothing, and went back to our rooms. Of course I did curse one guy out in Russian, but he had it coming!'

The other end went quiet, then Nick Fury spoke over the phone: 'Agent Bolova, this is Director Fury.' he quickly told her, 'Can you please tell me what day it is today?'

'It's the 3rd of April.' Yelena answered, not missing a beat: she had been trained to always be aware of what day it was.

Silence stretched on the other side until Hill spoke up: 'It's the 4th.'

'No, it's not,' Yelena answered, 'Here, let me check the phone, yeah here it says its the ... 4th.' she ended, confusion evident in her voice. 'Did we sleep through the whole of yesterday?!' she asked herself more than Hill.

'Who slept through what?' Kate asked as she entered the room.

'We did, through a day.'

'Uh-huh, you're hilarious. Did you give Agent Hill the debrief of the gala search?'

'Yeah, the short one.'

'Yelena,' Director Fury's voice came over the phone, 'Could you give us the whole version.'

'Uh sure: we went to the gala, Kate went onto the ballroom where she talked with a guy... who was that Kate?' Kate shrugged:

'Dunno, I don't really remember talking to a guy really.'

'Huh, maybe you just passed him and talked, and I remembered that.' Yelena answered dismissively, then continued debriefing the director, 'Well, then a guy asked me to dance in an improper way so I cursed at him in Russian, ran out of curse words and started using random words to curse at him.'

'Of course you did.' Kate sniffed, blow-drying her hair.

Yelena rolled her eyes: 'Then Kate left the ballroom...'

'Did not.'

'Did too, I saw you. I followed, she went into a bathroom, I followed and then... well I suppose we went back to our cabin then didn't we?' Yelena ended, turning to Kate, whom just shrugged:

'I can't really remember past the part where a slow waltz came on and I was desperately trying to get off of the dance floor.' she paused for a beat, 'Which is weird: because I did not drink so I couldn't have passed out or anything.'

Yelena shrugged. For some reason neither her nor Kate really were bothered why they couldn't remember much. Director Fury, however, did not share their complacency:

'You're telling me,' he asked her, in an icily cold manner, 'That you both hardly remember what happened on the 2nd, and you didn't even realise you slept through the 3rd and into the 4th.'

'Yeah? What of it?' Yelena demanded, placing her hands on her hips dramatically, to which Kate remarked he couldn't see her holding her hands on her hips.

Director Fury groaned: 'Okay, be careful please. Report in tonight as well at 11 pm, as well as tomorrow morning at 9 am.'

'Roger that.' Yelena told him, ending the call.

'Now look, who's saying roger that.' Kate scoffed, flipping back her hair dramatically, as Yelena suppressed an amused laugh.

**Back on the raft***

Agent Hill idly twirled around in her chair as Nick Fury paced through the very quiet control room. There were about 3 dozens agents there, but all were wisely keeping their mouth's shut.

'We need to pull the plug.' Fury decided, stopping his pacing for a few seconds to turn to hill, who shook her head in disagreement. 'Hill, you heard them, something happened and they forgot what it was. They're not even bothered by it! Something is happening to them, and they're too.... too... out of it, to notice!'

'Mhmm.'

'Why are you not saying anything?!'

'You know they wear their comns at all times right?'

'Yes.'

'We can listen in on whatever they're doing. Let them be there a while, we listen in on the comns, find out what happened when they forgot everything for a whole day, and voilá! success garantued!'

'You make it sound so easy.'

'Look: they'll be fine. Whatever they went through: they survived. Neither was injured. It's probably something with magic or whatever, I don't know. We for sure are not going to know if we pull the plug now. Leave on there for a few more days, and if it becomes too dangerous, we get them off.'

Nick Fury sighed deeply: 'The second we found out that they're in over their heads, I am sending in two dozen scores of agents.'

'So like,'  Agent Hill idly counted on her fingers, '2 times 12 times 20? Which is.... 480 agents?' she sucked in a breath cheekily: 'I don't think we have that many.'

Fury rolled his eyes at her, turning towards the communication agent: 'You heard her, get their comns linked to the stereo. I want to know everything that happens at all times.'

*** Back on the cruise ship, about an hour later***

Yelena lent back with a contented sigh in the loung chair she was seated on, a glass of lemonade in her hand:

'I could get used to this.' she told Kate happily, whom smiled back at her:

'I am used to it.' she told her friend with a smile.

'Ugh, rich kids: you all suck.' Yelena griped, then: 'Helooo, who do we have there?' she asked, gesturing towards a young man with brown hair and hazel eyes who was making his way towards them.

Kate shrugged: 'Don't know him.'

'Seems familiar though.'

'I guess.'

'Morning ladies,' the man greets them cheerfully, 'My name is Peter Parker.' he introduces himself, extending his hand towards Yelena, who takes it begrudingly:

'Amanda Waller.' she tells him, making Kate struggle to keep her laugh back: Yelena did not just adopt a fake name from a comic.

'Jane Howard.' Kate introduces herself.

'Best friends?'

'Over my dead body!' Yelena exclaims sarcastically, making Kate crack a grin:

'Yeah, I'm not best friends with a brokie.' she added to that, sticking out her tongue at her partner.

Peter laughed: 'I suppose, you just seemed like two peas in a pod.' he loudly blew some hair out of his face, making both of the girls look at the hair strand, his hazel eyes immediately catching their attention: were the colours in it changing? Mud-brown, regular-brown, hazel and a dash of green.

Peter watched contedly as both Kate's and Yelena's pupils retracted in size, a telltale sign that his hypnosis had taken place.

'Now, ladies. I have to ask you two a favour: do you know of Rebecca Arias?' Both Kate and Yelena shake their heads, 'Well, she's rich, and going to this fancy diamond exhibition. I need you two to get me the ticket for the exhibition. It's in her room, she's not currently in it.'

Kate and Yelena nod, their facial expression monotonous as Peter continues his instruction: 'Be careful: I don't know if there is security. She's the heiress of a major tech company, so there might be one or two guards. Her room number is 303.' he adds quicly. 'Bring the ticket back to your room when you're done, I'll be waiting to receive it there.' Both Kate and Yelena nod, their faces expresionless as they silently start discussing how to pull it off, oblivious to the fact that they are under hypnosis: after all, why would they be: they really want to help Peter!

Yelena and Kate sneak into Rebecca's room only ten minutes later. They did some recon earlier, finding there were no guards: they were probably with Rebecca and her friends, or they were non-existent.

Kate watched impatiently as Yelena picked the lock to the room, hopping from one foot to the other. Normally this would be the time where she made a sarcastic/mean/funny comment, but she just didn't feel the need to, which was kind of weird, but she didn't dwell on it long, as Yelena had finally managed to pick the lock.

They quietly slipped into the room, closing the door soflty behind them, and immediately started riffling through the drawers. Per their training memorising where objects were before moving them, so they could put them back excactly where they had been, as to avoid suspicion and a cruise-wide-manhunt for the robbers.

It had been 5 minutes and neither of the girls had found the ticket. Kate groaned as yet another drawer turned up ticketless. She turned to Yelena, trying to see if she was having any better luck, but just as her, Yelena was still turning up nothing. Well, if they hadn't found it yet, they would soon, Kate figured, since they had already gone through most of the drawers, there were only a few left in which the ticket could be.

Yelena put up her hand, signalling for Kate to be as quiet as a mouse, then pointed to the door. Kate peeled her ears, and immediately heard voices outside the door:

'... all I'm saying is, that he was hot.' a voice was saying.

'Ha! That guy?!' another responded scoffingly, 'I wouldn't trust me with my life.'

'I never said anything about that, now did I?'

'No, but it's important, Rebecca. Looks isn't all that matters.'

'Neither is martial arts, Julie.' Rebecca answered with a laugh, turning the key in the lock.

'Touché.' Julie said with a laugh as she entered the suite, finding everthing normal. 'Though you must admit, a guy knowing martial arts is more important than him looking good.' she added, turning back to Rebecca, who shrugged in defeat, her eyes twinkeling:

'If you say so.' she answered her African-American friend, hanging her hat on the peg next to the door, revealing a rich wave of black hair, unaware of the two spies who were hiding behind the opened door (normally they would have found better hiding places, but hypnosis them weren't the smartest, and time had also been pressing).

'Do you want to check out the restaurant on deck 4 tonight? Heard their mac and cheese is good.' Julie offered, also hanging up her hat, and making her way into the appartment as she absentmindedly brushed a finger through her black curly hair.

'Of all the things you want to eat on a luxiourious cruise: you chose mac and cheese.' her latino friend scoffed, moving further into the suite, out of sight of the two SHIELD agents hiding behind her door. Kate and Yelena quickly got away from behind it, about to slip through the door when Julie cried out:

'Who are you?!' she ran towards the door, where Kate and Yelena just ran out of, 'Come back!' she yelled, chasing after the two spies. Rounding a corner, expecting to see the two wannabe-burglars, she was met with nothing. Julie frowned softly, turning this way and that. Finally she shrugged: 'Rebecca should seriously get security.' she muttered to herself, walking back slowly to the suite, all the while complaining about having one normal day in her life.

Kate and Yelena, who were hiding on the roof that stretches across the walkway, softly slipped down again, casually walking over to their own room, making sure not to attract any unwanted attention.

Inside they found Peter waiting expectantly: 'You two have the ticket?' he asked them happily, but his face fell slightly after Kate answered:

'No, we were close to finding it, but got disrupted as Rebecca Arias and her friend Julie returned. We had to cut the search short.'

Peter shrugged: 'No worries, I'll figure of something. Why don't you two go back to sleep, I'm going to head back to my suite.' The girls nodded, waited for the man to leave the room, then both collapsed onto their respective beds, sleep immediately gripping them.

***back on the raft, half an hour ago***

'Helloo, who do we have there?' Yelena questioned, Kate answered, but what she said was lost in static as the comms started buzzing.

Fury frowned: 'Is it our tech that's faulty or theirs?' he questioned the communication's agent.

'Neither,' the chinese man answered with a frown, 'There is nothing wrong with their comms, neither is something wrong on our end. Something is disrupting the signal.'

'Mechanical? EMP maybe?' Agent Hill offered, leaning over a computer close to the communications agent, but he shook his head:

'There are no signs of that, ma'am.' he answered nervously.

'Then what's going on?!' Fury demanded to know.

'Sir, the only logical explenation I can think of is magic, and that is not such a logical explanation at all.' The agent replied in a reserved manner as Fury stepped back, turning to Hill:

'I'll bet you 50 bucks they will not check in tonight, nor tomorrow morning. Then the day after tomorrow they will check in, saying nothing happened, and getting the date wrong once again.' Agent Hill nodded in agreement, then turned to her boss questioningly:

'What do we do?'

Fury gave her a look filled with doubt: 'I... don't know. I think for the moment, we should just wait it out.' Agent Hill nodded:

'After all: no one has died yet have they?' she answered happily.

'And you just jinxed us.' Fury groaned.

'Always happy to.'