Roommates

“They are a lot” Natasha warned you, “so prepare to tell your whole life story”

“I’m prepared, there’s not much to tell”

“Oh they’ll find something” Yelena answered with a grin

“What does that mean? That’s so ominous Yel”

“You’ll see when we get there”

“That’s even worse!” you scoffed, slumping down in your seat when it was clear neither sister was going to brief you.

“Remind me again why we’re doing this Natasha?” Yelena whined, her amusement at you meeting her family fading the closer to them she got. Because she remembered that she had to see them too.

“Because they are this close to coming to New York to meet me and I don’t want that” Natasha replied. “It’s just a night then I’ll take you guys back. Maybe actually go to New York.”

“Fine. But only because I know they would find us”

You laughed at you friend as she sulked, the plane being brought to land in an open space, close to some sort of farm house.

“Yelena, Natasha, you came!” a man’s voice bellowed as soon as the jet touched down. Yelena sighed and a banging sounded through the walls.

“So impatient” she muttered, moving to lower the ramp. The man grinning on the other side could have made a good living as a Santa Claus impersonator, especially in the red outfit he donned. “And he’s wearing that, of course” Yelena groaned by your side, a second before shooting an arm out to pull you behind her. A brown haired woman stood beside the man, and she had instantly pulled a gun out on you.
“Mum. No!” Yelena yelled as Natasha ran down the ramp to lower the woman’s arm.

You cowered open-mouther behind Yelena, your friend’s arm still gripping your shoulder. There was an inaudible whispered conversation between Natasha and the pair outside and they relaxed their stances, breaking out into smiles instead.

“My apologies Y/N” the woman approached, “Natasha did not tell me you were coming, hence my reaction. I thought you might have hijacked the jet to attack us.” She ended with a small laugh, as if that was the natural conclusion.

“Uh, yeah, um, no problem, I understand” you stammered, returning the woman’s hug now that you were off the plane.

“I was stood right there, why would she be a threat after a whole plane ride with me and Natasha” Yelena exclaimed, hands flying through the air to make her point to the couple.

You squeaked as strong arms surrounded you, lifting you off the ground, “I am Alexei, Yelena’s dad” the man greeted, setting you back down. “Although you might know me as the Red Guardian”, he clarified with a grin and raised eyebrows. Behind his back you saw Yelena roll her eyes, and Natasha give you a very pointed nod. When he indicated down at his outfit, you gave a polite nod and sheepish grin. You had no idea who that was, but Natasha had made the correct answer clear.

“I like you” he decided, “friend of Yelena’s or Natasha’s is friend of ours too, except-”

“Ok that’s enough” Natasha interrupted, “let’s just get inside”

“-Captain America” he finished, undeterred by his daughter’s clear attempt to stop him. The others, however, agreed with Natasha and soon the five of you were traipsing through the property into the living room. Alexei pulled Yelena and Natasha into his side as he walked, leaving you with their mother. You smirked at how small the two women looked in the moment.

“I am Melina” she introduced, “how do you know Yelena?”

“We go to university together” you explained, “she’s my housemate as well”

“Mama, do not threaten Y/N” Yelena called over her shoulder, still struggling in her father’s grasp, “I like her”

“Have you checked her properly?” Melina asked, gazing at you cautiously

“Yes. Natasha and I both have, she’s OK”

“High praise Yelena, thank” you replied sarcastically. She gave a thumbs up over her shoulder.

“You can never be too careful though Yelena, it could be a long game and then she will stab you in your sleep, do not trust people you live with”
Once again you stood open mother, happily taking a seat on the soda with Yelena and Natasha, their parents on the opposite one.

“I promise I wouldn’t stab Yelena, she’s my best friend. Plus I don’t even have a knife on me.”

Melina’s demeanour changed in an instant, going from distrust to pure shock, “that is very dangerous, what if someone were to attack you? Yelena why would you allow your friend to walk around unarmed?” She hurried out of the room, drawers clattering as she searched through them.

“Because normal people don’t carry weapons on them at all times Mama. They’re not even trained to attack with knives usually” Yelena explained, looking apologetically between you and the doorway her mother had disappeared through.

“Then you should train her” Melina scolded as she walked back in, holding out a thin blade and holster to you.

“Oh… I really shouldn’t” you said, looking between Natasha and Yelena for support.

“No, no, I insist, I want Yelena’s friends protected”. You slowly took the items with a thanks, before she instructed Yelena to show you how to equip it.

“I’m helping” Natasha volunteered, jogging after the two of you into the bedroom.

“Well she likes you” Yelena nodded, sitting on the bed, “she doesn’t go around giving knives to just anyone”

“I would hope not” you joked, “knife crime is bad enough as it is”

Yelena laughed, then turned to her sister, “Natasha why are you here?” she asked, as if she’d just realised that the Avenger had followed the two of you.

“Yelena, I brought you here for a reason, and that reason was so I wouldn’t have to be alone with them. You aren’t ditching me now”

“I was just going to show different places to hide a knife! You could have lived with me being gone for a few minutes”

“Well you were only ‘gone’ for a few minutes last time, and how did that turn out?”

A pause, then “ok, you can stay”. It made you curious as to what had happened last time. Yelena rarely backed down from an argument that quickly. Natasha seemed to notice and shook her head, explaining it briefly,

“we were on the run from the Red Room and mom tipped them off. We ended up almost dying a few times.” Her tome was casual and matter of fact, accompanied by a shrug like ‘almost dying’ was no big deal.

“Oh. Hope that doesn’t happen this time”

“It shouldn’t. I killed him” Yelena added, and you pursed your lips.

“It’s- gonna take a while to get used to that”

“He was evil” she defended

“I’m sure he was”

Thankfully Natasha explained it to her sister, that most people don’t go around confessing to murder, no matter how deserving it was.
“Oh. That. I know, I wouldn’t do it around others, so you don’t have to live with it much.”

“Tony says it helps to imagine we’re talking about video games” Natasha offered helpfully.

You nodded but objected, “it’s your lives though, so I want to try and be understanding about it”

“I see why you’re Yelena’s favourite” Natasha said kindly and you beamed at the Avenger’s praise. She watched as Yelena took you through various locations to hide your new knife, occasionally interjecting with her own ideas, much to her sister’s distaste.

“I was getting to that Natasha, stop being so bossy” Yelena whined, and that was the point you had to step in. Recommending that they finish the training at a later date, and for now go back to their parents for dinner. They agreed, and after a long night of diffusing family arguments, Natasha decided to take you and Yelena away from their parents.

“Goodbye Mrs Vostokoff, Mr Shostakov” you waved, far more happily than the sisters. They returned it with a smile.

—————————————————

“I’m not sure I liked how well you got on with them” Yelena confessed, narrowing her eyes at you, but giving a slight smirk to confirm the joke.

“I was just being polite”

“Yeah, and showing Nat and me up in the meantime. I think they prefer you to us”

“It really do be like that sometimes” you shrugged

Yelena stared at you blankly. “What?”

“It really do be like that sometimes” you repeated to no avail.

“I have no idea what that means!”

“Oh. I do!” Natasha grinned, happy to have the upper hand over her sister, “I talk to Peter a lot, he keeps me up to date on youth speak”

“YoUtH sPeAk” you mocked in a poor imitation of Natasha’s voice, “you guys sound so old. It’s just a meme”

“Not so charming when the parents aren’t here, are you?” Natasha asked and you gave a smug grin. “Well I was going to take you to meet the Avengers, but you and Peter might be too insufferable together”

Your mouth dropped open, “noo, I’ll be nice”

“No you won’t” Yelena scoffed, “but you know we’ll just be insufferable together against you Nat if you don’t take us now. It’s for the best that you hand her off to Peter”

“What, so you can embarrass me in front of my teammates?”

“Yes”

“God I regret bringing you two” Natasha sighed, shaking her head

“No you don’t” Yelena retorted, “you need more friends”

“I have friends!”

You sat back and laughed quietly at their bickering. They seemed so much like siblings it was odd to remember they hadn’t spent that long back together.

—————————————————

Natasha did indeed take the two of you to the Avengers compound, giving a stern warning to not make her regret it. You intended to follow that promise. Yelena, however… she was a different matter.

There was only one person in the Avengers common room when you arrived. You knew she was Wanda Maximoff; you knew all the Avengers actually, but you still let Natasha introduce you.

“Guys this is Wanda, my… mentee. Wanda, this is my sister Yelena, and her friend Y/N”

You gave a small wave to the brunette, who reciprocated with a smile and a ‘hi’. Yelena simply smirked, eyes darting between Natasha and her teammate.
“Carry on your tour Natasha” Yelena said at last, breaking her sister out of her thoughts. She shook her head then nodded, bringing you both down to the gym, where she expected most of the others to be.

Once the three of you were alone, Yelena spoke up, “a little dazed there Natasha?” she teased.

“What? No” the redhead defended, and you caught Yelena’s eye. You were beginning to work out what she was doing.

“Uh huh” your friend replied, entirely unconvinced and Natasha knew it.

“Oh look, told you. Steve, Bucky, Sam” she pointed as you entered the gym, drawing their attention to you with their names. “This is my sister Yelena, and Y/N”

“Hey” they waved, you waved back, as did Yelena this time.

“And I don’t want to catch any of you flirting with them” Natasha continued, pointing threateningly to Sam, even if she was talking to all of them. He held up his arms in surrender. You’d probably do the same if you were on the opposite end of a Natasha point.

“I’m not planning on it, don’t worry” Steve confirmed, walking over to shake your hand, “nice to meet you Y/N”

“You too Sir” you replied, making everyone in the room laugh, except Yelena, who backed you.

“Steve is fine” the man nodded,

“Yeah, otherwise you sound like Parker and we don’t need two of him” Sam scoffed while Bucky stiffly nodded beside him.

“Hey, lay off” Natasha scolded, “that’s my spider buddy. Speaking of, is he here?”

“Oh yeah, forgot you were such a mom to him Romanoff, sorry” Sam teased, just barely dodging the kick to his stomach that followed.

“I know!” Yelena lit up, “she’s always been such a mum. Making me put a seatbelt on when we were in the middle of a getaway”

“And what happened to that car? Oh yeah, it crashed, and you needed that seatbelt to keep you alive”

“Whatever. Still a mum”

Sam grinned at your friend, and Natasha grabbed yours and Yelena’s arms to drag you both away. “We’re going now” she called, “thanks for nothing Sam”

“Parker’s in the lab by the way” Steve shouted after you and Natasha replied with a thank you to him and him alone.

“God I was so focused on Y/N and Peter, I forgot what you would be like with Sam” she grumbled and you laughed.

“So you and Peter are like, close?” you asked

“He’s a kid. I don’t think he should be in the superhero business, but he’s not giving up. So while he’s here I might as well take care of him, he’s been through a lot” Natasha told you sincerely,

“that’s cute” you replied, while Yelena gave a fake ‘aww’

“So…” she began after a beat of silence, “that was the Winter Soldier, no?”

“Yes. It was. But he’s not the Winter Soldier anymore, he broke free”

“Does he remember you?”

Natasha glared at her sister for a second, leaving you in the dark once again, before replying softly, “…yes”

Yelena noticed your confused looks through laughs, “Natasha was always the Winter Soldier’s favourite in the Red Room. They- you know-” she shoved her fingers together in an imitation of kissing,

“you mean we dated and fucked. Yes.” Oh. That was not kissing then.

“They were cute together. Not as cute as her and Wanda but, still”

“What?” Natasha interrupted a little bit too quickly, “Wanda and I aren’t dating”

“I know” Yelena nodded condescendingly and you smirked, “but you both wish you were. So do.” For someone who didn’t date herself, Yelena liked to set people up an awful lot.

“I- I don’t” Natasha faltered in her defence.

“I- I- I-” Yelena mocked again, “yes you do”

“I hate having a spy for a sister” Natasha grumbled after a pause, admitting defeat.

“You don’t have to be a spy”. Yelena nodded at you and you nodded in agreement, “yeah… you really don’t. Sorry.”

“Fine. But I don’t think she likes me back. And I’m her mentor so I can’t mess that up.” She admitted.

“Oh, she likes you back” you confirmed, checking for Yelena’s opinion. She nodded at you.

“She’s better than Hulk. I’ll set you two up” Yelena decided

“You stay out of it Yelena” Natasha practically growled, but the younger widow just grinned smugly,

“you shouldn’t have introduced her to me if you wanted that”

You made a mental note to not frustrate Natasha, because your house mate had to skip out of the way of a punch and into a lab. You doubted you had the same ability to do that as Sam or Yelena. Three guys looked up at the entry, you only knew two of them, but you assumed the other was Peter. Natasha confirmed it.

“Tony, Rhodey, Peter. This is Y/N, and my sister, Yelena”

Knowing the building had been designed by Tony Stark, maybe you shouldn’t have been surprised, but when they had said lab, you expected some sort of university level science lab maybe. This was a full state of the art workshop, machinery and tools everywhere, along with the typical chemistry stuff as well. “This is insane” you said, eyes wide as you looked around.

“I know, right?” Peter grinned while Stark shrugged,

“I like this one, appreciates the effort I put in here” he admired

“Oh yeah, Y/N’s an engineering student” Yelena told him

“What type?”

“Mechanical”

“Best type”

“Well…” Rhodey interrupted, “I think we’re forgetting about aerospace here”

“We’re not” Tony said bluntly, “you can do all that with mechanical”

Natasha was right. You did end up getting on very well with Peter, he told you all about which memes confused the rest of the Avengers the most, and he excitedly told you about recreating vines on the battlefield with Shuri, the Princess of Wakanda. Honestly, you weren’t sure what you’d gotten yourself into, fraternising with such well known people, but Peter assured you that he’d felt the same when he’d been recruited, and that they were all actually very welcoming.

You noticed movement out of the corner of your eye and turned your head. Yelena and Tony Stark were walking back towards your group, a mischievous smirk on the woman’s face that had you sagging in anticipation.

“Stark Party!” the man next to her announced first, and she sent an excited grin your way as she came over.

“Peter” she began slowly, gaining the boy’s attention, “you spend a lot of time with my sister, yes?”

“Uh, I mean, yeah, when I can. She’d very nice and tries to help me out.”

“You’ve seen her and Wanda interact then”. You caught on to her plan and rolled your eyes while Peter stammered,

“oh, um, yeah, yes I have. Miss Romanoff trains Wanda, and me, and sometimes she trains us together.”

You moved your gaze away from Peter. “Yelena” you warned, crossing your arms.

“What? I think he should be involved. Tony is already”

“Obviously”

“I do. I want to be involved” Peter eagerly volunteered, “what is the involvement though?”

You sighed, there was no backing down from the meddling now.

—————————————————

With Tony’s help, an impromptu team meeting was called before the party. Only with you and Yelena replacing Wanda and Natasha. The two currently being entertained by Peter to stop them wondering where everyone else was.

“So I have been given explicit permission. No, scratch that- orders- from Nat’s sister here” Tony indicated with a gesture towards Yelena, “to meddle in the Wanda Natasha debacle”

“Tony I thought we agreed not to” Steve interrupted with a disappointed glance at the billionaire.

“Yes, but that was before, it’s been going on for years and they just need to get together. So we’re making sure they do at the party tonight.”

Sam butted in before Steve could interrupt any further, “So what’s the plan?”

Yelena stood up, grinning. Now was her time to shine. “Natasha gets very jealous” she informed,

“That she does” Bucky muttered with a scoff, only making Yelena smile wider.

“There’s a story here, you gotta tell it man” Sam demanded

Yelena answered on his behalf, “Sometimes, in the Red Room, when I could, I would flirt with him to piss Tasha off”

“You were like, 15 as well, obviously I didn’t ever flirt back but she nearly killed me every time. And that was just because she couldn’t hurt you.” Bucky continued.

The two were oblivious to how silent the room had become until your snickering pulled them back.

“You dated Natasha?” Steve asked, while Sam just whistled. He buckled over soon after from a kick to the shin. It wasn’t hard to guess who it was from, she was still glaring at him.

“It wasn’t through fighting either that she nearly killed him either.” Yelena continued, apparently trying to make the situation worse, “it was-”

“Okay, okay, we can all work it out, yeah?” you interrupted, “Peter may not be here, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear those things”

“Me neither” Steve nodded, slightly paled.

“So our plan is just to make Natasha jealous by flirting with Wanda?” Rhodey attempted to get the conversation back on track.

“Someone resilient because it seems Natasha might try to kill you” you added.

“I can do it” Vision piped up, “I overheard Natasha thinking Wanda had a crush on me, so she’d already be suspicious. And I’m pretty hard to hurt.”

“That’s settled then”

“That’s it? We had a whole meet just for that?”

“Yup”

—————————————————

You all filtered back into the main room in groups, so as not to arouse suspicion over why you were all together without them. The plan, however, did not work in the end; when you and Yelena walked into the room to find Peter gone and the two women making out of the sofa.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Yelena called out, and you doubled back to fetch the remaining Avengers. It was for everyone’s safety really.

“Did someone get hurt? What’s with all the screaming?” Steve asked, confused, as he hurried into the living room.

“No. It’s just that they got together while we were setting them up” Yelena explained, then pouted, “we don’t even get to do the plan”

“You know, maybe it’s for the best. Otherwise Nat might have found a way to murder Vision” Sam chuckled

“Wait, where’s Peter?” you asked

“Oh, we bribed him to leave for a bit” Wanda explained.

Natasha continued, “I wanted to talk to Wanda about what you two said earlier, and we kind of needed the privacy”

“So if we meddled like I said, they might have gotten together age ago!” Stark said victoriously, pointing at Steve, who only sighed. “Now these two get the credit”

“What can I say? We deserve it” you replied smugly, before Yelena scolded you,

“You deserve nothing, I’m the one who came up with the plan. You warned me not to”

“The plan that didn’t even come in useful in the end? That plan?”

“Well how was I supposed to know they only needed one push? I’m aromantic, I don’t have any experience”

“So am I?!”

“Maybe we should just be happy that Miss Maximoff and Miss Romanoff got together and leave them be”. Peter’s voice startled you and you shot your head in the direction of his voice. You saw him grinning through the gaps in the vent above and beckoned him down.

“God, he’s learning from Clint” Natasha sighed, “but he’s right, all of you shoo”. The woman motioned for you all to leave, but she couldn’t wipe the smile off of her face. You subtly high fived Peter and pulled Yelena out of the room.

All things considered, a visit from your housemate’s sister turned out better than you could have imagined.