Allegro

Natasha Romanov was acting weird. Well, she was always acting weird, but this was particularly weird. Ever since Elektra had borrowed the cookie cutters from her, she was going between being extremely hostile and mildly pleasant. It was a new occurrence. It seemed to Elektra that something good may have happened to her. Maybe she was pregnant. That would make Elektra’s life a whole lot easier in the future. Regardless of what was going on with Natasha, Elektra was beginning to wish she had specifically auditioned for the Sugar Plum Fairy.

There was a group of little girls that was obsessed with following Natasha around. It was like she had a little fan club. Elektra, on the other hand, was completely ignored. She didn’t necessarily want a group of little girls to follow her around, but she was jealous they were trailing after Natasha and not her. After all, she was just as good as Natasha. She’d even gotten the role that Natasha had wanted. Well, Natasha could have her beloved Snow Queen back. Elektra didn’t want it anymore.

“I don’t want to deal with this anymore,” Elektra announced, walking into Bucky’s dressing room when their rehearsal commenced.

“Don’t want to deal with what anymore?” Bucky asked, pulling on a sweatshirt and sweatpants.

“Nat, mainly,” Elektra said.

Elektra fell back into Bucky’s armchair, playing up the drama for his entertainment. 

“What happened?” Bucky asked. “Did she do something?”

“I’m just so done with her. She’s so annoying towards me because she thinks every single thing I do is just to spite her,” Elektra explained.

“Well, that was true for a while, to be fair,” Bucky reasoned.

“But it isn’t anymore. I don’t want to waste all my energy on her. At this point, I just want to give her what she wants,” Elektra said.

“And what is it exactly that she wants?” Bucky questioned.

“The Snow Queen.”

Elektra wanted to spend some of her time not thinking about Natasha. But her only hobby was dance, which she did at rehearsal all day. Being at her apartment would just make her think about what had happened with the cookie cutters, which was exactly what she did not want to do. She could hang out with Bucky, but they’d already spent all day together. The only option was to spend more time with Bobby.

Bobby was overly in love with Elektra. Well, maybe it was the normal amount for a relationship, but not for Elektra. The extreme amount of affection was just not something she was used to. And she liked being able to spend time alone. But today she’d put that aside to make Bobby happy. Elektra knew he would be ecstatic to see her show up unannounced.

“Hi,” Elektra said, walking into Bobby’s house.

Bobby lived in a one bedroom house that he rented. It was relatively nice, but definitely not as cool as Elektra’s apartment. It just looked like a house. Everything had cream walls and dark hardwood floors. Honestly, all it was missing was a ‘live, laugh, love’ sign and a suburban mom could live there. It made sense that he wanted to move in with Elektra so bad considering where he lived.

“Elektra?” Bobby asked from the other room.

As soon as he walked out and saw her, Bobby wrapped Elektra in a warm hug. Yeah, he really loved her.

Elektra smiled and hugged him back. “I figured that I’d come and visit you after rehearsal.”

“Really? You never do that,” Bobby said.

That really pulled at Elektra’s heartstrings. Suddenly her eyes were open to the fact that Bobby probably didn’t feel very loved. She didn’t want him to move in with her, she didn’t go over to his place, and she spent a lot of their time together complaining about one thing or another. It was all Natasha’s fault. Well, it was caused by Natasha. She was so distracted by that all the time that she forgot how to live her own life. Damn, the situation was a lot more dreary than she’d originally thought.

“I’m going to start doing it now,” Elektra promised. 

“I love that,” Bobby enthused. “I love seeing you.”

“I love seeing you, too,” Elektra responded.

“Well, I was planning on going and getting a Christmas tree today. A real Christmas tree,” Bobby said.

“That sounds like a fun time. We could go and get coffee or something after, too,” Elektra suggested.

“You won’t be too bored with it because we just did your tree?” Bobby asked.

Elektra smiled at him and said, “I could never be bored around you.”

Elektra was now making the conscious choice to express her love towards Bobby. Maybe she should invite him to move in. If she ever needed alone time when they lived together, she could always go to the company and practice for a while. There was no longer a real downside to them living together. Besides, it would give her something to think about other than her rivalry with Natasha.

Bobby’s truck was super bougie, but it was still a truck. Elektra hated the idea of him always driving a truck when they went to go do things. However, it was convenient for the purpose of them buying a tree. Elektra had never had a real Christmas tree before. Her parents had never had enough time to go out and buy one. They always hired people to decorate the house for them. It was very exciting for her to be able to experience a full and authentic Christmas.

“Here we are,” Bobby announced, pulling into the Christmas tree farm. 

The Christmas tree farm had both trees you could cut down yourself and pre-cut trees. It was a little magical. Honestly, it felt like a Hallmark movie moment. There were a lot of other cars in the parking lot, but since it covered such a vast area of land, it didn’t seem like there were many people around. Bobby and Elektra could have their own romantic moment.

Bobby got out of his truck and then opened Elektra’s door so she could do the same. “Let's go find a tree.”

Elektra hopped out of the truck and grabbed his hand. “Are we cutting one down or just buying one?” She asked.

“Well, I was planning on just buying one, but we can cut one down if you want,” Bobby offered.

“No, we can just pick one,” Elektra said, gently swinging their hands between them.

They walked into the wall-less structure that contained all the pre-cut trees. It smelled absolutely amazing. It was a smell Elektra only experienced at other people’s houses or with her various candles. And now she would actually be able to experience it. Well, she would if she started spending more time at Bobby’s house. Maybe it would encourage her to spend more time with him. She loved spending time with him, she just found it hard to fit it into her schedule.

“Do you want a tall tree or a little one?” Elektra asked, wandering through the aisles of trees. 

“We can get whatever tree you want,” Bobby said. “It’s completely up to you.”

“I can’t decide between the super tiny and super huge,” Elektra said.

Bobby chuckled. “Well, keep in mind that my ceilings are not, like, twenty feet tall. So we can’t fit the tallest tree here in my house.”

“Someday I want a big house with super tall ceilings so we can put a humongous tree in it for Christmas,” Elektra said. 

“We?” Bobby asked, smiling at her.

Elektra blushed profusely. “Uh, yeah, we. If that’s okay with you, of course.”

“Yeah, that’s more than okay with me,” Bobby said. 

Elektra could see herself living with Bobby forever, but she wasn’t sure if they would get married. Something about marriage was just unappealing to her. Maybe it was because her parents didn’t have a very good relationship. They never should’ve gotten married in the first place. But Elektra definitely did want a huge house eventually. Though there wasn’t much room for a huge house in Minneapolis. Maybe she would have to move somewhere else.

“What do you think about this tree?” Elektra asked, pointing to a little four foot tall tree.

Bobby smiled. “If it’s the one you want, it’s perfect.”

“Well then it’s perfect. How do we, like, buy it?” Elektra asked.

“We just take it up to them and they’ll wrap it up for us and we’ll pay them,” Bobby explained.

Elektra let Bobby carry the little tree up to get wrapped up. She didn’t want to deal with the sap. If there was anything she hated in life, it was getting sticky hands. As they walked up to the attendant, Elektra noticed that quite a few more cars had pulled into the parking lot. It must have been a very popular place to buy a Christmas tree. Elektra watched all the cars pulling in and saw something peculiar out of the corner of her eye: Matt and Natasha.

“Shit, Natasha’s here,” Elektra said, walking close to Bobby.

“Just ignore her,” Bobby recommended. 

“I can’t, that would be considered rude,” Elektra said.

There was a battle happening in Elektra’s mind about whether or not she should be rude to Natasha. Being rude would give her satisfaction because Nat wasn’t exactly nice to her. But if she were nice first, maybe she and Natasha could make their relationship less hostile. This was a debate she’d been having constantly recently. It was just a lot to deal with their rivalry. It was often fun, but it was only fun until it wasn’t anymore.

Elektra began to walk towards where Natasha and Matt were coming in, knowing that they had seen her. They were both wearing long, black coats with black gloves. They were matching and, quite honestly, very cute. A small part of Elektra was jealous of their relationship. Yeah, maybe today would be a good day to be rude.

“Hello,” Elektra said, walking up to them.

“Hi,” Natasha said, hostiley.

“I didn’t expect you to get a real tree,” Matt said, holding Natasha’s hand as Bobby and Elektra had done earlier.

“Oh, I am not getting a real tree. It’s for my boyfriend, Bobby,” Elektra said, gesturing to where Bobby was getting their tree wrapped up.

“Have we met him before?” Natasha asked.

“I doubt it,” Elektra answered.

“I remember how it felt to not have anyone coming to support my performances, I’m sorry you have to go through that,” Natasha said, giving Elektra a sly smile.

Matt gently elbowed Natasha in the ribs. “Don’t,” He whispered.

“Oh, does Matt come to support your performances or mine?” Elektra questioned. “Because last time I checked he was interested in me before he was interested in you.”

Natasha blushed. “God, you’re such a bitch.”

Before Elektra could snap back, Natasha was storming back to her car. Damn, that must have struck a nerve. And Elektra wasn’t even saying it because she necessarily agreed with it. Obviously Natasha was already sore on the subject. Maybe there were some issues between her and Matt. A small part of Elektra felt bad about it. It was meant to be teasing, not actually offensive.

Elektra turned to Matt and said, “Hey, I’m really sorry if-”

“Just don’t,” Matt cut her off.

Matt walked back to their car and got in. Natasha quickly pulled out of the parking lot and presumably drove back to their apartment. That was not at all what Elektra was intending to do. And now she had to do the walk of shame back to Bobby, who was loading their tree into the bed of his truck. It was a little bit humiliating.

“Hey,” Bobby greeted, securing the tree in for transport. “How did it go with Natasha?”
Elektra blushed. “Yeah, I don’t really want to talk about that.”

“Something bad happened?” Bobby asked.

Elektra merely shrugged and got into the truck. She knew Bobby wouldn’t exactly be happy about what happened, either. He’d definitely be disappointed in her. He thought more highly of her than he probably should have. In all reality, Elektra wasn’t the best person. She tried to be good most of the time, but she just couldn’t control herself when she was around Natasha. Something about it just triggered her.

Bobby got in on the other side and sighed. “You can just tell me what happened, Elektra. I don’t like you keeping things from me.”

“It’s embarrassing, darling, you don’t want to hear about it,” Elektra stated.

“Baby, I always am willing to hear about your issues,” Bobby said.

Fuck, he was too sweet for her. She didn’t deserve to be treated so nicely by someone. She wasn’t a good enough person for that.

“I just can’t, I’m sorry. But I’m going to make myself better, I promise,” Elektra said.

“Elektra, you’re already great right now. I just want you to be honest with me. Even if you did something bad, I want to hear about it. I want to know everything there is to know about you. I don’t care if it’s terrible or boring, I just want to know you as authentically as possible. I love you, even the bad parts,” Bobby rambled.

“I love you too, baby,” Elektra said.

Bobby pulled out of the parking lot and began the drive back to his house. Elektra made the decision then and there to spend the night. After he just professed his love for her, it would be wrong not to.

“All I can say about what happened is that I crossed a line,” Elektra explained.

“What line?” Bobby inquired.

“You know, I’m not too sure yet. But I’m determined to fix it,” Elektra said. 

Because she had obviously struck a nerve at the Christmas tree farm, Elektra decided she was going to be nice to Natasha the next day. Well, it was less of being nice and more of doing something nice. She arrived at the company early, as always, but she didn’t go straight to her dressing room like normal. In fact, she didn’t go to a rehearsal studio, either. She decided to go somewhere she never dared to go: Tony’s office.

“What brings you here today?” Tony asked, barely looking up from his computer as she walked in. “And this early, at that.”

“There are just some things that I feel like we need to talk about,” Elektra said.

Tony turned towards her and looked up at her. “Things such as?”

“Natasha.”