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“I don’t know Natasha, I don’t exactly scope the area for the most romantic sites, do I?” Yelena groaned, looking frustrated by the call with her sister already. You looked up just in time to catch her rolling her eyes, so you paused the TV to keep her focused. You had been watching it together, but the adverts had just finished and you could wait.
“Yeah The Ivy is nice but it’ll be fully booked, you won’t get a reservation,” your friend continued, her face morphing into a scowl, “Oh of course you do. You always know someone.”
She pulled the phone away from her ear, covering it lightly with a hand as she asked you “romantic things to do nearby?”
“Rowing in Knaresborough?” You weren’t sure if it was really romantic, but it was a pretty area, and the physical exertion was probably nothing to the Avengers.
“Oh yeah that’s a good one,” Yelena approved, repeating it into the phone for her sister. “Natasha says hi”
“Hi Natasha!” you called out, hopefully loud enough for the woman to hear on the other end.
“Yeah, so can we get back to our show now?”
“Yelena, be nice” you scolded teasingly. If Natasha had called her sister for romantic advice then she must seriously be stressing. A bad attitude from Yelena was not what she needed. Your friend glared at your remark, but ultimately nodded, “Yeah I’ll see you tomorrow Tasha, I love you too.”
With a huff she hung up, flopping back onto the sofa to continue the show you were watching. “Nat’s bringing Wanda here for Valentine’s?” you guessed
“Yes. And it’s their first one so of course it has to be perfect”
“Wanda will like it either way”
Yelena scoffed, “try telling Nat that. She’s flying her girlfriend halfway across the world just to see England and still thinks that’s not enough!”
You laughed, much to the confusion of your housemate, Izzie, who had been passing through the living room to get to the kitchen, though she stopped to watch you both. “Are you guys doing that thing where you talk about the Avengers’ personal lives as if it’s nothing again?”
“One of them is my sister, so yes, I get to” Yelena shrugged
“I still can’t believe I was living with the Black Widow’s sister this whole time!” Izzie squealed, shaking her head slightly while she continued on her journey for food.
“It takes some getting used to” you added while she was still in earshot, before you turned to Yelena clenching her jaw. “Sorry” you muttered, looking down at your lap. You knew she didn’t like it when she was compared to her sister.
“Maybe the Avengers say the same thing about Natasha, since you’re, you know, a Black Widow too” you proposed, breaking the tension in the room just as quickly as it had settled.
It was a poor attempt at comedy, but Yelena appreciated it, smiling slightly when you looked back up. “I’m the cooler one so I bet they do” she nodded sagely, “in fact, they probably say they picked the wrong sister.
Thankful it had worked, you could go back to your teasing, "whatever you choose to believe Lena”. The words were accompanied by you pressing play on the remote, the action successfully diverting your friend’s focus before she could retaliate.
—————————————————
The next day was Valentine’s and, aside from Yelena, all the rest of your housemates were preparing for dates rather chaotically. Every minute one of them would run into the living room, completely ignoring the fact that they were blocking your view of the TV because they were desperately searching for their missing phone, gift, wallet…whatever. In the end, you and your ex-assassin friend switched the screen off, sitting and silently pointing out the object to help your friends out.
“How’s Natasha doing?” you asked at one point. There had been a lull in people interrupting, because they were all now banging on bathroom doors to have a last-minute shower.
“She’s-” Yelena began, but a loud yell for someone to get out of the shower echoed through the house, cutting her off and sending you to the verge of giggles. One moment of eye contact with Yelena was enough to set you both off, laughing at the ridiculousness of how quickly the household had descended into chaos. “She’s probably this stressed, yeah” Yelena managed to get out between laughs, “they’re almost here though, an hour or two out”
“Are they coming here at all?”
“No” Yelena sighed, “Natasha wants nothing to do with me today. She booked some fancy hotel like my room isn’t enough for her anymore”
“Well yeah, you don’t want a couple using your bed at the end of Valentine’s day, you know?”
Yelena narrowed her eyes, sending you a questioning look, “Natasha always sleeps in my room, why would Valentine’s be any different? Do you just not want me sleeping in your room?”
Her face didn’t indicate she was joking, but then again it rarely did unless she wanted it to. But still, you waved her concerns away with a “nevermind”
“No. Why is it different Y/N?” she continued, which meant you audibly sighed with relief when Izzie walked in, interrupting to ask if either of you had seen her hairbrush.
“It’s over there” you pointed, saying nothing else until she had left the room. “So what has Nat planned for Wanda”
No one would fall for that diversion, much less Yelena, but she mentally gave up her questioning, settling for one last suspicious glare before answering. “Natasha liked your idea, so they’re having a picnic on a rowing boat, going for a nature walk, dinner, then having a night at the hotel. It sounds nice.”
Her eyes lay on the dormant TV, only flitting to you once. It was like she was trying to turn it on through sheer willpower with how hard she was glaring at it. You smirked. “Are you jealous ‘Lena?”
“What? You know I don’t like anyone like that, especially not my sister’s girlfriend”
“No not that. Jealous of what they’re doing, all the activities rather than just staying in and watching rubbish films?”
She lowered her head and you knew you’d hit the spot, especially when she began to toe the ground. “I just- why do people get to do all those fun activities just because they’re dating someone?”
“You don’t have to be on a date with someone, we can do it too if you want? no romo.”
“Did you just say 'no romo’?” Yelena scoffed, meeting your eye just so she could raise a condescending eyebrow.
“Yes,” you shrugged, “but you want to do them don’t you?”
Her mouth widened into an O, followed closely by her eyes. She’d had a thought. That never ended well. “We should gatecrash their date!”
“One of our housemates’ or Wanda and Nat’s,” you asked slowly, “wait no don’t answer that because we’re not crashing anyone’s dates!”
“Nat wouldn’t mind”
“Nat absolutely would mind, did you not see how stressed she was for this? Do not drag me into this”
“We’re doing it”. You didn’t even have time to argue before she sprang up. And she was halfway upstairs before she yelled at you to get ready too. You obeyed with a groan; there was no use fighting because when Yelena got an idea in her head, she followed through. It had gotten you both into trouble before and you knew this time would be no different, especially when she seemed dead set on having you join her in disturbing the date of a witch and an assassin.
Five minutes later and you were ready, waiting at the door while Yelena did who knows what. You didn’t want to know actually, it’d give you plausible deniability when it blew up in your faces later.
Within a second you went from scrolling on your phone to having your arm grabbed and being dragged out of the door. Yelena didn’t let you go until you were in the car, and she didn’t say anything the whole ride. Despite the silence you could tell she was giddy with excitement, the leg that wasn’t on the pedal was bouncing up and down and her fingers thrummed on the steering wheel.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” you asked at last
“Nope. But I was bored and I wanted to annoy Natasha” she grinned
“please say you’re joking” you begged, but her grin only spread,
“Nope but look, it’ll be more fun than our previous plan to watch films! We can do that whenever!”
You slumped back in your seat forcefully, crossing your arms as well just to make sure Yelena noticed your displeasure even with her eyes on the road. “We can only watch movies any other day if we survive for another day. They could both kill me in the blink of an eye, and knowing you, a situation will occur where they do want to kill me.”
“Pssh, we’re gonna be fine, and look, we’re here!”
It was the least she could do, but Yelena did at least pay the fee for the rowboat rental, since she did drag you into all of it, and she did also do all the work of rowing while you took care of the steering, so you soon got into the swing of it.
Half an hour in and, in all honesty, you were enjoying it. Possibly because Yelena was doing all the work, and possibly because her sister hadn’t shown up yet, but maybe just because it was a nice activity, spending time with a friend doing something other than studying and watching TV.
Despite the numerous couples on the river, it was oddly calm. Most of them were just drifting and enjoying being together, and Yelena was working hard to ensure you avoided everyone. Actually, forget about it being calm, it was calm everywhere aside from where your boat was. Yelena was rowing like her life depended on it, competitively sweeping through boats and swerving way faster than you would have thought possible.
It couldn’t solely be blamed on Yelena this time though, as it did take both of you to work the boat. But in your defence, it was her who encouraged you to come to the river, and to start racing laps through all the couples. And that was the exact defence you used when the boat was surrounded in red mist, freezing you in your tracks.
Your eyes widened as realisation hit you. You slowly turned your head towards your equally guilty-looking friend, having a silent conversation between you which mostly consisted of ‘oh we’re in trouble' and ‘how do we get out of this?’. Unfortunately, there was no solution for the latter and you both accepted that you needed to look up, turning synchronously to the next canoe over.
Natasha sat at the oars, her narrowed eyes glaring daggers at both you and Yelena, which only served to make her accompanying smile look incredibly threatening. Your eyes diverted to the other woman on the boat who, thankfully, looked more amused than angry. Wanda met your eyes and smirked, biting her lip to try and hide the growing grin when she realised it wasn’t the most appropriate time. Although she had released the boat from her magic, you didn’t fancy your chances of rowing away right now, despite everything in you that wanted to.
You were screwed. Your heart beat madly out of your chest as you looked between the two women, and that feeling only got worse when your boat companion began to laugh hysterically.
“Yelena now is not the time” you urged under your breath, but of course that did nothing to dissuade her.
“Yelena, did you help me plan the date just so you could gate crash it? You know I wanted it to be perfect!” Natasha yelled, “and you too Y/N?” she added, just in case you had thought you’d gotten away with it. But of course not.
“Aww, you wanted it to be perfect?” Wanda whispered, turning to Natasha adoringly
“I had nothing to do with it, I promise! I just wanted to suggest a nice thing, but then ‘Lena wanted to do it as well, and I thought we’d do it another day but she insisted on today and then actually, physically dragged me” you rambled in one breath, “also hi”
“Hi” Wanda waved back with a smile, Natasha merely nodded.
“Oh, well throw me under the bus why don’t you” Yelena grumbled,
“That’s what you get when you drag me to interrupt your sister’s date!”
“I was bored! What else was I supposed to do?”
“Anything else” Natasha seethed.
“Love, it’s okay,” Wanda said gently. It had an amazing effect at calming Natasha down. “Now we get to see them, and that makes it nicer. Plus you flew me here just because I said I wanted to see it, everything else could go completely wrong at it would still be perfect because I’m with you.”
“See, that’s what I said!” Yelena exclaimed. You cut here off with an elbow to the rib. Now was not the time. She didn’t seem to understand that though, instead thinking you were picking a fight. An elbow from her, and a resulting slap of her arm from you, and the two of you were set off in a fight… on a very unsteady boat.
Wanda and Natasha did a great job ignoring the both of you, but they had just gotten to professing their love for one another when the predictable happened. The fight had been off centre for just a little too long, and soon the dip increased dramatically, quickly flipping and dunking you and Yelena into the water.
Someone screamed, you weren’t sure who, but when you resurfaced Wanda and Natasha were both soaked and staring in shock at your overturned vessel. Yelena came up a second later, glaring angrily at the boat as if it had personally offended her. That was when Wanda began to laugh. It was small at first, but when Natasha’s chuckles joined in they soon got louder. You couldn’t help yourself but join, even if they were laughing, in part, at you.
“Happy Valentine’s Day Natty” Wanda said, simultaneously leaning in to kiss her girlfriend and also turning your boat upright with a flick of her hand. Their kiss got deeper as you and Yelena climbed back on, to the point where you felt like a voyeur just for looking in that direction.
Wanda gave one last flick of her wrist before she set both hands on Natasha, pulling her in further. The boost of magic sending your boat speeding towards the dock, where you and Yelena shakily got off.
You and Yelena stared at each other in shocked silence, before you spoke, “I think we learnt our lesson”
“Never doing that again”