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Yelena’s bored, and when she’s bored, she often sets things on fire, but lately she’s trying to quit. Or at least, she’s trying to limit acts of arson to the ones required by professional necessity. Honestly, the hassle with law enforcement isn’t worth it if she’s not getting paid.
Sex is a better diversion. It comes with orgasms and only rarely gets her in trouble with the law.
Not that the pickings are very good at this bar. In fact, her options are limited to one: a guy in a corner wearing a nondescript gray hoodie. On closer inspection, he looks like he’s doing math.
He’s not Yelena’s type.
Mentally, she takes stock of her weapons: a dagger in her boot, a collapsible katana in her purse, two pistols in her shoulder holsters, and a rocket launcher beneath a loose floor tile at Grand Central Station. With that, she can make some trouble, rustle up a job, or get someone out of trouble if she’s feeling charitable.
Except she doesn’t want to. Last night, she’d spared Clint Barton’s life, and now all the fight’s gone out of her.
She catches the math man’s eye by accident, which is sloppy of her. He looks terrified and goes back to his equations. Well, he seems to go back to his equations. She feels his attention lingering on her. He’s braced for trouble; she can see it in the not-quite-subtle way he tenses his shoulders.
That makes him a lot more interesting. And anyway, hadn’t she wanted a Sex in the City fantasy with Natasha? Sleeping with different kinds of men, comparing notes over brunch. Maybe she can’t have all of that anymore, but she can still explore all the men New York City has to offer.
She picks up her Jack and Coke and slides into the seat next to him.
He looks up at her with wide eyes, like he can’t believe his luck. Literally can’t believe his luck, because his body shifts like he’s getting ready for a fight.
“Why are you doing math in a bar?” she asks.
He glances down at the long column of esoteric numbers and symbols. “Oh, uh, the public library kicked me out at seven.”
“They close at six.” She hadn’t gotten to return her book, and now it’s overdue. Very annoying.
The guy cringes in a weirdly charming way. “Yeah, I didn’t actually leave. They weren’t very happy about that. So now I’m here. I’m, uh, Peter by the way.”
“Yelena.” She tilts her head toward the book. “What do you do, Peter?”
“Well, that’s gotten a little complicated lately.” He chuckles awkwardly. “I don’t technically exist.”
Yelena smiles. “Oh, that happened to me once too. I didn’t exist for five years.”
Peter waves a hand. “Oh, yeah, the snap. Me too. But this particular kind of non-existence has less dust and more legal gray areas.”
“I love a good legal gray area,” Yelena says truthfully. She has much more in common with Peter than she’d expected, and they’ve been talking for less than five minutes.
“Yeah, I’m finding it less fun than I thought. And I didn’t think it would be fun to begin with,” Peter says. He narrows his eyes. “What do you do, Yelena?”
“Oh, I’m an assassin,” she says matter-of-factly. “I tried to do the right thing for a while. I set a lot of other assassins free. But then I got snapped, and everything went to shit. And at the end of the day, a girl has to make a living, you know?”
Peter’s wide-eyed stare is back. So is the not-quite-subtle fighting stance.
“I’m thinking of branching out into jewel heists,” she adds. “Less violence, more shiny things.”
He narrows his eyes. “Are you on a job right now, Yelena?”
“Actually no, I broke my contract last night. I let the target go.” She frowns. “There’s probably trouble on the way, but it was the right thing to do.”
Peter shrugs, the fighting stance melting away again. “You know, that’s not actually not the weirdest thing I’ve heard in the last couple weeks. And if you can’t harness the power of electricity or turn yourself into a human sandstorm, your criminal enterprise doesn’t actually sound so bad.”
Yelena snorts. “You’re a vigilante. Some wannabe Avenger. It figures.”
Peter barely looks old enough to grow a beard, but he’s got the stare of a soldier who’s seen too much on the field of battle. Judging from the completely untouched beer in front of him, he’s too young to even be in here – not that the bartender would care – so he’d gotten into the game young. Like her, even if he’d fought on the other side.
“I used to be.” The exhausted stare is back. “Now I have no idea who or what I am.”
“Are you someone who would steal gold out of the vault of a dead criminal mastermind?” Yelena asks. Kingpin had died last night – it’s all over the news – and somebody’s got to claim the leftovers. Might as well be her.
Peter tilts his head. “You know, not that long ago, I would’ve said no. But now I’m broke and I have no legal right to work in the United States, so the answer’s yes.”
***
Yelena’s glad she brought backup. She’s not the only one who wanted the remnants of Kingpin’s stash, and while she could’ve won the fight, Peter makes it easier. Even if she does have to split the profits now.
Of course, winning the fight is only half the battle. The other half is getting it home. There’s a reason people don’t use gold as currency anymore. It’s heavy as fuck.
“Has this guy never heard of crypto?” Peter mutters, wiping sweat away from his brow with just a touch too much drama for Yelena’s taste. “Lightweight, untraceable… Hey, are we walking this back to your lair?”
“Yes, let’s walk down the street in Manhattan with bricks of gold,” Yelena shoots back. “Obviously, we’re stealing a car.”
“We’re stealing a car?” Peter’s voice shoots up an octave.
“You’ll steal gold but not a car?”
“The gold is from a criminal. The car is not.” Peter actually drops his crate on the floor and squares up his shoulders to face her, like he’s going to fight. But maybe he’s just tired of hauling his gold around.
Yelena puts her crate down too. Honestly, she could use a break.
“What do you want to do, Peter? Call an Uber? Nothing to see here, just two people moving very heavy boxes away from Kingpin’s headquarters on the most trackable transportation platform in the entire world.”
Peter swallows. “Okay, when you put it like that, it’s obviously a terrible idea. But I’m still not stealing a car.”
Yelena shrugs. “Alright, Peter. I respect your boundaries.” She shakes his hand. “I appreciate your help in the fight, and now we part ways. Good luck!”
She’s got her eye on a late-model Ford Fiesta halfway down the block. It’s too small to attract any real attention, and she’s already spinning a cover story about a college student forced to move away from her creepy boyfriend’s apartment in the middle of the night. Of course, she should’ve arranged the getaway car before the raid, but sometimes poor planning makes life more fun.
Peter tries to jump in the car the second she gets the engine going, but she’d locked the doors so he has to pound on the window pitifully instead. She sighs and lets him in.
“I’m in a stolen car,” he keeps muttering. “I’m in a stolen car.”
His voice is really high pitched.
“Full of stolen gold,” Yelena adds. “Don’t forget that.”
“We’ll take the car back, right?”
Yelena rolls her eyes. “Fine, yes. We’ll count the gold, square up, and then you can take the car back.”
Peter shakes his head. “I can’t do that, Yelena. I can’t drive.”
She fights back the urge to bang her head on the steering wheel. She’s not driving back to Hell’s Kitchen at rush hour, that’s for damn sure.
“Come on, I helped you steal all that gold. Don’t I get a say in how the mission goes down?”
She swears under her breath. “Fine. We’ll leave the car somewhere it will get towed, the police will call the owner, they pick it up. No harm.”
“Do you have any idea how much it costs when your car gets towed?” Peter’s voice is reaching an octave only dogs can hear. “Aunt May had to pick up extra shifts for a month to pay it off!”
“Okay, okay. We’ll leave a bar of gold in the glove box. Final offer.”
“Deal.”
Peter actually reaches out to shake her hand, but he pulls it back after a sharp glare. He grins. “So where’s your lair?”
Yelena snorts. “I’m not telling you that.”
She actually doesn’t have a lair. She’d rented a studio in Alphabet City with a bathtub in the kitchen. At the time, it had sounded like the quintessential New York experience, although she’s questioning her judgment now. But Peter doesn’t need to know that.
“You want to come back to my place?” he practically squeaks.
Yelena nods firmly. “Give me the address, or I will shove you out of this car right now.”
Peter looks at her for a beat and says, “Yup, you’d definitely do that. My place it is.”
***
From the looks of Peter’s studio, all his belongings fit into a single cardboard box. It’s the most depressing place Yelena’s ever seen, not that she should care. She’d gotten him the gold, so now he can buy all the hoodies in the world and at least one halfway decent set of sheets.
She’s just about to leave, but of course, he has a question.
“Hey, Yelena? What exactly do you do with gold? I mean, I can’t exactly take this to the store and buy a pack of ramen.” His brow furrows. “Can I?”
“You’re pathetic, you know that?”
Peter nods very seriously. “Yes, I do, actually. Thank you for pointing it out, though. I really appreciate the reminder.”
Yelena reminds herself that he’d made it a hell of a lot easier to claim Kingpin’s gold. Now she can buy a laundromat, which is the best possible way to launder money, which puts her one step closer to starting that property portfolio she’s always dreamed about. So really, five minutes to explain how to sell gold without attracting unwanted legal attention isn’t that much.
After that, she intends to leave. That’s what you do with one-night stands, after all. Maybe Peter’s a crime one-night stand and not a sexual one, but the principle still applies. Don’t get involved.
Still, she really wants to know how a guy like him ended up in a situation like this. The question flies out of her mouth before she really thinks about it.
“So how did this happen anyway?” she asks, gesturing around the terrible apartment. “You pissed off the wrong people, you have to run, and now you’re starting over in the big city?”
“Yeah, I pissed off some people. Mainly college admissions officials, and also a goblin.” He pauses. “More of a mad scientist goblin, not a magic one. Then I had to tell a wizard to erase me from everyone’s memory. It was hard, actually, but it was the right thing to do.”
Yelena swears appreciatively. “That’s even more fucked up than my story.” She holds up a hand. “Don’t ask. I won’t tell you.”
He nods. “International woman of mystery. Got it.”
Her hand’s on the doorknob now. All she has to do is open it, walk out with her gold, and move on with her life.
“Hey, Yelena?”
She takes her hand off the doorknob with yet another sigh.
“Do you know anyone who could get me papers? You know, identity documents? Because I really need them, and honestly, I have no idea how to get them, but you seem like you might, um, know people from the underworld.”
“You don’t need new papers, Peter. Nobody knows who you are.” She waves a hand toward the window, even though it faces a brick wall that’s seen better days. “Go out in the world. Be free.”
“Yeah, the thing is, magic spells are kind of unpredictable. This happened.” He holds out an ID card. The photo is pixelated, like he’s an anonymous informant with his face blocked out. Black bars obscure all the places where the personal information should be. “I tried filing for a replacement, but it seems like I got deleted from every government database that ever existed.”
Jesus, Yelena needs to meet this wizard. Maybe he can give her a fresh start too.
“I don’t do charity,” she says sharply, half as a reminder to herself. Maybe she’d let Barton go. That doesn’t mean she has to get soft.
“Right, right. You’re an underworld queen and all, so I wouldn’t expect that. I could…owe you a favor?”
She’d been bargaining for more gold, but open-ended favors are a far better offer. Peter seems to realize that too because his eyes suddenly go wide.
“But not killing someone, okay? Or helping you kill someone. Or stealing from the innocent.”
Yelena huffs. “That’s not how this works. You’re the one asking for help.”
Peter pulls himself up straight, the same way he had when she suggested stealing the car. Yelena finds it oddly charming.
“Look, you’re obviously a smart woman. You should know what tasks I am and am not capable of. And honestly, there’s nothing I want enough to feel okay about taking someone’s life for it.”
Yelena respects that, not that she’s going to let it show. “Anything else?” she snaps, feigning impatience.
Peter scratches his head. “I really don’t think I could kill an animal either. Not unless it was going to eat me.”
“Jesus Christ, I don’t kill puppies and kittens. I’m not that kind of asshole.” She extends a hand. “Help getting identify papers in exchange for a favor to be determined in the future, excluding murder and property crimes against people you deem innocent. Deal?”
Peter shakes her hand. She feels weightlifting calluses on his palm, and another on his finger where he holds a pencil.
“Deal,” he says.
Yelena feels a small, strange sliver of joy when she thinks about seeing him again.
***
Three days later, Yelena escorts Peter to Merv, who’s not one of her top-shelf contacts, but he makes good passports and his prices are fair Peter’s staring down at his new ID in ecstasy, which Yelena doesn’t really get, because it says his name is Peter Parker and contains his actual birthdate. What’s the point of false identity papers if you don’t use them to create a new identity?
But Peter just beams at her and says, “This is better than a funnel cake at Coney Island.”
Yelena says, “What?”
So Peter says, “This is better than a funnel cake at Coney Island!” Which is exactly what he said before, just three times as loud.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Peter looks flabbergasted, which Yelena didn’t know was a real emotion. She’d figured it was a colorful adjective annoying writers threw into books, not something that actual human beings really felt. But now Peter’s standing in front of her, all slack-jawed and wide-eyed.
“You’re telling me you’ve ever had a funnel cake? You never heard of a funnel cake?”
Usually she tells Americans that she was homeschooled. In their eyes, it explains all manner of knowledge gaps and odd behavior. But she doesn’t really feel like lying to Peter, so she says, “We didn’t actually cover weird American desserts in assassin school.”
“Right. Makes sense.” Peter nods as if he’s very seriously considering the curriculum of a young assassin. Then he beams and says, “We’re going to Coney Island!”
“I already told you, I don’t know what that means.”
“I know. So I’m gonna show you.”
Yelena didn’t think it was possible, but Peter’s grin gets even wider. Now he’s staring at her expectantly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“What? You mean right now?”
“Well, yeah,” Peter says, like dropping everything for this coney place is just common sense. “Unless you have some assassinating to do. Um, do you?”
Yelena shakes her head. Since she let Barton go, she hasn’t even opened the dark web server where she gets most of her job offers.
“Alright, show me this Coney Island,” she says, tucking an extra knife in her boot just in case. Life has taught her it’s never wise to make assumptions about what kind of fun other people like to have.
***
Two hours later, Yelena slaps Peter’s hand away from a half-eaten funnel cake. “Get your own!”
“That was mine,” Peter protests indignantly. “You already finished yours.”
“Well, it wasn’t enough.” Yelena tugs the grease-stained, powder-coated plate closer for safekeeping. Peter doesn’t fight as well as her, but she’s not taking chances.
She figured Peter would launch at least one more offensive – she would have if their positions were reversed – but he sits back and smiles at her.
This shouldn’t make Yelena’s stomach flip, but a man has never looked at her that way before. Well, that’s not true. A lot of men have looked at her like that, but they weren’t actually looking at her. They were drinking in a character she created for a mission, one that inevitably ended with bloodshed and mayhem. Peter actually knows who she is, and he still smiles at her with soft eyes.
“Do you want to ride the ferris wheel?” she asks.
Peter looks surprised. “Really? You hated the roller coaster.”
“So did you,” Yelena shoots back.
“I didn’t hate it,” Peter says quickly. “I’ve just ridden in some, uh, unpredictable high velocity vehicles since I was here last, and it’s not as impressive as it used to be.”
“Always the diplomat,” Yelena says, clucking her tongue. She’d purchased a souvenir photo for $5.99. They’re next to each other in the front car, looking completely nonplussed, with idiot Americans screaming behind them.
She gulps down the last bite of funnel cake and tugs Peter toward the bright white wheel spinning in the distance. “Come on, I want to complete my quintessential American experience. And you’re coming with me.”
They’re almost at the top of the wheel when Peter says, “Hey, Yelena, how old are you?”
Yelena blows her bangs out of her face with a huff. She’s already decided the five years she was dust don’t count, but the rest is up for debate. “Twenty-one, thirty, or a thousand, depending on your perspective.”
Peter winces sympathetically. “Time travel, huh?”
“That’s your first assumption?”
Peter shrugs. “Well, yeah. I mean, I got a wizard to make everyone forget me, so time travel’s not really that weird.”
Yelena figures they’ll blow everything off with half-joking comments about their strange pasts, but Peter asks, “Okay, if not time travel, then what?”
He’s sitting across from her, with this ridiculous expression on his face, like he’s open and waiting and really wants to know. That makes her want to run away, but on top of a ferris wheel, that’s not much of an option. Of course, she could make it down, but Peter seems pretty good at rappelling down all sorts of exotic structures, and he’s just the sort of determined idiot who would insist on coming after her.
So she shrugs like it’s no big deal she’s about to unburden her soul to an almost-stranger and says, “I got brainwashed and mind controlled by a spy organization when I was a kid, and then I got turned into a pile of dust. So sometimes I feel like I’m just starting my life, you know? But the kind of life I had with Red Room, it takes a toll.”
She’s afraid Peter’s going to say something disgusting and sympathetic, but his eyes go dark like he might know a thing or two about being a theoretically young person who feels like they’re a thousand years old. The corner of his mouth quirks up in a not-really-happy half smile, and he says, “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.”
“Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Yelena says promptly.
Peter raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t figure you for the nerdy movie type.”
“ I’m trying to catch up on what I missed while I was brainwashed.”
She waves a list on her phone, and Peter vaults across the car to sit next to her. They spend the rest of the ride talking about movies, hips and knees bumping together, and she’s actually sorry to see they’ve almost reached the ground. Probably she could throw her spare knife into vital machinery and get them stuck, but Peter’s a sensitive soul; he wouldn’t be able to handle the small risk to innocent bystanders.
Just for fun, she writes her phone number on his hand in thick black ink.
***
Peter’s next call isn’t what Yelena expects.
It’s ten o’clock at night. That part she had expected. Honestly, if she were Peter, she’d want to have sex with her too.
But she hadn’t expected to hear wind howling through the speakers.
“Sorry, I’m on the side of a building,” he says. “It’s a thing I do sometimes.”
“Yes, I know. Rappelling is a very useful skill. It helped us get Kingpin’s gold.” She’s using a bar of it for a paperweight right now, just because she likes seeing it on her desk.
“Yeah, uh, glad you remember that, because I need to ask you for a favor.”
Something that might be a laser pistol goes off in the background, and Peter swears under his breath. It’s an extremely mild obscenity.
“Look, I know I said I was giving up the whole Avengers wannabe thing, but I fight crime sometimes.” The laser pistol goes off again, followed by some distant thuds that might be Peter jumping off the building. “The thing is, there’s more crime here than I expected, and it’s kind of not a one man job. So if there’s any chance you could help…”
Peter’s voice trails off, and then there’s an awkward silence, only because Yelena had put her knife in her mouth while she laced up her thigh holster.
“Anyway, I could pay you,” he says, which ought to be the magic words, but tonight she could care less about cash or gold. Since she hasn’t taken any new contracts, her body’s been twitchy and she’s up for some action.
“Tell you what,” she says, “if it’s entertaining, you owe me nothing.”
Two laser pistols reverberate in the background and Peter says, “Oh, it’s definitely going to be entertaining.”
***
Two hours later, Yelena’s got one new cut on her cheek, six new laser pistols, and a very nice adrenaline high.
Also, fifty-four women had been rescued from traffickers, which feels better than she realized it would. They had also found over $100,000 in cash, which Peter had insisted upon distributing to the survivors, and Yelena hadn’t even put up a fight. She did keep the Arab dinar they found, because what were those ladies going to do with a fat pile of foreign exchange? They probably didn’t have an Abu Dhabi safehouse to stock.
Sirens wail in the distance, and Yelena says, “That’s my cue to leave. I’m a wanted woman, you know.”
Peter nods seriously. “Honestly, I assumed.”
Yelena grabs Peter’s phone – he’s not great at defending from stealth attacks – and programs her address into his contacts. Encrypted, of course.
“Come by after you get done with the police.” She arches her eyebrow. “Assuming you can decrypt my address, of course.”
She vaults to the next rooftop without looking back. No, Peter isn’t her type, but he’s fun. No reason they shouldn’t have a good time.
***
Peter appears at 3:00 a.m., and Yelena answers the door with pillow creases on her face. She’d hoped he would come, but she’s not the kind of girl who stays up and waits.
“Sorry, did I wake you up?” he asks. He’s already backing away from the door. “I can come back some other time. You know, when it’s not in the middle of the night.”
Yelena grabs his wrist and yanks him inside. “You bring food, you can come anytime.”
The grease spotted takeout bag dangling from Peter’s hand looks very promising indeed.
“I got you the really spicy curry,” he says, and she reaches for it eagerly.
“Yours is extra mild,” Yelena says. “It’s probably just a pile of rice.”
Peter narrows his eyes. “I’ll have you know…” He pauses and smiles. “That I have no need to prove my masculinity by torturing my esophagus.”
She laughs. It’s an ugly laugh, like a donkey braying, or at least, that’s what her handlers had said. Hours and hours, they’d made her practice, until she had a more acceptable, ladylike laugh to deploy in front of targets. The habit had stuck with her, but now she doesn’t care, especially not when Peter’s laughing with her.
Their ankles twine underneath the tiny dining table, and Yelena traces a foot slowly over his calf, up to his knee. She’d been wrong to think Peter wasn’t her type. He brings her fights and food, and what else does a woman need?
But Peter’s not looking at her. His gaze is fixed on the refrigerator door. She’d hung her only adult picture of herself with Nat from a Statue of Liberty novelty magnet.
“Wait, you knew Natasha?”
The past tense still shreds her heart. She pulls her wandering foot away from Peter and forces herself to say, “She was my sister.”
Was. Past tense again.
And then Peter says the worst thing she can possibly imagine.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t save her.”
***
She doesn’t see Peter for two weeks after that. It’s not because she feels stupid for failing to recognize he is – or was – Spiderman. Yes, it should’ve been blindingly obvious. Wannabe Avenger. Wiry frame. Tendency to climb buildings. All of that very clearly adds up to Spiderman, and she was pretty fucking idiotic not to see it.
But the bigger problem is this: someone like her has no business hanging around someone like him.
She’s not working for redemption like Nat was. Sure, she’s taken a break from assasinating, and she hasn’t gotten her jewel heist business off the ground yet. But she’s the opposite of everything he stands for, and he’ll see it sooner or later. Might as well cut her losses now.
So she changes her number, which she ought to do every three or four weeks anyway. It’s just good hygiene. And if her days feel a little empty without him, well, she’ll get over it. She’s moved past bigger losses.
Her whole recovery plan has just one problem. It’s hard to hide from someone who knows where you live.
When pounding on the door doesn’t get him anywhere, Peter starts leaving food. Chocolate chip cookies sprinkled with sea salt. Stuffed crust pizza. Lasagna with layers of gooey cheese. He doesn’t make it himself, of course. Judging from his apartment, Peter’s the kind of guy who lives on cereal and makes ramen on special occasions. But the man clearly knows how to google, and he’s put a great deal of effort into finding the best comfort food New York City has to offer.
Yelena decides to let the arrangement persist until Peter tires of trying to win her over. She’s not the kind of woman who turns down free food.
Then he does the unthinkable.
He leaves a takeout container with exactly two bites of the best mac and cheese she’s eaten in her entire life. Underneath it is a grease stained note: if you want more, you’ll have to talk to me.
He’s waiting for her in the hallway, which is absolutely infuriating. He’d known she’d cave.
The first thing she says is, “I don’t blame you for my sister’s death.”
She’d planned to say something like where’s the rest of the macaroni, asshole?, but one look at Peter’s hangdog expression stops her in her tracks. Obviously, he’d interpreted her silence as blame, and she shouldn’t have left him feeling that way. Peter had fought the apocalypse and sacrificed his whole life for the good of the world, and if he can do that without turning cynical, she wants to protect him. Softness be damned.
Peter says, “That’s nice of you to say, Yelena, but I blame us for your sister’s death. We brought back everyone but her.”
Yelena collapses into one of her rickety dining chairs, shaking her head. “She fought for the privilege of dying.” She swallows. “We have to respect her sacrifice.”
It still hurts, knowing that she’d chosen not to come back home, back to the little sister who needed her. But she’d died at peace, having finally found the one act that would wipe away all the red in her ledger.
Peter pulls up a chair so his knee is resting against hers. “Well, I’m still sorry she’s gone.”
“Me too,” Yelena says, not bothering to disguise the thickness in her voice.
Peter frowns. “Wait, if you’re not mad at us for not saving her, why did you quit talking to me?”
Yelena gets up and pretends to fiddle with a pot of tea. “Because I’m not her, idiot. I’m not working for redemption. You’re an Avenger, or you were, and I’m an assassin.”
“Who hasn’t killed anyone lately.”
“You don’t know. I could take a new job tomorrow. My inbox is filled with offers.” She assumes. She hasn’t actually opened it since she let Barton go.
Peter raises his eyebrows. “You don’t really seem to enjoy killing people, Yelena.”
She shrugs. “Like I told you, I’m considering branching out into jewelry heists.”
“Haven’t heard of any high-profile jewelry thefts lately either,” Peter says.
Yelena waves a spoon in his direction. “What’s your point? Are you questioning my credentials? Or my ambition?”
“No, no. I would never do that,” Peter says, looking completely sincere. “My point is, I don’t think you’re as bad as you think you are, and I’m not as good as you think I am.”
“Oh really?” Yelena doesn’t bother trying to hide her skepticism. Peter’s as clean as they come.
“Remember when the octopus guy and the goblin and the electricity guy ravaged the city a few months ago? That was my fault.”
Honestly, Yelena’s not sure if she remembers that or not. New York City gets ravaged so often these days it’s hard to keep track of the monsters or who summoned them.
“You hired them for a job and they got out of control?” she asks, not without sympathy. Hiring overqualified help is a common amateur mistake.
“No,” Peter says indignantly. “They were my arch nemeses from another universe, and I accidentally opened a portal to bring them here when I tried to solve a problem with magic.” He swallows. “They killed a lot of people, including my aunt.”
“I’m sorry,” she says automatically, even though she knows its a stupid and useless thing to say.
Peter’s jaw clenches. “Yeah, me too. Thanks for not saying it wasn’t my fault, because it was.”
Peter looks defiant, and Yelena nods. Sometimes shit happens, and it’s on you. She’d learned that the hard way too, once or twice.
Suddenly Peter’s face softens. “So now that we’re clear I’m not any better than you, can I take you out for that mac and cheese?”
***
Yelena’s halfway done with her mac and cheese when she asks, “Is this a date?”
“Yeah. I mean, I hoped so.” Peter gives her a little half smile that would’ve seemed idiotic just a few weeks ago. Now it makes something in her chest feel warm.
She hasn’t exactly squandered her freedom. She’s gone out with hedge fund managers (boring), race car drivers (overly egotistical), and several members of the Russian gymnastics team (pleasantly bendy), to name a few. But never like this, when her hair’s in a messy bun and she’s wearing gray sweatpants that have seen better days. In short, she’s never been on a date as herself. It’s a strange feeling.
“It’s okay, we can just be friends,” Peter says. His smile looks pasted on now, and Yelena realizes with a start that she’s been silent for too long. Very sloppy.
“No,” she shakes her head. “A date is good. If assassins are really your thing.”
“Former assassins,” Peter says knowingly, and Yelena concedes he’s probably right. She doesn’t want to kill people, especially now that she’s got a serious money stash and a plan to launder it.
But that’s a question for another day. She’s on a date, apparently, which means that she also has immediate access to the very best perk of dating.
“Want to have sex?” she asks brightly. Her plate is empty now, and she figures they ought to move onto the finale as soon as possible.
Peter chokes on his water. Like actually chokes. “I can’t believe I’m saying that, but I can’t. I mean, I’d like to. Hopefully in the near future. But I’m a delicate man, Yelena, and sex on the first date is not a thing I can do.”
He’s laid a hand over his heart, and his voice gets more firm as he goes, just like it had on the very first night they met, when he refused to steal the car. Of course, he’d gotten into the car eventually, so if she just persists for a little while…
But no, that’s the wrong thing to do. Anyway, a man has never refused to have sex with her before, and the novelty is entertaining.
“Okay,” she says. “Ramen tomorrow night? My treat?”
Peter nods, and just like that, Yelena gets the first real boyfriend of her life.
***
They sleep together for the first time after five dates: ramen, apple pie, pierogies, Korean barbecue, and tacos. Afterward, Yelena rests her head against the smooth skin of Peter’s shoulder. It’s after one in the morning, past time for her to be getting home. Instead she says, “I’d like my favor now.”
She waits for Peter to pull back. If she owed a favor to someone like her, she’d be apprehensive.
But Peter only says, “Okay, what is it?” against her hair. Like he’s just going to pay up, no questions asked.
“I’d like to stay here tonight,” she says. Her voice sounds stupidly small.
Now Peter does pull back. “Yelena, that’s not a favor.”
She doesn’t try to contain her eyeroll. Does she have to spell everything out? “I want to stay here, and I don’t want to have anymore sex. I just want to sleep.”
Peter rolls over so he’s leaning over her, looking into her eyes. “I need you to really listen to me here, Yelena. That is not a favor.”
“It’s not?” She sounds like an idiot, but she really doesn’t know. Red Room didn’t teach her those kinds of things.
Peter shakes his head. “Look, I try not to ask too many things about your past, but I think you should know you’ve been sleeping with assholes. Like, epically big assholes.”
“Well, that’s the understatement of the century.” Yelena can’t help it. She starts laughing. Soon she’s laughing so hard tears are pouring down her cheeks, but maybe that’s not because it’s funny. Maybe it’s because she’s sad.
After that, her emotions escape her control for a bit, which she tries not to let them do. Red Room wasn’t big on tears – except as a tool for manipulating targets – so Yelena hasn’t cried in front of anyone she wasn’t planning to kill for a very long time, and it takes her brain awhile to process the strange sensation of Peter rubbing her back.
“You’re still here,” she says, which is a stupid thing to say, but she really is surprised. She has two responses to a crying person: give them vodka or run the fuck away. Peter doesn’t keep vodka in his apartment, so she really wouldn’t blame him for running.
There’s a terrible pregnant silence when she thinks Peter might say something disgusting and sympathetic, in which case, she’ll have to run away.
But instead he just nods like staying in bed with a crying person is a perfectly normal, common sense thing to do, and he says, “I realize we haven’t known each other that long, so maybe you haven’t realized this yet, but I’m not an asshole.” He shrugs. “So yeah, I’m still here.”
Yelena flings herself backward against the pillow. “Peter, I have to warn you, I’m kind of a mess.”
He’s not quite leaning over her, but she can still see the corner of his sardonic smile. “You and me both, Leno –”
“Lenochka,” she supplies as he stumbles over the unfamiliar Russian syllables. “You were looking up diminutives?”
“It seemed like the thing to do.” Peter’s whole smile, the one with the dimples, is back. “Does my name turn into anything?”
“Petya.” She frowns. “Or Petrushka, in bed. You could say something like, ‘fuck, Petrushka, I have no idea what to do with my life.’”
Peter nods. “And then I could say, ‘yeah, me neither, Lenochka. Want to figure it out together?’”
Yelena pulls herself up so she can face Peter. “Is that a real question?”
“Yeah.”
Yelena considers. “Will you keep bringing me food?”
“Of course.”
“Will you find me entertaining fights?”
“As long as we’re fighting on the side of justice.”
Yelena waves a hand. “Fine. Like I said, as long as they’re entertaining.” She arches an eyebrow. “And you remember you still owe me a favor?”
“That does not include killing, stealing from the innocent, or harm to animals,” Peter says firmly.
Yelena flops back on the bed, tucking herself against Peter’s chest. “Okay, it’s a deal. We figure it out together.”
And for the first time in her life, she falls asleep next to a man she doesn’t plan to kill.