Chapter Text
“Hello, Spider-Man,” Yelena says. “Spider-Man’s friend.” She greets them both with a nod. “What brings you to my office?”
Spider-Man rests his hand on his friend’s back, almost as though presenting her. “A moderately sized potato?”
Yelena raises her brows. That sounds promising. The team’s been pretty damn bored lately. They could go for something to do. “Well, come in, come in. Do share.” She gestures to the hot tub, an invitation of sorts.
Spider-Man’s friend looks at him, almost warily, but Spider-Man assures her that it’s okay, and they both disappear into the changing rooms. It’s Spider-Man who emerges first, and it seems that he’s learned his lesson, because he returns wearing swim trunks instead of his boxers – and, of course, wearing his mask, because the thing never seems to come off.
She gestures to him with her head. “It looks good.” She’s impressed, really. She’d expected much worse.
Spider-Man looks down at himself, at the bullet wound through his chest that’s no longer hidden beneath the fabric of his suit, and he chuckles awkwardly. “Yeah, I heal fast.”
“Did you get our card?” Yelena asks. “We were very worried. Bob and I tried to check on you in the hospital, but they said no visitors.” Which is absurd because she knows damn well the Punisher brought him there and that he didn’t leave for multiple days, so she’s pretty sure he got to stay with him. Then again, she can’t imagine a nurse telling the Frank Castle that he’s not allowed in their hospital, so she’s not too surprised.
“Uh, yeah, I did,” Spider-Man says. “Thank you guys. It was really nice. It meant a lot.”
Yelena grins. She worked hard to convince all of her fellow Avengers to sign the damn card. Some of them (Bob) jumped at the chance to offer their sympathies and well-wishes, and some of them were adamant that they very much did not want to do that (Bucky, who apparently has history with him and didn’t think he’d want his name on the card), but she got them all to sign it regardless.
The other changing room door opens, and out steps Spider-Man’s cute little redheaded friend, in a bathing suit of her own. Spider-Man really did come prepared. Good for him. She respects a man who learns from his past experiences.
Yelena spreads her arms, an invitation of sorts. “Well, do not just stand there. Come in.”
And, of course, they do.
“Well, Spider-Man?” she says. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?” Because she’s quite curious who it is that’s captured her mysterious arachnid friend’s attention like this.
“I was getting there,” Spider-Man says playfully. “This is Jean Grey. She’s a new friend of mine – the ‘small potato’ we were talking about last time?”
Yelena raises a brow, and she eyes the girl up and down. She definitely is a small potato. She’s a cute potato, though. She can see why Spider-Man likes her.
Jean looks between the two of them, baffled. “What is this potato thing you keep talking about?”
Yelena waves that off. “Do not worry, Jean. It is all good things.”
“Uh-huh…” She doesn’t seem sold on that.
Obviously, Yelena has done some looking into Jean Grey since Spider-Man floated her name by her the other day. It’s not like this is the first she’s seen or heard of this girl. She gave him a hand with the whole thing, in a very distant sort of way. But she’d only taken a vague interest in her. She didn’t file away all the facts she’d learned or pictures she’d seen. Really, she doesn’t feel like she knows all that much about her at all. She suspects that’s going to change.
“Hello, Jean,” Yelena says. “What brings you to my office today?” Something fun, she hopes. She could go for something fun right now.
Jean looks at Spider-Man to answer, which means this was doubtlessly his idea. That doesn’t surprise her. She’s sure it was well-intentioned, but what that intention was, she’s not yet sure.
Spider-Man doesn’t seem entirely sure, either, but, a bit haltingly, he says, “I thought that maybe you could… help her? She doesn’t have anywhere else to go, and I thought…?”
Yelena fights the urge to roll her eyes. It’s very difficult. “Look, Spider-Man,” she says, “I am glad that your potato did not turn out to be evil, but I am not a babysitter, and the Watchtower is not a daycare. I cannot help you.”
“Oh, come on!” Spider-Man all but whines at her. “You can’t just leave her–”
“Why don’t you take her home?” Yelena cuts him off. Why does this have to be her problem? She has enough problems in her life already – the biggest of which begins with ‘A’ and ends with ‘lexei,’ though she does love him dearly.
“Because my apartment is full of asbestos,” Spider-Man says, “and I don’t want to give her lung cancer!”
Yelena gapes at him. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jean do the same.
“What do you mean, your apartment is full of asbestos?” Yelena asks, incredulous. “Why are you living in an apartment full of asbestos?”
“Because I don’t have a job and the world is expensive,” Spider-Man replies, rushing through his words as if she won’t notice how incredibly fucked up that is if he finishes talking about it quickly enough. “Can we focus on the actual problem here?”
Yelena scoffs. “Spider-Man, you live in an asbestos-infected apartment!” she says. “I think that does qualify as an actual problem!”
“My apartment is not the problem, Yelena!” Spider-Man insists. “Jean is the problem, and I need somewhere to bring her that isn’t going to kill her and I don’t have a lot of options, so here I am!”
Yelena narrows her eyes. This is stupid. She did not agree to this when she became Spider-Man’s distant co-superhero acquaintance. But then she looks at Jean, and though she hates to admit it, she can feel her sympathetic side starting to kick in. She’s just a kid – a kid who’s lost everything; a kid who has nobody on her side except this random masked vigilante who lives in an asbestos-ridden apartment that she herself definitely cannot make a home out of.
Yelena is not a babysitter. She’s not great with kids. She’s not a good role model by any means. But she does have a home, a roof over her head and more than enough space to share beneath it, and if that’s all they need from her, then maybe…
Yelena sighs. “Fine,” she says. “But she is going to get very sick of my team very fast, and she is going to want to leave.”
Spider-Man frowns. “I think your team’s really cool.”
“That is because you have never met my team,” Yelena says. “Consider yourself lucky.”
Spider-Man looks at Jean, and Jean looks back at him, and, as is frequently the case with him, Yelena wishes she could see Spider-Man’s face. She’d like to know what he’s thinking right now. But, in the end, it doesn’t matter. He’s going to leave Jean here, and it’s going to go poorly, and she just hopes that he has a good backup plan for when it does.