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“So when you said this was an…Avengers scale emergency, what exactly do you mean by that?”
Kate Bishop stared in open shock, trying to process what she was seeing.
When her friend—yes, friend, even if that friend had once tried to kill her mentor and role model due to a massive misunderstanding—had called it an “Avengers-scale emergency,” this was not what Kate had imagined.
The blonde looked seconds away from murder or possibly mass penguin homicide, judging from the way she was clutching one furious, flailing penguin in her arms while using her boot to pin another back that kept trying to peck at her shin.
Feathers were flying, Yelena’s hair was in disarray, and the look on her face suggested she was seriously contemplating whether anyone would really notice if two penguins mysteriously went missing.
This didn’t even account for the other penguin that was currently standing on top of the table like it owned the place, squawking triumphantly as it knocked over Yelena’s half-eaten sandwich.
Crumbs scattered across the floor before the one trying to maul Yelena’s boot quickly dove for it while the other on top continued to waddle in small, victorious circles, clearly proud of its chaotic reign.
Are they Magellanic penguins?
“What’s about this not scream Avengers crisis, Kate Bishop?”
Kate blinked, taking in the scene again—the chaos, the feathers, the accusatory glare Yelena shot her like this was somehow her fault—and decided she officially had no idea what her life was anymore.
“You know, when you said Avengers-scale, I pictured aliens or killer robots,” she said slowly, trying not to shiver that all the windows were open and snow was starting to pile in. “Not… Happy Feet gone rogue.”
“This is no time for jokes, Kate Bishop! Look, they’re penguins!”
Truthfully, it would have been no different if she had been talking in Russian.
“W-who?”
“Who else? The Avengers, Kate Bishop,” she snapped, putting the one in her arm into a large… guinea pig enclosure. Immediately, the penguin started to pace around, neck strained like she was debating how to escape.
At least, Kate thinks that it’s a she.
“I see…uh, we’re still not dropping the full name?” she laughed awkwardly, and finally settled her bows and arrows towards the side. Yet opted to put them at the very top of the kitchen counter because the last thing she wanted was to find out one of them had gotten into her stuff and gotten themselves into trouble.
“I thought your full name was Kate Bishop?” Yelena questioned, tilting her head.
“Haha, very funny,” she huffed and then sighed. “Okay, I’m…confused, still.”
“About what?”
“Why are there penguins in the Avengers Tower? And where are your…” she trailed off as another one that wasn’t the current three came to sprint up and stare at her. The penguin stared up at her unflinchingly and entirely too intensely for something that barely reached her knee. “Uh…h-hi?”
Yelena groaned, running a hand down her face.
“Do not look at Bucky like that. It makes him angry.”
“Him? Wait, did you say…Bucky? As in…” Kate trailed off, her mouth dropping to the floor. “Wait, you’re telling me that’s Bucky Barnes?”
“Kate, this is very not encouraging. You took Barton’s title, who never missed a shot, yet you cannot even hit the obvious conclusion, even when I told you who that is?” she huffed, striding towards her.
Instantly, the Winter Waddle—something Kate came up with on the spot—scurried away.
“So clearly, I’m missing a few chapters,” she remarked, trying not to make a face when the loudest penguin of the group decided it was the perfect moment to leave a very personal contribution on the table.
Kate decided to take a few steps back to not even humor the chance of getting hit.
Judging by the way Yelena barely blinked as she grabbed a disinfecting wipe, hoisted the still-honking culprit, and set him on the floor to clean up, it was clear this had been going on all morning.
“Wong—”
“Who?”
“The current Sorcerer Supreme of the Masters of the Mystic Art,” Yelena answered as if that was supposed to answer all of Kate’s questions. “Said one of the doors that connects to Siberia was blasted through by a blizzard. There was a cursed object—hey! No! Walker, I am close to roasting you!”
Kate practically jumped out of her skin when the bulker-looking penguin that Yelena was holding down with a boot before now tried to bite her finger clean off when she tried to grab the sandwich from his mouth.
“I…presume the cursed object turned your teammates into penguins?”
“Mm, very clever, Kate Bishop,” she grumbled, glaring at Walker, who shrilled loudly at her.
“How did it end up here?”
“Since they’re shoving the snow from the New York Sanctum,” Yelena continued, “Dr. Strange decided to keep the cursed object here for a few hours until everything is cleaned up. Then Walker came back early from his mission and—” She pointed a finger at the same penguin who had now swallowed the entire sandwich and looked smug. “Decided to poke the glowing orb thing with his bare hands and now, I have all the windows open so you all don’t overheat and die!”
U.S. Waddler—wow, Kate was on a roll here—gak loudly.
From the corner of Kate’s eyes, she saw Winter Waddle darting to where the penguin in time out was. If her guess was correct, that one had to be Ava Starr, given how much smaller she was.
“So…why not…call Dr. Strange to come back?” she suggested.
“No way!” Yelena exclaimed. “Look, Kate Bishop, nobody exactly trusts a former assassin with ‘mystical artifact of doom,’ yes? This is the first time someone says, ‘Yelena, you hold a dangerous glowing thing,’ and actually means it. So we wait for the wizard to come back and pretend everything is totally fine and totally under control!”
Kate glanced at the penguin who had now escaped the enclosure via getting on the top ramp and basically throwing herself out to join Winter Waddle, while Red Penguin threw himself down and started to slide on the iced-up floor.
Kate raised a brow. “Yeah, total under control.”
“Yes,” Yelena replied, deadpan. “Exactly as planned, now that I have enlisted you for help.”
“Wait, how come you weren’t turned into a penguin?” she asked.
“I wasn’t in the building. I was in those mandatory U.S. politics meetings with Val,” she said, annoyance clear by the way she scoffed loudly. “Knew something was up when no one was replying to my messages and when I checked the camera, realized what happened.”
“So you came running back to make sure they don’t accidentally kill each other?”
“Yes, and I also know they don’t eat Cucumber. He’s in my room.”
“Cucumber?”
“I forgot to tell you, I have a guinea pig now!”
Kate opened her mouth, then shut it again because honestly—there were no words.
You’d think Kate would know better than to ask questions by now, but she still blinked.
“You have a guinea pig.”
“Yes,” Yelena said simply. “He is small, round, and an excellent listener. I tell him all my problems, and he never interrupts.”
“Right…”
“Case in point, I now have it all under control with you here,” Yelena affirmed just as Ava and Bucky slid right past them, which seriously took away some of the seriousness of the situation, and right into Walker, who immediately squawked in outrage and launched into hot pursuit.
Of course, Alexei decided to join them.
“Uh…it looks like…Walker…is chasing after Bucky and Ava? With Alexei joining in?” Kate pointed out that U.S. Waddler was now toddling at full speed, wings flapping as if he were about to achieve flight through sheer indignation.
“Of course he is,” Yelena said dryly, not even looking as she reached for her cup of coffee. She squinted her eyes and looked like she didn’t want to risk accidentally drinking any surprises, so she then poured it down the drain. “The man spent half his career chasing people. Penguin form does not change attitude, only height.”
“Should we do something?”
“Mn, no, not yet. Maybe they’ll tire each other out,” she remarked, almost sounding hopeful.
“They don’t understand what we’re saying, right? Or like…have their mind trapped in there?”
“Relax, Kate Bishop,” she mused.
“It’s kind of hard to relax when I think of what you all can technically do to me.”
At that, Yelena couldn’t let out a laugh. “See? This is why I need you, always with the jokes.”
“I…I wasn’t—”
“No, they don’t understand,” she finally answered, dumping the old pot of coffee in favor of making a new one. “Especially not those three pebble-brain over there. What, is there something nasty you want to say to them or something?”
Why did she sound excited about the idea?
“What? No!”
“What, I won’t judge, Kate Bishop, you can be honest, I don’t have any recording devices on me,” she defended, and it was almost like déjà vu when the former Widow paused for only a second. “Okay, I take that back. I don’t have any on me, but we do have four in this area, which is not a lie.”
“No, I have nothing bad, literally, to say about the people who saved me from living out in my shame room for all of eternity,” she stated, even if four of them were stuck as penguins at this very moment.
“Mm, was me wiping your face across the window outside the Rockefeller tree one of them?”
Kate gaped at her, horrified.
“How did you know?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help being a mind reader,” she replied smugly, and even if Kate would never say it out loud—she liked not being covered in bruises and cuts like the last time she was in a room with her—Yelena looked happier.
Brighter, one could say.
“Alright, so my mission for the day is essentially helping you…babysit penguins?”
“That and make sure I don’t accidentally kill one of them in the moment whenever they do something to piss me off,” she grumbled, and that seemed like the perfect moment for Winter Waddle to defecate on the floor, which U.S Waddler and Red Penguin stepped all over. “And help me clean before I decide to roast them on a spit.”
“Is this the part where you ask me if I ever tried penguins before?”
“What? No,” she exclaimed, offended. “What sort of horrible monster eats penguins?”
“I’m sorry, but eating reindeer is okay?!”
“For survival,” she maintained. “Do you want to eat them?!”
“What—I—you were the one who suggested roasting them on a spit!”
They both froze, staring at each other as the words had just hung in the air too long to retract.
Yelena’s brow furrowed slightly, then lifted.
“You think I would actually roast them?” she asked, tone flat but her lips twitching.
“I don’t know anymore!” Kate blurted out. “You’re standing there talking about survival diets and calling them pebble-brains, and I’m employed to stop you from cooking them, what was I supposed to think?!”
For a second, neither moved. Then Yelena snorted, quiet at first, until it broke into a laugh—short and sharp—like she hadn’t meant to let it out. It was so uncanny because Kate had never seen her laugh before, so she just gawked at her.
Kate blinked.
“Wait, are you…are you actually laughing?”
“No,” Yelena said quickly, still laughing.
“You are!”
“I am not! You are hallucinating from penguin shit fumes.”
“That’s not even—what would that—what does that mean?” Kate sputtered, unable to stop herself from cracking up, too. The sound of two people laughing filled the kitchen, cutting through the chaos of shuffling flippers and distant honking.
Even the penguins seemed to pause, like they’d stumbled into foreign territory.
However, it was in that moment that another penguin decided to pop his head into the kitchen area. For a reason she wasn’t sure why, shivers racked down her back when his beady eyes stared her down because, unlike Bucky’s stare or the others…
This one felt more menacing.
“Oh, hi, Bob,” Yelena greeted, almost like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Bob?”
“Bob,” she maintained as Bob scurried up to her, wagging his tail in delight that she was now paying attention to him. She chuckled, bending down to scratch right under his neck, and he practically tried to nuzzle into her hand. “Don’t want to join the others?”
Perhaps it was a coincidence when he shook his head.
“Oh, right, the…unofficial official sixth Avengers, right?” Kate asked.
Yelena’s shoulders squared just slightly, her expression cooling into something quiet but firm.
“He is official, I don’t care what any of those news casts say,” she defended.
“Okay, okay,” she said, holding up her hands. “No need to be defensive.”
“I was not!”
Right.
Kate couldn’t quite place a finger on it, but there was something about them that felt…different. Not just the way Yelena’s expression softened when Bob tried to preen her back, but the quiet ease between them.
Too bad she couldn’t dwell on it because shortly after that?
She wished she never picked up Yelena’s phone in the first place.
“How is it this freakin’ hard to watch a couple of penguins for a few hours?” Kate wheezed while attempting to tussle two bizarrely evasive Super-Soldiers-turned-birds beneath her arms. It doesn’t help that they’re slippery at the moment, and her ears were ringing from how loud they’re honking.
She’s entirely covered in soap suds, her entire sweater is now wet, and the whole tower floor is now blanketed in a thickening layer of snow, which was not helping the impending cold she’s going to get. However, she swore that if she needed to go back into the shower because one of them decided to go potty on her, she would end it all.
“Do you see why I need another hand?” Yelena called out just as Kate bent down to free them.
Instantly, U.S Waddler and Red Penguin were on their bellies, sliding to who knows where.
“I don’t even know if there’s a point in washing their feet if I’m being honest, if they’re just—what do you…uh, got there?” she asked, not quite believing what her eyes were projecting to her brain.
Yelena held up her large plastic bowl from where she was sitting with a throw blanket around her shoulders, mindlessly scrolling through her phone.
“Overpriced acai bowl that was supposed to be breakfast but now is lunch.”
“No, I meant that behind you.”
“Oh. Yes, that,” she turned, almost like she completely forgotten about it despite how loud the honking and thrilling were. “A leash. If you want me to be more specific than that, a guinea pig leash that I’ve turned into something more useful for the time being.”
“You’ve…leashed one of your teammates and put her in air jail?” she inquired in disbelief, staring at the Spector of the South as she seemed to have resigned to her fate of being dangled in the air.
In the corner?
Winter Waddle was staring hardcore.
“Well, I was hungry, and you were taking forever, what do you want me to do?”
Yelena took another bite of her açaí bowl, as if this were the most normal conversation in the world. The penguin hanging from the makeshift leash flapped indignantly, letting out a high-pitched, pitiful cry that echoed through the kitchen.
Kate blinked at her.
“I don’t know, maybe not hang her from the ceiling?”
“You are being dramatic,” Yelena said, scrolling her phone again. “One, I didn’t hang her; I suspended her. Two, I brought myself some time to eat breakfast, which my daddy said is the most important part of the day, and three, she can fly now. It’s symbolic.”
Lady Hawk didn’t even have the mental gymnastics to go through arguing all three points after holding down and trying to scrub two pairs of penguin feet that ended up with her becoming soaking wet, so she opted for the last only.
“Symbolic of what, exactly?” she asked.
“They said penguins want to fly but are held down by gravity and expectations. I am teaching her courage.”
“Yelena, that’s not courage, that’s animal cruelty!”
“Details, Kate Bishop. You Americans are obsessed with them,” she noted, finishing the last scoop and getting up, tucking her phone into her pockets. “Now come eat, we have some cereal if you’re interested.”
All three super penguins were now staring up at Ava in complete awe.
Or was that pity?
It doesn’t matter; it was the first time they’ve been this quiet.
“Uh, yeah. A bowl of cereal sounds good,” she said carefully, still watching the impromptu a few feet away. The more Ava thrashed in the leash, the more she found herself spinning. Yelena nodded, completely unbothered, and moved to the cabinet.
“We have only one option—Wheaties. That okay?”
What was she supposed to say, no?
“Yeah, thanks,” Kate said, though her attention never really left Ava, who was now twirling like a feathered disco ball. She was about to suggest freeing the poor bird when she felt something drape softly across her shoulders. The fabric was warm, heavy, but soft, and smelled faintly like coffee, detergent, and the vague metallic tang of someone who carried too many weapons.
Kate looked up in surprise to find Yelena setting her bowl of cereal down, but more importantly, Yelena had given her the throw blanket she was wearing.
“If you’re cold,” Yelena said offhandedly as she slid into the seat next to her, “I have some sweaters you can change into.”
“Oh,” Kate managed, blinking as her brain caught up. “Uh. Thanks. Didn’t think you were the type to share your clothes.”
“I am very hospitable,” Yelena said in mock offense. “You stay in my home, you get warmth, Wheaties, mild trauma, and maybe smelling like bird shit by the time Dr. Strange comes back for the cursed orb thingy.”
“That’s… actually a pretty accurate mission statement,” Kate said, a laugh slipping out before she could stop it. She took two bites of her cereal when she saw who she presumed to be Bob waddling up to her, unblinking eyes fixed on her.
Again.
Seriously, it wasn’t just her…right?
“Hi, Bob. Are you hungry?” Yelena mused, seeming none the wiser as she knelt to pick the penguin up and settled him right onto the kitchen countertop. Kate should mention that it was within distance of pecking her face now.
“You’re…letting him on the kitchen table?”
“Why not?” she quipped. “Unlike the other shit-for-brain, he’s quite well behaved. Hold on.”
Yelena turned and made her way back to the fridge, humming something under her breath. The sound of the refrigerator door swinging open covered the faint scrape of Bob’s webbed feet against the counter.
Kate had just enough time to glance up—
And froze.
Bob was staring at her again, not blinking or even breathing, it seemed like. The soft hum of the fridge and the faint buzz of the light blurred out around her until it was just those cold, marble eyes locking onto hers.
“Hi?” she tried, voice awkwardly high, but was met with complete silence.
He just tilted his head, slow and deliberate, like a marksman measuring trajectory.
“Okay,” she whispered under her breath. Bob took one careful step closer, chest puffed slightly, gaze unwavering. “This is fine. Totally normal. Just sharing breakfast with a possibly possessed penguin.”
Kate leaned back in her chair, spoon halfway to her mouth.
“Oh, did you want something to drink, Kate Bishop?”
“I want—uh—a weapon, maybe. No reason.”
Yelena turned just far enough to glance over her shoulder.
“He is not going to attack you, Kate Bishop. Again with the dramatics.”
“He absolutely looks like he’s calculating in taking out one of my eyes,” she whispered, still locked eye‑to‑eye with the bird, too afraid to blink first. Bob’s head tilted the other way—precisely the way Yelena does when she’s about to threaten someone.
“Okay, okay, I’m here,” she huffed, with a large tableware and a plate in hand. The second she opened it, the smell of raw fish instantly made Kate wrinkle her nose. “For your best behavior, you get the freshest and prettiest one! Very jealous, Bob.”
Placing the fish down on the plate, Kate breathed a bit easier as the penguin shuffled to the fish. He timidly and almost delicately placed the raw fish between his bill. Yet rather than swallowing it whole, he took a few steps in front of Yelena and flapped his wings.
“Does…he want to go down?” Kate asked, and Yelena lifted him up before placing him down.
Then, he laid it in front of Yelena’s boots and stared up at her, raising his wings wide.
Kate almost dropped her spoon.
“No, Bob,” Yelena chuckled. “I was joking about being jealous. This is your lunch.”
Kate couldn’t help but notice that, even though Yelena knew the penguin versions of her teammates couldn’t understand her right now, she still talked to Bob as if he could. There was something gentler in her voice when she did it, too.
Couldn’t she be imagining it…could she?
“This is nice, isn’t it?” Yelena added, crouching slightly to nudge the fish back toward him gently with her knuckle. Bob tilted his head at her from one side and then stared back down. “See? Freshest one. Come on, eat, eat, you’ll make me worry if you don’t.”
Bob instantly picked the fish back up by the beak, held it there for a moment like he was considering her words, and then, without ceremony, swallowed it whole in one gulp.
Kate blinked. “Wow. No hesitation.”
Yelena straightened, looking quietly pleased.
“That’s because it’s Bob!”
Bob gave a single, satisfied honk and puffed his chest out proudly, wobbling in place as he’d just completed an ancient ritual. And then…he stormed right up to Kate to tug off the throw blanket without any hesitation and waddled away.
Well, tried with much difficulty.
Right before either of them could react, Ava let out a brash, indignant honk from above, wings flapping like a malfunctioning helicopter before managing to slip right out of the leash’s harness. She immediately thrashed around in the pile of snow, shaking away flecks of ice and fluffing her feathers—
And then promptly tried to fight U.S. Waddler again.
“I have to say, Ava is very insistent on fighting Walker,” Kate couldn’t help commenting.
“If they don’t stop, I’m personally finding out if penguins can glide off the top floor, for research purposes. Well, I guess my break is over. Okay, break it up, you two,” Yelena scolded, marching towards them. “Since you all want to be in the pain in the ass, I’m just going to put you all in a tighter air jail.”
All four of them stared…
Before taking off in four different directions.
All except Bob…who kept giving Kate a death glare she really didn’t want to perceive.
The elevator pulled up to the floor, and as soon as it opened, all four penguins rushed out.
Neither Kate nor Yelena bothered to clean the shit on the elevator floor. At this point, it wasn’t worth fighting a biological inevitability. They just watched the birds waddle away like a tiny, unstoppable army for only a fraction of a second.
Because, of course, U.S. Waddler wanted to finish Spector of the South.
In one swift, practiced motion, Yelena snatched the leashes—which both women wrestled a furious Ava and Walker into earlier—and dragged them apart like feuding toddlers. She tied one to the nearest pole, the other a safe distance away, where both of them could glare at one another, but not enough to start round two.
Lady Hawk felt like she had aged five years in the span of a few hours from this alone.
Her fingers?
Covered in bite marks, some were shallow while others were suspiciously deep. It wasn’t infection she was worried about; it was the psychological trauma of being gnawed on by a flightless bird.
How was this more stressful than when she was trying save Clint?
“Did you know they’re Magellanic penguins?” Kate asked, glancing over at Yelena.
She frowned. “So?”
They watched as Red Penguin climbed to the very top of the table, which was now covered in a snow pile, and started screeching. “In the animal kingdom, they’re also known as jackasses of all penguins because they’re noisy and tend to get into a lot of trouble.”
“Wow, this cursed object really hit the mark about that,” she grumbled, making her way to the barstool furthest from the window, and Kate saw Bob shuffling unhurriedly behind her. “About to call us Waddlebolts soon. I’ve always wanted a day where I don’t hear them shouting, but I wasn’t anticipating this.”
Because Kate didn’t want her ankles bitten clean, she opted to sit a seat away.
“Do you think there’s a chance that Dr. Strange might not come by today to get it?” she asked, hoping it doesn’t sound too fretful. However, the thought of needing to stay here a night and waking up to being waking up to Bob standing on her chest with a knife in his flipper.
Impossible, since she knew penguins shouldn’t even have fingers, but something about Bob’s stare convinced her evolution might make an exception out of spite. Hence why she decided that she would really, really, really prefer if Dr. Strange came and fixed all this by the end of today.
Which was getting a bit more concerning since it was now seven o’clock.
Yelena whipped her head to her in dread.
“Kate Bishop, are you trying to curse me? It’s been the longest seven hours of my life! Aside from Bob over here—” She gestured to Bob, who wiggled his tail and started flapping his wings rapidly. “Everyone was a nuisance! I think this place is going to smell like shit forever because of how long they went poo!”
Yeah, that was true.
As it turns out, penguins poop about 145 times a day—once every 20 minutes.
Kate had long since changed out of her soaked clothing and jacket, wholly given up on trying to clean wherever they decided to do their business. The tower, even with the windows opened, smelled like a harbor at low tide, and she’s resided to reeking like ammonia for the rest of her days.
Shortly after rounding up the Waddlebolts two hours earlier, they decided to take them swimming in the pool on the lower deck in hopes of tiring them out to sleep like what Kate does with Lucky…
Only to realize penguins spend 11 hours sleeping per day, achieved through more than 10,000 "microsleeps" that last only about four seconds each.
Neither of them wanted to talk about how, after an hour and a half, both women tried to wrangle them out so they could eat, since they had to eat almost two pounds a day, which was a battle in itself.
Lastly, all the penguins?
A literal embodiment of the person they were, amplified tenfold now that they don’t have any self-restraint. Winter Waddle loved to disappear, and Spector of the South couldn’t stop trying to tussle with U.S Waddler every time they were a foot from each other, and Red Penguin was squawking so loud that Kate was about to join Clint in getting a hearing aid.
The only one she couldn’t complain about was Bob.
Well, except for his freaky stare and how, compared to the other, Bob didn’t seem to care about trying to join the colony.
“Oh my God, I’m going to die smelling of penguin shit,” Yelena deadpanned, getting up to throw herself on the only couch that somehow wasn’t covered in a ridiculous amount of snow or excrement, resting her elbow on her knees. “If Dr. Strange never comes and I don’t call him, do you think people can tell if we just put them in a costume and gaslight everyone into thinking that’s how they always looked?”
“Uh…probably not?” she meekly answered. “I mean…m-maybe Red Guardian?”
On cue, Red Waddle lets out a mighty trill and immediately takes off sliding on his stomach across the iced floor and crashes right into the TV stand. Yelena grunted loudly before promptly burying her head in her hands.
“Why the hell is this happening to me?” she grumbled, and for a second, Kate considered saying something—a joke, a pep talk, anything—but every option sounded like it would either get her hit or make Yelena groan louder.
“Hey,” she tried finally, soft but not quite steady. “At least you smell… memorable?”
Yelena didn’t lift her head, but her muffled voice came through her palms.
“You’re not helping,” she shot, not even bothering to look up at her.
“Yeah, that’s fair,” she retorted, eyes flicking toward Walker and Ava, now pecking at their leashes to try getting out. She had doubts that as soon as they’re free, they’d go right back in trying to fight one another again.
Then something small, gradually shuffling towards them, caught her eye.
Kate watched curiously and almost in fascination as the tiniest yet fluffy penguin out of the entire group—even after the entire day with them, she’s only 80% sure it’s Bob, but honestly had no idea how Yelena was able to tell them alone when they all looked the same—came waddling up to the former Black Widow.
He stared up at her with those tiny beady eyes…
Right before dropping something round besides her feet.
Yelena lifted her head to stare at Kate for a moment, thinking it was her. Then, she furrowed her brow and stared at Bob before the rock beside her feet. He promptly opened his wings and nudged the rock toward her boots like he was presenting her with treasure.
“Oh, thank you for the gift, Bob,” she said, picking it up and offering a smile which made Bob wiggling his tail contentedly.
“Huh.”
“What?” she asked, arching a brow at Kate.
“Well, it’s just that Bob bought you a gift,” she drawled out, getting up from where she was and making a conscious effort to still take a seat a few feet away. “Not just any gift but…well…a pebble.”
“What? Did you want it or something?” she asked, holding it out to her.
It was then that Bob, who was usually the quietest and shyest of all the penguins, squawked and trilled loudly at the idea, as if he understood it. He frantically flapped his small wings while running as fast as he could to try pecking Kate’s feet.
“No,” she yelped, quickly dragging her feet up before he could maul her ankle clean off with that peck. “No, it’s…well, penguins usually give the shiniest and smoothest looking pebble they could find as a declaration.”
“Declaration?” she echoed, her entire face scrunching. “For what?”
“Uh, love?”
“Love?”
“What, you don’t want animal documentaries in your free time?” she chuckled.
Then quickly sobered up by Yelena’s blank expression, “Kate Bishop, I am literally being worked to my early grave because of Val, and trying to keep one of my teammates from killing the other and vice versa in their human forms. Do you think I have free time?”
“Right,” she said, clearing her throat and refocusing her attention on Bob who was still staring at Yelena as if she held as if she held the last fish left on Earth. “Well… male penguins basically propose by offering a rock they think is special enough. It’s like nature’s version of an engagement ring.”
Yelena couldn’t help her eyes from flickering over to Bob. He was still there, head tilted up, feathers puffed in proud anticipation like a tiny tuxedoed suitor waiting for an answer. Her fingers closed unconsciously around the pebble, squeezing it just a little tighter.
Kate caught the way her jaw softened for the briefest second before she quickly masked it with another sigh. She reached down and ran a hand down Bob’s fuzzy head, his soft down warm and impossibly plush under her fingers.
“You still can’t resist trying to make me smile, can you?” she murmured to him with a grin. Bob squawked and flapped his wings in what could only be described as confidence before turning to totter off from wherever he even got that rock in the first place.
Only when it looked like Bob couldn’t suddenly turn back around and try biting the young Hawkeye in the making, did she lean forward, grinning smugly at Yelena. “So…how long has this been going on?”
“How long since what’s been going on?” she said, her tone clipped, defensive, and way too fast.
“Really, Yelena? Really?”
“What?”
“You accepted his rock,” she exclaimed. “That’s basically a penguin engagement ring!”
“Please, do I strike you as someone who dates penguins, Kate Bishop?”
Kate is close to scooping the snow into a ball and hurling it at her friend.
“You know what I mean!”
“Nope, I don’t,” she stubbornly held onto.
“Fine, then I can have the rock?”
Yelena didn’t even hesitate. “What? No way, get your own!”
“Why not?” Kate challenged, a grin tugging at her lips.
“Because,” she said evenly, slipping the tiny pocket right where her heart would be, “It was given to me with purpose and effort. It’s going to hurt Bob’s feelings if he ever finds out that I gave it away!”
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” she laughed.
It seemed she had something to update Clint about after all.
He would never admit it, but Kate knew he had always worried about Yelena.
After everything that happened in New York, he never said much about it, but she’d caught it once. The way his voice softened when her name came up in passing, or the way he smiled when he thought no one was looking, when he saw that she was now the leader of the New Avengers.
Yelena was family.
She was the unfinished promise Natasha left behind, and the last person Clint Barton would ever let himself fail. So Kate knew telling Clint that Yelena had really found her own family and even love; maybe that was enough to take one thing off his plate.
“So, according to your documentary, what do you think he’s going to do now?”
Kate snapped out of her daze and saw her staring as Bob waddled away to the open rooftop with determined little steps. The woman only hummed for a moment and then shrugged. “Probably going to build a nest, I think.”
Yelena turned toward her, eyebrows pulling together.
“A nest?”
“Yeah,” Kate said, trying not to grin.
She didn’t know why it had taken her so long to realize that the reason Bob had been such a menace all day wasn’t that she was secretly a terrible person and he’d somehow sensed it—though, admittedly, she had entertained the idea.
No, this penguin had been a menace because he was in love. Everything from the glaring to the flapping to the slightly homicidal pecking attempts was a sign of devotion. Aggressive, confusing, slightly traumatizing devotion.
“A nest for what?” Yelena asked, brows knitting together.
“For your… child? I mean, in the wild, they usually build them together, but I guess he doesn’t want his mate to do all the heavy lifting,” she answered.
Yelena blinked slowly, like her brain needed time to buffer the words that had just come out of Kate’s mouth. “My what?”
“Your child, your baby penguin, your—” She gestured vaguely toward Bob, who was now hopping back in with another rock to start building. “Uh…future egg-brood or whatever. It’s kind of sweet. I bet if you post about it, it’s going to go like, super viral.”
“Haha, very funny,” she remarked, deadpanned.
Sure enough, they see Bob making his way up the ramp, leading in and pushing in a few rocks.
"Do you want to go join him in building a nest?” Kate teased. “I don’t mind—”
“Kate Bishop,” Yelena warned, her voice rising a notch, “you are pushing your luck.”
Kate fought to keep a straight face but was failing miserably in seeing her friend’s face this flushed. “Hey, you asked first! I’m just saying that you can’t argue with maternal instinct and... whatever the penguin version of husband energy is.”
“Penguin husband energy?” Yelena repeated, exhaling through her nose. “Please stop talking.”
“Fine, fine,” she said, biting back laughter.
And it was then that both women realized it was peaceful… a little too quiet.
They quickly shot up, and sure enough, the harness was missing two penguins; Red Penguin had gone too quiet, and even Winter Waddle was nowhere in sight. Yelena hastily began looking around the floor, livid.
“Where did those little shits waddle off to now?!”
“Ms. Belova, I cannot thank you—what the hell happened here?”
Kate didn’t know what reaction she’d expected from Dr. Strange.
Okay, maybe a bit of puzzlement and revulsion, but certainly didn’t expect him to recoil visibly.
His gaze swept over the chaos: snow mounded like bad holiday decor, bite‑marked furniture, stains everywhere, and four very smug-looking penguins honking and trilling happily. And one was currently still pushing rocks into a nest with the center being Yelena’s throw blanket.
“Walker touched the cursed object you left with us,” Yelena said flatly, as if that explained everything and also why she looked like she’d lost a fight with a car wash. “However, I got it all under control until you arrived.”
“Right,” Dr. Strange replied slowly, taking a hefty amount of leashes hanging with no penguins inside, the improvised ‘air jail’ hooks on the ceiling, the lingering stench, and the rock nest slowly forming near the open terrace door. “This is…what you consider ‘under control’?”
“Yes,” Yelena said with a stern nod, utterly unbothered by her surroundings. “No one died. The building still stands. Only minor psychological damage.” She jerked her thumb at Kate. “Mostly to her.”
“Yeah, I’ll, uh, never be able to watch Happy Feet again,” Kate muttered.
The Sorcerer Supreme exhaled through his nose like a man aged fifty years in ten seconds.
“Fine,” he sighed, rolling his shoulders and lifting his hands. “Everyone, stand back.”
Yelena nudged Kate toward the far side of the room, but Bob refused to budge, still standing guard between her boots like a fluffy little soldier.
A circle of golden sparks bloomed into existence around the cursed orb as the powerful sorcerer muttered under his breath. The air shifted, a spark of glowing blue light flaring brighter with each word he murmured before the light broke apart, washing over the room in a wave.
For a heartbeat, everything went white.
Then the honking stopped.
When Kate blinked her eyes clear, the penguins were gone.
In their place, sprawled in varying degrees of undignified positions across the snow‑slick floor, were four very confused Avengers who happened to also thankfully be dressed. Walker groaned, clutching his head as he blearily blinked his eyes.
“Shit, why do my knees hurt?” he groaned, smacking his lips. “And why am I craving sushi?”
Ava was next, rubbing her temples in dismay.
“Speak for yourself, I’m aching everywhere and ready for a forty-eight-hour sleep.”
Alexei popped up on his feet like nothing had happened, hands on his hips.
“Speak for yourself, I’ve never felt more energized,” he exclaimed, leading to the others groaning at his piercing, loud, booming voice. Bucky looked down at himself, then at his metal arm, flexing his fingers experimentally before looking over at everyone, before settling onto Dr. Strange, who didn’t look all that impressed.
“Do I want to know?” Bucky asked.
“It depends, but that’s something you’d be asking your coleader. As for me, I’m leaving this cleanup to you,” Dr. Strange announced as the cursed orb vanished into another ring of sparks. He gave Yelena a look that landed somewhere between grudging respect and resigned horror. “Ms. Belova… I cannot say this was the outcome I anticipated. But you did keep your team alive without much trouble. The Sanctum…appreciates that.”
Which, in Dr. Strange’s world, was basically a medal and a fruit basket.
“No worries, you could always count on us,” Yelena declared, giving two thumbs up. The sorcerer opened his mouth, seeming to change his mind when he closed it. He shook his head before using his hand to open a sparking gold gateway and walking right inside. Only then did Yelena turn to the four of them. “Start cleaning. Now.”
“What? Why the hell should it be us and not a hired cleaner on Val’s dime?” Walker barked.
“Because,” Yelena said flatly, “you started it.”
“I didn’t know it was cursed!”
“Yes, and yet you decided to poke it anyway,” she shot back, crossing her arms. “Congratulations, you passed the scientific method for idiots.”
“You know,” Ava muttered while she looked around, seeming not to know where to even start. She gestured at the disaster around them. “As far as team-building exercises go, cleaning this is going to really sucked.”
“You’re welcome,” Yelena said. “Now start before I reconsider turning you back into penguins.”
“Even me, Lena?” Alexei wailed.
“Especially you,” she growled, pointing a finger at her father, whose entire shoulder slumped in dismay. “And no talking for an hour, I can still hear you squawking. Bucky, you’re going to be in charge.”
“Figured as much,” he mumbled, and the four of them got to work on getting cleaning supplies.
“Well, I guess my job is done,” Kate said, rubbing at one of the shallower bite marks on her wrist. “I’m going to go home, burn my skin off with hot water, throw away my clothes, and pretend this was a weird fever dream.”
“Coward,” Yelena hummed, but there was no real bite to it.
“Survivalist,” Kate corrected, then glanced back to the very person standing behind Yelena. She could instantly sense the former Widow’s intervention, but before she could, she instantly extended her hand. “You must be Bob! I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Oh my God,” Yelena groaned, horrified.
She turned, quickly trying to push him away, but he only chuckled before taking Kate’s hand.
“Uh…it’s nice to m‑meet you,” he stammered, and Kate would have never thought that this was the same man who, mere hours ago, was a biting, honking menace. To think he was the man who had stolen Yelena’s heart.
Kate sized him up and down, and he was just a broad-shouldered man with messy hair, flushed cheeks, and this shy, uncertain smile that felt disarmingly human. Yelena huffed, still mid‑attempt to shove him back toward the others, but failing.
“Yes, yes, Kate Bishop, Bob. Bob, this is Kate Bishop,” she said, and Kate grinned when she saw her friend’s face starting to flush. Bob laughed and wrapped his arms around her, not budging in the slightest. “While I would ask you to stay, we really have a lot to do unless you want to stick around and help clean and scrub the entire floor, then I don’t mind—”
“Oh, look at that,” Kate quickly interjected. “Do you hear that? The elevator is here!”
She quickly grabbed her items on her way out, and Bob called, “It was nice to meet you!”
“We should meet sometime to exchange stories about Yelena,” Kate called over her shoulder, half‑turned in the elevator doorway. The dread on the ex-assassin’s face almost made her burst out laughing.
“No, no, no,” Yelena cut in immediately. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Bob said, hiding a grin as his arm snuck around Yelena’s waist, keeping her perfectly in place when she looked ready to catch up with Kate and possibly get into a physical altercation. “I’d love that.”
“You see?” Kate said brightly, smirking. “He’s perfect for you.”
Yelena glared daggers at her. “Go away!”
“You admit it then, when you didn’t correct me that he’s your penguin husband!” Kate crowed, laughing as the elevator doors began to close.
“Kate Bishop!” Yelena shouted after her, but it was too late.
The doors shut with a cheerful ding, leaving her standing there, half yelling at steel. A quiet chuckle drew her attention back. Bob was watching her with that same soft, crooked smile: an infuriatingly gentle expression that melted through her glare before she could stop it.
“She’s funny,” he said, voice warm.
“She’s annoying,” Yelena corrected.
The tower finally, blessedly, fell quiet.
For the first time that day, the silence wasn’t ominous.
Just…peaceful.
Snow still drifted lazily in from the open terrace doors, the evening light painting the frost in soft gold and pink. The air no longer smelled like a crime against plumbing—just cold, clean winter air and a faint whiff of disinfectant.
Yelena let out a long breath, shoulders dropping as the adrenaline finally bled out.
“I’m guessing today’s been a wild day,” he mused. “Want to explain what happened here?”
“Oh, just needing to let the blizzard in to ensure you five wouldn’t overheat, no biggie,” Yelena said dryly, waving a hand like the day hadn’t been an inch from absurd. “You know, normal everyday hero stuff.”
“Yeah, very normal stuff,” Bob said with a half‑smile, surveying the scattered snow, the broken TV stand, and the faint outline of a pebble‑built ‘nest’ near the terrace doors that catches his attention. “Was…one of us building a nest?”
Of course, that’s what he would catch onto.
She pressed her tongue to her teeth, debating for a moment, but in the end, exhaustion won out. Besides, with Bob, lying never felt right. He deserved honesty, no matter how painfully awkward it sounded.
“Mm, yes. You did.”
He whipped his head towards her, eyes widening. “M-me?”
“Mhm,” she nodded and slowly reached into her chest pocket to fish out the small, round pebble. “You even proposed to me and everything, Kate had to explain that to me. It was quite cute.”
For a beat, Bob just blinked at her, the tips of his ears turning a bright, unmistakable pink.
“I—uh—what? Proposed?”
“Mhm,” she said, fighting a smirk as she held the pebble up between her fingers, letting it glint faintly in the soft light. “With this very rock. A very shiny pebble, I might add. You put in a lot of effort into finding one, apparently.”
“Oh my God,” he groaned as his face flushed deeper. He tried to pull away, but this time Yelena used her other hand to keep their bodies close. If she wasn’t allowed out before, when Kate was teasing her with him, she wasn’t letting him go either. “That’s—wow. I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“You don’t have to,” she teased, leaning slightly closer. “I already accepted.”
His head snapped up, blue eyes wide.
“Wait—you what?”
“Well, I couldn’t just reject a penguin’s heartfelt gift,” she said with exaggerated innocence, slipping the pebble back into her pocket—right over her heart again. “It would’ve been very rude…even if my boyfriend didn’t know he was already stuck with me.”
For a moment, the silence that followed was comfortable again—warm, even. Snow twirled lazily in from the terrace, catching in her hair, and he reached out on instinct to brush a flake from her shoulder.
“You’re trouble,” he said quietly, still smiling.
“You proposed to trouble,” she shot back without missing a beat.
And this time, when Bob laughed at her statement, it was so full and careful that Yelena couldn’t help but tug him down for a kiss. Out of all the cursed, absurd, possibly unhinged ways for a day to go wrong…
She didn’t really mind this ending.
Not when there was a pebble over her heart.
And her ridiculous, pebble‑offering Bob at her side.
Commission by: pandamimi9021 on X/Twitter.