They'd hooked Peter's mask up to his laptop so they could all watch the drone's feed in the background that afternoon as they continued to sort through their Lego. Katya, who was usually so enthralled by the plastic bricks, was clearly distracted, obsessively glancing between her tracker and the feed whilst also trying to keep up with the movie they were watching, which Peter and Ned- well, mostly Ned- helped by essentially narrating what was going on, with added commentary
"So now that all the trade's been cut off to Naboo-"
"-Naboo the planet." Katya confirmed, her eyes firmly studying Peter's laptop instead of the movie.
"-Yes, Naboo the planet-" Ned continued, but Peter tuned him out. Not only because he knew the story and had watched it with Ned enough times to know his opinions on each detail better than the back of his hand, but because he, too, was distracted- not as much by the surveillance, which he did glance at every now and then, but at Katya's obvious distress. Just looking at her emanated waves of the unsaid, but he knew he couldn't have an actual conversation with Ned there, so he tried his best to focus on his own Lego pile, which was coming together nicely, and brainstorm both ways to calm her down and, he realized, he had to start working on a plan of how to ask her officially to Snowball. Peter shifted his knee so that it was touching hers- in terms of calming her down, that had at least seemed to work a little bit, as her shoulders dropped slightly.
Did he really have to actually ask her, though? As in, make a big deal of it? As he'd realized earlier at lunch, he had already technically asked her and she had already technically accepted. Making things a big deal just wasn't their …style. Peter wanted it to be special, but he didn't just want to go through pre-ordained motions…that was his favorite part about their relationship. He didn't have to try to pretend to be anything he wasn't.
Suddenly Katya leapt to her feet, quicker than Peter could almost register she'd moved. "No-!"
The three of them jumped at the sound of a gunshot through laptop speakers- but it wasn't any of the spaceships from The Phantom Menace. It had come through Peter's computer speakers,the screen flickering wildly and, after a second one, the feed went entirely black.
Katya practically dove back down to grab the tracker, her eyes scanning the screen for any hint of change in information, but there was none. Just the blinking red dot in the translucent outline of her apartment building. "Blyat."
Peter assumed that meant something along the lines of 'shit' or 'fuck', because that's exactly what he was thinking. He ran over to his laptop and unplugged his mask, pulling it on. "Karen, what just happened?"
"It appears the drone has been disabled by the third party it has been following."
"Is it completely destroyed? Can it be fixed?"
"It appears the third party has begun to dismantle the drone."
Peter froze. "No, no, no-" he turned to Katya, "Karen says she's taking the drone apart. Do you think she'll be able to recognize Stark Industry tech?"
Katya shook her head. "I have no idea. I don't even know how good she is with technology- we're all mostly trained the same, but we've got specialties, but there's nothing about that on her file."
"Hey, Karen, is there any sort of self destruct on that thing?"
"Would you like to commence Drone Self Destruct?"
"Yes! Erm, please. Commence Self Destruct." Peter sighed in relief. "Karen says the drone can self destruct-"
"-So you ordered her to," Katya finished for him, nodding, and scribbling furiously in the notebook she'd been keeping her log in. "Honestly not sure if that's a good idea or a bad one, but it's done now. At least now she has nothing to pick apart"
"So wait-" Ned interrupted, and both Peter and Katya whirled towards him. "If she blew up your drone, what's that thing tracking?"
"Her." Katya said impatiently. She must have realized he didn't know what she meant because after a moment she expounded, "She has a tracker embedded in her leg. We all do- or, did. I cut mine out."
"You cut something out of your leg?"
"Yeah, a while ago-" before either Ned or Peter could register what she was doing, she'd unbuttoned her jeans and pulled the waistband down just far enough on one side that you could see a nasty, hacked scar on her outer upper thigh. "-Just to be safe."
It took Peter a second to shove down the distraction of having just seen her panties- green, with yellow polka dots and a yellow lace trim- and focus on the nasty scar, which must have hurt.
"What I'm more worried about is that this is going to bury her further- like she'll try to hide-, but there's no one left to give her orders to alter mission course .Dreykov's dead and she doesn't know that." Katya's face was twisted in pained sympathy for the woman as she re-buttoned her pants, which stung Peter's chest in turn. Katya slapped the tracker back on her wrist and started throwing her things in her school bag. "I'm sorry guys, I gotta go-"
Peter grabbed her wrist. "Are you kidding? She just found a drone in her apartment, she's going to have her guard up. If anything now we need to give her more time, until she lets it down again." Peter slid his hand down from her wrist to her hand and gave it a squeeze. "We still have her tracker, and we'll find her if anything changes," he continued, his voice soft. He squeezed Katya's hand again. "Please."
Katya froze in place, her eyes betraying the hundreds of thoughts that were flying through her head. After a moment, she set her bag back down. "You're right," she said, almost reluctantly. Her eyes were growing red, and she swiped at them with her sleeve, setting her jaw. "I just feel bad."
Peter didn't let go of her hand but sat back down slowly into his place between the lego piles, wordlessly urging her to do the same. When she did, he brought her into a hug. "I know. I know you do. But it's going to work out, and she'll be free before you know it."
Katya took a deep, shuddering breath, and it was a moment more before she pulled away, nodding, her eyes still red, but dry.
"You know what helps get your mind off problems on the earthly plane?" Ned piped up from his own place in the sea of Legos, leaning over towards his laptop. He pressed the spacebar to unpause the movie. "Intergalactic war criminals."