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The feeling of surprise and knowing Yelena, as it turns out, come as a package deal. After everything with her mom, Kate doesn’t appreciate it, exactly — she would almost say she endures it, except Yelena’s precipitous and out-of-nowhere appearance rarely brings the same kind of constriction around her chest, and it never realigns Kate’s worldview for the worse. It’s rather peaceful, all in all.
She walks into her apartment to find Yelena there more than once. Soon after that Christmas day, too, washed in bright sunlight.
“Kate Bishop! You still have no forks! I’m passing by,” she says, offering no further explanation and laughing at Kate’s momentarily-stunned face. “Is the Christmas market at Union Square still there? You take me?”
“For your second time in New York?” asks Kate, who is not planning on buying more cutlery or on being a tour guide, attempting to find the threads of the conversation.
“Yes, yes. I can pay,” says Yelena, like the shock is coming from minute financial splitting and not the erosion Kate’s psyche has had to face lately. She can’t even say she brought this on herself!
Okay, she can, maybe a little bit.
She becomes a tour guide for the day.
It’s not only that; Yelena appears when Kate is away from the city, too. She comes when she and Clint are halfway up some mountain, too many vertical feet up for anyone without the superhuman ability to fly. Reaching through cracks and onto ledges, and, mostly, hoping, for the terrain and them both. She lost him hours ago.
Heroing is good, Kate reminds herself. Heroing is great. It is remarkable that Kate’s bones don’t yield with how many falls she’s had to endure, chasing these people. A big spot of rock, the seasonal delight and hurdle that is snow impeding both her sight and her every move. No off days for superheroes! Kate repeats, blinking when snowflakes settle on her lashes again and again, putting one foot in front of the other again and again. Either the air is starting to become thin, or she’s tiring herself out.
Yelena says, “Need a hand?”
There’s no waiting for Kate’s answer; she lends a hand, moving through icy layers like no calamitous consequence could befall her. For the record, Kate’s answer would’ve been a question: ‘How did you find me?’
Kate repays her debt a few months later, when the wind is warm. Once again, she walks in, and gets jumpscared by Yelena sitting on her couch, less poised and bloodier than the few other times this scene played out. Still, her voice is cheery when she calls out.
“Perfect timing, Kate Bishop. Could I have your disinfectant?”
Kate stammers, and then doesn’t. She gets the disinfectant. Unlike what she expects, there are no hissed swear words, in neither English nor Russian, as she applies it.
“Scary vigilante-ing isn’t going so well all the time, is it?”
“Obstacles,” Yelena says, huffing.
Kate hums in response. “Will you just keep sitting here? No? Yes? Yes.” She nods when Yelena raises both eyebrows and makes herself comfortable, Kate on the floor right next to her, laying her head by Yelena’s elbow, as if to accesorise her. The sharp smell of the antiseptic aside, it’s quite comfortable like this; she picks up her earphones, hands one bud over, watches it be accepted.
“Since you’re here, let me know your opinion on my taste,” she tells Yelena, and presses play.