Chapter Text
—
Oh my, my, my maniac
My skipping stone, I'm tryna catch
I can't sleep, can't eat, can't breathe
My beating heart just can't relax
Leave me like a boomerang
I know you're coming back
—
—
Clint’s office is small, cluttered, and disorganized.
It’s not a good fit for six people, especially not the six specific people currently trying to fit. Behind his desk, Clint leans back in his worn, leather chair, his feet kicked up on the table in front of him. He’s spinning a quarter on the tip of his finger without any apparent effort, which — from the corner of the room, leaning casually against a bookshelf filled with everything under the sun, other than books — Riri watches with slightly narrowed eyes. She’s also (somewhat unsurprisingly) the first to speak, breaking the silence that’d reigned since Clint had called the whole band in and told them that he had ‘Good News and Bad News’ and then fell into one of the dramatic pauses that he was prone to.
“Are you seriously gonna make us wait?”
“Mr. Barton?” Kamala asks, from the only other chair available, a rickety thing that Kate knows better than to sit in the way Kamala’s sitting in it now: leaning forward so far that the back legs are slightly lifted. With a gentle tug on the backrest, Kate returns all four legs of the chair to the ground; Kamala doesn’t appear to notice. “Can we get the good news first?”
“Or we could do bad news first,” Cassie offers, because she likes to be contrary, but mostly when Clint or her dad were around. “I read somewhere that’s better for the people getting the news.”
“Yeah, I vote bad news,” Billy chimes in, lifting a single finger, the nail painted black.
“Then I vote good news,” Riri returns, “just to counter the doom and gloom crew over there.”
Everyone looks at Kate, who chews on the inside of her cheek in thought, but only for one second of it.
“Good news first,” she declares, with enough confidence that Cassie only rolls her eyes (but doesn’t complain).
“That kind of ruins the whole bit I was going to do, but fine.” Clint sighs (dramatic, again), but Kate catches the grin hiding within, and that’s when — somehow — she knows. “The good news is: you’re playing at Doomsday.”
Kamala falls out of her chair, despite Kate’s precautions. Riri whoops loudly, running in to scoop her up off the floor, while Cassie grabs Billy in a tackling sort of embrace. Both sides of the room collide within seconds, forming a mass of bodies that might be called a hug, Kate caught in the middle, her grin pulling at her cheeks.
“The bad news is that I’m having a tough time finding semi-decent lodgings for next weekend — dot, dot, dot — when you play at Doomsday. See how it would have worked better if you’d done bad news first?”
No one pays any attention to Clint, but he doesn’t seem to mind. There’s a genuine smile on his stupidly square face, and Kate feels a burst of fondness for her manager (slash friend). They’d been working toward something like this for a while now — she and him, specifically, even before all the others had joined in — and she knows the whole thing actually matters to him too. Despite what Cassie sometimes said (but didn't actually mean) whenever she felt like they were “wasting their time” with a "washed up pop star" who was "all-but blacklisted from the industry", as though she had any room to talk, given her family: musically inclined, but terribly complicated.
“You’re going to need a tight set. Really tight. You’re on late in the day, which isn’t ideal, because you'll be playing at the same time as the main headliners, but at least it's the second day. And sure, that isn’t as good as the first day in this particular case, but it’s better than the third, and — no one is listening to me.”
Kate is listening, but only barely. It’s hard to cut through the noise of her bandmates and also her own heavily pounding heart because finally, finally they were going to get a shot at this. And it was going to be amazing; no matter what time, no matter what day, no matter who else might be playing at the same time, they were still, definitely, 100% going to play at Doomsday. She calls forth the memory of their last gig (the thrum of the crowd, the steady vibration of the beat at the base of her skull, the sweat sticking her hair to her temples) and imagines multiplying the feeling by ten, by twenty, by a hundred. Kamala is asking her a series of rapid-fire questions (or maybe just a string of general comments?) about plane tickets and dates and her mom needing to fly Delta because of her points, but Kate has a hard time dragging herself back down to Earth to answer coherently.
“Okay, alright!” Clint calls, adding a layer of gruffness that literally no one buys. “If this is how it’s going to be for a while, then get lost. I need to find you some rooms, so everyone get out of here. Except Kate. I need to talk to you for a second.”
Which is weird, but Clint is often weird.
Also, Kate is (obviously) his favorite, except for whenever he and Billy broke out into some kind of freaky mind meld about harmonic implications, or whatever. Or when Kamala brought him a container of biryani, which he was (justifiably) obsessed with. But the rest of the time, Kate is pretty consistently his favorite, so she’s not especially worried about being asked to stay behind, and is still grinning after the others filter out, each of them leaving behind a promise to wait for her outside.
“Well, well, well,” she says, smug, and Clint makes a sound that Kate would — if being particularly whimsical — assign to tectonic plates, settling in. “What was that you were saying the other day or month or year about our chances of being able to play at Doomsday? It was something that reminded me how old you are. A snowball’s chance in hell?”
“You’re not funny,” Clint sighs, obviously lying. “And look, this was lucky. And also, uh— that's actually why I wanted you to stick around for a second."
His shoulders tighten; Kate notices because he's wearing one of those hilariously tight shirts that Laura liked to buy for him.
"I thought — actually, it was Laura who thought, but — uh, we thought that you should know that the reason you guys got the slot that freed up was because another band put your name forward. Well, specifically, one member of a band, who is apparently owed a favor by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine — she’s the head of O.X.E, they’ve run the festival for the past few years — so, as you can imagine, she's not a person who cashes out on favors very often, but — "
“Okay,” Kate cuts in, a strange reversal of their typical dynamic. “Jeez, Clint, spit it out already.”
Clint’s mouth pinches in a way that only ever happens on rare occasion, and only when he’s experiencing genuine discomfort. And for Clint, discomfort always had one of three sources: the supergroup sensation he'd once been a part of, his former(?) best friend and former bassist of said supergroup sensation, or anything at all to do with someone younger than him having sex. The second one is pretty off-limits, but the first or third are normally pretty funny — Cassie has even taken to trying to draw out this particular expression on purpose — but, now, Kate only feels her stomach swoop unpleasantly, because she realizes that, in this instance, it might be a particularly potent combination of all three.
“It was Yelena,” he says simply, leaving the rest unsaid.
And when it comes to Yelena, this leaves a lot unsaid.
“Oh, okay,” Kate says, her bravado not even a little convincing, given how her voice cracks mid-word, not unlike a teenage boy. “That’s cool.”
“Really.” Clint does not phrase this as a question, maybe because he doesn’t want any kind of answer. Rarely has Kate seen him look more uncomfortable, and she wishes she could enjoy it. Or at least take a picture for the rest of the band to enjoy. “Well. Okay. If you’re sure. It’s not like you have to see her. If you don’t want to see her. Unless you do want to see her. Not that it’s my business. At all.”
“You’re making such a big deal out of this, and it seriously isn’t one,” Kate lies, blatantly. “I haven’t seen her in like, two years. Two and half years.”
895 days, actually. Not that Kate was pathetic enough to count purposefully. She just had a very fine, extremely innate sense of time, like some kind of human metronome. It meant she was always on time, had a fantastic sense of rhythm, and remembered exactly how many days ago she woke up to find that Yelena had skipped town after rocking Kate’s entire fucking world the night before.
So. Ancient history, and whatnot.
Neither here nor there.
Never mind that Kate had written a song or two or twelve about it.
“Alright,” Clint says, unconvinced, but unwilling to push. “Just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“Sure! Yeah! Thanks! But you should focus on getting us a hotel room that isn’t a piece of shit. Which, actually, kind of feels like a job for Laura at this point. Admit defeat and bring out the big guns, and whatnot.” She backs out of the office, nearly colliding with the shelf containing — but not really displaying, given the rest of the crap crammed in there — Clint’s fifty billion Grammys. “Let me know when you figure it out and don’t worry about me! I’m good! It’s all totally fine.”
—
It’s definitely not totally fine.
Obviously.
Throughout the craziness that follows — celebrating, heading back to the apartment, more celebrating, trying to figure out what the hell they’re going to play, giving up and breaking out the beers, further celebrating but with Kamala's entire family via video call — Kate finds that around 10 - 25% of her brain is preoccupied by this extra nugget of information that probably shouldn’t matter at all, especially in the face of Dreams Coming True. Which would be fine — something totally, easily, absolutely handled — except that this percentage loss is definitely noticed by everyone present, especially Cassie and Riri, who exchange about twenty different types of significant looks before Cassie finally says something, about halfway through attempt number two of figuring out their setlist.
“You’re being weird,” she says, as blunt as always. “Why are you being weird?”
“Who’s being weird?” Kate asks, super blasé. “I’m not being weird.”
“You haven’t said anything for ten minutes,” Riri supplies, as though this is evidence enough (and it is).
“Not even when Billy said we shouldn’t play the sex song,” Cassie adds.
“I didn’t say we shouldn’t play the sex song! I asked if we should play it if we only have 30 minutes.”
“You normally say something when Billy complains about playing the sex song,” Kamala informs her, leaning in to impart this knowledge quietly, as though doing so will help with Billy’s growing pout.
“We could replace it with our Thunderbolts* cover! That’s all I was saying.” He sighs, long and dramatic. “They’re going to be there, right? It might draw in some of their fans.”
“We can’t play that!” Kate says, too fast and too panicked, and everyone — for the first time since they’d gotten the news in the first place — falls silent. In the face of so many stares, she hurries to correct herself (but knows it's far too late). “It’s… lame. To play a cover at a festival.”
Not that Kate normally cared about seeming lame. Making the cover in the first place had been labeled as such by Billy (also: ‘boring’ and ‘trite’) when they’d first done it, but Kate hadn’t really been thinking about anything other than the song itself: an absolute banger that’d shot up to the top of the charts and turned the Thunderbolts* into a household name pretty much overnight. It’d also completely wrecked Kate’s sleep schedule for no less than three days while she poured over the lyrics and memorized the drum line (despite this being firmly Cassie’s territory) and tried to convince herself that the overwhelming feeling of abject loneliness and regret pouring from both had absolutely nothing to do with her.
“Oh,” Cassie says, shortly, mouth pressing into a thin line.
“Oh, shit,” Riri adds, much more delighted.
“What?” Kamala asks, looking around and receiving only a shrug from Billy. “What’s the oh?”
"It's like ra-ee-ain on your wedding day,” Riri sings, cryptic in a way that would almost definitely only make things worse.
Before either she or Cassie (barely silent confidants up until now) can spill further, Kate jumps in, aiming for casual.
“It's nothing. I just know someone — used to know someone — from Thunderbolts*. And that's how we got into Doomsday. They put in a good word, or something. So I’m thinking ripping one of their songs without permission wouldn’t be a great way to thank them.”
“Yelena Belova is the reason we got a spot in the festival?” Cassie asks, some of her annoyance clearing to make room for genuine surprise.
“You know Yelena Belova?” Kamala asks, right after. “How could you not tell me this?”
“Yeah, she knows her, all right,” Riri drawls. “Y’know, like ‘know’.”
“Knew,” Kate corrects.
“‘Knew’,” Riri repeats, with waggling eyebrows. “Puts a real new spin on all our songs, doesn’t it?”
“That actually explains a lot.” Billy eyes her with something new in his expression, a rare focus in his stare. “And it makes you a little less sad; at least you’re so hung up on someone unattainable in a cool way.”
“I’m not — this is a total misrepresentation of the situation!”
No one really seems to believe her: Cassie and Riri exchange another quick glance that doesn’t spell anything good for Kate, Billy looks like he’s already crafted an entire backstory around the whole thing, and Kamala mostly looks hurt at not being included in previous discussions about Kate’s sex life, despite the fact that she’s five (slash nineteen, but whatever).
“I met her before she was in a band, it was a weird few days, and that’s pretty much it.”
Except for all the rest of it: Yelena storming into her apartment, Yelena threatening to kill Clint with his own keyboard, Yelena’s fury abating in the face of Kate’s valiant attempt to talk her down (slash Kate's panic), Yelena coming over the next day with a hunch to her shoulders and a tortured expression barely hidden on her face, Yelena talking about her sister while they braved the High Line in December, Yelena and her getting drinks, Yelena pressing her against the counter and the couch and the bed and the wall of the shower and —
“Except that now she’s doing you a favor, all this time later. A big favor. So what’s that about?”
It’s Cassie who asks the question, with narrowed eyes and a frown that hasn’t really abated throughout the entire conversation. There’s a little bit of drummer rivalry in the dislike, maybe, but it’d only really started after Kate had spilled to her and Riri one night (after way too many margaritas, around the time when the Thunderbolts* had really started to blow up) about the whole very-brief-but-somewhat-complicated history between her and Yelena Belova. Inside Cassie's annoyance is the sort of ride or die mentality that never fails to make Kate feel a burst of warmth towards her bandmate, even if it also — this time — makes Kate let out a little huff.
“I mean, I don’t know! What do you think I’m freaking out about?” Kate shakes her head quickly, backtracking furiously when Kamala suddenly looks like she’s about to start freaking out too. “Or. Not freaking out about. But wondering about. Like, I’m curious about it, you know? But I don’t think it matters. It’s not like she can change her mind.”
“Yeah, but she might want something in return,” Cassie grumps.
“So?" Riri grins, without any of the same ire or conflict. "Having to fuck a hot superstar? Nah, something’s telling me Kate won’t be minding that at all."
“Dude!”
“What? Am I wrong?”
They both look at Kate, who puts a lot of effort into containing the flush that's creeping up her neck, but is ultimately entirely unsuccessful.
“See? I told you.” Riri says, and Cassie rolls her eyes. “Like you’ve never gone for a bad boy. Girl, please.”
“Okay, that’s — " Kate cuts in, before her mouth can catch up with her brain, and then spends a full second floundering. "That definitely isn’t what’s happening! And — yeah, no — it also doesn’t matter! What matters is our setlist.”
“See, that’s what I was saying,” Billy agrees, with a slow, bobbing nod. “But now I feel like we’re not going to get back on track until you give us a little more info about the whole sleeping-with-a-Thunderbolt thing. Can everyone who wants more details on this whole situation please raise their hand?”
Kamala half-lifts a hand and waves it, her smile bashful, but not bashful enough to keep back the barrage of questions that Kate had really been hoping to avoid.
“Are all our songs really about her? Ohhh, is the sex song about Yelena Belova?” she asks, in a gasp. “Have you met the rest of the Thunderbolts*? Are they nice? Did they — wow — are any of their songs about you? Can you introduce me to Bucky?”
“Oh, I — ” Billy flushes a deep pink. “Can you introduce us to Bucky?”
“Holy shit, he’s like fifty,” Cassie says, her lips curled in disgust. “Both of you calm down. But while we’re throwing out questions, let’s ask why Kate still even cares about the woman who disconnected her entire ass phone rather than have a single post-fuck conversation with her?”
Kate’s groan is not as silent as planned. Not that the dramatic plop of her head into her hands would have escaped notice anyways.
“I’m gonna get another beer,” Riri decides. “And some popcorn.”
—
Kate tells them the story of how she met Yelena Belova.
But — as always when it comes to Yelena — she leaves a lot unsaid.
She tells them about that day in her old apartment — back when it’d been just her, before Kamala came along, before they’d grabbed Cassie and Riri and Billy and formed the band that would, eventually, become Jeff the Land Shark. Back when she’d been nearly finished with the last step in her way-too-many step Plan (convince former pop idol Clint Barton that he should definitely become her manager, and also become a manager in the first place). She’d made some sugary drinks with mix from a bag and had Clint laughing about one his worst lyrics from back in the day, and the time had been just right for her to ask… when Yelena Belova had — not literally, but basically — kicked in her door.
She doesn’t tell them about Yelena’s real reasons for the (actually somewhat literal) home invasion, sticking to vague statements about family history and old grudges. She doesn’t tell them about Natasha, because even if everyone knew they were sisters now, no one had known it then, when Yelena hadn’t yet been someone the world had so desperately wanted to know. Then, Kate hadn’t known anything at all about her either, other than that she clearly thought Kate’s apartment belonged to Clint Barton instead, given the way she’d trashed it while accusing him of ruining her sister’s career and reputation and life, of standing silent while the world cruelly speculated on the sudden and final break-up of Earth’s Mightiest Pop Stars.
She tells them about her extremely impressive conflict resolution that’d resulted in Yelena not bashing Clint’s face in with the 1987 Kramer Pacer Custom that’d been hanging on Kate’s wall. But she doesn’t tell them how panicked she’d been when Yelena had grabbed it in the first place, how she’d jumped in front of the woman and poured out her entire life history (her dad, his guitar, his death, her mom, her recently ruined legacy) without fully understanding why. She doesn't tell them about the gentle way Yelena had handed the guitar back to her afterwards, or how her jaw had clenched when Clint had jumped in with explanations and excuses, or how she'd left the apartment — less than thirty minutes after she'd stormed into it — without another word.
She tells them that Yelena had come back the next day — with her mouth pinched in regret — a bag of cleaning supplies in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other, both of which had been heavily employed as she'd helped Kate put her apartment back together. But she doesn’t tell them how Yelena’s eyes had looked surprisingly soft when she’d cleaned the fingerboard of the old guitar she’d nearly smashed, when she’d asked Kate questions about her dad, her mom, her music that no one had ever really asked her before.
She tells them about how — after they’d finished cleaning the apartment, leaving it looking better than it probably ever had — they’d hung out for the whole rest of the day, drinking too-strong cosmopolitans and eating mac and cheese with a disgusting amount of hot sauce. She tells them about the next day — after Yelena had showed up at her door again — when they’d gone for a walk along the High Line, Yelena snagging food from nearly every cart they'd passed on the way. But she doesn’t tell them about Yelena’s murmured confessions: how she’d been separated from her foster sister when they were kids, how they’d recently (and tentatively) reconnected, how fraught the relationship was, how Yelena had wanted to blame everyone and everything for the disconnect between them.
She tells them about Yelena kissing her — unabashed and full of a passion that Kate had maybe always craved — later that night, tells them they’d gone back to Kate’s apartment, but leaves out the details of the rest. (Yelena’s hands under her coat before they’d even made it inside, the lowering rasp of her voice as the night had gone on, the rough drumming calluses that Kate had felt with no small amount of pleasure when Yelena’s hand had wrapped around the back of her thigh.) She doesn’t tell them about everything in between the sex, either: Yelena thumbing through Kate’s songwriting journal with an intimacy that’d felt just as significant as everything else they’d done, Yelena snagging a pen to make notes in the margins, Yelena (after a few more drinks and a few more rounds) offering up her own lyrics — kept rather ingloriously in her phone's notes app — with surprisingly red cheeks.
She tells them about Yelena vanishing before Kate woke. She tells them about trying to call. She tells them about how that’d been the last time she’d seen Yelena Belova until — one day — her name had been everywhere: the drummer and (arguable) front woman of the world’s new favorite pop-punk misfits.
But she doesn’t tell them about how it’d all made her feel, because two years later — this whole crazy situation unearthing things she’d thought (finally) (mostly) dead and buried — Kate’s still in the process of figuring that out.
—