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The first time Kate comes to visit, it’s about a month after they become The New Avengers and public opinion is...moderate. She swears the two aren’t correlated, but Yelena isn’t sure she buys it.
“I’m, like - well, I volunteered to be my team’s, um, liaison, I guess.” She starts off by babbling a lot, something she is very good at. “Since we’re sort of the, um, the main team on the West Coast, and you’re the - the New Avengers, we figured it’d be helpful to coordinate when necessary. So, I’ll be that person. For you to coordinate with. Plus, I thought it’d be nice to finally fight on the same side.”
(She actually starts off by asking This is your room? in a tone that can only be interpreted as insulting.)
“In case of emergencies,” Yelena says.
“Or, you know, just like, other things that could require cooperation,” Kate insists. She strings words together unusually fast. If she could speak Russian, she’d fit right in. “Intel exchanges, for instance. We’re protecting the country now, so…”
“Relax, Kate Bishop,” Yelena says. She has missed saying Kate Bishop’s full name, and the various flashes of emotion that cross Kate’s face in response. “I am only joking. You remember how funny I am, yes?”
Kate says, “Yeah, I recall. You’re hilarious.”
There is likely sarcasm involved with that statement, but Yelena chooses to ignore it. She does something rare instead: she smiles. Laughs a little, even.
“It is good to be recognized for my talents,” she says.
“Oh, does ‘sense of humor’ rank above ‘World’s Best Assassin’?” Kate asks. She is possibly serious.
“Of course,” Yelena says, affronted. “Anyone can be trained as an assassin. Not everyone is funny about it.”
“Actually, that’s so true. What’s up with that? Why aren’t superheroes funnier? My team is okay, but - you’re definitely the one with the best sense of humor here.” Kate talks like she is having a scientific revelation on the concept of humor. Yelena is deeply charmed by it, which is a feeling she isn’t used to having. Bob certainly isn’t charming. Awkward in a way that endears him to them all, but not charming. Alexei is too loud. Walker is too much of an asshole. Ava is too British–
“They can’t even be taught,” Yelena says. “I think we will just have to carry these burdens, Kate Bishop.”
“Still with the name thing, huh?”
“Do you not like it?”
“I don’t - no, I mean, yeah, no, I didn’t say that,” Kate rambles, like she’s been caught. Maybe she has. “It’s just weird. But not bad or anything–”
Yelena holds up a hand abruptly. She is used to this projection, this vibration in the air. She says, “Hold on,” and turns around to the empty room. “Ava! No eavesdropping!”
“Aw, don’t be like that,” Ava says nonchalantly, appearing a few feet from the door. “I was just curious. You never get visitors.”
“Oh, that’s cool,” Kate says, seemingly unfazed by Ava’s sudden appearance. “How do you do that? Is it a power, or some kind of technology? I like your suit, and the mask–”
“She’s talkative, this one,” Ava says, raising an eyebrow. Somehow, Yelena feels as if she’s being made fun of, though she isn’t quite sure how, considering the snide remark isn’t even aimed at her.
“She likes to talk, yes,” Yelena says shortly. “It is time for you to leave now. Goodbye Ava, thank you for stopping by.”
“Sorry,” Kate says, finally made to feel awkward; Yelena takes some offense to this. “The people I work with are more - hm. They’re a little more outgoing of a group. And then Billy has Agatha, who never shuts up. Seriously, she has this continuous running commentary that’s, like - okay, honestly, it’s pretty funny, but she’s definitely psychotic. I mean, she’s dead already, so that probably has something to do with it–”
Unbeknownst to Kate, who seems to have the same problem she is complaining about, Yelena and Ava have been staring each other down for the full minute it has taken her to rant so far, with Ava’s left eyebrow lifting progressively higher.
“Yes, I am the charisma of the team,” Yelena finally interrupts. “Something Ava seems to lack. As she is still here, in my room.”
“Nice,” Ava says. Definitely sarcasm. “I’m going.”
“Use the door properly, so Kate can be sure you’ve left.”
“Does she need to be?” Ava asks, doing as she’s told, but of course she has to be a cunt about it. “She has you looking out for her.”
Again, Yelena’s being made fun of - but for what is still unclear. She rolls her eyes. The door shuts.
“Sorry,” she says, waving a hand. “Bob is the only nice one. And he is very awkward.”
“Oh, yeah, what’s up with him?” Kate immediately tackles an alternate line of conversation. “I saw some footage. Dude, I don’t know how this city is still standing, so you must have some incredible engineers. But how did you survive? How’d you get him back?” She pauses for a split second - Yelena’s hesitant to even call it a pause - and says: “Also, I think you’re nice.”
“You think I’m nice,” Yelena repeats, disbelieving. “Really?”
“I mean, you didn’t kill me,” Kate shrugs. Yelena thinks she ought to have better standards. “You didn’t even - you tried not to hurt me, I think, which was nice of you, even if you were trying to kill my mentor at the time. I don’t, like, blame you. You were working off of the information you had and the job you were assigned. You were grieving. I get it. I didn’t get it, but, like…I get it.” Her hands are now in her pockets, and she dips her chin a little. She seems to always be in motion, even if it’s only inside of her head.
Which is a place Yelena doesn’t particularly want to be, having spent quite a lot of time there herself recently. She doesn’t want to think about her childhood, or the Red Room, or her sister and her family and every lie she was ever told, and everything she’s ever done because of it.
Yelena says, “Is there something we should be coordinating?”
“Right now?” Kate asks.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know. Is there?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
“Me neither.”
Yelena stares at her. “So you flew all the way to New York to…tell me that we will be coordinating in the future?”
“Um, well, I also wanted to see how you were doing,” Kate says, after opening and closing her mouth a few times. It is one of her more amusing habits, Yelena will admit. “Like I said, I saw some of the footage, and I heard some of the - the stories from survivors, and - I don’t know. It sounded pretty heavy.”
It simply doesn’t make sense. As if sensing that, Kate hurriedly adds:
“I wanted to get away for a little while, too. It was a good opportunity. Look, if you don’t want to hang out or - I’m interrupting something or whatever - I can obviously go. I just thought, you know, despite everything, we had fun before–”
Kate Bishop talks more than almost anybody Yelena knows, except perhaps Alexei, but he is easy to read, and Kate is very much not. This is the first truly productive thing she has said so far, Yelena thinks.
“You don’t have to go,” Yelena says. “I am not kicking you out. I was just curious.”
“Oh, okay. Cool.” Kate visibly relaxes, until she glances around the room again and seems to shiver. “Maybe we should go to Ikea? Pottery Barn? Get you some furniture that isn’t dark grey and looks like fancy concrete?”
“What is fancy concrete?”
“I don’t know. It was Stark Tower. I bet he did all kinds of weird stuff to this place. You know Ikea, though, right?”
“Yes, I know of Ikea,” Yelena says. “I have been all over the world. I know it is a furniture store.”
“Okay, but have you ever been inside one?” Kate pegs. She even leans closer, as if searching for the crack revealed by the question.
Yelena shifts between feet. “No,” she mumbles grumpily. “I have not been inside one.”
“They have meatballs. Swedish meatballs. They’re delicious. We can get you, like, maybe a bookshelf, or a corkboard, or - definitely a bedspread, I honestly thought that was a large decorative boulder for some reason–”
“You want to bring color into my room, Kate Bishop?” Yelena asks. “Do you even know my favorite color?”
Kate studies her for a moment. Wracks her brain for the memories, probably picturing her green coat, her red lip. But she shakes her head almost imperceptibly and says, “No. What is it?”
Yelena does think of saying red, the color of her sister’s hair. She thinks of saying yellow, something bright and light like Alexei keeps telling her she is. But she meets Kate’s eyes, thinks of New York in the winter, Christmas trees and tinsel and string lights, thinks of Kate’s purple suit, and finds she doesn’t actually have an answer.
So Yelena says, “I don’t have one.”
“You really are fascinating,” Kate says. Somehow, it is a compliment. “So, are you down? We can go out?” She pauses minutely again. “To Ikea.”
The alternative is not clear - they didn’t even discuss another option. Yelena tilts her head. “Okay. We can go. But if a national emergency strikes, you might have to work with my team. And they are very stupid. This is a warning.”
Kate grins. “I’ll take my chances,” she says, and loops her arm through Yelena’s, dragging her along.
–
(The bedspread is hilariously gothic, dark purple patterned into black. Kate purses her lips and shoots her a sideways glance, almost apologetic. She says, “Uh, I don’t remember if you actually agreed to this one - I got a little caught up in the atmosphere. Of…Ikea.”
Yelena’s tongue scratches against her throat. She can taste the color - rich and dark and warm. Matching pillowcases, too; she thumbs the material casually. She’s not sure why something feels stuck inside of her, caught in the brambles of her chest.
“I like it,” Yelena says. It isn’t forced. It should be. “Purple is your favorite color?”
“Yeah,” Kate says, and has the decency to look sheepish. “But, hey, since you don’t have one - consider it like a test drive! Maybe you’ll love it.”
It’s rare for Yelena to concede any battle at all, but in this case - she stares at Kate Bishop’s proud grin, and thinks that fighting this one just isn’t worth it.)
–
The second time Kate visits Yelena, it’s because she’s in the city for something unrelated - something to do with her mother, Yelena hears from various sources - and she has a slump to her spine that speaks of a great weight, desperately in need of a second pair of hands.
But despite her obvious distress, she smiles when Yelena enters the lobby. Bob is the one who’d managed to greet her; he waves at Yelena with a spoon in his hand, bowl of cereal in the other (and not even the good kind - wheat rectangles that taste of cardboard, thick and wet) and she tries very hard not to scowl. She thinks she manages to dull it to a politely-disgusted frown.
“Hello again, Kate Bishop,” she says. “Please ignore my face. Bob’s eating habits make me sick.”
Kate’s smile turns perplexed, but amused. “What, like, Wheaties? Special K? Because they’re too plain? Yeah, I prefer Froot Loops myself–”
“You would,” Ava says, having apparently entered after Kate. She speaks with some sort of innuendo that Yelena doesn’t grasp, but causes Kate to shut her mouth rather quickly.
“Nice,” she says, a hint of a sneer, as if Ava’s being childish.
Bob eats more of his nauseating cereal, clearly having decided that whatever just occurred was none of his business. Yelena is inclined to follow suit, mostly because she is lacking all context.
“Do you want to go to my room?” she asks, because Kate really does look quite tired. Whatever she’s carrying nearly exceeds her ability to carry it. “Or is this a team meeting situation?”
And Kate’s shoulders fall a little softly, like drifting feathers. Hair in a loose ponytail, flowing down her back.
“Yeah,” she murmurs. “No. It’s not a team meeting. I’d like to - yeah, that’d be great.”
Still smiling. Faded jeans and white sneakers; a plaid overcoat barely masking a white t-shirt with a graphic that Yelena can’t make out at first - and has accidentally stared at Kate’s chest a few seconds too long by the time she realizes it says Bullseye! in a comic-book font. She waits until they are alone in the elevator to tease her for it.
“You are such a nerd,” Yelena says, gesturing at her top. “You are a superhero and you wear a superhero shirt. Kate Bishop. What will the public think of your ego?”
Something unwinding and writhing in her own stomach. Slithering up her throat, sinking teeth into her brain. She feels bad, she realizes suddenly. She feels bad for Kate Bishop, and the part she played in destroying what was left of the girl’s family.
She knows she is not at fault. She was hired to do a job, and the woman who hired her happened to be Kate’s mother. It was the fact that Eleanor wanted the job done at all. The breaking point was the beginning. But even so–
Kate says, “I mean, I am the best archer in the world,” and she almost gets away with it. Her voice barely shakes at all, but her face falls the second the joke ends.
The elevator opens to their home floor, and Yelena’s bedroom is exactly as Kate had last seen it - perhaps a little bit messier. She’s a busy person. She doubts Kate’s room has any sense of order, and then finds herself wondering what Kate’s bedroom actually looks like; her furniture and sense of style and what books are on her bookshelf.
Yelena asks, “You are here because of Eleanor?”
Kate plops herself down on the edge of the bed. Exhales into the ceiling, neck tilted back.
“Yeah,” she says. “Just some - some shit with her estate and prior contracts and business dealings - it’s mostly a formality, I’m meeting with the lawyer tomorrow and signing some papers, I think.”
There is a short silence. Yelena never had much practice at comforting people before Bob, and even now, her attempts are not always successful.
She says, “I’m sorry,” and sits carefully next to her. It seems like the thing to do.
“For what?” Kate asks. She slides one of her boots across the floor, resting on her heel. “You didn’t make my mom hire you to kill Clint. You didn’t force her to work for Fisk.”
“No, but I am still sorry. For you,” Yelena says. Kate’s picking absently at her nails; Yelena thinks of reaching for her hand, but doesn’t. “She’s your mother. She’s family.”
“Yeah,” Kate says. “It sucks. But, I have - I have other people who care about me. And you do too, don’t you? Like the big, loud guy - he’s your dad, right?”
The redirection is obvious, but understandable. Yelena won’t call her on it: She’s too preoccupied with the idea of other people who care about Kate. She wants to ask their names, if they work with her, if she still sees Barton, if she has someone outside of it all who loves her–
“Unfortunately, yes,” Yelena says. She moves her hands into her lap, removing temptation. She feels useless - unable to decipher the problem, and thus unable to take care of it. “It has been nice, having him around again. But please do not tell him I said so. He is already so unbearable.”
Kate laughs a bit; maybe it’s more apt to say she chuckles. It’s hard to produce a lighter sound beneath all that weight. Yelena’s been there, walked that knife’s edge, slid her finger down to the base of it and bled.
Kate says, “I’ll keep it between us.” Her mouth holds its soft grin, but she’s still fidgeting with her fingers.
So Yelena says, “Kate. How can I help? I am very good at killing people, if needed–”
“Definitely not needed,” Kate says, but her laugh is more pronounced, extended. Genuine. Yelena grasps something close to pride rooting inside of her. “No, it’s, it’s - my team is young, you know? They can’t even legally drink - well, except for Riri, who is twenty-one but is also a genius and would rather do almost anything else - and I guess there’s Agatha, but again, she’s kind of unhinged and already dead - and don’t get me wrong, they’re amazing people, super talented, but sometimes they just - or I…I can’t relate.”
“I see the problem,” Yelena says. Kate uses a lot of words to say such simple things. “You are on a team of babies.”
“I know!” Kate whispers, as if afraid they’ll somehow hear her from across the country.
“We will get a drink,” Yelena says, sliding off the bed. “We will get many drinks. But I warn you, Kate Bishop, I am Russian, and I have a lot of practice with vodka.”
She extends a hand. Kate looks up at her and takes it.
–
(Kate Bishop is - how do you say - a pathetic lightweight.
But she’s a happy drunk, which seems to curb Yelena’s own alcohol-fueled instinct for self-loathing; it’s hard to hate herself when Kate keeps grabbing onto her arm and snorting with laughter at her deadpan humor and sarcastic jokes. They’re in New York City, so they barhop; bouncing between hole-in-the-wall dives, throwing back specialty shots and fruity cocktails.
Hilariously, Kate doesn’t let her order anything with vodka in it: “You said you had practice,” she slurs a little, sliding a shot glass full of rum across the bar. “This is me taking away that advantage.”
“Kate Bishop, you are too competitive,” Yelena says, but she’s smirking. She won’t give away that the tactic is actually working; she is not very used to mixing her liquor. “You are afraid I will beat you at drinking?”
“No,” Kate says, too loudly and hotly. “I’m afraid you’ll just drink vodka and, like, not even be drunk. I’m changing it up on you. I’m bringing you to my level.”
Kate’s level, by the end of the night, is absolutely shitfaced. Yelena can’t say she’s fairing much better, but she does manage to find their driver and get them back to the tower safely, so she’ll claim overall victory.
They stumble into Yelena’s room. Kate falls onto the bed as she struggles with her boots, giggling hysterically every time she fails at removing them. Yelena pulls one off and her back hits the rug, and all she can see is the shadow of Kate’s body, rolling with laughter, illuminated against the ceiling; a spectre making angels out of light.
“Shit, shit, are you okay?” Kate half-kneels, half-falls onto the floor beside her; flyaway strands of long, dark hair tickle her face. This is a strange position for her to be in.
Strange, but comfortable.
“I don’t know how I got down here,” Yelena says, “but I think this is where I will sleep.”
“No, no, no,” Kate giggles, tugging on her arm as the boot slips from her grasp. “You have a bed. We bought it at Ikea. Come on, Yelena, you - is that a knife? How many knives did you bring out tonight?” She dissolves into laughter again, tugging on the hilt from a holster near her ankle. “Oh my god.”
“I only brought four,” Yelena says. She blinks. The ceiling shifts in shapes and sound and color. Sand, quick. Stone, malleable. She is sinking through the ground. Her arms are heavy and uncoordinated. “Kate. Am I moving?”
“No,” Kate says. She grabs Yelena’s hand and miraculously tugs her into a sitting position, and the world comes once again into focus. “You’re just drunk.”
“Well, as it was pretty much your entire goal,” Yelena says, and smiles at Kate’s delighted expression, “yes. I am drunk.”
Kate eventually gets her to her feet, and they spend another twenty minutes attempting to make themselves ready for bed. They both manage to put on something clean to sleep in, and even brush their teeth - but by the time Yelena’s turn with the bathroom ends, Kate is already half-passed out in her bed, barely even under the covers.
Yelena is not sure what people are supposed to look like when they sleep. She has seen more dead bodies than she’s seen peaceful rest. But Kate’s eyelids are closed, her breathing is slow, and her forehead is smooth - no pinch of the eyebrows, or furrowed in thought. Her lips look soft, pink. And she’s stretched out, as if she’d left that weight she’d been carrying somewhere on the city streets, or tossed it in a back alley.
“Kate,” Yelena says.
“Mm?” Comes Kate’s sleepy reply.
“I should have gone out for drinks with you. Last Christmas.”
In the dim light, Yelena can see Kate’s mouth curl into a smile.
“There’s always this year,” she murmurs. “I’ll give you that tour you wanted.”
And even though New York City is now the place Yelena calls home, she doesn’t think to refuse.)
–
The next day, as Kate’s getting ready to go to her meeting (hungover, brushed her teeth four times so far, has taken up Yelena’s bathroom for a solid thirty minutes), Ava actually knocks before entering. Not that she waits for a response, but still, it’s progress.
“It smells like a club in here,” Ava says, wrinkling her nose. “How did you possibly achieve that? Were you pouring liquor into one another’s mouths and missed?”
“No,” Yelena says shortly. She finds Ava’s voice to be especially irritating at the moment, and the room far too bright with her door open. “We went out.”
“Oh, I’m aware,” Ava says. “Without these soundproof walls, you’d have woken up the whole tower, I bet.”
The intonation suddenly reminds Yelena of something, knocking the memory to the front of her skull. She says, “Wait. Yesterday, you made a comment about cereal, but I did not get it.”
“What?”
“You were responding to Kate.”
And Ava’s grin turns shit-eating. Yelena immediately thinks of knocking her unconscious, if only to make it stop.
Ava asks, “Do you know what a fruit is?”
“Uh, yes, I believe I have eaten several–”
“No, you fucking twat,” she says. “A fruit is slang for someone who’s gay. C’mon, aren’t you on social media? Surely someone’s called you fruity by now, wearing that suit with that hair–”
“No, they haven’t,” Yelena says shortly, and miraculously keeps a straight face despite the lie. People say a lot of things online, but she’s often too busy protecting the country and entertaining boring government officials to possibly research what all of it means.
She’s lying, she thinks. She should have an intern do it, she thinks.
“Sure,” Ava says, who clearly doesn’t buy it anyway.
“Well, thanks for the explanation,” Yelena says, and hears the door open behind her, signaling Kate’s return - and only then does she realize what Ava had actually been implying.
Which is that Kate - who steps out of Yelena’s bathroom in ripped jeans and sneakers and a red-and-black checker-patterned coat (with yet another graphic tee underneath) - is gay. Or something.
“What explanation?” Kate asks absently.
“For why Ava keeps mysteriously appearing in my room,” Yelena says. Unfortunately, her brain is still working its way through the previous revelation, and her excuses follow suit. “I am starting to think she has a crush on me.”
“Yeah,” Kate says, glancing up. Her gaze settles on Ava, and her smile seems…straighter, somehow, cleaner at the edges; like she’s been traced with pinpoint accuracy. “She does seem to be around a lot.”
“I do live here,” Ava says, rolling her eyes.
“But not…here,” Kate stresses. Yelena is a little mystified by the presence of reassurance asked for in that sentence. “In…Yelena’s room.”
“Oh, no,” Ava scoffs. “There’s not enough space between the two of you, is there?”
Kate tilts her head. Her mouth twitches. The smile becomes forced. It is a fascinating series of events, in Yelena’s opinion, but she has done enough to Kate Bishop, and does not find her suffering amusing.
“Get out,” Yelena says, shoving Ava roughly off of the bed; it’s not as if they’re in true danger of hurting each other, and they often take advantage of that knowledge. “I am being serious now. I have many knives.”
Ava almost leaves quietly, hand-in-hand with her British pompousness. But at the last second, she stops and looks over her shoulder - wearing a smirk that only ever spells trouble, or perhaps its cousin, secret-keeping - and says:
“Even better, Yelena. You have a bow and arrow.”
This time, Yelena gets the insinuation. She glances back at Kate, finds her standing in the same place, faking the same smile, face with a flush like a small wave - barely noticeable, awash in morning sun; Yelena almost thinks she imagines it.
–
Looking back, the first mistake Yelena makes is giving Kate Bishop her phone number.
But the second mistake Yelena makes is continuing to text her back.
Kate knows her weaknesses, and she exploits them all impressively. For one, she always opens with a picture of her dog, and Yelena loves that fucking dog - he looks so soft to pet, and he is always doing silly things; sometimes Kate narrates, and what is she supposed to do, ignore all that - and once Yelena’s replied, she ropes her into an entirely different conversation.
To Yelena’s dismay, this works both verbally and via text. (Sometimes Kate video calls her, saying, look what Lucky’s doing.)
But most irritatingly - and, if she’s being honest, helpfully–
Kate always seems to check in when she needs it most. Those blood-red hours of the night where she hangs her head off the bed like a murderer sentenced to a guillotine, waiting for the blade to fall. Those corner-of-the-room moments where she knits shadows over her body like a blanket, lets them weigh her down and down and down into nothing. Where she thinks about her sister. Where she thinks about the Red Room.
Her phone buzzes. She blinks the void out of her eyes, fumbling for it.
Kate Bishop
so i got this petcam recently because i’m away from home so much i wanted to be able to check on lucky and you have to watch this clip from a few minutes ago…
Yelena sighs.
She opens the message.
–
The pattern holds. Kate’s always in the city for something, to the point that Yelena’s able to tell why she’s there solely based on her attitude upon arrival. Distressed, usually to do with her mother; irritated or anxious, often about her team and her role; anything positive and she’s looking for a break. Yelena feels like she is Disney World, or something else synonymous with vacation; like Kate arrives at the tower ready for a ride, all of yesterday’s problems shoved to the bottom of her bag.
But that’s not the only thing Yelena notices.
Bob is always the one to greet her, or intercept her first - Yelena finds the two of them chatting away in the main living area (which is too big to be called something as cozy as “living room,” in her opinion) and laughing, or looking at pictures of cute animals. Bob looks very happy, she thinks, and immediately sours at the idea without bothering to examine it further.
In the back of her mind, though, sits the image of Kate and Bob smiling at each other. It shouldn’t matter. She doesn’t know why she hangs onto it, like a polaroid or a rope - is she drowning in it, or pulling herself up? - and she certainly doesn’t understand how it makes her feel. Bad, she thinks. Annoyed, she thinks.
But before she can interrogate herself for further answers, Kate is on her feet, bouncing over - and her bright, dazzling grin is enough to take Yelena’s questions out with the tide.
–
Until the next time Kate shows up. It’s December again; in a quiet, sheltered corner of Yelena’s heart, it’s always December. It feels right: white and cold and stripped to the bone; trees like broken, knobbly fingers stretching out of the ground, contrasting starkly with the snow, ending with a splash of red - the blood; there’s so much blood staining the ice, she watches and turns away, someone says Good job, Yelena–
Her phone vibrates. Kate Bishop.
“I feel like she needs room,” Alexei says, when Yelena announces Kate’s incoming arrival. “She is always here, da?”
Ava says, “Well, it’s not as if we don’t know who she’s here for.”
“Who?” Alexei says. He is obtuse, Yelena thinks. Never paying attention, she thinks.
What happens next is nothing short of comical - which is not a word she often uses to describe her life - but three of them gesture straight at her and yell “Yelena!” while Yelena says, “Bob!”
She is the only one to do so. “Wait,” she says, now thoroughly confused. “What?”
Alexei gasps dramatically, which is how he does everything. “Does my daughter have girlfriend?!”
“Are you actually stupid?” Ava says to her, so condescendingly British Yelena thinks of kicking her in the face. “You thought Kate Bishop was into Bob?”
“You thought Kate was into me?” Bob says, looking actually alarmed at the prospect with a series of awkward laughs.
“Well, why would she be here for me?!” Yelena defends. She’s not sure why they’re all yelling at each other the same way they do when attempting to strategize for a mission, positioned in a circle.
Walker, used to being the dumbest one in a conversation, is very obviously enjoying a turning of the tables. “Because she’s into you, dumbass! Duh!” The duh goes a little far. She adds it to the list of things she will use to justify kicking his ass later.
“Even Walker noticed,” Ava says flatly.
“Hey–”
“I mean, she told us,” Bob says.
“I must have missed a meeting,” Alexei says.
“I said, ‘So what brings you here?’ and she said, ‘Oh, well, you know, I’m just checking in on Yelena. She’s so cool and fun to hang out with,’” Bob makes his voice higher and everything as he recreates the brief interaction for them. “Every time she’s here, it’s for you. She’s not even required to like, have these meetings.”
“She’s not?” Yelena says. That piece of information is interesting, if it is even true. “But the debriefs–”
“Have you ever heard of the internet, Yelena?” Ava says. As always, her snark is lethal and the arch of her eyebrow may as well be holding Yelena at knifepoint. “Because I believe it would be much simpler for her to call us than fly across the country, or - teleport, or whatever secret government method she uses for transportation.”
“I think Billy makes her doors, sometimes,” Bob chimes in, unhelpfully.
“She’s into you,” Walker says, also unhelpfully, as Yelena has never even looked at the landscape of this territory, let alone crossed it.
“My daughter has girlfriend–”
“Stop. Everyone. Stop,” Yelena says. Arms held out, attempting to command a room, only the room is full of idiots - herself apparently included. “I hear the elevator.”
“Okay!” Alexei says, far too loud and frantic. “Okay, okay, we must go, we must give them alone time–”
“No,” Yelena says. Hand running through her hair, sweat on the back of her neck. Hands pulsing and palms hot. “No. I am going to get her, and we are going somewhere else. You are all horrible people.”
“I thought you knew,” Bob calls to her retreating back. “Sorry!”
It is a completely useless apology. The walk to the lobby and elevators feel like an assignment - she is following orders, body on autopilot, mind unstructured and fractal - but she turns a corner, and–
“Hey!” Kate beams happily at her, big bag at her feet. “I brought gifts, since it’s almost Christmas - it was way cheaper to just bring them with me than try and mail them - I try not to use Billy for things this mundane–” She proceeds to struggle with the bulk of the bag, and Yelena finally remembers to open her own mouth and reply. Fortunately, Kate talks so much that nothing’s struck her as off (yet).
“That was nice of you,” Yelena says. She gestures to a member of their security team. “Mark - that’s your name, yes? - Mark can take this. Let’s go out.”
“I am hungry,” Kate says, barely blinking at the request. “I could go for a good burger, or - maybe Chinese? Actually, there’s a Thai place a block over, I could do that too…”
She mulls over all the options on their way down. Yelena, as per usual, does not help much; she is too busy trying not to think at all. Kate has not said anything to her, and Yelena barely has a grasp of her own feelings, let alone someone else’s.
Kate, after much back-and-forth with herself, ends up back on burgers. New York City has a burger place every block, she says; let’s walk until we find one with good vibes.
“Good vibes,” Yelena repeats. “What does that require? Neon signs? Fairy lights? Chalkboard list of beers?”
“Any of the above,” Kate says excitedly. She is very easily enraptured with the mundaneness of life; Yelena might’ve previously seen it as naivety, but now - now - she wonders if there’s a degree of courage to an outlook like Kate’s. It’s hard to stay positive in the face of every bad thing that has ever happened to you, clawing its way up your back. “We’ll know it when we see it!”
Instead, they happen to pass a pop-up Christmas market with a great, tall tree in the middle, decked out in bobbles and lights and beautiful, round ornaments; but what seems to truly capture Kate’s attention is the delicious aroma of hot apple cider. She doesn’t even hesitate, grabbing Yelena’s hand and dragging her into the market, stalls set up under festive tents and selling an assortment of holiday-themed goods.
Soaps and candles, wreaths and decorations, gingerbread houses and mince pies - Kate buys them both apple cider and some sort of Christmas ham pastry, and they sit at a table next to the big tree. Kate nods enthusiastically as she eats, making all sorts of delighted noises, and Yelena finally laughs - it feels like the first bit of sun after a storm; a lightness poking holes in its own shield.
Kate smiles, too. And then she does something Yelena doesn’t expect.
She leans in and kisses her.
Once, abruptly, and the sensation is gone as quickly as it had come. No time to process, to pull it apart at the seams and examine every stitch - its feel and fineness and precision - only the ghost of it. And, slowly, Yelena is realizing that she can’t hold on to the ghost of something forever; not without becoming one herself.
“Why did you do that?” Yelena asks. Her inexperience comes across as almost hostile, and Kate leans back, blinking rapidly.
“Um,” Kate says, mouth making shapes that don't match any known words before she answers, “because I wanted to? And I thought you wanted me to?”
“You wanted to?”
“Yes?” Her answer comes fast, remarkably unashamed, accompanied by an eyebrow quirk like she knows exactly what Yelena’s thinking–and her response is: Why would I be ashamed?
There’s an itch underneath Yelena’s skin, too deep to be tamed by her own hands. Blood getting warm to the point of discomfort–or–no–embarrassment. A feeling she’s used to associating purely with Alexei, his stories of her as a child and his neverending pride in her now. But it’s somehow a different shade with Kate; not eye-rolling, more vulnerable, causing her gaze to catch on strange things–
Like the lips that just kissed her. She's never spent much time looking at a mouth aesthetically, but she finds the act to be weirdly enjoyable–committing the lines like mountains and valleys to some internal, invisible map. And then there's the way Kate’s fidgeting with her hands, like she's stringing a bow on a much smaller scale, exercises to calm her nerves.
Yelena asks, “Why are you so nervous?”
“Uh, because I kissed you and now you're analyzing everything about the interaction?” she deadpans. “Like, in front of me, while I sit here.”
“I never said I didn't like it,” Yelena says, because it's the truth, and it's one of the few things she can cling to. Did she like it? It's hard to catalog, already soft and hazy in her memory. She knows she didn't dislike it. Knowing when she doesn't like things has always been easier than the opposite.
“Oh, well, that clears things right up.” Sarcasm unmissable. If anything, Yelena might say she was bordering on hysterical. Kate takes a short breath, holds it a moment, and then says: “I’m sorry. Clearly I misread the situation.”
“Did you?”
“Didn't I?”
“I don't know,” Yelena says. “What did you see?”
Kate stares at her, as if trying to decipher her motives, and then seems to judge something in her expression sincere. Yelena understands the hesitation, though; she's kind of known as an asshole.
“Um, I don't know,” Kate echoes, but it's only the start–she allows herself to be brave, gazing like a paintbrush. She cups her hands protectively around the warmth of her cup. “There was the way you were smiling, I guess. It felt genuine, and…soft. I'd never seen you smile like that before. I thought it was cute.”
“Cute,” Yelena repeats. She is not often described as such.
“Yeah, cute,” Kate says, warming to the conversation with a quirk of her mouth. She leans her cheek against her palm, elbow on her knees, and looks. Now that she’s been given permission, it’s much more open. “I caught you staring at my lips for a second. You sat so close to me. I was making you laugh.”
“You always make me laugh,” Yelena says. She’s unable to respond to the accuracy of the observations, but she doesn’t doubt them. “You’re a funny woman, Kate Bishop.”
Kate smiles. “And you say my name like that,” she says.
“Like what?”
“Like you like saying it.”
“Well,” Yelena says, “I do.”
“Well,” Kate echoes, “I like you saying it, too.”
“So you kissed me,” Yelena says slowly. “Those things told you I wanted you to kiss me.”
“Yeah, I mean, I guess they did,” Kate says. “But it’s not like - I don’t know. I’ve wanted to do that for awhile, okay? I think you’re hot, and weirdly charming, and I feel like I’m always thinking about you. Does this have to be such a big deal? You can just say you don’t feel the same way. It’s fine. I’ll get over it. I can move on like normal people do. I won’t keep, like, stalking you like this–”
“Kate Bishop,” Yelena interrupts the rant, which had been enlightening in itself; she finds she doesn’t like the idea of no longer seeing Kate as often as she does now. She finds herself unpacking the concept of beauty, wondering what word she’d use to describe Kate. And she finds herself thinking about the kiss.
“What?”
“Do it again,” Yelena says. It is a spur-of-the-moment solution.
Kate blinks. “Do what?”
“Kiss me,” Yelena says. She is proud of her voice for its steadiness. Kate still looks bewildered by the request, and Yelena relents a little further: if she is asking for vulnerability, she can give it back. “I don’t really…think about things like this. I have never had the chance. I want to know how I feel about it. Do it again.” She can see Kate processing the information, so she lowers her voice and repeats: “Do it again.”
Kate’s eyes dart between her own, down to her lips, and then she’s abruptly leaning in–
It is an odd feeling, but not an uncomfortable one; Kate’s lips catch her own and drag it out, as if afraid it’ll be her last chance and she’s savoring every tiny motion, every millisecond she’s allowed this close, this intimately. Like she’s saying Hello, I’m here, and I’ve been waiting.
Yelena kisses her back, and then her body does a lot of things she doesn’t explicitly tell it to do: she cups Kate’s cheek in her hand, her other finding the curve of Kate’s knee. She leans forward and in and parts her lips, and Kate makes a funny sound into her mouth before settling, kissing her with a thoroughness that should leave her breathless, but instead–
“Um,” Kate says when they break apart, briefly pressing her lips to the back of her hand, as if putting the kiss somewhere for safekeeping. “So?”
Yelena says, smiling, “Yeah. I think I liked that.”
–she can finally breathe.
–
As it turns out, Yelena really enjoys kissing Kate Bishop. And that old December - the one stained red with violence, and trauma, and regret - becomes just one of many, fading into the shadow of a much grander, more beautiful one. Her heart doesn’t have room, she thinks, and so she must make it: clean out the dirt and dust and mold, rearrange the furniture, open the windows and unlock the doors. Let the ghosts out, let the living in.
“I think I’m happy,” Yelena says aloud to nobody in particular, but Kate looks up from the book she’s reading on her side of Yelena’s bed, and she smiles like she understands.