Chapter Text
As soon as she opens her eyes, Kate remembers she isn’t in her own apartment. If the giant Star Wars poster on the wall didn’t give it away than the extremely lumpy bed definitely would.
She didn’t drink enough last night to forget everything (tragically), but she definitely didn’t remember falling asleep after.
She’s naked, which like…of course, hooking up with strangers at a bar will usually lead to that. But the lack of that really good post sex morning ache tells her that whatever happened after the bar was mid at best.
It’s fine, at least she didn’t spend the night alone at home watching 90s sitcom re-runs with Lucky.
Lucky, who she has to get home to take out for a walk and make him breakfast. Lucky, who she would much rather feel breathing against the back of her neck than…Dave? It was Dave right? David?
Shaking her head, Kate puts her ever-developing stealth training to the test as she climbs out of his bed. His room is actually pretty clean - much cleaner than hers which is a little bit embarrassing. There are no clothes scattered all over the floor or half bottles of water on the desks. There are a lot of toys though, and Kate isn’t about to judge, everyone has their expensive hobbies - but with each corner she looks at she sees some kind of monster or machine or half naked girl that she’s never seen before in her life.
She finds her underwear in two separate places. The uncomfortable bra she put on last night will not be coming back on today - but she slides into the barely there pair of panties before grabbing her jeans. She hops on one foot as she slides a leg through, trying to find her shirt as she does. Kate replays the dance they did getting to this bedroom - remembering her jacket came off near the kitchen and her shirt-
“Doorknob,” a voice calls out and makes Kate jump, her body jerking backward and falling into something solid that makes a lot of noise. By the time she realizes she hit a dresser and knocked over a bunch of figures, it’s too late.
“Shit, fuck! Sorry, I’m sorry.” She turns quickly, her pants halfway on, and tries to pick up the little figures that have been taken down by her clumsiness. “I hope these aren’t expensive.”
There’s a slight laugh from the bed. “You’re fine. Your shirt is hanging on the doorknob. You were really impressed with your shot when you made it land there.”
Oh right, “hah, it was a good throw.” She plucks her top off the doorknob and holds it between her teeth before slipping her jeans on the rest of the way.
When she looks up, Dave is sitting up on the bed, blanket covering his legs and his arms on display. That’s when she remembers why she chose him at the bar - nice arms. “You don’t have to bounce so early, you know? I can buy you breakfast.”
“I have to get back to my dog,” she says and feels good because it isn’t a lie. Though even if Lucky weren't waiting for her, Kate wouldn't stay. She never does - her life is too crazy for anything more than this. “But I had fun last night, Dave.”
She puts her shirt on, curious when he doesn’t respond right away. This time when she looks at him, he’s frowning. “Doug,” he says back to her and it takes Kate a second to realize what he’s saying.
“Oh.” She feels a wave of shame heat up her face. “Right, of course. Sorry I…” then she remembers more from the night before and narrows her eyes. “Hang on, I called you Dave all night!”
He shrugs, “you were hot and we started making out - you could have called me whatever you wanted.”
“Then why correct me now?”
Another shrug, and Kate kind of wants to punch him. “I just…thought you’d want to know for next time.”
Okay, time to close the door. “Look Doug, you’re nice and last night was fun, but I’m not looking for anything like that.”
“Right,” he says and his tone kind of feels like he thinks she’s a slut. Or maybe Kate’s just projecting a little because lately that’s kind of how she’s felt - but her life has been a mess the last few…well…years, and so what if she’s looking for some outlets. “Well it was good to meet you, Kate.”
Right, of course he remembers her name. Which makes her feel even worse.
She has to get out of here. She offers him a small wave before stepping over one of the toys she knocked down and makes her way out of the room.
Of course, as soon as she hits the living room - there are three other fucking guys sitting around the kitchen counter eating from the same box of cereal. All of them turn to look at her, eyes wide and curious.
Great. Just fucking great. “Hey,” she says, and puts her head down and makes her way to the door. They all watch her like some kind of sideshow - and Kate just knows that she’s going to be the topic of discussion all morning for these dudes. It’s fine, she doesn't care, but she has to get out of this apartment.
As she grabs her shoes and starts putting them on, she refuses to look back at them even though she knows they’re all watching her. She didn’t even register the size of the apartment when theyw ere fumbling their way through it last night, but apparently it’s big enough for four fucking people to live in it and…god. Were they home when Kate and Doug showed up? Did they hear…
No. Nope. She’s not doing that.
“Hey,” someone calls out and Kate’s head snaps up to see one of the boys walking over to her. She’s about ready to turn around and run when he lifts his arm and holds out her coat. “It’s been raining all morning.”
Kate sighs, “great.” She takes the coat from him. “Thanks.”
“Do I know you?” he asks and goddammit she is stuck in a fucking misery vortex. “I think I know you,” he turns towards the others. “Don’t you guys recognize her?”
They’re all still looking at her. Now each one of them is trying to pinpoint it. “I have to go.” She says and then opens the door to leave.
“Wait, you’re Hawk-”
She shuts the door behind them and practically sprints to the elevator.
As soon as she reaches the streets, Kate pulls her coat up so she can use it to shield herself from the rain. It’s not a very far walk to her apartment from here once she gets her bearings and decides that she’d rather do that than interact with another human.
So she walks and tries to piece together the rest of her night last night. She was bored, she was frustrated (both sexually and with work) and her mother called her from prison and Kate declined it.
Oh right, guilt, that’s what led her into Dave/Doug’s bed last night. She didn’t want to talk to her mom because talking to her has become so uncomfortable. Her mom is in prison and sure, it’s a nice prison that is more like a hotel with bars than anything else, but at the end of the day she never seems to be able to let it go.
Sure, they don’t fight anymore, but they don’t really…anything anymore. The conversations they have are so barren and lifeless. She tries to give her mom updates, but talking about her investigation work only makes her mom lecture her. Talking about Bishop Security drives Kate nuts because she’s barely anything with that company now but her mom refuses to let go of the idea of Kate taking over as CEO until she’s free.
Which won’t be for another 8 years and Kate refuses to waste that much time doing something she hates.
It’s just…a disconnect. The life she’s been forced to build for herself here is one she’s had to build on her own - without her family. She’s got her work and her…other work. She’s doing everything she can to maintain some kind of a social group (Franny and Greer are doing their best to adjust to her Hawkeye business but they sure do freak out a lot) and she’s kept up with the LARPers too for all the various connections they give her.
Plus there’s Clint, who she talks to frequently but is trying really hard not to go to him with every single job she gets - she really wants this to be her own thing.
The point is that last night was just one of those nights where it all kind of caught up to her and so she decided she wanted to get laid and her tight white tank-top and low cut jeans have never once failed her.
Now she’s out here in the pouring rain at fucking seven in the morning splashing her way back home.
Once she makes it, she calls out to Lucky through the door. “I’m here buddy! I’m coming! Don’t pee on the floor!” She fumbles with her keys as she manages to bust the door open and finds him waiting for her - tail wagging furiously. “Hey boy! I’m sorry,” Kate tosses her coat onto the nearest barstool and knees down to pet him. “The rain’s dying down, let’s get you out okay? Let’s go, and then we can both eat!”
His enthusiastic barks are more than enough confirmation that Lucky understands everything she says and nobody can convince her otherwise.
An half hour and a very long walk later, Kate and Lucky are back in their apartment, the rain has stopped, and she’s made him a bowl of food and herself a fried egg sandwich.
Kate’s cooking skills have expanded to like…five different egg related dishes and some absolutely fucking banger spaghetti. But she still eats out more often than not.
Once she’s eaten and Lucky is now happily curled up in his dog bed napping (he probably didn’t sleep much last night, he never does when she’s out), Kate stands in front of her bathroom mirror checking herself over for hickeys.
Thankfully, he didn’t leave her with any sort of marks or…well…much of anything. She remembers what they did and how it wasn't anything special, but there’s not even a ghost of pleasure in her memory of the night. He had nice arms, she liked how they felt under her fingers - but everything else was pretty tame.
So she’s still pretty wound up when she steps under the spray of the shower and feels the warm water hit her back. Kate can't really understand what’s up with her lately. Things are good - they’re not perfect, but they’re a far cry from where they were after she put her mom in prison. Coming back to the city after that, she threw herself into this Hawkeye stuff and crashed out hard. She had a full blown breakdown, got hurt in the most ridiculous way (nobody actually taught her how to rappel down a building - she just saw everyone else doing it and thought she could) and ended up back at Clint’s farm asking for help.
So he trained her, properly, in all things badass hero and Kate took to it really well. She spent two months in Iowa just learning, living with a real family and when it was actually time to come back to the city she almost didn’t.
But this was her home and it was here that she could do the work she really wanted to do.
It’s been going well, really and truly, but holy shit is she spending a lot of time alone.
Or well, time like this alone. Mornings where she craves more than drunk one night stands and running out of strangers homes cause their weird fucking roommates are all staring at her.
Kate washes the shampoo out of her hair before leaning back against the wall as water runs down her front and her memory searching for the last time someone gave her a truly good orgasm.
It was probably Cynthia, that cute girl from her mother’s lawyer’s office that sat with her during all that paperwork. She was sweet, a little too caught up in all things social media, but she knew what she was doing in the bedroom.
Kate tries to replay what she can from that night. She remembers it happened here, she brought Cynthia home after dinner and let Cynthia pull her upstairs. They undressed quickly, not really pretending either of them wanted foreplay.
“Fuck,” Kate gasps, surprising herself when she feels her fingers press into her clit. She thinks back to how it felt when Cynthia was going down on her - the way she swirled her tongue and used her fingers - they were strong, calloused from woodworking. She liked to grab Kate’s breasts as she worked - which makes Kate reach up and squeeze her own breast.
She circles her clit slowly, steadily, not wanting to run a race but knowing she can't be in here too long or her hot water will go out.
She plays with herself for a few minutes, seeking and searching trying desperately to come because she knows she didn’t last night. But it’s not working, she can't find the right image or hit the right note.
It’s there and she’s chasing and chasing, but then her body eases off and she’s left hunting again.
When the frustration kicks in, Kate takes the showerhead off the wall and presses the spray directly against her clit. It’s sudden, impactful, but it does work her up again. She leans forward, the spray moving just a bit back and forth like she’s trying to mimic something she can't place.
It’s there, she’s so close, so fucking-
Her phone rings. Specifically, Greer’s handpicked ringtone of Down With the Sickness does its job as an absolute boner killer. “God dammit…” Kate sighs, letting herself wallow for about ten seconds before getting tired of that stupid fucking song and turning off the shower. She puts the showerhead back, legs trembling a little as she grabs her phone off the sink and answers. “This better be an emergency, dude.”
“Why?! Are you in the city? Are you okay?!” Greer’s voice is panicked, and Kate feels all of her senses heighten as she steps out of the bathroom dripping wet and moves towards her bedroom window.
“What do you mean? What’s happening?” She opens the blinds and looks out, not really seeing anything except for a cloudy sky. “Greer?”
“You’re not there? Kate, the city is getting fucking blanketed in darkness right now!”
Kate turns and moves through her apartment, still extremely fucking wet and naked - with Lucky hot on her heels. She goes downstairs to her window that looks out to the other side of the city and…
“Holy shit,” she says as her heart leaps into her throat. Greer was not exaggerating, the sky is literally just black, a cloud of darkness that is actually moving deeper and deeper into the city. “Greer? Are you okay?” Kate asks as she puts the phone on speaker and sets it on the counter before reaching the door of her fairly new, superhero secret room. She types in the code and the wall moves to the side, revealing all of her equipment and a few monitors she uses to track things around the city. It’s all kind of a work in progress, but she grabs her suit and bow as Greer continues to yell at her.
“I’m fine! But we’re all just running and trying to get away from it! Kate I don’t know what’s happening! I’m coming! Don’t go underground! There’s no way out!” Greer is screaming, panicked, Kate’s never heard her like this.
“Get somewhere safe, okay? Just keep moving away from it. I’ll see what I can find out and call you back!”
“Be careful, Kate! Don’t -”
The call cuts out and Kate sees her screen flashing “LOST SIGNAL” as she passes it. “Fuck,” she sighs but can't do anything about it now as she trudges back upstairs for underwear.
It takes her all of two minutes to get dressed, hair still wet as she comes back downstairs and grabs her bow and goes back into her war room to get arrows. She has no fucking idea what to pack for a cloud of darkness, probably not going to be able to actually stop that, so she settles for arrows she can use to help people.
Kate’s barely into her boots when she sends a quick apology to Lucky and starts sprinting downstairs.
The city is a mess as soon as she steps outside, people crowding the streets, whether they’re just staring or running - taking videos and generally just freaking out.
She takes off towards the darkness, which is a super cool sentence she has always wanted to say until the moment she’s actually doing it and now she can't help but wonder what the actual fuck is wrong with her.
The closer she gets to it, the more chaotic the world around her becomes. There are abandoned cars all over the street, people are running and crashing into one another.
Kate does her best to help with the carnage, guiding people who need help out of the way and using her bow to wrangle people off the street and out of the way of cars trying to get by.
It’s a lot of shouting and being shoved around and that damn darkness is still closing in on them when there is a sudden screech of tires and a crash of something.
Kate turns just as a car slams into the back of another and just…keeps going. The car that was hit is sent towards the sidewalk where a bunch of people are standing.
Reaching back, Kate feels around the little grooves on her arrows and finds the one she’s looking for. She draws quickly, firing it through the crowd just right to catch the tire of the out of control car and a mess of purple goo bubbles out, stalling the tires and sticking the car to the pavement - stopping it just before it tumbled into the sidewalk.
She’s on her way to check on the driver, who clearly lost control for a reason, when there is a sudden explosion that makes everyone jump - her included.
She sees the wreckage from a distance, a helicopter slamming into the side of a building near Stark Tower. She wants to go there, she needs to, but there’s no way she can make it through this crowd and people are forming a wall pressing against her as they run away from the darkness getting closer and closer.
Kate opts to let that be, she can't reach it in time to really help anyone and there are people here who need her too.
She does what she can, using a sonic arrow to move a car out of the street and clear a new path, and then ends up having to break up a fucking fistfight in the middle of all of this mess because one guy ran over another guy’s kid.
It’s stupid and so out of place, Kate knows most of it is them being scared, but when one of them catches her with an elbow in the jaw, she has enough and punches him back before shoving him further down the street and sending the other guy back to his daughter with a warning.
Before she knows it, Kate’s in a coffee shop with the windows shattered because people were trying to hide in it only to realize it wasn't safe and then they all couldn't get out through the door so they just broke the damn window and climbed out of it.
She sees a woman crouching behind the counter, can't be a day over nineteen, who is hovering over something Kate can't see. “Hey!” She shouts, stepping around the last of the crowd making their quick exit. “We can't stay here, we-”
“My abuela!” She cries out, and as she leans back, Kate sees the older woman lying on the ground, eyes closed and flat on her back.
Kate moves to kneel down next to her, fingers touching the woman’s pulse, which is still strong. “What happened?”
“This is her shop, people were destroying it and she was screaming at them and then she just fell over and I can't wake her up!” The woman leans down into her grandma’s ear and shouts at her.
Kate looks out towards the exit, where the world is getting more and more shaded - it’s getting closer. “Shit, shit, shit - what’s your name?”
“What?” The girl looks at her like she forgot Kate was there.
“Your name, what is it?”
“Theresa.”
“Okay Theresa, what’s your grandma’s name?”
The girl shakes her head, tears pouring down her cheeks. “Dia,” she says and then leans down to shake her again. “¡Despierta, por favor!”
Okay,” Kate sighs, standing up. The woman has just fainted, but she’s breathing fine, they just need to get her out of here.
Kate has a thought, moving towards the door to look out into the now empty streets - everyone has run beyond here because the darkness is literally right outside. It’s terrifying, she can't even see the parts of the city it’s covered anymore. There are a few stragglers trying to get through, running with dogs and children - panicked.
They’re too close to the void to escape, too far away for Kate to get them. She feels through her arrows again and finds the flarrow (her name, and she’s very proud of it) - lighting it with the press on the shaft before knocking it against her bow. She shoots it directly at the darkness, just hoping it might do something.
She watches her flare coast through the sky, directly into the void of black that’s barreling closer and closer. When it reaches it, she sees the light of the flare sizzle and then fade into nothing.
Leaving her standing there watching it like an idiot who really thought a single flare would stop this. “Worth a shot, I guess.” She says before tucking her bow away and making her way back into the cafe.
“Theresa, we have to-”
This time the explosion is close enough that it actually sends Kate stumbling forward into the cafe. She falls forward, the rest of the glass from the windows shattering around her as Theresa screams and covers her grandma with her body.
Kate’s ears are ringing, she’s a little dizzy and pretty sure there’s glass in her hair - but she sits up and crawls over to Theresa. “We have to go, now.” She says through gritted teeth, watching as Theresa hugs her grandma and shakes her head back and forth.
This is where she hears Clint’s voice in her head, telling her that she has to make a choice. She can't wait - she has to do something.
Logic says she should leave. Get up and get the fuck out of here - losing one person will suck, but if she dies herself then she won’t be able to save anyone else.
Until she hears Theresa mumbling to her grandma in Spanish, sobs making her voice hiccup as she speaks, and Kate knows she can't do that.
So she sits up and slides back against the counter, bow drawn and ready to take on whatever the hell comes next. It’s here now, covering the car just outside and inching through the building itself. Even Theresa seems to panic when she sees it, dragging her grandma as best she can deeper into the shop.
“Hang on!” Kate shouts, pulling an arrow back to shoot should any sort of monster or ghost or whatever the fuck come at them.
She realizes that it’s probably nothing like that, it will probably just take her like it has everyone else - into nothing, death. She thinks she should be having a life flashing moment or thinking about how she’s about to see her dad again - something prophetic.
Instead, all she can think about is how the last arrow she shot was a tiny ass flare into a literal void of darkness like it might actually do something.
Way to go, Hawkeye.
Then, just as the void touches her foot, it stops. She isn’t swallowed by darkness or evaporated into nothing.
The darkness starts to move away, much faster than it rolled in - and Kate watches in awe as the sky clears and the city regains its color.
Her heart is pounding, her ears start to pick up sound again like normal and she’s pretty sure there’s a shard of glass poking her in the butt. Kate lowers her bow, taking a deep breath before resting her head against the counter.
“¿Qué pasó?Theresa? Is that you?” She hears the older woman’s voice, raspy and tired and turns her head to see Dia sitting up with a confused look on her face.
“Abuela!” Theresa hugs her grandma tight, sobbing and rambling a hundred words a second. Kate smiles at the sight, glad to see that grandma is okay. When she sees Kate sitting there though, grandma’s frown deepens.
“Who the hell are you?”
-------------------------------
Kate’s stomach growls so loudly that even Lucky looks up from his napping spot to stare at her. She winces, starving, and only realizes then that it’s almost dark outside.
After what can only be described as one of the weirdest days of her life so far, Kate decided to spend the rest of it buried in Bishop Security paperwork. She wants to sell the company, desperately - it’s not a part of her life anymore. But the problem is that she won’t just hand it over to some random person who could do all sorts of nefarious things with it. Kate’s seen too much of how shitty the world is to give away an asset like that to just anyone.
Hell, her own mother used it to help Wilson Fisk and do all sorts of shitty stuff. So yeah, for now Kate is still in charge, even if she doesn’t go into the office save for a few times a month.
That doesn’t remove her from doing paperwork unfortunately.
Usually though, she can handle it pretty well. Today though, after spending her morning leaving a very bad one night stand and then fighting a weird cloud of darkness.
Most of the news outlets Kate looked at afterwards didn’t have any real explanation for it, Kate hasn’t really had the time to follow up. She helped Theresa and her grandmother get to a hospital, found out that Greer and Franny both made it out okay and then helped with cleanup for a few hours before finally heading home. There was a large gathering of people she saw, some kind of a press conference, but Kate needed to get back to Lucky.
Now she’s here, doing paperwork and cracking her neck as she stands up, desperately needing food.
Kate grabs her phone, scrolling again to see if there’s any new info on the attack or…whatever it was, when she sees a few scrolling headlines that catch her eye.
DE FONTAINE CHRISTENS NEW AVENGERS
AS DARKNESS TAKES MANHATTAN, NEW AVENGERS MAKE THE SAVE
DID WE JUST WITNESS THE SECOND COMING OF HEROES IN NEW YORK?
“Oh come on,” Kate sighs, scrolling past headline after headline as her frustration grows with each one. Because the actual Avengers are still out there, she’s heard about it, seen it, and has had some very long conversations with Clint about getting her name out there.
She knows who Sam Wilson is, that he’s the new Captain America, and that he’s starting a team.
“I need on that team, Clint.”
“That’s not something I can just handwave and make happen, Kate. I’m out of the game.”
“You’re an OG! You have to have some pull!”
“I don’t know what that even means.”
Then she spent the next thirty minutes explaining to him what “OG” meant and never actually got anywhere with the Avengers stuff.
Now there’s a new team, apparently, and Kate once again wasn't invited. Despite, you know, actively being out there.
Though she’s vaguely familiar with Valentina De Fontaine from a few fancy parties growing up, before she moved to DC for her political career she was trying very hard to become a player in the New York business scene. Kate was too young to really understand, but she remembers her mom saying more than once that Valentina was a snake.
“Guess it’s easy to see them when you’re in the grass too, huh mom?” She says to the empty apartment, no to Lucky - she doesn’t talk to herself she talks to Lucky.
Kate opens her fridge for a drink, trying to decide if she wants to order food or just try her luck with whatever is left in her cupboards when a steady, sharp knock is at her door.
She tenses, because nobody comes over to her house this late at night and solicitors never bother with the five flights it takes to get up here.
Tense, Kate sees Lucky lift his head up, staring at the door as she walks over to it slowly, deciding to just grab a knife from the kitchen and tuck it behind her back as she reaches the peephole.
When she looks through it, all she sees is the top of a blonde head of hair and “open the door, Kate Bishop.”
That voice sends her back in time. She’s twenty-two again and fighting for her life through an office building while also having the most fucking fun she had that entire Christmas. “Yelena?”
She watches again as that same blonde head of hair takes a step back and then looks right at her through the peephole. “Hiiiii, can you open the door now?”
With a heavy sigh, Kate steps back and opens the door to reveal Yelena standing there looking…
Well okay, she looks fucking amazing. Her hair is much shorter than Kate remembers it, fluffy and messy on top of her head but in a way that somehow looks perfect. She has on a long sleeved deep green top and black pants, a loose fitting jacket and…is that a chain around her neck?
“Kate Bishop, since when do you wear glasses?”
Oh, right, “only when I’m working on my laptop…or reading.” She says as she pulls them off and sets them down on the counter.
Their introductions are stalled when Lucky comes bounding towards the new person in the room. Kate isn’t sure what she expects, but the way Yelena’s face melts surprisingly doesn’t catch her off guard. “Oh look at you! Hi! You are the best doorman, aren’t you?” Yelena pets Lucky joyfully, her voice doing a very cute, raspy whine with each word. “You know how to welcome someone, don’t you? Not like your human, who is still standing very threateningly.”
Kate sighs, “Look between the hair and you using the front door, I was starting to think you’d been replaced by an alien clone or something.”
Yelena hums, stepping inside with her hands behind her back, head cast down as she laughs a little. Her whole body language is different than the last time Kate saw her. She’s more…reserved maybe, Kate’s not sure.
She’s still gorgeous though, which is the same problem Kate had with her last time. “Were you planning to…butter me up?”
Kate frowns, remembering very suddenly that Yelena is the kind of person that should come with a decryption code. “What?”
She watches Yelena’s eyes drift down to her hand, brows raised with a little smile before they find Kate again.
That’s when Kate looks at the knife she grabbed to defend herself. A butter knife. “Okay well, in my hands this is still a deadly weapon.”
Yelena hums and grins at her, “so deadly, Kate Bishop.”
“Still doing the full name thing, huh?”
Yelena shrugs, “I like the way it sounds.”
“Sure, so what do I owe the…pleasure?”
“Should be, I do not have any intentions to kill you-”
“Try,” Kate cuts her off, “Try and kill me, I wouldn't make it easy.”
There’s a pause, where Yelena just kind of looks at her. Again though, it isn’t like before, when she was sure Yelena was just toying with her or winding her up for no reason. No, now it’s quieter, more level grounded. “No, I don’t think you would.” Yelena looks away then, licking her lips and sighing. “I’m not here for anything really I just…I was going over the reports from today’s event and-”
“Wait, you were here for that? The whole darkness cloud thing?” She sees the guilt paint Yelena’s expression and starts to put the pieces together. “Was that…because of you?”
“Not me specifically, but I was there, yes. Me and and…well some people I met through work.”
“Through work? So assassins?”
“No,” Yelena says and then frowns deeply. “Well, yes I guess, technically - but we are not that anymore.” Yelena seems to grow frustrated, whether it be with the conversation or herself or Kate, she can't tell, but she waves her off. “It doesn't matter, the point is that I was looking through reports and I read about a girl in purple with a bow, helping civilians in the streets and…well…”
“Branding!” Kate grins triumphantly, resisting the urge to call Clint right now and have Yelena tell him exactly that. “This is what I’m talking about, people start to connect the color, the bow, to me and then when they need help they know who to call!” This is great, especially if someone like Yelena who hasn’t seen her in years still remembers her trademarks.
“It is also a good way for your enemies to know how to find you, no?”
Okay, this is true, but the fact that Yelena ‘apparently former assassin but still probably very dangerous person’ says it to her puts Kate a little on edge.
She grips the butter knife still in her hand a bit tighter. “Is it?”
“Relax, Kate Bishop. If I was here to kill you I would not have knocked and you would already be dead.”
Kate rolls her eyes, annoyed even as she turns around and puts the butter knife down. “Yeah yeah, super scary assassin, I’m a naive idiot, blah blah blah - are you hungry?”
She turns and opens her cupboard to look for…something, vaguely hoping to find a box of mac and cheese if only because she knows Yelena likes it, however all she sees is some of the extra food she bought for Thanksgiving last year.
When she realizes that Yelena hasn’t answered her, Kate thinks that when she turns around Yelena will just have disappeared as people like her tend to do in very dramatic ways.
However, when she does look back Yelena is just standing there staring at her. There’s no read on her expression, at least not one Kate can decipher - she’s just…staring. “Yelena?”
“I would never call you an idiot.”
“Oh,” that is not what she expected. “I know, I was just…I mean I’m sure you thought it.”
“No, I didn’t.” Yelena says, then narrows her eyes a little. “Do you think I’m a mean person?”
Kate can't help the snort of laughter that escapes her. “Mean? No. Scary and dangerous? Absolutely.” She shrugs a little and closes the cupboard - there’s no food here. “Even then you never seemed all that interested in hurting me. I’m not stupid enough to think you were giving me 100% in that office building. So, you know, thanks for that.”
Yelena rolls her eyes and looks away and…Kate would never say it out loud but she’s pretty sure Yelena is blushing a little. “So I don’t have any food here, but I can order something?”
“No, that is okay,” Yelena shakes her head and looks down at her feet. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay after everything today, did you uh…did it get to you?”
“You mean the haunting shadow that swallowed half the city? No, I just avoided it.”
“Good, that is good. I would not…it was not fun.”
There’s a tremor in Yelena’s voice, which is not something Kate would ever have imagined from this girl the last time they spoke. Where Yelena was so steadfastly assured of herself and her purpose. Now she seems extremely uneven and unsure of herself. Kate thinks she understands why at least a little. “So it got you then?”
Yelena nods, “it did I…I stepped into it willingly.”
“Willingly?” Kate did not expect that. “Why?”
This is enough to get Yelena to look at her, her eyes a bit glassy and her bottom lip between her teeth. “To save someone.” She shrugs, “to…find something maybe, I don’t know. It was a choice I had to make, even if the reasons don’t make a lot of sense even to me right now.”
There’s more to it, of course there’s more to it. It’s been years since the two of them interacted and even then they don’t actually know each other. Yelena is simply a part of one of the most important weeks of Kate’s entire life so there’s some feeling that she’s important. But Kate also knows that it’s all superficial, they are still effectively strangers.
“A giant black darkness engulfed the city, not much about that makes sense.”
Thankfully, her words seem to relax Yelena, whose shoulders visibly settle as she smiles. “This is true. My whole week has been…a lot.” She sounds tired, Kate could tell she was the moment she saw her (despite how fucking good she looks), but it reaches her voice now and she suddenly looks a lot more vulnerable.
Kate decides to take matters into her own hands. “Stay for dinner, you came all the way out here.”
Yelena looks up at her through the hood of her lashes, then glances at Kate's cupboard. “You have a box of something called stuffing up there and nothing else, Kate Bishop.”
“Okay, but there’s a really good Thai restaurant two blocks over with amazing dumplings and the best Panang Curry in the city.”
She watches, already knowing Yelena is going to stay when she doesn’t immediately say no. Then Yelena sighs and tilts her head in Kate’s direction. “Best in the city? You seem like the kind of person to make these claims a lot.”
“I’m confident in my opinions.”
“No doubt about that.”
Kate laughs and grabs her phone to order, not even bothering to look up as she hears Yelena start to take her jacket off. Talking to Lucky the entire time.
An hour later, they’re sitting at Kate’s kitchen counter eating quietly, the food is excellent and Kate was fully prepared to be self-conscious about shoveling dumplings into her face like a squirrel in front of the pretty girl, but as soon as they open the box, Yelena grabbed the biggest one and put the entire thing in her mouth - effectively ending any doubts about her own eating habits.
So they just sit in silence and eat, and it’s…nice. Kate hates to go the self-pity route, but she hasn’t shared a meal like this with someone in a really long time. Not since her last trip out to Iowa with the Bartons.
Still, she has never done well with quiet, so when it lingers for just a bit too long, Kate decides to fill it. “So what have you been up to the last few years?”
Yelena looks up at her, cheeks full of food and eyes wide, surprised. She chews a few times before sipping on her drink and swallowing down her bite before leaning back in her seat. “Well, I was taking contract killings when we first met. I did that few a few more years before I started getting more work stealing for the government-”
“Sheesh,” Kate can't help herself.
Thankfully, Yelena just laughs. “Yes well, it was not fun and I was…not in a very good place. I dealt with depression, a bit of a drinking problem, asked for better work and that led to my boss trying to burn me alive in an incinerator.” Kate must make a face, because Yelena quickly adds. “I survived, obviously.”
“Obviously, but still. I imagine you killed the person who did that.”
Yelena winces a little. “Not…exactly.”
“Oh?”
She shrugs, “it crossed my mind, but things have a way of going in directions you do not expect, no? And now…I technically work for her, but it is more like she works for me.”
Nobody talks in riddles quite like Yelena does, Kate is starting to remember in a frustrating sort of way. “Sounds complicated.”
“It is, very, but things are okay…I think. Perhaps they are too new to really say, but I am…making an effort. Seeing all of your worst trauma replayed to you over and over again has a way of putting things into perspective.”
It comes so far out of left field that Kate doesn’t really know how to respond properly other than to blurt out “what the fuck?”
Yelena hums into her drink. “Yes, it is as dramatic as it sounds. The void that chased you through the streets, if…if you were caught in it that is what happened. Literally just shame rooms showing you all of your worst moments on repeat.”
“Jesus, that sounds…I can't even imagine what that would have been like for me. What did you see?”
“No, Kate Bishop,” Yelena’s voice is sharp, for the first time all night, those teeth show through just a bit. “We do not talk about this.”
Boundaries, Kate will forever respect them, “okay, that’s fair.” She says simply and that seems to catch Yelena off guard - which feels like a small victory. “Still, you seem to be doing okay. All things considered.”
“I am, all things considered.” Yelena sets her drink down and closes the takeout box in front of her, but her eyes never leave Kate. “You seem different as well.”
Kate laughs, “It’s been three years so I’d sure hope so.”
“Yes but…I don’t know, it’s…as if you are the same but…more.” Yelena shrugs, still watching her. “I do not know how to say it right. Your confidence now feels less..forced than before.”
“It is less forced,” Kate admits, because god knows back then she was just trying to hype herself up 24/7. “I’m good at what I do, which wasn't easy, but I’m basically Hawkeye full time now and I’ve gotten pretty good.”
Yelena takes the word in, not saying anything for a bit but still just looking at Kate. It’s a gaze Kate feels like she should be wilting under, but she doesn’t. There’s no judgment in Yelena’s eyes, only curiosity and interest. “I do not doubt it, Kate Bishop.” Yelena smiles at her, and Kate thinks it’s the most genuine smile Yelena’s given her since she told Yelena she was hard to dislike. “I should be going, I need to sleep for at least two days.”
Kate gets up as Yelena does, feeling every bit of her long day that Yelena probably has double of considering the apparent nightmare darkness cloud she got swallowed up in. “It was nice to see you,” she says, because it was. Because she would feel bad if she didn’t say it.
“You too,” Yelena offers in return, grabbing her coat before kneeling down to pet Lucky who is still lingering near the counter hoping for scraps. “And you красивый мальчик.” The Russian words sound prettier than they should from Yelena’s lips and Kate shoves that thought as far back into her mind as possible.
When Yelena stands up and opens the door, she looks back to Kate again. “Thank you for dinner, Kate. And the company.”
“Thanks for staying, I’m…I’m glad you’re okay.”
Yelena nods slightly, cheeks a shade of pink as she grins. “You too. I will see you around.”
The ‘promise?’ gets lodged in Kate’s throat too long and Yelena is suddenly gone.
It isn’t until later that night, long after she’s cleaned up, showered and climbed into bed with the most exaggerated groan of all time, that Kate is scrolling her phone and sees it.
INTRODUCING: THE NEW AVENGERS
With Yelena front and center in the photo next to Valentina De Fontaine. “Son of a-” she drops her phone on her face.