Chapter Text
And because life goes on, and so it goes for now and until the end of time, Kate Bishop comes back to the city on the second day of January as the sun is starting to set. Any more time spent in Iowa and her time at Clint Barton’s farmhouse was going to start feeling like an avoidance mechanism. A trauma response, albeit a well-earned one. She appreciates his concern, and his insistence that she can stay as long as she wants, really she can, she’s not imposing at all, but a week or so of playing Happy Family with the Bartons is about all she can take.
If she’s ever going to get used to this Girl Without Parents thing, she’s got to buckle down and put on her big girl britches. No use pretending like she’s ever going to really be part of Clint’s family.
The thing is she knows she could be, if she wanted to be, but there’s something holding her back, tugging her back to New York and her charred apartment. She’s been thinking a lot, about a lot of things, but mostly about the last thing her mother said to her before she was taken away in handcuffs — that Kate doesn’t know how to live without. Because she never has, never had to. Never had to because of the very reason her mom is in jail while Kate and Lucky hitch a ride back to her falling apart apartment from the airport, luggage in tow.
It doesn’t help that, in light of her mother’s assets being frozen, Clint gave her a “survival stipend” pulled from funds apparently made available to Avengers after Tony Stark’s death. She tried to say no, tried to tell Clint she would figure something out, but he insisted — he’s been doing a lot of that lately — and in the end, what was Kate supposed to do? In the end, she had simply smiled and said something cheeky like, Does this mean I’m an Avenger now? And Clint had rolled his eyes and said something just as cheeky like, Consider yourself still in training, Hawkeye.
So basically, she’s a Girl Without Parents just trying to carve out her own place in the world, with just a little bit (maybe more than a little bit) of help from Tony Stark’s knack for foresight and capacity for generosity when it comes to his comrades in arms. And this Girl Without Parents, she exits the taxi gracefully, heads straight up to her apartment, and is stopped in her tracks when she opens the door, Lucky skipping ahead of her but stopped short by his leash, only to be whipped right in the face by the sight of Yelena Belova napping on Kate’s couch.
Or, that is, Yelena Belova waking up from a nap on Kate’s couch and snapping to a standing position immediately, because of course there’s no way that Kate could sneak up on Yelena unsuspectedly, even in sleep.
“Jesus Christ—”
“Now, Kate Bishop, you know my name and that’s not—”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Kate drops her duffel bag just in front of the doorway, still too hesitant to fully enter. She also realizes that her hold on Lucky’s leash has slackened, and Lucky, wasting no time, is already scurrying up to Yelena with his tongue out and his tail wagging.
Traitor.
Yelena yawns, which is a little unnatural. Kate hasn’t really thought about Black Widows having access to human urges like sleepiness. She’s always felt like Natasha Romanoff was a little bit more than just human, what with all she was capable of. She can’t help but make the same assumption about Yelena, and now here she is, wearing Kate’s clothes — an old college tee and sweatpants — and yawning in Kate’s apartment.
“I hope you don’t mind,” says Yelena, which of course can only be the precursor to a revelation that Kate absolutely knows she will mind, “but I needed a place to crash. Also, you stood me up, you know.”
Kate blinks at her, wrinkling her nose in thought. “Stood you up? For what?”
“For drinks, Kate Bishop, keep up,” Yelena says, kneeling down to pet Lucky while she feigns a sad look on her face. Or at least Kate can only assume it’s being feigned. “You extended a very nice invitation, if I remember correctly. My feelings are very hurt.”
“Oh,” is all Kate can think to say. Honestly, she’s kind of running low on steam. The adrenaline that rushed through her when she walked in on this unexpected sight is starting to trickle out of her. She sighs, finally properly entering the apartment and shutting the door behind her, locking it instinctively. With nearly all of her strength she leans against the door, taking in the view in front of her: Yelena Belova, cooing softly at her dog.
“Listen,” says Kate, a sigh mixed into those words, “I’d love to chat, but I just got off my flight and I’m kind of tired. Are you going to tell me why you’re actually here? In my clothes? On my couch? In my burned apartment? No offense, but I thought you were done with me. Weren’t you only here for Clint?”
And didn’t you make your peace? She wants to add, but she doesn’t. Doesn’t want to push. There’s no reason to push.
Yelena shrugs, still squatting down beside Lucky. She’s avoiding Kate’s gaze, but Kate’s not an idiot; she knows that Yelena is keeping her awareness on her in other ways. “I told you. I needed a place to stay and I thought you were going to be gone for a long time now that you and Barton are like this.” She adorns that last part by holding up crossed fingers. Like this . Kate just keeps looking at her, keeping her face carefully blank, and Yelena continues, “But no worries, Kate Bishop. I can be on my merry way now.”
With that Yelena stands, and Kate bites her lip, then can’t help but nag a little. “And you couldn’t have stayed at, I don’t know, a hotel?”
“Well, I didn’t kill Barton, did I? So I didn’t get paid. Also, you sent my client to jail, so I wouldn’t have gotten paid anyway,” Yelena says, shrugging, and finally she’s looking at Kate now. She must see something telling on Kate’s face, and it makes her chuckle, a low, rumbling sound. “Don’t look so down. I’m only joking. I do alright for myself. But hotels are crowded, and loud. I wanted to be alone.”
Kate can feel the frown on her face quirk up a little despite her. “Y’know, New York isn’t exactly the place to be if you want some quiet. Or to be alone, for that fact.”
That earns Kate another shrug. Yelena says, “It is not so hard to be alone in a crowded place, Kate Bishop, not if you’ve had a lot of practice.”
At that Kate resolutely frowns, again. “Then why’d you feel the need to go all home invader on me?”
“Ah, you got me there.” Yelena shakes a bandaged finger at her, coming a little closer, hand leaving Lucky’s head now. Something in her seems to meet some kind of resolve, because she continues, “I truly did think you would be gone longer. For the record, I was going to do some deep, deep cleaning around here for you, but I suppose it’s too late for that. I’ll be out of your hair if you give me a minute to change. I assume you want,” Yelena looks down at her thieved outfit, “this ‘fit’ back?”
She looks Yelena up and down, and concedes. “I do,” she says, “want that ‘fit’ back. Thank you.”
“So polite. Soon you’ll be thanking me for making myself at home here,” Yelena says as she makes her way up the stairs to Kate’s bedroom as if she has always had lay of this land.
Kate doesn’t say anything, just picks up her duffel bag and heads into the living room area, which, despite being Yelena’s makeshift home for the past week, doesn’t look all that lived in. So she really has been mindful of the space. Kate takes a deep breath, drops the duffel bag again (this time by the couch) and collapses into one of her armchairs. She can hear a bit of rummaging around from upstairs, and not for the first time in two weeks she thinks about how this is her life and it’s crazy that this is her life.
The sight of Yelena stalking down the stairs in what is one of the most chic outfits Kate has ever seen in her life — and that’s saying a lot, ‘cause she’s been all over the New Money New York scene since she started walking — just adds more fodder to her flurry of disbelieving thoughts. Kate truly has no idea how Yelena can make a white ankle-length coat, white jumpsuit, and heeled white boots look revolutionary, but she can. The black duffel bag she has in tow kind of kills the vibes of it all, but still. She looks good. Downright good. It makes Kate feel self-conscious in her purple hoodie and mom jeans, all too aware all of a sudden of the dirt from Clint’s farm brought back on her purple Converse.
“Your outfit’s nice,” she tells Yelena, because it’s true and because she’s starting to realize that Yelena is on her way out, and as soon as she leaves, Kate is going to be all alone. She hadn’t realized how alone she felt until she had come into her apartment and realized that she suddenly wasn’t alone.
Yelena looks down at her outfit like she’s seeing it for the first time, then looks back up at Kate. “Thank you, Kate Bishop. Thank you also for not freaking out too much at me for being here. Goodbye.”
Kate starts to say goodbye back as Yelena makes towards the front door, and instead she says, “No dropping out the window this time?”
That stops Yelena, who turns around. “I’m off the clock now. Sometimes I like to keep some semblance of normalcy.”
“Hmm,” hums Kate, and in the same breath she says, “What about that drink?”
Yelena’s eyebrows quirk curiously. “What? I was joking about being stood up, you know. You know jokes?”
“Yeah,” says Kate, “I know. But I’m serious now. Why not? You’re already here.”
Yelena considers that, then nods slowly.
“Why not?” she says. “I’m already here.”
It’s really weird, this whole being out with Yelena Belova thing. Kate tries not to examine it too closely. A week ago she was slapping Yelena and being kicked in the ribs in return, and now they’re at the dive bar across the street from Kate’s apartment having a drink, sitting side by side on stools. She wonders what Clint would say, and decides he probably wouldn’t be all that surprised. Kate, after all, seems to have a knack for getting herself into these kinds of situations.
Not that she considers this a dangerous situation or anything adjacent to unsavory. She’s not really sure what it is. It’s just that Yelena’s there, and Kate doesn’t want to be alone even though she knows she has to be alone, and something is telling her that no matter what she’s saying, Yelena doesn’t want to be alone either. Yelena Belova is a trained Black Widow assassin, and the truth is that if she wanted to hurt or even kill Kate, that would have already happened. She was always here for Clint, and now Kate doesn’t really know why she’s here at all.
Apparently, though, she’s found some kind of purpose in saying:
“You know that drink isn’t actually Russian, right?”
Kate looks at her Moscow mule in its copper cup, and shrugs. “So? It’s good.”
“It’s a poser drink,” Yelena says, sipping her vodka on the rocks. “Calling itself from Moscow when it’s not. Pssh!”
“Like I said, it’s good.” She takes a sip to prove it. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. And how are you drinking that straight?”
“Unlike your drink, I am actually Russian,” says Yelena, taking a sip of her own drink to prove her own point. “I don’t need to dress up a drink to enjoy it, thank you very much.”
Kate can’t purport to know much about Yelena despite all that Yelena seems to know about her, and suddenly she decides it’s her mission to know all that she can about Yelena. So she says: “Okay, but have you ever had a Sex on the Beach, though?”
Yelena looks at Kate with a blank stare, then her straight mouth morphs into a quirked up little half-smirk. “Okay, Kate Bishop, that is a very random question, but if you must know, I’ve never–”
“Oh god,” Kate interrupts her, shaking her head quickly. Her cheeks feel hot and she hates it. “That’s not—that’s not what I meant. It’s a drink, it’s a drink called Sex on the Beach. Ever had one?”
“Ah.” Yelena seems to bounce back from that one quickly. Kate does her best not to dwell too much on that. “In that case, also a no.”
This is something that Kate decides to remedy immediately. She flags the bartender down, and in the span of five minutes (it’s not a busy night) Yelena is grimacing down at the orange-red concoction.
“Now this is definitely dressed up.”
“Just try it!” Kate urges, a little too eager to see Yelena’s reaction. So Yelena does try it, and Kate holds back a laugh at the way Yelena’s eyes go wide and then narrow, like she caught herself just before she could look too amazed.
“This,” Yelena says, “is delicious. You win, Kate Bishop.”
Kate pumps her fist in the air. Then she finishes her drink, and orders another, and Yelena orders another, and they’re talking and even though they’re kind of talking about nothing, it’s nice. They’re just talking about, like, the brief tourist-y stint that Yelena had when she first got to New York, when she was still just gathering intel, and Kate gives her recommendations for what is really worth seeing in New York (admittedly, some of it is tourist-y) for the next time Yelena is in town. And then they get talking about their fight, and the highlights, and Yelena somehow tricks Kate into rambling all about her martial arts and archery training for a good fifteen minutes before Kate finally stops and notes,
“You know, I feel like I’m talking a lot about myself and I still barely know anything about you.”
Yelena nods, taking a sip of her drink, does a little ahh , and sets the drink down again. “Well, in my line of work, one doesn’t really give away much about themselves.” She makes a point of looking around the bar, where it’s just them and a few old guys playing pool. “You never know who might be listening.”
Kate fixes her with a blank stare. “Really? That’s your excuse?”
“Or maybe,” Yelena says, fixing Kate with her own stare, but this one riddled with a small smile and a quirked eyebrow, “I’ve assessed that you are a threat, and I don’t want to give a potential threat information they can beat me with.”
“Oh, please.” Kate scoffs. “As if I could beat you.”
Yelena pauses to consider that, then looks Kate in the eye. “I think you could.”
Well, that’s just not true. So she says that: “Well, that’s just not true.”
“Sure, maybe not right now,” Yelena accedes, “but with more training? You might be able to. You’d at least be even more of a formidable opponent than you already are. Besides, Kate Bishop, I didn’t take you for the humble type.”
“I’m not,” Kate says, feeling warm under Yelena’s unrelenting gaze. “But I’m also realistic. You’re—you’re a Black Widow.”
“Yes, and you have also had years of training. So we are not so different.” Which isn’t true at all, and Kate doesn’t have to know specifics about Yelena to know how untrue that is. When all that information from SHIELD came out, Kate was young but she was also obsessed with the Avengers. She read all about Natasha Romanoff’s past. Yelena’s can’t be all that different.
“But,” Yelena continues, and Kate comes back to attention all at once, “I’m not here to fluff up your ego. Anyway, I did go a little easy on you. I was here for Barton, after all. I’m not interested in collateral damage.”
That smarts a little, the switch-up. “You went easy on me?”
“Don’t act so surprised. I let you ask me to go have a drink in the middle of a fight, didn’t I?” Now Yelena is looking past Kate, somewhere Kate feels like she wouldn’t be able to see even if she was looking there, too. “Maybe you’re just distracting. Actually, you are definitely distracting. What are you doing asking your opponent to go have a drink with you?”
“Being distracting was kind of the point,” Kate mutters, and Yelena catches it and chuckles. Again with that low, rumbling sound, followed by Yelena’s own muttering of something in Russian that Kate doesn’t understand.
“It’s not, like,” Kate pipes up after a moment, “I’m asking for a breakdown of all your tactical strengths. I don’t want to know how to beat you. I just want to know, um, like–what’s your favorite color?”
Another chuckle. “You think you can only beat someone by learning their tactical strengths? You wouldn’t be a very good spy. All knowledge is power.” A pause, and then: “It’s green.”
Kate smiles. They’re still not looking at each other again, but she smiles. “Mine’s purple.”
“No, really? I just had to take one look at your closet to figure out that one, Kate Bishop, tell me something I wouldn’t know so easily.”
She takes a second to think, then says, “You tell me first.”
“We’re circling back to this? I already told you, knowledge is power. Too much power.” But there’s a smile in Yelena’s voice when she says this, and it makes Kate smile, too.
“How about you at least tell me why you actually crashed at my place? Consider it your rent payment.”
Maybe Kate is pushing too much. She regrets it a little when Yelena speaks again, and the smile is gone from her voice.
“I told you,” says Yelena. “I wanted to be alone.”
Kate clears her throat even though she doesn’t really have anything else to say, then she looks at Yelena and is almost surprised to see her looking back. Almost.
“Okay, so,” she says, “how about we ditch this place, grab a handle of vodka and some orange juice, and take this party back to my apartment?”
Yelena seems to have a knack for bouncing back from awkward lulls, and awkward moments, and she shrugs, mouth almost a smile again. “Sure, Kate Bishop. You are exceedingly hard to say no to, so sure.”
Now it’s Kate that is smiling.
By the time they crack open the vodka and Kate’s digging into her first screwdriver — and Yelena, of course, is back to drinking it straight — she’s starting to feel that feeling where her face is a little tingly and her teeth are a little numb, which just means she’s properly and truly tipsy. Yelena doesn’t seem affected at all, which mildly annoys Kate and then she has to remind herself that Yelena is the type of person that drinks straight vodka.
They sit on the living room floor, red plastic cups nestled in their hands. Yelena, of course, got a good kick out of Kate only owning one cup. They’re talking about New York again and then Yelena is soliciting music recommendations (without giving any in return) and then there’s a pause and then Kate says,
“You couldn’t be alone wherever you came from?”
“In Russia? No, definitely not. Too much nagging from too many people.” Yelena purses her lips, then concedes, “From two people, specifically. It can be annoying.”
Which, okay, that’s something. Something is more than nothing. In the quiet of her apartment Kate decides it’s okay if she pushes just a little bit more. “So you normally live in Russia?”
“God no.” Yelena shakes her head. “I will tell you this. Where I normally live, and most of the time I’m out on jobs, I have a roommate. So I couldn’t go there to be alone, either. Is that the kind of information you were looking for?”
“I don’t see how I’m supposed to ‘beat you’ based on the knowledge that you have a roommate,” says Kate, and Yelena laughs.
“Then you’re not thinking smart enough, Kate.” The use of her name without Bishop tacked on is almost enough to jump scare Kate. She keeps it together, though, and Yelena continues, “You could do a lot with that knowledge. For example, I know you have a dog. What would you do if something were to happen to that dog?”
Kate can’t help but look over at Lucky dozing off in a corner, and when she looks back at Yelena she knows that Yelena can see the hurt look on her face. She doesn’t say anything, and Yelena nods.
“See? Too far, I know, but you get what I mean. How do you think I would feel if something happened to my roommate, hmm?”
“I wouldn’t do anything to your roommate,” Kate says, because it’s true. She harbors no ill intent toward Yelena. She hopes Yelena feels the same way about her, but it’s only hope. She dares to ask: “Are they just your roommate? Or—”
Yelena’s expression is unreadable. “They’re just a roommate. It’s complicated.”
That could mean a lot of things. But Kate decides she shouldn’t push on that front. Her eyes flicker around the dimly lit apartment. It’s the alcohol in her system that makes her say, “I don’t really want to do anything to hurt you.”
When she meets Yelena’s gaze again, her expression is still unreadable. Yelena says, “I believe you.”
Then she stands, grunting a little as she does, and says, “Okay, this was fun, but my time to be alone is up. It’s time to go back to the real world. Obligations, and whatnot.”
Kate tries hard to quell the disappointment in her chest, and fails. She clears her throat, and stands up, trying hard not to wobble. She fails a little at that, too.
“Technically, you weren’t alone the whole time,” she says, and that makes Yelena smile.
“You’re right,” Yelena says, picking up her duffel bag and heading towards the door. “I wasn’t alone the whole time.”
“So is this it?” Kate asks, pretending like she’s not trying to prolong the moment. “I thought you meant to stay longer because you thought I’d be gone longer.”
“Despite knowing I shouldn’t, yes,” says Yelena, stopping. “But now you are back, and I have had my reality check. My real world is not so pretty as yours, Kate. Though I have a feeling your world is starting to feel not so pretty, I still must go. Like I said — obligations.”
She doesn’t really want to dare ask, and she doesn’t even know why she should care, but she still says it: “Do you think we’ll see each other again?”
“Ah,” Yelena muses, looking over her shoulder, “I suppose we will. We’re in similar lines of business. I’m sure we’ll come across each other in the middle of a fight sometime. Seems likely, no?”
Still neither of them move, and then Kate says, “Well, you have my number.”
She doesn’t say and I have yours , but she’s thinking it.
Yelena has turned back towards the door, and Kate can’t see Yelena’s face when she says, “That I do.”
Kate watches Yelena walk out the door with a brisk wave and the click of the doorknob to mark the departure. Lucky is next to her now, sleepily blinking up at her and panting softly. She looks down at him, and he looks at the door and then back at her.
“Yeah,” she says, “I know.” But she doesn’t really know what she knows. She just kind of says it.
For a few days, Kate only thinks about Yelena on and off. Hard not to think about the last time you weren’t alone. But she’s got other things to think about, too. Like fixing up her burnt apartment, for instance, although all things considered the damage wasn’t too bad. Clint knows a guy that owes him a favor (he knows a lot of guys that owe him favors), the guy’s name is Tim and he’s helping Kate out so she spends a lot of time making herself useful to Tim and his crew.
She knows that sooner or later she’s going to have to start thinking about the future. That time isn’t now, though. For now she’s just keeping busy, and trying to learn how to live without.
So she only thinks about Yelena on and off, and she kind of thinks that she’s going to be the one to fold and send a hi text eventually. When she thinks about it, that’s all she can think that she would say. She doesn’t have anything to say and yet she wants to say something, which is annoying. She doesn’t even know what she wants from Yelena, which is annoying.
She certainly doesn’t expect to wake up to a ping! ping! ping! coming from her phone (she keeps the ringer on in case, y’know, Clint has an emergency, because she’s an Avenger-in-training and whatnot) at 2 a.m. and see the words are you up? glowing at her from her phone screen. She blinks, rubs at her sleepy eyes, and sits up. It’s coming from an unknown number. Despite her better instincts, she responds.
[ Text ] From: Unknown
2:03 AM — are you up?
[ Text ] To: Unknown
2:05 AM — Who is this?
[ Text ] From: Unknown
2:06 AM — ah
[ Text ] From: Unknown
2:06 AM — i forgot you do not have my personal number, kate bishop
Kate stares at that, biting her lip. She throws caution to the wind, and says:
[ Text ] To: Unknown
2:08 AM — Yelena?
There’s a pause before her phone pings again.
[ Text ] From: Unknown
2:15 AM — yes
[ Text ] From: Unknown
2:15 AM — so you are up
She shakes her head at her phone as if Yelena can see the disapproving stare on her face.
[ Text ] To: Yelena
2:16 AM – Well, now I am. Your message woke me up
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:17 AM – light sleeper
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:17 AM — that is good tactical advantage to have
[ Text ] To: Yelena
2:18 AM — So…what’s up?
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:19 AM — i have update for you
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:19 AM — i have decided red is also one of my favorite colors
[ Text ] To: Yelena
2:20 AM — Oh, major life update then
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:21 AM — yes, i know
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:21 AM — it is only recently that i have been able to have favorites
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:21 AM — i am trying out all the colors
[ Text ] To: Yelena
2:22 AM — Well, keep me updated for sure
Kate looks at the dots that indicate Yelena is typing. She watches them go, and then they stop. She adds more to her message.
[ Text ] To: Yelena
2:24 AM — Did you make it home safe?
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:25 AM — wouldn’t be texting you if i didn’t, kate bishop
[ Text ] To: Yelena
2:26 AM — Somehow I don’t doubt your ability to text me in the middle of some kind of precarious situation
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:27 AM — ooo, big word
There’s another pause. This time Kate doesn’t add anything, just watches the screen until the dots pop up and a new message arrives.
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:32 AM — did you go back to sleep
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:32 AM — i will let you rest
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:32 AM — goodnight
Kate thinks about how Tim is coming early in the morning with his crew to keep helping her with the apartment, and she sighs.
[ Text ] To: Yelena
2:33 AM — I didn’t fall asleep, but I have to be up early
[ Text ] To: Yelena
2:33 AM — I should sleep, but it was nice to hear from you. Don’t be a stranger, okay?
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:34 AM — okay, kate bishop
[ Text ] From: Yelena
2:34 AM — goodnight
Later that same day, sometime after Tim has left, Kate gets another message from Yelena, and this time it’s an invitation to play 8 Ball. Kate stares at the request for a minute before accepting it, cuddling up with Lucky and playing five rounds of 8 Ball with Yelena.
Kate wins, 3-2.