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It took Yelena Belova approximately four hours after their first fight to find her way back into Kate Bishop’s arms again.
As far as fights go, it had started rather stupidly. Yelena, idiot that she was, had made some blithe comment about one of Kate’s many childhood trophies. Kate, who was supposed to be the more level headed of the two, should have known that Yelena had meant nothing by the comment, but felt stung by it anyways. She had responded in typical Kate Bishop fashion and then some by going for the jugular, and had made an offhand joke about actually having a childhood, knowing full well that she would regret those words the moment they left her mouth.
Things had gone rapidly downhill from there.
Neither one wanted to admit it, but the cutting off hand remarks they had so casually thrown at each other were not the actual reason for the fight. Not at all. The snide comments had merely given them a reason to scream and shout and say hurtful things to each other, but the underlying issues had been there long before.
Both had been on edge lately, for entirely different reasons unrelated to the other. But being together, sharing a personal space with each other, meant that each found the other person to be the perfect channel to take out their frustrations on.
Yelena Belova could easily kick Kate Bishop’s butt in a physical fight, but found herself outmatched in a war of words. Kate had the added advantage of having been raised by Eleanor Bishop, and had furthermore grown up in the deadly cliques of New York’s private school circles.
Unused to being on the losing end, Yelena had pulled the one trump card she knew would win her the argument – she left. Left their apartment, clothes thrown carelessly in a bag, throwing the words “I am done with you” at a dumbfounded Kate Bishop, taking a perverse pleasure in the stricken look on the younger woman’s face.
That perverse pleasure lasted all of three seconds after she had slammed the door behind her. Every fiber of her being screamed at her to turn around, open that door and apologize. But Yelena Belova was, despite sharing no biological traits and being raised for only two years in Ohio, the daughter of Alexei Shostakov. Stubborn pigheadedness was in her blood.
And so, lips pressed in a thin line, she had stormed off.
Anger fueled her, but only as far as the ground floor of their apartment building. Her time enduring the Red Room gave her the strength to keep the tears from falling until her face was hidden under her helmet. The roar of her motorcycle drowned out the wailing in her head.
She dearly hoped that Kate would chase her down, follow her, make her stop.
Kate, on the other hand, felt no such compunction to hide her tears. She had broken out into a sob the moment Yelena had slammed the door. The shock of Yelena threatening to leave, followed by Yelena actually leaving, had rooted her to the spot. Fury born of betrayal had swiftly followed. For Yelena Belova, disadvantaged though she was in the nuances of relationship interactions, had correctly and cruelly identified Kate Bishop’s weakness – abandonment.
She stared at the door, and in a moment of instinctive anger, locked it with a savage twist. A minute later, she heard the telltale sign of Yelena’s motorcycle starting up, and her tears began to freely fall.
Kate Bishop would cry herself to sleep that night.
Kate and Yelena would spend the next few hours – such agonizing hours – in their heads, each casting her mind back to what had been said during the fight, their imaginations spurring their self inflicted castigation and adding on further, imagined slights.
All it would take was for one to reach out. Kate knew that she could – that it should be her. But her mind had asked one tantalizing question – why her? Why should she be the one to mend the breach? Had she not given enough to Yelena already? Had she not given enough ground? After all, it had been Yelena who had started the fight.
Where Yelena was stubborn, Kate was proud. In circumstances such as these, both were opposing sides of the same damned coin.
Stubbornness and pride kept them from their respective phones, stayed their thumbs from hitting each other’s names and calling.
“You are being very stupid.”
Yelena was beginning to regret calling her mother to cry. Milena was not one to mince words.
“Is not my fault, mama. She started it.”
“So very much like your father. Is not my fault. Bah. Nothing is ever your fault. Stubborn, like your papa.”
Yelena Belova did not like being told that she was in the wrong. She was about to protest, but Milena was now using the Voice – that special tone that all mothers seemed to possess, irrespective of biological relationship to the child in question.
“You are going to destroy something good over a few stupid words that neither one of you really meant. That is stupid, Yelena. Very stupid. And I did not raise stupid girls.”
“You did not raise us at all,” Yelena snapped, and she knew instantly that that was the most cutting thing she could possibly say to Milena. She could see, from the look on the older woman’s face, how deeply those words had wounded her. Hurt her.
The way I hurt Kate.
Milena, to her credit, knew that those words were said in anger. Accepted that the young woman in front of her was defensive and lashing out. Understood that Yelena Belova was, in so many ways, still a small child inside, still nursing the wounds of betrayal. Still feeling her way around the world, familiarizing herself with things most people had experienced in their youth. A grace, she reflected with no small sense of sadness, that her child had not been blessed with.
She knew, that because of that – because of what had been lost – bitterness had festered.
“Words have power, Yelena. Unbelievable power. You may not think it, but they do. They shape our perception of the world. They tell our story to the world. And words, once spoken, cannot be taken back.”
Yelena could feel the heat of shame rushing to her face. An apology was already forming on her lips. But the older woman…her mama…shook her head.
“I have not done right by you for a long time. But Natasha has given us all a chance, and I will do right by you now.” She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, you were under chemical subjugation for very long time. Yes, you were raised in the Red Room. Those are truths, and I will forever regret my part in them. But you are now a young woman, who is free and able to make her own choices. You cannot excuse your poor behavior and temper tantrums with your past forever, Yelena Belova.”
There was a pause.
“Mama?”
“Yes, Yelena?”
“I’m sorry.” Yelena’s voice was small, and soft. “Thank you.”
Melina Vostokoff nodded. “Be well, Yelena. Now go to her.”
“Yes, Mama.”
The problem, as assessed by Milena, was that Yelena Belova was an idiot at relationships. Fights would inevitably happen – it was the way of things. But you do not approach a fight with the person you loved as if it were an assignment from the Red Room. You do not go all out on attack. You certainly did not flee and disappear when things went wrong. You were supposed to communicate, to take the time to understand what had caused the fight in the first place. To listen to the other person. And to be heard in turn.
There would be, Milena knew, no winner in a fight between two people who loved each other. Only two people who would hurt, and remain hurt, until things were fixed.
The worst part of this was the silence. It seemed so very loud. Everything seemed transfixed, and hushed, as if the colors had been drained from the world.
For Kate loved Yelena, and every moment that she did not have her hurt her deeply. It cast a shadow upon her soul, and her world felt lonely without her.
The fight came back to her in full force. It was as though she had thrown herself into a river called Despair, with not a clue of how to swim to shore. The current pulled at her, and she could not kick hard enough to keep afloat.
How could she have said what she said, she did not know. Sometimes, in a fit of anger, all inhibitions are cast aside, and ugly thoughts brought forward, a reminder that the marks that people leave are far too often scars on the souls of others.
And Kate had, by her words, added to the collection of scars of the one she loved.
All it had taken was a single moment of lashing out, to break something that she had held so close and precious to her heart. And, her pain whispered, to break it so utterly, with such finality, that a breach had been opened. Where once there was no distance, now a chasm stood, wide and gaping and deep, with no end in sight.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and it broke her heart that Yelena was not there to hear.
The deepest feelings so very often shows itself in silence. There was no comfort to be had in this forced absence, made worse by the knowledge that she had caused it herself.
And in this, she felt the first stirring of fear. I am done with you – words pregnant with the promise of an ending. As if a chapter of her life was now closed, forever. She simply could not imagine this ending so soon, so suddenly, with just a few words.
Yet as far as she knew, it had.
And that thought was enough to make the tears fall again.
Yelena slipped back into the apartment through a window.
She dropped the bag and brushed a hand over Lucky’s head, before making her way into the bedroom, dreading what would happen next.
Would Kate take her back? She hoped so. She didn’t mean it when she said that she was done with Kate. She wished (oh how she wished) that she could go back in time, and hit herself on the head before those words had even left her mouth.
She would throw herself at Kate Bishop’s mercy and beg for forgiveness, and spend the rest of her life making sure that she would never hurt the other woman ever again.
Kate had heard the window open, and was halfway out of bed when Yelena opened the bedroom door.
Brunette and blonde stared at each other. Hesitance and uncertainty and hurt swirled in the air, a cloud within which lay the promise of the dawn of a new storm.
It was Yelena who took the first step forward, moving up to the side of the bed. A peace offering.
Kate responded by sitting back down, deliberately shifting position to create more space for Yelena.
Yelena sat down, shoulders hunched.
“You shouldn’t have left.” Kate’s voice sounded hoarse. She had been crying. A lot.
“I know.” Yelena’s voice was small. Meek.
“You know that hurts me.”
“I know.”
“That’s why you did it.”
“Yes.”
Yelena risked a glance at the woman she loved, feeling guilt tear through her at the sight of Kate’s red rimmed eyes.
“Forgive me.”
Kate kept silent.
“Please. I was so angry. So much. I just…” Yelena lifted her hands and then let them drop to her lap, struggling with the words. I was so angry that you would say such a thing to hurt me that I wanted nothing more than to hurt you so that you would know how much you hurt me because I did not expect to be hurt by you like that.
“I am sorry.” She looked down at the floor. Her shoulders sagged, helpless in defeat. “I am not good at this.” Yelena did not bother to explain what this was.
“Are you going to do that again?”
“What?”
“Leave.” And that made Yelena look up, and she felt a pull in her chest at the look of pure, unadulterated pain on Kate Bishop’s face.
“Are you going to leave, every time we fight? Because I can’t….I can’t take that, Yelena.” Kate’s voice wavered, and the sound of that tore at Yelena Belova’s soul. “I can’t be wondering whether I’d find you gone the moment I mess up, or the moment we fight.” A pause, and Kate shifted her body closer to Yelena. “It’s not fair. To me. To us.”
Kate slid herself closer. “I can’t go on being scared of that. You can yell, you can shout. I’ll do the same. But you can’t…do that.” She takes a slow, choking breath, swallowing the sob that threatens to overwhelm her with tears. “Don’t do that. Don’t do that…to me.”
“Kate Bishop.” And now it was Kate’s turn to look up, to see the pained look on Yelena’s face. “It was so stupid of me. To leave. I was stupid.”
“Yeah,” Kate offered. “You were.” She settled back into bed, turning her back to Yelena. Slowly, she slid away, creating some space under the blankets.
The blonde took the hint, kicking off her shoes and sliding under the sheets. An arm slid around to wrap itself around Kate’s waist. Slowly pulling her in, back into Yelena’s body. Kate wiggled in. Their bodies melded together, and they laid there, like that, for a while.
“I spoke to Mama.”
“Yeah?”
“She said I was an idiot for leaving.”
“She’s right.”
They laid there some more. At one point, during the intervening minutes, they had shifted position into something far more natural and familiar – Kate was now spooning Yelena, hand pressed against her favorite spot on the other woman’s body – the scars left from the operation Yelena had been subjected to in the Red Room.
It was Kate’s favorite spot, because for so long, Yelena would not let her touch her there. Had insisted that they sleep together with the lights off. Self consciousness and self loathing mixed together in a poisonous cocktail of trust issues.
But Kate had somehow gained entry into the fortress that was Yelena Belova, and now clasped the other woman’s scars almost protectively, as if to deny them their power to remind the blonde of the time in her life when she was not in control of herself. As if to tell her “I will protect you, and no one will ever take you away from yourself again”.
And Kate Bishop felt the burn of shame, of recrimination, as her treacherous mind reminded her of what she had said to the woman she loved.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, muffled into Yelena’s neck, all the while knowing full well that the blonde had heard and understood her.
“I know.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“I know.”
“I said it and I didn’t mean it and I’m so sorry I said it – “
It was then that Yelena Belova had turned around, and placed a kiss on Kate Bishop’s lips.
“We should talk. About our…about that.” Kate did not want to use the word fight. “About why that happened.”
“Now?”
“No. Not now. I know we need to talk about things. Lots of things. Things we said to each other.” Things we should never have said to one another.
“Kate, I just – ”
And Kate grabbed her face, pulled her head in close, and kissed her on the lips.
And in that kiss was everything – love, regret and apology, sorrow and recrimination, friendship and promise. It is four hours of pain crammed into one single meeting of the lips, expressing just how much each missed the other, how much each hurt the other. They feel it, crowding into the embrace of their bodies, hands roaming to hold as much of the other as they could, as if to rediscover one another after being apart. There is firm insistence in that kiss, in the way their lips press in union, in the curve of their mouths and the roll of their tongues. Their hearts beat in concert, as each makes a silent, mutual promise, never to part again.
“We’ll be okay, Yelena.”
“I know.”
The morning after the fight was overcast, but not the gloomy overcast that signaled the coming of a storm. It was the kind of overcast with brief splashes of light.
Two women laid together in bed, bodies pressed against each other. The tall brunette holding the shorter blonde close to her, arms clasped around her waist, face pressed into the crook of the other woman’s neck. Two bodies, close to one another, as if never wanting to part again.
They were both awake. Each knew that the other was awake. Yet they remained in that position, ignoring the early morning need to stretch.
It was Yelena who moved first. Slowly disengaging from the brunette, turning around so that she could face her.
“Kate Bishop,” she said, voice huskier than usual. “Hi-iiii.”
Kate smiled. “Yelena. Hi.”
The mood was still uncertain between them, but lighter. Definitely lighter. The fight, and the things said, the hurt suffered, still existed – but they existed the way mountains in the distance existed – they were there, they were real, but behind them. It was up to both women to put greater space between themselves and the mountain looming behind.
The uncertainty stemmed from the freshness of the fight and reconciliation. Both had been wounded, and the wounds were still raw. It would either heal, or continue healing, but there still existed the potentiality for those wounds to reopen, with just the wrong word being said.
Both were very aware of the need to be careful with each other.
“I’m glad…” Kate started, and hesitated, unsure as to whether bringing it up now would ruin the peace. Yet the smile on Yelena’s sleepy face emboldened her. “I’m glad you came back.”
She watched, a little tremulously, as Yelena’s face clouded over. The blonde felt, once again, a fresh pang of guilt at her actions. Kate was the one who had said the hurtful words, but it was Yelena Belova who had been the one to leave.
“I…” Yelena’s brows furrowed, as she weighed her next words carefully. Words have power, Yelena. She shook her head, almost imperceptibly. As dysfunctional as her adopted family was, there was no denying that Milena had somehow taken up residence in her head. “I am sorry I did not come back sooner.”
The gratitude she saw on Kate’s face told her that she had said the right thing.
“Where did you go?” Kate reached out, and found Yelena’s hand questing for hers. Fingers interlocked. Yelena’s thumb swiped over Kate’s knuckles. Kate squeezed Yelena’s fingers in reply.
“To the park,” Yelena admitted. The park was barely half a mile away.
“Not too far, then.”
“Still too far.”
Kate hummed, closing her eyes. “You’re right. Too far.” And to make up for the imagined harshness of those words, she kissed Yelena on the forehead, as if to soften the blow. She felt the blonde tilt her head upwards, anticipating the kiss, felt lightness in her heart at that small gesture of need.
They laid there some more, ignoring, for the moment, a deliberate whine from Lucky outside their shared room. Kate would have been content to continue just lying there, but Yelena was obviously still thinking about what had just been said.
“I didn’t…I could not go further.” Could not bring myself to go further away from you.
“Yeah?” Kate felt a slow warmth diffuse through her chest.
“Didn’t want to.” There was an emphatic look on Yelena’s face that made the warmth in Kate’s chest grow all the more hotter.
“Good.” Kate turned, looked up at the ceiling. Her eyes hurt, from all the crying. Her throat hurt as well. “Fighting sucks.”
“No.” Yelena placed her head on Kate’s shoulder, seeking comfort in closeness. “I fight with my daddy all the time. It is how we do communication, me and him. But not you and me. Fighting with you sucks.”
Another pause ensued, but it was a comfortable one, punctuated with silence born of comfort and familiarity. The sound of home.
Lucky whined again.
“He’s your dog.”
“He’s our dog.”
“He was your dog first.”
“But I don’t wanna moooove…” Kate whined.
“You have responsibilities, Kate Bishop.” Yelena affected a stern voice. “Deal with your dog.”
Kate huffed, and groaned. She sat up, about to leave the bed, and immediately decided – fight and Yelena’s flight still fresh in her mind – that she did not want to be too far apart from Yelena Belova just yet.
“Come with?”
Yelena regarded her, wondering (not for the first time) how she could ever have thought to leave this woman.
“Fine, but I am not carrying the poop bag.”
(Kate would, on the walk, hand her the bag, and Yelena would carry it.)