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Sometimes she wishes that life was a romantic comedy, where two people look at each other, hit that moment of realization, and think “This is it”. And then their eyes meet, their lips part, their hearts pound in their chest, and they come together, body and soul, in a kiss.
Sadly, life isn’t quite like that.
That doesn’t stop Kate from hoping, though.
***
“Your solutions are not helpful, Yelena.”
“What is that supposed to mean, Kate Bishop?” Yelena demanded.
Kate gives Yelena a stern look. “You have one solution to every problem. Murder.” She holds up a finger and wags it at Yelena’s face. “Someone steals a hard drive? Kill them. Someone looks at you funny? Kill them. Someone bought the last turkey in the store? Kill them. A waiter says the wrong thing? Kill them.”
“That waiter totally deserved it, Kate.”
“All he did was suggest that you actually try the food first before asking for hot sauce, Yelena.”
“Totally deserved it,” Yelena scowls under her breath, and Kate knows that she totally means for Kate to hear her. Kate tries to keep a straight face, but the impish smile on the blonde’s face is irresistible. She can’t help it, and smiles back.
That look of victory on Yelena’s face? Kate wants to see more of it.
***
Telling Kate Bishop to calm down is like asking a politician to tell the truth – completely pointless.
Yet Yelena does it anyway.
“Calm down, Kate Bishop.”
“Calm down? CALM DOWN?” Kate’s voice rises an octave. “He’s out there, all cold and alone and sad and he’s probably missing me right now and maybe someone’s stolen him and he’s in a van somewhere being driven off to a puppy farm or something.”
The blonde cocks her head to the side, puzzlement furrowing her brows. “A puppy farm? They farm puppies there?”
“It’s like a torture chamber, where they breed puppies. Lucky’s so handsome – that’s probably why they stole him. Grabbed him and tossed him into the back of a van.”
“No one has stolen him, Kate Bishop,” Yelena says. “You dropped the leash because you refuse to make two trips up and down the stairs.” She pauses. “You have a very strange fixation with vans, Kate Bishop.”
“But…”
Yelena sighs, and sits up from where she’s been lying flat on Kate’s couch. “You live in an apartment. He is a dog, and cannot operate doors. He is probably still in the building somewhere.” She rolls her eyes, and ponderously drags herself from her the very comfortable couch.
“Come, Kate Bishop. Let us go look for him.”
There aren’t any butterflies, nor is there tension. Nonetheless, something uncurls in Kate’s chest, as the blonde grabs her by the arm, fingers closing over her wrist, and pulls her out the door.
***
Kate’s in a spring cleaning mood, even though it’s autumn. She busies herself around the apartment, lifting things as if to weigh whether they spark joy or not. She takes particular care to do this in front of Yelena, as if to guilt the blonde trespasser to her apartment to get off her butt and come help.
Yelena ignores this. Kate makes it a point to go closer to where she’s sitting, to see Yelena busy pretending to read the Russian greats, who were themselves busy being unpronounceable.
“What’s that book about?” she asks. “It looks thick. And boring.”
“Just because you compulsively buy books but do not read them unless they have pictures in them does not make this book boring, Kate Bishop.”
“Oh really?” Kate asks. She scoots in closer to the blonde, sitting on the armrest of the couch. “The Brothers Karamazov,” Kate reads off the cover, drawing each syllable out with precise clarity. “What’s it about then?”
Yelena’s face takes on a peculiarly hunted look, as if she’s been caught in a trap of her own making. Kate can see the way the blonde weighs the risks and rewards of lying.
“It’s the Brothers Karamazov,” Yelena finally says, sniffing with obvious superiority. “It’s about two brothers. Who are Russian.”
(Yelena hasn’t made it past the first page. Yelena hasn’t in fact read a single page. Kate saw her reach for the book and opening it to a page at random the moment Kate walked in with her spring cleaning game face on)
“And what do these brothers do?”
“They’re farmers,” Yelena lies artlessly. “During the Great Revolution. It’s a story about the evils of capitalism and the virtues of brotherhood of the proletariat.”
“I see,” Kate says gravely. She turns her back to Yelena. “There’s a summary at the back of the book jacket, by the way.”
She knows, without seeing, that Yelena is turning to the back of the book. She can imagine the blonde’s eyes widening in realization. She keeps the smile of smug satisfaction firmly off her face as the blonde shuffles in beside her to help her clean.
There’s an odd sense of working in tandem, the way Yelena falls in to wipe and dust beside her. She smiles as Yelena picks up the odds and ends she’s collected around the apartment; laughs at the way the blonde shakes her head incredulously at something so completely random; pouts as she launches into a tirade about how messy everything is.
It feels very much like falling into place.
***
There are times when she looks at this woman and wonders how the hell she still has it all together.
Life has given Yelena Belova lemons. So she threw them right back, giving Life a black eye in the process.
She imagines, at times, how it must have felt for Yelena. Taken from the only family she had ever known, lost and heartbroken somewhere much too far from home. Growing up in a place that offered none of the things that a child needed. Losing all sense of control, a puppet in the thrall of people who cared nothing for her save for what she could do for them.
Sometimes Yelena’s façade cracks, and the pain and suffering of everything she’s been through comes through.
These are times when Yelena pushes her away, pushes her out of the way, and starts to flee. It hurts, every damn time. She hurts, because Yelena is hurting, and Kate doesn’t know how to help her.
It hurts also, because Kate’s tired of everyone leaving her all the time. Her dad’s gone, taken from her – she knows that her father hasn’t abandoned her, but sometimes it feels just like that. Her mom’s gone too, imprisoned by walls of steel and stone but also by the consequences of her actions. Kate can’t help but feel that somehow, her mother has abandoned her too.
Yelena pushes, and Kate pushes back. And they fight, and it gets messy, and it always ends with Yelena storming out and Kate being left all alone, tears blurring both their visions, leaving them unable to see each other clearly.
Yelena always comes back though.
To find Kate where she’s left her.
***
There are times, when they’re just sitting down, having dinner or watching television, when Kate looks at Yelena…like properly looks at her, and realizes that she’s in love with this woman.
The words are right there, on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn’t know how to say it out loud.
Three words, easy to spell, but somehow, when put together, become one of the hardest things to say in any language in the world.
The truth is that she’s afraid of what comes after. She’s afraid that it’s just her.
Afraid, afraid, afraid.
She’s afraid that Yelena doesn’t love her back.
***
The worst comes when they fight about what Yelena does for a living.
Kate knows what Yelena does. She knows it, in the way that she knows that the sky is blue and that there are birds in the sky.
But sometimes it rains, and birds come home to roost.
Yelena kills, and Kate isn’t quite sure how she feels about that. She doesn’t ask, and Yelena doesn’t tell. She hopes that Yelena only kills people who deserve it – but Yelena was sent to kill Clint, and Clint did not deserve it at all.
(It doesn’t help that deep down, she knows that killing is wrong. That life is precious, and that death brings with it a finality of judgment with no hope for redemption any more)
“You don’t have to do it.”
“What else would I do?”
“Something. Anything. You could be so much more than just a trained killer.”
“Is that how you see me, Kate Bishop? A trained killer? Is that all you see?”
“I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t, Yelena. Stop putting words in my mouth.”
“I put no words in your mouth, Kate Bishop. But maybe I should, yes? We can use the word you really want to use. Murderer. That is what you think of me, yes? A murderer.”
“Yelena…”
“Is that why, Kate Bishop?”
“What? What do you mean – ‘is that why’? Why what?”
“That’s why, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Yelena.” She feels like she’s missing something, something big, something that’s right there, in front of her eyes, but right now completely invisible.
There’s a look on Yelena’s face. Kate doesn’t know what it is.
And just like that, Yelena’s gone.
And there’s something of a final act about it this time.
***
It’s days before she sees Yelena again.
The blonde enters the same way she came into Kate Bishop’s life – through the window. She rushes out of her bedroom, wearing an oversized shirt and boy shorts, to find the blonde halfway through the window.
Kate sighs, and sits down on the couch. Yelena moves beside her.
The silence presses on. There are no words spoken, no sounds uttered. They sit on the couch, and silence sits with them, laying cold lips to theirs and sucking them dry of speech. Neither knew where to begin, how to approach this gaping distance that they feel between them.
They don’t look at each other. So close in proximity, yet it feels like the gulf between them only widens further.
It’s Yelena who speaks first.
“I told Valentina I’m done. No more jobs. No more assignments.” No more killing.
Kate doesn’t turn to look at her, but she feels the tears in her eyes. The words tangle in her throat, and she shrugs. “What changed your mind?” she says, instead of “I missed you, thank you for coming back to me, I needed you so much.”
“It didn’t feel right.”
“Okay.”
“It hasn’t felt right for a long time.”
“Okay.”
“It never did.”
“I know.”
Yelena sighs, beside her.
She wants to say “I love you” but the words remain tangled in her throat.
Quiet falls again, and the silence becomes hot and unbearable, clinging to them with sticky fingers and leaving an unpleasant touch behind. Kate’s heart is in her throat, where the words are. She feels every letter unsaid pulsing hard behind her lips, trying to force their way out of her chest. It’s too much, and Kate clenches her eyes shut, because all she sees is how this can go so wrong so fast.
“I keep waiting, Kate Bishop.”
“Waiting? For what?”
“Waiting for you to tell me.”
Kate blinks, and blinks again. Her hands press together, and she twists her fingers hard.
“To tell you what?”
Hands reach for her shoulders, and she feels Yelena push her, back first, against the couch. She can feel the tension in the other woman, is unable to meet the green eyes that stare at her with such intensity she feels as though she were drowning in an emerald pool with no bottom in sight.
“You know what.”
“I don’t,” Kate lies, and she knows that Yelena knows that she’s lying, but she’s scared…so scared, so so scared. Because there’s hope now, hope for something she wants. And she’s terrified of it.
“Tell me, Kate Bishop.”
“I love you.” The words tumble out, one after the other, spilling past her lips like the tears she’s shed every night since they last spoke. “I love you, so much. I love you, Yelena Belova. And I’m scared. Scared that you don’t love me back. Because I love you so much that it would hurt me so badly if you don’t. And I don’t want you to hurt me…I don’t want you to be the one to hurt me…because I love you.”
The tears sting her eyes, and it blurs her vision, and she can’t see Yelena’s face. She brings a hand up to wipe the tears away.
“You are so stupid, Kate Bishop.” And Yelena kisses her, so hard, that it leaves a Yelena Belova shaped mark on her heart, with the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world.
“You have to say it back, you know.,” she says, when her breath returns. “It only counts if you say it back.”
“Then start counting, Kate Bishop.”
***
Kate Bishop sometimes wishes that life was a romantic comedy. But not today, and most certainly not now.
Because romantic comedies end.
And this? This has just begun.