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One day, while engrossed in playing a game, Kate Bishop is suddenly startled back into reality by a knock at her door. Not only was it odd for her to get a visitor, this knock was strange. Weak. Arrhythmic. Rising from her couch, she wonders if she imagined it.
"Who is it?" She calls out, but an answer doesn't come.
Looking through the peephole doesn't help either, as it seems there's no one at the door. Kate's curiosity gets the better of her, and she finally just has to open the door.
As the door swings open, a body slumps to the floor. It seems it was leaning against the door. It takes a second before she realizes who was on the ground in front of her, but when she does, her heart begins to panic.
" YELENA?!" She yells in shock.
"Kate… Bishop…" Yelena struggles to get the words out.
Kate helps Yelena over to the couch and once she's laying on it, she notices the problem.
"Yelena you're bleeding!" She shouts.
"Yes… I am…"
"Hold on. I'll fix this." Kate says, desperate to push down the panic in her voice to help keep Yelena calm.
She runs to the bathroom and grabs her first aid kit. Clint insisted she get a more elaborate kit just in case she needs to treat more serious wounds, as is common to the life of a Hawkeye. When she returns, she needs to check the wound.
"Yelena, where are you hurt?"
"St-stomach." Her voice is soft, stilted, weak. Not what Kate remembers from their last meeting.
Slowly, so as to not aggravate the injury, Kate slides Yelena's shirt up to reveal a deep knife wound just above her belt line. Opening up the kit, she gets to work cleaning the wound.
"Ok, this is going to sting, but I have to clean this before I can sew you up." Kate says, voice trembling.
She had thought about Yelena a lot over the last few months, but had never imagined this would be the way they were reunited, let alone that this would be the first time she'd see her bare stomach. She struggles to keep her focus as she wipes the blood away, but she knows this isn't the time to get distracted.
Once the gash is cleaned up, she gets to work stitching it together. Yelena hisses in pain, but can't muster the energy to really get across how much it hurts.
"I'm so sorry. I know this sucks, but I'm almost done." Kate says to reassure Yelena.
Once the stitches are in place, a bandage is applied to keep the wound covered so it can heal properly. Kate sees Yelena's eyes have closed, breathing softly but much more calmly than before. Once she returns the kit to the bathroom, she comes back to the couch. She gently lifts Yelena's head, takes a seat, and places her head on her lap.
She seems to be sleeping now, which was understandable. Kate figured it's gotta take a lot out of you to get stabbed, so it makes sense she'd fall asleep now that she's patched up. She softly runs her hand on the top of Yelena's head, just trying to keep her calm and comfortable.
While Yelena slept, Kate began to think about the situation she was in. She hadn't seen Yelena in months, since they had fought right before Christmas. Why did she come here? How did she know she would help her? Or even know how to? These were questions that would keep running in her mind, but they can wait until Yelena wakes up.
After a few hours of watching TV and soothing her patient, a voice softly catches her attention.
"Kate Bishop… you saved my life." Yelena says in a whisper.
"Well I couldn't just let you die on my doorstep. My landlord already hates me." Kate responds, toweling away some sweat that has appeared on Yelena's forehead.
This makes Yelena laugh, but the pain stops it from getting too big.
"I see… you haven't lost your… sense of humor. But please… don't make me laugh. It really hurts."
Kate looks deep into Yelena's eyes and gives her a soft smile.
"I'm sorry. How are you feeling? Is there anything I can get you?"
"Water… and something for my pain. Wait… am I laying on your lap?"
"Heh uh yeah…" Kate says, slightly embarrassed.
"I would… like to go back to this after I've… taken some medication."
Kate blushes, and as quickly as she can manage while still being gentle, she dashes off to get Yelena her medicine and something to wash it down. She returns shortly after that, glass of water in one hand, ibuprofen in the other.
"Ok, sit up so you can take this. You can lay back down right after, alright?" Kate says, handing everything over to Yelena.
While Yelena takes her medicine, Kate returns to her seat at her side. The situation is entirely inappropriate, but she just can't stop staring at her profile. She looks truly stunning, even with a bit of blood still on her cheek. Yelena sets the glass down on the coffee table and immediately lays back down on Kate's lap.
The soft smile on Yelena's face makes Kate melt into a puddle. She didn't know she had that softness within her, though their dinner together had shown a side to the assassin Kate never could have predicted. She was happy to see it.
"So… can you tell me what happened?" Kate says, continuing to run her hand along Yelena's hair.
"The details? No. All I can say is I was complacent. I dropped my guard with someone I thought I could trust and I paid for it." Yelena responds, familiar strength and stability returning to her voice.
This got the wheels in Kate's mind turning. This happened because she trusted someone. Why would she then come back to a person she fought with before. An… enemy?
"But you came to me? Trusted me… why? Why come here?"
"Because I wanted to see you."
Kate's heart and stomach switch places at this phrase. She wanted to see me? Like I wanted to see her?
"Ha ha um what?"
"Well it's the first time I've been back in New York since Christmas. Of course I wanted to see you as soon as I could."
"But the wound… why didn't you go to the hospital first?"
"Can't do hospitals. Too many questions for my line of work."
"How did you know I'd be able to help you?"
"I didn't. But I wanted to make… the last thing I saw…"
Kate's heart is now firmly in her throat, as she waits to hear the rest of this sentence.
"Something beautiful."
Kate doesn't know how to react. Do I cry? Laugh? Act shocked? Yelena must notice Kate's confusion, because she starts smiling widely.
"Oh Kate Bishop. Can you really tell me… you haven't been thinking of me the same way? I've felt your eyes on me as I've been laying here. But if I misread…"
Kate cuts her off.
"You… didn't misread me. No. Um… look."
When she woke up this morning, the only thing on Kate Bishop's agenda for the day was spending way too much time playing Pokémon. She was not planning on admitting her feelings to a woman she thought she'd never see again. That doesn't even factor in the high stress situation of treating a knife wound that could have proven fatal.
"Yelena, I have thought about you every single day since that night I saw you on the roof. But… I never thought I'd see you again. Not after you jumped out that window."
"I did look pretty cool jumping out that window."
"Yeah like, obviously you did."
"So… you've been thinking about me?"
"More like obsessing. I've had a lot of time to myself recently and my thoughts were always on you. What you were doing, if you were in trouble, if you hated me…"
"Hate you?! What?!"
"Well… I just thought… I don't know. I thought I would hear from you. After all, you're the one that has my number."
Yelena's brow furrows and her mouth begins to pout.
"I didn't think you'd ever want to see or hear from me again. But being here… I had to take the chance to see you. I had to know…"
"If I felt the same…"
"Yes. Because I haven't stopped thinking about you either."
"Are you making fun of me? Like… is this a joke?"
"What?! No!" Yelena exclaims, though this causes a sharp pain to shoot through her body, causing her to wince and suck air in through her teeth.
"No… this is not joke. You have lived in my mind daily. You have never been far from my thoughts. I just couldn't get back here right away. Turns out, they do not like an assassin that has a crisis of conscience. So I had to… deal with that."
"Did you… kill them?" Kate says with a gulp.
"Hahaha ow… what did I say about making me laugh?"
"I'm sorry."
"No. I didn't kill them. I just had to… quit. Besides, I had to get back to rescuing Widows. That job got in the way of that."
Kate smiles, seeing Yelena's focus and drive come through. Freeing the Widows is definitely a noble pursuit and Kate was happy to hear maybe she was done with killing.
"So…"
"Yeah…?"
"So you like… like me?" Kate says, repressing the excitement building in her.
"Ha! Um. Yes, I would say that I do like you. More than a little."
"Wow. This is not how I imagined this day going."
"How did you imagine it going?"
"I mean… eating junk food and playing Pokémon. Uhhhh. Actually, no I was gonna do super cool stuff like a cool person."
"What is Pokémon?"
Kate's jaw drops, shocked at this question.
"Oh my God, do you want to see?"
"Sure!"
"Can you sit up without it hurting?"
"Yes, I can."
As Yelena sits up, Kate grabs her controller and boots the game up. The next few hours are spent telling Yelena all about the game and her team, while they also take some diversions to get to know each other better. While neither of them know what will become of them, they're glad to have the opportunity to find out.