Archive of Our Own

Kate trekked down the icy alley leading up to her apartment building with Lucky in tow, weariness setting deep in her bones.

As it turned out, Clint was right; being a superhero was hard. Between finishing up her last year of college, finding a job to keep herself financially afloat now that her mother’s assets had been frozen, and fighting crime, Kate barely had time to slow down and just be.

Sometimes, it felt like a blessing — being so busy and tired left her with little to no time to think about the entire shitshow with her mother, giving her a very convenient excuse to not write or visit her in jail.

In others, it felt daunting — aside from Lucky and the occasional phone call from Clint and Laura, Kate didn’t interact much with living beings that weren’t criminals, putting a serious dent in her already scarce social life. But right now her life was hard and dangerous, and she didn’t want to involve any more people in it that could, and would, get hurt because of her.

However, that didn’t mean she didn’t miss Grills and his cooking, geeking out with Missy over costumes, hell, even hanging out with her college friends, if she could even call them that; most of them started ignoring or avoiding her after her mother’s scandal, anyway.

It was lonely, and Kate had never dealt with negative emotions well.

Just as she was about to enter her building, a hissing thwip! reverberated across the empty street and she looked up in time to see Spider-Man swiftly swinging by. She knew she wasn’t the only superhero out there in the world, let alone in New York, but the fact that she hadn’t crossed paths with him in all the missions she had been on so far served only to further prove her point — that the life of a superhero was lonesome, and if she had known that beforehand, maybe she would have reconsidered the whole thing.

(She wouldn’t have.

But she could still try and fool herself).

//

Kate lived for Sundays.

If all went well during her week, it was the one day she allowed herself to fully rest, not dwelling on all the ways her life had gone sideways — or all the enemies she had now acquired since facing Kingpin — and not going outside for anything other than a quick walk with Lucky, then coming back home to flop on her lumpy futon, order some pizza, and watch reruns of The Bachelorette until she fell asleep.

She was almost there, her eyes drooping and head hanging limply to the side when a figure showed up in front of her, causing her to jump, adrenaline rushing through her veins as she frantically reached for her bow, trying to no avail to calm her racing heart.

“Kate Bishop,” the figure said, and even clinging to the edge of sleep, Kate would recognize that raspy accent anywhere.

Yelena.

“What are you doing here?” she squeaked, silently cursing Lucky for being the worst guard dog ever and not alerting Kate to her presence. “Why did you break in again?”

“Why do you keep saying that? I did not break anything. Never do,” Yelena frowned.

Kate simply rolled her eyes, her mind too sluggish to try and explain what the expression actually meant. “What are you doing here, Yelena?”

“You owe me drink,” Yelena simply said, producing a clear liquor bottle from one of her pockets.

How did she even fit that in there?

Right. Not important.

“What are you talking about?” It was her turn to frown; she always had a hard time trying to keep up with the girl.

“Christmas Eve. You promised me drink,” Yelena said seriously, making her way over to claim Lucky’s vacant spot on the couch. “I am making sure you keep your promise.”

“If you didn’t kill Clint,” Kate narrowed her eyes, subconsciously moving to give Yelena space to properly sit next to her. “You went after him anyway.”

“Yeah, but no kill, see?” Yelena flashed her a dazzling smile. “So drink?”

She held up an expensive-looking vodka bottle — like the ones she remembered her father sneaking a drink of in his office, late at night — and two New York-branded shot glasses and Kate was too exhausted to keep arguing. 

She was tired, she was cranky, and she could use a drink. Or two. Or ten. And Yelena was as good a company as any, better than Lucky anyway since she actually brought some liquor with her instead of just sitting on her couch and looking cute. So she could excuse the repeated offense of breaking into her apartment in favor of a shot (or a glass, or a mug, or a pint) of the kind of good, overpriced alcohol she could no longer afford.

“Fine,” she pretended to grumble, Yelena’s smirk letting her know she could see right through her pretend annoyance. “But I’m ordering pizza.”

“For me?” Yelena’s tone was just as smug as her smile as she made herself even more comfortable on Kate’s couch. “Or Pizza Dog?”

Lucky looked up at the mention of his name, causing Kate to roll her eyes and make her way up to her bedroom, so she could plug in her phone and order all of them some delicious pepperoni pie, pointedly ignoring Yelena’s loud complaints at her lack of cutlery.

//

Yelena’s visits, albeit random and at very odd hours, kind of become a regular occurrence.

She was always bringing stuff over to Kate’s place — food, to cook for them because “you cannot expect to survive if you keep living like frat boy, Kate Bishop,”; forks, spoons, bowls, and themed shot glasses, slowly filling Kate’s once scarcely populated cabinets; towels, and pillows, and blankets because apparently, they could not have a proper girls’ night without surrounding themselves with several of those items (even if Kate kept insisting she didn’t need all of that, given that she was still just one person.)

And she always brought vodka, and always held Kate’s hair back when she couldn’t keep up with Yelena’s high tolerance for the stuff, and only sometimes mocked her for it, which was a small price to pay, considering.

Kate liked the company, as much as it surprised her to notice it; Yelena was cool and fun, could hold her own in a fight, could make Kate laugh on the days when all she wanted to do was crawl in bed with Lucky and sleep away her problems and she could cook — and did, often, much to Kate’s delight — even better than Grills.

Yelena was the friend she had been craving long before everything with her mom and Clint happened, the realization bringing a smile to her face as she opened the door to her apartment after a long walk around the park with Lucky.

She had a friend. A real one, that cared enough about her to check in, make sure she was okay, eating, sleeping, and taking care of herself in a slightly annoying but also strangely endearing way. It was different from what she was used to, but Kate loved it all the same.

When she opened the door to her apartment, it was to find Yelena in her kitchen, wearing her I’m Grilling a Witness apron, cooking something that smelled suspiciously like mac and cheese. She had music on, blasting from the sound system she had set up a couple of weeks ago, humming along to American Pie. Kate took a moment to appreciate the adorable sight before dropping her stuff carelessly by the door, ready to flop on the couch and wait for the food to be ready when she finally noticed someone was already sitting there.

“What the—?” she turned away from the boy — he couldn’t be older than 21, with curly brown hair, and wide eyes, and what the hell was he doing in her apartment? — to look at the woman on the stove. “Yelena, who’s this?”

“Kate Bishop,” Yelena drawled, not looking up from the pot she was stirring. “You’re home.”

“Yelena!”

“That is Peter Parker,” she gestured vaguely to the wide-eyed boy sitting on Kate’s couch. “Say hi, Peter Parker.”

“Uh, hi,” the boy—Peter waved awkwardly at her. “She said we were having dinner at a friend’s. I didn’t know we were breaking in.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” Kate muttered under her breath, shooting a glare at Yelena. “What are you doing here?”

“Dinner,” she said seriously, placing the steaming pot of mac and cheese on the counter. “Tonight is girls’ night.”

Kate knew that. She had been looking forward to it and had even traded shifts at the library so she could be showered and home on the off-chance Yelena actually showed up. She was wearing perfume (and actual clean clothes!) for God’s sake.

And she wasn’t really expecting anyone to join them.

“He’s not a girl,” she eventually said, petulantly crossing her arms, just as Peter pointed out the same thing.

Yelena arched an eyebrow at her, and for a moment Kate could have sworn she was going to find herself on the receiving end of yet another one of Yelena’s lectures. Gender is fake, Kate Bishop. At least pretend he is honorary girl, she could hear so clearly in her voice.

“I know that,” she said instead, but Kate felt properly scolded anyway. “But he is, how do you say it? Sad. Friendless. Abandoned.”

“Are you calling me lonely?” Peter frowned, looking both upset and mystified.

Kate could relate to him; those were feelings she often experienced around Yelena.

“Yes!” she grinned, seemingly pleased to have found the right word, and Kate tried very hard not to smile over how cute she looked. “He is lonely, Kate Bishop. We are helping with that. Stop being so hostile.”

Kate rolled her eyes, flopping on one of her creaky table chairs with a pout.

She tried to lighten up, be a good host or whatever, when Peter carefully sat next to her, looking small and intimidated and, Yelena was right, a little bit sad; it was heartbreaking, and Kate found herself warming up to their dinner companion. She couldn’t blame Yelena for wanting to help him; Black Widow assassin or not, the girl cared more than she would ever willingly admit.

Kate took notice of how Yelena waited for Peter to fill his plate, then Kate, before adding her own spoonfuls to her plate and producing a brown bottle from one of her vest’s pockets.

“Hot sauce?” she offered up, smiling and waving the bottle at them.

This time, Kate couldn’t hold her snort in, remembering the first time she and Yelena ever shared a meal like that; it earned her a crooked, knowing grin from Yelena, and a confused one from Peter and Kate knew right there and then that that would be the beginning of yet another odd and right and real friendship.

Who would have thought?

She kind of couldn’t wait.

//

Peter, as it turned out, was fairly easy to like.

He was sweet, polite, and extremely smart; Kate was itching to get him to help her with her trick arrows (she still had to figure out how to break it to him she was a work-in-progress superhero/vigilante without, you know, scaring him off or getting him killed or something). But Yelena was right — he was lonely.

He never talked about family, other friends, or significant others, and no one seemed to even know him. He went to the same college campus Kate did and she had never even heard of him before Yelena took him to her apartment. Not even Mr. Giles, the librarian, who knew every student on campus, was familiar with him. How was that possible?

It was a whole other level of loneliness than her own and yet Kate’s heart ached at the similarity of their situation. So she took it upon herself to become the friend Peter deserved, that they both needed.

She had him over for pizza on Wednesdays nights, and Peter breezed through his Physics homework as she bullshitted her way through her Sociology paper (with Yelena often giving them unhelpful advice); they went on walks around Central Park with Lucky and Kate left him in charge of dog sitting whenever she had to go and perform her (still secret) superhero duties, and he always lounged around the same corner spot in the library whenever Kate was on shift.

He was a much more convenient and dependable friend than Yelena — the perks of being a regular young adult and not an assassin for hire, she guessed — but somehow it seemed like Kate knew much more about Yelena than she did Peter.

It was odd and not for the first time Kate wished she wasn’t so awkward so she could question him about it without making things weird.

They were hanging out at the library, supposedly studying — she knew Peter was studying, his brows furrowed deep in concentration as he bent over his calculations; she just so happened to be trying to come up with a way to craft boomerang arrows (attempt #347 would work, she could feel it in her bones) instead of working on her dissertation — when Kate’s phone buzzed loudly, startling both of them.

It was an alert she had Grills help her set up on her phone, warning her about a dispatch call from the police in her nearby vicinity, currently a bomb explosion in the Financial District.

“Shit,” she cursed a little too loudly, causing Giles to shoot her a pointed look. She grimaced apologetically.

“Is everything okay?” Peter asked, sounding surprised at her outburst.

People hurt. Money missing.

Fuck. “Yeah,” she replied, internally cursing how high-pitched she sounded. “I just… gotta go do a thing.”

“Are you sure?” he insisted, concern written all over his face.

Hurry, Grills sent her. Kate’s stomach clenched unpleasantly.

She nodded, doing a mental check-up of everything she had with her. “Yeah,” Suit. Bow. Regular arrows. Trick arrows. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

She hurried out, not even saying goodbye to Giles, sprinting through the fastest route to get where she was needed.

//

In retrospect, Kate should have been more careful.

Things were always so much easier in retrospect.

She could hear Clint in her head, so clearly, going on and on about the dangers of trick arrows and loud explosions and paying attention to your surroundings; she could hear Grills’ voice cracking over comms asking her where she was; she could hear Peter frantically saying her name and Yelena hissing something in the distance… wait, what?

“Kate?” Peter’s voice grew louder. “Hey, hey, Kate, are you okay?”

She opened her eyes, immediately regretting it. She was queasy, everything was too loud and too bright and it felt like several, multi-colored people were hovering over her. But actually, it was just one.

“I think she has a concussion,” Peter’s voice said, but that couldn’t be right, because the person speaking was Spider-Man and not Peter.

“Keep her talking!” That was definitely Yelena, sounding a little frantic as well, which was strange because Kate had never seen her anything but composed up until now.

“Hey, Kate,” Pete— Spider-Man said, carefully touching her head. “How are you feeling?”

“Ow,” was all she could say, but it seemed to calm him a little bit. “It hurts.”

When Spider-Man laughed, he laughed just like Peter. Weird. “I bet.”

“Mama, she is alert and talking,” Yelena finally entered her line of sight. “Kate Bishop, say something.”

Yelena was hovering over her and Pe— Spider-Man and from Kate’s prone position, she looked like an angel. A beautiful, gun-powder-smelling angel.

“You’re pretty,” she blurted, unfiltered, and Yelena rolled her eyes, but Kate thought she could see the faintest hint of a blush on her cheeks.

“She is fine,” she told the person on the phone, her mother apparently. Kate wondered if she was as pretty as Yelena. “Okay. I will call. Thank you, Mama,” she disconnected the call and turned to them. “We need to take her home. She needs ice and rest and ibuprofen.”

“Why can’t we take her to the hospital?”

“Because she was not supposed to be here, Peter Parker,” she hissed again, and Kate frowned.

Had Yelena hit her head too?

Spider-Man didn’t protest, though. Which was definitely weird. Kate should wonder what that was about, but everything was so blurry, and she was tired, too tired to keep thinking about that.

“Kate Bishop,” Yelena said again and Kate tried to focus on her. She landed on the gentle slope of her nose and gave her a dopey smile. “We are going to get you up and home, okay? Can you stay awake for that?”

“I can try,” she said, swaying a little as she got to her feet. “No promises.”

Yelena just shot her a crooked grin, draping one of Kate’s arms over her shoulders as Spider-Man did the same. He was even the same height as Peter. That was so freaky.

Kate couldn’t wait to get home and sleep all that strangeness off.

//

When Kate woke up again, she was somehow showered, in her pajamas and in her bed, with Lucky snorting softly at her feet.

Had it not been for feeling like she had been run over by a steamroller, Kate would have thought that the previous night had been nothing but a crazy dream. But apparently not. Apparently, she had run after the robbers (stupid), left her bow behind in the heat of the moment (even stupider), missed the signs for a second bomb, and ended up on the brunt of the explosion, hitting her head on the wall (no comments).

Details were fuzzy, but the skull-splitting pain was very much real, and Kate really needed some relief. So she gathered all her remaining strength and slowly made her way downstairs, fighting the bile threatening to rise up in her throat with every step; following the sounds and wonderful smells coming from her kitchen.

“Kate Bishop,” Yelena drawled, smiling as soon as she saw her.

Precariously balanced on her crooked table was a huge, purple thermos that Kate didn’t remember buying, platefuls of cheesy pancakes, and a big bowl of still-steaming porridge. And sitting on her lopsided chairs were Yelena, in a novelty I❤️NYC shirt and one of Kate’s sweatpants with the cuffs rolled up, and Peter bent over his plate in his black Physics shirt she had seen him wear so many times before. He looked up when Kate came in.

“How are you feeling?” Yelena asked, motioning for her to sit at the remaining chair, already filling a bowl and putting it in front of her.

“Like shit,” she gingerly sat down. “What’s all this?”

“My mama’s famous breakfast,” she also poured Kate a mug filled to the brim with something that smelled deliciously sweet. “Drink. Eat. It will be good for you.”

She knew it would. She was hungry, she was tired, but she was also never good at keeping quiet and the giant elephant in the room needed to be addressed.

“You’re Spider-Man?” she went straight to the point, so many emotions swimming inside her she couldn’t tell them apart.

“Kate…” Yelena started, but Peter interrupted her.

“No, Yelena, it’s okay,” he looked at her sorrowfully, an apology written all over his face. “Yes. I am Spider-Man. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“Were you planning on telling us?” Kate asked, but she knew the answer, and it stung. “I—” she took a deep breath, needing to calm herself enough to properly figure things out, and not increase her headache. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s a long story,” he rubbed his face, but Kate was having none of it. She deserved more. She needed more.

“We’re not going anywhere,” she said, stuffing her mouth with porridge and barely flinching as it almost burned her tongue.

He turned to look at Yelena pleadingly, but she just shrugged and helped herself to some pancakes, so he took a deep breath and began telling his story — and Kate began eating her breakfast after Yelena shot her a pointed look.

Peter was right. It was a long, crazy, heartbreaking story that if it were any other person telling it,  Kate would have thought they were lying. But this was Peter — Peter, who had spent several nights lying on Kate’s couch attempting to explain his Calculus assignments to her; Peter, who came over on Sundays and took Lucky out on his walk so she wouldn’t have to leave the apartment; Peter, who helped her fix the water pressure on her shower and her broken windows.

Peter, who was her friend.

“So no one knows who you are?” Kate asked at the end of his explanation, mind still reeling with everything he had told them.

“They know Spider-Man,” Peter said, clenching his jaw. “They just don’t know he’s… me. No one does anymore. They don’t remember.”

Kate knew that feeling. She knew what it was like to feel invisible, unknown, in a crowd of people who were supposed to know her. Who pretended they did. It hurt knowing Peter was going through the same thing she had gone through all her life, more than the fact he had been hiding who he was all this time.

“And, like, I understand if you guys don’t wanna be my friends anymore,” he continued anxiously, picking up his pace to fill in the silence. “I know that I lied and—”

“Don’t be idiot, Peter Parker,” Yelena interrupted him, rolling her eyes. “Why would we not be friends anymore?”

Peter just looked at them, wide-eyed and blinking slowly, like he wasn’t anticipating the reaction.

“We have a soft spot for superheroes,” Kate shrugged, a slow smile curling her lips upwards. “You can stick around. We want you to stick around.”

Peter’s eyes started to water again, so to deflect, Kate’s smile turned into a smirk. “Get it? Stick.”

His watery chuckle was joined by Yelena’s loud bark of laughter, who looked at her with eyes sparkling with mirth. “Sometimes you’re funny, Kate Bishop.”

Kate blushed and grabbed some more pancakes, trying to ignore her fluttering stomach. Despite how much she was still hurting from the night before, Kate felt lighter than she had in a really long time, and she couldn’t help but be grateful for those two people sitting at her breakfast table.

//

The phone rang three times before Clint finally picked up. “Kate?”

“Clint? Hi,” she breathed, cursing how awkward she sounded. She needed to get herself together if she didn’t want him to know the real reason behind her call. “I have a question for you.”

He sighed, and she could hear him rubbing his face in exasperation. Which was unfair. She hadn’t even said anything yet.

“Is it about boomerang arrows?”

“What? No,” she frowned, wrapping her arms protectively around herself. Why did he always assume that? “It’s about Germany.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe Peter; she just wanted to know. She needed to understand how messed up the situation really was.

The line went silent for so long that Kate had to check to see if the call had disconnected.

“Clint?”

“What about Germany?” his voice was even, not giving away anything, so Kate pressed on before she lost her nerve.

“Who was there? With you?” she bit her lip in a nervous habit, trying not to fidget.

She could tell her question wasn’t anything he was expecting from the way his tone changed. “With me?”

“Yeah, the people involved,” she tried not to sound too impatient.

“Uh, let me see,” he said. “Team Cap had him, Bucky—” the Winter Soldier, she mentally supplied, “—Sam—” Falcon, new Captain America, “—Scott—” Ant-Man? “Wanda and myself.”

“Natasha wasn’t on your team?” She was surprised.

“Not technically,” Clint laughed. “She was on Tony’s side with T‘Challa—” Black Panther, “—Rhodey—” War Machine, “Vision and Spider-Man.”

Kate’s stomach plummeted to the ground.

“You don’t know his name?” she asked faintly, tears springing to her eyes.

“Who?”

“Spider-Man!” She didn’t mean to shout but the whole situation was so fucked up that Kate couldn’t help herself. “You know everyone else’s.”

“No?” He sounded confused. “I mean, I think Tony knew but I don’t remember his name ever coming up.” It had, Peter told her. “Why?”

She cleared her throat, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse. It wasn’t like she could just tell Clint what happened. Not when she was still having a hard time processing everything herself.

“No reason. Just doing some reading on the Accords, his real name didn’t come up,” she lied, trying to sound at least a little bit convincing.

“Sure,” from his answer, she knew he didn’t believe her. Damn it. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah.” It came out high-pitched, a telltale sign that everything wasn’t alright. She cleared her throat. “Everything is cool. Great. It’s grool. Mean Girls reference,” she laughed nervously.

“Kate…”

“I gotta go,” she knew ending the conversation was her best shot. “Lots of homework, y’know. And crime-fighting.”

“Be careful,” was all he said and Kate disconnected before she threw herself — and consequently Peter — under the bus.

Kate resisted the urge to throw her phone across her room in frustration. She had learned a long time ago that life wasn’t fair; parents fought, aliens came out of the sky and destroyed your hometown, and parents died, leaving you behind without even saying goodbye.

Nothing about life was fair, or easy.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to make it better anyway.

“What are we gonna do, PD?” she asked Lucky, who simply tilted his head and let out a huff.

His lack of a useful response didn’t matter though; her brain was already buzzing with a couple of ideas.

//

With Yelena’s help, Kate started doing for Peter what she wished someone had done for her all her life.

They learned about him.

They learned how to bake his favorite dessert — well, Yelena did; Kate was better as a taste-tester anyway — and started ordering Thai food for girls’ night sometimes, finding a tiny family-owned restaurant a couple of blocks over with the most delicious Pad Thai Kate had ever had.

They learned about his undying love for the Star Wars franchise and, even though Kate didn’t care much for it, Yelena was fascinated by the movies, so she spent more than just a couple of nights listening to their excitable ramblings about it. They also learned that despite his super-strength and web-shooting abilities, he was quite lacking in the hand-to-hand combat department, so they took it upon themselves to teach him.

They talked about all the good things that made them who they were, but they also talked about the bad.

On the damp, cold nights, Yelena talked about being handcuffed to a bed, unable to nurse her own injuries; she talked about all the ways the Red Room tried to break her down so they could build her back up in stone-cold marble.

On their long walks around the park, Kate talked about her family, the benign neglect that she tried to pretend for so long that it wasn’t there, but that had taken a toll on her all the same.

In the dead of their sleepless nights, Peter talked about the gaping hole in his heart over all the people he missed. His friends, the woman he loved, his family…

“Mr. Stark was like a father to me,” he said one oddly chilly June night over steaming mugs of cocoa. “And he taught me a lot about what it meant to be a hero. But May…” he stopped, taking a long gulp of his drink before speaking again, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “She taught me everything I know about being human. Being good. Doing what’s right, not what’s easy.”

Kate knew there was nothing she could say that would make any of it more bearable, so she just pressed closer to him, letting her head fall on his shoulders in an attempt of comfort.

They learned about each other, and it was as hard as it was healing; sharing her happiness and sadness with people she cared about — and who cared about her in return — made life seem less daunting.

Apparently, life was less lonely when you had friends.

//

“Look.” Thwip. “I’m just saying.”

“No.” Swish! Kate smirked as she managed to knock down two TSM bros with a singular arrow. “Feel free to not explain.”

“If you like her,” Peter went on, ignoring her, as he stuck a gag of TSM bros to a nearby pole. “You should tell her.”

“I don’t like Yelena,” Kate huffed, watching as the remaining bros scattered around, fleeing and leaving their van behind. “Not like that. I like her… a normal amount.”

“Yeah, sure.” Even without being able to see his face, Kate knew he was giving her an incredulous look. “And Pizza Dog doesn’t like pizza.”

They rounded up the bros, secured the vans, and called the cops. Just another day in the life of vigilante superheroes.

“What do you want me to say?” Kate asked, crossing her arms defensively. “That I think she’s beautiful? The prettiest woman I’ve ever seen? That I think she smells nice, her accent is cute and I want to kiss her?”

She stopped, biting her lips wide-eyed, and knew that if Peter was maskless, he would have the biggest smirk stretching his face.

“Well, yeah,” he sounded amused. “But to her. Not to me.”

“Shut up.”

They could hear police sirens approaching, signaling the end of their wait. Kate hauled her bow and quiver as Peter helped her grab her used arrows.

“Kate,” he said in that soft tone of his that never failed to make all the fight leave her body. “You know she likes you too, right?”

There was a moment of silence before Kate’s brain fully registered what he had said.

“What?!” she squeaked, almost dropping her arrows back on the floor. “Wha—Ho— What?!”

“You didn’t know?!” his tone was just as shrill, like he couldn’t believe her density.

God, she needed to lie down.

“I still don’t know!” she cried. “What are you saying?”

Peter hesitated, scratching his head before speaking, “I just… you should talk to Yelena.”

“Talk to her about what?” she asked, hoping against hope he wasn’t saying what she thought he was saying.

Because there was no way—

“Kate.” His tone was enough of an indicator he was seeing right through her avoidance technique.

Kate sighed, rubbing her face; she didn’t want to do that. When she opened her mouth, weird things came out — weird, awkward things that made people uncomfortable and not want to be around her anymore. She didn’t want that to happen with her and Yelena.

“I don’t think I can do that,” she confessed meekly, wishing she too had a mask on so Peter couldn’t see her lips twisted in a frown and how her eyes shone with unshed tears.

“It’s okay if you can’t,” his tone was so reassuring that Kate really felt like she was going to start crying. Damn it. “I’m just saying that you should. That something good might come out of it.”

Kate really doubted that; in her, admittedly, short experience, opening your mouth to blabber on about your feelings never ended in something good. But Peter sounded so earnest she didn’t have the heart to tell him that there was no chance in hell she was ever gonna tell Yelena how she felt.

“I’ll think about it, okay?” she said instead, hoping he would believe her.

Peter sighed, and she knew she hadn’t been successful.

“Okay,” he relented. “See you tonight?”

“Yeah,” she agreed and watched as he swung away, off to his classes.

Kate didn’t have any classes that day, and it was her day off from work. All she could do was go home, take Lucky out for a long walk around the park, and try not to think about Peter’s words.

//

Except thinking about them was all Kate could do.

She thought about them as she and Lucky took the route with most squirrels around the park, as she did armload after armload of laundry, as she washed her hair and carefully applied some mascara to her eyes.

She couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Damn you, Peter.

Should she just tell Yelena? Kate really didn’t want to do it but she knew herself — she knew that now that the thought had entered her mind, it would just spin and spin around in her head until it eventually spilled out of her mouth and ruined everything.

She had been trying for months to ignore the way her stomach fluttered when Yelena called her by her whole name in that raspy accent of hers, or the way she would always blush when Yelena shot her one of her wrinkled-nose smiles, amused at something Kate had said, and how her heart felt like beating its way out of her chest when they were close.

Yelena was like the sun, shiny, bright, and warm, and Kate was hopeless. She always had been when it came to pretty girls.

Groaning, Kate face-planted on the couch after ordering some pizza. Peter had sent her a text saying he would be late and Yelena still hadn’t shown up, so Kate was left to mope by herself with no company besides Lucky.

“What do you think, PD?” her voice came out muffled even as she turned to look at him. “Should I woman up and just tell her?”

Lucky simply tilted his head at her, yawning, closing his eye, and going to sleep. Kate thought he had the right idea; maybe if she went to sleep then she would finally get a reprieve and stop thinking about all the things she wished she was brave enough to say. It was worth a shot.

It was hard though; not because she wasn’t tired and right on the verge of falling asleep, but because as soon as she closed her eyes, several things happened at once — Lucky started barking up a storm, someone she belatedly recognized as Peter shouted her name as he came swinging in through her open window, falling on top of a really ugly rug Yelena had brought over a couple of months ago with a heavy thud.

He was usually much more graceful than that, but Kate guessed it must be hard to be suave when you were carrying two people with you. Two bruised, bleeding people.

“What the—”

“I was on my way over when I saw them limping down the alley,” Peter said a little breathlessly.

When Kate’s eyes adjusted to the dimmed lighting, she finally recognized who they were — Yelena and… Maya?

“Oh, my God,” she gasped, quickly making her way over to them. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Yelena grunted, trying to play it cool, but she was pale and bleeding profusely from her leg and had cuts and bruises on her face and down her exposed arms. “I am fine, Kate Bishop.”

“You’re bleeding, Yelena,” Kate tried to scold, but it came out kind of panicked. “This doesn’t look fine.”

“It is minor scrape,” she waved it off, irritatingly so. Kate was torn between kissing or slapping her stupid face again. “I do not need help.”

“Too bad, ‘cause you’re gonna get it anyway,” Kate glared at her, gratefully accepting the first aid kit Peter had grabbed from under her bathroom sink. “Are you gonna tell me what happened?”

Yelena clenched her jaw, twisting her lips and avoiding eye contact. Damn it. “No.”

Kate bit her bottom lip, carefully cutting up Yelena’s pants to get to her wound. It looked like a through and through gunshot, and Kate’s stomach twisted unpleasantly. She glanced over at Peter, who was trying to help Maya, carefully communicating what he was going to do before he did it.

She didn’t know he knew sign language.

“Are you going to tell me how you two met?” she asked, nodding over to Maya before gently applying pressure to her thigh to get it to stop bleeding.

Yelena took a deep breath, clearly steeling herself before answering. “Mission. She got in the way. Needed help.”

“You hit her?”

“What? No!” she looked hurt at Kate’s assumption and tried to pull away from her, hissing in pain. “I do not hurt those who are not my targets, Kate Bishop.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” she gingerly reached for Yelena’s arm again to start stitching up her wound. “She’s on a path of revenge.”

Yelena’s face darkened. Kate wished she knew what was going through her mind, that there was something she could say or do that would make the darkness disappear.

She had been wishing for a lot of unattainable things lately.

“Revenge is dangerous path,” she said after a long time, just as Kate finished dressing all of her wounds.

It was something so ironic to say, especially given how they had met, and Kate almost smiled.

“I’m glad you were there to help,” she said, and it earned her a ghost of Yelena’s usually sunny smile.

It was small, and it was gone quickly, but it warmed Kate all the way down her stomach anyway.

“I’m sorry we ruined your rug,” Yelena said ruefully, running a finger down the now bloodstained mat.

“It’s fine,” Kate shrugged. “It was ugly, anyway.”

Just as she had predicted, Yelena shot her an indignant look, mouth open in disbelief.

“You said you liked it!”

“I never said that!” Kate exclaimed defensively.

“Yes, you did!” Yelena shot back. “You said—”

Peter cleared his throat, interrupting them. Kate looked over at him, then at Maya, who was bandaged up and avoiding eye contact. Kate’s heart panged painfully in her chest; she had so much she wanted to say to her, to ask, to apologize, but she didn’t even know where to start.

How could she even begin talking about her mentee/partner murdering Maya’s father under the orders of someone Maya trusted and loved?

What could Kate do or say that would ever make something so fucked up even remotely okay?

“You guys are good?” he asked, shooting them an awkward smile.

Kate was saved from having to figure out what to say by her buzzing intercom; she had forgotten all about the pizzas she had ordered.

“I’ll go get it,” she scrambled to her feet, hurrying out the door and down the stairs to try and get rid of the suffocating guilt expanding across her chest.

//

Kate couldn’t sleep.

Try as she might, she kept tossing and turning, her mind plagued by a guilt that shouldn’t be hers but that she couldn’t help but feel anyway.

After polishing off the pizzas in silence, Kate set up camp for everyone; Peter took the couch so Maya could have the spare room he usually occupied, and Kate gallantly offered her bed to Yelena, digging up her uncomfortable air mattress from the depths of her closet and setting it up next to her bed.

She was still tired, even more so than before, and yet her mind wouldn’t slow down enough for her to fall asleep. Her entire body was buzzing, nervous energy causing her muscles to twitch as if she was getting a shock every so often.

Maybe if she made a list of everything she wanted to say; to Maya, to Yelena, hell, even Peter and Clint and her mother — if she poured everything she was feeling on paper then they would stop trying to suffocate her. But then she would have to actually talk about it afterward. That wouldn’t be good. Just the thought of doing so made her want to throw up. Maybe she could tell them with letters? She should send them letters.

But was that cowardly? Kate didn’t want to be a coward. She had spent too much time in her life fighting for justice and what was right only to end up, hypocritically so, doing the wrong thing because she was afraid. But what was fear—

“Stop thinking so loud,” Yelena’s sleepy grunt startled her. “You are being disturbing.”

“I’m sorry,” Kate apologized, shifting positions loudly on the mattress one more time, causing Yelena to sit up on the bed and shoot her a glare. “Sorry.”

“Why are you up, Kate Bishop?” she asked around a yawn, falling back down on Kate’s pillows. “Is late.”

“I can’t sleep,” Kate’s answer bordered on a whine. “Too much thinking.”

Yelena sighed and Kate cracked an eye open to see her shuffling around, lying on her uninjured side so she could look at Kate. “Want to talk about it? Impromptu girls’ night?”

“I don’t know what to say,” she laughed humorlessly. “That’s part of the problem.”

Yelena hummed. “Honesty is always best option, Kate Bishop.”

Kate was afraid she was going to say that.

“You think so?” she asked, turning to properly look at Yelena.

“Know so,” Yelena assured her. “Not with everybody. The world, it is not a safe place.” Yeah, Kate didn’t need to be reminded of that. “But with people you care? Honesty. Always.”

If only it were that simple; Kate was afraid of being honest with herself, let alone with other people.

“You make it seem so easy.” Kate hated how small and vulnerable she sounded.

Yelena let out a bark of laughter loud enough to wake up Lucky from across the room, startling Kate. “Nothing in life is easy, Kate Bishop.”

Kate bit down her bottom lip, thinking about their lives — so different and yet so similarly difficult. She couldn’t possibly begin to understand the depths of what Yelena, Maya, or Peter had gone through, just like they couldn’t fathom hers. But that didn’t mean life had been any easier for either of them.

“I guess you’re right,” she said, lips curling upwards when Yelena shot her a sleepy smirk.

“Always am,” she said smugly. “You can sleep now?”

“Maybe,” Kate shrugged. Probably not.

Yelena arched a suspicious eyebrow at her. Crap.

“Wanna share bed?” she offered. “I promise I am not kicker. Natasha was.”

Kate’s stomach fluttered at the thought of spending the night so close to Yelena. She knew she shouldn’t do it. It would be bad, and she would probably go into cardiac arrest or something, and that would be embarrassing for everyone involved.

But then again, Kate wasn’t known for her brilliant ideas.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Yelena shot her a bright grin and Kate thought that dying would be worth it if that was the last thing she ever saw. She carefully laid on the vacant spot she usually slept on, mindful of not jolting Yelena’s injured side.

She waited until Kate got settled before saying, “Good night, Kate Bishop.”

Kate’s last waking thought was how unfair it was the fact that Yelena’s warm presence brought her so much comfort, lulling her to sleep so easily and effortlessly.

“Good night, Yelena.”

// 

By the time Kate woke up the next morning, she was alone in her bed.

But she could get a faint whiff of coffee and bacon lingering in the air, and hear Yelena and Peter bickering in the kitchen, the sound spreading something warm in her chest knowing she had people in her life that gave her so much love and companionship (and breakfast, lunch, and dinner).

She thought about what Yelena said to her last night. Honesty. Always the best option.  

She owed them at least that. To be honest with her feelings, let them know how much she cared for them, and how important they were to her.

She thought Peter knew, but she was almost positive Yelena had no idea.

Not today, though. Today, she already had other plans.

Lucky barked and ran up to her as she made her way to the bottom of the stairs, causing both kitchen occupants to turn and look at her.

“Kate Bishop,” Yelena drawled. “You are up. Finally.”

“Shut up,” she grumbled, gratefully accepting the plate full of eggs, bacon, and pancakes Peter shoved in her face. “How’s your leg? And your arm?”

“Just fine, see?” She bent her knees and moved her arms up and down. “Told you it was minor scrape.”

“I redressed her wounds and she took some ibuprofen.” Yelena glared at Peter for ratting her out. “Looks like it’s healing okay.”

Kate nodded, munching on her eggs before asking, “Is Maya up?”

“She’s up, but hasn’t left the room yet,” he said, pouring some coffee and handing a mug to her. “Who is she?”

“It’s… a long story,” Kate sighed, blowing off steam from her coffee before taking a sip. “She’s got some history with Clint.” Peter nodded and Kate took notice of Yelena’s clenched jaw. “I didn’t know you knew ASL.”

“May taught summer courses on it at the shelter,” he smiled sheepishly. “I used to practice with Ned and MJ.”

“Good, good,” Kate said, formulating a plan. “Can you teach me? Right now?”

“Sure,” Peter agreed hesitantly, frowning. “It takes a while, though.”

“I only need a few sentences.”

When Maya finally left the spare bedroom, Peter had just finished teaching Kate what she wanted to know. Yelena had been drowning her bacon and pancakes in syrup but stopped to peer over at Maya and Kate noticed one more time the way her jaw clenched tightly.

Whatever had happened the night before, hadn’t been good and it clearly had taken a toll on her. Kate ached to fix it.

She looked over at Maya and they stared each other down for a tense beat before Kate cleared her throat.

“How are you?” she signed, smiling nervously as Maya shot her a surprised look before answering.

“She’s good,” Peter translated. Kate had to resist rolling her eyes; only she and Yelena would claim to be good after getting shot.

But that wasn’t important. For now. She had something she wanted to say.

“I’m sorry,” she signed slowly. Maya frowned and said something quick back.

Kate looked over at Peter. “She’s asking what for.”

She bit her lip and Yelena gave her an encouraging nod before she continued.

“Last Christmas. A lot of things happened, you and I, we didn’t get off on the right foot,” an understatement, Kate was aware. “I’m sorry.”

“She’s saying it’s not your fault,” Peter said. “You both fell into something much bigger than yourselves.”

It was Kate’s turn to frown; that wasn’t technically wrong but it wasn’t the whole truth either.

“Yeah, but I stole the Ronin suit and got a lot of people into a bunch of messes and—” Peter started frantically translating for her, but Maya interrupted them both.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Peter said and Yelena snickered. Rude. “Uh, shit was about to hit the fan anyway.”

“Eloquent,” Kate mumbled, twisting her lips. This wasn’t going as she had planned. “I’m still sorry,” she managed to sign, trying very hard not to pout.

Peter smirked as he translated. “She doesn’t care.”

At that, Yelena cackled. “I like her.”

Peter translated and laughed himself at the answer. “She doesn’t care about that either.”

//

Just like Pizza Dog, Yelena and Peter, after that eventful night and morning, Kate couldn’t quite shake off Maya from her life.

Not that she tried very hard — Peter and Yelena took a quick liking to her and she didn’t seem to hate Kate as much as she had been expecting.

She loved to antagonize her, sure — and her so-called friends got a kick out of it too — but she was also surprisingly sweet. They bonded over their shared love for bad reality TV shows, trained together often, and Maya taught them all ASL (she did the curse words first, as per Yelena’s request).

By the time Christmas rolled around again, Kate realized Maya had all but officially moved into her spare bedroom after Yelena found out she had been staying at a crummy, decrepit motel, and Peter slept on her couch more often than he did in his tiny one-bedroom apartment. Yelena just came and went as she pleased like she always did.

The apartment had become theirs as much as it was hers. And that should be official.

“Hey, what do you know about drywalls?” she asked Peter one night.

He had his homework sprawled out in front of him on the new dinner table Yelena had purchased (“I cannot eat on creaky table anymore, Kate Bishop, it is maddening. IKEA table is much better”) the week before, as a Hanukkah present, she claimed, even after Kate pointed out she wasn’t Jewish.

Her question got him to look up at her, frowning. “Uh. Made out of gypsum, paper, and clay, I think. Why?”

“I was thinking of putting up some over there,” she gestured to the corner near the window. “For your room.”

“What?” he squeaked, wide-eyed.

Oh yeah. Kate hadn’t actually asked him about it.

“You’re here all the time, but Maya took your room and it’s not fair for you to keep sleeping on the couch. You’re stealing Lucky’s spot,” she explained, and Peter let out a watery chuckle. “This is your home too, Pete. We’re just gonna make it official.”

She watched as an array of emotions crossed Peter’s face and he cleared his throat as if trying to reign them in.

“Okay,” he agreed, with his voice more or less steady. “Let’s do it.”

She shot him a bright grin, immediately pulling her laptop open to start her research. Should they buy pre-made ones? Should they attempt to build some themselves? That could be fun. They could—

“Are you also gonna ask Yelena to move in?” Peter’s question snapped Kate out of her thoughts.

It was her turn to squeak. “What?”

“I don’t think you’ll need to build her a room too,” he smirked at her, eyes shining mischievously. “She can just move into yours with you.”

“Shut up,” Kate felt her blush all the way up to the tip of her ears. “Don’t make me kick you out.”

“You wouldn’t,” he laughed and Kate had to fight her own smile from stretching across her face.

He was right though. She wouldn’t.

“Don’t test me, Spidey.”

//

Kate sat atop of her bedspread, fidgeting with the phone in her hands; she had a very difficult call to make. She took a deep, grounding sigh before dialing.

“Kate!” The voice greeting her wasn’t the one she had been expecting and it made things even more difficult.

“Hi Nate,” she smiled nervously. “Does your dad know you’re picking up his phone?”

“No,” the boy giggled and Kate could picture his silly grin so clearly. “He’s picking apples.”

“Your mom is making apple pie for dinner, isn’t she?” God, she missed Laura’s cooking.

“Yeah!” he screamed into the speaker and Kate cringed. “Are you coming for Christmas? Daddy says you are!”

Oh boy. “Um, actually buddy—”

“Nate, who’s on the phone?” she heard Laura’s voice ask in a distance and heaved a relieved sigh.

“Kate!” he shouted again.

“Indoor voice, little man, remember?” Laura’s voice was much closer now, and Kate assumed she had picked up the phone herself. “Kate?”

“Laura, hi.” Why did she always have to be so high-pitched over the phone? “I wanted to talk to Clint.”

“Is it about Christmas?” she asked astutely, and Kate was impressed. Laura seemed to always know everything.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll go get him,” she promised.

Kate bit her bottom lip hard until he picked up.

“Kate?”

“Clint.” It was now or never. “I, uh. I won’t be able to spend Christmas with you guys.”

It was something she had thought long and hard about over the past week. The previous Christmas, Clint had taken her in when she had no place to go, her life a mess because of everything she had done. He had given her somewhere to just be for a while as she tried to figure out how to keep going. She would forever be grateful to him for that.

This Christmas, however… how could she go and have a cozy little family holiday with the Bartons and leave her friends behind? How could she leave them alone and then come back later as if nothing had happened?

Kate knew that if she told Clint all of this, he would tell her to bring them along; it was an option she had also considered, but she also knew that it wouldn’t work out. How could she ask Yelena to spend the holidays with the man she had tried to kill less than a year before? With people who had known and loved her sister, the little boy named after her, Natasha’s godson? It was cruel.

How could she offer Maya a place to go when that place belonged to the man who had taken her family from her? How could she invite Peter over to a space where he would have to pretend to not know the people with whom he had fought alongside to save the universe?

No. She was going to give them what Clint had given her last year, a place to stay where they could just have a good holiday, lounging around in their pajamas, eating turkey sandwiches, and drinking eggnog, feeling nothing but contentment and happiness.

“I’m spending Christmas with Yelena,” she said, preparing herself for the lecture.

How could she, Yelena had tried to kill him, she wasn’t trustworthy—

“How is she?” he asked instead, throwing her in for a loop.

Kate peered over at the kitchen, watching Yelena offer bits of bacon to Lucky after a trick as a slow smile curled her lips upward. “Well, she hasn’t tried to kill any of my friends lately, so I’d say she’s pretty good.”

“Yeah,” Clint let out a low chuckle. “You’ve earned her trust, huh?”

“Yeah,” she liked to think so, at least. 

“Good,” he said solemnly. “A Widow’s trust is forever, kid. Treasure it.”

Kate swore she could feel a heartstring snap at his tone. “Will do. Hawkeye out. Merry Christmas, Clint.”

“Merry Christmas, Kate.”

//

Kate came back home from patrolling to a noisy apartment.

It wasn’t an unusual thing, given that she was now living with two more people — three, if she counted Yelena.

(She always counted Yelena.)

But the cacophony coming from behind closed doors was slightly alarming, if only because it was late, and a spy, a former mob enforcer, and a superhero turned vigilante were hardly ever noisy. Especially that noisy. What could be causing such a commotion?

Kate got her answer when she opened the door and found herself staring at a giant eight-foot tree standing in the middle of her living room, Yelena, Peter, and Maya trying to maneuver it out of the way while two voices shouted instructions from a tablet propped on the table.

“Left! Left! Left!” a man kept shouting energetically.

“You cannot keep telling them left, you cannot even see where they are going,” a woman’s voice, cool and collected, informed him.

“Left!”

“There is no more left, Papa!” Yelena huffed as the tree almost toppled to the right; a dog barked from the tablet, as if in agreement, and Lucky’s hackles raised.

Kate couldn’t even see Peter and Maya due to the tree’s massive size, just spot their arms trying to hug it the best they could.

“What is going on here?”

“Kate Bishop!” Yelena let go of the tree to look at her, and it only didn’t fall because Peter shot his webs and caught it. Maya came into view with needles sticking to her messy hair and a glare on her scratched-up face. “You are home.”

“I am,” she said, still cautiously surveying the scene. “What’s up?” 

“I got Christmas tree!” Yelena looked so proud of herself, chest puffed out, Kate couldn’t hide her smile. “Mama and Papa are helping us. They want to meet you.”

Kate froze at her words; those were Yelena’s parents? The scary assassin/spy and the badass super soldier? And they wanted to meet her?

“Let us see her, Lenochka!” The man’s voice was warm and enthusiastic and yet Kate couldn’t stop shaking. “Your mother and I have bet to see if she is as beautiful as you say.”

Wait, what?

Yelena talked about her to her parents? Yelena thought she was beautiful?

Peter smirked as he translated everything to Maya, who rolled her eyes. Yelena, however, was blushing at her father’s words and Kate thought she was having a fever dream.

She really thought Kate was beautiful?

“Ah,” the man said when Yelena turned the tablet in Kate’s direction. “I may have lost.”  

“You thought I was lying?!” Yelena exclaimed indignantly but Kate was just staring wide-eyed at the couple looking right back at her through the screen.

Out of all the days to meet them, it had to be the day she grabbed the first item out of her closet — and it just so happened to be a white shirt with a big brown stain on the side.

Great.

“He thought you were being dramatic,” the woman said, piercing hazel eyes staring Kate down. “Wonder who you get it from.”

Peter snickered and Yelena shot him a dirty look as Kate tried to make herself look somewhat presentable.

“Hi,” she tried to go for a smile but was afraid it had come out more like a grimace. “I’m Kate.”

“Kate Bishop,” the man had a jovial smile on his bearded face. “We heard a lot about you.”

“Just Kate’s fine,” Kate hoped they wouldn’t notice the desperation in her voice. “Yelena’s the only one who calls me by my whole name, really.”

The woman arched up an eyebrow at that, an amused smile curling her lips upwards. “I see. I am Melina, this is Alexei. We are Yelena’s parents. Nice to meet you… Kate.”

God, somehow that was worse. Maybe she should tell them to call her by her whole name again.

“Okay, that is enough,” Yelena announced, turning the tablet back to her, and Kate let go of the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. “Bye, Mama.”

“Not so fast, molodaya ledi,” if Kate hadn’t been so preoccupied with getting her heartbeat back to a regular pace, she would have laughed at the way Yelena’s spine straightened at her mom’s tone. “What are your plans?”

Oh. Kate hadn’t thought about the possibility of Yelena not spending Christmas with her—er, them. She had a family to spend it with, after all. Not like her, Peter, and Maya.

And of course, she would choose to spend the holidays with them and not with the bunch of misfits she had carefully collected over the year, right?

“I’m staying here, Mama,” Kate’s head snapped in Yelena’s direction, the dread coiling up inside her dissipating in a pool of warmth. “Spending Christmas in New York.”

“Okay,” Melina said softly, surprising Kate with her candor. “But come visit soon, right? Papa and I miss you. And Fanny and Alexei.”

Kate frowned. Wasn’t the dad named Alexei?

“I miss you too,” Yelena replied, a hint of longing in her voice Kate had only heard when she talked about Natasha. “I will call okay?”

“Bye Lenochka,” she heard Alexei say. “Tell your friends and Kate Bishop we said bye!”

Yelena ended the call with an eye roll, placing the tablet back on the table before turning back to them.

“Come on, let’s decorate,” she signed, gesturing towards the tree Peter had precariously webbed near the stairs.

“I don’t have any decorations,” Kate said, belatedly noticing the big box under the kitchen counter Yelena had Peter grab for them.

“Like that would’ve stopped her,” Maya said with a smirk. “You should know better, Kate.”

Kate laughed because it was true; she should know better than to doubt the lengths Yelena will go for he—er, them.

//

When Christmas Eve finally came, their apartment looked like some terrible imitation of Santa’s workshop.

Their ginormous tree sat by the stairs, heavily decorated with, apparently, all the decorations Yelena had been able to find within a 20-mile radius; blinking Christmas lights hung from windows, the kitchen counter, the ceiling, and the banister — Kate had drawn a line at having them hanging on the bathrooms as well; mistletoes conveniently sat atop of every entryway (and somehow over the couch) and had Kate glaring at Peter and Maya every time they tried to get her under one when Yelena was around.

But Kate had to admit it was nice to see their home look so festive, without all the stuffiness she usually saw at her mother’s penthouse. It looked like four, slightly unhinged, people lived there and wanted to celebrate the holidays the best way they could.

It meant Kate came home to the smell of gingerbread cookies ready to be messily decorated; that she and Peter googled recipes for latkes to surprise Yelena with and almost caused a small fire, and that Maya cooked her father’s famous pot roast and pumpkin pie.

Their tree slowly but surely started to receive presents to put under — from all of them; from Giles (for Peter and Kate); from Grills and Missy; even from Clint (Kate already knew she would be getting a present from the Bartons, but it surprised her to see packages for Yelena and Maya as well).

It was indeed looking very much like Christmas and the thought had Kate giggling after three mugs of spiked eggnog at their movie marathon.

“What is so funny, Kate Bishop?” Yelena asked her, the only one still awake besides Kate.

Peter and Maya had fallen asleep curled together on the far end of the couch, sometime around their third Christmas movie. With alcohol coursing through her veins and Yelena’s warm presence next to her, Kate could just as easily fall asleep as well, but she wanted to savor their closeness just a little more.

“Nothing,” Kate clamped her lips together, but another giggle burst out. “I’m just really happy, I guess.”

“Good,” Yelena’s smile was illuminated by the TV’s glow, making her lips look extra kissable.

God, Kate wanted to kiss her so badly. Maybe she would. Maybe if she just—

“Can I give you your present?” Yelena’s question cut through her thoughts, startling her a bit.

“What?” She frowned. “I thought we were doing presents tomorrow.”

“We are,” Yelena agreed. “But this is special present, and I want to give you tonight. Can I?”

Kate’s mouth was suddenly very dry and her heart started working in overdrive; what could it be that it couldn’t wait until the morning?

“Yeah, sure,” she cleared her throat when her voice came out high-pitched. “Here?”

Yelena shook her head. “Follow me.”

She started making her way upstairs, and Kate had half a mind to turn off the TV before following her. She was surprised when they made it to Kate’s room and Yelena opened the door unceremoniously.

She sat atop Kate’s bedspread and shot Kate a look when she simply stood in the doorway.

“Sit, Kate Bishop,” she finally said, snapping Kate into action.

She watched as Yelena opened one of the pockets of her red and green Christmas vest (“Festive, right?” she had asked, beaming proudly, as she came in through the window) and produced two small blue boxes from it.

“What is this?” she dared ask when Yelena opened one, pulling a delicate silver necklace from it.

“My present,” she said, clipping the necklace around her own neck. 

Kate frowned. “You brought me back here to watch you give yourself a gift?”

Talk about an anticlimactic moment. Kate was kind of disappointed.

“No,” she started fidgeting with her necklace and Kate arched an eyebrow at her; Yelena never fidgeted. She was nervous.

She cleared her throat before continuing.

“When we reunited, Natasha showed me this necklace Clint Barton gave her, with arrow, you see?” she gestured to her own neck, where a tiny silver arrow was now resting right atop her chest. “She said it meant he was always with her. Watching her six.”

She presented Kate with the other tiny blue box that she carefully opened. Resting on its silky interior, there was a necklace similar to the one Yelena was wearing, but with a tiny hourglass pendant instead.

“That is the Widow’s symbol,” Yelena informed her softly. “So I’m always with you. Watching your six.”

Kate had to blink back tears, overwhelmed by the sweet gesture; how did she always manage to surprise her like that? How did she manage to make Kate feel so special, so loved, and make it look so effortless?

Since Yelena had come into her life, barging in like she owned the place, Kate had never felt alone or lonely like she had her whole life.

Yelena had disrupted and changed Kate’s lifestyle for the better; there were no words to express just how grateful she was for that. So Kate did the one thing she could, what she had been wanting to do for quite some time — she leaned in and kissed Yelena.

It was a split-second decision and before she could second guess it and panic, she felt Yelena’s fingers curling around the lapel of her candy cane striped pajama and keeping Kate firmly in place as she kissed her back.

She kissed her back.

“I like you,” Kate said dumbly, still a little dazed, after the kiss ended, and her eyes widened when she realized she had finally said the words, and how naturally they had come out.

Yelena gave her a soft smile, cheeks flushed. “I like you too, rodnaya.”

Kate frowned. “I don’t know what that means.”

Yelena simply laughed — the one she reserved only for Kate and without replying just kissed her again.

Kate wasn’t going to complain about that.

//

The next day, when they made their way downstairs holding hands to meet Peter and Maya in the kitchen for breakfast and gift exchanges, they found Peter handing Maya a crisp 20-dollar bill with a pout.

“Seriously?” he asked grumpily as they entered the kitchen. “Christmas Eve? Couldn’t you hold out until this morning?”

“You had a bet on us?” Kate tried to sound indignant, she really did, but it was so hard to be even pretend-upset when Yelena’s thumb was softly caressing her hand.

“Maybe,” Maya smirked. “Can we do the presents now?”

Yelena didn’t let go of her hand all through breakfast and gifts, keeping their fingers intertwined even as she gingerly opened the package Clint had sent for her — a military-green vest with an impressive amount of pockets that had Yelena’s jaw clenching so tightly Kate was afraid it would snap.

She didn’t let go of Kate’s hand as all four of them flew over to Melina’s farm for New Year’s, where Yelena introduced Kate to her parents — again — as her girlfriend and Peter shoved a couple more bills into Maya’s waiting hands with an even grumpier pout.

“How many bets do you have on us?” she asked them at dinner after her firm grip on Yelena’s hand finally slackened as she started to relax around Melina and Alexei.

Kate suspected that the bowls of warm soup and dumplings had helped a lot with that as well.

“None of your concern,” Maya replied, shoving an entire pirozhki in her mouth (and then dropping another, surreptitiously, to Fanny).

Yelena didn’t let go of her hand as fireworks lit up the sky as they welcomed the new year, keeping each other warm against the cold Russian winter. It was such a reassuring thing to do; those hands, capable of so many things — good and bad — tenderly bearing Kate’s calloused ones, grounding her, giving her something to hold onto in a world that had taken so much from her. From both of them.

Yet, there they were; still standing, still breathing, still living.  

Together.

//

“So it’s your job to collect strays off the streets?” Kate asked, a smile tugging her lips upwards as she watched Alexei (Yelena’s father, not the pig, she had learned) get knocked on his ass by Maya.

Yelena had just finished telling her about their reunion — finding Natasha after so many years apart, breaking Alexei out of jail, finding Melina. A ragtag group of seemingly random people that had somehow become a family. It made Kate think about the past year, and how similar the situations were.

“No,” Yelena laughed at her father’s indignant yelp, hands softly stroking Fanny’s fur back and forth. “Fanny is from a pound.”

Kate rolled her eyes but couldn’t keep an amused laugh from bubbling up in her chest; that girl — her girlfriend! — really was something else.

She kind of loved her.

//

It turned out that Clint had been wrong, after all.

Being a superhero didn’t have to be lonely. From Kate’s first-hand experience, all you needed to do was find the right people; your people. The ones who would have your back in a fight, yes, importantly so, but who would also take your battered and bruised ass back home, help patch you up, and make you feel better with a slice of pizza, or some hot chocolate, or a couple of shots of whatever liquor was available.

Looking over at their apartment, seeing Peter bent over the dinner table, with his goggles in place, working on his web fluid with Fanny and Lucky at his feet, and Yelena sitting on the couch, flipping through the channels with a bowl of popcorn and Maya’s leg draped over her lap while the girl was fast asleep, Kate was glad she finally had that.

Friends.

Her own little dysfunctional family that she wouldn’t trade for anything, making every aspect of her life a little more bearable one day at a time.