Chapter Text
Kate’s having a pretty bad day.
God, it even started off bad-- she dropped the breakfast sandwich she picked up from the bodega on the corner of her block (her favorite, the one she can only really afford to get, like, once or twice a week instead of having freezer-burnt Eggo waffles for the seventieth time). Then, she spent so much time mourning over her sandwich that she got to work late (again) and subsequently got fired from said job (due to her perpetual tardiness).
After that, she took Lucky on a walk-- and by that, Kate means that she brought Lucky outside, lost him for a good thirty minutes, and then found him chowing down on the very expensive-looking meals of a snobby-looking couple in the outside seating area of one of New York’s bougiest restaurants.
Then, after having finally corralled Lucky, Kate attempted to stop what she thought was a purse snatcher who instead, turned out to be a good Samaritan just trying to return the purse. Kate got a good smacking over the head by the old woman who owned said purse and had to make a pretty quick getaway because the old woman, then, of course, decided to call the police on her, not helping Kate/Hawkeye’s reputation with the New York Police Department.
And then, to make matters worse, someone hacked into her Chipotle account and used her rewards points and now she’s out a free entrée that was going to be her next two meals.
(Maybe it’s a sign of how fucked up her priorities are, but the last bit Kate felt to be particularly bad.)
This is all to explain why, when Kate finally returns to her apartment, shrugs off her coat, lets Lucky off his leash, and sees a familiar, blonde Russian assassin sitting on her couch, she figures 'Of course. Of course this would happen today.'
Okay, so, maybe the next thought Kate should have at the sight of Yelena Belova is that she should be mad-- no, unbelievably pissed, actually, absolutely just seething with rage.
But no.
Instead, Kate’s next thought is to have a slight internal panic about the state of her apartment (and her life)-- the apartment that has dirty clothes haphazardly thrown everywhere since she hasn’t had the chance (or the quarters) to do laundry in upwards of two weeks, the apartment that has dirty plates promoting a probably-unsafe community of bacteria in her kitchen sink.
(Kate's not depressed or anything, no. It's just-- she had aspirations, okay? She was going to do some real good and help real people as a real hero. But then, she got in over her head and fell out of the good graces of the New York Police Department, and now she's resorted being a low-rate vigilante with hardly any money and even less motivation.)
Kate finally gets a handle on her thoughts and stands up straighter. “Yelena,” she frowns.
“Kate Bishop,” comes the familiar response.
Kate’s eyes flit to the bow she has propped up against the coffee table and Yelena catches the look, frowning as well. “There is no need for that,” she says, having the audacity to look offended.
Kate stops herself from huffing like a toddler. She would disagree. Actually, she is going to disagree.
“You broke into my apartment,” Kate points out. “How do I know you’re not going to try to kill me again?”
Yelena actually looks like she might feel a little bad-- about breaking into Kate’s apartment or about having tried to kill her previously, Kate’s not sure. “I am not here to kill you,” Yelena tells her.
Kate crosses her arms, mentally calculating the time it would take for her to reach her bow and the probability that Yelena would beat her to it. “Oh, yeah?” she asks. “Why are you here, then?”
“Well,” Yelena starts, shifting where she sits on the couch, “I just-- wanted to see a friend.”
Kate blinks at the word friend. That... wasn’t what she was expecting.
(They could have been friends, maybe. For a second there, Kate thought that maybe they were, you know? They had a pretty friendly banter going on, Yelena tipped Kate off that her mom might be a bad guy, she didn’t kill Kate’s idol, and they helped save New York a couple of times.
But then Yelena shot her in the shoulder.
Kate’s still pretty bitter about that, okay? Sue her.
Actually, Kate thinks, please don’t. If this was a cartoon, her wallet would do that wheezing thing and a fly would come out of it, or something.)
“And,” Yelena goes on, and that’s when Kate notices Yelena’s voice is a little strained and a layer of sweat is beading up on her forehead. “Also to get stitched up.”
Kate’s eyes fall on the way Yelena has a hand pressed up against her abdomen, trying to slow the (very concerning) steady flow of blood that seeps through her fingers and onto Kate’s couch.
Later, she’ll feel a little embarrassed at how quickly a burning panic erupts in her chest and how immediately, almost automatically, flocks to Yelena’s side, parting her fingers to assess the damage.
“What the hell, Yelena?” she asks, her eyes widening almost comically when she spots the large gash that cuts through Yelena’s suit and her abdomen. Kate runs to her bathroom and grabs her makeshift first aid kit, returning to Yelena within seconds.
She (gently) slaps away the hand Yelena has pressed against her side and tries not to dwell on how Yelena’s fingers are trembling and covered in blood. Kate finds some gauze, applying pressure to Yelena’s actively bleeding wound with gauze with one hand and rummaging in her first-aid kit with the other.
“If I ask how you got hurt,” Kate starts, locating some disinfectant as she helps Yelena to a lying-down position, “are you going to answer?”
Yelena gasps just slightly when the disinfectant splashes over her wound, grimacing, and Kate definitely doesn’t redden at the sound of it. “Maybe,” Yelena grunts, her shaky fingers curling into a balled-fist. “Try.”
Kate rolls her eyes. “How did you get hurt?”
“I was mauled by a bear,” Yelena deadpans as best she can while she’s bleeding out.
“You’re the worst,” Kate grumbles, unnecessarily pressing harder against her wound and trying not to feel a little satisfied at the pained hiss Yelena lets out in response.
Kate changes out the bloodied gauze for new ones before digging around through her first aid kit. “C’mon, sutures, sutures... I thought I had more,” she mutters under her breath.
Yelena lifts her head up weakly, having just enough energy to raise an unimpressed eyebrow at the Disney princess band-aids that spill out of the first aid kit. “Oh god,” she sighs dramatically when Kate unloads what is definitely not a suture kit and most certainly is a small box of Minions-themed band-aids, “I’m going to die, aren’t I? This is not a cool way to die.”
Kate huffs. “You know, if you wanted world-class care, you could’ve just gone to the hospital instead,” she points out.
“You and I both know-- argh -- that I cannot go to a hospital.”
Kate does know that, sure, but she can’t really fathom why Yelena would come here, of all places. Surely she had figured out a place where she could get stitched up that wasn’t the apartment of someone she had actively been fighting all those months ago.
“What made you so sure that I would help you?” Kate asks, still looking for the sutures.
An unsteady, bloodied hand comes up to grab the wrist of the hand Kate is currently using to apply pressure, and Kate’s head snaps around to look at it, then Yelena.
Yelena, who has a big purple bruise forming under her left eye and a scar cutting across her forehead, just under her hairline.
Yelena, who is staring up at her with more sincerity than Kate’s ever seen on her face.
“Because you are a good person, Kate Bishop.”
Kate blinks down at her. Her hands have stilled and her cheeks burn at the softness of Yelena’s voice, and the sound of it takes her back to familiar scenes, almost comforting ones, as much as Kate hates to admit it.
(The two of them in Kate’s apartment, one getting patched up on the couch while the other does the patching. It reminds her of the before times, back when they were just Kate and Yelena, working together, fighting crime, saving people. When they were on their way to being friends, maybe best friends, or maybe even something more.
What the actual he-- )
Kate blinks again, brow furrowing. She clears her throat and re-focuses on the task at hand, frowning to herself.
“Okay,” she says, more to herself than to Yelena as she tries to wrap her head around what she needs to do next. The bloody hand wrapped around her wrist lets go, falling back to where it was before next to Yelena’s side, and the moment passes.
“Need to find the stitches--” Kate murmurs, sitting up straighter when she finally locates the suture kit. “Here,” she says, reaching over for a bottle of vodka on her coffee table, unscrewing the cap with one hand and handing it over to Yelena, who takes a swig so long that Kate’s stomach almost turns at the sight of it. “This is going to hurt,” Kate warns Yelena, opening up the suture kit.
“I know,” Yelena exhales shakily, putting down the bottle and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand before her eyes flutter closed, bracing herself for what’s coming next.
Kate finishes cleaning the wound as best she can and gets to work on the stitches, trying to ignore the way her ears perk up at the slightest breathy sounds that escape from Yelena’s mouth as she does. Instead, she tries to focus on steadying her hands and threading the needle through soft skin, slightly stained red with blood she wasn’t able to get off.
There’s a silence between them, a comfortable one, save for the sound of Yelena’s uneven breathing as Kate works, her fingers brushing against the soft skin of Yelena’s abdomen. Every now and then, her eyes will flit up to Yelena’s face, which has stopped rapidly losing so much color and has settled on an only slightly-encouraging pale.
She looks mostly the same as Kate remembers, maybe a little more tired. Kate should be wondering whether or not Yelena’s still doing shady business and if her next phone call should be to the police-- but no.
Instead, Kate’s wondering if Yelena’s been eating alright or if she’s been alone all this time, and who’s been stitching her up since Kate last saw her.
Yeah, her priorities are fucked.
It takes another forty minutes for Kate to finish tending to Yelena’s wound-- Yelena was always quicker at the whole stitching someone up thing, but if she wanted Kate to go faster, she could have said so. Not that Kate would have done it.
Yelena’s eyes have long been closed, and Kate thinks maybe she’s passed out, either from exhaustion or rapid blood loss. Regardless, it scares the shit out of Kate after she gets up and turns to put her first aid stuff away when Yelena speaks.
“I’m sorry, Kate Bishop,” she mumbles, so quietly that Kate almost doesn’t hear it. She does, though, and it stops her in her tracks.
Kate feels the ghost of a gunshot wound throbbing in her shoulder and stiffens at the words, not really believing that she’s hearing them. After a few seconds, she turns her head to look back at Yelena, who lays on her couch looking battered and bruised to high heaven. She clenches her jaw at the sight of her.
Those words-- ‘I’m sorry’ -- are all she’s wanted to hear for months now, and as anger and fear rages in conflict in her heart, Kate can’t decide if she wants to forgive Yelena or beat the shit out of her. For once, she could probably do the second one pretty easily, with Yelena in this state.
Yelena’s tongue slips out to wet her lips, and she opens her mouth to start, “Kate, I--”
Kate wants to hear what she has to say, she does, but she doesn’t know if she can handle it right now. So instead, she holds up a hand, effectively quieting Yelena, and shakes her head. “I don’t-- not right now, Yelena. Okay?”