Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kate hates hearing her full name. Aside from implications, it’s almost always said in a condescending tone.

Yelena has been nice enough not to kill her, but it comes with an invisible price tag. The taunting of an older sibling, forever stronger, no matter how much improvement is made. It rubs her like fingernails on a chalkboard.

“Do you keep saying my full name just to prove that you know it?”

“Yes.”

Her anxiety permeates the way the smell of smoke never quite fades from her apartment. She only makes it to one therapy appointment, and consistently cancels the rest. If she keeps going, she’ll need medication, and she can’t afford that. She can barely afford community college classes, rent, and dog food.

She keeps herself busy with her part time job, with her schoolwork, with crafting arrows from nothing but scrap metal. She sleeps only when she manages to wear her body out. Clint checks in and helps where he can, but Kate is a legal adult, responsible for her own taxes and healthcare.

One Friday, after eating a lecture from her boss, after falling behind on another assignment, after failing to stop a simple purse-robbery, she enters her broken-into apartment on her last straw of sanity.

“You are home late, Kate Bishop.”

The haughty lilt makes her snap. “You know what, Yelena? Just kill me, ok? Fucking kill me already.”

“Whoa, whoa!” The assassin puts hands up defensively. “You know I’m not here to kill you! If I was–”

“I’d be dead by now. Yeah, yeah, very intimidating.” It is, but she's exhausted. “I know you’re better than me, ok? I’m a stupid kid who's way over their head. I get it. ” She kicks off her shoes, and wipes at mascara running down her face. “Whatever. Just do whatever you’re here to do and go.”

A frozen meal is thrown into the microwave, and Lucky’s bowl is flooded with food higher-quality than hers. It’s a storm of hormones that tears through the kitchen, and she finally sits on the couch in front of a bewildered Russian.

“You are having bad day?” It’s an attempt at a joke, but it doesn’t land.

“I’m always having bad days, Yelena, it’s kind of my fun new default. So either kill me and end the suffering, or take that pretty, pretentious ass somewhere else.”

The scowl of guilt turns into a pout. “This will not do. What is his name?”

“Whose?” Her words are garbled with pasta. “You’re gonna need to be really explicit with your interrogation.”

“This is not interrogation. This man who broke your heart, what is his name?”

And now Kate’s confused, because the last time she had a date was six months ago, and her name was Jen. “What?”

“Is this…” A general gesture. “Not over a lover?”

She almost feels flattered, but mostly feels called out. “No, this is not over a lover. Life is expensive and difficult and I’m… struggling and alone.”

“Oh.” The information seems to throw the entire conversation off-balance. Yelena looks, perhaps for the first time, clueless. Another shift occurs, in the way she is addressed. The edge to it is gone; like it’s no longer a point of leverage. “I’m sorry, Kate Bishop.”

She wants to say the cliche ‘not your fault’, but instead she mumbles, “It’s fine.”

Lucky whines from beside her, so she pats on the vacant sofa spot until he hops up, placing his head in her lap.

“We get pizza.” Yelena is suddenly sitting on her other side, flipping through a search page of ‘delivery near me’. “That little carbonara cannot possibly fill you.”

It doesn't. “I don’t really have–”

“I’m not asking.” A firmness enters the tone, one that makes her heart trip and face plant.

“... Yeah, sure. Pizza sounds good.”

Yelena never gives a reason for the visit. They fall asleep on the couch, and when Kate wakes up, her fridge is full of groceries. There’s also a sticky note that says ‘good luck Kate Bishop’, with a heart where the dot in the i should be.

She hears the unmistakable sing-song accent one Tuesday while she works counter during lunch.

“Kate Bishop!” It’s excited, almost happy. “This is where you make bread?”

She blushes, knowing full-well how disgusting she looks with unwashed hair and grease stains on her shirt. “Welcome to Willie’s Diner, Yelena. Do you know what you’d like to drink?”

A stifled laugh sneaks out. “Is that your service voice? Kakoy milyy!”

“Yeah, yeah.” She pretends not to be flustered. “Whatever you want is on the house, ok?”

Yelena agrees, but leaves an astronomical tip, and utters her name as if it’s a promise.

“Dasvidaniya, Kate Bishop.”

The next time she hears it, circumstances are drastically different.

She doesn’t know who they were, how long they had been watching her, or how many wouldn’t stop pouring from a darkened alleyway. She just knows that she failed, again, to do something as simple as run away.

Yelena almost sounds worried. “Look at me, Kate Bishop! Open your eyes!” 

But she can’t. One is swollen shut, and the other stings with blood. Her ears are ringing, probably filled with fluid. Movement is impossible; she’s been tied to the same chair for hours, or days, or weeks.

When she’s done being dragged through the shadows, it’s bright.

The sun is shining through white curtains, and the air carries the stench of manure. In the far off distance, she hears the crowing of a rooster. She sees Clint by the bedside, looking paler than usual. He snaps to attention at her groan.

“Take it easy, kid. You’re safe now.”

“What happened?” A glass of water is held to her lips. She almost spits it out from shock, but her body needs hydration. “Yelena?”

“You are safe, Kate Bishop,” the Russian repeats solemnly, face caked with dried blood. “Rest.”

Clint organizes most of her belongings to be moved to a new location so she’s put in less danger. Classes have shifted online, her work is now remote scheduling, and the studio she’s renting is close to Stark Industries. She likes the locale, and the discount. So-called “wellness” visits have also increased, which is a plus.

Yelena greets her, for the fifth time in two weeks, guarding the fire escape.

“Welcome home, Kate Bishop.”

Her name is a penny in a wishing well, a sinking desire that bubbles in her stomach. She casts her own coin, presses lips against a calloused palm and places the palm against her chest.

Brows furrow, pink coloring bronze. It’s a question at first, then a statement. Then it evolves into everything it was always meant to be. Elongated and cherished, and whispered like a prayer being answered.

Hours later, they share the same bed, where names become entangled in pillows and unruly hair.

Kate doesn’t hate it as much as she used to.

Chapter Text

The first time she hears it, Yelena nearly trips over her own two feet.

Kate Bishop says “spasibo” in the middle of a fight with leftover tracksuits. It doesn’t even register at first; she responds with “konechno” and moves onto another opponent by the time she realizes.

It literally stops her in her tracks.

She looks back in question, but Kate is already gone, chasing the key target. She’s so dazed that one of the suits catches her by surprise, an arm slipping around her waist.

“Rude!” she quips after a quick somersault and neck snap.

Once Fanny is in the picture, it happens again. Her Akita and Lucky enjoy play dates at the dog park, where Kate swoons, “kakoy milyy”. So Yelena assumes that her girlfriend is simply parroting.

But later, as they’re cuddling in the king-sized bed, something else is quietly murmured.

“Prekrasnyy.”

So then she’s really confused.

Because Kate Bishop doesn’t speak Russian, but Yelena hears it more everyday. Words that she hasn’t introduced, like “solnyshko” or “zolottse”, sneak into her veins and tickle her ears. It taints her entire aura of nonchalance.

When they visit Natasha’s grave, her safety barriers continue to crumble. Kate holds her shaking hands and says, “ty ne odin”. Several henchmen are watching them, which enrages her girlfriend, who taunts, “Napadi na menya! Mladentsy!” Luckily, the watchers don’t speak her language. 

During one bout of physical intimacy, Kate whispers, “kosnis’ menya”, which sends her over every kind of ledge imaginable.

“Ty govorish’ po-russki?” she finally asks.

“Da!” There’s a look of pride quickly followed by embarrassment. “I’m sorry. Am I completely butchering it?”

“Nyet.” Yelena pauses. “Well, a little, but it’s good. I just… I don’t understand why. I speak English fine, da?”

“Of course!” Kate blushes adorably. “I dunno… I guess I was trying to be romantic.”

She blinks and then remembers.

Yelena Belova is still figuring out what the hell “normal” is supposed to look like. After being kidnapped, sold, brainwashed, and manipulated, her attention hasn’t been anywhere near romance. She wasn’t even expecting little Hawkeye. She thought there would be some fun flirting, maybe a quick lay before leaving the country.

Not… this .

Not a positive, healthy relationship.

Meanwhile, Kate Bishop broke into her chest cavity and hung string-lights in her ventricles; nestled into her heart while she was distracted.

She kisses her girlfriend again and again, a flood of foreign words exiting her lips. Small gasps indicate that some obscenely cliche phrases are recognized, but others aren’t. Which is fine.

Yelena promises to teach Kate more than Duolingo can.