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It’s a Wednesday when Yelena pockets the first one. The sun was shining hot and brightly through the windows of an urban cafe downtown, indicating the start of summer. They were meeting during the day for the first time since Kate had asked her out for drinks at Rockefeller at Christmas, which spiralled into a few more nights of drinks across a few months at the archer’s scrappy apartment in the months of spring. The widow was back in New York once again, giving the excuse to Kate that she was completing another assignment for Valentina. (She didn’t. She just wanted to see the archer again but didn’t want Kate’s head to get too big.)
A crush. The funny little thing that sprouted in Yelena’s heart after their first drink at an old dive bar just a block down Kate’s apartment.
There was this pull about the archer that made her brain a little hazy and her palms a little sweaty. And that was just so uncool.
“Do you always talk that much to everyone?” The widow had asked when Kate slid back into the seat opposite hers after standing by the cashier for a moment. The archer took two minutes and eight seconds to talk to the cashier, not that Yelena was annoyed someone else had the archer's attention. Not at all.
“Oh. I was just being friendly. And I asked for the receipt to fiddle with. Adhd jazz hands and all. Need to keep them busy.” Kate replied casually, her fingers tinkering with the paper.
Yelena keeps her eyes up on Kate’s face, trying not to think what else those fingers could do. She’s a trained assassin, not a horny high school boy for crying out loud.
They had talked about Kate’s latest R&D project for Bishop Security and Yelena’s not-assignment for Valentina. And the widow tried a Oreo milkshake for the first time, (she decides it was the best drink on earth.) Kate immediately teasing her about her doe-eyed expression she could not conceal after the first sip.
When they were ready to part ways, she glanced back at the paper left on the table. It was an origami spider and Yelena swipes it off the table before Kate realises.
A good memory of the Oreo milkshake, she reasons with herself.
She fishes it out of her vest when she reaches her apartment. (Yes, she had found a place to rent in the city but she wasn’t permanently relocating. Absolutely not.) She rubs the paper spider between her thumb and index finger while she watches the late night news about Hawkeye and Daredevil taking down some Italian drug trafficking ring.
~~~
Yelena pockets the second origami a few days later when she pops by the Bishop Security Headquarters. She had managed to reach the top floor without alarming security, Kate’s secretary being caught off guard when she briskly walks through Kate’s office doors.
She had expected Kate to be surprised- maybe even throw a pen at her, but the archer had a beautiful smile to her face, waving off her flustered secretary and inviting Yelena to stay.
“Not very super spy of you to come through the front door.” Kate comments as she passes her a few food take-out menus from one of her drawers (because of course, Kate kept them in her office too) and then her card.
“Your security cameras will be wiped when I leave.” She shrugs, hopping onto the office couch. (The security of the building was terrible, absolutely ironic for a security firm.)
“I-“ Kate sighs, settling herself down as well. “Fine. I’ll allow it this one time because I know you need to keep your 'I-am-mysterious-and-hot' streak going.”
“I am a badass. And you are awfully easy to gold dig, Kate Bishop.” She quips, stablizing her heartbeat at Kate’s compliment. (There was at least one good use to the Red Room’s training after all.)
Kate rolled her eyes. “Its Chinese take out. Hardly gold digging, Yelena.”
(The widow forgets what she had wanted to say as her eyes went up and down Kate's smart looking office suit.)
Their food finally came in the middle of Kate’s ramble about her NFL fantasy drafts. Yelena never understood the game of American football, but her heart picks up nonetheless, watching Kate speak animately at her dream line-up for the New York Giants, her fingers dabbling the receipt.
As the archer clears the coffee table, Yelena smoothly nicked the origami bird off the table and into her back pocket.
She plays with it back in her apartment as she lays on her back to fall asleep.
~~~
Small folded pieces of paper begin to gather in her vest. There are flowers, dinosaurs, cute puppy faces with tiny noses drawn on them when the restaurant had a pencil to spare, various sized spiders and birds. She remembers which place every single origami receipt was from, it imprints into her core memory whether she wants it to or not.
It was ridiculous to get so attached to pieces of scrap, but they have been touched by Kate Bishop's hands and its memories made Yelena feel oddly normal in a way.
She wants Kate. So badly. But she can't seem to break the mental barrier of her self-depreciation and red ledger that spreads round the earth ten folds, her brain already half fried at the realisation of wanting to kiss Kate in the first place.
Sure, Kate gets all flustered around her, but she's a widow, she has that effect on people. Kate was no different. Kate could never like her like that. They were just friends- who sometimes cuddle on the couch or bed, share a singular fork over a pot of food and intertwined their hands while walking the dogs. Just very platonic things.
In the meantime, she'll settle for keeping the origami pieces.
Eventually, she realises she had carried way too many of them when they almost burst out like an avalanche, when she wanted to grab something else from her vest- her Thunderbolt team mates Antonia and Ava almost catching her completely embarrassed.
She had to find somewhere else to put them- her solution was a large mason jar she was gifted with from her fellow widow, Sonya. She places it comfortably on her night stand, filling it up and practically swoons over it every night before she sleeps.
She keeps the first two in her vest still- its them, a cool spider and a little birdie- so that she some part of Kate is close by at all times for when she desperately needs a small comfort.
(If she's seen a little teary eyed after a particularly hard mission, clutching the neatly folded paper in her hands, then that's just her business.)
~~~
They were at an old diner near Clint Barton's farm for Christmas and Yelena is usually weary about new places because for one, she had tried to kill him last Christmas and two, her still unresolved grief over Natasha. Yet, she's there eating and laughing with the kids- her neck doesn't prickle with the feeling of being watched, she isn't being judged by Clint or Laura (quite the opposite really) and it feels guiltily amazing that she is enjoying herself.
As usual, Kate requests for the cheque, fiddling and folding the paper as she goes on a long spew about how different fried potato cuts taste different.
They share a giant mango milkshake and it seems entirely juvenile to share a single milkshake with two straws, but Kate insisted she tries something that wasn't Oreo.
(She tries hard not to think about how Clint and Laura do the same with their own milkshake across the table.)
Yelena wills herself not to go red when she catches Clint staring at the archer oddly as she busies herself to fold the piece of paper into a snowflake, leaving it right beside the widow's arm once she was done. Her brain immediately short-circuiting when Kate slung her arm around her shoulders casually, bringing her thoughts away from the origami.
(And if Kate never moved her arm from where she slung it around her shoulders and pulled her close, she would be completely fine with it.)
When they were done, she lingers back to reach for the folded paper but Nate beats her to it, grabbing it with his tiny fingers before running out into the snow.
She frowns, disappointment seeping into her stomach as she watches from the corner of her eyes at the small boy tossing the snowflake around in the snow. She is conflicted, contemplating on using a siege of hand manoeuvre to get the folded paper out of Nate's hands. After a few minutes of looking at Natasha's namesake, she decided to give up, feeling a pang of sadness at the loss of the inconsequential piece of paper. Her let down soon disappears as the archer pulled her towards a Christmas tree farm, smile so infectious that she can't help but smile back.
When they arrive back on Clint's farm, Laura stops her at the door, pressing a slightly wet paper snowflake in her hand. Their eyes met and the older woman gives her a warm smile. I know and I understand.
She cradles the snowflake gently in her hand that was in her front hoodie pocket as she sits down to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate by the fireplace. Stares at it while she waits for Kate to finish her turn washing up in the washroom. Clutches it tenderly in her pocket on their flight back to New York while her mind races with thoughts of what could be.
~~~
It was another two long months before she was back in New York city. Valentina had kept her away with the Thunderbolts to look for vibranium on this mountain that looked like a hand which ended up as a false lead. They ended up fighting with a man who was injected with a bastardised version of the super-soldier serum, the team barely making it out alive.
On their return hovercraft, she was seated in the corner by herself, her suit soaked in blood, muscle aching as she reached into her vest, contemplating if this was what she’ll do for the rest of her life. She had made sure her hands were clean before touching the two pieces of paper, the smooth surface of them steadying her heart beat.
(And if she punched John Walker, who was nosy enough to ask about the origami in her hands, he deserved it for being the reason the mission fucked up anyway.)
Bucky gave her one of his rare smiles, showing her a small brown notebook he kept in his own tactical suit. “Its good to have something that grounds you. This was Steve’s.” He said in understanding, watching as Antonia pulled John away by the collar.
It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that with Kate at all.
“Look. It’s not my business. But you should tell them.” Bucky sat down beside her. "Knowing people like us, we try to deny our own happiness because we don't think we deserve it."
"With all the deaths on my hands, I don't."
"its hard to forgive yourself, but you have to try. If not for yourself, then for them."
"It's not like that with her."
"You should tell her anyway. Our lives are too short, take that leap of faith."
“Do you want to get punched too?” She rolled her eyes, embarrassed at how fast he read her.
“No ma'am." He smirks, standing back up and leaving her alone as their hovercraft descends to Valentina's headquarters.
Her feelings bubbles up like overcooked porridge and d espite her best efforts to ignore them, her body betrays her as she found herself making her way to Kate’s apartment as soon as she got cleaned up.
Kate was by her work station, meticulously invested in putting together her trick arrow. Yelena stared at her by the window- the furrow in Kate’s brow, her tongue sticking out a little as she attempts to mix a few substances together. The archer was in sweatpants and just a purple sports bra, showing off her tone abs. It was utterly adorable and hot.
The widow slips in, patting Lucky’s head as he appeared to greet her. She floats down the stairs, Kate still none the wiser. She walks over to the sofa, laying down with Lucky on top of her.
“Yelena!” Kate yelps when she finally turns her chair around.
“Yes Kate Bishop. I have been here for an hour. I want to have dinner.” She complains, though with mirth in her eyes as she studies Kate’s flustered body language as she fumbles back to her bedroom to put on a sweater.
“Pizza?” The archer calls out from upstairs.
“I will order!” Yelena announces, already picking out her phone to call Kate’s favourite pizza place.
In the middle of the movie that Kate had put on after their meal, the archer pulls out the receipt she had saved. She walks over to her work station and pulls out a pink sharpie. Yelena pulls her eyes away from the archer, forcing herself to pay attention to the rom-com that was playing on the screen. (The pair hate each other but decides to fake date at a wedding. Totally uncool in Yelena's books. But who was she to say? She was no better.)
She felt the couch sink and Kate nudging her knee.
“What is it, Kate Bishop?” She pretends to be annoyed, eyes slowly looking down.
It was an origami heart folded from the receipt and coloured with the pink sharpie.
Yelena felt her breath catch and suddenly it's a little difficult to breathe. She stares at the little pink heart in the palm of her hands, unsure of how to respond.
“Oh shoot! I forgot about the kisses!” Kate jumps up as Yelena flinches because of the archer for the first time.
The what…?
Kate rushes to the fridge, picking out something and then back to the couch. The archer places two small Hershey chocolate kisses on top of the heart, the wrapping in silver with tiny pink hearts.
Surely there was a better way for Kate to have worded that but now she’s staring down at her palm in shell-shock at the implications of it all. She can’t quite form a sentence because of her mind reeling from the want to know how Kate’s actual kisses taste like.
"It's for you."
"For me?" She chokes out, her voice just barely sounding normal.
"Its Valentines Day, silly." Kate only laughs. "Even if you don't celebrate it like the big scary russian spy that you are. But anyway, it doesn't matter, I just wanted to give them to you. I always see you keeping the receipts I fold up when we go out. Totally not judging you or anything-"
Yelena’s brain came to a screeching stop.
She knows.
"You knew?" She blurts out.
Oh no.
Kate gave her a confused look. "Yeah. I have hawk eyes, haha, I am funny!" The archer chuckled but it died a few seconds later after looking at Yelena's serious face. Kate reaches out, gently clasping the widow's hands in hers. "Hey, I know people who collect weirder things, so if this is a hobby of yours, I'm totally not judging-"
Oh fuck it. If she was going to lose Kate either way, she would do it in a blaze of glory like the badass that she is, go down with the whole truth laid bare for the archer to see because she was so tired of holding this in. Of pretending that every time they touched, it didn’t set her on fire. Of pretending that when they shared the same couch during girls night, she didn’t spend the night just gazing at Kate's doozy face, memorising the lines and contours.
She definitely wasn't thinking straight when she surges forward, her hands sliding up the side of Kate's face as she presses her lips against the archer's.
Suddenly everything is Kate.
Kate. Kate. Kate.
She can only taste Kate, can only breathe in the literal sunshine that seemed to pour off of her, can only feel Kate's strong arms wrapping itself tightly around her waist and pulling her torso over her lap.
She pulls away with a gasp, resting their foreheads together softly, feeling something wet on her cheeks.
“Why are you crying?”
Yelena laughs wetly, the sound a little pitiful around her tears. “Because I like you so very much, Kate Bishop, and I feel my sanity hangs by a thread that grows more precarious each second more I look at you."
“Can I tell you a secret?” The words came out as a whisper against Yelena's mouth and it takes every ounce of self control for her to not lean forward and claim them again.
“I like you too, Yelena. Every part of you.” Kate beamed in her signature goofy way.
Yelena can only laugh and pulls Kate in for another kiss, this one soft and tender but still just as passionate.
There was something about Kate that made all the pieces of her life fall seamlessly into place. It was warm, beautiful and magical.
She decides she never wanted to let it go.