Archive of Our Own

"Hearts are wild creatures, that's why our ribs are cages."

― Elalusz

⤍⧗⤎

“And this one?” Kate’s left hand gently traces along an angry jagged line that goes down between the middle and ring finger of Yelena’s own left hand. They’re both sitting on the archer’s couch, watching a movie that Yelena has long lost the plot of since Kate first draped her heavy arm around her shoulders. “Looks gnarly.” Her breath washes over Yelena’s right cheek bone as the assassin allows her to keep touching the scar.

“Stopped a knife from slicing into my face.” She responds casually, nudging her head from side to side to get more comfortable against the solid body next to her. “I don’t remember it hurting actually.”

“Must’ve been the adrenaline.” Yelena hums in assent as she watches Kate lean forward, passing in front of Yelena to gently lay a kiss between her knuckles. The assassin’s face stays neutral at the gesture, and she watches with sharp eyes as Kate takes up her previous position and starts playing with one of her bulky rings. Kate then turns her hand over to run her thumb along the lines in Yelena’s palm. “What about this one?” 

The archer’s finger is placed right under a nick near the bottom of her palm, and Yelena sighs. “I wasn’t a very careful kid. I think that might be a piece of gravel that I just never got out of my skin.” When there isn’t an immediate response from the other woman, Yelena turns her head to the right and slightly looks up.

Kate has a small smile on her face and gazes down at her with a soft stare. “Not a very careful adult either, huh?”

Yelena feels her eyes roll in her sockets naturally and takes her hand out of Kate’s grasp. “You are one to talk, Kate Bishop.” She briefly glances at Kate to see that her smile is still present so she turns around abruptly, Kate’s arm dropping to the couch cushion. The archer lies against the backrest, stunned, and Yelena quickly scans the woman in front of her. She has on a black zip up hoodie that is open low on her sternum, and the assassin recognizes Kate’s favourite pair of gray sweatpants that she wears when she has no plans to go out. She eyes her split lip and pokes at the edge of the bandage on Kate’s neck. 

“Ow!” The archer flinches back slightly, appalled that Yelena would hurt her after dressing her wound herself. “That is still fresh!” Her right hand comes up to hold the side of her neck as Yelena raises an eyebrow.

“Well, maybe if you were more careful during our missions…” 

“I- this is a graze so it could’ve been worse, which means technically, I was careful!” Yelena can’t help the corners of her lips tugging up at the ever growing pout on the other woman’s face. She grabs the zipper at Kate’s chest and pulls it all the way up, then turns back around to get comfortable again. She fixes her loose white shirt after it had ridden up her stomach from her moving so much, and lifts Kate’s arm to place it over her shoulders again.

“Sometimes, it just feels like you go looking for trouble.”

Kate’s amused exhale makes her torso shake against Yelena’s back. “Maybe.”

⤍⧗⤎

The first thing she does is definitely not freak out. But if she did freak out, could anyone blame her? She’s woken up from this nightmare before. Blinking and appearing in a completely different place, and losing five years of her life, all in the same instance. She swallows and feels agonizing dread run down her spine, nearly paralyzing her. “No, no, no, no, no-” Willing her shaking hands to just stop for a second so she can pull out her phone and call Sonya, she grips onto the fabric on top of her thighs and clenches. “Fuck, please.” They’d only just walked out of one of their most frequented coffee shops in Moscow, and now she is staring at her sister’s tombstone, halfway across the world, in Ohio. This must be some sick joke that the universe is playing on her. She cannot go through this again. She cannot lose another five years and find that this time someone else has died. She only has so many people to lose and somehow, no matter how hard she tries, she cannot keep them. 

Her phone rings and it startles her so much that it almost gets a sound out of her. She quickly pulls out the device from one of the many pockets of her black cargo pants, and brings it so fast up to her head that she nearly hits herself.

“Yelena?” Sonya sounds out of breath, like she ran around the streets, looking for her.

“Sonya-“ Her voice gets caught in her throat. “What day is it? What is the year? Where are you? When did I disappear-“ She keeps going until tears nearly fill her to the brim. Her eyes are misty, but wiping at them doesn’t clear her vision. She’s not sure why her chest hurts, but it reminds her of when the horrific news of her sister’s death was first broken to her.

“One moment we just walked out of Skuratov’s and the next you were gone!” Sonya sounds almost just as frantic as her, and her hands have started shaking again. “Are you ok? Are you hurt?” Her words string together, almost tripping over each other like she can’t manage to quite get them out fast enough. “Where are you?”

“I’m -“ Her bottom lip wobbles and she bites it to try and keep herself together. It must be different this time. “I think I am ok.” She blinks and reads the words on the tombstone as best she can. She closes her eyes when she’s read the whole thing twice and sits down on the grass, exhausted. “What is- can you tell me what time and date it is?” She didn’t realize how hard she’s been clenching her fingers, but she releases them before she makes herself bleed.

Sonya only hesitates for half a second before answering. “It is 4:48pm, October 4th, 2025.”

She nearly sobs in relief, no time has passed since she first grabbed her order and held the door open for Sonya. She takes a deep breath and opens her eyes again, blinking a couple of times and looking up to be able to see the beautiful pink blossoms still left on the trees before autumn inevitably takes them away. “I am in Ohio, sitting in front of Natasha’s grave.”

She hears a surprised squeak come through the phone and goes to wipe at her eyes again. “How is that possible?” Yelena recognizes Sonya’s voice as something she’s only heard when her friend is in full mission mode. “Are you certain you are safe and not hurt?” With the phone still pressed to her ear, Yelena finally takes a moment to be reacquainted with her body. She drops her head between her knees and runs steadying fingers through her hair. She then scans her surroundings, seeing her spilled over coffee cup on the ground. There is still an abundance of flowers and gifts at the foot of the gravestone, and she stands up to walk over and adjust the fallen ones.

“I am ok.” She straightens back up and places her hand on top of the cold stone, slowly smoothing her palm over the top of it, her rings making a gentle scraping sound as they are dragged against the material. 

“Ok.” There is a pause, so Yelena takes this time to trace the words on the headstone. “Ok, then what happened? Is this some alien bullshit again?”

Yelena sighs, looking up at the morning sky. It’s almost 10am here, and it’s a Saturday, so most people are probably sleeping in. “I don’t know.” She pushes her hair out of her eyes. “I just- why does this happen to me?”

“Good question. Get on the first plane back here so we can figure that out.”

Yelena groans, and with one last glance at her sister’s name, starts walking towards the exit of the cemetery. “The last thing I want to do right now is to find a plane.”

She blinks and when she opens her eyes to Sonya in Moscow, she collides with her and knocks her friend’s coffee cup out of her hands. “What the hell?!!”

⤍⧗⤎

“Ok, now lift your tongue.” 

“I thaid I’m feeling fine.”

“Lift your tongue, Yelena.”

“And I’m starving. Do you still have that packet of Keeblers I kept here? They are now discontinued in America.”

Melina sighs good-naturedly at her daughter and throws away the wooden tongue depressor. She takes a step back, looking the younger woman up and down, then pulls off her gloves. They’d been observing and testing Yelena for the past hour, the assassin hooked up to multiple machines constantly monitoring her blood pressure, heart beat, respiratory rate and body temperature. 

“You will not be eating that garbage in this household. You will have good food here.”

“Keeblers is good food.” Yelena grumbles as she starts pulling the tape and needles off of her arms, and hops off the hospital examination table.

Melina hums from her position staring at a computer screen, and Yelena looks over her shoulder to see a bunch of graphs and brain scan images. “So, nothing is wrong with me, yes?”

“Not that I can tell.”

“Ok, fantastic.”

“However, dorogaya, the moment you feel anything out of the ordinary, you must call me. Do you understand? (darling)” Melina turns around abruptly to look into Yelena’s eyes, her expression serious and of barely masked concern.

“Ok, mama, I understand.” Yelena smiles tentatively. “But I really am starving. I let you poke at me for the last hour.”

“Yes, well, I want you to be careful, hmm?” Yelena thinks back to that conversation she had on Kate’s couch, curled up next to the archer’s warm body, months ago.

“I’m always careful.”

Melina hums at her daughter's almost petulant answer and the corners of her eyes crinkle. “Of course. But you know how a mother worries.”

⤍⧗⤎

Did you know that the first pizzeria in the States was opened in New York City? 

It’s a bad habit she’s picked up recently. Checking her phone during missions. Well, not recently. Ever since she gave Kate her number and hasn’t changed it, she’s checked her phone during missions. It didn’t matter that she doesn’t really answer her, Kate will still send her something every few days regardless.

No wonder we like pizza so much!

I just learnt that.

Yelena reads the messages over again then goes back to looking through the scope of her Magnum sniper gun. There is a slight panic that manifests itself in the twitch of her left eyebrow when she momentarily doesn’t spot the man in his thirtieth floor room, but when he reappears in a bathrobe and holding a cigar, Yelena sighs. It’s only supposed to be a recon mission, but she brought a riffle just in case he happened to be unlucky and she happened to feel like killing him.

Her phone buzzes again and she sighs, remembering the look her mother gave her when she left her phone on the counter that one time and Melina managed to glance at the notification before she could swipe it away. It’s been four months since she last saw Kate. Not that she’s counting. And the archer seems to be doing well. Not that she’s checking in. 

“She could be doing better.” Sonya winked at her from across the coffee table.

Yelena sighs again, slightly shaking her head, and follows the man with her scope as he moves to roll open a window and light his cigar.

The red dot in her scope smoothly swings to the middle of his chest and Yelena takes a deep breath, before releasing it slowly. His luck’s run out. Just as her breath tapers out and there is a moment of complete stillness, her finger pulls on the trigger.

The man lets out a bloodcurdling scream when Yelena suddenly appears in his room. He clutches his chest through his fluffy bathrobe and drops his lit cigar. The bullet travels fast into the side of the hotel minifridge and Yelena briefly stares at the damage it makes through a couple cans of beer before embedding itself into the wooden tv stand. She doesn’t have time to wonder what the fuck is going on though, out of the corner of her eye, she realizes that the man has somewhat gathered his bearings and is running- stumbling- towards a gun she knows he has taped under the desk. She lets go of the large riffle she’s still holding and springs up into a standing position, hurrying for her own handgun. With all the commotion, she’s surprised the widow hasn’t shown up yet, but she’ll be grateful for that in a moment. 

Without breaking a sweat, the trigger of her small handgun is pulled, the bullet lodging itself into the wall behind the target's head, a bloody splatter surrounding the entry point. He collapses to the ground, mere steps away from the desk, just as the door to the hotel room slams open. In the doorway is Sasha, the widow she’s been monitoring for the past few days. 

They make eye contact briefly, then Sasha’s gaze shifts down to the corpse of the man Yelena just killed. Just as she looks back at the blonde, she springs into action, launching herself at Yelena’s face. The assassin ducks in time, quickly turning to block a kick to the head. Sasha’s leg swings around after the miss, but Yelena grabs her foot fast enough to pull her off balance. The assassin tries to pin the other woman to the ground by her legs, but Sasha manages to get a hit into Yelena’s face. Just as she’s about to recover, Sasha gains the upper hand, getting out from under Yelena and pushing her to the ground, face first. With her chest to the ground, she feels the distinct buzzing of her phone in the breast pocket of her vest. Kate Bishop is still texting her, Yelena has half a mind to chuckle if her cheek wasn’t being pressed into this ridiculously expensive penthouse hotel rug. 

She manages to get a palm onto the ground just as she feels Sasha’s harsh breathing right next to her ear. She uses all of her strength to lift her right arm off the ground, jamming her elbow into the widow’s cheekbone. She thinks she hears a crack, but she doesn’t have time to think about that. Sasha falls to the side with a grunt so Yelena wastes no time getting up on her knees and using this opportunity to quickly shove Sasha to the ground in return. She manages to sit on the other woman’s waist, feeling her attempts at bucking her off and slaps away the arms trying to claw at her neck. When Sasha finally decides to pull a knife from the inside of her left wrist, Yelena beats her to it and pins her arm down, already pulling the red antidote vial out of the breast pocket that doesn’t contain her phone. 

When the widow starts coughing and rubbing at her eyes, Yelena pants into the air above the other woman and her eyes flicker frantically around the area she just sprayed. Funny that she saved someone else on an expensive carpet, Ana would be proud of her for ruining another one. 

When she sees some kind of emotion in those once empty brown eyes, she slides off the ex-widow and sits beside her, still breathing heavily. In the silence of the room, all that can be heard is the aftermath of their tussle and the incessant vibrating of her phone.

Sasha looks at her with guilt and apprehension in her eyes so Yelena ignores Kate for a little longer. She should’ve probably set her phone on ‘do not disturb’ for this mission, but that’s all in hindsight now. She hadn’t planned on fighting the widow tonight. 

Yelena reaches her hand out and Sasha meets her in the middle, squeezing each other tightly. “You will be ok.” Yelena says softly after a few more minutes of silence. She eyes the slowly forming bruise on Sasha’s reddened cheek and goes to apologize, but Sasha speaks first.

“You should probably see what that’s about.” She glances down at Yelena’s vest where her phone is still buzzing, and ok yeah, Kate texts her a lot, but this is getting unusual. 

Yelena opens her mouth, but Sasha stops her with another squeeze of her hand and a nod, so the assassin reaches into her pocket, finally giving her phone its much needed attention. 

It’s not Kate. Fifteen missed messages from Melina, nine from Sonya. Kate hasn’t messaged her since the pizza topic. Right. She definitely went a little bit rogue on this mission. She quickly types back that she needs transport out of Piraeus and that the target has been eliminated, before locking her phone to ignore the scolding she knows is coming. 

“How did you get past me?” Yelena whips her head up from the black screen of her device to Sasha looking at her with a lifted brow. 

Yelena licks her upper lip. “I scaled the side of the building.”

“None of the windows are broken.”

Yelena blinks and turns her head to look behind her at the building she was just on, through the very intact windows.

“I’m too talented for that.”

The corners of Yelena’s lips lift when Sasha stares for a second longer then chuckles.

⤍⧗⤎

There is too much to do. There is finding the widows, then locating the widows, then traveling to the widows, then fighting the widows, not to mention freeing the widows, then consoling the widows, then relocating the widows then, then, then-

Her phone buzzes next to her on the desk.

Lucky made a friend at the vet!

Yelena taps on the notification on her screen immediately, and sees the attached photo of Lucky next to a black cat. The large dog doesn't seem to realize its own size as he lays a heavy paw on top of the smaller animal, nearly smooshing it to the ground. Yelena laughs at her phone, wondering if Lucky would have more reasons to be at the vet after the cat scratches him up.

Dumb , she thinks, getting so close to something so volatile. She closes her phone and decides that she should get some sleep before the jet arrives. She spares one more glance at the Eiffel Tower outside the one window of the flat she managed to snag, then gets up to walk towards the bed pushed into the corner of the room. She checks the time and gives herself a generous 3 hours of shut eye before placing her phone in the pocket of her leggings, and pulling the blanket under her chin.

The body under her barely screams before Yelena is up and alert, grabbing the knife at her wrist and pressing it right onto their jugular. She doesn’t register who it is until she hears barking and a dog jumps onto her back. The animal combined with the bucking hips knock her off balance and she falls off of a bed, recovering quickly from her fall, just in time for the room to be bathed in warm light. The first thing she sees is a disheveled Kate Bishop staring at her, wide-eyed and breathing hard, standing on the other side of the bed. She’s holding just her bow as a melee weapon and she still hasn’t fully realized who just attacked her in her sleep. She’s in a gray tank top and purple checkered pajama pants, and Yelena’s breath hitches seeing the beginning of the scar peeking out from Kate’s top, starting from her right shoulder.

The moment her gaze makes its way back to Kate’s eyes, recognition colours them with warmth. Lucky chooses this time to jump onto her thighs and attempts to lick at her face.

“Yelena.” Kate is looking at her like she isn’t real. Yelena looks away from her eyes and notices a thin line of red coming from the archer’s neck. Her knife…

“I’m sorry, Kate Bishop.” She sweeps through the slightly open door of the archer’s bedroom and swings off the bannister of the second floor loft. She falls out the window with Kate’s voice in her head, calling her name.

⤍⧗⤎

“I know you blame yourself but how could you have known?”

She’s looking out the window of the airbus, not even pretending to see anything in the pitch dark night sky. “How could I have not?”

Mason sits in the row of seats beside her own and she can feel him studying the back of her head. “You didn’t know there’d be another woman there.” At this point, he knows just a little bit too much about her for comfort, but she consoles herself by thinking that she can always kill him about it. “You didn’t know that Kate would-”

“I was the team leader.” Yelena grunts, rubbing her thumb on the one ring she keeps on her index finger. “I should’ve anticipated everything.”

On this short of a notice, Mason could only get her an aircraft of this size, but she couldn’t even complain about the lack of subtlety. She just wanted to get out. Her phone doesn’t buzz at all because she put it on silent, but she’s contemplating tossing it when they have their layover in Moldova.

She wants to find the idea of a layover funny when they’re literally in an unmarked vehicle with no official flight itineraries to follow, but her mind is fully occupied with the look Kate gave her when she breathed her name a couple of hours ago. 

Mason lifts the armrests of the three seats he’s on, then gets himself comfortable by laying his legs across them. “Ok, then, why show up at her flat in the first place? Hasn’t it been like nearly half a year since you last saw her in person?”

Five and a half months. She squeezes her eyes shut when the look of confusion she’s remembering from just a moment ago turns into the shock on Kate’s face from that night. 

All he gets in response is a silence only interrupted by the rattling of the old tube of metal they call an aircraft. When Yelena feels a seat closer to her creak, she releases the tension in her right arm and stretches her fingers. Mason seems to sense that he’s getting a bit too close and stops moving, scooching back. “Ok yeah, I’m also tired. It’s 4 am somewhere.”

After a couple of hours of nothingness, Yelena chances a glance behind her. Mason hasn’t moved from where he was. His long legs dangle off the edge of his seats into the middle aisle and his right arm is draped over his eyes. She doesn’t want to risk going to sleep herself again, so she pulls her phone out.

You could have stayed.

She rubs her eyes and slides it back into her pocket. She doesn’t toss her phone in Moldova.

⤍⧗⤎

“They put a gun in my hand when I was 6.” 

When the chewing across from her stops, her fingers still on the cup of swirling black tea she was nursing between her hands. Kate had just finished recounting the story of the first time she picked up a bow after she asked for it at her father’s funeral. Yelena hears the woman place the half eaten chocolate chip muffin back on the plate and releases a short breath. “I remember how light it was.” A hand settles on one of her own and Kate starts pulling the mug towards her side of the table.

It doesn’t occur to her why she would open up about this until she finally looks up from calloused fingers to Kate’s tentative smile. “It’s hot.” Kate’s hands guide hers away and she does nothing but watch as the archer starts blowing on the steaming drink. After a moment of silence, Kate’s blue eyes look up and they slightly widen. “Oh, uh.-” She pushes her plate of half a muffin in front of Yelena. “I can get a knife to cut off the parts I bit.” When Yelena continues to stare, Kate makes to get up.

“It’s ok, Kate Bishop. I’m not very hungry.” She retracts the hand she placed on Kate’s wrist and the archer sits back down.

“Ok.” Kate concedes. She goes back to blowing on the tea. “But don’t go complaining later when I have nothing in my fridge.”

Yelena’s lips twitch. “I would not eat the garbage you keep in your fridge.”

“I can’t believe I invite you out, and you’re still this mean to me.” Kate reaches across and stuffs the last of her muffin ungracefully in her mouth. Yelena does smile at that. She looks at the clock hung up on top of the exit to the diner. It’s nearing 2 am so she’s sure Kate will ask her to stay the night again. The assassin fixates on a new scratch on Kate’s chin as the other woman rhythmically goes back to blowing on the steam while half chewing. Kate looks at Yelena after her last swallow. “Did you want to keep talking about…”

“No.” Maybe she shouldn’t stay tonight. “It’s not really…”

Kate fills in the silence after her sentence tapers off. “Ok, that’s ok.” Yelena wants to know how Kate learned to look at her without pity. She knows she’s not always been able to do that. Their first actual encounter was a stark reminder of the different worlds they come from. At the time, Yelena didn’t think she could ever get along with a girl like Kate Bishop. She said all the wrong things and Yelena left that night exasperated at her naivety. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you earlier.” 

“You didn’t.” She pulls back her cup when Kate nods, gliding the bottom across the metal tabletop, and takes a sip, feeling the warm liquid go down her throat. “I don’t know why I brought that up.”

“Hey, I’m glad you did.” Kate scratches her upper back, under her lavender hoodie. “It’s- I mean, I feel like I’ve been talking this whole time! It’s like, damn Kate, leave some airtime for others, you know? But also, if you want to pretend that never happened, I can forget about it. I think I have selective memory or something.”

Yelena can do nothing but smirk at the archer for being a little loud at this hour. Granted, they are the only patrons in the diner and the night shift waitress recognizes them at this point. “I don’t want to be a downer.”

“You can never be.” Kate’s eyes seem to shine even in this dim lighting, and Yelena is certain that her sentiment is genuine. “The first time I picked up a gun was when I was sixteen at a range, and I’ve sworn off guns since then.”

“Too hard for you?”

“I am actually a skilled marksman and a perfect shot with any weapon.” Yelena chuckles then. “If you don’t believe me, give me a boomerang or a sling-shot or something!” Kate settles into a wide smile when Yelena’s joyful laugh rings out into the empty diner. “Guns just feel clunky!”

Yelena’s smile doesn’t leave her until she’s finished all her tea and a sleepy haze has settled over Kate’s features. It’s well past 3 am, and Kate is now wearing several of Yelena’s rings. The assassin may have smaller hands, but her fingers are wider than Kate’s so she’s amused at some of her chunkiest rings stacked on the archer’s thumbs. Kate lazily smiles at her from across the booth, giving her two thumbs up. Yelena's eyes crinkle, and she reaches out to grab one of Kate’s hands, pulling it towards herself, content with taking her rings off one finger and putting them on another.

“I was a perfect shot by the three month mark.” Yelena’s gaze lifts from their hands on the table to Kate, who’s stare is transfixed on where they’re touching. “I didn’t waste a bullet. And I shot whatever they pointed at.” She pauses and waits for Kate to make eye contact, but the archer never does, her eyelids perpetually droopy as she follows Yelena’s fingers tracing the lines in her hands. 

The concierge walked out of the back room at around 3:30 am and started mopping the furthest corner from them. Yelena’s kept a subtle eye on him the whole time, but he’s kept a respectful distance from them. 

Kate hums, which brings Yelena’s attention back to her. She didn’t realize that they stopped moving, now just lightly holding the tips of each other’s fingers. “I’ve made peace with myself slowly, with that part of my life.” Kate’s skin is warm even from the little they’re touching. “I was a child. I- I was forced to do that. I had no choice.” Kate’s hold slightly tightens so she keeps going. “But-” She glances at the time on the clock, 3:54 am. They make eye contact, and Kate looks more alert than she has in the past hour. “I’m afraid that one day, I might point it at you.” Yelena hears her metal rings clink before her hand is turned over and Kate has them palm to palm, holding her like she’s keeping her together. But she isn’t. Yelena feels like a small weight was lifted off of her. 

“I’m not scared of you.” Her callouses press deeply into the archer’s hands. “I don’t know how long you’ve been thinking of this, but-” The determination in her blue eyes mirrors the strength with which Yelena is now gripping her. “I don’t think you would hurt me.”

And the assassin nods at that, barely managing to not completely frown, the corners of her lips steadying themselves. She lied to Kate. The archer holds her hand just as tightly, making sure Yelena knows she meant what she said. 

What Yelena is really afraid of is that if she were to point a gun at Kate, the archer wouldn’t hesitate to take a step forward. 

“Hey, let’s get out of here.” Kate slowly scooches out of her side of the booth, hand still connected with Yelena’s until the very last moment. “If we stay any longer, I think I might knock out right here.”

“Yeah.” Yelena turns her back to Kate to sniffle and pull out a couple of bills to place on the table. “And then I have to carry your heavy ass back.” Before Kate can protest about Yelena paying, the assassin pushes Kate’s sluggish form towards the exit. She yells a goodnight to Berenice and Herb as the bell above the door rings.

That night, as Kate slumbers on, passing out right after brushing her teeth and falling into bed, Yelena stays up and gently runs her thumb over the new mark on Kate’s chin. She falls asleep to the archer’s steady breathing, the rhythmic up and down of Kate’s chest under the cover.

⤍⧗⤎

Slamming shoulder first into the front door of the motel room she’s been staying in for the past three nights, Yelena hisses as it still jostles her bad arm hanging limp on her left side. Blood drips steadily from her fingers. She breathes heavily as her right hand tightens onto the wound in her back, the pain almost enough to buckle her knees and make her fall onto the dirty floor. “Yebat’. (fuck)” She doesn’t check if anyone’s followed her because she made sure to kill every last one of them, but she still wobbled her way back with a bullet wound to the shoulder blade for her troubles. She pushes the door closed with the back of her head, leaning against it and giving herself three seconds before turning around to twist the multiple locks. Making her way to the tiny bathroom attached to the bedroom, she feels the hole in her back bleed sluggishly and the sweat start to bead on her forehead.

The bullet is gonna be such a bitch to remove.

Stopping at the door frame, she stares at her reflection in the mirror, backlit by the small light in the middle of the bedroom. She looks almost as terrible as she feels, unidentifiable stains and smudges across her skin and white suit, hair strands hanging in disarray around her face, a stark reminder of the hours that have passed since she first tied her intricate braid up. She flips the light switch, the small tiled bathroom filling with cold white light from the one flickering bulb in the middle of the ceiling, and squints at the brightness. Stumbling a few steps towards the sink, she leaves a bloody handprint on the enameled edge when she supports her weight to take a breath. She grabs the roll of toilet paper on top of the tank and rips a few layers of it as best she can with one hand before slapping the wad onto her wound, hissing at the sting. The blood slowly soaks it through, sticking it to her skin, so she takes this time to pull the pins and elastics out of her hairdo. Someone else’s blood is splattered on one side, but she ignores it to focus on peeling her suit off with her eyes squeezed shut. Removing her sports bra is a feat in and of itself, requiring many breaths between tugs, and she considers just cutting the thing off of her multiple times. Her fingers tremble after she finally throws it in the sink with a splatter.  

She leaves another handprint on the sink when she pauses to breathe again, but now an added wave of nausea fights to take her to the ground. She hears her phone buzz from the pile of dirty white clothes on the ground. She knows who it is.

She ignores it in favour of pulling the wad of paper off her wound and throwing it in the small trash bin next to the toilet bowl. Turning the faucet on ungracefully, her left arm is almost completely useless so she cups her right hand and watches it fill with water. The cold water hitting her face makes her somewhat more alert, but it is still really hard to look in the mirror. Scanning herself completely nude from head to toe, her skin is like a canvas of blue and black. 

She sniffs before resigning to save her phone from the filth of her clothes. 

I miss you.

She flings the bloody phone onto the pile again. Damn Kate Bishop. 

Damn her for reminding Yelena how much easier this would be with another person. She’s exhausted, and frustrated at her mistakes during the mission, and she just wants to get this fucking bullet out of her fucking body before passing out for 5 hours until her transport arrives. She closes her eyes with a sigh. The last thing she wants to think about is how gentle Kate's hands are.

“HOLY FUCK!” Yelena’s forehead is suddenly pressed into wet flesh. She immediately jerks back with a loud gasp, but the sound is swallowed by a scream that is not her own. Her head almost collides violently with the wet wall behind her, and she hears a loud thud on the ground mixed with a pained grunt. She blinks hard to try and clear her vision, but a hot spray is streaming into her eyes, and the bathroom she is now in is foggy. She can’t even reach for the knife strapped to her wrist because of her useless arm, but then she focuses on the other person in the room.

She’s in Kate Bishop’s New York City loft shower. Kate seems to have somewhat recovered after scrambling all the way to the other side of the small bathroom, looking absolutely ridiculous brandishing a hair dryer while butt-naked. “Ye– What the hell? Yelena?” She slowly lowers her ‘weapon’ and pushes her wet hair out of her eyes. “Oh, my God! Yelena!?” She’s still breathing hard, and her expression and darting eyes tell Yelena that she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing, but she still tentatively walks towards her to turn the water off. 

“Hi, Kate Bishop.” Yelena mumbles, leaning heavily against the wall behind her while trying her best to keep her weight off her wounded shoulder blade. She ignores how this was definitely not the way she wanted Kate to see her again after so long.

The assassin’s eyes flit from confused blue to Kate’s upper chest where a watery blood mark is. So that’s what her forehead was touching. Then lower- “Oh, my God! I’m- you’re- we’re both–  And you’re hurt and- and fucking bleeding!” Kate is freaking out, rightfully so, and she starts to frantically run around (Yelena thinking belatedly about how dangerous that is on wet tiles) grabbing towels and robes hooked to the door to cover them up. 

“Really? I couldn’t tell.” Yelena smiles crookedly at the archer and when she falls forward because when did she get so sleepy? Kate drops the tower of fluffy towels to the ground and catches her before she can crash to the floor. 

“What is going on?” Kate is trembling against her and Yelena can’t tell if there are tears in the archer’s eyes or if it’s just general shower mistiness.

“There’s a bullet in my left shoulder blade.” Yelena manages, ignoring all the places where they are touching. Kate tucks the assassin’s head into the crook of her neck and half carries, half pulls her towards the closed lid of her toilet.

“That’s not-” Yelena knows that’s not what she meant. “Ok, I’ve- I’ve got you.” Kate helps her to sit after putting a towel on the lid, and she pulls out a first aid kit from the cabinet under the sink. She seems to have completely forgotten the state of undress they are both in, and as she pushes wet strands of hair out of Yelena’s eyes, Yelena hates herself for the way Kate is looking at her. She would run like she did a month ago, but she was wrong earlier. She misremembered just how gentle Kate’s hands are. “I’ve got you.”

She finally looks lower now, to see the jagged and lumpy scar that runs from Kate’s upper right shoulder to midway through the left side of her rib cage.

“I know.”

It comes back to her in blurry bits, but they end up back in the shower. She remembers saying yes when Kate asked if it was ok that she helped her clean the filth off her body, and then confirming when Kate asked again. 

Yelena is facing the spray, letting the warm water hit her chest and greedily soaking up the warmth to soothe her aching bones. She feels slowly rejuvenated as Kate stands behind her and tenderly cleans around the freshly stitched up bullet hole with a small wash towel. 

“Yelena.” Kate’s standing close enough to be able to break Yelena’s fall should she need it again so her voice, barely above a whisper, sends shivers down the assassin’s spine. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

The towel never leaves her skin as Kate continues her ministrations, moving on to clean along her left arm.Yelena tilts her head down to let the water seep into her hair, using her good hand to try and untangle the unruly strands. “I don’t know.”

The towel stills for a moment and she hears a quiet inhale of breath behind her. Kate reaches over her shoulder to take the soap from a shower shelf. “How did you- I mean you just appeared in my- in my shower, while I was showering.” Yelena feels shampoo being squeezed into her hair and sighs when the archer’s fingers follow. “And last time too…” She hears Kate sniffle and feels the bubbles begin to form on her head. “Last time, you just appeared in my room, when I was sleeping.” 

The fingers leave her head to allow her to wash the soap out, and Kate finally steps around her till they’re facing each other. Yelena doesn’t think she’s ever seen Kate’s eyebrows this scrunched up before. She resists the urge to reach out and smooth them out, and gathers herself for what she’s about to say. “I don’t know what is going on either.” Yelena admits. “It does not happen too often.” When Kate’s concern doesn’t waver and a pout begins to form on her face, Yelena looks away. “I just know that I read your text one moment, then the next I…” 

“And what about the first time?” Kate asks when Yelena’s sentence tapers off. When she takes a step forward, Yelena forces herself to stay put. “Can you please look at me?” Yelena obeys, tilting her head up, and Kate is closer than she expected. “I don’t see you for months and you just appear out of nowhere.” Kate doesn’t quite manage to not make her bottom lip tremble, mouth slightly agape.

“You were in a dream.” Kate’s mouth closes into a thin line and she swallows. “I dreamed of you and the next moment, you were there.” It’s not really an answer, but it’s all she has. The archer looks so much better than the last time they saw each other so Yelena gives in to herself. Before Kate can question her further, Yelena closes the distance between them and wraps her good arm around the other woman’s waist, settling her head in the crook of her neck. “I— I missed you, too.”

She might blame it on blood loss. She will blame it on blood loss.

Kate freezes for just a moment, then sniffles again, wrapping her left arm around Yelena’s shoulder and settling her hand on the nape of the assassin’s neck, fingers in her hair and kneading. Yelena falls more heavily against the solid body in front of her and Kate gasps. The archer’s other arm awkwardly hovers by their sides, not wanting to disturb her injury. And when Yelena feels lips on her temple, she finally closes her eyes.

⤍⧗⤎

She is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, facing the archer, and Kate has her legs dangling off the edge. Her bathroom door is still open so she can spot the blood splotches on the ground and the wet streaks everywhere from Kate’s earlier over-enthusiasm. She tries moving her left arm, but pain pulses steadily from her shoulder every so often, so she settles for letting it rest in her lap. She didn’t really come prepared with her own clothes so she’s wearing gray sweats and a lavender hoodie. It smells like Kate, and Yelena smells like Kate’s body wash, and it’s all so overwhelming, but Kate’s been quiet for the past hour because Yelena hasn’t said a thing since her confession.

“Are you ok?”

It’s the question of the fucking century it seems. “I’m sorry for barging in on you.” Yelena answers instead. Now that the nausea and overall light-headedness have faded, Yelena is trying to live with her humiliation at the mortifying ordeal of her basically ambushing Kate at her most vulnerable and then of them spending hours together naked in a small room. She tries not to fixate on Kate’s slick skin, on her arms, her hands, on her healed up scar, on how healthy she looks.

“It’s- it’s not your fault.” The archer finally looks at her, hands fidgeting nervously.

Yelena frowns at her. “Still, I think that—” She’s not sure it isn’t entirely not her fault. “I mean, I do not know what is going on with me, but whenever I think about something too hard, I- this happens.”

Kate turns around completely and scoots until they are facing each other, knees nearly touching. “When did this start happening? Did you see Melina?”

“Yes, I did. We cannot find anything wrong with me.” She eyes the collar of Kate’s white sleep shirt, thinks about what lies underneath. “I first appeared in Ohio from Moscow four months ago.”

Kate hums at this new information. “And it doesn’t hurt or anything when you do it?”

“No pain.”

“So like it just happened one day, no explanation?

“None.”

“So, you can teleport now?”

Yelena huffs a breath at that. “It seems so.”

Kate purses her lips in thought and nods. “Can you teleport to that corner right now?” She points at the corner of her room closest to her closet behind her.

And now that Yelena thinks about it, she should have probably experimented on this new ability more, but she was too busy running from other things at the time. “I can try.” Yelena glances one final time at Kate’s face before shifting her gaze to the corner and focusing on teleporting there. A few seconds later, the wall is suddenly in her face and Kate jumps off the bed behind her with a yell.

“Holy fuck!” Yelena turns around just in time for Kate to take two large steps towards her before stopping just as they’re about to touch. The archer holds herself back and just stares in awe. “That’s fucking crazy.” She’s wide-eyed and exhilarated, and she looks so good and happy that Yelena wants to kiss her.

So she walks around her instead. “I guess that is one mystery solved, Kate Bishop.” She sits back in the middle of the bed and watches Kate turn around too, smile fading slowly. “But I am very tired.”

Kate nods and bites her lip. “Right. Bullet wound.” She points at her own shoulder. “Did you want to stay the night?”

“I’m expected back in Oxford tomorrow.” 

She hates how easily she can read Kate’s emotions just from looking at her. “Right. Do you-“ The archer looks bashful for a moment, looking to the side. “Umm, I’ll clean that up tomorrow.” She sweeps her hand in the general direction of the bathroom where Yelena’s blood is still staining the floor. “Did you- you can maybe stay until you have to go? I mean, you can teleport there so it’s not like you have to leave right away.”

She should have never come here. She should have struggled to get the bullet out on her own and then cleaned herself up on her own, and then stitched herself shittily on her own for a new ugly scar to form, and then dragged her sorry body to the single bed of that motel room. 

She should have left right after being lucid enough to realize what a bad situation this was.

She doesn’t deserve to be here. She doesn’t deserve to be taken care of by the other woman, to be touched so tenderly, to be in warm clothes, to be in this familiar bed, to be in Kate’s presence at all.

“Ok.” She makes herself smile when Kate does.

⤍⧗⤎

Yelena’s back in her little motel room bathroom right as Kate’s breathing evens. This is only the second time her teleportation was deliberate and she’s not sure she could ever get used to it. She lurches forward unsteadily, bending over to catch her breath. She’s glad it worked and that she actually made it back to the right place. Her stained white suit is still on the floor next to the sink and her widow’s bites are still on top of the toilet tank, thankfully. She grimaces at all the dried blood around the place. 

When everything is cleaned and packed away in her duffle bag, she sets it next to her feet and sits on the edge of the parking lot sidewalk, waiting for her pick-up. They should be here any moment.

Yelena lifts the collar of the hoodie she’s wearing up to her nose and inhales. She tucks herself deeper in the fabric when she’s had her fill. It’s not the same as just being with Kate.

“Umm— that’s not what you were wearing the last time I saw you.” Sonya walks out onto the extending ramp before the silent jet even touches the ground. She’s got a smirk on her face and she hops down the last bit of space to walk to Yelena.

“My suit is ruined.” Yelena stands up with a sigh, nodding gratefully when Sonya picks up her bag for her. “Thank you.”

Sonya hums when she notices the limp arm. “Never seen you in this sweater before though.”

Yelena blinks at Sonya’s sharp stare, then starts walking towards the jet. “I don’t wear it very often.”

Sonya quickly walks in step with her. “How’s your arm?”

“Fine.” Yelena clenches the fingers of her left hand. “Made a mistake.”

“You should be more careful.” Yelena looks back at her friend when they both board the aircraft. She opens her mouth to speak, then closes it when nothing comes out. Sonya walks past her and if Yelena was less observant, she would have missed the knowing smile on the other assassin’s face. “Melina! Get your daughter a sling please! She made a stupid mistake again.”

“Hey! I-” Yelena starts, but remembers slender fingers and soft lips. It was a really stupid mistake. 

“Milaya, come here. (sweetheart)” Melina emerges from further in the craft with a sling in one hand and motherly concern in the other. “Why did you not call us immediately when you got hurt?” She reaches out to cup Yelena’s cheek and scans her daughter's face for any other injuries. She spins her around and lifts Yelena’s sweater without warning.

“Hey!”

“Did you stitch this by yourself?!” Melina lets the hoodie fall back down on Yelena's back and turns her around again, a scowl on her face. “No more assignments for at least three months!”

“Mama!” Yelena complains as Melina helps her put the sling on. She huffs, asking herself how her mother even knew that the wound was on her shoulder blade. Must be mother’s intuition. “I cannot be out of commission for so long! The women-”

“You will! Because I said, and also you are getting rusty, milaya.” She must look like a kicked puppy because Melina appears somewhat apologetic after she says that last part. “Otdykh poydet tebe na pol'zu. (rest will do you some good).” She ends with a loving smile, pulling Yelena to sit in one of the seats and buckling her in.

“I can buckle myself.” Yelena grumbles, but Melina ignores her and when the assassin hears snickers to her left, she glares at Sonya, who’s already strapped in. The older woman stands and kisses Yelena’s forehead before settling into the pilot’s seat.

Yelena feels Sonya’s eyes on her all the way till takeoff, and then she finally speaks. “Must’ve been really difficult to reach behind there with your one arm.” Sonya has her elbow on the armrest between them and is leaning on her palm, head turned towards her. “I am surprised you did that all by yourself.”

“I am very skilled, Sonya.” Yelena looks ahead, trying her best to not give anything away.

“Yeah…” Yelena glances to the side swiftly when Sonya trails off. “New body wash, too?”

“What?”

“You should wear more purple.”

She doesn’t spare her friend another glance.

⤍⧗⤎

“Yelena…” She sounds so exasperated. “I think I know how my own suit works.”

Yelena looks up from where she’s fiddling with the harness of Kate’s quiver, making sure it’s tight and secure against the archer’s upper chest. When the assassin glares at Kate’s nonchalance, the other woman’s expression seems to soften even more. “If I am team leader of this mission, then I must make sure all the people I am leading are prepared for what’s to come.”

“Aww, you really care.” When Kate looks down at her with the beginning of that smile of hers teasing her lips, Yelena looks away, stepping towards Sonya.

“Ne trogayte menya. (do not touch me)” The woman steps back, putting her comms in her ear.

Yelena scoffs and walks past her, picking up the other two earpieces on the table and handing one to Kate. “You do as I say and wait for my go ahead, ok?”

“Yes ma'am.'' Kate replies after adjusting the comms, and mock saluting. “Whatever you say, ma'am.” She makes to follow Yelena as she starts towards the door, but then the assassin spins around abruptly, pressing a hand to Kate’s chest to stop them from colliding.

“And the number one rule is always what?”

Kate sighs and playfully rolls her eyes. “No Kate things.”

“Meaning what?” Yelena presses on, holding Kate in place when she feels the energy vibrating off the other woman.

“Nothing fun.” When Yelena glares harder, Kate lifts her arms up in surrender. “Ok, ok, no risks. We do everything by the book. I can do that.”

“Can you?”

Kate scoffs while rolling her head back then looks down at Yelena with a grin. “God, Yelena, do you not trust me?”

“Of course I do.” Without meaning to, Yelena’s fingers dig slightly into Kate’s suit. “But that has never stopped you from doing stupid shit.”

Kate’s grin only grows. “One of these days, I’ll save you and you’re going to take everything back.”

“I have a hard time believing that’ll happen before you stop doing stupid shit.”

“You-”

A loud cough breaks them out of the staring contest they were in and both sets of eyes land on Sonya, leaning against the doorframe. “Oy! Get any closer and you’ll be inside each other!”

That seems to make them realize how close they are standing. Kate stumbles back, a hand coming up to scratch at the blush creeping up her neck. She turns around, pretending to look for something. Yelena just ignores Sonya and walks towards her, picking up the duffle bag containing all their equipment. “Why are you on this mission again?”

“To keep you both in check, apparently.” She laughs when Yelena just huffs and shoves her to exit. The other woman follows along and Kate is the last one out, taking big strides to keep up.

⤍⧗⤎

“So you went to see her, right?”

“I can do this myself, Sonya.”

It’s a week into her mandatory off-duty punishment, because she still refuses to acknowledge it’s for her own good. “Khvatit ukhodit' ot voprosa. (stop dodging the question)” Sonya replies, fingers still rubbing over her stitched up bullet wound, applying a salve. “I knew you could control yourself.” 

There’s a smile in her friend’s voice, and Yelena doesn’t have the strength to be annoyed anymore. She doesn’t try to correct Sonya as she implies that Yelena teleported to Kate Bishop’s place willingly. She sighs and when her shoulders hunch, Sonya places a hand on her right one to hold her still. “It’s the first time you’ve seen her since…” Sonya trails off and her voice softens.

“Dа.” Yelena realizes there’s no point denying it anymore, but Sonya doesn’t need to know the full truth. 

“Kate Bishop looks good, no?” Yelena turns her head around and frowns at her friend then. “What? Much different from what you last saw.” Yelena sighs and hops off the medical bed, tucking her left arm gingerly back into her sweater sleeve. “She asked about you often.” Sonya walks in step with her as they leave the room, towards the kitchen of the house. “You know, since you up and left before she woke up.” Yelena grumbles something, but Sonya ignores her. It shouldn’t surprise her that Sonya keeps in touch with Kate. “And now you are planning to leave Kate Bishop again, forever.”

“Well-” Yelena abruptly stops in the hallway, frowning. “I could have just left once. It was not my fault this stupid teleportation thing brought me to her.”

“Is it not?”

Yelena rolls her eyes and continues walking, leaving the other woman standing in the middle of the hallway before she jogs to catch up. “And stop saying her full name.”

“Why?” They make it to the house’s kitchen and Sonya skips ahead to stand in front of her, both arms outstretched on the counters on either side of them, preventing Yelena from passing. “Ah right.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “Only you are allowed, yes?”

“No.” Yelena walks around the other woman and reaches up into a cupboard with her good arm for a cup. “That is not why.” She then pushes one of Sonya’s arms out of the way to walk around her again, the other woman adamant on being as annoying as possible, both mentally and physically. 

She pulls open the fridge’s door to peruse its contents, and actively tries to clear her mind of Kate Bishop. Which is really counterproductive because purposely making her brain not think of Kate Bishop makes her think of Kate Bishop even more. Telling herself to clear her mind of Kate Bishop, makes her mind clear itself and end up only thinking of Kate Bishop. “This is so dumb.” Yelena sighs and pushes the mug into Sonya’s hands in exasperation. The other woman looks at her confusedly and places the empty cup back in the cupboard. “Stop saying her name. I do not want to accidentally show up at her place again.”

“Right… because that is the issue. Her name is some kind of magic word that summons you, yes?”

“Call her ‘Kilo Bravo’, or something.” Yelena ignores her friend’s large grin and teasing stare.

“HAHA!” Sonya cackles and bends over for added theatrics, before hopping to sit on the island counter next to the blonde. “Ty deystvitel'no idiot. (you really are an idiot)”

“Ugh!” Yelena throws her hands up. “You are not being a very supportive best friend right now.”

Sonya gasps at that, eyebrows raising to her hairline. “I rebuke that statement, Yelena. You are just very stupid for being one of the world’s greatest assassins.”

“Ok, so you come up with something!” Yelena glares, hands on her hips. “She can be ‘code purple’, or- or ‘ptichka’…”

“Oh, ok!” Sonya kicks her feet in the air while counting off her fingers. “What about ‘cute American’, or ‘my archer’, or ‘girl-I’m-in-love-with’, or- or most accurate of all, ‘girl-I’m-avoiding-even-though-I’m-in-love-with-her’.”

On most other occasions, if Yelena was scowling at Sonya like she currently was, the short-haired woman would have bolted for the hills or for Melina by now to hide from the blonde’s wrath. However, as it stands, she’s too amused to care. She tries to hold herself back from bursting out laughing when she thinks steam might actually come out of Yelena’s ears.

“You are getting on my last nerve.”

“And you are on your last brain cell!” Sonya quips back immediately, right before lifting her legs and spinning her body around to hop off the other side of the island counter. With an obstacle in the way, she feels safer from the rabid woman known as Yelena. “Come on! Listen to me!” Sonya tries to reason as she runs around the island with a scary Russian blonde on her tail. "When you say KiLo bRaVO, who are you thinking about?” She makes her way to the living room, stopping on one side of the coffee table as Yelena stands on the other side, holding a fireplace poker in her clenched hands. “You are thinking of Kate Bishop! So, it really is no help at all because you are still thinking of her!”

“Right now, I am thinking of nothing but your head on this stick!” Right as Yelena finishes that sentence, she blinks to Sonya’s side of the table and collides into her, both of them falling over and crashing into the side of the living room loveseat. The furniture slides across the floorboards and knocks into one of Melina’s plant stands. Both women watch in slow-motion as the stand tips over and the pot of dirt goes crashing to the ground, the plant falling out like a limp body.

“Yeah… If you don’t kill me right now, I think your mama will.” Yelena’s only response is to use Sonya’s face to push herself up and off the ground.

⤍⧗⤎

“Is Kate Bishop-”

“She’s stable.” Yelena swallows a lump in her throat as tears well up. “We will arrive shortly and she will be treated.”

“Who– who was the other woman?” She tries to keep her voice steady, but it sounds shaky as the tears begin to roll down her cheeks.

“We are still running facial recognition.”

“Is she d-”

“Yes.”

A sob erupts out of Yelena’s mouth and Sonya catches her as she falls forward and breaks down. Her hands dig into Sonya’s back and she doesn’t even care if she’s hurting her. “Is this–” A hiccup interrupts her and she feels her throat close up. It’s not the first time her friend’s helped her shoulder her burdens, maybe she can take some of this ache festering in Yelena’s chest. “It should have been me.”

Sonya hums at the statement. Her touch stays soothing on Yelena’s back, rubbing in circles to comfort, even as Yelena’s grip tightens. “No.” Sonya squeezes her and another sob makes her body tremble. “No.” Sonya repeats. “It should not have been anyone.” The sheer intensity with which she says the words finally splits the darkness in Yelena’s clouded mind. “You were not made just to suffer.” Her friend pulls her face out from the crook of her neck and does her best to wipe at the tears on her red cheeks. “Because I love you and Melina loves you. And Kate loves you.” Sonya presses her forehead to Yelena’s and wills the words to reach her. “Keyt lyubit tebya. Therefore you are a thing to be loved, Yelena. (Kate loves you)” Her lip trembles and she notices that Sonya also has tears threatening to spill over. “And, Kate Bishop will wake up to tell you that herself. Or so help me.”

Yelena’s only response to that is to tuck her face back into her friend’s neck. She hopes that Sonya’s arms can hold her together until the universe decides if her promise is to be kept.

⤍⧗⤎

Kate hasn’t texted her since mid-February. Her shoulder has now fully healed and the stitches have been removed, but she still can’t lift heavy weights, and Melina still limits how physical she can be with her left arm.

She helps around the farm with treating wounded ex-widows when they come back from rescue missions, and helping her mama tend to their garden and the animals. It’s nice being around the women she considers her sisters, and having plenty of free time to spend with Fanny, and watching bad competition shows with Alexei.

I miss you.

Every night she stares at the last text she received from Kate. The time stamp reads one month and a half ago. She knows she’s getting better at controlling this new ‘power’. She was reluctant to call it that because it’s really not brought her anything good since she’s developed it. 

However, when a group of her sisters came to her one day asking for demonstrations, which she suspected Sonya told them about, it became a fun little game for them. How fast can she go to Mexico to get them fresh avocados in the mornings, or to Japan or Belgium for their authentic desserts that they can’t get anywhere else?

She knows she’s getting really good at controlling herself because every night she rereads that message, the pull she feels to the woman on the other side of the world is so strong, she thinks she needs to grip her bedsheets to stay in place… but she never moves from her spot in her bed in Moscow. 

Her heart protests most nights, whispering to her, “Why are you hurting the both of us?” Because it would be so easy to succumb to the want. Literally in the snap of her fingers, she could be back in Kate’s arms. 

“Be careful, mishka. Do not scare the poor Ukrainians just because you are in the mood for some holubtsi. (dear)” Melina calls from her place in the living room, tending to her still-healing calendula, the one Yelena and Sonya knocked over (and for which Melina has barely forgiven them). The ex-widows in the kitchen immediately quiet and all stare at Yelena with pleading eyes.

“Bah, I always choose a very crowded tourist area. Nobody pays attention to anyone in a crowd.” She smiles at the women in front of her with a wink. “And the people of this world have seen stranger things than a woman appearing out of nowhere, mama.”

“Just be careful please, Yelena. You are still hurt.”

“Don’t worry, it is not physically taxing when I do it.” Melina gives her a look through the kitchen door before going back to her plants, and when Yelena glances back at her sisters, they are all grinning at her gleefully.

“I will only be a moment.”

Just as she blinks into the center of Khreshchatyk, her phone buzzes in her bomber jacket. The early April wind in Kyiv ruffles her longer hair as she pulls the device out. It’s probably just Sonya messaging to specify what kind of holubtsi she’s craving. She tucks some of her blond strands behind an ear.

Yelena

Her brows furrow. She’s not sure she’s seeing the right thing at first. Some hair blows back into her eyes, but she doesn’t notice. 

Yelena. Slowly hovering her thumb over the notification that popped up on her phone, she blinks to make sure it’s actually there. Did the wind pick up? Why can’t she hear anything but the wind right now?

Swiping slowly across the notification on her screen, her phone opens the chat she has with Kate Bishop. Just her name under I miss you . She inhales, the cold air sending shivers down her spine. The message bubbles pop up again and Yelena grips her phone, watching them intently. She stands there for what feels like an hour, staring at the text bubbles, but then they settle. 

Just Yelena stares back at her. She gasps and shuts her eyes, the pull is so strong right now, she feels like it’ll tear her right apart. She shouldn’t be here.

Did Kate mean to send that? It is 5am in New York City after all. 

She types back Kate Bishop?, and waits, but the bubbles don’t come back up. Her heart feels like it’ll beat right out of her chest. It wants for something that Yelena is too afraid to admit.

Yelena

What if Kate needs her? She shakes her head with eyes clenched shut, denying herself of that line of thought. “Stop thinking the worst.” She mumbles, but then she pictures Kate, and her tendency to ignore self-preservation. Kate and her will to protect everyone. Kate and her need to jump into danger at every opportunity. Kate and her stupid hero-complexe. Kate and the way she threw herself in front of Yelena. Kate and the infuriating way she smiled at her when Yelena caught her. Kate and the heartbreaking way she whispered her name as she continued bleeding out.

“Yelena.” It was slurred just like that. Yelena opens her eyes with a startle. She’s suddenly standing in Kate’s living room, in New York City.

“Does this– work both ways?“ Yelena’s eyes widen, taking in all the blood on Kate’s back. “I was just thin— king of you.” Yelena stays stunned for only a moment, facing the archer who is lying stomach down on her couch, before springing into action.

“Kate!” Kate’s right arm is dangling over the edge of the couch, her phone slipping out of her grasp, still open in their message chat. She’s looking at the assassin with a glassy right eye as the left half of her face is pressed into the cushions. Yelena shrugs her jacket off, not caring that the expensive material lands in a heap on the ground and falls to her knees at Kate’s side. Her hands reach out and one gently cups Kate’s right cheek as the other hovers frantically in front of her, not knowing where to touch. The archer’s mouth is also stained with blood and the dark crimson springs tears into Yelena's eyes. For a moment, everything seems to freeze. She’s brought back to nine months ago when Kate was bleeding out in her arms then. 

“Y-you must’ve gotten my– message.” Kate struggles to get the words out and she smiles tentatively as the tears start to fall down Yelena’s cheeks. 

“Stop talking!” Yelena yells through her heavy breathing. Both her hands are now on Kate’s back, her skin turning red from her futile attempts to try and stem the bleeding. “St- stop! I will- I will take care of this.”

“Ok.” Kate’s smile remains as she closes her eye finally.

“Kate!?” Yelena doesn’t want to move Kate but she shakes her carefully, more panic starting to settle in now that the other woman isn’t looking at her. “Fuck.” Yelena abruptly stands, sniffling, and runs to the bathroom, coming back to the archer’s side with the medical kit and a bowl of water. She sets everything down as she pushes the sleeves of her cardigan up her arms, dragging blood along her skin and staining her clothes. She tries to wake Kate up again, but the younger woman’s breathing has turned more ragged in her unconsciousness. 

Yelena roughly rubs her arm across her teary eyes and gets to work, ringing a towel in the bowl of water and cleaning Kate’s back. “You are not fucking dying on me, Kate Bishop.” The towel slowly turns the water completely red, revealing three deep claw marks in the flesh of Kate’s back. 

The bleeding has slowed enough for Yelena to attempt to get Kate out of her suit. Even with the archer being dead weight in her arms, Yelena doesn’t falter as she cuts through the purple leather, and tenderly peels the suit off the limp body until the other woman’s back is completely bare in front of her. Kate groans in her sleep as Yelena settles her back down on the cushions, and she pushes unruly dark hair away from Kate’s sweaty forehead. 

Yelena then examines the open wounds more closely, wondering how large the claws must have been to have done this much damage to Kate’s back. She grabs the numbing cream from the kit to make sure Kate doesn’t wake up from the pain of stitches. Kate stays unconscious throughout the entire grueling process, and Yelena is grateful. 

After finishing up, Yelena rubs the wounds with antiseptic as best she can before meticulously applying gauze and tape. She’s on her last piece when the body under her fingers starts to stir. 

“Kate?” She quickly moves to sit on the floor near Kate’s head and cups her bloody hand around the archer’s cheek. Kate’s eyelashes flutter before bleary eyes are sluggishly revealed. Yelena’s thumb strokes her soft skin in arcs as the familiar blues finally focus on her face. “Hi.”

Kate blinks a few times, taking breaths as deep as she can manage. “Yelena.” Is the only thing she whispers, like it’s the only truth she knows, before her eyelids close again. 

“Yebat'. (fuck)” Yelena mumbles in exasperation, but Kate is probably exhausted from whatever she got herself into so Yelena let’s her rest as she finishes patching her up. She stands up to take one final look at her work before heading for the bathroom then the kitchen. She comes back to Kate’s side with clean hands to lay a towel over her back before placing frozen bags of peas and carrots over where she knows the claw marks are. She briefly has a throwaway thought that she’s surprised that Kate somehow has vegetables in her fridge. 

Kate Bishop should be safe now. The only thing left to do is wait.

Yelena had found an elastic in Kate’s bathroom and had hastily tied up her hair in a bun. Her sage green cardigan was thrown over the couch’s backrest halfway through the procedure leaving her in a simple white button up. She stands in front of the sleeping woman for a moment longer, just taking her in. If it weren’t for all the medical equipment surrounding them on the floor and a pile of bloodied clothes on the side, Kate would look like any other time Yelena caught her taking a nap on the couch.

She settles sideways at the same spot on the floor in front of Kate’s head and releases a breath as some tension leaves her body. Leaning her body to the right towards the couch, she lays her head next to Kate’s face. She reaches her left hand out to hold Kate’s hand that is still dangling, and puts the archer’s phone on the coffee table beside her. 

“What did you do this time, Kate Bishop?” Yelena blinks as lingering tears roll down her cheeks. She squeezes the limp hand in hers as she stares at the steady up and down of Kate’s ice-packed back. 

Her phone buzzes from the coat she shrugged off into a pile next to the coffee table, and she stretches out one hand to search for it so that she doesn’t have to completely let go of the archer. Several missed calls and unanswered texts flood her home screen. She must have not heard the buzzing. Quickly replying to Sonya that she’s dealing with an emergency, but that there is nothing to worry about, Yelena places her phone on the coffee table next to Kate’s. Then, she joins her hand to her other one, tracing the callouses on Kate’s fingers.

Pushing her head slightly forward to touch foreheads with the other woman, Yelena closes her eyes and focuses on the archer’s shallow but steady breathing, eventually matching its rhythm. She lifts Kate’s right arm to her face and softly kisses the skin of her bicep before tucking her head closer to Kate’s, sliding the bridges of their noses together. She smells like copper and soot, but the comfort of being this close to the other woman eclipses everything else. 

“Lena…” Yelena feels the breath on her cheek almost before she hears the whisper.

“Kate Bishop.” Yelena pulls back slightly, like she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. The assassin lifts her left hand to stroke the back of Kate’s neck while the other hand continues clutching onto the archer’s tightly. “You’re gonna be ok.”

Kate hums with a slight upwards tilt of her chapped lips. “I know.— Knew the moment you showed up.” She groans as she tries to stretch her neck. 

“Don’t move so much.” Yelena pushes a strand of dark hair behind Kate’s ear. Kate looks up, blinking at the dour frown on Yelena’s face. “How are you feeling?”

“Cold.” She takes a deep breath. “Like shit.”

“Who did this to you?”

Sensing the shift in the other woman’s mood, Kate’s pupils scan all over what she can see of Yelena and the hand in Yelena’s squeezes back. “Is this what it’s gonna take?”

“What?” The assassin’s brows furrow in confusion, bristling at the resigned look in the other woman’s eyes.

Kate exhales an amused breath and licks her lips, ignoring Yelena’s questioning stare. “I’m sorry for messaging you.” She whispers, coughing quietly into the couch cushion.

Yelena opens her mouth to respond but nothing comes out. She instead opts to stand and get Kate some water, reluctantly letting go of her hand.

When she presses the rim of a cup to Kate’s lips, some water spills out as she helps her drink. She wipes Kate’s mouth and the archer mumbles her thanks. Yelena wants to go back to soothingly running her fingers through Kate’s hair, anything to make this more bearable for the archer, but she’s not sure her touch would be welcome anymore.

After Kate swallows the last of the water, Yelena puts the empty cup in her lap before murmuring. “Why are you apologizing?”

Kate’s face morphs into an expression Yelena cannot decipher, but she notices something shining in her blue eyes. “I’m sorry I keep dragging you back into my shit.” Then they soften. “I promise this’ll be the last time anything like this happens.”

Yelena scoffs quietly, white-knuckling the cup in her hands. “As if you can keep yourself out of trouble.” 

“No, I mean…” Kate bites the inside of her cheek as her eyes steadily stay on the assassin’s face. “I won’t bother you anymore.” Something inside Yelena breaks at the way the archer shakily exhales after that last word. “I- I realize that maybe I should’ve gotten the hint.”

“What are y-”

“My friends told me, too.” Kate chuckles humorlessly, hissing when her back moves from the action. “I swear it was blood loss.” She blinks and licks her chapped lips again. “And maybe I was like, super scared of dying.” The corners of her lips tilt up almost like a flinch before readjusting themselves. “Or else I wouldn’t have messaged you.”

Oh.  

Kate maintains eye contact for a few moments longer before gazing at the ground near her dangling hand. “Umm, right, ah, thanks for coming though, this time.” She picks at a thread in the carpet. “You- you can leave now. I should be fine on my own.”

Yelena wills the stinging in her eyes to go away as she takes in the way Kate refuses to look at her anymore. “I will not leave you again.” She whispers resolutely, biting her bottom lip. “I swe-“

“Who are you?” Yelena whips her head up at the unfamiliar voice interrupting their conversation, getting to her feet in an instant. Caught off guard by Kate’s questioning, Yelena didn’t notice the intruders joining them until they were already climbing through Kate’s window. The window that she used to use. 

A person in a purple suit and what appears to be a motorcycle helmet is helping a red and blue spandex-wearing man into the loft. Yelena’s tears are immediately forgotten at the new threat and she steps in front of Kate, shielding her from view.

She’s just about to reach for her knife when Kate speaks up. “Cassie.” She coughs. Yelena flits her gaze down then back up, torn between tending to the archer and keeping an eye on the strangers. “This is Yelena, it’s ok.”

“This is Yelena?” Spandex man speaks through his spandex mask. So they know her.

“And who are you?” Yelena tenses when the strangers’ masked eyes all look at her. Then, with a gentle hand on her knee, Kate brings her attention back down.

“It’s ok, Lena. They’re my friends.”

“Hey!” Spandex man hops down the steps from the stairs he’s standing on and decides it’s time to pull his mask off. “I’m Peter.” Yelena stares as a young man barely out of high school basically skips over to her with a bright smile on his boyish face. When his outstretched hand isn’t shaked, he drops it with an awkward chuckle and bounces on the balls of his feet. “Kate’s told us a lot about you.”

“Why are you here?” The woman who must be Cassie steps up to Peter and clicks off her helmet, revealing a blond woman around the boy’s age. Her blue eyes stare right into Yelena’s and the assassin clenches her hands at the irritated expression on Cassie’s face, no doubt reflected on her own.

The question makes Yelena scowl. Who does this woman think she is? “I was asked here.”

Cassie’s jaw tenses. “Well, I think you should leave.” One of Yelena’s eyebrows slightly raises and she notices that Peter has a hand on Cassie’s left forearm.

Eyeing the other woman up and down, Yelena barely manages to contain her indignation. “You should be very careful with what you say to me next, little girl.” They’re about the same height, but Yelena is unbothered by that fact as she sizes the other woman up.

“Yelena-“ The hand Kate still has on her knee squeezes. “Please.” She coughs again,  this time with a pained gasp. 

With one last baleful glare at Cassie, Yelena reaches for the cup she put on the coffee table and walks to the kitchen to fill it with water. With her away from Kate, Peter takes up residence on the armrest near Kate’s head and seems to assess the work Yelena did on her back. Cassie rounds the table, dropping to her knees in front of the archer. She cups Kate’s cheek the same way Yelena did and whispers agitatedly. She probably thinks she’s being secretive, but Yelena picks up a “why did you message-“ and a “we agreed to not-“

“Is there something you want to say to my face?” Yelena gets back to the couch, looking down at the two women. Cassie stands up as Yelena helps Kate soothe her dry throat. The assassin can feel Cassie’s and Peter’s eyes on her the whole time.

“We know what you did to Kate.” The hand that’s holding the cup freezes.

“Cassie…” Kate groans, face still half pressed into the couch. “Not now, please.”

“No.” Cassie responds curtly. “Exactly now. You messaged us, so why is she here?”

“If she waited for you to arrive, who knows what state she would be in right now?” Yelena seethes as she slowly stands, voice too calm, almost deadly. 

“I’m sorry, I tried to get here as fast as I could.” Peter speaks up in nearly a squeak but shuts his mouth immediately when Yelena’s sharp eyes snap to him.

“No. That’s not the point.” Cassie frowns, voice raising while lifting a palm to Peter, but still glaring at Yelena. “You can’t just show up when it’s convenient for you.” She steps forward, and Yelena hears Kate protest, but ignores her.

Yelena scoffs. “Convenient…” The assassin’s eyebrows raise as she tilts her head to the side. “Kate Bishop suffering such grave wounds is not a convenience.”

“Well.” Cassie crosses her arms. “You did your part, you can go now.” Cassie nods her chin, scowling. “Pete and I can stay since-”

“Cassie, come on, stop.”

“-you’re not very good at that.”

Yelena’s jaw clenches so hard that she’s afraid she’ll shatter her teeth. She’s sure that her fingernails have left deep marks in her palms as this stranger keeps reproaching her. She inhales deeply through her nose at that last comment, her mind flaring with affront. 

Cassie’s eyebrows furrow further. “What? Nothing to say to tha-“

“That’s enough!” Kate yells from the couch, and three pairs of eyes flick to her as the archer struggles to lift herself up with her arms. The frozen bags of vegetables on her back slide off the towel making her hiss. Peter quickly jumps up and rushes to the kitchen staring at the fridge as Kate’s naked torso is revealed. 

She’s breathing deep ragged breaths as she manages to sit with the help of two pairs of arms on either side of her. Yelena brings the towel that was on her back to her chest for some sense of modesty. Just this simple maneuver has Kate’s forehead beginning to bead with sweat and she groans as she hunches slightly forward so that her back doesn’t touch the couch’s backrest. “Yelena, can you help me to my bed please?”

“Kate-” Cassie protests, mouth open and grip tightening on the archer’s forearm.

“I’m tired, Cass.” Kate looks up at her friend, eyes earnest. “I- thank you both for coming.” She looks towards the kitchen where Peter is still facing the fridge. “And I’m sorry you came all this way for me.”

“Don’t apologize for that.” Peter pipes up. 

“Yeah.” Cassie agrees softly, the fire in her eyes from earlier finally tamping down a bit. “Even if it’s just to make sure you’re ok.”

“Thank you.” The archer smiles wide. “I love you guys, you know.”

“We love you, too!” Peter yells.

Kate laughs along with Cassie and Yelena finds herself calming a bit despite everything.

“Just- let me… I’ll call you if anything, ok? But I’ll be fine with Yelena.” 

Yelena can see the thoughts running through Cassie’s head. The woman’s eyes scan Kate’s face with concern and she briefly tosses a skeptical glance towards Yelena. “Are you sure?” 

They all know what she’s really asking. Are you sure you want to be left alone with her? Are you sure you won’t regret this? Are you sure you can trust her? Are you sure that she won’t let you down again? Are you sure you can go through that again? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Of her ?

Her thoughts whirl around Yelena’s body and make her head spin. This was never what she wanted. Not the apprehension, not the mistrust, not the contempt, none of it. What was the point of having all this tolerance beat into her if she couldn’t prevent the people around her from hurting regardless? And enduring it wasn’t the same as accepting it and wasn’t the same as wanting it. 

And she’s endured crying for Melina when she was shot unconscious, she’s endured yelling her throat raw for her sister when she was ripped away from her at six years old, she’s endured breaking down for Sonya when she took a bullet for a mistake Yelena made. She was made to tolerate all of it, but the blood in her mouth tasted acrid every fucking time. Every time it wasn't her blood that gathered there. 

“-Lena.” Kate’s touch on Yelena’s skin reminds her of a blade cutting into her flesh— familiar. “Hey.” 

It’s just the two of them in the loft now and when her green eyes focus on Kate’s, the archer smiles tentatively. Wordlessly, they make it up the stairs to Kate’s room. It’s a struggle with Yelena not being able to support her back with a strong arm, but they stop every time Kate’s breath shakes with effort. 

Kate settles gingerly on her side of the bed and sighs as she’s finally able to release the tension in her back. Yelena watches as the gauze stretches and bunches following Kate’s skin and the muscles underneath. She carefully lays the blanket over Kate’s body. She only hesitates for a second before laying down next to the archer, over the blanket. They’re facing each other but Kate’s eyes are closed, so Yelena’s eyes travel unbidden.

From the curve of Kate’s nose to the bow in her lip. Yelena traces the arch of her eyebrows and the lines of her cheekbones. Her jaw to her beauty marks. She does what she used to do with her fingers.

“Kate Bishop?” Kate hums, and when a strand of dark hair falls in front of her eyes, Yelena’s hand almost moves against her will to brush it away. Instead, she watches as Kate blows upwards to get the hair out of her face. “Do you want me to stay?” Her left hand is clutching the blanket like her life depends on it. 

Kate makes her wait. She makes her wait so long that Yelena thinks she’s fallen asleep. “Come here.” Kate’s voice shouldn’t startle her the way it does, as soft as it is. “Come on, don’t make me say it again.” She's at Kate’s side in an instant, and she’s not sure if she blinked there or moved there against her will, but Kate chuckles at her body’s eagerness. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do that.” And Kate chooses the very moment Yelena’s blush has taken over her entire face to open her eyes. “Just cuddle me before you leave this time.” Yelena doesn’t have any time to dwell on what Kate said, the archer lifts her right arm up and keeps it hovering above the bed like an idiot, waiting for Yelena to slip underneath. So she does.

Kate’s heavy arm settles across her upper chest and she exhales like the contact itself is soothing her. “Thanks again for coming.” 

Yelena doesn’t know what to do with her own hands so she tucks them into her body and turns slightly towards Kate so that the archer’s arm is wrapped around her back. She doesn’t like that Kate keeps thanking her like it isn’t a given that Yelena would come when Kate calls. But with the way Kate seems to use the last of her strength to pull her in, maybe it isn’t a given. “What happened?” Yelena whispers into the space between them.

“Decided to take on this giant lizard man, if you can believe that.” Yelena tentatively reaches out a hand to place it on the bedspread in front of Kate’s neck. Her fingers stretch, attracted to the heat coming off the other woman. “Was some experiment gone wrong apparently. Peter told me.” Her breath hits the space between Yelena’s eyes and Yelena can feel the archer’s gaze on her own eyes as Yelena’s stays fixated on her hand. “And last time we tried to fight him, he got away from the three of us.”

Yelena nudges her head forward a bit more, still refusing to look away from her fingers flexing into the mattress. “So the three of you couldn’t take him down, and you thought you’d have better luck alone?”

When Kate chuckles bashfully, her bottom lip grazes Yelena’s forehead. “Not my best idea.” Her breath on Yelena’s skin makes the assassin suppress a shiver. She closes her eyes and succumbs to her urges, trailing her fingers along Kate’s neck. If she doesn’t see it, it isn’t an indiscretion.

“Someone should really keep an eye on you.” Kate hums into her hair as Yelena’s thumb smooths down the front of the archer’s throat. There’s a comfortable silence for a bit, Yelena’s fingers missing the way it felt to touch Kate like this. 

“About your question earlier...” Yelena makes a noise, an indication to keep going, and tries her best to not sigh as she feels Kate trace her spine with the hand on her back. “I don’t think you should stay.”

It takes several seconds for Kate’s words to register but then Yelena pulls back abruptly, forcing Kate’s hand to slide to her waist. “What-”

“And it’s probably best that-” Kate’s grip tightens on her, Yelena doesn’t think it was a conscious decision. “-we don’t see each other anymore.” 

Before Yelena could even begin to think of something to say, Kate continues. “Cassie’s right. I can’t keep hoping. You know I never thought I was a very patient person, and you’ve made me realize that I am. I think-” Kate scoffs at herself. “I think I would’ve waited forever. In some universe out there, with another you and another me, I think that me waited her whole life for you. But– this is not that universe.” Yelena thinks that the sudden shine in Kate’s eyes is reflected in her own. 

“Kate-”

“I am not going to beg you to want me.”

This time, when Kate’s breathing evens into much needed rest, Yelena can’t make herself go. She’d said nothing but nod after what Kate said, the tone of her voice resolute. She couldn’t keep eye contact for long for fear that Kate would see the heartbreak welling up, so she closed them and waited.

Yelena puts a tab of painkillers next to a cup of water on Kate’s nightstand and softly kisses her brow. She prepares to blink back to Russia, but no matter how hard she tries, her body doesn’t budge. She tries again from the kitchen and manages to appear in her room before blinking back to Kate’s sleeping form. Sighing deeply, she walks to Kate’s living room, hoping that the distance from the other woman would help, and tries again, clenching her hands tight before appearing in Melina’s kitchen. She hears the beginning of her name being called before the archer’s room surrounds her again. “Der'mo. (shit)” she mutters under her breath.

In the end, she ends up staying in Moscow only after exhausting herself. She didn’t think it was possible to get exhausted from this, but she’d managed it.

⤍⧗⤎

It’s hard to stay away. Harder than it was already, that is. Every moment of every day, there is this tugging in her chest. She only makes it a week before she messes up. 

She’s in the middle of a movie with Sonya when all of a sudden, just as the man was about to profess his undying love for his partner, her mind twists the image to be of her professing her love for Kate. Instantly, she appears in the archer’s apartment, sitting on Kate’s lap, facing her. “Fuck!” Kate pushes away from the dining table in front of her and they both fall off the chair Kate was sitting in. “Yelena. What-” The younger woman groans in pain, carefully getting up from the ground, and rubbing a hand up and down her lower back.

Yelena is wide-eyed, and rushes to help Kate up, holding onto one of her arms, as Kate hisses. “Kate Bishop, I am so sorry.” 

“Yelena…” Kate says, half-exasperated, after gently pulling her arm out of Yelena’s grasp and walking around the chair, keeping a healthy distance from her. Yelena notices that her back must still be very tender as Kate leans her hands on the backrest, holding herself up. “I told you-”

“Yes, I know.” Yelena rushes out, taking a deep breath. “I swear to you, it was not on purpose.” She’s ringing her fingers together, pleading with Kate to believe she wouldn’t go against her wishes if she could help it. “I will go now.”

Kate stares for a moment longer then sighs, nodding once with a tentative smile. “Ok, thanks.”

Yelena turns the tv off when she gets back because Sonya can’t stop interrupting the movie to tease her.

Three days later, she bends to put a tray of cupcake batter molds into the oven and is reminded of when Kate tried baking for her, and for the first time, didn’t burn or make a mess of anything. She straightens up and bumps into Kate in the archer’s kitchen. The water in Kate’s cup spills over the front of the younger woman’s shirt after her arm gets nudged. “Shit!” 

“Kate!” Yelena jumps back. “I am so sorry.” Yelena still has her oven mitt on her hand as she lifts her arms up in a placating manner. She goes to help Kate with the water, but Kate steps away.

“Yelena, come on.” The archer begins, placing her empty cup on the kitchen counter and lifting her shirt so that the wet part stops sticking to her skin. “It’s not-”

“I told you! I really am not doing this on purpose.” Yelena lowers her arms, her eyes trying to reason with Kate’s. 

“I thought you could control it now?” Kate reaches for the roll of paper towels on the counter, and rips one off to put under her shirt.

“I can! I don’t understand why I keep showing up here. I am not trying to.” Yelena sighs in frustration. “This will not happen again. I promise.” The last thing she sees before blinking back home is the frown on Kate’s face and the doubt in her gaze.

Then, it’s the following day. This time as she blinks into Kate’s shower, she manages to prevent Kate from slipping from the surprise and bashing her head on the tiles. She would find it the most amusing that they somehow caught each other showering at the same time again on opposite sides of the globe again , but it’s not amusing at all. Kate doesn’t even speak to her, barely acknowledges her, as she turns the water off. She tugs her towel off the hook on the wall and gingerly wraps it around herself before stepping out of the room. Yelena eyes the stitching on her back, noticing that they are healing well, and then leaves without a word, heart heavier than anything she’s ever carried.

Six hours later, as Yelena is making herself a cup of tea before heading to bed, she blinks into Kate’s room, where the archer had just finished tugging on a sweatshirt over her head with one arm. This time, Yelena just sighs, mug of hot tea still in her hand, but Kate looks fed up.

“This is getting ridiculous, Yelena. You can’t keep doing this.” She’s standing there, arms hanging by her sides like she doesn’t know what to do with them, but her posture is stiff. “How many times do I have to tell you to not come here?” Yelena can see that Kate is not trying to raise her voice, but the annoyance is clear on her face.

“Kate Bishop, I am also tired of this.” She sighs again. She never thought the feeling she’d ever get while looking at Kate could be numbness, but it’s better than the painful piercing in her chest from the past few days. “I would like nothing more than to respect your wishes.”

Blinking back to the kitchen in Moscow, Yelena has just enough time to put down her mug to reach for the fridge door when she reappears in Kate’s room, bumping into her this time. “Yelena, are you kidding me?!” Kate yells now, nearly stumbling if Yelena didn’t reach out in time to steady her. 

Kate shrugs out of her arms and stares at her incredulously. Yelena feels the irritation rising in her as well and clenches her hand into a fist. “You need to stop blaming me, Kate Bishop! You think I want to be here all the time at random?!” She bites the inside of her cheek to keep her emotions small, but she’s exhausted, too. “It’s 10pm in Moscow. My tea is going to get cold at this rate.”

“Well, you’ve clearly had no trouble in the past just showing up whenever you wanted.” Kate fires back, that familiar pout appearing on her face. 

“Those. were. accidents.” Yelena seethes, trying to keep a level-head.

Kate stares for a second, eyes darting from one of Yelena’s to the other, mouth hanging open, then she deflates a little. “Just- leave me alone, Yelena.” Kate leaves her room, and Yelena hears her going down the stairs to her living room. She closes her eyes and breathes out to try and relax her shoulders, then blinks. But instead of returning home, she knocks into Kate’s side on the archer’s first floor.

“Damnit Yelena!” Kate lifts her arms, fingers tense. She takes big strides to get away from Yelena, putting the coffee table between them. “You have a serious issue! Go see Melina or something!” 

“I don’t know what’s happening!” Right after yelling that, Yelena blinks into Kate’s space on the other side of the coffee table. “I’m not doing this!”

“So- so what?!” Kate takes a step back again, the back of her legs hitting the side of her couch. She nearly falls into a sitting position so she sidesteps the couch and rounds the table, keeping her distance. “Someone’s making you do this? You can control it, but then you can’t? That makes no sense, you know?!”

“Trust me! If I knew how the hell to stop this, I would!” Once again, Yelena traverses the room in a split second, ending up needing to place her hands on Kate’s shoulders to not collide with the other woman. “This is the last place I want to be!”

Kate pulls Yelena’s hands off her and walks to the kitchen. It really is stupid, or more than it was, as Yelena keeps following Kate around her apartment against her will. “Yeah, clearly the last place! I can really tell when you keep teleporting to me every other second!”

“You are so infuriating! You cannot possibly think I want to keep bumping into you and– and getting in your way?!”

“Shit! I mean that’s news to me, Yelena!” Kate lifts her shoulders and arms up in an exaggerated shrug, then drops them, slapping her thighs. “Because you seem to be bothering me every chance you get!” She’s worked herself up so much that her breathing is ragged.

“Bog! Ty seychas takoy nespravedlivyy! (God! You are being so unfair right now)” Yelena loses the battle with herself to not raise her voice. She points at Kate accusingly. “I thought you were understanding when I told you I didn’t know what was happening to me that time I stayed the night!”

Kate scoffs mockingly. “I know you didn’t stay the night. Don’t fucking lie to me.”

“Eto ne glavnoye! You think it isn’t an inconvenience to me too? That I want to keep coming to the other side of the world just to get yelled at by you?! (that’s besides the point)” Yelena feels her temper boiling at the surface of her skin. She’s hot all over and Kate’s glare feels like daggers stabbing holes through her. “I have a life that doesn’t revolve around you!” 

“Yeah! I got that you don’t care at all about how I was feeling! What with you always coming here without telling me and always leaving!” Yelena sees red, and she’s never seen Kate this angry before.

“You told me to leave!” The indignation Yelena feels isn’t helped by the fact that she blinks to Kate again, standing right in front of her in the kitchen.

At that, Kate barks a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I did tell you to leave. Yet you’re still here, aren’t you?!” Kate lifts her arm up and gestures at where Yelena is standing. “But when I ask you to stay, what do you do? You leave! Do you just like to do whatever I tell you not to? If I tell you to stay this time, will you actually go?! You just always do what you want! It’s always-”

“Can you get it through your thick head that this is not what I want?!”

“Right! Because it’s so fucking exhausting seeing me!” Kate scoffs. Yelena has a hand on one of the counters, gripping it like that would stop her from teleporting against her will again. “I got that.”

“You-” Yelena feels like she’s getting whiplash, but before she can say anything else, Kate interrupts her.

“I’ve never regretted anything more than messaging you two weeks ago.”

Yelena feels a sharp sting in her eyes at that, clenching the counter so tight she might break her bones. “You were bleeding out on that couch.”

“I was fine.” Kate spits. “It wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked. I’m surprised you even care!”

“You said you were afraid of dying!” Yelena’s throat feels like it's closing up, and she tries her best to keep the tears she can feel gathering in her eyes at bay. “You were unconscious in my arms!”

“And you should have left me there!”

Without even noticing, Yelena blinks into Kate’s space again, but this time Kate doesn’t step back right away. “You could have died!”

“I didn’t!”

Kate is getting blurrier and blurrier in her vision but she keeps pushing. “You could’ve! –you would’ve!”

“I can live without you, Yelena! I have other people that I can rely on, you know?! More than you! Hell!” Kate laughs through her anger. “I shouldn’t even say you’re someone I can rely on. I don’t need you!”

“You do! You do need me.” Yelena yells, hands unconsciously gripping onto the front of Kate’s shirt. “That’s why you messaged me, that’s why I showed up. That’s why-”

“I don’t!” Kate finally pushes at Yelena’s shoulders to try and move away from the counter she’s pressed on. “I lived without you! Fuck. I lived without you for nine whole months! I never needed you! I-” But before she can continue, Yelena blinks into her again and her mouth crashes onto Kate’s without a thought, tears freely falling down her face now, hands clutching the front of Kate’s collar. 

The force of it pushes Kate back into the fridge next to the kitchen counter, the sound of knocking jars and takeout containers ringing out into the room. The archer freezes with a hiss, Yelena belatedly remembering the wounds Kate sustained not long ago. Thinking about that night only makes Yelena’s hold tighten. When Kate doesn’t immediately push her away, Yelena keeps her there, pouring all her sorrys into her mouth, asking for forgiveness with her lips. 

But Kate is still tense so Yelena’s brows furrow, pleading. She can feel their tears mixing together on her tongue, and the uncontrollable tremble in her body. Then, after what feels like only moments, the archer tentatively releases some of the tension she’s been holding in, finally breathing out into Yelena’s mouth. She slowly smooths her hands around Yelena’s waist, and at the feel of her touch, Yelena slowly lets go of Kate’s sweater. She wraps her arms around Kate’s neck, and allows herself a desperate sigh of relief.

Yelena tilts her head to the other side and Kate follows, her lips soft and so familiar that Yelena wants to cry. It feels better than coming home, yet the archer’s mouth feels like it’s taking her breath away. Kate tastes the same, and the way she holds Yelena, like she always has, makes a shiver run through the assassin’s body. She mourns the many months she denied herself of this feeling.

When Kate pulls back a bit to catch her breath, she barely gets a lungful of her own air, before Yelena chases her and kisses her again. Kate parts her lips wider and deepens the kiss with a shudder as Yelena pushes a hand into thick dark hair.

“I don’t even remember how it felt the last time we kissed.” Kate’s ragged breathing lands on Yelena’s lips as the assassin keeps their foreheads touching. The archer’s voice sounds rough as her fingers dig into Yelena’s lower back.

“YA delayu. (I do)” Yelena whispers, one hand stroking the back of Kate’s neck, the other trailing around strong shoulders. Her eyes are open and Kate’s are still closed, but she imagines she’s never looked at anyone else with as much fondness as she is right now. “It definitely didn’t feel like this.”

“Yelena, I–”

“I’m sorry.” Kate is still catching her breath, brows furrowed, taking the words in, and Yelena uses this time to just admire her. She’s always been breathtaking, and when the archer finally opens her eyes, Yelena stares into those deep blues. She realizes just how much she’s deprived herself in her attempt to distance herself from the one person she may have always known she could never stay away from.

“How do I know that–” Kate cuts herself off, tears still shining in her eyelashes. Yelena waits for her to finish her question, but it never comes. “No.”

She starts to disentangle herself from Yelena’s arms, and the assassin watches in confusion, letting her arms get moved until, “Wait, Kate Bishop–”

“No, you’re just– God , I’m so stupid.” Kate says quietly, extracting herself from Yelena’s hold, and takes a decisive step away from the assassin, moving around the corner of the dining table. “You’re in my head again.” Yelena feels fresh tears surge up at the distress in Kate's face, trying to reach out, but Kate just pulls her hand away. “You always do this.”

“What are you saying? I’m sorry. I am sorry, Kate Bishop.” Yelena steps forward without even thinking about it.

“No, Yelena.” Kate retreats into herself, hands clenched at her sides. “Just do what you always do and leave already.”

“I will never leave you again.”

Kate scoffs, tears crowding her vision. “It hurts to even look at you.”

“Kate…”

“No.”

“Just-” Yelena blinks in front of Kate and slowly reaches out, only a little bit surprised when Kate allows herself to be pulled onto the couch. Yelena wraps her arms around the other woman’s shaking form. 

“Stop.” But it’s weak.

“I will do anything. I will spend the rest of my life asking for your forgiveness.”

“It’s really– h-hard to believe you.” Kate stutters out from the crook of Yelena’s neck. Yelena’s tears fall onto the back of Kate’s sweatshirt and she tries in vain to wipe them away. Each time Kate shudders, the tremors reverberate in her own body.

“I am so sorry I made you feel like this.” Yelena whispers, smoothing her fingers onto the back of Kate’s neck as the archer’s fingers dig into the back of her shirt. 

“Why did you?”

“I–” Yelena blinks, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks, and scratches lightly at Kate’s scalp. “I was afraid.” Yelena closes her eyes in guilt and shame. Kate has resorted to turning her face fully into Yelena’s neck, her watery hiccups coming in irregularly, so Yelena gathers herself as best she can to explain. “You almost died for me.– I watched it happen and I–” She sucks in a quick breath of air as a slash of dark crimson flashes in her mind. Her fingers clench, as if Kate would slip away from her grasp just from her thinking about it. “I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

In response, Kate only releases a quivering breath on her neck, so Yelena carries on. “I just– couldn’t stand the thought of you getting hurt because of me again. So, I- ha, I had the genius thought that maybe if I wasn’t here, you’d be safer.” She sniffles and turns her head towards Kate’s neck, gently kissing the nape. “So much for that stupid idea, right?” She whispers into the archer’s skin, lips grazing her warmth. “You got hurt anyway. And– I never thought me leaving would hurt you so much more.” Yelena stops fighting her urges and tucks herself against Kate. “You need to know how badly I regret staying away for all these months. Nothing will ever make that time up.” Yelena feels Kate’s fingers loosen on her back so she pushes. “Please Kate, please give me another chance. Please, I-” Against her wishes, she feels the fresh tears surge up again. She clenches her eyes, willing the tears to stay at bay and presses herself further into the crook of Kate’s neck. “This was the stupidest mistake I have ever made, and I once let Sonya watch mama’s pigs while I went to the bathroom.” She feels a huff of breath on her skin, and Kate pulling back so she reluctantly lets her. Yelena still keeps a hand on Kate’s knee as the archer leans back on the couch.

“How do I know you won’t run again at the first sign of trouble?” Kate’s face is red and her eyes are puffy. Yelena’s heart squeezes in her chest painfully at the image. “I don’t regret what I did.” She sniffles. “And- I’d do it again.”

Yelena unconsciously tightens her grip on Kate’s knee. The archer is still as beautiful as ever, even with her nose runny and her blue eyes sparkling. She breathes in deeply, making sure Kate is really looking at her. “I would die tomorrow if I knew I would ever hurt you again.” 

Kate’s breath quietly hitches and she looks from one of Yelena’s eyes to the other. Kate bites her bottom lip and rubs a hand over her face before lifting the fingers of Yelena’s hand off her knee and intertwining them. “Ok.” Kate sighs, but Yelena doesn’t let herself hope yet. “But Yelena– I will not go through this again.” Kate swallows and her bottom lip trembles for a moment before she sucks it into her mouth again, looking down at their joined hands. “It really sucked getting my back torn up, but if I’m being honest, I don’t think it was even half as bad as waking up all those months ago without you.” She looks up into Yelena’s eyes now, determination in her gaze. “I need to know you’re with me.”

“I meant what I said.” Yelena nods. “I am never leaving you again. Not if I can help it.”

Kate blinks at that, and seemingly just sits there, trying to even her breathing. Yelena should feel unnerved at being watched in silence for this long, but she’s just content with still holding Kate’s hand. When Kate eventually pulls her hand away, Yelena thinks she’s said the wrong thing. “It’s- probably really late in Moscow now.” Yelena’s heart sinks into her stomach.

“Kate-”

Kate smiles at her and Yelena’s mouth closes. “And I’m tired. I think I’ll go take a nap.” 

When Kate goes to stand, Yelena gets up faster, but keeps the space between them. “How- I mean, when can I see you again?” She stares as Kate walks past her and turns around. 

“I’ll message you.”

⤍⧗⤎

Kate texts her randomly on a Saturday, four days later.

Breakfast?

“Umm, so how’s your shoulder?” It’s the first thing Kate asks as the waiter sets down their orders. She fidgets with the paper liner around her chocolate muffin as she keeps her eyes trained downwards.

Yelena misses how they used to be. “It is just a scar now.” When Kate finally looks up, Yelena smiles. “How’s your back?”

Kate snorts, peeling her muffin slowly. “If you’re wondering if you did a good job-” She gives her a thumbs up. “You did.”

Yelena rolls her eyes playfully and glances to the side at the rest of the diner, before taking a sip of her tea. She masks the burn on her tongue well enough, she thinks. “Is it giving you any more problems?”

“No, not really. I just sleep on my front because it’s still pretty tender.”

Yelena stares then, as Kate takes a bite from her muffin, mind flashing to their impulsive kiss. “Um.” She clears her throat. “Do you- and you can say no, but, do you want me to look at it?”

To anyone else, it would have seemed like the question didn’t affect Kate, but to Yelena who catalogs Kate’s every reaction meticulously on a little book in her head, she notices the slight pause midbite, and the light blush on her neck. “Ah, y- ye- you know, sure.” She presses her lips together into a thin line. “It’s been hard alone. Uh, reaching around.” Kate wraps her arm around her head towards her back to show Yelena her struggle, while still holding her muffin. “Never was as flexible as you.”

“Right.” Yelena bites her bottom lip to suppress a smile. “But who is?”

Kate huffs at that, stuffing way too much of the rest of her muffin in her mouth. 

On the way back to the archer’s loft, Kate has her left hand in her jacket pocket, but her right hand swings between them, brushing against the back of Yelena’s every other step they take. 

To save herself from the temptation of holding it, Yelena tucks her hands into her own pockets and clenches them into fists. The mid-April weather is lovely, and Yelena tries to steal glances at Kate and her wind-swept hair whenever she can.

After helping Kate bring a stool and the first aid kit into the middle of the living room, the archer stands in front of her, stalling. Yelena looks up from Kate’s fidgeting fingers into her eyes. “I can close my eyes when you take your shirt off.”

Kate nods and when Yelena hears her ok, she opens her eyes to Kate facing away from her, sitting on the stool. The wounds are covered by large white bandages and Yelena smiles fondly at the job, clumsily done as it is. The assassin gently peels them off and puts them on the dining table next to her. 

The three claw marks stand out starkly against the archer’s pale skin, but they are healing well. Without warning, Yelena reaches a hand out to touch beside the raised skin, pulling back abruptly when Kate gasps and flexes away from her. “I’m sorry.” Yelena whispers, eyes tracing the lines of her muscles, the dip of her lower back. “I should have asked.” She takes a step closer and feels the body heat radiating off of the woman in front of her. In these positions, Kate’s head reaches about her upper chest.

“Yeah, it’s ok, just- cold fingers.” Kate hunches her back slightly, both hands holding the front of the stool’s seat between her legs. “I’m good now.”

With her go-ahead, Yelena tentatively reaches out again and uses both her pointer and middle finger to brush along the wounds. “Does it still hurt when I touch you?”

“Not with the way you are.” 

Yelena places her left hand on Kate’s left shoulder, and takes her time tracing her fingers along all three wounds, applying barely any pressure. Like she’s touching water.

You are beautiful, she means to say. “They are healing beautifully.” She says instead. At those words, Kate tilts her head down a little, and when Yelena accidentally grazes the center of the middle mark, the deepest, Kate’s back tenses and she reaches a hand up to squeeze Yelena’s on her shoulder. “Kate.” Yelena’s breath hitches, and without a thought, she leans over to press a kiss in the center of Kate’s upper back to apologize.

The hand clutching hers tightens, and Yelena fails against her inhibitions. Her right hand reaches out to hold the side of Kate’s torso, and the assassin takes one final step closer till her shirt is brushing Kate’s skin. She presses a kiss to the back of Kate’s neck. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

When there is no response, Yelena bends forward even more and presses her next kiss to the side of Kate’s neck. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” Looking down, the assassin sees tears falling onto the stool where Kate’s left hand is white knuckling, and in an instant, her eyes start to sting. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to stop it.” Pressing her lips next behind Kate’s right ear, Yelena starts feeling the tremble in Kate’s body. “I’m sorry for-”

Before Yelena can finish speaking, Kate stands from the stool and turns around, dipping down and capturing Yelena’s lips desperately. Her calloused fingers tangle in Yelena’s blond hair, and Yelena wraps her hands around Kate’s lower back to steady herself, avoiding the now exposed wounds. “Kate Bi-” Yelena tries to break the kiss, but Kate cuts her off again, tilting her head the other way and sucking Yelena’s bottom lip into her mouth. 

Yelena feels like she can’t breathe as she’s being backed up. And when Kate’s tongue swipes against her lip, Yelena’s no longer sure if maybe she’s just forgotten how to breathe. 

Normally she would maneuver them out of the way of all the furniture, having memorized the floor plan by heart, but her mind is completely occupied by insistent lips and the determination in Kate’s steps. 

Nearly tripping over the coffee table doesn’t detach them from each other, and when Yelena feels the back of her legs hit the couch next, she doesn’t care as they both fall onto it. Kate moves her until they are laying along it, and she goes from stealing her breath away to mouthing down Yelena’s throat. The assassin scratches into Kate’s scalp as Kate bites and sucks the skin at the base of her neck. 

“Kate.” Yelena tries again, but she can barely keep her eyes open. She tilts her head back with a gasp, it feels like Kate is everywhere. The archer’s hands start from Yelena’s hips, roughly moving up to her stomach, riding the assassin’s shirt up with them. Kate presses her lips to Yelena’s collarbones before returning to her lips, open mouthed and panting. When Yelena feels Kate’s hands creep up to nearly touch her bare breasts, her rational brain finally kicks in. 

Denying herself of the sweetness of Kate’s mouth nearly makes her cry, but when she pulls Kate’s head back with a hand on either side of her face, Kate looks drunk, lips glistening and kiss-bruised.

“What?” The archer’s voice is rough and her pupils are blown, but Yelena doesn’t miss the unmistakable dampness in her lashes.

At the sound, Yelena presses her thighs tight against Kate’s hips, not successful in relieving any of the ache between her legs. Stopping Kate is torture. And she’s legitimately been tortured before. “Your back.” Yelena rasps out between deep breaths, feeling the hot puffs of air from Kate’s mouth.

“Fuck my back.” Kate’s response is quick, as one of her arms comes up to bracket the side of Yelena’s head. Her other hand stays high on Yelena’s trembling ribcage as Kate attempts to claim the assassin’s lips again.

“We didn’t come here for this.” Yelena manages, her hold on Kate’s face preventing the archer from going forward. The wetness between her legs is distracting, but this isn’t right.

“Plan’s change.”

“Moya lyubov. (my love)” Yelena tries again when Kate dips down to kiss the side of her neck. Yelena’s eyes flutter as she lets her get away with it for a few seconds before pulling Kate’s head back up. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Before Kate can say a word, Yelena continues. “Again.” She leans up to kiss away some of the tears on Kate’s right cheek. “And if we- if we keep going, I don’t think I could control myself.”

Kate just stares, her eyes flickering between Yelena’s own. She breathes harshly for a few seconds before nodding. “Ok.”

“Come on, let me finish looking at your back.” One of Yelena’s hands smooths down Kate’s neck to her upper chest. “We need to get you back into a shirt, too. It is indecent of you to be topless for this long.”

“You’ve never complained before.” Kate hums and Yelena rolls her eyes.

They eventually make it back to the stool and Yelena’s never applied the healing salve as tenderly as she is now. She dips two fingers into the container and rubs a thick layer to every part of the wounds, kissing Kate’s shoulder whenever the archer flinches. Then, she pulls out new bandages and places them on top of the claw marks, smoothing her fingers around the edges. 

When Kate is properly protected, Yelena lets her go up to her bedroom to grab a fresh hoodie. And when she comes back, she doesn’t waste a second before cupping Yelena’s face and pulling a grinning assassin against her lips. “Thank you.”

Yelena hums when Kate presses their lips together again. “I’ll be the one to do this from now on, ok?”

“Are you saying I was doing a bad job?” Hands still around her cheeks, Kate pulls back, offense painted across her features. “I was doing fine without you.”

Yelena tilts her head, voice gentle and gaze adoring. “Yes, you were, milaya.” Kate softens at the look in Yelena’s eyes. “But you are not alone now. I am here.”

Yelena wraps her fingers around Kate’s wrists still next to her face, and kisses one of her palms.

“Kate, are you serious?” Yelena’s good mood immediately sours at the sound of that high-pitched voice. How does she keep doing this? “This better not be what I think it is.”

“Cass-” Kate squeaks, whipping her head to the source of the sound. She lets go of Yelena and steps in front of her.

“What is she doing here?!” Kate’s friend climbs in through the loft window next to the stairs, this time wearing regular clothes. “Did she spend the night?”

Does no one use the front door anymore!? Yelena thinks and huffs, rolling her eyes.

“It is eleven am. Why are you showing up at Kate Bishop’s place unannounced?” Yelena crosses her arms.

“Actually, it’s 10:52, and Kate and I planned brunch weeks ago. Right, Kate?” Cassie turns to the archer, raising her eyebrows.

“Oh, shit! I-” Kate slaps her forehead, walking up to the bottom of the steps. “I’m so sorry Cass. I totally forgot. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you’ll make it up to me later.” Cassie waves her off dismissively, looking over Kate’s shoulder and glaring at Yelena. “Now, explain what she’s doing here.”

“Are you the warden or something?” Yelena tilts her head to the side. “Or her landlord?”

“I’m just Kate’s friend so I care about her.” Cassie starts walking down the stairs to the first floor of the apartment and steps around Kate. “Not sure I can say the same about you.”

“Cassie, come on.” Kate puts a hand on the younger woman’s arm, stopping her.

“Kate! Is this really what you want?” Cassie whips her attention back to her friend, eyes searching. “After everything?”

Kate’s gaze scans all over Cassie’s face, chewing on her bottom lip. “It’s- fuck- it’s complicated.”

“Ok, well you know what isn't complicated?” Cassie points a thumb behind her at where Yelena is still standing. “What she put you through. She left you, Kate. For nine months!” 

When Cassie turns her head back to Yelena, the fury in her eyes nearly forces Yelena to take a step back. But she almost welcomes it. Some part of her is relieved that Kate has someone like Cassie on her side. That the anger she should have received for her mistakes was still coming though not from the person she hurt. Kate looks hesitant behind the other woman, and all the fight deflates out of Yelena. 

“Yeah, I know.” Kate speaks up quietly after a while. “But Cass, you don’t understand her like I do.”

Cassie whips her head around.  “Kate-“

“And you don’t love her like I do.” Hearing that does force Yelena to take a step back, eyes wide and mouth opening. 

From where Yelena is standing, Cassie seems to stare at Kate after her confession, silently assessing what her friend just admitted. Eventually, she lets out a heavy sigh and tilts her head. “I just really don’t want to see you hurt again.” Cassie reaches a hand out to hold onto Kate’s forearm.

“Me neither.” Both sets of eyes snap to Yelena, who is still standing in the living room. Yelena’s been scrutinized and tested for almost all her life, but right in this moment, she still can’t help but fidget with her fingers as she tries to push the anguish down. Kate nods, the corners of her lips slightly upturned, and slowly walks over to the living room, pulling Cassie around to both face Yelena. 

The assassin forces herself to maintain eye contact with Kate’s friend. It’s finally time to face her reckoning. “What I did- I cannot come back from. But Kate means more to me than you will ever know.” 

Cassie’s eyebrow twitches, and she turns to look at Kate, concern in her gaze. The archer tentatively smiles at the other woman, then Cassie turns back. She opens her mouth and closes it a couple of times. “You really care about her then.”

Yelena nods tentatively. “So much, sometimes I don’t know what to do with myself.”

At that, Cassie swallows, then nods solemnly. Kate quietly squeaks. “I’ll treat you to brunch next week?”

Cassie stares for a second longer before sighing, looking sideways at Yelena. “Man, you guys are full of drama.” She rolls her eyes. “You clearly know what’s best for you, and if that’s her then fine.”

Kate exhales a laugh then lifts an arm to scratch the back of her head with a sheepish smile. “Well… not sure I know what’s best for me.” She then looks towards Yelena, a sparkle in her eyes. “But I know what I want.”

Yelena starts to feel a blush creep up her neck but then Cassie fake gags. “You’re treating me to two brunches!” She sticks her finger into Kate’s chest. “You are such a loser.” She says before beginning to climb out the window. With one leg outside, she swoops her head back in to point at Yelena. “And you might be a Black Widow assassin, but if you hurt Kate again-”

“Oh, my God, Cassie!” Kate chuckles, embarrassed, while helping Cassie out the window. 

Yelena just bites the inside of her cheek and nods with a head tilt. “Won’t happen again!”

When they’re both alone again, Kate bounces down her stairs, and steps in front of Yelena. “I’m sorry about tha-“

“No.” Yelena tentatively reaches out to hold Kate’s hands. “I am happy you have friends like her. On your side.” Kate squeezes her fingers. “And she keeps me on my toes! She’s a scary one that one.”

“Really?”

“No.” Kate guffaws, and Yelena feels joy fill her to the brim at Kate’s radiance. 

After the smile settles on Kate’s pretty face, Yelena can’t help but feel a swell of fondness in her heart. But when an air of mischief washes over the archer instead, Yelena tilts her head. “So, I mean more to you than I’ll ever know?”

Yelena scoffs and steps closer to Kate, looking at her through her lashes. “You’ll know.”

⤍⧗⤎

She can tell Kate is on the verge of drifting off to sleep. 

They spent the rest of the day hanging around New York City, going to museums and markets that they were meant to go to before everything. When they ended up back in their favourite diner, Yelena noticed the time and Kate offered for her to stay. They both knew Yelena could have just blinked back home, but neither of them said a thing as they slipped beneath the covers of Kate’s bed, Yelena taking her usual right side.

Hands tucked under her chin, Yelena lies sideways on her pillow, watching the relaxed look on Kate’s face and the rise and fall of her back.

“Where is Lucky?” Yelena can’t help but break the silence.

Kate sighs tiredly. “With Grills.” She licks her lips. “Wasn’t really in a state to take care of him the past few weeks.”

Yelena hums, agreeing. Her eyes go back to tracing the arch of Kate’s eyebrows to the curve of her nose. From the lines in her cheekbones to the bow in her lips. 

“How long you gonna keep watching me?” Kate mumbles, her mouth half squished as she lies on her stomach, and Yelena can’t help herself. She pushes up on her right arm and leans forward to softly kiss those pouty lips. Kate hums, sighing into her mouth. “Ok, you can keep watching me for as long as you want.”

Yelena chuckles in the dark of the night, resting her head on Kate’s pillow, her heart tugging her to stay where she is when she attempts to move back to her initial position. “I’ll close my eyes after I’ve had my fill.”

“Well, isn’t that corny of you.”

Yelena’s mouth drops open in offense without a sound, but with the way Kate’s cheek pinches with her smile, she knows the reaction she got. “I didn’t see you for nine months, milaya.” Yelena mumbles, extending an arm to Kate’s back, and slipping under her shirt to rub her lower back. “I’m due.”

“Mmh, nine months is a long time.” Kate grins, eyes still closed. “Could’ve had a whole baby in that time for all you kno-”

“Kate Bishop!” Yelena scoffs, shoving at the other woman’s shoulder. “I’m trying to say that I missed you.”

Kate laughs as she’s rolled onto her side and then rolls back, draping an arm over Yelena’s waist, pulling her impossibly closer. “Mmmh, is that so?”

“Dreadfully so.” Yelena snuggles into her warmth. She looks up from the crook of Kate’s neck, at her closed eyelids and leans up to whisper into her chin. “And I love you, too.”

Kate’s entire body freezes when she registers Yelena’s words, and her eyes snap open, staring blankly over Yelena’s head. Yelena can’t contain her cackling at the other woman’s reaction. She attempts to tuck herself completely into Kate’s chest, but the archer is having none of that, pulling her out with a hand on each of her shoulders, and pushing herself back on the bed. Kate reaches the edge of the mattress, but her mouth is wide open, eyes full of shock and confusion. “What?”

Yelena’s smile is playful as she reaches up to hold onto her elbows. “I love you, Kate Bishop.”

Kate’s eyes stay wide and her jaw moves to try and speak, but then she momentarily freezes. “You love me?”

Yelena’s grip on Kate’s elbows tighten. “Da.” She breathes out a sigh of relief. “I really do.”

“Really?” Kate finally releases the tension in her arms, hands still on Yelena’s shoulders. She seems to still be in a state of shock even as Yelena approaches her to share a pillow again. “There are so many other people out there. Probably wouldn’t raise your blood pressure half as much as I do.”

Yelena stares with unabashed affection for a second before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to Kate’s cheek. “None of them are you.” 

When Kate rolls her eyes with a deep blush taking over her body, Yelena decides that she can’t contain the tugging in her chest anymore. “My heart is in the shape of you.” The assassin slides her nose against the back of Kate’s. “It beats in the cadence of your voice. It tells me to do things I don’t want to and I listen. I think of you when I’m awake and dream of you when I sleep. I see you in everything.” Yelena’s hand is back under Kate’s shirt, but this time she allows herself the freedom to touch from Kate’s back to her stomach. “You are everything.” Kate’s eyes are shiny under the faint light from the streetlamps outside her loft. 

She scoffs wetly then surges forward, crashing her lips into Yelena’s. The assassin only reacts fast enough to not hit their teeth together and she exhales deeply into the warmth of Kate’s mouth. Her hands settle on Kate’s lower back when the archer rolls Yelena onto her back. 

She’s never felt so safe while being completely consumed by another. Kate slants their mouths more and she’s somehow even closer. Yelena’s fingers dig into Kate’s skin and the other woman hisses. The assassin can’t contain her moan when Kate sucks on her tongue, but when her fingers scratch up Kate’s back and she unintentionally pushes into the bandages there, Kate whines, her grip tightening in the pillow on either side of Yelena’s head. 

“Fuck- mne ochen' zhal', malyshka. (I’m sorry, baby)” Yelena uses all her energy to pull Kate away from herself, one hand on either side of the archer’s torso. “Your back.”

Kate groans above her, eyes still closed, the muscles in her arms all bunched up from restraining herself. “This is so unfair.” She huffs, almost petulantly. “You can’t say all that and not expect a couple orgasms in return.”

Yelena’s eyes widen in disbelief and then her cackle explodes out of her mouth, throwing her head back. “Stupid fucking lizard man.” Kate continues, which doesn’t help the state Yelena is in. Then, Kate joins in with her laughter.

Before Yelena knows it, Kate’s on her stomach again, an arm draped over the assassin’s waist, tugging her close to her chest.

That night, no one makes her leave.

⤍⧗⤎

“And you’ve done this before?”

“Well… no… But what’s the worst that can happen?”

Kate glares at her incredulously. “Yelena!? What if I get transported out of this plane of existence or something?”

“-Or it just won’t work and you stay in your kitchen.” When Kate says nothing, the look of fear still present, Yelena looks up into anxious blue eyes, and bites her lip. “Then I’ll just go get you.”

“You are crazy!” Kate flails her arms around. “How would you even find me?”

Yelena tilts her head with a grin. “I know where you are even when I shouldn’t.”

Kate stares for a few seconds longer, then sighs. “God.” She runs her fingers nervously through her hair. “Can’t really say no when you’re looking at me like that.”

Yelena preens, then tightens her grip on Kate’s hand. She closes her eyes without a warning, then opens them to her room back in Moscow, and to Kate letting go of her and violently lurching forward with a gag. Kate is hunched over, hands on her knees and dry heaving. Yelena rushes over to rub her upper back, half concerned and half excited that her teleportation worked with another person.

“Oh, this is amazing, moya lyubov. No more travelling time when I want you to visit.” Yelena beams, looking around her room while Kate is still groaning.

“I would-” Kate grumbles. “Shitballs- I would rather be jetlagged for a whole week and have no legroom on a 13 hour flight than go through th- this again.”

Yelena looks down at the other woman. “Ah, do not be dramatic, Kate Bishop. It will get easier every time.”

Kate slowly lifts her head and straightens herself when she feels like her stomach is no longer trying to jump out of her body from her throat. Just as she’s about to complain that for their first time, they probably should have tried teleporting from her kitchen to her living room instead of from New York City to Moscow, Melina barges into Yelena’s room.

“Kate Bishop!” Kate’s eyes widen at the assault riffle in the older woman’s hands. “Oh! I am so sorry.” She smiles. “I was only cleaning the storage when I heard the commotion in here. It is very nice to see you, milaya.” She goes to walk out of Yelena’s room, but keeps her head facing the two, bidding them to follow her out. “I was beginning to wonder if maybe you had died.”

“Mama!” Yelena gasps incredulously, her steps faltering in the hallway. “Ty ne mozhesh' tak govorit'! (you can't say that)”

Kate’s eyes are like saucers as her mouth opens and closes like a gaping fish. “Ah, I apologize. But you can never be sure in this business.” Melina walks into the pantry and comes back out without the riffle. 

“Uh, well, very much not dead.” Kate speaks up eventually, not sure whether to smile or not. “Almost died.” She uses the hand that’s not holding Yelena’s to finger-gun at the older woman. “But didn’t!”

“Well.” Melina claps her hands together, pleased. “That is very wonderful news. Moya Yelena has taken quite a liking to you, so it is very good that you are not dead.”

When Kate glances to her side with a sly grin, Yelena decidedly does not look at her, instead letting go of her hand and sliding onto one of the kitchen island stools. “I am starving, mama, when will dinner be ready?”

Melina turns to look at her daughter then winks at Kate before walking over to a huge pot simmering on the stove top. She lifts the lid and peers inside. “Just 20 more minutes I estimate.” She stirs the contents with a long wooden spoon. “Do not fret, papa is coming home soon with Fanny. I would not keep three hungry beasts in this house!” Yelena’s jaw slacks, not at all insulted at being compared to a beast or to her dog, but to Alexei. Melina doesn’t seem to pay her any more attention as she twists to lean back on the counter, arms crossed and looking at Kate. “Thank you for helping moya doch' with her bullet wound. (my daughter)”

Yelena can’t contain the shock on her face as her eyebrow twitches. She looks to Kate who clenches her fists at her sides, looking like a deer caught in headlights. “Yeah, it was, uh, no problem.”

Melina hums then the corners of her lips lift. “You know, Kate Bishop, at Yelena’s most vulnerable she chose to seek you out instead of just returning home.” She presses her lips together in thought.

Yelena tucks her burning face into her arms on the marble countertop and groans, feeling the heat creep to the tips of her ears. Kate tries her best to brush the implication off. “Oh, that’s-”

“Thank you for treating her so well.”

“Of course!” Kate inhales and her eyes squint with her sheepish chuckle. “Anything less would be a stain on my character.”

Melina laughs at that and lightly slaps Kate’s bicep. “You are a charming one.” She then addresses the red tomato on her kitchen island. “It is nice that even when you two are not talking, you still help each other out with your injuries. Ochen' romantichno. (very romantic)” Melina looks at Kate again. “How is your back, Kate Bishop?”

“Mama!” Yelena’s head shoots up from her arms. “Kak tak poluchayetsya, chto ty vse znayesh'!? Is Sonya a double agent spy or something?! (how is it that you know everything)”

“Bah, I do not need that.” Melina waves her off. “I am your mother, milaya, it is my job to know.”

⤍⧗⤎

“And this one?”

“Blade- to the- the chest.”

Kate is trembling with the effort it takes to not make a sound. Yelena hums against the scarred skin, trailing featherlight kisses between Kate’s breasts. She places one final open-mouthed kiss to the middle of the scar then settles on the couch’s backrest next to a panting Kate. 

Yelena stares shamelessly as Kate still has her eyes scrunched closed. “Kate Bishop.” She purrs. “You’re missing the movie.” Yelena spares a glance towards the television, but determines that they’ll have to restart this movie for the third time because she’s lost the plot again. 

“You- are evil.” Deep blue eyes flutter open, and Yelena has no time to react before Kate is tugging her into her body. Yelena moans when their bare skin touches, and she smiles into the kiss. She shivers when one of Kate’s hands reaches around to softly brush against the circular scar on her shoulder blade.

“Bullet wound.” She whispers into soft lips before Kate can even get the question out.

“Who are the bastards that did this?” Kate tilts her head to the side, lips grazing the assassin’s jaw. “I’ll kill them.”

Yelena suppresses a happy giggle, slipping her hand between the couch cushion and Kate’s back. “I killed them all already.”

“Mmh, course you did.” Kate whispers, her lips still inches away from Yelena’s. “Then maybe you can help me with this giant lizard man.”

Yelena grins, then bites her lip. “What’d this lizard man do?”

Kate dips down, mumbling into her neck. “Tried to take me from you.” 

Yelena closes her eyes and raises her chin to give Kate more space. “Oh, then he’s asking for it.”

“Yeah.” Kate tugs out both her arms from under her and lets herself sag against the cushions. She wraps them around Yelena’s waist and the assassin shivers when Kate squeezes. “Like he’s looking for trouble or something.” When Kate bites a little more insistently into the sensitive skin at the base of her throat, Yelena moans, which mixes into a yelp as Kate rolls them over along the couch. 

“Kate…” Yelena laughs as Kate’s weight settles between her legs.

“My back is completely fine this time.” Kate grins from ear to ear above her, but when a glint appears in her eyes amidst her blissful expression, Yelena bites her lip. “Which means it’s free for you to do whatever you want to it.”

“Don’t take your words back in the morning.” Yelena swipes her thumb in arcs across Kate’s cheek, then before the archer knows it, Yelena blinks them into the bedroom, still in the same position with Yelena on her back and Kate on top of her. Kate lurches to the side violently before Yelena pulls her body back.

Kate settles her weight on Yelena’s chest and groans into her neck. “That’s so hot, but one day you’re gonna launch me into a wall or something.”

Yelena cackles at the thought, running soothing fingers through the other woman’s hair. “For some reason, I don’t think you would mind.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kate hums, lifting her head up and smiling, completely enamoured. “That’d be hot, too.”

Yelena can’t help the giggles from erupting out of her. And when Kate joins in, she’s never felt more smitten with someone. 

Her heart tells her she is exactly where she should be. And it laughs.