Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Yelena paced nervously, back and forth through the sparsely furnished safehouse. It had been hours without any contact, and she couldn’t help but be worried. And why not, because she was a trained assassin, a lethal operative raised to calculate the odds and imagine all the possibilities, so that she would never be blindsided by the unexpected. An unanticipated scenario was the easiest way to end up dead—and aside from that whole business with the giant blue megalomaniac from another planet, she had survived 32 years on this world by always being prepared for the eventualities.

Now, though, there was far too much chaos in her life for even her refined, calculating mind to anticipate all possible outcomes. Still, she could come up with several dozen, and none of them were good. Because now she had found happiness—however brief—in her life, with Kate Bishop. And the world had been plunged into disarray by the sudden rise of a new plague, one born of a biological weapon from the bowels of the Red Room. The world had called it ‘Dreykov’s Revenge,’ because it had indeed brought empires to their knees. But it didn’t stop there; the contagion had brought an end to humanity itself. It was, in short, an apocalypse.

They had been in Budapest when it happened—Ground Zero—staying at Yelena’s safehouse…their safehouse…the safehouse, a second generation of Hawk and Widow. It felt like too much of a coincidence, given everything that had happened in the city. All the threads connecting her, Natasha, Dreykov and the Red Room, Barton…and now Kate. It had been ten years (only five of which she was alive for) since they had taken down the Red Room for good and killed Dreykov, even freed all the other Widows…but suddenly the first time Natasha’s sister and Barton’s protege (who were not just partners in their predecessors’ sense, but in everything) were in the city together, a bioweapon that had lain dormant for years—which could have turned the tide of numerous wars in the interim—detonated there. There was coincidence, and conspiracy theory, and then there was probability. Yelena worked in the latter—and the probability was exceedingly high that Dreykov (or, more likely, an associate familiar with the nature of his demise) ended the world in a bitter, petty act of revenge.

As soon as it became clear what had happened, Yelena and Kate left the city, escaping before it could be wiped off the map by the powers that be in a futile attempt to contain the contagion. It had already escaped containment, they learned, as the Widow was horrified to discover when meeting Rick Mason to pick up their transport. They found the genial supplier to defected Widows erratic, irrational, and red-eyed, before he charged at the pair like a crazed animal. It took Yelena three shots to take out the man who had been there for her—and her sister before her—in all their times of need. One to the knee did nothing. One to the heart barely caused him to miss a step. One to the head, between the eyes, finally brought him down, just short of the women he was helping escape. One more innocent victim of Dreykov’s ego and greed.

The duo had remained in quarantine at a Bishop cabin in rural Upstate New York for 48 hours upon their return, but in the end it didn’t matter; Dreykov’s Revenge had already reached the Americas, barely 72 hours after it first reared its apocalyptic head in Budapest. By the time they were certain they were not infected, New York had fallen. Yelena would always have nightmares of that live shot showing Spider-Man swinging towards the camera, eyes so red they nearly glowed, dripping fangs bared, and the awful sounds of the poor cameraman’s final moments before control cut the feed. Kate…Kate had broken down in tears, and she had cried for hours until she finally passed out from exhaustion, arms wrapped around the Widow like a koala.

What do you do when the world ends? For all her extensive training and ability to anticipate adverse outcomes, Yelena was completely unprepared for something of this scale. The only thing she could do is treat it like a mission gone south without extraction—something she’d had very limited experience with, star that she was—but even that was ill-suited for the current catastrophe. Go to ground, hole up in a safehouse, wait it out…that worked for a failed assassination or stillborn coup, not so much for the end of the world. You wanted strength in numbers, the most diverse set of assets and strengths available to help figure out a way to staunch the bleeding, right the ship, and maybe, just maybe, begin building a foundation for a new tomorrow.

Years ago, Yelena wouldn’t have cared about tomorrow; she was brainwashed and subjugated as a Black Widow, and then in that brief window after she was freed, she was still trying to figure out herself, what freedom and life meant, while living one more—albeit grander and nobler—mission. Then she was Snapped out of existence, lost five years of her life, came back to a world where her mission was complete, her family was broken, and her sister was gone, forever, without so much as a last look, let alone a goodbye. Tomorrow never mattered. Until, in her grief and anger and thirst for revenge, she met Kate. Kate Bishop was Yelena’s first reason for tomorrow. She was sweet and funny and warm and open and earnest and kind and persistent and ran into a street to save a dog…how could you not fall in love with her, even if the Widow didn’t know that was what it was then? How could you not want a tomorrow with Kate Bishop in your life?

Kate Bishop who was currently missing. (But Yelena was getting ahead of herself.)

After the fall of New York and the trauma of watching it on live television, the pair were working their way to the Barton farm. Kate was still rattled, but she was becoming sanguine about the situation. The farm was isolated enough that the retired Avenger and his family were most likely safe, and he had resources. If they were to figure out how to neutralize this contagion and save what was left of humankind, Barton was their best option. But it was slow going. Out of an abundance of caution, upon their return to the States from Budapest, they had burned everything they could not be certain they had thoroughly sanitized, including the Quinjet. The last thing they had wanted was to be the vector that infected the US, but they didn’t yet know then that the plague had beat them to this country. Nor did they know the lifespan of the contagion outside of human hosts, one of the many things that was giving Yelena nightmares.

The Widow couldn’t believe that Dreykov would have wanted a weapon that caused a global outbreak—except perhaps as a last resort, a doomsday weapon in the event of doomsday—but here they were. Either someone had modified the biological agent (difficult to do and unlikely, but she couldn’t rule it out), or the agent itself had mutated or otherwise degraded over the long period in storage, leading to the widespread outbreaks of infection and violence they were witnessing. Not that the man’s intentions mattered now; he was long dead, and they had what they had, the end of the world. It meant, however, that there were even more variables for the Widow to consider, and even if she were to happen upon Red Room intelligence, it would be useless. All she had was her training, her wits, and Kate Bishop, and she would have to use the first two to keep the latter safe.

The duo quickly discovered that rural areas might have fewer people, but they were no less susceptible to the spread of the contagion. The first town they stopped in for supplies after leaving the Bishop cabin had been ravaged; it looked as though a street battle had taken place there. If there were any survivors, they remained holed up in their homes, keeping out of sight of the packs of red-eyed killers roaming the town—and the two strangers who expertly dispatched the zombified former residents to a one.

The pair had raided the armory of the town’s police station for both ammunition and weapons. The Widow insisted that Kate carry a pistol and knives as well; one could never be too prepared in an apocalypse. That said, Yelena gained a new appreciation for Kate’s archaic weapon of choice in the face of the breakdown of society; it did not rely on gunpowder and industrially-fabricated projectiles (nor electricity, like her Widow’s Bites and certain features of her batons), and in many cases its projectiles could easily be retrieved and reused. Even as an expert shot, Yelena had expended her existing supply of ammunition as they cleared the town of hostiles, and that was not sustainable.

After that experience, they tried to avoid populated places if at all possible, sticking to safehouses whenever they could—Natasha’s and Yelena’s, the Widows’, Barton’s, and SHIELD’s. Those were stocked with all manner of supplies, so many of them worthless in these circumstances, like money, identity documents, burner phones, and disguises, but also weapons and ammunition and non-perishable food and water. The first one, one of Barton’s, had originally been a hunting camp in rural north-central Pennsylvania. Remote, unelectrified, and unchanged since the early twentieth century.

“Kate Bishop, gather some wood for a fire, but do not go far. I will find the supply caches.”

When the archer looked at her like she had three heads or something, Yelena remembered she had forgotten who she was dealing with. She shook her head and released a sigh, part playful, part resignation. The Widow then gave a series of commands in Russian to Fanny, who barked once in acknowledgement, then turned to Lucky and barked twice, before the pair darted off into the forest.

Turning back to the love of her life, Yelena asked, “Kate Bishop, have you ever been camping?” Before the other woman could reply, the blonde quickly added, “No, your family’s many ‘cabins’”—she utilized air quotes around the word to draw a distinction between Bishop vacation homes in rural settings and actual cabins, or tents, or roughing it under the open sky, for that matter—“do not count.”

The raven-haired woman slowly closed her mouth and looked sheepishly at her girlfriend before shaking her head.

The Widow sighed dramatically. “This is going to be much more difficult; you have no survival skills.” She shook her head, silently cursing the man who had stolen so much from her already for now putting her in another situation where she had to keep the love of her life alive. “OK, we start out simple. One. Do not touch any leaves or plants. Many of them are poisonous…can make you very sick or give you painful rash. Two. Do not drink anything. Can make you very sick or kill you. Three. Do not approach animals, and do not try to pet them. …”

It was going to be a long trip to Iowa.

When the pair returned from restocking from the weapons cache, Fanny and Lucky had dragged a sizable supply of very dry small and medium tree branches to the dooryard of the cabin. “Good girl! Good boy!” the Widow greeted the pair, patting their heads. Fanny barked once more, sharply but not with alarm, and Yelena followed her a short distance into the woods to find a nice-sized downed hardwood, not yet decaying, perfect for turning into some nice logs. “Yes, Fanny, you are a very good girl. Mama will give you a treat.” The Akita yipped happily.

When they returned to the cabin, the blonde found that Kate had been sorting the branches, snapping them into roughly 18-inch lengths, and stacking them. She had been surprisingly useful, the Widow chuckled under her breath. “Good girl, Kate Bishop; you, too, have earned a treat,” Yelena announced in the same tone she had used earlier with the dogs.

Kate’s face lit up and she nearly preened in response to the praise, never noticing—or at least not minding—that it came in the same form as that given to the dogs. (Although Fanny was a very smart and capable dog, so maybe Kate should be proud she received the same kind of praise.)

“I just wanted to be helpful, you know…” the raven-haired woman replied meekly, “prove I wasn’t useless in the wilderness.” The Widow hadn’t said it, but the other woman knew her girlfriend had been thinking ‘penthouse princess’ again.

After fishing out treats for Fanny and Lucky, Yelena walked over to the archer and her piles of wood. “Da, you have done very well, Kate Bishop. Arranged nicely, stacked, and the length is very good.” She patted the other woman’s shoulder proudly.

“Where’s my treat?” Kate responded, deploying her puppy-dog eyes that the blonde found irresistible.

It took every neuron in Yelena’s brain to stop her from jumping the archer right there, but thankfully her Widow training won out. Secure the supplies and the camp first, then relaxation. So she leaned up and placed a kiss on Kate’s lips. “There is your treat, detka. Can you handle fetching me the axe from the fireplace?”

The archer returned carrying the axe like a faux-lumberjack—a poser. Yelena laughed and then sighed, before launching in on a lecture about the proper way to carry an axe, all the while leading Kate to the fallen oak Fanny had found earlier. Setting her stance and ensuring the other woman was a safe distance away, the blonde began chopping away at the base of tree, where despite having fallen it was still attached to its roots. Her hands slid gracefully along the axe handle from the shoulder to the knob as she swung the head from near her shoulder down into the solid hardwood.

Yelena couldn’t see, of course, but Kate was mesmerized, her blue eyes following every motion. When, about halfway through the tree, the blonde stopped and removed her green flannel, leaving her upper body clad only in a white tank top, the archer nearly choked on her own breath. That was nothing, however, compared to when the Widow resumed chopping, as Kate’s eyes drank in every ripple and flex of the blonde’s muscles—arms, neck, back. The woman was a phenomenal physical specimen, and if the archer wasn’t drooling from it all, it would be a minor miracle. And if this weren’t the apocalypse—and Yelena weren’t wielding a deadly weapon—the New and Improved Hawkeye would have jumped her girlfriend right there.

After Yelena finished severing the tree trunk from its roots, the pair together hauled it back to the relative safety of the cabin, where the Widow continued the process of breaking it into log-sized pieces. What she wouldn’t have given for a saw! (Kate, of course, was not complaining. Not about watching the sweat trickle down the blonde’s face, nor how it slicked back her hair, nor that it made that tank top cling to her toned body like a second skin…. Again, if it weren’t the apocalypse and the Widow wielding a deadly weapon, the archer would have been on top of her, licking every drop…)

By the time Yelena was finished chopping the tree into logs—she didn’t trust Kate with the axe—and even splitting a few of the logs, dusk was falling over the camp. And stomachs were growling, the Widow’s from exertion and the archer’s from…well, from being Kate Bishop. (Also, the raven-haired woman burned a ton of calories watching the blonde chop wood with her flannel tied around her waist.)

Inside the cabin, the Widow rummaged around in the food stores they’d retrieved. “Agá!” she exclaimed gleefully, full of almost childish joy as she pulled a box from the sack she’d been searching. Tossing the box at the archer, Yelena continued, “Lucky for you, Kate Bishop, mac and cheese is one of the official meals of the apocalypse.”

The other woman’s eyes lit up as she caught the box. However, she then furrowed her brows, glancing around the sparse, one-room stone-and-timber structure once more. “How are we going to cook it?”

Yelena let out a throaty laugh. “My sweet penthouse princess! You are lucky that you were with me, or you would not have survived this apocalypse.” Suddenly, her face fell, and she added, softly, “I am lucky that you were with me.” Trying not to dwell on either thought, the Widow rummaged around in their supplies further, producing a large pot and some bottles of water.

“First, we build a fire, then we cook the macaroni, then we eat,” the blonde pronounced, as if it were that simple. (To her, it was.) “It is a great one-pot meal.”

“Right, a fire.” Kate picked up several of the logs that Yelena had chopped earlier that they had then brought inside, and she moved to place them in the fireplace, before that sweet Russian laughter interrupted her.

“Kate Bishop, you have never built a fire.”

“No…I…well…I mean, we always put the logs in the fireplace and turned on the gas.”

“Yes, in your penthouse with the fancy fireplace and the natural gas. Here, we do not have that. Here we have only wood. We must build a fire from the ground up.” The assassin proceeded to give the New and Improved Hawkeye a crash course in fire-building, from tinder—mostly moss and bark shavings here, but they also could have used lint from their pockets—kindling, and fuel, to fire lays, to flames versus coals for cooking and heat. Because they were using the fire for cooking in the fireplace, they employed the parallel lay, with two logs parallel to each other with some space between them, but not so far apart that the pot would not sit astride. Between the two logs, the blonde placed the tinder and the kindling in increasing size from twigs to small sticks to larger ones, and she had small and intermediate-sized branches on hand to feed as fuel while they cooked. Barton’s supplies included matches, so they did not have to generate a spark themselves, but Yelena also explained both flint and steel and how the archer could use a bow and a stick (the ‘bow-drill’ method) to start a fire.

Once the fire was burning, Yelena fed the dogs while Kate lit a few candles for additional light. The Widow then set about gathering the remaining ingredients for their dinner while they waited for the water to boil and then the macaroni to cook.

“Wait, we need milk and butter,” Kate announced as she studied the box. “Where are we going to find that? Even I know they need refrigeration, and unless Clint has a hidden solar system and a secret cellar with a fridge…”

The blonde rummaged through the supplies once more, tossing a packet of powered milk and a bottle of olive oil at her girlfriend. With one of the empty bottles of water and a full one, the assassin showed her penthouse princess how to reconstitute the milk in preparation for cooking the final dish. “We could have also used pasta water and skipped butter substitute altogether, but since we have powered milk…also, calcium, good for your bones in the apocalypse.”

After draining the pasta water into a large metal bucket for reuse in washing or putting out the fire later, Yelena mixed the rest of the ingredients, heating the mixture slightly while stirring to achieve the desired texture. Once it was done—“Ah, perfection!” she exclaimed, taking a whiff of the dish and licking her finger—the Widow placed the pot on the floor between them. When she checked the remainder of the cooking utensils, she found but a single fork, which she brandished triumphantly. “Only one fork…I see where you get it from,” the blonde roared, handing the utensil over to her girlfriend. The pair broke out laughing, recalling fondly Yelena’s first encounter with Kate’s cutlery situation. Then, upon checking the supplies once more, the blonde added, “Damn, no hot sauce.” What self-respecting person had no hot sauce?! Clint Barton, apparently. Even Kate, who didn’t like hot sauce, had kept a bottle in her apartment!

The pair took turns eating the mac and cheese with the single fork—sometimes feeding each other—and drinking the remainder of the reconstituted powered milk—despite Kate balking at the taste; the Widow reminded her about the necessity of calcium to keep her bones strong during the apocalypse. In addition, they each ate an apple from an orchard they had ‘visited’ on the way. Yelena periodically stopped to feed the fire, offering Kate more tips as she transformed the means of cooking into a means of heating for the night—and the equivalent of a nightlight.

It wasn’t much, but they were together, the both of them—and the dogs—and alive, so it was enough. The flicker of firelight playing across each other’s face and the close quarters around the pot made for something of a romantic atmosphere, in spite of the wider circumstances. Kate thought she might even like camping, at least with Yelena, and the coziness of their surroundings even made the duo forget about the apocalypse for a bit. And in an apocalypse, the chance to forget about the trauma you had experienced or witnessed was always welcome—especially for two people who had already experienced so much of it in the before-times.

“That was really good.”

“Yes, it was; my compliments to the chef,” Kate replied, leaning over to place a kiss on the chef’s lips. “Who knew mac and cheese by firelight was such a vibe.”

“Anyone who has ever gone camping,” the blonde teased, chuckling.

“OK, just for that…I wasn’t going to say it, buuut now…the only thing missing is dessert.”

“One day I will make you my famous apple cobbler, Kate Bishop,” Yelena responded, a twinkle in her eye.

“Oh, wow,” the archer practically moaned. “I was only thinking s’mores, but that sounds heavenly.”

“S’mores?” The assassin raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“Wait, you claim to be a camping expert but have never made s’mores?!” Kate was in disbelief. “You roast a marshmallow on a stick over the fire, get it golden brown on the outside and nice and gooey on the inside, plop it on a Hershey bar, and sandwich them between halves of a graham cracker. It’s a camping classic!” she exclaimed. “We had them all the time at the summer cabin.”

Yelena rolled her eyes lightly. “That does sound like something you would like…enough sugar to keep you bouncing off the walls all night,” she teased. “No, we made more practical meals, like rabbit stew…and also some less fun things, like poisons and anti-toxins. Red Room survival training was not big on sweets or fun,” the blonde added ruefully. She was getting better at talking about the trauma of her stolen childhood…before all this. This apocalypse would be the ultimate test, though…if she could maintain her ability to talk about her past trauma in the face of the trauma of the end of the world, perhaps she had indeed made some progress healing. So she would keep trying. For herself. For Kate.

Speaking of doing things for Kate, the Widow turned away from the archer and their empty pot of macaroni and moved over to the food stores again, grabbing a candle for more light and rummaging through the supplies. Turning back to the dark-haired woman after a bit, the assassin shook her head. “I am sorry, Kate Bishop. No marshmallows.” She held up a box of graham crackers and a couple of Hershey bars, surprised to have found two of the three ingredients required.

“Next town we have to stop in, if it’s safe, maybe we can visit the grocery store and get marshmallows and whatever you need for your apple cobbler,” Kate suggested. “But marshmallows don’t have a great shelf life, so we’ll need to get you this great American camping experience soon,” she added, voice saddening.

“Da, if it is safe.” Yelena nodded her head gently. “But, speaking of safe…now we must clean the dishes,” she chuckled, before starting to explain the process to her beloved penthouse princess.

Once they had cleaned the pot and Barton’s one fork, the pair disposed of both the dirty (wash) and the rinse water a distance away and downwind from the cabin, and away from streams, while taking the dogs—and themselves—out for their evening ‘business.’ It was probably overkill for the area and time of year, but Yelena wanted to make sure she was instilling proper practices in her girlfriend. She shuddered. …Just in case.

Upon return to the cabin, Yelena prepared the fire for the night, then rolled out the lone sleeping bag on the hard floor not far from the fireplace.

“Only one bed…er, bag?” the archer asked.

“Only one person,” the Widow replied teasingly, quoting Kate’s words from their very first dinner/date back to her. “See, I told you that you were just like him,” she chuckled. “But in all seriousness, we rarely prepare our safehouses for multiple people. In populated areas, of course, it is easier to adapt, but this was likely one of Barton’s places of last resort, when he really needed to disappear,” she explained.

“So…we share?”

“Yes, Kate Bishop, we share.” Yelena looked at her girlfriend like she had three heads. “I am not sleeping directly on the cold, hard floor, and I am not letting you, either.”

The archer stood frozen as the Widow stripped to her panties and socks before slipping in to the sleeping bag. After a few moments, Kate’s brain finally caught up and she, too, began peeling off her outer layers in a manner and speed that could only be described as comical. Unlike the assassin, who watched the whole process in amusement, the taller woman did not bother to carefully fold and stack her discarded clothing. As she slipped into the sleeping bag next to her girlfriend, who raised an eyebrow at the behavior, the archer defended herself. “They’ll still be there in the morning.”

“And if we were outside, under the stars?”

“If they were not still there in the morning, it would still be worth it getting to be in the sleeping bag with you like this.”

The blonde rolled her eyes and chuckled softly. “You are ridiculous.”

“But you love me.”

“That I do, daj bog.”

Kate pressed a kiss to her girlfriend’s lips as she got comfortable in the sleeping bag. One plus of it being Barton’s was that he was a much larger person, so there was plenty of room for the two women. The archer rolled and wiggled for some time, trying to find the best position to be comfortable in these unfamiliar conditions, especially the rock-hard floor. The perils of being a penthouse princess thrust into an environment far more familiar to a Black Widow assassin.

While Kate was wiggling, Yelena let her mind wander. It was a stupid choice of distraction, but the end of the world was tiring, even to those trained to bring down empires. A dark thought flitted across her mind: Natasha had died to save the world, only for it to end like this? Her sestra’s sacrifice, which had taken her so long to start coming to terms with, now felt like a waste. It was as though the universe were playing a huge joke on her—a very unfunny joke. And she, Yelena Belova, greatest child assassin the world had ever (never) known, had already died once, in a decidedly uncool way…and now she was facing that prospect once more, an apocalypse, a much less cool way to die.

It was only when she felt a warm hand on her bicep that Yelena realized that she had been lost in thought—and that Kate had finally stilled.

“Hey…you OK? I’m here, right next to you.”

The assassin couldn’t explain why she asked the question she was letting slip from her mouth, only that Pandora’s Box had been opened, and everything was slipping out. “What do we do if Barton is gone,” she began, giving voice to a worry that had been in her mind for days, ever since they had failed multiple times to reach her sister’s partner and Kate’s mentor. “What if we cannot figure out a way to end this contagion?”

“Hey…we can figure it out tomorrow,” Kate answered reassuringly.

“In a world like this, tomorrow never comes, Kate Bishop.”

“You’re a Black Widow, I’m a Hawkeye; together we’ve got this. Just like everything else we’ve faced.” The archer pulled her girlfriend into a hug, seemingly oblivious at the moment of how things had turned out for the prior Black Widow–Hawkeye pair.

“And you are also a penthouse princess with no survival skills! Your idea of camping is a fully stocked 10,000 square-foot luxury cabin,” Yelena retorted, though there was no bite to it; it was more like amused resignation.

“I promise you, moya lyubov’, with a good night’s sleep, everything will seem better in the morning.” Kate pulled the blonde’s head onto her chest and placed a kiss to the top of her head, before tracing gentle patterns on the back of the assassin’s neck.

“I do not know what I would do if I lost you,” the Widow murmured into the soft skin in front of her lips.

“Sssh, you won’t,” Kate answered softly, pulling her tighter for a moment of reassurance. “Just sleep.”

Yelena woke the next morning to Kate curled around her like a koala, arms and legs wrapped around the blonde. The soft, warm flesh was comforting—and a stark contrast to the surrounding environment. The ground was cold and hard beneath her, despite Barton’s sleeping bag. She really should have put something between it and the ground, but the best available option was not great, a bunch of leaves; she couldn’t believe Barton didn’t keep a closed-cell foam pad or something with his sleeping bag. By moving her head slightly, the Widow could also tell that the fire had died way down without anyone to tend to it overnight, despite her best efforts to prepare it before bed. Perhaps she could train Fanny to do that, too?

Speaking of Fanny, she and Lucky, who had been curled together nearby, were now stretching and would need to do their morning routine soon. So Yelena slowly, delicately, began freeing herself from the comforting yet all-enveloping embrace of her long-limbed girlfriend. Kate was right, though; she did feel better after a good night’s sleep. It didn’t wipe away that nagging feeling, that dread of impending doom, but it was more distant. Placing a kiss atop the other woman’s head, Yelena then slipped out of the sleeping bag into the—quite chilly—cabin. Her stack of neatly-folded clothes—another Red Room habit she would likely never break—was where she left it, near enough the fireplace to catch some warmth, but distant enough to be safe from stray sparks. The blonde dressed quickly, sitting directly in front of the fire for added warmth, sending her goosebumps back into hiding.

Once she was dressed again, Yelena quickly fed the fire and stoked it back to a more lively state. Kate deserved a roaring fire, but that would attract too much attention, so the assassin stopped well short, instead coaxing the fire to a state that would provide extra warmth and soon be ready for cooking. She also tiptoed around the cabin, collecting the archer’s discarded articles of clothing from where they had landed the night before, then folded them and placed them near the fire to warm up.

After returning with the dogs from their morning routines, the Widow fed the four-leggeds and got to work preparing breakfast for the two-leggeds. She filled the pot with water once more and set it on the fire to boil, and then pulled out one of her knives and began slicing one of the apples into tiny chunks and slivers.

When Kate awoke, the first thing she realized is that she was alone; there was a cool space next to her that had the prior night been filled by her girlfriend. Then she picked up the sounds of the cabin: the crackle of the fire, the soft murmur of her girlfriend’s voice as she spoke Russian to Fanny, the patter of Lucky’s paws as he circled the single room, and a faint slicing sound. Then came scents: apples, and something else she vaguely recognized but could not place, warm and comforting, and, of course, the delicate smell of burning wood itself.

“Dóbroje útrečko, sleeping beauty.” Yelena greeted her girlfriend when she noticed the other woman stirring.

“Morning,” the archer replied, stifling a yawn.

Yelena picked up the stack of warming clothes and walked over to the sleeping bag, placing them down by Kate’s head. “I warmed your clothes, detka.”

Kate leaned over and kissed the back of the blonde’s hand. “Thank you.”

“Do not tarry, Kate Bishop, or they will cool off again,” she responded, before returning to her spot by the fireplace, minding the pot on the fire.

The archer groaned and rolled over, resting her face briefly on the warm garments before reluctantly pulling herself out of the sleeping bag. Her face flushed when Yelena looked over at her, her five-foot seven-inch frame displayed in all its glory—particularly when she yawned once more mid-stretch. But the raven-haired woman’s eyes locked onto her girlfriend; it was a sin that she looked that good in that flannel shirt and with her now-slightly-greasy hair slicked back, save for a strand near her eye. They were each putting on a show for the other, it seemed. However, unlike Yelena seated near the fire, Kate quickly cooled off in the chilly morning air, so she rushed to dress and join her girlfriend at the hearth.

“Breakfast is served,” the assassin announced as Kate sat across from her, warming up. The one pot this morning was filled with oatmeal—another staple, which kept well and was easy to travel with—which Yelena had spiced up, quite literally, with slivers and chunks of apple and some cinnamon, for a tasty apple cinnamon oatmeal.

“Mmm, that smells divine,” Kate moaned, leaning across to place a kiss on her girlfriend’s lips. “How was I ever lucky enough to score a total babe who can kick ass and also cook? Have I ever told you how much I love you?”

Yelena laughed fondly. “Sometimes I ask myself the same question, Kate Bishop. And, no, I do not believe you have ever told me that you love me,” she teased. Both women broke out laughing, and the archer leaned across to place another kiss on the blonde’s lips.

After eating breakfast, it was time for them to be on their way. Iowa was still a long—and uncertain, dangerous—way away. They cleaned the pot, very thoroughly doused the fire, and cleaned up the cabin, putting away everything they would not be taking with them. Then the two women and the two dogs loaded themselves up with the supplies they were taking from the Barton safehouse and began the trek down to where they had hidden the car.

Yelena had gotten her s’mores experience a few days later when they stayed at a Black Widow safehouse, and true to her prediction, Kate Bishop was up late on a sugar high. (The s’more was, however, a delightful treat, she decided. 1995 Yelena would have loved them more than almost anything. She imagined watching the fireflies in the backyard while making s’mores over a campfire on a cool summer evening.)

Not long after, in a SHIELD safehouse, the Widow made Kate her famous apple cobbler for dessert.

They raided a laundromat to stock up on lint, ensuring they would always have plenty of fire-starting material.

Their journey continued like this, relatively short-distance travel days zigzagging westward from safehouse to safehouse on back roads, stocking up on fuel and supplies when they had to, avoiding civilization as much as they could. And, of course, fighting off bands of crazed people who had been infected by Dreykov’s Revenge, a reminder that it was not all fun and games, that there was a very deadly reason for their camping and road trip to Iowa.

The drives felt endless, especially through the farmland of the Midwest. Radio stations that were still on the air and were not static played a civil defense message on a constant loop, directing people to shelter in place and await further instructions—ones that would most likely never come. The duo had happened upon one exception, however, a Christian broadcaster that was looping a very different message: “Repent, for the end is here. Judgement day is upon us!” Thus, when Yelena spotted a used record store in a small town they passed through—one which had clearly possessed a notable hipster population—she darted in and returned a few minutes later holding a cassette of “American Pie” triumphantly. As they pulled out of the town, the Widow was rocking out in the driver seat! God bless the permanence and versatility of analog!

They stopped near the small town of Mount Vernon, Ohio, where Yelena herself maintained a safehouse. “Here?” Kate asked, unsure why Yelena would have chosen such a random small town in the middle of rural Ohio. “Did you close your eyes and put your finger on the map?”

“I will have you know, Kate Bishop, it is a very nice little town. Seat of Knox County.” The raven-haired woman raised an eyebrow in disbelief, and the assassin continued, “It is also where we lived during the Ohio mission, when I was a little girl.”

The archer’s eyes grew wide. “Oh.” Then she gently punched her girlfriend in the shoulder, a wide smile taking over her face. “Who knew Yelena Belova was so sentimental.”

On their way out of town, Yelena drove by 412 S Mountain Pass, where she announced, “Home of the Rowleys…Alan, Melissa, Nicole, and Emily.”

“No way! That looks like a great house…do you have any good memories of it?”

“Yes, to me it was an idyllic childhood. Mama in the house, me playing outside, always greeting Natasha when she came home from school on her bicycle. The fireflies. Even playing soccer.”

“You played soccer?! Why did you never tell me?”

“Da, West Chesapeake Valley Thunderbolts, I loved to play goalie.”

“There’s a Chesapeake River in Ohio, too?”

The blonde shook her head. “No, this is the Kokosing River—it is a cool name, means ‘River of Little Owls’—we were supposed to be the Kokosing Valley Thunderbolts, but the idiot in charge of the team thought ‘Chesapeake’ sounded better than ‘Kokosing’…and ‘West,’ that one I do not know.”

Kate looked at her girlfriend as she narrated the story of the idiot in charge of the team. “Alexei?”

The Widow chuckled and nodded her head. “Alexei,” she confirmed.

They had yet to get a handle on the pathology of the contagion and the course of the infection, due in large part to its rapid spread around the world decimating civilization and the scientific community. Airborne in Budapest, a significant portion of the city was infected and showing signs of irrationality and rage within six hours. Within 24 hours, it seemed like only isolated pockets remained uninfected—again, the how and why remained unclear. The only thing that was clear is that it was airborne. But the infection had moved west from Budapest, too, even when individuals who had passed through the city during the timeframe of the initial attack were safely quarantined. Moreover, within 24 hours, downstream communities just across the border in Croatia and Serbia began to show signs of infection, despite not being downwind of Budapest and having no contact with Hungary besides the Danube. So the bioagent could remain active for some time on other objects or surfaces, it seemed.

It was unclear whether infected individuals could transmit the pathogen themselves via fluids, contact, or the air, but it had become clear from the news coverage the pair had seen during their self-quarantine that those fully infected—exhibiting all the symptoms and behaviors—could transmit the contagion through bites—if they left their victims alive, which was hit-or-miss. Six to twelve hours seemed to be the median period from infection to ‘zombie’ status; that part was fairly clear, despite everything else about Dreykov’s Revenge remaining shrouded in mystery.

So far, the pair had been quite lucky; they had taken precautions, but it wasn’t like they were walking around in hazmat suits, either—which would have been highly impractical, even if they had known where to acquire them; they were definitely not standard safehouse supplies. It was unclear how the contagion had arrived in the US, but from everything they could tell, the spread seemed to be predominantly person-to-person, either through possible contact or bites. They had, so far, managed to keep a safe distance from any of the zombified people they had encountered, taking them out at a distance. On one occasion the pair had found themselves surrounded, but a grapple arrow allowed them to retreat to the safety of a nearby roof, from which they were able to eliminate the threat.

But that was the thing about luck; you never knew when it was going to run out.

By the time they reached Iowa, Yelena was fairly confident in Kate’s ability to survive if something happened to her—well, except for driving; that she would have to wait until they reached the safety of the farm to teach the archer. But with her existing fighting skills and the survival ones the Widow had imparted along the journey, the younger woman was now much less of a penthouse princess out of place in an apocalyptic world. She would know how to survive.

Not that Yelena planned to die—but if it ever came down to her or Kate, the assassin would save the archer. The New and Improved Hawkeye was the kind of person the world would need if it ever made it out of this chaos—a good person, through and through. Whereas the Widow, like her sestra before her, had a ledger dripping in red…gushing. Ensuring that Kate survived to help rebuild the world…that would at least wipe away a tiny bit of the blood she had spilled. So Yelena was determined to do that, and so far she had been successful on both fronts, training and protection.

Which was why, despite her better judgement, the blonde had agreed to split up. They were at one of Natasha’s safehouses less than a day’s drive from the Barton farm, at long last. Kate claimed to be quite familiar with the little town, having passed through it many times on her trips to and from the farm. “Divide and conquer,” the raven-haired woman had proclaimed, with that bright, almost mischievous smile of hers, and the Widow had relented. With a kiss, and a promise to be safe, she let Kate go as they split up to perform their allotted tasks. She was so weak for this woman.

It was something Yelena had yet to come to terms with—not merely her feelings for Kate, but emotions in general, after so many years of them having been suppressed by the Red Room. And as her post-Red Room life progressed, she continued to accumulate powerful emotions that buffeted her: betrayal (Natasha never coming back for her, and their parents’ roles in her enslavement), grief (Natasha’s death), anger (Barton’s role in Natasha’s death), and especially love. Sometimes it felt like four different marching bands each trying to play their fight song the loudest inside her chest. More recently, however, it seemed like the band playing love was winning out more often.

Now, in this world turned upside down, Kate was all she had left, and over the past two weeks, two new emotions had emerged, fear—which she did her best to control; that was one the Red Room had taught her to overcome—and loss. Rick Mason. Budapest. Peter Parker. Billions upon billions of people, dead or turned into monsters. She didn’t know very many of them, she wasn’t responsible for their fates…except, in a way she was. She and Natasha and their parents had brought down the Red Room—her family had been the catalyst. She herself had been the one to trigger the explosion that incinerated Dreykov in the sky. And this bioweapon, this apocalypse, was Dreykov’s revenge from beyond the grave. If he were still alive, none of this would have happened. The world as they had known it, warts and all, would still have existed. Billions of people would still be alive, including people she cared about.

Yelena wondered what had happened to her parents; had they been infected? Or had they been able to hole up somewhere safe after the news of Budapest? Melina likely had a doomsday shelter on the farm, prepared for something like this. But the other Widows? Antonia? Lerato? Sonya? Ana? What fate had befallen them? Perhaps once she and Kate got to Barton’s, they would be able to make contact with other survivors. As an Avenger, he likely had infrastructure at the farm that the duo didn’t have available to them. And Melina was one of the foremost experts on neural pathways; if she were still alive, she would no doubt already be studying the contagion and working on a cure. But that was hope—an emotion Yelena did not allow herself to feel. Not in this world. So until then, she would continue to focus on things she understood, like survival.

Unfortunately for the Widow, however, there was a gnawing in her chest as she paced back and forth across Natasha’s austere Iowa safehouse. It was fear, and it was becoming stronger. That was the thing; by embracing love, by welcoming that emotion and letting it flourish in her heart, Yelena had also created a space for fear to hide and, now, grow, feeding on that very love. Kate had been gone too long. At some point the blonde was going to have to admit to herself her girlfriend’s likely fate. But because she believed in Kate Bishop—and because she could not exist without her—the assassin clung to that possibility, that one in a million odds, that her Kate would still make it back to her.

So Yelena tried to recall all of the times Kate had proved herself a badass—taking out Tracksuits, detonating an explosive from more than 100 yards away with an arrow when the detonator failed, sliding under a closing blast door at the last moment, dodging fists and projectiles with the grace of an acrobat…their own fights…even things she had only heard about, like rushing into traffic to save Lucky, or escaping Wilson Fisk by blowing him up with one of his own cufflinks and an explosive arrow.

That strategy, however, was only partly effective, because it also made the blonde remember all of the times where she had stepped in to save Kate’s life…something which she was incapable of doing at the moment. She didn’t know where in the small town Kate was, and their surplus SHIELD comms were shit. If the archer were here, she would no doubt be telling Yelena to stop pacing, sit down, take a deep breath, and trust her partner. And she did trust her partner…it was the apocalypse she didn’t trust.

Lost in her head, Yelena hadn’t noticed Fanny prowling near the door and whining, which was uncharacteristic of the well-behaved Akita. She was everything that Lucky was not…just like Yelena was everything Kate was not. They mirrored their mothers, two sets of yin and yang, one human, one canine. So when Fanny acted out of the ordinary, it was a sure sign that something else was out of the ordinary. When the Widow, pacing back and forth, fearing for Kate’s life, failed to notice the Akita’s observation, Fanny finally took more extreme action, abandoning her post at the door and intercepting her mother’s pacing. When that still did not get the woman’s attention, she resorted to deliberately tangling herself in the blonde’s feet.

“Fanny Yelenovna, nyet!”

Fanny barked sharply, as though she were talking back to her mother or otherwise saying “No!” Then she darted to the door and began pawing at it.

By this point, Yelena had been pulled fully from her thoughts and began to assess the situation. It wasn’t time for the Akita’s walk, nor should she need to go…and she wasn’t acting like she needed to relieve herself, either. This was more like…something was bothering her, something outside.

“OK, Fanny-girl, mama will go check it out. You will remain inside, da?”

The dog barked in affirmation.

Yelena checked her weapons…Widow’s Bites, two handguns, and a surfeit of knives, all ready and easily accessible. She couldn’t see anything from the window, so either whatever was disturbing Fanny was not in the immediate surroundings of the house…or it was so close that it was hidden from her view, either pressed up against the house or crouched down by the foundation. With her Glock in one hand, the Widow opened the door and slipped out of the safehouse, quickly surveilling the immediate area…and thankfully finding nothing.

Shutting the door behind her, the assassin then moved away from the house and towards the alley running alongside it, her weapon firmly in her hands as she remained alert in the dying light. Now that she was outside, however, Yelena could hear what Fanny had heard…there was movement of some sort coming from the end of the alley. Feral growls, and the unmistakable sound of an animal digging through the trash and ripping through plastic in search of scraps. As the Widow moved nearer, the situation came into view: there was a dog digging through trash bags at the far end. Letting out a sigh of relief, the woman called out to the animal, “You there…go away!”

Much to the Widow’s surprise, the dog pulled back from the trash bags and turned to face her, revealing only one eye. It was Lucky who came bounding towards her excitedly, carrying a grimy, days-old slice of pizza in his jaws.

The retriever’s departure from the trash pile revealed a second animal scavenging that had been hidden behind him, one that remained shrouded by the growing darkness.

“Lucky, where’s Kate?” Yelena’s voice was full of concern, unsure why the pair would not be together. It was only then that she realized the other animal was purple and black.

The Widow’s heart crashed through her chest, shattering against whatever a proverbial falling heart crashes into, and her stomach roiled with unease and that other, painful emotion, fear. The figure pushed itself up from all fours to stand on two legs and turned towards them, a slice of pizza clamped between its jaws, too. Its face and lips were smeared with dirt, blood, and bits of trash. When their eyes met, the assassin saw not the soft, joyful blue of the ocean and of infinite possibility, but red.

…It was Kate Bishop.

No, she…it…looked like Kate Bishop, but Yelena knew Kate Bishop was gone.

Kate Bishop, the woman she loved, the woman who had rescued her from darkness and grief, the woman who had opened her own heart to someone who wasn’t sure she knew how to love. The woman who Yelena had sworn to protect…and the woman she had failed. The body that had once held that curious mind, that compassionate soul, that playful spirit, that beautiful face and those lips the Widow had loved kissing…that body was now a crazed monster, a feral creature driven only by base instincts. It wore Kate Bishop’s skin and her clothes, but that was all.

The next thing the Widow knew, the woman who had once been Kate was charging towards her, baring her fangs—the slice of pizza tumbling from her mouth forgotten.

This would be a much less cool way to die.

“Kate Bishop, no!” Yelena shouted. “Stop, please. I do not want to do this,” she pleaded, tears beginning to trace her cheeks, all the while keeping her pistol trained on the onrushing figure. Despite knowing in her head that…it…was not Kate, the blonde’s heart still forced her to try…to hope.

When the crazed zombie refused to stop and was nearly within leaping range, the Widow pulled back on the trigger, firing several rounds in succession at what had once been the love of her life.

Chapter Text

As with Rick Mason, shooting the former Kate’s knees did nothing to halt her progress towards Yelena. Nor did the shot to the heart.

“No,” she sobbed, broken. She didn’t want to do this. She couldn’t do this…it would destroy her. But the Widow couldn’t allow her…it…to threaten other survivors. That would only make her guilt and grief that much worse. And she couldn’t bear the thought of someone else being the one to do it, either. In the end, the purple-clad zombie’s growing proximity forced her hand, and with tears blurring her vision, Yelena aimed and pulled the trigger once more, forcing her eyes shut as she did so.

The silence after the crack of the shot was deafening. The animalistic snarls and growls ceased. Momentarily, a thud marked what was once Kate’s body hitting the ground. Then, nothing. The crack of the pistol echoed in Yelena’s mind as she fell to her knees in front of her fallen girlfriend, but in the alley, it was as quiet as a graveyard.

The Widow didn’t know how long she spent on her knees, curled into herself. She had killed Kate Bishop, the love of her life. The fun, goofy woman who held her like she was everything was gone. She would never see her gorgeous blue eyes twinkle or her lips curl into a smile, or feel her hands tenderly touch the assassin’s skin. Never know what growing old together was like. She would never again know living, because without Kate, that wasn’t possible. Nor was belonging, feeling safe, or loved, or accepted. None of it. All because she had failed Kate Bishop. Failed to keep her safe. Failed to keep her alive.

And they were so close, only a day from Barton’s farm. Oh, god, how was she going to tell him? Kate’s mentor, her sestra’s partner, that she had lost her Hawkeye, just as he had lost his Widow before? All because she was reckless. All because she let Kate go alone. Yelena Belova, Dreykov’s trusted enforcer, failed to trust her gut. And now Kate Bishop was dead.

The Widow finally began to register the sound of sobs, and she wondered who else was there in the alleyway. They could kill her if they wanted; she no longer cared. Her reason for living was gone. She also heard light whines, and then she felt something warm and wet on her cheeks. The blonde finally realized that she was the one sobbing, and Lucky had come to comfort her. Lucky! Now without his mother. He’d watched Yelena kill her! Yet here he was, comforting her.

The broken assassin finally sat up, still on her knees but no longer curled in on herself. “I am sorry, Lucky,” she apologized, rubbing his neck regretfully. He whined in sad acknowledgment, then ambled over to Kate’s body, where he nuzzled her head and licked her blood-coated raven hair. The dog then howled in grief.

The sound travelled across the empty town, carried on the breeze and joined by the other animals left in the area. It was a dirge for Kate Bishop, for their fallen friend.

Fanny, too, from inside Natasha’s safehouse, howled in grief and loss, in honor of her other mother. Yelena could hear her even through the walls, and that was when the Widow realized she was so alone. There was no one left for her.

It was also when she realized that the safehouse was no longer safe, because anyone—or anything—could follow the wails of grief straight to her. For better or for worse, she had to go.

Yelena finally pushed herself to her feet and returned to the house, leaving Lucky holding vigil over his fallen mother. When she opened the door, Fanny darted out to join him, and the Widow moved the bedroom where they were to spend the night, pulling off the sheets and a pillow.

Back in the alley, the Widow gently wrapped Kate’s body in the sheet, rolling her head onto the pillow—while trying to avoid looking at the site of the coup de grâce. There was a bite on her right shoulder, through her uniform, that had likely been the woman’s undoing. Yelena gently wiped her fingers across it, starting to weep once more.

The blonde delicately picked up Kate’s sheet-shrouded body and carried it over to the car, placing it on the back seat. After that, she returned to the safehouse and packed up all of their—no, now only her—supplies as quickly as possible. After filling the car and loading the dogs into the front passenger set, Yelena got in and set off for the Barton farm. It was always dangerous to drive at night, because you never knew what you might encounter, but she couldn’t stay there—and, in her grief, she almost didn’t care anymore. Without Kate, she had no reason to go on. Dreykov had gotten his revenge, taken the only person who meant anything to her, and, now, what reason was there to live?

It was dawn, just before sunrise, when Yelena pulled into the Barton farm. There were no lights on at the house, no smoke from the chimney, no signs of life at all. It was eerie. The Bartons were usually early risers—between SHIELD and farm life, it was a hard habit to break—but nothing indicated they were awake. Drawing her pistol, the Widow approached the door. She saw nothing out-of-the-ordinary inside—but also nothing to indicate anyone’s presence. As she attempted to rap her knuckles on the door, it gave way to the pressure and swung open. The Widow’s heart dropped. Not a good sign, not at all.

With the speed and precision of a professional assassin, Yelena checked the house, finding no one—but also no signs of struggle, or of a speedy departure. In fact, the only thing unusual about the house was its emptiness—and the unlocked and poorly-latched door. It was as though the Bartons had just vanished…almost as if they had been Snapped once more.

Yelena collapsed on the couch, her face in her hands. She could not do this. Solve a fucking mystery. Not on top of everything else. Not alone. Not without Kate. Then she remembered the bloody corpse in the back seat of the car, watched over by the dogs. She would have to handle that alone, too.

By the time the sun reached its apex, Yelena had finished digging a grave near a tree by the end of the archery range, not far from the house. Despite being exhausted, she hauled Kate’s sheet-wrapped body over to the deep hole. After removing the archer’s quiver and bow, the Widow placed one final kiss on the lips she loved so much—now cold and hard instead of soft and warm—and wrapped the body up once more before lowering it into the ground. With Lucky and Fanny howling in grief, and tears threatening to leave her dehydrated, the blonde filled in the hole, burying the love of her life.

Yelena didn’t know how many days had passed when she awoke on the couch, with Fanny and Lucky cuddled against her, whining. Her stomach growled, so she knew she had slept for several days—total exhaustion and grief would do that to you. She barely remembered stumbling back to the house after burying Kate. But the assassin got to work preparing herself and the dogs a meal.

As the days went by, the woman explored the farm…the house, the barn, Barton’s workshop, and the bunker, all with no signs of life or clues as to what had happened. She tried several times to raise her mother using the man’s communications gear—not because she thought Melina would be of any comfort, but just to hear a familiar voice—all to no avail. Aside from the dogs, she was totally alone—on the farm and in the world.

There were only a few things left for Yelena to do. Train the dogs to hunt. Tell the story of what had happened, in case someday the Bartons reappeared. Memorialize Kate Bishop.

The Widow constructed a makeshift headstone for her one true love and left the bow and quiver resting against either side. In front of it, stretching the length of the grave, she planted a collection of bulbs. Crocuses, always the first to pop their heads through the snow—and purple, Kate’s favorite color—nearest the marker. Purple irises, to grow tall and strong in late spring and early summer. And, finally, daffodils, bright yellow like the sunshine that Kate had been in Yelena’s life, and so resilient. When all of this was gone, fallen to ruin and destroyed by what was to come, and the farm reclaimed by nature, in a century those bulbs would still be blooming, their bright yellow flowers every spring signifying that, once upon a time, people had been in this place. In that small way, Kate Bishop would be immortal.

Chapter Text

Yelena awoke with a start, shooting her torso upright into a sitting position. Her chest was heaving with every ragged breath she took. Her heart was beating so rapidly she thought it might burst through the wall of her chest and land halfway across the room. The room—if it was, in fact, a room—was dark. Slowly, she came to realize she was sitting up in a bed, covers falling about her waist, wearing a t-shirt.

There was movement next to her. “Lena?” a low, groggy voice asked—a voice the assassin’s brain, to her eternal joy, slowly recognized—Kate Bishop! “Are you OK?”

“I…Kate Bishop, you are here? I…”

“Of course I am here, Lena,” Kate responded, the huskiness of sleep slowly giving way to her usual sweet, upbeat tones. The archer had now risen to a sitting position herself, and she extended her arms around the Widow, pulling the woman to her chest.

The contact, her back to the raven-haired woman’s front, brought some reassurance to Yelena that this was real and Kate was here. “I…I had a nightmare.” She squeezed Kate’s hand. “It was…bad,” the assassin added, clenching her eyes shut to stave off tears.

The archer took her other hand and ran it comfortingly over the blonde’s head, neck, and shoulder, while whispering soothing words in her ear. “Shhh, Lena, I’ve got you.”

After a few minutes, the assassin had calmed somewhat, and she titled her head to lean against her girlfriend’s.

“Do you want to try to sleep?” Kate asked gently.

“Da…I feel better now that I know you are here.”

The New and Improved Hawkeye shuffled around a bit on the bed and then gently reclined them both back to a supine position—but this time with Yelena’s head resting on the archer’s chest. Kate kept her hands wrapped around the Widow’s torso, and the assassin’s hands moved to rest on top of her girlfriend’s. Pressing a kiss to blonde locks, the archer whispered, “Sleep well, moya lyubov’, I’ve got you.”

Yelena’s breathing continued to even out, and before long she was falling into the embrace of sleep. Just before she drifted away, she thought she heard Kate mutter something…“Clint’s arrow holes are cool, but maybe if the landlord fixed all of the bullet holes, this grand, high-ceilinged flat would be less nightmare-inducing.” But the Widow’s brain had already shut off, and she fell into a deep, peaceful sleep, safe in the arms of Kate Bishop.

Chapter Text

As with Rick Mason, shooting the former Kate’s knees did nothing to halt her progress towards Yelena.

Nor did the shot to the chest, which caused one side of the body to swing backwards briefly with the momentum of the slug but otherwise failed to affect the raven-haired figure’s movement.

“No,” the Widow sobbed, broken. She didn’t want to do this. She couldn’t do this…it would destroy her. Taking Kate’s life…even if she was already gone, not Kate any longer…Yelena wasn’t strong enough for that. Killing someone you loved was so very different than taking out a target you never knew. This…this was like Oksana, when the blonde killed the Widow who freed her…only a thousand times worse. This was killing the woman who saved her after her sestra’s death. The woman who loved her. There would be no coming back from that.

Dreykov had gotten his revenge, taken away the only person who meant anything to her—and, to make it that much worse, now was forcing the blonde to kill her herself.

The purple-clad zombie slowed down for a fraction of a second and tilted its head, almost as if in recognition, or perhaps confusion. Was it unsure why the Widow hadn’t fired again, taken the clear and easy headshot?

Yelena had no time to analyze the red-eyed creature’s motivations in that moment, because the next thing it did was leap towards the blonde, putting Kate’s gymnastics and martial arts prowess on display. She…it tackled the Widow to the ground, and despite having her finger on the trigger, Yelena did not pull back on it. Not while falling, not when her back or her head made contact with the pavement. She was at the thing’s mercy—and mercy required higher brain functions, which these creatures did not possess.

This was a much less cool way to die.

The next thing the Widow felt was a sharp, stabbing pain in her neck, right where her girlfriend always played with her. But this time the monster that once was Kate Bishop had bitten her, sealing both of their fates.

Whatever Yelena thought she was going to do beforehand, it all changed the moment the zombie’s fangs punctured her neck. Now they both would be a threat to what remained of humanity—a dangerous, well-trained threat, even if their higher brain functions were impaired. The Widow couldn’t allow them to threaten other survivors. The thought of that only made her grief and guilt over the apocalypse and Kate’s fate that much worse. She would have to end them before she lost herself.

Unexpectedly, the zombie archer pulled back after the bite, not ripping into Yelena like she had seen many do—including poor Peter Parker on that live broadcast. Even more surprisingly, the former Kate rolled off of the blonde and stared at her, as though there was some flicker of recognition.

Still, it was too late—for the both of them. ‘Kate’ had bitten Yelena, and in less than six hours, she, too, would be gone—the version of her that anyone knew, the version of her that was capable of things like love and logic…the version of her that would be allowed to live. With a quick pivot, the Widow was straddling the raven-haired zombie, zip-tying her hands together. She also pulled a length of rope from another of the many pockets in her vest, further securing the former Kate’s hands while leaving the remainder of the cord as something of a leash.

Standing up, Yelena pulled the zombie that had once been her girlfriend to her feet with little resistance and led her back to the door of the safehouse, whistling for Lucky to follow. Once inside, the Widow restrained the ex-archer to a structural post and began making preparations for their end. After all, she was on a clock now.

Surprisingly, the creature that once was Kate seemed not to be agitated or violent; it was relatively subdued. Lucky lay down next to figure like he had often done with Kate. If you ignored the red eyes, fangs, zip-tied hands and dirty, bloody face, the pair looked perfectly normal.

Yelena had never observed one of the victims of the bioweapon up close for this long, but it did seem unusual. Even, she thought, if Kate had only recently ‘transformed,’ which was perhaps possible. They still didn’t have a great timeline for the infections, but at the very least the Widow knew she would have an hour or two of control yet and should begin showing symptoms—aching gums, bloodshot eyes, and a disgusting necrotic infection spreading from the the bite—by then, as well.

“I am sorry, Kate Bishop, that I let this happen to you,” the blonde began, tears welling in her eyes as she addressed her captive. “I am sorry I could not protect you. I am sorry that I cannot save you. In a few hours, before I turn, I will kill you, and then I will kill myself so that we cannot harm others. I know you would have understood.”

The zombie responded with a noise that sounded almost like one of Lucky’s whines when Yelena gave him bad news, like “no pizza tonight.” And…were those tears? Surely she was seeing things, her mind confusing her own tears as ones on the creature’s face? The assassin shook her head, then returned to her preparations for the end.

The woman had three goals for the short time she had left: help Fanny and Lucky survive, get word to Barton about what happened, and create as detailed a set of notes and observations as possible during the transformation to help anyone—hopefully Barton, and then possibly Melina—come up with a treatment, inoculation, or perhaps even a cure. The Widow told Fanny that she would give her a series of instructions a little bit later, and then she sat down and began writing out a record of their survival over the past two weeks.

Yelena cursed her sister for not having any vodka in the safehouse—what kind of Russian had no vodka?! Even for medicinal purposes! So she had to resort to water, which perhaps was just as well, in spite of her desire for a final drink. She would keep her wits for as long as she had them. The Widow was, however, burning up and sweating, so water would help. A fever was not unexpected in these circumstances—it was a sign of the body fighting an infection, in this case a fight it would surely lose, but it could also be an indication of her cells’ transformation already underway. Once again, there was no data available.

The Widow glanced at her watch. It had been an hour. In front of the bathroom mirror, she delicately pulled her hair aside to reveal the bite Kate Bishop had left—well, the zombie that once had been Kate. She gingerly ran her fingers over it; the area around the bite was inflamed, red, quite tender, and very hot—it looked like the world’s largest mosquito bite, or perhaps a pair of beestings from an intergalactic death hornet. But, shockingly, there were no signs of necrotic infection. It was…puzzling. Perhaps her body was doing an extra-effective job of fighting back against the infection? Normally—based on the limited observations they’d made of people being bitten—the discoloration around the bite appeared within a few minutes. She wasn’t sure what to make of it.

All the more reason to take precautions. “Fanny Yelenovna!” The blonde summoned her faithful companion and began giving her instructions for what to do once the time had come. The Akita was to get Lucky safely to the Barton farm, where hopefully Barton would be found, and to give him a short message that Yelena would attach to both of their collars. In Barton’s absence, then anyone who showed up at the farm that the two canines deemed trustworthy. The message would lead the recipients back to the safehouse, where they would find the Widow’s full story and observations (as well as the pair’s bodies). The journey to the farm would be a long one for them, but Lucky would know the way.

Yelena’s final instruction was more serious. She knelt down and cradled her dog’s head, looking her straight in the eye. “Fanny-girl, Mama is very sick, and if anything should happen that Mama cannot stop herself, if she begins to look and act like Kate…if anything goes wrong, you are to rip out Mama’s throat so she cannot harm anyone else…and then get Lucky to Barton’s farm, da.”

Fanny let out a low whine.

“I am sorry, Fanny-girl, I truly am. But I need you to be brave for me. I need you to do what I have told you. Will you do that for me, please?”

The Akita gave her mother a sad look, then licked her face, before finally barking—weakly—her assent.

“I love you, too, Fanny-girl,” Yelena acknowledged, giving her skritches behind the ears and kissing her head.

The dog ambled over to where Lucky still lay, in order to brief him on the plans, and the Widow’s gaze followed her movements before coming to rest on Kate…the thing that once was Kate. The raven-haired creature tilted its head once more, red eyes meeting green, and released a garbled growl…one that sounded almost like “Yelena.”

The assassin shook her head…this was the contagion messing with her mind. It had to be. Or her grief causing her mind to play games with her. There was no way that monster had said her name. From everything they had seen, the infected were incapable of speech, or recognition. And if it wasn’t a trick of her mind, it was so much worse…a sign that the zombies were beginning to evolve, to set traps and manipulate people from their human memories.

Gods, why did Natasha have no vodka?! The last thing she wanted to do was face the end—this end—sober.

Instead, she returned to recording their story and her observations—and bore her misery, as dry as the Sahara.

The next thing Yelena knew, she felt sunshine on her face, which was resting on the countertop where she had been writing her final report. Shit! She’d fallen asleep! It was morning! Oh, fuck! She frantically scrambled to the bathroom, nearly falling off the stool and tripping over her feet in the process. In front of the mirror, she once again moved her hair aside to reveal…nothing!

Not only were there no visible signs of progression, but Kate’s bite was practically gone! The swelling had decreased substantially. When the Widow ran her fingers over the area, it was the slightest bit tender, but not overly warm…and certainly not necrotic. Her eyes were still green, there were no signs of fangs growing behind her gums…and a quick check with a thermometer revealed that her temperature was almost normal, only the most minute of a fever. It was almost as if…

…She was immune.

That wasn’t possible…was it?

It slowly dawned upon Yelena that if Dreykov had intended to use this bioweapon to bring down empires, he would have built failsafes into it. For one, ensuring that it couldn’t infect him. But also, if he wanted to make any moves during the deployment and aftermath of use of the weapon—even if it was never designed to cause a global apocalypse—his forces would need immunity. He only had a small number of armed retainers, and they were more brute-force, anyway. But what did he have a veritable army of? Black Widows. In spite of being the only natural resource the world had too much of, in spite of being expendable, when there was a power vacuum, he needed to be certain he could exploit it. So Dreykov must have engineered the pathogen to avoid infecting the Widows—or more likely, engineered the Widows to be immune to the bioweapon.

That would explain so much. How ‘lucky’ she was escaping infection in Budapest…and when it was spreading across North America. (The initial global spread had been too broad and too fast to be caused solely by bites outside of Budapest; the pathogen had to have remained viable in the air and on surfaces for some number of days.) It explained her reaction, or lack thereof, to the bite from the zombified Kate, and…

Kate! Yelena rushed back to the front of the safehouse, where the purple-and-black-clad zombie remained tied around the post, with Lucky resting beside it…her. The figure once more tilted its head and opened its mouth, releasing a gravelly sound that once again the Widow swore was her name—even more recognizable this morning than last night, she thought. “Kate?” the blonde answered.

This time the zombie—Kate!—nodded.

Kate Bishop was still alive! Yelena’s heart swelled, a symphony of joy playing in her chest. She immediately dropped to one knee to untie the woman, only to be met with Kate shaking her head and growling something that was likely “No.” Kate didn’t trust herself. She didn’t know what was going on—frankly, neither did Yelena, not for sure. So the assassin nodded, moved back a step, and pulled her hair aside once more, revealing the fading evidence of the bite Kate had given her the previous evening.

“I think I am immune,” the Widow began, explaining what she had deduced so far. “Dreykov would have wanted the Widows to be able to operate in the aftermath of his use of the weapon. So he must have made sure we would be immune. And you, Kate Bishop, have been in near constant contact with my body for the past few years. We have exchanged fluids on many occasions,” she chuckled lightly. “While it did not make you immune, it could have given you a greater resistance, protected you in Budapest and on the way home. Maybe even slowed the progression of the mental degradation…how you still knew to come back here with Lucky, why you didn’t rip into my throat when you had me on my back, what is that expression, ‘dead in your sights.’”

The assassin watched Kate’s face as she explained, catching brief glimpses of what appeared to be understanding. “And then you drank my blood when you bit me…and your condition seems to have improved since then. Slowly, but nonetheless improved.” That piece of information elicited a nod from the archer. “Whatever Dreykov did to us…it is the means to ending this apocalypse. It is in the Widows…or at least some of us. In me.”

Kate’s mouth turned up, just slightly, as if she are attempting a smile.

“We are going to finish this mission, Kate Bishop…you, me, Fanny and Lucky. We will go to Barton’s today. I will do whatever it takes to save you…because I cannot exist without you, you know that. Whatever it takes. And then, once you are cured, save whatever is left of the world.”

Six hours later, give or take, Yelena pulled into the driveway of the Barton farm. Kate was restrained in the rear passenger seat, as far away from Yelena as possible without stuffing her in the trunk. Lucky kept watch from the rear seat, while Fanny remained on guard in the front passenger seat—the seat Kate had occupied ever since they left the Bishop summer cabin in New York. The archer had remained more or less docile, but caution was still warranted. Yelena still didn’t know if the effects of her blood were temporary…or anything, really. This was above her pay grade. She held on to hope that Barton would be alive, at the farm, and would be able to contact Melina, whom she equally hoped was still alive.

The Widow stopped a good 50 or so yards short of the house and slowly opened the car door. She stepped out carefully, hands in the air, and moved laterally away from the car to show that she was no threat. Of course, if someone other than Barton were in the house, it would be dicey, but that was a risk she was prepared to take.

The door to the farmhouse creaked open, and the blonde could see the front face of a bow, with an arrow nocked and drawn, peeking out. “Barton!” she called out.

The door opened more fully, and soon the man himself was visible in the doorframe. “Yelena?” he shouted back.

“Yes, it is I. I have Kate and the dogs with me. Are you safe?”

Before Barton could answer, one of the aforementioned dogs leapt out of the open driver door and began bounding down the driveway the rest of the way to the house.

“Lucky! Stop! Come back!” she called after him, voice thick with worry. Thankfully, the dog listened, and he returned to stand next to the Widow, his tongue lolling after the exertion.

“Yelena, what’s wrong?” Barton began walking towards them, his bow lowered but still at the ready. “We’re all safe.”

“Do not come any closer…I…” She sighed. This was going to be difficult; she hadn’t thought it all through in her eagerness to get Kate here to cure her. They might be carrying the pathogen. Kate was still infected. And they knew so little about how it spread. “It is a very long story, sadly. Kate is infected. I may be immune. And we do not know if we might be carrying the bioagent on our persons.”

Yelena convinced Barton to quarantine them, at least for a while, so she, Kate, and the dogs took up residence in his workshop, which he, Laura, and the kids had quickly prepared as makeshift living quarters. She kept the archer tied once more to a structural post, mostly to placate the woman’s growls at being given any measure of freedom. Through the glass of a workshop window, the assassin related their story, from Budapest to New York and the entire way across the Midwest to Natasha’s safehouse and the fateful encounter the previous day. She gave the man Melina’s emergency frequency and a coded message to send: ‘Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey.’

The next day, the man returned, bearing a reply, ‘Along came a spider, who sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Muffet away.’ Relief washed over the Widow. Melina was alive. They had a chance.

Once they established regular communications, it became clear that not only was Melina alive, but she was deep in research on the bioweapon. (For once, it had not been her work that was responsible for the tragedy that befell her daughter.) While she hadn’t been able to perform any research on infected individuals, the elder Widow had determined that despite its resilience in the air and on surfaces, the pathogen was still vulnerable to many normal hygienic practices…soaps, high temperatures, bleach. That information allowed Yelena and the dogs to leave quarantine without worrying about infecting the Bartons, though for now Kate remained in the workshop.

With the information about Yelena’s reaction to Kate’s bite, Melina immediately began experimenting with her own blood, exposing it to the pathogen and vice versa. Unfortunately, while the scientist’s blood did show some degree of immunity to the pathogen, she had no way of extrapolating from that to curing an infected person. Perhaps Yelena being younger and fewer years removed from the various Red Room procedures made her blood more potent…or perhaps she was special.

While Melina worked on an immunization to protect what was left of humanity, her daughter embarked upon an experiment of her own, feeding Kate some amount of her blood each day. At worst, it should maintain the archer’s condition; at best, it might improve it. The dissonance between how Yelena felt that morning at the safehouse, when she imagined a cure for Kate was just around the corner, and trudging through the snow during the Iowa winter to feed Kate blood each day was enormous. The grief, the guilt…the fear of never finding a cure…those emotions all roiled inside of her every waking moment.

Three days before Christmas, when Yelena arrived to feed Kate her daily dosage of Widow blood, there was what appeared to be a flash of recognition in the still-red eyes. “Yelena…” the archer croaked out, still gravelly, but clear as day.

The assassin nearly dropped the cup of blood in her shock. “Detka!” she exclaimed, tears streaming from her eyes. She threw her arms around the woman—the love of her life—and held her tightly, as though Kate might vanish if she let go.

“…Squeezi…t…tight…” the raven-haired semi-zombified woman coughed.

Yelena loosened her grip and pulled back just slightly, her eyes memorizing Kate’s face all over again. Her lips crashed against the archer’s as she threw caution to the wind; it had been months, long, agonizing months, since she had last kissed her girlfriend. She didn’t care if the woman bit her again, or tried to maul her to death; it would be worth it.

It was Yelena’s second Christmas at the Barton farm, some fifteen months since she first pulled in the driveway with the dogs and her zombified girlfriend after the cross-country trek. This year, she was sitting in front of the fireplace in a ridiculous, too-large sweater—green, with a giant reindeer head with an enormous red nose—and a mug of festive hot spiced vodka in her hand. More importantly, her back was pressed tightly against another ridiculous sweater—purple, featuring Santa Claus in his sleigh with a bow, shooting arrows carrying packages—and the woman wearing it, Kate Bishop.

It had been a long year since that first time Kate was able to say her girlfriend’s name clearly, but there had been continued progress. Her voice was back to normal, that sweet sound and funny laugh that Yelena loved. Her eyes were that lovely shade of blue and possibility once more. The bite on her shoulder had scarred over, having long since ceased to appear necrotic or infected. Most importantly, though, the archer felt completely in control of herself (it took much coaxing on the Widow’s part to get her to finally leave the workshop, however). They didn’t know if she was cured per se—after all, she still had her fangs—or if she ever would be, but a cup of Yelena’s blood every day seemed to maintain the status quo. While Kate had yet to warm to the taste—it was most palatable mixed with something else, anything—the medicine was a small price for the Widow to pay to have her Kate Bishop back again, a price she would pay ten times over if necessary.

Melina’s immunization had proved successful in keeping those humans who had yet to be infected from falling victim to the pathogen. It seemed to be more hit-or-miss with bites, but it was still something. It was a lifeline for what remained of the human population, and she was able to find Widows on every continent who could synthesize it in order to ease distribution. They were hopeful that in the coming year they could find another Quinjet somewhere to allow Kate and Yelena to travel to Melina’s lab to begin work on some way to cure—or at least ‘cure’—the millions of infected who still roamed the planet.

They were a long way from happily ever after, but every little bit was a step in the right direction. Progress. Hope. Ending Dreykov’s Revenge once and for all—and foiling Dreykov’s revenge. He and his Red Room sycophants may have taken Round One, but Yelena Belova was still here, still fighting, and she wouldn’t rest until she had beaten that monster even in death. And she was not alone. She had friends, allies, family—and Kate Bishop, the love of her life.

So when Nate ran over with a sprig of mistletoe in his outstretched hand, holding it over their heads, well, what was she to do but kiss the woman holding her in her arms. That was the rule, after all, and it had been two years since she last was able to follow the rule. Yelena turned her head and pressed her lips against the raven-haired woman’s. Now this would be a cool way to die.

“I love you, Kate Bishop.”

“I love you, too, Yelena Belova.”

Their lips pressed together again—chaste, yet full of commitment, a promise of another day, a better day…that tomorrow will come, and they will greet it together.