Archive of Our Own

The moonlight streamed through the window like a delicate veil, bathing the bed in a fantastical glow, as though this were another world, one of elves and faeries, not archers and assassins.

Yelena Belova couldn’t sleep. The glowing moonbeams caught her switching positions repeatedly—on her back, on her side, on her front, on her other side, kicking the sheet off, pulling it back up to her neck, pushing it back down to her waist, all on repeat. There was a restlessness that came with nights like this, nights not shrouded in darkness but bathed in the silver glow of the full moon, revealing all.

With a brief huff, she turned on her side once more, facing Kate Bishop, and propped her head up with her hand. The moonlight covered like the ocean the unbroken expanse of porcelain skin that was the archer’s bare back, lapping gently at the pristine sandy beach untouched by man. The Black Widow placed her free hand on the soft skin—not hot or clammy, but just barely cool to the touch. She traced the curves and valleys of the skin with the pads of her fingers, featherlight against the sleeping woman.

Forget the Pietà or David; Michaelangelo should have sculpted Kate Bishop’s prone back. Or maybe he had, just in flesh and bone, not Carrara marble. She had to entertain that possibility.

As her fingers played across the surface, the Widow found herself in awe. She felt the muscles, the strength of Kate’s back, nurtured in all those years of gymnastics, a cornerstone of her legacy as a championship athlete. Yet even while exuding power, the region was still soft, human. And smooth, an uninterrupted expanse of the Platonic ideal form. The ancient Greeks would have loved Kate, equal parts Aphrodite and Artemis—tonight being showcased by Selene.

One thing stood out to the one-time assassin: how that smooth expanse of milky-white skin was unblemished. Despite the archer’s propensity for ridiculous injuries as Hawkeye, this one surface remained unmarked—unmarred by scrape and scar alike. From the nape of her neck down to the curves trailing below her waist, Kate Bishop was immaculate. Pristine. Perfect.

Beautiful—unlike the Widow’s own back, scarred from decades of pain and punishment, within the Red Room and outside.

As she gazed on that soft, smooth skin, as she traced its every inch, Yelena wished that it might remain forever unblemished, just as it was in the moonlight here and now. More than that, she prayed—she knew that was something ‘normal people’ often did—to Artemis and Aphrodite, to keep Kate safe. So that this woman spread beside her, sweet and kind, would never know the horrors and the pain this world could dish out…so that her gorgeous back would always be like this, smooth, unmarred, perfect. Kate was too good; she deserved that much.

After hours of admiring the archer’s alabaster back under the shimmering silver of Selene’s light, sleep finally overtook Yelena, dropping the Widow to her pillow.

Kate Bishop awoke to the bed bathed in moonlight, an ethereal glow enveloping the loft. Her mind drifted down a fanciful path, thinking back to the stories of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell her father used to read to her. It was magical.

Part of the magical experience was the blonde next to her, face smashed into a pillow and hair splayed around her head like a halo. Yelena Belova, Black Widow assassin and the most alluring woman—person—Kate had ever met. Asleep in her—their—bed, resting peacefully for once. The trauma of the woman’s past denied her that luxury all too often, but around the archer it seemed easier.

The sheet was bunched just below Yelena’s waist, leaving the erstwhile assassin’s back bare, catching the moonlight like a night-blooming flower. Just like every other part of the shorter woman, her back transfixed Kate. There was something enchanting about that large expanse of skin, uninterrupted by any other feature. Just skin…and underneath, muscles that powered the woman’s deadly flips and spins. Sometimes when they were out fighting, the archer would become distracted by just how well Yelena used her body as a weapon (earning her a chiding for loss of focus when they had taken out all of their opponents).

Kate placed her fingers delicately upon the skin of the enormous pale canvas, tracing it gently with the pads of her fingers. The Widow’s back was not smooth; it carried the signs of use—of life—like an artist’s work in progress. The archer traced each scar one by one—the stabs, the bullet holes, the road burns, the gouges and whip lacerations, the burns, the puncture wounds and partial impalements, every last healed mark on Yelena’s back. Kate was in awe.

Yelena’s scars, some rough and jagged from ‘field surgery’ on herself, some faint and well-healed due to actual medical attention, seemed to the younger Hawkeye like a map…or perhaps a book written in a language or script the archer didn’t understand, like Syriac—but one she wanted to learn. All she was missing was the rest of the Widow’s Rosetta Stone—locked away behind fear, trauma, and some self-hatred. But Kate was if nothing else persistent.

The raven-haired woman scooted closer to the sleeping assassin, leaning over and pressing the faintest of kisses to a few of the larger scars. No matter how many times she was privileged to witness this sight, Kate was always in awe of the Widow’s back. Each scar told a story of survival, a chapter in Yelena’s life and her struggle—her journey—to where she was today, asleep in the bed beside the archer. They were not flaws; no, they were markers of the blonde’s strength and resilience, a paean of her freedom.

Kate hoped Yelena knew how much she admired the tapestry now bathed in moonlight, how much the Widow’s back inspired her, how beautiful it—she—was. Artemis and Aphrodite themselves could not have crafted a stronger, more beautiful woman, and tonight Selene accentuated those facts with her glorious beams, as though she were ensuring the incontrovertibility of that statement.

After one final, long gaze at the blonde’s strong, resilient back bathed in soft light, Kate pressed her body against Yelena’s and lowered her head to the pillow. She drifted back to sleep, forever grateful for the woman she was lucky enough to call hers.