Work Text:
2 PM. No more meetings for the rest of the day. Time to close the office for the day, go slack off in the Watchtower for a few hours, maybe ragebait Walker, and then clock out for the night.
Yelena smiled as she finished cleaning up her office. She loved a short day of work with no serious issues. She finally got to meet that spider boy who had been helping out around the city with issues that would have been a waste of their time and got to assist him. Charity work was always nice. And plus, her conversation with him reminded her it had been a little bit since she had perused the web, pun intended, to see what the word is on the internet about what the public was thinking about its heroes. Hopefully there would be things more pleasant to the eye than that fan art with Mysterio and that spider kid. That was some disturbing stuff.
*****
After closing up shop in the office and commuting home to the Watchtower, Yelena got comfy on the living room couch and started pulling out her phone.
“You’re back early,” came a happy voice from the kitchen.
“I know Bob, I didn’t have a lot of meetings today. Did I miss anything important here while I was out?”
“Not too much. Your dad was on Bucky about working out the naming rights with Sam again, but that’s every day. John and Ava got into a really big shouting match-”
“Over something that absolutely did not justify it at all. Sounds like an average day here to me, Bob. Thank you for the update.”
“Heh, no problem, Yelena.”
He gave her an awkward little wave before going back to rooting around in the fridge.
Ok now let’s get online and see what the world is saying.
She logged onto Twitter first, as that was the best place to ragebait people.
*****
@OfficialSpiderMan:
Hey all! If you’re in the NYC area and happen to have experienced any episodes of loss of autonomous control or loss of memory, can you please report any of this to your local authorities? Thanks in advance! #spiderman
Like
@USA1776Freedom:
I think it has been long enough that we can all agree on this. If we are putting John Walker on this “new Avengers” team, I think it is only fair that we reinstate him as OUR Captain America over that FRAUD who attacked our president! #RealAmerican
Reported for harassment. Not worth responding to and besides, as much as I love to ragebait Walker, I still respect him now and know that he is fine with this role that he has with us.
@NewAvengerzNewz:
In a poll conducted by People Mag, readers were asked who's the most attractive superhero in the world today. All members of the New Avengers made the list
Female Superheroes:
1. Black Widow
3. Ghost
Male Superheroes:
1. James “Bucky” Barnes
4. John Walker
8. Red Guardian
Like. Repost. Share with @JohnWalkerUS. “Tough luck, pal.” Share, More, SMS, New Avengers, “Number 1 :)”
I wonder who was number 2, Ava is a pretty attractive woman herself and there are not many female heroes working on a global scale at the moment, at least per our records, so maybe there’s someone new we should start keeping our eyes on, just to be safe.
PEOPLE
READERS SPEAK OUT! HOTTEST HEROES IN THE WORLD TODAY!
FEMALE RANKING:
…
…
#2. KATE BISHOP
Ahhh, Kate Bishop. I haven’t seen her in a long time. I miss her, I should go find where she lives now and have another girl’s night with her. I’m sure that she would not mind the intrusion just like last time. Plus, she owes me a drink after our conversation on Christmas Eve. What has she even been up to lately to even be in the public eye to this degree? Was our Christmas bash that big of news?
How funny it is that Kate happens to be next to Yelena Belova on this list given the recent surge of fan… discourse on social media the last few months. The prodigy of Hawkeye has recently been getting buzz in rumor circles as she reportedly has been getting recruited by Jersey City superhero Ms. Marvel to form an alliance, one with potential power and influence as speculation has started to grow on if Ms. Marvel has affiliation with the Nick Fury-backed Captain Marvel. With this sudden surge in public interest, fans have started digging into the heroine’s past and have made an interesting discovery. Kate’s first major appearance in the public eye was in the skirmish that became known to people as the “Battle at Rockefeller Center”, in which Kate and Hawkeye battled against a local gang known as the Tracksuit Mafia that culminated in the arrest of Kate’s mother, Eleanor. However, new details have recently emerged where she was seen fighting an assassin in recently found security footage that fans speculate was potentially Yelena Belova. With Yelena recently reformed into a hero in her own right, who doesn’t love a potential enemies to lovers story arc? No wonder “Bishova” has been hot in the social media realm in the past few weeks! And honestly, we ship it!
…what the hell is a Bishova? Hold on a minute, I need to look into this immediately.
search: #Bishova
@GirlLuvr3000:
“Spidey x Mysterio” this, “Sam x Bucky” that, how about we start encouraging some #SuperheroYuri #Bishova
@BishovaBeliever:
Made some fan art #Bishova #Yuri
Below it was a really well made painting style digital artwork of her and Kate Bishop making out under some mistletoe.
Can’t lie, this is kinda hot. Way better than that freaky art with that spider boy and all those Mysterios, at the least.
@PizzaDog101:
guys… they haven’t even talked in YEARS. Yeah Yelena is hot and them making out sounds #reallygood… but would they even like each other like that? Worried they may have changed too much in the time they’ve been in different life paths #idk #Bishova
Hmm… I guess now is as good of a time as any to go see Kate Bishop and catch up. I wonder what her thoughts on the matter are with all this recent internet discourse about the two of us. I think I will drop by tonight if she happens to still be in the area or tomorrow if any travel is required. Let’s go look into that.
*****
“Hey Bob?”
“Yes, Yelena?” Bob said, a little loud as he tried to speak over his new blender. They realized he was running up the company card with his frequent food delivery orders, so they tried to cut costs by accommodating him with tools to make some of his most frequently ordered foods, including milkshakes.
“Is anyone currently working in the records room?” she asked.
“Not right now, just Walker earlier today.”
“Thank you, Bob.”
With that, Yelena got up and started heading over to the records room, growing ever excited for the prospect of seeing her good friend Kate Bishop again. It had been way too long.
After a trip up a few floors of the tower, she finally arrived at her destination. She scanned her badge on the security panel and walked into the massive database of a room with files on every hero, villain or any other person of interest to their team, constantly updated as needed by their intelligence team. Thankfully, the whole room was in alphabetical order so it did not take long at all to get to the Bs.
“Barnes…Barton…Bishop, here we are.”
She pulled out the relatively small file and walked over to the big desk in the middle of the room and plopped it down. She flipped it open and saw the big picture of her, seemingly dated as of a few weeks ago, next to all the basic information on file.
Wow, I can see how she made the top 3 now. Good for her.
She quickly scanned the basic information section to find her home address, and as good fortune would have it, as of a week ago, she was still in the Manhattan area.
Perfect. Time to go get ready for girls’ night.
*****
“Where are you off to in such a hurry tonight?”
“Visiting a friend for a girl’s night, don’t wait up too late for me, Ava.”
“A friend? Since when do you have friends outside of this building?”
“I’ll have you know that I have many friends outside of this building.”
“Oh yeah? Name three.”
“There’s that spider kid who helps us with some of the smaller issues around town. He came to my office this morning and we for sure hit it off really well. There’s the friend I’m going to go visit right now. And then there’s Bryce, the doorman. He’s not inside the building so he counts and he is very nice to me and he opens the door for me every day.”
“Yelena, that’s his job.” John said with a smirk.
“Shut the fuck up, Walker. I did not ask for your input on my social life. How about we talk about yours then, hotshot?”
“Point taken.”
“Anyways,” Ava said, suppressing a chuckle, “who is this ‘friend’ you are meeting this evening?”
“Someone named Kate Bishop,” Bob piped in.
“Bob, what the fuck did we tell you about using telepathy without consent?!”
“I didn’t, I swear! I was called up to the records room an hour ago to clean up because they assumed it was me. My therapist said it would be good for my mental health to apologize to those I feel I have wronged in my life, so sometimes I like to go up there and find people we have files on who lived in the area at the time that all that…stuff… happened, and I like to write up some apology letters. I sign all of them from the New Avengers, no one knows who I am still! I promise! But, uh, yeah, I write them and then I kinda just leave and forget to put the files back. And, uh, I guess Yelena must have forgotten to put Kate’s back when she went up there earlier today.”
“Ok Bob, but that still doesn’t mean that you get to air my business to everyone like that!”
“Wait, so this Kate Bishop is supposedly your ‘good friend’ but you don’t even know where she lives and had to go look it up in the record room?” Ava asked.
“It has been a while since I have seen her, Ava, and I was not sure if her contact info had changed so I decided to just look up the records rather than contact the info that I have and potentially get a random stranger on the other end that now has access to our information.”
“Wait, Kate Bishop… isn’t that Barton’s girl who people saw you fight on Christmas Eve that one time? That people now think you two should reunite, or even more?” John asked with a puzzled look on his face.
“Alright, enough of the 20 Questions with the peanut gallery, I do not have time for this shit. I have a commitment with a friend to keep and I do not have time for all of your bullshit. Also, John, how the fuck do you know anything about internet gossip?”
*****
After about a 20 minute walk to the street that Kate Bishop lived on, she found the new apartment complex that she resided in, per the records. She slipped her way inside and took the elevator up to the 4th floor and walked down to the apartment number she supposedly stayed at. She gave it a quick knock which seemed to startle a dog that resided in the room in question as she heard it start to stir and growl. She knocked again. “Kate Bishop, it is me. Open up. We have some discussions that need to take place.” Still nothing besides the sounds of a dog.
She must be out at the moment. That’s fine, I haven’t minded waiting before. Maybe I can make us dinner again.
With that, she pulled out her handy dandy lockpicking kit and eventually slipped her way in, where she was met by the growls of Kate’s dog until he registered the familiar face and ran up with eager glee to greet the woman she had not seen in years. It reminded her of Fanny’s protectiveness but softness. Maybe Fanny and this dog could meet and potentially be friends. That could be fun. She would have to try to remember to bring that up when they talked that night.
“Kate Bishop? I’m here and I have your dog.” Still no response.
Ah well, she’s definitely out. Let me cook something up for us so it’s ready when she gets back. PLEASE still have the macaroni she had last time
*****
About 15 to 20 minutes passed before she heard someone at the door. She had just finished the macaroni so this could not be any more perfect timing on her part. As the door opened, she turned to greet her good friend, but as soon as Kate stepped in, she geared up to throw the soda bottle she had in her hand straight at her before restraining herself.
“Yelena?”
“Kate Bishop! You stopped yourself this time. Look at that growth.”
“Yelena, what the fuck? How the fuck-... what are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to drop by and say hi to my good friend.”
“Good friend? Yelena, we haven’t seen each other in like 3 or so years and you tried to kill me the last time I saw you!”
“Oh my gosh, Kate Bishop, you are still on that? Can we not just let bygones be bygones and forgive each other? Come on, I made you macaroni again and this time it seems like you have more than one fo-... is that a pizza?”
Kate stood there next to a large pizza box she had just set down on the counter. “Yeah, I didn’t expect any god damn company tonight and I didn’t feel like cooking so I went to buy a pizza.”
“I suppose that does make some sort of sense. Well, good. Now we definitely won’t go hungry. Now sit down and let's eat.”
*****
After finishing off the mac and cheese and having a few slices of the pizza, Yelena and Kate moved over from the dining area to the couch.
“So tell me, Kate Bishop, how have you been since we last spoke? Has life been good to you? We haven’t investigated it yet but there are rumors that you are teaming up with a teenager from New Jersey.”
“Well, for your team’s records, I suppose I can trust you to tell you that the rumors are true. She, like you, broke into my apartment and she just had this tablet open with my information and said she needed me for some sort of team, so I said yes.”
“Interesting, and what is the purpose of this team?”
“That, as far as I was told and am aware, is top secret and classified information that I am not allowed to share.”
“I like this girl already.”
“I bet you do.”
“Anyways, speaking of internet rumors, I was reading this article from People Magazine about the hottest he-”
“Oh I was told about that the other day by that hero you mentioned. I guess I was #2?”
“Yes, and I was #1. Bu-”
“Oh wow, congrats!”
“Thank you, Kate Bishop. Anyways, I was reading it, and in your section it mentioned this thing about us. It mentioned that people learned that we ‘fought’-”
“Yelena, we fought. Do not put air quotes around it. We fought.”
“Fine Kate, we fought. But apparently people recently discovered footage of that fight and in the ways of hero fandom, there’s suddenly a rise in internet sentiment that we should… become a thing, I suppose.”
Kate seemed to take a hard swallow at the mention of that, but maybe she was seeing things.
“Oh really? I don’t really pay too much attention to fan discourse all that much. I mostly just use it to update people on some things and learn updates on things and then move on with my day.”
“Ah, well, I highly recommend it. Did you know that they pair that spider hero with that Mysterio guy? Very disturbing art at times, but the discourse is very interesting sometimes if you are ever bored and want some entertainment.”
“I-I’ll have to check it out.” Kate Bishop said before clearing her throat.
“Anyways, I came here because I was just curious about your thoughts on the topic. Thought it would be fun small talk. I thought maybe you had seen it, but you clearly have not. So, uh, sorry if that was a lot to throw at you.”
“Oh no, not at all. You’ve thrown more jarring topics at me before. I guess it really kind of depends on some things. Do you.., do you think you even, uh, swing that way?”
“Swing that way?”
“It’s a way of asking if you, uh, if you’re a girl kisser, in a less blunt way.”
“I know, Kate Bishop. I was just curious how you were going to word it for fun. I… I haven’t really swung any sort of way before. Obviously, with my past, my formative years were not really formative and I was not really able to explore that sort of thing. And, ever since I’ve been free, it’s been one thing after another. But, I suppose I would be open to the idea of ‘swinging that way’ if presented. How about you, Kate Bishop? Are you a kisser of girls?”
“I… I could be persuaded under the, uh, right circumstances, I suppose.”
“Interesting… anyways, this was a good chat, Kate Bishop. I suppose I shall get going now. Thank you for the fine evening and it was good to see you after so long. I hope that we can make these more frequent.”
“Oh, uh, as long as they are announced going forward and don’t involve breaking and entering.”
“Fine, fine. You are no fun, Kate Bishop. Anyways, do you want me to take some of this pizza home or are you fine keeping all of it?”
“Oh, more than fine. I will have some and Lucky will have some. He LOVES pizza. I’ve considered changing his full legal name to Lucky the Pizza Dog,” Kate laughed.
…pizza dog…
“Oh, uh… Kate Bishop, my battery is low on my phone. Do you mind if I just borrow yours for a second so I can text my ride that I’ll be good soon?” Yelena asked, knowing full well she walked here.
“Oh, for sure, it should be over there on the table. Password is 042005.”
Yelena walked over and grabbed the phone and put in the code.
Swipe, swipe, tap, swipe
*gasp*
“Kate Bishop, YOU are PizzaDog101?? This tweet about thinking that the idea of us making out is really good is one of the ones that inspired me to even come out here! Did you lie to me, Kate Bishop?”
“Oh fuck. Yelena, I- no, I just… it’s just… you see I… it’s just-”
“Do not waste your breath, Kate Bishop. I have just one yes or no question for you and you better answer it truthfully.”
“What is it, Yelena?”
“...would you like to see if it is ‘really good’?”
“...what is happening? Am I even awake right now? Did they slip acid into my soda? What the fuck is happening?”
“No no no, Kate Bishop. You are ok…I think. How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Two. Very classy, Yelena.”
“Thank you, I thought it was pretty funny myself. I will have to try it on Walker some day. Anyways, Kate Bishop, no. I’m real and I’m serious. The thought has been running through my head ever since the internet put it there. In truth, Kate Bishop, it is probably the only reason why I came here. I wanted to see how I would feel about these thoughts when I looked at you face to face and they have not gone away. I know you said that you could be ‘persuaded under the right circumstances’. Do you think this could potentially be some of those…right circumstances?”
“I mean, I, uh, I mean you saw my one post on Twitter. I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily opposed, obviously. I mean, really, I would definitely be down if you happened to be sure you were down, but if you weren’t sure then that’s o-*mmph*”. And with that, the world’s greatest archer’s rambles got shot down by the kiss of the woman who once tried to kill her on Christmas Eve, but maybe they should move on from that after all.
“I- wow. That was… wow.”
“Good wow or bad wow?” asked Yelena
“Good wow. Very good wow. Are you sure this was your first time?”
“Who said that?”
“But you said- fuck, nevermind, come here, I want some more.” And with that, Hawkeye and Black Widow became one as they melted into each other, just like the hours that melted away into the late evening.
People Magazine was gonna love this story.