Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The thing about being a hero that nobody talks about enough, in Kate's opinion, is that the actual heroic activities comprise a tiny slice of daily life. It makes sense, when she thinks about it—there's no way that any of the Avengers would have been able to have families or do any of the relatively mundane things that she knows they did if every waking moment was spent saving the world. But it's also just a little bit disappointing that her life is approximately 90% the same as it was before she ever met Clint Barton.

(Okay, so she did the math, and it's actually like 86% the same if she breaks down the exact number of hours that she spends on a weekly basis doing hero-type things, although that ratio improves if she's generous with her interpretation of what counts as a superhero activity and adds things like training and research to the mix.)

Still, she's starting to get used to the fact that her life is pretty boring when she's not out saving the world, and that's what makes it all the more surprising when she walks into her apartment one night and is greeted by a bottle of hot sauce flying at her head.

"Think fast, Kate Bishop!" 

She recognizes the voice right away, but she's too busy trying not to get brained by the hot sauce (and why had she not thought about the fact that the half-gallon glass bottle of Cholula could one day be used to murder her?) to do anything about it. She manages to duck to the side and avoid catching the bottle with her face, but unfortunately she also fails to catch the bottle with her hands, and it shatters on the floor at her feet. 

"Well that was disappointing. I would not have sacrificed perfectly good hot sauce if I'd known you were so clumsy." Yelena is looking at her with a distinctly unimpressed expression, like she's disappointed in Kate's performance, and Kate frowns.

"I am not clum—just because I'm not some sort of super-spy assassin like you doesn't mean my reflexes aren't still perfectly above average," she grumbles. She debates for a second whether to bother with cleaning up the hot sauce and starts to step over it, then realizes that Lucky might cut a paw on the glass and groans as she changes course. 

A few muttered swear words and an entire roll of paper towels later, the floor is about as clean as it's going to get, and she looks up to find Yelena leaning against the kitchen table with Lucky sitting next to her. "Um, not that I'm not thrilled to see you, but you aren't here to kill me or anything, are you?"

Yelena arches an eyebrow at her and Kate sighs. "Right. If you'd wanted to kill me, you probably would have used something more deadly than hot sauce."

"Yes," Yelena says, "although I could have killed you with the hot sauce if I wanted to. It is good to know that you are thrilled to see me, though."

Kate blinks. That wasn't exactly what she was going for, but sure. As long as Yelena isn't trying to murder her, she'll take it.

"You owe me a drink," Yelena says, turning away from Kate and leaning down to pat Lucky, who's staring up at her like she's the best thing he's ever seen in his life. Kate would normally gripe about him being a traitor—and also the world's worst guard dog—but she can't deny that she's sort of just as starstruck as he is.

She realizes that she still needs to respond to Yelena's statement, and she clears her throat as she tries to focus. "A drink?"

"Yes. You said we should go get drinks, and while it didn't work out that night for obvious reasons, I thought we could do it now." Yelena looks at her expectantly, and Kate abruptly remembers snatches of their conversation in between trying to stop Yelena from killing Clint. She hadn't really thought that Yelena would take her up on the offer or think that she was serious, but apparently that had been a poor assumption on her part.

It's probably a terrible idea. Like, a monumentally bad one. Yelena is a trained assassin, and even though she ultimately opted not to kill Clint, Kate knows that it would be idiotic to think that she isn't still dangerous.

But even if she's dangerous, she's also the most interesting person Kate thinks she's ever met, and she's here and voluntarily asking to go out for drinks, so there's really not anything else that Kate can do besides say, "Um, sure. There's a cocktail place we can go to if you want?"

Yelena straightens up and smiles. "Perfect."

*

"Do you come here often, Kate Bishop?"

Kate takes a sip of her cocktail and tries not to make a face. She'd sort of just picked one from the menu at random and hoped that it tasted good, and she's regretting that decision.

"Oh totally," she says, trying to look casual. "All the time. Love it here. I'm practically a regular." She takes another drink and isn't quite able to hide her grimace. Yelena gives her a pointed look and Kate winces. "Okay fine, I come here sometimes. Every once in a while." Another look, and she gives up. "Rarely."

"Then why did you come here tonight?" Yelena asks, and Kate shrugs.

"I don't know. This is the type of place that spies like, isn't it? Shaken, not stirred," she says, pitching her voice in an imitation of James Bond. 

Yelena snorts. "Your accent is terrible," she says. "And besides, I am way cooler than James Bond." She finishes her drink in a single go and flags down the waiter, handing him a few bills that Kate thinks look to be of a much higher denomination than two cocktails calls for. Which is great, because Kate is kind of broke and she wasn't looking forward to eating ramen for a week just to afford a single overpriced martini. "This should be enough for both of us," Yelena says, and the waiter glances down before his eyes go wide and he stammers out a thank you. 

"I am not picky about what I drink or where," Yelena says, ignoring the waiter and turning her attention back to Kate. "But I am curious where you go when you are not trying to impress someone." 

"I wasn't trying to impress—" Kate stops talking as she realizes that protesting is probably only digging herself into a deeper hole. She sighs and decides to admit defeat. "Pizza and beer?"  

Yelena grins at her. "Only if I get to pick the toppings."

*

"I can't believe you're eating that." Kate grimaces as Yelena downs another slice. It's entirely possible that pineapple with green olives and anchovies isn't the worst possible combination of pizza toppings, but she can't think offhand of anything that would beat it.

"You said I could pick," Yelena says, draining the rest of her beer and belching before settling back in the booth. "That was good. Much better than the stuffy cocktail place."

"Uh, yeah." Kate isn't really sure what else to say. What she wants to do is ask Yelena why she's in town, which she knows is probably a dumb question, but when Yelena doesn't say anything else for a minute, Kate decides to just go for it. "So...are you in town on business?"

Yelena's head tips backward to rest against the cracking red vinyl of the booth and she closes her eyes. "Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to."

Kate bristles. "Who says I don't want to know the answer?"

Yelena cracks an eye open and looks over at her. "We live in different worlds, Kate Bishop."

"Not so different that we aren't still sitting in the same dive bar eating the same weird pizza and drinking the same shitty beer," she mumbles, and Yelena laughs. It's a genuine sound, bright and almost shocking for how carefree it sounds. When she finally stops laughing, she grabs the last slice of pizza and tears it in two. She slides half of it over to Kate and nods as she begins to eat her piece.

"That is true, Kate Bishop. That is true."

"Lucky! Lucky, get back here!" Kate waits a moment to see if he'll listen, but there's no sign of the dog. She huffs and begins to walk across the dog park. Of course he would pick the day when it's absolutely freezing outside to decide to have selective hearing.

"You know, you should really train your dog better."

Kate stops in her tracks as she crests the hill and sees Lucky standing next to a very familiar person. "What, are you stalking me now?"

Yelena gives an offended gasp. "You wound me, Kate Bishop."

"You know, you don't have to always say my entire name now that you're not trying to threaten me." Kate whistles for Lucky, but he stays right where he is by Yelena's side. Kate mouths no treats for you at him, and it makes her feel a little bit better.

"I know," Yelena says. "Anyways, I am hoping that your dog does not teach my dog his bad manners."

"Your dog?" Kate looks around, suddenly very confused. Do assassins have dogs? Is that a thing?

"Fanny!" As soon as Yelena calls, a gorgeous brown and white dog comes trotting over. Yelena kneels down and ruffles the dog's fur, kissing the top of its head before looking back over to Kate with a smug grin. "She's a good dog." Kate is just about to defend Lucky's honor even though she's mad at him, but she's caught off guard when Yelena reaches over and ruffles his fur too. "So is he. But that does not mean his manners do not still need work."

"Yeah, well, we're working on it," Kate says. She looks at Yelena's dog and then back at Yelena. "I didn't know assassins had dogs."

Yelena snorts as she stands back up. "Then I guess you have not met enough assassins."

Kate racks her brain for what to say next. She has so many questions for Yelena, so many things that she still wants to know, but they're also standing in the middle of a dog park, which doesn't exactly feel like an ideal place for in-depth conversation. "So, are you living in New York now, or something?" she asks, figuring that it's probably about as safe a topic of conversation as any

Yelena shrugs, reaching down to pick up a ball and launching it into the air for Fanny and Lucky to chase.

"I am here for now." 

Lucky and Fanny lose interest in the ball and chase each other around for a few minutes before tiring and coming back to flop at Kate and Yelena's feet. Yelena whistles for Fanny and walks towards the gate leading out of the dog park, and Kate starts to follow before stopping. It's probably weird to assume that Yelena meant for her to come too, and she doesn't want to get on the other woman's bad side when they're just finally not trying to kill each other, and—

"Are you coming?"

Kate blinks in confusion. "Uh, sure—I mean, coming where?"

Yelena glances back at her like she's an idiot. "To get lunch. Duh. I have heard about this thing that you do here, buying hot dogs from little carts on the street, and I want to try it. And since you are here, I figure, we can go together." She pauses. "Unless you are not hungry?"

"No! Nope, I'm definitely hungry." Kate fumbles for Lucky's leash and jogs to catch up to Yelena. "Um, Billy’s is pretty close to here. If you want."

Yelena seems to consider it. "Does he have hot sauce?"

"Uhh...most people don't really put hot sauce on their hot dogs," Kate says. She almost feels bad for being the one to break the news. "Not that there's anything wrong with hot sauce on a hot dog! But he might not have any. He's got a really great onion sauce, if that counts."

Yelena's nose wrinkles but she shrugs. "I will try it." She motions for Kate to lead the way, and Kate lets Lucky drag her down the sidewalk in the direction of the cart. It doesn't escape her notice that Fanny is walking in a perfect heel position at Yelena's side, completely unbothered by all of the distractions around them, and she sighs. When Yelena gives her a questioning look, she shakes her head.

"Maybe Fanny's manners will rub off on Lucky."

Lucky chooses that exact moment to dive under a nearby bench and scarf down a few french fries someone must have dropped, and Yelena laughs. "I would not hold my breath."

She's friends with an assassin. It's really not something she ever would have expected from her life, but it's also not the worst thing ever. Since they got drinks and then got hot dogs after the dog park (Yelena had pronounced the onion sauce acceptable, but still inferior to hot sauce), they keep crossing paths.

It starts out as Yelena showing up at Kate’s apartment every once in a while, and they see each other at the dog park, and things just sort of continue from there. Yelena invites her back to her apartment after the first few times they hang out at Kate’s, claiming that it is only polite (and besides, she has proper cutlery), and it gets to the point where Fanny doesn’t even bark when Kate shows up because she recognizes her now. 

Before Kate is even fully conscious of what’s happening, she’s seeing Yelena more days than not, and she can’t quite remember what her life was like before that happened. She remembers the night that she and Yelena had fought, when she’d told Yelena to stop making her like her, and she thinks that she’d had no idea. There’s something about Yelena that just sucks her in, a whirlpool spiraling into the depths of the ocean, and Kate wants nothing more than to dive in headfirst.

Yelena is surprisingly good company—amazing, actually. Kate doesn't think she'd realized just how lonely she was until she suddenly had someone who she could talk to about things who got it. There's no judgment (okay, maybe a little judgment, but mostly over things like "What do you mean you've never rappelled down a skyscraper before?" rather than shock that rappelling down skyscrapers is even a possibility), and it's kind of fun to be able to trade stories about the ridiculous situations they end up in.

Of course, Yelena ends up in those situations because she's being sent to kill people, but Kate tries not to dwell on that. She's in no position to lecture Yelena over how she lives her life, and from the snippets that she's gleaned from the rare occasions when Yelena comments on what she does for work, the people she kills are not exactly upstanding citizens.

(The fact that Clint had been labeled one such non-upstanding citizen and is a glaring example of how the system can be flawed is something else that Kate tries not to dwell on.)

They don't actually spend most of their time talking about work, after the first few times they hang out. They'll give any highlight reels from recent missions—one time Yelena has Kate reenact a particularly spectacular fight sequence—but then they move on to just....normal things. Like Yelena giving Kate dog training tips for Lucky (which goes poorly) and Kate trying to expose Yelena to the wide world of condiments outside of hot sauce (which goes less poorly). They watch movies and terrible reality television and Yelena throws popcorn at the TV during horror movies as she yells at the characters for all of the idiotic choices they're making, and it's—well, it's maybe the best friendship Kate has ever had. 

She doesn't remember ever having this level of ease with another person before, and from the way that she sometimes catches Yelena staring at her with an almost perplexed expression, she thinks that maybe it's true for Yelena as well. It's like they just fit together, two people from vastly different worlds who have found their way to each other and are making up for lost time. 

They text, sometimes. Not often—Yelena changes burner phones the way that Kate changes clothes each day of the week, so it's not exactly an easy feat to keep in touch when Yelena is out of town. Sometimes entire weeks go by without so much as a peep, and those are the times that have Kate obsessively checking every international news station she can think of, looking for any ghost of a hint that something might have happened to Yelena.

Maybe it's silly to worry about an assassin who could kill most people using her pinky finger, but Kate can't help it. She's seen the still-healing injuries when Yelena visits her sometimes, has seen more than enough evidence to prove that Yelena is just as achingly mortal as Kate herself. And on those weeks when there's nothing but silence…it gets hard not to jump to worst-case scenarios.

Those weeks are thankfully relatively few. The rest of the time, Kate opens her phone at random intervals to find text messages from unknown numbers staring back at her. The messages are never anything serious. Sometimes it's a gripe about the weather, others a random comment on a pop culture reference that Yelena thinks is stupid, and one time she gets a text that contains a photo of a decadent-looking pizza with the caption Your shitty bar pizza was better ;-).  

(Kate may or may not have to fight Clint for her phone when she gets a message with a photo of Yelena while he's visiting. "You're grinning at your phone like a lovesick idiot," he says, and when he manages to steal the phone and sees the message, his eyebrows raise and she just knows that he's coming to all the wrong conclusions about things.)

Every once in a while, during the stretches when she doesn't hear from Yelena over text, she gets other forms of communication instead. There's never a note or explanation, and certainly not a return address, but they're things that Kate knows couldn't possibly be from anyone other than Yelena. The first package contains a full set of cutlery (and really, really nice cutlery at that), and the second is a tiny wooden carving of a reindeer. She also receives a leather collar with Lucky's name embossed on it, a new bola that's almost identical to the one she lost out the window the night she fought Yelena across the office building, and a necklace that she's pretty sure Yelena found at a gas station somewhere that has a cheap faux-silver arrow dangling from a chain.

She keeps each and every item, cleaning out a drawer so that she actually has a place to put the silverware and making space on the shelf for the reindeer figurine. Lucky loves his collar, and even though she would never admit it, Kate wears the stupid arrow necklace more days than not just because it makes her smile to think about the fact that she and Yelena are genuinely friends. 

Sometimes she wonders if she's reading too much into things, but then comes the day that Yelena shows up outside her apartment with Fanny in tow. She's uncharacteristically nervous, and she shifts from one foot to the other as she asks, "Will you watch Fanny for me?"

"I—" Kate's brain comes up with about five different questions all at once, but she doesn't ask any of them and just nods. "Um. Sure?" Yelena shoves the leash at her as she walks into the apartment with Fanny, and Kate blinks. "For how long? And also what do you normally do with her when you're gone? I've always wondered, but I didn't know if I was allowed to ask."

"Not being allowed to do something has never stopped you before, Kate Bishop," Yelena says, but she sounds almost fond. "Usually one of the other widows comes, but I was not expecting to need to leave tonight."

"Oh." Kate feels a sudden surge of pride that Yelena came to her for help, followed by worry at why Yelena needs to leave on such short notice. "Uh, I've got dog food and stuff here, and she and Lucky get along great, do I need to know anything else?"

Yelena rolls her eyes. "I brought her food with me. She and Lucky do not eat the same kind, and she is picky."

"Right." She should have known. "How much do you feed her?

"One cup in the morning and one at night. But she likes snacks during the day." Yelena frowns. "Do not give her pizza, though. It does not agree with her stomach."

"....right. So how long are you going to be gone?"

Yelena's face shutters closed as she kneels down next to Fanny in the apartment and unclips the leash. "I do not know. Hopefully not long." She buries her face in the fur of Fanny's neck and murmurs something to her in Russian. Kate looks away, feeling inexplicably like she's intruding on a private moment, and she only looks back when she hears Yelena stand up.

"I'll take good care of her," Kate promises, and Yelena nods once as she walks to the door.

"I know. I would not trust just anyone with her."

Kate realizes with a jolt just how true that statement is. As far as she knows, Fanny is probably the closest thing that Yelena has to family, at least in the immediate sense. The fact that Yelena is giving Fanny to her to watch is more of a testament than all the cutlery and random text messages in the world that they have somehow become actual friends.

"Yelena." Kate calls after her before she can make it more than a few steps past the door. When she turns and looks back at Kate with an expectant expression, Kate bites her lip and says, "Be careful. And don't stay away too long. Fanny will miss you." Kate hesitates as she looks at Yelena, then adds, "I'll miss you too." It feels dangerous to say it out loud like that, for some reason. It's much blunter than she's been up to this point, an open admission that she's every bit as invested as Yelena (probably more, if she's being honest), and she holds her breath as she waits to see how Yelena will respond.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Yelena says, and it's not an I miss you too, but somehow Kate knows that she will. 

Yelena takes the stairwell down and Kate goes to the window to watch until she disappears into a cab waiting outside the building. The now-familiar worry twists itself into her stomach, a sour tree taking root and winding branches all around and up her spine, and she sighs as she turns and finds Lucky and Fanny standing there staring at her.

"Well. I guess it's going to be the three of us for a while."

She goes to unpack the bag of Fanny's items that Yelena dropped by the door and tries valiantly not to think about how much she wishes it was the four of them, instead.

"So, seen much of Yelena lately?"

She's over at the farm visiting Clint and Laura and the kids for the start of the summer, and she should have known better than to think she would escape without at least a little bit of an interrogation. Ever since he saw the text messages, he's been like a dog with a bone about her and Yelena. He seems to be under the impression that Kate is in love with her, which is absurd, and no matter how many times she denies it, he still remains convinced that they're more than friends.

She debates whether to lecture him on how it’s possible to just have close friends without wanting to sleep with them, then opts against it. The more energy she puts into denying that anything is happening with her and Yelena, the more he pesters her about it.

"Remind me why I like you?" Kate grumbles. "And no, for the record, we don't see each other a ton. She's even busier than I am." She thinks that she can be forgiven for having a loose interpretation of what it means to not see someone a ton. If Clint knew how frequently she and Yelena spend time together he would 100% see it as confirmation of his theories that they're secretly dating, and he doesn't need any additional ammunition.

"Clint! Will you go check on Nate? I sent him out to the barn ages ago."

Laura's voice echoes out of the kitchen, and Clint pushes himself to his feet with a sigh. "On it." He glances over at Kate. "Don't think I'm done talking to you about this. You're not getting off that easily."

Kate breathes a sigh of relief as he leaves the house. Bless Laura and her flawless timing. Of course, then Laura casually steps out of the kitchen and Kate grimaces. Maybe not so flawless after all.

"Please tell me you're not going to play good cop bad cop with me," she groans. "Clint is bad enough on his own."

Laura arches an eyebrow. "And would I be the good cop or the bad cop in that scenario?" Kate pauses, trying to decide what the best way of answering that without offending anyone, but fortunately Laura keeps going before she has to answer. "I'm not here to pry. Whatever is going on with you and Yelena—"

"—nothing is going on with us—"

"—it's not my place to ask. But I just want to make sure you know what you're doing. Even black widows aren't invincible. They might hide it better than the rest of us, but they're every bit as capable of hurting, and of wanting someone to care about them without any ulterior motives."

The words land heavily, in large part because Kate knows exactly how true they are. She's seen how even the smallest hint of affection seems to completely disarm Yelena, how she always tenses like she's expecting Kate to take back any kindness shown. It breaks her heart every time, but she doesn't know how to change it. "I know," she says. "And—I do. Care about her, I mean." She pauses, then adds, "A lot."

"Good." Laura's eyes are knowing and sad as she looks back at Kate. "She deserves to have that."

Kate hesitates, debating whether or not to ask the question that's sitting on the tip of her tongue. She and Clint haven't ever explicitly talked about it, and she's never raised it with Laura before, but she's also fairly certain that Natasha was more to the two of them than just a close friend.

She decides that Laura is the one who started this conversation, and there’s probably never going to be a better opportunity to ask what she wants to know, so she goes for it. "Was it hard? With Natasha. To care for her with..." She waves a hand around, not sure how else to encapsulate all of what she means. "Everything, I guess." It’s dancing around whatever the truth of Natasha’s relationship with Clint and Laura was, but Kate realizes that it doesn’t matter. What she needs to know is how to be there for Yelena in the best way she can, and the exact nature of how Natasha fit into everyone else’s lives doesn’t change the answer.

Laura's expression turns sad and a little wistful. "Sometimes. But it was also one of the best things I've ever done, and I would give anything to have her back even for one more day."

There's such stark, naked grief in Laura's voice that it nearly brings tears to Kate's eyes. She knows just how agonizing it's been on the few occasions where she thought that something might have happened to Yelena. For her worst fears to come true, to find out one of these times that Yelena really isn't coming back? She thinks that it's a miracle that Clint and Laura are even able to function most days.

“How did you figure it out?” she asks. That’s really what’s at the heart of her worry with Yelena. How to not fuck things up, to not make them worse. She doesn’t ever want to be the one to cause Yelena pain, and she’s kind of hoping that Laura will be able to give her some sort of magic answer for how to do that.

"Just make sure she knows that you care," Laura says softly, leaning over and squeezing Kate's shoulder. "In my experience, people like Nat and Yelena are more likely to assume the opposite is true, and there might not always be time to say what you want to say in the future. Tomorrow is never a guarantee in this line of work."

Kate nods, not trusting herself to speak around the sudden swell of emotion in her throat, and Laura gives her another squeeze to the shoulder before going back into the kitchen.

Kate sits in the quiet of the living room for a few more minutes, just breathing and trying to get her emotions under control. By the time Clint comes back into the house with the kids in tow and Laura calls everyone in for dinner, the beginnings of a plan are forming in her mind.

She doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing, but Laura is right. The most important thing is making sure that Yelena knows how much she cares, and she’s got a few ideas for how she might be able to do that. 

The rest can wait.

Chapter Text

"Come on, we're going to be late!"

Kate bounces on the balls of her feet as she waits for Yelena to put her coat on. She's been planning this for weeks now, and she almost can't believe that it's actually going to work out—no last-minute superhero or assassin activity is going to throw off her plans for the night.

"I do not know why you are in such a rush," Yelena says. "Maybe if you told me where we are going, I could better understand why you are so anxious about the timing."

Yelena has alternated between being thrilled at the idea of Kate trying to surprise her and being dismayed at not knowing what they are going to do. 

("You know I could find out every detail of what you are planning if I wanted to," she'd grumbled when Kate had refused to give her any hints. 

"I know," Kate had responded. "But where would be the fun in that?")

Kate thinks for a second and then reaches into her pocket and throws something to Yelena. "Here. Maybe this will motivate you."

Yelena frowns down at the small object in her hand before a smile lights up her face as she recognizes what it is. "A miniature bottle of hot sauce? It is so cute and portable! Look—is that a little metal ring so that I can attach it to a keychain?" She's giddy with excitement, already unscrewing the tiny lid to press a dot of the hot sauce to her fingertip so that she can lick it off, making an approving noise when she tastes it.

"I figured this way you won't ever have to be without hot sauce again," Kate says. "No more settling for onion sauce on your hot dog if you don't want to."

"This is the best present ever," Yelena says seriously. Her brow furrows slightly and she looks back over at Kate. "But how is this motivation for what we are doing? Does that mean we are going somewhere with food?"

"The sooner you hurry up and put your coat on, the sooner you can find out," Kate says, and Yelena nearly trips over her own feet in her haste to grab her coat and drag Kate out the door.

*

As soon as they get to the right address and walk into the building, Kate holds her breath. She's fairly sure that Yelena is going to like it, but she's also just a little bit nervous because she's never tried to do anything quite like this before. Yelena takes three steps into the building and then freezes when she sees the large sign proclaiming All You Can Eat Hot Sauce Tasting Tonight! in bold red letters with little flames coming off.

"A hot sauce tasting?" She looks over at Kate with an unreadable expression, and Kate nods. 

"So there will be many types of hot sauce?" 

Kate nods again. 

"And we are allowed to taste them all?" 

Another nod.

Yelena seems almost lost for a second, her eyes roaming the entryway before finally settling back on Kate. "You did this for me?"

"Well, I didn't like, organize the event, if that's what you mean," Kate says. "But I wanted to find something you would like, so I was looking for different things that were happening and I saw this and I thought it might be fun."

Yelena studies her carefully, and Kate is reminded of what Laura said about people like Nat and Yelena not being used to people caring without ulterior motives. It makes her heart ache to think that nobody might have ever done something like this for Yelena before—something nice just because, no agenda other than wanting to make her happy. She stands firm beneath Yelena's scrutiny, willing Yelena to believe that she genuinely just wants to do this because she cares, and after a long moment, Yelena's posture softens.

"That is very thoughtful of you, Kate Bishop," she says, her voice just a little bit gruff. "I did not know that you were such a charmer." Kate opens her mouth to protest that she's not trying to charm anyone, but then Yelena says, "But do not think that being nice means I am going to let you off the hook from trying every single hot sauce with me," and Kate can only laugh. 

She has a feeling that she's not going to have any taste buds left by the end of the night, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

*

They go back to Kate's apartment after, and Yelena talks her ear off the whole way back, conducting an in-depth analysis of which hot sauce was the most superior. A bag full of bottles clanks at their feet while they sit on the subway, and Kate looks over at Yelena and feels a swell of such deep emotion when she sees the genuine smile creasing the corners of Yelena's eyes as she talks that it nearly floors her. 

She doesn't think she's ever felt so much from something as simple as being able to make another person smile before, and she hears a tiny voice that sounds suspiciously like Clint's in the back of her mind telling her that this goes far beyond the bounds of simple friendship. She shoves that voice down to examine later when she's not with Yelena, trying to refocus on just being present in the moment.

Yelena carefully stacks half of the hot sauce bottles on one of the kitchen shelves when they get back to the apartment, and Kate wonders when it became so comfortable to have Yelena in her space. At what point did her apartment become a place that feels more like home when the other girl is there than when she isn't?

"I will leave half here and take the other half back to my apartment," Yelena says when she notices Kate watching her. "That way we will never be without many options."

"That…is a genius idea," Kate says, and she decides to distract herself by going over to the couch to pick out a movie for them to watch.

She makes it just over an hour into the absurd horror movie they landed on before her eyes start to close. Yelena doesn't comment, just shifts closer on the couch so that Kate can lean her head on her shoulder. It's so cozy and comfortable that Kate can’t help sighing happily, and she hums when she feels Yelena tip her head sideways so that it's resting against Kate's.

The movie plays on in the background, and Kate is very nearly asleep when she hears Yelena speak.

"Nobody has ever done something like that for me before."

Kate freezes, suddenly wide awake. She stays perfectly still and waits to see if Yelena will keep talking.

"Nobody has ever paid attention to the things that I like. To the things that I might want."

The words hang in the air, and Kate is suddenly sure that they apply to far more than just casual fun things like hot sauce tastings. She still doesn't know all of the details of Yelena's life before they met, of what it meant to be a black widow, but she knows that for a very long time, all of her choice and agency were stripped away from her, until even her mind was no longer her own.

Kate slides down so that her head is pressed against Yelena's legs, her arms wrapping around her stomach as she hugs her. "I only ever want to do things that you want to do too," she murmurs. "And I'm sorry that people haven't always respected that for you." The words feel deeply inadequate, but they're all she has in the moment. 

She feels more than hears the hitch in Yelena's breathing, and the sound of the movie is all that breaks the quiet. She's just debating whether to say something else when she feels the unexpected press of fingertips against her head, Yelena's hands gently combing through her hair. The motion is unexpectedly tender, and Kate thinks that maybe even if neither of them ever manage to find quite the right words for things, that this—curled together on the couch, warm and happy and together—is more than enough.

The little moments start to add up. All of the things that Kate has been trying to chalk up to just being thrilled to finally have someone as close of a friend as Yelena is begin to snowball into something much larger and harder to deny. The flutter in her stomach when they snuggle together under a blanket on the couch, how Yelena sometimes looks so beautiful that it takes Kate's breath away—even the obnoxious teasing about Lucky's bad manners just makes her smile, because all of it feels like home.

There are other things, though. Things that make her question her own sanity and whether maybe Yelena is also trying to figure out exactly what is going on.

It starts with Yelena making breakfast one morning. She's cooking omelettes for them, and when she hands Kate's plate to her, Kate sees that there’s a heart drawn on the omelette in hot sauce. She glances up and sees Yelena trying not to laugh, and she rolls her eyes as she spears a bite and eats it.

The next time Yelena makes omelettes, Kate's comes with a heart again—but this time there is an arrow through it. Kate can't help smiling when she sees it, even though she has no idea what the fuck it means. Is it some sort of secret spy hint? Or is this just another case of Yelena messing with her?

"I had no idea you were such an artist," she says, and Yelena just grins and turns back to the stove.

There are other things, too. Like how sometimes Kate looks over and catches Yelena staring at her like she's the best thing she's ever seen, expression soft and open in a way that sends butterflies into flight all up and down Kate's spine. Yelena always looks away as soon as she notices Kate watching, but Kate files those moments away nonetheless.

Yelena takes the time to teach Kate different grappling skills. She claims it's because she was disappointed at how easily she was able to beat Kate the first time they fought, and maybe that's partially true, but Kate also notices how Yelena seems determined to push her right up to her limits—but never past them. Even when she's flipping Kate onto her ass for the fifth time in as many minutes, there's a keen awareness in her eyes, a choice offered to Kate every time Yelena extends her hand out to help her back up. 

It's sweet, honestly. Teaching Kate all of her best moves is probably the equivalent of an assassin's love language, Kate thinks, and she has no intention of refusing the offer.

As more and more time passes, Kate finds herself learning additional bits and pieces about Yelena's life. 

Yelena isn't one for spilling her guts in deep heart-to-heart conversations. Instead, she peppers tiny hints and morsels of information into random moments, and Kate sometimes feels like she's trying to follow a trail of breadcrumbs towards the truths that Yelena keeps locked away deep within herself. 

Sometimes those truths are relatively straightforward and quiet—like the time they're watching an action movie and Yelena scoffs at the hero's skills, casually stating that she had already killed men twice his size by the time she was seven. Or the time that Kate takes her to a thrift shop and Yelena spends an entire day combing through every single item and picking out the most random combination of options that still somehow look incredible together, and on the subway ride home she leans her head against Kate's shoulder and says that sometimes she still doesn't know how to live with all of the choices she has now after so many years of the exact opposite.

Sometimes the things she acknowledges are more painful, though, the words and memories spoken in such a way that Kate can practically feel how much it costs Yelena to say them aloud.

Natasha is one of those things.

They're sitting in the park one warm summer evening, Yelena happily polishing off the last few bites of the gyro they'd gotten for dinner, when Kate sees the first glow of fireflies. She bumps Yelena with her shoulder, meaning to point them out to her, only to find Yelena already staring at them with a wistful look on her face.

"You okay?" she asks, and Yelena shakes herself a little and nods.

"Yeah. I was just...the fireflies, they remind me of her. Of Natasha."

Kate doesn't say anything. She's learned that the less she talks when Yelena is in a mood like this, the more Yelena will share. Staying quiet isn't exactly her natural state, but she's getting better at it if for no other reason than she desperately wants to know everything about Yelena that Yelena is willing to tell her.

"We would catch the fireflies when we were still in Ohio, and Melina would explain the science to us. I never really cared about that part, I just liked to be outside with Natasha. Happy." She bites her lip. "Free." Kate almost says something, but Yelena keeps talking. "Natasha was like me, you know? Or maybe I was always just trying to be like her. Even when she got out and became an Avenger and didn't come back for me, she was still my sister. And I could be proud that at least one of us had been able to claw our way free."

"She came back for you eventually, though, didn't she?" Kate asks. Yelena chuckles sadly.

"She did. I just thought...I thought we would have more time." She swipes angrily at her eyes. "Stupid, I know. None of us live long in this line of work. But she was—she was the best, and she was my big sister, and I always thought that if one of us died, it would be me."

Kate's heart aches, both at the grief in Yelena's voice and also at the idea of Yelena going through life fully expecting to die before the person who was most important to her—maybe even taking comfort in that likelihood.

She leans over so that their shoulders are pressed together and hopes that the contact can bring even a tiny modicum of comfort to Yelena. "I'm sorry," she says quietly, "I wish that you could have had more time with Natasha. You both deserved that." She hesitates, not sure if it's appropriate to say the second part of what she's thinking, but ultimately decides she might as well just go for it. "I'm glad you're still alive, though."

"I wasn't glad. Not for a long time." The words stab at Kate like knives, but then Yelena says, "But then I met you. And...I am glad that I lived long enough to get to know you, Kate Bishop."

Kate can't think of any words that could even begin to do justice to the hurricane of feelings that is threatening to overwhelm her, so she just nods and tips her head to rest against Yelena's shoulder and says, "Me too, Yelena Belova. Me too."

It starts off like any other night. She's been keeping an eye on a handful of goons for the past few weeks, and she was planning on her night consisting of scaring a few of them out of the shady business they’ve taken up. In all of her surveillance, they've never exhibited anything beyond the absolute bare minimum of intelligence required for them to remember to breathe, and it seemed like a simple in-and-out to deal with them.

So naturally, as soon as she enters the building, things go completely wrong.

It turns out that the guys she's been keeping tabs on might be idiots, but their bosses are not. Said bosses have apparently invested in both a defensive alarm system and hidden security teams, neither of which Kate was really planning on.

It's about the time that she's backed into a corner of the building surrounded by eleven hulking men with guns that she realizes that she might have made a mistake. There's not much she can do aside from try to work her way through the attackers one by one, but close-quarters combat isn't exactly ideal for archery. She manages to take out the first five before one of the remaining men gets off a lucky shot that catches her in the arm.

Pain explodes up and down from her left shoulder to her fingertips, and she spares half a second to think Well that's going to leave a mark before ducking behind another attacker and using him as a shield. She manages to get behind a handful of boxes stacked off to one side of the room, and she takes the brief reprieve to look down at her arm. She's losing a lot of blood, and she grimaces at the thought that this might be how her life ends: outnumbered by a handful of sneaky criminals because she didn't do enough recon.

Talk about embarrassing.

She's just about to poke her head out from her hiding spot to try to get a sense for where the remaining men are when she hears a shout, followed by the sound of rapid gunfire. It makes no sense since they aren't shooting at her, and when she chances a peak, she's just in time to catch a flash of familiar blonde hair as Yelena dispatches another attacker.

"Stay down, Kate!" Yelena calls, sliding into a crouch as she kneecaps one of the remaining two men. Kate sees the last guard come out from behind a few crates, his gun aimed at Yelena's back, and her heart lurches.

"Watch out—" before Kate can even finish her sentence, Yelena pivots and snaps off two rounds in quick succession, dropping the man to the floor. Kate slides back down behind the boxes in relief, and a second later she's greeted by the sight of Yelena crouching next to her.

"Fancy seeing you here," Kate says, grimacing as Yelena promptly begins poking at her injured arm. Yelena doesn't even bother responding, just digs in a pocket and pulls out a bandage that she begins to wrap around Kate's arm with more force than Kate thinks is strictly necessary, mumbling in Russian all the while.

Kate catches a familiar phrase, and even though her tongue is starting to feel thick and heavy in her mouth and words seem hard, she blinks blearily at Yelena and says, "You called me that in the elevator. What does it mean?"

Yelena meets her eyes for a split second before going back to cinching the bandage around Kate's arm. "It means I am going to kill you myself for being such an idiot if this bullet does not do the job for me."

Kate wants to protest that a single bullet to the arm isn't going to kill her, but it's remarkably difficult to keep her eyes open at this point, much less form coherent sentences. She leans her head back against the box at her back, has just enough time to think that maybe she's lost more blood than she realized, and then the darkness takes her.

*

"Ow." The first thing she's aware of when she regains consciousness is that her arm hurts. A lot. The second is that she's laying on her back on what feels like a comfortable mattress, and the third....well, the third is that when she opens her eyes, she sees a very unhappy Yelena staring back at her.

"Why would you do something like that?" Yelena asks with no preamble. "Running into an ambush outnumbered and outgunned is idiotic, even for you."

"Well it's not like you can plan for an ambush," Kate says, making a face when her voice comes out scratchy. She doesn't know why Yelena is so upset with her. It's not like she was trying to get shot. Plus she feels like shit and really just wants to down some water and ibuprofen and go back to sleep, and Yelena's insistence on yelling at her is making that difficult.

"What if I hadn't been there?"

Something in the way Yelena says it makes Kate look over, and her heart clenches painfully in her chest when she sees the faint shine of tears in Yelena's eyes, the barely visible tremble of her lower lip. She realizes all at once that Yelena isn't really mad at her—she's scared, terrified of all of the might-have-beens and different turns the night might have taken.

It's impossible to be irritated when Yelena is so clearly upset, and Kate sighs. "I guess it's a good thing that I didn't have to find out." Yelena scoffs and looks less than impressed with that response, and Kate winces. "I'll try not to make a habit of needing to be rescued, though."

"Good," Yelena mutters. "You do that." She starts to push herself out of the chair and Kate frowns when she sees Yelena flinch as she moves.

"You're hurt," she says, cursing herself for not having thought to check sooner. She'd just assumed that Yelena was fine since she'd managed to get them both back to the apartment, but she should have known better by now than to expect Yelena to give any indication that she's injured. She pushes herself upright in the bed so that she can get a better look at Yelena and reaches out for her.

"It's fine." Yelena takes a step back, moving out of reach, and Kate growls under her breath.

"We have very different definitions of fine." She's not in any shape to be able to chase Yelena across the room, so she settles for a pointed glare. "What happened?"

Yelena hesitates, but eventually she says, "Just a graze along my ribs." Kate arches a brow at her, and she coughs. "And maybe a stab wound in my leg. But to be fair that was from the assignment I was on before coming to find you, and I already stitched it."

"A stab—" Kate gapes at her, temporarily rendered mute. "Let me see it."

"I am not taking my pants off just so you can play nursemaid," Yelena says. She crosses her arms over her chest defensively and takes another step back as if she expects Kate to try to force her.

Kate takes a few deep breaths and tries to calm down. Obviously Yelena hasn't died yet, and she's up and moving around which is sort of a good sign except for the fact that she thinks Yelena would probably keep going as if nothing was wrong right up until dropping dead from a hidden injury.

The fact remains that she doesn't think she's capable of chasing Yelena down if she scares her off entirely, though, so she decides to just hope that Yelena is telling the truth and that her injuries are relatively minor. "Will you at least clean it and then come back here so I know that you aren't bleeding out on my bathroom floor from sheer stubbornness?"

Yelena looks like she's considering refusing, but eventually she nods, and Kate relaxes back against the pillows as Yelena heads for the bathroom. She tries not to fall asleep while she listens to the sound of the bathroom sink running and waits for Yelena to come back. Her body is screaming at her to just close her eyes and slip back into the blissful quiet of unconsciousness, but she manages to hold off until she hears the sound of tentative footfalls approaching the bed once more.

"Here." Yelena thrusts a glass of water at her face and hands her two pills, and Kate eagerly grabs them. She tosses back the pills and then drains the glass in a few gulps before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, already feeling slightly more human.

"This is why you're my favorite."

Yelena raises an eyebrow as she takes the glass and sets it down on the bedside table. "And here I thought I was your favorite because I keep you from dying in boring ways." 

Kate scoots over to make room for Yelena, assuming that Yelena is staying since she's changed out of her uniform and is wearing a pair of Kate's sweatpants and a hoodie. She frowns when Yelena doesn't make a move to get into the bed next to her. "What?"

"I can just sleep on the couch," Yelena says, not looking directly at Kate.

"Nope. Not happening. I don't trust you not to do something dumb like stop breathing because you're secretly more hurt than you told me."

Yelena sighs. "Fine. Then I will sit in the chair, it is plenty comfortable for napping."

Kate huffs, not sure why this seems to be such a sticking point. "Come on. I promise my bed is way more comfortable, and I'll even try not to accidentally cuddle you in my sleep or something if that's what you're worried about."

"It's not that, I just—" Yelena looks like she wants to protest further, staring at the empty space next to Kate as if it's going to attack her, but then her eyes glance up to Kate's face and whatever she sees there seems to silence her misgivings. She slides into the bed, remaining diligently separate from Kate and laying flat on her back staring up at the ceiling.

Kate stays quiet and tries her best not to move for a few minutes, terrified that she'll unintentionally scare Yelena away, but eventually she can't take the tension anymore and reaches over to prod Yelena in the ribs.

"Ow!" Yelena hisses and flinches away from the touch. "Stop that!"

"You stop that," Kate mumbles in response. It's not her best come back, but she thinks she can be forgiven given what a terrible night she's had.

"Stop what? What are you talking about?" Yelena snaps.

"Being…I don't know, uncomfortable," Kate says, waving her hand in the air. "You're practically not even breathing over there."

"Well forgive me for not wanting to encroach," Yelena grumbles. Kate has a feeling that's not the full truth of things, but she's too tired to press the matter.

"Just—relax," she says. "You're not encroaching, and I'm too tired to keep arguing with you."

"Then don't," Yelena mutters, but some of the tension slowly leaks from her muscles in spite of her tone. Kate sighs in relief as she feels Yelena settle into the mattress, and she kicks one leg over so that her calf is pressed against Yelena's.

She has just enough brainpower left to mumble a "Good night," before she falls asleep, and she isn't sure whether she imagines Yelena's whispered reply of, "Sweet dreams, Kate Bishop."

*

It's not even light outside when she blinks her eyes open next. She's not sure what woke her at first, but then she feels Yelena twitching in the bed next to her, tiny distressed noises falling from her lips, and she twists in the bed to get a better look at Yelena's face. She's still asleep, but her face is marred by a deep frown, the corners of her mouth pulled down as she mumbles things that Kate doesn't understand in Russian.

"Yelena," she whispers. "Yelena, wake up—you're having a nightmare."

She reaches over to try to shake Yelena awake, but as soon as her hand makes contact, she knows instantly that she’s made a mistake.

Yelena jerks awake and rolls on top of Kate, a knife materializing seemingly out of thin air in one hand, the blade digging into the delicate skin of Kate's throat. Kate tries not to move—tries not to breathe, afraid that it will trigger something else in Yelena, and she waits to see whether this is how she dies.

Yelena stares down at her, but there is no recognition in her eyes. They're flat and terrified, and Kate decides to chance speaking.

"Yelena—Yelena, it's me. Kate. Kate Bishop."

"Kate Bishop…" Yelena blinks once, twice—and then she throws herself backwards off of Kate, scrambling off of the bed to put space between them as she drops the knife to the floor with a clatter.

Kate breathes a sigh of relief, her fingers unconsciously moving to check her throat and coming away with a faint streak of blood on them.

"I'm sorry," Yelena mumbles, her expression devastated as she stares at Kate. "I'm so sorry, I did not mean to—"

"Hey, hey—it's okay, I should have thought about what it would be like for you to wake up to someone touching you," Kate says, shifting upright on the bed. Her arm throbs and her head spins at the movement, but she swallows hard and tries to ignore it.

Yelena shakes her head, flinching back when Kate reaches out for her. "I could have killed you."

"But you didn't." The words don't seem to reassure Yelena, and Kate thinks for a second before saying, "You told me once that if you'd wanted me dead, I would have been dead. You—even asleep you—didn't really want to hurt me, or I wouldn't have stood a chance."

She holds her breath and waits to see if it's enough. Yelena still looks distraught, eyes glossy with unshed tears, but eventually she sighs and seems to concede the point.

"Come back to bed," Kate says, reaching out again and offering her good hand to Yelena. Yelena doesn't take it, but she moves closer until she can reach out with a trembling hand to brush her fingertips against Kate's throat. Her touch is feather-light and impossibly gentle, and Kate can't help her eyes fluttering closed as she leans into it. She hears a tiny scoff and brings her eyes back open to see Yelena watching her with a pained expression.

"I try to kill you and you think it is a good idea to close your eyes while my hand is on your throat?"

Kate shrugs with her good shoulder. "I trust you."

Yelena shakes her head. "Then you are a fool." But even as she says it, she allows Kate to gently grasp her by the wrist and tug her back into the bed.

Kate pulls the covers up over both of them and then slides her hand from Yelena's wrist down to tangle their fingers together. She squeezes once and feels Yelena squeeze back.

"You can make breakfast in the morning to make up for interrupting my beauty sleep," she mumbles, and she hears Yelena breathe out a quiet laugh.

"You say that like I wasn't going to be the one to make breakfast anyways."

Kate just hums and burrows deeper into the blankets, letting the steady rhythm of Yelena's breathing lull her back to sleep.

Chapter Text

They don't talk about Kate getting shot after that night. Things go back to as close to normal as Kate thinks is possible, given the lives they lead, but she doesn't forget her promise to Yelena to be more careful. As much as she wants to rush into situations, to just do something sometimes, she holds back. Does an extra sweep of the perimeter, always confirms her exit lines, and tries to make sure that if something does happen to her, she'll at least be able to look Yelena in the eye and tell her it couldn't have been avoided.

Things continue on much as they were before, a slow dance that leaves Kate feeling like she's always a half-step away from losing her footing and toppling over a cliff. Sometimes she imagines Yelena living up to her arachnid namesake, dreams of fine threads of gossamer silk spun between them until she's caught in the web. 

But that's not quite right, because she doesn't feel trapped in the least. Yes, she may be bound to Yelena by threads both visible and not, but she also can't imagine anywhere else she would want to be. Maybe it's idiotic and she's the fly snared in Yelena's web and she just hasn't realized that she's going to be on the menu one day, but she doesn't think that's the case.

They're laying on the couch one sun-drenched afternoon, Kate's head in Yelena's lap as Yelena braids her hair. Kate is almost asleep, her whole body light and floaty, when she hears Yelena say something in Russian. She only catches the end of it, and she frowns as she rolls onto her back so that she's looking up at Yelena.

"What does that mean?" she asks. Yelena flushes, and it only serves to spike Kate's curiosity higher. "I'm pretty sure I know all of the different swear words in Russian at this point, and I haven't heard you say that before."

"It is not important," Yelena says, quickly flipping the TV on and changing the subject to what show they should watch, and Kate makes a mental note to try to look up the phrase later.

It takes some doing by the time she finally gets a few minutes to herself with her phone (she'd started doing Duolingo a month back because she wanted to be able to understand Yelena and maybe say at least a few phrases back, but she's definitely still in the "beginner" stage), and she fumbles through no fewer than twenty-six different searches before finally finding what she needs. 

All of the effort is worth it, though, when she sees the translation she was looking for. 

Malen'kaya ptitsa: little bird. 

The thought of Yelena having a pet name for her is almost too much to bear, and Kate's cheeks hurt from how wide her smile is. When Yelena comes back to the apartment later that night, Kate tackles her in a hug as soon as she walks through the door, only letting her go when Yelena laughs and squirms away.

"What was that for?" Yelena asks, and Kate grins at her.

"Does this mean that you're the big bird? Because I have to say, that would be ironic since you're like, a foot shorter than me."

"I knew I should not have encouraged your Duolingo obsession," Yelena grumbles, a vibrant red blush creeping up her neck and face.

"It's sweet," Kate says, flopping back onto the couch with a grin. "Who would have known that you're such a softy?"

Yelena's nose wrinkles in distaste. "I am not a softy. And I'm not a bird, either. Not all of us inherited cheesy codenames."

Kate bites her lip to keep from laughing as a plan starts to take shape in her mind. She doesn't know the Russian word for spider, but she's fairly certain that it will be easy to find out.

She buys Yelena an obnoxious yellow Big Bird keychain and hands it to her in the kitchen one day. Before Yelena can say anything, Kate makes a point of dropping her own keys on the table in such a way that her brand new spider keychain is clearly visible, and then walks over to the fridge so that she can still see Yelena out of the corner of her eye.

She watches with no small amount of amusement as Yelena's eyes flick back and forth between the two keychains, her mouth opening and closing with no words coming out. Finally, she mutters, "You are not as funny as you think you are, Kate Bishop," and Kate grins to herself as she grabs the milk out of the fridge.

"Maybe not, but you love me anyways." There's a brief moment of tension as soon as the words leave her mouth, a spike of fear that maybe she's been overly presumptuous to use a word as loaded as love, but then Yelena just shakes her head and gives a long-suffering sigh as she says something under her breath in Russian. Kate doesn't catch most of it, but she's pretty sure she hears at least two words that are definitely not suitable for polite company.

"The hot sauce was way cooler," Yelena eventually says, but her fingers still close around the garish Sesame Street character before sliding it into her pocket.

They don't say anything else about it then, but Kate gives a silent cheer of victory the next time Yelena fumbles for her keys and Kate catches a glimpse of Big Bird tucked neatly against a tiny bottle of hot sauce.

The closer she and Yelena get, the more confused Kate becomes. She and Yelena aren't dating—they aren't. Both people have to know it's happening in order for there to be dating, right? It's not like you can accidentally end up dating someone.

So she and Yelena are 100%, definitely just friends. But it gets harder and harder for Kate to mount a convincing defense when Clint asks about Yelena, and trips to visit the farm become an increasingly frustrating experience.

On one trip, she's sitting at the picnic table down in the field with Clint and the kids when her phone buzzes. She glances down at it and her breath catches when she sees a selfie from Yelena in her inbox. It's a gorgeous photo—Yelena looks like she's on the balcony of her apartment, and the time difference means that the sun is just starting to set behind her. She looks almost inhumanly beautiful against the backdrop of the city skyline washed in pinks and golds, and Kate can't take her eyes off her phone.

The spell is broken when Clint leans over and makes a knowing sound in his throat as he sees what she's staring at.

"Don't," Kate says.  "I've told you a million times already, we're not dating." But even as she says it, she can't help but wonder if that's really true. Is what she's doing with Yelena really just friendship? Because it feels a lot closer to the romantic relationships she's had in the past—better, even—and she grabs her glass of lemonade and downs half of it in an attempt to distract herself from the way her mind is buzzing.

"Right. You're not dating." Clint looks entirely unconvinced. "But can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me you don't want to be?"

Kate tries not to flinch at the words. She masters every ounce of self-control she possesses and glares at Clint, making absolutely certain not to look away. "I don't."

He throws his hands up and grumbles something about her being a hopeless case before walking away from the table. Kate takes a deep breath and pokes at her sandwich, suddenly not feeling very hungry anymore.

No matter what she just said to Clint, she can only deny the truth for so long. Because she's starting to accept that even if she and Yelena aren't currently dating, she does wish they were. It's a terrifying thought to admit to herself. She wants to be more with Yelena, wants to share quiet mornings with hot-sauce hearts on omelettes and end each night curled in bed together.  Wants to be able to give Yelena everything good in life, to show her that she's treasured and cherished and important to Kate for more reasons and in more ways than she has words to explain.

When she thinks of Yelena, all she can think of is how much she wants, and it's the depth of that wanting that scares her most of all.

They go out on missions together, sometimes. Occasionally because it's an especially dangerous one, but more often because it's just more fun when it's the two of them. Yelena has been going on fewer and fewer assignments for her employer, though Kate hasn't asked for more details about why, and it means that they've fallen into a rhythm of spending more time together than not.

One night Kate is trying to gather intel on a new player who has burst onto the scene in truly extravagant fashion. Whoever they are, they have expensive tastes, and so naturally Kate drags Yelena to a seriously over-the-top dinner party in the hopes that they'll be able to learn more about who the mystery person is.

There are a few different parts to the plan that Kate doesn't think through in advance. The one that she most immediately regrets is that when she invited Yelena to come with her, she didn't really stop to think about the fact that it would mean seeing Yelena dressed up for a formal event. She's seen Yelena in all manner of casual attire, and she's well acquainted with how stunning Yelena looks in her uniform, but she's still entirely unprepared to hear a knock on her door the night of the event and open it to see Yelena standing there in a floor-length silk gown.

"Uh—hi," Kate squeaks out, clearing her throat. Yelena just gives her a smug smile, like she knows exactly what Kate is thinking, and sweeps past her into the apartment.

"If the romantic movies are accurate, I believe you are the one who should have picked me up. But I was impatient, and I did not want to wait."

"That's—that's totally fine." Kate is still trying to remember how to speak in coherent sentences. All she can focus on is the fact that Yelena is standing in her apartment wearing a dress the color of crushed blackberries that hugs every. single. curve. Yelena's hair is swept up and braided in an intricate design that keeps it out of her face while still somehow managing to look elegant and delicate and—

"You are staring." Yelena is watching her with a raised eyebrow, and Kate gives up on trying to play it cool.

"Yeah. You just...you look really nice."

Yelena's expression softens and the edges of her mouth curve up into a small but genuine smile. It makes Kate's heart sing to know that she's the cause of it, and she vows to give Yelena as many reasons as possible to smile like that in the future.

"Thank you. You look lovely as well. Very handsome."

Kate blushes as she smooths her hands down the front of her suit and fiddles with her tie. She'd opted to keep things simple, not wanting to deal with the hassle of trying to get a dress on over her uniform, but she's suddenly feeling very plain in comparison to Yelena, and she awkwardly looks down. Some of her thoughts must show on her face, because she feels a gentle finger press just under her chin, lifting her eyes until she's looking at Yelena again.

"Truly," Yelena murmurs. "You know I am not one to say things purely for the sake of saying them."

And that's true, so it helps Kate's nerves a little, but also she can't help her gaze flickering down to Yelena's mouth, which is stained the color of dark red wine, and she wants.

She shakes herself to try to clear the thoughts from her mind. This is not the time to succumb to her hormones like a horny fourteen-year-old boy. And besides, it's not like Yelena dressed up for her, she did it for the mission, and it would be rude to read into things and make this about her own desires when she knows that it's not.

She hopes that her inner turmoil isn't obvious as she offers Yelena her arm and prays that she can make it through the night without embarrassing herself. "Shall we?"

Yelena takes it, and neither of them lets go until they get into the Uber that's waiting for them downstairs.

*

The dinner itself is fairly standard, all things considered. Kate has been at far too many events just like this one to be wowed by the glitz and glamor, and she imagines the same is true for Yelena. 

What's less standard is the fact that halfway through the night, when Yelena has stepped away to do a quick sweep of the perimeter, a young woman approaches Kate and strikes up conversation completely unprompted. Her name is Elise, and she's at the party courtesy of her job with one of the biggest newspapers in the city, and before Kate even knows what's happening, Elise is giving her a coy smile and asking for Kate's number. 

It's not like Kate is a stranger to people hitting on her—she knows she's attractive, and the suit she's currently wearing practically screams I'm gay— but it feels wrong, somehow, when she came here with Yelena. Even if they aren't technically dating, Kate can't shake the feeling of uneasiness at the whole situation.

Still, she goes ahead and rattles off her phone number, because what can it hurt? It's not like she ever has to call Elise back if she doesn't want to. Elise dials it right then and there and Kate can feel her phone ringing in her pocket, but she doesn't get a chance to say anything in response before she feels a firm hand land at the small of her back. 

"Who is this?"

Yelena sounds less than thrilled, and Kate looks awkwardly between the two women. "Um, this is Elise. Elise, this is Yelena." Yelena's hand is still pressed to the base of her spine, and Kate tries to ignore the way it's sending sparks up and down the length of her body.

Elise doesn't seem interested in hanging around (probably for the best, given that Yelena has that look in her eye that Kate knows means some sort of violence is imminent), just gives Kate a wink and says, "Call me," before turning and disappearing back into the crowd.

Yelena glares after her, and Kate feels a twinge of anxiety that she's messed things up. Which is stupid, because again—she and Yelena aren't dating, and it's not like she hooked up with someone in the middle of the dinner or anything scandalous like that.

But Yelena's whole energy has shifted, the playful openness locked away beneath what Kate has come to think of as her "mission face," the one that doesn't give any of her emotions away and makes it seem like she's carved of stone. Kate opens her mouth to ask Yelena what's wrong, but Yelena cuts her off.

"I found a few leads. We should talk to them before the night is through."

"Ooookay," Kate says, letting Yelena tug her towards the first mark. Something is going on with Yelena, but the middle of a mission is perhaps not the best time to try to talk to her about it, and Kate decides that it's probably a conversation that's better off waiting until they're both not so distracted.

*

Yelena is quiet all the way home, and Kate keeps stealing worried glances at her. She's not exactly sure why Yelena is so withdrawn—obviously something happened at the event, but she can't quite figure out what. Kate waits to say something until they get back to the apartment, but as soon as they're through the door she wastes no time.

"What's wrong?"

Yelena looks over at her and her mouth opens in what Kate knows instinctively is going to be a denial that anything is wrong, and she glares at Yelena. They know each other too well, have come too far to be able to let thinly veiled lies slide. Yelena seems to catch the look and changes tactics.

"It is nothing important," Yelena says instead, "I am just tired."

"Bullshit." Kate shakes her head. "I've seen you so tired you were practically dead on your feet, and you've still never passed up an opportunity to people watch with me on the subway. There was a lady in a giraffe suit and you didn't even notice!"

"You do not even know it was a lady," Yelena grumbles. "The face was hidden by the mask."

"That's so not the point." Kate tries to tamp down her frustration at how evasive Yelena is being and takes a step closer as she intentionally gentles her voice. "Did something happen at the dinner?"

"Why would you think that?" Yelena's tone is sharp, but the fact that she doesn't immediately deny it is all the opening Kate needs.

"Because you were totally fine and it seemed like we were having fun right up until we weren't, and the next thing I know you're giving me the silent treatment the entire trip home."

Yelena's lips twitch into a frown, and her brow creases in a way that makes Kate want to reach out and smooth the wrinkle away. "I'm sorry. I did not mean to make you feel like I was upset with you."

"So you're not upset with me?" Kate hates herself for needing to ask it, but she needs to hear Yelena say that this isn't her fault.

There's a split second of hesitation, but it's more than enough to have Kate's stomach plummeting down to the floor. So she did do something. She racks her brain trying to think of what it could possibly be. She didn't do anything stupid or reckless, she's managed to make it through the night completely uninjured, she's pretty sure she didn't accidentally stomp on Yelena's foot while they were in line for the buffet or anything—

"Did you like that girl?"

The question is so abrupt and unexpected that Kate can only stare at Yelena for a second. Yelena seems to take her silence for confusion and clarifies, "The one at dinner. Who gave you her number."

"I mean—I guess she was nice," Kate says slowly, feeling somehow like she's walking into a trap.

"Nice." Yelena makes a dismissive noise. "And you exchange phone numbers with anyone who is just nice ?"

"As opposed to what, using shady methods to obtain people's phone numbers without their knowledge?" She's not sure why she feels so defensive all of a sudden, and the flicker of hurt across Yelena's face instantly makes her regret it. She takes a deep breath and tries again. "What is this about, Yelena?"

"Do you want her?"

For the second time in less than five minutes, Kate finds herself speechless. "What do you mean, do I want her?"

"Do you want to get to know her? To date her? To fuck her." Yelena makes an impatient gesture with her hand as if Kate should already know this was what she meant, which Kate thinks is supremely unfair. She's still not even sure why Yelena is bringing this up, much less why it seems to have her so on edge.

"Um, probably not?" Kate hates that her answer comes out sounding like a question. "I mean, like I said, she seems nice enough, but she's not really my type—" She snaps her mouth closed with an audible click, realizing a second too late that this is dangerous territory that she probably doesn't want to get into.

So of course, Yelena immediately picks up on it. "So you have a type, then?" she asks, her voice low and smooth. She's looking at Kate like she has an idea what the answer might be, but there's no other indication of what she's thinking or feeling, and Kate freezes as she tries to figure out what to do. If she's honest with Yelena, there's no going back—but she thinks that there's equally no going back if she lies.

"Well?" Yelena's eyes are watching her closely, expectantly, her expression almost challenging. "If this nice girl wasn't your type, Kate Bishop, then who is?"

"I don't know!" Kate snaps. She doesn't understand why Yelena is pushing this, why she can't just let it drop. There's no way for this to end well for either of them if they continue down this path, but Kate feels like she's sliding down a cliff while every handhold she reaches for dissolves into dust.

Yelena is quiet for a second and Kate starts to think she might have been granted a reprieve from the questioning, but then Yelena takes a breath and seems to come to a decision. 

"Do you think how we are is normal, Kate?"

It's yet another question that Kate has no idea how to answer. "I'm going to need a little more detail about what you're getting at to answer that," she finally settles on. Yelena snorts inelegantly at the non-answer, but she waves her hand at the apartment.

"This. How we live. How much time we spend together, the fact that my dog does not bark at you because she considers you family, the sweet things you do for me, how we sleep in the same bed after missions."

"Oh." Kate tries not to flinch at a handful of the things she's been diligently trying to ignore being listed out so casually. "I mean, yes? It's normal for friends to spend time together and be close like that, isn't it?" The words taste like a lie even as she forces them out, and Yelena seems to think so too.

"You do not do these things with any of your other friends," she says quietly. "And neither do I."

Kate bites her lip and scrubs a hand over her face. She doesn't want to be having this conversation—doesn't even really know exactly what the conversation is. "Okay, fine, so maybe I don't act the same with my other friends. But they're also not superheroes, so that's probably why."

Yelena sighs and looks away, her posture slumping as her gaze drops to the floor. "I am not a superhero, Kate. You know that."

"You are, though," Kate says earnestly. This is a conversation she knows how to have, a conversation she's already tried to have with Yelena in twelve different ways (and that Yelena has shut down every single time before Kate can even make her full argument). "You've saved all of those other widows, and you've saved me, and—" 

"None of that matters." Yelena cuts her off mid-sentence with an impatient shake of her head. "We are not the same. The things I have done..." She looks over at Kate with undisguised pain. "Do you remember what I told you about Clint Barton when we first met?"

"That you were going to kill him?"

"No, after that."

Kate searches her memory for what Yelena could possibly be talking about. That entire night is kind of a blur, honestly, and she doesn't know why it's even relevant to the current conversation. But then a flash of a sentence threads its way through her mind, and Kate bites her lip as she realizes what Yelena is talking about. "You said that the trail of blood that followed him was long enough to wrap around the entire world."

"Yes." Yelena nods slowly, sadly. "And it is true. But the trail that follows me...there is enough blood there to fill oceans, Kate. And you are too good for that." 

Kate hears the You are too good for me that Yelena doesn't say, and she tries to figure out how they ended up here. It feels like there are multiple conversations happening simultaneously and she doesn't understand any of them, doesn't know exactly what Yelena is trying to get at with all of this.

"What is this really about?" Kate asks, stepping closer and tentatively reaching out to grasp Yelena's hand. She lets out a silent breath when Yelena allows the contact.  "Why are you saying all of this?"

Yelena tilts her head to the side as she looks up at Kate. There's a quiet frustration in her eyes that Kate doesn't know what to do with, a sort of resignation that breaks her heart because she doesn't even know what it's for.

"I do not know what you want, Kate Bishop," she finally says. Kate's heart speeds up as she sees a single tear escape from the corner of Yelena's eye. She's seen this woman take bullets and knives and explosions and come out the other side still laughing, so to see her crying now? It only further cements the reality that something is terribly wrong. 

"Sometimes I think I have figured it out," Yelena continues, "But then..." She trails off and another tear slips free. Kate reaches out to catch it with her thumb, wiping it away and leaving her hand cradling Yelena's cheek. "What do you want ?" Yelena asks her, the question coming out plaintive and desperate even as she leans into Kate's hand.

A tiny part of her cries out that this is a terrible idea, that she's not thinking clearly, but Kate ignores it. The skin of Yelena's cheek is warm beneath her palm and Yelena's eyes are bright with unshed tears as she stares up at Kate like she's waiting for her to either save her from drowning or strike a killing blow, and Kate can't think. All she wants to do is make Yelena feel better, to ease whatever hurt has her in its grip, and it's that impulse that guides what she does next.

"You." She breathes the word out so quietly that she wonders whether Yelena will even hear it, but she sees hazel eyes widen and knows that she has. She forces herself to say it again, because if she's doing this, then she's going to do it right. "I want you, Yelena."

"Do not say things you do not mean," Yelena murmurs, her eyes still glossy with tears even as she searches Kate's face with almost frantic intensity. "Please don't lie to me, Kate, I couldn't—I couldn't bear it. Not from you."

"I'm not lying," Kate says. She strokes her thumb along Yelena's cheekbone, trying to think of what she can say to prove she's telling the truth. Words seem to have deserted her, but she realizes that there are more ways to send a message than just talking.

Kate leans in with agonizing slowness, never looking away from Yelena. She wants to give her every possible opportunity to back out or push her away, but Yelena doesn't move. Their noses bump lightly against each other, and the last thing Kate sees before her eyes slide closed on instinct is something like awe in Yelena's eyes. 

The first brush of their lips is almost delicate, but it still sends a jolt of heat through Kate's body. She pauses, not wanting to go too far, but then Yelena makes a quiet noise in the back of her throat and pushes forward to connect their lips properly. It takes a second for Kate to adjust the angle of her head before their mouths slot together more firmly and—yeah, she's always thought that people who said kisses made them go weak in the knees were full of shit, but she may be reevaluating that now.

She presses forward, wanting to be as close to Yelena as possible, and she whimpers when Yelena abruptly breaks the kiss and jerks away, taking two giant steps back to put space between them. She looks absolutely distraught, and Kate reaches out for her, trying to figure out what's going on. When Yelena flinches away from her, it knocks her back more effectively than any kick to the ribs.

"I can't, Kate—" More tears are falling, faster now, and Yelena swipes at them as she turns away, reaching for her coat. Panic seizes Kate's lungs, driving the air from them in a rush as she realizes that Yelena is trying to leave.

"Wait, Yelena, don't go—I didn't mean to—just stay so we can talk about this—"

Yelena pauses at the door but doesn't turn back around. "I'm sorry, Kate."

And then she's gone.

Chapter Text

^{As an aside, I was not planning on drawing nearly this many pictures of Kate and Yelena. I'm running out of reference photos I like lol, but I've also had art with every chapter of this fic and I AM NOT GOING TO STOP NOW. Feel free to send reference pics you like in the comments if you feel so inclined, because I'm terrible at picking them.}

Kate spends the first twenty-four hours after Yelena leaves trying to resist the urge to spam every burner number she has with texts and phone calls. She knows it would only serve to push Yelena farther away, and that's the last thing she wants.

Still, she can't just sit around and not do anything. It takes her longer than she'd like to admit to think of the solution, but when she does, she dives for her phone and pulls up the contact number for Laura's cell phone. Clint might be her go-to for all things archery and superhero, but she still remembers the look on Laura's face when she'd talked about Natasha, and she thinks that maybe Laura can tell her how to fix this.

"Kate? Is everything okay?" Laura sounds worried even through the phone, and Kate tries to swallow back the rush of tears that threaten to overtake her at the question. She's not entirely successful, and Laura must hear the change in her breathing, because her tone gets even more concerned. "Kate?"

"I'm here," Kate says, "I just—" she angrily swipes at the tears running down her cheeks. "Yelena is gone."

"Gone?"

"I kissed her, and she—she left." The words burn as she says them, and Kate curses herself once again for being so stupid.

"Okay." Laura's voice is low and soothing as she says, "Why don't you tell me what happened from the beginning?"

And Kate does. The whole story comes pouring out of her, from the mission to Yelena confronting her to spilling her guts about how much she wanted Yelena, and she finishes with a sob as she remembers with fresh agony what it had felt like to watch Yelena walk away from her. "And now she's not answering any texts or calls, and I think I've messed everything up—"

"Kate. Take a deep breath." Laura sounds calm. It's not the tone of voice that someone would use if they thought she'd fucked things up beyond repair, and Kate tries to take some comfort in that. "It's going to be okay."

"You don't know that, she might hate me now and never want to see me again—"

"Kate." Laura cuts her off firmly before she can start spiraling again. "She doesn't hate you. She probably just needs some time and space to figure things out for herself. This is probably new territory for her, and that's scary."

"I didn't mean to scare her," Kate whispers. That's the last thing she would ever want to do. 

"Just give her time. Let her process this and figure out what she wants to do. She'll come back when she's ready."

"How can you be so sure?" Kate wants desperately to believe what Laura is saying, but she can't get the image of Yelena walking out of the apartment without looking back out of her head.

Laura makes a quiet noise, and Kate can imagine her standing there and shrugging. "You’re just going to have to trust me on this one. Yelena cares about you. You just have to be patient, and when she does come back, make sure you listen—really listen—to whatever she has to say. And then you need to be honest with her about where you’re at. You don’t get trust without giving it."

"Okay." Kate takes a deep breath and blows it out in a rush. She can do this. She can wait and give Yelena time and space if that's what she needs. "Thanks, Laura."

"Any time. Good luck, Kate."

The phone call disconnects, and Kate throws herself onto the couch with a dramatic groan, only to instantly roll off of it when she catches a faint whiff of Yelena's shampoo on the cushions. 

This whole "waiting patiently" thing may be harder than anticipated.

She makes it exactly seventeen hours (for a grand total of forty-one hours since Yelena left, which she thinks is actually pretty impressive) before she decides that waiting is overrated. She just wants to know that Yelena is alive and okay; if she knows that, then she'll let it drop and go back to taking Laura's advice.

She starts out by checking all of Yelena's usual haunts. The dog park is deserted, there's no sign of Yelena in any of the thrift shops or dive bars they go to, and her apartment is silent and empty save for a half-sleep Fanny who lifts her head just long enough to give Kate a quiet woof before going back to her nap. 

Kate gives her a treat from the jar Yelena keeps on top of the fridge and scratches behind her ears while she tries to think of what to do next. If Yelena isn't in any of the spots where she goes when she's not on a mission, then that means that she’s probably picked up an assignment, so the next step is to try to figure out where she might have been sent.

She knows from their conversations that Yelena has been taking more assignments close to home so that she doesn't have to travel as much. Honestly, Yelena has been taking hardly any assignments at all for the past few months, claiming she's too busy making sure that Kate doesn't get herself killed, but Kate has a feeling that in the face of everything that's happened between them, Yelena might have retreated back into doing what feels most familiar.

Kate scours the city for any hint of Yelena's location, checking on all of the criminal masterminds that she thinks could possibly end up in Yelena's crosshairs. By the time it hits 3:00 am, she's exhausted and barely manages to avoid a nasty shootout with a team of bodyguards, and she realizes that if the bodyguards don't kill her, Yelena probably will for being such an idiot. She gives up and goes home, obsessively checking her phone every five seconds just in case a message from Yelena comes in.

She's so distracted by her failure of a night that it takes her a few seconds after walking into her apartment to notice that one of the windows is open. Hope rises in her chest as she prays that it's due to Yelena and not some random person looking to rob her, but it's not until she hears a voice behind her say, "What, no hot sauce bottle to the head?" that she lets herself believe she's not dreaming.

The bone-deep relief when she turns around and sees Yelena alive and in her apartment is quickly drowned out by worry as she takes in the other girl's disheveled appearance. There's fresh bruising along one half of Yelena's face, and her lip is split and bloody. Her uniform hides any additional injuries, but at least it doesn't look like she's bleeding out.

"Yelena—are you okay?" Kate is halfway across the room to Yelena in a heartbeat, pausing just in front of her. Yelena looks exhausted up close, and she ignores Kate's question in favor of asking one of her own.

"Why did you kiss me?"

Kate winces at the bluntness of the question, but she decides to take Laura's advice and be honest. "Because I wanted to," she says. "And I think I've wanted to for a while now, I just didn't want to admit it."

"Why not? Because you are ashamed to want someone like me?" Yelena's voice is short, but her eyes are dark and wounded, like she's waiting for Kate to confirm all of her worst fears.

"What? No! What does that even mean?" Kate shakes her head, trying to find the words. "It had nothing to do with you—I just—you're the most important person in my world, Yelena, and I didn't want to do anything to ruin that. If you didn't feel the same and I made you uncomfortable or you felt like I was pressuring you—"

"You did not pressure me." Yelena looks away from her, but her voice is a little softer. She doesn't say anything else, and Kate is torn between trying to finish this conversation now and also wanting to make sure that Yelena isn't hiding any more serious injuries.

"Come here," Kate says, deciding to prioritize the latter and taking Yelena by the hand and gently pulling her towards the bathroom. Yelena puts up a token amount of protest, but eventually she lets Kate maneuver her to sit on the toilet seat while Kate rummages under the sink for the first aid kit.

Kate dampens a washcloth with warm water and begins to carefully clean the blood from Yelena's face. She works in silence for a minute before quietly asking, "What happened?"

Yelena grunts. "Someone got in a lucky hit."

Kate frowns as she moves the washcloth over a bruise on Yelena's cheekbone, dragging it down to a set of finger-print-shaped marks ringing Yelena's neck in bruised mauve. "And this?"

"Okay, it may have been more than one lucky hit." Yelena hisses out a breath when Kate shifts to dab at the edge of her split lip but doesn't move away. "I was distracted."

"You don't get distracted," Kate says, running her fingertips lightly over Yelena's collarbone and arms to make sure that there isn't anything hidden beneath her suit. "Anything else that needs to be cleaned or bandaged?"

"Well, you also don't normally kiss me," Yelena says with a huff, batting Kate's hands away. "And no. I told you, I'm fine."

"Says the woman who claimed to be fine after getting stabbed once," Kate grumbles, but she puts the first aid kit away and follows Yelena back into the living room. 

She's not sure what to do or say once they're there. Yelena is facing away from her and Kate can't get a read on what she's thinking or feeling. It's been a long time since she's seen Yelena this closed-off and quiet. Even in the midst of battle, Yelena has always been one for easy banter, and seeing her like this makes a pit open in Kate's stomach that threatens to drown her in regret.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, because this is exactly what she wanted to avoid. She can see that Yelena is hurting, and knowing that she's the reason for it—

"What are you sorry for?" Yelena turns to face her, brows drawn together in confusion. 

"Because I kissed you and you didn't want me to," Kate mumbles, swallowing back the bile at the reminder. "I shouldn't have pushed and been selfish—"

"Kate." Yelena silences her with a firm shake of her head. "I have already told you that you did not pressure me. You were not being selfish. I..." She pauses, and it looks like the next words physically pain her. "I wanted to kiss you too."

That...okay, that is not what Kate was expecting to hear. It's good news, but she doesn't understand why Yelena ran away if she wanted it too, why she still refuses to look Kate in the eyes for more than a second.

"Then why—"

"I would not be good for you. In a relationship." Yelena speaks abruptly, her accent harsher than normal. She doesn't look at Kate as she says it, and Kate frowns.

"Well that's—honestly, that's kind of ridiculous, Yelena. Like, you already do basically everything we would do in a relationship. You cook me breakfast and give me shit about my taste in movies and you keep me from being an idiot when we go on missions and—you're really good at literally all of those things. How could you possibly suddenly be bad for me just because we put a different label on what we are?"

Yelena makes a frustrated noise. "You do not understand."

"Then help me." Kate stares at her helplessly, wanting desperately to reach for her hands but unsure whether the contact would be welcome.

"I don't—" Yelena stops and scrubs a hand across her face, her shoulders slumping. "I can't give you the things that most people would. That people expect."

"Yelena, I literally just listed all of the things you give me—"

"Sex." The word tears itself from Yelena's throat, and the silence after she speaks is the loudest thing Kate thinks she's ever heard. Yelena's face is twisted in a grimace, her body trembling like she’s braced for a blow as she says, "I don't enjoy sex."

Kate blinks. A hundred questions flit through her mind before she pushes them all to the side. This is—well, it's not exactly what she'd expected, but it's not like it's a deal-breaker by any stretch. She'd meant it, all of those times when she'd thought it would be enough to have lazy afternoons curled on the couch with Yelena, spending their dinners arguing over whether it was appropriate to put hot sauce on spaghetti. It might take a little adjusting of her expectations for what it means to be in a relationship, but also—she and Yelena already have the sort of physical and emotional intimacy that Kate craves even without having had sex, and if she gets horny, well, she's a modern woman with a well-stocked drawer of toys in her bedside table.

She takes a breath and then says, "Okay. That's—okay, that's fine. What else?"

And Yelena just stares at her like she's an idiot. "What else? What do you mean, what else? You would want to be with someone without having sex with them?"

Kate takes a slow breath and contemplates her next words. She knows that they're balanced on the edge of a blade right now, and the slightest misstep will draw blood from them both. 

"Look. If you ever decided you wanted sex, then sure. I would love to have sex with you. I think you're like, the hottest person I've ever seen in my life. But that's not why I want to be with you. I want to be with you because you pour stupid amounts of hot sauce on everything, and because you always sneak Lucky extra treats when you think I'm not looking even though he sort of needs to go on a diet at this point, and because you make me laugh and feel like I can just be me and that I'm good enough just the way I am, and because you're good. You're the best person I've ever known, Yelena, and I want you in my life in whatever capacity you want to be here."

Yelena's mouth is hanging open by the time she’s done talking, and Kate thinks that this may be the first time she's managed to truly render the other girl speechless, but then Yelena just—folds in on herself and sinks to her knees on the floor, and Kate rushes over to her.

"Hey," she murmurs, carefully reaching for Yelena to make sure she doesn't startle her. "Yelena? Are you okay?"

Yelena's only response is a muffled sniffle, and Kate's heart breaks. She gathers Yelena into her arms, tugging her bodily until Yelena is practically draped across her lap, and she feels hot tears melt across her skin as Yelena tucks her face in the curve of Kate's shoulder. She whispers soothing nonsense into Yelena's ear, pets her hair and strokes her back as Yelena clings to her with a kind of desperation that makes Kate want to murder anyone and everyone who ever gave Yelena a reason to feel like this. 

Gradually, Yelena's tears taper off, but when Kate starts to shift in an attempt to see her face, Yelena clutches frantically at her shirt.

"Don't go," she says, panic edging at her voice, and Kate tightens her grip and hugs Yelena to her in a silent promise.

"I'm not going anywhere," she replies, waiting until the tension slides from Yelena's body again before saying, "Are you okay?"

This time it's Yelena who pulls back, albeit reluctantly. She swipes at her face with her sleeve, clearing it of tears until the only sign she's been crying is the redness in her eyes. "I have spent so long wanting and thinking that I could never have this thing that you offer me so casually. It is...a lot to take in."

Kate nods. "Take all the time you need. We can talk about it more another time—"

"No." Yelena shakes her head, and she's looking Kate directly in the eyes now, the certainty in her gaze making Kate's heart do a little flip in her chest. "I do not need time. I know what I want."

"And what is that?" Kate's voice is a squeak, but she doesn't even notice. All she cares about is whatever Yelena is about to say.

"You." She says it so simply, so quietly, and Kate dimly thinks that it's kind of incredible how a single word can turn her entire world upside down. Her eyes skim Yelena's face, hunting for any sign of doubt, but she just finds her own wanting mirrored back at her in sea-glass eyes. 

Her gaze drops to Yelena's mouth, and she knows that Yelena sees it from the way her lips edge into a smirk. She wants more than anything to kiss Yelena, to pull her in and lose herself in Yelena's mouth until she forgets how to breathe, and Yelena stretches up to meet her halfway just as Kate pauses.

"This might hurt your lip," Kate warns, and Yelena just rolls her eyes before reaching up and dragging Kate down the rest of the way to kiss her.

They don't talk about anything else that night, just fall into bed together, and when Yelena wakes up from a nightmare, she lets Kate pull her into her arms without protest. They eat a late breakfast (Yelena cooks it even though Kate insists she's perfectly capable. "I do not want burnt toast for breakfast," she says with a snort, shooing Kate towards the table. "I prefer my food to be edible.") and Kate tries to rein in all of the questions she wants to ask.

By the time they make it to the couch, she's practically bursting at the seams, and Yelena sighs from where she's been trying to take a nap. "You are thinking very loudly, and it is making it hard to sleep."

"Sorry," Kate mumbles, but Yelena just shakes her head fondly.

"Don't apologize. Just ask me whatever it is you are thinking so that maybe we can both go back to napping in peace."

Kate takes a minute to consider what, exactly, she wants to say, before deciding to just go for it. "So what exactly are you okay with?" she asks. "You don't have to explain if you don't want to, I just don't want to make you uncomfortable or cross any lines without realizing it."

Yelena raises an eyebrow at her. "You mean in terms of sexual contact?" Kate blushes a little but nods, because if they're going to have this conversation, then blunt is probably for the best. Yelena is quiet for a few minutes, seemingly choosing her words just as carefully as Kate, and finally says, "Everything we've been doing is fine." 

Kate frowns a little and shifts so that she can see Yelena's face. "Fine?"

"Good," Yelena amends. "I… I like it. Being with you. Being close to you."

"But you don't want sex," Kate says, trying to understand exactly where the lines are.

"Not for myself." Kate is just about to ask what she means by not for herself when Yelena cuts her off with a rueful chuckle. "If you keep asking me questions, I'm never going to be able to actually answer all of them." Kate nods, immediately contrite, and mimes zipping her lips and throwing away the key before watching Yelena expectantly.

"Sex is complicated. I don't like other people touching me, but I do not mind being the one touching the other person." She rolls her eyes as if she can read Kate's mind and knows the question she wants to ask. "And by not minding, I mean that I am happy to do that. If the other person wants. But it is still not something that I need, if that makes sense."

Kate nods slowly, turning the words around in her mind as she works to understand them. "It does, I think," she says. She motions to the space between them and asks, "Is that something you would want with me?" Yelena starts to answer, and Kate cuts her off to hastily add, "No pressure either way, this is legitimately me just wanting to understand where you're at and what you want."

Yelena's lips curve up into a smile. "If that is something that you want, then yes."

Kate thinks about it for another minute. "But isn't it… I don't know, rude? For you to do all the work without me ever reciprocating?"

"Not to me." Yelena shrugs. "For me, it is the farthest thing from rude to know that what I do and do not want will be respected. That you would have no expectations of me beyond what I could give."

Kate reaches over and gently laces her fingers with Yelena's. "I would never want you or expect you to do anything that you didn't genuinely want," she says firmly. "Even if you felt like you could make yourself do it in the moment because it was something you knew that I wanted, if you didn't want that same thing, I would always want to stop."

Strong fingers squeeze her hand back, and a calloused thumb sweeps over the back of her hand as Yelena nods once. "I know. I trust you."

"I trust you too," Kate says, and she doesn't think that she's ever spoken truer words before. Even in the midst of trying to find their footing as the ground shifts beneath them, she can't think of anyone she trusts more than Yelena. "I'm going to try—I mean, I'm going to try to do this right, but I'm probably going to fuck up along the way. So I might need you to be patient with me." 

There's a quick flash of white teeth as Yelena laughs. "Oh, Kate Bishop. If I could make it through teaching you how to fight properly without losing my mind, then I think we can make it through this too." Kate shoves lightly at her shoulder, but it's more on the principle of the thing. She feels light and giddy at the fact that they're really going to try this. 

"So then what about things that aren't necessarily full-blown sex?" Kate asks. "You said you'd wanted to kiss me before, and we already cuddle sometimes—"

"—if by cuddling you mean you turn into a starfish that attaches to me in your sleep—"

"—but what about anything else that you do or don't like?"

Yelena shifts so that she's facing Kate on the couch, tucking her knees up underneath her. "I enjoy all of those things with you," she says. "And you have never once done anything that has made me feel uncomfortable or like I had to do something I did not want to."

"Good, that's—that's good," Kate says.

Yelena's mouth edges down into a tiny frown. "But I am afraid I do not exactly have a comprehensive list of every single thing I do and don't like. You may need to be patient with me too. I have never done this before. Not with anyone who really mattered."

"Okay, but—" Kate bites her lip, still unable to completely erase the shard of worry that's wormed its way deep into her gut that she'll overstep and push for too much. "You promise you'll tell me if you ever don't like something, or if I ask for something you don't want to do?"

Yelena's gaze softens, and she nods. "I promise." She moves to lay back on the couch, opening her arms to Kate in a wordless invitation that Kate gratefully accepts. She can't help smiling at the way that Yelena shifts them so that her body is between Kate and the outside of the couch, a silent gesture of protectiveness. It's warm and comforting and somehow such a perfectly Yelena thing to do that she twists around and leans up to press a soft kiss to the edge of Yelena's mouth.

"I—" she pauses, swallowing down the words that she really wants to say. She knows it's too soon, knows that she and Yelena have no shortage of things that they'll still need to resolve between the two of them before they get to that point. But that doesn't mean that she can't still say something.

"What is it, malen'kaya ptitsa?" Yelena asks, and Kate can tell from the timbre of her voice that she's nearly asleep.

"Ty moye serdtse." Her accent is pretty terrible, she knows, but she also knows that the words must still be recognizable from the way that Yelena tenses beneath her in surprise. In the next moment, though, Yelena relaxes again, her arms tightening around Kate.

"I know." 

Kate can hear the smirk in Yelena's voice, and she sighs. "I knew I shouldn't have let you watch Star Wars," she grumbles, but her smile is blindingly wide when she hears Yelena whisper, "You are my heart too," into her hair.

Chapter Text

The weeks pass in a blur of happiness. Kate has never been one for taking things slow, but she finds that with Yelena, it's almost shockingly easy. Maybe it's because they've practically been dating for months now (though Kate makes a mental note to never admit that to Clint), but it doesn't feel like there's any rush or urgency to figure things out. 

They talk, sometimes, staying up late nights trading stories from their lives. It never ceases to amaze Kate how seamlessly they fit together in spite of the fact that they’ve led such polar-opposite lives. More than once she catches herself listening to Yelena and thinking God, I love her, the words dangerously close to the tip of her tongue. But regardless of whether they’ve been kind-of-dating-but-not-really for almost a year, she thinks it’s too soon, that saying those words out loud might shatter the tiny bubble of peace they’ve managed to carve out for themselves. So she bites her tongue and shoves all of her grand proclamations of love deep down in her chest and reminds herself that they have time, they don’t have to figure it all out right this second.

In one of the more notable departures from their prior “dating-but-not” dynamic, now there are also nights where there is considerably less talking, and while Kate still sometimes worries that she's not doing enough in the, ahem, physical department for Yelena, she can also admit that Yelena seems perfectly content with their arrangement. 

There have been a few tense moments (the time Kate's hand had brushed across the skin of Yelena's ribs while they were having a particularly heated make-out session and Yelena had nearly run out of the apartment, or the time that Yelena had become convinced that Kate would get tired of her and break up with her to be with someone else one day) but Kate thinks that they're doing remarkably well, all things considered. They can take things slow and dance around admitting exactly what it is they feel for each other indefinitely, if that's what it takes.

It sounds like a brilliant plan right up until Yelena almost gets herself killed.

There is a distinctly superpowered villain terrorizing the city one week in late October, and Kate and Yelena agree to tag-team to try to put a stop to him. 

Things go poorly almost from the beginning of the night. Kate feels jittery and off, acutely aware of the fact that both she and Yelena are two decidedly human people going up against a being that could easily kill them both if they slip up. She wonders if this is how Clint and Natasha felt when they were the only two human Avengers going up against aliens and gods. She's always known that there are limits to what she can do in comparison to other superheroes, but for some reason that knowledge weighs differently on her now.

Yelena notices that something is off, but she just bumps Kate with her shoulder. "Do not worry, Kate Bishop. I will make sure that you make it home safe and sound."

It's a sweet thought, and Kate doesn't have it in her to say that it's not herself she's worried about. Not really. Obviously she doesn't want anything bad to happen to herself, but if she's honest, it's the thought of something happening to Yelena that really worries her. But this is the life they both live, the choices they both make every day, and so she tries to ignore the worry as they head for the location where the villain was most recently spotted.

The guy they're up against has already shut down multiple streets by the time they get there. Crackling bolts of blue energy sizzle through the air as he stands on top of an abandoned ambulance, grinning as he wreaks havoc on everything within reach. He doesn't even seem like he has a particularly focused plan aside from causing as much damage as possible, and the sense of foreboding that's been brewing all night only grows. Kate knows from experience that it's far harder to negotiate or take someone in if the only thing they care about is destruction. 

It's a slow process of ducking behind cars and rubble as they try to get closer to him, running from one hiding spot to the next while they look for an opening. There are a handful of masked men with weapons that emit a similar energy blast to what the main guy is conjuring, and Kate watches with no small amount of admiration as Yelena picks them off one by one to clear them a path forward.

"If I can get a clean shot, I can use one of the trick arrows to bind his arms and prevent him from using his powers," Kate says, eyeing the angles and calculating where she needs to be to make the shot. 

"Got it." Yelena's response is half-grunt as she dispatches another of the henchmen, throwing him over her shoulder before pivoting to grab the next one coming towards them. Kate uses the opportunity to move closer to her target, ducking behind an overturned car as she scans the improvised battlefield. She just needs a single second where the guy is distracted so that he doesn't blast her into next year before she can take the shot...

She sees an opening and nocks an arrow as she stands up to take the shot. There’s a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye a second too late, and her heart sinks even as she looses the arrow in the villain's direction, realizing that she's just opened herself up to an attack by a nearby henchman she didn't see.

She has just enough time to see her arrow strike true, binding the villain's limbs and preventing him from causing any further damage, before she hears the sizzle of electricity as the henchman fires. She braces for the agony of the bolt hitting her, closing her eyes a second before she feels her body get launched into the air. She hits the ground hard, but there's none of the spidering pain that she would have expected from the electricity. In fact, aside from the obvious short-lived pain of the impact from where her shoulder and hip hit the ground as she landed, she feels…fine?

Kate opens her eyes and fear lances through her as she sees what's happened. The henchman who had shot at her is laying on the ground in a heap, red energy from Yelena's widow's bites preventing him from moving, and Yelena—Kate feels the world spin around her as she sees Yelena in a crumpled ball, blue electricity from the bolt that was meant for Kate still crackling in the air around her. 

"Yelena!" Kate is on her feet and running towards Yelena, her entire awareness narrowing to the motionless shape of Yelena on the pavement. She drops to her knees, her fingers shaking as she tucks them underneath Yelena's jaw, the sharp edge of terror receding slightly when she feels the pulse still beating there. She rolls Yelena over, checking her for any sign of bleeding, but there are no visible wounds aside from a few scrapes and scorch marks.

Yelena coughs, her eyes fluttering, and Kate pulls her into her lap. "Yelena? Yelena, can you hear me?"

"Told you—get you home safe—" The words are barely audible, and Kate chokes back a sob as she hauls Yelena closer, hugging her tightly.

"Not that I'm not grateful, but maybe next time try to do it without getting shot." 

"It was just some electricity, that barely even counts as getting shot," Yelena says, but her voice is hoarse and she sucks in a sharp breath when she tries to push herself upright. Kate grabs her by the arm, helping to maneuver her onto her feet, and she loops Yelena's arm over her neck and wraps an arm around her waist to help keep her from tipping over again.

"Come on," Kate says, glancing around to make sure that they aren't going to get hit with any more unexpected attacks. The main guy is still tightly bound by her arrow, flopping uselessly on the ground as he rants and raves, and she can hear the sound of approaching sirens. She'll let someone else deal with him and whatever remaining henchmen might still be hanging around.

Yelena's face is deathly pale by the time they stumble through the door to Kate's apartment. She deposits Yelena onto the couch, frowning as she listens to the harsh, uneven rasp of her breathing.

"Yelena, are you sure you’re okay? I swear to god if you die on this couch because you're too stubborn to let me take you to the hospital, I'll bring you back to life just so that I can kill you again myself."

"I'm fine," Yelena mumbles, waving her hand dismissively. "This is nothing. Just need to sleep it off."

"Fine. Don't move while I go let Lucky and Fanny out, I don't want you falling over and hitting your head or something."

Yelena grunts in acknowledgment and Kate grabs the dogs’ leashes, taking the stairs three at a time so that they can pee and saying a silent thanks that Yelena had brought Fanny over earlier. Fanny and Lucky both give her disgruntled looks when she drags them back into the building as soon as they’re done, unable to shake the fear that she'll get back to the apartment and find Yelena has disappeared again. 

Her relief at seeing Yelena exactly where she left her on the couch is tempered by the dark bruising she can already see blooming across one side of Yelena's face, and Kate kneels on the floor next to the couch. She brushes a few strands of hair out of Yelena's face, trying to reassure herself that she's alive and is going to be okay.

"You are staring," Yelena mumbles, cracking one eye open to look at Kate. "It is making it very difficult to sleep."

"I love you."

Kate winces as the words slide out with no preamble, but she doesn't try to take them back. She can't. Not when the memory of seeing Yelena on the ground unmoving is still so fresh, the terror of not knowing whether she was going to feel a pulse or only stillness beneath her fingertips.

Yelena opens both eyes and stares at Kate. "What did you say?"

"I love you." Not for the first time, Kate remembers Laura's advice about not waiting to tell people things because tomorrow was never a guarantee. She'd thought that it wasn't important for her to say the exact words to Yelena, but—suddenly, she can't stand the thought of something happening to Yelena and not having told her exactly what she feels. "You don't have to say it back," Kate says, "But I just need you to know that I love you, and I don't know what I would do if anything ever happened to you."

Yelena is silent for a minute, and her eyes are far away when she finally says, "In the Red Room, they taught us that love is for children."

She rarely talks about the Red Room, and Kate freezes, not wanting to do or say anything to interrupt.

"Even the slightest sign of affection was punished. It was honestly lucky for both of us that Natasha was in the class of widows above me, or else I'm sure they would have found even more ways to use us against each other." Kate thinks that she could fill the Grand Canyon with all of the things she still doesn't know about Yelena, all of the darkness and pain Yelena was forced to endure when she was still barely a child.

"I tried to resist where I could in the days before they perfected Melina's mind control serum. But even those efforts did not last long. The woman who trained us knew what I was doing, and she beat me to within an inch of my life and said that if I did not do what they wanted, she would make Natasha kill me herself." She pauses and takes a careful breath, and Kate bites her tongue to keep from interrupting. "I have lived my life with those words in the back of my mind since I was too young to even really know what they meant. And now…"

"I'm sorry," Kate says, unable to help herself. "I didn't mean to bring up bad memories—"

Yelena cuts her off with a gentle shake of her head. "No, Kate. Listen to what I am trying to tell you. They always said that love was for children, and I saw it as a weakness. But now—now, I am not so sure. The only times in my life I have been truly happy were when I was a child in Ohio and now, with you. And maybe that is not a coincidence. Maybe I just need to be brave enough to admit the truth."

Kate can't even formulate the words to ask the question ricocheting around her head, hope and fear warring in her chest and binding her tongue in knots.

"I love you, too." Yelena's voice shakes as she says it, but she doesn't look away. "And even if we are no longer children, perhaps this is still something that we both can have. That we both deserve."

Kate chokes out a laugh, wondering whether she's dreaming. In no universe did she ever expect her confession to be met with this kind of response. She knows Yelena loves her—knows it in a way far beyond anything that words could ever hope to capture, feels it deep in her bones every time she sees the depth of emotion in Yelena's eyes when she looks at her—but she honestly wasn't sure whether saying it out loud would ever be on the table.

"You realize this means you're not allowed to die on me," Kate says, blinking back tears. Yelena gives her a small, sad smile.

"I cannot make that promise. Neither of us can. But what I can tell you is that I will not leave your side if I have any choice in the matter."

"I can work with that," Kate says, and as much as some part of her wishes for platitudes and pointless promises that they'll both live forever, somehow what Yelena is offering is even better. To choose to stay with each other come hell or high water, to make that choice day after day as the one thing they can control in the midst of a world where there's so much that they can't—yeah, she'll take that over meaningless niceties in a heartbeat.

"Scoot over," Kate says, pushing her way onto the couch so that Yelena is on the inside for once. Yelena starts to protest and Kate shakes her head. "Nope. You've done enough protecting me for one night. Now it's my turn." 

Yelena subsides with a huff, but she reaches down and brings one of Kate's hands up to brush a quick kiss against the knuckles. It doesn't take long for her breathing to drop into the slow rhythm of sleep, and Kate lays there and listens to the steady sound of it as the apartment settles into quiet around them. 

In spite of the fact that they've now officially said I love you to each other, Kate is perfectly content to let the more physical side of their relationship progress at a slower pace. The tremble of insecurity in Yelena's voice when she'd said that she couldn't give Kate everything she would want in a relationship is still seared into her mind and heart, and she refuses to unintentionally reinforce that idea to Yelena.

That isn't to say that she's been completely celibate. Oh no, she's had some of the best orgasms of her life on lazy afternoons and late nights when Yelena is away on an assignment, her body primed and almost overly responsive to her touches. On one particularly memorable night, she'd only just finished and was basking in the afterglow amidst thoughts of Yelena when the assassin had magically appeared at the window of her apartment. 

(Yelena had taken in the sight of her sprawled across the bed and had crossed the room in three quick strides, bending down to give Kate an absolutely filthy kiss that left her gasping for air.

"Looks like somebody was enjoying themselves," Yelena had murmured, and Kate had just smiled and pulled her the rest of the way onto the bed so that she could snuggle into her arms properly.

"Maybe. But I missed you.")

So yes, she's got a new appreciation for detachable showerheads and the assortment of toys she keeps in her nightstand, but otherwise, she and Yelena haven't done much more than kissing and cuddling. There are times when she catches Yelena staring at her almost speculatively, but whatever she's thinking, she never acts on it.

They're coming off of a mission one night, and Kate is already calculating how quickly she'll be able to get herself off in the shower because she desperately needs an outlet for the restless energy flooding her body. There's something intoxicating about fighting alongside Yelena, the way they move seamlessly to match each other and dispatch one opponent after another. Close quarters combat still isn't Kate's favorite thing in the world, but she's grown to have a certain fondness for it simply because there's nothing quite like feeling Yelena firm at her back as they move effortlessly through a sea of attackers.

To her surprise, once they're inside the apartment and she drops her coat over the arm of the couch, Yelena catches her by the wrist.

"Yelena? Is everything—"

The rest of her question is lost in a muffled grunt as Yelena yanks her in for a desperate kiss. It sends lightning licking up and down Kate's spine as she melts into Yelena's hands on instinct, Yelena's tongue dipping inside her mouth to slide against her own in a way that leaves her weak in the knees. The energy that has been simmering in her since the fight sparks into a wildfire, and Kate fists her hands in the buckles of Yelena's uniform to drag her even closer.

Yelena shudders against her and Kate almost pulls back, worried that she's overstepped, but then Yelena kisses her again, hard and deep. "I want to make you feel good," she murmurs into Kate's mouth, and Kate chokes out a laugh.

"Mission—ah—" She trails off into a gasp when sharp teeth nip at her lower lip. "Mission accomplished."

Yelena leans in so that her lips are brushing against the shell of Kate's ear, and her next words are a growly rasp that does things to Kate's insides. "Then I want to make you feel even better."

Yelena starts to pull Kate into another kiss, and Kate uses the last reserves of her non-lust-addled brain to resist just long enough to check one final time. "Are you sure?" She searches Yelena's face for any sign of hesitancy. As much as she feels like she could combust from a single touch right now, she doesn't want it if Yelena doesn't.

Yelena's expression softens and she stretches up on her toes so that she can kiss Kate again, more gently this time. It never ceases to make Kate smile to be reminded that she's the taller one out of the two of them, and by a solid four inches at that. Yelena is so much larger than life in so many ways, and it's endlessly endearing just how small she actually is.

"I want this," Yelena whispers against her lips. The reassurance settles Kate's last thread of nerves, and she doesn't resist when Yelena nudges her backwards until her back hits the wall. 

Kate groans as Yelena's hands skim down over her body, the light pressure just enough to tease. She tries to remember how to speak as she asks, "Wait—can I—can I touch you too?" Yelena glances up at her, brows furrowing, and Kate quickly adds, "Not like that. I just—where should I put my hands? I want to feel you, but I don't—"

Yelena cuts her off with another kiss, and as she steals the air from Kate's lungs she grasps Kate's hands in her own and leads them to rest on her hips. Kate's fingers flex, feeling the firm muscle and rounded bone beneath her palms, and Yelena hums into her mouth. 

"Just hold onto me," she murmurs, and Kate nods. That isn't going to be hard. She already feels like the slightest wind might send her flying apart like dandelion seeds on the wind, like her grip on Yelena is the only thing keeping her whole and in one piece. 

That feeling only intensifies when Yelena begins to move lower once more, kissing a path across Kate's jawline. "Have you thought about this?" Yelena asks, teeth nipping at the sensitive skin just below Kate's ear. "Have you touched yourself and imagined it was my hands making you come apart?"

Kate trembles. "Yes," she breathes out. "God, Yelena, you have no idea how much I want you."

Strong fingers slide down Kate's sides and over her hips, pausing to hover at the waistband of her pants. Yelena waits, breathing quietly, and Kate realizes all at once that she's waiting for permission to continue.

"Please," she whispers, relinquishing her grasp on Yelena's hip so that she can cover Yelena's hand with one of her own and gently press it beneath the waistband. She feels Yelena breathe out a shuddering exhale, and in the next instant those magical fingers—the same ones that Kate knows can end a life, that could just as easily break her apart as they can put her together again—slip inside her pants and underwear to cup her.

Even the barest glancing pressure is enough to have Kate's hips bucking into Yelena's hand, and she feels Yelena smirk against her neck. Yelena sucks a mark that Kate knows is going to be a pain in the ass to cover up, but she doesn't even care. The layers of sensation just keep building and building, and she's desperate for Yelena to just touch her.

"What do you like?" Yelena asks, her accent curling around Kate's ears as she strokes her fingers gently along either side of Kate's clit.

"I—" Yelena's touch suddenly becomes firmer, and Kate realizes all at once that she's alarmingly close to coming. "Yelena, I—" She doesn't manage to say anything else, too wrapped up in the way she can feel her muscles coiling. Her mouth drops open in surprise as the pleasure spikes and she comes with a strangled cry, shaking in Yelena's arms.

Yelena holds her through it, fingers gentling as they both catch their breath. "Did you just—"

"Yeah." Kate knows she should probably be embarrassed at just how little it took for her to come, but she can't bring herself to muster up the energy, too content basking in the warmth of Yelena's arms around her, the little aftershocks still rocketing through her body. "Sorry, I just—"

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Yelena says, moving up to kiss Kate. Kate sighs into her mouth, whimpering when Yelena's fingers shift against her again. Yelena looks absolutely delighted, her gaze dark and pleased as she experimentally dips her fingertips lower to press against Kate's opening. Kate grinds down on instinct, and Yelena chuckles and pulls her hand entirely away, leaning forward to kiss her and swallow the disappointed whine she gets in response. 

"Oh, Kate Bishop," she purrs, taking Kate by the hands and tugging her towards the bedroom. "This is going to be fun."

When Clint and Laura invite them for Christmas, Kate is a little nervous about whether Yelena will even agree to go. As far as Kate knows, Yelena and Clint haven't spoken since the prior Christmas, when they'd been on decidedly less friendly terms.

(It still sometimes blows Kate's mind that it was only a year ago that Yelena was actively trying to kill Clint. The life she leads now with Yelena would have been utterly incomprehensible to her back then, and she never in a million years would have imagined that her ploy for them to go get drinks would lead them here.)

Kate doesn't ask Yelena right away when she gets off the phone with Clint, deciding that it's probably worthwhile to think about exactly how she wants to phrase the question. That lasts all of twelve hours, right up until breakfast the next morning when Yelena looks at her and says, "So, I am assuming that we will take a road trip so that we can bring Lucky and Fanny with us." 

Kate blinks at her in confusion, and Yelena shrugs. "What? I heard you talking to Barton on the phone last night. Christmas at his place, right?"

"Um, yeah—but only if you're really okay with that. I mean, Clint is great, and I think you would really love Laura, and their kids are pretty awesome too, but if you would rather not, we could just stay here and do Christmas with the two of us. Or we could do Christmas with your parents, if you'd rather."

Yelena barks out a laugh and Kate pauses, not sure how to interpret that. Yelena shakes her head, her expression sad and a little wistful. "No. They are…they are family to me, and the closest thing to parents I will ever know. But they are also still products of the Red Room themselves, and happy family holidays are not really something they do unless it is required by a mission."

"Oh." Kate's heart twists in her chest and she wonders for a minute what Yelena normally does on Christmas. An image flashes through her mind unbidden of Yelena the previous year, alone in an apartment with Fanny, stitching up her own injuries from the fight at 30 Rock and eating boxed mac & cheese by herself. Not for the first time, she wishes she could give Yelena an entire lifetime's worth of all of the care and kindness she's never had. She settles for looping her arm through Yelena's elbow and pulling Yelena more tightly against her side, trying to wordlessly convey that Yelena will never again have to spend a holiday by herself if she doesn't want to. 

"You did Christmas with them last year, no?" Yelena asks.

Kate nods.

"And you enjoyed yourself?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Then we will go there for Christmas again," Yelena says. "I promise that this year I will only go for the appetizers, no killing allowed."

"You didn't kill him last year, either," Kate points out, but she's smiling. "If you're sure you're okay with it, though, then I'll let them know we'll be there."

Yelena nods. "I'm sure. On one condition." Kate nods, albeit a little hesitantly, and Yelena grins at her. 

"I get to pick the road trip music."

They make it to Clint and Laura's more or less in one piece (Yelena has remarkably good taste in music, and Kate is pleasantly surprised by the playlist she put together for the drive), and Fanny and Lucky bound out of the car as soon as they open the door.

(Lucky proceeds to zoom around the farm, chasing birds and snowflakes in the air, while Fanny sits at Yelena's side and watches Lucky with an expression that Kate can only describe as unimpressed. She never thought dogs could be judgy, but apparently she was wrong.)

"Try not to terrify anyone," Kate mumbles to Yelena, flashing a bright grin as the front door swings open to reveal Clint standing there.

"You wound me, Kate," Yelena says with a smirk. "I have it on good authority that I'm incredibly likable. Charming, even."

Kate rolls her eyes, but before she can say anything in response, Clint is waving them in. "Kate! Yelena! We're so glad you could make it, come on in." He steps aside so that they can come into the house, and Kate glares at Yelena one last time in the hopes of averting any Christmas Eve debacles. Last year was more than enough for her; she has no interest in watching Clint and Yelena duke it out a second time.

Kate says hello to everyone and Clint introduces Yelena to the kids. It takes a second before Laura comes down the stairs, and her eyes immediately land on Yelena where she's standing awkwardly at the edge of the room. Yelena tenses when Laura heads towards her, and Kate holds her breath. If anyone is able to win Yelena over, she thinks that it will be Laura, and she watches as Laura stops just in front of Yelena.

"It's good to have you here," Laura says warmly, and after a second, some of the tension fades from Yelena's posture.

"Thank you for having us."

Kate breathes a sigh of relief as Laura draws Yelena into casual conversation, glad to see that Yelena isn't running out of the house (or trying to kill anyone). The afternoon slides into evening, and the whole thing feels about as homey as Kate thinks can be expected. The kids all disperse to various corners of the house after dinner, and Kate helps Clint clean up in the kitchen. When they finish, she goes looking for Yelena and finds her standing in front of the family photo wall in the living room.

"She had a whole life here," Yelena says quietly, and Kate nods, her eyes tracing the photos of Natasha that are scattered across the wall. There's a shot of Natasha holding a tiny infant Nate, and one of her swinging Lila into the air, both of them grinning and frozen mid-laugh. Another photo shows her reading a book to one of the kids—Cooper, maybe—and then there are a handful of her with Clint, and with Laura. She looks entirely at home in the pictures, and Kate never knew Natasha, but if she was anything like Yelena then she imagines that home wasn't something that had come easily.

"They talk about her sometimes," Kate offers. "Laura especially, but the kids miss her too."

Yelena hums, her eyes scanning the wall a final time before she abruptly heads for the front door.

"Where are you—"

"Just need some fresh air. I'll be back soon." Yelena flashes Kate a quick smile over her shoulder, but Kate can see the anguish lingering in her features. She starts to follow Yelena, but a gentle hand grasps her by the shoulder and stops her.

"Let me." 

Kate turns to look at Laura in surprise. She hadn't even heard her come into the room, and she opens her mouth to say that Yelena might not exactly be thrilled to have unexpected company.

As if she knows what Kate is about to say, Laura just gives her shoulder another squeeze. "Don't worry, I've had some experience with widows when they get a little prickly."

Kate nods and watches as Laura goes out onto the porch, the door not quite shutting all the way behind her. She debates for a moment whether to leave or stay, but her curiosity gets the better of her and she creeps closer to the door, where she can just make out the dim silhouettes of Laura and Yelena standing side-by-side on the porch.

The two women stand in silence for a minute, but then Laura speaks. "Natasha told me a lot about you."

"She did?" Kate's heart breaks at the uncertainty she can hear in Yelena's voice.

"Yeah. I think…" Laura pauses, and she takes a few quiet breaths before continuing. "I think she always hoped that maybe one day she would be able to bring you here."

Yelena doesn't say anything in response to that, and Kate wonders if that will be the end of the conversation. Yelena surprises her when she speaks again.

"I am glad that she had you. That she was able to have this family with you, and with Clint." Yelena's voice is rough but sincere. "I wish—I wish I could have seen her here." Her head tips back and she stares up at the darkened sky, little flurries of snow blowing on the wind. "She always felt like she had to be the one to take care of everyone else, to take care of the world. It is good to know that there was somewhere she could go where she would be the one taken care of instead."

Kate sees Laura slide one hand along the railing—slowly, so slowly that it's hard to tell if she's even really moving—until she can cover Yelena's hand with her own. Laura starts to say something, and Kate decides to take that as her cue to leave. They both loved Natasha in ways that Kate will never fully understand, and she thinks that the least she can do is give some the time and space to share that love—and the accompanying grief—between them. 

She makes herself a mug of hot chocolate and then goes to wait in the room that she's sharing with Yelena. She scrolls through her phone while she waits, determined to stay up until Yelena comes back inside. She's almost asleep in spite of herself when she hears near-silent footsteps coming down the hall. She knows instinctively that it's Yelena and rubs at her eyes as she sits up in bed, trying to look a little less like she's about to pass out. The door swings open and Yelena slips inside, giving Kate a tired smile.

"I did not think you would still be awake," she says. "You looked like you were going to fall asleep at the dinner table earlier."

"It's not my fault that Laura is, like, the most incredible cook in all of existence," Kate says, rolling her eyes. "How was the fresh air?"

Yelena gives Kate an amused look that makes it clear she knows exactly what Kate is really asking, and she sits down at the edge of the bed. "It was nice. To talk to somebody who knew Natasha." She hesitates. "To someone who loved her."

Kate reaches over and lets her hand rest palm up on the blanket in a silent invitation. The fact that Yelena immediately shifts her own hand closer so that she can slip her fingers between Kate's is a testament, Kate thinks, to how very far the two of them have come.

Yelena lapses back into silence and Kate doesn't say anything, just squeezes her hand gently. If there's one thing she's learned since she met Yelena, it's that sometimes saying nothing at all is the best gift she can give.

Her eyes are starting to droop again when Yelena clears her throat and reaches into one of her pockets. "Here, I got you something." Yelena hands her a small box, and Kate stares at it in confusion. 

"It's…not Christmas until tomorrow?" 

Yelena just smirks and points to the clock, which now reads 12:01 AM. "Technically, it is Christmas today."

That's more than enough for Kate, and she picks up the box and inspects it. It's wrapped simply with a purple bow on it, and she glances over at Yelena. "It's not anything dangerous, is it?" The last thing she wants is to explain to Clint or Laura why their guest bedroom exploded.

Yelena shakes her head in the negative, but Kate still exercises some caution as she unties the bow and carefully slides her finger beneath the edge of the wrapping paper. Better safe than sorry. She still hasn't quite forgotten the last time she asked Yelena if something was dangerous and Yelena had said no. It had ended with Kate nearly losing an eye and Yelena staring at her in exasperation, mumbling about how Kate had the survival skills of a toddler.

Kate sets the wrapping paper and the bow next to her on the bed before turning her attention to the unassuming black box now resting in the palm of her hand. It's the size and shape of a jewelry box, and she glances over at Yelena in confusion.

"It is not a ring," Yelena says with a faint smile, "In case that is what you are worried about."

Kate's jaw drops. She hadn't been worried about that at all, actually—hadn't been thinking about it as a possibility to begin with—but the fact that Yelena has thought about it enough to even say something like that out loud is...a lot to take in.

She decides to just file that whole train of thought away for later and carefully lifts the lid of the box. Her breath catches in her throat when she sees the tiny keychain resting on the black velvet interior, and she lifts it out with reverent fingers so that she can see it better in the light. It's a tiny metal house, the windows and doors cut out so that they contrast against the bright silver of the rest of it. It's impressive workmanship, and Kate traces a fingertip along the edge of the roof.

"Because you are my home," Yelena says, and Kate's heart stutters in her chest as she looks over at Yelena so quickly that it's a small miracle she doesn't give herself whiplash. She wants to say something—wants to tell Yelena just how absurdly perfect this is—but her throat has closed up, and she's fairly certain that if she tries to talk she's going to burst into tears. She settles for reaching over and pulling Yelena closer until she can kiss her softly, trying to pour every ounce of emotion she's got into the kiss. She feels Yelena smiling into the kiss, and when they break apart, Yelena asks, "Does that mean that you like it?"

She looks almost insufferably smug, because she has to know the answer to that question already, but Kate can't think of a single snarky response while she's still holding the sweetest gift she's ever received in her fingers.

"I love it," she says instead, and she delights in the flush that dusts Yelena's cheeks at her answer.

Kate climbs off the bed just long enough to grab her keys from her coat pocket and carefully add the keychain to the ring before sliding back into the bed next to Yelena. Yelena immediately curls around her from behind, wrapping her arms around Kate and pressing a kiss to her shoulder blade.

(Kate smiles as she remembers when she'd first learned that Yelena liked to be the big spoon. "You're so much smaller than me that it's not even really spooning," Kate had said with a laugh. "It's more like I'm wearing you like a backpack. Is backpacking a thing?"

Yelena had grumbled but made no move to loosen her arms from around Kate's waist. "I would at least be a jetpack," she'd muttered. "I cannot believe you think I would ever be something as uncool as a backpack."

"Backpacks are very functional, though. Lots of pockets."

"...this is true. But they do not fly, so still less cool than a jetpack.")

Kate sighs happily and snuggles deeper under the covers, twisting in Yelena's arms just enough to be able to kiss her softly. "Merry Christmas, Yelena." 

Yelena smiles into the kiss, and her eyes are bright and happy as she looks down at Kate.

"Merry Christmas, Kate Bishop."