For Stitches
Yelena drums her fingers on the kitchen counter of the small loft in the Bronx while she waits for her pasta water to boil. She’d been back in New York for two days and was crashing in Sonya’s safe house when Clint called. Yelena frowned at the phone, the only times Clint called were when he was trying to ‘parent’ her or something had gone really wrong on a mission. He’d called six times in the last 2 months and each call made Yelena feel increasingly worse about herself, but she picked up anyway. Before she could say a single word Barrton was launching into conversation, “Yelena, are you in New York? Kate needs help”
Yelena feels her stomach drop, “what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, but she needs a med eval and likely stitches from what I’ve heard. None of the kids can do stitches," Clint grumbles, clearly annoyed at Kate's team's lack of skills in that department, “I’ll be there tonight. Can you go now?”
“Leaving now. Apartment, office, safe house?”
“The converted office training space the team is using. Do you know-”
“Da,” Yelena cuts him off before he finishes the sentence.
“Let me know how bad it is when you get there. And don’t do anything more to hurt her” Yelena hums in agreement, knowing she deserves the jab Clint threw her way. She quickly turns the stove off and grabs her own first aid kit before heading out the door, leaving the pot sitting full on the stove with an open box of macaroni next to it.
--
When Yelena gets to the converted office space she finds Kate lying unconscious, face down on a bed in what’s seemingly the team’s makeshift medical room. The archer’s team is crowded around Kate and Kamala seems to be applying pressure to some wound on Kate’s shoulder blade. Cassie is running around the room, grabbing supplies out of the cupboard and Yelena is pleased that most of it is actually useful. “How long has she been out?” Yelena hears her voice harden into that of the widow she is as she commands Kate’s team, “Run me through what happened.”
All four of Kate’s teammates start talking at the same time, “stop” they do and Yelena scans all of them quickly for injuries but none seem to have anything more than a scrape, “Kamala explain. Cassie stay to help. America and Eli, eat and shower.” The response is instant, all of the team rushing to do what Yelena ordered. Kamala launches into an explanation of a mission gone wrong as Yelena grabs scissors from Cassie and cuts Kate’s tac suit top off enough to expose her upper back and the wound on her shoulder.
“She’s been out about an hour now. We set charges and she was still too close when they went off. She got thrown, dislocated a shoulder and some debris was embedded behind her shoulder blade. Cassie put her shoulder back in and we yanked the debris out when we got back, put gauze on it, and applied pressure but it just keeps bleeding.” Yelena nods, watching the wound for the last minute she knows Kate must have lost a lot of blood since the debris was removed, and Yelena bites back about a million reprimands for the team on their lacking medical knowledge, lacking knowledge on how to properly detonate explosives, and another million questions to focus on treating Kate.
Yelena opens her own med kit pulling out a suture kit and a pack of sterile gloves, “Cassie, any saline solution or hydrogen peroxide?” The woman opens a cabinet against the wall and sorts through supplies before pulling a small bottle out. Yelena walks to a sink in the corner and washes her hands. “I’m going to do this as sterile as possible and I’ll need you to follow my instructions exactly Cassie, understood?”
“Yes”
“Good. Open that pack of gloves and hold it open for me, then put the rest of the supplies on a tray next to Kate’s shoulder” Cassie immediately opens the gloves and Yelena pulls them out and unfolds their protective patching. She pulls out the left glove first, careful to only touch the cuff and wiggles her fingers into it. Then, Yelena pulls the end of the tight latex material up her arm. Left hand now mostly sterile, she grabs the other glove and repeats the process with her right glove. “Open the suture pack.” Cassie wordlessly does as she's asked and Yelena pulls the suture out with a pair of hemostats. The supplies are sterile but nothing about this room is, so Yelena says a silent prayer to a god she doesn’t believe in that Kate won’t develop an infection. “Pour the saline on Kate’s wound,” Cassie’s hands shake slightly as she does what Yelena askes, “good, Kamala you can go wash your hands then come back with vodka”
“Vodka?”
“Yes, alcohol is sterilizing and good if Kate wakes up while I do this” Yelena responds calmly. She’s done this more times than she can count and if she just keeps breathing deeply she can pretend this is the same as every other time she’s done this. The only thing Yelena can focus on now is keeping her hands steady as she runs the stitches from one side of Kate’s wound to the other, methodically closing it's jagged edges. It only takes a few minutes and when it’s done Yelena douses it heavily in saline and then vodka when Kamala returns. Kate doesn’t so much as twitch and now that the stitches are done, Yelena is buzzing with energy. She turns that energy to dressing the suture site and then inspecting Kate for further injury. With help from Cassie and Kamala they prop Kate up into a seated position and get her into a baggy t-shirt to replace the cut up, blood caked tac suit jacket. Then Yelena starts with the archer’s right shoulder, previously dislocated, and immobilizes it. She moves on to the scrapes on the same arm, putting disinfectant and bandages on each in turn. Cassie and Kamala don’t comment, just continue to hand her supplies as requested. “Do you have supplies for an IV?” Kamala and Cassie share a look of uncertainty that brings another set of reprimands to mind, “I’ll take that as a no.”
“Is she,” Kamala gulps visibly, “is she going to be okay?”
“Yes,” Yelena doesn’t share her anxieties about infection or about the amount of blood Kate’s lost, and she swallows the urge to demand more answers about the mission and the circumstances that let this happen. “You two can go get some rest, I’ll grab you both when she’s awake”.
Kamala leaves quickly, clearly eager to rest for a moment, but Cassie lingers in the door, eyes flitting between Kate and Yelena. “Clint didn't say much about you, just sent a picture and said if you could open the biometric lock then it was you and you'd take care of Kate. Kamala said Kate'll be pissed Clint called you,” Yelena winces slightly, the events of the evening breaking down her usual ease to hide all signs of emotion. She doesn't say anything, waiting for the question inevitably coming, “who are you?” Cassie’s voice takes on an edge that Yelena takes as a warning, “I assume you won't hurt Kate or Clint and Kamala wouldn't have sent for you”
Yelena looks down at her hands and twirls a silver band on her right pointer finger. “My name is Yelena.” She offers nothing else and Cassie arches an eyebrow as if to ask for more. Reluctantly, Yelena admits to herself Kamala was right, Kate won't be happy to see her. Yelena is actually pretty sure Kate will try to fight her and she knows she deserves it. In an odd way, she's craving it. There's a unique sort of hell in watching yourself destroy your relationships, like she has with Kate. Everytime she wanted to reach out, nagging words from the red room echoed in her head and yanked her back, love is for children and sentimentalitygets you killed. She remembers two girls liking each other and trying to desert on a mission shortly after Natasha had. Yelena remembers Dreykov touching one of their faces before snapping her neck and the other girl screaming. She remembers being handed a gun. She knew it was her who held the gun because of Natasha. They hadn't spoken in a decade, maybe more, but she was always bound to pay for Natasha’s ‘mistakes’ with Dreykov. After the two girls, there'd been a syringe stabbed harshly in Yelena's neck and she'd woken up with a blanket over her mind and somebody else pulling the strings.
Yelena shakes her head to clear the memory, if Kate wakes up and wants to fight she'll take the punches because she knows Dreykov is on some level right, sentimentality gets you killed. The only times she's almost died were with Natasha, to protect her or another widow. She knows without a shadow of a doubt, that in the field with Kate she'd almost die again. She looks up to meet Cassie’s eyes before she speaks again, “I was a friend of Kate’s”
“was?”
“Da,” Yelena nodded, “she will not be happy to see me, but I will try not to hurt her.” Yelena leaves the ‘ again’ unsaid.
Cassie seems to accept Yelena’s words as enough of an answer and turns to leave the room with a steely, “I'll be back in 10,” that leaves Yelena with no doubt that if she didn't feel her need to check in on the rest of her team and eat something so sharply that she wouldn't be leaving at all.
--
“Yelena” Kate croaks out, jolting Yelena from her thoughts.
“I’m here,” Yelena internally cringes at her word choice but doesn’t leave Kate’s side.
“What happened?” Kate closes her eyes and leans her head back against the wall.
“You got hit in an explosion. Dislocated shoulder, some shrapnel in your back that needed stitches, and some other small scrapes. I’ll need to assess you for a concussion now you’re up” Kate doesn’t open her eyes but she nods as though agreeing to the concussion assessment. “Does your head hurt?”
Kate laughs, “everything hurts, Lena”
“Okay, can you tell me what day it is?”
Kate’s eyes flutter open and come to rest on Yelena’s, “no, we’re not doing this”
“What do you mean? I must check you for a concussion, Kate Bishop. They are serious.”
“I haven’t seen you in two months, I will not lay here and pretend”
“It is not pretend, concussions are serious,” Yelena sees Kate’s resolve harden and the pair sits in silence for what feels like minutes all the while a steady building feeling of nausea overtakes Yelena. She knew they’d have to have this conversation, but she had still naively hoped she could avoid it longer. In the end, Yelena’s resolve cracks first, “what do you want to talk about?”
Kate laughs again and instead of it bringing the usual smile to Yelena’s face it feels like being stabbed.
“Let’s start with where have you been?”
“Ohio for a week, a job in Lagos, a job in LA, a job in Prague,” Yelena pauses, sucking in a breath, “New York, two days”
“And?”
“And what, Kate Bishop?”
“I don’t know Yelena,” Kate lifts her right arm as though to gesture but winces and drops her hand in her lap instead, “why?”
“I was scared”
Kate lifts her chin, refusing to meet Yelena’s eyes, “not good enough”
“I’ve been gone longer for work before,” Yelena deflects
“You haven’t spoken to me in two months,” this time Kate does meet Yelena’s eyes and when she does Yelena sees a harshness she’s never seen before looking back at her, “why?” it’s only one word, but Kate’s voice cracks on it anyway.
“The first week, I just needed space. I wasn’t sure what was real. If I could trust myself. Then I had a job that would’ve been no contact anyway. And then it had been a month and I didn’t know what to say, it was easier to say nothing. I’m sorry, Kate Bishop”
Kate holds Yelena’s gaze, eyes glassy, “I’m sorry talking to me is so hard,” she pauses, taking in a breath, and Yelena sees her eyes harden again, “get out”
“No, it’s not you-”
“-It’s me, yeah I’ve heard that before. Get out, Yelena”
“That’s not what I meant, please. Kate,” it’s Yelena’s voice that cracks this time, “I’m sorry. You were right, I’m sorry.” Yelena feels her desperation growing, “please, Kate,” she briefly thinks she’s never begged for anything before, “I want to talk. I am here now. I just kept spiraling and wasn't sure what was real. If we were real-”
“But you're here?”
“Yes, Clint called, you needed stitches”
“and you came”
“Yes, clearly, I am sitting right here,” Yelena gestures at herself and the plastic chair she's sitting in.
Kate's lips curve up in the corners ever so slightly, “so it is real”
“I do not follow”
“You came. You wouldn't have come if it weren’t real, Yelena”
“Yes, it is real to me, Kate Bishop. I know this. I wasn't sure if-” Yelena squeezes her eyes shut a vision of Natasha sitting across from her at a kitchen table dancing before her eyes and she lets out a shaky breath, “-if it was real to you”
Kate's uncharacteristically silent and Yelena keeps her eyes closed until she feels Kate's calloused fingers come to rest gently on the back of Yelena’s hand at which she opens her eyes to fix them on their hands. Kate lifts her pointer finger and taps the smooth back of Yelena's hand once, “real”. Yelena flips her palm up, grabbing Kate's fingers and squeezes once before letting the archer's hand drop back onto the bed.
“Really, Kate Bishop, I must do a concussion assessment”
Kate nods seriously, “but I'm still mad at you”.
Yelena grins and she feels something loosen in her chest for the first time in months. “Roger that,” she throws a lazy, mock salute to Kate who rolls her eyes playfully in response.