Chapter 2
Kate was in the hinterlands of the classroom. It wasn’t large, didn’t have to be to accommodate the graduating class of agents that included her. Six of them that occupied a small glass conference room that could service a briefing, if needed. Now it harbored the scent of coffee, sleepy conversations, and Kate’s building anxieties as she ran her calloused fingers over a wooden pencil that she’d bitten little marks into.
Parks and Sterling sat at the front, shoving on another like they were children. She didn’t bother to listen to anything they said. It wasn’t constructive, or discernable. She didn’t even glare into the back of their tick skulls. They weren’t perceptive enough to feel her gaze.
Agent Kitt and her own counterpart Foster carried on a quieter conversation. They were neutral ground. Not particularly kind to Kate, but never cruel to her either. They grimaced at her but nodded all the same. Foster, in all of her kindness, had even offered Kate a coffee that may or may not have been spit in once. But she drank it regardless.
The only other agent in the room was a strange fellow named Agent Hudson. He was special ops, meant to squeeze into tight spaces in the dead of night. Hudson was a massive hulking man, and the last person Kate expected to squeeze into anything. But he was quiet, only saying two words the entire four years they’d known one another.
He hulked on the other side of the aisle, not close to Kate, but not as far as the others. Hudson was the closest thing she had to an ally. He sat as if there was a ruler up against his spine, not hunched when the other instructor took the mantle.
Kate knit her brows, scanning the room and taking stock of the loud conversations around them. She scooted over to the chair closest to the large man. He eyed her, frowned, and she whispered gently. “You… don’t have to be afraid of her.”
Hudson’s shoulders dropped minutely, and he lifted an eyebrow in question. Kate didn’t want to fight. She didn’t want to catch the attention of anyone else. So far, so good. Parks had rolled up a ball of notebook paper and chucked it with accuracy at Sterling. They were all adults, but it didn’t seem like it here.
“Not saying that you are.” Kate scrambled, flushing as she fixed her posture. “She’s just, she’s good. Stern, but good. As long as you listen to her, you’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.”
“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” Parks growled, having risen from his seat, his arsenal of paper balls quickly losing interest in favor for something more potent that he could sink his yellowed teeth into.
He plopped unceremoniously onto the top of Kate’s table, treating her to a mix of horrible aftershave and worse coffee. She wrinkled her nose and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. It took her entire nerve to not kick him off. He commanded the room with his less than boyish charm.
“So, what was it? You went up against a full-blown Widow that was hired to kill a Hawkeye and you’re somehow here mucking up the place? I just don’t get it. None of us do.”
Foster shrugged her shoulders, taking a long pull of her energy drink. “You’re either lying about knowing the chick or she didn’t even think you were worth fighting in the first place.”
“Probably had eyes on better targets.” Sterling giggled like a child.
Kate could feel an angered heat bubble up in her chest. There were better targets that night. Clint Barton was the ultimate prize. But Yelena had still agreed to have a drink with her all the same. She landed a kick right between Kate’s ribs and stole her breath away in the same sentence.
They’d gotten a drink in a dive bar a few months later. One that smelled of sweet tobacco and carried an impenetrable haze to it. While Kate was content sipping from a dark malt whiskey, Yelena had recounted a memory of a distillery she had toured in Siberia, Itkul.
She had tasted a vodka that was so crisp called Method 1868, something that barely burned going down. Soon she and Kate were bordering tipsy and half the bottle had been polished off. Kate knows that she paid for a cab back to her apartment. And she knows that she fell asleep on the couch and gave Yelena the bed.
Waking up the next morning with a horrible headache and a home cooked breakfast was just what she needed for a roiling hangover. Seeing Yelena Belova in her kitchen being so domestic was something she could get used to, even if she never wanted to swallow down vodka again.
This was not something she would ever recount to Parks, or Foster, or Sterling, or any of her horrible fellow agents. Parks hopped down from his perch and steeled his hands against the table, bringing his stubbled face close to hers. “Wouldn’t it have been so easy to have taken one of those Widow bites and turned out your lights right then and there? I bet you couldn’t have loaded one of your barbaric arrows fast enough to do any damage.”
Kate could smell the bitterness on his breath, not entirely sure he even brushed his teeth. He only had one insult in his arsenal, it seemed. She leaned forward, rage roiling in her stomach and both boots on the floor, ready to bite his head off.
Someone cleared their throat. More specifically, Yelena cleared her throat. Kate would recognize it anywhere. It made her core pulse as if a bell had rung. Parks floundered, choked on his own air as he scrambled out of Kate’s personal space and back into his own chair.
Everyone was suddenly quiet and in their respective spots, moving with the agility that only Shield agents possessed. Kate figured that she should harbor the same urgency that they did. The Yelena Belova was standing in front of them, dressed smartly in the most delicious blazer that she owned.
She sat up straighter regardless and recrossed her legs, pressed her thighs together in a way that helped tamp down on the pulsing between them. Yelena leaned against the table at the head of the room and clenched her jaw, eyeing each and every one of them for a long, terse moment. Her gaze lingered on Kate for a second longer than the rest before flicking back to Parks and Sterling.
“Castration,” She purred, the word heavily accented in her Russian tongue. The swallow of hot black coffee that Sterling had just taken was suddenly spurted out through flat lips. Tepid green eyes glared darkly at him. “It’s a common torture tactic, but something that’s shied away from in today’s practice, yes?”
The silence in the room was deafening. No one dared to raise their hand or open their mouths to answer something that must be a rhetorical question. Kate herself didn’t know if it was something Yelena actually was seeking or if this was some dramatic bit.
“Often times the crime fits the punishment, that is what organizations like this one is built on. That is what Nick Fury has set out to accomplish and that is what you all have been training diligently for during these years.”
She pushed off the desk, stalking closer to the front two tables. “When I look at this room, I see nothing but children. Nothing but inexperienced boys and girls that could benefit from some castration themselves.”
Sterling swallowed audibly and Kate couldn’t say she wasn’t enjoying this. He was pale, paler than usual. She didn’t’ move a muscle herself. Seeing Yelena like this, her Yelena, was few and far between.
She was a force to be reckoned with. Her energy in the room was telling enough. Her presence to Kate was a soothing balm. There were months when Yelena wasn’t here, long stretches of weeks when she was out of town on jobs that Kate didn’t’ dare ask about.
After trips like that, Yelena would come home distant. Her muscles would be stiff, and she was always littered with varying degrees of cuts and bruises. They had a ritual. The first time, she had drawn her a bath and left her alone with an array of candles.
It hadn’t quite pleased the widow. She needed closeness. After missions like this, she needed Kate to the point where she wanted to burrow into her ribcage and pull the bones shut. So, the archer would lower herself into the tepid water and curl herself around Yelena, holding her, letting her cry until they were both shivering.
Right now, as her body shifted under the harsh lighting of the classroom, she was all density and muscle. Kate could track the soft pink scar below her ear, the one that the archer loved to nip at and then sooth with her tongue. Another cut that split through her left eyebrow, permanently stealing the dark hair that wished to grow there.
“I only have a semester with the six of you.” Yelena’s hand shot out with a viper-like quickness, gripping onto Parks collar and pulling him so close that their noses could touch, the fabric stretching in a way that it would never reform. “Convince me you deserve to keep them, pretty boy.”
Kate was starting to wonder if divorce was an option before she had a ring on her finger. She was drenched in a sticky kind of sweat that had soaked through her tank top and her sweatpants, making them cling to her uncomfortably. Instructor Yelena was cruel and unusual and subjected all six of them to a punishment that was worse than their week of hazing as Shield recruits.
Kate’s lungs were about to curl up in her chest and die. She was going to cough them up like stones and perish on the ground next to them. It was satisfying watching Parks keel over and vomit in a bush after their tenth mile, but now on their twelfth, she was starting to whither herself.
Yelena was an early riser and on the days where she could drag Kate out of bed and shove some caffeine in her, she would push Kate on morning hikes. Now, she was thankful for them. Now, she was keeping up just fine.
“Please,” Agent Foster wheezed out, having taken a tumble a few paces back splitting her knee on a rock “Miss Belova can we stop for just one minute?”
The terrain was nearly vertical, a straight incline on slippery gravel. Kate was rounding up the back of the pack, thankful for the hulking shadow that Hudson provided. It dampened Yelena’s voice, but certainly did not cut through the darkness of her stare.
“Agent Foster, do you think there would be a break in the field?” Yelena closed the short distance between them. She impressively hadn’t even broken a sweat, not even a flush to her cheeks. “Fury hired me to harden the lot of you. He was very clear that your previous instructor had been too lenient. But if you must take a break, then take a break.”
The group breathed a collective sigh of relief, moving to the edge of the empty trail. Of course, it was empty. No one would willingly subject themselves to the dusty road that stretched towards heaven but felt more like hell.
No one seemed to catch the underlying sarcasm that hid under the thick accent. Yelena huffed and blew a strand of blonde hair from her startling gaze, shaking her head and mumbling profanities under her breath.
Sterling braced himself against a tree, barely missing another guttural retch from Parks. Kate struggled to stifle a smirk, turning away from the group and hilting her arms over her head to open up her diaphragm.
The muggy air did nothing to stifle her heartbeat, nor did the fact that she ran directly into Yelena, who had somehow managed to situate herself behind her. Kate fumbled, sneakers sliding on the gravel in a less-than-attractive way.
Yelena was more than used to her antics at this point, the very corner of her lip was turning up, but not enough to give herself away. “You’re jumpy.”
“You’re scary.”
“They’re not paying any attention to us. They are too busy hurling.”
Kate snorted, her eyes wandering over to the group. A fresh spot of vomit had rolled down Sterling’s shirt, a product of his own nausea. Kitt seemed to be fighting off a round of chills, looking positively green while Foster struggled to pick gravel from her leaking wound.
“They might be suspicious if I don’t lose my lunch too.”
Yelena shook her head, her fingers twitching as if she wanted to reach out and brush the damp hair from Kate’s face, but hesitated at the last minute “You are much stronger than that. I promise to run you a bath when we get home, milaya devochka.”
Foster diluted her wound with half her bottle of water, watching the strawberry runoff soak into her sock. She glared at Kate, nudged her elbow into Parks pale chest. The groups attention had effectively shifted to the two of them and she could feel it needle into her spine.
“What?” Sterling burped sourly into his mouth. “You’re not going to pound her into the ground?”
“That’s what you think I am doing?”
Kate let her hands drop from her head, her breath finally regulating to a normal pace. She tried not to look too comfortable standing next to Yelena. It was difficult, their shoulders nearly brushing. They were a handsome couple, even if Kate was looking positively green in the blazing sun.
“Sort of, yeah, just like you did the first time you let her go.” Sterling hissed, suddenly emboldened by his discomfort.
He had height on Yelena, taking two long strides towards them, about a foot above her. Kate felt herself bristle. She wanted to put a warm body between the man, the boy, who had been poking her with a hot iron for the past four years and the woman who had soothed it over with a balm.
Kate caught the warning glint in Yelena’s eyes, the intensity in her stance. It was subtle, but it was there. Sterling couldn’t’ read a book, much less body language. He had entered her space and had the audacity to lean down with an annoying smirk on his lips.
She chuckled, almost fondly. “Mm, Christmas, Kate Bishop do you remember that?”
Shit. Fuck. Was this a trick question? The rest of the group had made their way over, watery eyes and dusty from their excursion. They smelled too rancid for Kate to handle in her own right, but it didn’t’ seem to bother Yelena much, if at all. Kate wanted to bury her nose in the warm spot of Yelena’s collar, pulling in her citrus scent.
“Yes… I do” She sounded out, exaggerating her expression, trying to communicate with Yelena in some sort of secretive way. Were they actually doing this? There was no way. They would have talked about it first, right? The sun must have been getting to her. Had to be.
“No way in hell did a scrawny archer hold her own against you.” Parks used the back of his hand to wipe bile from his lips. “She’s got a pretty face, I’ll admit, but not enough to-“
His words got caught in his throat, stopped by a hand that was wrapped it. Whatever lesson that was on the tip of Yelena’s tongue had suddenly been admonished. There was the sound of rubber on gravel, the recruits scrambling as Parks choked and clawed at Yelena’s wrist.
“Lesson number one, Parks, you respect your team. You don’t say a word against them. Not now, not ever.” She was backing him up the path, tightening her grip, his face reddening and his feet struggling to find purchase. “You have a problem with Kate, you might as well put a bullet between your fucking eyes right now.”
Yelena released him when he turned an unnatural shade of blue. He collapsed and pulled in ragged breath. No one dared to rush to his side, all frozen in place, as if they had never met a hardened agent before. Maybe they hadn’t. Kate was suddenly emboldened by the thought.
“In fact, if any of you have a problem with Kate, or anyone else here then you might as well walk down the side of this mountain and out the damn door of this agency right now.” Yelena turned her back on the gasping man at her feet and leveled the agents with an icy stare. They balked, shook. “If you can’t respect them in a classroom, how will you protect them in the field?”
Anger was potent in her stare, in the bite of her words. A real, pulpy teaching moment that sparked admiration in Kate’s chest. Sure, there was vengeance there. Kate had caught that in her partners actions. But with each story that she relayed as they were curled up in bed together, there was something more. Yelena hated the lack of technique that was presented to those around Kate on a daily basis.
“When I look at all of you, I do not see a team. I see something pitiful. There is a clear misuse of power and an even clearer disdain that I could smell the minute I walked through the doors. Something I’m not afraid to beat out of all of you.”
Parks sputtered on the ground, coughed on the dust that was filling his lungs as if to emphasize her point. She didn’t spare him another glance.
The warmth of hole in the wall establishment was a welcome change from the lashing of the winter storm that was assaulting the city streets. Kate folded into her coat and still refused to pull it from her shoulders until she was absolutely certain that the bar offered any type of solace.
She was cornered in the booth, savoring the heady scent of clove cigarettes before she coaxed the damp fleece from her shoulders and draped it over the back of the booth next to Yelena’s, impossible black next to her stylish choice.
A frothy mug of beer was placed in front of her, which was a great satisfaction, but not as much as the warmth of Yelena sliding into the seat soon after. Kate’s arm slid around her shoulders automatically. Her muscles protesting and a groan escaping her lungs.
Kate didn’t need to look over to know that Yelena was smirking. The giggles that escaped Cassie and Kamala on the other side of the table behind the rims of their glasses were enough to strengthen her groan.
“She working you out that hard, Bishop?” Kamala swallowed a helping of IPA.
Cassie smirked, digging the knife in. “I thought you were tougher than that.”
“Oh, lay off. I can handle it just fine. Watching Sterling and Parks suffer is worth whatever hellish workout Yelena can throw my way.” Kate turns her head, pressing her cold nose into Yelena’s cheek, reveling in the sharp breath she pulls in, a little bit of revenge. “Besides, she’s a very attractive teacher.”
Yelena laced her fingers with Kate’s, absently playing with the rings on the hand that hung lazily over her shoulder. She leaned heavily into her, enjoying the warm buzz in the bar. When the two of them had first begun their relationship, it was clunky. A mix of intensity in some moments, nipped skin and soft touches that were much too tentative. Now they flowed like oxygen, like the natural rush of water.
“God help whatever team they end up on.” Yelena grimaces, shaking her head “I’m not built to be an educator. Apparently, I’m too tough with my methods.”
“You will keep the blazers though, right?”
Cassie shuddered “Gross,”
Kate was so close to graduation that she could taste it. A week, at most. She hadn’t even planned on attending the unofficial ceremony. There was no point. While the agents had laid off Kate, laid off of everything other than their own silence in the last few months, she wanted to quietly bow out.
“Mm, of course” Yelena hummed, turning her head and pressing her lips to Kate’s, a warm offering that the archer accepted gratefully. She tasted of alcohol, of citrus and of solace. Kate smiled victoriously into the embrace, the collective noises of protests on the other side of the table.
“No fucking way.”
Another voice. A familiar one that wrenched them apart violently. Kate stiffened, refused to remove her arm from around Yelena’s shoulders. Her other hand moved to the woman’s knee under the booth in a sense of comfort. Screw it. Screw this. A squeeze of reassurance.
The annoying chirp had come from Foster herself. She was strengthened by a mixed drink in hand, the low thrum of a pop song covering her shock. Sterling had an arm around her center, holding her possessively into his side. Anger was creeping up in a strawberry color past the collar of his sweater.
There was a crowd in the bar, but Kate could easily track the rest of the group to a small corner as they kicked off snow and disrobed from their winter gear. Hudson was hard to miss. He dwarfed a pitcher of piss-colored ale that was set in the middle of their table with frosty glasses. A celebration of course completion, she was sure.
Foster was seemingly taking stock of the table with accusatory eyes. Everyone was familiar. Of course, Kate and Yelena were, but Cassie and Kamala wandered the halls of the Avengers compound too. Kate wasn’t helping herself here. The disdain was growing and for once, she didn’t give a damn. The alcohol made her vinous, bold.
“Is there a problem?”
Yelena smirked, the closest thing they’d ever seen to a smile. It seemed to unnerve them. She took a sip of her drink and peered up at the two agents, waiting eagerly for their response with glossy green eyes.
Sterling’s voice wasn’t as confident as normal, “Damn right there is. Bishop, I knew there was a reason you were still standing.”
“If you’re talking about Christmas, I’ll have you know, I put up a good fight.” Kate tilted her head to the side, peering up at them both with hard eyes. “From my understanding Yelena didn’t let me live out of pity. You can stand there with your mouths open, ready to catch flies and hurl your petty insults, or you can walk back to your table with your tails between your legs. But I would greatly appreciate it if you left either way. Because the one thing you must understand is that I do know how to fight and there is nothing pitiful about me.”
She was met with relative silence, the smirk on Yelena’s face reflecting something more genuine that only Kate could discern. Cassie had lifted a beautifully sculpted eyebrow, and Kamala cleared her throat as if waiting for the two to scamper away like the dogs they were.
“What are you waiting for,” Yelena asked. “Permission?”
Foster was the first to move. Then Sterling, silent for the first time in his life. They stalked off to the table they claimed. Kate watched them with dark eyes, careful to watch as talk rippled through them. Heads turned and words were exchanged.
Hudson smiled. A real, genuine smile and an echoing laugh from the belly that moved through the bar loud enough to be heard through everything else. Kate found herself smiling as he lifted his mug to her and she lifted her own back, shaking her head in amusement.
“That man is weird,” Yelena snorted, “I like him.”
“Me too, I think.” Kate let the tension drain from her body, “God, that felt good. Like, really fucking good. I wish I could have smacked them, but It’ll do.”
“You can still go and smack them if you want.” Kamala suggested “Just let us clear a path.”
Cassie pouted “No, no. I like this place. I’ve been flirting with bartender for months. I haven’t paid for a drink since October.”
The two girls started bickering. Kamala suggesting that Cassie pick up the tab for the entire table and a side of fries considering she’d been saving so much with her impeccable flirting skills. Kate beamed at them, settling nicely into the warmth washed over her, a tension that was so prevalent lifting from her chest.
Yelena brushed her nose against the side of her cheek, that familiar scent of citrus invading her senses, warping around her like a cozy embrace. Her whispered words sent a chill across Kate’s skin “dorogoy, I am so proud of you.” Kate flushed at the praise.
“You wore them down”
“I did no such thing; I was just playing with my food.”
Kate chuckled softly, placing her finger under Yelena’s chin and lifting her head up just enough to press her lips against the Widows. The kiss was soft, unhurried. Kate knew that there were eyes on them, and Kate didn’t care.