"No, Kate Bishop. You don't understand!" Yelena's words, full of a dangerous and painful cocktail of grief, guilt and anger hung on the heavy air around them as soon as the words left her mouth, and the brunette's expression deformed in pain at Yelena's words. Lucky, that had been watching them from the couch for the last 15 minutes as they argued, had his tail and ears low and was resting his head on his paws.
"So explain it, then! Talk to me, Yelena! Don't simply say I don't understand when you don't even try to explain it. Stop being selfish and stop running away from me just because you are scared of loving and losing again." She exclaimed with frustration after a few moments of letting her aching soul sink into the long left behind feeling of loneliness, that, mixed with fear and despair, came alarmingly fast to her in huge and drowning waves. Yelena was definitely going to be mad at her for that.
'You shouldn't have tried to say goodbye to her...'
Yelena's inner and annoying voice hammered in her head, making a frown appear on her eyebrows at the thought.
'But that would have destroyed her.'
Yelena wanted to feel angry for Kate's words. For Kate interrupting her plans of leaving, for Kate being so stupidly emotional, for Kate calling her selfish, but for Kate being a good person nonetheless, and an understanding and kind one most of the time... But she couldn't.
Kate was right.
Fuck, of course she was.
Yelena had ran from Kate a lot of times now, and she knew it. She knew as well that she was selfish for running away because of fear and she was selfish too for wanting to stay because how of a bad person she was compared to Kate, and she knew how much it seemed to hurt her how she acted, as every time she was gone from the archer's life and she decided to check on her from the shadows, she saw fissures on Kate's façade, like cracks on the walls of a prestigious, elegant and large building that would collapse at any moment for how weak it actually was getting.
And, Oh my God, saying she would die a hundred million times in the less cool ways just to stay without regrets by the brunette's side would be the biggest misunderstatement on history, but she just couldn't help but obey the urge to walk away every time she felt her chest a little bit too warm while being around Kate and a tiny, piercing and impossible to ignore voice whispering and reminding, unforgiving, all the reasons why she was a bad company for Kate.
Who was she kidding? Was she even what Kate deserved? Was she, a broken, blood stained, cold and usually mercy less soul what Kate Bishop, a happy, warm, kind and precious as gold, sun ray deserved? Anyone could get to that answer.
'Cause she would damage Kate, just as Dreykov, and the Red Room, and her parents, and her past damaged her. She had been bended, flexed, used, almost broken and taken to her very edge a thousand times, and all her light rather sooner than later, had been snatched from her. All that bright, firefly-like light her 6 years old self had had been cruelly taken from her, and since then, she walked lost in the dark, just being guided by black and wicked strings pulling of her body and mind.
She was afraid that, instead of Kate lighting her life again, she would blow out Kate's light. She was afraid that Kate would panic whenever she decided to show her the darkest fragments of her soul, or that her darkness simply was passed to Kate, and she couldn't let herself being the reason of that smile, which could melt even the coldest layers of ice enveloping her soul, fading and slipping through her fingers like desert sand. She couldn't let Kate being added to the list of people that looked at her in total fear. She couldn't let her own self breaking what she, liked it or not, loved the most.
Tears began to form in her green eyes at the sight of blue ones pleading silently. She didn't know exactly for what. She just knows they were pleading. Pleading painfully.
"I... I can't explain it. I don't know how." She talked after long minutes of lingering inside her head, and as she did, her voice broke and the pleading gaze was now hers, that traveled between the floor and ocean eyes and begged for some comfort, some rest from her grief. Kate noticed the shift on Yelena's eyes, and worried, she took 3 steps forwards, standing just a few feet away from the blonde but careful not to scare her.
"Try, Yelena. I can't help you if you don't tell me how." Yelena let out a sigh and closed her burning eyes, trying to have the enough power-will to keep her position steady. She couldn't change her mind. Not now.
"I'm tired, Kate." The words left her mouth before she could even stop them and she regret it the moment the moment she actually thought about them, especially when her voice came out in a low and broken whisper. She didn't dare to open her eyes, because she could feel Kate's stare over her and she knew that she would abandon completely any plans of leaving her if she looked into her eyes, or if she buried her face into her soft neck, or if Kate wrapped her arms protectively around her.
'Be strong Yelena. Keep yourself steady.'
"I know." Kate took one step further, and then another one, and then their breaths were mixing and their faces were inches away. "But you don't have to run. You are safe with me, and you could stay here just lying in bed for a month with me and Lucky eating tons of ice cream, pizza and macaroni while we watch Sex and the City, or Friends, or The Office, or The Big Bang Theory or some shitty movie we find on TV. You are not gonna hurt me. And you don't have to pretend you are okay if you are with me. You can feel like you wanna die and I'll still be here for you." Still looking at Yelena, Kate took her hand while craving for green eyes to open and look at hers, and the first tears rolled out the blonde's shut eyes when the brunette's warm hand held with an especial delicacy hers.
"I will never deserve you, мой маленький ястреб." Yelena talked, finally meeting her eyes with Kate's that glowed with a spark of relief at seeing Yelena's eyes open and look at her. After so much time of hearing Yelena call her that, and even if she knew little and nothing of Russian, she did know what those words meant, and a strong and sorrowful desire of hearing them until the day she died grew heavy in her chest.
"No. No, no. Don't say that. Don't you even think about it. You deserve all the good things this universe has to offer. You deserve this. You deserve help, love, healing, someone to rely on, someone that holds you whenever things seem to be too heavy for you to carry them alone. You deserve me, my girl. You deserve so much more than the life you were forced to live."
Kate's hand cupped Yelena's cheek, and the smaller woman tilted her head to the side trying to get more of the pleasant contact, unconsciously leaning closer to Kate and closing her eyes again.
"But you don't deserve the life I'll make you live." Yelena talked after a minute or two of just enjoying Kate's protecting touch, holding the archer's hand on her own and moving it away from her cheek. She took a little step back, but never dropped the brunette's hand.
"Wh... What are you talking about?" Kate furrowed her brows on confusion, her brain already anticipating in fear what Yelena was going to say.
"I am not what you deserve, Kate. I don't want to make you suffer. I was... I was trained to dirty my hands. I was trained to hurt people. I was trained to make them cry and scream and beg for their lives and..."
"Is that what you are gonna do to me?" Green eyes that had been previously wandering all around the room as she talked found their way back to blues when she heard Kate interrupt her, and she found the archer looking at her full of emotion.
"What? No. I would never do that."
"So? Why are you struggling so much?" Yelena, for the first time in a while, was left completely speechless. And Kate, once again, was right.
Why was she struggling so much with staying?
She opened her mouth, waiting for her brain to create a reply, but nothing came out, no matter how hard she tried. "Look, Yelena. It's okay if I'm not what you want in your life. You are free to choose whoever you want to spend your time with, but if that's the case, just say it. Don't walk in and out over, and over, and over again... 'Cause..." She sighed and closed her eyes, squeezing Yelena's hand as a rather useless method to calm herself. "I do love you, and this is hurting me. Maybe more than you could imagine."
Kate had a look in her eyes. Kate had that look in her eyes.
Yelena knew it like the back of her hand. Even if her memory betrayed her a little, she knew she had seen it a hundred times before. She saw it in Melina's eyes the day she and her family flew to Cuba, all those years ago. She saw it in her sister's eyes when little Natasha took a gun and aimed it at soldiers to protect her. She saw it in Clint's eyes that time at the ice ring, when he whistled, defeated, Yelena and Natasha's whistle. She even saw it in the mirror, in her own eyes, whenever she thought of how much she yearned for a rest from her life. And now, she was seeing it in Kate's eyes that, it was clear now, pleaded for one thing.
Stay.
So Yelena just let it out. She didn't care about her inner voice, attached forever to her time, traumas and scars of the Red Room. She didn't care about her instincts, carefully built for years and years of conditioning, that screamed inside her head that love was going to make her weak, that she wasn't made for it. She didn't care about her fears of hurting Kate either, or about the fear of loving her and losing her. She just let it out.
"I love you too." It was more as a pleasant realization for Yelena. It had slipped out of her tongue so... naturally. It made her lips tickle pleasantly. It made everything in the world around her slow down. It made everything seem to be suddenly better. Prettier. Easier... But Kate didn't seem satisfied with her answer.
"Prove it. Stay." Another ice wall inside of Yelena broke into pieces when she noticed the shake in Kate's voice and the fear in her eyes.
"I can't. I can't allow myself to hurt you. I'll only make you cry, Kate. Why do you want that?" Kate pulled her closer again at the doubt in Yelena's stare, and despite her own words, she didn't do much to fight her.
'I can't let her go. Not like this.'
" 'Cause I know you won't. I don't know everything of you, but of what I know, I know you can love, and laugh, and support others, and live too, not just survive. I know you can do so much things more than making people cry. But you do make me cry every time you disappear and leave me behind without me knowing if I'm going to ever see you again." Her eyes were now two little rivers that poured warm tears out of her eyes, staining her cheeks.
"Please, Yelena. Don't leave me; 'cause I know this time it will be forever. We can get through this. You can get through this. Just stay... Stay." She repeated and lowered her gaze feeling a single soft sob slip from her throat.
And then, Yelena's determination collapsed completely, her longing to stay forever with the brunette getting infinitely bigger than her desire to run. So she just gave up.
She let go of Kate's hand, and the brunette panicked as she thought Yelena was going to finally do what she had been trying to, but she was utterly surprised when the same hand that had been holding hers moved to her wet cheek, and soft, pink lips crashed suddenly, but tenderly against her own.
Shock took quickly all over her, and she froze completely. Her blood ran cold and her brain did short-circuiting, as she stood awkwardly still while Yelena kissed her.
Definitely she was more than surprised. She would even dare to say that petrified, as all the emotions (previous sadness, fear and despair, current and huge surprise, and rising nervousness and excitement) have mixed inside her and had created a (she couldn't tell if it was either pleasant or unpleasant) feeling of emptiness in her stomach.
Her mind raced with, mostly, incomplete questions and overwhelming feelings, and the only coherent thought she could form was:
'Yelena fucking Belova is kissing me.'
Her mind remained stuck into that very thought for a while, besides the lingering question of 'Are you really leaving me?' taking the biggest place in her heart, but thankfully, Kate's body reacted faster than her slow brain and her lips quickly kissed back, dancing slowly and with a hint of nostalgia against the blonde's, and her hands moved to hug Yelena's waist bringing her closer, closer, closer... as if that was gonna stop her from leaving.
Yelena's lips... They were warm, and soft, and perfectly wet, and her tongue made its way through her mouth so gently, and lovingly, and delicately, almost as if Kate was made of the most fragile porcelain and any rough movement would break her.
She never wanted to stop feeling her lips.
Kate's mind was dizzy, so dizzy, and so drunk in Yelena's taste and in her own pain; the bitter sweetest pain she had ever felt. She knew her cheeks, the same ones that were being cupped softly by cold hands, were hot, red, and wet from sour tears, and her lips probably tasted like salty sadness. She felt so desperate. So powerless. So... Scared. And even if dizzy, so conscious.
'Oh, Yelena. Don't leave me. Please.'
She hoped that, somehow, Yelena sensed, perceived, heard those words without her needing to say them. Her wet cheeks started to stain Yelena's face as soft thumbs wiped away her tears, and her hands gripped, desperate, at Yelena's soft and warm sweater, feeling the blonde close, warm, present...
'If I let go, she will walk away and leave forever.' Her thoughts whispered in the back of her mind.
'She will walk away and leave forever.' Her fingers grasped more strongly at fabric as that very thought echoed in her ears.
'She will leave forever.' Her ocean blue eyes poured even more tears.
'She...' She, Yelena Belova, was everything filling her besides right then, every single time, every day, at every thought, at every moment. Yelena was the only person she would ever need, and she was gonna leave her. Forever.
Since when was the room so hot?
"Kate? Kate, breathe. You're hyperventilating. Breathe."
Oxygen. That's what she needed.
She didn't even know when, or how, but she had started to cry harder while kissing Yelena and her chest shook violently in the middle of the kiss, yearning for air. Of course Yelena had noticed, so she parted and tried to calm Kate, who was now resting her head in Yelena's shoulder and sobbing disconsolately, as the woman held her close to her.
"Don't leave me. Please." Holding onto Yelena as if she was her lifeline, Kate whispered with choky voice in Yelena's ear, feeling arms tightening their embrace around her and long fingers sneaking under her black sweatshirt to caress slowly the bare skin of her back. Yelena was trying her best to assure Kate her presence.
"I'm here, Kate. See? I'm right by your side, my love. I'm here."
Yelena felt as, progressively, the archer's knees lost their strength, making Kate to lean even further in Yelena's embrace. At some point, Yelena was leaning against the nearest wall while holding almost Kate's entire weight, and she couldn't stop the few tears of her own that escaped out of her green eyes at the sharp pain of guilt that settled in her chest, just as a hot iron knife burying deep in her heart and not willing to leave.
Yelena took a deep breath while looking at the ceiling to stop tears from keep falling, and her guard being completely taken aback, she held delicately Kate's body close to hers while brushing her hair with one hand.
'She's crying like this because of your fault. Do you even imagine what would happen to her if you left her?' Yelena hugged her a little tighter at the knowledge. Even if she knew she was the one hurting Kate, it was because she wanted to leave. 'Why leave, if that would do exactly the opposite of what you want, Yelena?'
As the minutes passed, the shaky sobs started to slowly cease, and Kate, now more calmed, just enjoyed the warmth Yelena's body provided. Yelena knew Kate was tired, but probably too scared to let her go, so she moved gently Kate's arms from her waist and wrapped them instead around her own neck, holding then pale and bare thighs that were slightly covered by shorts and the length of Kate's sweatshirt and wrapping them around her waist, so she was carrying Kate like if she was a little koala and Yelena her tree.
Yelena walked towards Kate's bedroom (that was more theirs) with the archer wrapped around her, and without letting her go, she sat in the bed, leaning her back in the head of the bed with Kate in top of her and nestled in her neck.
"Sleep, my love. You need it." Yelena whispered, covering them both with a blanket and getting ready to sleep. But Kate had other plans.
The archer got out of her hiding spot to look at Yelena with red and puffy eyes, full of anxiety and sadness. She couldn't allow herself to sleep, no matter if it was nearly 2 am and she was close to fainting because of how sleepy she was. "I don't want to, Lena. I ca..."
"I won't leave while you sleep, Kate." The widow assured, already knowing why Kate didn't want to sleep, which took Kate by surprise.
"You promise?" She answered after a while.
"I do, love."
Kate sighed, defeated and tired, but just before nestling back in Yelena's chest, she felt again tender hands cupping her face, and saw Yelena looking lovingly at her moonlit face. At her blue eyes, at her nose, at her cheeks, at her brows, at her lips... The blonde let a huge grin take all over her face before closing the gap between them and kissing the archer, slowly and passionately, trying to show her all of the love she felt. Kate this time didn't even think for a second before answering, being fully delighted and aware of the every sensation that had to do with Yelena. As if it was her last time with the Widow (of which she wasn't completely sure yet), her senses tried to take in everything of her: how she smelled, how she tasted, how her cold hands felt while caressing her skin, how ethereal she looked, how her forest, green eyes traced every feature of her face like she was the most perfect and beautiful painting ever, how her soft voice sounded while whispering comforting words, how her lips brushed hers with a tenderness no one had ever done before.
After a couple of minutes of kissing they finally parted thanks to the lack of oxygen in their lungs, resting their foreheads against the other's and panting just slightly, with Yelena's hands resting on Kate's waist, under her black sweatshirt, and Kate's hands on Yelena's face, keeping her close to her.
"I love you so much Yelena Belova." The Widow smiled, leaving a last and chaste kiss on Kate's lips before tightening her embrace around Kate's waist, guiding Kate's head to hide in her neck and whispering a "I love you too, Katherine Elizabeth Bishop. More than you could imagine." Kate's evened and softened breathing showed that the brunette was clearly falling asleep, and those breathings lulled her right into unconsciousness.
The morning sun rays shone brightly through the window of the bedroom, bathing softly with its light the messy face of a brunette, that had over it a few brown locks that had escaped out of her carelessly made ponytail. Groaning, the brunette stirred over the bed while lazily taking her hand to her eyes to cover them from the dazzling light, so golden, warm and dazzling like Yelena's hair.
'Yelena's hair... Wait... Yelena? Where's Yelena?'
Awareness quickly came to her body, making her realize that... Yelena was not on the bed. Frowning and sitting on the bed, she sharpened her senses to try to get any clue of where the blonde was. Every door at sight was closed, there was no shadows moving in the apartment neither glass shatters in the kitchen. Not even Lucky was barking like mad, like he did almost every time Yelena was in the apartment, and he was instead lying on the bed by her feet.
Where was Yelena?
Panic started to flood Kate. 'She really left you.' Her eyes burnt. Did she really leave? She quickly got out of bed and walked through the apartment looking for Yelena, ignoring in the process a little post it note resting on her nightstand. She checked the bathrooms, the guest room, the living room, the kitchen, and even the balcony. Yelena was nowhere to be found, and still, her things, clothing, framed photos, and even Widow suit were completely untouched.
Kate felt her eyes welling up, fearing that, after all of the promises the blonde made to her last night, she had broken all of them. She wondered if she should call Yelena, she started to cry, walked like crazy through the apartment, and considered the idea of crumbling on a corner to sob until she died from sadness, but her eyes, moving across the kitchen in complete desperation, found something she had not seen before on the counter. Another post it.
She walked slowly towards the counter, taking carefully the paper between her hands.
"To: Kate
From: Lena
PD: I wrote several of these things in case you didn't find the others. They're through the entire house :)
Kate didn't read the rest of the note and instead held it in her hands, rushing again through the apartment and realizing that, in fact, there were little post its of different colors in it. There were in the bathroom, on the guest's bed, on the counter, on her nightstand, in her closet, and even on Lucky's bed. Kate smiled even if she didn't know what the sticky notes even said, and she wiped away her tears with the back of her hand while taking the one she had been holding and starting to read the rest of it while sitting on her bed.
When I woke up to make breakfast, there was no eggs, no sausage, no bread and no coffee, Kate Bishop, so I did a little trip to the supermarket to restorage our fridge our we would die of hunger. So don't panic if you don't see me when you wake up, моймаленькийястреб. I made you a promise. Be back in a while, sweetheart.
With love: Yelena."