Kate Bishop was never the kind of person who hid who she was. When every other girl in her class was playing with dolls, she was climbing trees. When her mother told her to sit still and smile for family photos, she invariably pulled a face. When she came out as a lesbian at fifteen, she did so by ordering a garish rainbow cake and placing it in front of Eleanor for dessert. They laughed and she got the acceptance she expected.
She liked herself and never saw a reason to pretend to be something else.
Yelena Belova always had a reason to be something else.
Yelena lost herself at six. She was the best in her class at the same things everyone was trying to succeed at. That kept her safe. When a superior asked her to do something, she did it perfectly and without question, even if she knew it was wrong. That was survival. When she told her mother she was gay, Melina responded that it was a wound caused by trauma and it would heal. She tried to correct it the way the Red Room taught her so that Melina would look at her with love again.
At the beginning of their relationship it made sense that Yelena was nervous. This was her first experience dating anyone and Kate tried to be conscious of that. She didn’t push to label anything, or try to get her into bed immediately. It turned out that she was extremely sex averse. Kate listened to her explain in vague, halting terms that she didn’t know if trauma was the cause or if she was born like this. She sent her links about asexuality so she felt less alone. It was a slow, careful process of figuring out what she was comfortable with, and Kate was happy to do it.
But at this point, she wondered if Yelena would ever kiss her in public, or hold her hand as they walked down the street. That Yelena wanted to keep their relationship completely private stung her in a way she didn’t realise she could be stung. Not correcting the pizza guy when he called them ‘sisters’, or referring to her as her ‘roommate’ at an event, were just two persistent ways she kept things in the dark.
It felt selfish to admit that she wanted more, but here they were sitting together and Yelena seemed determined to look like they were just acquaintances getting breakfast.
“Lena, New York is basically the most liberal city in the world.” They each took a sip of their coffee. The cafe was quiet, but not empty, and the coffee was thoroughly mediocre.
Yelena was skimming a newspaper someone had left on the table. “This Calvin and Hobbes is amusing,” a mild chuckle escaped her lips, “Calvin is very you.” Kate repeated the statement. “Yes, very liberal,” she pronounced it ‘lee-biril’.
“Cool, just making sure you’re… aware,” Kate pretended to look at the menu. “I think the pancakes,” she clasped Yelena’s hand, “look good. What do you think?”
The blonde extricated her hand so smoothly that Kate could almost believe she’d let go of it herself, “waffles sound ok.”
“Ok,” another sip of average coffee was taken before she spoke again, “why don’t we hold hands?”
“We hold hands all the time.”
“Not in public.”
“People don’t need to know our business,” the nonchalant shrug she gave was somehow more frustrating than if she’d been hostile. “Anyway we need to be hands free to keep the city safe,” the forced attempt to defuse the situation was not her smoothest work.
“You’ve seen other lesbian couples hold hands,” Kate looked at her sadly. “You know it’s ok, right?”
Yelena’s empty cup hit the table harder than necessary, “is this really what you want to talk about now?”
“When we saw Some Like It Hot last week you waited until the lights went down - and everybody in that audience was queer.” The hand hold barely lasted a minute before the blonde let go, presumably having spotted someone looking at them. “Look, I’m glad you held it at all, that was an awesome step but you have to admit that you avoid anything ‘overt’ in public.”
“Kate…” her voice trailed off, she didn’t know where her sentence was going.
Affairs that blossomed in the showers as the widows washed the blood from each other weren’t uncommon. Yelena had never partaken, at first because of her youth, then because the chemical took away her sense of desire. Looking back, she wasn't sure if she would have engaged in it.
She saw several times what happened to widows who were caught. The more valuable one had to kill the other, then submit to ‘correction’. Guards sexually assaulted her in front of her dormmates until she was deemed 'fixed'. It was supposed to humiliate and deter behaviour, but the need for kind touch often overrode the lesson. For their continued survival and what little dignity the widows had, relationships couldn’t be seen.
Even her first truly consensual kiss, a girl she met at a bar while drinking away a nightmare, had to be out of sight. The girl was confused about why she dragged her to an empty bathroom stall just to barely make out with her, but that was the only way Yelena could do it. The girl was very sweet, she held her when she cried.
“People will see,” her breath was shaky, uncertain. Her eyes told Kate the story, at least part of it, of what happened in the room if the wrong person saw.
“It’s safe for us to be seen,” she reminded her gently. It was moments like this that she saw Yelena most clearly. There was more to her than the quick wit, charisma, and hotheadedness; there was grief and fear. They’d talk more about that some day, she hoped. “You don’t have to wear a shirt that says ‘I’m a lesbian ask me how’, but we’ve been dating for six months and living together for two. You’ve never acknowledged it in front of other people,” Kate said, “not even Clint, who knows that we’re together.”
Paleness descended on Yelena’s face at the fact that Kate said that in earshot of strangers. The brazen way Kate talked about their relationship forced unwanted images of ‘correction’ into her mind. “I don’t know how to be,” the words caught in her throat, “open.” Yelena couldn’t say more. Not here, maybe not anywhere.
“I know you struggled,” Kate suddenly felt horribly insensitive and regretted bringing this up in a coffee shop of all places. It hurt to look at Yelena's haunted expression. “It was really bad there, wasn’t it?” It wasn’t meant to be a rhetorical question, but she knew the moment she said it that an answer was unnecessary. “Sometimes I forget that other people come from places that punish this,” she admitted. “New York is…”
“Very liberal?”
“Yeah,” the humourless laugh Kate let out was not like her own at all. It was sadder, angrier. The Red Room wasn’t a topic they discussed often, but she always understood that widows weren’t putting pride flags up in their dorms. The idea that there might have been more than just repression, that there was actual violence in response to homosexuality, turned her stomach.
It wasn’t the first time that Yelena felt a pang of jealousy over the life Kate had been afforded. She wanted her first kiss to be a happy memory and for her mother to have hugged her and said ‘it’s ok’. If she’d had Kate’s life maybe she would have kissed that girl in front of people and not sobbed into her shirt afterwards.
“You are very lucky,” were the only words she could muster.
“I know,” Kate stared at the cold coffee, “I like being open. I’ve never felt ashamed about who I am. You shouldn’t either.”
“I am trying not to be.” The way Kate's hand felt in hers for that minute before she got scared was electrifying and right. It was the feeling she'd been wanting her entire life.
Yelena Belova always had a reason to be something else. For safety, for survival, for love. There was no way to change her past, but she could make the life she had closer to the life she wished she’d lived. New York was not the Red Room, she knew that. The deep breath she took in and out drew Kate’s gaze away from her drink. “Can we hold hands, Kate Bishop?” she put her open palm down on the table.
“Nothing would make me happier.”
They ordered breakfast with their fingers laced together.