kate
JULY 14TH, 2028
“It’s a little early for that, don’t you think?”
Kate turns over the arrow in her hands and looks up at the person in the doorway of the barn, none other than Clint.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she replies, glancing at the mug in his hand before turning back to the targets on the wall and readying her bow, “What’re you doing up so early?”
“Nate woke me up,” Clint responds, voice closer now than it was a couple of seconds ago, “Did you ever go to sleep last night? I know that you and Laura were up late talking.”
Kate sucks on her tongue, not taking a second to look at him as she nocks her arrow and then fires it, satisfied when it hits dead center like all of those before it. She doesn’t answer Clint. He knows the answer already and Kate knows that he knows.
“Are you okay?” Clint asks as Kate picks up another arrow.
“Never better,” Kate replies dryly, not appreciating that this conversation is slowly turning her brain back on to all of her problems.
Archery’s a nice escape from the recent hell that’s been her brain, but now that Clint’s here, asking if she’s okay and checking up on her, it’s bringing back those stupid thoughts that she’s been trying to avoid.
“Want me to come out and let you know when breakfast is ready?” Clint asks after another minute.
Kate doesn’t respond and she hears Clint’s footsteps leave. She waits another minute before checking over her shoulder to see him disappearing back to the house and lays her bow on the table.
She’s fucking exhausted. Maybe she should’ve gone to sleep last night, but she can’t help it. Yelena’s haunts her head even when she’s asleep and Kate’s pretty sure that she can’t handle seeing Yelena’s face in her nightmares one more time. It doesn’t help that she doesn’t know if Yelena’s getting her checkups or keeping up with her meds and that the last time she called, Isabel said she hadn’t seen Yelena since the month before she disappeared.
It’s making Kate want to drink. Just to numb the thoughts for some time, but she doesn’t. She won’t. She’s stronger than that, she doesn’t need alcohol just because her ex-girlfriend disappeared. She just needs to cope in other ways.
Her eyes fall on the targets littered around the barn. They’re all pierced with her purple-feathered arrows in their bullseyes. She should be proud but all she feels is tired.
Kate collects them up and dumps them into her barrel of arrows that she keeps before running a hand through her hair and sighing. She doesn’t want to go inside and converse with the Bartons about nothing. She just wants her girl. It’s very simple.
Kate’s watch buzzes on her wrist with a phone call from Cassie that she promptly ignores.
Cassie Lang is the daughter of Scott Lang, which in itself is cool, and it’s even cooler that Cassie is her friend. What’s not cool, though, is that Kate knows if she picks up the phone, Cassie’s going to ask her about Yelena and if she’s done anything since she pretty much broke up with Yelena (they called it a break, but then Yelena disappeared a year ago and Kate still hasn’t heard from her). Or Cassie’s going to ask if Kate has gotten it recently and honestly? Kate doesn’t feel like talking about that.
Kate grits her teeth as Cassie calls again, and knows that if it’s two calls, it must be important.
“Why are you up so early?” Kate asks as she picks up, still collecting arrows.
“Why are you up so early?” Cassie counters, “Did you go to sleep last night?”
“Why are you calling?” Kate switches topics, not wanting to touch on that. “Planning on going to the Quantum Realm again? Because that seemed to go really well last time.”
“Shut up,” Cassie retorts, “When do you plan on coming back to the city? I’m bored here without you.”
“I dunno,” Kate responds, shedding her hand guard and stuffing it in her archery bag. She turns on her heel, now looking out at the yard space between the house and the barn. “What, is Lucky getting on your nerves?”
“Dude, I swear, he knows that you’re gonna take forever to get here,” Cassie responds, “He’s been good, though. Nothing concerning except for him trying to chase a squirrel up a tree when we went to Central Park earlier. Or yesterday, I guess. Man, I’m tired.”
“Stop staying up all night on shitty heists, then,” Kate replies, eyes narrowing when she sees a car pulling into the driveway. Who the hell is here at six in the morning? Why are they here at six in the morning?
“You do realize that I’m a grown woman and will do as I wish, right?” Cassie responds, to which Kate rolls her eyes.
She watches the car in the driveway, stomach dropping when she realizes that the person getting out of the car is Natasha.
“Shit.”
“What?” Cassie sounds suddenly very awake and Kate kind of just wants to disappear in this moment.
“I gotta go,” Kate says quickly, “Uh, send me pictures of Lucky, please? I’ll call you later.”
She doesn’t wait for Cassie’s response before hanging up, shoving her archery bag back into its spot by the door and waiting to see if anyone comes out of the house.
“Stop stalking me, Kate!” Natasha calls out, bright green eyes meeting Kate’s.
Kate didn’t realize Natasha was staring at her. Maybe she’s more tired than she thought. And maybe that’s concerning.
Despite herself, Kate walks out of the barn and towards Natasha, who’s got a duffel bag slung over her shoulder and is now opening the back door of the car. Her hair, now grown out (compared to when she kept chopping it once it grew to her shoulders a year ago), is braided and the morning sun shows off her highlights.
Kate crosses by the house and is finally within ten feet of Natasha, “Need a hand?”
“Nah,” Natasha leads a second person out of the car - of course, it’s Anya - and mutters something in Russian to her daughter that Kate is too tired to try and piece together.
“Hey,” Anya runs a hand through her hair, trying to fix its messiness. Kate assumes she slept during the ride here, “Long time no see.”
“Very long time,” Kate agrees, “What are you guys doing here? Laura didn’t say you were coming or anything.”
“We took a redeye,” Natasha responds, adjusting her bag on her shoulder and keeping an eye on Anya as she collects her things from the car, “Wanda would’ve come, she sends her best, but she’s busy with classes.”
Kate nods. She admittedly hasn’t kept up with Yelena’s family much since Yelena’s disappearance, but she did find out last Christmas that Wanda’s been taking college classes since acquiring her GED to get into some kind of teaching program. Kate admires it, if she’s being honest, she wishes she wanted her degree that badly instead of having it feel like an obligation more than anything.
“She’s taking summer classes?” Kate asks, to which Natasha nods. “Shit, good for her.”
“How are you doing, Kate?” Natasha asks, locking the car and following Anya up to the stoop of the house, “I haven’t seen you since, what, the New Year?”
“Um, yeah, something like that,” Kate nods uselessly, trying to avoid saying that she was avoiding the family because they reminded her too much of Yelena. Natasha doesn’t need to be in the middle of her relationship issues, much less Anya.
When she walks in, Natasha immediately drops her bag in the living room and goes to talk to Clint. Kate decides to follow Anya instead, who goes to the kitchen where Laura’s making breakfast and Lila’s curled in a ball in one of the kitchen table chairs.
Anya immediately gravitates towards Lila and Kate to Laura, who’s already giving Kate a look.
“You didn’t sleep last night,” she says quietly.
“You’re the third person to tell me that,” Kate responds, “Is there any coffee left? And like, a shitload of sugar and cream?”
Laura nods to the pot in the corner, “You know, I’m here if you want to talk about it. It might help.”
“I didn’t have to come here,” Kate says despondently, pouring herself a half-full mug of coffee - more than enough for her, in her opinion. She grabs the creamer out of the fridge and sugar from the cabinet and starts mixing it all together until it’s a light tan color and not disgusting to taste. “I did it because Clint asked me to.”
“I know that,” Laura replies. Kate can feel her stare and refuses to turn around and meet it. “We’re all worried about you, Kate.”
“I know,” Kate sighs, “but, come on, Laura. I’m twenty six now, I’ve got the baby avengers to worry about… I don’t need to worry about you worrying about me.”
Laura turns Kate by her shoulder, “Kate, I worry about you because you and I both know that I’m the closest thing to a mother that you have. I don’t care how old you are, I’m going to be here in case you need something.”
She could see her mother’s graying hair, “You do know the world isn’t black and white, right? You can’t just be good, Kate. You and I both know the history of Clint Barton-”
“Stop. You don’t get to talk about him.”
Kate shakes herself out of her thoughts. She doesn’t want to think about her mother.
“At least eat something, Kate,” Laura says, handing her a plate of pancakes.
Kate takes them wordlessly and sits at the kitchen table, noticing now that Lila and Anya are gone - probably in Lila’s room upstairs.
She’s halfway through her first pancake when Natasha and Clint walk in. Clint’s sporting an old fuzzy blue robe that’s rolled up to his elbows but still looks kind of goofy, and Natasha’s shed her jacket and shoes. The two immediately gravitate to the kitchen, serving themselves.
Natasha makes incoherent small talk with Laura while Clint sits down next to Kate with his own pile of pancakes, not once saying anything even though Kate can tell that he’s itching to.
Kate continues to eat her pancakes, not having much to say even with the spurt of coffee now running through her veins. It kind of just makes her want to go back outside and shoot more arrows at the targets.
But then Natasha and Laura sit down and Laura has a look on her face that Kate doesn’t like at all.
It’s now that Kate notices the healing gash on Natasha’s forearm and that she realizes that she and Anya must be coming home from a mission. She feels kind of sick at that realization because she knows what they’re after.
(More like… she knows who they’re after.)
“Kate, we have to talk about Yelena.”
“We actually don’t,” Kate doesn’t meet her eyes, “She’s an ex, not a mission.”
“I’m not telling you that she’s your mission,” Natasha responds, “I’m just… hold on, okay? I don’t want you to not know what’s going on.”
Kate nods, but doesn’t say anything. She wants to leave as soon as possible, really.
“Yelena’s working with a rival organization,” Natasha says, making Kate want to crawl out of her skin already, “and she was seen the other night stealing something from one of SHIELD’s bases with some other high-profile targets.”
“Were you there?” Kate asks before she can even think about stopping herself.
“Yes,” Natasha nods, “So was Anya, but she wasn’t on the ground. And I saw Yelena, but I don’t think she saw me. I didn’t get to speak to her, but she’s alive. And able-bodied. I know we’ve been worrying about her treatments but she seems okay.”
“She was on a mission a month before she was in the hospital with her knee tumor,” Kate retorts, “I don’t trust her until I see the test results myself.”
Kate leaves out the part where she’d definitely need someone to explain the results to her.
“I know,” Natasha’s voice is quiet, “I don’t know who we’d be getting back if we got to her again is my point. The organization she’s with isn’t well-motivated.”
“I know about her organization, Nat,” Kate responds, “Cass and I heard about the Thunderbolts before I left. There’s no reason to trust them if they’re working for the president, which they are. Which makes Yelena’s involvement make less sense because she’s been anti-establishment since I met her… which you know.”
Natasha gives her a look. Kate wonders why she ever planned on keeping her mouth shut when she knows she can’t.
“I don’t want to be involved.”
“You don’t?” Natasha asks, cocking her head to the side. Kate knows from spending too much time with widows that that’s probably the most confused that they can look.
“Yelena’s been gone a year,” Kate responds, “and as I told Laura earlier, I have my own things to deal with… my own team. Just… I dunno, let me know if she’s here so I can keep my space? I don’t know who you’re dealing with. It doesn’t sound like Yelena. Not a Yelena that I’d like to win back, at least.”
Natasha shuts up and Clint gives Kate a look, “Kate…”
“What?” Kate asks, “You can’t tell me that you think that this Yelena is our Yelena. Something changed over the past year. I don’t recognize that Yelena.”
“She’s just in with some bad people, we can get her back…”
Kate shakes her head, “Clint, I will go home tomorrow if you don’t shut up.”
Clint clamps his mouth shut and Kate gathers her dishes, “Anyone want me to take their stuff? I’m gonna put this in the dishwasher and then go back outside.”
“Kate,” Laura gives her a look, “Go take a nap first. Or a shower.”
Kate nods, not saying anything more.
At least she now knows that there’s no real Yelena to get back. She’s lost.
(Oh well, Kate’s lost people before. What’s another one?)