let the ultraviolet cover me up

Kate Bishop was cool. She was cool as fuck. She was! She totally swears she’s cool! Well, at least she used to be. We’re talking ‘queen of cool’, albeit prior to the bell tower incident, before her mother was in federal prison, and the whole 'pre-all-frozen-assets' debacle. 

If you’re thinking, huh, those are a lot of things in the minus column, you wouldn’t be wrong, but Kate was having none of that right now– I can’t have feelings or thoughts if I refuse to be sentient! 

Flawed ideology? Maybe. 

Effective? Not really, but hey, better than nothing she supposes. 

It’s been about two weeks since shit really hit the proverbial fan at Christmas. She’d spent a week with the Barton family in Bumblefuck, Iowa (she briefly thinks back and believes this could genuinely be the actual name of the town) before she realised she had better return to New York, as she had unwillingly been thrown into the real world and was now parentless, poor, and pretty goddamn pessimistic (but A+ for the alliteration, Kate ! It’s all about small victories these days). 

Now she’s sitting in her slightly less charred flat, thanking whatever higher being exists that Clint has some major Avenger contacts to apparently rebuild an entire flat from the studs to this completely pristine condition in less than a month. Seriously, how did they do that ? Far be it from her to look a gift horse in the mouth so she just decides to be grateful for what it is; after all, she did vow to turn off ANY thinking beyond that required for basic cognition until further notice. She may no longer be cool, but the archer might just be the single best person on the planet at compartmentalisation–or delusion (your pick). 

The brunette is half of an extra large supreme pizza-deep, with her trusty Pizza Dog nibbling on pizza crust galore whilst snuggled into her right side on her brand new, extra comfy couch. Honestly, she’s got to do some investigating into who the hell decorated her renovated apartment because she would do anything to personally thank whoever hand-selected this specific Restoration Hardware couch. She’s seen all the viral videos on interior-design TikTok to know that this is RH’s Cloud Couch and therefore, might be the single best thing her ass might ever touch again. (Remember when it was argued that Kate was cool? Well now she’s fangirling over couches, so ‘how the mighty have fallen’ or whatever). 

Pushing the egregiously large pizza box off her lap onto the coffee table she thinks to herself,

Damn this is a nice coffee table! Seriously, who did the interior design here?! No way was it Clint No-Taste Barton.

Kate started thinking more about all the accents and decor choices that adorned her ‘new’ apartment above the pizza parlour, when it struck her for the first time since being back, exactly how Kate-like it really was. Somehow, the apartment felt even more homey than it did when she’d lived there previously. One of her archery practice targets, which had been pinned up with some rusty thumbtacks over an old mattress under her stairs, was now replaced with a standing target, seemingly outfitted in the Hawkeye™ purple. Furthermore, her kitchen seems to have grown in size, now including an oven(?) and a six-burner gas stove to replace her microwave, toaster, and single induction cooktop that previously made up her kitchen, if you could even call it that.

I’ve never cooked anything in my life, why the hell would I need an oven ?

Kate wasn’t even sure how to properly turn on the freaking gas stove, which is probably for the best, Kate thinks as she’s confronted with mental images of her crispy apartment from a mere few weeks ago. 

The archer hadn’t really been in the mindset to do a whole ‘Hi AD! Welcome to my house tour!’ type of viewing of the flat the other day when she got home, instead opting to fall face-first into her new (aforementioned ridiculously comfy) green velvet couch, where she then remained camped out for the next several days. Besides brief breaks for showers (which she still religiously took once a day because I love a good self-care moment), walks with Lucky in the park, and quick outings to fetch some takeaway food to sustain them both, Kate had become somewhat of a recluse.

Okay well I just found out that my mom is like Don Eleanor – or whatever the equivalent is in real life and not ‘the Godfather’-- and my stupid life is kind of anti-climactic after fighting alongside THE Hawkeye, so excuse me if I’m not bursting at the seams with excitement to return to my life prior to the holidays, she bargains with herself. Another thing Kate has been doing to occupy her time, aside from day-long binges of Love Island and Law and Order Special Victims Unit, is having arguments with herself, trying to justify the way she’s ended up responding to all this chaos.  

One afternoon the week following her return to the city, Kate realises that she’s effectively been a stranger to her new apartment renovation and decides to continue her appraisal of the flat, even noting how the little knick knacks and trinkets seem as if Kate could have put them there herself. 

Okay, I know I went on holiday to that villa in Lefkada three years ago and got an evil eye pendant, but I don’t think it was this colour? And hasn’t it been in storage at my mom’s penthouse for the past few years? 

She continues inching along her console table, finding it adorned with framed photographs of her and her friends that Kate’s not even sure she’s seen before. What the fuck?! How did someone even find these?! 

If Clint didn’t decorate the apartment, who the hell did? It must have been some other agent at SHIELD or SWORD or whatever other dumb weapon-themed acronym they’re into right now, she attempts to rationalise. 

Kate is thoroughly confused, trying to decide if she’s gaslighting herself into believing that these decorations are different than the ones that were here before? Surely all the other decorations were burnt to a crisp. But how else would anyone else be able to replace everything with a near-identical swap? 

By this point, the brunette had effectively reached the conclusion that she must have had a stash of trinkets somewhere around the apartment that hadn’t been affected by the fire and subsequent sprinkler system flood, and the decorator had surely just found that and used these little bits and bobs to make her flat feel more like home.

Lost in thought, the archer walks into her lofted room and finds a picture that she’s certain she’s never seen before on her bedside table. It’s a picture that looks like it was taken from some kind of security camera footage in... is that an office building? 

She squints her eyes, looking closer at the tall and slender figure that she’s sure is herself, but then Kate begins to focus on the other figure in the photograph. One that seems to be pretty short and wearing a dope ass vest.

Oh my god....

That better the fuck not be —

…YELENA

Kate’s already hyperactive brain is running a mile a minute with thousands of questions, ranging from: How did anyone get this picture? How did they get this picture in my apartment? Why the hell did someone leave me a picture of me and Yelena sparring at Rockefeller Centre on my bedside table? And, what she thinks is most important, Did Yelena break into my apartment AGAIN and leave this picture? 

Instinctively, Kate reaches for her purple iPhone (it’s her brand, sue her) and pulls up Clint’s contact info, ready to ask him who in God’s name he had renovate her apartment and whether or not she should be terrified that there’s a framed picture of her and a Black Widow Assassin next to her bed with a–

... Is that a fucking smiley face?

Apparently, with a smiley face drawn onto the frame. 

Right as her finger hovers over the dial button, Kate hesitates. She already feels so guilty for dragging Clint into all her drama with the Tracksuit Mafia and her mother a few weeks ago, and she still feels a bit awkward and intrusive (but super grateful, obviously) at spending Christmas with his family. The brunette ultimately decides against calling Clint, opting to just bring it up casually in their scheduled weekly phone call in just a few days. If Clint didn’t somehow already know about the picture of her and Yelena, the last thing she wanted to do was to freak him out and tear him away from his family and their time together again. So, Kate does what all good twenty-somethings do to cope. She drinks a shitload of wine.

“God this white wine is fucking disgusting!” , she finds herself stage-whispering to Lucky later that night. Lucky lets out a little sympathetic boof as he lays his head on her legs. She continues mumbling incoherent thoughts to him while rubbing his soft ears between her fingers (hey, dogs are great conversationalists and dog ears are soft AF), “Pizza Dog, I have no idea how I continue living like this”. Lucky raises his head and squints his one eye as if to say, “Girlboss that’s a bit dramatic. BFFR”, to which Kate retorts, “how am I expected to drink…” 

What even is this? 

“Oh my god. I’ve been drinking a New Zealand white”, Kate wails. No wonder I'm miserable!

Once the brunette realises her rookie mistake, she pours out the last quarter of wine remaining and instead works on opening a bottle of Vernaccia (her most favourite wine, she's happy to give a brief spiel to anyone that will listen) that she stole from her mother’s penthouse months ago.

I mean, come on, I was raised on Park Avenue… if you think I would drink anything except an Italian or French wine–-and if you twist my arm, maybe an occasional California red–-then you’re out of your fucking mind. She may not have ‘fuck you money’ anymore but it would definitely take some time for her to adapt to a champagne taste on a newfound beer budget.

Crisis averted and now happily sipping, because it’s not drinking to excess if you’re still taking time to savour the flavour profile, Kate decides that if she doesn’t switch tactics soon, she might actually start to ~feel something~. Turns out drinking a bottle and a half of wine whilst talking to your dog as your only companion can make you start to contemplate things.

Fuck that.

Kate stumbles off the couch, loudly cursing it for being so goddamn deep and excessively comfortable, and grabs the TV remote, switching the input to Apple TV. Once the TV boots up, she’s immediately faced with some background images of her friends and family, which would cause feelings gross! Those are forbidden until I can afford a therapist again. In a panic, she rapidly turns to her phone and switches on Airplay just deciding to watch TikToks on the big screen like a damn lady, thank you very much.

This is how, an hour and a half later, Kate finds herself violently sobbing, staring at the TV while a TikTok video of heavy snow falling in Estonia? Latvia? Some former Soviet state(?) is on loop, and ‘I Know the End’ by Phoebe Bridgers is blaring through every speaker in her apartment’s audio system.

Lucky has long since had enough of the archer’s self-pity-party, and curled up in a fitful sleep on the far end of the couch. Nevertheless, Kate sings to her dear Pizza Dog in a slurred, off-key mess.

“DRIVINGGGG OUT INTO THE SSSSSUN”, she then stands (as best she can after two bottles of wine) and nudges Lucky awake, wanting him awake for her favourite part of the song while she manoeuvres on top the coffee table. Oh to be a woman on an elevated surface, Kate allows herself to briefly reminisce back to her deeply unhinged and moderately troublesome first-year university days of yore. 

“LET THE ULTRAVIOLET COVER ME UP!”. At this point, it wouldn’t be a surprise if she wakes up to several noise complaints from all of her neighbours, but she’s firmly of the, 'fuck off…I’m just an adult teenage girl in her feels' type of mindset right at present. She conspiratorially turns to the overtired yet incredibly patient golden retriever, “Lucky! You wanna know why that’s my favourite part of the song?! It says ‘violet’! And you know how much I looooove purple!!” she hiccups at him.

Suddenly all of the music in her flat pauses and before Kate can even begin to troubleshoot the issue, the silence is filled by a singsong voice, “Kate Bishoooop, that is a horrible reason for that to be your favourite part in a song”. 

Listen, there’s a whole lot of moments that Kate’s not the most proud of, but the scream that she let out when she whipped her head around at the intruder was probably one of the LEAST cool things she’s ever done. In an attempt to hopefully lessen her scalding embarrassment, Kate attempts to move from her spot on top of her new coffee table to investigate. However, Kate being Kate, trips over a spare remote, twists her ankle, and unceremoniously hits the floor with all the grace of a newborn giraffe. 

Kate’s visitor leisurely walks over to her rescue with an exasperated eye-roll, proffering an outstretched hand to help her up. When the archer fails to move or acknowledge the other figure’s presence, the intruder flips her over and finds her unconscious.

“ Ugh seriously!? All I wanted was a fun girls’ night but now Kate Bishop is lights out ”, the intruder mutters under their breath before heaving the younger girl’s limp body up and gently placing her on the new couch, tucking her under a plush blanket and fetching her a water bottle for her inevitable hangover.

When Kate wakes up the following morning with one of the most graphic headaches known to man, a baseball-sized bump on her noggin, AND a sprained ankle, she struggles to piece together the events of the night before. Slowly but surely, Kate’s memory returns in fragments until…

“Holy fuck. Yelena was in my house last night… and oh my god– I fucking concussed myself in front of her. This is the worst day of my life”.

Kate’s loud lamentation was met by a disembodied voice from the kitchen, “Kate Bishop, this is the worst day of your life SO FAR”.

Fuck.