talking on a rusty swing-set
Fuck.
Kate’s mind immediately thought she must have suddenly gained the ability to have vivid hangover hallucinations of beautiful scary Russian assassins; as this naturally made more sense to her than the alternative that Yelena, Natasha freaking Romanoff’s sister, was actually in her apartment.
Am I even sober right now?
Oh shit did I take too much Benadryl or something again!? I can’t take too much Benadryl ever again because I already owe the Hat Man $20. Fuckity fuck fuck.
The fastest the brunette has ever moved, she grabs her phone from the coffee table and slams open the Safari app to ask Google, the all-seeing eye, her absolutely pressing question about hangover visions, ‘can you hallucinate when you’re hungover?’.
“Why are you sitting there on your couch, which is very fancy, may I say, and searching something into the Google?” rasps a voice that is suddenly RIGHT BEHIND HER.
Aw shit… so it wasn’t a hallucination? Hmmmmm… Is it bad that I actually wished it was a hallucination brought on by self-isolation induced psychosis instead of the possibility that Yelena was actually in my apartment?
At least I don’t owe the hat man any more money, is what Kate’s internal dialogue continues. Unfortunately for the archer, it seems that this specific thought, and this thought alone, were the only words she’s vocalised since the blonde made herself known. It's just Kate Bishop's luck that these were the sole words she’s spoken to Yelena so far, and they just so happen to be this absolute token of wisdom.
“Who is this hat man? Is he an adversary? Do you need any help in eliminating him?”
“Uhhhh…”
“Use your words, Kate Bishop.” Jesus, that accent is *chef’s kiss*.
Oh wait, fuck! Yelena’s here and she’s staring at me! Okay take a deep breath and say something, Bishop.
Kate just continues her short-circuiting, which now might take the cake for the second most embarrassing thing she’s ever done, while she keeps trying to kick-start her brain into a reboot to produce a single sentence.
Why have no words come out yet!?!? Smile and nod, Kate! Look like a barely functioning human, at least.
“So are you actually going to say anything Kate Bishop, or are you going to keep sitting there nodding with that scary smile? You look like the scary clown man from that horror movie. You know… the one with the balloon and the murder?” taunts the Russian over her shoulder.
Something about the assassin’s joking demeanour seems to shake Kate out of her funk to the point where she is able to provide more to the conversation than a mere grunt or Pennywise-grimace.
“Yelena?” Well at least it wasn’t something about the hat man (again, small victories).
“Kate Bishop, this is getting hard to watch. Did you give yourself a concussion which caused you the amnesia?” she questions.
Ughhhhhhh!
Talking is something Kate is the best at! In fact, people often tell her she does too much of it! So why is she suddenly unable to form a coherent thought? Right then, Kate decides that regardless of what fuck ass shit she spouts, she better take the metaphorical bull by the horns and at least try to have a fucking conversation like a human being.
“Don’t worry about the hat man, I’ll settle my debt the next time I see him”.
KATE! What the fuck was that?! THOSE were your first coherent words?!
She can’t just go on pretending that she didn’t just say that morsel of idiocy, so she switches tactics and just plows on into another sentence altogether.
“Yelena… Why are you here…? In my apartment?”, she thinks for a second then adds, “...how did you even get in here? Wait. Nevermind, stupid question”.
Yelena lets out one of the most melodramatic sighs ever and explains herself, “Kate Bishop, obviously I am here to become, um- how do you say it in English…? Oh! Besties!”
What ever kind of brain function Kate had gained back in the last several minutes of pep-talking herself has just abandoned ship and leapt out of the fucking window.
Yep. That’s the confirmation I needed. Definitely a hallucination.
You know shit is bad when your little brain Spongebobs that are meant to be organising your thoughts and memories decide to suddenly commit mutiny, give the hell up, and light the whole damn place on fire (fire episode, by the way, pun very much intended) which is now the sole thought running through Kate’s otherwise empty brain. Her thought tangent on how funny Kate has always found that specific episode of SpongeBob Squarepants continues its free rein in her head.
That WAS the sole thought until Yelena jumps over the backside of the sofa, lands gracefully on top of Kate’s blanketed legs, and hands the brunette a coffee from… is this from my favourite coffee shop? How did she know that my order is an iced vanilla latte with oat milk?!
Suddenly, Kate has all too many thoughts racing through her head again; but the one at the forefront is I am so fucking confused right now.
“I have my own set of keys, Hawk Junior, keep up please”, quips the Russian to her right.
“Did you just say you have keys to MY apartment?”
The blonde lets out a hearty stomach laugh before she continues, “wow Hawk 2, you must have hit your head really hard last night. Yes I have a key, I just said this”.
Kate takes one of the longest and most grounding breaths she thinks she can muster at this point before she turns to Yelena, now facing her head-on. “Why do you have keys to my flat?”
“Because we are besties.”
“When exactly, did we become besties?”
Yelena smiles before she answers, “When we were playing in that tall office building on the day before American Christmas! When we were supposed to be going to get drinks, which you stood me down for!”
Kate continues mechanically nodding along, pretending not to be offended about Yelena’s insinuation that their sparring was ‘playing’, until she heard the last part of Yelena’s comment to which she questions automatically, “Do you mean ‘stood me up for’?”
Yelena stares at the archer with a deadpan expression. “Kate Bishop if you are trying be a good friend, then you are doing a bad job.”
The brunette sighs again, and realises at this point it just seems easiest to accept the situation she is in right now for what it is; “I’m sorry Yelena. Clint took me to his house to have Christmas with his family. Also, I couldn’t have hosted you for drinks anyways because my apartment was the charred remains from a literal fireball of death”.
The blonde looks almost intrusively in Kate’s eyes, seemingly searching for any hint of dishonesty or lack of interest in the prospect of spending time together. It seems that Yelena hasn’t found any indication that Kate was insincere in her apology for ditching drinks, so she nods and moves on.
“Do you not think ‘fireball of death’ might be a bit dramatic, little Hawk?”
Kate’s stomach feels a few flutters of affection and the ends of her lips quirk up a tad at the new nickname, which Yelena seems to notice and in turn mentally flags in her memory for future use. Yelena's note to self: Kate Bishop smiles when I call her Little Hawk.
“It wasn’t dramatic! You would know how badly burnt and soggy everything was from the fire and the sprinkler system if you had seen it!”, she tries to justify.
Yelena’s brows furrow just a tiny bit as she replies, “I did see it”.
Kate stiffens again for a millisecond wondering how the Russian had seen her flat before she remembers the mac and cheese ‘girls' night’, when Yelena was waiting for Kate to return home from their fight, armed in the traditional sense with weapons and stylistically speaking with good food.
“Oh. I forgot you were here after the fight to see it.” More like after you THREW me off a goddamn roof...
“No, Kate Bishop. I mean I saw how many things got ruined and how you now had a sad little wet and burnt apartment, (which, okay rude, Kate thinks) after you left for the Christmas celebrations with your very cute puppy with the one eye.”
“You were here after I left? Why?”
Yelena lets out another of her deep laughs as she asks the question as if it had the single most obvious conclusion in the world, “Who do you think decorated and rebuilt your apartment, Little Hawk?”.
At this new information, Kate’s little gay heart sings, but she tries to keep her cool and attempts to talk herself into some sort of anger or frustration towards the blonde for repeatedly breaking into her apartment without her home, not to mention the fact that they were just practically enemies a few days ago and now we’re besties… ? I have emotional whiplash. Alas, Kate can’t even manage form a single ounce of malintent towards Yelena; no one has ever done something so thoughtful and kind for her before. This has to be a fucking trap. Why else would she go through all this effort, time, and money? On me? We’re not even really friends! But maybe she wants to be?
Yelena stares at Kate again after her surprise admission. She still has an intense, analysing look to her, but her hazel-green eyes are much softer and fonder than ever as they study the archer’s face and her delicate features during the lapse in conversation. Of course, Kate doesn’t notice because she’s perpetually completely oblivious, but if she had looked at Yelena whilst she was giving Kate that longing, comforting look, she might have already had the answer to the question she was about to ask.
“I– I don’t know what to say… I mean, thank you Yelena. That was really nice of you,” she continues, “but why? Why did you do it?”. There is a gentle, almost melancholic look to Kate as her eyes meet Yelena’s.
Kate is still reeling from the fact that Yelena, the former Black Widow assassin, sister of THE Natasha Romanoff, and full-time professional badass, has just spent the better part of a week completely renovating her home, finding little trinkets and keepsakes that resembled the ones she had previously lost to the fire, and collecting other bric-a-brac that have made Kate feel so at home. The brunette thinks for a second more, realising that for the first time in a long time, likely even since her father passed away, that she feels understood and cared for. If you had asked Kate a week ago to picture where she’d be right this very minute, it was certainly not having a mental breakthrough that perhaps her and Yelena weren’t that different after all, and maybe, just maybe, they could actually become friends. Besties(?).
Yelena remains completely static, afraid to move even the slightest inch after her confession to the younger woman that she had been the person to fix Kate Bishop’s apartment while she was away. Once all of the confusion surrounding her sister’s untimely death had been cleared up on the ice rink at Rockefeller Centre, Yelena allowed herself to fully grieve her sister’s loss for the first time since she learned of her passing, as she previously hadn’t even allowed herself to shed a single tear until she vowed to bring Barton to justice for Natasha’s demise. She spent Christmas Day in a near catatonic state, letting out muffled sobs into the pillow in her New York safe house. However, after a full day of wallowing, she decided that the best way to continue living her life without her sister was to pick back up where she left off, and to try to make her sister proud.
During their time on the run while plotting to bring down the Red Room, Natasha had told Yelena about the ‘good’ things in life that she should experience now that she was free of Dreykov's mind-control. Because of this, Yelena decided to search for the things her sister said ‘made life worth living’; for example: eating good food (her personal most favourite facet of life), making bold and exciting fashion choices, getting to make friends, and finding love– be it romantic or even platonic.
Yelena had never had any friends. She hadn’t been allowed to. She had fellow widow acquaintances that she would correspond with, but she never had a friend to simply co-exist and enjoy life with. The way that Natasha had described friendship and love made Yelena yearn to know what it felt like for herself. Once reminded of her sister’s advice, she immediately thought of the only person in her life to date that ever made her feel natural, authentic, and so quintessentially herself. Not merely a former widow nor the sister of an Avenger. Just Yelena. This revelation regarding her Natasha's advice on the evening of Christmas Day caused Yelena to do something she never thought she would ever do. She called Clint Barton. Vomit.