the hospital
The next couple of hours pass by both in excruciating slowness and a blur.
Yelena remembers the paramedics coming, how they asked far too many questions and then loaded her into their ambulance. She remembers laying on the stretcher and keeping still even though all she wanted to do was run. She hated everything about the experience.
She got lucky, though, because Natasha came with her in the ambulance and stayed by her side for the entire intake. Kate didn’t do that, though, both for lack of space and Yelena thinks she mentioned something about securing the dogs and grabbing things for Yelena to have at the hospital.
Between the paramedics, doctors, nurses, whatever, a million questions were asked. Natasha answered most of them, but Yelena helped, noting that she’d broken her left knee twice and right knee once, she thinks her arm was broken at one point but it was still functional so she never found out, and Natasha outlined the medication she was on for her depression and anxiety.
It’s much later now and they’re settled in the ER, which thankfully has rooms for patients (which, to be fair, are open to the rest of the ER through a curtain at the end of the bed, but it’s still enough privacy). Natasha’s sat in a chair and hasn’t moved since they got there, and Kate’s off getting lunch for them.
Once Yelena got into her bed and was given an IV with pain medication, her memory became a little muddled. She was told that the pain medication would make her drowsy, but she didn’t expect to be in the weird twilight zone of sleep for hours now. Sure, she’s fallen asleep at points and been more lucid at others, but this kind of just sucks.
The room’s TV is playing a random TV show, something with lots of quippy jokes and something about a robot that’s not a robot that reminds her of the “red skittle” Natasha talks about sometimes. Yelena thinks his name was Vision, but he’s long dead now apparently.
“Hey,” Natasha’s voice suddenly rings through the room. Yelena looks up through heavy eyelids and sees Natasha’s phone pressed to her ear, an exhausted look on her face.
“No, nothing yet, we’re waiting for them to take her to do scans,” Natasha’s voice floats around the room as Yelena focuses back on the silent TV, a little too curious about the conversation happening to read the subtitles, “She’s been kind of asleep for like the past forty minutes and Kate’s getting food, says she has to be helpful in some way…” Natasha sighs and Yelena wonders what Wanda’s saying on the other side in response. “Okay, I’ll see you in a bit. I love you.”
There’s a pause and Yelena looks over at Natasha’s face, confused as to why she looks surprised, “What do you mean you did something? What is something?”
There’s silence and Natasha huffs, putting her phone down on her lap and watching the show on the TV.
Yelena follows her gaze, confused as to what’s happening. She doesn’t know if she has the mental capacity to truly follow what’s going on, though. She thinks that in another situation, that would be a cruel reminder of being subjugated by the Red Room, but with Natasha here, it’s not so scary.
She blinks and Kate’s walking back into the room, someone walking in behind her. Yelena recognizes the woman as one of the doctors.
“Hey, everyone,” she offers a small smile, glancing at Yelena, “hi, Yelena, how are you feeling?”
“High,” Yelena mumbles, wanting to go back to sleep. Maybe this is all just a shitty nightmare and Fanny’s sleeping on her leg, that’s why it was hurting so badly. Except, now it feels way better with whatever they’re giving her. So that’s nice, in its own weird way.
“She’s been sleeping a lot,” Natasha mentions as Yelena’s zero-ing back in on the conversation, “when is she going to be able to get scans done?”
“Hopefully soon,” the doctor offers a sympathetic smile, “are you all okay for now? It shouldn’t be too much longer now, I just wanted to make sure she isn’t in a lot of pain.”
“Been in worse,” Yelena says, adjusting in the bed slightly and wincing when her leg moves, “It’s manageable.”
“The goal is for you to be in no pain,” the doctor responds, “I can send a nurse in to administer more medication if that’s what you’d like.”
“Please don’t,” Yelena whines, “Head’s too fuzzy.”
“Alright,” the doctor nods and types something into her tablet, “I hope when I return next time we’ll have some scans and I can get some answers for you guys. I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Thanks,” Natasha says bitterly, glaring at the now-closed again curtain before muttering, “Jesus Christ, where’s Wanda?”
“Maybe she’s lost,” Kate suggests weakly, and Natasha snorts.
“If she were lost, she could find us. She’s like a bomb-sniffing dog with those powers of hers,” she responds dryly, kicking her feet up on the edge of Yelena’s bed, “how’re you feeling, Lena?”
“I miss Fanny,” Yelena says quietly, pulling at the loose thread in the sheets, “where’s my water bottle? I want my water bottle.”
“Here,” Kate bumps the water bottle against the back of Yelena’s hand that doesn’t have an IV in it and Yelena grabs it. She flicks open the straw and drinks some before flicking it down again and holding it against her chest. It’s only been half a day and she really misses her bed. And her dog. And moving on her own.
“Here you go, ma’am.”
The curtain peeks open and Wanda walks through and Yelena furrows her eyebrows, “What happened to your hair?”
“That wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for,” Wanda says, glancing nervously at Natasha, “Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”
“This is what you were doing?” Natasha asks, standing up and looking at Wanda fully. What used to be red hair is now a really dirty blonde, fully embracing the roots that started showing when Wanda gave up dying her hair at the beginning of the year.
“I mean,” Wanda pulls at her fingers, “I thought you were going to be out all day and Anya’s with Stark all day… I just wanted some change. By the time you called they already were halfway done.”
“Jesus,” Natasha mutters and Yelena suddenly feels a lot more awake, fully invested in the drama happening, “Um, well, welcome. We’re kind of in hell.”
“So I see,” Wanda nods, moving a little closer to Natasha and kissing her cheek before looking to Yelena, “how are you?”
“Better if I stop getting asked that,” Yelena whines, “can you use your wiggly-woos to fix my leg?”
“I don’t think so,” Wanda says apologetically, “I have used them to help Nat sleep a couple of times, though, that might help a little.”
“No,” Yelena ignores her for the time being, not wanting to be asleep again and looking past Wanda and to the TV.
Wanda takes that as her cue to sit, placing herself next to Natasha, and the room falls back into silence. Yelena doesn’t think she’s ever been this bored in her entire life.
“Tasha,” Yelena calls out softly, “Can you braid my hair? I don’t like it all loose. Feels gross.”
Natasha almost looks like she has to shake herself out of something, but she nods, getting up and walking over to the bed.
Kate hands Natasha a brush and the redhead gets to work, and Yelena can’t help but think that she’s never been more thankful for her big sister.
-
When Yelena’s taken to get her x-rays or MRIs or whatever the ever-living fuck they’re doing, Kate goes outside to catch her breath.
She can’t help it, being in that hospital is choking the life out of her faster than Kingpin ever could. Seeing her - not girlfriend, they haven’t gotten that far yet - Yelena (she guesses she’s hers) in a hospital bed is enough to make her want to throw up.
She just wants to go back to this morning and their warm cocoon. They were so happy this morning, laying in each other’s arms and now… she just wants to not be in this moment. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with Yelena and she’s too scared to think about it. She doesn’t know if she can deal with something happening to Yelena, she’s one of the most important people in Kate’s life.
She still remembers finding Yelena in her apartment on New Years. She remembers how Yelena tangled herself in the sheets and held on to one of Kate’s pillows as if it were her lifeline. She remembers the way Yelena’s perfume lingered on the sheets and how she visited every other day claiming that she was bored even though they both knew they were falling for each other.
Kate leans back against the building, hands squeezing the fabric of her hoodie as she wills herself not to scream. She can’t lose someone in her life again. Especially not after Kate just got her back.
She takes a deep breath, looking up at the sky and quietly cursing at the guy up there (if he’s even there, she swears she’s going to have a long talk with him if she ever meets him). Yelena doesn’t deserve whatever it is that’s happening to her. Kate doesn’t deserve to lose someone again. Natasha and Wanda sure as hell don’t deserve it.
She finally refocuses, pulling her phone out of her pocket with shaky hands and hitting call on Laura’s number without much thought.
It rings three times before she picks up.
“Hey, Kate, what’s up?”
Kate bites her tongue, trying to figure out the best way to say it, “Has Natasha talked to you yet?”
“Talked to me about what?” Laura asks suspiciously, and Kate swallows. She really didn’t want to be the person to break this news.
“Um,” she almost chokes, “if she didn’t call, I guess she’s just waiting for actual news, but…”
She doesn’t want to say it. She can’t hear it out loud from her lips.
“Kate, honey, what’s going on?” Laura asks, her voice softer and more motherly now, “You can talk to me. What’s up?”
“It’s Yelena,” Kate finally blurts out, tears blurring her vision. She looks down at the ground, still holding the phone to her ear, “She… we had a sleepover last night, nothing crazy, we just… we were hanging out and it was late and we didn’t mind bunking up for a night. And we woke up this morning and everything was fine until she went to get out of bed and she couldn’t, and we called an ambulance and she’s in the hospital and I… I don’t know what to do..”
Laura’s quiet. Too quiet, Kate’s sure. She swallows the lump in her throat and purses her lips, heart thudding in her chest as she awaits a response.
“Okay, Kate, talk to me, what’s going on with her right now?” Laura finally questions slowly, as if she’s thinking over every word.
“She’s getting some kind of scans,” Kate replies, willing her voice to not break, “Nat knows more than me. I’m sorry. I just… I needed someone to talk to and I can get Nat if you want the details but I don’t know them and I just… god, Laura, I can’t lose her. I can’t...”
“I know, honey,” Laura says sympathetically, “Why do you think you’re going to lose her, Kate?”
Kate whimpers, not knowing how to explain the excruciating pit in her stomach. She’s not okay, nothing is fine, she barely handles herself normally and this is incomprehensibly difficult.
“I don’t know. I don’t know, I just… I need her to be okay,” she finally musters, twisting the fabric of her hoodie in her fist, “I don’t know what I’ll do if she’s not.”
“She’s Yelena,” Laura assures her gently, “She’s Nat’s sister, for god’s sake. Both of them have literally come back from the dead. You just have to take a deep breath and center yourself, okay? Listen to the doctors, call me if you need anything, and take breaks when you need them.”
“Okay,” Kate says softly, unable to get the image of Yelena in so much pain from this morning out of her head.
“You know how… um… when she visited with Anya her knee was hurting? It’s that,” Kate reveals quietly, blinking teary eyes up at the sky to try and avoid getting more upset, “Nat was going to take her to see Bruce today but she couldn’t because Yelena couldn’t stand this morning.”
Kate doesn’t mention how when Yelena first told her she couldn’t stand that she almost shit herself from being so scared, and she can’t tell if that’s because she wants to protect Laura or herself.
“And she’ll get through it. You know how strong she is,” Laura says, “Take a deep breath. I know it’s hard, but she’s going to need you in her corner. And, just a reminder, if you ever need to talk, Clint and I are both a phone call away, alright?”
“Okay,” Kate says, following her instruction and feeling some of the pressure on her chest subside.
They talk for a while longer, bouncing around topics with Laura teasing her gently about how she and Yelena are starting to become a thing again and Kate making sure to ask about the kids. She misses those little shits sometimes more than she wants to admit.
Everything feels just a little better even though it all still sucks.
Either way, she eventually says goodbye and follows Laura’s instructions, taking a few deep breaths and composing herself before going back inside. When she does, she sees Wanda and Natasha in the waiting room. Natasha’s leaned against Wanda’s shoulder with her eyes closed and Kate can’t help but wonder if she’s sleeping or resting.
She sits down across from them regardless and meets eyes with Wanda, “Any news?”
She shakes her head, “They’re doing her x-rays right now and will put her up in a room after, and then we’ll be able to see her. It shouldn’t take too much longer.”
“Okay,” Kate nods, “um, I called Laura. She’s going to tell Clint.”
Wanda glances at her fiancée for an almost imperceptible second before her gaze falls on her hands again, “I thought Natasha would’ve told them already.”
Kate shrugs, “Guess not. Laura also offered to visit if things are actually um… not great.”
“I don’t know enough about anything to make any judgments,” Wanda says with a little shrug, “Nat probably has like eighty scenarios already made up. That’s kind of her thing.”
Kate smiles softly. Knowing Natasha overthinks as much as she does is oddly comforting. She remembers the stoicism of Natasha from when she was younger and it was almost a turnoff - even though her favorite was Clint, who wore nothing on his sleeve except for an ability to shoot arrows really well.
Eventually, Natasha rises and a nurse leads them back to Yelena’s room, who’s way more awake now and snacking on a pudding cup. Her affected leg is still straight out in front of her rather than tucked under her body like her right one, but she seems a little more content.
“Hey, how was it?” Natasha’s first to ask, sitting at the edge of Yelena’s bed and handing her her phone.
“Fine,” Yelena says, “They gave me this super heavy apron for no reason, that fucking sucked. And now they’re just harboring my results. I want to go home.”
“The apron’s to protect you,” Natasha tells her, “and so they don’t get the rest of your body in the scan. And hopefully, we can get out of here soon, but they also moved you up here, so I wouldn’t get too excited.”
Yelena huffs and finishes off her pudding, “They were playing a show earlier, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, I think you two would like it.”
“I’ve seen it already,” Wanda says, one hand on Natasha’s shoulder as they talk, “It was while Nat was… you know…”
“Dead? Incapacitated? Diving? Splatted?” Yelena asks, leaning back against the bed and snorting at Wanda’s horrified expression. Yelena smirks at the reaction, offering a half-hearted apology and adding, “Kate Bishop laughed when I told her.”
“What the- I didn’t- To be fair, that was a long time ago,” Kate sputters, not wanting to piss off two former Avengers.
“It was a week ago,” Yelena deadpans, conversation dying when the door opens and a small group of doctors walk in.
Kate doesn’t recognize any of them and she catches the way that Yelena stiffens when she sees a male doctor. He’s a little scruffy and has graying hairs among brown, but otherwise looks pretty generic.
They’re all wearing serious faces and one of them is carrying a tablet much like the doctor did earlier.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” one of the female doctors prefaces, “I’m Doctor Perez and I’m an oncologist and I want to talk about what we found on the scans.”
The mood completely shifts once again and Kate’s stomach churns.
The doctor walks over to Yelena and shows her the scan on her tablet, “We strongly believe that that’s a tumor.”
“What kind?” Natasha asks immediately, looking at the scans and swallowing nervously.
“We’d have to do a biopsy to confirm, but we’re fairly certain that it’s a form of bone cancer called osteosarcoma,” the doctor explains, “Normally, this kind is found in teenagers, but it’s our belief that it would explain the pain that you’ve been experiencing, Yelena.”
“Cancer?” Natasha asks softly, her voice barely heard even though the room is quiet.
Kate glances at Yelena, who looks both deep in thought and confused. She looks like she’s half-present and Kate genuinely doesn’t know what to do.
She wonders, with Yelena’s background, if she even knows what cancer is.
And if she doesn’t, Kate sure as hell doesn’t want to be the one to tell her.
-
That night, Natasha sleeps over in the hospital room on a cot that they provide for her, but eventually Wanda shows up and tells her to go eat something. Natasha agrees, but she makes Wanda agree to stay in the room with Yelena, all leading to now.
“Please talk about something other than my knee,” Yelena begs, watching as Wanda wanders around the room, one hand playing with her engagement ring. It’s a beautiful ring and it makes Yelena miss her own that are on her nightstand at home.
“What do you want me to talk about?” Wanda asks, sitting on the cot and crossing her legs.
“Well,” Yelena shrugs, readjusting on the bed so that she can see Wanda without having to turn too much, “how’d you meet Natasha? She’s never told me.”
Wanda chuckles dryly, “It’s not a good story.”
“Try me,” Yelena deadpans.
Wanda then goes on to tell her the story of meeting Natasha - the crazy robot that Tony Stark created, the organization that Wanda was in with her late twin brother, the way she wasn’t on Natasha’s side at first and made her see the Red Room. Then there’s the turn, where they all unite and there’s some optimistic tone for a second and a comment about a red leather jacket that she stole.
The story takes its final turn with Pietro’s death and how the sentient android named Vision saved her before killing Ultron himself. It sounds almost insane, and if it weren’t for Yelena disappearing for five years in the blink of an eye due to an eggplant with a savior complex, she’d find it hard to believe.
“How’d she react to the whole Red Room thing? I’d be pissed,” Yelena comments, grabbing a pillow off the over-bed table and positioning it around her knee. The doctors braced it not too long after finding what they called a “tumor” and told her to stay off of it. (Not that she was going to go far with it hurting as much as it does.)
Wanda smiles wistfully, “She was very apprehensive, for lack of a better term.”
“She was scared of you?” Yelena asks.
“Not scared. Just not comfortable. But then… she kind of opened the door for a civil relationship and it spiraled,” Wanda plays with her fingers, red mist dancing between them, “We watched a lot of her favorite movies at first because we both had a hard time sleeping, and then finally I asked her if we could watch sitcoms.”
“And she just… said yes?” Yelena questions, leaning her head back against the pillows that she propped up.
“Yeah,” Wanda nods, “and then after a while, we knew each other’s favorites too well, so we decided to start something brand new together. That’s how we started watching How I Met Your Mother, actually.”
Yelena smiles, “I’m glad you two are together. Seriously. I remember being really disappointed when we met during the whole Red Room thing because she just had her Widow façade on for like ninety percent of the trip, so I don’t know, it’s nice to see her happy in the way that you make her happy.”
“You should’ve seen her after she found you, Yelena, she was happy for months,” Wanda smiles softly, “She is happier now, though, with you living close and now that she’s not being an Avenger. I think quitting was the best thing to ever happen to her, she’s never been so relaxed.”
“She’s not relaxed now,” Yelena comments softly, running her fingers along the stitching in the blanket.
“No,” Wanda’s tone matches her own and the mood deflates, “She’s just worried, she loves you more than anything. I’m just glad I got her to go home and take a shower.”
Yelena snorts, “You’re going to be lucky if she doesn’t pass out in the shower.”
“You do know that if she did, she’d never tell anyone about it,” Wanda points out and Yelena nods. “Is Kate coming back tonight?”
“I don’t know,” Yelena replies with a little shrug, “I think she’s freaked out.”
“Are you?”
Yelena’s almost taken aback by the bluntness of the question, but she shakes her head, “I’ve been through worse.”
“Do you understand what’s happening?” Wanda asks this time, her voice laced with so much concern that it makes Yelena want to gouge her eyes out.
“I’m sick,” Yelena says simply, not making eye contact, “Happens to everyone.”
“It doesn’t,” Wanda clarifies, “not this kind of sick. And I know it’s just knee pain now, but… the treatments for this kind of sick aren’t easy, Yelena.”
Yelena draws her lips in a tight line, “I have broken multiple bones in my body multiple times. I have depression and anxiety and as Isabel likes to say, an abundance of PTSD. I have been abused in every form possible. I think I can handle cancer.”
Wanda’s quiet, and it’s almost unnerving. It’s like she understands something that Yelena doesn’t. What does she understand? She’s sick. She knows she’s sick. She wouldn’t still be here if she weren’t. But she’ll get better. She’s done it a million times already.
“The treatment for cancer isn’t something that will just affect your knee, Yelena,” Wanda says softly, “The treatment affects everything. It’s basically killing you to cure you. You’re lucky that it’s advanced enough where you can stay on your meds, but… Yelena, this isn’t easy.”
Yelena nods, reiterating, “I’ve been beaten and broken before. I can handle this.”
Wanda shuts up this time as Natasha comes back in the room, this time with Anya and Kate on her heels.
Anya’s holding something in her hands that Yelena can’t see and Kate’s holding a large box.
“I found some strays at the apartment,” Natasha prefaces, waving at the two girls before looking straight at Yelena, “any news?”
“Yeah, actually, they told me I’m pregnant,” Yelena responds, laughing when Natasha rolls her eyes.
“Haha,” Natasha says sarcastically, “Good to know you’re in good spirits.”
“Your fiancée just gushed about you the entire time you were gone,” Yelena says, “told me how much of a softie you are. Though I might need you to keep up the scary thing and tell these doctors to let me go home.”
Natasha’s posture stiffens, but she manages a, “We should be hearing from them soon.”
“Anyway, we brought games,” Kate sets the box on the now-empty over-bed table, “Anya found your card games and I brought Monopoly. Just to see how miserable hospitals can really get, y’know?”
“I think we should play Cards Against Humanity,” Anya points out, sitting at the end of Yelena’s bed and paying careful attention to avoid the leg.
Natasha sits down next to Wanda, head falling on her shoulder almost immediately.
“You’re five, how’d you even get Cards Against Humanity?” Kate scoffs, rolling her eyes when Anya shoves the black box in her hands and moves the other stuff to the other side of the room.
“I’m fifteen,” Anya retorts, smiling when Kate sets up the game anyway.
The game is relatively simple, just fill in the blanks and make people laugh. She gets the hang of it really quickly and she and Anya end up in a desperate back and forth for the win before Natasha finally caps it at 10 points is the winner.
“Tony must’ve corrupted you,” Natasha says when Anya wins, bringing the game to an end. They take a break, deciding to order some food.
Kate ends up giving her a bag of her rings, including her favorite one that she got Fanny engraved on. Explaining that to the jeweler was quite the experience.
“So wait,” Kate ends up glancing over at Natasha and Wanda, “do you guys have gooey romance stories? Because Yelena mentioned softie Natasha but… y’know, if there’s more…”
“Oh, I wanna hear this,” Anya jumps in, all eyes on the to-be-married couple now.
“Depends, what kind of story do you want?” Wanda asks, giggling when Natasha lazily swats at her arm as if she’s telling her to not egg them on.
“First date stories are cute,” Kate says, “how about that?”
“We never had a first date,” Natasha replies, “we were on the run.”
“Fine, first kiss,” Kate retorts, sitting on the bed next to Yelena.
“Okay,” Wanda hums, “we were on the run, it was maybe… four months after being released, we were hiding out in Wakanda, I think.”
“We were,” Natasha adds, “actually, no we weren’t. That was like, the beginning of our relationship. We first kissed at the compound.”
“We were drunk,” Wanda retorts, “at least, I was. It was like two weeks before the accords, Tony threw some kind of celebration-esque thing and we ended up making out.”
“Oh yeah,” Natasha responds, “whoops.”
Kate looks dumbfounded, “I can’t believe you two forgot your first kiss.”
“Well,” Anya shares Kate’s expression, looking at Kate and Yelena now, “What about you two? How’d you meet?”
“Well, it all started when someone was on a Clint rampage and broke into my house,” Kate says, eyeing Yelena and laughing when Yelena shakes her head.
“I didn’t break anything, Kate Bishop!” Yelena swats the side of her head, “So dramatic.”
“Anyway, she broke in…”