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mosquito-queen · 9 months

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the first thing she notices after pushing open the door to her apartment is a breeze. and with it, a fresh layer of annoyance is tacked onto the already simmering anger. yelena is going to drive the electricity bill through the roof - why can’t she just use the door? she has a key for christ’s sake. a key!

the thought of the key makes kate grind her teeth, leaves an ache in her chest, makes her confuse anger and hurt. yelena has a fucking key.

kate steps into the apartment, drops her bag and does a scan for the familiar blonde. she still hasn’t decided how she’s going to approach this conversation, still doesn’t know how to make sense of her own emotions and much less yelena’s, doesn’t know the right words to make sense for either of them. maybe she shouldn’t have it.

claws skittering on the hardwood interrupt her thoughts. lucky is beelining from the end of the hall towards kate, and on his heels comes yelena’s voice, strained, “kate bishop, where is the -“

but kate is stepping into the bathroom doorway, holding up a new bag of gauze. she almost forgets to be angry.

because yelena is in the middle of mediocre surgery: she’s standing barefoot on the bath mat, leaning against the sink counter with her shirt off, and pulling a surgical wire through her skin just above her hip. there are bloody handprints on the porcelain, bandage wrappers littering the floor, and she��s got a split eyebrow that would fare better with some of those stitches instead of butterfly bandages. kate’s frown deepens when she spies the bottles: an open whiskey on the closed toilet lid and the other a beer on the sink ledge with condensation forming a sheen of water speckled with blood. the beer is an ice pack and the other is nursed as tylenol. ridiculous woman.

“ah, yes,” yelena motions between the stitching and bag, “can you?”

“hello to you too,” kate mutters, opening the gauze pack.

kate hasn’t seen yelena in nearly a week. well, yelena hasn’t seen her in nearly a week. she’s shown up to the apartment in worse states, but this one is confusing. yelena had been perfectly fine last night. in a dress. no scratches. perfectly fine with jewelry and her hair up and her eyes had been glittering at someone that wasn’t kate. she had been fine last night.

the humiliation and anger rise with bile in the back of kate’s mouth. why is she so incredibly angry? it isn’t like they’re formally dating. she swallows hard and washes her hands quickly in the sink before taking over, shooing away yelena’s hands from the wounds after yelena finishes the last stitch.

kate starts dressing it. she has gotten remarkably better at playing doctor since noticing yelena does a shit job patching herself up - not because she can’t, but because she doesn’t care enough.

but kate is still mad at her.

yelena lounges her weight against the sink, completely gives up control to kate’s hands. trusts her without meaning to, or understanding why, or even being aware of it. she mistakes the reason for the quiet and the way kate still hasn’t made eye contact, “i will clean up.”

kate blurts: “you know, i saw you.” she swipes the antiseptic a little too harshly and yelena flinches, “last night,” she moves to inspect the rest of yelena’s wounds, planning on returning to the cut on her hip after it’s settled a bit longer, “with him.”

“what?” yelena frowns, and kate is roughly tilting her head to fix the poorly applied bandages along her jaw. yelena’s eyes dart, try to find kate’s, but there’s no luck.

instead, kate grinds out: “at the restaurant. i saw you kiss him.”

but yelena is only half listening. she’s too hung up on the way that everything feels wrong in this room, she’s too caught up in the intensity at which kate is refusing to look her in the eyes. she’s unable to understand why it bothers her so much that kate won’t look. why isn’t she looking? kate is always looking at her.

she’s always looking at her in a way that makes yelena’s heart rate pick up, in a way that makes her palms sweaty, in a way that makes it an easy choice to seek out kate’s bed after a mission. she’s done this a million times now, hasn’t she? where she’s come home - home? - in the dead of night, or lazy afternoons, or right before the birds start to sing (kate hates when it’s in the morning), and kate sits her on the sink or the toilet or the edge of the bath and tends her wounds. and she looks at yelena like she’s trying to make a wish.

and it feels like, fuck it feels like… it feels like more than just patching wounds. kate has gotten remarkably better. and that’s how it always goes. except right now. instead, kate’s fingers are tight under her jaw and she isn’t being careful or soft or even looking at her. god, why does it bother her so much?

“kate, look at me.” yelena is pulling her face away from the archer’s grip, leaning off the counter and standing on her own, and kate instinctually takes a step back. she obeys, looks yelena in the eye, looks at her in way that makes yelena’s mouth go dry. and she barely makes out: “why are you angry with me?”

and it’s the wrong thing to say.

and yelena wishes she never asked kate to look at her.

because the fury boring down on her makes yelena’s insides balk. because she never wants to be looked at like that - like she’s committed the most painful atrocity against the one person her mind always drifts towards. she doesn’t have too much time to reflect on why it hurts so much for kate to look at her like that.

because kate is spluttering, throwing her hands up, “of course i am angry! what did you think was going to happen? i saw you kiss him! and i thought -“

it suddenly becomes stupid, too vulnerable, too much. kate trails off, covering her face with her hands, groaning, “oh god.”

but it’s too late: “what? what did you think?”

“yelena. what in the - what? don’t you - aren’t we…?” she trails off, gesturing between the two of them. gesturing to the past months of yelena using kate’s apartment like her own home, of yelena waking up with nightmares until kate invites her into her bed, of yelena keeping the fridge stocked, of kate patching up yelena in the bathroom and being close enough that they share the same breath, of kate braiding yelena’s hair, of them spending until the break of dawn talking and talking and talking…

and yelena could resolve this. she could easily say: it was a job, and the fresh smattering of hurt was the end result, and that kate should see the other guy. or what was left of him.

but instead, yelena is growing cold and turns her back on kate so she can face the mirror and identify the next section of bodily pain to address. now it’s her turn not to look at kate. she feels something clench in her chest, wants to soothe the fear welling inside, a fear she does not want to address, “i do not know what you are insinuating, kate bishop. spit it out.”

it’s cruel and they both know it. they both know yelena is on the brink of running, and maybe that’s why kate is standing in the door frame with her eyes locked on yelena’s reflection in the mirror: “you treat me like you’re in love with me, but you’re out there kissing him.”

love?

yelena white knuckles the counter top, that frenzied panic tearing up through her heart and lungs and clawing its way up her throat. no. she just… no, kate’s just confused. yelena doesn’t… she can’t do that. right? only the version before the red room had capacity for that. she’s not formed any connection with anyone after the red room in the same way she felt so deeply as a child. a weapon cannot…

love?

she grew up in a way that controlled for that, that didn’t make space for that, that never intended for her to have access to human emotions. instead, everything became a transaction. what was love but another word for manipulate? and yet… what else was it when she felt compelled to be close to kate, and to protect her, and to memorize her overly complicated pizza order just in case she had a bad day? oh fuck. why did it hurt so much when kate wouldn’t look at her? why did she want her hands to be the ones to fix her?

love.

she’s focusing on the wrong thing again. because yelena’s idea of love was defined by whatever disney movies she had watched in ohio. it had never crossed her mind of what love actually looked like in the real world. she had no idea where to even go with this conversation that would be remotely helpful. so yelena leans into the only thing she does know and that she is remarkably good at: pushing people away.

so yelena says into the mirror, “n-no. why would you? that’s not anything i wanted you to think.”

a small part of kate wants desperately for yelena to mean she didn’t want kate to think she had been willingly kissing someone else. a small part of her wants to think that yelena is absolutely in love with her but too pigheaded to admit it. but, that part is small and the rest of kate knows that her face is red hot and her hands are clenched, and she wants to break that stupid fucking mirror, “then what do you want? why are you always here? in my bed, in my personal space, in my fucking clothes. why do you always come back here? just stay gone then, just go. we don’t have to play nice just because we’re hawkeye and black widow.”

for a moment, everything inside of yelena stops.

because for some reason, she had never factored into the equation the possibility of kate being the one wanting to leave. and it feels like an explosion. she whips around so she can face kate, sweat beading around her collarbone and hip aching, she’s steadying herself with a hand gripping the counter and bowl of the sink, and the change in position brings her back to the present. the sheer amount of emotion raging through her body is too overwhelming and she shouts, “i do not know what i want!”

how could she know? natasha was the only person that ever asked her and the only thing she got out of that revelation was fanny. and the way it connects back to natasha makes yelena angrier and she smashes the beer bottle on the floor, “i don’t know what i want! but i know it isn’t that,” it comes out broken at the end, with a hiccup, with a heartbreak, and the exertion from the day and the sudden burst of emotions has her sliding down the the sink, butting the back of head into the cabinet doors when she settles at the bottom in the stick of beer and glass, “it sure as fuck is not that.”

and kate is silent in the doorway, waving lucky off from where he’s standing worried at the mouth of the hallway. she turns her attention back to yelena, looking at this girl turned killer-weapon turned human and she knows there is no way the universes could ever make her walk away from yelena. she knows she would tear herself apart to bring yelena back every single time. she thinks she’s known it since the beginning.

kate hadn’t known what was different about yelena when they met the first night on the roof. she hadn't released the arrow because yelena was not actively striking her - not because she had an overwhelming sense to obey. certainly not because the sight of yelena’s face knocked the air out of her lungs.

it was still different when they fought after that. because kate knew she was good, she had plenty medals to prove it, but she wasn’t win-against-a-black-widow-good. yelena held back her punches. but it was just because eleanor was paying yelena. it was just because her mom said not to hurt her. right?

it was different when kate asked to get drinks and yelena said yes. yelena said yes and it made her heart flip, erupted butterflies and her head felt fuzzy. her head always felt fuzzy when yelena was around. but it was better not to think about it.

and then yelena kept coming around. of course with gaps and no contact and so much reactivity. but yelena kept coming around. and she had flowers waiting for kate the first time kate went to visit her mother in prison, and she took lucky on walks until kate stopped being so fucking scared that kingpin would be just around the corner, and she had her own drawer in the dresser and a toothbrush and brought fanny around (who was a much better guard dog than lucky), and yelena was just so fucking sweet.

so excuse kate for thinking yelena belova had feelings for her. excuse her for thinking yelena was fully aware of what messages were being sent, excuse her for thinking.

except kate was still thinking.

yelena can feel kate looking at her. looking at her in a way that seems like judgment will be weighed. yelena knows she’ll never get into heaven. but, kate exhales and is picking her way through the glass, unfazed, jaw set. like a righteous angel. she crouches down to yelena’s eye level, her hands gripping the sides of her bruised up face, and using the pressure to force yelena to look at her.

this time yelena says: “i killed that man.”

there is still a brilliant anger in kate’s eyes, and it cloaks the desire, so yelena is caught off guard when kate presses her mouth into hers. when kate destroys her with the softest kiss. maybe she would never get into heaven, but this was surely a heavenly way to die.

yelena never had any intent to fall in love. with anyone. ever. she certainly had no intent to fall in love with kate bishop. and yet it seems like her heart never got the memo. it’s hammering now in her chest like a freight train. and then kate pulls back for a moment.

“is this what you want?”

oh. a sharp inhale: “yes.”

and then kate kisses her harder.

#sometimes yelena needs a good shaking #aaaaahHHHHH #any human interaction is just a transaction but yelena got careless in keeping the receipts on kate #it just so easily became second nature to be tender #bishova #kate x yelena #kate bishop #yelena belova #bishlova

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