"Jesus fucking Christ," Kate huffed as she stood to her full height, knife drawn and chest heaving. Her knee ached as she waited anxiously for the other woman to make a move, lunge at her, shoot her, but upon closer inspection, the intruder lay limp, bleeding from a gash on her jaw.
Worried she had somehow killed the woman, Kate checked her neck for a pulse, thankfully finding one. This created an entirely new problem, though, as Kate was not one to kill an unarmed, possibly innocent person as she slept. Gritting her teeth, Kate hurriedly bound the woman's hands with a few spare zip ties before propping her upright against the trunk of a pine.
Cursing and out of breath, Kate took a moment to collect herself, gulping down chilly midnight air to slow her racing heart. Hands on her knees as she inhaled, the archer shut her eyes, straining her ears for anything unusual in the black abyss of pine and maple. Fortunately, all that sounded was the typical cacophony of owls, beetles, and the occasional coyote howl, though she always kept a paranoid ear out.
With one final breath, Kate stood, stretched out her bad knee, and lugged the woman's black duffel bag over to her stump. As she rummaged through the bag, Kate glanced intermittently up at the woman, and in the low light of her lanterns, got a good look at her for the first time.
She was bulkier than Kate expected, short but well built. She was clad in all black- boots, cargo pants, long sleeve thermal shirt. Her jacket, black leather with red patches on the upper arm, nearly made Kate recoil backwards off her tree stump. The badges, stars and hourglasses, were marks of Widows, and this stranger was highly decorated. Every hair on Kate's body stood on end, and she gripped the hilt of her knife tighter.
If this really was a Black Widow, then Kate was in deeper shit than she thought. This could be a scout team leader, or the beginning of an ambush. The prudent action would be to kill the girl and flee with her sack of supplies, but as Kate studied her face, her braided golden hair and her copper freckles, she could not bring herself to draw blood, to end a life as it slumbered.
Now, all she could do was wait.
Kate's hands shook throughout the excruciatingly quiet night. Twirling her blade, she sat facing the blonde, startling at any whisper of a noise in the forest. It did not help that the other woman mumbled incoherently in her sleep, repeating what sounded like a name over and over. She twitched and sniffed but stayed unconscious as the moon dipped lower in the sky, and with no other Widow making her presence known, Kate wondered what the deal really was with this person.
Perhaps she was not a member of the gang at all. Perhaps she had slain a lone Widow and stolen her things, or perhaps... she was a defector, a runaway, a rebel. That would make sense with the bag of supplies, the guns, the clothes, the food...
Now, Kate spared the woman more out of curiosity than ethics. Few betrayed the fearsome Black Widows and lived to tell the tale.
Resigned to spare the woman, this left the question of what to do when she inevitably awoke. Best case, they go their separate ways with no further strife. Worst case, the blonde escapes, robs her, leaves her body cold and rotting to become the dirt from whence she came. Kate kept her fingers crossed for option one.
The fight to stay lucid magnified in difficulty as the hours passed. Adrenaline from the encounter wore off, and the lingering exhaustion from her hunt threatened to tug Kate into a much needed but dangerously timed slumber.
The archer tried everything- tracking constellations, whittling a crude wooden arrowhead, but eventually, under dim yellow moonlight and the rhythm of cricket chirps and the occasional owl hoot, Kate Bishop fell asleep, hand still clutching her knife.
Upon coming to her senses in the harsh glow of morning sun, a voice greeted Kate Bishop, cocky and dripping with smugness.
Standing over Kate, silver pistol aimed lazily in her direction, Yelena said, "did you really think two zip ties would do the trick, sweetheart?"
"God damn it," Kate groaned, staring down the barrel of the gun. To her displeasure, the woman was awake, free, and ambulatory. The wound on her jaw had stopped bleeding, though her wrists were rubbed raw.
"That was good form on the drop kick, really, but did you have to go through my stuff?"
Kate did not respond, wide eyes trained on the gun. With a dismissive head shake, Yelena holstered her weapon and took a step back. The blonde studied her counterpart for the moment, chuckling to herself.
"Something funny?" Kate asked, scrambling to her feet, still wielding her knife. She was a little surprised to be unbound, much less armed.
Yelena eyed the serrated blade. "Don't waste your energy trying to pick a fight."
"Why are you so confident you would win? All it takes is one kick."
Cocking her head, Yelena responded, "yeah, you're right."
In a flash, the blonde struck, sweeping Kate's legs out from under her before she had the chance to react. Yelena knelt, one knee on each of Kate's arms, pinning her to the forest floor. She plucked the knife from Kate's hand as she thrashed underneath her before standing, twirling the knife nonchalantly.
"It's not a fair fight, sweetheart," Yelena shrugged, smoothing back a few stray hairs. "I was trying to be nice, seeing as you... let me live, and all."
"Kind of regretting that," Kate spat, sitting up with a bruised ego and an aggravated knee. "Are you a Widow?"
"Was."
Kate waited for the woman to elaborate, but she just turned her back, stuffing her things into her black duffel. Uneasily, Kate stood as well. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"I don't care enough to explain my sob story, but if you want to live, you should come with me."
"Why the hell would I do that? You broke into my camp, assaulted me, and now you're saying I should run off with you? What the fuck?"
"Okay, first of all, I found this place on accident. Second, you hit me first."
"So?" Kate lunged for her knife, but the blonde pulled it out of reach with lightning quick reflexes. "You've given me zero reason to believe you. This is probably some elaborate Widow trap."
"I told you, I'm not a Widow anymore."
"Yeah, you're clearly a credible source. You've got more patches on that jacket than a Girl Scout."
"Girl Scout?" Yelena laughed condescendingly, flipping Kate's knife. "That's cute."
"Give me my knife back!" Kate reached again to the same result. "Okay, asshole. Can't wait to travel cross country with you."
"I'm not asking you to like me, and I'm certainly not asking you to trust me. All I'm saying," Yelena hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, grunting, "is that there are a lot of people who want me very, very dead. I wandered into your camp, which means they'll probably want you dead too. I'm trying to do you a solid here."
Kate sighed, looking around at her rugged campsite. It was not much, just a patchwork of tarp, plastic jugs, and rotted wood, but it was hers. For three years she had built it into the safe haven she had always wanted, and the self sustaining society that she needed. The land fed her, the rain watered her crops. It was hard work, with blisters and splinters and many hungry nights, but it was worth the freedom. She was free from the lying and the politicking and the backstabbing of humans. Kate was free of the burden and the weight of trust.
Yelena stared as the brunette ran the math in her mind. She was losing precious time; every second spent stagnant was more ground gained by the Widows. Natasha was out there somewhere, and Yelena was growing increasingly impatient. She risked everything for her sister, not for a random survivalist in the woods.
For a half second, Yelena thought of abandoning the brunette, cutting her losses and peeling out, but that would be a death sentence. Sooner or later, the Widows would find the encampment, and almost certainly kill the girl, and Yelena did not want to be within a twenty mile radius when that happened. But... this girl spared her, watched over her, stole nothing from her bag as she was incapacitated. Though no saint, Yelena did possess some small fragment of honor.
Besides the altruism, Yelena realized the girl capable. After freeing herself from her plastic shackles, Yelena took a better look at the place, poking around the rows of healthy crops and contraptions for irrigation. Kate had kept an organized calendar system, sun dials, pressure gauges, not to mention the arsenal of handcrafted weapons. She was clearly a gifted engineer, farmer, and crafter, building her camp from the ground up. She was an asset.
"So, Widows are after you because you left?" Kate asked, arms crossed.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because I stole their shit."
"No," Kate shook her head. "Why'd you leave?"
Yelena bit her cheek, calculating the exact amount of information to reveal to incite trust. "Got more important things to do."
"Gotta give me more than that."
Jaw twitching, Yelena replied, "looking for my sister."
Kate's eyebrows shot up, disarmed by the sentiment. "You still have family out there?"
"Just her. You?"
"My mom."
"And you're not with her? You're out here with your twigs and baby carrots?"
"Yeah."
"Okay..." Another twig in the the forest snapped, and a renewed sense of urgency rushed over Yelena. "Look, you stay, the Widows will find you and they will kill you. If you come with me, I can keep you safe."
"I've kept myself pretty safe so far," Kate countered defiantly, gesturing towards her traps and quiver of arrows.
"Against Lurkers, sure, but that bow won't do shit against a platoon and you know it. We don't have to stay together forever, let's just put some distance between us and go from there."
Kate studied the other woman, her eyes cold but not insincere. She was pragmatic, but not wholly amoral. Deep down, Kate knew this woman was right. The Widows would have found her eventually, and with a recent deserter, would have even less reason for mercy. Being trained by Widows, this stranger was a capable fighter, scavenger, and protector; Kate had already seen it firsthand. And although she was dangerous, if she really wanted to hurt Kate, she would have done so already.
With a resigned sigh, Kate looked over her camp, proud of the work and crushed to leave it behind. She wished she had some way of remembering it more concretely, but she had no camera, nor even a sketchbook. The remnants of her home, of her years of work, would remain in the woods to decay.
"Means a lot to you?" Yelena asked, seeing the flip switch in Kate's mind.
"Yeah..." Kate said, slowly starting to gather supplies.
Stepping up, Yelena offered Kate her hunting knife, her eyes sincere and voice low. "You've built it once, you can build it again."
Nodding, Kate scooped her canvas bag from her stand and robotically stuffed it with most vital of her gear while the blonde stood watch. Matches, flint, two tarps, maps, both of her knives, food, a plastic jug stuffed with copper wire, rope, and zip ties, and of course, her books. With the bag and her quiver slung over her back, Kate delicately held her bow, smoothing over the ridges of the wood with her thumb. Her eyes stayed glued to the forest floor as Yelena motioned for her to follow.
Oddly, Kate did not feel as fearful, uncertain, or even regretful as she thought she might as she marched toward the unknown. Perhaps this chunk of the woods never really was home. It was a placeholder, a transition, an escape from a scheming mother in a volatile city.
And besides, this woman was right. She could build this anywhere. Except now, maybe she would not have to sleep alone.
Yelena took point, eager to relocate the main highway and orient herself. Today would probably be a light travel day as Kate had not awoken until high noon, but any distance put between them and Widow headquarters was valuable.
"What's your name, by the way?" Yelena asked, gun drawn but lowered as they slinked through the trees.
"Kate Bishop," she whispered back, used to the silence and solitude of a hunt. The blonde was too loud for her taste; her footfall heavy in her chunky combat boots, her steps too careless. "You?"
"Yelena."
"Pretty."
Yelena allowed herself a small smile before refocusing. The journey to Charleston started now, and though she knew it would be long, treacherous, probably bloody journey, it was a comfort to once again have someone on her six.
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I don't like this chapter at allllllllllll but it's necessary to get to the actual plot.
Leave me a comment, gorgeous. Love you