We've reached over 2k reads thank you so much everyone!!
I'd also like to specifically dedicate this chapter to Maxiallen because I've been teasing them about this chapter for a while haha here you go bby
HERE WE AREEEEE IN THE OLDEN DAYSSSS HAPPY GOLDEN DAYYYYYYSSSS
Hi everyone! I'm super super super excited for this chapter it is amazing and adorable and cute and fluffy and (mostly) angst free! Enjoyyyyyy
Could you tell that I edited this during the Christmas season lol :,))
Content warnings: fluffy rizz and a lot of words (almost 4,000- I love me a big chapter)
Kate can feel a tether inside her chest fraying as she resists the urge to grab Yelena's hand again for the rest of the day, and it's almost to the point where she might have to take an ice bath to bludgeon away the heat lingering on her skin. Because, like Yelena, Kate was practically dying for constant physical contact and assurance. Growing up in a fatherless penthouse and with a mother that distanced herself out of grief led to Kate's childhood being rather cold and lonely, and it hadn't been until college that she realized how much she loved to hug and cuddle.
And now that the spark had been reignited, it was threatening to absolutely fucking explode.
Yelena had barely let go of Kate's hand when they reached her apartment before immediately busying herself with feeding the dogs and starting up something in the kitchen. Kate thanked her past self for remembering to get groceries the other day, because her fridge and cupboards had previously been home to only a few overripe strawberries, expired pancake batter mix, and a plentiful supply of Kraft mac-n-cheese. If there hadn't been food to occupy the assassin with, Kate was genuinely afraid she would just up and leave upon realizing how useless her temporary little roommate was.
The two of them seem to skirt around each other as Yelena prepares something that smells divine and Kate offers to help, the archer being put to work with chopping meat she didn't even remember buying. One of them puts music on in an attempt to fill the tense silence, but Fanny starts howling along to it and Lucky follows suit. They turn the music back off, and the dogs provide the ambiance with their wrestling.
Yelena is just adding the finishing touches to what Kate thinks might be some kind of savory meat/noodle soup when her phone starts ringing from her loft bedroom. She realizes with a jolt that she's barely looked at the device since she got back from her Barton vacation, and hurries up to grab it. Sure enough, it's Clint on the other line.
"Clint, hi!"
"Kate! Hey! Are you okay?" Clint sounds worried and out of breath, his deep voice almost shrill.
"I- yeah, yeah I'm okay, Clint. Why, what's up? How are you?"
"Oh I'm fine, but you haven't responded to any of my texts since I dropped you off and I was starting to wonder if you were dead, or something. You usually jump at the chance to spam my phone."
"Oh, shit," Kate mutters, pulling her phone away from her ear and putting it on speaker to look through her messages. There are seven unread texts from HawkDad😎💘🏹, and she quickly reads through them. "Shit, Clint, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to ghost you- I just haven't been looking at my phone very much." Or at all, she silently adds. Other than the occasional Spotify listen, Kate hadn't touched any of the other notifications on her screen, which she now admitted was a bit of a mistake.
In her defense, though, she's been a little preoccupied.
"What's got you so busy, kiddo?" he asks, already calmer now that he knows she's alive.
Kate winces and does some mental gymnastics to try and figure out what to tell him. "Um. Cleaning, I guess. And... walking Lucky. Practicing archery. Really staying' on top of that, y'know? Gotta stay in shape and make sure I'm worthy of being the new Hawkeye once the Avengers reach out to me," she laughs lightly, partially joking and partially not. Truthfully, her arms are buzzing to pick up her bow and lose herself in the action of firing arrow after arrow at anything she can find, but once again, she's been otherwise distracted.
Clint's chuckle is endearing, and Kate sighs in relief when he seems to take her excuse without much question. "You're already good enough to be considered for something like that, Kate. You probably don't need to be wearing yourself out by training so often."
She does a little fist bump to herself at his praise, a giddy smile breaking her face. Clint may be somewhat of a father figure to her now, but he was also still Hawkeye and an Avenger, and the idol she had looked up to for over half her life. A compliment from him was like winning the goddamn lottery. "I'll take a break, probably," she concedes, only a little sorry that she's lying.
What the fuck would Clint think about this Yelena situation?
"Good, good." There's a small lull where Kate asks after Laura and the kids, and Clint does the same about Lucky and Eleanor. He's surprised to hear that she visited her mother in prison so soon, due to her avoidance of the topic over the entirety of the holidays, but he wants to hear about it nonetheless.
"Oh, hey, Kate- something I've been meaning to ask you about."
"Yeah?"
"Have you thought about enrolling back in school at all?"
Kate doesn't even register what he's said until she has to stop holding her breath due to the screaming in her lungs. "What?"
Clint repeats himself. Kate blinks.
"What?"
"...Is the phone connection bad? Can you not hear me, Kate? Here, I'll check the Wi-Fi, give me just a second-"
"No, I can hear you, Clint-"
The line goes dead.
Kate swears under her breath and opens her text app, pulling up Clint's contact.
Kate: clint I could hear u just surprised me with the school bomb
HawkDad😎💘🏹: Ah, I wondered. I just replaced the router last month. Too early for it to be giving out on me already.
Kate: maybe u should upgrade to a better phone
HawkDad😎💘🏹: What's wrong with my flip phone?
Kate: its basically an ancient relic clint the cool kids call it a brick phone these days cuz thats about how useful it is
HawkDad😎💘🏹: The one that I have works perfectly fine.
Kate: dont blame me when it passes away on you
HawkDad😎💘🏹: Sure, Kate.
HawkDad😎💘🏹: So, about school...?
Kate: no thanks im good bye clint :)))❤️
HawkDad😎💘🏹: Kate, I just wanted to ask if you've thought about it at all.
HawkDad😎💘🏹: Kate?
HawkDad😎💘🏹: You silenced your phone again didn't you? Just promise me you'll actually consider thinking about it.
HawkDad😎💘🏹: You'd better actually respond next time, Katie. Nathan and Laura say hi.
Kate lets out a heavy sigh and tosses her phone onto her nightstand, dropping onto her bed like a dead weight. Clint isn't wrong, school is probably the best way to go right now. With everything in disarray, the schedule of an active education could give her something else to think about, and take her mind off of things.
But school was also a source of anxiety for Kate if she didn't play her cards right. First off- where would she even go? The college she'd been in had admitted her based solely on her archery scholarship, but her little stunt with the infamous bell tower just under a month ago had cost her that chance and possibly many others.
"God, I never even bothered to think about other colleges," Kate groans to herself, dragging her hands down her face and rubbing her tired eyes. The weak glow from her fairy lights casts a strange shadow around her room, and the brightness of nighttime in New York City filters in through her window. She sits up and stares at the wall, sighing heavily.
One thing after another, Kate.
"Kate Bishop?" Yelena's voice so close startles her, and Kate yelps, falling off her bed. She scrambles to her feet in a hurry with a burning face and clears her throat, trying to look as nonchalant as she possibly can.
"Hey."
"Are you okay?" Yelena asks softly, looking so gentle, standing at the entrance of the stairs down from the loft. "Your phone call was awfully short. You don't look very happy, which is unexpected. Clint usually makes you light up." She's rambling, she knows, but can't seem to stop it.
Kate nods awkwardly and looks down at her feet, kicking them around. "Yeah, sorry." She had completely forgotten about dinner. "Just, uh- Clint wants me to start thinking about enrolling back in college."
Yelena tilts her head and frowns. "School is important, Kate Bishop."
"I- I know, I'm just... maybe later. Y'know?"
Yelena does, in fact, not know, but another Kate Bishop she is not familiar with is this one- unsure. She walks closer to Kate and takes her hands, heart already jumping around at the heat of skin against skin. The archer looks up at her, (or down. With no heels to aid her, she is 4 inches below) the blue pool of her eyes so deep that Yelena forgets for just a moment what she was about to say.
"Kate Bishop," she manages to get out, "why do you not want to go to school?" Her friend mumbles something unintelligible. "What?"
"I don't have a scholarship anymore," Kate says louder, eyes darting away again in shame. "I did a stupid dare a while ago and destroyed a bell tower. They took away my archery scholarship. I never applied to any other colleges."
"Oh. I see."
"Yeah."
"What about applying to others now? I don't know how anything works here in America, but surely it can't be that difficult?" Yelena offers gently, squeezing Kate's hands.
Kate squeezes back, cheeks pinking. "No, not difficult. Just a pain in the ass. And, I mean- I'm gonna be an Avenger, Yelena. I don't need a degree in something I'm never gonna use."
The assassin hummed. "What were you learning about, Kate Bishop?"
"Biomechanical engineering and quantum physics."
Yelena blinks several times, taken aback. "Those are very big and complicated words, Kate Bishop. Much too big to say you'll never use them."
A small, bashful smile slips onto Kate's face as she shrugs. "I guess so, yeah. I dunno."
"You are one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, Kate Bishop," Yelena says forcefully, startling herself with the intensity. "You have a beautiful, brilliant mind. Why not nurture it further?"
Kate can feel the blush covering her face, and feels absolutely stupid when all she can do is stare into Yelena's hazel eyes and come up with nothing at all to say in response. Yelena laughs kindly and lifts Kate's hands up to her lips, pressing soft kisses to each of her knuckles in a sudden moment of confidence.
"Think about what Barton said, Kate. Maybe it could do you good." She smiled and dropped Kate's hands, turning to go back downstairs. "Now come eat. I cook masterpiece, as always."
Kate watched her in a daze, her knuckles burning as heat tingled along her skin and down her fingers. Her stomach buzzed, chest squeezing.
Fuck.
--------
Kate can't hold back the moan that slips from her throat when she takes her first bite of the soup Yelena made, and she doesn't even have enough brain cells right now to feel sheepish about it. She just digs in faster, her spoon catching up milky broth and steaming chunks of tender meat, vegetables soaked in butter and fat, curling noodles coated in a thick spiced sauce. God, it was like eating literal heaven. Kate could barely get enough. Her stomach had been much too empty for the past couple days, but this was hitting the spot.
While Kate is completely stuffing herself, Yelena has barely moved since the archer took her first bite. The sound that came out of her mouth...
дерьмо.
Once Kate is on her second bowl, life comes back to Yelena's body, and she digs into her respective food. Damn, she was good at this. Maybe she could reach out to her favorite cooking show and share some tips. Would Cooking With Flo appreciate such a thing? Probably. Florence Pugh was an angel, and Yelena adored her.
Kate beats Yelena to doing the dishes this time, and Yelena thinks about putting up a fight for only a moment before giving in when the archer rolls her sleeves up and pulls her dark hair into a messy ponytail. The assassin almost chokes on her own tongue and quickly moves to the main room, pressing close to the cool windowpanes and looking down at the NYC streets below.
Two warm, fluffy bodies press up to her legs on either side, and Yelena absently rubs her hands over Lucky and Fanny's heads. She lets herself get lost in it- nothing to fight, no hunger to ignore, no enemies to watch out for. Just her and the dogs, admiring the city before them.
And Kate Bishop.
"Do you wanna watch a movie?" the archer asks from behind her, voice hopeful.
Yelena sucks in a deep breath and turns, returning Kate's smile. "Depends, Kate Bishop. Is your taste in media shit?"
A scoff. "I'll have you know that my taste in media is pure gold, thank you very much."
"Alright, then, маленький ястреб," Yelena snorts. "What movie?"
Kate lets out a small squeal and starts to genuinely jump up and down, shaking her hands out. "Oh my goodness, I'm so excited! You're gonna love it. It's called The Hunger Games."
Yelena narrows her eyes skeptically. "That sounds very anticlimactic, Kate Bishop. Did they round up feral children from the streets and pit them against each other for a loaf of wheat bread?"
"Nope! Close, though." Kate grins and goes to grab the remote, but she pauses and instead digs around in her pocket and comes back with a coin. "Actually, I have something cool to show you." She holds the coin up between two fingers and twists her hands, flicking her wrist with a snap that echoes around the apartment. The coin goes flying- whizzing past Yelena's ear as she ducks and spins to watch its trajectory.
It hits the tv's power button dead on, and Kate lets out a joyous cheer.
Yelena blinks and turns to her, eyebrows raised. "That was so cool, Kate Bishop!"
"Thank you! I know, right?"
"How did you do that?"
"Clint taught me! C'mere, I'll show you. Okay, take these fingers and hold it like this-"
They spend the next 20 minutes like that- Kate teaching Yelena how to flick the coin across the apartment, striking every one of her targets even better than Kate by the time they're done. She happily turns several lights on and off and back on again, and Kate watches with a look of pure glee on her face.
"You're a natural."
Yelena is starry eyed, mouth open in awe. "I feel so cool."
"Even though you already know how to land backflips off of planes and incapacitate someone with a bobbi pin in three seconds?"
The assassin gives a coy grin and shrugs, shimmying her hips. "Yep."
Kate's heart swells and she grabs Yelena's hands, pulling her close before stepping back and spinning the assassin in one fluid motion. Yelena lets out a surprised "oh!" but falls into the movement easily and a happy laugh bubbles up from her chest. Kate can only grin and watch her with bright eyes, cheeks glowing. Her friend returns the smile, and when Yelena lets go of one of her hands, she flings Kate out and pulls her back so close that their fingers are clasped tightly and their chests are pressed together.
"There's no music, Kate Bishop," Yelena says, out of breath despite herself.
Kate's smile has heat building at the base of Yelena's spine. "You dance just fine, sweetheart."
--------
As it turns out, neither of them actually know a single thing about dancing, and they laugh together about it before finally settling down on the couch to watch the movie. Kate lets Yelena turn the tv on with her coin, and then clicks through her streaming services and movies until she finds The Hunger Games and sets the remote down.
"Trust me, it's good. You'll like it. It's kinda heavy, though. Just let me know if you wanna stop watching at any point."
Yelena nods and hums and shifts around to get more comfortable in her little section of the couch, Lucky and Fanny hopping up between them and snuggling in. The movie starts, and Yelena is immediately immersed in it, taking in every little detail.
"Another archer," she mumbles to herself as soon as Katniss pulls out her bow, her brain immediately comparing the differences between her and Kate Bishop just a foot away from her. "Why are there so many of you?" she asks jokingly, the corner of her mouth tilting up when she looks over at Kate.
Kate shrugs, her face completely serious. "Someone left Cheez-Its out and we crawled from the nooks and crannies like rats."
Yelena laughs so hard she chokes on her own spit.
"It's true!" Kate defends, vaulting over the couch so hard that she startles the dogs, and they both follow after her to the kitchen, where she comes back with a giant bowl of orange, salted crackers. "Here, try one."
Yelena glances at her warily but pinches one in her fingers and squints at it. "Are you trying to poison me, Kate Bishop?"
"Nah. These things are like drugs, trust me."
The assassin blinks at her and frowns, genuinely bewildered. "You're doing drugs, Kate Bishop?"
Her friend barks a laugh and grabs a handful of the crackers, taking Yelena's bottom lip between her pointer finger and thumb and pulling her mouth open gently. Yelena is too startled to resist, and the archer crams the crackers in between her teeth. "Chew, Yelena."
The assassin's stomach is in raving knots and her eyes are wild, but the crackers are actually quite delicious and she lights up as she realizes how much Kate is right. Drugs was a good descriptor. She immediately shoves more into her mouth and hums enthusiastically, much to Kate's delight.
"I know, right!?"
Yelena steals the bowl from her hands without warning and bolts, eating as many of the crackers as she can, and Kate lets out a yelp before giving chase. The dogs seem intrigued but stay laying on the floor. "Yelena, I swear to god I'm gonna kick your ass if you don't give those back!" Kate laughs, panting.
"I would win a million times over, Kate Bishop!" Yelena does another couple loops and juke-outs around the couch before plopping down in the very center of the cushions, holding the bowl tight to her chest. Kate basically launches herself at her, and Yelena screams with laughter as she fails to keep the bowl out of Kate's long arms. They wrestle over it for a moment until Yelena eventually gives up, laughing so hard that tears are streaming down her face and her chest and stomach ache, and Kate can't help but to follow suit.
They've missed a few scenes so they have to rewind, but they're still laughing right as they put more Cheez-Its in their mouth and subsequently spewing crumbs just about everywhere, and the dogs are going absolutely wild over it. Cue more laughing, cue more tears. They end up trying to rewind three times before they're totally calm, and by then, Kate has to grab more Cheez-Its to refill the bowl that Yelena refused to surrender over.
"Come here, Kate Bishop. I want to hold the bowl. You can sit cozy with me."
"How ever gracious of you, my queen," Kate snorts, her cheeks aching from the smile that hasn't left her face for thirty minutes. Nonetheless, she sits close to Yelena with only a few inches separating them, reaching over to grab some crackers.
Yelena slaps her hand away and speaks before Kate can protest. "Why are you so stingy, Kate Bishop? Get closer, you shift the weight around and ruin my comfort every time you move your arm that far. I'm serious- come, come." She grabs Kate's wrist gently and tugs her closer, the archer yelping as she tries to move without falling over into the bowl of salty snacks. They end up pressed flush with each other, even more so when Fanny and Lucky jump up on either side of them and hog each armrest, squeezing them even tighter into each other's sides.
Yelena and Kate blink at each other, their smiles soft and laughter warm. Their faces are both dusted with pink, and their hands brush over the bowl of Cheez-Its when they both reach for some at the same time.
Am I screaming crying freaking out over them? Yes I am!! I think this is one of my favorites so far just because of how fluffy they are. I hope you enjoyed!
Translations:
-дерьмо (Der'mo): Shit
-маленький ястреб (Malen'kiy yastreb): Little hawk
Kate Bishop counter: 18
QOTD: Have you ever watched Hunger Games? Did you like it?
This chapter's meme(s):
Comments and votes make my day <333