Chapter Text
“Kate, you all set up there?”
Kate Bishop rolled her eyes. What was there to set up? She had her bow, a thin cushion she was sure had been crushed by one of the Hulk’s butt cheeks once upon a time, and enough snacks that she could survive for days if she had to.
She didn’t have to.
She had to survive one night.
In a vent.
Above a top-secret piece of S.H.I.E.L.D. tech that was currently suspended in the middle of an otherwise completely barren metal room. This is so fucking cool!
Her earpiece buzzed again.
“Kate? Come in?”
“Don’t you think we should be using call signs? What if someone’s like... hacking the line or something?”
She heard an audible sigh on the other end of the line.
“Kate I'm not calling you Lady Hawk, we’ve been through this.”
Kate blew a raspberry.
“Alright then Party Pooper. I’m in position, over.”
Another sigh over the line, Kate smirked. She could almost see Clint, hand pinching his ancient wrinkly brow in frustration. He’d been tense all day. All week actually. Well ever since she’d been given her first solo mission to be honest. Kate could handle it, she’d assured him and every agent who would listen (and some that really didn’t want to) that she was ready.
She wasn’t even really sure what they were all worried about. All she was doing was watching something for a night. In one of the most secure facilities that S.H.I.E.L.D had. You literally couldn’t breathe without an alarm going off and sending half the building into lockdown (Kate had apologised profusely once the doors could finally be opened again.)
Clint’s gravelly voice crackled into her ears once more.
“Kate, can you please be serious?”
“Serious as a heart attack Party Pooper, over,” Kate said, shovelling a handful of peanuts into her mouth. Oh, spicy.
“We’ve got eyes all over, but that doesn’t mean somebody won’t attempt to make a move to steal the package. You’re the last line of defence, kid.”
Kate shoved another palmful of peanuts into her mouth, watching the ‘package’ through a grate in the vent she’d stowed herself away in.
“What am i the last line of defence for by the way? Nobody told me in the briefing.”
“For good reason, kid. We can’t risk anybody learning how this tech works, and if you get compromised...”
He let the sentence hang. Kate knew what he meant. You get captured S.H.I.E.L.D can’t trust you not to blab to the enemy. Fate of the world and all that.
“Yeah i get it. Can i get a hint?”
“Kate...”
There was a hint of warning and a large dripping of exasperation in that single word from her mentor. He really enjoyed Kate’s unwavering good nature, she was sure of it. He’d brought her back to his top-secret (everything to do with these people is always top-secret) farmstead for Christmas after all. People who hate their gorgeous, youthful, brilliant proteges did not invite them to the family Christmas at the top-secret family farmstead.
It had been the perfect way to relax after the week leading up to the holidays. Laura and the kids didn’t let her wallow for too long, Lucky was the centre of attention wherever he went, especially with young Nate glued to his side. They’d even somehow found the time to get her some very thoughtful gifts; a talking Hawkeye action figure ( Clint looked so uncomfortable as I rattled through his voice lines!), a particularly ugly Christmas sweater she absolutely adored, and the small box that was sat next to her at this very moment.
Clint had been almost reluctant to hand it over, as they stood over the charred remains of one of the worst periods of the ‘former’ Avenger’s life. They watched the last remnants of the Ronin suit melt into the grill of the barbeque when Clint cleared his throat.
“Here. You complained yours was too big to carry around.”
A small black box was placed in her hands, tied together with a purple bow. Kate nudged Clint in the shoulder.
“Look at you, acting all soft.”
Clint smiled, a slight uptick of his lips which Kate wanted to make fun of immediately. Out of practice at this smiling game old man? But she held her tongue just this once.
Kate pulled the bow off slowly, putting the ribbon in her pocket so she could pull it out and tease Clint about it later. The box itself was lightweight, some sort of metal alloy painted jet black, save for a small spot of purple in the corner. It was held together with magnets and Kate made quick work of snapping the two sides of the box apart.
Her breath caught.
“You mean it?”
Clint smiled more fully now, looking like his face might crack from the sheer effort of it.
“You’ll need it, if you want to keep doing this ‘hero’ business.”
Kate threw her arms around him with a scream that would have deafened him if he didn’t already have to wear a hearing aid. Clint for his part just took it, patting her on the back and probably hoping it would all be over soon. Kate clung to him for an extra few seconds just to make him feel awkward.
“Get the arrows, Old Hawkeye, Hawk Lady wants to practice with her new collapsible bow!”
She flicked the bow open and nearly screamed again. Did Clint feel this cool every time he opened his bow? Kate bet he did. Clint started steering them back towards the house.
“You can practice after dinner, Lila’s been wanted to see which one of you hits the most targets anyway.”
Kate finished her bag of peanuts. She’d checked all of her arrows four times over. She’d determined it was probably Hulk’s left butt cheek that had flattened her cushion from the curvature of the edges. She checked her watch.
It had been seven minutes.
“Soooo... How did you deal with the boredom when you were on one of these missions?”
“Kate, you’re supposed to be watching the package.”
Kate glanced through the grate.
“It’s still there. What did you and Natasha do when you were staking out like this?”
“Noughts and crosses, a lot of hangman. She always managed to sneak a sharpie into her suit.”
Kate chuckled quietly. Let it be known she could in fact be quiet when she wanted to be.
“Wanna play ‘I Spy’?”
When she wanted to be.
Clint didn’t glorify that with a response, she heard the line cut. He’d probably taken out his earpiece for a moment’s peace from her.
Kate let the silence envelope her, taking cursory glances at the package every few moments. The gentle buzzing of the machines keeping whatever was in that tube floating in its advanced security pod. Her thoughts drifted, every moment that lead her here playing back over in her mind like her own personal movie.
Pizza dog.
The Tracksuits on the ice.
Yelena Belova throwing her off a building.
Jumping out of a thirty storey building.
To go after Yelena Belova.
Taking out Kingpin (even if they never found him.)
Finding Clint back on the ice.
No Yelena Belova.
Clint said she’d left. That they’d had their talk, something deep and raw about Natasha. A pain that Kate couldn’t hope to alleviate from the older man. And that she’d headed out into the New York night. Kate didn’t say it out loud, but she was a little disappointed Yelena didn’t say goodbye. I mean who says yes to a drink and then just bails?
Emotionally stunted pint-sized assassins who couldn’t kill their mark would probably bail actually. But it didn’t mean Kate wasn’t going to be annoyed. Kate knew if Yelena had wanted to kill her she would have been dead. Eating macaroni and cheese out of a pan in her burned out apartment the blonde woman was pleasant, Kate would have considered her good company. She’d even given Kate (and by proxy Clint) the info on Kingpin and her mother that lead to them saving Christmas (Kate liked to think she’d saved Christmas, it felt much more heroic.)
And my God she looked gorgeous in that green coat at the fundraiser. And that braid! Kate was desperate to ask her how she did it. Did she need someone to help her or could she do it on her own? Could she do it to Kate’s hair too or was it only for top-notch Russian assassins and Kate’s lowly American hair could only dream of looking that good?
So, yeah. Maybe she’d also spent a little time thinking about Yelena Belova. Like maybe once a day, and a few times in a dream, and one time in a really hot shower she quickly had to switch to cold. They were all moot thoughts, really. Yelena had left, hopefully living a very fulfilling life with no criminal activities of any kind. Though if the reports she’d been secretly reading from S.H.I.E.L.D were anything to go by Yelena hadn’t quite given up the crime game yet. And unfortunately, she was very, very good at criminal things.
“Kate?”
Kate jumped, slamming her head loudly into the top of the air vent.
“Ow, fuck.”
“Kate, we’ve got movement heading to your position.”
Kate’s eyes immediately peered out of the small slats in the grate. The package was still suspended in its little shield. Everything was quiet.
Actually, too quiet.
Where was the whirring of the machinery? Kate scrambled with her arm to grip the black box, trying and failing to silently snap it open to retrieve her bow. Before she could even contemplate flicking it open a thick metal bolt slammed through the vent, narrowly missing her cheek before embedding itself in the roof. Crackling red electricity sprang from the bolt and Kate leapt through the grate before it could electrocute her.
She did not stick the landing. A short roll was all that was between her and a broken neck. She stared up at the buzzing air vent, panting in deep breaths trying to steady her lungs. She fumbled around and quickly gripped her bow, standing while flicking it open. She reached up into her quiver to grab an arrow and came up empty.
Shit. Fucking. Shit.
From the open grate Kate could see the ends of some particularly fun trick arrows poking over the edge. Uselessly high in the air.
“Hey Clint, remember when you said i didn’t need a grapple?”
“Kate, what’s your status?”
“Alive, arrowless, but alive.”
“We’re sending back-up.”
Another shocking red bolt ripped from the shadows and Kate threw herself back to the floor.
“No need, I've got it.”
“Kate.”
“I said I've got it Party Pooper.”
Kate rolled around the floating tech in the centre of the room, hoping to catch a small glimpse of her attacker. The room was basically circular there shouldn’t have even been any shadows to hide in. Atmospheric S.H.I.E.L.D shadows? Brilliant.
Kate spotted a tiny green dot on the far side of the room. She hunched down and launched herself towards it. As she pulled her bow back to smack at whatever she found there she was thrown backwards by a kick square to the ribs.
Breathing was a privilege Kate did not want to lose. She pulled in a deep breath, hoping to right her lungs as she prepared to launch another attack. Before she could even think of standing a heavy boot slammed into her chest and kept her down.
A well-built thigh, encased in stainless white leather and attached to the heavy black boot, showed her attacker was armed. And really good at kicking people in the ribs. Her attacker’s tactical suit was familiar. Right down to the vest, green and clearly modified to hold a lot of items. And all of those items could probably murder Kate in seconds.
Kate attempted to club her attacker with her bow but it was caught far too easily, like the mystery person was just toying with her. They wrenched the bow from Kate’s grasp and tossed it out of Kate’s reach.
“Awwww no fair,” Kate said, almost deliriously as the weight on her chest increased and breathing well and truly became a privilege.
Her attacker looked down at her, were they shaking their head? How could an attacker be disappointed in her? Kate lifted an arm and aimed a punch right at the back of her attacker’s knee. It worked and she could take in air again.
“Сука.”
Kate’s eyes immediately zeroed in on the other person’s eyes. Or where they would be had her attacker not been wearing a very familiar pair of night vision goggles.
“Yelena?”
The other person sighed, pulling at their face covering until a long blonde braid was released, stopping about midway down her back. It was just as intricate as Kate had remembered from the hotel. Had Yelena improved her hair game? Kate hoped not, that was far too much talent for someone already so talented.
Yelena stared down at her for a moment before cracking a smile.
“Kate Bishop. Hi again!”
Kate’s heart did a stupid little flip.
“Yelena, what the hell are you doing here?”
Yelena had already walked away from her, moving towards the suspended tech. Kate stood and tried to make herself look threatening as she gingerly edged towards the Russian.
The shorter woman pulled a key card out of one of her many pockets and inserted it into a panel on the front of the pedestal projecting the shield. The shield dropped and the top-secret S.H.I.E.L.D technology began a gentle descent.
Right towards the assassin’s outstretched hands.
Kate jumped for her bow and didn’t think, whipping it like a boomerang towards the oddly-shaped tube. It connected and both the tube and the bow went careening across the room. Kate careened with them, sprinting desperately to try and outrun one of the world’s best killers. As she jumped, catching the tube like the world’s most expensive football, she caught a flash of red.
Widow bites fucking hurt. Every muscle in Kate’s body protested their very existence as the electricity flooded her body. Her teeth felt like they might crack from the pressure as she fell backwards, the only upside being that she still held the tube in her useless grip.
The shock ended but Kate still had no idea which muscles could work and which were being less than unhelpful. Yelena wandered towards her, without a care in the world. That stupid smile still plastered on her stupidly gorgeous face. It truly wasn’t fair.
Her arms were waking up, she could feel at least four of her fingers. She bought her other arm up and hugged the tube against her body.
“You... can’t... have this.”
Looks like your mouth hasn’t woken up yet. Very intelligent sounding Kate.
Yelena crouched in front of her, all lithe and sinister and utterly fascinating to look at. Kate’s hand clutched around the top of the tube. At least it felt like the top of the tube. Like one of those old pneumatic tube mail things that held the letters. If she twisted it, it felt like it would turn. She tried it desperately.
“Kate Bishop, it is useless. Just give it to me.”
“No.”
Yelena tsked.
“So stubborn. Don’t make me kill you.”
Kate laughed, she couldn’t help it.
“You... don’t want... to kill me. We had... a drink date.”
Yelena frowned.
“It is not Christmas any more Kate Bishop, there are no more Christmas sights for me to see.”
Kate twisted the top again.
“We could go... other places.”
Yelena smirked.
“Kate Bishop, are you asking me out on a date?”
Kate attempted a smile, unsure if both sides of her face were cooperating yet. Electrocution really did suck.
“If you let me go with this... we could go now.”
Thank God her voice was coming back. Yelena looked at her. Like she was really weighing up the pros and cons of giving up her mission for a sightseeing tour with one of New York’s native troublemakers. Kate got momentarily lost in her eyes, watching the gears turn in that awful, brilliant brain of Yelena’s was really fascinating.
Kate almost missed the telltale buzzing of the Widow Bites charging up.
Almost.
As Yelena struck towards her chest Kate pulled the tube open, its content flying out and connecting with Yelena’s outstretched arm. A flash of red and whatever was in that tube exploded into brilliant blue and green light.
Suddenly everything seemed to be moving way too fast. Kate watched her quiver of arrows shudder out of the grate and fall to the ground. They rolled like they were being magnetically drawn into the rainbow explosion around them.
Kate felt her body shift as it began sliding across the floor. Yelena didn’t stay upright much longer.
“Kate, what the hell is going on kid?” Clint buzzed in her ear.
“I don’t know, Yelena electrocuted the thing in the tube and now, OH SHIT, YELENA!”
They were both floating. Honest to goodness floating above the earth.
“Kate Bishop what did you do?”
“You think this is my fault?”
“Yes.”
“Yelena i swear to God...”
The floor expanded, blues and greens zipping around the almost circular space as one by one items began to get drawn into the centre of the area. Kate’s earpiece fizzled.
“K... Ba..up... Get... T.”
The tiny piece of metal dropped through the sea of space and disappeared too. Kate felt her stomach lurch as the newly opened portal began to suck her in too.
The last thing she saw before the light took over everything was Yelena Belova falling right alongside her.