Chapter Text
The argument started over nothing, like it always did.
“You’re reckless,” Kate said, hands waving around her face as she enunciated certain words. If Yelena was less exhausted and annoyed she’d find it endearing. “You don’t think before you act. You don’t even think about me. You’re lucky I was there tonight, otherwise you’d be dead right now.”
Yelena’s eyes narrowed. “Dead? You have no idea what it would take to kill me. Don’t flatter yourself.”
Kate’s hands were balled up into tight fists at her sides now. Yelena took some measure of enjoyment out of it - knowing that she could rile up Kate this much, even after knowing each other for so long. “You always do that. You pretend like you’re invincible. You don’t think I see you? You vanish for days and weeks and you think I don’t know it’s because you get hurt too? It’s not brave, Yelena, it’s fucking selfish.”
They stood in the middle of Kate’s apartment, both still in half-removed jackets, boots wet from the street. Lucky sat near the couch, tense, tail not wagging. He always knew.
Kate’s words glanced off Yelena. Kate had a knack for drama, afterall. She didn’t bother responding, her muscles hurting from the mission. She felt sore all over, like she needed a bath and a massage and a pizza and a vacation. She wouldn’t do any of it.
It wasn’t selfish to disappear to lick her wounds, and it was ridiculous that Kate knew that was why she would disappear every now and again. It was what she had to do. Yelena knew better than to show weakness around Kate, around the Thunderbolts, or anyone else. Widows were never weak.
Yelena bent down to tug her boots off her feet.
“You got shot last month.”
“You stitched me up.” Yelena responded, into her boot. “That was selfish.”
“This is not a good system, Yelena.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I needed your permission to get shot.”
Kate looked at her like she wanted to say a thousand things. Yelena looked up at her, still bent down, and sighed, feeling a burning, hot sensation in her stomach. It was more than just the anxiety pooling there, which was always present when Kate was mad at her. It was anxiety, but it was also fresh blood. She must have gotten slashed during the mission fight. And given the topic of their current fight, she didn’t really care to ask Kate to help her out with it. With a sigh, she laced up her boot once more, not having been able to take it off in the first place.
“So what, you’re leaving now?” Kate demanded, and a moment later Yelena saw Kate in her periphery, moving closer. She dodged the hand as it tried to land on her arm, not bothering to make eye contact with Kate.
“Why are you doing this? It’s like you’re just - you’re - you just bleed for all these people that wouldn’t bleed for you. Is that it? Is your sense of self worth so fucking small you have to be the one in the firing line all the time?”
Yelena’s head pounded, her fingers beginning to shake as she finished tying the boot and stood up.
“Stop shutting down on me! I’m talking to you, I’m here!” Kate’s hand reached for Yelena’s arm once more, and Yelena let it land this time.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She said, looking into Kate’s eyes, finding tears there. She wanted to bring her hand up, brush them away, and tuck in for a comfortable night with her. She had to get out of here - if she stayed any longer she’d give in and let Kate coddle her. She’d enjoy the cozy, warm feeling she had around her, let it lull her into a false sense of security. It wouldn’t be right.
Yelena was first in the firing line, today and always. Kate was from a different world than Yelena, and to forget that was delusional, even for just a minute. Yelena’s job was to protect Kate, and the others, not to indulge in stupid fantasies.
She grabbed her backpack from the table and slung it over her shoulder. Her throat felt tight.
Kate looked away, for a moment, and Yelena took the opportunity to walk back to the door, her boots squelching on Kate’s fancy hardwood floor.
“So, what, you’re done?”
Yelena paused at the door. “No,” she said. “I’m tired.”
And then she was gone.
____________________________________________________________________________
Yelena had kept her distance for a safe period of time. Let Kate cool down. Waited for the inevitable text from Kate that she needed help on a mission, or was stuck in her suit, or some other flimsy excuse that Yelena would treat gravely serious, desperate for a reason to make up again. It usually only took a day or two, so Yelena thought nothing of it, at first.
On day four, a heavy feeling began to settle. Yelena may have pushed it too far this time, which was ridiculous, because she had actually said virtually nothing during the fight, it was all Kate. She had said much worse things during other fights, so Kate not talking to her over this minor scrap was actually pretty annoying.
On day six, Yelena wished she had a picture of Kate on her phone, one of them together on a mission or something, just something to take the dread out of her stomach. She moped around the thunderbolts tower feeling sorry for herself. She picked fights with Walker, and held her own against him during sparring matches. She avoided Bob’s searching gaze, which she was certain would give her away.
On day eight, Alexei told her to grow up and just talk to Kate. And so she showered, and for a few moments fussed with her hair, and carefully plucked out a suit that she thought made her look quite nice, and ignored the looks from the team as she left the tower.
The mail was stacked up outside Kate’s door. An alarm bell began ringing in her head. She made quick work of Kate’s lock and gingerly walked in to the dark apartment.
“Hello…?” She called out into the apartment, hearing her voice echo back. No Kate.
Her quiver was hanging by the door. The kitchen was clean, her bed untouched. Yelena checked her phone - still no texts, no calls. Her fingers moved of their own accord, calling Kate (the contact not saved, but she knew the number). Kate’s phone rang, an annoying song echoing through the apartment. Yelena found it under her bed, the screen cracked and battery on 2%.
Suddenly the room felt hollow, like something had been scooped out of it. She was aware of the smell of Kate’s perfume and the very faint smell of Kate’s sweat, still lingering in the sheets. She clocked Kate’s old college hoodie draped over the back of a chair. It felt wrong, invasive.
She didn’t panic. There was no sign of a break-in. No note. No Lucky, either - his food dish was clean. Either someone had taken the dog or disposed of it ( him) .
Yelena felt herself become hollowed, too. Kate was gone. She was the only person that really, really understood Yelena, next to maybe Bob. Kate saw Yelena, and she wasn’t used to benign seen. She was everything to Yelena. Her lightness, the way she smiled, the way she curled up on the couch next to Yelena as though Yelena weren’t a monster.
Yelena dialled a new number into her phone.
“Barton,” Clint answered. Rough voice. Static in the background.
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“What?”
“Kate. When was the last time you saw her?”
A beat of silence. “I thought she was with you.”
Yelena’s hand clenched around Kate’s dead phone.
“She’s obviously not with me.”
The security camera on the building across the street was fried. Literally — burned out circuitry, probably shorted with a device that would have been expensive and custom-built. Yelena pursed her lips, perpetually annoyed. She called Ava, asked her to hit up every traffic cam within a six-block radius. Most of them were junk. A few gave her fragments. Just enough.
A black SUV. Tinted windows. Plate blurred — someone had run magnetic overlays. Amateur-hour, but effective.
Kate, being dragged into it, not long after Yelena had left more than a week ago.
She traced it for three blocks before it vanished under an overpass near the Navy Yard. Walker had a contact with the NYPD. She didn’t need to make any threats to make him help her - he looked at her like he expected her to need his help, and she saw a mirror in his eyes. The look of someone whose lost their closest allies before.
He gave her a piece of paper the next day, with no words required. At the top of the page was printed “Langston Security”, in offendingly large text. Such a casual name. She recognized it, anyway, remembering Kate idly talking about mercs with fake IDs and too many toys while she stirred Hamburger Helper.
“Corrupt as hell,” she’d said. “No paper trail. No accountability. Total spook city.”
Yelena had tuned half of it out, just happy to spend time with Kate, each doing their own thing. Probably in the middle of cleaning her stupid fucking gun. Her gun that was at her side now, and had distracted her from paying attention.
Now she wished she’d listened harder.
____________________________________________________________________
Kate’s wrists were still bound. Rope, this time, instead of cuffs. They were just tight enough that her hands would go tingly unless she kept them moving, constantly, the friction from the rope rubbing her wrists raw. She couldn’t see behind herself, but she could assume blood would come soon.
Rope also meant less noise when you tried to twist out, though. She stayed at it, constantly. The pain kept her grounded in the moment, keeping her from thinking of the information they probably wanted from her, from whatever they would’ve done to Lucky, from Yel-
Couldn’t think about that.
She hadn’t said anything to the guards, hadn’t cried, hadn’t screamed. They hadn’t given her any food, and she couldn’t tell how long she’d been here. Every once in a while a masked man would enter the basement and force a bottle of water down her throat, not that she needed him to, she understand the necessity, thanks very much. Afterward he’d watch her for a while, as if waiting for her to do something. She remained silent, as much as it pained her to keep her mouth shut. Kate was a talker, but now wasn’t the time. She assumed they were waiting for her to break the silence first, and would prolong the process.
But she was starting to worry she’d miscalculated.
She was tired - no, exhausted. She couldn’t sleep in the metal chair she was tied to, a consequence of being a ‘rich girl’ as Yel- as she called Kate. Her head hurt from when they’d taken her. Her lip had split again. Her eye was swelling shut.
She thought about her.
God, she hated that. The last thing Kate wanted was to think about her. But there wasn’t much else to do.
Her piercing eyes. The feeling of home when they were together, a companionship that Kate had never felt before. A domestic comfort of asking someone how their day was, and feeling yourself warm at the sound of their voice. Kate knew her so well, she could picture her responses to normal conversations, she carried Yelena with her even when she wasn’t around.
The last time she saw Yelena - clearly hurting, exhausted, lacing up her boots and pretending like her white suit wasn’t slowly turning redder. Kate hated herself for that. So caught up in the argument and Yelena’s stubbornness she didn’t stop her before she left to patch herself up, alone. If she’d said something differently, if she’d stopped Yelena, if she just would’ve put someone else’s health above her own need to be right, she could’ve helped the other girl. And that was so Kate, so obsessed with winning the argument she lost the entire relationship.
After Yelena had left, Kate had sunk down into a chair at the kitchen table and cried harder than she had in a long time. Pressure built behind her eyes until she couldn’t take it and she broke down in ugly, wrenching tears at her kitchen table (that bore coffee stains from Yelena not using a coaster that one time). And then the coffee stains made her cry harder because here she was feeling sorry for herself and Yelena was outside somewhere in the rain bleeding. She pushed her palms at her eyes and try to staunch the tears as if they were a wound, and she saw stars and took deep breaths and forced herself to calm down.
She took out her phone to call Yelena, and had just enough time to catch the reflection of a man with a bat standing behind her before everything went black.
And here she was. Kate knew that Yelena wasn’t coming for her. She had made that clear. Her line had been crossed (more like Kate had crossed the line). Yelena had packed her bag and walked out and hadn’t looked back. Yelena was capable, more so than anyone Kate had ever known. If she wanted to find Kate, Kate would’ve been found by now. No, what this meant was that Yelena wasn’t even looking for her. They were done, truly. And it was more Kate’s fault than Yelena’s. Her own voice echoed in her ears “So what, you’re done?” . She tried to imagine how Yelena would’ve heard it - a plea for her to come back, and let Kate help her? No, probably not. Probably more like a push out the door.
The thought would’ve brought her to her knees had she been standing. As is, her throat felt especially dry. She ran her tongue over her cracked lip, aggravating it, and twisted her wrists in the rope, feeling them chafe.
Kate wasn’t going to be that girl, sitting around waiting for rescue. It wasn’t going to come.
_______________________________________________________________________
Yelena didn’t sleep. It wasn’t an exaggeration—it was literal. She didn’t close her eyes. Not when she was in the shower. Not when she was sitting at the desk in the Thunderbolts' ops room. Not when she laid on her cot and stared at the ceiling. It wasn’t just about guilt, but that was part of it. It wasn’t just about rage, either.
It was about her.
It was about Kate.
The way she had taken over Yelena’s life, before she was taken. The way Yelena needed her to be safe. Yelena broke into the Langston office in Queens that night, not bothering to be quiet about it.
It seemed as though Langston liked their glass doors and polished conference tables, the same way Yelena liked to shatter them as she walked by. She sent the receptionist running with nothing but a look and a flash of her handgun and took the elevator to the top floor, where the lights were still on and the computers hadn’t logged out. She was in a borrowed suit, all black, with the collar popped, and a tactical knife hidden up one sleeve, gun under the waistband of her coat. Her braid was tight and coiled.
The door was locked. Yelena kicked it open.
Three men inside. Two stood. One stayed seated.
“I have some questions,” she said in that accent of hers that always made Americans underestimate her until it was too late.
“Excuse me -” one of them began.
She crossed the room and had him pinned against the wall before he could blink. “Excuse me,” she mocked.
The other one went for a drawer. Mistake. She shot the gun out of his hand without hesitation, enjoying the yelp of pain as he crumpled to the ground, holding his hand and crying. Weak men, her mind supplied, these are weak men.
The man in the chair stood.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You’re the other girl.”
Yelena didn’t move. “Sure, I can be the girl. Right now, I am looking for another girl, sound familiar?”
He smiled faintly, nervously. He gave away too much.
Yelena moved fast, closing the distance and shoved the muzzle of her gun beneath his chin, feeling his clammy skin shake. She took her other hand and fisted it into his hair, forcing his head down into the gun. “You’re going to tell me exactly where she is.”
“Why- why would I do that?”
“I think your friends want to live.”
She heard movement behind her and fired a round without looking. A scream followed, the wet sound of a thigh wound. Not fatal, but ugly. Her voice remained calm.
“That was your warning shot. The next one is permanent.”
The man in the chair didn’t blink, but Yelena saw his face slowly turning red, eyes shifting, terrified, around the room before landing on her again. “She’s not here,” he said.
“Fucking obviously, where. is. she?”
“I don’t know. That’s need-to-know. I’m- I’m serious, I would tell you if I knew”
“Then you get to take me to who needs to know.”
She twisted her wrists again. The rope had cut into her skin now, and was sticky and warm with blood. Gross, she thought. The light above her flickered. Again.
Footsteps, this time - two pairs, a departure from the typical single visitor with a bottle of water. Heavier boots and something softer. A mechanical click followed. The heavy door creaked open, letting in a draft of cooler air and the quiet hum of voices just beyond the threshold.
Then, he stepped in. The one and only Langston. Kate had only seen his face in grainy surveillance stills and agency briefings. Ex-special forces turned contractor, disappeared off the grid four years ago and came back with private funding and his own fleet of mercenaries, and a peg leg, with no background on how he lost his leg.
He wore tactical black, but relaxed, casual, almost. No mask, no rush. This likely wasn’t the first basement he’d used, and it wouldn’t be the last. That was just as well, it wasn’t Kate’s first rodeo either.
His peg leg scraped against the concrete as he walked around her like she was a piece of furniture, something he was inspecting.
“You’d really think you would fund a better leg with all that dirty work you’ve been doing Langston. Kind of bottom of the line.” She said, unable to turn to watch him as he limped behind her. At first he didn’t respond, then he finished his circle and stopped in front of her again.
“I’d ask how you're holding up,” he said finally, voice smoother than she’d imagined, and actually a little effeminate. “But I don’t actually care.”
“Wow, a sassy mercenary. You’re original.” He smirked, and bent down so they were level.
“I’ll get to the point,” he continued, crouching so they were level. “You were supposed to be a loose end. But! Lucky for you, someone upstairs seems to think you’re valuable.” He tapped her forehead lightly with a gloved finger. She moved to bite his finger, thinking it’s what Yelena would do. “So congratulations. You get to live - long enough to be useful.”
“Funny, I was just going to say the same thing to you.”
He smiled. No teeth. “Where’s the drive?”
A chill swept through her. So that’s what this is about.
“What drive?” she asked, cool. She knew immediately her eyebrows gave it away by the way he exhaled through his nose, almost like he was amused.
“You don’t strike me as the stoic type, Bishop. But fine. You’ve got time to think about it. The water’s free. The food costs answers.”
He stood, brushing nonexistent dust from her shoulders.
“Tell me where the drive is, and maybe I let the dog live.”
Kate’s blood went cold. “Where’s Lucky?”
Langston didn’t answer. Just smiled again - smug, and turned to leave.
“If you hurt him, I’ll hurt you 10 times worse.”
The door slammed shut. Kate sat frozen, nausea clawing its way up her throat. So they didn’t know where the drive was, not yet. Langston wasn’t as smart as he pretended to be. She remembered handing Yelena the drive after the last mission, before the fight. Langston kidnapped the wrong girl. Which was fine - it meant he didn’t have his hands on the drive, and didn’t know where it was. It meant she had more leverage than she’d thought.
And it meant Lucky was still alive.
She squeezed her eyes shut and took a shaking breath, forcing herself to catalogue what she knew.
Langston Security. Soundproofed room. Likely underground. She wasn’t alone - she could hear other movements, other voices when the door opened. That meant more prisoners. Or guards. Possibly both.
Yelena would’ve figured it out already.
No. Don’t think about her. Don’t.
Kate bit the inside of her cheek until it bled. She twisted her wrists until she could feel a fresh wave of blood cascading down them.
Whatever happened, she couldn’t tell them Yelena had the drive.
Langston had a storage facility in Brooklyn. Hidden under the guise of "cold storage" for pharmaceutical logistics. There were six armed guards. Infrared sensors. And a code-locked elevator down to the sub-level.
Yelena arrived at three a.m., leaving Jeremy hogtied across the street, with the threat of killing him slowly, with a gutshot, fresh in his mind.
She didn’t go through the front. She scaled the scaffolding two buildings down, zip-lined across the street (thank you, Ava), and dropped into the compound from the roof. Classic infiltration- but messier. Faster. She didn’t give a shit about stealth by now. She wanted them to know someone was coming.
She was a shadow. A blur. Two guards went down with tranquilizers to the throat. Another got a knife to the gut, twisted just enough to make him scream but not die. His comm was still live when he begged for help. That was the point.
She made it to the elevator and stared at the keypad. She didn’t know the code. But someone would tell her.
She dragged the third guard across the floor, his face slick with blood, and pressed his broken fingers against the biometric scanner. “Try the code.”
“I don’t-”
She broke another finger. “Try. The. Code.”
He whimpered and punched in six digits. Nothing.
Another finger. Another try. This one buzzed.
The elevator doors slid open.
Yelena dropped him.
Her heart pounded in her chest in the elevator. Kate was nearby. She knew she was - Jeremy had staked his life and his children’s lives on it. Not that that meant much, his wife had taken the kids in the divorce and was across the country with them currently. That’s what he gets for cheating on Kim.
Yelena should really send Kim some flowers when she finishes with this. Maybe Kate will help her pick out a nice arrangement.
The basement was cold when the elevator doors opened. Her jaw clenched. If Kate was being kept in a cold basement that wasn’t alright. She added it to the mental list of things to punish Langston for.
Yelena strode down the barren, concrete hallway, peaking in every door nearby, hoping to see Kate behind any one of them. Her gun was drawn, hands clenched around it.
She found a monitor room tucked behind a locked panel. It took her ten seconds to fry the security system with an EMP disk and hardwire the cameras into her own feed (again, thanks Ava). That was when she saw her.
Kate.
Tied to a chair. Slumped forward. Hair perfect, despite being matted with sweat and blood. Face puffy and swollen, but still hers. Still breathing. Still alive.
Yelena’s breath caught.
She snapped a photo of the camera ID tag and traced the location—Sub-B, corridor 4.
She ran.
She shot everyone that got in her way. They didn’t even stand a chance. They should’ve known better, had probably gotten warning from the main office earlier that day but clearly hadn’t taken enough precaution.
She moved like muscle memory - bullets, fists, elbows, no survivors. When one tried to grab her braid, she broke his wrist and drove her knee into his sternum.
Then it was quiet, and all that was left was Yelena’s pants in an empty hallway, surrounded by bodies. Her hand found purchase around the door to Kate’s cell, and she didn’t think twice before flinging it open.
The chair creaked when Kate stirred, but she didn’t look up. Not right away.
“Kate,” Yelena said.
Kate flinched.
Yelena stopped. “It’s me.”
Slowly, Kate lifted her head. One eye was nearly swollen shut. Her lips were cracked, her nose bruised, but she was still so unmistakably her.
“‘Lena…” she said, a half smile on her face. Her voice was gravelly, rough from disuse. She was wearing the same clothes as last week.
Yelena swallowed the lump in her throat. “Hey.”
Kate gave a breathy, broken laugh. “Took you long enough.”
Yelena was already kneeling behind her, undoing the red brown rope from her wrists. “I know. I’m sorry.” Once it was untied, it stuck to Kate’s hands, embedded. She winced and ripped it off, knowing it to be better to tear it away quickly. Kate hissed and groaned in pain, and Yelena rubbed her shoulders and eased her arms in front of her, ignoring the feeling of elation, finding Kate intact, mentally and physically.
“Didn’t think you were coming.”
“I’ll always come for you.”
Kate didn’t answer.
Yelena’s hands trembled as she reached for the ropes around Kate’s ankles, while Kate rubbed her wrists and inspected them in front of her. Her fingers brushed raw skin, and Kate hissed again.
“Sorry,” Yelena said.
Kate shook her head. “Don’t apologize. Let’s just- get out of here.”
Yelena finished with the knots and slid an arm under her armpits, steadying her as they stood up. Kate sagged into her like instinct, like Yelena was a natural extension of her own body. And Yelena took it, easily. They made a nice pair, limping out into the hallway.
There stood the Thunderbolts, surveying the damage. Kate couldn’t help but join in.
“You really did a number on these guys, huh?” She asked Yelena, her voice slurred slightly from lack of food. Yelena didn’t respond, didn’t shrug her shoulders.
“Yeah, we thought we’d help but… it looks like you got it…” Walker said, rolling a dead body over with his foot. Lucky, now freed, licked at the blood happily.
Kate sat curled up in the back of the car, her hoodie draped over her shoulders, shaking from adrenaline and shock. Yelena stroked her hand through her hair, assuring herself that Kate was still there. Real. Breathing. Thankful that Bob offered to drive so she could focus on Kate. She drunk her in like she was a dying of thirst, wishing she could wrap Kate in her arms and never let go.
Kate caught her looking once.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Kate gave her a ghost of a smile. “You look like shit.”
Yelena barked a laugh. “So do you.”
They didn’t say anything for a while.
Then Kate’s voice came, quiet.
“I thought you were done with me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Well, you left.”
“I came back.”
Kate didn’t answer. She just looked out the window. And after a minute, she murmured, “Thanks.”
Yelena’s throat felt tight. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do.”
They drove in silence, save for the soft hum of the engine and the noise of the city bleeding into dawn.
Yelena took her back to the Thunderbolts tower. Kate’s apartment was too exposed, and too fresh. At the tower, if anyone came for Kate they’d have to go through Alexei.
Kate collapsed onto the large, comfortable couch without complaint, her head lolling to the side. Yelena watched Bucky open his mouth to complain about blood stains on the couch, and fixed him with a glare that could kill. He slunk off to his room, and the rest of the team left Yelena and Kate in peace in the living room, the glow of the city bouncing off the floor.
“I’ll patch you up,” Yelena said softly.
Kate closed her eyes. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
She said it with a finality that brokered no argument.
Kate flinched as Yelena cleaned the wounds. Lips pressed together. Silent tears pooling at the corners of her eyes, but not falling.
Yelena dabbed blood from her lip with a wet cloth, watching the way it caught slightly and then released, pink-brown with blood. Took in the way Kate’s eyelashes brushed gently against her skin, the way she still looked so alive even when half dead. “You’re so pretty,” she muttered, mostly to herself.
Kate smiled through a split mouth. “Liar.”
“Maybe a little.”
They were quiet again, Yelena washing the cloth and gently working it against Kate’s scalp, pushing the skin together where it was split and applying a butterfly bandage. It was too late, probably, to prevent a scar, but it gave Yelena an excuse to stay with Kate even just a moment longer.
She tended to her gingerly, aware of every minute flinch or sigh coming from Kate. She dressed her gently in some comfortable, breathable clothes, and silently accepted she was done taking care of Kate for the night. She got an ice cold glass of water for Kate, and sat it next to her, drinking in the sight of her before she had to leave.
Then Kate’s hand crept over, fingers brushing Yelena’s wrist.
“Stay?”
Yelena didn’t hesitate.
She sank down onto the floor beside the couch, letting Kate lean against her, one hand tucked gently into the curve of Kate’s ribs where it wouldn’t hurt.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Outside, the city kept breathing. But in that moment, and for the first time in days, Yelena let herself breathe too. Not because it was over, Langston was still at large. Not because it was okay, someone had to pay for what they had done to Kate.
But because she had her back.
Because she had Kate.
And that was the only thing that had ever really mattered.