Chapter Text
“We will be seeing each other shortly.”
That’s what Yelena had said. Kate remembers it very well: “We will be seeing each other shortly.”
Those seven words had led Kate to believe that, you know, they would be seeing each other shortly.
And then Yelena drops off of the map.
The first two days that pass without Yelena responding to Kate's "Fun night last night! Congrats again. Let me know when you get our next mission 😎" text don't worry Kate that much. She’s trying to be chill about this, after all. This is the new and improved Kate, who’s learned her lessons about double-texting, who isn’t going to scare this woman away from ever wanting to work with her again.
(Although - would it be possible to scare Yelena away? Is it possible to even scare Yelena, period?)
After the third day passes without a word, Kate folds, sending Yelena her a quick follow-up text - "Hey, did you find any work for us?"
No response.
Kate does her best to distract herself from her cruel phone. She teaches Lucky how to speak on command. She invites her friends Greer and Franny to spend a weekend at her place. She goes axe throwing with her old archery buddy, Josh (and is immediately amazing at it, thanks for asking). She paints her nails purple. She chips at her nails. She scrubs the paint off of her nails.
On the eighth day, Kate calls Yelena. She's sent straight to voicemail.
“Hey, Yelena,” Kate says, pacing back and forth in her apartment. “Just calling to check in. Uh, thought maybe I would’ve heard from you by now, but I guess not. Wanted to see if we were still on for the whole "working together" thing? Call me back. Byeeee,” she says, dragging out the last word in a pathetic attempt to sound casual that instead makes her think she should be barred from speaking to another human being ever again.
After four more days go by in silence, Kate’s completely given up on hearing back from Yelena. It's sort of a huge bummer. God, she had been looking forward to working again. She misses that feeling of being useful, of challenging her skills, of being able to help people.
She misses Yelena.
She misses Yelena terribly, in a way that doesn't really track with how long Kate's known her. But there was something about that woman, how worked in tandem, complimented each other, and goofed off together that makes her absence leave a shockingly huge hole in Kate's life. They danced to Queen together. Kate doesn't feel like she deserves to be ghosted after that. It's deeply unfair, and incredibly painful.
And thus Kate finds herself right back in Depression Town, USA. Her apartment, which she now barely leaves, is back to being a huge mess, she's ordering takeout so frequently that she's recognizing the Uber Eats drivers, and she's clocking in way too much time watching reality TV. Tonight feels particularly pathetic. It's Friday, yet Kate's in her bed, in her flannel PJ pants and college sweatshirt, with no one but Marie Kondo on her laptop to keep her company.
This is, of course, when Yelena shows up.
“Chocolate or vanilla?”
Kate is so startled she knocks her laptop off of her lap. Yelena's perched in her window, a pint of ice cream in each hand.
“Holy fuck!” Kate exclaims. “What the hell, Yelena?”
“Not a fan of ice cream, then?” Yelena says. “Or did I bring the wrong flavors? I thought you wouldn't be able to object to such standard - ”
“Jesus Christ, you can’t come in here without warning!” Kate interrupts, surprised at how angry she is. “I called you. You could have called me back.”
“I can see that you are mad at me,” Yelena says, hopping down from the windowsill. “I apologize. I have been very busy the last few days.”
“Too busy to send a text?” Kate says.
“Yes,” Yelena says simply. “My daddy got himself into a tricky situation. I had to help him out.”
“And you didn’t want me to come with you?” Kate asks.
"I thought it would be better for you not to get involved. My father is a very messy man. He got himself in a lot of trouble with a Siberian politician. Would you have wanted to go to Siberia, Kate?”
“I don’t know - maybe!” Kate huffs. “I thought we were supposed to be partners," she adds, fully aware that she is pouting.
“Partners, yes!" Yelena says. "I do want us to be partners. Kate and Yelena, taking down the bad guys, it is a good idea! But if you are expecting me to be the reliable type, and to respond to every text you send, then you are going to be very disappointed. I’m sorry if I gave you a different impression.”
A snap of hurt reverberates in Kate's chest at those words.
“After all, I am still a spy,” Yelena continues. “Sometimes I will not be available. Sometimes I will be busy. Sometimes I will be gone." She pauses, taking in Kate's crestfallen face. "Kate Bishop, do not look so sad! I like you and I want to work with you - truly. But I have my own affairs to attend to.”
“I get it,” Kate says glumly.
“I can see you are still upset. This is why I brought the ice cream. I thought it would cheer you up. I brought this for you all the way from Siberia. It is much better than your American ice cream. Come on, let us have a girl’s night again. What is this you are watching?”
“Tidying up with Marie Kondo,” Kate mutters, still stung by Yelena's words.
“Hmm,” Yelena hums, taking a long look around Kate’s apartment. “I think maybe you should stop watching this show. It is clearly not working.”
Kate lets out a laugh despite herself. Yelena grins widely in response, clearly pleased at having broken Kate’s bad mood for a moment.
“So, chocolate or vanilla?” Yelena asks again, holding up the two containers of ice cream.
“Vanilla,” Kate says, giving in.
Yelena nods in approval. “It is the better flavor. I will get us spoons. You have two spoons, right?”
“Uh. . .”
A minute later, Yelena has joined Kate on the bed with a spoon and a fork. (“You will have to use the fork, Kate Bishop, as a punishment for your cutlery crimes.”) She props the container of ice cream between them, and they alternate digging their respective utensils into the dessert. It turns out Yelena wasn’t exaggerating - Russian ice cream is really good. It helps dissipate Kate's remaining anger towards Yelena.
“So what’s your father like?” Kate asks after a few quiet minutes have passed.
“He is a stupid man,” Yelena says bluntly. “He thinks he can punch his way out of any situation. I tell him, Daddy, one day I will not be there to help you, and then you will be fucked. But I am a softie. I help him every time.”
"Do you get to see him often?"
"No, not so often. A few times a year. But until recently, I had gone many, many years without seeing him. So it is a huge improvement. I was thinking I might bring him and my mother to New York for Christmas next year. I did not exactly get to appreciate Rockefeller Center last time I was there."
"And whose fault was that?" Kate jests.
"You are right, I have only myself to blame," Yelena concedes. "Next time, I will not plan my misguided assassination attempts to overlap with the holidays."
Kate laughs softly at that. "Where are you staying, by the way?"
"I have a few go-to hotels. Some nice, some not so nice. But all discrete. And they all serve continental breakfast. How I love those little muffins! Although the hotel I am at now, a bit of a disappointment. They do not leave the mint on the pillow."
"If you ever wanted to, you could stay over here," Kate offers. "There's plenty of room. We could split the bed.”
Kate's freaking out before the words have left her mouth. Was that flirty? She didn’t mean it to be flirty. She just happens to have a King sized bed is all, and whenever her friends come over they always end up sharing it. Like, the other weekend, when Greer and Franny were in the city, all three of them fit on it pretty comfortably.
Yes, Kate doesn't happen to find either Greer or Franny as attractive as the woman sitting right next to her. Thanks for pointing that out.
“Or you could take the couch. Or I could take the couch!” Kate rushes to add. “Lucky would be happy to have you over,” Kate says, and then tries to laugh, but it comes out shrill and incredibly lame.
"Maybe," Yelena says non committedly, seemingly ignoring Kate’s awkwardness. But then she shifts, slightly, infinitesimally but unmistakably closer, in a way that brings the side of her arm into contact with Kate's.
It’s literally just a brush of the arm, but it sends a shockwave of desire through Kate's entire body. Arms aren't even that sexy, Kate chastises herself. (This is a lie, though. Yelena's arms are, in fact, very sexy.) You need to fucking chill. But she is not able to chill, especially when her nose picks up on that distinct scent of Yelena's that she noticed for the first time in the bar, smoke mixed with caramel and a hint of sweat. She swallows hard and keeps her eyes intently on the show.
"Wow, the way she folds clothes sure is something else," Kate says loudly.
“This show is boring to me,” Yelena says, unimpressed. “I want to do something else.”
“Like what?” Kate asks, pausing the show and turning to Yelena.
Yelena hums thoughtfully before speaking. “I heard an interesting phrase the other day, on the streets of the city,” Yelena says. “Have you ever heard of ‘Netflix and chill?'”
Kate chokes on the mouthful of ice cream she’s just forked into her mouth. “What?” she coughs out.
“Netflix and chill,” Yelena repeats, casually. “This is something you young Americans say, no?”
“You’ve never heard of this phrase before,” Kate says, disbelievingly.
“No,” Yelena replies.
“You want me to explain the phrase 'Netflix and chill' to you."
“Yes."
Kate looks at Yelena for a long moment, trying to discern if she’s pulling her leg. Yelena returns the gaze, her eyes all wide and innocent.
“Well, it means hooking up," Kate says finally. "Like, you invite someone over to watch Netflix, and then you have sex. You don't actually watch any TV. Netflix is just an excuse to invite them over,” she explains, trying not to blush. (She’s failing.)
“This is what I thought,” Yelena says.
“So you did know what it was,” Kate points out.
“Yes, but I wanted to hear you say it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Kate says, her heart suddenly beating very loudly in her ears.
“You are an attractive woman,” Yelena says, her voice somehow huskier than usual. Without dropping her gaze from Kate's, she shifts her left hand to her right, gripping the ring on her index finger. One by one, she slowly pulls her rings off of her hand, collecting them in her palm. Kate watches, absolutely hypnotized by the slide of each ring down Yelena's finger.
“What are you getting at?” Kate asks after a pause, once she trusts her voice not to waver.
Yelena shrugs as she slips the last ring off of her finger. “While I was in Siberia, I kept thinking about how well we worked together the other month. You and I, we are very in sync. I was thinking, we might be able to work together in a different way." She drops the collection of rings onto Kate's bedside table. They land with a soft plunk. "If you wanted," Yelena finishes.
Kate’s stunned into silence. It seems altogether too likely that she's had a sudden mental breakdown and hallucinated the last five minutes. Yelena waits for a moment as Kate looks at her like an idiot, her mouth agape. Then Yelena's face falls - a small frown tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“I might have misread some things," Yelena says, shifting away from Kate. "I can go -”
“No,” Kate says quickly, her hand darting out to grab onto Yelena’s wrist, keeping her in place. “You haven’t - you haven’t misread anything,” Kate says.
Yelena smiles in relief, and then she's reaching out to Kate and pulling her in for a heated kiss.
Yelena’s lips might taste like vanilla, but that’s the only thing sweet about this. Her mouth is immediately open against Kate's, her tongue pushing past her lips still sticky with ice cream, parting her mouth open. Kate can't help but moan as Yelena licks into her mouth. She's scrambling to keep up with how fast this is going, reacting purely on instinct, her mind fuzzy with lust. Trying to gain some control of the situation, she breaks away from the kiss long enough to sink her teeth into Yelena's bottom lip. Yelena retaliates by yanking Kate’s sweater over her head.
"Oh," Yelena says, stopping short in surprise - Kate wasn't wearing anything under her sweater. Her hooded eyes take in Kate's flushed chest greedily.
She leans in slowly, shifting onto her hands and knees above Kate, and presses a searing kiss to her neck.
“Kate Bishop,” Yelena murmurs against her skin in between open mouthed kisses. “Before we go any further, can you promise me you are going to be cool about this?”
“Huh? Oh yeah. Yeah, I'll be cool about this,” Kate breathes out. “Totally cool.”
"This will not affect our other partnership?" Yelena asks.
"No, not at all," Kate says, the words coming out more strangled than she'd like.
“Okay, then,” Yelena says, punctuating the sentence with a nip right above Kate's collarbone. “If you promise.”
Her hand skims up the side of Kate’s body, leaving muscles rippling in her wake, until she reaches her breast, palming it roughly. She leans over, dropping her mouth, still slightly chilled from the ice cream, to Kate's nipple. She sucks gently, pulling it between her teeth.
As she squirms above Yelena, Kate calmly discerns that she no longer has any bones left in the lower half of her body. They've all turned to mush.
Seemingly satisfied with the state she's rendered Kate into, Yelena firmly grabs Kate's hips and pulls her to the edge of the bed, kneeling on the floor between her legs and sliding Kate's flannel pants and underwear down to the floor in one graceful movement.
And then Yelena's tongue is on her, and fuck. She has to put her arm over her face to hide the stupefied expression she's sure she's making. Yelena's strokes get bolder, forcing a whimper from Kate's throat. She clamps her hand over her own mouth before she can let out any more embarrassing noises as Yelena continues to lap at her.
Yelena is good at this. Holy shit, Yelena is fucking good at this. Which isn't a surprise, so to say. Theoretically, if Kate had imagined having sex with Yelena, (and again this is theoretical and not something that happened in the two weeks she waited for Yelena to call), she would have imagined it being something Yelena was very good at it. But experiencing it firsthand - fuck. Yelena's tongue flutters against Kate in a way that causes her leg to start shaking. This is probably something she would be self-conscious about, if she had the mental capacity to think about anything other than how good Yelena's mouth feels on her.
Kate doesn’t think she’s ever been this turned on before. If she has, she’s never been turned on this fast. It’s overwhelming.
It’s a little too overwhelming.
“Wait, wait,” Kate says, pressing her fingertips against Yelena’s forehead.
Yelena immediately draws away. “Are you okay?” she says looking up at Kate, her brow creased with concern.
“Yes," Kate says quickly. "Yes, sorry, it was - that was a lot.”
“Do you want to stop?” Yelena asks, resting her chin on Kate’s hip.
“No!” Kate says loudly. “No, I don't want to stop. I just need a second.”
“不！”凯特大声说道。“不，我不想停下。我只需要一秒钟。”
“Whenever you’re ready,” Yelena murmurs into the dip of Kate's hip. She places a few soft kisses there as Kate inhales deeply, trying to pull herself together. After a moment, her arousal settles into something survivable.
“等你准备好了，”叶莲娜轻语，唇瓣轻贴在凯特的髋窝处。她在那儿落下几个温柔的吻，凯特深吸一口气，试图让自己镇定下来。片刻之后，她的情欲平息至可以承受的程度。
“Okay,” Kate says. “Okay, I want to keep going.”
“好吧，”凯特说。“好吧，我想继续下去。”
“Good,” Yelena says, kissing her way back down. “Would you want me to use my fingers?"
“很好，”叶莲娜说着，一路向下吻去。“你想让我用手指吗？”
“God, yes,” Kate says, leaning back and closing her eyes again.
“天啊，是的，”凯特说着，向后靠去，再次闭上眼睛。
Yelena's tongue is softer against her when she returns to Kate's center, easing her slowly back into a frenzied state. She waits until Kate is panting again before pushing two of her fingers into her. Kate takes her in easily, her body throbbing around the digits, her head flopping back as she slides into a new depth of arousal she would've thought impossible. Yelena curls her fingers up slightly and the way the rough pads of her fingers press against her there causes a gush of heat to swirl in Kate’s lower belly.
当叶莲娜的舌尖重新回到凯特的核心地带时，动作比先前更加轻柔，将她缓缓带回那种狂乱的状态。她等到凯特再次喘息起来，才将两根手指推入其中。凯特轻易地接纳了她，身体随着手指的抽送而悸动，脑袋向后仰去，陷入一种她原以为不可能达到的更深层次的兴奋之中。叶莲娜微微弯曲手指，粗糙的指腹按压在那一点上，让一股热流在凯特的小腹处盘旋涌动。
“Oh fuck, I’m close,” Kate chokes out.
“操，我快到了，”凯特喘着气说道。
“I know,” Yelena murmurs against her. And it's her raspy voice that pushes Kate over the edge, leaving her quivering against Yelena's mouth and clenching around her fingers.
“我知道，”叶莲娜贴着她低语。正是那沙哑的嗓音将凯特推向了顶峰，让她在叶莲娜的唇边颤抖，手指间紧紧收缩。
Vaguely, as the aftershocks of her orgasm roll through her, Kate feels Yelena slowly withdraw her fingers from inside her. She places one last kiss to Kate's inner thigh before standing up from her kneeling position.
隐约间，高潮的余韵仍在凯特体内荡漾，她感觉到叶莲娜缓缓将手指从她体内抽出。叶莲娜在凯特的大腿内侧留下最后一吻，随后从跪姿站起身来。
“I need a glass of water before I go," Yelena says, somehow perfectly casually, as if she has not watched Kate fall apart in front of her. "Do you want one?”
“我走之前需要一杯水，”叶莲娜说道，语气出奇地随意，仿佛她没看见凯特在她面前崩溃一样。“你要来一杯吗？”
“Wait, you’re leaving?” Kate says weakly, propping herself on her elbows as Yelena makes her way to the kitchen. “You don’t want me to-”
“等等，你要走了？”凯特虚弱地说，用手肘撑起身子，看着叶莲娜朝厨房走去。“你不想让我——”
“No,” Yelena says firmly, returning with two glasses of water. “That will not be necessary.” She places one glass on Kate’s bedside and scoops up her rings in one smooth motion. Standing above Kate, she drinks her own glass of water in two large gulps.
“不，”叶莲娜坚定地说，端着两杯水回来。“没那个必要。”她把一杯水放在凯特的床头，同时以一个流畅的动作拾起了她的戒指。站在凯特上方，她两大口喝光了自己那杯水。
Kate registers for the first time that Yelena is still completely clothed.
凯特第一次注意到，叶莲娜仍然衣着完整。
“That was really fun, Kate Bishop,” Yelena says sincerely as Kate looks up at her, wrung out and completely wrecked. She strides towards the window, attaching her grappling cable to the floor with a flick of her wrist. She hops up on the windowsill and turns around, facing Kate.
“那真是太有趣了，凯特·毕肖普，”叶莲娜真诚地说道，凯特抬头看着她，筋疲力尽，完全垮掉了。她大步走向窗户，手腕一抖将抓钩缆绳固定在地板上。她跳上窗台，转过身来，面对着凯特。
"We should do it again sometime. But for now - goodnight, Kate," Yelena says, and then falls backwards out of the window and into the night.
"我们应该找个时间再来一次。不过现在——晚安，凯特，"叶莲娜说完，便向后一仰，从窗口跌入夜色之中。