White Widow & All New Hawkeye (YA series)

Black Widow and Hawkeye

"She's dead now?!"   Alexei's voice comes from the other end of the phone. Yelena sighs and leans her hip against the kitchen counter, the one not full of half healed bruises. 

"Tragically, no. Still alive and annoying and asking a lot of questions."

And as if Kate sensed the talk about her, the kitchen door opens and the archer walks in, earning an eye roll and a sigh from the blonde. Walking is an overstatement, Kate drags herself to the kitchen counter to hop on it and grab the coffee pot to drink straight from it. 

"Ya pozvonyu tebe pozzhe (I'll call you later)" The russian hangs up and pockets her phone to turn and look at Kate skeptically. 

"What are you doing here?" 

"Bringing joy to the room." Kate responds in a deadpan tone, sipping more of the cold coffee.

"You bring me much more joy when you leave the room." Yelena's response is absent as she busies herself by fiddling with the corner of a cereal cartoon box. 

"Right back at ya'." The black haired woman raises the coffee pot in honour of her statement, then brings it back to her mouth to down the rest. One look at the clock above the fridge; 5pm. Jesus. She's gotten so low she takes naps at noon and wakes up in the evening to drink cold coffee. Really cool, Bishop. 

To her defense, it's been three days since Clint's death and nothing's gotten better. The guilt is still eating her up alive but she hasn't shed a single tear about it since that night when Yelena gave her the bow back. The last thing Kate wants right now is to be a crybaby and complain about the entire situation around people who have had it way worse. Or people who would judge her about it. Because she's sure Yelena's secretly judging absolutely every movement and word that comes from her. Yelena…yeah. The assassin stayed, never left that night when Kate had asked her to stay, for some reason. That's something. It meant a lot, to not be so alone, but they're still not friends. They don't hug or comfort eachother or speak much about anything. Other than the constant banter and sass exchanges and maybe some cracked jokes, absolutely nothing. The closest they've come to a "deeper" conversation was that night at the Bartons when they drank and stayed up most of the night. One of the last times Kate felt at peace. 

They've also never told Laura about Clint. His family found out themselves from the news. Some weird channel called the Daily Bugle, whatever the hell that is, had 'Hawkeye's dead' as an opening title next thing in the morning after the Empire State fight. Laura tried to contact Kate but with no success. The archer quite literally turned off her phone and hasn't gone near it in the last 72 hours. Grills' apartment became like a refuge hiding her from all the problems outside. King-Pin, Eleanor, Clint dying, this new 'Hawkeye' title that probably only she knows about…those are problems for later. Now it's time to cave and get a caffeine and SIMS addiction on Grill's PlayStation. 

After a long silence, which is, strangely, not uncomfortable, Kate decides to try and initiate some sort of interaction. Yelena would've been more than happy with playing with that cereal box for another 20 minutes though. 

"Who were you talking to? Sonya?" Kate places the empty pot on the table and brings a knee to her chest, hugging it and resting her chin on top of it. Her stitches don't hurt as much when she puts pressure on her abdomen anymore. They don't hurt much anyway. 

"My father. Told him all about the mission, how it was a failure bigger than his Red Guardian career."

"Who?" Kate asks in confusion, trying to dig into the back of her head to remember any superpowers guy named 'Red Guardian'. Blank. 

"Exactly." Yelena half smiles in amusement and finally turns to make eye contact with the archer. "I'm leaving. Back to Saint Petersburg. Probably tomorrow morning, I want to see the fireworks tonight."