fortress | kate bishop

one.

2019
Manhattan, New York

"Are you sure that you're fine?" Natasha's voice comes through the speaker of Anya's phone as she shoves her folded clothes into the drawers, "I can come back and help you unpack?"

"I'm fine," Anya tells her older sister, "Besides you and Kennedy are dealing with a lot with the kids. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" Natasha asks, "Because you know I am only-"

"An hour away," Anya finishes, "I know. And I'm fine. Seriously. I'm a trained assassin remember. I can move myself into a dorm."

"Okay okay," Natasha says, before following it with, "I guess I'll get out of your hair and let you unpack, but if you need anything Anya, call me. Or Kennedy. Or Tony. Just call someone, okay?"

"I will call," Anya says to calm Natasha's motherly nerves that were working in overdrive right now with her younger sister going off to college and her dealing with her three babies and a toddler. It was safe to say that she was stressed out.

"Okay," Natasha says, "I love you."

Anya's lips spread in a smile as she looks at Natasha's name on her phone screen, "I love you too. I'll call you later, I promise."

"I'm holding you to that," Natasha says, "Bye Anya."

"Bye Nat," Anya says before hanging up the phone.

With a sigh she looks at all of the boxes in her room and was truly regretting denying her sister's help, but Anya could handle this on her own. She'd dealt with harder tasks in her eighteen years of life. Moving into a college dorm wasn't even top ten.

"Hey!"

Anya looked up from her boxes and spun to look at the door, where Kate stood with a wide smile on her lips. Anya blinked a couple of times to check that she was actually looking at Kate and wasn't seeing things.

"Um hi," Anya greets shocked, "What are you doing here?"

The two of them had wanted to room together, but as a student-athlete, Kate was forced to room with the rest of the archery team, which meant that Anya would be forced to room with some random girl who she'd probably contemplate strangling in the middle of the night for various reasons.

"Well turns out there are an odd number of people on the team," Kate says, "And they asked me if I was cool with a single, but I told them that I had a friend that was also a freshman that I wanted to room with so-"

"We're roommates?" Anya asks and Kate nods her head vigorously.

"Ah!" Anya exclaims as she runs over and hugs Kate who laughs as she hugs her back. She pulls back from the embrace and looks at Kate, "You're going to be an outsider on the team."

"I've been to the Olympics, I think I'll be fine," Kate retorts cockily and Anya rolls her eyes as she takes a step back from Kate and takes in her appearance. Her dark hair was thrown into a messy ponytail, a few strands of hair that missed the ponytail hung in her face. She looked gorgeous and Anya had to look away.

Anya and Kate had kissed a year prior and had the world not gone to shit, Anya was a hundred percent certain that the two of them would be dating, but they weren't. They were just really good friends who talked constantly and spent an abundant amount of time together. When Anya wasn't with Kennedy and Natasha or at home with her mother, she was with Kate.

And she was with Kate a lot.

"So, where's your stuff hot shot?" Anya asks.

Kate blushes, "My uh mom is having people move my stuff in."