January finds Kate in a new apartment, with a new couch and same dog.
She also has rooms now and (she's sure Yelena would be excited about this) silverware and it feels a lot like adulting. She's also graduated with her degrees that hang next to the TV and not too far down the road from the Avengers Tower.
She's been at the new apartment since the new year and this time didn't spend it drunk, but instead cheering the last ten seconds with Lucky over lemonade for herself and bacon dog treats for him.
Now it's a little over three weeks into the new year and Peter headed back to MIT earlier in the week and Kate's been bored out of her mind. Something terrible about inheriting all of her parents' fortune is that she technically doesn't have to work, and she doesn't want to work with the degrees she has, so she's spent all of her time with Lucky.
She knows that Lucky enjoys it, but she's bored out of her mind and needs something to do.
This all leads her to spending some time at Clint's (mainly because she's sure Laura would have her head if she didn't visit soon) and bringing Lucky along because Nate loves him.
The Bartons have a pretty easy-going life, Lila and Cooper go to school (and Lila has quite the surplus of friends, as Kate's discovered), and Nate's in some kind of half-day kindergarten program. Laura spends a lot of time at home, but she runs errands and has a part-time job at some coffeeshop. Clint spends most of his time training Kate, helping her refine her skills and teaching her how to build trick arrows.
It's nice to finally feel like she's a part of something again, she had that when she was on the archery team in college and it feels like it's been too long since that.
She's also spent weekends with Laura volunteering at the animal shelter (and maybe more often than that because she can't sit still and the dogs love her). It also helps to take her mind off of Lucky being lonely since they let him play in the yard with the other dogs and also takes her mind off of Yelena.
Taking her mind off of Yelena has become a real task now that she's sleeping in the guest bedroom and it smells like her, like fruity shampoo and gunpowder and she'd be lying if she said lying in that bed hasn't brought her to tears a couple of times.
She craves Yelena being with her, holding her as she talks about the tricks she taught Fanny and the smile that crept up to her eyes when she looked up at Kate. She misses how Yelena whispered stories in the dark about her childhood with Natasha and her crazy father and her meticulous mother and god Kate misses her.
But she pushes on, knowing that if she doesn't she'll be all mopey all over again, and instead she focuses on what she knows; archery, taking care of Nathaniel, and playing with Lucky.
And that all leads to now; the kids are all off at school, Laura's out working, and Kate and Clint are hanging out in the kitchen building arrows while Lucky naps at Kate's feet.
"How do you plan on getting over your fear of Yelena?" Clint asks, twisting a newly put together arrow tip on one of his arrows.
"I'm not scared of Yelena," Kate responds with a scoff, focusing on her own arrow tip before reaching over and grabbing her sandwich.
"I'm not your actual dad, you don't have to lie to me," Clint teases as she takes a bite of her sandwich and then places it on the plate.
Kate swallows her bite before insisting, "I'm not scared of her!"
"This is the first time you've been here in months because you didn't want to cross paths with her," Clint replies, grabbing the labelmaker from Kate's side of the table, "Seriously, you need to figure out some way around it because Laura loves you and doesn't like it when you miss holidays."
YOU ARE READING
i can go anywhere i want (just not home)
Fanfictionkate bishop isn't really good at handling anything. so shocker, she isn't doing too great post-breaking up with yelena. but with the help of an nb god and peter parker, she can do anything. kind of. she still needs to graduate.
