VILLAIN ᯓ ᗢ KATE BISHOP

3 - Rooftops

Earlier you had planned on taking the bus home, unfortunately however your fight with Kate has caused you to miss your stop and you have to walk. You considered the thought of sleeping on a bench instead of walking all the way home hurt in the cold, but you thought you might either get kidnapped or mistaken for a dead body.

By the time you reached your drive your legs were practically burning. You weren't sure what you were about to tell your employer for the job Kate just ceased but you knew you weren't looking forward to it. You weren't looking forward to admitting you had failed and certainty not looking forward to facing up to that feeling, that down-casting feeling that's been pushing at your shoulders ever since she walked away.

The instant you opened the dark oak door that entrapped the entrance to your apartment you rushed to the bathroom where you had left the door ajar before leaving earlier. You searched through your drawer for the small red plastic first aid kit and yanked it out, setting it on the porcelain counter. You clicked it open and grabbed the antiseptic and a roll of bandages. Sitting them on top of the box you got to rinsing off your hands in the sink. Turning on the faucet you watched the blood staining your knuckles wash away and disappear down the drain - it painted the sink in a crimson engulfance. Staring at your raw hands clenched in fists you turned the faucet off and took a seat on the counter aside the first aid box. You lifted the antiseptic and uncapped it, spraying it onto your knuckles, cringing each time it gave that seething burn. When you had finished ridding your hands of the germs you carefully wrapped up your knuckles in the gauze. You used the technique you always did; one you had received from another girl in the red room when you were about 11. You packed up the first aid kit and placed it rather clumsily back into the drawer you hadn't bothered to close earlier. You left the bathroom in a blood-stained mess figuring you'll deal with it later.

Now changed into more acceptable clothing to sleep, you practically fell into your black duvet that was draped fairly miserly onto your bed. Your body ached like hell whenever you tried to switch positions, so you opted to just lay there, arms sprawled out to the sides of you.

It's been two times in a row now you haven't been able to complete a mission, knowing that and it being the truth takes - at least for you - a fuck ton of dignity, considering finishing a mission has never been an issue for you. It hurts more to fail mentally than it ever will physically, sure your body ached and wore bruises and cuts and scrapes, but your mind was painted in every thought of that fight. It was covered in feelings of failure, and that hurts more. You were raised to win, trained to win, it's the only reason you're alive. The truth is that you're watching your biggest fear come to life right in front of you and you don't know how to stop it. And if you really did try? If you really did put it to an end? You'll be causing a fatality you aren't sure that you want to happen. You know Kate is not a bad person so actually hurting her has been a bit of a problem. Throughout your career you deliberately try not to get to know anything about the person, but you've already stupidly compromised that with Kate. You had told her you wouldn't be able to kill her when you heard that she's just a 22-year-old student in college, plays for the archery team and lost her dad in the battle of New York at like 6 years old, and that was the truth. That was just base information you were fed and entirely according to that she's just a normal girl, there was no reason for you to be hunting her in the first place. If there was one thing you knew for sure about yourself it's that you might be a killer, but you are not a psychopath, you had promised yourself when you were in the red room that you wouldn't become like the people creating you. Clearly you had succeeded but at the cost of your job and personal stature.

You know Kate is confused and wrong about it being her mother you hired you, it wasn't. You wouldn't have gone through with it in the first place if it had been her own mother sending an assassin to kill her, Eleanor hired Yelena for Clint and that's all you know. Yours was an anonymous hire and it was definitely not her mother, or you would have received it face to face by Fisk. It's all a confusing mess and thinking about it makes your fucking head hurt.