Bishova Oneshots

the days are so short, and you are so lovely

Summary: Yelena finds a home in one Kate Bishop.
Category: Fluff, mostly
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Yelena had her best days when her tea had long gotten cold. She had her best days when her hoodies ran a bit too big and when her makeup grew stale and when she took off her golden rings they mixed with silver. She had her best days when she fell asleep next to someone else, soothed by her rhythmic breathing and the flickering TV she always forgot to turn off.

Yelena had her best days when she stayed.

Her host made it easy, because despite visits often coming unannounced, they never felt so. Yelena would knock, the door would swing open, and just past the threshold would be a smile and a knowing look and open arms to fall into.

"I was just about to make dinner," Kate would often say, leading her in with a gentle tug on a bruised hand. "Lucky I have enough for two."

She always had enough for two.

Kate always had room— a seat a the table, a spot on the couch that she would pat in invitation. She had spare parts— a jacket, a toothbrush, an umbrella on a rainy afternoon. Yelena blended seamlessly into the fabric of Kate's everyday life, wearing her clothes, sharing her meals and all of her time.

Sometimes, while wrapped in one one Kate's blankets, drinking out of one of her mugs, watching one of her favorite old movies, Yelena would feel briefly intrusive, out of place. How could she take so much, offering only herself in return?

"I owe you," Yelena told her once, throwing on one of Kate's t-shirts after a shower. "My tab would reach all the way to Moscow."

"Are you kidding?" Kate didn't look up from the dishes she dutifully washed. "What's mine is yours."

Yelena knew she meant it, but if she ever doubted, all she had to do was look around, see the patched hole in her borrowed hoodie, Lucky's many sweaters and overflowing buckets of treats, the admittedly surprising vitality of her houseplants, and she would realize this is just what the archer did.

She cared for things.

Here, nestled in the heart of a sleepless city, Yelena found a home built with thought, painted with intention, furnished with the smell of coffee and cinnamon buns in the morning. Here, with her, Yelena knew she was cared for as well.

Once, Kate bought a clock at a flea market— a busted old thing that made a terribly shrill screech at random intervals. The craftsmanship was gorgeous, old wood and fine metals, but it was loud, annoying, inconvenient. None of that bothered Kate, though, as she saw only the bones below, rewiring the clock until it beeped on time.

"You make a habit of collecting little broken things," Yelena noted, poking at the ticking hands.

"Not broken anymore," Kate replied.

Yelena often watched the time tick, tick, tick away on this little clock, shocked at how slow her days were now, confused as to why they still were not long enough.

Her life up until the last several years had been a flash, a series of sedations and missions and training and more missions until one day she woke up and she was twenty five. In the years since she was freed, her life had not exactly been leisurely, hopping from one mission to the next, though this time on a righteous path rather than one of destruction.

Isolated from all of that was the loft. It was a sanctuary— slow mornings and lazy greetings, Kate pulling her in for one last kiss before starting breakfast, goading her into just one more episode before bed. It was hearing the morning rush; it was seeing them go home from the window, Kate's arm loosely around her waist and a drink in hand.