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Chapter Text

Taking a swig out of some abandoned, half-frozen bottle of alcohol she finds sitting curbside is a new low for Yelena Belova.

It takes a second for her, but then she recognises it through the frost and dirt. Stolichnaya. Of course it is. 

She once downed an entire bottle of it in some dingy bathroom stall while hiding from Madame B. It had burned like living hell then, but not like this. This is worse. This is karma, she supposes. Yelena gags slightly but finishes whatever’s left of it, anyway. 

Yelena stares vacantly at the ceiling of her apartment while New York’s winter claws its way inside through an open window. She doesn’t move to shut it. She hasn’t moved to do anything purposeful in the past weeks. 

It’s funny, how Yelena feels so much more lost and purposeless now when she’s already off the chemical subjugation. She should feel free. She knows she should feel free. 

But freedom tastes hollow. Bitter. Her hands shake all the time now. She tells herself it’s New York’s winter. Or the meds. Or the lack of food. Anything but what it really is.

She doesn’t even count the days since Natasha died anymore. She stopped trying when the numbers got too high and too sharp and too loud. It’s easier to let time slip into the static.

She thinks about Natasha, not as a glorious, decorated Avenger, but Natasha, as her sister, the one who taught her to tie her shoes, who braided her hair, who would kill for her. The memories are always bittersweet and full of resentment, because Natasha had chosen. Chosen a world that had so cruelly turned its back against her.

And now, Yelena is left adrift, clinging to the wreckage, salvaging the barely-there threads. 

She doesn’t think about the Ohio mission often. Not on purpose. But sometimes, when she catches a scent, like cheap fabric softener, barbecue smoke, or cherry shampoo, it slams into her like a sucker punch. They had bunk beds. Natasha always claimed the top bunk. Yelena would try to kick the mattress from below. Natasha would retaliate by dropping gum wrappers in her hair.

She still keeps the photostrip of them on her fridge. It’s crooked and curling at the edges, and she doesn’t look at it often. But she’s never taken it down.

Yelena wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, the burn of alcohol turning her sinuses raw. She hasn’t eaten in days. But drinking… Drinking comes easy. Her body knows the motion too well now. She fumbles with the prescription bottles on her nightstand. Whatever’s left in them ends up on her tongue. She doesn’t even remember if she’s been on Zoloft or Ativan longer than the other. Not that it really matters now. 

The snow piles up outside her fire escape. She watches a car crawl by, headlights cutting white arcs through the storm. She wonders if she should go out. Try to feel something. Or nothing.

She throws on her coat and stumbles out into the cold again, not bothering to lock the door behind her. Let someone rob her. She has nothing worth taking, anyway. 

Yelena ends up in an alley two blocks down. Her hands are stuffed deep in her coat pockets, fingernails digging into her palms just to stay tethered to her body. A delivery truck honks. A car blasts music three streets away. It’s good. The noise is good. 

She crouches down next to a dumpster, lets the empty bottle of Stolichnaya shatter into a million pieces on the ground, and she finally cries.

The feeling tears through her like shrapnel, wraps around her throat like livewire. She tries to muffle her sobs, but the traffic does a better job of drowning it out. Her hands start to shake again, and her mouth opens around another broken sob, but that’s when she feels something, or someone, bump against her leg.

She opens her eyes, and right there, sat next to her is an impossibly small puppy. 

It’s a scruffy little thing, a nondescript mix of chestnut brown fur and grime and dirt all over its body. One ear is tipped down, and its tail gives a tentative, almost imperceptible wag. 

Yelena sighs. “Oh, great.” She waves a dismissive hand and presses the heel of her palms deep into her eyes. “Go away.”

The puppy takes a hesitant step forward, inching closer and closer to her, and the godforsaken thing lets out a whimper. A pathetic, pleading sound that grates on Yelena’s already frayed nerves. 

“I said go away, dog.” Yelena repeats, letting out another sigh. “It’s cold, you go back home.” 

It nudges her with its nose. Yelena relents and looks back up at it again, and that’s when she notices the glint of metal around its neck. It’s a simple nylon collar, and attached to it is a small, rectangular tag. Even in the dim light, she can make out the inscription.

CCI SERVICE DOGS SCHOOL

NAME: Kate

SERVICE TRAINEE

“Huh, a reject,” Yelena makes a humorless, choked sound. “Well, I guess we’re in the same shitty club, then.” Kate nudges Yelena’s hand with her nose, as if saying, I’m still here.

Yelena gets up and tries to walk past it. Kate, however, is determined. She scrambles after Yelena, and her yaps start turning into a more desperate, almost frantic series of barks.They’re not loud enough to draw attention, but they’re relentless. Kate seems to trip over her own paws in her haste, and she lets out another tiny, pathetic huff. 

“Stupid little thing,” Yelena mutters as she turns a corner, thinking she’s finally lost Kate, but when she glances back, she’s back there again, a small, determined little thing. 

That night, she trudges back to her apartment, and before she shuts the door, she blinks into the cold and sees the puppy waiting for her by her feet.

And so begins the next few nights, where she’d stumble back out into that same alleyway and Kate would still be there, waiting with those big brown eyes of hers. On some nights, she’d be nestled at the bottom of some chewed-up cardboard box. Others, she’d be trotting right next to Yelena. 

Yelena’s tried different alleys. Tried walking faster. Even breaking into a jog. Once, she even clambered through a construction site and flipped over wired fences. But when she emerged on the adjacent street, Kate was still there, shivering, its tail giving that quiet, hopeful wag. 

“Okay, what do you want, little dog?” Yelena sighs, half-expecting it to bark for food or something. But it simply looks up at her, head tilted ever so slightly. Then, slowly, it lays down beside Yelena’s boots, pressing its small, cold body up against her leg, as if offering warmth.

Yelena stiffens at the feeling. Some part of her wants so desperately to reach out and hug the darn thing in her arms. But it’s a weakness, a liability, and she can’t afford it. Not when she’s this broken. 

So she tries pushing it away, gently at first, then with more force, but Kate stays, stubborn as an anchor. Eventually, the cold and the alcohol wins, so she simply sits on a curb and lets the puppy press up against her, offering her that sliver of warmth she so desperately needs. 

The next few days aren’t any easier. Alexei calls, and he rambles on and on about family and being strong and coming home. Yelena starts punching walls just to feel the sickening sting in her palms, to prove she’s still in control of her body. The grief clings to her ribs, and it’s been so long since her lungs last felt full with oxygen. It’s seeping into everything, and it settles there at the bottom like a painful tumour. 

One particularly bitter evening, Yelena finds herself clutching a bottle of cheap gin in her numb hands. The snow’s falling a lot heavier tonight, and the loneliness is starting to gnaw at her insides again. 

That’s when Kate shows up again, seemingly even smaller than before. Her fur is caked with snow, her small body racked with shivers as she slowly trods towards Yelena. Kate looks up at her, eyes wide and desperate. She looks like she’s dying. 

And so, something in Yelena, something buried deep beneath layers of guilt and grief and self-destruction, finally cracks. 

This isn’t about her anymore. This is about a tiny puppy shivering to death in a snowstorm. She’s a reject. An outcast. Just like her. But unlike her, Kate hasn’t chosen this path. She’s simply trying to survive. 

And Kate had chosen Yelena.

“God,” Yelena rasps, voice hoarse from the cold and the alcohol. She kneels on the snow precariously, feeling her world tilt precariously. She reaches out to Kate with trembling hands, and the puppy instantly leans into Yelena’s touch. Her fur is icy-cold beneath Yelena’s fingers, which have started to comb through Kate’s matted coat. 

“You are going to freeze to death out here, you know?” Yelena mutters, not realising she’s talking to the puppy. “And I don’t need that on my conscience, okay?” It’s a lie. Yelena knows she has to save this puppy tonight. 

With a groan, she scoops the little thing into her arms and tucks her inside her coat, zipping it up as much as she could around its tiny head. Kate whimpers once, then burrows deeper against Yelena’s chest, like a tiny furnace of warmth. 

“Don’t think this means anything, dog.” Yelena mumbles as she makes her way back. But even as she says the words, something shifts inside of her. A tiny, flame of warmth that starts licking at her, from the puppy currently nestled against her. 

The wind still howls, and the snow still falls, but Yelena barely notices any of it. Her attention is solely on the little puppy she has in her embrace. 

When she starts fumbling for her keys outside her door, she looks down to find the puppy asleep, nestled snugly, like it’s always been stuck to Yelena. 

For the first time in months, Yelena feels a sort of quiet peace settle over her. It’s not a cure, and certainly not an answer. But for one night, just one night, she’s not completely alone. And for a brief, fleeting moment, that feels just enough for her.

Chapter Text

“Alright, you.” Yelena flicks the lights on and lets Kate tumble out of her coat onto the floor by her bed. “What do I do with you, huh?” Kate lands with a soft thud on the worn rug, immediately shaking itself, sending droplets of water everywhere.

Kate looks up at Yelena with those impossibly big eyes of hers again, brown eyes glinting in the faint light. 

“You’re filthy,” Yelena states, crouching down to reach a hand out. Kate leans into the touch, a small whimper escaping her. Now, this is a liability to Yelena.

But then Kate nudges Yelena’s knee with her small little nose again and suddenly Yelena’s groaning and dragging her palm down her face. 

“Fine. I’ll give you a bath.” She pushes herself to her feet, scooping little Kate back into her arms. “You will hate it. And I will hate it even more.”

She makes her way to the bathroom with Kate in tow, where it’s a cramped space barely larger than a closet. The bathtub’s chipped in all sorts of places, and the tile on the floor is stained. Yelena runs a bath, and it takes a moment for the rust-coloured water to clear, before a steady stream of warm water fills the tub ever so slowly. 

Kate sits next to the edge of the tub, ears flattened and her tail curled up around her little body. Yelena shakes her head and scoops her up as gently as she can, lowering her into the water. 

“Don’t look at me like that.” Yelena groans, though her voice is softer than she intends for it to be. Kate’s big, watery eyes, wide with what looks like betrayal, stare back up at her. “It will be over soon. Just… be still, okay?”

Yelena sighs and combs her fingers through Kate’s matted fur, watching as a mix of dirt and mud swirls down the drain with the water. She doesn’t mention the way she can feel Kate’s bones poking through her skin beneath the fur. 

She gently rinses the soap from Kate’s fur, watching as the water finally runs clear. Kate’s still shivering quietly, but there’s less fear in her eyes now. Her fur, now no longer caked in grime, is a rich, chestnut brown, and a small tuft of white fur emerges on her chest, almost like a little bowtie. 

Yelena scours through her pile of untouched laundry for a towel and wraps Kate in it. She immediately burrows into the fluffy fabric, nuzzling against Yelena’s hand as she gently dabs the puppy dry.

“You are still a stray, you know,” Yelena mumbles as she dries the top of Kate’s head. “Just… A clean stray now.”

Kate responds by licking Yelena’s thumb. Yelena pulls her hand back quickly, something akin to disgust running through her. She hates the vulnerability, hates the unexpected tenderness. It makes her skin crawl, like she’s done something horrible.

But this is… different. Kate is just a puppy, and she had rescued her. She’s responsible for her now. It had been a simple transaction, right? No emotional entanglements, no expectations, just a cold, wet puppy that needed saving tonight. 

“Sorry.” Yelena pats the top of Kate’s head with the towel again, in apology. She carries Kate to the living room and sets her down on a faded throw rug. Kate immediately gets to scratching at its ears, shaking itself vigorously in the process. It sends another spray of droplets towards Yelena. She sighs, again. 

“Okay, food.” Yelena announces, mostly to herself. Kate’s stomach growls in agreement, which earns a raised eyebrow from Yelena. 

She rummages through her sparse cabinets, eyes scanning for tonight’s dinner options for two. A can of beer, it seems. Or a pack of frozen macaroni and cheese that has an expiry date of 2020 stamped somewhere on the packet. It’s probably faded by now, she thinks. She should really throw it out, but it gives her the false pretense of having food. It’s fun to come home from a mission, all achy and starving, then being thrilled at the thought of food in the fridge only to remember it’s probably gone bad. 

Yelena finds a can of Heinz baked beans in the far corner of a cabinet. She eyes it suspiciously. 

“You can’t have these, dog. They are for humans.” Yelena dumps the beans in a trashcan. “Barely.” 

Kate looks up at her, tail still wagging energetically nonetheless. Yelena sighs. There’s nothing for a dog in these cabinets. This is why you don’t pick up strays, Yelena. 

She finds a decent loaf of old bread in the back of the fridge, though. She tears off a small piece and drops it to the floor. “Here. It’s not much. But it’s better than nothing.”

Kate inches towards the offending morsel of food on the ground and sniffs it, then looks up at Yelena with obvious disdain. Yelena scoffs. “Oh, you are too good for stale bread now, huh?” 

Kate gives Yelena the side-eye of disapproval. And Yelena feels a flicker of annoyance. Or maybe it’s concern. She doesn’t know which one’s worse.

“Fine.” Yelena grumbles, dumping the piece of bread in the trash as well. “We’ll sleep. Maybe your tiny brain will forget about the hunger.”

She watches Kate for a quiet moment, the puppy trotting back to her bed and curling up in a small ball. Yelena sits on the edge of her own unmade bed, watching the outline of the tiny puppy in the dim light of her apartment. 

She doesn’t sleep. The gin and Zoloft have worn off now, leaving her with the familiar tremor in her hands. And with every waking moment the memories come crashing back down on her again like an endless tsunami. Natasha. Anya. She has done so many bad things, she can’t even begin to keep track of the exact number. She doesn’t scour the records for whether it was a couple or a whole family in that car she’d wired to run off the road in Visegrad. She doesn’t want to think about if the pregnant suicide bomber she’d neutralised in Jalisco counts as one or two. She stopped caring when the count probably surpassed a hundred.

She hears a soft yelp. Kate’s awake again, looking at her from the foot of the bed with pleading eyes. 

“What?”

Kate slowly pushes herself up with a yawn, then pads over to the spot on the bed right next to Yelena. She looks at her, gives another yawn, nudges Yelena’s hip, then lays down and presses her warm body against Yelena’s side. 

Yelena lays perfectly still, holding her breath. The warmth is… undeniably comforting. She doesn’t move to push Kate away. She doesn’t move at all. For the first time in weeks, her razor edges start to dull a fraction, and she finds her fingers moving on their own to seek out Kate’s warm fur. 

The next morning, Yelena gets beams of sunlight in her face as it illuminates the rest of her apartment. She gets startled awake by a wet nose nudging her hand.

Kate.

Yelena blinks, her head pounding. The warmth from Kate’s body is still there, nestled up against her side. “You are still here.” She grumbles, voice hoarse from sleep.

Kate’s tail thumps against the mattress in response, and she gets up to lick Yelena’s face. Yelena recoils instantly.

“Stop it! That’s disgusting. Truly.” 

Kate whines, looking offended. Yelena rolls her eyes and massages her temples with her fingers. “Whatever. Food. We need food for you. Because I am a responsible human now.” The last part’s a bitter joke, but Kate seems to perk up at the mention of food.

Yelena pulls on an old sweatshirt and sweatpants. Her reflection in the smudged bathroom mirror makes her want to throw up. She looks like a ghost, practically, with the way her eyes are sunken in, her hair’s in a tangled mess, and the bloodied knuckles. She ignores it and pulls her hair back into a bun.

She calls Ava. She’s ignored her calls for weeks now. Ava would leave her voicemails. Yelena, are you alive? Let me know you’re okay. I can come by. Yelena never responded.

But now, she needs something. 

Ava picks up on the second ring. “Yelena? Are you okay?”

“Ava, uh,” Yelena sighs, her forehead falling into her palm. “I need money.”

A beat of silence. Then, “Are you in trouble?”

“No,” she lies. “I just… need money. For a… thing.”

She hears a sigh of relief from Ava. “Okay. How much? I can come over in a bit.”

Yelena gives her her address. She didn’t offer details, didn’t explain. Ava didn’t push. 

“And, uh, Ava,” Yelena adds, almost as an afterthought. “It’s for… a thing that eats dog food.”

Another pause. Then, “you got a dog?” Yelena can almost see Ava raising an eyebrow. 

“I found it. It’s… annoying.” She admits. And warm. And it makes me feel less lonely. She doesn’t say those out loud. 

“Okay. I’ll be there.”

Yelena hangs up, then turns to Kate, who is sitting patiently by her feet, tail giving hopeful little wags again. “We are eating proper food today, dog. You are welcome.”

Kate nudges Yelena’s leg again. It makes her roll her eyes.

Ava arrives precisely an hour later, and when Yelena invites her in, she takes in the absolute warzone that is Yelena’s apartment. Her gaze lingers on the scattered clothes all over the ground, the countless empty liquor bottles, and the dust floating through the air. She doesn’t comment. She just hands Yelena the cash.

“Here,” she smiles, voice softer than usual. “For the… dog?” She spots Kate peeking out from behind Yelena’s leg. Kate sniffs the air tentatively, then sneezes once.

“This is, Kate,” Yelena lifts a foot, revealing the tiny puppy beneath her. “She needs proper dog food. I don’t have shit in my house.” 

Ava raises an eyebrow. “You named it?”

“It came with a name on its collar. I just… acknowledged it.”

Ava kneels down, offering a hand to Kate. Kate sniffs her hand cautiously, then licks it. Ava chuckles, scratching behind her ears. “Well, hello, Kate. You’ve found yourself quite the owner, didn’t you?”

Yelena kicks Ava in the back softly, huffing. 

“So, you live here now?” Ava gets up to ask.

“Where else can I go?” She retorts, not looking at her. She pretends to count the cash in her hands. It’s more than enough. More than she will ever be deserving of.

Ava sighs. “Okay… Just, call me. If you need anything. Anything at all.”

Yelena gives a noncommittal shrug. 

She watches as Ava leaves, door clicking shut behind her. And the silence settles heavy again. Yelena looks back down at Kate, who’s pawing at a loose thread in her sock. 

“Okay. Let’s go get you food.”

Yelena had expected Kate to be overwhelmed by the grocery store, with its bright lights and non-stop chatter, but she’s surprisingly calm beside her, trotting along just fine, all the while sticking to Yelena’s leg like she’s glue. 

Right, she’s a service trainee.

They get to the pets’ aisle, and Yelena’s faced with the overwhelming task of picking out a bag of dog food. Organic, grain-free, chicken, beef, salmon, puppy, adult, senior. The list goes on. Yelena groans inwardly. 

“Okay, pick one.” She signals Kate, waiting expectantly.

Kate trots over to a bag of kibble on the lowest shelf. There’s a picture of a smiling golden retriever on it in a field of flowers. Yelena sighs. “Of course you pick the expensive one, huh.”

She grabs a bag of it, the largest one she can find. If she is going to feed a dog, the least she can do is give it some proper food. She grabs a chew toy while she’s at it, and the cheapest dog bed she can find. Kate gives Yelena a pointed look and a head tilt. Yelena ignores her.

Back in the apartment, Yelena pours a generous portion of it into a dented metal bowl she salvages from her kitchen cabinet. Kate devours all of it almost instantly, and Yelena watches her eat, a strange feeling settling in her chest. It’s the first… purposeful thing she’s done in weeks. Or months. And it isn’t destructive.

She clears up a nice, cozy spot by the window and places the new dog bed there. Kate sniffs it, then walks back over to Yelena’s worn bean bag and curls up atop of it. Yelena frowns.

“Hey. That’s for you, dog.” She points to the dog bed. Kate looks at her, then back at the bed, before putting her head down to rest. 

“Fine. Sleep wherever, I guess.” Yelena sighs for what seems like the thousandth time today. “Stubborn little thing.”

She watches Kate settle into a deep sleep, watches as her little body rises and falls as she breathes, feels the way her own heart slows and fills with warmth. 

Days bleed into weeks, and before she knows it, they’ve established a sort of routine. Every morning, Kate would wake her with a soft nudge, or a gentle whine. Yelena would grumble, but she’d always get up after. She’d pour Kate a bowl of kibble, then make herself instant coffee. She’d start eating small portions of cereal for breakfast, but only because Kate would watch over her with a disapproving stare if she dared reach for alcohol. 

Kate has become a sort of shadow to her, now. If Yelena goes to the kitchen, Kate is there. If Yelena moves to the living room, Kate follows. Even to the bathroom, Kate will sit patiently outside the door, occasionally letting out a soft huff if Yelena takes too long. Yelena hates it, but deep down, a tiny part of her that she refuses to acknowledge secretly craves it. 

The puppy’s also oddly observant, Yelena notices. Kate would watch her with those big, brown eyes of hers, studying Yelena’s every move and every shift in expression. When Yelena’s hands would start to shake, Kate would pad over slowly and nudge her arm. When Yelena started to space out, Kate knew to bring her toy over and drop it at Yelena’s foot with a whine.

Yelena would kick the toy away, sometimes with a snarky remark, but Kate would simply return with it. Eventually, Yelena would pick it up, and then she’d find herself, almost against her will, playing a stupid game of tug-of-war with Kate. 

She’s also started talking to Kate more. About everything and anything, really, which is so unlike her. 

“You think this is a good idea?” She’d ask, letting Kate take a look at the inside of a tub of expired yogurt. Kate would stare back and give Yelena that same godforsaken side-eye.

She would complain to Kate about traffic in New York, about the sickeningly-sweet Christmas tunes that play from two blocks down the road, about her nightmares, about Natasha. 

“She chose them, Kate,” Yelena whispered one night, words like poison on her tongue. She was sitting on her kitchen floor, clutching onto the photostrip like it was her entire life. Kate was nestled right next to her. “She shouldn’t have.”

Kate nudged her hand, then licked up the tears that had escaped and trickled down Yelena’s cheeks. This time, she didn’t flinch nor pull away. She had simply let the puppy rest its head on her lap, and her hand, almost without conscious thought, reached out and started stroking Kate’s fur. It’s soft, and surprisingly silky now. Kate leaned into the touch happily, and Yelena felt a weight easing off her chest. 

The knot of grief is still there, but maybe, just maybe, it could start to unravel itself in ways Yelena would never have imagined.

Chapter Text

Yelena can’t remember the last time she made it through the night without a single nightmare. The second her guard drops, they’re right there, waiting in the dark for her again. And she’s paralysed, forced to watch as the demons in her head tear her apart over and over again. Until she gets to wake with a gasp, drenched in sweat, her heart slamming against her ribcage. 

She forces herself to get out of bed, limbs heavy and her heart sinking to the ground. Kate, who’s been curled at the foot of her bed, lifts her head and whimpers softly at Yelena. 

“Not now, please, Kate.” Yelena manages, as she stumbles out of the bedroom. The walls of her apartment feel too close, too high, and the air’s too thick for her to breathe. She raises her fist, and a sharp crack echoes throughout her tiny apartment. There’s a thin line of red blooming against her pale knuckles, and she raises her fist again, striking the same spot. Once. Twice. Three times. The sickening sting somehow grounds her, and she’s just thankful she still has the capacity to keep something under control. Even if it’s her own pain.

Kate barks, and it’s so loud it makes Yelena’s head swim. She glares at the puppy, who stands her ground, body tense and her tail low. 

“Stop fucking looking at me.” 

Kate whimpers and backs away slightly. A fresh wave of guilt crashes over Yelena, and it’s a horrible feeling. She feels her heart sink lower into the ground as Kate watches blood drip from her knuckles. 

She’s a monster, and she’s bringing Kate down with her. It’s not fair.

Yelena takes a shuddering breath and stumbles towards the kitchen. She didn’t bother with food yesterday. Or the day before. The bag of kibbles sits by the door, and Yelena wants to plunge a knife into her own stomach for forgetting to feed Kate. Again. 

She grabs Kate’s bowl from the ground, gives it a rinse under water, and fills it with fresh kibble. Her hands haven’t stopped shaking, and as she places the bowl down, Kate doesn’t immediately rush to it as she usually does. Instead, she sits a few feet away, watching Yelena with those big, water eyes of hers.

“Sorry, Kate. I don’t know anymore. I just—” Yelena swipes a hand over her face and sits next to her bowl, coaxing the puppy. “I’m not a good person.”

Kate takes a hesitant step, then another. She finally approaches the bowl and sniffs it, taking a few pathetic bites after. Her tail’s barely wagging, and it’s obvious she’s hurt. Yelena feels a sickening knot twist in her stomach. 

She deserves better than this. She deserves better than someone like Yelena. It used to be a quiet, insistent whisper in the back of Yelena’s mind, but now, it’s blaring like sirens in her head. Kate deserves a proper owner. A human who is not broken. Who’s not falling apart, who remembers to feed her without having to be reminded by a gnawing guilty conscience. 

Yelena watches quietly as Kate eats. Her heart’s twisting in her chest, in ways more painful than she’s ever had to endure. Kate is too good for her. She’s like sunshine, too pure, too bright for someone as dark as Yelena. Yelena is simply sucking everything and everyone into her own despair, and she knows Kate is a selfish indulgence on her part. She’s a burden, a liability, and now, a threat to Kate.

A sudden, insistent knock on the door jolts her out from her thoughts. Yelena acts quickly despite the permanent tremor that’s taken up residence in her hands. She reaches for the area on her belt line, where her gun would be if she were properly armed. All she comes into contact with this time is a cell phone tucked into the pocket of her sweat pants, but she still pulls it out and prepares to use it as a weapon. 

The doorknob rattles as she moves closer, and the door opens as much as the chain lock will allow.

“Hey,” a familiar voice sounds from behind the door. “Let us in?”

Yelena launches her phone, which sails right through the crack in the ajar door and hits the trespasser in the face. 

“Fuck!” 

Oh. John Walker. 

“That was a great fucking welcome.” He shakes his head as Yelena slides the lock right off and swings the door open. John’s standing there, looking thoroughly unimpressed with grocery bags in tow. She sees Ava standing right behind him, giving a small smile.

“Hey, Yelena,” Ava says softly, eyes searching. “We got worried. You weren’t picking up my calls again.” 

“I’ve, uh, been busy.” Yelena throws out an easy lie off the top of her head. 

John scoffs as he makes his way inside to set the groceries on the kitchen counter, gaze sweeping her apartment with undisguised distaste. “Busy with what? You look like you’ve been sleeping in a dumpster. And this place looks like a hurricane tore through it.” 

Ava gently nudges him. “Easy on her, Walker. She’s having it rough.” She looks back at Yelena, expression softening. “We got you groceries. And a couple of things for Kate.” 

Something in Yelena gnaws at her. Kate, who’s been hiding behind Yelena this whole time, comes out to sniff at Ava’s ankles. Ava bends down and coos at the puppy, scratching behind its ears.

“Your apartment smells like shit, by the way.” John eyes the stack of unwashed dishes in the kitchen sink. “Do you even clean?”

Yelena bristles. “It is a New York apartment. It smells like New York, dipshit.”

“Smells like your New York,” John shakes his head and gets to work clearing out the dishes in the sink. Yelena shrugs, turning away. She hates this. The scrutiny, the attention, the undertones of pity. The subtle jabs at how she’s been holding up. She almost wishes they’d leave her alone so she can go back to rotting and wallowing in her apartment. 

“You look like you can barely take care of yourself, let alone a stray.” John eyes Kate with suspicion. And Kate, sensing the man’s hostility, lets out a low growl, her teeth showing. 

“She’s not a stray. I’m taking care of her now.” Her words come out a lot more bitter than she’d intended them to be.

Ava kneels beside Kate and strokes the top of her head. “Well, she is a really good dog, Yelena. I can tell she loves you.” There’s a soft, knowing look in her eyes. 

The word strikes Yelena like a blow. Love. That is the problem. Kate loves her unconditionally, but does Yelena love her back?

As Ava and John move to the kitchen, she can still hear John’s voice, though lower now. “Seriously, she looks like she’s about to collapse any day now. What’s she gonna do when she really bottoms out, huh?”

Ava’s response is too soft to hear, but Yelena imagines it’s something compassionate and kind. Something Yelena knows nothing about anymore. 

❆

The park is a barren expanse of grey. A few hardy trees stay standing, now stripped bare of leaves. The cold bites at Yelena’s fingers, but she barely registers it. 

She watches as Kate trots ahead of her, looking much happier, running freely while she chases the air. A sickening sense of realisation slams itself into her. This is what Kate deserves. Not being holed up in some cramped, cold apartment with a broken human being who forgot to feed her.

A young couple walk by, laughing, with their golden retriever bounding ahead, a bright red ball in its mouth. They crouch down to give it pats on the head, all smiley and affectionate. The dog almost seems to radiate sunshine as it smiles up at them, panting. 

These are what good pet owners look like. Yelena watches, her chest aching. 

She spots an elderly woman walking by, slowly crouching down to give her small, fluffy terrier a few cubes of chicken. She’s murmuring soft, gentle endearments, and the dog looks so adored. 

This is what a good pet owner gives.

Yelena’s gaze falls onto Kate, who’s stopped in her tracks to sniff at a patch of grass. Kate is a good dog; she’s intelligent, incredibly loyal, protective and loving. She deserves an endless amount of joy and affection that Yelena knows she will never be capable of giving. She deserves stability, a sense of a proper home. 

Again, Walker’s words echo in her mind. “You look like you can barely take care of yourself, let alone a stray.” 

Yelena’s a ghost, an empty shell, a void, even. She has nothing to offer. She’s a terrible owner to Kate, and an even more terrible human being. 

It’s a bitter pill she’s been forcing herself to swallow all these weeks, and it hurts. It hurts because Kate has provided Yelena with this sense of peace that she’s never felt, this feeling of home and being loved that she’s always secretly yearned for. 

But it’s for Kate, and Yelena’s always been selfless that way. She’ll sacrifice this one, last comfort for Kate’s sake. 

She deserves more than me.

She’ll take Kate to the animal shelter next week. She’ll find her a proper, loving home. A family that deserves her. And Kate will run around in the backyard of a white-picket fence home as her family lets her play in the pool and makes her the tastiest dog treats she’s ever had. 

Yelena feels the tears fall. She watches as Kate runs up to sniff at another dog with a smile on her face. And she knows this is the right thing to do. It’s the only thing she can do.

She pulls her phone out from her coat and calls Valentina. 

“Okay, Val. Reporting for duty, what’s my next mission?”

She hears Valentina feign a chuckle on the other end of the line. “Thank you, Miss Belova. You know, I was starting to worry. Thought I wouldn’t hear from you ever again.”

“After this, though, I need a change.” Yelena pinches the bridge of her nose. 

“Oh, really?”

“Higher stakes. Anything. This isn’t working for me anymore.”

“Interesting, you find my assignments boring, perhaps?” 

“Cut the shit, Val.” Yelena bites. “You know what I’m looking for.”

“Okay, Miss Belova. I have just the thing.” Valentina says. “It’s a particularly messy one, I have to warn you. One that even my most seasoned assets would decline. A death wish, perhaps? If that’s what you’re looking for.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, good.” Valentina gives that same, forced chuckle again. And Yelena feels her phone ping with the mission info Valentina has just sent over. 

“Now, don’t you fail me, Yelena.”

It’s a mission that will either kill her, or make her forget about everything else. Either way, it sounds perfect. It’s a win for her.

She puts her phone away, and tugs on Kate’s leash gently.

“Come on, Kate. Time to go home.” 

That night, Yelena hugs Kate for the first time since she’s come home. She lets her tears stain Kate’s fur a dark brown. She lets herself love Kate properly, wholeheartedly. Like the world was going to end tomorrow.

❆

The mission is a brutal and desperate blur. Yelena finds herself in the Carpathians, where a former HYDRA base is carved out in the side of the mountains. Valentina’s intel is sparse, and the targets are more numerous and feral than she’d expected. 

She moves through the facility, a ghost of motion, taking down targets with lethal precision. The alarms start blaring, and it’s for a containment breach that Valentina had conveniently forgotten to mention. It’s a trap.

Yelena fights, her mind purely on autopilot. She retrieves the intel and the encrypted drives, but the fight’s escalated into something she doesn’t know if she can walk away from. She knows she’s in for it when a massive figure with scarred knuckles looms over her and corners her into a narrow passage. Her vision swims from a blow to the side of her head. He slams her again against a wall, and his grip’s a vise around her throat. Yelena claws at his arms, but her strength’s waning. The man tears at her suit, rips through it like it’s nothing, and pure panic slams into her. 

She fights with whatever’s left in her, kicking and plunging her knife into him until she finally sinks it deep in his neck and he slumps to the ground.

She stands over him, body screaming. Her skin’s exposed, and she’s left with nothing but a raw, violating tremor that sits deep in her bones. She wants to throw up, wants to let the cold take her, wants to disappear. 

Footsteps start pounding closer, so she grabs whatever she has and runs until she finds an open, grimy vent in the ceiling. She claws her way into the biting Carpathian night, and when she emerges, she leaves a trail of crimson in the snow. 

She’s alive, unfortunately. She doesn’t want to think about why her hip bones hurt, or why she feels sickeningly disgusting. The mission is complete, and she simply reports it back to Valentina with ‘Mission Completed, No Issues Encountered.’

The apartment is dark when she finally gets home. Her body aches with a sort of bone-deep exhaustion that no amount of alcohol or Ibuprofen can cure. Yelena fumbles for her keys, pushing the door open, ready for the familiar welcome of Kate’s soft breathing.

She steps inside and freezes.

The air is heavy. Like something’s off. Kate isn’t by the door, waiting for her like she normally is. A soft rustle from Yelena’s bedroom breaks the silence.

Yelena’s hand instinctively reaches for the knife strapped to her thigh, and her eyes sweep the apartment. A shadow moves. It’s a figure. A human. The streetlights outside cast the intruder’s face in a deep shadow, making them unidentifiable.

“Kate?”

No response. The shadow stops moving.

Yelena takes a step into her bedroom, and her blood runs cold at the sight when the lights turn on.

“Who are you?”

Chapter Text

Kate Bishop is always too much. Too much energy, too much ambition, and too much heart. And if you’re asking how someone like that winds up as a scruffy, little puppy, the answer, ironically, lies in all that excess.

There’s a quaint little shop tucked between a cash-only pizzeria and a laundromat somewhere along Bleecker Street. Its sign reads ‘Bishop’s Brews’, and the storefront displays an ever-changing oddball assortment of just about anything you can think of. Glass vials glowing red with what appears to be a fine powder swirling within, bundles of dried herbs hanging from a rack, and what looks to be a set of glowing stones. 

‘For Display Only! Not responsible for cosmic multiversal events!’

And that just about sums up Kate Bishop’s little store on Bleecker Street. 

While it’s not the prettiest store ever, it gets the job done. Kate has always been drawn to the idea of magic as another tool to help people, or animals— whatever needs saving. So when a mysterious spell book shows up on her doorstep one day, Kate swoops it into her coat at once and brings it to her study in the back.

Intrigued and never one to shy away from an experiment, Kate found herself flipping through the pages, until she landed on a spell that promised to create a ‘Bond of Loyalty and Understanding’. There were a bunch of figure drawings and odd shapes scribbled onto the page, but before she could read any further, she found herself already lighting candles and mixing a few specified herbs in her flask. 

As it turns out, to Kate’s absolute dismay, the spell has a rather literal interpretation.

As soon as she’s downed the contents of the potion, everything goes sideways. Literally, again. A searing heat, a blackout, and suddenly, she isn’t Kate Bishop anymore. 

Well, technically, she is still Kate Bishop, but she’s a puppy now. 

A rather scruffy one, too. Big, floppy ears, large doe eyes, a tongue that hangs out of her mouth more often than she’d like it to, and a thick, warm coat of chestnut-brown fur. She doesn’t remember how she’d managed to escape her shop and tumble out onto the streets in a panic, and for the next few days Kate Bishop wanders the streets like an actual lost puppy. Because what the heck is a human-stuck-in-a-dog’s-body supposed to do now? Dumpster dive for the rest of her life?

Which is how she eventually finds herself shivering outside the gates of a school for service dogs, hoping to at least find some purpose for her small, pathetic self. It’s an elderly woman, kind-faced and soft-spoken, who finds her curled up miserably by the security post. The woman, presumably a volunteer at the school, probably sees something in Kate’s wide, watery, intelligent eyes. Because she scoops Kate up in an instant and takes her inside, where it’s all nice and warm.

They are nice, gentle people, Kate comes to learn, but the training is strict, repetitive, and has Kate struggling to get accustomed to the enforced obedience. The confined kennels, leashes, and constant need to please her trainers are simply too much for the little independent spirit in her. 

She’s failing basic tests— getting distracted by a gust of wind, and chasing a fruit fly when she should be focused on guiding her handler. She barks at unkind words that don’t bother the other dogs, but she knows and registers them. 

Eventually, inevitably, she gets rejected. Well, not really, but she starts causing trouble, enough to get her deemed unsuitable for service work. They release her into a city shelter, full of every other kind of animal. It’s a terrifyingly noisy place, filled with pitiful barks and horrendously loud squeals. Kate knows what happens to unwanted dogs in overcrowded shelters. She knows she can’t stay.

So, she escapes. Again. Back into the brutal, unforgiving streets of New York. Days blur into weeks; filled with hunger pangs, the biting cold, the constant threat of other stray dogs, passing cars, and passersby drunk out of their minds in back alleys.

Kate Bishop is a scruffy, nameless stray yet again. A reject. A lone one.

Until Yelena.

Yelena, who’s broken and taken apart, whose scent is of cheap vodka and overflowing grief, whose hands tremble like an addict’s but are surprisingly soft. Yelena, who curses at her and calls her names but never kicks her away. Yelena, who is so clearly hurting, so terribly lost, just like Kate herself. 

It’s funny, Kate thinks, how the spell, as twisted as it is, works.  

It’s brought her to the one girl who needs a loyal companion just as much as she needs a purpose herself. 

And that purpose is Yelena. To be her anchor, to comfort her, to protect her. To stay.

So when Kate had felt the shift in Yelena hours before she left for her mission— the way she trembled more violently, her bitter resolve, the tight, desperate hug, as if she’d been saying her goodbyes —Kate knew something was wrong.

Yelena’s going to give her away.

The thought consumes her, coiling in her gut and making her choke. 

Kate’s heart hammers against her small body as she paces the small apartment, letting whimpers and low barks escape her. She claws at the closed front door, desperate to follow, desperate to return to Yelena’s embrace. 

Somehow, the fear of losing Yelena, of being cast back into the cold and forgotten by everyone, causes something to shift within her. It’s that familiar searing heat, the one she’d felt all those months ago. Her vision blurs again, and she feels herself falling, until there’s a blinding flash of light that burns through her tightly-shut eyelids. 

Then, nothing.

Then, a gasp of air. Her lungs are aching and every inch of her body hurts. She opens her eye a fraction and sees the fur gone. Then, she flexes a limb. That’s a human leg.

Kate scrambles to sit up, her head still spinning and her hearing still muffled. She’s human again. She’s Kate Bishop. A gust of wind from the open window blows across and she’s reminded that she’s very much naked and on the floor.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Panic, a different kind now, slams into her. Yelena will be back soon, and Kate knows for a fact it’s not going to end well. She grabs a hoodie from Yelena’s bed and sweatpants from the dirty laundry pile, putting them on in a clumsy, uncoordinated haste. Her dog bed, her food bowl, and her rubber toys are still scattered all over the apartment.

She has to explain. She has to make Yelena understand. She has to stay.

The apartment is dark when Yelena finally returns.

“Kate?” 

Kate knows she has to act quick now. She manages to dive below Yelena’s covers as soon as the lights turn on, and when she peeks her head out, she comes face-to-face with the barrel of a pistol.

“Who are you?” Yelena rasps, gun still held out in front of her as Kate trembles below the covers. 

“It’s, uh, me. Kate?” 

“Bullshit.”

“No! I mean, I’m, uh, human now.” Kate shrinks further into the bed, watching as Yelena creeps closer. “I don’t know how it happened!”

“Either get the fuck out of my place, or I’ll throw you off the side of the building.” Yelena signals towards the open window next to her. “Got it?”

“No, wait, please,” Kate scrambles out from where she’s hiding and holds two arms up in a desperate gesture of surrender. “Yelena, it’s me! Kate. Your puppy.”

“Enough,” Yelena grabs her by the arm and drags her all the way across her apartment, hauling her out into the freezing hallway, slamming the door shut with enough force to make Kate jump. Yelena’s past reason. There is just no way in hell she’s believing the stranger. Not after the day she’s had. 

Yelena slumps down the side of her front door and just sits there, letting the reality of what the fuck has just happened sink in. Her apartment’s too quiet now. Too still. Her gaze sweeps the room, and it lands on the empty dog bed, the forgotten chew toys, and the empty food bowl. No signs of Kate anywhere. 

The realization hits her like a sucker punch to the gut. The intruder must have taken Kate with them, or worse, Kate must have ran out of the apartment from fear. 

It’s funny how the pit of grief in Yelena seems to stretch on endlessly. How she always manages to lose the people she loves the most, how she always manages to push them away, how she always ruins things for herself. She’s a danger, not just to her loved ones but to herself. A ticking time bomb. An absolute mess and a disaster. 

“Fucking hell…” Yelena drags her hands down her face, the bitter taste of utter desolation creeping onto her tongue. 

❆

Kate doesn’t know how long she’s been running for. Yelena’s hoodie and sweatpants aren’t doing much for her in New York’s biting winter. She keeps Yelena’s name on her tongue, as if saying it over and over again will help her get recognized. But it’s futile, because Yelena still kicked her out, just threw her out like something to be discarded and forgotten in the snow. 

She stumbles down the street, attracting stares from passersby as she tries to fight her way through the cold without shoes. And a jacket. Passing by brightly lit storefronts, warm restaurants and bustling bars, she watches as people laugh, bundled in scarves and heavy coats. She has practically nowhere to go now— her apartment, her shop that she hasn’t paid rent for in months, hasn’t even been human to pay rent. She pictures it with a sinking heart, just dust-covered, neglected, perhaps even towed away. Kate Bishop is a ghost now. A nameless, homeless stranger, shivering as she makes her way down the streets of New York, just as she’d been before Yelena found her. 

The irony is a cruel punch to the gut. She had fought to stay with Yelena, to protect her, to comfort her, and now that same person has thrown her out like she meant nothing at all in the first place.

Kate considers seeking help, maybe finding a police station, but the sheer thought of trying to explain her situation— she was a human, who turned herself into a dog, who then transformed back into human, and just got kicked out from an assassin’s home —is just plain absurd. They’d tie her down to a bed in a psych ward before she could finish her statement.

Hours pass, and the city lights start to blur together as she passes alleyway after alleyway, all dark and reeking of garbage and booze. It’s familiar, though, in a haunting way. She remembers huddling in one of these alleyways, shaking with the cold, watching the blurry shapes of passing cars, willing for the night to pass quicker. 

And so she finds herself in the same old predicament, huddling up in a bunch of damp cardboard boxes, knees to her chest. It’s a god-awful place to be, and Kate can’t believe she’s saying this but she misses her dog bed back in Yelena’s apartment. It was warm, fluffy, and it smelled like Yelena. 

She misses her. It’s a hard thing to admit after having to watch Yelena drag her out with her own two eyes, but she misses Yelena.

Kate closes her eyes, her head leaning against a grimy piece of cardboard. Her body still trembles with the cold, but it’s the sharp ache in her chest that keeps her up. 

Back in the quiet, dim apartment, Yelena sits on the edge of her bed, fresh out of a freezing cold shower. Her mind’s a battlefield of its own, ravaged by thoughts of the mission, the disgusting bruises by her hips, the intruder, and now, the fact that Kate is missing. 

And so, Yelena lets the days pass in a blur of desperate action. She puts her name up for more missions, each one more reckless than the last, seeking a numbness that never quite hits. And she comes home every night to the same empty dog bed and the same chew toys now piled in a corner of her living room. In all honesty, she should’ve probably thrown them away, but some part of her is convinced that Kate will come back to her in the midst of it all. 

John is the first one to make contact, and he shows up at her door again one day, this time with a six-pack of cheap beer in hand.

“Belova,” he grunts, holding out a can. “You look like shit again.”

“Thanks.” Yelena snatches the beer and takes a long swig. 

“Heard you took those suicide missions of Val’s. What, trying to get yourself killed?”

“Trying to find a way to make you shut up, Walker.”

He scoffs, but sinks into her worn couch, opening a beer for himself. He doesn’t press. Just sits there, making the occasional sarcastic remark about her decor or her more-than-questionable life choices. 

Then, Ava shows up one afternoon, the week after. She lets herself in with the spare key Yelena had given her months ago, finding Yelena sitting on the floor next to Kate’s dog bed, staring blankly at a wall.

“Yelena,” Ava kneels right beside her, voice gentle. “What happened? Where’s Kate?”

Yelena scoffs. Or maybe it’s an attempt at stifling a sob. “Ran away. Found a better place, I guess. Good for her.”

Ava’s gaze doesn’t break. “You sure? Last time I checked she was practically glued to you, no?”

“Dogs. Fickle creatures, you know.”

Ava comes to sit beside Yelena, offering her her shoulder. Yelena drops her head and sighs. 

“It’s okay to miss her, Yelena. You loved her.”

The words, spoken so simply, manage to break right through her carefully-constructed walls. Loved. She did love Kate. She still does. She loves Kate as much as her broken and tortured self will let her. 

“No, Ava.” Yelena gets up and wipes at her tears hastily, letting a few sobs escape. “I do not… love… anything. She was a dog. Nothing more.”

Ava doesn’t argue. And Yelena doesn’t continue. 

Later that evening, Ava’s still there. She’s cleaned up the kitchen, put away a bunch of groceries, and is now silently watering Yelena’s plants by her balcony. There’s a stabbing, hollow ache in Yelena’s chest that simply won’t go away. 

She watches as the people in her life go about their days, arguing, teasing, laughing, simply existing in each other’s presence, and she wonders why that’s so hard for herself. How they manage to forge this shared understanding and quiet affection with each other while she’s just the one person they have to be patient with and check up on every few days to make sure she hasn’t dropped dead. 

The image of the intruder resurfaces. The way she spoke, the way she’d sounded so desperate. The impossible claims.

“It’s me, Kate! The one by the boxes in the street? The service trainee?”

There is no way in hell that’s a coincidence. But then, another memory, sharper and more insistent, fight its way to the surface.

Her eyes.

The intruder’s eyes were chestnut-brown, wide and terrified, as they stared right at Yelena. They were the same deep, warm brown as Kate’s. The same intelligent, almost knowing gaze that had looked up at her from inside the torn cardboard box that night. The same eyes that had followed her everywhere in her apartment, judging her, understanding her, comforting her.

The pieces click into place with a sickening finality that Yelena wishes she was wrong about. Or right. Because she has to find Kate.

She slams her door open and stops behind Ava, her face white with terror. John looks up at Yelena from the television screen and gives her a look of incredulity. 

“Guys,” Yelena chokes out, her voice raw. The absolute horrifying realization crashes over her like a tidal wave. 

“I think I fucked up.”

Chapter Text

Kate should probably stop staring at the bakery from across the street. The warm, sweet scent of cinnamon wafts over, and hunger starts gnawing at her insides as she watches people leave with bags of pastries. 

She should probably get something to eat. She should also probably get off the streets as soon as she can.

The biting, relentless cold of New York’s winter eats away at her quite literally as she curls in on herself, wishing she’d open her eyes again to the warmth of Yelena’s bed or the sounds of Ava and John at her door. 

It’s all she can think about, really. The familiar scent of the apartment, Yelena’s clothes, the sheer amount of love and affection she’s found in that small, messy space, despite it all. But it’s the crushing irony of finally turning back into being human, of finally being able to speak, only to be cruelly thrown out by the one person she knows she has to protect. 

Kate just wants to be home with Yelena. 

A low hum stirs slowly in the streets; horns blare, sirens wail in the distance, and chatter spills into the air. Everything grates at her ears as she starts walking again, aimlessly at first, then with desperation. She circles Yelena’s apartment building, the urge to knock on her door surging within her. But the thought of having to come face-to-face with Yelena again is quickly dismissed. Her reaction last night had been terrifying enough. 

She wanders through the neighbourhood, eyes scanning for every face, every dog walker, every passing car, every passing bike. She knows it’s all futile. Yelena wouldn’t be looking for a damn human being; she’d be looking for a dog. And Kate’s heart sinks with each stranger she passes by. 

There’s a small, enclosed park right up ahead, and Kate decides to crash on a freezing bench. She watches a child throw a ball for a happy, bounding golden retriever, its tail wagging so hard and its eyes bright with adoration for the kid. It’s hard not to think about when Kate used to sidle up and under Yelena’s arm, nuzzling into her side. It’s hard not to think about when Kate used to bring a slobbery ball up to Yelena and drop it at her feet expectantly. It’s hard not to think about when she had a purpose, when she felt like she could help her. Now, she’s nothing.

The thought of Yelena clouds her thoughts again, and suddenly she’s on the floor next to Yelena at three in the morning, watching as Yelena leans over the rim of the toilet and dry heaves. She remembers the nightmares, the way Yelena would let her tears fall in her sleep, the way she’d lick away all of her tears, making sure they’d never hit her pillow. She remembers the way Yelena had smiled at her, had called her a ‘stupid little thing’, but picked out the best dog treats and the cutest chew toys for her. Yelena, who was so clearly hurting, who was so lost, but chose to keep her by her side. 

And now, back in Yelena’s apartment, it’s a frantic whirlwind of disbelief and regret and horror. 

“Yelena, what the hell are you talking about?”

“The intruder,” Yelena rasps, voice still raw from shouting at them. “The… girl… she said she was Kate.”

John scoffs and claps her on the back, a little harder than he’d intended to. “You’re probably seeing things. Or hearing things. What kind of missions did Val even send you on?”

“No, no…” Yelena paces across the room, her back finding the wall. “She knew things. Service trainee dog, the boxes where I found her…” 

Ava and John exchange a look. “Yelena,” Ava begins gently, hand on her shoulder. “You sure you’re okay? Maybe you should get some rest. You’ve been through a hell lot.”

“I’m sorry, rest?” Yelena claws at her hair, whirling around. “I threw her out, Ava! I threw Kate out! She’s human now, and she has nowhere to go.” The words tumble out in a haste.

“Look, Belova, I don’t know what kind of hallucinogens Val’s got you on, but this is insane. Dogs don’t just turn into people.”

“And we all know a guy with a hammer who flies through space, and an alien freak that snapped half the universe away with a bunch of rocks! But yeah, let’s freak out over a dog turning into a girl.”

“...I mean, when you put it like that, yeah, I guess I’ve seen worse.”

John shrugs as Ava steps forward with a hand on Yelena’s shoulder again. “Okay, Yelena. Okay. Let’s… think about this. If… if what you’re saying is true, where would Kate go?”

Yelena pulls away like she’s been scalded, shrinking in on herself, crouching down against the couch. “I don’t know. She doesn’t have anything, Ava. I did that to her. I pushed her out. She was scared. She was crying. I don’t know.” The image of Kate’s tear-streaked face surfaces again, heartbroken and utterly destroyed. A fresh, new wave of guilt washes over Yelena. 

The logical part of Yelena’s mind fights it, screams against the sheer impossibility and absurdity of it all. But the emotional truth is overwhelmingly real to her. She remembers Kate’s intelligence as a dog, her almost human-like understanding, her protective instincts, the way she always knew how to sense Yelena’s change in mood, the way she’d known to lick Yelena’s tears away. How she’d always judged Yelena for her less-than-ideal choices, how she’d show her disapproval, how she’d growl at those who spoke unkindly of Yelena. 

It all fits. Horribly, and terrifyingly. And the crushing weight of all that regret is almost unbearable for Yelena.

“We have to find her,” Yelena resolves as she grabs her coat, ignoring her aching body, ignoring the fresh blood that’s started to seep through the bandages on her.

“Alright, we’ll drive.” John looks at Ava and nods. “Where do we even start looking for… a homeless girl who thinks … no, is … your dog.” 

“Alleys. Shelters. Parks. Anywhere a stray would go.” Yelena knows the underbelly of New York City, knows where the lost and forgotten and utterly destroyed go to seek refuge. She had found Kate there once. And she’ll find her again this time.

They drive through the city, Yelena riding up in front in the passenger seat as she drums her finger by the window. It’s a maze of backstreets, abandoned buildings, and desolate parks. The three of them scan through every huddled figure, every shadow, every fleeting glimpse of movement, but none of them are Kate. 

And while morning bleeds into late afternoon, and the three of them plough through the city in search for her, Kate curls in tighter on herself, shivering violently as she tries to fight the exhaustion and cold. She’s found another pile of cardboard boxes somewhere in the city, slightly drier than the last spot, but the warmth is fleeting. Her stomach cramps in protest, and Kate doesn’t know how much longer she can last before she’ll have to let the brutal cold take her under. 

She drifts in and out of consciousness, ignoring the gruff-looking men that stumble past her as they hurl empty bottles at the walls, ignoring the stray cats that come fighting for her spot. She just wants to close her eyes, go to sleep, escape the pain, and hope she wakes up realising this is all just a sickeningly-long nightmare. But the stubborn, loyal part of her fights to stay awake, knowing she has to stay alive for Yelena, knowing she has to go back for her. Even if Yelena doesn’t want her anymore.

Faint footsteps approach again, and Kate shuts her eyes even more tightly, hoping whoever it is isn’t here for trouble. A shadow looms over her makeshift shelter, and Kate’s eyes snap open a fraction, trying to focus through them, blurry with tears and exhaustion. 

She can almost hear her heart pounding in her chest as she vaguely makes out three figures standing over her. Another drunk? A bunch of thugs? She tries to shrink further into the cardboard, willing herself to turn invincible so whoever these people are will just leave her alone for the evening. 

Then, a voice. It’s low, it’s rough, and oh god, it’s so familiar. 

“Kate?” 

She freezes. Her breath hitches.

It’s Yelena. But it can’t be.

Yelena threw her out. 

Yelena doesn’t even know her. 

Kate peeks out from behind the cardboard boxes, her eyes adjusting to the light. And right there, above her, Yelena stands, illuminated by the distant glow of a streetlamp behind her, her face pale, streaked with dirt and blood, her hair a wild mess. Yelena’s eyes, usually sharp and cold, are now wide, filled with worry and desperation and a sort of rawness that Kate’s never seen before. 

Yelena’s holding something in her hand.

It’s Kate’s favourite chew toy.

Yelena takes another hesitant step forward, pushing aside the mess of cardboard. “Kate?” She whispers again, her voice laced with hope and desperation. 

And Kate lets out a low whimper. It’s a soft, pitiful sound. She tries to pull away, to hide, eyes averting Yelena’s gaze as if she knows she’ll get thrown out a second time. 

“Oh, Kate,” Yelena breathes as she takes another step, then another, until she falls onto her knees before Kate. The crushing guilt on her face is marked by the steady stream of tears that have made their way down her cheeks. She rips her gloves off her hands and reaches out to Kate, still trembling terribly.

“Kate, is it… is it really you?”

Kate, at a loss for words, nods slowly, tears falling freely down her face. She brings her cheek to meet Yelena’s outstretched hand, and it’s so warm, so, so warm. Yelena’s face crumples, and with a raw, guttural sob, she pulls Kate into a crushing embrace. It’s fierce, almost painful, but it’s so warm. It’s the most warmth Kate has ever felt. When they pull away, Kate looks up to find John and Ava standing right behind them, a small smile on their faces. 

“Let’s get the both of you home, shall we?” Ava helps them up, and she quickly wipes away at a stray tear down her cheek. “It’s going to be okay.”

Yelena practically carries Kate back to the apartment, and her heart breaks as she finds her body littered with cuts and scrapes and dirt all over. It’s a heartbreaking sight, and Yelena can’t imagine what she must have subjected Kate to in this weather. In an environment like this. Not having a home to return to. Not having anyone by her side. It crushes her, and her grip on Kate tightens as she focuses on getting them home as quickly as possible.

“Yelena?”

“Kate, are you okay?” Yelena stops right outside her apartment door, eyes trained on Kate’s. She lets her down slowly, helping her steady herself on her feet. “What’s wrong?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m okay…” Kate keeps her head down, fingers twisting in the hem of her stained hoodie. “It’s just…”

“It’s okay, Kate.” Yelena gives her a gentle pat on the head. Kate risks a glance at the door, at the chipped white paint, at the scuff marks from when Yelena had thrown her out and slammed the door shut so hard behind her the previous night. 

Yelena follows Kate’s gaze, and the memory punches her in the gut. 

“Kate, I… I am so sorry. I just—” Yelena exhales shakily. She reaches out, but hesitates again before touching Kate, remembering how she’d screamed at her, told her to get out, shoved her in the back like she was nothing.

“It’s okay. I don’t blame you, Yelena.”

“I just… I didn’t know it was you, and I saw this stranger in my house, looking at me like you knew me, and it scared me.” Yelena digs the heels of her palms into her eyes. “I should’ve listened to you. I should’ve known. I should’ve—”

“Yelena?”

“Yes?” Yelena’s eyes widen, and she lowers her hands.

“I know I don’t really have the right to ask but…” Kate swallows. “Can I come home this time?”

Yelena’s breath catches.

“You don’t have to ask,” she sobs as she pulls Kate into a hug. A warm, gentle one. “This was always your home.”

❆

Kate watches the mirror fog up as she waits by the bathroom door. She watches as Yelena cranks the faucet to the hottest setting, letting water fill the tub.

“Sorry, it’ll be done in a minute.”

“It’s okay, really.” Kate mills near the doorway, hoodie and sweats dripping onto the tile. She tugs the hem of her hoodie down again, watching as Yelena gently runs her fingers through the water. 

“C’mere, I’ll help you.”

“I— I can wash later,” Kate mumbles, hugging her arms around her torso. “Don’t wanna get your tub all dirty.” 

Yelena turns the faucet off with more force than necessary. The word slices straight through her ribs. Dirty.

“You are not dirty, Kate. You’re cold, and you need a warm bath.” Then, softer still: “Come here, please?”

Kate’s hands shake as she shuffles over to the edge of the bathtub, and Yelena slowly peels the layers off of her, her touch hot against Kate’s skin. 

“God, Kate,” Yelena breathes out as she gently rubs the dirt and grime off of Kate’s arms, careful not to hurt the girl. Bruises bloom purple along her knees, and her elbows are scraped up. It’s a hard sight, and Yelena kneels on the bath mat as she helps Kate get into the water. Her jeans soak up water where it splashes over the lip, but she doesn’t care. She takes a sponge and dips it, before gently scrubbing at Kate’s shoulders and back, drawing slow circles to chase away the traces of dirt.

Kate’s first protest is a hiss of embarrassment. “Yelena, you really don’t have to—”

“I do,” Yelena says, too fast. She clears her throat. “I do. Let me.”

She works down Kate’s back, careful where there are bruises and scuffs. Kate leans into each stroke like a puppy bathing in sunlight. A breathy sigh escapes her lips when Yelena cups water over her head, rinsing through her dark hair. 

“Tell me if it’s too hot, okay?”

“It’s perfect,” Kate whispers. Her eyes are half-closed, and if she’s crying, she doesn’t show it to Yelena. “It feels like… a warm bowl of soup.”

Yelena lets out a quiet huff of amusement. “Soup, huh?” The corner of her mouth twitches. 

Kate gives a tiny, contented nod. “Mm. The really good kind. The kind that warms you to your toes.”

Yelena dips the sponge again, gently lifting one of Kate’s hands to scrub beneath her nails. “I’ll try making some later,” she says. “No promises it won’t taste like shit, though.”

That earns the faintest of a chuckle from Kate, and some of the tension in the bathroom dissipates between them, dissolving into the swirling steam in the air.  

❆

Yelena helps her out of the tub, wrapping her snug in the fluffiest towel she can find. Kat doesn’t resist, and she leans into every touch now, her head finding the crook of Yelena’s neck in an instant, chasing the warmth there. 

They shuffle down the hallway in silence, and Yelena nudges her towards the couch, fishing out every single blanket she has in her threadbare apartment for Kate. 

Kate watches her through half-lidded, sleepy eyes, a smile forming on her lips. “You’re making a nest,” she murmurs softly.

Yelena snorts. “Well, you liked curling up in blankets. Don’t act surprised.”

Kate lets herself sink into the cocoon of warmth, exhaling as she feels the soft couch against her back. Her head lolls against the cushion, eyes fluttering closed, then opening again. Barely.

Yelena sits on the edge of the couch, an elbow on her knee as she props her head up to look at Kate. “Okay, you need to tell me, though,” she chuckles. “How the hell did you turn into a dog, and then back into a human again?” 

Kate doesn’t move. Just lets out a tired, sleepy puff of air. 

“I’ll tell you next time,” she mumbles. “It’s a long story.”

Yelena raises a brow. “You’re assuming there’s a next time.” 

Kate peeks up at her with the laziest, cheekiest grin imaginable. “Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Yelena doesn’t answer, just lets out an amused huff as she shifts to sit right next to Kate on the couch. The second she does, Kate scoots forward and curls up against her side. No hesitation. Her arm drapes lightly over Yelena’s lap, head tucked just beneath her ribs. 

Yelena freezes.

Her body wants to recoil, wants to push the feeling away. But then Kate sighs, soft, content, and utterly at peace. And the memory hits Yelena like a sledgehammer: the familiar weight of Kate curled up against her legs as a puppy, trusting her with every ounce of her little soul. 

So this time, Yelena doesn’t shun away from the warmth. 

She lets Kate stay. Lets herself stay, too.

“Hey, Yelena, if your soup really does taste like crap…”

Yelena glances down to find a half-asleep girl.

“I’ll still eat it. Drink it,” Kate finishes, sleep thick in her voice. “No complaints.”

“Well, then you’re the one with bad taste, not me.”

Kate turns her head to look at Yelena above, watching as her eyes soften into crescents. God, she’s missed this so much. 

Yelena pulls the blankets up a little higher around Kate’s shoulders. And when Kate finally goes limp with sleep in her lap, Yelena keeps her hand resting gently where it’s fallen— on the curve of Kate’s lower back, rising and falling with every soft breath. 

She doesn’t say it aloud, but it rings quietly in her chest.

“You’re home now, solnyshko (my little sun).”

Chapter Text

The next morning, Yelena’s apartment is still steeped in the same quiet and fragile peace. Except, she wakes with a jolt, her heart already racing. For a moment, she reaches toward the end of her bed, expecting the weight of fur, a small, warm presence pressed against her legs. 

Nothing.

Yelena scrambles out of bed, bare feet hitting the floor as her heart pounds, and finds Kate asleep on the couch, a small figure curled up in a mound of blankets. Still here, still human. The crushing guilt from the night before, and the horrors of having thrown Kate out, still sit heavy in her chest. But the instant relief hits so fast that it makes her dizzy.

Yelena lingers behind the couch, arms crossed tightly over her chest. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands; she’d thrown Kate out, she’d let her go, and now, Yelena isn’t so sure if she really deserves Kate back anymore.

Kate stirs on the couch, brows drawing together slightly as she blinks herself awake. Her gaze drifts slowly until it finds Yelena, who’s standing awkwardly behind the couch, looking down at her with an expression that’s a mix of relief and guilt and everything in-between. Something unspoken flickers in her eyes.

“Morning,” Kate mumbles, voice raw with sleep.

She tries to sit up, but the slight movement elicits a soft groan from her. Her body’s still sore in all sorts of places, and the sudden movement makes her head swim.

Yelena comes up hesitantly. “Why are you on the couch?” Her voice is hoarse, but there’s an underlying tremor. “You were freezing last night. You should have been in bed.”

Kate looks away, fingers picking at a loose thread on the blanket. “I… I didn’t want to bother you.” Her words are barely a whisper, and it only makes the guilt in Yelena’s gut intensify ten-fold. “I don’t know if I deserve it.”

Yelena remembers the image of Kate shivering in the alleyway, her heartbroken eyes as she slammed the door shut on her. 

Yelena stares at her for a moment, eyes desperately searching Kate’s. Then, she kneels beside her on the couch and tugs the blankets higher over her shoulders. “Kate,” she says, her voice soft. “You are not a bother. And… you deserve to be warm, safe. You always have.” 

Her hand lifts slowly, giving Kate time to pull away– but she doesn’t. Yelena’s fingers brush gently against her cheek, and Kate leans into the touch with a quiet, instinctive sigh. Her eyes close for just a second, and she nods, briefly wiping at the tears at the corners of her eyes.

They don’t say much after that. Instead, Yelena makes her way into the kitchen, hands still shaking slightly. It’s strange, how different the silence feels now. It used to echo. She got used to the sounds of shattering glass and her own muffled sobs and her heartbeat in her ears. Now, the silence is… different. It’s Kate’s soft breathing that fills her ears. The gentle rustle of sheets. The bird by the window that’s started chirping. 

Yelena glances at the bag of kibble in the corner, then at Kate’s empty bowl. Her stomach clenches. That won’t do. 

She pulls a battered pot from beneath the sink, and it’s all scratched-up and dented, but it’ll hold. It’s been ages since she’s cooked anything for herself, let alone someone else, but Yelena knows she wants to do it. Her mother used to make a hearty bowl of Solyanka for her whenever she felt ill. It used to fill their kitchen with warmth in the dead of winter. It’s a memory of a time before the Red Room, before the cold, before everything.

She rummages through the cabinets, putting together what she has. Most of what she finds is from Ava, and she’s thankful for it. Beets. Potatoes. Onions. A sad wedge of cabbage. It’s not perfect, but it’ll do. Her knife work is rough, and the beets bleed crimson across her hands. 

The pot bubbles, eventually. And as the earthy aroma of Solyanka starts to flood the apartment, Yelena realises that for once, her apartment doesn’t smell like alcohol and death anymore. 

Kate eventually wanders in, wrapped in another one of Yelena’s old hoodies, sleeves trailing past her fingers. She yawns, rubbing at one eyes, as she peers into the pot with curiosity.

“You’re making soup?” she asks, a little taken aback.

Yelena gives a sheepish shrug. “Kind of. Don’t expect much.” She scoops a ladle-full of soup into a smaller bowl. “It probably tastes like… hot dirt.”

“I don’t think so,” Kate chuckles, taking the bowl Yelena offers with both hands, fingers curling tightly as they seek warmth. 

Kate takes a big spoonful of it, and her expression softens almost immediately. 

“It’s good,” she says, softly. “It tastes like… home.”

Yelena swallows hard and looks away, pretending to clean a non-existent spot on the kitchen counter. 

“Drink it all,” she mutters softly, “You need it.”

And so, Kate does. Every last spoonful and every last drop.

And for the first time in a very, very long time, Yelena feels a quiet shift; the unfamiliar, startling sense that she’s capable of taking care of someone, and maybe even doing it well. 

❆

“So…” Yelena begins, leaning her elbow against the couch pillow. “You were… a human. And then you turned into a… dog. And now you are… a person.”

The story pours out of Kate in a half-whispered ramble, like she’s been holding it in for so long and now she can’t stop. Yelena doesn’t interrupt much, save for the occasional skeptical huff or narrowed-eyed glance. Most people would’ve laughed it off by now. But Yelena isn’t most people.

She listens. 

And to talk about all of it out loud makes Kate feel both ridiculous and relieved. She describes Bishop’s Brews, her cozy little shop tucked into the crook of Bleecker Street. She talks about the spellbook that showed up unannounced, the spell, how she thought it would deepen her connections between people, help people feel understood. Not… turn her into a golden retriever with anxiety and separation issues. 

“So, you just… drank it?”

“Well, yeah!” Kate gestures helplessly. “I didn’t know it would… turn me into… a very confused and very naked puppy.”

Yelena blinks. “Naked?”

“I was a dog! My clothes just… stayed there. On the floor. What was I supposed to do, put them on?” Kate’s voice is a mixture of exasperation and genuine bewilderment. “It was awful.”

Yelena’s gaze softens slightly. “And the service dog school?”

“I thought… if I was stuck like that, I might as well do something useful, you know? Help someone out.”

Yelena tilts her head to the side. “So, you voluntarily tried to become a good dog.”

“I’ve always been a good do—” Kate blurts it out, hands flying over her mouth in an instant as realisation sets in. “I mean, sorry, I’ve always been a good person. I just wanted to make my life count. I wanted to help people in whatever ways I could.” Kate shrugs one shoulder. “But they said I was too high-strung. Not obedient enough. Couldn’t pass the temperament tests.”

“You?” Yelena raises a brow, smirking slightly. “Not obedient enough? Shocking.”

Kate shoots her a look, but it’s a playful one. 

“They sent me to a shelter, later. The place was terrible. I knew I had to get out.” Kate swallows, watching Yelena’s eyes soften into something resembling worry and guilt. “So I ran. Again.”

She doesn’t say what happened in the streets after that. She doesn’t have to. They both know. It’s written in the hollowness in her eyes, the scratches littering her tiny body, the way she still flinches every time a siren wails outside the apartment.

“I didn’t think I’d make it much longer,” she admits. “And then… you happened.”

Yelena says nothing for quite some time. Just sits there, staring at Kate trying to connect the stray puppy who would gnaw on her shoe for hours, with the girl currently sitting beside her, pouring her guts out into the quiet of her tiny living room.

“You’re lucky I didn’t just walk past,” Yelena says eventually. “I almost did.”

“I know. You weren’t the first person to stop and check on me.”

Yelena’s eyes flick over Kate, her face unreadable. 

“The rest…” Kate swallows. “Well, some laughed. A couple of them kicked me, shoved me deeper into the alley like I was trash, or some sort of… disease. One guy poked me with a rusty pipe just to see if I’d move.” Her jaw tightens. “I think they thought I was already dead.”

The silence is so heavy it feels like it presses down on the both of them.

Kate doesn’t look at Yelena when she says it, just stares at her knees, like if she keeps her eyes low, the shame won’t burn quite as badly.

“I wanted to believe someone would help,” she admits, voice trembling. “But after a while, I didn’t. I really didn’t. It was just so hard to. And then, last night. You looked so sad before you left, you hugged me like you were almost saying goodbye. I was so scared you were going to leave me, or give me away, or throw me out. I just… I wanted to be human again. I wanted to protect you. I wanted to stay.”

She gives a little breath of a laugh, bitter around the edges. 

Yelena doesn’t speak for a moment. She just sits there, brushing her hands on her sweats like she’s trying to shake something off.

“I’m sorry,” Yelena says softly. 

And she means it. Kate can tell.

For a long moment, the apartment feels smaller, safer. Like a safe haven, almost. Then, Yelena pats Kate on the head again, like she used to, and she clears her throat. “Well,” she mutters, “lucky for you, I have a very soft spot for stubborn strays.”

Kate snorts through her nose, a tired kind of laugh, but it’s a real one.

“I noticed.”

Yelena crosses the room, grabs a folded blanket off a chair, and tosses it towards Kate. 

“You’re staying here,” Yelena says, already moving to flick off the kitchen lights.

Kate blinks incredulously. “Wait. Really?”

Yelena gives her a look. “Well, Kate Bishop, do you have a better option?”

“No, but— I just figured this was, like, a one-night ‘taking in a stray dog’ thing. I mean, I haven’t paid rent in months, and my stuff’s probably gone by now, who knows, and it’s true I have nowhere else to go, but I could probably try looking for someplace else to—”

“Kate. You ate my soup. You cried on my floor. You’ve shed your fur all over my stupid coat. And couch.” Yelena interrupts her, arms crossed. “You’re not a stray anymore.”

Something tightens in Kate’s chest. Yelena looks almost annoyed, like she’s mad at herself for saying it out loud. But then, she adds, a little more gently. “You can stay, until we figure out what’s next.”

Kate’s voice comes out small. “Thank you.”

Yelena just nods, gesturing towards her bedroom. “Come on. Don’t make me regret this.”

Kate follows her to the bedroom, and it’s a small, sparse little room. A dresser, a plant that’s probably alive out of sheer spite, and a single framed photo turned face-down on the nightstand. Yelena doesn’t explain it, and Kate doesn’t ask.

Yelena tosses her another pillow and draws an imaginary line down the blanket on the bed.

“You take the left side,” she says. “And if you snore or kick me in your sleep, I’m pushing you off.”

Kate laughs. “And what if I accidentally shift into a dog?”

Yelena snorts. “Then I’m stealing your side of the bed and making you sleep in your dog bed.” 

“God, that bed’s been awful, by the way.” Kate grunts, shooting Yelena a look. “You could’ve at least gone for the memory foam. Or the ones with softer bedding. That’s practically the worst one you could get.”

“Oh, excuse me for not consulting the Canine Edition of Architectural Digest before rescuing a half-dead puppy from the streets, Kate Bishop.”

“Oh please, I was like… three-quarters dead. Let’s not sugarcoat it now.”

Yelena shakes her head, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You know, you’re lucky you’re cute.” Yelena chuckles, then quickly adds. “As a dog. You are annoyingly cute, I mean.”

Kate pretends to gag. “Ugh, you’re going all soft on me.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Yelena leans back, arms crossed behind her head. “If you start pooping around the house, I’m filming it. Putting it in the groupchat. Or Tiktok. Whatever people use now.”

Kate gasps. “Now, that’s a violation of my very specific human-dog-hybrid rights.” 

“You voluntarily drank a cursed potion, Kate. You don’t have rights.”

Kate nudges Yelena’s shoulder with a grin. “Well, I do have rights to a better dog bed, though.”

Yelena rolls her eyes, but there’s affection in it. They both laugh, the kind that lingers for a bit after, making the air all soft and warm. Then, a pause. Quieter, this time.

“You’re seriously okay with me staying?” Kate speaks up. 

Yelena shrugs, but her voice is low. “For now. Until you turn into… a squirrel, or something. Then we’ll talk.”

Kate grins. “Deal.” 

❆

They learn to live together in the following weeks. Kate, true to her nature, is incredibly, relentlessly clingy— all curious questions, limbs draping over Yelena, and too many feelings for someone trying to live among her old ghosts. She clings like an anchor tethering Yelena to something real, something good.

Every morning begins with a jolt for Yelena. She stirs in bed, heart racing, eyes scanning her bedroom for Kate. Sometimes she finds Kate, curled into a chaotic tangle of limbs and blankets next to her, hair sticking out like she’s just come through a hurricane. Other times, nestled among the pile of blankets at the foot of her bed is a small, chestnut-brown puppy with sparkling eyes and the hopeful wag of her tail. 

When Kate is human, Yelena wakes her with a gentle nudge or a muttered complaint about how hot it’s getting with two people underneath the blankets. When she’s a dog, Yelena simply scoops her up in her arms and carries her to the kitchen for breakfast. It’s a familiar, comforting weight now. One that Yelena finds increasingly hard to live without anymore.

Yelena, who once survived merely on liquor and a pathetic cocktail of pills, now heads out to get groceries with Kate in mind. 

The grocery store is a mistake, though. 

Yelena knows this because she watches as Kate tosses a bag of marshmallows into their cart with the silliest grin in the world.

“We should make s’mores on the stove.”

“We should not,” Yelena deadpans, tossing the bag of marshmallows back onto the shelf. 

“God, you’re so boring.” Kate groans and crosses her arms as she continues walking down the aisle with Yelena. “Where’s the fun in all this? The adventure?”

“Setting my apartment on fire is not an adventure, Kate Bishop.” Yelena stops in her tracks. “That’s arson.”

By the time they get to the checkout, the cart is a mess— protein bars, dog treats, instant ramen, a bunch of vegetables, a single mango, and a sewing kit, which Yelena doesn’t remember putting in, but suspects Kate slipped in out of guilt for wrecking another one of her sweaters. 

The cashier gives their cart a once-over and raises an eyebrow.

“Planning for the apocalypse?” 

Yelena sighs. “Worse. Living with her.”

Kate winks, leaning over the counter as she drops that same bag of marshmallows onto the conveyor belt.

“Don’t worry,” she tells the cashier. “We’ll be just fine.”

Yelena drops her head into her palm. 

❆

Yelena finds herself grumbling through it all, but her gaze always softens when she watches Kate quietly. She could be eating, napping on the couch, or listening to Yelena talk, and it would always, somehow, find a way to melt away at Yelena’s heart just a tiny bit more. 

And Kate watches her, always. In either form, her eyes follow Yelena with quiet adoration. In dog form, it’s these big, brown, sparkling eyes full of life and love. In human form, it’s a kind of stillness, as though she’s trying to memorize and commit to memory every moment they’ve ever shared.

She follows Yelena from room to room, perching beside her in silence, humming under her breath as Yelena folds laundry, brushing shoulders when they sit together on the couch. 

Yelena still struggles with the whole affection thing, though. She lies awake some nights, even when the room is quiet and Kate is breathing softly beside her. It’s the kind of quiet that should be peaceful, but isn’t. It wraps around her like a vice of sorts, suffocating her, making it so impossibly hard to breathe. 

Kate shifts in her sleep, murmuring something unintelligible, then curls closer, her hand finding Yelena’s beneath the blanket like it always does. It comes so easy for her. Like it’s natural.

Too easy.

Yelena stares at the ceiling, her jaw tightening. She remembers the Red Room, back when they were children, all small and sharp, how they were each given an animal to take care of. They were told it was a pet, but every single girl knew it was their next assignment. Their next test.

Yelena’s was a rabbit. Soft, snow-white fur with twitchy ears and a cautious personality. She fed him everyday, cleaned his little cage, learned his patterns— like how he loved kale but hated cucumber. How he thumped his foot before he tried to run. How he shivered when it got too cold. 

She loved him.

And that was the point.

After four weeks, they were each handed a knife. 

One girl refused. She cried, pleaded, said she wouldn’t do it. They made the rest of them watch as they took her rabbit, and then her. 

Yelena never saw her again. She did what she was told, the knife impossibly cold in her hands. 

Her hands didn’t shake. Not then.

But sometimes, now, they do. When Kate looks at her too gently. When she leaves Yelena notes on the fridge with hearts and smiley faces. When she climbs onto Yelena’s lap like it’s the most natural place to be. 

Kate makes it look so easy to love someone. 

But for Yelena, it still feels like she’s back in the Red Room, holding her knife above the rabbit. Because affection, in her mind, is a setup. It’s a liability. A ticking bomb. 

And yet, Kate is still here. Still reaching for her, still choosing her despite it all.

Yelena wants to believe it. Wants to believe that not everything you love has to die in your hands just to prove you can let go, that you’re strong and unbreakable. 

The Red Room has taught her to survive love by cutting it off at the root. But Kate teaches her softly, gently, stubbornly, that maybe it’s okay to let it grow. That it’s okay to let love happen to you, that it’s okay to love someone else, too. 

Yelena isn’t good at saying it out loud, but some nights, when the weight of her memories threatens to crush her, she finds herself threading her fingers through Kate’s, whispering into the dark.

“Please stay.”

And Kate, half-asleep, always answers the same way.

“Always.”