Welcome back my dears I hope you're ready for another chapter of whatever this is :))

Content warnings: angst, injury, trauma

"Why didn't you go to a hospital?"

Yelena glares at Clint darkly before she goes back to situating the young archer onto her bed. "Because I killed every ублюдки that was involved in this. Authority or medical officials would make everything worse."

And I'd rather eat hot coals than step back into a hospital, is what she doesn't say.

Yelena stares down at Kate before pressing a tender kiss to the woman's forehead and smoothing her hair out of her face. "Rest, my Kate Bishop." Kate's leg had been successfully -albeit painfully- patched up, and the rest of her injuries had been cleaned and tended to. Thick, comfortable bandages wrapped around her chest, stomach, and neck under several ice packs that Clint had gone out to buy.

Clint is watching her closely when she stands back up, and Yelena meets his eye, unwavering even as her brain fogs. "What?"

He's silent for a moment. "I still trust you to take care of her, y'know," he says softly, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Yelena is stiff as a board, but his words punch into her heart like a knife, and all of the terror and anger and fear that she had been pushing down suddenly spills over in a tidal wave. She crumples to the floor without warning, slowly at first, and then all at once, curling into herself over her knees and wrapping her arms tightly around her body as strangled sobs quiver her shoulders.

Clint dropped down onto his knees and draped his arms over Yelena's back, hugging her close. She wilted against him as she wailed into her cracked and swelling hands, tears dripping down onto the floor and splashing it with tainted, flaky red.

She was still covered in dried blood.

Yelena struggled to stumble to her feet and drag herself downstairs, ignoring Clint's bleated protests and locking herself in the bathroom. "I need it- I need it off," she hiccupped, tearing the blood-soaked clothes off of her body in a frenzy and kicking them away from her. The stolen gun clattered to the tile, and the sight of it had her stomach roiling.

Killing those men had not been difficult in the slightest. She would do it again. She would do it a thousand times over. But if she had gotten there just a second later, there would be no Kate Bishop to save, and the thought scared her shitless.

The what if, what if, what ifs rang endlessly in her head, and her temples throbbed. Images of black and red flashed behind her eyes, scenes of violence and misery and unknowing. The shower water wasn't hot enough to burn away the feeling of Kate's blood from her skin; her nails weren't long enough to claw it off.

Yelena hadn't been this lost since Natasha's death, and it was paralyzing. The numbness had finally been going away.

How and why was Kate Bishop bringing it back?

——

Yelena's hair is still wet when she throws on one of Kate's hoodies and a pair of sleep shorts and slumps into the couch next to Clint. His eyes are soft and impossibly tired, and a part of Yelena wants to scream at him to go home to his kids and wife.

"She'll be alright," he says eventually, hands clasped together between his knees. "I did some more checks on her vitals, and she's already stabilizing. The blood loss will have her in bed for a couple days, and the bruising in her stomach and neck will hurt like a bitch, I'm sure, but she'll be good."

"I know, Clint Barton," Yelena muttered gruffly, rubbing a hand down her face. "They taught us these things."

"...I know."

The blonde sighs deeply, pressing her palms into her eyes. "She is going to be so pissed about being in bed for longer than three minutes."

Clint's laugh is a thunderclap that splits through the tension, and Yelena can feel a smile tug at her lips. "I'm sure she'll give you hell."

"I'll just have to give her hell right back."

The archer nods and chuckles, leaning back into the couch. "Take care of her for me, will you?" he says softly, staring absently across the room.

Yelena sniffs. "I swear it."

"She looks at you differently, y'know."

She glances up at him.

Clint looks beyond tired. "She looks at you the way she looks at Lucky. And her bow. And- and how she looks at her favorite snacks." His voice catches in a small laugh and he rubs his eyes. "God, she really loves snacks."

"She... thinks I'm like Lucky and her bow?"

The archer huffs another laugh and shakes his head. "You're already one of her favorite things. Her favorite person." His tired eyes find her wide ones. "Why are you really here in New York, Yelena?"

She's silent.

He waits for a moment. "Did you ever even leave?"

The assassin only shakes her head.

"...Were you safe?" he whispers, his calloused fingers curling together painfully.

Yelena glances at him again, and there are tears streaming down his rough face. She starts, confusion and concern swirling in her chest. "Clint...?"

"I'm sorry that I didn't try to find you," the archer muttered, voice thick. His mouth tightened when he sucked in a deep breath. "Natasha would've wanted me to find you and make sure you were safe. Were you safe?"

Yelena stares at him, her own vision now swimming. "I don't really remember," she eventually admits, head hanging back down. "I just ran. A lot. As far as I could."

"And how did you end up back here?"

The assassin can only shrug. The time between running away from the scene at the fallen Rockefeller Christmas Tree and arriving at Kate Bishop's deserted apartment was nothing more than a blur in her head; she only vaguely recalled the panicked instinct of safety. It didn't exactly matter how she got to such a place, only that she did.

Clint's arms were back around her, and she miraculously didn't flinch away. She leaned into his solid warmth and understood a little better why Kate looked up to him so much. They stayed on the couch until Yelena eye's felt like they were going numb with how long they'd been open, and Clint gently pushed her to lay down before gathering his things and leaving quietly, locking the door behind him.

How we doin with this everyone? Gotta love the Clint and Yelena trauma bonding.

Warning: the amount of chapters that I already have written and edited is slowly getting smaller and smaller. I'm still working on them at a pretty consistent rate, but it's very possible that within the next month or so, chapters will become updates as ready instead of every Sunday. Thank you so much for everyone's patience and support!❤️

Translations:
-ублюдки (ublyudki): bastards

Kate Bishop Counter: 4

QOTD: what's one of the hardest conversations you've ever had?

This chapter's meme:

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