Break My Heart Again (Please Won't You)

by analysrbug

Summary:

Things are changing for Kate. Are they changing for the better? Only time will tell.
Yelena can't make a decision. Until she has to. Is it the right one?
They're both a little broken, but maybe they can be each other's glue.

Notes:

Laufey's collaboration with the Philharmonia on the song "Let You Break My Heart Again" absolutely broke me, so enjoy.
But they get a happy ending bc they deserve it.

Chapter 1

The loft had been fixed after the Christmas incident, and just like everything else in Kate’s life, it just wasn’t quite the same. Not necessarily worse, and perhaps not better? Just different. The walls are a slightly different color, the faint scent of smoke still lingers despite the professional cleaning her molotoved apartment got courtesy of the Avengers Fund (Thank you, Clint.) and she has a drawer full of silverware now, thanks to a certain Russian assassin. 

 

Okay, so maybe some things got better. Clint comes to see her every time he's in the city or on the East Coast for another one of Cooper's College visits. Jack hosts biweekly dinners, so he can see Kate on some form of a regular basis. Instead of just one dog in her apartment, she now has two, one golden retriever with one eye, and a highly trained Akita with an attitude problem for anyone except her owner. So yes, some things were good. 

 

Other things were not. Her mother was a big one. Months had passed and still, a trial was nowhere close to being brought before a judge. Therefore, Eleanor was still being held at Rykers to ensure she didn't simply disappear once bail was posted. Today, the pain of her mother’s betrayal hit a little harder than others. Paired with a side of the daily issues, Kate decided it was time for a self-care night. 

 

A self-care night for one Kathrine Elizabeth Bishop was never complete without rum and her go to sad bitch playlist. Well, self-care nights never start like that. But they do always end with a solo karaoke session in her living room. Post a relaxing bath and a face mask, Kate had ordered some takeout and made herself a drink. Luxuriating in self-care, she threw on her playlist and began to let reality sink in. 

 

Trying to ignore the pain of her mother for a little while, she focused on her daily stresses such as running Bishop Securities and dealing with her “minor” abandonment issues, which were only made worse through her relationship with a certain Russian. Well, major abandonment issues if she’s being honest. However, Kate elected to ignore the major part for now. Her parents and the isolation she felt in being alone in New York felt like a numb ache by now. She had grown used to it, unfortunately.

 

Kate was lost in thought as she rose to refresh her drink and feed Lucky and Fanny their dinner. Setting back in the corner of her couch as she mulled her thoughts, and she realized just how alone she actually felt in the city despite having Jack's dinners and Clint just a phone call away. She felt like a bother to both of them. Tucking that line of thought away for later, she refocused on her original issue. Her Russian. 

 

Well, her Russian friend, not necessarily her Russian, and maybe therein laid half the problem. She wanted Yelena to be more than just her Russian friend, but that was impossible. Just to have the company of the widow from time to time would have to do. Not that the company wasn’t enough, but Kate craved stability after the upheaval her life had gone through, and a clear definition of the blossoming relationship between the pair would have made her feel a bit better. 

 

While her mind raced, her body sagged. Lounging back into the couch and Lucky’s comfort as her playlist bathed the room in soft harmony. As her head rested back against the arm of the couch with Lucky curled on her feet, Kate began to sing. She had recognized the song with its first few notes. How couldn’t she? Laufey’s Let You Break My Heart Again is instantly caught, even if Kate hadn’t spent the last month with the song on near repeat. She’s drunk, so the words are a little more slurred, but her voice adds even more emotion to the sadness poured into every note.

 

“Until then, I'll drink my coffee

Eat my pie

Pretend that we are more than friends

Then of course I'll let you break my heart again”

 

“Kate Bishop, who is breaking your heart?” The widow had come in the window halfway through the song, intending on a quick drop in visit to her archer and her dog while she was in town. Yelena’s presence wasn’t met with its usual barely constrained over excitedness. In fact this time, her entrance was missed, or with the response that followed, perhaps thought to be a figment of imagination.

 

“You are.”

 

The lighthearted atmosphere Yelena was attempting to bring with her joke to announce her presence had backfired. This moment, the pain radiating off her Маленький ястреб, her little hawk, Yelena couldn’t do it. The plan meant nothing anymore. She was trying so hard already to keep Kate from getting hurt. Staying distant, never overstaying her welcome in the loft, pulling away when they were straying too close, and leaving the minute the widow started feeling comfortable again.

 

It means nothing, she's not protecting Kate. She’s hurting her more. That one word shatters Yelena. Suddenly, the plan to stay distant from her little hawk seems pointless. Especially if Kate is just hurting anyway. This give and take hurting them both instead of protecting two fragile hearts. 

 

The silence stretches between them. Both souls thinking they were protecting the other. Kate knows she has abandonment issues, knows her track record for falling for people who will never love her back, and she’s spent her entire life knowing she would never be enough for someone to chose to stay. That won’t change now. Yelena had simply wanted her archer safe. Being with the widow in any kind of permanent sense wasn’t safe. It could attract the wrong kind of attention to the clumsy girl that held the widow’s whole heart in her callused hands without even knowing. 

 

“It’s okay, I know you feel bad because you can’t care about me like that. I never asked you to, I already knew. I’m just doing what my therapist says to do and grieving it. You’re gone enough that I didn't have to ask for space they recommended anyway.” Kate spoke slowly and with finality. She was tired, so, so tired. Her heart couldn't keep doing this, letting the archer in over and over again. Hoping every time that this would be when Yelena would let her know if it was real or not. If it meant more than friends. It never would though, it never had before, and it wouldn’t start now.

 

The shattering of two hearts could almost be heard in the stillness.

 

Yelena watched as the archer started to sink into herself, nearly not recognizing this weak imitation of the Kate Bishop she knew and loved. She realized she was running from this, from Kate, not just because she didn't want her to get hurt, but also because she scared her. It was too easy with Kate, too easy to fall into the comfort the archer radiated like rays of sun. Running wasn’t worth denying them both the happiness they both so desperately deserved, and so Yelena made a decision. She’s done running from this, from Kate, her Маленький ястреб. Yelena decides to stay, and it's the easiest choice she’s ever made.

 

“Kate, I do love you.” She’s cupping the archer's face in her palms, trying to connect their gazes desperately. Needs Kate to see how serious she is, but Kate's shying away. Wanting to spare Yelena from seeing the pain in her eyes. She indulges in the touch for a moment, nuzzling against Yelena’s touch, brows furrowed in poorly disguised pain. Kate takes a moment to press a gentle kiss to the widow's palms, leaving her lips pressed to skin for a long moment before taking a deep and measured breath and speaking slowly. Pulling Yelena’s hands off her cheeks to clasp them together between the pair, and finally letting her eyes finally meet Yelena’s. Pain drips from each word that flows from her lips.

 

“Please don’t say that, not when you don’t mean it as I do. Please don't hurt me unintentionally. I can take it when you don't mean to. But right now, right here Yelena, it just hurts.” The tears that had begun to well at Yelena’s touch finally start to spill over, sliding down Kate’s cheeks.

 

“Kate. I. Love. You.”

 

Brown eyes meet watery blue, and it clicks, finally, exactly just what Yelena is saying to her Маленький ястреб. The tension of the moment snaps as the widow finally gives into what she wants and pulls Kate close to press their lips together. It’s an embrace that they both sink into, one that feels like finally coming home.

Chapter 2: Break My Heart

Notes:

This is the alternate ending to the first chapter bc I like happy endings but the angst was a lil too good on this one.

Kate’s head is foggy the next morning, a queasiness has settled itself into her bones as she sits up. Her neck aches from a night spent on the couch. The deep-seated peace leaving her soul the minute she realizes where she is. 

 

Still on the couch with Lucky and Fanny, where she fell asleep mourning her widow the previous night.

 

It had seemed too good to be true, and in the end it was. Nothing but a dream that tried to soothe the ache in the archer's heart.

Notes:

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I can be found on tumblr at aceisthep1ace.