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She kicks her apartment door down, storming past her kitchen and aggressively unfastening her quiver, throwing it onto the couch along with her bow.
Yesterday was tragic.
Tomorrow is going to be hell.
Tonight was a disaster.
First Yelena pulled her back and sidelined her, and now Clint was showing up out of nowhere agreeing with her. What the fuck?
What the actual fuck?
All in one night, the two closest people to her, managed to push her over the edge the same night her two best friends were made examples of. And there was no joke to cover up her anger. No sarcasm to signal she was in no mood. No Lucky the Pizza Dog to remind her of looking at things in an optimistic way.
Nothing was acting as a buffer to the anger boiling her insides as she heard Yelena slam the door behind the three.
Oh no.
She has no right to be angry with her. None.
Kate whips on her heels to turn and face the two, now supporting a fire behind her eyes, well aware that both staring back at her can read her expression well enough to know how this is going to go.
“How long?”
What happens next, feeds her fire even more. Not only does she see the clear signs of guilt in Clint’s posture, but she watches as Yelena has the audacity to grow furious back at her. If she hadn’t had all this time with the assassin, she would have been afraid of the look she was receiving. Maybe she should, but that’s beside the point.
The question still hangs in the air, and Kate raises her voice since she was obviously not loud enough “How. Long?”
“You are in no place to question either of us with the stunt you just pulled!” Yelena steps forward “Throwing away all the work we have put in for weeks, after one phone call from your mommy, is not how this works.”
Kate bitter scoffs and matches Yelena’s anger “ Oh please! You have been keeping shit from me since the moment you jumped through my fucking window! What’s one secret compared to your long list of lies!”
“Lies?” The blonde exclaims in disbelief “I have not once lied to you! I came to you to bring you to safety because there is a bounty on your capture! Excuse me for trying to keep you safe!”
“I never asked you to babysit me!” Kate heaves “I never asked for any of this!”
She laughs in her hysteria, rubbing her forehead as she tries to grasp what her life has become. The lives she's taken and the death she's been surrounded by. Months ago, if someone had told her that she regularly takes lives in order to protect herself and the ones she loves, she would have laughed in their face.
Even now, the blood on her uniform is all but an afterthought. She already knows the means of getting the stains out so it looks as if nothing ever happened.
“You think I want to be shot at?” Yelena’s voice sounds similar to that of a growl, allowing Kate’s attention to come back to reality instead of her spiraling thoughts “You think I like racing through New York City so that I can stop a spoiled little girl with a fever dream from signing her death certificate?”
Kate shakes her head, knowing Yelena couldn’t understand why she was going to turn herself in. How could she?
Yelena stomps up to Kate and pushes her in the chest, causing her to stumble back a few steps “Don’t shake your head at me! You do not get to throw away your life so easily after everything we have done.” She shoves Kate again, making her stumble two more steps back “Why do you not care about your own life the way you care for others!” This time she stays in place gasping for air, and there, Kate can see the brim of tears threatening to fall from her green eyes “Who cares if you die, right?”
Kate clenches her jaw, and the words of her mother ring in her ears.
“Katherine, what have you really offered others, other than trouble? Your friends flocked to you because of your last name. Clint was stuck with you because of the problems you caused. I have given you everything, including a stable job, and a comfortable childhood, and you still managed to ruin all of it. Who are you to anyone, but an inconvenience?”
The pain almost becomes unbearable, because she knew Yelena didn’t really care for her the way she cared for her. She was coping with the loss of her sister, using Kate as a way to make herself feel better about herself, just because she wanted to do the right thing like Natasha did. A thought that spurred Kate before she had a chance to reconsider.
“I am not Natasha.” Kate rasps because she’s starting to lose her voice because of the yelling. She ignores the slight widening of the Widow’s eyes, and instead, she continues to feed the fire “Taking your shit out on me, for her sacrifice, won’t bring her back! So stop putting a blanket of protection over me like it will!”
What came next happened before Kate could process her next breath. Yelena sent a right hook to her cheek, followed by a left hook, followed by another right hook. Kate fell to the ground and Yelena followed on top, continuing her attack. Kate didn’t bother to fight back, feeling worthless enough as it was, until she felt Yelena yanked off of her, by none other than Clint.
It takes a moment for Kate to gather her sense back after the strong fists of a Black Widow connect with her face. It may be a concussion, or it may be everything mixing within the storm of her mind, but Kate starts to laugh as she pushes herself to sit up, watching Clint hold Yelena by the waist as she gasps for air. Once her laughter hits their ears, they both still and stare down at Kate in shock.
In her defense, it was funny.
Her life, that is. It’s all a big joke.
Flashes of blood and lifeless eyes staring back at her cloud her judgment, and Kate’s laugh becomes hysteric, losing her breath in the process. She was in so much pain, which was also a joke because no matter how hard she tried, she wasn’t good enough to avoid harm.
As Kate pushes herself up to her feet with a lot of unsteadiness, Clint carefully releases his hold around Yelena’s waist, placing her back on her two feet. Blood falls from her face from what she’s sure is a bloody nose and maybe a gash somewhere, and laughs at the notion that Yelena was the one to make her bleed the most after the shitshow of a night they’ve had.
“Kate.” Clint finally speaks after inviting himself back to New York, bossing Kate around as if he had the right “You need to breathe. You are still in shock.”
“Shut up, Clint.” Her smile was prominent, but the laughter seemed to subside “You left me, and came back when it inconvenienced you the most. So don’t go lecturing me on your high horse that I need to calm down.”
His jaw clenches, but he ignores her stab “Kate, your mother is free. Fisk is hunting you down. Countless others are waiting for a moment of weakness to strike. Now is not the time to turn on the ones trying to keep you safe.”
“Keep me safe?” Kate’s brows rise halfway up her forehead, and her smile continues to shine throughout the throbbing pain inflicted by the quiet blonde, looking down on her with an expression she’s never seen before “The two of you, keep me safe?” Kate pushes up and onto her two feet, glaring back at Clint “I’m in this position because of you, Clint. I’m here, covered in my best friend’s blood, because we have to do good for others. Right?”
He shakes his head, ready to defend himself, but Kate isn’t done “Fisk has been killing innocent people for years, and what has anyone done about it, but stand around and watch?
“He’s been extorting my family, and countless others, for years . You knew about it.” Kate’s lips frown, and she shrugs as if it were obvious “I’m assuming SHIELD knew about it, or SWORD, or whatever fucking organization is running right now. And what has anyone done about it? An arsenal at their disposal, a woman capable of taking down a fleet of alien warships at the press of a button, but no one bats an eye at a bald man killing hundreds of people for what? Money, power? Acknowledgment?”
He steps forward “There’s a process, kid. Fisk has no useable evidence-”
“Fuck evidence!” Kate cuts him off, losing her hysteria and now going back into an uncontrollable rage “Fuck the corrupted system! Fuck everyone! We know what he’s doing, and he’s still alive! Where was the evidence when the process threw you into prison after risking your life multiple times to save the world? Where was the justice in framing Captain America as a criminal for protecting his friend? The process is messed up and you know it!”
“Then what would you do? Huh?” Clint yells, creating a vein to protrude from his neck “If I kill Fisk, that makes me the criminal! How does that make me better than him?”
Kate bitterly kisses her teeth and her voice lowers dangerously “You’re a fucking hypocrite. Or have you forgotten your little alter ego, Ronin?”
“That was different!”
“Bullshit! The whole world went through what you went through, Clint! You were the only one to just go on a public killing spree!”
“Because I lost everything!” His voice breaks at the sheer volume he yells out, rattling Yelena next to him. The memory of walking outside of his home to find his entire family gone within the blink of an eye makes his entire system shake with fear of that happening once again “My family was ripped away, after everything I risked! I deserved my peace, and it still wasn’t enough!”
Kate looks at him head-on, and doesn’t hesitate “You got them back in the end.” Her jaw twists back and forth “Your family, is safe, and at home, waiting for you. My dad is dead because of one greedy god. My mother disowned me because I try and do the right thing, each day. My two best friends were just killed in front of me because I stole a code that could have endangered a country. And for what? When does it stop?”
“It doesn’t.” Clint answers “That’s why we have to be there to help.”
Kate’s eyes wash over him slowly, taking in his answer, dissatisfied. She bites the inside of her cheek and shakes her head “We’re helping Fisk by letting him continue.” She turns to look at Yelena “How would we be the bad guys if we eliminate the problem as fast as possible?”
“Kate.” Yelena’s eyes stay glued to the blood dripping down Kate’s face, aware that she was the one to make Kate bleed after all the commotion. Her lips opened to continue, but instead, they moved around forming words that were never spoken.
Kate just huffs, getting her answer, turning back to look at Clint “Years, you were an agent, Clint. Why stop putting down the threats now that SHIELD technically no longer exists?”
He wet his lips “They used me as their weapon. I wasn’t a person to them, and that made me into something I couldn’t recognize.”
“But that’s what we need in this world, isn’t it?” Kate whispers, a dark realization dawning on her in front of the two holding her back “Weapons willing to do the dirty work, so that others can live in peace?”
Yelena this time steps forward with a look of recognition “Kate, that is a road you cannot return from. One you are not made for.”
Kate doesn’t bother looking at Yelena, instead, she turns around to look out the window. The night was still prominent in the sky, but the view had never been clearer. Even with the hundreds of gunshots and deaths tonight, the world continued on as if the disturbance had never occurred. Two girls dying was insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and so would Fisk’s demise.
“For you, it was different, Yel.” Kate walks steadily towards the window, the weight of every weapon on her felt light and fluid, ready to use to help others live a quiet life “You were forced to take that road. No one should be forced to do that. And Clint, you were given a choice, though the other option wasn’t much to build off of, was it.”
She hears the quiet footsteps of both spies, carefully approaching her turned figure. They were smart enough to see the direction her mind was coming towards. And they were blinded enough to want to stop her.
No matter, Kate pressed while her eyes caught a couple cuddling close on a couch, peacefully watching something before they headed off to bed, where they would go to work the next day. A day Kate can give to them by eliminating the bad in the city for good.
“I trained my whole life to protect others. So it would be my choice to freely do this.”
“Kate.” Clint’s voice was a little closer, not far from reach “You need to rest before you make any life-altering decisions. The bounty and the deaths are too much right now. Laura-”
“Is a good wife.” Kate doesn’t want to hear of his family while her own no longer sees her as such “I’m not a foster kid you found on the street to feel sorry for. I don’t need your pity!” She eerily says in a calm tone, now turning her head to the side to catch Yelena in arms reach “And I don’t need yours. I’m not some wounded puppy in need of your protection. Go live your dream life of freedom and leave me to mine.”
With her final goodbye, Kate drops an arrowhead primed with purple smoke, taking Yelena and Clint’s eyes off of her, giving her ample time to crash through her window and shoot an arrow towards the next building, grappling her escape.
She had the supplies, and she had the motive.
It was time to finally put Wilson Fisk to rest, and protect her city.