Chapter Text
Before the door had even fully closed behind them, Kate was already whirling around to fix Mel with the most lethal look she was physically capable of producing. But the anger fueled by such a public betrayal seemed to do a sufficient job when Mel flinched and turned her gaze away, unable to meet her eyes.
"I need you to explain to me what the fuck is going on here. Because this was very much not a part of our deal. This was not covered in the contract. I would fucking know, I've read the damn thing front to back six fucking times. I keep it in my fucking bedside table to remind me that I could back out of this at any time if I wanted. So Mel tell me- what the actual FUCK does all this mean for me?" By the end of her rant, Kate's demands for clarity had reached a full blown shout and she watched Mel take a step back from the animosity being sent her way.
"I've already worked out a deal with the government to coincide with our arrangement," she said, moving to round the desk that had once belonged to a monster now locked up in a cage, but Kate was beginning to wonder just how much of Valentina's influence still resided in that seat. In the person who sat behind the sleek mahogany desk now.
There were no personal touches that screamed that Mel Gold was the rightful owner of that honor. No family pictures set out along the edge of her desk as a reminder of who she was making the tough decisions for. No little knick-knacks to bring a smile to her face on the hard days where nothing went right. Just a sat of unassuming papers on top of a folder with a single ballpoint pen framing the stack. Even from a distance, Kate could make out the initials MG engraved along the clip.
Kate watched as Mel moved towards the far wall where a modestly stocked mini bar sat and she poured out two shots for them, flashing the label of the expensive bourbon she knew that Kate preferred.
It was barely eight in the morning and Kate wasn't sure if she was actually hungover or still drunk from indulging the previous evening at their prom, but she accepted the glass when Mel thrust it into her hand.
She threw back her head and downed the contents in the glass, barely wincing at the burn, before looking up at Mel again and waiting for her to elaborate further.
"If you decide that you're going to stay with the team and you sign the contract for the government today, I will not be turning it in with the others. Instead, they have agreed to wait to accept it until the time allotted for your trial period is over. However, the decision still needs to be made today along with everyone else," Mel explained, as she took a few steps back to lean against her desk while twirling the rim of the glass around in her hand. Careful to not spill a drop, but also not taking a drink of her own. "We won't tell the rest of the team about the details of your situation, it will be our little secret."
Kate recognized the move, something she'd seen her mother do dozens of times with clients that she was trying to strike up agreements with. To make her seem relatable, but not sloppy. Watching Mel emulate the same move made Kate think of how well that had worked out for Eleanor. For how well it probably worked out for Valentina.
"How do you sleep at night knowing that you're playing with people's lives, Mel?" Kate asked coolly, narrowing her eyes at the other woman. Mel was older than her, yes, but even Kate could see that this behavior did not come natural to her. She had stepped into a role and taken on the mannerisms of the last person who held it.
The glass slammed down on the desk and Kate smirked watching the mask slip off Mel's face as a few droplets of bourbon stained the top of her desk. The facade she'd built up cracked ever so slightly and it lessened some of the pain of being blindsided to know that she'd been the one to do it to Mel.
"You can either sign the contract and hand it over to me to continue your trial period, or you can go pack your things and leave," she snapped. Her bravado wavered as Kate stalked across the room until she was practically hip to hip with her before slamming the empty glass down on Mel's desk. Mel winced at the noise, but said nothing.
Kate moved back towards the door before stopping, hand hovering over the handle.
"I need to think about this. Barely a month into being on this team and I'm already regretting it more days than I'm not."
Hours after everyone had finally dispersed from the meeting room, Kate finally returned to see that the contract in front of her chair was exactly where she'd left it.
Someone had obviously messed with it, because it had been moved ever so slightly to account for the ballpoint black pen that ran parallel with the edges of the page.
That simmering rage returned when she spied the engraved initials on the pen that nearly had her turning on her heel to head back to her room to start packing.
But Kate took a deep breath instead, trying to release some of her resentment as she roughly grabbed the stupid fancy pen and fumbled her way through her signature. Her cast made the cursive of Katherine E. Bishop made it look a lot closer to Kathleen E. Bucky, but what was done was done.
Kate snatched the paper off the table and marched back up the stairs for the second time that day to find the door to Mel's office open and the woman in question behind her desk, waiting.
She said nothing as Kate stormed across the small room until she was towering above Mel in front of the desk.
The lack of any kind of acknowledgement stilled Kate's hand for a moment, considering ripping up the contract inside of handing it over, but ultimately she decided to slam it down on the table next to where five other copies of the same paper were already laid out.
Kate didn't linger to see who the holdout was, not caring to consider anyone else's struggle when her own threatened to swallow her up in a tornado of fury.
But she did take an extra moment to hold up Mel's personalized pen before snapping it clean in half. Ink began to leak around the cracked lines that ran along the break, but Kate didn't care, letting it drip all over the beautiful cherry wood.
Mel could simply wipe away spilled bourbon with a wet rag, but it was already too late to clean away the ink before it seeped its way into the grains of the mahogany desk.
No words were exchanged between them as Mel watched the ink already begin to dry, but the slight downwards tug of her lips at the sight would have to be enough. When she looked back up at Kate, the small frown morphed into a knowing smile that haunted Kate as she stomped out of the room.
The signed contract remained on the top of the pile, reminding both of them who was the winner of their nonverbal spat.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Again.
Things were supposed to be different. A new team, a new set of skills, a new sense of belonging.
Kate had fired the arrow that had sent the van careening out of control before it collided into their van. When they had finally managed to pull Alexei's body from the driver's seat, the metal of the cabin crushed under the impact, she almost threw up at the grizzly sight that greeted them.
Sticking out of where Alexei's right eye should have been was a shard of metal that was smaller than her pinkie finger.
Vaguely, she heard someone (likely Bucky) saying they had to locate Ava who had managed to leap out of the van just before the impact and Kate moved towards the guardrail running along the edge of the bridge before she could even process that her feet were following the order.
She couldn't stand there a second longer, watching Yelena frantically pulling off her uniform in order to have something to stem the blood flowing down her father's face.
It was Kate's fault. She had fired the arrow that had led to that. It might have well been her plunging a knife into the white of Alexei's eye.
Kate stumbled down the rough terrain of the hill, barely keeping her legs under her as they buckled under more than just the gravitational pull that greeted her once the ground leveled out again.
From a short distance away, she could see Ava pulling herself out of the river. Luke's suits did wonders at keeping them safe, meant to keep them safe from bullets and flames and whatever other variety of horrible things were waiting for them in this line of work, but she also doubted they were made with submersibility in mind. (Then again, he was a professional, perhaps that came standard.)
Ava opened her mouth to speak, but Kate walked right past her until she had made it to the water's edge before spilling her guts into the riverbank.
Sick spilled past her lips as tears began streaming down her face as images flashed through her mind.
Alexei. Cassie.
She'd come down there to help Ava out of the water, but it was the older woman who helped her now, holding her hair back as she emptied the contents of her stomach.
The soothing hand running over her back felt like torture, her skin burning at the touch as she tried to step out of the comforting motion. But Ava would not let her go.
Even with puke staining the underside of her lip, Ava still pulled her close into a hug. Kate tried to struggle away from the gesture, but Ava's grip held her through the weak attempts until Kate finally relented and let her sweaty forehead rest against the padded shoulder of her suit.
Ava didn't chastise her for what probably seemed like an overblown reaction, just let her silently cry into her chest.
The closing door behind her collided with the back of her boot just as Kate realized that she didn't know where she was. Which was partially a lie because it was obvious that she was in a bar, with the high top chairs and tables lining the edge of the room and the sharp tang that the collection of spirits behind the bar created when mixed together.
Rather, she didn't recall why she was there in the first place. The trip over was a complete blur in her memory and if not for the steady pressure of Bucky's hand around her wrist, she would probably have begun freaking out due to the nothing that filled in the blanks of how she got from the Watchtower to there.
If they had been at the Watchtower before this. Everything from the last day was a little fuzzy and Kate felt like she'd been drifting through a fog since the moment she'd released the arrow that got Alexei hurt.
Bucky was not content with letting her stew in her thoughts while the chilly nip of the evening air licked at her backside and pulled her fully into the establishment, towards the bar where a gruff old man was wiping peanut shells off the counter. She allowed herself to be led like a lost child towards salvation. Salvation had no nametag to identify himself, but he was ready for them as they stepped up in order to place their drink orders.
The bar wasn't crowded, a few somber faces spread throughout, but there was a group of three men seated a couple of stools down that provided enough noise to make the space feel a little less deserted.
Salvation the bartender said nothing to greet them as he tucked his dirty rag away and regarded them with the same look he'd offer to all his patrons whether they were here seven nights a week or only meandering in off the street one time, never to return again.
"I'll have a whiskey sour. And she'll have…" Bucky trailed off as he gestured to her to provide her order. Salvation looked over at her with his emotionless gaze and she watched as his eyebrow twitched ever so slightly, likely picturing her giving him some kind of elaborate fruity drink order.
"Bourbon. Neat." Her father had been a bourbon kind of man and she fondly remembered the earthy smell of it when she'd stray a little too close to the bar in the corner of his office or the way it clung to his breath as he tucked her into bed after indulging after dinner.
The push and pull of recent memories with her drink of choice left her head spinning, thinking about the shot offered to placate her in Mel's office to the way she'd been throwing back drink after drink at the prom when she'd watched Yelena walk in on Bob's arm.
An elbow gently nudged at her side and she realized that the two drinks were waiting for them on the bar, Salvation having disappeared towards the trio further down calling for his attention leaving them basking in the aftermath of his personable charm.
She took the glass of bourbon, but did not raise it to her lips like Bucky did with his own glass. She watched him take a drink of his whiskey before he gestured to the side with his thumb.
"Up for a game of pool?" The last thing that Kate really wanted to do was play pool in this bar, followed closely by drawing her sorrows in the preferred drink of her father that she'd inherited in order to feel closer to the dead man, but she nodded and allowed her feet to shuffle behind Bucky as he led the way over to the only pool table in the corner.
It had definitely seen better days, but then again, so had Kate.
Bucky placed his glass down on the table closest to the billiard table, seemingly left out intentionally for those engaged in a game as it was the only one in the entire place that wasn't surrounded by stools with mismatching colored seats.
Kate took a reluctant drink from her glass, savoring the way it burned going down her parched throat (when was the last time she'd even had something to drink?), before placing the rest of her beverage next to his abandoned cup.
Her hands itched to do something, so she crossed over towards where the empty triangle lay and wordlessly began racking the balls in order to have some kind of distraction. Bucky let her worked without interruption, grabbing one of the few cues that lined the wall and frowning at the unkempt state of their limited selection.
She briefly wondered how much pool he'd been able to play in the century that he'd walked the earth, but realized pretty quickly that it wasn't likely he'd been able to play much while frozen away in cryosleep. There were many parts of his life that would remain a secret unless he decided to share, but the exposé that had come out about each member of the New Avengers painted a pretty thorough picture of what he'd been forced to endure since Hydra had gotten their hands on him.
It didn't matter right now.
She stepped back once the balls were perfectly centered on the table and waited for him to break up the pile, constructed in a specific pattern only to be forced apart by the very nature of the game.
Kate flinched at the sound of the balls clattering together, but less because of the sudden noise and more because her efforts at trying to tie the balls together had been destroyed with one precise strike.
Bucky didn't comment on her reaction to the break. "Solids for you, Bishop." Her eyes drifted back to the table to see that yes, one of the striped balls was missing from the rotation.
"What are we even doing here, Bucky?" Kate asked as she watched him go to line up another shot, barely refraining from commenting on his posture or how the ball he was aiming for was unlikely to go into the pocket he was eyeing. The sooner they finished their game and their drinks, the sooner they could leave and Kate could return to the tower.
The thought of returning to the infirmary room to check up on Alexei felt as appetising as asking Salvation to squeeze his dirty rag out over her waiting mouth, but it felt like a duty she was required to perform. He would never see out of his right eye again and it was all her fault.
Bucky made his shot without offering her an answer to the question she'd asked and she watched wearily as the striped green ball bounced off the felted wall and into a cluster of solid balls just as she predicted, but the nuggets of satisfaction at his miss was swept away the moment he opened his mouth again.
"I know what happened in California." Kate's mouth went dry, all the moisture in her body rushing to escape through her eyes. She tucked her hands into her pockets to avoid wiping at her eyes and quickly scurried over to their table in order to try to wash away the memory his comment brought up in her mind.
The bourbon turned out not an effective tool at clearing the image away, as if her brain could be easily wired to recreate the Etch-A-Sketch effect of wiping away Cassie's motionless body or the wet feeling as blood seeped into her clothes while she tried to stem the flow out of the wound in her stomach.
Bucky's hand came into focus when he moved to grab his own glass, the only warning she got before she felt the pressure as he knocked their shoulders together in order to bring her back into the moment. She recoiled at the touch as she returned her empty glass back on the table with a sharp click and turned to off him the most put together look she could muster while still blinking back the tears that threatened to fall.
"Then you know why I didn't want to be on this team," she said and he nodded with a hum before passing her the pool cue he was using, likely offering up the one least warped by age and use from the others lining the wall.
Kate accepted the wooden stick, moving to take her place at the table to clean up their game so she could escape this seemingly one-sided conversation. She barely took the time to properly line up her shot before her hands were moving and one, two, and then three of the solid balls fell into the appropriate pockets.
"I know the gist of it. Sam told me about it, I didn't go digging into it." Kate fought off the groan she wanted to let out at the mention of Sam because she knew exactly where the man who had taken up the Captain America position had gotten his information regarding what had happened with her old team. Scott Lang was probably very chatty with his old friend when it came to the woman who had almost killed his daughter.
"Mel had. She mentioned it when she recruited me," Kate said, recalling the memory from the park where their manager had dropped the knowledge she possessed into her business proposal as if she wasn't tearing back open a wound that never properly healed. Every time Kate thought about it, it was like the skin was being pulled apart all over again. There had been no real closure before she packed her things and fled back to New York, changing her phone number so that none of her old teammates could contact her.
If they truly wanted to, she would have been easy to get a hold of, but none of them had even tried to track her down and demand her to answer for her crimes. To pay for what she'd done. To look into the face of the woman she'd almost been responsible for having killed.
"Well that's a bit of a dick move," Bucky said simply as he strolled over to the line-up of worn down pool cues, waiting for her to take another shot.
"I thought so too." She moved to the other side of the table where the cue ball now rested and once again barely took the time to line up her shot. Two more solids were off the table and Bucky let out a low whistle as he watched her effortlessly kick his ass.
She didn't remember arriving at the bar, or what had pushed the two of them out of the Watchtower door, but it was clear that Bucky had chosen this place so they could do this specific activity in order to have this unpleasant conversation. Her inevitable victory felt hollow and she hadn't even finished it yet.
"Did you know Sam asked me to join the team he was building?" Bucky asked while she moved into position to take another shot. Another ball fell away.
"No one really knows anything about your relationship with him. You're kind of a private person," she said, hoping that drawing attention to the lack of sharing on his end would be enough of a deterrent for the direction the conversation was heading, but she could see Bucky shaking his head out of the corner of her eye and she knew he was onto her.
"Well he had asked me. And I told him no, that I wanted to change the world the right way instead of with my fists." The nature of Bucky's relationship with Sam was a mystery, one that she felt pretty confident was more than strictly platonic especially if the person who always had Bucky's attention glued to his phone was actually Sam like they all assumed, but she couldn't imagine that any kind of conversation between them over something so controversial ended well.
But she also didn't really want to know the context of what they fought about, especially not when it came down to forming superhero teams.
"And what a successful career you had as a Congressman," Kate said instead, another attempt to deflect from the reason she knew he was even bringing it up. Her words came out a lot nastier than she intended them too, but like most things, Bucky didn't seem offended by the way she framed his short-lived political career.
"Honestly, I still can't believe people actually voted for me," he said with a shrug and watched as she took another shot and cleared away the final solid ball that had still been on the table. The end of the game was in sight, but she knew that they wouldn't be finished until Bucky decided he was done trying to shake her down for answers. Or perhaps there was something else going on here that she wasn't even aware of. "I thought my decision was the right one to make at the time, but now I'm not so sure. Next thing you know, I have a team of my own."
"Everyone is making teams these days," she grumbled under her breath, but it was loud enough that her words carried across the steadily rising volume of the rest of the bar as more and more patrons wandered in off the streets in order to enjoy the friendly services of Salvation. Kate had yet to see anyone else working during the short time they'd been there so far.
"Exactly. Sam wasn't exactly thrilled about it," Bucky admitted and Kate lined up her final shot, gesturing with her stick towards the pocket she was gunning to sink the 8-ball into.
"I can't imagine he would be." Her lack of verbally calling out the shot might have upset someone like Clint, but Bucky did not try to argue over whether or not it counted when the black ball dropped down into the pocket she'd pointed to, officially ending their game.
The hope she was holding out that the end of their match would result in them leaving were thoroughly dashed as Bucky moved to begin racking the balls again, not even bothering to ask her if she was willing to go for another game.
"But we talked about it. He understands where my head was at when I told him no and how quickly I'd learn that a single person can not tear down the corrupt institution that rules over our country," Bucky continued as his hands moved across the billiard table in order to pluck all the stray striped balls still littered across the surface.
She could see all of this for what it was even though Bucky made no attempts to hide his subtlety. Like when John had cornered her in her room, Bucky was attempting to reach out to her by sharing little pieces of his own life in exchange. And sure, she was curious about the exact nature of his relationship with Sam Wilson, but not when the information being provided was only being done in order to get her to open up about her own tragic backstory.
"No, we're just working for it now," she mused, her voice kept low enough that any of the curious eyes that flicked over in their direction would not be able to pick up what she was saying. It was a wonder that no one had attempted to approach them so far, but the longer they stayed, the likelihood that someone would recognize them increased.
"Kate." She turned back to Bucky to see him watching her, studying her just as much as she was accessing the bar for possible threats.
"What do you want me to say, Bucky?" she asked with a shrug, grabbing the pool cue with both hands and letting her weight sag against the battered old stick of wood. Releasing the tension in her muscles reminded her just how tired she was, not just from the lack of sleep since their mission, but from having carried the weight of her regrets for so long.
"We're not them. Alexei isn't Cassie." Her eyes slammed shut, unwilling to let herself be comforted by Bucky's assurances. He didn't know. He didn't understand.
"Don't, Please, don't," she choked out, voice a little more than a weak bark. She could hear his footsteps as he rounded the pool table in order to get closer to her, to offer her some kind of physical comfort with his presence, but she could feel a desperate sweat building on her neck at the mere thought of someone touching her right now.
She didn't deserve to be soothed, to be comforted. She wasn't worth the effect.
"It won't always be-"
"Stop, Bucky. I-I can't do this. Please, don't make me do this," Kate pleaded, feeling the first tears begin to spill despite her trying to hold them back. The skin of her cheeks were painfully dry, likely because she had foregone her normal skincare routine after taking a shower earlier. She winced as the salty moisture from her tears burned at the dryness of her skin and she tried to focus on how uncomfortable it felt rather than the warm radiating off the body that had stepped up into her space.
"I have lived a long time, Kate. Don't make the same mistakes I did. Don't shut everyone out when you need us the most." She choked on a sob when his hand touched her shoulder and let herself be pulled into his embrace. He held her against his chest, muffling the embarrassing noises that slipped out of her mouth as she cried.
Her skin itched where his hands held her, one arm awkwardly snaking across her shoulder blades to pull her in close and while the other remained on on her shoulder, his thumb rubbing circles gentle circles over the skin there that felt like it was pulling her apart all the way down to her bones.
All at once it was everything she felt like she needed and she could feel her throat closing up at the thought his attempts to console her were wasted on her. She tried to push out of his arms, but he tightened his hold enough to keep her wrapped up in his embrace, but not enough to hurt her.
She wanted him to hurt her. To squeeze the life out of her, to tell her what she'd done to Alexei was unforgivable and that she deserved what came next. That she could never escape what she'd done to Cassie and that her suffering would never be enough to pay back the pain she caused.
Bucky had killed hundreds, maybe thousands. But he held her like his hands had never known anything other than to offer peace. She trembled at his misplaced kindness, unsure how to accept it.
The noises throughout the bar began to increase as more and more people stumbled in after a long day of work, ready to drink their sorrows away, but Bucky did not loosen his grip until her breathing slowed and the shivers that wrecked her body subsidized.
When she pulled away, he let her go this time and she opened blurry tearstained eyes to finally look up at him to see a familiar grief reflected in his own eyes.
"I need 'nother drink. If we're… I need another," she mumbled, wiping at her face with the sleeve of her jacket. Only then did she realize she wasn't wearing her own jacket. The leather sleeves were a few inches too short and it pulled uncomfortably over her broad shoulders, but there was a faint smell of a familiar perfume that clung to the collar.
Yelena.
But when had she acquired it? And why?
Bucky allowed her to step back and examine the jacket that she didn't even remember putting on and his eyes narrowed when something seemed to jump out of him.
"Wait, hold on." She paused while running on her hands along the side of the jacket to see if she could feel anything in one of the countless pockets that lined every single one of Yelena's coats.
"What?"
"Come here," Bucky instructed her, his eyes fixed on the material that lay smooth around her collar. She stepped back into his personal space and he reached out to pluck something just under the flap of the collar. "Sorry, there was something on your jacket."
"Oh shit, what was it?" Kate asked as she tried to see what was pinched between his two fingers.
"Just a little spider, nothing to worry about," he offered as a response and it sounded so cryptic when he said it like that, as if there was something special about a little insect crawling along the inside of her clothes. (Not her clothes. Yelena's clothes. Yelena's jacket. Yelena's jacket on her body.)
He crushed the poor little spider in between his flesh fingers before flicking the remains of it away before she could see the little eight-legged carnage, which she was grateful for. There were some things you had to get used to when you lived alone, but she always preferred when she could get someone else to dispose of any insects for her.
"You could have just let it go somewhere else. I think spiders are supposed to be like, good for eating other bugs. Like your own personal bug maid or something." Bucky's lip twitched at her rambling and she realized that she'd fallen back into old patterns without even realizing it.
The brief moment of vulnerability had left her feeling off-kilter, but also more like herself than she'd felt since the night of their prom.
"Lemme get you another drink, Kate. And you can kick my ass in another game of pool before I'm changing the rules to make it harder for you," Bucky offered, motioning to where her empty glass was sitting. Salvation was likely struggling under the weight of a steadily filling bar, but if her teammate wanted to brave the crowd to get the old man's attention, then Kate wasn't going to argue with him.
"Fine. Let's do this then."