return to sender

“did you really mean it?”

“yeah, sometimes, i did,” robin still wishes it.

——————

“promise you won’t let them put my face on skim?”

even now, she could joke.

“i promise.”

If she could speak, it would have been: “I’m sorry, it was real to me too.” Yet, as it was, the only sound that came was the blood gurgling out between gaps in her ribs. The only sound was her dying. Besides, who would have heard the words? Just the birds. On their next flight, her soul would trail their wings to kiss the sky. She’d see her dad. Oh, and all the wonderful things she would tell Natasha.

She would say: “I made the wrong choice. In the end. Yelena was right, she was right, and I was stupid. I could have stayed with her, I could have stayed with Clint. With Lucky. You know, she did that little scrunch with her nose? It made her look like a rabbit. She told me about the Thumper toy she carried around as a kid - yeah, the one your mom got her, because she called her bunny. The one she said was lucky. She said you would steal it, hide it in places she couldn’t reach. You had it that night they came for you. She said you had kept it the entire time, even when you got out, and you’d put it in front of mirrors and on doorway ledges, and in window sills. She said you thought it would bring her back to you. She said you were superstitious that way. You know, she was too. She slept with the mirrors covered after the Blip. She got it back, but you already know that. Clint had it, after, well after you saved the world. He gave it to her that night she almost killed him. One lucky fucking rabbit, huh?”

She would say: “God, what was I thinking? You saved the world, and brought her back. You brought her back knowing you’d never see her again. How could you? How could you know that and still choose to do it? Did you think - why me? Did you almost, just the tiniest bit of hesitation, want Clint to be the one? For a moment? No, no, you’re right that’s not a good thing to ask. I shouldn’t have.. I’m sorry. I just, I thought… I thought… Well, I didn’t really think, did I? Not now, not during any of it. It all hurt too much, and you know about that kind of hurt, and everyone else - they, they all get to just say fuck it. They get to say fuck it and just take all that hurt, all that anger and load it into a weapon and just shoot until they’re tired of it. I thought I would just shoot until I was tired of it.

A rare moment of reflection, “Then it got tired of me.”

She would say: “I wanted to tell her I was sorry. I wanted to tell Clint, and the dog, and you know what sucks the most? I wanted to tell my mom I was sorry. For almost all of it. But I was especially sorry to Yelena and the dog. You saw her face, that… on that last night. You heard me say your name. You heard the crack in her voice. My hands were shaking..”

A hiccuped half laugh: “I wasn’t a Hawkeye anymore - couldn’t get that arrow to shoot true at the end. Got me here, didn’t it?”

Then a wet noise, maybe a sob, the suck of teeth. The flare of a memory fresh and raw, ringed in salt: “You know, her hands were shaking too. She always pulled her punches… She really, fuck, she really always pulled them until that point. Until I pushed her over, until she saw me for what I had become…”

She would say: “There really isn’t anything I can do now? She’ll never know. Oh. God, oh god, she’ll never know. I didn’t want to leave it like that. It was all real. It was all real to me.”

She would say: “I blew it huh?”

She would.

She.

She would.

and a spark goes off. she can taste it faintly: mac and cheese, a hint of blood, a sharp laugh. sours her stomach on instinct.

she had lied. well, was it lying if she believed it? because yelena had been drinking, and she had been working, and she had been staring at her phone. well, one phone in particular. one she couldn’t bring herself to toss after a miscalculated mission.

one that had six missed calls and several reread texts.

one that she couldn’t bring herself to pick up or respond. one that stopped pinging after six months of waiting.

that counted as being alone, right? being unable to lean into the only warmth offered, unable to just pick up on that third ring, being unable to stop staring at a screen… was it still alone when after too much to drink she listened to the voicemails?

the sudden feeling was too big to stuff down. the name was whispered, subconsciously springing from heart to tongue.

“kate bishop.”

yelena turned on her heel and went back out the curtains. somewhere lodged between her extensive knowledge of gun cleaning and peewee soccer goal keeping, was the painful awareness that kate should be home. a painful awareness that kate went to the void.

there were shouts after her, hands reaching out, but all she could offer was a whined: “kate.”

and yelena ran.

there was a burning in her chest. she imagined it was the same alexie had felt: a shameful helplessness. because she too had not picked up the phone, or picked a lock, or tried. because she too was bloated with grief, unable to be anything except a walking corpse.

but now there was something sturdier righting her just between the ribs, yelena could feel it growing. the steadying weight of purpose. and she knew how disorienting it was to come out of the blip, and how curdling the void could be. she wanted to try this time.

and she knew everything about kate bishop. she knew there would be at least one room. she knew there would be a clawing guilt behind at least one door. she just didn’t expect… she didn’t expect… yelena had miscalculated the toll of a dead father and betrayed mother. she miscalculated the kind of pressure a six-year old can create to become the household’s protector.

she confused kate bishop’s compulsion for perfection as an egotistical bravado.

but yelena was painfully correct about kate bishop being home and in the path of the void. all it took was an open window.

and kate was sitting in the kitchen floor, face still flushed and eyes ringed red. she had more scars than yelena had left her with. lucky was pressed against her side, head pitifully in kate’s lap.

and kate was unfazed by yelena’s sudden appearance. only a slight hitch to her voice when she asked, “did you come to leave again, too?”

there was a shadow to her face that hadn’t been there before.

“no, no, i-“

she looked so small and so pitiful. and yelena’s gut retched, because she had thought that maybe there would be someone else here picking kate off the floor. but it was just kate, and the dog, and yelena.

it was a silly thought because yelena knew everything about kate bishop. kate only came back to this apartment when she missed her mom. it was in the fifth voicemail that kate had left, tucked into the tenth minute mark. such bad timing.

yelena slid down the kitchen cabinets to sit next to kate, letting their shoulders touch. yelena stared ahead, absently reaching her hand over to pet lucky’s head.

finally kate asked: “how did you know to come here?”

“because you used my phone like diary.”

“i didn’t actually think you would listen.”

kate’s smile was small, but it was just like yelena remembered when she had agreed to drinks. sheepish but with a stab of joy.

“i am glad i did.”