Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Prologue
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The sunlight shines through the drapes of Kate Bishop's apartment. One of her bedroom windows was slightly open, letting in the sounds of the busy New York streets.
Suddenly the sound of knocking stirs the brunette from her sleep.
“Kate, get the fuck up!” A voice shouts from the other side of the door. “It’s 8:30 in the morning. You have work!”
Kate’s eyes open wide and she bolts into a sitting position. A panic sets into her chest. She glances at her alarm clock. Kate groans to find the red-illuminated numbers flashing "12:00" repeatedly.
"Fuck." She growls, snatching her phone off the nightstand and staring in horror at the time.
She was late.
So late.
Then she belatedly realizes her roommate just saved her ass. “Thanks Toni!”
“No problem.” Toni’s muffled voice responds. Then Kate hears the other brunette walk away from her door.
Darting from the bed, Kate rushes across the room, grabbing a white shirt, black jacket and matching dress pants from her closet. She brushes her teeth and gets dressed in record time. She also put an extra layer of perfume on since she definitely didn't have time for a shower.
Ten minutes later, she exits her room to find Toni sitting at their breakfast bar with her laptop out and a cup of coffee in her hand. “Sup dude.”
Kate sighs. “Hey, I don’t have time to chat.”
Toni scoffs. “Yeah I know dude.” She nods to the door. “Go."
With one last nod, Kate flees the apartment with her messenger bag wrapped around her.
__________
There was a brief moment where she entertained the thought of skipping her usual coffee run but that quickly shot out of her mind when she knew realistically the consequences of such action would be disastrous.
Deciding very quickly, Kate made a bee-line for the Starbucks near her office.
The line is out the door and just as she loses all hope, the brunette hears someone call her name.
"Kate!"
Kate looks up to see the friendly barista waving her to the front of the line, holding up the usual order in her hands with a huge grin on her face.
The brunette sighs in relief. She pushes her way to the front, muttering a few apologies before grabbing the cups from the other girl, a grateful and exhausted smile on her face.
"Amy, you have no idea. You've literally just saved my life." Kate breathes, smiling at the dirty blonde and tossing a generous tip into the tip jar before sprinting from the coffee shop and setting into a dead run for the office down the city block.
The crowds are unrelenting as she pushes and shoves her way to the entrance of the building. The sunlight shines off of the bronze placard hanging in bold, massive letters over the marble door frame.
Shield Security is one of the most prestigious and lucrative cybersecurity companies known to man. While there are many sites, its headquarters is in NYC and Kate sometimes can’t believe how she acquired a job here. She’s just a lowly operations assistant but still.
While anyone would be daunted by the leaps and bounds it would take to secure and ensure permanent employment at Shield, it wasn't the sole reason for Kate's near daily anxiety over her job.
There was nothing that could be more harrowing than working for the most closed off, emotionally void Operations Specialist. Ms. Romanoff was more secure and hard to crack than some of the software Kate had to work on. She recognized the irony there.
Kate barged into the nearly packed elevator with a soft apology to her co-workers, taking a few moments to catch her breath as she held the coffee cups in her shaking hands.
"One of those mornings." is all she mutters to the other people in the elevator. She receives a sympathetic nod before the elevator falls into a deafening silence.
Upon arriving at her floor, she makes her way out and begins to march down the corridor, weaving her way through the crowds as she heads towards her boss's office.
Everyone who was anyone knew that it had to be hell working directly under the Operations Specialist.
No one really knew where Ms. Romanoff had come from; only that she seemingly crawled from the depths of Hell itself to make every single one of her employee's lives exhausting hardships.
Only a scarce amount of people knew few details of Ms. Romanoff's past and they were incredibly tight-lipped about it.
Yelena Romanoff is a brilliant and iron-fisted tycoon who graduated with her Master's degree from university at the tender age of 23. She had immigrated from Russia to the United States three years ago with a computer science and business degree clutched tightly in her grasp.
While Yelena is a nightmare to work for, she is a brilliant businesswoman who has helped streamline the company into top ranks.
Surely, had she the heart of any decent human being, she should have been a wonderful boss to anyone.
Instead, Kate felt like her lackey, scheduling board meetings, arranging records, reports and correspondences, and hauling coffee and pastries whenever it struck Ms. Romanoff's fancy. She was a glorified secretary at 24, who most certainly did not sign up for this bullshit. She was much more qualified than what her boss used her for.
"Kate! Cutting it close today!" Greer, a close friend on the floor, calls out as she approaches her desk.
The brunette sighs, holding up the coffees. "It's just been one of those mornings, dude. I can't talk I got-" She explains, though a passing mail trolley she hadn't seen effectively cuts her off and causes her to drop one of the cups.
And yes, it was the coffee for Yelena.
"Oh come on!" Kate shouts.
The hot liquid soaked her white top. She looks down at herself in dismay.
All around her, voices murmured in collection, mixed amusement and pity for the now thoroughly fucked assistant.
Greer winces. “Fuck Kate, it’s not your morning.”
The brunette shakes her head. “Nope.”
She tosses the now destroyed cup into the trash and rushes to the bathroom, carefully cradling the remaining coffee in her hands as she shut herself inside. Thank God, she'd had the foresight to bring an extra shirt to the office. Her jacket was definitely ruined, but at least it was black. She could hide the coffee stains easily in that.
The brunette changes in record time, tossing her ruined shirt into her bag and slipping out of the bathroom with the remaining cup.
Then, she hears the office instant messenger tone echoing from multiple computers. Her blood runs cold.
She's here.
Moving quickly, Kate darts into her boss's office and sets her bag down on the table, holding the cup dutifully in her hand as she waits for Her to arrive.
Outside the private office, silence falls across the entire floor as the elevator door chimes.
Out steps the devil herself, and everyone collectively holds their breaths.
Yelena was a sight to behold.
Young looking with a strong jaw, golden blonde hair, and ice-cold eyes, she holds an air of authority beyond her 26 years as she marches out of the elevator into the communal office space.
The blonde is dressed in a remarkable navy three-piece suit that fits to her curves in all the right places. If she had a shred of human decency in her body, Yelena would be an insanely attractive woman.
All of her employees keep their heads down and their fingers flying over the keys of their computers, working in near silence on whatever projects Yelena threw in their direction.
The click clack of her five inch heels echoes across the floor as she marches into her office.
Glancing up at her assistant with a blank expression, Yelena doesn’t even blink as she snatches the coffee out of Kate's hands and shoves her coat into her assistant's now empty hands.
"Bishop." Yelena mutters, sitting at her desk as she pulls out the latest cases from her briefcase without so much as a cursory smile to her overworked assistant.
"Good Morning, boss." Kate replies, smiling brightly at her as she hangs the coat up on the rack and grabs her tablet to go over the day's schedule with her.
"I just wanted to remind you, you have a conference call in half an hour, followed by a meeting with Karen. She's requesting a status on her company's security system, and I reminded her that if she does not get the finalized codes to you by tomorrow afternoon, the deal is pulled. HR is requesting a statement for last week's attendance records, and…” Kate trails off as she flips the page on her tablet before glancing up at Yelena. "Your immigration lawyer called. She's requesting you have a meeting with her this morning, she says it's rather urgent."
Yelena seems to listen with only half interest, flipping through the first few pages of one of the cases before tossing it to the side. "Thank you, Ms. Bishop. Cancel the meeting with Karen, tell her that the deadline has been moved to this afternoon, and keep my lawyer on the books for this meeting after lunch, no earlier. We're heading to Maya's office to have a little chat with her, regarding an important paradigm shift."
Kate nods, making the cursory notes on her tablet. "Alright. Should I go and tell Lopez that you are on your way?"
"No, you're coming with me. Were you not listening?" Yelena snaps, eyes hard.
The brunette pauses, opting to not say anything.
Her boss shakes her head. "If I wanted your input on how I handle my affairs, I would have asked you." Yelena says harshly. "I do not recall asking." Then she picks up her coffee cup to take a sip.
However, her eyes pause on the cup. "Kate Bishop." The blonde says, holding the cup out to her.
On the side of the white cardboard was a short note.
Yelena clears her throat. "Who is this Amy, and why am I to be calling her?"
A smirk starts to form on the blonde's face and it sends a chill down Kate's spine.
"Uhm..." Kate stutters, rubbing the back of her neck. "That wasn't for you. That was for me."
Yelena raises an eyebrow. "Uh huh and why am I drinking your coffee, Kate Bishop?"
The brunette shuffles her feet for a moment before meeting her boss' gaze. "Because yours spilled?"
Yelena stares her down for a few tense moments before lifting the cup to her lips and taking a drink. Then she smirks again, "Well, is it not a coincidence that you also happen to order a blonde roast Caffè Americano with an extra shot of espresso, Kate Bishop?"
Kate can feel her ears turning red and her cheeks flushing, really wishing the ground would swallow her up or is she could just magically obtain the ability to turn invisible.
Either would be better than this.
"Yes, that is a quirky coincidence isn't it?" Kate rubs the back of her neck again. It's a nervous habit. "I mean it's not a premeditated plan on the off chance that your coffee just happens to spill on any given morning." She mutters quickly.
Yelena stares her down before shifting her gaze away. She stands, gripping the coffee cup and sending Kate a fake smile. "Premeditated. I'd say it was more pathetic, no? Come along, Kate Bishop. Remember when we step inside her office, you are not to utter a single syllable. You are a prop in the room who is at my command. Do you understand?"
Kate weakly nods, her posture slumping slightly as she follows Yelena from the office like a kicked puppy.
"Yes ma'am."
___________
The meeting went as well as it could ever go with Yelena.
That is to say it ended with Maya Lopez, one of the company's most controversial developers, screaming obscenities at Yelena as she was informed rather bluntly that her failure to secure the JP Morgan case cost her the job.
The entire office fell into an eerie silence as Yelena and Kate leave Maya. They make their way back to Yelena's office.
"Kate Bishop, it looks like we're going to have to make some changes this week, regarding hours. I'm afraid you'll have to come into the office this weekend and cover up all the slack Lopez left behind for us. No exceptions." Yelena states, leaving no room for argument.
Kate feels her heart drop. "This weekend? But it's my adopted brother's wedding. I have to be there."
Glaring at Kate, Yelena turns and faces her fully, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm sorry Ms. Bishop, I don't think I heard you correctly." She practically growls. "Did you just talk back to me?"
Kate swallows, stepping back from the blonde's piercing gaze. She sighs. "I mean, I'll call them and cancel." She mutters, feeling utterly defeated.
Sometimes she wondered if the possibility of being promoted anytime in her lifetime was worth this much grief.
Yelena nods and then turns on her heel, satisfied with Kate's new answer before glancing at her watch. "I'm afraid it's time for me to see my lawyer. Resume your work in my office, but do not forget to fetch me in ten minutes. We have far too much to do this afternoon." She says, waving her assistant off with a flippant toss of her wrist.
The blonde marches off without another word, leaving Kate standing in the aisle with a stunned expression on her face.
____________
Yelena exits the elevator on the third floor, marching past the varying secretaries without so much as a shred of notice, and ignoring their civil attempts at any greetings. She didn't have time to speak to anyone at this moment. She had far too much on her mind to deal with any kind of small talk.
Letting herself into Maria's office, she plasters on her best smile and straightens her suit jacket before greeting her lawyer and the Chief Security Officer.
"Ms. Hill. Mr. Fury, it's good to see you both." Yelena says, shaking both of their hands in turn. "Thank you for seeing me today. I hope everything is going well."
Fury smiles at Yelena and nods, sitting back down in his seat before gesturing to his paperwork.
"Yelena, before we get started, I just wanted to say I caught wind of your work. Congratulations on securing that high profile case with JP Morgan. You have no idea how beneficial that is to our company."
Yelena smiles at him. She has worked hard to earn some sort of respect as the youngest Operations Specialists this company has seen in so long, and to hear such praise was gratifying.
"Thank you so much. Now this meeting, what is it concerning?" The blonde asks, wanting to get straight to the point.
Hill and Fury look to each other for a moment before returning their attention to the desk before them.
Maria speaks as she shuffles a few papers in her hands.
"Yelena, do you recall me telling you not to go to the Toronto conference due to your Immigration Visa application? It's highly imperative that all rules of your current status are upheld. And yet, I find that you did indeed leave the country against the laws of your current status regardless?"
Yelena, ever cool and collected, just nods. "I do realize that that was against policy, ma'am. However, had I not gone, the case given at the conference would have gone to-"
"The United States Government does not care about that." Hill spoke up, glancing at her client with a firm expression. "You directly violated a very important rule. Now, we spoke to the Immigration office just this morning."
Yelena, for the first time in a while, felt somewhat flustered. She schools her emotions before she speaks.
“What did they say?” Her voice devoid of any emotions.
Maria sighs, glancing up at Fury before glancing down at the papers in her hands.
"I'm afraid Ms. Romanoff that your Visa application has been denied due to this offense and you are being deported back to Russia."
It felt like rug was pulled from under Yelena's feet. She stared at the two of them, her carefully crafted expression cracking slightly as the words sank in.
"Deported?" She croaks, paling at the idea. "There's- I mean- that can't be the final outcome. There's something that can be done, no?" She asks, looking at her lawyer with a hint of desperation on her face.
Maria stands, addressing her client point blank. "Well, we can always have you reapply, but unfortunately you will have to leave the country for at least a year before anything can be done. And this time make sure you fill out the paperwork correctly and in a timely fashion."
Yelena clears her throat, trying collect herself. "A year? It's not ideal at all, but I can continue to work. The marvels of video conferencing and such. It.. it can be done."
Fury shakes his head. "Yelena, if you are deported, you legally cannot work for an American company. I'm sorry but we're turning operations over to Maya Lopez." He explains when he sees her surprise. "She is the only other person in this building with your qualifications to complete the job."
"Maya? The woman I just fired? You can't be serious!" She gasps. "Mr. Fury, please I'm begging you, there has to be something that can be done!"
The sound of the office door creaking open interrupts them.
All three of them turn to see Kate inching her way into the office.
Yelena, for all intents and purposes, wants nothing more than to clock her assistant in the head for interrupting such an important negotiation.
Kate sends the blonde remorseful look. "I'm so sorry to interrupt, but boss, Karen is on the phone again. She's insisting she speak with you."
"Kate, now is really not the time!" Yelena hisses, turning to glare daggers at her assistant.
Kate glances between the trio, feeling as if she'd interrupted something huge. However, she stood her ground and closed the door behind her, rather than fleeing from the fiery gaze of her employer as instinct told her to.
"I know, boss. Karen is insisting she speak with you directly. I told her you were otherwise engaged and unable to come to the phone at this moment, but I don't know how long I can hold her off."
The room fell into silence. Yelena stares at Kate for a moment, her shoulders ceasing their tremors. That word.
Engaged.
Yelena stares at the brunette as the cogs turn in her head. Her expression melts into her trademark unreadable façade. She glances over her shoulder at Hill and Fury before glancing back at Kate and meets her gaze head on.
She mouths, 'come here' at Kate.
The brunette inches her way closer to Yelena's side and looks between the three like a deer caught in headlights.
Yelena turns her attention back to the others, plastering a convincingly apologetic look on her features and clasping her hands before her.
"Ms. Hill, Mr. Fury, I suppose this is not-'' She restarts, "What I mean to say is, I realize that this is an unfortunate, impossibly inconvenient moment for everyone but I suppose now is as good a time as any to come out and say it."
The blonde steps back next to Kate and slides right up to her, bumping shoulders with the brunette and sending them a smile.
"Kate and I, we're getting married!" She finishes, wrapping one arm around Kate's waist and patting her stomach with her free palm, cozying up to her side.
Shellshock.
That was the best way, the only way really, to describe Kate's reaction. She blinks, looking at her boss for a moment before glancing up at the others, completely bereft of her speech.
"Um...."
"Married? Isn't she your secretary?" Fury scoffs, narrowing his eyes at Kate for a moment as if to read the lie on her face.
Yelena only laughs and pats Kate's back a little harder, shaking her in her spot to get her to speak up and play along with the ruse.
"Oh, not the secretary. Executive assistant. Titles and all that. No, you know how unprecedented it is, but it's hardly unlikely that no one has ever fallen in love with their assistants before. I mean, surely you'd know that, Mr. Fury?" Yelena asks.
Kate still wasn't talking, and Yelena took the moment to pinch the side of her ribs sharply.
"Uhm, yes. Married." The brunette sputters out.
Smooth, Kate. Way to be a whole 30 seconds behind the entire conversation. Oh God, what the hell was going on?
Maria gazes between the two before leaning back in her seat and smiling.
"Yelena, that is wonderful. I'm so happy to hear that, and congratulations to your fiancé. However, I would be happy to make this work with the Immigration office as long as you make it legal." She says carefully.
"Oh of course!" Yelena laughs, holding up her own left hand briefly before hiding it behind Kate's back again. "No need to worry about that, ma'am. We're headed to Kate's family's house to tell them the happy news this weekend!"
The four of them fall into an uncomfortable silence again, and Yelena clears her throat, looking up at Kate.
"So, we're good now? Because we should head down to the Immigration office straight away and make this whole thing legal now, correct? C'mon Katie. Let's go." The blonde says, tugging her assistant from out of the office.
As the door closes behind them, Kate feels herself being dragged back to Yelena's office.
The only thought running through her head was ‘why the fuck did Toni have to wake me up this morning’.
_____________
Kate stands before Yelena's desk, locked away in their silent office together.
Yelena fusses over her latest works, seemingly unaffected by the absolutely ridiculous mess she'd just pushed them both into.
The air is tense between them. The only sound in the room is the rustling of the papers.
Yelena looks up, cutting off the awkward tension. "What?"
Kate blinks, taking a deep breath to gather her thoughts. "I don't know what just happened. Is this real life?"
"Relax Kate Bishop, this benefits you too."
Kate scoffs, staring down at her boss and planting her fists on the glass-top desk.
"Oh? Do Enlighten me, Yelena." She says, feeling emboldened enough by the situation to talk down to her boss for once.
Yelena sighs, putting her papers down and staring up at her.
"Kate, they were going to make Maya the Operations Specialist in my absence, and if that had happened, you would have been fired on the spot."
The brunette's jaw drops. She moves to defend herself but Yelena cuts her off.
"You can say goodbye to your dreams of a promotion. Every second of your life that you dedicated to this company will be gone in the blink of an eye.” Then her gaze hardens. “Besides, it's not like you were saving yourself for someone special. I'm doing you a favor." Yelena shoots back, her tone as cold and calculating as ever.
Kate stares at her, feeling the fight leaving her almost instantly. Vaguely, she felt impressed that Yelena had even caught onto her intentions of a possible promotion.
"Yelena, I'm not going to marry you. It's ridiculous. And it's kind of illegal. And by kind of, I mean very illegal. I'm not doing it."
Yelena slowly lowers her papers again, standing up from her seat and glaring at Kate with that familiar fire of authority.
"Yes, you are." She growls, walking around the desk to stand before Kate. "And do you know why you're going to marry me?”
Kate stands her ground, crossing her arms over her chest but she doesn’t say anything.
Yelena continues. “You are going to do this because all of those nights we spent together, slaving over work. All those conferences, trainings, and hours poured into our careers will be down the drain, and you will be out on the corner of the street begging for scraps the minute Maya fires your ass, while I get sent back to the icy hell hole I came out of. Neither of us want that."
The blonde pauses but she locks her eyes on Kate.
Then she continues. "We will do this little weekend getaway, meet your family, allude to marriage, and go elope. Then, when everything has settled and my status as an American citizen is established, we can go get a silent divorce. We will pretend none of this ever happened and move on with our lives. Until then, you are stuck with me, understand?"
Kate stares at her, never having felt more helpless than during this moment.
The thick silence was cut by the sound of the phone ringing, business thrumming as usual.
Yelena sends her a fake smile before she gestures to the phone with her head.
"Answer that. We have work to do before we head down to the Immigration office, Kate Bishop."
And with that, the conversation was over.
Yelena returns to her papers at her desk as if Kate didn't even exist, leaving her assistant standing in the aftershocks of the most preposterous afternoon she has ever experienced.