"Do we really have to do this?" Kate was not happy to be standing outside the police precinct even if she was standing there with her girlfriend.

"They offered to come to the apartment."

Kate shook her head, "no. I don't want them tainting our special place with their rules and regulations."

The blonde laughed, "spoken like a true vigilante. They are not so bad. Fury and Darcy seemed like almost normal people though they are friends with Natasha so that is still questionable. The sooner we go in there and talk to them, they soon we can get back to our lives prior to all of this bullshit."

"This has been my life for as long as I can remember. I don't know what there is to go back to," Kate felt Yelena's eyes boring into her temple. "I don't know what I am or what I'm supposed to be if this all goes away."

"Well that's easy," Yelena turned her girlfriend to face her. "You are Kate Bishop. The strongest, most loving, stubborn person I've ever met. I have no doubt that you will find exactly what you want to do. Whatever you choose, I'll be right here beside you the whole time."

Kate sighed, "you can't say things like that to me and expect me not to want to jump your bones."

Yelena caressed her cheek before bringing their lips together on a gentle kiss, "soon."

"Soon like when we get home."

A deep chuckle had Kate shivering on the spot, "not that soon, little hawk."

"It's the return of Kate Patience Bishop," she pouted. "If I die from lack of orgasms make sure that's in my obituary."

Yelena nodded and pulled away, still holding onto her hand, "I will certainly honor that request but I think you will be fine."

"Fury wants me to be a cop. Do you think I could do it?"

"I think you would make a very sexy detective one day," Yelena laughed when she heard her girlfriend groan. "Teasing aside. I think you would make a fine member of the force. You've been doing it for years. You just haven't been getting paid for it."

"I don't really like to play by the rules."

"I've noticed. But I think you'd have a lot of leeway with these cops. You don't have to decide anything anytime soon plus you are casted for awhile still so no active duty for you, I'm afraid."

Kate scowled, "you are benching me from my own fight?"

Yelena shrugged, "doctor's orders."

"With the potential for early tender fucking if I'm on my best behavior for awhile?"

Another deep chuckle led their way as she pulled Kate through the precinct doors, "whatever helps you sleep at night, Kate Bishop."

They walked towards the front desk. Kate didn't actually expect to see a secretary at a police station but she truly did learn something new everyday, "hi. We are here."

The woman looked up unamused, "and who are we?"

"Oh," Kate had just assumed they knew. "We are here to see Fury. I'm Kate Bishop. This is Dr. Belova. He should be expecting us."

"I'm just fucking with you," the woman laughed. "Fury's been waiting for you. Let me take you back to his office." Kate gave her girlfriend a look before shrugging and following the secretary, "we've been hearing a lot about the famous Kate Bishop for years. It's nice to finally put a face to a name."

Yelena saw a little smirk on her, "so they do know you," she whispered.

"Right? It's like I'm a celebrity or something."

The secretary looked over he shoulder and winked before opening the door to Fury's office, "or something. Have a seat ladies. I'll let Fury know you've arrived."

"This feels less like celebrity status," Kate grumbled when they were shut in the room like a couple of flight risks.

Yelena chuckled, "I wonder if that rather impressively large file on his desk is on you."

"Wouldn't hurt to look?" Kate walked over to the desk but as soon as she put her hand on the file she was interrupted.

"Please keep your hands to yourself, Ms. Bishop," Fury entered the room. "Dr. Belova. Good to see you."

"What? It's not good to see me?"

Yelena now realized that the two of them had built up a friendly rapport of some sort over the years of his pursuit of her, "this ought to be good," she chuckled and sat back crossing her arms over her chest.

Fury gave Yelena a look, "I take back whatever nice things I've said about you. You are exactly like your sister."

"That's a compliment," Darcy followed him in the room. "Nat is great."

"Even my number one detective isn't on my side," he shook his head, taking his seat behind his desk. "How are you feeling?"

Kate shrugged, looking down at her cast, "could be worse."

"Glowing review as you are a doctor," he smirked.

"She's just salty that I won't let her take it off early."

Kate grumbled, "she even made me give up my tiny saw. It's like she doesn't trust me at all."

"Precautions," Yelena shrugged. "I don't want to just have to recast it before I need to."

This implied a step in the process that Kate was unaware of but before she could ask, Fury spoke, "sounds like a great time at home. I want to thank you both for coming in today though we could've come to you."

Darcy rolled her eyes, "yeah we could've scratched Mackenzie off the list at the same time."

"If you call her that to her face, she'll slit your throat," Kate was still feeling overprotective of the girl but laughed all the same when she saw the smile on Darcy's face.

"She is very precocious, isn't she?"

Yelena chuckled, "that's just a nice way of saying stubborn or pain in the ass. People said that about Natasha all throughout school."

"I like you. You call out the bullshit," Fury pointed to Yelena. "And we've already talked to Mac extensively at the hospital. Your sister unfortunately was there for the interrogation but surprisingly I think Natasha helped calm the girl. She provided us with a lot of good information and descriptions of dozens of men including a handful that weren't in the explosions. This will help us tremendously."

"In fact we already have like four or five locations pinpointed where they could be keeping other girls and we've located Fisk." Darcy had a big smile on her face until she saw the look on Fury's face, "was that a secret?"

"Well what was our game plan?"

Darcy bit her bottom lip, "find out what Kate knows before we say what we know."

"And what did you do?"

"I immediately told Kate everything we know because she and her girlfriend are adorable and sometimes I can't help myself?"

Her sentence turning up into a question mark made Yelena chuckle, "I like her."

"Most people do," Fury didn't seem amused. He turned to Kate, "so you know everything we have." He opened a file and turned it towards them. It had all their intel on the trafficking, Fisk and other people in the ring. There was also a list of known missing girls and suspected runaways. "Anything you can confirm or add would be greatly appreciated."

Kate sifted through the papers before looking at Yelena who just shrugged, "are you promising that he's going to end up in prison this time?"

"Either that or dead. I can't promise which one but I assumed you'd be happy with either outcome."

Kate hid her surprise, "there are worse possible outcomes. If it is the second, can I be the one to pull the trigger?"

Fury smirked, "does that mean you finally accept my offer to join the force?"

"I already told her she can't be involved in the actual combat and retrieval unless it's after her arm has healed."

"Someone drives a tight ship," Darcy mumbled from behind Kate.

"You're telling me," she sighed before turning back to Fury, "and no I haven't made a decision but I wouldn't say that I've ruled it out anymore."

"A small step in the right direction."

Kate knew this needed to end. No more girls should have to go through this. "Okay. I'll help in anyway that she'll allow," she pointed over to Yelena essentially placing the ball in her court.

Three pairs of eyes stared at Yelena causing an uncomfortable feeling to wash over her, "fine but I'm making no promises. She'll need more x-rays to see how much she has healed then probably a short cast, maybe two weeks best case scenario." She turned towards Kate, "your arm was pretty fucked up. Professionally speaking. We let it heal in there for two more weeks then we do the reassessment."

"Seems reasonable. Two weeks for ground work. Stake outs. Footwork. Questioning. Research. You know," Darcy laughed, "all the non fun stuff."

"We can work with that," Fury seemed pleased. "Oh and your sister said she's down for whatever we need her for."

"Ha! Good luck getting that approved by Wanda. She's even more strict than I am."

2 weeks later*

Yelena found herself unable to sleep. Not only had the ortho given the "all clear" to remove the cast but she agreed that Kate was well enough to put it in a brace for the rest of the healing. That was bad news as far as Yelena was concerned. She had really hoped her arm would still be bad enough that the police would have to move forward with the brunette. She wasn't worried about Kate not being able to handle herself. Clearly the girl had skills. She was just terrified of something happening to her. Maybe she should have just let Kate fuck the sense out of her. At least then she would've gotten a decent night's sleep. She sighed and carefully peeled Kate's arms from around her waist and snuck out of their bed. She shook her head at the thought. When did she start considering it their bed? Maybe a quick workout would help settle her down.

Yelena made her way to the closet and quickly changed into a pair of biker shorts and her sport bra. She tossed a hoodie on overtop for the walk down to the gym before throwing her hair up in a messy bun. She made her way out of the room, silently closing the door behind her, making her way to the kitchen to mix some pre-workout.

"What are you doing up?"

"Natasha? I could be asking you the same thing. I'm going to work out," she pointed to the pre-workout mix she had grabbed from the cupboard.

"I'm getting ready to head back to bed. Just needed some water," she pointed to the fridge before grabbing herself a cold bottle of water. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Nyet," she sighed. "I can't stop thinking about Kate and the police and my mind won't shut up."

"Kate's perfectly capable of taking care of herself. I'd imagine she's even looking forward to putting all of this behind her," instead of excusing herself, she sat down at the island content to continue the conversation.

Yelena wanted to mix her drink and head out the door but the look on her sister's face told her they were far from over, "yes. I understand that."

"You are afraid she's going to haul off and get herself killed?"

Conceding to the fact that this conversation wasn't going to end anytime soon, Yelena sat down next to her sister and shrugged, "I guess. It's happened to me before."

"That was an entirely different circumstance. Kate will be with the officers. They won't let her do anything stupid now that they've got her where they want her. Kate knows that this is her best chance of everything being over. She's told me as much."

"You've been speaking with my girlfriend?"

Natasha couldn't help her smile, "don't get all territorial on me. She asked me if I was joining in and then she told me she was worried that you would be mad at her if she joined in."

"She said that?"

"Yes because believe it or not for some reason that girl loves you and cares about your feelings. If you don't want her doing this all you have to do is tell her."

Yelena only caught wind of one word in that sentence, "she'd told you she loves me?"

Natasha smirked, "from what Wanda tells me you already know the answer to that question."

"Of course she didn't keep her mouth shut," Yelena rolled her eyes. "Kate was high. That does not count."

"Why haven't you told Kate? Don't give me that look. We all know you love her. Well everyone except Kate. She's fucking clueless but I didn't really expect anything else from her."

"I'm not saying it to you before I say it to her."

Natasha shook her head, "so stubborn. Whether you say it or not it doesn't mean it's not true. All I'm trying to say is maybe before she goes off with Fury and Darcy, you might want to tell her. You of all people know how life can change in an instant."

"I know. I know. I was just waiting for the perfect moment. And that's stupid because there is no perfect moments in life."

"You could've written it on her cast. That would've been cute but she's getting that off in the morning."

Yelena rolled her eyes, "you are such a jackass. Do you want to join me down in the gym?"

"Are you kidding? I got a hot girlfriend who needs a good snuggle. I'm exhausted."

"I get why I'm out here at 3am but what are you doing up?"

Natasha just sighed, "I was with the kid."

"Is she having trouble sleeping?"

"Something like that. Have you noticed how tired she is in the morning?" Yelena gave a noncommittal grunt while shaking up her drink. "She says she's going to bed but she goes into that office and plays for a few hours on my iPad. I have it down to a science. About three hours after she goes into her room, she starts having night terrors. I just go in there to help her through them then I sneak back into my room and go to bed."

"How do you know it's night terrors?"

Natasha just shrugged, "remember when you were discharged back to the farm? You always went to bed and mom and pop, they didn't think anything of it but I knew. I knew it took you time to fall asleep. So I'd wait. Eventually you would pass out but it didn't last long. I would slip into your room and just hold you when you'd start coming to. Talking to Emily. Begging for it to stop. I would just hold you until your body relaxed and then I knew you were out for the night. I researched night terrors and figured that's what it was because you never mentioned anything to me. It's like you didn't know it was happening."

Yelena just stared at her sister, "you did that for me?"

"I couldn't leave you. I was scheduled to move out here way sooner than I did but I couldn't leave when you were hurting like that even if you didn't know. Then you started school and one night, they just stopped. I knew it was time for me to move on with my life. I guess it seemed like you didn't need me anymore."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Another shrug, "you would've been embarrassed if you found out your big sister held you throughout the night. We are very prideful people."

"I suppose that's true. So you'll never tell Mac?"

Natasha shook her head, "not unless she brings it up. If me being in there brings her even the smallest amount of comfort then that's something easy I can do for her. She acts like a tough little shit but she's fragile and I suppose I care for her."

"Anybody with ears can see that," she saw the smile on her sister's face. "Got that wrong. It is very early. So what's going to happen with Mac? I'm assuming the foster system is out of the question. She's a flight risk from what I've heard."

"She has no living relatives and she's said multiple times that even if she did, she would run away if she had to go back with them. Mac definitely is going to need counseling to work through everything but I think Wanda and I are open to her becoming part of the family. She likes it here and we like having her. Any disagreements? You live here, too. We would never make that big of a commitment without speaking with you first."

Yelena took a drink, feeling the caffeine enter her system, "as much as I appreciate the forethought, I've been thinking maybe me and Kate should move out. It is getting a little crowded around here and it's not like I even planned on staying forever."

"You've only been here five months. I'd hardly say you've worn out your welcome. There's plenty of room."

"I did not say we are leaving tomorrow. I just think Mac would appreciate an actual bedroom if she's staying for the long haul and Kate and I will need our privacy."

Natasha chuckled, "she is getting her cast off and from what I recall, she's a screamer."

Yelena smacked her shoulder, "cyka. I don't know why I put up with you."

"You love me," Natasha laughed as Yelena just shook her head and left the apartment without another word.

The workout was exactly what Yelena needed. She was thoroughly exhausted by the time she crawled back into the bed two hours later. Sure it was nearing 6 in the morning but sleep was precious and Yelena knew Kate would sleep the day away. Or at least she thought so until her over excited Golden Retriever girlfriend was standing over her calling her name repeatedly. Yelena groaned and pulled the covers over her head, "come on Lena. You have to wake up. You stink and my appointment is in like an hour."

Yelena peeked out of her blankets, "I do not stink. You take that back."

"Sorry babe but you do in fact stink. We might have to burn those sheets. The laundry might not even save them."

A grumble, "I do not stink." She sniffed, "okay I maybe stink a little but the sheets are salvageable. Why are you up?"

Kate pointed to her cast, "today's the day! Why aren't you up?"

The blonde rolled over onto her back, "I could not sleep so I went to the gym. I was too tired to shower after. What time is it?" She grabbed her phone and saw it was just past 9. Three hours is still more than what she usually gets when she's on call, "okay. I'm up. Let me get a shower real quick then I'll be ready to go."

Kate climbed on the bed and straddled Yelena's hips after she threw the blanket off of herself, "hey," she bent down and kissed the tip of her nose. "Are you okay? Couldn't sleep?" Yelena was very aware of how Kate was sitting on top of her and she had to reel herself in because believe it or not she was also very horny. The cast wasn't just a punishment of Kate's. When her hands instinctively gripped Kate's hips, the brunette smiled, "I could've helped you out with that."

Yelena tried to clear the sleep from her throat, "I thought you said I was stinky."

Kate kissed the hinge of Yelena's jaw before whispering in her ear, "very stinky but you are also so irresistible when you are sleepy." She tucked her cast between their bodies so she could adjust her hips slightly, grinding down onto her girlfriend, "we have some time."

Yelena's sleep filled chuckle made Kate bite her bottom lip. The blonde reached up, brushed her thumb against her lip, releasing it from its trap, "when i finally get a chance to fuck you the way I've been dreaming about it's going to take far longer than an hour." She saw Kate's pupils dilate at the thought, "and it should not be the night before your big police debut because I promise you won't be able to walk right for a couple of days."

Kate let out a little sigh next to Yelena's ear which caused an involuntary shiver to rip through her body, "I can still fuck you though, right?" She sat up just enough to look into her girlfriend's forest eyes. "You know I've been dying to strap you. I can do that with a heeling arm. I'm very skilled."

"Kate Bishop," it came out more strangled than she had intended. The thought of being pounded into the mattress seemed very appealing right now.

Kate could see the wheels turning in Yelena's mind. "Come on baby," she could see the resolve cracking, "I could make you feel real good."

As the words, "yeah okay," started to tumble from Yelena's lips there was a loud knock at the door, "fuck me."

Kate laughed when Yelena's head hit off the pillow, "that's what I was trying to do." She turned towards the door, "just a minute." She leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Yelena's forehead, "you really do need a shower."

Another loud knock, "we are leaving in 30 minutes. Mac has an appointment at the hospital too. If we are late, Wanda will withhold sex again. Be in the truck or find your own ride."

"I really hate her," Yelena rolled her eyes and sat up, the horniness failing to dissipate.

"No you don't!" Natasha called through the door as Kate whipped it open. "She really doesn't."

"She's just a little frustrated," Kate shrugged. "Honestly, same."

"Oh my gods," Yelena got up, walking to the bathroom and slamming the door.

Kate let out a little laugh, "and embarrassed apparently."

"She's fun to tease," Natasha smirked. "Though from the look on her face, I'm sure you were doing a different kind of teasing."

"I almost had her in my trap. Maybe later," she looked down at her cast again. "This thing will be off and I was hoping to take her out tonight on a date. Didn't want to wait until after tomorrow. Who knows what could happen? Plus, she's going back to work in a couple of days and she has to be on call."

"Did she say anything to you this morning?"

Kate shook her head, "no I woke her up and just kind of jumped her. Why did she say something to you?"

"Nope," Natasha knew they were both in the same place emotionally. "I think a date would be a good idea. Maybe a hotel room somewhere far, far away from here."

"We aren't that loud," Kate tried not to laugh knowing that was a bold faced lie. "Okay maybe we are."

"Plus there's a kid in the house. She doesn't need to hear what the two of you sound like when you are cumming."

"That's just wrong," Kate shook her head.

Speaking of Mac, she could be heard calling for Natasha from the other side of the apartment, "20 minutes and I'm leaving with or without the two of you."

"Yeah okay, we will be ready," Kate called after her before sitting down at the desk and starting up Yelena's computer. She quickly browsed a few hotels before finding one with a perfect view, "tonight. Yes. It's perfect. I'll tell her how I feel tonight."

Yelena had been having a similar conversation with herself in the bathroom after a quick shower, "all right Belova. You are not a pussy. You are going to tell that girl how you feel tonight or you are going to die trying." She chuckled at her own dramatics before walking to the closet and moving all the cleaning products aside to unveil Kate's past due hidden Christmas present. She always hid her gifts there for Natasha and just as she suspected, Kate also never bothered to clean the bathroom. "You know how you feel. Just tell her," she held the wrapped gift in her hand. "You already know she loves you. At least she loves her wife when shes high as fuck," she chuckled. Yelena quickly got dressed and made her way out of the bathroom seeing Kate scurrying around their bedroom throwing stuff into a bag, "what's going on?"

"Date night," Kate's smile was contagious. "I packed a few things for you. I hope that's okay."

"More than okay," she slipped the present into her coat pocket. "We better get going before Natasha leaves us."

"She keeps talking about our very loud sex," Kate zipped up the bag and threw it over her good shoulder, grabbing Yelena's hand and pulling her towards the door.

Yelena quickly grabbed the backpack to carry it herself before lacing their fingers back together, "remind me to kill her tomorrow."