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bishopsbeloved · 3 months

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//FRIENDS OR LOVERS?

kate bishop x fem reader

Kate Bishop is the most beautiful girl you know. She’s also the only one you won’t let yourself have.

friends to lovers, mentions of heavy drinking, angst and fluff, 3.4k words

read this fic on ao3!

Your best friend sighs as she fumbles with the door of your apartment.

“Y/N, where have you put your keys?” she asks you wearily. You don’t answer her. Your head is leant on her shoulder, with her arm loosely looped around your waist to prevent you in your intoxicated state from plummeting face first downwards.

“Y/N,” Kate tries. When you still don’t answer, she turns enough to grab your jaw in her hand, forcing you to meet her steely gaze. “Where are your keys?”

“Doormat,” you croak, your stomach churning not just from the liquor as she searches your eyes for a moment before releasing your face to fetch your door key. You shift your weight anxiously.

It’s not hard to tell that she’s mad. Even as she takes care of you, unlocking the door and guiding you gently into your apartment, sitting you down on your couch, there’s a certain tension in the air. You see it in the way her jaw clenches, her tongue runs over her teeth, in the cold fire of her blue eyes. You know Kate Bishop as well as you know breathing.

“You stay here,” she murmurs, kicking off her platforms. “I’m gonna… get you clothes. And a drink.”

She looks down at you, seeking your compliance, any acknowledgment at all. You blink back up at her hazily, in the way you’d never dare to when you’re sober. You can’t help it. Kate Bishop is the light of your life. She’s your best friend, sure, but you’re also hopelessly, irrevocably in love with her. You’ve tried so hard not to be, but it happened so gradually you hardly noticed it, until one day every little thing she said and did filled your stomach with butterflies whose wingbeats whispered you’re fucked. She’s the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen, she’s gorgeous, when she wears those suits she loves you actually can’t breathe, she makes you laugh, she’s so clumsily gentle and thoughtful, she keeps all of your favourite snacks at her apartment, so you just have to come over and eat them. She has this earnest charm to her which despite her socialite status she doesn’t even seem to realise. She’s just… god, you love her so much.

This is, naturally, something you’ve been quite torn up about over the last few months; inside of you is a perpetually bitter, stagnant battle of the head and heart, where neither are victorious. You are paralysed by fear. You can’t relax around her (which saddens you to no end, because she is your person). What if you stare for too long? What if you don’t stare for long enough? What if you say the wrong thing? You’ve never been this afraid to ruin something. Your friendship with Kate is something real, and good, your love transcends any kind of box you’ve tried to fit it into; it’s whole and it’s the best thing in your life. You will do anything in your power to keep her around, short of actually telling her how you feel. You tell yourself you’re content with just being around her instead, with being her best friend, but the ache in your chest has gotten to the point that you can’t look at her without it splitting you in two.

Apparently, though, this is something only applicable to you when you’re sober, because right now you’re gazing at her like she hung the stars in the sky. (One time she did help you hang glow in the dark stars from your ceiling. Her arms are much longer than yours.) In all honesty, you probably only drank this much tonight so that you’d be able to look at her without bursting into tears, but now you’re burdening her in a different way in that she’s stuck taking care of you. God, you’re so fucking useless. She’s so pretty. Are those your socks she’s wearing?

“Y/N,” she says impatiently, and you slowly blink yourself out of your daze. “Are you even listening?”

You stare blankly back up at her. She curses at you under her breath as she makes her way towards your bedroom, pausing near the door to turn on your fairy lights with an anger that absolutely does not match the gentle yellow-white twinkle that immediately illuminates her form. You giggle at the sight, and the thought. Kate glares back.

“You’re not moving a fucking inch. Stay put. Got it?” she demands. You nod obediently. She holds your gaze for a couple of seconds, to make sure you’ve really gotten the message, before retreating round the corner to your bedroom, presumably in search of the aforementioned change of clothes.

You honestly don’t intend to disobey her. You figure you’ve ruined her night enough already, she doesn’t need you actively making things even more difficult for her. You hate, more than anything, when Kate is upset with you. It feels like the whole world is closing in on you. You stay in position for a good few minutes, and eventually your mind starts to wander again. Naturally, every single thought you’re plagued with is one of Kate. (What is this bullshit? Don’t you drink to forget?) You think of her smile, her lips, the things she’s told only you and no one else. Are you not good enough? Will she never see you in the way you see her?

The thought makes your bottom lip wobble, and your shoulders deflate. You start to properly think, as seriously as you can in this state, about what the people she’s brought home before have had that you lack. Is it something to do with how you look? Is it your eyebrows? You recall one person Kate used to mess around with leaving early the next morning for a threading appointment.

You sit up straighter. Maybe it is your eyebrows. You prefer that idea much more to the fact that it’s something inherently wrong with you. Your eyebrows are lacking, you decide, stumbling to your feet. Once you fix those, Kate will love you back.

Tweezers will do, right? You think your tweezers are in your… bathroom? You get halfway there before realising that actually, no, they might still be in your kitchen drawer from when you had that splinter the other day. (Fucking Lucky and his sticks.) You double back on yourself, tottering back through the living room towards the kitchen. You’re not quite sure what happens next, but it’s some kind of shortcoming or misjudgement on your behalf because your foot catches on the leg of the coffee table and you find yourself sprawled chin-first on the floor.

“Y/N?” You vaguely register Kate’s calls, and then her footsteps as she patters back down the hall towards you. “What are you— oh, for fuck’s —”

“Sorry,” you murmur weakly, not even making a move to get up. “Was gonna… pluck my eyebrows.”

Kate snorts as she helps you to your feet. “What?” She’s unable to hide her bemusement.

“Pluck my eyebrows,” you say again. “To look good.”

“You do not need to do that,” she chastises, guiding you firmly back to the couch, “trust me.”

“I look good?” you ask hopefully.

“Sure.” The bite in her tone, the underlying anger makes your shoulders deflate, and she softens a little. “L— yes, you do, okay? Now c’mon, baby, open up.” She holds a glass of water up to your lips and you drink obediently. There’s silence between the two of you as she helps you with the zipper you can’t reach, and then turns around whilst you change into the nightclothes she’s picked out for you. The shirt she’s given you is hers, one of her massive band ones that she left here a while ago because you liked it so much. Your heart aches all over again.

When you’re finished, you find yourself staring off into hazy space, your brain sluggish with thoughts you don’t want to think. Kate watches you for a few moments. You can see her prior anger ebbing away into something a little softer — something more concerned. Just one look at her tells you how hard the cogs are turning in her brain. (It’s a very normal amount of cute and charming that she can’t help but wear her heart on her sleeve, and have her every thought written all over her face. You feel a very normal and calm way about it, and you do not want to kiss the forming pout from her lips.)

She sits down on the coffee table opposite you, so close your knees are touching, with a tenseness to her shoulders that means she’s building herself up to saying something.

“What’s… going on lately, with you?” she asks, a little uncertain of her own words, but fixing her eyes on you intently. “It’s been, like, three months since the breakup. And you’re just— kind of… getting worse, not better.” She winces at her own words even as she says them, but nonetheless perseveres. “You’re drinking like a lot more than usual. I don’t— I don’t know, you still haven’t told me what happened, and I just —” She cuts herself off, and tries again. “Is there something else going on?”

“I just,” you shrug, not really looking at her, “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Her brows only furrow further, and your stomach churns. “But —”

“It— it wasn’t a big deal, okay?” you interrupt, running a hand over your face. “I’m over it, can’t we just leave it?”

“What— what does that even mean?” she retorts. “You were together for a while, that’s not —”

“Yes, I’m aware,” you huff, white-hot fear beginning to bubble in the pit of your stomach. You’re not getting out of this one easily. “I just… I wasn’t…”

Kate leans forward, her entire concerned focus on you, and it only makes your heart ache harder. You swallow, hard, looking away. “I wasn’t feeling it anymore, so I broke up with her.”

Kate sits up straighter, eyes widening. “You broke up with her?” she asks incredulously. “You told me she dumped you.”

You shrink back, fumbling, cursing your slip-up. “Um— yeah, that’s what I meant, I don’t— I —”

“You lied to me,” Kate says sadly, retreating into herself a little, playing with her fingers in her lap. Her little shaky exhale tells you she’s genuinely hurt, and you wince as this situation spirals rapidly out of your control.

“No! I— I didn’t mean to,” you say desperately, reaching for her hand, whatever part of her you can touch, needing her to feel your love for her.

“But you did,” she breathes out. Her eyes meet yours, silvery with emotion. “I’m your best friend, aren’t I? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Yes! You are, you are,” you affirm instantly. “You’re the… you’re everything.”

“Then why’d you lie?” she asks softly.

You sigh, tilting your head back, at a loss for what to say. Eventually, in a tiny voice, you confess, “…because there’s someone else.”

Her eyes flash uncertainly. “Like you’ve been seeing someone else?”

You shake your head miserably. “But I really like her,” you whisper. “I think probably love.” You blink, surprised by your own words once you’ve processed them, and Kate looks similarly startled. She hasn’t seen you this vulnerable in a good while.

“Yeah? You think so?” she asks, pulling you in closer, one of your hands between both of hers. You nod slightly, drawn in as ever by the vibrant eyes of the girl you’ve loved for so long. “Tell— uhm— tell me about her. What’s she like? D’you think I’d like her?”

Your eyes light up as you nod, and you’re suddenly a little more animated as you begin to gush about this supposedly mystery girl. “Okay, first of all, she’s like the most talented person I’ve ever met,” you start without hesitation. “She can do like anything, she plays bass, she shoots stuff, she’s so pretty, she dresses so good she’s literally so fine… she makes killer blueberry pancakes,” you grin widely, “she’s so fucking funny, she…”

Throughout your entire spiel, Kate smiles and nods kindly. The more you say, the more she softens, leaning further into you, her thumbs rubbing patterns on the back of your hand like never before.

“…the biggest heart,” you conclude, nodding wisely. “Just like, the loveliest ever soul.”

“Sounds like you like her a lot,” Kate muses, the corners of her lips tugging up ever so slightly. She hesitates, like she wants to say something else, before shaking her head ever so slightly.

“What,” you ask, sitting up straighter, eyes trained on her, “what is it?”

“Nothing.” She shakes her head a little harder this time, as if to rid herself of something. “Look, sweetheart, you should get some rest,” she tells you, bringing the glass of water up to your lips again, gently prompting you to finish it off. You nod reluctantly, curling up under the blanket she passes to you, but not tearing your gaze from her for even a moment, even as your eyelids droop.

“What?” she asks as you reach out for her.

“Just wanna… look at you,” you murmur, and her cheeks redden ever so slightly. “Pretty.” You gaze into her eyes for a long moment before screwing yours tightly shut, white-hot frustration beginning to prickle at the corners of your eyes.

“Hey, hey, what is it?” Kate asks gently, catching your wrist in her hand. “You can tell me.”

“I just…” You look so defeated, Kate’s heart aches, and she reaches out to cup your face between her hands. You blink mournfully back up at her, tears beginning to fall messily. “Can’t… I ruin everything.” You sniffle, and Kate wants to cry with you.

“No, you don’t,” she attempts to soothe you. Even as your eyelids flutter with fatigue you continue to cry, making those little sobs in the back of your throat that wrench Kate’s heart out of her chest. “No, look— oh, Y/N —”

She pulls you closer to her, one arm secured around your waist whilst the other soothes over your back. “You’re okay. You’re okay, I promise,” she tells you. You bury your face into the crook of her neck in response, and she holds you. Even in your current state you’re desperate to breathe in her scent, to commit every moment of her warmth to memory.

“I,” you’re eventually able to murmur sleepily into her ear, your breath warm against her neck. “Really, I…”

“You…?” Kate prompts, tracing circles on your back encouragingly.

“Katie,” you murmur, and then you’re out for the count. She sighs, and gently tucks you back in before retreating for the night.

In the morning, you feel your heart crack open.

“Morning,” you mumble as you shuffle into the kitchen, still bleary-eyed.

“Morning, baby,” Kate laughs from her spot by your stove, and your stomach flips at the pet name, as usual. “How’d you feel?”

“Like shit.” You sit down at the kitchen island, and slam your forehead into the tabletop with a ferocity that makes Kate’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Well, I’m making pancakes,” she offers. “You know, the blueberry ones? Apparently they’re your favourite.”

You just kind of nod, only half processing her words. She places painkillers and caffeine down in front of you, and you smile up at her gratefully.

“Thank you for always taking care of me,” you say quietly, after a moment. “It’s not— um, I know I’m a handful sometimes.”

“Yes, you are,” she snorts, but it’s in good spirit. After a moment, she adds, “do you wanna talk about last night, though?”

You freeze, your blood running cold. “What?”

“Last night,” Kate repeats, mildly amused. “You know, you were telling me about this girl you like.”

You swallow. “I— I was?”

“How much do you remember?” she asks, leaning over you as she spoons a couple of pancakes onto your plate. You blink up at her nervously.

“Uhm, the details are a little hazy,” you confess, pushing your food around your plate instead of meeting her eyes. “…why?”

“Well, you seemed pretty serious,” Kate muses, sliding into the seat next to you with her own plate of pancakes. “Think you used the word love, actually, so.”

You grit your teeth, forcing yourself to stay calm, to not show her anything’s wrong. “I… I did?”

“Mhm,” she hums affirmatively around a mouthful of food, and swallows before continuing, “you were full of praise for her. She sounds great.”

Her tone is agonisingly normal, just Kate, with that slight lilt that never lets on whether she’s messing around or if there’s a deeper meaning to her words.

“Okay,” is all you’re able to say quietly muster, your hands shaking ever so slightly as you reach for the syrup.

Kate studies you for a moment before carefully, more gently, speaking again. “…Baby, do I know this girl? Cause if it’s who I’m thinking it is, maybe we should talk about it.”

Your shoulders slump, and you finally dare to look over at her, eyes filling with tears. “I— I’m sorry,” you whisper, “I really tried not to, I didn’t— I ruined —”

“No, no no no,” she interrupts, reaching out for your hand, clasping it between hers. “No, oh my god, you didn’t. I did— I mean, I didn’t —” She fumbles with her words for a moment, and closes her eyes before trying again. “I, uhm, I’m the same. I mean, I feel the same way. About you. I have also— I’ve just been trying to pretend it isn’t… yeah.”

You gaze into her stormy eyes, searching for any trace of a lie, but she looks back at you intently and all you see is her. Finally, you break, leaning your head on her shoulder and crying quietly into her chest. She whispers gentle reassurances, dropping kisses on your head and soothing her hands along your back as you process what she’s telling you. After a moment you look back up at her, and you don’t know who moves first but your lips meet and you’re utterly lost in her. She kisses you with a fervour, with need, desperate to show you how badly she wants you. She kisses you until you lose your breath, until she’s all that fills your lungs and even then she doesn’t stop. When your hand tangles in her hair she groans into your mouth, nipping your bottom lip, before eventually coming back up for air.

“Oh, god,” she whines, her breath coming in pants, and you’re impossibly obsessed with the sound.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long,” you confess lowly. The way Kate looks down at you, lips ever so slightly parted, sends a thrill through your whole body.

“Me too,” she tells you, voice a few octaves lower than usual, and it makes you feel so many things that you have to lean up to peck her lips again. She smiles gently against you.

“Do you want to… come back to bed with me?” you request shyly, wringing your hands. Her smile only widens.

“On one condition.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s a permanent invitation.” You sense the hope, the meaning to her words and can only nod, grinning stupidly back at her. She lets out a little squeak of happiness and scoops you up into her arms, carrying you bridal style through your apartment. You squirm happily in her arms, littering kisses across her jaw that have her humming quietly into you, and the noise sets you alight. It’s so difficult to fathom that this girl, the girl you have loved for so long, feels the same way about you. You’re in her arms, she’s telling you she loves you. This is what you’ve imagined every night to fall asleep for months.

Later, much later, when it’s dark inside and you’re curled up in her arms, you whisper into the empty air.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” she asks quietly, and you feel every single word she says against your skin.

“For loving me.”

Kate laughs softly, shifting to be able to look at you a little better. “You don’t need to thank me for that, Y/N/N. It’s the easiest thing in the world.”

“Mmm,” is all you say, lost in the depths of her eyes. She butts her forehead against yours softly, reaching out for your hand.

“Thank you,” she says sincerely, “for letting me love you.”

You smile at her, and settle back on her chest, utterly content.

#kate bishop x reader #kate bishop x female reader #kate bishop x fem reader #kate bishop x you #kate bishop #hailee steinfeld #hayley williams inspired #as per #friends or lovers? which will it be

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