Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kate Bishop stood on her balcony, looking out over the city. It was peaceful at night, when all the hustle and bustle had died down, and quiet—or as peaceful and quiet as New York City ever got. Still, just Kate and the cool night air; it was a great way to clear her head, recenter, and relax. Particularly after a long day of college-dropout corporate CEO by day, crime-fighting, bow-wielding twentysomething vigilante by night. (And not the “glamorous” kind of college dropout corporate CEO, who society lauds and worships while they lie about their destructive plans to transform society, and then loathes and despises once everyone realizes what they did and the damage was done—at least Kate hoped she was not, and would never be, a Zuckermusk.) So, just Kate and the night, perfect and refreshing.

Just Kate and the moon, more precisely. The full moon, shining brightly and bathing everything in an ethereal light, was her sole companion. Which was also fine, in Kate’s book. Luna (or Selene, or Qamar, or Mahina, or…) was the perfect companion, omnipresent, comforting, yet silent. She made no demands upon Kate; she merely was. Aside from that one day a month when she was completely hidden, and the occasional bout of clouds, Luna was always there for Kate. She always had time for Kate. She never lectured Kate.

Recently, Luna had begun talking to Kate. Or that’s what the archer had told herself. Over the past month or so, sometimes when she was out on the balcony communing with Luna, Kate had heard things. Howls. Howls that sounded strikingly lupine, in spite of this being the city. They definitely weren’t dogs; she’d heard Lucky howl before, and these calls were different. She’d scanned the papers and social media, but there were no reports of wolf sightings, no packs of animals roaming in Central Park, no carcasses of unlucky dogs. So it was Luna speaking to her, Kate convinced herself.

Tonight, though, Kate felt more restless than usual. Luna wasn’t as calming as she normally was. And her howls sounded…closer. That was when Kate looked down at the street below. That was when she saw her. A huge, tan-colored canine (blonder than Lucky) sauntering down the middle of the empty street below. This was Luna’s voice, the one that had been speaking to her over the past months. The one who had been comforting her and keeping her company during her solitary nights. This was the wolf she knew she was hearing.

The tan wolf stopped in the center of the street right in front of Kate’s balcony. She—and the archer somehow knew that the wolf, like Luna herself, was female—sat on her haunches and raised her head to the sky, making eye contact with Kate. Then the beautiful beast opened her mouth and howled. It was almost like Luna-wolf was singing, how beautiful were the sounds. Singing for her, for Kate alone.

That’s when she felt it. A tightness in her black leather pants between her buttocks and her waist. Something growing, a new part of her that felt trapped, cooped up, demanding to be free. Kate felt her back, too, press against her purple top, as though the garment had suddenly shrunk two sizes. She felt her legs become tight within her pants, her arms constricted within her sleeves, her neck fighting against the restrictions of the same-named part of her top. And then, with a series of loud “riiiiiip!” sounds that pierced both the night and the tan wolf’s song, the garments gave way. At the same time, her bra snapped in four different places—the clasp, each shoulder strap, and between the cups—much to the young woman’s chagrin. “Aw, man! That was my favorite archery bra!” Kate’s back now hunched, featuring a more prominent spine. A hairy tail protruded from her rear, swaying almost excitedly. And everywhere that was now exposed, the archer found herself becoming covered in thick, shiny black fur that matched the color of her hair. She was becoming a wolf!

As the realization hit, Kate frantically began extracting herself from the remnants of her top, pants, and undergarments, briefly musing how she’d have to find herself a new costume for her vigilante work. She untied her boots and doffed them before she lost the use of her fingers, which were rapidly stiffening as her nails became sharper, while her toenails had already shredded her socks. Next she felt the transformation beginning on her head. Kate’s jaw began to ache as her canines lengthened—and as the bone itself began to lengthen. Her ears felt hot as they became longer, pointed, and furry, and she could hear more sounds, things once too faint to apprehend, like the dripping faucet inside her loft. Her eyes, too, could see so much more clearly in the dark. She could now smell the leftover pizza inside her fridge, and the archer felt fur start to cover her elongating face.

Kate dropped to hands and knees, knowing what was coming next. Her bones began to break and reform themselves into a canid skeleton, and she howled in pain, her voice half human and half wolf, as her body reshaped itself. But in the howls of the tan wolf below, Kate could now hear a lullaby, a soothing melody easing her through the pain of the transition. It was, in a way, as though the other wolf down on the street were holding her hand or embracing her through the pain. After a few more minutes of bone-breaking pain, standing on all fours on the balcony in the midst of the ruined uniform of Kate Bishop, vigilante archer, was a stunning black wolf, her coat shining under the light of the moon.

The new wolf gingerly made her way to the fire escape, praying the rickety thing would hold up to the weight of a fully-grown wolf. She must have been three or four times the size of Lucky now, large enough that she could give children rides! Kate bounded down the flights of stairs on the fire escape, quickly reaching the lowest level. There, she leapt off the structure, landing unsteadily, but none the worse for the wear, on the street. Somehow her brain and her new body were in sync. Or at least as in sync as her brain ever was with her body!

Kate walked over to the tan wolf, who had been watching her curiously from a distance as she continued to howl into the night. The black wolf sat in front of the other wolf, they pressed their noses together in greeting—which also felt like recognition. The pair then howled together briefly, voices raised towards their patron, Luna. This time it felt to Kate like a happy song, a howl of contentment. Of companionship.

Then the tan wolf took off, Kate bounding after her. Feeling the night air against her fur-clad skin was a new sensation, but it was…liberating. They ran through the empty, moonlit streets, stopping occasionally to play and playfully tussle, before taking off once again. Eventually, the pair found themselves in the vast greenery of Central Park, where they could be at one with nature in the midst of the giant city. They bounded and romped, chased squirrels and tails, drank from ponds and fountains, and generally had a good time, running free, being together.

It was a festival for the senses. Kate reveled in her new understanding of the world—of New York—thanks to her enhanced abilities. She could see more clearly at night—it was a shame she was no longer the vigilante archer, though, since better low-light vision would be useful when stalking her prey…er, tracking thugs and crooks. The hearing was a bit of a mixed bag—being able to hear every cricket in a one-block radius was overwhelming, and hearing every rat scurrying around, well, all she could say was god, New York City had a ton of rats! On the plus side, however, thanks to her enhanced sense of smell, she now knew the locations of every late-night pizza joint between her apartment and Central Park!

Just before dawn, when the early birds began to chirp, the tan wolf led Kate to a secluded burrow, hidden deep within the wooded area of the park. There, the pair lay down and curled up, their bodies pressed against each other as though they were humans, almost cuddling. Kate drifted off to sleep, dreaming of Luna and of her new companion.

At dusk, Kate began to stir. As her enhanced blue eyes fluttered open, she saw the tan wolf standing there, staring at her; the expression on the other wolf’s face almost seemed judgmental, as though she were saying, ‘Get up, you lazy girl,’ but not in an angry way, more of a playful one. ‘You try working a nine-to-five, then putting in several hours of patrolling, and then unexpectedly transforming into a wolf and spending the rest of the night running around New York and playing with a cute tan wolf,’ Kate wanted to say in her defense. But not having that ability, or at least not yet having discovered it, the raven-furred wolf instead rose to her feet and shook the sleep from her limbs. The tan wolf touched their noses together again, then turned and dashed out of the hidden burrow, beginning another night of ‘fun on the town’ for the new pair of…well, Kate supposed they were friends.

On their second night, the highlight was leaping and jumping, to and from any and everything—benches, porches, dumpsters, fences, bus shelters, cars, park bridges, and even a sculpture or two. There was also the time Kate tried to leap to the center of a fountain and ended up falling in the basin instead. She doggy-paddled around before hauling herself out and padding over to the tan wolf, whereupon she proceeded to shake the water out of her fur just as Lucky did following his baths. (The tan wolf, however, was not amused, first yelping, then growling at Kate. Once again she wanted to defend her actions, with a ‘I thought we were supposed to be having fun’ or the like, but, alas, she was now a wolf, and wolves didn’t speak.) And no night of wolf fun would be complete without some howling at the moon, thanking Luna for shining her light upon them.

As the dawn chorus began to sing, the tan wolf once again led Kate towards a hidden location, this time in a smaller park not far from the raven-furred wolf’s apartment. The two wolves curled up next to each other once more after touching noses as they bedded down for the night—or the day, as the case might be. The former archer drifted off to sleep feeling content, knowing that the tan wolf was by her side.

When Kate’s eyes fluttered open as she woke that afternoon, she was saddened to find that this time she was alone; the tan wolf had left her. Only then, in her grief—was it really grief? that felt like too strong a word, given the circumstances, she mused—did the twentysomething realize that she was once again human and, worse, stark naked! The raven-haired young woman became frantic as the reality of her situation set in. She had spent nearly two days as a wolf!—unless, of course, someone slipped some potent hallucinogens into her pizza, a slightly less insane idea she wasn’t yet ruling out.

It got worse, though, if there were things worse than suddenly spending two days living as a wolf. (Kate was sure her hero, Clint Barton, and his pals the Avengers never had things like this happen to them!) It sunk in that she’d missed two days of work, which made the archer start to freak out. Were the police looking for her? Had someone told her mother? God, she was never going to live this down! The raven-haired woman could picture Eleanor’s eye roll and disapproving look. ‘Always getting into trouble,’ the elder Bishop would scold, and Kate would have to bite her tongue to keep herself from retorting that perhaps she had learned that from Eleanor, and at least she wasn’t in jail for conspiring with a crime lord…and generally saying things that would make the situation worse. And…could they fire the CEO of a family-owned company if she, a member of said family, inexplicably missed two days of work?!

Two days…Lucky! Kate was in full panic now. Lucky hadn’t had a walk in almost 48 hours! Or food! The poor guy must be desperate. Did he think she had abandoned him? Had he torn the apartment up looking for her, or trying to get out? Her stomach chose that moment to growl, reminding the archer that she hadn’t had anything to eat, except perhaps a squirrel and some fountain water, in the same timeframe. This was a disaster. She needed to get home.

Except for the small problem of being in her birthday suit. She couldn’t streak across New York…that would be even worse than the unfortunate bell tower incident—imagine Eleanor Bishop’s forehead splitting open upon hearing Kate had now done that! Maybe she could hide behind some bushes and beg some clothing from a passer-by? Yeah, because that was a great solution, Kate Bishop. She took a deep breath to ground herself and focus. (Where was Luna when she needed her now?) The archer began repeating, “Get a hold of yourself, Kate. You can do this, Kate.”

She scanned the burrow where she and Tan Wolf had spent the night. For the first time, her eyes came to rest upon a small pile of clothing, neatly folded and arranged off to the side. Thank goodness! Kate walked over to the clothing and began dressing herself. First, there was an oversized brown, green, and tan flannel shirt. Below it, there was a pair of black cargo pants—although once Kate put them on, they seemed more like cargo capris! But beggars and choosers and all that. Finally, she donned a pair of black wool socks and put her feet into the black combat boots on which the rest of the clothes had been stacked.

Kate took a good look at herself; it was…something. She figured she could pull off the grunge-inspired look (the 90s are back!) to get home. It wasn’t too far removed from her own casual style, after all—and the cargo pants, ahem, capris, were fun; they had lots of pockets, which seemed useful. Maybe she should add more pockets to her pants when she put together her new vigilante costume to replace the one she’d shredded when becoming a wolf….

Kate made her way home as fast as she could; the hidden burrow was not terribly far from her apartment, just as she had thought that morning when the two wolves had arrived there. If she had not been ravenous and wearing random clothes trying to get home ASAP, the twentysomething would have wondered if Tan Wolf had been stalking her—and also if she had left the clothes for her. She would have stopped at Herman’s Hearty Slice for some pizza, too, but…random cargo capris, no wallet. Alas.

No keys, either, so…up the fire escape it was. Thankfully, she was able to jump from a stack of random items in the alley to the bottom of the fire escape (hooray, gymnastics training!), and she quickly clambered back up to her apartment. Kate was greeted by a very…excited? worried? relived? happy? Lucky, who nearly knocked her to the ground at first sight. As it was, she was overwhelmed by happy barks, tail wagging, and licks from that big, lovable tongue of his.

First things first, Kate grabbed her keys and wallet from the remains of her pants on the balcony, shoving them into some of the many pockets of the cargo capris. “Yeah, these are useful,” she mused as she took Lucky’s leash from the hook by the door, attaching it to his collar and setting off for a walk around the block. The archer wasn’t sure if she was relieved or horrified by the number of times her faithful companion stopped to relieve himself, but at least it meant he was OK—and there were unlikely to be hidden messes waiting for her in the apartment…she hoped. Additionally, he never once nearly yanked her arm out of its socket by suddenly chasing after a squirrel, despite his lack of walks the past 48 or so hours—although Kate could now understand the appeal of the sport, having partaken several times while out with the tan wolf.

Second, when they returned from the walk, she picked up the pizzas she’d ordered from Herman’s (by sticking her head inside the door and yelling “Hey, it’s Kate…the usual…but make it two of them!” at the start of the walk). As she and Lucky devoured their dinner, Kate checked her phone. No calls or texts from Franny or Greer, not a huge surprise. It could be days between contact with her friends and former classmates. They were finishing up their degrees, while Kate was finishing up approvals, budgets, and strategic plans—and cleaning up her mother’s messes. (Or trying to.) Their lives just didn’t intersect much anymore, college students versus corporate CEO.

That was the surprising thing, though…there were no frantic calls or texts or even anxious emails from the office. Did Bishop Security not even notice Kate had mysteriously missed two days of work? Did no one care? Was she invisible? That thought was almost enough to send her spiraling…almost. Her hunger, the smell of the pizza, and Lucky’s happy barks kept the archer grounded.

After the duo finished dinner, Kate put the leftovers in the fridge. She went back out on her balcony to pick up her boots and the remains of her vigilante costume. She let out a deep sigh as she picked up the shredded fabric—and an additional one when she again saw what had been her favorite archery bra. Was this who she was now? Had she been dosed by gamma radiation like Bruce Banner, except surreptitiously? The twentysomething sighed once more and walked back inside, dropping the pile of scraps by her laundry (and her boots by the rest of her shoes). Maybe there was something she could salvage later?

For now, though, the next step was a shower. The archer turned on the water and let it warm up. She stripped out of the borrowed clothes and carefully folded them before stepping under the warm, refreshing spray. As she washed her hair, Kate found herself pulling small twigs, blades of grass, leaves, and even a small tuft of what she thought was squirrel fur from the shiny black tresses. Great, she’d been walking around all evening with that in her hair. The raven-haired young woman proceeded to scrub herself thoroughly, determined to wash away any other evidence of her wild 48 hours. The warm water also did wonders for her sore muscles and stiff joints, presumably a result of her transformation to and from a wolf. Kate still hadn’t gotten over that fact—she’d spent nearly two days as a wolf! And, she realized, she’d need to shave again, because one side-effect of growing all that fur was that after she became a hominid again, her body hair was longer and more widespread than she’d prefer.

The time as a wolf had been fun in the moment—and, frankly, given what had happened to her, it really was best to have just gone with it then and saved worrying about things for later—but now it was later, and Kate was profoundly unsettled. Why did this happen? What did this mean? She had always trusted Luna to have her back, though…and there was something about Tan Wolf, the archer could feel it. The other wolf had taken care of Kate, showed the new wolf the ropes, and they’d had fun. But it felt like something more than that. Almost like when Kate realized for the first time that she liked girls—and just as confusing.

That—and, well, her general stress level—called for a bath. A warm, relaxing, bubble-filled bath. Kate turned off the shower and began running water into the tub as she gathered supplies—candles, scented bath beads, and…damn…it really called for a glass of wine, too, but she was pretty sure she had finished the bottle last weekend and hadn’t stopped to pick up more. She only had one fork; why would she need multiple bottles of wine? One person, one fork, one bottle of wine.

After a long, relaxing bath in which Kate came very close to dozing off, and she’d burned the candles down a considerable amount, the archer finally extracted herself from the water and began to clean up and ready herself for bed. She needed a good night’s sleep. She had to face the office in the morning, and who knew what kind of questions, accusations, or chaos she’d face. The CEO fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow—and then she dreamed. Dreamed of staring at Luna, high in the sky, shining down upon her. And of howling at her luminous protector, her constant friend.

In the morning, Kate trudged into the office, feeling surprisingly refreshed. (Although the coffee still helped.) No one batted an eye at her, there were no strange looks, nothing. It was as though no one had noticed her absence at all! She’d skipped two days of work without prior notification or even an explanation, and no one missed her. Finally, as the young businesswoman arrived at her office, her secretary—no, administrative assistant; this was the 2020s after all—greeted Kate and asked if she was feeling better.

“Much, thank you,” she replied, thankful on the one hand that someone had noticed her absence, but, on the other hand, that her inexplicable disappearance seemed not to have been a big deal. The assistant handed her a sheaf of messages—all routine, nothing pressing—and the CEO was relieved that there had been no meetings the past couple of days. Kate made a mental note to clear her calendar on the days surrounding the full moon, accepting the notion that this was likely to happen again. Something in her gut told her it would.

Once she had accepted the gut feeling that the transformation would happen again, Kate had felt a bubbling of excitement in her chest. Those two nights were the most fun she’d had in ages, so…two nights of fun a month, hell yeah, count her in. And then her heart began to flutter at the thought of her companion in fun, the one she’d dubbed Tan Wolf (how original!). A warmth grew in the archer’s chest and spread throughout her body, not unlike the feeling she got when drinking that wine (that she’d still yet to replace…although maybe it was better if she stayed sober henceforth, considering).

Kate took to switching out of her business clothes and into the shirt and pants from the burrow when she came home from the office each day, wearing them around the apartment. She knew she should wash them and return them—and leave herself a set of clothes there, too, for the future—but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Not when they were the only reminders of the fun she’d had those crazy nights. Not when they still carried the scent, however faint, of Tan Wolf’s human. The archer inhaled deeply, her weaker human senses barely perceiving the fragrance, and she sighed.

Kate had kept an eye out for any signs of Tan Wolf on her nighttime patrols (RIP OG vigilante costume), even though she knew it was unlikely she’d see or smell anything. But there were no tell-tale signs of wolves prowling the city, nor of humans who might have spent two nights as wolves—as if she would know how to tell that. But the twentysomething had seemingly convinced herself that she’d recognize Tan Wolf’s human alter ego if she ever met her. She sighed again. Thank goodness her mother wasn’t around to lecture her about this childish foolishness she was indulging in, or something along those lines. Whatever the scenario, Eleanor Bishop would not approve. Luckily for Kate, her mother was locked up for aiding and abetting a notorious crime lord…actions which the younger Bishop did not approve of…so they were even. Kate maybe even came out ahead, childish foolishness being much less severe than consorting with crime lords.

One evening, Lucky joined the CEO as she relaxed on the couch after work in the flannel and cargos. She was surfing through the channels on the television, half watching, half daydreaming. Lucky stuck his snout into the loose front shirttails of the flannel and seemed to sniff, before unleashing a quick, happy bark. That grabbed Kate’s attention, and she reached down to ruffle the fur on top of the dog’s head. “Yeah, she’s a good one, boy, I’m sure of it,” she replied, her mind again wandering off to those two nights with Tan Wolf. As she did so, the archer gave Lucky skritches on his head. “Who’s a good boy? You’re my good boy.” And a good boy—and his besotted parent—deserved a treat—or dinner, and there was leftover pizza in the fridge….

A few days later, Kate was out taking Lucky for a late walk after patrolling. She’d thrown on the flannel to cover her temporary new uniform top. Suddenly, the dog barked once and then yanked on his leash, pulling the archer down the street, beyond their block. There was no squirrel or other animal that she could perceive, but she also couldn’t get Lucky to stop. Before long, she found herself on the far side of their neighborhood; it wasn’t too far away, but it was an area of the neighborhood where Kate had never visited or explored that often. At that point, however, Lucky stopped, shook his head, looked around, and whined, seemingly giving up on the chase. Whatever he had been following was gone, and the trail was cold.

Whatever it had been that Lucky had been chasing, it seemed to have been important to the dog, and if he’d brought them this far, Kate trusted his judgement (despite his propensity for chasing squirrels). She really ought to get to know this side of the neighborhood better, so any trip there was not a waste. Plus, they did pass a fun-looking dive bar along the way, which promised cheap beer and pizza, so she made a mental note to check it out sometime.

a few months later

Ever since she had exposed her mother’s involvement with Kingpin and blown up her own life as a result, Kate had convinced herself that, even though she was alone, she wasn’t lonely. She had Lucky, and she talked to plenty of people throughout the day, both at work and when putting in and picking up her dinner order at Herman’s. So alone, but not lonely.

But now she was neither. Every month, Kate spent two nights around the full moon with Tan Wolf, running and playing and exploring the city from a four-legged perspective, spending the days curled up together asleep in hidden burrows. And there was a short, cute blonde, a little bit tough girl, a little bit 90s lesbian, at the bar who had seemed to be flirting with her over cheap beer, pizza, and pool—and there was something familiar about those green eyes….

“Nice shot.” Kate sauntered over to the pool table where the blonde had completely demolished a hot-shot while shooting flirty looks at her. (The man’s friends were now razzing him about having been made mincemeat of by a girl.) “Name’s Kate…Kate Bishop.” Oh, she didn’t just say that, did she? Awkward Kate Bishop with no game was back, for her loss.

The cute blonde’s eyes ran over Kate’s face, as if looking for something or comparing it to some image she’d seen before. “Very pretty names, Kate Bishop.” She smiled at the archer. “Yelena Belova.”

“It’s lovely. Russian?” Kate replied with a smile of her own, barely managing not to fumble ‘it’s’ as ‘you’re.’

“Da,” the blonde responded, a knowing smile on her lips as she watched the other woman practically melt before her. “Buy you a drink and a slice, Kate Bishop?”

Kate blushed at the knowledge that the blonde already knew her so well after only a few months of random appearances at the same bar. If her brain hadn’t been short-circuiting from blushing, the archer might have been concerned the other woman had been stalking her. But she was rapidly becoming a puddle of awkward Bishop, so…. “You know me so well,” she replied, breathless, finally managing to rein in the blushing in order to smile again.

“I make it my business to know what the prettiest girl in the bar enjoys,” the blonde replied. Her voice was solid, not teasing or flirty or delivering a line, not quite matter-of-fact, but self-assured, like it was the most obvious statement to make.

Kate, of course, blushed once more and desperately wanted to bury her face in…something. But…cute blonde, free beer and pizza. So she accepted Yelena’s offered hand and let the shorter woman lead her to the quiet end of the bar, where the archer barely managed to sit herself on the stool without falling off the other side.

The blonde raised an eyebrow at Kate’s lack of coordination—or cool, the twentysomething wasn’t sure which she had less of at the moment—before catching sight of the full-length black cargo pants the archer was sporting that night. “So many pockets…very cool,” Yelena observed excitedly, pointing first at Kate’s pants and then at her own green vest replete with pockets.

“So how does a pocket connoisseur with a killer accent end up hustling pool in this dive?” Kate inquired, trying to stimulate the conversation but internally groaning at her choice of words as they flew out of her mouth. She was at least grateful she hadn’t also blurted out “hot blonde” with the rest!

If Yelena noticed the awkward phrasing, she didn’t let on. “I moved here only a few months ago…felt like I needed a change, you know? Something was pulling me to New York…and then to this neighborhood. You know that feeling, Kate Bishop?”

For once, Kate did know the feeling, recalling her version as she stared into the blonde’s green eyes and smiled. After the winter she’d endured, she, too, had needed a change. She’d needed something constant, like Luna…and Lucky. But more someone. She had been a lone wolf without even knowing it, without realizing how much of a toll it had taken on her. What had felt that first night like two lone wolves howling at the moon now felt more like a pair of wolves living their lives together (albeit 48 hours at a time). And, now, maybe two lone wolves in the metaphorical sense had just taken the first steps to becoming a pair, two souls united in the dim light of a dive bar…and under the ethereal glow of the waxing moon high in the sky above.