Spy Wolf (Patreon)

2025

The architect had more money than sense, that was for sure, because a lot more money than sense had gone into turning the building into someone’s idea of an old-time cathouse. They’d collected artifacts of the era: brass spittoons, artistic tap handles, beer barrels plugged with cork. Signs on the walls were old enough that one of them probably read how Dewey defeated Truman. A thick mallet—the bung starter—was leaned against the wall by the massive kegs. There was a Free Lunch sign at the end of the bar, and the bar itself was ornately carved oak under a fitted marble top. A brass foot-rail ran the length of the bar.

It made Kate almost grateful she wasn’t wearing petticoats. Of course, she’d much rather be wearing a tuxedo. Clint had gifted her a collapsible bow which she could fit into any decently sized pocket, and with a pantsuit, she could strap arrows under her sleeves or trouser legs. That was impossible to do in what she was wearing…

It was, essentially, chiffon. Red chiffon from the banded shoulder straps to the wisp of a hem that twisted about her calves like a pair of pants that were somehow all cuffs, no legs. Her legs were bare except for nylon stockings and the dress… if you could really call it that… was cut so high on her thighs that people could see whether she was wearing boxers or briefs. Thankfully, rose petals were sewn into the chiffon when it came to her torso, so that she could actually wear some underwear and not have people know what kind of cut they were. She was pretty sure this was just for the sake of the foundation garment that the dress needed to look its best, though.

Whoever had tailored the thing did a remarkable job of making it look like the only thing preserving Kate’s modesty was a swarm of rose petals in flight; even though Kate rather reassuringly felt the bra and panties and other unmentionables that kept her from being too slutty.

Still, looking naked was the next worse thing to being naked and she almost moaned at the thought of anyone taking a picture of her, being one of those nepobabies that got photographed pissing in public or pulling a Basic Instinct as they got out of a car. Her only consolation was that Yelena had promised she would wipe the security footage the second they were out the door.

It was meager consolation; Yelena didn’t look like the kind of person who could appreciate modesty, what with her own pink dress. It was see-through. Pure satin that embraced her bare chest from waist to neck, leaving her pert breasts on display like crown jewels inside a glass case. Her lower body was only covered in so much as all the layers of ruffled skirt obscured her groin and buttocks from view—the same way it was harder to see something at the bottom of a swimming pool than right below the surface.

But it was still clear that… well, it was generally just clear… but it was also clear that Yelena was going commando tonight in more ways than one. Her shapely legs made gray shadows under her voluminous skirt, while the splash of black on the fair skin of her pelvis made it obvious she hadn’t been born a blonde.

(Kate would’ve thought Yelena wouldn’t want to give away any hint of how practiced she was in the art of deception, but her blonde hair had been arranged into a perm that mirrored the playfully tousled skirts at the other end of her.)

“I feel naked without my arrows…” Kate complained to her friend, if that’s what they still were. “And in this dress. Why can't I wear my tuxedo?”

“Because you are not tomboy American princess now, you are high class Russian prostitute,” Yelena replied, keeping her voice low and intimate—somehow pitching her Slavic accent so it seemed to go right into Kate’s ear by no more than ducking her head.

“You sound happy about it,” Kate groused.

“I am giving my friend compliment. Russian prostitutes are most beautiful in the world. You pass as one. If you could blow job, you'd have lucrative career path.”

Kate scowled. She knew Yelena was baiting her, but there was just no taking this abuse when she already had to dress up like she was on a reality show. A Fox reality show. “I am not becoming a hooker. I'm going to college!”

“Learn dirty words in Russian. Good to have fallback.”

“Stop teasing me.”

Now Yelena actually did pull close to Kate, hissing in her ear like she might bite instead of saying one word more. “You are one with scent giving me wet cunt. You were supposed to wear suppressant.”

“I did!” Kate insisted. “You could always take an inhibitor.”

“I told you, I don't take anything mess with my mind.”

“You were bombed on vodka the whole flight here,” Kate recalled, though she knew that wasn’t entirely Yelena’s fault. The two of them alone on a charter plane for nine hours, nothing else to smell but each other, was a recipe for disaster without some ‘situational modification.’

“I have crashed in helicopter, I have fallen out of sky. Bad experiences. What is your excuse?” Yelena looked Kate up and down; Kate got the needling feeling that Yelena was searching those rose petals for any that had stopped reporting for duty. “You have pretty girl body. Why would you not wear pretty girl dress?”

“Because I have a personality and my own taste in fashion and there's more to me than being a girl. Gender essentialism much?”

Yelena’s eyebrows drew together. She spoke with nastiness in her voice and yet Kate still didn’t know she wasn’t being… omega-y. “I don't know what those words mean, but it piss me off that you're patronizing me. And I look good in pretty girl dress.”

“I never said you didn't,” Kate protested. She might have sworn not to let Yelena get away with any shenanigans, but she still didn’t like the thought of insulting the other woman. She knew that Yelena’s confidence could be surprisingly frail. Why else would she make being an omega so goddamn difficult?

Yelena made a face, lower lip jutted out as though considering Kate’s objection. “So you think I look pretty?”

Fishing for compliments. Of course. “You know I do.”

Yelena nodded. “I think you are hot piece of ass too, Kate Bishop.”

“Not what I—” Kate shook her head. “Why do I even talk to you?”

“You are hoping to get under my dress and make sex to me.”

“Shut up,” Kate told her, voice shooting low, and unexpectedly, Yelena did just that. She trembled too.

Kate hummed to herself, gratified. For all Yelena tried to sexualize her, Kate could sexualize her back far better.

Which she knew irritated Yelena. But also turned her on. And she was irritated that she was turned on and turned on by being irritated. It was all pretty complex. But then, so was Yelena. She was Russian, a woman, and going on thirty. Simple didn’t come easy to her.

Hell, Kate could barely explain it all herself. For it to make any sense at all, she had to think back seven months, to the first time they’d met.

And the first time Yelena had been in heat.