That One Time We Kissed // Bishova College AU

The Carol Project

In the following week, Carol was as difficult to track down as ever. Despite literally living with her, Kate always seemed to just miss her. Kate would be heading to class as soon as Carol stumbled in the door, or Carol would be trudging to practice right as Kate got home. Figuring she would at least see her in the evenings, Kate stayed in her dorm every night that week, and though it was an enormous task to fall asleep without Yelena, it drew attention to how truly absent she had been.

Rarely could Kate be called a bad friend. She always made time for Peter and MJ, even with a heavy course load, even with a hot new girlfriend. Perhaps it was second nature with them, having known them so long. With Carol, Kate sometimes didn't feel the need to specifically allocate time for her, figuring they would see each other in their room, but as this experiment proved, that wasn't enough.

Frowning as she sat in her dorm alone on a Friday night, Kate tried to think back to the last conversation she had with Carol before the wedding. There had been a few greetings, passing inquiries about track, but she hadn't really talked to her all semester. Knowing now that Carol soldiered through a breakup alone really crushed Kate, twisted her heart, and though she was late, she wanted to make it right.

Today was surely the day, as Pietro had relayed that track was canceled due to either bad weather or a rabid raccoon (she wasn't listening), so she sat up waiting for Carol, clicking absently through channels on their tiny television. Bored and anxious, she resorted to sending Yelena random pictures from her camera roll, like Lucky with a hat on and that really weird bird she saw the other day. Thankfully, saving Yelena from further spam, the prodigal roommate returned, tossing her bag on her bed and heading immediately for the shower.

"Hey, wait up," Kate called, scrambling off her desk.

Carol threw a look of disdain over her shoulder. "You trying to shower with me, Bishop?"

"No?" Kate said, trying to gauge her tone. "I just... I wanna hang out, man."

"You want to hang out?" Carol turned, hand on her hip. She took in the pitiful pouty face of her roommate, sighed, and said, "Okay, whatever. Only took one meltdown at a wedding for you to talk to me."

Both hurt and excited, Kate left her to shower, putting together a plan for the evening.

When the two were freshman, barely more than strangers, they bonded over how absolutely garbage their New York sports teams were. Kate was from Manhattan while Carol claimed Staten Island, so they commiserated over the Knicks, the Mets, the Jets, the Nets, and every other team ending in -ets.

Being an evening in late February, Kate figured there would be a Knicks game on, and upon Carol getting out of the shower, Kate suggested they go watch at one of their favorite old dives.

"Your way of cheering me up is to watch our God-awful basketball team?" Carol skeptically asked, arms crossed.

"I mean, they'll probably make you laugh?" Kate replied.

Carol threw up her hands in surrender and soon enough they occupied two rickety stools at Little Five Pints. Being a Tuesday, there were hardly any other patrons, so the women enjoyed tip-off in peace.

"Are we even gonna make the play-in?" Kate asked, sipping her beer and poking at her basket of perfectly burned onion rings. "I haven't kept up with them this season."

"Hell no," Carol replied, downing her first brew with alarming speed. "We can't shoot, can't defend, there's no creativity."

"Damn, what can we do?"

"Get a lottery pick."

"They should pick that guard from UConn. I think I went to high school with him."