Chapter 5
YELENA’S P.O.V.
Yelena was grateful for Kate Bishop staying with her and the child at their apartment for a few more days. For some reason it helped ease some weight from her shoulders knowing her friend was around for backup just in case something new occurred. As far as the ex-Widow knew, there would still be more surprises since this whole thing was new; actually moving to New York to LIVE there, to settle, plus raising the child instead of acting as a contractor or assassin. This was all strange territory.
The young woman sat on the couch with a parenting book while Kate was getting pet supplies. She’d texted a while ago saying she was on her way back with Lucky…
“Auntie Lena! Pew, pew, pew!" the five-year-old giggled, pointing at her with her pretend widow bites… or rather, what she thought those were. Suddenly Yelena gasped, losing her breath and dropping the book next to her. The widow bites lit up the kid's wrists and she could feel herself panicking. They were hers! And, even worse, her niece did not seem to be aware that she had a real weapon on her wrists.
"Where have you found those?" she asked the child, trying not to show how scared she was of that little girl getting hurt.
"In the box you have in your wardrobe." little Lena sighed, the red glow dying down as she lowered her arms.
"And what have I told you about looking there?" she questioned her kind of angrily. However, Yelena was angrier at herself. She should have known better than to put that box in a place the child could reach so easily.
"Not to do it." her niece looked down. She must have thought they were a bigger version of the toy ones, given the resemblance.
Yelena didn’t want to appear hostile because she knew it would trigger her niece into lighting them up by accident. But still, she needed to put her foot down when it came to the widow bites. Where was the middle ground here?
"I need you to give me the bracelets, sweetie." she told her, but the kid shook her head. "Lena, please."
"No!" the child yelled at her before running through the apartment. It didn’t exactly help when Fanny got wound up too.
"Yelena! Those aren't toys!" She ran after her. "You can get hurt!" But the kid didn’t seem to hear her, too caught up in running around getting her aunt to chase her like playing tag. She must have gotten too bored to avoid snooping around.
Kate walked inside the apartment with Lucky on his leash, the five-year-old running right past them. Lucky barked when he saw the kid run and Kate had to tug him back. "Woah! What's going on here?" She asked, locking the door and tethering his leash to the sturdy handle.
“Bishop, out of the way!" Yelena ordered the girl while trying to grab her niece. "She has my widow bites." she explained when the kid ducked behind the couch, looking for a way out, but both women were placed at each side.
"Kiddo, you have to give them to Auntie Lena." Kate tried to talk to the little one who just shook her head. "Lena…"
Yelena signed the archer to stop talking. The little girl was getting upset (since her ‘game’ took a wrong turn), which had activated the widow bites. She could hear the hum of them powering up, getting ready to go off. Yelena did not want to scare the child, so she tried to remain calm while walking a little bit closer to her.
However, she barely had time to dodge the electric shot, hearing how her niece screamed in fear and fell on her back from the jolt. When the blast flew and hit the tin waste basket, little Lena noticed and stared at it mouth agape. It looked like a red sizzling bolt enveloping the metal for a few seconds.
The kid gasped and stared as the waste basket fell over. The electroshock blast just went away gradually. “What…?”
"It's okay. Try to calm down." Yelena crouched in front of the kid.
Once the little girl slowly calmed down, the widow bites stopped glowing. So Yelena made sure to approach slowly to not startle her. Little Lena held out her trembling arms, openly enough where her aunt could get them off easily. She sat there panting, totally confused.
"You can't take my things without permission, malyshka." Yelena said once the widow bites were in her hands.
With just a whisper, the five-year-old apologized, "I'm sorry," not meeting her eyes or Kate’s. “I didn’t mean it. Did I hurt you…?”
“No, it missed. Just don't do that again, okay?" She caressed the kid's face, gently pulling her into a hug now that she was safe. “You scared ME, I thought YOU would get hurt.” Yelena sighed, holding her niece tighter out of fear. She was more worried about the child’s safety than her own. She would have to hide her weapons a lot better so Lena would not be able to find them.
-/-
The main reason why little Yelena hadn’t been given a major time-out or something was because she’d been genuinely frightened when the widow bites went off. Yelena and Kate had both heard her scream in fear with that blast, especially given how closely it shot towards her aunt by accident. She saw how it zapped the metal trash can and it was scary to her. Lena had learned her lesson effectively and handed them over on her own.
On top of that, as Yelena still considered sending the five-year-old to her room, Lena had shut herself in there before the words could even come out. She probably wasn’t sure what to make of it since that was what the real widow bites looked and felt like. It would probably be a while before she even touched the toy ones from that bookstore. So, neither of the young women needed to waste their energy. The blast showed Lena the consequences and did the punishing for them.
Kate stayed a while longer to be sure both her friend and the kid were alright. As she set the table that evening, she asked Yelena, “Can you tell her dinner’s ready?”
“Yeah.” The kid still hadn’t come out for hours. Yelena noticed Fanny staring and pawing at the door, whining. The akita looked up at her too, whimpering louder as if saying ‘help me, I miss her.’ So she opened the bedroom door quietly, looking back and forth as Fanny ran in every direction looking for her little companion.
“Lena?” She didn’t see the kid anywhere, but Fanny had run over to the bed against the wall and tried unsuccessfully to crawl under. Then came a whimper that sounded different…
“Aw, no…” Yelena got down on her side, seeing her niece flat under the bed with her stuffed pony.
The five-year-old looked over at her aunt, conflict all over her face that was paler than normal, crawling back further towards the wall. She didn’t even bother giving puppy eyes. The girl trembled, “I didn’t mean it.”
“I know. It’s just…” Yelena knew she had to sound authoritative, but not too hard given the aftermath. Trying to find the right words, she added, “The real ones are too big for kids. Too strong.” She then noticed the red marks around Lena’s arms where the bites must have slid around and bumped her wrists hard, especially the one that went off. Yelena held her hand out, reaching under the bed invitingly. She could hear the child’s stomach gurgling. “Come on out, dinner’s ready. Aren’t you hungry?”
Lena didn’t seem any less worried, moving further away until her back thumped against the wall. “Is Auntie Kate mad?”
“Of course she isn’t, she’s just glad you’re not hurt. Come on out, you’ve been alone in here long enough.”
Yelena stayed until her niece slowly accepted her hand and went out to the kitchen table. In all honesty, the reaction and overall aftermath was even more of a blow for the two young adults. A small kid isolating herself and probably feeling like she deserved it? Neither of them could have seen that coming.
-/-
About a day after the incident with the widow bites, Kate helped Yelena pick out a strongbox from the sports store. It was one of those cases normally used for locking up pistols. More to the point, though, it had a combination lock that the child definitely wouldn’t be able to crack. Despite Yelena telling her that they had to be worn in order to go off, Kate replied, “better safe than zapped, especially if it gets knocked over or something like that trash can.”
Yelena knew what made widow bites work and could tell Kate Bishop that they were indestructible and COULDN’T short out. But she appreciated the gesture. They both wanted to see little Yelena safe from those blasts, whatever it took. Even if the child saw this new padded case, she wouldn’t WANT to get in. The way she’d whispered, not daring to look Yelena or Kate in the eye, she was still afraid and hated the idea of making them mad.
Yelena was still new to all of this parenting stuff, and most of the time her namesake was her only true weakness. Kate, however, had less responsibility as a second aunt figure and, thus, had less stress to deal with. This offered her more time and space to think clearer and look at things as a big-picture type. So, especially because of this, she still felt honor-bound to help her friend with the little girl.
Once the strongbox was shoved at the back of Yelena’s top shelf in her wardrobe, Kate rubbed her forehead and said, “Running off at the zoo, and now this. We have GOT to get her out of the house more, or at least doing something.”
Confused, Yelena asked her, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Kate added, delicately as it seemed she could, “Look, I may not be the legal guardian here, but I know EXACTLY how it is to be running around the house doing whatever I possibly could to entertain myself. I would eavesdrop on my parents all the time, too.”
“You grew up in a penthouse, Kate Bishop. How hard could that really be?” Yelena asked honestly. “Finding things to do?”
“Oh, trust me, my attention span was at an all-time-low when I was little.” Kate insisted. “Just hear me out. The older that Lena gets here, the more so it’ll be for her. Listen, I know you’ve had reservations about her going to school and, I get it, you have every right to. You’d be here and not there, worried about stuff like other Black Widows. But here’s what I can do. I can go through Bishop Security’s database and do checks on the schools nearby or—if it makes you feel better—she can start off with homeschooling. But either way, she needs to start at some point. The last thing you need on your hands is truancy charges.”
Yelena took a deep breath, knowing she had to face it. Kate was right about that. It had been quite a while now, and at one point she would wake up and little Lena would be six without having started her own reading and math properly. If she put it off too long, it wouldn’t be good for Yelena either; as the kid’s legal guardian and essentially her mother figure, not only allowing her to not be formally educated but to encourage that out of paranoia… Perhaps having a real tutor would be a smoother transition? Just in case putting her in a strange school without Auntie Lena around would be upsetting?
On a positive note, Kate added, “Thankfully she DOES get a lot out of playing with the dogs.” She craned her head to see little Lena in the living room holding a tennis ball for Fanny to chase. “She loves them. She's picking up on stuff like training them, taking care of them… Who knows, maybe she can work with other dogs someday. But for now, she needs a better outlet than just that. You were right about her developing imagination, though. She just needs somewhere to put it.”
Yelena sighed, folding her arms across her chest. Shaking her head in surrender, she replied, “Alright. What are you suggesting?”
“Well, don’t worry about the tutoring thing.” Kate assured her. “I’ll head to work first thing and do a background check on any local homeschool teachers. And I’ll see what could be a good hobby for a kid like her. Something that the three of us can do together since odds are she’ll want one of us, or both, to play with her…”