missions
Yelena likes to see her family off and greet them back when they go on missions. It’s mostly Clint that leaves and they have settled into a little routine of goodbyes before he leaves.
Clint lets Yelena into his room while he packs, often telling her what he can reveal about the mission. Usually where he’s going and how long he expects to be gone.
It’s never more than a week or two at a time and Maria will let Yelena talk to Clint on the phone when he calls to check-in.
When Clint gets back, Yelena will be waiting for him on the runway and will wrap her arms around him no matter how dirty or sweaty he is. Maria always chides her for getting herself dirty but Yelena missed Clint’s hugs more than she cares about her mama getting angry with her.
Besides, Maria’s never really angry at her.
If Clint isn’t injured, he’ll scoop Yelena up and press a loud kiss to her cheek as he heads inside to his room to go shower. If he is injured, he’ll let Yelena carry his bag and walk with him to medical.
Clint tried to skip medical on the first few times but Yelena got upset about him being hurt and the sight of her pout and teary eyes made him fold. He no longer fights about going to medical, letting Yelena wait with him because the doctors will give them popsicles while they wait.
Except this most recent mission, Clint couldn’t tell her anything. Yelena knows that they’re agents and she’s only a child so she expects the secrecy. She doesn’t mind it much until she realizes that Clint’s not calling to check in like usual. Yelena keeps visiting Maria, hoping to catch her on the phone with Clint. Yelena hangs around Coulson, waiting to see if Clint will call his handler.
Yelena finally tells Maria on the fourth day. “I miss Clint.”
Maria gives her a small smile. “I know.” She lifts Yelena up into her arms and Yelena will miss the day that she gets to big for Maria to hold her anymore. “He’s very busy at the moment and hasn’t had time to check-in.”
“When is he coming back?” Yelena asked, wrapping her arms around Maria’s neck.
“When the mission is complete. We’re unsure,” Maria rubs Yelena’s back, kissing the side of her head. “I know you miss him.”
Yelena burrows against her, letting out a soft sigh. “Okay.”
Days keep passing by with no word from Clint. Yelena’s getting antsy waiting for him to call. She was tempted more than once to sneak a peek at the files pertaining to his mission but quickly deduced that Fury would probably chuck her over the side of the helicarriers after what she did as Alyssa.
Yelena has a nightmare ten days after not hearing from Clint. It’s so horribly realistic and vivid that Yelena wakes up sobbing and pleading for forgiveness from her dead brother.
It takes Maria a long time to calm her down. Yelena can’t be convinced that Clint isn’t dead with only Maria’s word for it. There was nothing to confirm that he was still alive to her.
Maria holds her, promising that he’s okay. She carries Yelena in her arms, pacing the length of their bunk as she tries to comfort her. Yelena clutches the stuffed rabbit that Clint got her for her birthday close, nuzzling her nose into the soft fabric as she tries not to think of all the horrible ways Clint could have been killed.
Yelena feels really bad about keeping Maria up all night when Maria went from pacing in their bunk to carrying Yelena down the halls to go to work, having not gone back to bed after Yelena woke up in a panic.
She can’t help it. She worried far too much about Clint because she knew all the way that things could go wrong.
Maria sets upon going to work with a child on her hip, far be it the first time she’s done it. It was known news by now that Yelena was Maria’s daughter so nobody really minded sitting in on meetings or just being there in general. Yelena was quiet and never got in the way.
When Maria eventually has to pass her off, Yelena can’t help the tears that roll down her cheeks. Her emotions are wild and Yelena doesn’t know how to get them under control without locking them away, something Maria didn’t like her doing.
The first time she did it, Maria grasped her firmly by the shoulders and told her to stop it. “It’s okay to feel things, Yelena. I don’t want you burying them away and leaving them to fester.”
Yelena feels that she might be slipping. She was the greatest child assassin ever, missing her big brother shouldn’t be driving her to tears. She was a Widow. She was made of marble. Marble didn’t cry. Marble didn’t feel things. Marble didn’t have family.
May takes Yelena from Maria and takes her down to the gym. She wraps Yelena’s hands and she walks her through sets on the punching bag.
Fighting did get a lot of the negative feelings building up out but Yelena still had that lingering longing for her big brother. May just sets a hand onto her back and helps her adjust her form, not very good at comforting people but reassuring all the same.
Yelena is exhausted by the time Maria finally finds them in the gym. Maria scolds May for working her so hard but Yelena grips onto her shirt and Maria seemed to realize that her daughter was starting to fall apart.
Yelena starts staying up at night, afraid of nightmares and afraid of missing a call from Clint. She fooled Maria the first few nights but after Yelena not waking her up with a nightmare, Maria realizes that she’s not sleeping. She tries to tell Yelena how important sleep was.
Yelena ends up having her first huge argument with Maria. She knows that Maria only wants what is best for her but Yelena doesn’t know how else to get all of this anger in her out.
Yelena screams at her. She throws things and rips the sheets off her bed and the clothes from the dresser bolted to the wall. She kicks the wall and has a full-on meltdown.
She says a lot of hurtful things. She wants Maria to know how much she’s hurting but the only way she knows how to do that is to hurt Maria too.
Yelena says she wishes Maria wasn’t her mama. She wishes she wasn’t a Hill. She wishes she never called.
None of those things are true but they come out of her mouth anyway.
Yelena feels very out of control and it frightens her how manic she was. She can’t stop herself from trying to destroy things like Widows do.
Maria watches her, waiting with her arms folded. She doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t stop Yelena, she just waits it out.
Finally, when Yelena has gotten all the anger out and all she can do is sob, her face flushed red and chest heaving, she folds in on herself. She’s so ashamed of how she reacted and what she said.
Maria finally approached her and for a few minutes, fear grips Yelena, the certainty that Maria was going to hit her for acting such a way is stuck in her mind.
Maria lowers herself into a crouch, reaching out and gently cupping Yelena’s face in her hands, her skin cool against Yelena’s flushed skin as her thumb wipes away her tears. “I love you.” Maria says softly, still as calm as ever, and Yelena just sobs harder.
Never before had Yelena been reassured and shown love after stepping out of line. She doesn’t know how to handle the overwhelming emotions holding her hostage. “I-I’m s-sorry--” She hiccups out.
“I know,” Maria gently pulls her closer and Yelena buries her face into the crook of her neck. “Let it all out, baby girl. I’ve got you.”
Yelena clings to her, curling her fingers into the collar of Maria’s uniform to try and pull herself closer. “I d-didn’t mean it--” She sniffles out.
“I know you didn’t,” Maria kissed the top of her head, her hand rubbing Yelena’s back gently.
“M-mama--” Yelena chokes out, hoping that Maria still wanted her after the massive tantrum she had thrown. “I’m s-sorry!”
“Shh, I know you’re sorry. No more apologies right now,” Maria cups the back of Yelena’s head, her thumb rubbing circles along the nape of her neck. “Just focus on your breathing, baby. Can you breathe with me?” She coaxed.
Yelena focuses on trying to take deep breaths with Maria. Her face feels gross and sticky with salty tears and her mouth is dry from all the yelling she did.
Maria eventually scoops her up and carries her into the bathroom, sitting her down on the counter and wetting a washcloth down with cool water. Yelena sits still as Maria gently grips her chin and cleans her face up.
The cool cloth feels good on her flushed face and Yelena closes her eyes to soak up the kind touch. She’s exhausted now, even more so coupled with the past few days of very little sleep.
Maria then fills a mug with water and coaxed Yelena to have a few sips. Yelena ends up downing the whole mug, dehydrated after all the crying that she did. When her mouth is no longer dry, Yelena lowers the mug and peers up at Maria. “Mama?”
“Yes, baby?” Maria takes the empty mug from Yelena’s hands.
“I didn’t mean what I said. I still want you to be my mama. I still wanna be a Hill,” Yelena tells her, insecurities lurking just under her skin that Maria would get rid of her.
“I know you didn’t. You’re still my daughter and I’m still your mama. You’re Yelena Belova-Hill,” Maria promised her, reaching out to smooth Yelena’s hair back. “No matter what you say or do, you will always be mine. Do you think we can talk about why you were so upset?”
Yelena nods her head. She owed Maria that much, especially after what she just did. “I got scared.” She’s face level with Maria sitting up on the bathroom sink.
“Scared of what?” Maria asked her, her hand gently cupping Yelena’s cheek.
“That Clint won’t come back like my sister,” Yelena admits quietly, glancing down at her lap to avoid looking at Maria’s face. “That he’s gonna leave me and we won’t know if he’s dead.”
“Oh Yelena,” Maria wraps Yelena up in her arms where the girl feels safe. “I wish I knew. Clint’s okay. He has the means to call for help if he needs it. He’s done this thing before.”
“I know that,” Yelena murmurs into Maria’s shirt. “But people don’t mean to leave me, they get taken away.”
Maria cups the back of her head. “I’m not going anywhere. I will always fight to come home to you at the end of the day and I know Clint will too.”
Yelena takes all the time she can to absorb Maria’s comfort. Eventually, she pulls away.
“Let’s clean up and go to bed, yeah?” Maria said. Yelena is reminded of the mess she made and shame and embarrassment burns through her. “Come on.”
Maria puts the sheets back on Yelena’s bed and folds her clothes back up while Yelena cleans up everything else that she had thrown. Yelena finally picks up the stuffed bunny she lobbed at the wall in anger. She hugs it tight, glad that it wasn’t actually damaged. It was a gift from Clint, she doesn’t know what she’d do if she broke it.
When the room is clean, Maria pulls the sheets back on her own bed and welcomes Yelena in instead of Yelena waking up in the middle of the night to crawl into her bed. Yelena curls into Maria with the bunny, letting her mama hold her close and stroke her hair.
In the end, Clint ends up calling two days before he returns home nearly a month later. It’s the middle of the night and Maria wakes Yelena up to put her on the phone.
Yelena is too tired and missed her big brother too much to truly be mad at him. Clint is really apologetic about the silence and he lets Yelena ramble and catch her up on all that he had missed.
Two days later finds Yelena waiting eagerly with Maria on the runway, waiting for Clint to touchdown. She notices that there is a STRIKE team waiting nearby but Maria seems unbothered by their appearance. It’s early in the morning and Yelena hasn’t even changed out of her pajamas yet, the bunny still clutched in her arms as she tiredly waits for the jet to touchdown.
When it does, the ramp lowers and a woman steps out first, her hands cuffed in front of her and her head bowed. The STRIKE team moves forward toward her.
Yelena can see her red hair and the first thought is that it looks a lot like her big sister.
Her second thought is that the woman is wearing a Red Room uniform.
Then the woman glances over at Clint and Yelena gets a look at her face.
It’s her.
It’s her!
Yelena doesn’t even realize that she’s squirming in Maria’s arms until Maria tells her to stop wiggling. Yelena drops the bunny so she can shove herself out of Maria’s arms.
Maria lowers Yelena before she tumbles out of her arms and Yelena takes off. Maria yells after her. “Stop, you’re not wearing shoes!”
The ground is hot under her bare feet but Yelena ignores the feeling, crossing the runway as quickly as she can. “Nattie!” She calls out before whistling their two notes. The wind around them quiets her slightly but the woman’s head jerks toward her at the sound.
Yelena does it again. She can hear Maria take off after her as Yelena quickly approaches.
“Nattie!” She cries out, finally reaching them and colliding with the woman, the thought of her getting hurt in the back of her mind.
The woman raised her handcuffed wrists, letting Yelena wrap her arms around her waist. Finally, the woman sinks down to her knees and reaches up with her handcuffed wrists to touch Yelena’s face. There’s confusion and caution in her eyes as well as relief. “Yelena?” She finally whispers out.
“You’re here…” Yelena breathes out, a grin stretching across her face. “I missed you.”
“You’re alive,” She breathes out. Yelena whistles again and this time there is a reply.
Natasha whistles the two notes back before looping her cuffed wrists up and over Yelena’s head, pulling the girl against her in a tight hug.
It’s been five years but Yelena has no doubt about it. This is her big sister.
Clint brought her home.
“You’re alive,” Natasha repeats once again quietly and Yelena feels a tear hit the top of her head from where Natasha was resting her chin. “You’re here.” Her grip tightens slightly and this little piece missing from Yelena’s heart is filled.