nothing
Yelena is stuck with other recruits training to be agents. They’re all at least twenty-one years of age and eye her like she’s something dirty.
Yelena has a baby face that makes her look even younger than seventeen. Some of the recruits thought that she was messing with them. There was no way that this tiny girl was their newest recruit. Especially with the equipment on her that branded her as a risk.
Yelena doesn’t speak to them. She hates speaking English anyway. She doesn’t do anything more than she has to. She does the bare minimum required of her and always goes last. She’ll head off to find her sister after her training.
Natalia had been adjusting much better than Yelena but everyone still stayed away from them. They wore tracking bracelets and electronic monitoring equipment on their ankles. They were dangerous.
The only person that bothered to interact with them outside of training was Clint. Clint was very tactile. He liked touching anyone and anything.
That is until he tried to drape an arm around Yelena. Yelena didn’t expect the sudden touch and threw him over her shoulder.
Clint finds the whole thing funny until Natalia steps up behind Yelena to glare at him and he realizes that Yelena didn’t toss him around because she felt like it but because she was scared he was going to hurt her.
So Clint made sure that she could always see his hand before he touched her. He’d sometimes announce what he was going to do before he did it. “Noogie!” “High-five!” “Pats on back!”
Yelena appreciated it. Natalia got used to him far quicker than Yelena did but only because the two were partnered up together.
Yelena was still stuck with a bunch of new recruits that gave her a wide berth.
Then someone slips Yelena’s clothes from the locker room when she’s training. Yelena comes back to an empty locker and her heart drops into her stomach because it was her only uniform and she was left in sweaty gym clothes.
Yelena can’t find her clothes. She searches for them far after her training had ended but they’re no longer in the locker room.
Yelena keeps her head up and a glare on her face as she storms through the halls to look for her sister. She’d know what to do.
Instead of her sister, she comes across Clint. Rather, she scared the other agents so badly that Clint heard them flee in fear and came to see why she had her angry eyes on.
Yelena explains to him in a clipped tone that she needed to see her sister and Clint replies apologetically that Natalia was out on her first test run.
“But I’m here. What can I do for you beanie baby?” Clint folds his arms to glance at her.
Yelena hesitates to tell him. She feared the retaliation she’d receive for losing her only uniform.
“Aw man, you didn’t kill anybody, did you?” Clint said, only half-joking. Yelena winces, folding in on herself, and Clint sighs. “What happened?”
“I’m sorry.” Yelena murmurs and Clint raised an eyebrow which prompted her to continue. “I lost my only uniform.”
Clint takes in the sight of the sweaty gym clothes that she wore. “I see that. How’d that happen?”
Yelena shrugs slightly, glancing away from him to watch agents pass them by. “I lost it.” She repeats.
“Did you lose it…” Clint starts carefully. “Or was it taken from you?”
Yelena clenches her jaw, betraying the fact that she had tried to omit the truth from her explanation. “I’m sorry. I need another uniform. It was my fault and I will accept whatever punishment is set for me.”
Clint shakes his head. “It’s fine. We were gonna get you guys more uniforms but we ran out of your size.”
Yelena frowns slightly. “I need your help getting it back.”
“Kid, it seriously isn’t a big issue,” Clint tells her, reaching out and clasping her shoulder. “Nobody is gonna be mad about a uniform.”
Yelena tilts her head up to look at him. “But it was mine. It was mine and someone took it.”
Clint lets out a hum. “You’re right. What are you going to do about that?”
Yelena thinks for a moment of what she could do that didn’t break the strict guidelines set out for her and her sister. “Nothing.”
Clint scrunched his face up. “Nothing?” He echoes in disbelief. “You threw me over your shoulder when I touched you but you’re going to let a bunch of kids take your things?”
Yelena folds her arms to try and echo the confidence that she wanted to feel about her answer but finally ducks her head down in shame. “Nothing…” She parrots back quietly.
Clint squints his eyes at her before sighing. “Come on.” He moves the hand on her shoulder to the back of her neck to push her forward.
“Don’t touch me there!” Yelena snaps, swatting his hand away.
Clint holds his hands up. “Okay. Don’t touch your neck. Got it.” He replies. “Follow me then.” He then turns to guide her down the hallway and into one of the rooms. He climbs on top of a cabinet and pulls the vent cover off before shimmying into it. His head pokes back out a few seconds later. “Coming?”
Yelena clambers up onto the cabinet and into the vents after him. Clint takes her through a series of twists and turns until he dropped through the opening of another cover. Yelena stays put, watching carefully to try and discern where he had taken her.
“Can I help you, Agent Barton?” Maria questioned dryly as she looks up from her paperwork.
“Yeah.” Clint looks up at the vents. “Come down, kid.”
Yelena huffs at being called out but drops through the hole and lands onto the carpet of Maria’s office.
Maria raised an eyebrow, glancing between them.
“Beanie baby here has a complaint,” Clint gestures at her and Yelena sneers at him.
“You’re going to get me killed! Snitching to a superior officer?” Yelena snarled at him and Clint blinks at her sudden hostility.
“Rookie Agent Belova, nobody in this office speaks Russian except for you. Please rephrase in English,” Maria sighed tiredly and Yelena feels foolish for coming in the first place.
“Forget it,” Yelena folds her arms. “Barton was mistaken.”
“You can trust Hill, kid,” Clint tells her and Maria perks up slightly, glancing between them.
“Is there an issue, Belova?” Maria questioned, the tiredness fading from her voice as she slipped into Commander.
“No. There is no issue. It’s fine.” The hostility faded from Yelena’s tone as she glances at Maria. “It’s fine.”
“Hill won’t be angry with you,” Clint tells her as he tries to establish trust in their boss. “SHIELD has a zero tolerance bullying policy.”
Maria raised an eyebrow as she looks at Yelena. “Bullying?”
“Shut up!” Yelena lunges at Clint and the man retaliates by pushing her off.
“Maria will help. You’re not gonna get in trouble,” Clint insists as he dodges a kick at his head.
“Agent Belova that is enough!” Hill raised her voice and Yelena froze in place. “Sit.”
Maria meant sit in the chair but Yelena lowers herself to kneel where she was standing, folding in on herself and bowing her head. Maria sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Barton, go find Romanov. She should have gotten back a few minutes ago,” Maria orders, and Clint glances at Yelena before ducking out the door.
It was quiet in the office and Yelena focuses on the pattern in the carpeting. She should have just kept her mouth shut. She could have dealt with it on her own.
Nobody speaks or moves. Maria goes back to her paperwork and Yelena kneels on the carpet until the door opens.
Natalia paused when she sees Yelena kneeling and glances between the two of them. “Explain.” It’s an order from her.
“Watch your tone, Agent Romanov,” Maria warns before sighing. “Barton came to me with concerns about your sister.”
Natalia instantly moves toward Yelena, crouching in front of her. “What happened?” She demanded.
Yelena clenches her jaw. “I’m not a snitch.” She replies.
Natalia pulls Yelena’s head up to meet her eyes. “Tell me.” She repeats firmly.
Yelena lets out a huff, her gaze flickering to look at Maria.
“No. Look at me. Eyes here,” Natalia moves her hand to block Yelena’s view of Maria. “Tell me. Not her.”
Yelena looks up at her sister’s face and doesn’t admit that her sister’s firm and controlling nature at the moment makes her feel better. “They took my uniform…” She finally admits quietly.
Natalia’s eyes flicker to take in the sight of the grey gym uniform that Yelena wore. “Who?”
“I don’t know.” Yelena clenches her jaw and feels shame pool in her gut as Natalia clicks her tongue against her teeth.
“You are a Widow, Yelena. Were you not watching and observing? Letting your guard down will get you killed,” Natalia berates and Yelena can’t help the tears that well up in her eyes. Yelena finally drops her gaze again, trying to control the hitching of her breath as she shoves the fear and anger away.
Natalia sees it though. She reaches up and cups the back of Yelena’s neck to pull her head forward and Yelena lets her. Natalia pressed her forehead against hers and Yelena squeezed her eyes shut.
Maria finally interrupts them after they sit there for a few moments. “Would anyone like to explain now?”
Natalia stands, pulling Yelena to her feet and tapping her fingers against Yelena’s back. Yelena straightens, pulling the mask back over her face as she glances at Maria.
“The other recruits are stealing Yelena’s things,” Natalia replies as she tilts her chin up slightly. “Her uniform is missing.”
Maria pursed her lips in thought before giving a curt nod. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will handle it. I’ll have another uniform be delivered to your quarters tonight.”
Yelena waits for more but Maria gives them a nod before dismissing them.
Natalia pulled her out of the room before Maria notices she forgot to punish them.
Maria does a random search of lockers the next day to search for contraband and finds Yelena’s missing uniform cut up and shoved in the bottom of a backpack of one of the recruits.
The recruit doesn’t show back up to class and whispers go around that Maria Hill yelled at her loud enough for every near the office to hear her before the recruit was kicked from the program.
Clint gives her a knowing smirk whenever he sees her but never mentions it.