the nest
When Maria sends Yelena to her room to sleep, Yelena takes a small detour after asking Clint to grab her something to eat from the cafeteria as an excuse to get him off of her back.
Clint leaves and Yelena immediately heads toward where Goose usually hung out.
The cat lets out a chirp, immediately moving to nuzzle against Yelena’s legs when she sees her.
“Hi, pretty kitty,” Yelena coos, stooping down to gently scoop the cat up. Goose nuzzles against Yelena’s chest, letting out a low purr.
Yelena burrows her face into the soft orange fur, taking a few long deep breaths to try and calm herself down.
Maria ordered her out of the room but Yelena didn’t want to go and sleep. She wanted to be there with Natalia.
Goose butts her face against Yelena’s and Yelena can’t help but let out a small smile. “At least somebody doesn’t mind having me around.” Yelena sets Goose down, scratching just under her chin before straightening to head to her room before Clint noticed she was gone.
Yelena makes it to her room moments before Clint arrives. She’s pleasantly surprised at the foil packets he produced.
“Strawberry Pop-tarts, just for you,” Clint grins at her and Yelena slowly reaches out to take one of the packets.
“What’s the occasion?” Yelena knew Natalia made a deal to get Clint to procure them last time. She was never given things without something expected in return.
“You deserve a treat after the week you’ve had,” Clint said. “Do you want any company?”
Yelena paused from where she was tearing the packet open. “Don’t you have to go be with Natalia?”
“Nat has Maria. If you need me to sit around for a little bit then there’s no shame for me sticking around,” Clint shrugs his shoulders. “We can even head to the nest.”
Yelena slips the half-opened packet into her pocket. “Can we go to the nest?” She didn’t want to sleep in the bed without Natalia. She’d need her handcuffs and she didn’t want Clint dealing with that at the moment.
Clint gives Yelena a boost up to the nearest vents and the two make their way into the nest where Yelena immediately takes up the place she and Natalia usually occupied.
Yelena pulls out the packet of Pop-tarts from her pocket and breaks off a piece.
“You know, I prefer brown sugar Pop-tarts myself. Back when Phil first recruited me, I only ate food that came from packaging. Nothing that I didn’t see them make,” Clint comments, pulling a bag of candy out from under one of the pillows.
Yelena peers up at him, taking another piece of her snack. “Natalia always takes a bite of my food before I eat it.”
“I’ve noticed. Is it for the same reason?” Clint inquired.
Yelena shrugs. “They put all sorts of things in our food.”
Clint nods his head in understanding. “I did it because I was worried about them sneaking something into my food.”
Yelena doesn’t understand why Clint was sharing these details. “Why were you worried about them putting something in your food?”
She doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries but she’s curious. Luckily, Clint doesn’t seem upset with her.
“I was raised by the circus,” Clint said and Yelena blinks in surprise, not at all expecting that to come out of his mouth. “There was barely enough food to go around. Any food that was laying around was probably booby-trapped. Worms, mud, dirt, even blood. You put whatever you didn’t mind eating into your food to make sure nobody else took it.”
Yelena suppresses a yawn, pulling her knees up to her chest as she slowly takes another bite of her treat. “What would you put in yours?”
Clint lets out a low laugh. “I put worms. I’d get up early in the morning and dig them out of the mud and keep them in my pocket.”
Yelena wrinkles her nose, chewing slowly. “I haven’t eaten worms. Were they gross?”
“Kinda rubbery. I didn’t wash them so they had dirt on them. My brother used to say it gave me the extra protein I needed,” Clint slowly trails off.
“You have a brother? Is he an agent like you?” Yelena perks up slightly, finishing the first Pop-tart.
“I uh… had a brother. I don’t know where he is,” Clint replies quietly and Yelena glances away because she didn’t like looking at Clint when he was upset.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean--” Yelena starts.
“I know,” Clint interrupts. “What was the grossest thing you’ve eaten?” He abruptly changes the subject. “If not worms.”
“Uh…” Yelena takes a moment to think, breaking off another piece of pastry but not yet putting it into her mouth. “Raw squirrel. Really chewy. A lot of tendons and muscles, not much meat.”
Clint nods his head. “Can’t say I’ve had it before. Why’d you eat it?”
“There was nothing else to eat,” Yelena said. “Once--” She paused for a moment. “Once a month, they’d take the girls from their bed in the middle of the night and they’d take us into a big truck…”
Yelena takes a few moments, glancing up at Clint to see that the man was giving her his full attention.
“They’d drive us into this big forest on the mountain and they’d make us all get out. We’d stay there for the weekend. Survival training, they called it,” Yelena sets the unfinished Pop-tart down. “The little girls who didn’t die were taken back the morning of the third day.”
“How old were you?” Clint asked quietly.
“I was seven when they started. I didn’t know how to survive. I had only been training a year…” Yelena meets Clint’s gaze. “I didn’t know how to make a fire, find shelter, find water, find food… I tripped and rolled my ankle the first time I went out there.”
“You were seven and injured… how did you survive?” Clint slowly scoots closer until he’s sitting next to Yelena. Yelena tiredly leans against him after a few moments.
“One of the bigger girls set up camp near me. We weren’t supposed to interact with each other but she would leave things for me to find. The fire was close enough that I could keep warm and she left boiled water out for me to drink,” Yelena closed her eyes with a sigh. “I killed her.”
Clint jerks slightly at her statement. “What?”
“Not that night. But eventually, it came down to me or her. She didn’t hold back so neither did I,” Yelena closed her eyes. “I killed her when I was nine.”
Clint doesn’t apologize for her having to kill people at such a young age. He also doesn’t pity her. He simply wraps his arm around her. “You said it. It was you or her.” He said quietly. “Get some sleep.”
Yelena leans into him and quickly fell asleep.
Yelena wakes up when there’s a ringing coming from Clint’s pocket. Clint shifts to pull the phone from his pocket. “This is Barton.” He answers quietly. Yelena doesn’t stir, listening quietly to Clint. “Oh shit, what time is it?!”
Yelena jerks slightly when Clint fumbles to check his watch.
“It’s okay. She’s with me. Tell Nat she’s okay,” Clint turns and holds the phone out toward her. “Tell her, beanie baby.”
Yelena takes the phone, pulling it up to her ear. “Hello?”
“Where are you?” Natalia’s shaky voice demands and Yelena tenses up. Yelena’s eyes fall onto Clint’s watch to see that she’s been sleeping for nearly three hours.
Natalia was finished with her session for the day and couldn’t find Yelena.
Yelena disobeyed Maria’s direct order to go to her room.
“I’m with Clint in the nest. I’ll be right there, okay?” Yelena quickly promised before shuffling toward the exit to the vent, Clint right on her heels.
Yelena pops out of the vent, daring down the hallway toward her bunk.
Natalia was there, leaning on Maria slightly. She turns and spots Yelena, pushing away from Maria to collide with Yelena.
Yelena tolerates Natalia’s hands frisking her body for injuries, squirming slightly at her touch. “I’m okay, Natalia. I promise. I was just taking a nap.”
Natalia takes a shaky breath before pulling Yelena into her arms, leaning on her slightly. Yelena reaches up to brush her fingers over the new bandages decorating Natalia’s face.
Natalia leans down to press their foreheads together. “Let’s take a nap, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Yelena glances up at Maria, wondering if she’d say anything about Yelena’s blatant disregard to her order.
“Get some rest,” Maria replies instead and Yelena glances at her in surprise because her demeanor was off. Softer.
Yelena pressed her hand against the print scanner and the door to their bunk slid open. Yelena ushers Natalia inside before either Maria or Clint can pipe up and interrupt them.
Natalia collapses tiredly into the bed with a soft sigh. Yelena takes a seat on the edge of the bed and pulls the single uneaten Pop-tart from her pocket, breaking a piece off and popping it into her mouth before breaking another piece off and holds it out to Natalia. “Eat.”
Natalia looks up at her tiredly. “Not hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten since breakfast. You need to eat,” Yelena pushed the piece toward Natalia again. “Please, Natalia. I know that your head hurts and you just want to sleep but eating is important. We don’t have to skip meals here, Natalia. We can have meals three times a day and snacks whenever we want.”
Natalia lets out a long sigh but opens her mouth and lets Yelena push the piece of Pop-tart into it.
Yelena feeds Natalia the rest of the Pop-tart before settling down beside her in their small bed. Natalia reaches up to cuff her wrist but Yelena stops her, wrapping her fingers around Natalia’s wrist.
Natalia did the same for her when she was going through deprogramming. Yelena was plagued with nightmares and she only slept with handcuffs the first two nights before they realized Yelena would hurt herself seriously if they continued that way.
“I’m sorry I left you,” Natalia whispers to Yelena.
Yelena frowns at the statement that came out of nowhere. “You tried your hardest but ultimately, it was papa’s choice… Alexei’s choice.”
Natalia pressed her face against Yelena’s shoulder. “I adore you, Yelena.”
Natalia’s fingers trail out what she actually wanted to say on Yelena’s back, letting out a sleepy sigh.
I
L O V E
Y O U
“I love you too,” Yelena murmurs, pulling the blanket up over the both of them. “Go to sleep, big sister.”
They’re both fast asleep moments later.