soldier v. assassin
That night, Natalia has a night terror that grips her so hard that Yelena can’t wake her and has to retreat to the corner of the room to stay safe from the fighting back Natalia does when touched.
Yelena may be the best child assassin ever but Natalia had seven more years of fighting under her belt. Yelena tucks herself into a ball in the corner of the room to wait it out until Natalia eventually wakes up on her own accord and then proceeds to pace the room like a caged animal, tugging at her hair and mumbling under her breath.
It unsettles Yelena to see her usually so composed sister seem so unhinged. She tries to put herself into Natalia’s shoes and thinks about what Natalia would do if this was Yelena.
“Let’s go to the gym,” Yelena eventually spoke up quietly, catching the object that Natalia twists and tucked at her face. “It’s only me, big sister .”
Natalia takes a few moments of staring at her before her shoulders lose some of their tension. “Yes. Right… you mentioned the gym?”
Yelena nodded her head. “You need to spar. Get the energy out.” Yelena pulls herself out of the corner and reached a hand out to rest on the back of Natalia’s neck.
While Natalia hadn’t been trained with the same trigger, it was still enforced and Yelena knew that Natalia needed her to take control at the moment.
Natalia didn’t have anybody else she’d trust to take control for her.
Natalia lowers her head, resting her forehead against Yelena’s shoulder for a few moments before straightening.
They don’t bother with shoes. Yelena guides Natalia down the quiet hallways until they reach the gym. She pauses in the doorway when she sees that the gym wasn’t empty. There was an agent in the furthest corner of the room, aggressively jabbing at a punching bag.
After watching for a few moments, Yelena realizes that it’s the commander. Yelena almost didn’t recognize her out of uniform.
Natalia steps onto the mats and Yelena follows after her, pulling her attention away from Maria when Natalia doesn’t hesitate to start.
Yelena’s still exhausted, having not caught up on all the sleep she missed. On top of that, she barely gets much sleep at night staying up to keep an eye on Natalia.
But Natalia’s not holding back so Yelena doesn’t either. Natalia’s worked up, has more experience, and is upset. The combination makes it so Yelena can’t gain the upper-hand, constantly knocked down and getting back up.
Yelena doesn’t realize that Maria had stopped and pulled away from the bags until she spoke up from the sidelines of the mats. “Wanna let me tap in, Yelena?”
Yelena peers up at Maria. Now that her back wasn’t toward them, Yelena could see the weary look on Maria’s face as the commander was haunted by the ghosts of her past.
Maria needed to fight it out too.
Yelena looks up at Natalia. She knows that Natalia likes the familiarity that came with sparring with another Widow but Yelena was just so tired and if they kept going at this rate then someone was going to get seriously hurt. “Is that okay?” Yelena still asks Natalia.
She’d keep going if Natalia said no. She’d fight for as long as her sister needed her to.
Natalia must finally take a moment to really look at Yelena because her frame shifts guiltily. “Yeah… yeah, that’s fine.”
Yelena steps off of the mats, passing Maria as the commander steps up. Yelena takes a seat at the edge of the mats, letting out a small sigh of relief as she rests her aching limbs.
Neither of the women on the mats delay, immediately lunging at each other. Yelena takes the moment to watch Maria.
Yelena is used to girls fighting in a deadly but graceful way, disciplined and precise. Maria fights like Bobbi does, a heavy hitter that prefers to use brute force over delicate precision.
From Yelena’s vantage point, she can see a set of dog tags that fall from their place carefully tucked away inside Maria’s shirt until they tangle just over the woman’s heart. It wasn’t usually where it would be visible in their usual uniforms.
A soldier. Maria Hill was a soldier in the army.
It made sense to Yelena and it told her a lot about what demons probably haunted the woman.
A soldier and an assassin fight. While it’s not a fight to the death, it’s ruthless and messy.
They struggle at first until they fall into a comfortable rhythm. Their bodies move fluidly in a weirdly graceful dance as neither of them dares to be the first to back down. Maria struggles to begin with but she learns quickly and she adjusts.
Yelena lets out a yawn, pulling her knees up to her chest so she can rest her chin upon them. She can’t sleep, not with people fighting so close nearby, but she does let herself relax as she observes the two.
Natalia finally pins Maria down onto the mat. Instead of backing up to let Maria up to start again, they appear frozen, both breathing harshly as they stare at each other. Yelena knows that Natalia is waiting for Maria to break the hold she has on her, carefully observing and cataloging the way Maria fights.
Maria stares up at Natalia, her chest heaving as she catches her breath for a moment before she grins and hooks her leg around Natalia to roll them over so that she was on top.
It’s a stupidly simple move that Natalia should have seen coming from miles away. Yelena’s confused about why Natalia didn’t anticipate it. Maria pulls away once she pinned Natalia down, climbing to her feet and then offering Natalia a hand.
Not even the sisters offer each other a hand up when they’re done sparring. They’ve learned that when fighting, nobody will offer you a hand up when you’re own. It’s up to you to pick yourself up and keep fighting.
Natalia stares at the hand for a few moments before slowly reaching out and accepting it. Maria pulls Natalia up to her feet, their hands still clasped for a few moments before they let each other go.
“Good fight.” Maria said breathlessly, reaching a hand up to run it through her hair that had started to fall out of the ponytail she pulled it back into.
Natalia eyes her for a few moments before nodding her head. “Yeah.” Her head then snaps to the sidelines to peer at Yelena. “You good?”
Yelena nods her head. “Yeah. Just tired.” She admits, uncurling to climb to her feet and approach the pair. Yelena’s eyes glance at the dog tags around Maria’s neck.
Hill, Maria C.
Maria’s eyes follow Yelena’s and she wraps her fingers around the dog tags before quickly settling them back under her shirt.
“You were in the army?” Yelena questioned before peering up at Maria.
“United States Armed Forces,” Maria replies after a few moments. “That’s where SHIELD scooped me up.”
“You fight like Bobbi does,” Yelena comments her observation. “Was Bobbi a soldier too?”
Maria shakes her head. “No. SHIELD taught Bobbi most of what she knows in terms of combat.”
Yelena nods her head, turning her head to hide a yawn that threatens to escape. Of course, Natalia picks up on it.
“We should be going back,” Natalia’s hand falls onto Yelena’s shoulder. Yelena leans into the touch tiredly, letting Natalia guide her from the room.
Something about Natalia’s demeanor was off after sparring with Maria and Yelena frowns as she tries to figure out what about Maria seemed to throw Natalia off of her game.
Yelena doesn’t bring it up, falling asleep by herself in their bed while Natalia showers.
She gets up the next morning with Natalia but Natalia won’t let her go with her to deprogramming. “You’re exhausted, little sister. ”
Yelena glares at Natalia. The copper-haired woman knew that using that moniker on Yelena wore her defenses down quickly. “I’m fine.”
“Do not lie to me,” Natalia’s voice was firm. “I hear that you’ve been falling asleep on people. You’re letting your guard down.”
Shame fills Yelena. “I know…” She murmurs.
“You need to sleep. Don’t worry about me, Maria and Clint will be there.” Natalia runs a hand over Yelena’s hair and the tired teenager soaks the affection up like a sponge.
Yelena lets out a long sigh, burying her face into Natalia’s collar. “I wanna help.”
“I know,” Natalia murmurs, cupping the back of Yelena’s neck. “You’ve been very helpful. But I don’t need you there.”
Yelena shoves away the hurt at her comment. “I didn’t need you there with mine.” She retorts and Natalia sighs.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Natalia pushes Yelena away so that she can reach out to cup her face. “Look at me.”
Yelena has a hard time with eye contact. Whenever May or Bobbi had demanded Yelena to look at them, Yelena would stare at their forehead or just past their face. Looking someone in the eyes sometimes meant that you were challenging them. That’s what she was taught.
But Natalia was safe. Yelena’s eyes hesitantly flickered to look into Natalia’s green eyes.
“Please, Yelena. Just take the day to sleep,” Natalia asked softly.
Yelena takes a moment before she slumps in on herself. “Okay.” She doesn’t know how much sleep she’d be able to get. Without Natalia there, she’d certainly use the handcuffs and she might end up dislocating her thumb again. “Fine. Just this one, just today.”
Natalia smiles at her. “Thank you.” She sounded relieved slightly and it made Yelena wonder if Natalia expected her deprogramming to go bad today. Because while Yelena screamed and cried out during hers, Natalia was silent and still.
Yelena wondered if Natalia finally expected to yell during hers.
“Please, be safe,” Yelena leans forward to press her forehead against Natalia’s. “I love you.”
Natalia gives her a tired smile. “I adore you, Yelena.”
Yelena knew what she meant to say though.