fuzzy
Yelena’s uneasy about the whole prospect of therapy. The Red Room had therapy too and Yelena’s never known therapy to be anything but bad.
Everyone says it’s supposed to help her. The Red Room said that too. Yelena doesn’t know if Natalia got any of the Red Room’s version of therapy. If she did, she doesn’t seem too bothered about going.
Yelena’s nervous. She doesn’t want to go but it’s been made clear to her that like their visit to medical, this wasn’t optional. She and Natalia had different doctors but only to keep a subjective opinion about them.
When the day for therapy actually arrives, Yelena doesn’t eat breakfast. Natalia knows something is wrong but doesn’t push Yelena, brushing her hands against Yelena’s to give her silent support.
Natalia goes first and Yelena is left pacing the halls just outside of the room. Clint’s there, sitting in a chair for support and he doesn’t chide Yelena for her movements.
Yelena listens closely. She’s not trying to listen in on their conversation but she’s listening for cries and yells.
Natalia’s still in her session when Yelena’s name is called. She glances anxiously at Clint who seems to pick up on her nerves.
“It’ll be okay, beanie baby. I’ll have Bobbi waiting for you when you’re done if you want,” Clint suggests and Yelena gives a short nod. “Your session isn’t as long as Nat’s either. You’ll probably be done before her. Remember that this first time is just an ice breaker.”
Yelena doesn’t know what that means but nods once again, following the doctor into the room.
It looks nothing like she expected it to. There’s a large desk and a plush chair but there’s a couch with pillows where she’s supposed to sit and a bookshelf with a few action figures mixed with medical textbooks. There are plants framing the window in the room, green and healthy, sitting next to a box of tissues.
It looks wrong. It looks cozy and small and Yelena feels upset about that.
Where are the restraints? The electricity? The bite guard?
“Please, take a seat,” The doctor gestures at the couch and Yelena hesitantly crosses the room to take a seat on the edge of the couch. “My name is Doctor Damian Chen.”
Yelena has a hard time paying attention as Damian continues to talk. Everything feels fake-- staged.
“Yelena?” Damian prompts and Yelena’s eyes flicker to look at him. “Have you been listening?”
Yelena shakes her head, bringing her fingertips up to gently touch her lips. No gag in her mouth. She can speak but no words come out, clogged up in her throat.
Damian keeps asking questions and Yelena doesn’t have answers for him. She’s trying, she really is, but she can’t .
She wants someone in the room with her but they weren’t allowed.
By the end of it, Yelena hadn’t spoken a single word. She answered with nods, shakes, and shrugs. Damian dismisses her and Yelena stands, taking a step out of the room.
Hunter and Bobbi are there, waiting for her. They perk up when she exits the room.
“How’d it go, kiddo?” Bobbi questioned and Yelena glances between the two of them before shrugging.
Bobbi raised an eyebrow at her silence. “Everything okay?”
For some unknown reason, Yelena wants to curl up into a ball and cry.
“Yelena?” Hunter takes a step toward her and Yelena can’t help but take a step back. She feels like there’s something crawling under her skin and that she needs to get it out. “What happened?”
“He didn’t even hit me.” Is all Yelena can manage to get out of her mouth before reaching up to grab the back of her neck. “Is Natalia done?”
“No,” Hunter squints at her. “Were you expecting to get hit?”
Bobbi stands abruptly. ”Yelena?” She prompts when Yelena was quiet.
Yelena gives a helpless shrug. “It’s therapy.” She murmurs and watches as Bobbi and Hunter exchange glances.
“Yelena, did anyone ever actually explain what therapy was?” Hunter asked with a frown and Yelena peers up at them.
“I did therapy in… where I came from,” Yelena nods her head slightly.
“You got hit in therapy where you came from?” Bobbi asked, reaching out to set a hand over Yelena’s on the back of her neck. “So you thought we’d do it the same way here?”
“And despite that, you went in there anyway?” Hunter tacks on.
Yelena glances down the hallway where she can make out Clint waiting for Natalia. “What choice did I have? It’s mandatory. They said I had to go.”
Bobbi lets out a soft sigh and Yelena feels like she’s done something wrong. The feeling of ‘wrongness’ still lingers.
“I want my sister,” Yelena murmurs to Bobbi, surprising both of them when she leans forward and wraps her arms around Bobbi.
“Kid?” Bobbi asked, her hand moving to hold Yelena back slowly. “Are you okay?”
Yelena is very much not okay. She doesn’t know why she’s so upset that her first therapy session wasn’t as she expected it. “I need May.”
She needs to dance. Natalia is still in her session and Yelena needs to just go into her head to deal with the mess inside and sort through the myriad of confusing emotions bubbling to the surface.
May knew enough to guide Yelena through the sets and while Yelena didn’t trust May exactly to look out for her while she was in her head, she’d hoped Bobbi would stay there as well.
“Okay,” Bobbi glances at Hunter. “Lance? Will you pass that on?”
Hunter pulls out his phone and Bobbi turns her attention back toward Yelena.
“It’s okay, kiddo,” Bobbi murmurs, the hand on the back of Yelena’s neck gently squeezing. Yelena lets out a small shudder, leaning into Bobbi. “I’ve got you.”
A few moments later, Bobbi is guiding Yelena toward their training room. May was waiting in there and thankfully asks no questions about how she was feeling or how therapy went.
Yelena steps onto the mats, pulling away from Bobbi and peering up at May.
May gives her a small nod before taking a deep breath. “En Pointe.”
Yelena pulls herself to her tiptoes and after a few moments under May’s guidance, she sinks into her head.
She doesn’t know how long she’s focused on nothing or how long she dances but when she’s done, there are hands on her face and she’s left staring up at Natalia’s green eyes.
“There you are,” Natalia said softly, the hands on Yelena’s face sliding to cup the back of Yelena’s neck and guides her head to her shoulder. “What happened?”
Despite however long she spent dancing, Yelena feels her face crumple slightly at the question. “I didn’t like it.” She pressed her face against Natalia’s collar. “Pressure.”
Natalia squeezes the back of Yelena’s neck, wrapping her other arm around her securely. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
“Did they make you go to therapy too? The General?” Yelena asked, switching to Hungarian.
“No. At least, they never called it that,” Natalia replies, pulling away briefly to look at Yelena’s face. “Is that why you were so nervous today? You thought they’d do what he did?”
“It hurt,” Yelena murmurs quietly, glancing down at her feet. “Therapy always made me feel fuzzy and gooey. They’d tie me down and put the rubber bit into my mouth so I didn’t crack my teeth when they sent the electricity through me.”
“That’s not therapy,” Natalia said in English, her voice firm and serious. “Do you think that I would ever let you walk into that?”
“No…” Yelena slumps forward. “No, of course not.” She said. She doesn’t know what she was thinking. Therapy couldn’t be that bad, especially if Natalia had just let Yelena walk in.
Looking back on it, Natalia didn’t even really seem nervous. Natalia never really showed her emotions to anyone but she wasn’t overprotective of Yelena as she was with their physicals. Natalia didn’t even seem to feel the need to run. That should have let Yelena know that it wasn’t going to be bad.
Maria calls Yelena to her office later on and Yelena sits at the chair in front of her desk, peering up at Maria.
Maria pushes some pamphlets across the desk. “It appears that nobody stopped to think about what you knew about therapy. Or what the… other place taught you.”
Yelena glances down at the pamphlets about therapy.
“I made an assumption that since neither of you bolted like you did with medical that you were fine,” Maria leans forward in her chair. “I made a mistake and I neglected to check in with you like a good deputy director.”
Yelena still doesn’t understand what difference it would have made if she did check in. Yelena would have either lied and said she was fine or said she wasn’t okay and that would have been the end of it.
What would Maria have done if Yelena said she was scared? Would it have mattered?
Admitting fear wasn’t acceptable. If Yelena admitted a fear, the Red Room would have ‘cured’ her. She had a fear of high places and falling when she was ten. The Red Room shoved her out of a plane, throwing a parachute after her. Yelena telling Maria that she was scared of therapy was probably a good way to get hurt.
Then again, Maria was different. It wasn’t long ago that she gripped Yelena’s wrist and told her that she wasn’t the Red Room.
“I was… nervous,” Yelena admits quietly to the commander, watching the myriad of emotions quickly flicker across her face.
“I know that now,” Maria inclines her head. “I appreciate that you told me.”
Yelena glances down, averting her eyes from Maria’s stare. Sensing that Yelena was done speaking after her confession, Maria dismissed them.
Yelena curls up in their bunk that night, passing the pamphlets to Natalia to read aloud so she didn’t have to read and translate.
Therapy sounded nothing like what the Red Room made it out to be. Yelena can’t help but wonder what else the Red Room was wrong about.
“I want you to tell me next time,” Natalia tells Yelena firmly, once the pamphlets are read and discarded. “When you’re scared.”
“Admitting fear--” Yelena starts but Natalia interrupts her, finishing the phrase.
“--is acknowledging that you are imperfect. Widows are made of marble and marble doesn’t feel fear,” Natalia shakes her head, pulling Yelena close to her. “Promise you’ll tell me. Criss cross your heart.”
Yelena is thrown back into a memory from Ohio when she and Natalia would cross-their-heart-hope-to-die promise. Just like when she was six, Yelena raises her finger to slowly draw an X over her heart. “Criss cross promise.” She replies softly. “I’ll tell you.”
“Good,” Natalia wraps Yelena up in her arms. “I wouldn’t let them hurt you.”
“I know.” Yelena does know that. Natalia has proven time and time again that she’d do anything to keep Yelena safe, including killing people or letting them hurt her instead. “I love you, Nattie.”
“I know,” Natalia cards her fingers through Yelena’s hair. “I adore you, Lena.”
Yelena knew what she meant but hoped to hear the words one day.