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The first thing Natalia notices upon her return is the healing yellow-green bruise covering the left side of her baby sister’s face, encompassing the cheek and hugging the eye socket as it fades off down her jaw.
Yelena doesn’t act like it hurts, which Natalia could have expected, they were taught not to show pain. But Yelena also acts like she wasn’t in a fight that would have made this mark on her face that could have easily shattered her jaw or eye socket if it was an inch in either direction.
Clint lets out a low whistle when he sees it. “Oof, beanie baby. Who did you piss off?” He chuckles.
Yelena shrugs, dismissing him with a glance as she peers up at Natalia. “You took a day longer than you said.”
“I know,” Natalia reaches out, her fingers brushing along the sickly colored bruise on Yelena’s face. “Explain.”
While the probability that Yelena merely tripped over something was nearly impossible, the chance wasn’t zero.
Yelena, as if forgetting that half her face was a bruise, reached up to touch her cheek. “Maria punched me in the face.”
The hand gently caressing Yelena’s face froze. “Hill?” Natasha checks because there’s the sliver of a chance that it was some other Maria on base.
Yelena quickly backtracks. “She didn’t mean to. It was an accident--”
Natalia doesn’t really want to hear it. How many accidents that leave bruises would it take before it wasn’t just an accident anymore. “Quiet.”
Yelena goes silent, her back straightening at the command. Natalia’s exhausted and just wants to crawl into bed but she needs answers about how Maria Hill put this bruise onto her sister’s face.
Natalia takes a moment to collect herself before setting a hand onto the back of Yelena’s neck to take her back to their bunk. Yelena lets her, relaxing under the hand cupping her neck.
They reach their bunk and Yelena squirms slightly under Natalia’s touch. “You can lemme go.”
Natalia takes a moment before she forces her fingers to let Yelena go. Yelena immediately moves toward their dresser and starts pulling out an outfit for Natalia to change into.
Natalia strips out of her suit and Yelena moves forward to run her hands over Natalia’s skin to look for injuries.
Natalia then orders Yelena to strip in case she was hiding more bruises from her. Yelena huffs but obediently tugs her top off, undoing the buttons and zipper on her pants. “I’m fine.” She insists.
Yelena’s telling the truth. The only mark on her is the one on her face. Natalia refuses to apologize for making her strip though, she won’t apologize for worrying about her sister.
The two sisters dress and Yelena immediately wraps herself around Natalia for the post-mission snuggles she had gotten used to from her. Natalia would come back after a mission to debrief and then take a nap. Yelena, if Natalia wasn’t too injured, would lay on top of her to make up for all the missed touches from the past few days.
It was always hard for Natalia to leave Yelena. There was always a possibility that she couldn’t come back or that something could happen to the Helicarrier while she was gone. Ever since losing her sister once as children, Natalia wanted to hold her close and never let her go. She’s lucky that Yelena puts up with her fussing.
Natalia feels guilt for letting them take Yelena away from her as children. She feels guilty that Yelena lost her innocence and her childhood. She feels like she killed the happy little girl in Ohio. So each and every time something happens to Yelena now, Natalia feels guilt for that too.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Yelena murmurs, tilting her head up from where it was resting on Natalia’s chest. “It’s making your heart beat funny….”
Natalia runs her fingers through Yelena’s hair and the teenager quickly melts against her at the touch. “I’m just thinking. So… all those questions you were asking me about Maria… is there something you were trying to tell me?”
Natalia can’t help but think of Yelena’s questioning about Maria. Yelena asked if she liked her. Was that her way of gauging whether to tell her if Maria was hurting her? If Natalia had said no, would Yelena have admitted something?
Yelena blinks a few times before shrugging. “No.” It’s not the whole truth and they both know it.
“You’re lying to me,” Natalia sighs and she can’t help but wonder if she did something to make Yelena hold so many secrets and lie to her.
Yelena lets out a huff, averting her eyes. “I just…” She trails off and Natalia realizes that Yelena’s struggling to try and tell her something. Fear ebbs in her gut as Yelena struggles to verbalize her thoughts. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m a big girl, I can look after myself,” Natalia pushes herself to sit up, Yelena sliding to sit in her lap so that they’re facing each other. “And I can look after you too. What’s wrong?”
Yelena keeps trying to push her face against Natalia’s shoulder to hide but Natalia doesn’t let her, eventually settling on cupping her face to keep her from getting out of it.
“What’s on your mind, little sister?” Natalia questioned softly.
“I miss you,” Yelena murmurs quietly, her eyes staring down at her lap to avoid looking at Natalia’s face.
Natalia frowns. “I’m right here.” She points out.
“But you keep leaving and staying for only a day or two before you’re gone again!” Yelena points out. “None of the other agents go out this much! I needed you a few days ago and you weren’t here. Instead, Maria helped me in the middle of the night but she was all angry too and I made a mistake and she accidently punched me and you’re gone all the time--”
Natalia pulls Yelena’s head forward to press their foreheads together. Yelena goes quiet, the words catching in her throat.
“I had to go see Damian by myself and you weren’t there after like you said you’d be. I need you at night and you’re not there. I just want you, Nattie…” Yelena murmurs quietly, her hands sliding to curl her fingers into Natalia’s shirt.
The sound of the nickname Yelena called her in Ohio causes Natalia to freeze. She hadn’t realized just how frequently she was going out but looking back on it, she was probably only on the Helicarrier for seven of the last thirty days.
“There’s one thing I have left to do before my deflection,” Natalia promised and she realizes that Yelena’s shifted the conversation away from Maria. Natalia’s torn between pursuing the Maria conversation and continuing this one. “I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been here as much as we both would like.”
“You promised when you took me that we wouldn’t be separated again. When we broke out, I took hits and had jobs, just like you did. You were back more then and sometimes I wanna leave and go back to doing that,” Yelena admits and Natalia finally drops her hands so Yelena can press her face into her shoulder.
“Wouldn’t you miss Bobbi and May and Clint?” Natalia asked her and Yelena lets out a sigh.
“I’d leave them for you,” Yelena murmurs into Natalia’s shoulder. “I go where you go. I’ll follow you to the end of the earth.”
“And if something happened to me in the field?” Natalia questioned, running her hand over Yelena’s hair.
“I’d follow you,” Yelena repeats and Natalia tries not to think too much into her words but she has to ask.
“And if I died?” Natalia questioned, regretting it when Yelena gives a flinch.
“I’d die too,” Yelena whispers and Natalia nearly misses the reply muffled by her shirt. “I can’t do this without you.”
Natalia hadn’t meant to make her upset. She can feel her shirt get damp with warm tears. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to return to you.”
“You can’t promise that,” Yelena sniffles, and Natalia rocks side to side gently to try and soothe her.
“Cross my heart promise,” Natalia gently squeezed the back of Yelena’s neck to comfort her. “That I will always try my hardest to return to you.”
Yelena always took promises seriously, even as a child. She treated them like vows and she’d be executed if she broke them. Natalia once broke a dish and made Yelena swear not to tell their fake parents why it had gotten broken. Yelena never told a soul, even when she got punished for something she didn’t do.
Even now, despite the cruelty of the Red Room, promises meant a lot to Yelena. You shouldn’t make a promise to her if you didn’t intend on following through with it.
So when Natalia cross her heart promises, Yelena believes her.
Natalia shifts to lay back down and Yelena moves her arms so Natalia doesn’t lay on them.
“I’ll see what I can do about finishing up my defection quicker,” Natalia promised. She didn’t realize how much time she was spending away from base and away from Yelena. “Everything should slow down when I’m officially an agent.”
“Okay…” Yelena whispers and Natalia combs her fingers through Yelena’s hair. “Do you think I could be an agent too?”
Natalia doesn’t want that life for her. She doesn’t want Yelena tethered to an organization she doesn’t want to be part of. But she also knows that her sister is an assassin. The best child assassin there is. Her kill count could rival Natalia’s despite their age gap and whispers of her name in the Red Room evoked fear.
Yelena would make a very good agent.
“Maybe.” It’s not a yes and it’s not a no. Yelena seems to accept it for what it is.
Yelena falls asleep first, her face tucked against Natalia’s collar and her fingers still fisting the shirt fabric at Natalia’s sides.
Natalia runs her fingers over the bruise on her face one more time before settling down to get some much-needed sleep of her own.
Natalia doesn’t realize it until later on but they never finished their conversation about Maria.