clingy
Yelena wakes up the next morning to see that at some point in the night Natalia had shifted them onto their sides and cuffed her wrist. Yelena wonders if she found the cuff or if Maria gave it to her.
If Maria gave it to her then that means Natalia knows that Yelena told. Natalia had been so upset with Yelena the last time she found out that people knew about the handcuffs.
Natalia doesn’t wake up when Yelena does. Yelena reaches up to release her own wrist from the handcuff and twists to curl further into her. Natalia sleepily pulls her closer, draping an arm around her back.
Yelena was quiet, just watching Natalia as she slept. Yelena missed Goose and she missed Clint. She even missed Fury and the quiet way he’d make sure she wasn’t interrupted when she was with Goose. She missed Carol despite only ever meeting the woman once.
Yelena liked living with Maria but everything felt fake. Staged. It felt like Ohio but this time Yelena knew that it wasn’t real. Maria’s not her mom, Skye is not her sister, this house isn’t home.
Yelena wonders if it would have changed anything if she knew. Maybe things would have turned out differently.
Yelena suddenly finds herself looking into her big sister’s eyes as she wakes up. “Hi.” Yelena whispers.
A small smile crosses Natalia’s lips. “Hi.” She whispers back, reaching her free hand up to tuck a strand of wild hair behind Yelena’s ear. The smile falters slightly. “Are you still upset with me?”
“Are you upset with me?” Yelena retorts as Natalia reaches up to release her own wrist from the cuff.
“No…” Natalia draws her brow together in confusion. “Should I be?”
Yelena shrugs slightly, sitting up and scooting closer. Natalia gets the signal, sitting up so that Yelena can slide into her lap and lay against her. “I told you I didn’t believe you.” Natalia had never lied to her. Yelena could trust whatever she had to say. “I ran.”
“You came back. I knew you would,” Natalia lovingly grips the back of Yelena’s neck. “And I… I don’t blame you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Yelena asks the question that had been on her mind since the night before. “I could have helped. I could have been useful.”
“I didn’t want you anywhere near him,” Natalia says seriously. “He hurt you so much and I was unable to protect you then. I know what he does to young girls, Yelena. I know how he trains them.”
“Bobbi says I can be upset that he’s dead,” Yelena comments, refusing to look her sister in the face just yet. She can sense Natalia’s confusion by the way the grip on the back of her neck slackens.
“Why would you be upset?” Natalia questions and Yelena focuses her attention on a spot on the wall.
“I don’t know.” Yelena repeats the same answer she had given Bobbi the night before. “I’ve tried to kill him before. Plenty of times but he always knew and he never died.”
“He’s dead.” Natalia repeats. “I made sure of it.” Something shifts in her tone and it finally has Yelena pulling her head up to look at Natalia.
“What did you do?” She asked, watching the way that Natalia’s carefully constructed mask starts to crack.
“Yelena…” Natalia starts, trailing off in uncertainty.
“Nattie,” Yelena replies, shifting to straddle Natalia to face her better. “What happened?”
“I used his daughter,” Natalia breathes out, her eyes flickering away from Yelena. “I followed her to secure Dreykov’s location and then I blew up the building. Him. His guards. The driver. His… his daughter.”
Yelena reaches out to wrap her arms around Natalia’s neck, bumping their foreheads together. “I love you.” She says and Natalia’s breath hitched. “I love you, big sister.” Yelena repeats in Russian.
Natalia’s face crumples and she digs her fingers into Yelena’s shirt to pull her closer.
Yelena feels guilty. She had been so upset with Natalia that she didn’t think of exactly just what had to be done. Natalia’s long absences made sense.
Tracking the General’s daughter, learning her schedule, learning what she did, where she did it, at what times, and when. Until they were sure on a positive anticipated location of Dreykov, they had to watch and they had to wait.
Natalia killed a little girl and thought Yelena would think differently of her. How could Yelena? Yelena’s killed dozens of innocent little girls.
Yelena knows that Natalia doesn’t experience the same comfort Yelena does when people she trusts cradle or grip the back of her neck but Yelena does it to her because Natalia knows what it means and will understand that it’s Yelena’s way of comforting her.
Natalia adjusts her head to fall onto Yelena’s shoulder. “I killed her.” She repeats, her voice muffled.
“And I still love you,” Yelena doesn’t know what else to offer her. “Forever and always.”
Natalia lets out their whistle. Find me.
Yelena doesn’t hesitate to whistle back. I’m here.
Yelena knows that they have to get up from the bed eventually and she knows that it’s stupid but every time that her sister disappears from her vision for more than a few seconds then Yelena has to go with her. Yelena needs to know that she’s there and that it’s not just mind tricks.
She had enough of the Red Room playing with her mind to make her hallucinate Natalia.
Nudity between them isn’t something that bothers them. Natalia doesn’t care if Yelena is in the bathroom with her while she showers and vice versa but Natalia draws the line at using the bathroom.
And it’s just a door made of wood that separates them but Yelena stares at the door, a rock settled into her gut because Yelena can’t see her and her mind keeps whispering that Natalia might not even be there anymore if the door is opened.
Yelena knows that Natalia doesn’t like public displays of affection, especially with people that they don’t know, but Yelena needs to physically touch some part of her. Yelena grips her hand and pressed against her side as they finally move into the living room.
Skye is awake and is sitting on the couch with Maria and Coulson watching some action film on the television. Yelena hadn’t even realized that Coulson had shown up and started to worry about her lack of attentiveness if she missed a whole person coming into the apartment. What if Coulson had been an intruder? Dangerous and armed?
Maria tells them that they need to talk but insists that the sisters eat first.
Yelena tries to scoot her chair closer to Natalia’s at the table until their hips are pushed together but is surprised when Natalia merely tugs her into her lap instead.
Perhaps she understood just how much Yelena needed her or maybe she needed to hold Yelena just as much as Yelena needed to be held.
They move to the couch after they eat and once again Natalia holds Yelena close in her lap. Nobody comments on it, not even Skye, which Yelena is grateful for.
Maria pulls up the rules and guidelines she had made before she starts to go down the list.
Everyone but Natalia had already heard them. When Maria finishes, she mainly looks at Natalia. “What do you think?”
“It sounds fine,” Natalia says with an air of indifference but Yelena can tell that she’s nervous because she’s never made rules and regulations before, just following them. The others don’t see the internal debate she’s having.
“Right,” Maria nods her head. “Last chance for any changes to be made…” She paused, giving a few moments for someone to speak up if they wanted. “It’s a done deal then.”
Maria swipes on her tablet before peering up again. “It’s probably best if we already have a few of these protocols in place before returning back. Namely ones in terms of guardianship and emergency contacts.” Maria turns toward Coulson and Skye first. “Skye, Coulson would be your first guardian. Do you have an idea of who you’d like the second to be?”
Yelena watches as Skye glances over at her. “They have to be over eighteen?” Skye inquired. “And a legal US citizen?”
“Yelena can’t be your guardian,” Maria replies with a shake of her head. “Natalia either.”
Skye blows a raspberry. “Well, I’m out of people I know.”
“What about Melinda?” Coulson suggests. “You two got along well enough.”
Yelena’s first thought is to tell him that’s foolish. May doesn’t like kids, she surely wouldn’t want guardianship over one.
Then again, she knows that May and Coulson are really good friends and he’d probably know better than her.
“I’ll ask her then,” Maria says before looking at Skye. “Is that okay?”
Skye shrugs. “Yeah. Sure.”
Maria taps the answers out onto her tablet. “And an emergency contact?”
“Can that one be Yelena?” Skye questioned, folding her arms. “Because if it is truly an emergency then I want her making the decisions for me.”
“Not until she’s eighteen but I can put down that you want her there,” Maria tells Skye and the teenager lets out a long sigh.
“Man, I dunno. What about you?” Skye suggests in a casual tone that startles Maria. “You’ve done an A-okay job of taking care of me so far.”
Maria pauses, her hand hovering above her tablet before she glances at Coulson. “Is that agreeable?” She questioned after gathering herself.
There’s a smile on Coulson’s lips and Maria raises an eyebrow like she’s just daring him to say something about it. “That’s fine.”
Maria then turns toward Yelena and Natalia. “Okay. Second guardianship. Any ideas?”
Yelena thinks it over for a few moments. “I don’t know.” She looks up at Natalia.
“What about Bobbi?” Natalia suggests in Arabic and Yelena sighs.
Yelena really likes Bobbi, and she trusts her, but Bobbi has Hunter and Yelena doesn’t know if taking guardianship of some kid will interrupt that.
Coulson already had guardianship of Skye, May couldn’t stand to be in the same room as her, Clint calls her an emotional support assassin.
Yelena relays her thoughts to Natalia in Arabic as well. Natalia thinks about it for a few moments before looking up at Maria. “You?”
Maria clearly wasn’t expecting that answer. “I’m not guardian material.”
Natalia shrugs, gesturing to the apartment. “You’ve been looking after my sister for the past two weeks. She’s fine. If you don’t want to then just say so.”
Maria’s quiet for a few moments as she thinks and Yelena tries to shove away the tendril of bitter rejection that curls in her gut. She wouldn’t want guardianship of a child soldier either.
“This is what you want?” Maria looks at Yelena this time, startling her. Yelena nods slowly and then has the pleasure of watching as Maria taps her own name out on the tablet. “Emergency contact?”
“Bobbi,” Yelena doesn’t hesitate to reply this time. If there was an emergency then Bobbi could help her the most, especially if things went wrong.
“And have you two decided upon which child psychologist you’d like to see?” Maria asked Skye and Yelena. “The first one or the second one?”
“I thought you had three options?” Natalia pipes up and Yelena rests her cheek onto her shoulder as she explains what happened with the third.
“I thought Moth was pretty cool,” Skye glances at Yelena. “The second one…”
Yelena remembers Timothea. She liked her but she just seemed so childish. Yelena wasn’t a young child. But between the first pick and the second pick, Yelena liked the second one better as well.
“Timothea,” Yelena agrees and Maria gives them an approving smile as she makes a note of that on her tablet.
Yelena leans back against her sister, letting out a small sigh as she watches Maria finalize the rules and guidelines.