artist
They get ready to head back to SHIELD three days later. Yelena still can’t bear to be further than a few feet from her sister but now tolerates the wooden door separating them whenever the other uses the bathroom.
Maria finalized the rules and guidelines she made and passed them off to be approved by Fury. He had approved them quickly and Yelena wonders if he even read them or if he trusted Maria enough to not fuck him over.
The time for Yelena’s first appointment with the new therapist rolls around. Timothea has moved onto the helicarrier part-time. She’d moved up to stay two days a week before moving back to her office to continue with her other patients.
Yelena’s appointment was at the same time as Natalia’s, the same as before. Being away from her sister made her feel antsy but Yelena was then told by Maria that her and Skye’s appointments were back to back and that Timothea said they could go in together if they wanted. Knowing that she wouldn't be alone made Yelena feel slightly better.
Yelena expected an office similar to Damian’s or Cheryl’s. She hadn’t expected that her office would appear the same chaotic mess and look like, as Skye so aptly described, a toy store threw up inside.
Everything appeared newish. There were some toys there that hadn’t been in her office back on the ground. Yelena wonders if SHIELD covered the budget for all these toys or if Timothea would move them each time she came and went.
“What do you think of my new office?” Timothea questioned as she welcomed Yelena, Skye, and Maria into her office.
“Why are there so many toys. You do know that you’ll only be seeing me and Yelena, right?” Skye questioned, observing the room. “And we’re not little kids.”
“Whoever said toys were for little kids?” Timothea inquired.
“Who else would they be for? I’m fifteen, not five,” Skye repeats what she had told Timothea before.
Yelena just watches, repeatedly glancing at Maria for reassurance. She was nervous but she wasn’t going to let it show.
“Well, why don’t you come look at this?” Timothea moves toward and picks up a coloring book. “How old do you think you have to be to use this?”
Skye wrinkles her nose, approaching Timothea. “Like six or something, I dunno.”
Timothea points at something on the bottom left corner of the book. “What does this say here?”
Skye squints. “For ages four and up.” She reads aloud.
“Well, we’re all over the age of four. That must make it okay for us to play with, right?” Timothea inquired and Skye glances at Yelena.
Yelena slowly approaches, peering over Skye’s shoulder to look at what Timothea was pointing out.
She was right. There on the book does it say ‘for ages 4+’.
“Would it be alright if we sat on the carpet here?” Timothea questioned, lowering herself to take a seat on a colorful rug spread out on the ground. Skye lowers herself to sit after a few moments but Yelena doesn’t. She towers over Timothea now and it gives her a sense of control that needs.
Timothea doesn’t seem bothered by Yelena’s refusal, instead folding her hands in her lap. “I think that we should properly introduce ourselves now that we’ll be spending a lot of time together.” Yelena’s confused, she thought they already introduced themselves. “I’ll go first. My name is Doctor Timothea Chambler but you are welcome to call me Moth, Tim, or Thea.”
“Moth’s a pretty cool name,” Skye comments, and Timothea smiles at her.
“Thank you! Would you like to go next? Just tell us what you’d like to be called,” Timothea, or rather Moth, Yelena supposed, questioned Skye.
“Just Skye,” Skye replies, daring Moth to comment on her lack of a last name.
“Right, can I call you Skye or is there another name you’d prefer me to call you?” Moth asked and Skye stares at her for a few moments.
“What if I told you I wanted to be called Brian and talk in a southern accent?” Skye asked curiously.
“Well, then it’s very lovely to meet you, Brian,” Moth says, no laughter in her tone.
Skye wrinkles her nose. “Ugh. Just call me Skye,” She says and Moth nods. Moth then turns to look at Yelena.
“My name is Yelena,” Yelena replies at the questioning glance.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Moth smiles and then reaches out to grab some paper and markers. “I was thinking we could draw a little today.”
“Draw what?” Skye asked as Yelena finally lowers herself to her knees.
“Do you think we could draw our families today?” Moth questioned as she passes each of them a sheet of paper.
Yelena watches Moth start on her own drawing. Yelena glances at Skye, staring down at the blank piece of paper. She leans over slightly to nudge Skye with her shoulder. Skye looks up at Yelena before picking up the black marker.
Yelena watches Skye touch the tip of the marker to her page before looking down at her own empty sheet.
What was she supposed to draw? What was family? Natalia was family. Were her not-mom and not-dad family too? Was Bobbi? What does family mean?
Yelena’s not good at drawing but she sketches out herself and Natalia on the sheet of paper before glancing over at everyone else's. Skye has a single figure on her page while Moth has a little stick figure family.
Moth finally looks up from her sheet of paper. “Right.” She holds up her paper. “This is my family. This is me. This figure is my mother, Barbara, and this one is my little brother, Ricardo.”
Yelena feels like Moth shouldn’t be telling them this. Yelena was an assassin. One simple search into a mother or brother of Timothea Chambler and she could figure out this whole woman’s history. Where they lived, what they did, their credit score, anything.
“Skye, would you like to share what you have drawn?” Moth smiles and Skye huffs, picking her paper up.
“That’s me.” She says before dropping the paper back down again and glancing at Yelena. “Your turn.”
Yelena hesitantly holds her sketch up. “That’s me and my sister.” She offers no name or age.
Moth doesn’t ask further questions. She doesn’t ask why they don’t have parents in their drawings. She compliments their color choice and asks them to then draw what home means to them.
Yelena’s once again stumped. Did she mean home like in Ohio? Or the Red Room? Or now with their bunk or the Helicarrier in general?
Yelena glances over at Maria who still stood by the door. She glances up when she feels Yelena’s eyes on her, giving her a reassuring nod.
Still, Yelena doesn’t know what to draw. She taps her marker against the page before realizing what she was doing and stops immediately.
Yelena glances over to the right wall where she knew Natalia was just a few rooms over in her own session.
“Right. Skye, how about you go first this time?” Moth prompts and Skye holds up her drawing.
“This is my van. My home.” She announced. “It’s mine.” She then sets it down.
Moth holds up hers next. It’s a tall building with a lot of windows. “This is the apartment complex I live in.” She says, pointing at the top. “I live all the way up here.” She sets her drawing down and glances at Yelena. “What did you draw, Yelena?”
Yelena looks down at her blank sheet of paper. She knows she should have drawn something but she didn’t know what to do. There weren’t enough rules. Too much room for mistakes.
“I… I didn’t draw anything…” Yelena replies quietly, her heart pounding in her chest.
“That’s okay. How about we talk about it instead? What does home look like to you, Yelena? Is it a place?” Moth inquired.
Yelena doesn’t know. She doesn’t know the right answer. Moth is waiting patiently but Yelena can’t answer.
“Tiny Dancer?” Skye whispers, bumping her shoulder against Yelena’s slightly. “Are you okay?”
Yelena bites on her tongue to focus on the pain, her mind scrambling to think of the right answer. The sudden gush of metallic taste in her mouth makes her realize she’d drawn blood.
Yelena suddenly drops the marker, jerking away and standing as she scrambles for the door.
She needs out.
Maria is surprised at her rapid approach and steps aside for Yelena to pass. Yelena walks straight out the door, pausing for a moment just outside the room that Natalia was in before continuing on.
She doesn’t stop until she reaches the empty office that Goose frequented. Sure enough, the cat was there on the desk and lets out a chirp when she sees her.
Yelena doesn’t hesitate to walk up and scoop the cat up. Goose lets out a purr, butting her head against Yelena’s jaw.
Therapy is mandatory but Yelena doesn’t know the right answers to the questions they ask and nobody will tell her what she’s supposed to say. Damian wanted answers to his questions but the questions he asked weren’t hard. Yelena knew the answers to those, even if she didn’t want to share them.
What is family? What is home?
Yelena doesn’t know. If she had access to a computer then she could look it up and prepare herself but she wasn’t allowed phones or internet access.
Yelena doesn’t want to draw or play with toys. She doesn’t want to go to therapy at all. She doesn’t want to talk to Moth or do anything she doesn’t want to.
At times like these, Yelena wishes for the period of time before Clint found her and her sister and brought them to SHIELD. She wants to be able to do whatever she wants and go wherever she goes and come home to her sister at the end of the day. She wanted to be useful. She wanted to help.
Going to therapy, training with rookies, those were things that SHIELD wanted her to do. The Red Room made her train with others too. They made her go to their own version of therapy as well.
SHIELD eats up so much of her sister's time now. Yelena feels like she never sees her. Having Bobbi and Maria and Skye are nice but Yelena wants Natalia.
But Natalia is doing all of this so that she and Yelena can have a fresh start and Yelena feels so guilty that she hates it. She trusted her sister and would follow her to the ends of the Earth but Yelena just wants to have some time to make her own choices like just after she got out of the Red Room.
Yelena buries her face into Goose’s fur and bottles up the conflicting feelings. Natalia had worked too hard to get them there, Yelena was in no position to complain.