relationships
Yelena starts to watch Maria and Natasha more closely after witnessing them staring at each other like that. She comes across a pattern that she doesn’t like.
Fondness. More than friendship between them but neither are pursuing more or even indicating that they are aware of their feelings.
Widows don’t fall in love like that. At least, Yelena’s pretty sure of that. She doesn’t feel those things toward anybody and never wants to. It’s gross and Yelena still stands by that no matter how much Clint thinks it’s a childish phase.
Natasha still hasn’t been sent back out on assignment yet and spending time with her was great but Yelena still takes all the time together carefully. Natasha can be sent away at any time.
Finally, the time comes around for Yelena’s next appointment with Moth. She didn’t go in with Skye this time, the younger girl had withdrawn from Yelena slightly after Yelena told her about May.
So when Yelena went in, Bobbi was there since Maria had work. Bobbi leans against the wall and observes as Yelena joins Moth back on the small rug.
Moth smiles at her. “Hello, Yelena. Welcome back. I heard that you left for a small vacation with your sister. Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes,” Yelena replies quietly, eyeing the plastic colored tub of something that Moth had next to her.
“Ah,” Moth follows her eyesight. “I thought that we could take a look at these today.”
Yelena had to admit that she was curious. She watches as Moth pushes the tub to rest in front of them.
“Would you like to open the tub or shall I?” Moth questioned her. She waits patiently for Yelena’s answer as Yelena stares at the tub.
She couldn’t see through it. She didn’t know what was inside and that was dangerous. It could hurt her. It could be dangerous.
“Yelena?” Moth prompts when Yelena was quiet for a little too long. “How about I open it, hmm?” Moth reaches toward the bin.
Yelena can’t help but tense up, ready to react to whatever was potentially in the bin. Moth lifts the lid and Yelena lets out a breath of relief at the sight of the wooden dolls. They were about the size of her hand with wire arms and yarn hair. There were so many different ones. Skin colors, hair, sizes, and shapes.
It’s a relief that there are only toys in the box but then comes the next problem. “Dolls?” Yelena states, peering up at Moth.
“Dolls,” Moth agrees, reaching in and shuffling around before pulling out one that looks like her. “I like this one the best because she looks like me. Why don’t you find one that looks like you?”
Yelena glances down at the box before reaching out slowly and gently picking up each one and setting it aside carefully. She didn’t want to break or damage anything.
About two-thirds through the box, Yelena finds one that is probably as close as she’s going to get. She holds out the doll toward Moth.
“She does look very much like you,” Moth smiles, not reaching out to take it from her. “Why don’t you find one that looks like your sister?”
Yelena peers over at Bobbi quickly before looking back down at the box. She knows that she saw one that kinda looks like Natasha in the pile she set aside.
She finds it quickly, picking it out of the pile and holding it in her other hand. “Here.” She holds it up. “This one.”
“Brilliant. Do you think you can find one that looks like Barbara now?” Moth asked her, still not reaching out to take the dolls from Yelena’s hands.
“Her name is Bobbi,” Yelena corrects, glancing over at the woman still leaning against the wall. Bobbi gives her a reassuring smile when she sees Yelena glance over at her. Yelena has to put the two dolls in one hand to shift through the piles again.
“Of course. My mistake. I apologize,” Moth said.
Yelena finds another doll and holds it up. “This looks like Bobbi.” It held the most likeness out of any of the dolls Yelena had picked out so far.
“You’re right. Who else do you think we should find a doll of?” Moth inquired and Yelena peers down at the box. There were a lot of choices and a lot of possibilities.
Yelena roots around in the box and in the pile until she comes across one with brown hair. “This looks like Maria.” Yelena holds it up. She was collecting quite the pile of dolls in her hand.
“That is does. It looks like your hands are getting full. Why don’t you sit the ones in your hand on the edge of this box here?” Moth taps the box of what appears to be building blocks nearby.
Yelena has to set the ones in her hands down in order to sit them down. She tries to sit the one that looks like her down first but she has to manipulate the wire legs in order to make it sit. She sets the one that looks like Natasha next to her and the one that looks like Maria next to Natasha. She then sets the one that looks like Bobbi on the other side of her the one that looks like herself.
“Who else should we find?” Moth asked and Yelena peers back down into the box. There were so many that they could be and Yelena vaguely remembers having dolls similar to these back in Ohio. She’d make them play house with this cardboard dollhouse she made.
There is one that Yelena can’t help but pick up, turning it over in her hands and inspecting it closely.
“And who does that one look like?” Moth prompts and Yelena frowns slightly.
“Kinda like my mom.” She said quietly.
“Do you want to add her to the box with the others?” Moth gestured to the row of dolls that Yelena had already picked out.
After some deliberation, Yelena sets the doll down in the middle of the box behind the others, laying down. She wasn’t alive so she certainly couldn’t sit up.
Yelena picks out a few more dolls with Moth’s urging. She picked out Clint and Coulson but then came across this one doll that she thought looked exactly like General Dreykov.
Yelena didn’t even realize who she thought it looked like until she was holding it, staring down at the painted face.
“And who is that one?” Moth inquired. It was such a big question with a simple explanation but Yelena just can’t get the words out of her mouth. She pinches the wire in the arms to make it raise its hand.
It’s like a puppet in a way. Yelena actually kinda finds it funny that she was his puppet for so long and now she could contort this doll to do whatever she wanted.
Yelena focuses on manipulating the limbs and twisting its head. She twists its head so far that it was backward. If this were real, he’d be dead, just like that.
Yelena bends the wire knees backward and twists the arms behind the doll’s back. She imagines that it was him and she finally gained the upper hand.
She jumps when the timer on Moth’s desk dings. She had been so absorbed in the doll that she didn’t realize how much time passed. Moth hadn’t interrupted her or spoken again, letting Yelena do whatever.
It seemed like a waste of time. Yelena sets the doll down into the box and buries it with the other dolls.
Moth hadn’t asked any hard questions. She barely asked any questions at all. Yelena spend most of the time looking at dolls and inflicting pretend pain onto the one that looked like General Dreykov.
“You okay?” Bobbi drapes an arm around her shoulders, giving her a small squeeze as they move down the hallway to meet Natasha finishing up her own appointment.
“Yeah,” Yelena murmurs, leaning against Bobbi.
Yelena decides that she needs some advice concerning the matter of Maria and Natasha. There really was only person that she could defer to so she has Clint meet her in the nest to talk to him.
Clint waits patiently for her to start and Yelena finally asked. “How do you know when someone likes someone else.”
She doesn’t expect the grin to grow across his face. He lets out a laugh. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?” Yelena questioned because while Maria and Natasha seemed unaware of their actions toward each other, she didn’t think anyone else had picked up on it.
“You just needed time. It’s pretty overwhelming to have your first crush,” Clint said and Yelena stares at him. “So, who’s the lucky guy?”
“What? No, I’m not talking about me,” Yelena immediately denies.
“Or girl. I’m not judging,” Clint continues. “It’s okay.”
“I told you I don’t want that,” Yelena tells him but Clint reaches out and sets a hand onto her shoulder.
“Having a crush is nothing to be ashamed about,” He said and Yelena swats his hand off.
“I don’t have a crush!” She snaps at him. “I don’t like people like that. It’s gross.”
“Okay, okay,” Clint chuckles but it’s clear he doesn’t believe her.
“I should have gone to Bobbi,” Yelena murmurs, folding her arms.
“Bobbi is not somebody you want to go to for relationship advice,” Clint quickly interrupts. “Have you seen her go from full-on yelling matches to playing tonsil hockey with Hunter?”
“Tonsil hockey?” Yelena repeats, unfamiliar with the phrase.
“Kissing,” Clint clarifies before he softens. “I’m glad you felt that you could come to me regarding this.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Yelena points out impatiently.
“Okay. Okay, you’re asking about romantic attraction?” Clint settles down, taking her question seriously. Yelena nods her head. “Well, everybody experiences it differently. For me and Laura, I thought she was very pretty. I caught myself staring at her and trying to work up the courage to just walk up to her and say hi. Coulson was the one that pushed me to do it by pairing us up together. I told her I thought she was pretty, she judo flipped me over her shoulder. It was love at first sight.”
Clint goes on to explain how he asked Laura out on their first date.
“You know? Laura would be willing to talk to you about this,” Clint tells Yelena. “She might do a better job than me.”
Clint gives Yelena the phone number for Laura and then goes on another tangent on how crushes were perfectly normal at Yelena’s age and experimenting and blah blah blah.
Yelena kinda stopped listening when he mentioned puberty.
It’s Natasha’s behavior that concerns Yelena the most. She didn’t know that Widows could experience romantic attraction. She’s never felt anything like that and none of the other Widows ever had the chance to try it. Yelena supposed that they were just conditioned to not feel it just like they were taught not to form attachments.
But if Widows could feel romantic attraction then why didn’t Yelena? What if that’s just another part of her that’s broken?
Yelena resolves to call Laura after she’s talked with Bobbi. While Clint may not think Bobbi can give relationship advice, Yelena trusts her to ask for things from a woman’s point of view.
She just has to patiently wait and pretend to listen to Clint’s lecture.