communication
Hunter had shed some light on things for Yelena. Reassured that she wasn’t losing her mind or didn’t realize what a crush was, Yelena searches for Skye. She hoped to get to the bottom of why Skye had pulled away.
Except cornering Skye was harder than Yelena anticipated. Skye seemed to run whenever she saw Yelena coming and Yelena had to admit to herself that it kinda stung. She doesn’t really know what happened or why Skye was acting the way that she was.
Yelena’s having a hard time communicating so she goes to the one person who knew both how Yelena and Skye acted.
Maria invites Yelena into her office when she has a chance and Yelena sits in the chair in front of her desk and blurts out the issue she was having with Skye, trying to push the conversation she had with Natasha out of her head.
She needed to take this one problem at a time. She was already creating issues by asking around so she sticks to Skye.
Maria listens, her attention solely on Yelena as the teenager explains what was going on. “I see. You’re asking for help communicating between you and Skye?”
It sounds stupid to ask for help when Maria puts it like that but yes. That was essentially what Yelena was looking for. She can’t get Skye in the same room with her unless she does some of what Skye would call ‘sneaky ninja moves’ and it didn’t feel right to use them against her. Yelena promised to have her back no matter what.
Yelena folds her arms and looks away as she admits that, yes, she did need help.
“I’m proud of you for taking this step,” Maria starts and Yelena can feel her face get hot with embarrassment of someone being proud of her for something so stupid. “I can set it up so you two can talk it out and stay to keep things from getting too heated.”
Yelena blows out a breath of air she’d been holding. “Yeah… okay.”
So Maria pulls out her cellphone while Yelena focuses on staring down at her shoes. She keeps replaying the last interaction that she had with Skye but she can’t think of anything that she had done that would warrant Syke pulling away.
Skye shows up a few minutes later, pausing when she saw Yelena. “Whoever said something about me doing anything is lying and I didn’t do it.”
“It’s okay, Skye. You’re not in trouble,” Maria tells her, pointing at the seat next to Yelena. “Sit, please.”
Skye sinks into the chair next to Yelena, glancing at her before looking at Maria. “Why am I here then?”
“It has been brought to my attention that you’re running away every time that you see Yelena.” Maria tells Skye. “Is everything alright between you two?”
“Fine.” Skye huffs, dragging the toe of her sneaker against the ground.
“Would you like to try that again?” Maria raised an eyebrow and Skye lets out a long groan.
“Jesus, you’re not my mom. Get off my back,” Skye snaps at her before quickly realizing what she had done and sinking lower in the seat.
“Did Yelena do something that made you decide to run every time that you saw her?” Maria ignores the outburst, her attention only on Skye.
“No.” Skye murmurs, glancing at Yelena briefly.
“So you’re ignoring her for no reason?” Maria inquired and Skye sits up.
“I am not! Phil said that--” Skye abruptly cut herself off before ducking her head down and continuing. “He said that Yelena attacked him and May and that I should give her time to cool off.”
It’s Maria’s turn to sigh this time. “I see. Yelena, it’s your turn.” Maria leans back in her chair and Skye glances at Yelena.
Yelena doesn’t understand what it is her turn for. She glances at Maria for clues before realizing that it was probably her turn to explain herself. The Red Room said that explanations were excuses and excuses were not allowed.
“I got mad with May and we were fighting…” Yelena starts, turning to look at Skye. “Coulson grabbed me and… and I didn’t mean to but I hurt him. I was angry and I was… I was hurt. Things went too far. I’m sorry.”
Skye shrinks in on herself. “I’m sorry too… I should have had your back. Phil said he’d take my phone if I didn’t listen to him.”
Yelena hesitates. “Are we okay then?” She questioned.
Skye nods. “Yeah… I’m sorry.” She repeats.
The girls then both glance at Maria. “I have nothing to add. You’re both dismissed.” She said and they both stand up. As soon as they exit Maria’s office, Skye leans against Yelena’s side.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t really sure what to do and I didn’t want to upset Phil. He hasn’t been upset with me yet and I don’t know what kinda upset he is,” Skye admits as they head down the hallway.
“It’s okay. I’m glad that’s out of the way now,” Yelena tells her. “Do you wanna play on my Game Boy with me?”
Skye grins. “Hell yeah!”
Yelena was called into Fury’s office only a few days later. Yelena’s nervous, she can’t think of anything that she had done wrong but being called into the head’s office never ended well.
She’s pleasantly surprised to see Carol standing there, who turns and grins when she sees Yelena. “There’s my favorite ragamuffin!” Yelena has time to brace herself before Carol hoists her up into a bear hug that didn’t feel as stifling as she expected it to.
“Hi Carol,” Yelena said, stumbling for a moment when Carol dropped her down to her feet. “What are you doing back?”
“I was in the area and decided to come visit my favorite baby agent and check in on Goose,” Carol tells her. “And I’ve already seen Goose. Where’s your sister?”
“Training,” Yelena replies.
“So you’re free?” Carol slings an arm around Yelena’s shoulder, playfully ruffling Yelena’s hair. It reminds Yelena of when her not-dad would do the same thing when she was very young.
Yelena glances at Fury, unsure if this was why she was called into his office.
“Yes, she’s free,” Fury inclines his head and Carol grins.
“Great!” Carol is ushering Yelena out of his office and down the hallway before the girl realizes it. “I want you to meet someone.”
Yelena is bewildered but trusts that Fury wouldn’t let Carol do anything malicious and lets Carol corral her down the hall.
Once they reach the office where Goose frequents, Carol approached the dusty computer in the room and wipes the dust off of the screen, logging in with a user and password. Yelena glances down as Goose circles her feet, seemingly able to sense she was anxious. She reaches down and scoops Goose up, spotting Carol grin at her when she does so.
“Right. C’mere,” Carol beckons her over and Yelena steps up next to her. “You ever use FaceTime?”
“No.” Yelena replies, watching Carol open up a program.
“It’s video chatting on the computer,” Carol said and Yelena watches as Carol logged into the program.
“Who are you video chatting?” Yelena inquired, stroking Goose’s fur.
“My girlfriend and her daughter,” Carol replies and Yelena doesn’t have time to ask why she was there before Carol continues. “Her daughter is about your age. She’s sixteen.”
Yelena glances at Carol weirdly before the video starts up. Yelena is just outside the frame and doesn’t pay attention to the excited greetings that the little group offers one another. Yelena focuses on Goose, scratching the cat's chin just the way she liked.
“--and this is the kid I was telling you about,” Carol grips Yelena’s shoulder and tugs her into the frame.
Yelena is staring at two people that she doesn’t know, unsure of who she was supposed to be. Communication is hard when she doesn’t have a cover to follow or a person she’s supposed to be. They want her to be herself and she’s still figuring out who that is. “Hi…”
The woman on the screen smiles. “Hello. I’m Maria Rambeau.” She sets a hand onto the head of the teenager standing next to her. “This is my daughter, Monica.”
“My name is Yelena Belova.” She introduces after a few awkward moments. “Nice to meet you.”
She feels like she’s six again and her not-mom set her up on a playdate with another kid in the neighborhood.
She knows Carol only means the best. She knows that Yelena doesn’t get the chance to leave the helicarrier to interact with other teenagers her age. The whole video chat was a little awkward but it ended with Yelena having two new contacts to put into her phone, one of them Maria’s and the other was Monica’s.
Yelena glances up at Carol when the call ends. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.” She comments.
“Yup. I’m a full-fledged lesbian,” Carol nods proudly. “You know what that is?”
“Girls who likes girls.” Yelena comments. She’d never seen anyone proud to be a lesbian like Carol. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah,” Carol looks down at her. “Ask away.”
“Are you…” Yelena hesitates, not wanting to offend Carol. “Are you happy being a lesbian?”
Luckily, Carol isn’t offended. “Yup. I’ve got a great girlfriend.”
“I was raised to think that girls being with girls was wrong.” Yelena says quietly, remembering the lesson being harshly taught in the Red Room.
Carol looks down at her. “It’s not. You love who you love, there’s nothing wrong with that.” Carol nudges her shoulder. “You like girls?”
“I don’t think I like anybody,” Yelena admits, peering up at her.
“Ah. You thinking you’re aromantic?” Carol said and Yelena froze, staring up at Carol with wide eyes.
“Aromantic?” She echoes, the unfamiliar word rolling off her tongue. “What is that?”
“Someone that experiences little to no romantic attraction to others,” Carol explains.
“So I’m not broken?” Yelena asked, absolutely elated at this new word.
Carol gives her a sympathetic smile. “Nope. There’s nothing wrong with being aro.”
“And I can not want kissing and sex, right?” Yelena checks because here was someone who finally knew more than just ‘it’s okay’.
“Yeah. Asexual. Someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction toward others,” Carol defines, setting a hand onto Yelena’s shoulder.
“Can I be both?” Yelena doesn’t want to pick and choose between the two.
“You can. Aroace. You don’t experience romantic or sexual attraction,” Carol says and Yelena lets out a long sigh of relief.
“Hey, Carol?” Yelena starts.
“What’s up, you ragamuffin?” Carol wraps an arm around her shoulders to pet Goose.
“I think I’m aromantic and asexual.” Yelena tells her. Carol squeezed Yelena against her gently.
“That’s great,” She says, her voice much softer.
Three days after Carol leaves, Yelena is called into Fury’s office once again and this time is presented with another box.
She takes it back to her bunk and opens it when Natasha is training with Clint. There’s a pale pink notecard sitting on top.
My favorite ragamuffin,
Inside the box are pride flags. One for asexuality, the other for aromanticism. I’ve included more information about them on a sticky note with each flag.
There’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t need to be ashamed to be this way. Be proud of who you are.
Your favorite Captain
Yelena frowns in confusion, setting the note aside and picks up the first piece of fabric. It’s rather small, only the length of one of her arms with four stripes and a sticky note pinned to it. The other flag had five and another note pinned to it.
Yelena grins at the thought that it was so common that there was a name for it. She wasn’t broken, she just didn’t know what she was called.
She hides the flags with her stuffed cat Captain, resolving to share her newfound discovery with her sister later.