grumpy
Bobbi had informed Maria about Yelena’s therapy session not going well but it is not until the sisters skip dinner and arrive late to breakfast the next morning that Maria actually sees how much it impacted the youngest.
Yelena looked like she hadn’t slept at all, tucked under her big sister's arm as she warily scanned the room for dangers, cameras, and exits.
Maria decides to join them for breakfast instead of eating in her office as she pours over paperwork. Yelena doesn’t eat, staring down at her food with a glazed look in her eyes that lets Maria know that she’s not really there.
Then Clint makes the mistake of making a teasing joke at Yelena and the teenager lurches forward with the plastic fork in her hand raised and ready to stab him. Clint clearly doesn’t expect it, jumping and tumbling out of his chair to get away from her. Natasha had anticipated Yelena’s reaction, grabbing the back of her shirt and hauling her back into her seat.
Yelena gives a few heavy breaths, slumping against Natasha’s side as she eyes Clint. Natasha glares at the archer as Clint slowly retakes his seat and apologizes quietly.
Breakfast came to an end and the youngest sister hadn’t eaten more than a few bites. Maria watches as Natasha finds Bobbi and tells her that Yelena will be sticking with her and Clint that day.
“I heard it didn’t go well but it seems like she got majorly triggered,” Clint murmurs to Maria as he stuffs the last of his breakfast into his mouth.
Maria had to agree. Yelena looked haunted and Maria can only imagine what triggered her so badly for her to nearly regress to how she acted when she first arrived at SHIELD. “Keep me updated?” Maria questioned and Clint nods his head. Maria has work but she knows Clint will keep her posted.
Maria heads for work, glancing once more at the sisters before heading to her office. She gets lost in paperwork, unaware of what time it was as she reads reports and approves missions.
She spends some time on one report that had a casualty of one agent. Maria can’t help but feel responsible for each death. These agents were putting their trust into her, trusting that she wouldn’t steer them wrong and sometimes these missions just went FUBAR and there was no way to see it coming.
Each death weighs heavily. Maria doesn’t forget their names. Not every agent has a family to inform. This particular agent was an orphan and had no friends or family to contact. So Maria remembers their name because they deserved someone to mourn them. The hardest part was deactivating their keycard and labeling them as deceased so nobody could fake their identity or take their place.
Maria thinks of her own mortality and who would mourn her loss. Would the agents truly be sorry to see ‘Hard-ass Hill’ gone? Would she be just another name on a plaque to be memorialized on the wall of remembrance of their agents lost in battle?
Maria finds herself falling down a mental rabbit hole and suddenly becomes aware of how tight her chest is and how she can’t seem to breathe. She pushes herself away from her desk and bends over to try and push her head between her knees. She attempts to suck in air in through her nose and hold it before blowing it out of her mouth but she’s not having much success.
The door to her office opens suddenly and Maria straightens, ready to bark at whoever dared to interrupt her when she sees that it’s only Natasha and whatever she has to say dies on her tongue.
“Maria?” Natasha enters, a frown on her face.
“What can I help you with?” Maria manages to get out, still trying to pull air into her lungs.
Natasha steps toward her, reaching out to set a hand onto her shoulder. Maria usually wouldn’t have minded the touch but she’s unable to stop herself from flinching away, the air she had worked hard to capture escaping her lips in a harsh sigh.
Natasha immediately pulls her hand away. She’s not stupid, Maria knows that. They both know she’s spiraling into a panic attack.
“What can I do?” Natasha inquired, her eyes flickering over Maria’s form in a way that makes Maria feel naked.
“Get Yelena?” Maria manages to get out. She knows that Yelena is having a bad day but Maria had shown Yelena how to help her when she got like this.
Natasha eyes her before nodding and leaving swiftly.
Yelena knew a lot about Maria’s traumas, more than probably even Phil did. Maria had opened herself up to her in the attempt to get Yelena to open herself up as well. She had been successful, Yelena sharing bits of herself that Maria was unsure if even Natasha knew.
Maria knew about Yelena’s adoptive mother and in turn, Yelena knew about Maria’s abusive father. Maria learned bits about General Dreykov and Yelena learned about Maria’s old troop from the army.
The door opens and Maria straightens, readying herself to yell again before seeing that it was only Yelena. The wary and grumpy look that Yelena had worn all morning faded into concern as she approached Maria. Maria can see Natasha lingering in the doorway.
Yelena reaches out to Maria and just like Maria had shown her, gripping her shoulders and leaned her weight down.
The heavy pressure on her shoulders helped keep Maria grounded. She inhales slowly, smelling the scent of honey and peaches, the unique smell she associated with Yelena. She slowly reaches up, gently grasping Yelena’s hands to feel something other than her own skin. Yelena’s hands were warm and she had small calluses on her palms and fingers from repeated use of handheld weapons.
“Ask me something,” Yelena said suddenly and Maria peers up at her, unaware that she had squeezed her eyes shut. “Anything. Nothing is off-limits.”
Maria can’t help but feel warmth in her heart as Yelena uses the same tool Maria did to comfort and reassure her. “Tell me something from when you were little.” She manages to get out.
“That’s not a question,” Yelena spoke but there was a soft smile on her face that lets Maria know that she was only teasing. “I used to think there was a bear living in the walls of my bedroom.”
Maria blinks in surprise at the statement. “What?”
“I heard it growling all night long so one night I grabbed the jar of honey that mama kept up on the high shelf in the kitchen and poured as much as I could into a bowl,” Yelena continues on. “I put it on the floor just inside my door in hopes that the bear wouldn’t come in to eat me and would eat the honey instead.”
Maria briefly glances at Natasha still standing in the doorway who was watching Yelena fondly. Maria focuses back on Yelena as she continues.
“The bowl was gone in the morning so I assumed that it worked and the bear ate it. I did it again.” Yelena tells Maria. “And I kept doing it until one day my mama finally demanded to know why I kept honey in my room and told me I was gonna bring sugar ants in. I told her all about the bear in the walls who was eating the honey.”
“What did she say?” Maria questioned, noting how it was getting easier to breathe as she focused on the story.
“She laughed and told me that there wasn’t a bear in the wall. It was just my daddy snoring loudly and she had been cleaning up the bowls each morning when she checked on me,” Yelena said. “I was five, I think.”
Maria tries to picture little five-year-old Yelena, convinced that there was a bear living in the walls so she sets out a little bowl of honey to keep him from eating her. She can’t help the small chuckle that escapes her lips, stifling it immediately in case she offended Yelena.
Instead, Yelena was smiling slightly. “It was kinda stupid of me.” She comments.
“I think that sounds adorable,” Maria confessed, watching Yelena’s cheeks pinken slightly. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Are you feeling better?” Yelena asked, lightening up on the weight she was leaning on Maria. Maria knows that Yelena wasn’t good at comforting people and the attempts she made were heartwarming.
“Yes… thank you,” Maria gently squeezed Yelena’s hands before letting them go. “I really appreciate it.”
Yelena pulls away, glancing at Natasha in the doorway. Natasha glances at Maria before entering the office and wrapping an arm around Yelena. The heavy weight in Maria’s chest preventing her from breathing had practically vanished, leaving Maria feeling more tired than usual.
“How are you doing?” Maria turns the question on Yelena, watching as the girl scrunches her face up slightly.
Maria waits patiently as Yelena searches for the words to answer her question. “I don’t feel safe.” She finally admits quietly. The grip Natasha had on her tightened at the confession.
“I heard you had a tough session with Timothea yesterday,” Maria says and Yelena peers down at her feet.
“Did she tell you?” Yelena looked very much like a chastised child than the hardened teenager she was.
Maria shakes her head. “Doctor-patient confidentiality stops her from telling me and Bobbi said nothing other than it was tough on you.”
Yelena stares at her shoes. “I broke something.” She admits. “I threw it at Moth’s head.”
Maria blinks in surprise because she certainly hadn’t heard that. If Yelena hurt Timothea then she could certainly quit and Maria wasn’t sure she’d be able to find a new therapist for Yelena and Skye.
“She can tell you…” Yelena tells Maria before peering up at Natasha. “Clint’s waiting.”
Natasha glances at Maria. “Are you alright?”
Maria nods her head. “I’m alright. You’re dismissed.” She says, having pulled herself together. As soon as the sisters leave, Maria peers down at the paperwork on her desk before heading toward where Timothea was in her office, preparing to head back down the next day.
Maria knocks on the door and the woman peers up at her from where she was writing in her notebook. “Deputy Director Hill.” She greets her. “What can I do for you?”
“I heard about Yelena’s session yesterday. She said she threw something at your head, are you alright?” Maria can’t see any visible marks on her.
“Oh, I’m quite alright,” Timothea tells her. “She missed. It was my fault, I accidentally triggered her.”
“What did she break, I can replace it,” Maria offers, watching at Timothea pulls open a drawer on her desk and removes a wooden doll.
The doll was missing its head and its arm hung limply at its side, a chip taken out of its hand. “I wouldn’t recommend replacing it,” Timothea tells Maria.
Maria frowns. “Why not?”
Timothea seemed to debate on what she could reveal to her. Maria says that Yelena agreed it was alright to share with her and Timothea sighed.
“This doll resembles an abuser of Yelena’s. She holds a lot of fear and aggression toward him,” Timothea explains, collecting the pieces of the doll up. “She wishes to be in a position of power toward him but faced with the possibility of facing him, she regressed into survival mode to keep herself alive.”
Timothea then holds up a file. “I do have a question about whoever looked after Yelena before me.”
Maria frowns. “That was one of our own. Why do you ask?”
Timothea flips open the file. “They state that she is aggressive, defiant, uncooperative, and a danger to herself and others.”
Maria blinks in surprise. She had never looked over the files herself, they were confidential and she had to either be given permission or looked at specific sections for psychological evaluations.
Maria thinks of what Yelena told her about Damien. Maria might need to look further into him.
“Yelena can be those things but it seems to me that she was on edge and defensive,” Timothea continues. “Trauma responses to a lot of questions or perceived interrogation can cause children to shut down, especially if they have been told they’d get in trouble for telling anyone.”
Maria thinks about Yelena and lets out a small sigh. “I see. Thank you.”
“And if she is hesitant about showing up again for her next session, don’t force things,” Timothea tells Maria. “Let her know that she doesn’t even have to speak if she doesn’t wish to.”
Maria can’t help but be grateful that she went through with her original plan to get a therapist that specialized in abused children. “Thank you.”
Timothea gives her a small smile. “Of course.” She puts away the broken toy in her desk again. “Can I do anything else for you, Deputy Director?”
“No, that’s all,” Maria gives her a nod and turns to leave, satisfied that Yelena was in capable hands.