Chapter 3
Tony watches as Yelena backs away from Alexei and bumps into a table, his latest creation that he’s spent months on crashing to the ground.
But the look on Yelena’s face is nothing but fear. He can’t be upset, not when the kid looks so frightened of his reaction.
“Hey, Barbie, look at me,” Tony steps forward, frowning when the kid doesn’t even acknowledge him, her breath hitching as her fingers twist into the fabric of her shirt. “Barbie? Yelena?”
“What is wrong?” Alexei demands, trying to move forward but Tony moves in his way.
Tony had some idea of what was wrong. He’d seen Natasha deal with it before. However, he was not Natasha.
“Alrighty, Barbie. I know that I’m not sister, even if I would make a hot chick, but I’m what you’ve got.” Tony reaches out to grip her upper arms gently. “Let’s sit down, yeah? C’mon.”
Like a puppet with the strings cut, Yelena goes limp. Tony curses at the sudden weight crashing into him but manages to find his footing and slowly lowers the kid to the ground. “There we go. Sit.” He adjusts her to lean against the wall.
“What is she doing?” Melina demands and Tony turns to glance at them.
“She does this to deal with overwhelming emotions. She just kinda…” Tony waves his hand. “Shuts her emotions off.”
“Is that a thing that people can do?” Alexei turns toward Melina, awe in his tone.
“It’s a coping mechanism for those with overwhelming amounts of trauma,” Melina comments quietly, turning to focus on the task at hand and ignore Yelena. “It’s easy not to get hurt when you can’t feel anything.”
“None of us do it…” Antonia’s voice is quiet as she speaks up for the first time since there. Tony glances at her in surprise. He didn’t even know she could speak. “None of the other widows do things like this.”
“Well, they didn’t go through the same training that Yelena did,” Melina mumbles, scrolling through the faces in the holograms.
“How do you know?” Antonia turns toward her. “I thought--”
“I read her file…” Melina admits but Tony’s attention is drawn back to Yelena when she starts to scratch at her arms, slowly putting more pressure and leaving red lines behind.
“Woah, hey! Barbie, no.” He grabs her wrists and she lets out a jerk. Tony remembers seeing Natasha pull Yelena into her lap because Yelena liked to listen to the sound of her heartbeat.
Tony was not comfortable with doing that. “FRIDAY, get Wanda here. Or MJ. Or even Pepper.”
He focuses on the kid twisting in his hold, her face still blank as her fingers dig into Tony’s wrists instead of her own arms.
“She’s trying to hurt herself…” Antonia comments.
“She’s trying to feel something after she’s shut her emotions off. Physical pain is the only way to do that,” Melina corrects and focuses intensely on the hologram.
Wanda enters the room and immediately makes a beeline toward them when she sees Tony. “What do you need me to do?”
“Natasha takes her into her lap and presses her ear against her chest.” Tony replies. “Come on, sit. I’ll help you.”
Wanda settles onto the ground and Tony lets go of Yelena’s wrists to grip under her armpits and pull the kid over into Wanda’s lap. He grips the kids wrists again as Wanda reaches up to cup a hand over the side of Yelena’s head, guiding her head to rest onto her chest.
Tony glances at the other three in the lab. “This isn’t a circus. Mind your own beeswax.”
They glance away and Tony positions himself in front of Wanda and Yelena.
It takes twelve minutes before Yelena’s foggy gaze glances up at Wanda, obviously having expected her sister. She jerks in Wanda’s lap.
“Woah, Barbie--” Tony interrupts the kid before she runs. “It’s okay. It’s just Wanda. You had one of your episode things. I just did what Nat would have.”
The kid is looking around in confusion. “Natasha?” She breathes out and Tony winces.
“Nat isn’t here right now. But me and Wanda are and we’re not gonna let anything happen to you, m’kay?” He tells her and finally lets her wrists go.
The kid drags in a lungful of air. “My sister--” She mumbles. “I need my sister.”
“I know, kiddo,” Tony sighs. “Why don’t you go give your friend JJ a call?”
The kid looks up at him, offended. “You know that her name is MJ.”
“Yeah, yeah. Go call TJ,” Tony grins and the kid’s shoulders finally lose some tension and she rewards him with a small smile.
“Okay…” The kid climbs gratefully out of Wanda’s lap and leaves the lab quickly.
Tony and Wanda were never close but Wanda looks up at him and Tony offers his hand out to her to help her off the floor.
“I can’t keep pretending to be her sister,” Wanda comments quietly.
“Didn’t you and Nat have some sort of mentor/mentee or sister relationship?” Tony asked and Wanda glances away from him. “Just-- pretend Yelena is your sister.”
“I’ve never been a big sister,” Wanda replies. “I don’t know what to do. Yelena keeps asking things from me and it’s like she’s ready to be rejected for any request that she makes.”
“You don’t even have to be a big sister. You just have to be a steady female figure that the kid can count on because the only person that she explicitly trusts is gone,” Tony tells her. “Okay?”
Wanda lets out a long sigh but nods. “I’m trying.”
Tony softens some at the look on her face. “I know. You’re doing a good job.”
Tony then turns to the three other people in the room. “Whatever you see or heard here stays here. Do you understand?”
They nod.
“Does she always have meltdowns like that?” Melina questioned.
“Uh-uh. Zip it,” Tony points a finger at her. “We are not discussing the kid. You are here to find Nat. That’s it. You’ll be gone as soon as she’s home.”
“We want a relationship with her,” Alexei comments and Tony scoffs.
“Yeah, after how your last meeting ended, you’re lucky that you are even here at all. Do you need me to make a restraining order against you for her? You can’t get within ten feet of her or I will blast you to bits?” Tony raised an eyebrow, daring them to argue with him.
“What… happened last time?” Antonia hesitantly questioned, glancing between them warily.
“I’m sorry, who are you again?” Tony turns toward her.
“Antonia… Dreykov…” She replies in a mumble.
That still didn’t answer his question but he doesn’t push, turning to look back at the other two.
“Nat trusts that kid into my care when she is gone. That means that I protect her from everything. Even herself,” Tony points a finger at them again. “Don’t mistake you being here as forgiveness. I’d kill you both if I could.”
He watches them stiffen and feels a sick sense of satisfaction when he realizes that they’re afraid.
“They called me the Merchant of Death once upon a time. I still have that capability. If you do anything to set off or trigger the kid again then you and me will be having words at the end of my blastor,” Tony continues.
“She’s ours…” Melina interrupts but Tony scoffs and shakes his head.
“She’s nobody’s. She is her own being. A person,” Tony glances at them. “She has a very small circle of people that she trusts.”
“What are you doing Barbie?” Tony sets his mug of coffee down.
“What is your full name?” Yelena demanded, looking up from a little pocket-sized notebook.
“Anthony Edward Stark,” Tony took a sip. “Why do you need to know my name at three in the morning?”
“This is a list of my people,” Yelena commented, scratching his name down with a pen.
“Your people?” Tony raised an eyebrow.
“I have very few people that I trust. My people. I will do everything for my people to keep them safe,” Yelena looked up at him. Tony gave her a soft smile.
“You’re my people too, kid.”
“Don’t make me have to warn you again,” Tony glances at them, taking a seat on his rolling chair, and pulls out his phone. “Because I don’t give second chances.”