Chapter 7
Yelena wakes up to Natasha having a night terror. Yelena has to pin her down and whispers to her until she comes out of it like usual.
It takes Natasha more time than usual to come out of it. She still stared at Yelena like she saw a ghost.
“It’s me. I’m alive. I’m not dead,” Yelena reassures her softly. “It was only a dream, Natasha. You’re okay.”
Natasha reaches out and grips Yelena’s face between her hands gently and lets out a shuddering exhale before pulling Yelena’s forehead against hers.
Yelena lets Natasha take what she needs, reaching up to gently grip Natasha’s wrists.
“Do you think you can go back to sleep?” Yelena asked after a few moments even though she already knew the answer.
“No,” Natasha shakes her head. “But Laura taught Clint to make really good cocoa from scratch…”
Clint is sitting outside the door like he had promised, glancing up at them before yawning and nodding. “Cocoa?”
“Cocoa,” Natasha agreed, her hand never leaving Yelena as they all shuffle into the elevator. Natasha glances down at Yelena, blinking for a few moments as her sleep-addled mind takes a few seconds. “Where’s your vest? The green one.”
“It’s ruined,” Yelena replies quietly. “It got soaked in blood.”
Natasha pulls Yelena’s head closer to press her lips to her temple. “I’m sorry.”
Yelena missed her vest. Tony offered to buy her a new one but it just wouldn’t be the same. That vest was the first piece of clothing that she bought for herself. It was her armor and her security blanket. It protected her. Tony offered to buy her all of the vests she wanted but it just wouldn’t be the same.
They all gather together closely in the kitchen, Yelena moving to hop up onto the counter and watch Clint as Natasha settles to lean against the counter between her legs and let Yelena play with her hair.
The quiet in the kitchen isn’t tense but a comforting kind that drapes over them like a blanket. Yelena rests her cheek on top of Natasha’s head as she watches Clint heat up the milk.
“I have to get going tomorrow,” Clint makes three mugs of cocoa. “I can’t risk them noticing that I’m not at my house.”
Natasha glances at Clint and they hold eye contact for a few moments.
“You’re welcome to come too,” Clint glances at Yelena. “The kids are missing their Auntie Lena.”
Yelena slowly shakes her head.
“It might be for the best, little one,” Natasha comments. “It’s much safer there.”
“I don’t want to leave,” Yelena frowns slightly, reaching out to accept the mug from Clint.
“Why not?” Natasha asked and that was what Yelena loved about Natasha. Natasha always asked for her thoughts and opinions. She never forced Yelena to do anything without hearing Yelena’s side of things.
“I like it here… and-- and I have my own room with my own things and my people are here,” Yelena tries to explain.
“Your people?” Clint repeats and Yelena glances down at her mug before taking a long sip.
“My people…” She agreed after a few moments. “People that will protect me and in return I would protect too. I trust them. My people.”
“Which of your people are here?” Clint asked and Yelena takes a moment to stare at the brown liquid in her cup. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“MJ. And Peter. And Tony. And-- And James,” Yelena lists and she feels Natasha startle at the last name.
“James? Soldat?” Natasha questioned, looking up at her.
“He’s one of my people,” Yelena nods slowly. “He… helped me a lot when you were gone.”
“Helped how?” Natasha looks up at her with concern and Yelena sighs.
“He’d stop me from doing stupid shit when I was overwhelmingly angry and order me to the mats and I’d fight him until I wasn’t angry anymore,” Yelena explains before busying herself by taking a long sip from her mug. “He understands.”
Natasha softens and nods her head. “Okay. Your people are here. Then can’t we just take a break at Clint’s?”
“MJ needs me,” Yelena replies automatically before she ducks her head down at their stares.
“What’s wrong with MJ?” Natasha frowns at the same time Clint asked who MJ was.
“MJ comes over anytime I need her or she needs me,” Yelena tells her. “MJ was the only person safe enough for me to sleep with when you were gone for the first few days. MJ had dreams of the diner.”
“MJ can come too,” Clint offers and Yelena glances at him. “Just for a few days.”
Yelena shifts uncertainly. She didn’t want to leave. But Natasha needed a few days someplace safe to just relax and Yelena wasn’t going to be separated from her again.
“Okay,” Yelena nods her head. “I’ll ask her.”
Natasha and Clint chatter on but Yelena doesn’t quite listen to them, focused on her mug instead.
She doesn’t know when the tower became ‘home’.
That’s what she called it the previous day when she sat in the jet with Tony. She told him she wanted to go home.
Before, Home had been nothing but a place where she was handcuffed to beds and drugged to the gills and hit and hurt. Where little girls were broken and crushed and killed.
“Yelena?” A hand is set onto her knee and Yelena looks up from her mug into two concerned faces.
“I’m fine,” Yelena replies even though she doesn’t know what the question was or the fact that she had boldly dared to lie to her sister’s face.
“Right,” Natasha nods. “Do you want to share what’s on your mind?”
“We still have to find Ross,” Yelena mumbles, glancing between them. “And then once Ross is found then things are going to go back to the way they were before and one of my people will leave.”
Yelena lets out a long sigh. “What happened in Siberia?”
Her question makes both Natasha and Clint tense up.
“I don’t want to just Google it or something and get bad information. I want to know. No lies. What happened? Why weren’t the Avengers available to help with the Red Room?” Yelena drains the last of her drink from the mug and sets it aside. “Why can’t Tony Stark handle having the others in the tower? Why does his AI keep blocking their route to me when they first arrived?”
“That’s not an easy answer,” Clint speaks when Natasha doesn’t.
“I find Tony in the kitchen sometimes. He can’t sleep and he tells me to be careful of who I trust and that I will always be able to rely on him,” Yelena lets out a long sigh. “Can you please tell me?”
The two adult assassins look at each other before Natasha nods.
And she learns about Siberia. She learns about the Accords and the fight and Ross’s place in it all. She learns that Natasha switched sides halfway through because she just wanted to keep the team together. She learns that James killed Tony Stark’s parents.
Yelena then figures that since they were honest with her then she should be honest with them about something she had been hiding.
Yelena fidgets slightly as she tells them about how she had previous connections with SHIELD. About her first long-term mission when she was eight. How she killed nearly brought SHIELD down with the flash drive that she had unfortunately swallowed. How she and Nick Fury had previous encounters and that she had completely forgotten about being Alyssa Daniel until Wanda rooted around in her memories.
And then Yelena apologizes for keeping it a secret.
“Fucking shit--” Clint runs a hand over his hair. “I think I met you once. I was put on babysitting duty once during bring your kid to work day. You were the reason that it got banned?”
Yelena shrugs and Natasha hugs her and Yelena feels lighter now that she got that off of her chest.
“Okay,” Clint clapped his hands together. “I think that we can all use a nap.”
“It’s four in the morning,” Yelena mumbles.
“Yuppers. A nap,” He nods his head. “So finish up your drinks and we’ll all go back to bed. And in the morning, you can call this MJ.”
Yelena lets herself be pulled off the countertop and to her own two feet and follows after Natasha as Clint rinses the mugs out.
Natasha takes the side closest to the door this time, curling around Yelena as they tangle together on the bed.