Chapter 24
Yelena takes a breather the day after her first BARF session. She takes the day to recuperate and calls MJ up.
MJ is all too happy to ramble on about what Yelena had missed, just talking. Yelena lays back on the bed and listens.
Just hearing MJ talk seems to relieve some of the stress that she was under.
Natasha gets a phone call that she leaves to take and Yelena immediately tells MJ what happened over the past few days.
“I called Natasha ‘mom’... multiple times.” Yelena murmurs to MJ.
“Okay…” MJ replies before realizing that Yelena spoke her piece. “Did you lie? Do you not really feel that way?”
“No!” Yelena raises her voice slightly before quieting down. “No… I meant it. I mean it. She’s everything that I think a mom should be. She cried when I told her.”
MJ lets out a low whistle. “Happy tears or sad tears?”
Yelena blinks. “What?”
“Happy tears or sad tears?” MJ repeats.
“I… didn’t know that happy tears were a thing…” Yelena confessed with a frown. “Is that a thing that everybody does? I’ve never had happy tears, I don’t think.”
“Well… did she look upset or distressed?” MJ asked and Yelena is really glad that MJ knows more about these things than her.
“No. She told me that she was happy. But tears mean that someone is sad… I thought…” Yelena tries to recall her training in reading facial expressions. Never once were happy tears mentioned.
“It’s okay, Belova,” MJ tells her, her voice softening. “I didn’t know what they were until I was in middle school and a hormonal mess.”
“So crying doesn’t mean that someone is sad?” Yelena double-checks.
“Not necessarily,” MJ agrees. “I’m sure that if you did something that bothered her then she’d tell you to stop.”
“I called her Natalia for a long time because that’s her birth name and what I knew her as. I didn’t know that it bothered her until Tony mentioned something,” Yelena sighs, reaching up to rub her face with the hand that wasn’t holding her phone.
“But once you mentioned it then she told you?” MJ asked and when Yelena hums in agreement she continues. “Then just ask her. Does me calling you mom upset you? There. Nice and simple.”
“Easy for you to say… what if she says it does?” Yelena quiets down, fidgeting slightly with anxiety that takes hold of her.
“She has a right to her own feelings. Even if it hurts you,” MJ tells her, her voice soft and Yelena curls in on herself. “She deserves a chance to have her voice heard, just like you and me.”
“I know…” Yelena doesn’t know what she’d do if Natasha rejected her. She'll have to live with it. “I think that I need to think some.”
“Okay. I’m always waiting for your call to save me from certain doom… also known as calculus,” MJ tells her. “I’ll talk to you later, Belova. Love you.”
Yelena can’t help the smile that crosses her face. “I’ll see you then, Michelle. Love you too.”
MJ hangs up first and Yelena curls up to think.
Natasha enters the room a few moments later, interrupting Yelena’s thoughts.
“Hey,” Natasha approached her before holding the phone out. “Antonia’s on the phone. She wants to speak with you. But if you don’t want to then you just have to shake your head.”
Yelena was surprised that Natasha was in contact with Antonia but reaches out to take the phone, pulling it up to her ear. “Antonia?”
“Yelena… hello,” Antonia’s hesitant voice comes through the phone. “I appreciate you speaking to me.”
“Of course. I probably should have given you my number before you left,” Yelena replies, glancing up at Natasha who had ducked out of the room again to give them privacy. “What’s wrong?”
Antonia was quiet for a few moments before she sighs. “I admit that although we have not conversed long I miss your company. I do not feel as welcome here as I once did.”
Yelena frowns slightly. “Are they still picking on you for being a… Dreykov?”
“Indeed…” Antonia murmurs. “I apologize for bringing my burdens to you.”
“Don’t be. Did you tell Natasha?” Yelena asked her.
“We’re on even footing now. She saved me and I saved her. I cannot ask any more from her,” Antonia said.
“That’s not how Natasha does things,” Yelena explains.
Antonia was quiet for a few moments. “Will you tell her?”
“Not if you don’t want me to,” Yelena wouldn’t betray her like that. “Is there anything I can do?”
“...may I have your number to contact you?” Antonia hesitantly questioned her.
“Yeah. Of course,” Yelena pulls out her own phone and lists the number to Antonia. “Don’t give it to anyone else.”
“Of course not,” Antonia instantly agreed before hesitating once again. “What do you need in exchange?”
Knowing that Antonia probably wasn’t going to accept ‘friendship’ as an acceptable answer, Yelena asks for something else. “Will you ask Ma-- Melina to see if she has my file from the Red Room. If she does then can she send a copy?”
“Why can’t you ask her yourself?” Antonia asked and Yelena could tell she was frowning.
“Melina and I… are not on the best terms. Not even her and Natasha,” Yelena quietly admits.
“Why? What happened?” Antonia instantly questioned.
“Melina… she--” Yelena pieces the words together first before replying. “She used my trigger words against me. She put me back under for a little bit.”
Antonia was quiet and Yelena gave her a moment to speak but she didn’t. Fearing she had said something wrong, Yelena calls her name. “Antonia?”
“She what?” The words sounded strangled and Yelena sat up in surprise. “How dare she!?”
“It was my fault. I was about to stab her!” Yelena blurts out in a rush, not wanting Antonia to do something she’d regret. (she worried about Melina doing the same to her)
“That’s not-- she promised--” Antonia’s words became choppy as her Russian accent got thicker as she became more upset. “She said she wouldn’t do that to us!”
“She didn’t,” Yelena points out with a frown.
“She did… Yelena-- you’re one of us. You’re a Widow,” Antonia said. “She can’t do that to you without knowing she’d be able to do that to us.”
“The whole thing was my fault,” Yelena replies before pausing to take a second and remember what really happened.
“How?” Antonia harshly whispers and it makes Yelena curl into herself.
“Uh… she was--” She frowns, closing her eyes as she remembers it. “She was holding Natasha down on the ground. Pinning her. I didn’t want her to hurt Natasha. So I tackled her off and I think… I think I screamed at her.”
“Were they sparring?” Antonia questioned, her voice softening some but still held that growl that showed her displeasure.
“No… it was a fight. They wanted me to come back with them to live on the farm. I didn’t want to,” Yelena murmurs quietly, looking down at the floor. “I yelled at them a lot and then Natasha told me to leave because she could handle it. I had a weird feeling and turned around and Melina was holding her down so I tried to stab her.”
Antonia was quiet for a painfully long time, the only noise was the sound of her breathing. “I can get that file for you.” She finally murmurs.
Yelena didn’t know whether Antonia was upset with her so she takes a risk and asks. “Are you mad at me for that?”
“What?” Surprise colored her tone. “Why would you-- no. I’m not. I’m upset with Melina.”
“I don’t think she meant to hurt me,” Yelena doesn’t know why she still bothers to defend her.
“Whether she meant to or not. She did,” Antonia lets out a small sigh. “I have a lot of thinking that I need to do. I apologize for any pressure I have put on you. I’ll see what I can do about sending the files over.”
“Thanks Antonia…” Yelena murmurs.
“Could I trouble you for one last thing?” Antonia quickly blurts into the phone before Yelena hangs up.
“Yeah. Sure.” Yelena frowns slightly.
“Do you think that… maybe, possibly, you could refer to me as just Toni?” Antonia rushed out in one quick breath.
Yelena will not understand why people feel the need to change their names. Yelena was her name and that was the one thing she got to keep. It was hers. But if Antonia needed this then she’d do it. “Of course, Toni.”
The sigh of relief on the other end was audible and Yelena’s heart hurt for Toni. “Thank you, Yelena.”
“Of course,” Yelena said. “I’ll keep in contact. Talk to you later, Toni.”
There was what sounded like a small laugh on the other end. “Until then, Yelena.”
And then the phone goes quiet as Toni hangs up and Yelena is left with a small smile on her face.