Work Text:
One More Time...Again
Yelena was not surprised when when arriving at Baton’s home in Missouri. He was an Avenger after all. The property was large, but dwelling simple and rustic. It was a nice place to lay low. To train. To remain in relative hiding. Like now. Yelena was nothing if not good at hiding. She remembered playing hide and seek with Natasha when they were younger. She was good at hiding. It made her sister mad, which made the game less fun. More often that not, Yelena would have to come out of her hiding place because Natasha would give up. She would find the blue haired girl sitting on a swing looking sad, like nothing could ever make her happy. Yelena would always try. She would do crazy thinks to make Natasha smile. Every once in a while it would work.
“How long are we staying here?” Yelena asked, staring out the window at the wide open meadow beyond the house.
“Not long,” Kate answered. “Clint doesn’t see the kids as often as he’d like. So...”
“How does he not see his kids whenever he wants?” the blonde assassin asked. “He is an Avenger. He must have privileges, no?”
“You would think so,” Kate agreed, calling up to Barton in the driver’s seat. “Yelena asked why you can’t come here whenever?”
“Five reasons,” Barton said, with a swarthy grin. “Fury, Stark, Rogers Stark, and Fury. That explain it? Oh, yeah. Hill, too.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kate poked, elbowing Yelena perhaps a little too hard, eliciting a powerful shove in return. “Such high demand. Rarefied air.”
“Don’t listen to her, Yelena,” Clint, over his shoulder, coming to a stop in a gravel driveway. “She’s just jealous that she doesn’t have rooms at the new compound.”
Kate screwed up her face, incredulously.”As if! You think I would want to hang with all you Boomers in Boomerville?”
Yelena watched, not wanting to get in the middle of a domestic argument. She was not familiar with the term ‘Boomer’ but she recognized Bishop’s other words. “AS IF..” the blonde inflected, spontaneously. “Like that movie Clueless, right?”
Kate looked at her, laughter in her eyes, as she tried to stifle it from popping out of her mouth. “You’ve seen Clueless?”
“You’ve seen Clueless?” Clint said,, turning it on Kate, with exaggerated skepticism.
Kate stuck her tongue out at him and scrunched her nose.
Yelena smiled as well, easing further into comfort with Bishop and Barton. “Of course. Who does not know Cher and Dionne?”
Kate nodded in recognition as they all exited the Range Rover.
“Kate, take Yelena on a tour,” Barton said. “I’ll be out in a few and introduce everyone.”
“What tour?” Kate replied. “I’ve been here once. But, okay.”
*****
It was later in the evening, after dinner that Kate and Yelena sat in rocking chairs on the front porch.
“Do these rocking chairs make us Boomers?” Yelena asked, leaning back and taking a pull from the Corona, Clint provided.
“I guess so,” Kate said with a smirk. “We are just two old ladies having a drink.”
“Why haven’t you asked about my sister?” Yelena said, suddenly dispensing with the light conversation.
Kate took a sip of her own beer and looked at the blonde. “I guess it wasn’t my place to ask. That was between you and Clint. Not my business.”
“You had no curiosity about The Black Widow of the Avengers?” Yelena pressed.
“Clint told me what he thought I needed to know when you showed up wanting to kill us. But, I wasn’t there for any of that. Thanos, The Snap, The Blip. All above my pay grade.”
“I would tell you if you asked me,” the assassin said, meeting Kate’s eyes.
Kate held her eyes softly and silently for a moment, then said: “What was she like, Natasha?”
Yelena looked out on the dark Missouri night, smiling wistfully. “She was sad. Mostly sad. But she could be funny, in a teasing way. She liked to tease or how do you say, instigate. Like get a rise out of people. I once saw her make a mobster so angry, he gave up his advantage of distance, got to close with his knife...”
Yelena raised her hands and hunched her shoulders as if the rest of the story was a foregone conclusion.
Kate raised her beer in acknowledgement. “Clint said she could be sarcastic. He said she seemed happiest when joking around with Stark and Thor and Rogers. He said they were like a family. Bickering and fighting, but standing together against all threats. Standing together for each other. It’s just what Clint said.”
“She said something to me about it as well,” the blonde said, looking out into the dark again. “For the longest time she did not think of our family as real. The once we had here. Before we went back to Russia. Before the Red Room. Before it all fell apart. She left me...us to come here. Perhaps, looking for belonging. Some true place to call home. But you know, I would not let her say it wasn’t real.”
“Yelena,” Kate interjected. “Are you sure you want to tell me all of this. we don’t know each other very well and-”
Yelena smiled knowingly and continued explaining the three years in which she was part of a Russian sleeper cell in the US. Three years that meant the world to her even if everyone else was playing a part. Her sister and mother and father were real. No one was going to tell her differently.
“The last time I saw her, she was standing in field in the Russian countryside. Posing, like she often did.The wind was blowing wisps of her red braided hair. She wanted us to go. She was like that; a protector. Always putting me and the other Widows higher than herself.She would often take the punishment from Drykov so that we would not have to. At least she thought we didn’t suffer.”
“That sounds like the Romanova that Clint has told me about,” Kate said, reverently. “Selfless. Sometimes to a fault.”
Yelena drained her beer bottle and stared at it’s mouth. “I wish she would not have been so selfless this time. I wish she would have thought of herself this time. About me. I want to see her one more time. My sister. I know it doesn’t matter now, but I wish it was Barton who fell. I want to see her again, you know. I want to give her another hug. I would want to tell her goodbye.”
Kate didn’t know what to say. She stayed silent and listened as her new friend blinks and tears streaked her cheeks. Hastily wiping the tears from her face, Yelena stood up and placed the empty bottle on the deck railing before descending the stair and briskly walking into the darkness. Kate stood as well.
“Yelena!” she called, prepared to follow her into the night.
“Let her go,” Clint said from behind the screen door. “She’ll be back. Give her some time”
“How long have you been standing there?” Kate asked.
“Long enough,” he replied, sagely.
“She shared a lot,” Kate added, placing emphasis on the last two words.
“Good,” Clint said. “I wish Nat had shared more. It’s a good thing. She needs a friend, Kate. I think you can be a friend, can’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said, looking out into the dark. “I think I can.”