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Lately, Yelena has been thinking about sex.
It’s an unusual occurrence for her. A foreign one, really. After she had been freed from the Red Room’s control, she had waited for that need to wash over her, that desire, the same way it had for the other women. The few ex-Widow friends that she had—before she lost contact with them thanks to the Blip—spoke of exploring themselves: or, fucking people and being fucked by them. They described how wonderful it felt to reclaim the parts of themselves that had been taken, invaded, used. And, they added bitterly, not having to worry about getting pregnant was a nice bonus.
But somehow, that magnetic, irresistible force that people spoke of never came over her the way it seemed to for everyone else.
Embarrassingly, she had tried to summon it once, using fingers and nothing else. It had done nothing for her. And then, the feeling of her own digits brushing and feeling against her insides had reminded her too much of metal tools and cotton swabs. Of how it felt to lay there on those metal examination tables, legs hiked up and spread apart by stirrups, her mind taken somewhere very far away by either drugs or dissociation.
Oftentimes, she likes to imagine herself as a Barbie doll, a hunk of plastic with solid, shapeless mounds instead of fleshy folds and holes.
It makes her feel foolish, sometimes, being so heavily impacted by it all. Those violations didn’t seem to have affected the other Widows the same way it did for her, Natasha included.
She’s seen images of her sister, still wearing a skin tight suit and a push-up bra long after being freed from the Red Room. Yelena understands why. One of the first things that the Red Room taught them was how to leverage themselves to get certain results. Natasha was a practical woman; she always did whatever it took to fulfill a task demanded of her, all the way until the end.
Still, she wonders: did it make Natasha’s skin crawl sometimes, feeling like a piece of meat? Did all the men touching and rubbing and grabbing at her whilst undercover make her angry? Did it bother her, being expected to show skin and wear makeup and have a waist of a certain size?
She wants to believe that it did, to know that she isn’t alone in these feelings, but she’ll never know for sure.
She wonders, too, if she'd still be like this—so disinterested in sex—even without the whole kidnapped, mind-controlled child assassin thing.
And yet, things have been changing for her lately. Sometimes, late at night, when her mind wanders to Bob as it usually does, a warm pulsing tension accompanies it. Once, she’d dreamed of him, of the hard lines of his chest and the width of his shoulders, and she’d woken up wet.
She’d been confused at first, and disgusted with herself. Simultaneously, she felt like a silly schoolgirl and a creep. It made her feel like one of her targets who would stare at her, not even bothering to conceal the lust that shone in their shark-like eyes.
So, she’d spoken to Ava.
She went to her friend’s room, uncharacteristically red-faced as she described her situation. Ava froze, the lid of the purple bottle of nail polish hovering in the air over her toenails as her hand stopped. Then, she burst out laughing.
“Yes, yes.” Yelena waved a dismissive hand as the bed they were perched on shook with Ava’s laughter. “I am glad my sex life, or lack of it, is so amusing to you. Surprise: I am capable of having an orgasm.”
“It’s not that.” Ava protested as she went back to applying a coat of polish on her big toe. “It’s just…Bob? Really? Innocent, pajama-wearing Bob?”
“Bob is handsome!” Yelena defended. “He’s nice, and funny, and he’s tall, and he, you know, he has way more muscle mass then you would expect for someone who reads books all day, although I know it’s because of the whole Sentry thing–”
“Wow.” Ava drawled, the vowel elongated as she interrupted Yelena’s inane rambling. “Yelena Belova has a crush.”
“I do not!” Yelena tossed a throw pillow at Ava’s head, watched as she shimmered right through it before phasing back into their dimension. “Better Bob than Walker, at least.” She added. Just as she’d suspected, a smirk crawled up her friend’s face. “Ha! I knew it!”
“That’s different.” Ava insisted. “Walker and I have…been intimate with each other.” She said the last five words like they pained her. “You, my friend, haven’t even gotten to first base. You haven’t even entered the park!”
Yelena sighed, lips pressed into a line. “It’s just…I was never allowed to want these kinds of things before. I didn’t even think that I ever would want them in the first place. And now, I don’t even know if Bob feels the same way about me.”
“I think he does.” Ava had said simply, like it was the most basic thing in the world. Like it was an irrefutable fact. “The way he looks at you…it’s not even a question. I think you should talk to him.”
Ava’s words echo in her head as she lies next to Bob in her bed. It’s been a habit of theirs. They like to be near each other. But now, it has her questioning things. What kind of man lies next to a woman without trying anything, without touching? He must not be interested. Maybe he’s gay. Maybe there’s something wrong with her.
“Bob.” She says quietly, looking right up at the ceiling. He hums in acknowledgment, eyes closed. Her gaze shifts, following the slope of his nose all the way to its rounded tip. It’s a nice nose. I like you, she wants to say. Do you like me, too?
What comes out is: “Have you ever had sex before?”
Internally, she cringes at herself, wishing that she could take the question back into her mouth. He’s quiet for so long that she thinks that maybe he’s misheard her, or even fallen asleep.
“A really long time ago.” He says finally. She waits for him to continue, but he doesn’t. Instead, his eyes dart to her. “Do you, um, do you—have sex, Yelena?” He tacks on awkwardly.
“I don’t. I haven’t.” She says. “Not in the way that matters. The Red Room didn’t care what we wanted, and I didn’t think I was interested in it, truthfully.” She’s afraid to bare herself like this. But she has to try.
She looks right at him. “But—maybe if I ever met someone that I really cared about, that I liked a lot, who was gentle, and kind, and made me laugh, I would want to try.”
“I hope you meet that someone.” Bob murmurs.
“I have.” She says quietly, picking at a loose thread on the duvet with her finger. “For the first time, I think I have.”
When she looks back at him, Bob’s mouth is open in a little o of surprise. “Yelena, I…I think you’re beautiful, anyone—anyone you choose would be lucky. But…”
But. Her heart sinks.
“You don’t want to have sex with me.” He says, looking away, lip quirked the way it always is when he’s embarrassed.
“I think I know what I want, Bob.” She says icily. She resists the urge to turn away in the bed like a pouting child.
“No, no. I didn’t mean it like that. I would—you deserve it from the right person. I’m not someone that…” He closes his eyes and sighs through his nose. His mouth opens and closes, lips trembling and twitching as they try to form the words his mind won’t let him say. “When I was a kid, my da—um, my father.” He pauses. “He used to…I don’t…I don’t think about it, or—or talk about it, ever.”
Oh, she thinks. It makes horrible, horrible sense. They shared so many types of pain, but she had hoped that this wasn’t one of them. “I’m sorry, you don’t owe me an explanation, or—”
“No, it’s, um. I trust you.” He releases a breath. “It’s okay if you know. I want you to—to understand.”
“My parents, um, my parents thought that it was my fault that he was doing those things. That I was—was tempting him, I guess. So I just…I haven’t done anything. Not since that. You don’t want to be with a person like me.”
“I’m a person just like you, Bob.” She says. “I was hurt like that, too. And it wasn’t the fault of anyone but the people who hurt us. Even if they taught us to blame ourselves.”
His cheeks are wet. The coolness she feels on her face tells her that hers are, too.
“I like you, Yelena. I want to—I want to be with you. But I don’t know if I can give you what you deserve.” He says.
“I’ll take you just as you are. I just want you.”
His hand finds hers. It’s more than enough.