Widow Sisters and Friends (Restoring Our Broken Hearts)

Shamelessly

Summary: When Yelena begs Natasha to let her go to one of the cool kids meetings, she quickly realizes she made a huge mistake. She is bored out of her mind. Luckily, Natasha keeps her distracted with her gentle affection, but that quickly becomes quite embarrassing given their company.

   "And that's why we need to initiate this protocol. We have to try to improve our—"

It was quickly becoming clear to Yelena that she never wanted to go to anything called a collaborative conference ever again. And if she ever forgot that lesson and wanted to go again, then she would specifically hire someone to slap her in the face and shake her out of her episode of insanity.

Steve Rogers was a really nice guy, albeit a goody-two shoes, but he definitely could not hold the attention of any audience whatsoever. He was one of the most boring speakers that Yelena had ever heard, but she had to at least pretend that she was paying a little bit of attention to him, despite the fact that she did not care about anything he was saying at all.

The only reason she was here was after begging Natasha to let her come so she could earn more favor from the group and hopefully more greatly secure her place with them and get them to officially initiate her on the team.

Natasha was sitting next to her at the moment, her eyes on Steve. To most people, she was attentively hanging on his every word. However, Yelena could easily see that her sister was somewhat unfocused since it seemed that she was more just looking through him than at him. It was clear to Yelena that Natasha was as bored as her.

So Yelena did what any self-respecting younger sister would do. She very surreptitiously pinched Natasha's leg under the table in an attempt to simultaneously aggravate Natasha and get her attention. The redhead immediately turned her head to face Yelena, confusion and slight irritation in her gaze as she was drawn back into the real world outside of her own mind.

Yelena just grinned a little, mouthing the word "boring" to her older sister with a bit of an eyeroll and a miming of a loud groan. Natasha immediately understood, sighing a bit and leaning nearer to the blonde while keeping her eyes on Steve carefully.

"We've only got about five more minutes," Natasha softly spoke, and Yelena's eyes widened a little with surprise, joy from the prospect of getting out of the stuffy little room suddenly flooding through her.

"Only five more minutes? That's a blessing," Yelena whispered, her words barely above a breath as she smiled with relief as her posture loosened significantly. Natasha smirked a tiny bit, and Yelena quickly lost her smile, knowing that her sister's mirth was definitely not a good sign.

"And then we have to give our input on the whole thing," Natasha explained to her with a smug look in her eyes, and Yelena almost groaned aloud as she just looked at Natasha with something that could only be described as pure suffering.

"You have got to be kidding me," Yelena quietly replied, and Natasha just flashed her an affectionate, slightly pitying smile.

"You practically begged me to let you come, remember?" Natasha whispered to her, her mouth not far from Yelena's ear. Yelena could easily hear her amusement despite the quietness of her voice. Yelena flashed her a halfhearted glare in response. Yelena could easily see that Natasha was enjoying this way too much and she was quickly starting to realize that her suffering in this meeting was becoming Natasha's entertainment for the afternoon.

"I didn't know it was going to be like watching paint dry," Yelena sarcastically informed her, her eyes half-lidded as she just locked her eyes with the redhead's light green eyes. Natasha just huffed in reply, shrugging noncommittally with a lopsided grin and returning her gaze to Steve as he concluded his speech and quieted, giving them all a chance to voice their thoughts.