Widow Sisters and Friends (Restoring Our Broken Hearts)

Meaner than a Hornet

Summary: When Natasha and Yelena go to one of the Avengers meetings, Yelena quickly grows quite frustrated as a result of a building headache, Steve and Tony's arguing, and Peter's knee continually poking into her leg. So when Yelena and Natasha are on their way home from the meeting and a bee starts pestering Yelena and embarrasses her in front of Natasha, Yelena finally breaks. A flip-side to "On My Knees."

   It had been a horrible, no good, bad day for Yelena all because of the meeting that they had earlier that day. Steve and Tony had gotten into an argument that was worse than usual, and Natasha's attempts to make them stop were not quite as effective as they would have been normally.

She had managed to get them to quiet down enough to make them at least break up the meeting peacefully, but all of the arguing had given Yelena a headache. Not to mention the fact that Peter had been sitting on the side of her that Natasha had not been sitting on, and his stupid bony knee kept poking into her leg as he moved his legs.

Yelena had been in a bad mood ever since, and Natasha had been desperately trying to cheer her up in any manner that she could.

Which was why they were heading to their house now, and Natasha had been discussing which movies to pick for their little movie marathon that they were going to have to cheer Yelena up. She had even consented to watching Frozen and Encanto for the thousandth time, so Yelena knew she was definitely serious about trying to make her feel better. Natasha had also promised Yelena a slushie on their way home, even knowing that Yelena was going to force her to take a sip of it.

It made Yelena's heart warm a little, but a large part of her was already aggravated and wished that Natasha would just keep quiet and quit trying so hard. It was taking everything within her to hold her tongue and keep from saying something she should not, her head already hurting with every noise around her and Natasha's voice somehow amplifying that feeling.

"Almost home, my sunshine," Natasha told her softly, growing quieter as they stood there at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change and allow them to cross. Yelena sighed lightly, thankful for her gentler volume as she stood there next to her and waited for the light to change.

However, she was quickly interrupted from this contentment as she suddenly noticed the small, flying bug that was rapidly approaching her. Yelena froze up a little, Natasha keeping her eyes on the crosswalk as she patiently awaited its inevitable changing.

Yelena swallowed a little, keeping her eyes on it for a moment. It kept moving closer and farther, and she was not quite sure how to react to it as the fear rose in her chest.

Yelena had always been afraid of bees. Even when she was a little girl, she had been terrified of them, and it was a fear that she had never gotten over and that thankfully the Red Room had never found out about. If they would have found out, they would have endlessly subjected her to them.

The thing grew nearer to her again, and she resisted the urge to jump away in response to its closeness.

Yelena tried her best to remain still, barely shifting her gaze in the direction of the bee that insistently kept flying around her. She continually stiffened as the creature grew closer to her, and she would loosen as it grew further away.

However, inevitably, the thing kept coming back to torture and terrify her.

The thing was that Yelena was not scared of anything. She was not scared of creepy clowns, death, or even the mental image of Tony Stark in speedos.

Although the mere idea of that last one did make her shudder.

But no. Her fear was bees, which according to logic would be quite the moronic thing to be afraid of considering the fact that they are so much smaller than her and that they only cause a relatively small sting in comparison to something like poison exposure.