Widow Sisters and Friends (Restoring Our Broken Hearts)

The Breaking Point

Summary: After Kate suffers from another utterly berating call from her mother, she happens to run into Yelena. As per usual, Yelena starts teasing her. However, Kate has reached her breaking point and can't take it anymore. It is soon up to Natasha and Yelena to help everyone's favorite young archer.

   If there was one thing that Kate knew, it was that she was the luckiest person in the world to have Natasha Romanoff in her life.

But the other thing that Kate knew was that she did not deserve Natasha, which was becoming increasingly clear with every phone call she had with her mother and every time that she was reminded of how bad of a person she was for locking her own mother up at Christmas. Kate knew that she would never truly fit in with Natasha and Yelena. And she also knew that Yelena would always come before her.

In some part of her, that fact stung a little, but that was the selfish part. She tried her best to focus on the brighter, happier side of herself that swept the pain under the rug and tried to forget it all. After all, she knew that Natasha cared for her as much as she cared for Clint, and that was an honor that almost no one was able to achieve. She tried her best to shove away that slight selfish bit within her, knowing that Yelena and Natasha had a special bond.

Of course, she would never want to come between it. She just sometimes longed for an important, sacred, special relationship with Natasha similar to what Yelena had. Not to replace what Yelena had with her.

That part of Kate largely came from how she had no one in her family left to care for her. And how her mother was always calling and guilt-tripping her for having her locked up. Kate honestly did not know why her mother continued to call. Especially when Kate had no ability to get her out. She supposed her mother was just getting revenge as she always tried to do when Kate made a choice that she did not approve of.

It still made things really hard for Kate, though...

The main inspiration for all of those thoughts was the fact that it was one of those days when Kate had just gotten off the phone from her mother. As per usual, her mother had been reminding her of precisely what a horrible person she was for putting her in prison. Her mother was also giving her a good tongue-lashing for associating herself with Natasha, Clint, and the Avengers, and Kate honestly was not in the mood to hear her mother speak ill of the best group of people she had ever met.

And when her mother started poking and prodding about the rumors of an Avenger-in-training being shot two times recently, Kate had been forced to answer those questions honestly. Which had earned her another lecture, more yelling, and more beratement.

She had finally managed to get off of the phone, and when she had tried to tell her mother that she loved her, her mother had hung up on her. And that honestly hurt more than any of the verbal beatings that she had to take that day.

So here she was now, headed into the main room of the compound in hopes of being able to watch one of her favorite television shows in peace while stuffing her face with macaroni and cheese or ice cream. Or both.

However, when she got in there with the ice cream that she had decided to settle for since they were out of macaroni and cheese, she quickly realized that Yelena was sitting there watching something on television. Kate took a deep breath, trying to mentally prepare herself for the tormenting and teasing she was no doubt about to get just for being there. She honestly did not want to even come in to face Yelena right now, but she had already committed to walking in the room. She knew that Yelena had likely heard her come in already and it was too late to turn back.

So Kate headed in and sat down in the armchair not too far from where Yelena was seated on the couch. Yelena looked away from the television, taking in the sight of the girl as she looked her over.