Yelena continued her advance on Eleanor in large strides, with Natasha desperately trying to catch up to her as Eleanor kept taking steps backwards to try and evade whatever wrath she had incurred on the blonde. She put both hands up in a surrender motion and desperately tried to make eye contact with Nat to see if she had a plan, as Eleanor did not want the first impression of her new family member to be one where they were attacking each other.

Though in the heat of the moment, Yelena took the change in Eleanor's posture to be one where she was about to attack, so she beat her to it. "Yelena!", Nat shouted desperately as the Russian launched herself at Eleanor wrapping a hand around her throat and shoving her against the wall. Everything that Eleanor had been thinking about not attacking Yelena had gone out of the window when instinct and fear kicked in.

"I said who are-", the blonde was cut off by Eleanor grasping her upper arm and tugging it away from her throat, pulling it behind her back. The movement was successful in the fact that it meant she was able to breathe again, but Yelena spun around with force and threw Eleanor to the floor, Eleanor kicking her ankle to yank her down with her. Both were highly trained women in combat, so the fall didn't hurt too much as they knew how to land, but when Yelena landed a punch on Eleanor's gut, that one hurt.

Natasha desperately clawed at Yelena's grey blazer to stop the attack on her wife as she kept calling her name, but she seemed to be in a frenzy. Natasha was soon knocked out of the way when Eleanor hooked a leg around Yelena and switched their positions, placing her forearm loosely over her neck and a firm hand on her breastbone, putting enough pressure to warn her to back off.

Yelena put a hand up after a few moments, similar to how Eleanor did earlier, and Eleanor gave her a small smile as she released her grip and stood, holding a hand out for Yelena to take, which she promptly did before letting go and ceasing all contact as quick as she could once she was standing. Both stared at each other with their chests heaving from the exertion almost daring each other to make a move, and Nat stood looking between them with her jaw set tight. This was not the outcome that she wanted.

"Yelena, this is my wife, Eleanor", she took a few steps towards her slightly beaten wife and wrapped an arm around her waist. "Wife?", Yelena raised an eyebrow, and both women suddenly shrunk in their places, not knowing what was coming next and if their existence as a pair was going to be invalidated. But instead, Yelena shrugged, "Didn't peg you as the marriage type, Natasha".

Just as Nat opened her mouth to respond she was interrupted by her sister continuing, "You should have told me, then I wouldn't have tried to kill her".

Nat just scoffed and took a step forward, forgetting that she was dragging Eleanor closer too, "I tried to get your attention but you were too busy flying off the handle".

"I had good reason to fly off the handle when there is a random woman in my safe house", Yelena also took a step forward, not wanting to back down from this small argument, though Eleanor just rolled her eyes, which caught the attention of her sister-in-law. "What's your name?".

Eleanor frowned slightly, as Nat had told Yelena her name just a few seconds ago, "Eleanor? But you can call me El", she gave a gentle smile, but this was not the answer that Yelena was looking for as she shook her head. "No, no. Your last name".

"My last name?", she questioned, and turned to Natasha just to see her looking just as confused, "Uh... Romanoff". Yelena shook her head again, "No, your maiden name. Taking one of the surnames is a very patriarchal act don't you think? That isn't my place to say I suppose but your old name so that if I get annoyed with you, and I suspect I might, I will be able to yell at you and not get confused with Natasha".

Both Natasha and Eleanor blinked a few at Yelena in surprise and pure confusion, but wanting to get on and find out what those vials were, she just answered, not wanting to cause any issues, "Hughes".

"Eleanor Hughes", Yelena muttered back and looked as though she was testing if she liked the name before stepping forward, "It is nice to meet you, Eleanor Hughes".

"You can just call me El", she gave a nervous chuckle and Nat squeezed her slightly tighter to assure her that everything was okay, sensing the anxiety radiating off of her. "We shall see", Yelena offered simply, her face blank but with a slightly amused glint in her eye, but that glint soon disappeared when she turned to Nat and frowned whilst pointing at her before moving back into the living room towards the very damaged kitchen.

"Don't scare me by bringing random people into my home again", the blonde shouted behind her, annoyance clear in her voice. Nat immediately let go of Eleanor and marched after her sister, leaving Eleanor trailing behind as she rolled her eyes again, ignoring the throbbing pain in her stomach. "She's not a random person she's my wife", Nat defended herself.

"She's a random person to me Natasha", Yelena spoke back as she opened the fridge. "Anyway", Nat spoke seriously, wanting to get back on the topic of why they were here, "You just had to come to Budapest didn't you?". Eleanor fought the urge to mention the pronunciation as now was not the time.

"I came here because I thought you wouldn't", Yelena said as she took a bottle of vodka out of the fridge along with three shot glasses in her hand and laid them on the table. Eleanor hovered awkwardly by the door, not knowing her place in this situation as Natasha stared at her sister confused from across the small table, "But since you're here...", Yelena nodded towards the wall on the other side of the kitchen whilst popping open the vodka cap, "What bullet does that?".

Nat and Eleanor both looked over to the place above the microwave with weird-shaped holes in the wall, "Not bullets. Arrows", Nat responded. "Ah, right", Yelena finished pouring her shot and lifted the glass up to her lips as she watched her sister face the boundary of the kitchen and living room, Nat's face immediately softening. "Hey", she muttered to her wife with a small smile and held her hand out.

Immediately Eleanor smiled back and walked quickly forward to connect their hands, feeling much more at ease already. She was not enjoying the tense situation. As soon as Nat was satisfied that Eleanor was okay again, she reached into her inner jacket pocket with her free hand to pull out the red vials and the photo, placing them down on the table, "If you didn't think I'd come here then why'd you send me this?".

The blonde slammed the undrunk shot glass down, "You brought it back here?", she sounded annoyed again as she stormed off into the bedroom area. Nat let go of Eleanor's hand and left the vials but swiped the photo back and put it in her pocket, making Eleanor sadly smile as Nat followed her sister, leaving Eleanor to follow again. This was an interesting family.

"I'm not here trying to be your friend but you need to tell me what that is", Nat spoke with authority as the three neared the room. "It's a synthetic gas. The counteragent to chemical subjugation. The gas immunises the brain's neuropathways from external manipulation", she said whilst reaching down for a bag. Nat walked past her, looking at her sister as she walked towards a clothes rack, "Maybe in English next time?".

"Это противоядие от контроля над разумом", Yelena retorted, making Nat respond with "Real mature" in Russian too.

"Достаточно!", Eleanor threw her hands up in the air, sick of the snipes being thrown at each other by the two of them, "We're on a bit of a time crunch here so if we could get on with whatever this is that would be great!", she spoke, sarcasm lacing her words as she approached Nat, gently moving her hand across her lower back as she moved to look at the clothes on the rack too. She felt gross in the same shirt that she had worn for the many train journeys.

When it was silent though she turned to see Yelena staring at her with wide eyes, "You know Russian, Hughes?". Eleanor simply nodded, the use of only her last name suggesting that she was annoyed, though she wasn't sure why. But Yelena just gave an impressed nod and continued packing. "Fine, we will 'get on with whatever this is'", she mocked Eleanor's accent.

"Hey!", she protested, letting her hands now holding a new shirt flop down in front of her, and turned to Nat who smiled sympathetically and patted her arm before continuing her search for a shirt.

"So, why don't you take it to one of your super scientist friends, they can explain it to you, Tony Stark maybe?", Yelena continued. Eleanor gulped, there was a bigger chance of hell freezing over than them being able to talk to Tony or Bruce about this. Bruce had been missing for a year, and Tony would probably arrest them.

"Oh, yeah. We're not actually talking right now, so", Nat replied. "Yeah, it's complicated", Eleanor piled on which only made Yelena more sporadic with her actions of tossing items into a bag.

"Great. Perfect timing", Yelena spoke with pure sarcasm that made Eleanor let out a sigh as the blonde continued hurling things into her bag, "Where's an Avenger when you need one". Immediately Natasha turned around to face her sister, and Eleanor internally cringed at the prospect of more arguing happening, she'd had enough of that with the whole civil war situation.

"I don't wanna be here", Nat stated simply, Yelena stopping her tracks to look at her, "We're on the run, you could have gotten both of us killed". She then turned to take her shirt off and change into the new one. When Eleanor saw her back that was littered with deep bruises her heart broke, even though she knew that hers would look the same, she hated seeing Natasha injured.

"Well, what was I supposed to do", Yelena started but faltered at seeing the bruises too, and seemed to falter even more at the gentle movements that Eleanor was making to aid Natasha to get her new shirt on comfortably, a soft look resting on her face as she looked at her wife. "You're the only superhero person that I know", Yelena hesitantly continued with a hard tone, forcing the words out, "That was the whole reason I sent it to you".

Eleanor swiftly removed her shirt too, hearing Natasha gulp next to her, but she quickly put the new one on before anything could be said and any action could be made. With the way that Yelena had introduced herself, Eleanor didn't want to seem too vulnerable in front of her, worried that the blonde would think of her as less than.

"I kept checking the news", Yelena spoke loudly as she zipped up her bag, "Expecting to see Captain America bringing down the Red Room". Nat exhaled sharply as both she and Eleanor looked at each other with wide eyes. The Red Room? That was brought down years ago when Nat first joined SHIELD.

Confusion circled in both women's irises as they turned to face Yelena marching back out of the room. "What do you mean?", Eleanor quickly followed, Nat seemingly in a daze for a few seconds before she hurried along and went after Eleanor, putting her jacket back on simultaneously. "The Red Room's been gone for years", Natasha added on to Eleanor's confusion, "Dreykov's dead. I killed him".

Eleanor and Nat waited outside the weapons storage room Yelena was currently in, packing some things into her bag. Clearly, she was planning on moving out of the safe house now that the vials had been brought there. Yelena looked between the two with a smile of disbelief, "You don't actually believe that do you?", she queried and moved to stand next to them, but at the head tilts and the silence that came from them, her face dropped. "You really do believe that".

"Dreykov's dead, it took almost destroying the entire city just to get to him", Nat nodded, still firmly believing that the man who tore her childhood apart was dead by her hands.

Yelena stared at her, trying to figure her out, but then the attention was put on the other standing next to her. "There was a whole operation planned out, they tracked him down they rigged bombs-", Eleanor started listing off how the mission was a success but was cut off.

"They?".

"Clint Barton", Nat interjected, her voice like stone as she tried to convince Yelena, though Eleanor was starting to suspect that something had in fact gone wrong with that operation all those years ago. Yelena wouldn't randomly show up into her life with vials, talking about taking down The Red Room if it really had been gone for almost a decade. "Nat", Eleanor tried with a quiet tone, indicating that it was perhaps time to accept defeat.

Though Natasha just shook her head as she looked into Eleanor's eyes, the younger woman seeing so many emotions flash through her eyes, none of them good. "Killing Dreykov was the final step in my defection to SHIELD, it worked. El helped deal with my case, we can both tell you it worked".

"You both can?", Yelena asked, again with a small smile like she was mocking them for standing their ground on this and being unsure, "So, you rigged bombs, simple as that", she shrugged. Natasha looked at her with a hardened expression before walking past her to the kitchen, "Yeah, sure, 'simple'", Yelena and Eleanor followed her, "That's what I'd call imploding a five-story building and then shooting it out with the Hungarian Special Forces. Took ten days in hiding before we could even get out of Budapest".

Yelena stood on the other side of the kitchen table as Nat started pouring herself a shot of vodka, Eleanor stood next to her wife, placing a hand on the small of her back. "And you checked the body, confirmed the kill?".

"I mean, the building was annihilated", Eleanor answered the blonde, and Nat gave a curt nod. "There was no body left to check", Natasha continued after downing her shot and taking hold of the hand that was on her back, moving it down to her side as she gripped it tightly, guiding the two of them back out of the room.

Eleanor squeezed her wife's hand three times as they walked out, unsure of what was going to happen next, but knowing that this place wasn't safe for much longer. Though Yelena shouted something across the room that made them completely stop in their tracks. "You're forgetting Dreykov's daughter".

Eleanor turned her head to look at Yelena with furrowed brows whilst Nat stood completely still, and the blonde tilted her head, almost daring her to say something in defence of her wife on the matter, but the trio was interrupted by hearing muffled footsteps approaching before an explosion shook the apartment and the living room ceiling collapsed. 

A/n~ Finally the first proper interaction between Yelena and Eleanor, very excited to continue it :D Also, this is technically the 100th chapter of the book because of the prologue, which is very very cool, thank you to everyone who has read any of this book, you're all very awesome people <3