Steve/Yelena
"Then she is very lucky." She wasn't able to have those friends either until after she was free of the Red Room. If Natasha was able to achieve that, then maybe there was hope for her, too.
Yelena chuckled at Steve's agreement about the Avengers being family. "Disagreeing violently and publicly sounds messy. And exactly like family."
He and Natasha hadn't moved on. A pang of yearning in Yelena's heart to learn that Natasha never gave up on her. Of course it hadn't been just her she was fighting to bring back, but it was still worth something to know.
"Then I have you both to thank for existing again."
She looked around the room, her eyes falling on Ariel and Nebula in her magical disguise. Both sporting red hair, it stood out under the ballroom lighting. Yelena would be lying if she didn't admit that every time she spotted it out of the corner of her eyes, she would half-startle, wondering if Natasha had shown up.
The information about Clint Barton was a surprise. She knew he had gone after Natasha in Budapest. He was responsible for the deep arrow gauges on the kitchen wall in the safe house there. He had been the one she defected to and paired up with the first time they went after Dreykov. Yelena learned that when she last saw Natasha from Natasha herself. She hadn't realized how close they were beyond that, however.
"How do you know that was how it happened?" she asked. "How do you know she chose the sacrifice and he didn't push her?"
Yet even as she said it now, Yelena had trouble believing that other possibility. For one, it would detract from Natasha's heroism and she certainly didn't want that. Of course Natasha would give up her own life so that someone she cared about could get back to his family.