Gay? Gay.

Lena Luthor = useless lesbian.

Kate moves to the neighbourhood post-college. She’s living in her own apartment for the first time. She stops by the bodega to get some post-gym snacks.

Alexei sees a pride pin on her bag.

Alexei: “Ah! You are one of the gays, yes?”

Kate, very dubious about where this was going: “um… yes?”

Alexei: “excellent! my daughter is gay. She’s new at it. You should meet her.”

Melina, rushing out from the back: “No, no, stop doing this.”

Alexei: “what? I ask, she said she was lesbian.”

Melina: “I’m very sorry”

Kate, bewildered: “that’s fine… can I pay?”

Alexei: “Yelena is a catch. She has her own cafe. No help! And very pretty.”

Kate, desperately waving her card at the machine: “that’s so great”

Alexei: “and I know I said she is new at being gay but she is enthusiastic -”

Melina: “STOP. (At Kate) You can just have these. You’ve paid enough.”

Kate was ready to file this as a funny story about her new neighbourhood - then the door jangled open.

Yelena: “privet Mama, Papa”

Her jaw dropped.

i want to write gross and smutty fanfiction all day

i do not want to turn that fanfiction into traditionally published work

i do not want to be paid for the fanfiction, nor do i want to be paid for the nonexistent fanfiction-turned-traditionally published work

Like Yelena was broken out of literal mind control at roughly 27 years old - if we take “You got out—Dreykov made sure no one could escape” to mean that he started using the chemical subjugation shortly after Natasha defected (and if we estimate that Natasha was around 20 at the time) then that would mean Yelena was mind controlled since about age 16 (younger if Nat got out earlier)

After getting free, Yelena lives only three years as an adult with her own agency before meeting Kate (technically it’s been 8 years since she was freed, but since she was blipped, five of them don’t count) and Kate as a college senior could be considered as having anywhere from 0-4 years of adult life experience (depending on your take on whether or not college would count)

give that knife/sword fight survivor nerve damage. give the character who was shot in the gut a stoma. give that fire survivor lung damage and an oxygen cannula. give that leg injury survivor a cane. give that starvation survivor gastroparesis. give that spinal injury survivor a manual chair or powerchair.