Burnt out gifted child/perfectionist Yelena,,,,,
Yelena who was taught in the Red Room that anything less than perfection would get you punished. Physically and emotionally: whipped, starved, isolated, you name it. Being perfect meant survival.
But not only that, you had to be the best too. It didn't matter if you did it perfectly if you were slow. It didn't matter if the result was perfect if your methods were impractical. You had to beat all the other perfect girls to prove you were the best. Being the best guaranteed survival.
The feeling of impossible standards stayed with her even after the Red Room. Alexei praised her over and over for being the most ruthless child assassin the world has ever seen. Being the best at being perfect earned her the love from him that she so desperately wanted. It also got her the job with Valentina. It was shitty employment, but it made her feel useful, needed, and appreciated.
But things start slipping through the cracks. She starts drinking more and more, losing time to the darkness in her head. Missions get done but not quite perfectly. There are unintended casualties, too many witnesses, unanticipated challenges. She still succeeds at fulfilling the mission brief but she's getting sloppy. Sloppy gets you punished.
Her new team, the Thunderbolts, are anything but perfect or the best. They fight with each other on the battlefield instead of with the bad guys, they don't plan out anything ever, and they retreat from fights they think they can't win. How did they make it this far in life? Don't they know that failure is not an option??? What is wrong with them??
It fills her with fear. She spends hours in her room waiting to be punished. How exactly? She doesn't know. But why would her team keep her around when she keeps messing up? Her plans only half work. She's not the strongest or the fastest. She's not even the only assassin. She brings nothing to the team that the others don't also bring in some way. There is no reason to keep her around if she's not perfect or the best.
Logically, she knows she's allowed to fail now but surely someone must see how much she's fallen. Someone will get fed up and come to punish her. Maybe it'll be Alexei; he only loves her as far as her achievements, and she's proven those were flukes, not the norm. She is unworthy of his love. He was in the Red Room too, so he knows better than anyone how much of a failure she is and what kind of punishments she deserves. Maybe it'll be Bucky; HYDRA certainly had no room for error, so he's used to being held to the same standard as her. He is the best soldier, the real perfect assassin. Yelena is a disgrace standing next to him, a liability. She knows better than anyone that liabilities are loose ends assassins like Bucky permanently tie up. Or maybe it'll be stupid motherfucking John. John with his military background and tendency to lash out. The American military is far from the Red Room, but it still requires a level of discipline and success that she is sorely lacking. Even one person not up to par can bring a whole unit down. John knows this too; how much longer will he tolerate her failures until he decides to put an end to it to guarantee his own survival?
Shaking and crying on the floor are failures too. She should not be doing that. But she's so tired. The standards she has set for herself seem so impossible now. She just wants to lay her bones down and never move again. Every time she gives it her best shot, the goal posts move just out of reach, taunting her. Constantly getting farther away. She should just give up.
