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"Okay, I have photos!" May declares, sitting on the couch beside Melina. She opens up the photo album, turning it toward Melina. "Here we go. That's Ben, there."
"He looked nice, you two must have been happy."
"We had our ups and downs. But yeah, we were." May smiles to herself, flipping to the next page.
"Oh, I have photos too." Melina grabs a small wooden box from her bag. "We have a photo album, but those were all staged. These are the real ones." She pulls out a folded up photograph. It's faded, two girls sitting on a porch swing. "The little one is Yelena. And Natasha. She convinced me to dye her hair. Blue. It made the biggest mess, but she and Yelena were very happy about it."
May's grin widens. "They look very happy."
"Yes. I was not happy to have to clean up after it. But they are my girls, and I wanted to give them what I could."
"That's so sweet. You're a good mom."
"Ah, I should have done more."
"Everyone thinks that. Trust me, if I could go back there's a lot I would change. But we did what we could at the time." May leans over, bumping Melinda's shoulder.
"Yes, it is. You did good too, любимая," Melina bumps her back.
"Oh, here, look at this one." May hold up the album again. "Ben took Pete to a science convention." In the photo an eight-year-old Peter is standing outside a convention center. "He was so excited, wouldn't stop talking about it for weeks after."
"He was cute," Melina replies.
"Yeah. Now he's a little shit."
"They all become one eventually." Melina pulls a polaroid out of her box. "Here's Yelena. Alexei got the girls one of those cameras. They used it all the time."
"Awww."