natasha wondered if it would be very inappropriate to ask steve, if they survived this, if this is how he felt when he crashed the plane all those years ago.
if he thought about what the world looked like, if he couldn’t help but commit it to memory.
cause the view of the ground could be beautiful, under any other circumstance than what they found themselves in - stuck in a metal box, heading straight for the unforgiving soil.
natasha feels more than she sees yelena holding on for dear life next to her, and she imagines that her knuckles are white from the strain, much like her own. the alarms are screaming, alerts going off everywhere, warning them that the jet has lost several engines and that the hull has taken heavy fire, that the hull has exploded, as if they haven’t noticed.
the horizon is no longer parallell, and their world tilts sideways as the jet careens and spins towards the ground, turning whatever’s outside the window into a blurred mess of sky and ground and snow and trees.
natasha’s fingers desperately type out what she hopes is the distress call, and with a last surge of strength she turns her head towards yelena.
yelena’s head has lolled to the side, her eyes barely open - she’s on the verge of losing the battle of consciousness against the vertigo.
even so they both force their eyes open a bit longer, unspoken words exchanged as green meets green just before everything goes dark.
the first thing she notices as she wakes is that she’s in pain.
but she’s awake, and alive, which is a miracle in itself. pain has almost been a constant in her life for as long as she can remember, so in a sort of twisted way she welcomes it.
her head is throbbing.
scratch that, her head feels like it’s splitting apart.
she groans and tries to push herself up to a sitting position, a curse forcing out of her lips as she does.
the second thing she notices is that she’s not in her pilot’s seat anymore, and that there’s something warm draped over her body.
she’s slumped, half lying, half sitting now, up against something cold.
she does a quick assessment of her own state - all her limbs seem to be intact. her shoulder is throbbing, but at the moment the head injury is definitely the most pressing. even so, with a quick feel of her fingers, she can tell that someone has bandaged it up roughly.
«good morning, sleeping beauty,» a voice says, and natasha’s head snaps up, painfully, towards the noise.
yelena’s silhouette is barely visible in the dim light, but she’s unmistakably there and alive, and natasha breathes out a heavy breath of relief.
«what happened?»
«we crashed,» yelena says dryly, and natasha rolls her eyes at her.
«you don’t say.»
yelena’s back is to her, crouched over a little campfire, and natasha’s eyes fly around the area, taking in her surroundings.
the cockpit of the jet has been completely ripped apart, the remains of the roof hanging over them, creating an overhang to keep them out of the direct line of the cold and snow. someone - yelena, presumably - has dragged bigger pieces of the hull around them to create makeshift walls, shielding them even further.
«are you going to help or are you going to let me do all the work as usual?»
yelena’s remark is snarky as always, but natasha snaps her attention back to her at the lack of the usual bite.
her form is illuminated by the limited light from the campfire, hands busy with trying to keep the fire alive.
for the first time since waking up natasha really looks at her, her eyes, honed by a lifetime as a spy, missing nothing. it takes a minute to connect what she’s seeing to her beaten brain. before she knows it she’s up on her feet, making her way towards yelena.
«hey, what are you doing? you should lie down!» yelena snaps at her as she hears the sound of her approach, but natasha isn’t listening.
she spins yelena around, forcing her to look at her. natasha takes in the sight of her, realizing she wasn’t wrong. she rarely is.
horrified, but sadly not surprised - a crash like the one they were just in was impossible to escape unscathed.
yelena had definitely been favoring her left side and now it was obvious why. her flak jacket had been torn, and underneath it was a makeshift bandage, currently drenched in blood.
« you should lie down,» natasha snaps back.
«stop making a fuzz, i’m okay,» yelena replies, trying to push away natasha’s hands. the wound was covered, but judging by the amount of red seeping through it it definitely was worse than yelena made it out to be. natasha, undeterred, takes yelena’s hands in her own and squeezes, keeping her from pushing her away.
«you don’t have to do that anymore,» natasha says.
yelena hadn’t seemed affected by the cold, but freezes at her words.
and for once there’s no quick jab back, no sarcastic reply. which is how she knows that yelena’s really listening.
her eyes come up to meet natasha’s, and natasha almost wants to cry at the look at her face.
yelena looks impossibly young, reminding her of what she used to be, back in their shared hell - too naive, too hopeful. back when there was plenty of pain to go around, and no one was allowed to care.
but natasha always knew yelena cared, maybe more than most.
never allowed to share it, the red room must’ve believed that they managed to beat it out of them, but natasha was sure yelena did what she did, consciously or not - buried it deep within herself, where it was allowed to fester and build, only waiting to be let out.
her family had let her do that. the avengers had let her turn her past around, to let her clear her ledger, to help people. to care. for herself and others.
now natasha could do the same for yelena.
«we don’t do that anymore,» natasha repeats, and yelena nods, eyes watering.
a hesitant moment of silence, before a rogue tear makes her way down her face. «um, yes, so this kinda hurts,» yelena says, pointing to her abdomen.
natasha smiles, and puts her hand on her shoulder. «i’ll help you clean it up,»
yelena asking for help was a start, unthinkable even, with how everything used to be.
«the bandage job was lackluster, but i had to use the rest for your fat head.»
yep. it’s a start.
it didn’t take long for the infection to hit.
and it didn’t matter how hard natasha had tried to clean up yelena’s wound - the end result was inevitable. they didn’t have any clean bandages or sanitizer or medicine - the little supply natasha had found had already been emptied and used.
yelena had already beat her to it and used most of it on natasha’s head-wound, and she silently cursed herself for being unconscious the longest, and then cursed yelena for her lack of self preservation.
but she was a hundred percent certain she’d do the same if the roles were reversed. even so, she curses yelena as yelena would’ve cursed her.
she takes another second to be annoyed at yelena and then moves on to being annoyed at the god forsaken wasteland they had crashed in.
she hadn’t ventured far from the crash site, but it was already obvious that they wouldn’t find a village or city bustling with life anywhere nearby.
they were, effectively, in the middle of nowhere.
turning on her heel, not daring to go any further away from yelena in her state, she madd her way back to the jet, silently hoping that yelena’s condition hadn't worsened in the time natasha had been out gathering firewood.
as she rounds the corner her stomach sinks.
even huddled underneath the makeshift blankets - just some random clothing natasha had salvaged from around the jet - she can tell that yelena’s shaking. she runs over, ignoring her own throbbing head, and crouches by yelena’s side. it isn’t even necessary to physically touch her, natasha can tell just by looking that she is burning up.
«if you don’t wipe that look off your face, i will smack you,» yelena says weakly, not even having the energy to raise her head. «i’m not going to let a stupid infection kill me, how could you think so little of me.»
«if you let this measly infection get you, i will smack you.»
«you better,» yelena laughs weakly.
silence descends for a few minutes, yelena’s harsh breaths a deep contrast to natasha’s controlled ones.
«so when exactly is stark coming to pick us up and we can be done with this excursion?» yelena is the one to break the silence. «don’t get me wrong, i am having a grand time.»
«i don’t know,» natasha says honestly, knowing there’s no point in lying. «i sent out the distress signal, they should be here when they get their heads out of their asses.»
«ah», is yelena’s only reponse. «so never then.»
«never then.» natasha repeats, snorting.
but this time when the silence descends it is heavier, the gravity of their situation weighing down on them.
natasha hopes tony got her message. if it didn’t go through, the other avengers wouldn’t be looking for them for another week or so, as their mission was supposed to span a month.
they had been three weeks in when they had been compromised, forced to flee with their pursuers hot on their heels.
they had disposed of them pretty much unscathed, but it turned out that their enemies had had a bit of foresight. a kill switch of sort had been installed in the stolen jet, activating during their escape, literally landing them in their current predicament.
another week for help to arrive… natasha shoots a sideways glance at yelena, whose eyes have fallen shut. the dark red circles under her eyes have become more prominent, blonde hair sticking to her forehead by sweat.
natasha wipes them gently away.
for all of yelena’s bravado, natasha knew that they both knew that the infection could be deadly. she had found the rebar yelena had pulled out of her abdomen discarded in a dark corner, partially hidden as if she had tried to hide the evidence of the grave injury. but it wasn’t particularly well done, as if she also knew that natasha would see right through her.
a week.
jokes or not, yelena definitely didn’t have a week.
four more days, natasha thinks. four more days and she would take yelena on her back and walk until she couldn’t anymore, until they found civilization or died trying.
she hoped it would never come to that.
natasha closed her eyes, taking yelena’s hand in hers, and hoped, more than she had ever hoped before, that someone would come for them.
careful what you wish for, they say.
in the end someone does come, but it isn’t the right someone.
it happens the third day; natasha had spent it trying to fix the broken radio, gathering more firewood and tending to yelena. the latter of which had still some bite left in her and had insisted on clean herself up, for better or worse.
it had taken a sideways turn when yelena’s eyes had glossed over and she suddenly had been somewhere else, her hands turning from healing to destruction, striking out like a cornered animal, just this time trapped in a prison of her own memories.
as the night had fallen natasha had held her, deciding that the following morning would see them leave the confines of the jet.
it was then, when their breath had stilled and it was silent, so silent, that natasha had snapped to attention at a small sound outside the walls.
just a change in the air, nothing much, nothing really , for any ordinary person to hear or notice.
but natasha has never been ordinary, not in the slightest.
in the night, the black widow rises to her feet, the familiar feel of adrenaline coursing through her veins, powering her movements.
the first assailant only has the time to take half a step into their little lair before the spider traps him.
he goes down instantly, absolutely blindsided by natasha’s merciless roundhouse kick.
the second one only has the chance to open his mouth in an attempt to call for help before he too falls.
how many are there? natasha thinks, senses on high alert, while her eyes fly around, trying to see shapes in the surrounding shadows.
their enemies had probably sent a team to investigate the remains of their bombed ship, to either salvage the wreckage, or better yet, finish off possible survivors.
natasha and yelena must’ve reduced their numbers drastically for it to have taken this long, but here they were.
she was afraid they wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
a figure comes roaring out of the shadows, headed straight for her, and natasha lunges to meet him, swiftly dodging and sidestepping his punches. he’s more of a brute strength type of fighter, and it’s almost like fighting steve. if steve was slower and couldn’t knock you out with a single punch.
he leaves his side open and natasha capitalizes on his error, swiftly and deadly.
when he collapses, natasha turns towards where yelena had been lying. her eyes widen when she can’t see her in the dark, but she doesn’t have the time to dwell on it even further because before she has the time to think, another man jumps at her.
he’s quickly joined by another and suddenly natasha is fighting at two fronts.
it wouldn’t usually be a problem if it wasn’t for the fact that she’s nearly seeing double, her head pounding wildly. the cut in her head must’ve opened again too, and the killer headache is back, along with a thick liquid along her hairline that threatens to spill into her eyes. she has to end this fight and soon.
one of them knicks her in the side, she feels the familiar sting of a knife cut into her flesh. with a wince she goes on the offensive, hoping for the element of surprise.
she delivers one punch to the throat, then a jaw, and another man goes down, but not before he manages to get a solid hit in on her stomach that she’s too slow to block.
all the air in her lungs seem to leave her, and she gasps, nearly doubling over.
the last man tries to go for his gun, but suddenly yelena is there, tackling him to the ground with a roar.
the gun flips into the snow, and natasha dives for it as yelena and the man fall together into a heap of limbs, delivering punches back and forth, many of which yelena expertly dodges, and many of which she doesn’t.
she’s bleeding heavily, red soaking her clothes and snow.
they roll over on the ground, and then the man is on top of her, gaining the upper hand.
he gives a cruel smile of victory.
it only lasts for a millisecond.
the smoke from the barrel of the gun has barely touched the air before natasha drops it and runs.
«how can i do things by myself if you won’t let me?» natasha says angrily, only slightly concealing her worry. she pushes off the man from where he had fallen on top of yelena, not sparing another look at the entry wound perfectly placed in the middle of his forehead.
yelena coughs and sends her a weak smile through bloodied teeth.
natasha goes to smile back, but just then notices something out of the corner of her eye, tucked under the fabric of their final assailant's jacket.
a detonator!
they really had a thing for bombs and kill switches, natasha thinks as her eyes widen in horror.
his body is too close, too close, and there’s no time, no time to think.
natasha dives for yelena, shielding her body with her own.
«don’t you dare—» yelena screams, and it’s the last thing she hears before the world explodes.
the area had looked like a warzone, or that is what tony had said.
natasha is inclined to believe him.
if the avengers had arrived just a few hours, heck maybe even minutes later, she would’ve been dead for sure.
when the cavalry had swooped in they had been greeted by the crashed jet, several dead bodies, and the broken bodies of their allies and friends.
for a terrible second they had thought them dead, steve had confessed hoarsely. the dark shadows under his eyes seemed to support it, and natasha had squeezed his fingers a little bit harder.
the initial surgery on her back had taken an entire night. she’d taken the brunt of the explosion and the flames had burned through her suit, melting the fabric into her skin in some places.
natasha was happy she’d been blissfully unconscious.
even if she hadn't been, the pain would’ve been worth it - her last action had saved yelena’s life.
there was no way yelena would’ve survived another hit of that magnitude, not with her infection and wounds. the doctors said she’d been a millimetre away from entering the doors of the afterlife, having lost almost fifty percent of her blood.
how she’d lived was a medical miracle to some. natasha knew it was more of simple determination and spite.
«turns out you won’t get to slap me after all,» yelena says first thing when she gets out of surgery. «told you i wouldn’t let a stupid infection get me.»
her bold statement is a dark contrast to the myriad of bruises and cuts on her face, and natasha rolls her eyes at her and motions to her own body, covered in bandages. they both looked like they'd been through the gutter, coming out on the other side with a generic zombie costume each. clint had already drawn an ugly little smiley face on the bandage covering her arm.
«once i free myself from this i might get you. you deserve it for being so incredibly stupid.»
yelena levels her with a flat stare, but whatever snarky response she has dies on her lips.
«thank you,» she says earnestly instead.
the sincerity in her voice catches natasha off guard.
«you’d do it for me,» natasha replies after a weighted silence.
«yes,» yelena says without hesitating. «i would.»
natasha sends her a small smile.
«that’s what i’m afraid of.»
a mutual shake of their heads this time - both equally annoyed of the other's willingness to take the hit.
«then we’ll both be living our lives in fear,» yelena concludes.
«when have we ever not?»
the pillow that hits natasha is thrown with incredible accuracy.
some things, it would seem, would never change.