Wingspan
Natasha isn’t sure what exactly made Melina change her mind about warning them, unsure it really matters. The implications of their not-actually-familial relationship feels like it should take a backburner to the very real threat of the greatest evil she had ever faced waltzing through their door, invited.
Daisy. She needs to find Daisy. She’d only seen a fraction of what the girl could do and it was already too much. If the Red Room got Daisy it would be game over. She leaves a guilt-ridden Melina behind, and walks into the room where Daisy had hidden away, understandably, from the chaos that was their “family dinner.”
She’s as straightforward as possible, and Daisy’s reply is about as blunt as can be expected.
“Shit.”
“You’re the priority.” Natasha says, slipping into the tone of a trained specialist unwilling to spend time debating.
“We need to get Yelena out of here.”
Natasha doesn’t repeat herself. “We’ll never make it back to the helicopter in time.”
Daisy watches her evenly, calculating. “So what’s the plan then? Hide? Fight?”
Natasha doesn’t like either of those very vague options. The idea currently in her mind is the worst one. It’s the only one.
“Only one of us needs to stay,” She says carefully.
“What?” Daisy looks at her dangerously.
“Alexei and I can hold their attention long enough so you can get away.”
“That’s not happening.”
“Daisy-”
“No. There’s no way I’m leaving you behind.”
“We don’t have time to argue this. This is our only chance to see where the Red Room operates. Once I see where they’re based we won’t be fighting ghosts anymore.”
Understanding washes over Daisy’s expression, but it doesn’t erase the discontent. “And how do you expect to make it out alive?”
“Melina has a plan.” Natasha asserts with a confidence she’s not quite sure she has. “Take Yelena with you, there’s an ATV in the garage you can take into town, find Oksana. I can handle myself.”
Daisy holds her gaze, her expression screaming distaste, but there’s a layer of fear there too.
“You have to go.” Natasha says, more gently. “Now.”
Something in Daisy caves, and she runs up and hugs her. Natasha tampers down her surprise. It feels- she feels like a kid again, somehow.
Daisy pulls away, “Take this.” She shoves what must have been Yelena’s tracker into her hands. Natasha doesn’t dwell on it. “I repurposed it. Once you know where they’re based, we’ll know too. I’m gonna make some noise far away, lead them on a wrong trail.” She bites her lip slightly. “Don’t die.”
Natasha nods, smiles lightly. “See you soon.”
Daisy holds her gaze for a moment, then rushes towards where Yelena is waking up at the table. Natasha watches as the inhuman drags the barely conscious Yelena out the door.
That left Natasha alone with the traitor and the idiot. Fantastic. She scans the house for Alexei, but doesn’t find him. “He’s in the bathroom.” Melina says from the hallway. She had been watching them, clearly.
“We don’t have time to explain it to him.”
Melina nods, “Hurry up then.”
Natasha sighs, slides off her boots.
***
Daisy slips off her gloves. She focuses her energy on the immediate concerns, breaking them down into a list: get Yelena to the atv, cause a massive distraction far away, and drive towards the nearest town as quickly as possible. She can’t afford to think about the greater issues surrounding it all. Can’t afford to lose control, or lose more family.
May. She thinks, a frantic, anxious thought escaping from her. God, S.H.I.E.L.D. was compromised, her friends were being attacked by nazis, Natasha was about to hand herself over to her abusers, and her other sister was brainwashed, tied up, and barely conscious.
Escape. Distraction. Town.
Soon she’s on the atv. Yelena tied to her back to keep her from falling. They’re barely into the woods when she hears it. The whirring of helicopter blades exploding in her ears, she feels the disturbance in the air, and sees the bright lights. There’s so many of them. She can’t turn back now, she needs to get Yelena to safety. She wonders distantly if Natasha only let her take Yelena because she knew Daisy would never leave unless someone else’s life was also in danger.
She raises her hand, focusing on the trees in the distance, far enough right that she won’t be thought of as the source.
“Control your emotions, use them, on your terms.”
May could be dead by now and the Red Room has Natasha and-
There’s a release of energy so grand it levels the forest beside them. A harrowing, unnatural boom cuts through the air as the trees splinter into pieces. Leaves with nothing to hold onto spray into the air with the kicked up dirt loosened by the vibration-altering blast.
There’s a terrible sense of relief, physical and mental, when the forest falls. Followed by an abject horror of her strength she can’t afford to spend time with. She takes one hand and grasps Yelena’s tightly, pulling the ATV away in the opposite direction of what was now a leveled clearing.
***
Natasha hopes their plan will delay them from finding Daisy. She quietly greets the Red Room soldiers as they fly in, playing the part of Melina.
She watches as her faux-parents are carted away, and wonders if Melina and Alexei felt anything like what she was feeling now when they handed Yelena and her over.
A man in a heavily armored suit she doesn’t recognize approaches her. “And the others?”
“They fled, I couldn’t stop them.”
The man’s modulated voice is neutral, but the words are harsh. “Dreykov will be disappointed.”
“In you, if you don’t find them.” Is her reply. She’s not sure it’s true, but she needs to maintain some level of authority if she’s going to get through this alive.
The man motions for the team to scatter, then, there is a sound like thunder so violent Natasha reaches to protect her ears. She’s not the only one. The armed widows beeline towards the sound.
You can do this, Daisy.
***
Yelena stirred awake to footsteps hitting the hardwood floor. She blinked away the blurry vision that came with first waking up, turning under the covers so she could find the source of the noise.
Masha was sneaking out of the room rather unsuccessfully. It wasn’t morning yet, the windows still black with the night sky. Yelena groaned, normally when Masha woke them up in the middle of the night Yelena would go back to bed, but it didn’t look like her sister had another nightmare. She pulled the sheets off her, letting them fall haphazardly to the ground with a soft woosh.
She followed Masha out of their room. Her twin was sneaking outside, she caught her pulling her bike out onto the road. She furrowed her eyebrows before calling out.
“Where are you going?”
Masha jumped at that, barely managing to keep the bike from falling. She looked at her sadly. “I can’t sleep.”
Yelena scoffed. “So you’re running away?”
“Yeah.” Masha said, as if that made sense.
Yelena crossed her arms. “That’s stupid.”
Masha actually looked mad at that. “Is not! I can’t keep waking you guys up every night. It’s not fair.”
Yelena cocked her head. “It’s not your fault.”
“You’re always mad at me because I wake you up.”
“It’s just, I just get tired. It’s not your fault.”
“But you shouldn’t get tired because of me.”
Yelena went over to her sister and grabbed her hand, pulling her away from the bike. Masha looked confused, but didn’t protest.
“Let’s go to the backyard.” Yelena said with exasperated confidence. She was going to knock some sense into her stupid sister.
They sat in the yard like they had done many times before. Stars above scarcer than usual, covered by hard to see clouds.
“Everyone has nightmares, you know, you’re not special.” Yelena says matter-of-factly.
“Yeah but you don’t wake up the whole house every time.” Masha grumbles. “And at least you remember yours.”
“It’s not a big deal.” Yelena says. “Running away is dramatic.”
Masha smacks Yelena’s shoulder. “I’m not dramatic!”
Yelena giggles. “Yea you are. And it's a good thing you don’t remember your nightmares. Remembering them sucks.”
“What do you remember?”
“Not everything.” Yelena admits. “But I get the same nightmare every time.”
Masha looks at her sympathetically, scooting closer and reaching for Yelena’s hand.
“What is it?” she asks.
“I’m just doing ballet. It’s like a recital or something, but then there’s this big bad evil guy with a gun. And he’s chasing me.”
“That’s awful.”
“And I can’t run. My legs don’t work.” That was when she learned she doesn’t like talking about it. “I don’t know. It’s dumb.”
“It’s not dumb. That’s really scary.”
“Yes well, you’re not the only one with scary nightmares.”
Masha looks almost… embarrassed? “Yours are worse than mine and I’m still the one who makes it everyone’s problem.”
“You’re dramatic.” Yelena repeats, but she’s smiling.
Masha laughs.
“Don’t leave me. That counts as getting all grumpy. And you promised me you wouldn’t get all grumpy.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything.” Yelena says knowingly.
***
Yelena struggles to stay clear-headed. She feels the bounce of a vehicle on an unpaved road. The air blows against her tied-back hair. She can’t quite move her limbs, and she’s tied to- something. She was really tired of waking up like this. She takes a minute to catch her bearings when she notices the brown and gold waved hair in front of her. Great.
“Don’t do anything stupid.” Daisy says, somehow sensing Yelena’s lucidity.
“Too late for that.” She grumbles. “You hit my head without touching it.”
Daisy winces. “Sorry about that.”
“Hm.” The part of Yelena’s brain constantly fighting to complete the mission feels quieter than usual, as if just as slow as the rest of her body.
“That is what makes you so special?”
Daisy doesn’t reply.
She feels herself more willing to entertain her own doubts now. “You said you were Masha?”
At this Yelena can see the woman visibly straighten, she turns back briefly to look at her, eyes filled with a hope and longing Yelena doesn’t really understand before her attention flicks back to the path ahead.
“Yeah. Do you… remember me?”
Yelena isn’t sure she knows the answer to that question herself. Ostensibly she knows she had a family before the Red Room. She knows she spent three of the best years of her life in Ohio, and she knows she had two sisters. But she can’t quite see their faces. The names though, they come back to her slowly. She sees no point in dishonesty.
“Sort of.”
Daisy sighs. “Then you should know I’m going to help you. We’re going to break whatever hold Dreykov has on you.”
A firm voice tells Yelena to abandon ship, but she can’t react to it, as much as she wants to. Something is stopping her.
“You won’t do that.” She says instead. Because what Daisy- Masha(?) is describing is impossible.
They make it to a campsite shortly after. She feels like liquid when Daisy pulls her off the ATV and onto the ground.
“Sorry I didn’t have time to pack much.” She says, handing Yelena a protein bar. Yelena knows she’s not supposed to take food from targets, but at this point… she reaches for it with her bound hands, her stomach instantly growling at the sight of food. Daisy chortles slightly.
“Glad my pain is funny to you.”
“Just good to see that the super spy is a human too.”
“Hm, definitely more than you.”
Daisy eyes her curiously. “Yeah well, we’ve both changed a lot haven’t we?”
And Yelena supposes that’s true, she takes a bite of the bar, it tastes like blueberries. “You know the Red Room is going to find us. Natasha too.”
Daisy stiffens at that, it’s slight, but Yelena notices. “Unless they’ve found her already.”
“She’s trying to save you.”
“She’s trying to save the world from you.” Yelena says poignantly. “She thinks the Red Room is evil, and the Red Room wants you.”
“And you? What do you think? What do you want?”
Yelena doesn’t understand the question. “Whatever they want.”
“That can’t be true.”
“It’s not my job to have desires.”
Daisy looks heartbroken. Yelena is too tired to avoid what that means.
“Why do you care about me?”
“I’m your sister.” Daisy looks incredulous.
“You say that, but I don’t see you in 19 years.”
“You’re hard to find.”
Yelena thinks she hears… guilt?
“Hm.”
Daisy turns to check the perimeter. “You should get some rest. We’ll be on the move in the morning.”
A part of Yelena needs to fight the exhaustion. To fight the woman in front of her. To win.
Another, stronger part of her, is exhausted.
She lets her world go dark.
*
The next morning Yelena feels more clear-headed, and Daisy is less talkative.
She hauls Yelena up to the atv, checks on her ropes, and drives forward.
“Where are we going?” Yelena asks tentatively. Hoping for something she can use to her advantage.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
And soon was perhaps too generous a word, but eventually she does see a tavern. It’s nestled in the outskirts of the city, really mostly forest.
Daisy drags Yelena to the entrance, and immediately puts her hands up, staring at the camera above the door. “My name is Masha Belova.” she says slowly in an unpracticed but understandable Russian. “I need to see Oksana, I need her help.”
The door opens with a gun pointed straight at Daisy. The woman holding it is tan skinned, short dark hair framing her face, she looks familiar somehow. She looks at Daisy with piercing brown eyes, no warmth in them. “Who sent you?” and then she spots Yelena, bound, and a sense of understanding washes over the woman’s face.
No, not just the woman, Ingrid, a defector. Yelena rushes to undo her restraints.
“I heard you have the antidote!” Daisy says frantically, in english this time. “She needs it, now.”
Ingrid hesitates, Yelena rushes for her, a third woman exits the tavern and suddenly everything is red.
There’s dust in her eyes, in her nose, she struggles to see clearly, think clearly.
Her hands don’t feel like her hands. Where am I? Who-
She blinks and there’s a horrible feeling in her gut. She looks to Daisy, and there’s a rush of emotions, she loses her footing, slipping. The woman was her sister. Her twin sister who was taken from them. She should be dead, and Ingrid and Oksana- they had escaped and- where is Natasha and-
“Oh my god.” she says because the rest is all too much.
She’s vaguely aware she’s on the ground, looking up at the sky. And it feels like the sky, like a beautiful expanse of blue. It hits her that she can choose how to feel about the sky, that she can prioritize looking at it right now. So she does. She stares at the blue because she can, and then a face breaks through her vision.
“You’re upside down.” Yelena says, a memory stolen being relived. She thinks she’s smiling, she thinks she wants to cry. “We’re both upside down.”
Tears well in Masha’s eyes, she blinks them away, a smile breaking across her face. Masha hugs her tightly. “I’ve missed you.” Her voice sounds wobbly, like she’s fighting for control over it. “So much.”
Yelena wants to embrace her back, the last of the restraints keeping her from doing so. So she presses her forehead against hers. “I thought you were dead.” She says instead, with a fierce honesty. It’s the first time she’s felt herself allowed to be truly, fully honest with her words. Her words.
“I thought you were dead too.” Masha replies, and she stays in the hug for as long as she can before Yelena relents, craving full freedom again.
“Can you get these ropes off me?”
And Masha lets out something between a laugh and a sob.