Chapter 18
NATASHA’S P.O.V.
The fire from both destroyed trucks did its work and lasted a long time, still burning. Especially with all the fuel. But thankfully, things were quiet aside from the crackle that sounded more like a campfire now. Plus, the four pals were deeper into the trees opposite from the convoy and tower of smoke.
“You make it look so easy.” Yelena commented after observing how fast the little girl had fallen asleep in her mama’s arms.
Natasha smiled and shook her head at the comment. She’d told Clint a while back that the kid had Yelena’s personality. Or, at least, the personality she had when they were children together. Every time she looked at this precious girl, Natasha felt as though she was looking directly at her sister from when they lived in Ohio. The second thing that would come to mind was wondering how Yelena would have turned out if the Red Room hadn’t taken her… the kind of life she’d have had… Natasha couldn’t express well-enough how she wanted that, for this girl to have a life that both sisters were deprived of.
Yelena smiled with admiration. “You’re a natural, Tasha.”
“You are too.” Natasha answered, but she frowned slightly. “She’s always talking about you… These rare moments where we’d have privacy in the Red Room base and in that truck. I asked her to talk about New York, about you and Kate, to distract herself when she got scared on the road. She loves you.”
“It was hard at first.” Yelena admitted. “It still is sometimes… I’ve had a lot of breakdowns myself. Both awake and while sleeping. Not from her, though, but from fear, and…”
“I know.” the former Avenger nodded. “I know because that’s how I was. Did I feel qualified, like I had any idea what to do? After everything I’d done as a black widow? No way. I was terrified at first. I would spend so many nights wide awake, just checking that she was still breathing.” She looked down at the sleeping child, feeling a bit sad as she recalled these particular memories. “I thought everything I did was wrong. I even believed that I would end up hurting her at some point. So I tried really hard not to get attached to her. I wanted to find her a good foster family if I didn’t do a good job. But we learned together and, even if I still wanted to deny it, I just fell in love with the chubby-cheeks baby.” Natasha kissed her daughter’s cheek and sat quietly. “We put things together as we went along… I tried not to think too much, to not miss out on the memories…”
Yelena smiled. She’d never thought of herself raising a child until she met her new niece. She’d always thought those motherly feelings were gone after her involuntary sterilization from the Red Room. But like Kate had told her through Clint, nothing had changed in her. Yelena was always like this even if she didn’t know it before.
"What exactly is her story?" Yelena asked. "I mean, Clint Barton told us as much as he could. We know her parents weren't in a good place, but..."
"I was in charge of an organization for orphaned kids that had lost their parents because of the Blip. Lena's mom came to me asking for help.”
Natasha sat down next to her, readjusting the kid in her arms.
"She didn't have a good feeling about what they were being promised for their baby. It all sounded too familiar, like it was basically the same as my own story. So I investigated it. Whatever this other organization was, they were taking girls from the families that were desperate and would ask them for help… They took advantage of other people’s poverty."
The redhead paused for a while, making sure she got the words out right.
“It was obvious the Red Room was behind all of that. I called her mom, told her not to give them the baby, to bring her to where I was helping kids instead. But I was already too late. I found her and her husband in an alley, planted by agents who staged the cause of death and were now in the wind, looking for her. They had already killed Lena’s dad. Her mom was fatally injured. She…"
As Natasha’s eyes misted with tears, she closed them and let them leak out. Her voice was barely coming out properly due to a bit of trembling that she hoped the child wouldn’t notice.
She continued quietly, "I tried to save her. I… All she asked was for me to take her baby girl and raise her as my own. So I did. After tracking their house again, finding a few widows there who’d just killed the babysitter, I fought them off to get her out. Luckily I had a veil on so they never knew it was me. I took the crying baby from her crib and left… promising that no one would ever hurt her."
Natasha wiped her tears.
“She had a different name at the time, too; Maryna. But when I pulled her out, I knew she couldn’t stay that way or she’d be found. So when it was finally safe to take off that photostatic veil and wig, I did what you did… remade her birth certificate which, when I adopted her, said that her name was Yelena Maryna Romanoff.”
Little Lena must have noticed Natasha’s reactions in her sleep, her words feeding into the kid’s dream with them, because she shifted over and hugged her mama. She lay rubbing her gently with her small hands.
Noticing this, Yelena whispered, “And here I thought comforting her was our job.”
Natasha chuckled as sleepy Lena gave her a gentle rub as if saying she was ok, that they both were.
-/-
YELENA’S P.O.V.
Hugging her big sister, Yelena assured her, "She's safe, Natasha."
"I know she is. She has you in her life now."
"Wait.” She pulled away to look at her, astonished yet again. “You mean you're leaving?" She didn't want to say goodbye. Not again. She couldn’t!
"I have to. I have to take down the Red Room." Tasha answered.
The blonde shook her head, looking back and forth at her and at Kate. "We can do that together. All of us. Not just you. We already ambushed—"
"No. I need you to keep her safe until they're gone for good." Nat told her. "I'll be working from the outside this time. I'll be in touch, okay?"
Yelena wanted to nod to Natasha’s words, but all she could do was look over at her niece, knowing that the little girl wasn’t going to like the news. At least for now she was climbing a rock with Kate watching over her. ‘Let her have just another moment of joy,’ Yelena thought.
“What about Clint Barton?” she pleaded. “You can do it together. Don’t go alone…”
“NO.” Natasha said hastily. Slowing down, she continued with longing, “I love Clint, ok? He’s the closest I have to a brother. I can’t tell you how much I miss him. But there’s no way I’m bringing him into this. We’d be a bigger target together. And as if that’s not bad enough, he saw me die already. So he has to move on. If anything happens to me again, he’d blame himself even if he had nothing to do with it. That’s how it was before, him trying to stop me from that sacrifice to get the Soul Stone. And what if it was the other way around? I couldn’t live with myself. Clint has a family, and that includes all three of you now. I won’t pull him away from living a decent life just so I can have a buddy next to me. One of us could be used for leverage against the other, too. We both know that’s exactly what the other Black Widows would do.”
Even if Yelena didn’t like the idea of being away from her older sister again, she could understand that the little one’s safety was their priority at the moment. But, unlike her, the child would not be able to understand why mama was leaving her again.
“Besides, I’m…” Natasha sighed, quiet enough to make sure the kid couldn’t hear her. “Something happened when I was brought back, ok? Steve put in a lot of effort using that stone and it worked. But I’m not the same as I was. It feels like I’m ‘stretched’ or something. Until I figure this stuff out, I may end up doing more harm than good. I don’t want that for her.”
Yelena didn’t want to believe that for a second. She was looking right at her sister and she seemed a hundred percent the same. But then again, something was off. Whether it came out through her voice or the look in her eyes… Had the resurrection weakened her mind? Made her thicker-skinned or the opposite? Whatever happened to Natasha, if it was enough where SHE was sure it’d have a negative influence near little Lena for now, Yelena trusted her judgment. Did she want to? NO! But she knew better than to try dissuading Natasha Romanoff when she made up her mind about anything.
-/-
Yelena squeezed Natasha’s shoulder reassuringly after the five-year-old had run inside the helicopter, obviously unable to control her emotions. That part was more than understandable. Being moved from place to place—especially guardian to guardian—rapidly, it could have a negative effect on any kid.
“I’ll go talk to her.” Yelena said, turning around and stepping towards the helicopter.
Her niece was sitting next to Kate on one of the seats, looking outside the window with tears already rolling down her cheeks. Yelena praised Kate for trying to comfort her, but it didn’t seem to work. It pained Yelena to see the kid so upset.
“Malyshka?” she called her softly while approaching her. “Come here.” She took the child from the seat and sat on her heels to be eye-level with her. “You’re sad, huh?”
Little Lena nodded in between sobs, her little face pressed against her shoulder as she rubbed circles on the kid’s back hoping that it would calm her down.
“I don’t want Mama to leave.” the little girl murmured. “Not again.”
Just hearing those last two words, ‘not again,’ was a ram to the heart since she knew exactly how the child felt. She’d felt it every day since the news of Natasha’s death, and again now knowing she was alive but had to go.
“I know. I don’t want her to either.” she admitted as well. “But she’s not leaving forever. We can talk to her and see her.” she tried to explain, but when the girl’s quieter (but still awful) cries continued, she sighed. “Besides, you have to introduce her to Fanny and Lucky sometime. So we’ll meet her soon, okay?” She wiped the kid’s tears gently, using the inner side of her gaiter since she was still dirty and smelled like smoke everywhere else. “Do you want to go outside and give mama a big hug? Before we go?”
The child nodded, hiccupping, so Yelena brought her back outside to meet her sister.
Natasha approached them, observing both of them with a look of concern. But when Yelena nodded, her sister took the little girl into her arms, embracing her tightly.
"Shhh, it’s ok. I'll see you, just... just not every day."
“Why?” Lena whimpered. “Don’t leave me.” She buried her face in Natasha’s dark uniform, wrapping her arms around her.
“There are so many little girls just like you who need to be rescued. It’s my job to save them.” Natasha took a deep breath with her eyes shut. When she opened them, she cupped little Lena’s face tenderly and told her, "You're gonna stay with Auntie Lena and Kate, alright?"
With reluctance in her big eyes—reluctance to be separated from her mama AGAIN—Lena looked back at her two besties who were both bruised, scraped and dirty from the fighting they'd just shoved their way through… to get to her, to help her. She looked back at Natasha who gave her an encouraging smile.
“They're your heroes now. They love you so much that they came all the way here to save you. And they’re going to keep you safe.”
Little Lena looked down and nodded.
“So be good for your Aunties, okay?” said Natasha, her daughter nodding slightly.
“I love you, mama.” the little girl whispered.
“I love you, too, baby.” the former Avenger kissed her daughter’s forehead and set her down carefully. “I’ll see you soon.”
The five-year-old slowly walked over to Yelena who led her by the hand towards the helicopter. Lena looked back over her shoulder at Natasha a few times, not wanting her to go. But she was still more or less cooperative as her aunt led her away. She would have probably struggled more if she didn’t love Yelena as much as they all knew she did.
Stepping inside, Yelena said soothingly, “Come on, we’re going home.” With a little excitement in her voice she added, “This time we’re going to FLY back to New York.”
Little Lena looked up at her and then at the cockpit curiously. Noticing this, Kate suggested, “How about she takes my spot? She takes the copilot seat?” With a shrug, she added, “She can’t reach the controls anyway. Long as she’s strapped in, she’ll be fine and gets to see what her cool aunt can do.” Kate smiled with that last remark.
“Keep those so-called pilot licenses handy.” Turning back to the child she said tenderly, “You can sit up front with me.”
She led little Lena to the cockpit and let her sit in the copilot seat that was much too big for her. After Yelena strapped her in tight enough, she put a pair of headsets on her, adjusted them to fit, and got started from the pilot seat. The child’s expression told her she was thinking ‘wow…’ or something in that area as she got the rotors going. It wasn’t long before they were lifted into the air out of the trees, and then moving forward according to the navigation systems.
The five-year-old watched her aunt fly the helicopter and then gazed out the window. The woods and wrecked convoy shrunk as they kept going.