Chapter 2
On one of our very few off days, Wanda convinced me to stay in bed with her and watch everything that caught her eye on Disney+. It wasn’t hard for her to talk me into it, all it really took was her batting her eyes at me and sending a pout my way, but she allowed me to read while we watched as long as I would answer any questions she had. It was cute to watch her slowly fall in love with Stitch and his story, going as far as to try to explain to people in the movie that he wasn’t really bad, he just needed to be taught love. She had a point, but it was still adorable to hear how firm she was in her belief that he wasn’t mean or bad. I couldn’t help but smile every time she huffed in annoyance over someone not understanding Stitch. When the movie ended and she was sniffling, trying to control her tears, she scooted herself even closer to me, seeking comfort before starting the next movie.
“Natty…” Wanda asked with a small voice.
“Hm?” I hummed, not taking my eyes off my book.
“Do you think… It’s kinda dumb… But do you think we could go to Build-A-Bear someday?” She asked, her eyes avoiding me at all costs.
“First, nothing you ask is ever dumb. Nothing. Second, you’ve never been?” I asked with a frown.
“You have?” She asked, matching my surprise.
“Yeah. During my first mission being stationed in the States. I got a bear that reminded me of my sister and told no one.” I admitted with a breathy laugh.
“You have a sister?” She asked with a frown building on her face.
“I did. She um… We weren’t related biologically or anything. But when we were young, we were placed in the States to help our ‘parents’ be a convincing American family while they worked on stealing information to help the Russian government. It sounds silly but in the time we spent together, we grew close. When we completed our mission, they decided to separate us, saying that we’d gotten too close to each other and that it would only hurt our effectiveness in the future. As you know, nothing was supposed to come before a mission, and a strong bond like the one we had, would certainly do that. I proved that by pulling a gun on them when they tried to take her away.” I said sadly.
“What happened to her?” She asked, tears welling in her eyes.
“Moya milaya, we went on with our lives. I always felt a small hole in my life without her and though I couldn’t show it, I thought of her constantly. Even going as far as to pray that we would accidentally be assigned to the same mission so I could see that she was okay for myself. Before I met you… Clint and I spent years trying to find her, I needed to give her the chance he gave me. I never stopped thinking about her and loving her. But we… We were given intel that she’d been killed in action, a result of her showing weakness by helping another widow that had been injured. She put someone above her mission and the result of that was always fatal. But that was Yelena. She did things her way and until that point, it had always worked out for her. But this time, there was no room for her weakness in their eyes. Tony got a headstone for her to put on the property, giving me a way to mourn her in my own time. I still… I have pictures of us from our mission in Ohio if you want to see?” I asked, unsure of how Wanda would react to the sad news I just told her.
“I’ve never seen a picture of you where you weren’t an adult.” She mused softly.
“Is that a yes?” I asked with a gentle laugh.
“Only if it’s okay with you…” She said, sensing that there may be a reason she didn’t know any of this before today.
I slid out of bed, much to Wanda’s displeasure, and made my way to my desk. There were very few things I didn’t allow Wanda to go through, but my desk was off-limits. Her way of organizing might work for her brain, but I needed my things to be the way I wanted them if I wanted to get mission reports done quickly and accurately. But the place where I kept my picture with Yelena was in my desk. In a way it made me feel like she was helping me erase the red in my ledger. Hell, being loved by Wanda made me feel like she was the one doing the erasing. But it was the only way I could think of to allow her to also atone for the things she’d done as a widow since she couldn’t do it herself. After grabbing the ripped picture, I made my way back to bed and plopped down on the bed, folding my legs under myself and handing Wanda the picture only for her to crawl closer to me and pull me down to lay on the bed with her. I watched as a smile grow on her face. It was small and gentle, one that only I had the privilege of seeing. After a few moments, her eyes met mine again and I had no idea what she was going to say.
“Thank you, for telling me about her and showing me this. It doesn’t matter how long you two were together or if you were blood-related or not. You clearly loved her and still do. She’s your sister.” She said, her words feeling like a gentle hug.
“Thank you for listening,” I said with a smile.
“Nat?” Wanda asked quietly.
“Yes?” I asked.
“I’m really glad you got out of all of that widow stuff safely.” She whispered, hand mindlessly tracing over where my scar was from my involuntary hysterectomy.
“Safely may be a stretch. But I did make it out, and because of that, I met you. And believe it or not, you saved me. We were both at our lowest when we met and you helped to bring me out of that low without even trying. Because of that, I wanted nothing more than to do the same with you. I made it my mission and I considered it to be complete when you smiled at me for the first time, allowing it to meet your eyes. Nothing could compare to how beautiful that smile is.” I said gently.
“Nat…” She whined with a blush.
“The biggest point that I’m trying to make here is… I will happily bring you to Build-A-Bear. Let me get our coats and we can head out shortly.” I said, dropping a kiss on the top of her head.
“Wait, now?!” She asked in disbelief.
“Of course. Unless you didn’t really want to go…?” I asked slowly.
“No! I do! I’ll get dressed!” She said frantically as she clambered out of bed.
I laughed as she flew around the room figuring out which clothes she wanted to wear for the special occasion. She was on a mission to look her best for her first time meeting her new forever friend and I couldn’t really blame her for it. I got out of bed much slower and made my way to the dresser to get changed probably much faster than Wanda would. My clothes blended into our clothes quickly after we started to spend time together. She told me it was because when she was wearing my clothes for her first battle with us, my smell that lingered on them was what brought her comfort and made her feel safe. There was no way to deny her that comfort after she said that, not unless I had no heart at all. While that’s what I’d prefer for the world to think when they thought about me, it wasn’t who I really was and I couldn’t help but give into her smallest of requests. After another ten minutes of changing her outfits, Wanda was finally ready to go to the mall. It happened to be one of my least favorite places to go, but I wouldn’t let Wanda’s first experience with Build-A-Bear be by ordering one online. I wanted her to have the entire experience. We let Pietro know where we were going and he sent me an appreciative smile before nodding and telling us to have fun. He also asked that we pick him up a new video game that had just come out. It was something I’d gladly do with Tony’s card, though it made more sense for him to just buy it as a digital copy and not the actual game, I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that. For the entire drive to the mall, Wanda sat in the passenger seat, practically vibrating with her excitement but doing her best to contain it. When we came to a red light, I could see bright red wisps of magic swirling around her fingers, something that happened when she was doing her best to control her emotions but didn’t have a firm grasp on them. Her eyes were flickering between her normal calm green and her signature scarlet color and the only thing I could think to do was reach over and thread our fingers together before I continued to drive.
I was met with a sigh of contentment and she was finally able to calm herself down enough to keep her powers at bay. But that didn’t stop her from rolling a ball of magic around on the top of my hand. I’d once been scared of her magic, but that was only because of how I was introduced to it. Seeing it this way, being used with no malice, and allowing myself to just feel the energy as it moved across my skin was actually soothing. We’d had plenty of conversations about her magic in the past, most of them lacked composure on my end initially, but I ended up coming around to the idea that it wasn’t evil when I saw the way it tore her up inside to know that her powers had caused people to lose their lives. She never meant to hurt them and she saved more people than she hurt, but that was the first time I began to trust that they weren’t only for causing pain. When we pulled up to the mall, the only rule I had was that Wanda needed to hold my hand the entire time. The last thing I needed was for her to wander off and get lost in a place that could have people that didn’t like her, simply for being who she was. The idea was hard to accept, but I knew it was possible. People still didn’t like me and I’d saved the planet plenty of times that they should like me. Walking into the store and watching Wanda’s face light up when she saw a Stitch option made everything worth the risk of running into people like that though. She flew around the store, showing me all of the clothes that she wanted to get for him and I couldn’t help but smile. One of the workers helped her fill Stitch with stuffing and pick out an outfit to go home in while I cringed seeing the bear they made to resemble me. Everyone else that had one looked cute and then there was mine, giving children everywhere a reason to fear me. They hadn’t made one for Wanda yet, but I knew that when they did, I would order one immediately. It wasn’t often that we weren’t together for a mission, but on the off chance that missions like that came up, I would have the bear to remind me of her. It was something I couldn’t wait to buy and I knew Pietro would want to see a version of himself as well. We found a total of ten outfits for Stitch before checking out and making our way to get Pietro his game. Tony would never complain about us using the card for these things, but he would give us a hard time as he always did. Thankfully, Pepper would remind him of ridiculous things he spent money on and he would be left asking her why she’s never on his side. Wanda didn’t stop hugging her new friend the entire drive back to the compound, a bright smile plastered on her face. We made it back and Pietro appeared and disappeared in a flash after getting his new game, calling out his appreciation before disappearing completely. I laughed freely before ushering Wanda into the compound, carrying the bag filled with outfit choices for Stitch.
“Come on, let’s go get Stitch all settled in and introduce him to all of your other stuffed animals,” I said softly.
“You mean your stuffed animals?” She asked with a giggle.
“I was waiting for you and now I find you playing house instead of finding me?” A voice I hadn’t heard in years asked, causing me to whip my head around in surprise.
“She hasn’t been playing house, Yelena. She spent years looking for you and trying to find you. We had it on good faith that you had been killed. The only reason I found you was because Melina heard that you were still alive and where you’d be on a mission. She didn’t tell Natasha because she didn’t want her to risk getting hurt if she wasn’t right. So she told me and asked me to just observe and see if it was true. The plan wasn’t for you to get shot and need to be brought back here, but that’s where we are now.” Clint said with a sigh.
“Natasha? Is that… Is he telling the truth?” She asked, her frown painfully sad.
“Sestra?” I asked, fighting off my tears.
“Nat?” Wanda asked softly, grabbing the hem of my shirt.
“It’s okay, detka. That’s… This is Yelena.” I said in disbelief.
“But I thought… Earlier you said…” She whispered, clearly only focused on me at this moment because she’d missed everything Clint said.
“I was wrong, baby. She’s here and she’s safe.” I said, feeling tears roll down my cheeks.
“Clint and a very annoying girl brought me here against my will. They promised me that you would be here and when you weren’t…” Yelena said quietly.
“You thought it was a trick. I’m here, and I promise you that it is safe here.” I said with a sniffle.
“Who is the woman clinging to your arm?” She asked, eyes settling on Wanda.
“This is Wanda. My girlfriend.” I said, trying to calm the nerves I could tell were building in Wanda.
“I always knew you were gay,” Yelena said with the same raspy laugh that I thought I’d never hear again.
“Wait… You said the annoying girl. Clint, where is Kate? Wands wanted to show her the island she built in Animal Crossing.” I said, not wanting Wanda to feel like she had to stay in this situation if she didn’t want to.
“Peter and the kid were arguing about something the last time I saw them.” He said with an eye roll.
“Detka, why don’t you go find Kate and bring her to our room to show her your island? I’ll get this sorted and come get you once everything is figured out.” I said softly, turning to Wanda.
“You promise you’ll be okay?” She asked with a small pout.
“I promise you. I’ll show you everything later, okay?” I asked, hopeful this would get her to agree.
“Okay. It was nice to meet you, Yelena.” She said quietly.
“Wanda,” Yelena said with a smile and a nod in Wanda’s direction.
I watched Wanda walk out of the room and knew that she was going to be okay. Kate was one of the best people to help distract her from worrying too much about what was happening in this room without her. She would be busy showing her the island we lost sleep to create for at least an hour and for once, I was thankful for the loss of sleep. A silence settled in the room while Clint decided to give us privacy and left as well, muttering something about needing to call Laura to let her know where he was. I had so many things I wanted to say to Yelena but I had no clue where to start.
“So… Wanda, huh?” She asked with a smirk.
“Shut up,” I grumbled, pulling her in for a bone-crushing hug.
“I’ve never seen you like this.” She commented, sounding short on air but not complaining.
“Weak?” I asked with a snort as I let her go.
“Relaxed. You were always worried about something when we were kids. Mainly me and being sent back to the Red Room. But this… Seeing you so naturally relaxed and happy is nicer than I thought it could be.” She said, her eyes softening.
“The last thing I wanted was for you to be put into the same thing I was. I… I tried so hard to keep them from taking you.” I said, fighting off more tears.
“I haven’t forgotten you pulling a gun on those men, Nat. You were eleven and still tried to keep me safe. You and Melina did nothing but protect me every chance you could.” She said with a small frown.
“I tried so hard to get you out, to find you and offer you the same freedom that Clint gave me,” I said quietly.
“Does Melina know about Wanda?” She asked with curiosity.
“I haven’t spoken to her since we got word that you were dead. It… It was my own fault but it was too hard. Seeing her and speaking to her only reminded me of you. It reminded me of how she really was a mother to us. We were a gift she never expected to get, she was finally able to have children with us. We may have been stationed in Ohio for a mission, but she chose to make sure we experienced a real childhood while we were there. So every time I saw her face all I could think about was the nights we spent in the backyard looking up at the stars together, baking cookies for a school bake sale, and how many times you made us listen to American Pie.” I said with a sad smile.
“I want to see her. And I think that you should introduce her to Wanda. If she really means as much as it seems like she means to you.” She said gently.
“Let’s work on getting you settled in here. There are plenty of rooms for you to choose from and Tony will spare no expense getting you anything you could want or need. Once we do that, I’ll reach out to her and get her here.” I said softly, not wanting to risk losing her again.
“You’ve always been such a worrier. But I can agree to those terms.” She said with her crooked smile.
“And clearly far easier to read than I used to be. But thank you.” I said with a sigh.
“Can I ask you a question?” She asked softly.
“Anything you want,” I said quickly.
“What did you mean when you told her that you would show her everything later?” She asked with curiosity.
“Wanda and her twin brother, Pietro, were tested on and made into mutants by HYDRA experimenting on them. Baron Strucker to be exact. As a result of those experiments, her powers were created and amplified to be used for war. She has many abilities and we don’t understand the full scope of them yet, but one thing she can do is read minds with consent. So sometimes it’s easier to just show her what she missed instead of trying to explain it all.” I explained.
“Of course, you ended up with someone that was as poked and prodded as we were.” She said with a light chuckle.
We continued to talk about what Yelena had been through and everything she’d missed in my life. She didn’t waste any time teasing me about my short-lived fling with Bruce. Her teasing turned into threatening when I told her how things ended and those threats dissipated when I said that his leaving was right around the time I’d met Wanda. I told her the entire story, telling her about how Wanda had shown up to battle wearing my clothes and that was all I needed. She couldn’t help but laugh, enjoying the stories I told her. When she told me the story about how she defected, I could feel my heart clenching in my chest, guilt flooding me. Logically, there was nothing I could have done to help her and there was nothing I could do now, but I felt guilty that I was living a life like this while she was fighting to stay alive every day. The guilt subsided when she started to tease me and ask when I was going to marry Wanda or if I thought about kids with her. The truth was that I was still learning that I wasn’t the monster that the Red Room made me into. Wanda helped me realize that every day and I knew that she wanted kids eventually. It just hadn’t been something I’d allowed myself to realistically think about with her. But somehow with Yelena asking the question, kids didn’t seem like an insane thing for me to want. We continued to talk about everything we could think of, wanting to catch up on everything we possibly could even though now we had all the time in the world to do so. She told me she still had the picture I’d given to her before we were separated and I confirmed that I did as well, making her light up with a smile I hadn’t seen since there were teeth missing from it. It was so easy to lose track of time when someone seemingly came back from the dead, but apparently we’d taken too long for Wanda.
“Natty!” Wanda squealed as she raced into the room, Kate not far behind.
“Yes, moya lyubov'?” I asked before she crawled into my lap.
“Kate doesn’t want me to tell people but her favorite movie is The Little Mermaid.” She said with a giggle.
“And why wouldn’t Kate want people to know that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow in Kate’s direction.
“Because it’s not badass…” Kate grumbled.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, waiting for her to correct her wording.
“It’s not cool.” She said with a sigh.
“And who decided that?” I asked, tickling Wanda’s sides.
“Clint,” Kate said, rolling her eyes.
“Oh? And Wanda didn’t happen to say anything about it?” I asked with curiosity.
“Natty…” Wanda whined.
“Oh no, I don’t wanna hear that right now. Kate, did Wanda make any comments?” I asked, ignoring Wanda’s grumbles.
“She said it was silly that that was my favorite movie when I was an Avenger in training.” She said with a huff.
“Oh did she? Detka? Is this true?” I asked, pulling Wanda’s chin up to look at me.
“Maybe.” She said, squirming in my lap.
“Wanda,” I said firmly.
“Fine. Yes. But just because it seemed silly that it was her favorite.” She said with a sigh.
“Would you like for me to tell her your favorite movie?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.
“No…” She said quietly, a nervous look flashing across her face.
“Right then. Apologize to Kate for making fun of her.” I said, shaking my head while Yelena sent me an amused look.
“I’m sorry I made fun of you Kate,” Wanda mumbled in annoyance.
“Wands,” I said, clearing my throat to let her know that wasn’t good enough.
“I shouldn’t have made fun of you for a movie that brings you comfort and I’m sorry I let Clint be a bad influence on me.” She said quietly.
“I’ll accept that. Kate?” I asked with a shrug.
“I mean, the first one was good with me, but yeah, for sure, I’ll take that one too.” She said with a small smile.
“Perfect. Now, it looks like we’re going out again, but this time we get Steve’s truck. Who wants to come with Yelena and me to shop for her room? Ice cream will be involved.” I said with a smile.
Both Wanda and Kate raised their hands and I laughed knowing that was going to be the answer. Yelena just watched everything in amusement but said nothing. The next thing I knew, we were all piling into Steve’s truck and making our way back to the mall to go shopping for things Yelena would need to help her feel more comfortable living with us at the compound. On the drive, Wanda grew more comfortable with Yelena and started to talk her ear off. To her credit, Yelena took it all in stride and answered every question Wanda asked. She delighted in telling her stories about when we were kids, and as much as I wanted to roll my eyes, it was nice to see them getting along the way they were. The way I had always hoped they would get along. I could only hope that things would go this well with Wanda meeting Melina for the first time.