“You weren’t really my sister.”
Her mind was cluttered, she was not thinking through the words coming out of her mouth. Natasha wanted more than anything to take back what she said, as despite averting her eyes from Yelena, she can taste the pain in the air, pain from the words she said.
Her heart stuttered as she waited for Yelena’s retaliation – and she hates that she doesn’t know the blonde enough anymore to anticipate what her response might be.
She internally sighed in relief when the blonde seemed to have let her words slide off – and she was constantly trying to fight the urge to exclaim how she wanted to take back her words, ease the hurt she inflicted.
“Yelena.” The blonde shook her head as she continued towards the room, hiding herself from them. Natasha felt stuck, trapped. She wanted to leave all these behind, move on, because they are all suffocating. They’re making her feel intense emotions – longing, guilt, regret, anger – and she had lived for years without them and she had been fine .
“Where are you going?” Melina asked the minute she stood up.
“To do this on my own.” She was also convincing herself to leave, but every step she took felt wrong. In the back of her mind, she knew why: she was leaving Yelena again.
But she was certain that this time, that it was the right thing to do… to give her little sister the life she deserves, far from danger now that she’s free to finally heal.
“You can’t. You’ll die,” and it took everything in Natasha to not shout that she already was dying . Every step she takes felt like killing herself because she feels suffocated, yet she’s not so sure whether leaving the fucking farm – far away from them – would give her the air her lungs needed.
Now that she knows they’re all alive , the years she grieved for them and somewhat healed, all went down the drain. They’re all standing in front of her – hurting too, in their own, dysfunctional ways – and this could have, should have happened a long time ago.
But it didn’t.
And Natasha felt robbed of time.
Her body ached, as she fell countless times over the last 24 hours it’s a fucking miracle she was still standing. She looked around for the blonde that was ahead of her before, wondering whether she was able to lead the widows away from the Red Room’s destruction.
There were Dreykov’s men that intercepted her, and after taking down the last one, she looked up.
Yelena was at the top of the helicopter – and in a half a second, after seeing the unmistakable figure of Dreykov inside the aircraft, she finally felt the destruction happening within her… this time.
The batons all out – Yelena smiled at her.
She did not even know whether she said something, her body was taken over with horror. And she wondered – with all the unnamed blood dripping from her ledger, was this the atonement waiting for her?
The suffering she deserves.
“This was fun!” The words rang in her mind, an explosion louder than that of the one that finally killed Dreykov.
Everything was happening too slow and she wondered whether it was possible to manipulate time and if it was, she wanted to go back a few minutes before, replay the smile on Yelena’s face –
… the last one she saw.
It was the first time she failed. Natasha let herself fall after to save the blonde yet Antonia caught her before she could reach Yelena –
Yelena was the first to fall between the two of them, like when they were kids and she wanted so badly to be wrong this time.
She wasn’t.
Natasha half heartedly fought the woman that has constantly haunted her dreams, and she fought the instinct to avenge her sister.
It should have been satisfying to free Antonia from mind control, it should have erased the guilt that gnawed her insides since her defection – it didn’t. All she can feel was loss before she even saw the subject of her loss.
Natasha looked around in desperation, chest heavy, already knowing what to anticipate this time. She kept shouting and looking around and it seemed impossible with all this land –
She let out a cry, feeling the quake in the ground as the Red Room finally crashed… and there was a destructive feeling within her too as her eyes landed on the white figure lying so still –
She ran and knelt down, framing Yelena’s unmoving face between her shaking hands. Blood coated her blonde locks and Natasha never saw something so wrong in her entire life.
“Yelena, wake up. Sestra, please,” She rushed out, searching for some flutter, a sign that she’s at least barely okay – but okay still to live – yet there was nothing. Deep down she knew there was no hope anymore as her mind kept replaying Yelena free-falling…
She pressed her forehead against the unmoving blonde and she hated how there were no faint puffs of breath brushing her face. It made her cry even more, mind reeling over all the unsaid words that could be said… words that will remain unheard ‘til the end of time.
“It was real to me too,” she whispered brokenly, closing her eyes, only for Yelena to invade her mind, replaying the last clear picture of her sister – minutes before plunging to her death.
The broken, half whistle had never been so loud throughout the land.
Natasha hates how Yelena did not do things halfway – the last one to enter the Red Room, the best child assassin, the first one to fall –
the first one to die in their pretend family.
Natasha stared into the depths of the cliff, caught up in her mind – or Yelena’s last smile, rather. She knows how this will go, and it was real – there was peace before death.
While it was true that there was an epiphany right before dying, it wasn’t true that the epiphany was a justification of all her deeds in life. Her peace came from an overwhelming impulse – one she knows she would not regret, especially if there was even an after life.
So she fought – and she knows that Clint knows she was going to win either way. But he still was a good guy, and aside from the need to follow Yelena to the other side, there were still people Natasha held close to her heart. The Bartons.
And while her jump was driven by the need to see her sister again – a blind hope she just recently discovered upon learning the inevitable for her and Clint – it was also about the fact that this was a way for Clint to see his family again…
… and a chance to clean her ledge just a smudge.
“It’s okay.” And she meant it – with slight desperation – because she can’t wait for her unsaid words to be heard by the one person she wanted to tell those to.
She heard Clint’s cry as she was free falling – and she embraced the impact, finally feeling the very definition of irony.
As she crashed, she felt the constant ache she’s been feeling for years since the Red Room was taken down, leave her body.
Natasha smiled when the blonde-haired girl she’s been wanting to see again for years pulled her, laughing – going somewhere she’s yet to know but will whole-heartedly follow.