Chapter 1
Natasha is startled awake by a particularly loud boom of thunder and immediately gets up to check on her girls. Annika and Nicola shuffle in and the youngest come in right after them before she can do so. She gathers all of them in her arms as best she can, pressing kisses to their foreheads. She flicks on the lamp only to have the power go out seconds later, eliciting whines and shrieks.
"Fuck." She curses under her breath, rummaging around for a flashlight. She flicks it on and they sigh in relief, comforted slightly by the light.
It's then when she realizes Tallulah's absence and asks where she is. Holland responds that she's downstairs and refuses to come no matter how much she insists.
Natasha sighs. "Alright. Hold each other close, I'll be back."
She goes downstairs to find Tallulah peeking through the blinds, clutching a small knife. She refrains from asking for the knife, understanding that she probably felt unsafe.
"Hey, Lula." She says, announcing her presence.
Tallulah startles at her words but says nothing, gripping the knife impossibly harder. Now Natasha knows something's up, she would have known she was there way before she announced her presence.
"What are you doing down here, anyway? Holland said you wouldn't come. The thunder is really loud, I bet you're probably scared."
Natasha anticipates her response.
She huffs. "I am made of marble."
Natasha decides not to argue with her on that, knowing she wouldn't back down from her claim if she was in a bad head space. "Lula, come upstairs. Everyone's in my room."
"Are they safe?" Tallulah asks, facing her.
Now she's starting to understand the issue. "Of course. No one's coming to hurt us, we're always safe here."
She faces the window again, her face blank. "They're more likely to come here in the rain. We won't be able to hear them. I have to keep them safe. I have to keep you safe."
Natasha frowns. She can tell her mind is somewhere else. So she tries something she's only seen Holland and Tallulah do and grabs her hand and asks her to look into her eyes. Tallulah flinches before meeting her eyes and visibly relaxing.
"Angel, it's not your job to protect me. It's my job to protect you."
Tallulah nods, taking in her words before looking back out into the rain. "I couldn't protect mama. They killed her in the rain."
Natasha almost forgets how to breathe.
"I didn't even know she was alive until two years after they took me. Dreykov killed her and made me watch." She says his name like a curse, and they both know it is after all the shit he's done.
Natasha wants to throw up. She didn't know that. As far as she knew, Delilah just died on a mission. Wrong place, wrong time. No matter how far she looked into it, that was all she could figure out because everything else was redacted.
Then Tallulah looks back up at Natasha. "I won't let them hurt my sisters and I won't let them kill you. I won't let them take you away from me."
Tallulah was waiting for someone to come and rip everything away from her. Again. The fact that she was anticipating it brings tears to her eyes.
Natasha wraps her arms around Tallulah and gently rocks her side to side, willing her tears not to fall. "Dreykov is dead, remember? No one can take us away from each other. Ever. I won't let them, Tallulah."
Tallulah whines and wraps her arms around Natasha, letting out a sob. "You're mine. You're my mother. Don't leave me."
Fuck. Willing herself not to cry never seems to work.
"I won't, angel. I promise." She manages through tears.
"They wouldn't let me go to her." She sobs, gripping the back of Natasha's shirt.
"I'm sorry." Natasha breathes out, rubbing her back.
Because she is. She's sorry she wasn't there to save Delilah and she's sorry she wasn't there to save them sooner. And then she can't help but think of a scared little seven year old Tallulah, waiting for her mother to come back. Then she realizes just how much Tallulah, and probably Holland, were waiting for her to come after Delilah was killed and she didn't.
You weren't there.
The thought only makes her cry harder.
The amount of time it takes for her to console Tallulah (and herself) brings the rest of her girls downstairs, eyeing her and their second youngest sister with great concern as they settle on the couch.
Natasha guides Tallulah to the couch and she sits in her lap, Holland at her side, Aurelia pressed up against Holland and Inessa stretched out in both of their laps as Holland idly plays with her hair. Annika and Nicola sit pressed against her other side as she tells the six of them stories about her and Yelena as kids. She almost ventures off into talking about Delilah. But after the conversation she had with Tallulah she decides against it, knowing it'll only upset the both of them.
They fall asleep but she can't, flooded by memories and the thought of Delilah and her cruel end.
Just thinking about her hurts. Like, physically makes her chest hurt and digs an even deeper hole in the Delilah shaped space her heart used to have.
She didn't know how much she missed her until Tallulah came along. The way Tallulah will stare out the window and smile to herself or paint her nails just to peel it off and the way her laugh is that same cackle Delilah used to do. They're the same in so many ways and it reminds her that she had pretty much pushed the thought of Delilah away entirely instead of "processing her grief" like Clint, Maria and Bobbi kept pestering her about.
But it hurt so she didn't. She realizes that she still doesn't. Because she knows that processing everything will hurt more than anything.
She never wanted it to be true, still doesn't, and yet it is.
How is she supposed to deal with that?
She doesn't know and just thinking about it piled on top of what Tallulah told her makes her head hurt.
Why is the thought of it all so exhausting? Is this what processing grief feels like? Oh fuck, it gets worse, doesn't it?
She falls asleep without an answer and when she wakes up the next morning to find Tallulah humming a song Delilah would sing all the time, she goes up to her room and cries.
Because she's gone.
Fuck processing grief when it hurts this bad.