Chapter 2
She's able to keep herself together (or more correctly, push things down) for a few days before everything goes to shit.
She wakes up way too early feeling like she isn't real. There's a heavy weight in her chest and she honestly wants to curl into herself and die. The fact that she has other people living with her doesn't even cross her mind before she descends into sobs, knowing she won't be able to put this off any longer.
Fuck. She won't be able to put this off any longer. Meaning she has to think about Delilah.
She's actually pissed. Pissed at Delilah for leaving her.
But she can't really be mad, can she? If it weren't for her, Delilah would still be here and Tallulah might have two mothers instead of one.
She cries so hard she gives herself a headache and finds herself puking her guts out at four in the morning. She pretty much jumps out of her skin when the door opens, forgetting she lives with other people and reaching for a weapon that isn't there.
"Mama? Are you okay?" A tiny voice asks. Inessa.
And then she's pulled from her jumbled thoughts and confronted with the worried faces of her daughters.
Because you live with other people, remember?
"Yeah." She swallows, trying to rid her voice of it's wobbliness. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Except she's not. She needs Delilah. How has she survived the past seven years without her anyway?
"You sure? It sounded like you were...crying." Holland says, and edge of tiredness to her voice.
Natasha reassures her girls that she's fine as best as she can as guilt flows through her for waking them up so early for her childish needs and then lying to them. Because she is very much not fine.
That point is again proven as they return to their rooms and she hauls herself off of the floor down the stairs and fills a glass with water.
Except her hands won't stop fucking shaking as she sways in place, and the glass falls from her grip and shatters onto the floor.
She resists the urge to slam her head into a wall and instead groans in frustration, picking up the shattered glass without a second thought.
Nicola's concerned voice pierces the silence, Annika just as bothered beside her. "Ma, what are you doing? You'll cut yourself."
They soak up the water with paper towels and sweep up the shards of glass, interrogating her when they're done.
She insists that she's fine and tells them to return to bed, returning to her own bedroom.
Knowing that she would not sleep, she sits beside her bed instead, unsure of how to rid herself of these frustrating emotions and back to normal.
Her voice shakes as she whispers to herself that pain only makes her stronger, those words she's lived by since Melina told her all those years ago.
Pain only makes you stronger.
Pain only makes you stronger.
Pain only made you stronger.
But it didn't, did it? Because missing Delilah at that very moment, curled up on the floor next to her bed, she felt weak.
This is not supposed to happen. Natasha Romanoff is strong. She's resilient and stubborn and she doesn't curl into a ball and cry at little inconveniences such as death. She's better than that. Death happens to everyone and it will one day happen to her.
So why does it make her so sad?
Deciding that she wouldn't figure it out on her own and didn't necessarily want to try, she hesitantly calls Clint, recalling the times she, Clint, Bobbi, Maria, and Delilah would cram into the biggest part of the vents and talk. About the nightmare or trigger that led them there or the thing bothering them or mundane daily life anecdotes, all while munching on a bunch of American junk food Clint insisted she and Delilah try. Sometimes they wouldn't talk at all, content to be in the presence of one another and nothing else.
She needed a distraction right now, something to get her mind off of death for a second.
He doesn't pick up.
She tries the next best thing and calls Maria, knowing she'd be up at that hour or hasn't gone to sleep at all, refusing to do so until paperwork had been done.
She doesn't answer.
Natasha tries not to cry as she dials Bobbi's number, who, admittedly she hasn't talked to in a while since S.H.I.E.L.D isn't the only thing occupying her time.
She hopes for someone to talk to because this isn't going to work. Feeling like this simply will not do.
So she caves and calls Yelena, feeling waves of guilt pass through her as she dials her baby sister's number at this early of an hour.
She almost cries in relief when Yelena picks up, unable to hold back a sob.
"Natasha? What's going on, are you okay?" Her sister's sleepy voice asks, laced with concern.
Natasha can't do much but cry, unable to voice her emotions.
"Nattie, deep breaths. Talk to me." Yelena sounds more alert, awaiting an answer from Natasha.
Natasha is able to slow her breathing and stop crying long enough to speak. "I-I'm okay. I just need to hear someone's voice."
Yelena asks her again if she's okay, probably because her older sister calling her crying over the phone was an indication that she's not.
Natasha insists that she is and Yelena hesitantly starts to talk. She talks about her girls and reminisces on their days in Ohio. Because fake or not, their sisterhood was real and Natasha's glad it still is.
"I'm sorry for calling, Lena. I didn't mean to burst into tears." Natasha lets out a watery laugh.
"Don't be sorry, Natasha." Yelena says sincerely. Her next words are hesitant. "You know you can tell me anything, right? I'll always listen."
Natasha nods, forgetting her sister can't hear her. "I know."
"Good, because I know you're stubborn and hate asking for help. I just want to make sure you're okay before I hang up. Are you?"
"I'm okay." She promises, the two trading "i love you"s before hanging up.
Natasha barely remembers climbing back into bed and falling asleep.
She wakes up hoping her little breakdown last night was the last of it, that she'll really be okay after that.
Then she goes downstairs and greets her girls and notices that Tallulah looks a lot more like Delilah than before. Or is that just her?
The teen catches her staring. "What? Is there something on my face?"
Natasha's face crumples and she shakes her head. "No...just thought I saw something."
Tallulah frowns but nods, turning her attention back to the television.
Believe her, Natasha tries so hard to hold back tears, but she's been on a bit of a crying streak and it apparently hasn't ended because she bursts into tears at the kitchen sink and storms upstairs before her girls can ask questions.
Fuck. What is wrong with her?
Tallulah doesn't know what the hell just happened. Did she do something to make her mother upset?
"Wait, what happened?" Holland asks for clarification, just as confused at their other sisters.
Tallulah swallows. "I-I don't know. She kinda just looked at me and started crying."
Holland tilts her head. "She what?"
Tallulah sighs because she knows what's coming. "Holland, it's fine. She-she probably didn't mean anything by it."
But Tallulah's voice wobbles and Holland's expression softens. "You're right, Lula. She was off last night."
"Yeah, and then she dropped a glass and picked it up with her bare hands." Annika chimes in.
"She kept saying she was fine but I don't think she is." Nicola adds on, her face twisted in thought.
"She called Yelena last night." Aurelia pipes up. "I wasn't eavesdropping!" She adds when they look at her with skepticism.
Holland laughs. "Right, right. You very obviously were, but that's good. We can call her, she'll know what's wrong."
So they do, they call Yelena only to find out she was just as in the dark as she was. They tell her about Natasha spontaneously bursting into tears and she hums in acknowledgement, telling them that she'd be over in a few hours.
Tallulah paces the floor of the living room as they anxiously await Yelena's arrival, thinking of what else she can do to improve her mother's mood.
Then she remembers a name, then two, then two numbers that have probably gone out of service in the last ten years (she hopes not). She repeated their names and numbers day after day until she memorized them in the highly unlikely case she and Holland managed to escape instead of Natasha coming to save them.
"Lulu, what are you thinking?" Inessa questions, noticing the look on her face.
She sighs. "I dunno. It's probably not going to work. We have Yelena, anyway."
"What are you talking about?" Holland asks.
Tallulah explains what she's thinking as best as she can, which still ends with her sister's giving her confused looks.
"So you want to call her friends? You really could've just led with that." Nicola surmises.
Tallulah shrugs. "I had to explain everything."
She sees the unsure looks on her sister's faces and reassures them that they can be trusted because her mother wouldn't have told her about them if they couldn't. She was sure about this, and if they couldn't figure out what was wrong then her friends who'd known her longer surely could.
That seems to win them over so Tallulah dials a number and then another one, hoping one Bobbi Morse and Maria Hill would answer.
Maria's been up all night and into the morning, buried in paperwork from Fury when she gets a call. Sifting through the mess of files, she finds her cell, answers it and continues to file paperwork. "Hello?"
"Maria Hill? You knew Delilah Cambridge, right?" The voice asks, slightly accusing.
She stops in her tracks. "Yes, I did. Who are you?"
"Tallulah Cambridge. Her daughter. Since you knew her I can assume you also know Natasha Romanoff, yes?"
"Right." Maria answers. Her heart beats dangerously fast inside her chest. Although that might be from the eight cups of coffee she drank to keep her awake.
"Good. Listen, there isn't much time for questions, I just need your help figuring out why she's so...sad. Natasha is upset and we don't know how to fix her."
Tallulah's voice is slightly desperate and Maria caves, wincing at the amount of files spread out over her kitchen table. "...Right. And you think I'll be able to help?"
"Yes, Maria, keep up! I don't have all day, can you come or not?"
She refrains from laughing, still slightly confused. "Yeah, I can come. Just tell me where."
And suddenly she's writing down an address somewhere in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Given to her by Delilah's daughter.
Maria chuckles in disbelief as she ends the call.
Delilah Cambridge's kid. If that's not enough to keep her awake she doesn't know what is.
Bobbi startles awake due to a phone call at nine in the morning despite having gone to bed only two hours earlier. It's from an unknown number in Russia and she feels compelled to answer.
"Is this Bobbi Morse?" A young but slightly threatening voice asks. The fact that the person on the other end uses her nickname instead of her full name makes her want to be truthful.
"Uh, yeah, it is. Who is this?"
"Tallulah Cambridge. I-I believe you knew my mother."
She freezes, her face contorting into a frown. "I did. Why, um, why are you calling?"
Of all the questions she could've asked Delilah Cambridge's kid and it's that. Well, if she's calling now it's for a reason.
"I've been led to believe you know Natasha Romanoff, too, and I think you can help. She's, uh, sad."
Bobbi tilts her head. "Sorry, kiddo, you're gonna have to explain a little more than that. How do you know Natasha Romanoff?"
Tallulah sighs. "She...adopted me, I guess? Look, that's not the point. Point is, you need to come here and help our mother. She's been off for a few days and we don't know what to do."
She blinks the sleep from her eyes and sits up. "Uhh, I don't- I don't get it. Who's 'we'? How'd you get this number?"
"Jesus Christ, Bobbi, can you help or not?" She asks, frustrated.
Bobbi wants to laugh at Tallulah's bold nature. Definitely Delilah's kid. "Uh, yeah, I can help. Just tell me where I gotta go and I'll be there."
So that's how two of Natasha's (and Delilah's) sleep deprived best friends end up driving to Russia after a phone call from Delilah's daughter, of all people.
Yeah, it's gonna be a long day.