Chapter 2
Twenty-year-old Natasha Romanov stood in a row with the other Widows in her group as the madame reads from a clipboard.
The schedule was always the same. Once a day, right before bed, they’d read the names of those who had died. Whether it was they weren’t good enough, disobeyed orders, or perished on a mission. It was to mock those who may have formed relationships with each other behind the Red Room’s backs. Friendships, love, sisterhood. It didn’t matter. Those who wept for someone dead were punished.
Natasha listened closely each time, waiting for one name that never showed up. Tonight was no different. There were only three names on the list and the girls were dismissed.
“Not you, Natalia,” Madame tells her when Natasha turns to leave. Natasha froze, turning around on her foot to face the madame. “You’re wanted by the General.”
Natasha breaks apart from the row of Widows and follows the madame down to the General’s office. The General smiles up at her when he sees her and a pit forms in her stomach.
“Ah… my dear, dear Natasha,” He stands from his desk, moving around it and toward her until he can reach out to cup her cheek. “I do have a very nice surprise for you.”
He waves his hand at madame and the woman holds out the clipboard she held under her arm. He holds it up in front of Natasha’s face. “Read it.” He tells her. “Out loud.”
So Natasha starts to read down the list, her voice failing when she sees the name that madame had failed to read.
“All of it.” General Dreykov tells her, his voice lowering.
Natasha swallows hard, gathering her strength as she reads the last name. “Yelena Belova…” Her voice manages to not waver but she can feel the walls closing in on her.
General Dreykvo grins. “My dear little Yelena… so talented. Such… waste.”
Natasha looks up at him, wondering if this was all just a cruel joke.
“Would you like to see?” He asked and Natasha’s heart drops into her stomach. He moves his ring over a scanner and a hologram popped up. He swipes through his files until he pulls up a video.
Natasha watches as the video, taken from what appeared to be a camcorder from an archeologist, details her little sister, not so little Yelena, as she enters with a grace that seems inhuman. Yelena tears them apart, leaving nothing but a bloody mess in her wake. Natasha can’t help the flinch that wracks through her when the blade enters right where her liver would be.
Yelena finishes them off, blood pooling at her feet as she finally starts to stumble. She falls to her knees, touching her stomach as if she hadn’t even been aware that she was stabbed. Natasha watches as realization settles over Yelena’s face.
Stabs to the liver were fatal if they weren’t quickly treated. No one was coming for her.
Nausea churns in Natasha’s stomach, tears stinging her eyes as she watches her little sister accept that she was going to die.
Yelena eventually drags herself up the few steps to a statue and rests against it. She was so pale under the moonlight peering through a crack. Yelena seems to speak to the air and Natasha wonders if she was hallucinating.
Realization that she was probably scared, hallucinating something for comfort before she went, struck Natasha like a blow in the chest.
Natasha watches her sister die. The film cuts off as soon as Yelena goes limp and Natasha is left staring at the last frame of her sister's body sprawled out at the foot of the statue.
There, standing in the office of General Dreykov, Natasha loses her reason to live.
Perhaps that’s why she takes the hand offered to her by a man with a bow.
Years later, Natasha will sit in her room at the Avengers tower and stare down at the only photo she had of Yelena.
The photo strip had weathered over the years, the white border yellowing slightly. Yelena was her secret, hers to mourn, hers to love.
Natasha desperately wished that she could have done something different. Something to save her. To get her out. Yelena didn’t deserve to die.
Natasha still thinks of the little girl she knew, with a toothy grin and cheeks still chubby with baby fat.
Natasha washed her pillowcase in baby shampoo, trying to recreate how her little sister last smelled. It doesn’t work. Yelena always smelled sweet with a hint of something fruity. Perhaps it was all the candy she snuck.
She never needed to learn how to mourn someone before. It’s been five years but every day still feels like that day in General Dreykov’s office.
Natasha buys some of Yelena’s favorite sweets and she eats them late at night after she dreams of that damned video detailing the death of her baby sister.
She remembers how much Yelena had wanted a dog in Ohio but never got one. Every year on Yelena’s birthday, Natasha buys a red velvet cupcake which was Yelena’s favorite and donates money to the local animal shelter in Yelena’s name.
Clint picked up on her routine the third year she does it. He doesn’t know who Yelena is or why Natasha has a ritual every year on the same day but he too donates money. They put up the doner’s names on a baby blue paw print that would be taped to the window on display. Every year, Yelena’s name will be displayed.
Natasha feels guilt and regret. She blames herself for her sister's death. She puts herself at fault. She is wiping the red out of her ledger while her sister didn’t even get a proper burial.
Yelena Belova died alone at the age of fifteen.
She is Natasha Romanoff’s dirty little secret.