Chapter 4
Yelena’s almost twenty the first time she sees her sister since they were ripped apart on an airstrip in Cuba.
It’s not in person. Rather it’s on a television recounting the news as The Avengers save New York from aliens.
“Did you know aliens existed?” Yelena asked Khonshu as she watches the televisions on display in the window from where she stopped on the sidewalk.
“Do you think I know aliens existed?” He retorts and Yelena lets out an eye roll.
“When did you get so sassy?” She murmurs, watching as her big sister takes down an alien in an instant reply. “I didn’t know she got out… is the Red Room destroyed?”
Khonshu doesn’t reply so Yelena doesn’t push him, focusing on the television. Her sister found her own way out. If Yelena really wanted to, she could find the address and show up on her sister’s doorstep the next morning.
“You are thinking of going to her.” Khonshu comments, having gotten good at reading Yelena’s wild and sometimes unpredictable or impulsive thoughts.
Yelena doesn’t bother to deny it. “Yeah.” She murmurs before shoving her hand into her pocket where she kept the only photograph she had of her sister. “But I won’t.”
She can’t. Her sister was a superhero now. Saving the world from aliens, part of a team called the Avengers. Yelena was still out here killing people ruthlessly, doing Khonshu’s bidding and letting him guide her where to go and who to kill with the trust that they were as truly awful as he said they were.
Natasha probably thought she was dead and if she didn’t then Yelena showing up and being a criminal wouldn’t help things.
She made a deal with Khonshu. She can’t back out of it now. She needed Khonshu and Khonshu needed her. Khonshu kept her alive, looked after her. She owed him everything.
“But you won’t.” Khonshu echoes, dipping his head down. “That is a wise choice, my child.”
Yelena stands in front of the television and stares.
Yelena starts swiping newspapers and magazines that have her sister’s picture in them and tears the picture out. She keeps them in a stash to hold onto and look at.
When she collects enough, she pins them to the wall of her safe house. When she wakes up at night in a cold sweat, her eyes land on them and she remembers the safety she had felt with her big sister.
For a while, things were going okay. Yelena did get thrown off of a building and trying to pull the suit to her while falling was a terrifying experience but Yelena made it with only a few broken bones that healed within minutes.
Her body becomes riddled with bullet holes, stab wounds, gashes from falling debris, and other miscellaneous scars from her adventures.
She had lived for five years covering her tracks neatly.
She was bound to slip up eventually.
“Hmm, yup. I have to say, if I was a serial murderer, I’d live in some crack shack of a house like this,” Clint comments into the earpiece.
“Focus on your task,” Natasha murmurs and Clint could tell that she was rolling her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah,” Clint carefully swings the door open and steps inside to the run-down building. He finds a lot of weapons and maps but it’s what is on the wall of the bedroom that makes him pause.
“Shit, Nat,” He murmurs, staring at the multiple cut-outs of Natasha Romanoff’s face pinned to the wall. “You know how we thought they were a Widow? I think they know you personally and they’ve got quite a grudge.”
“A grudge you say?” A Russian accent questioned as a gun pressed against the back of his head. “Put the bow down.”