Chapter 6
The woman had crushed Clint’s earpiece under her boot and Natasha had heard nothing from him until he shows up with a pair of handcuffs and a t-shirt in his hands.
“Tied me to a tree,” Clint grins at her. “She knew that I could get out. But she told me to wait and count and somehow trusted that I’d do it.”
“And you did it.” Natasha surmised and Clint nods his head.
“And I did it.” He agrees before holding up the shirt. “But I got this. It probably has DNA of some type on it.”
Natasha takes the shirt, one that seemed well-loved and worn. Maria was pretty correct in her judgment about measurements because Natasha would fit into the shirt. It had a graphic image of a rams head on the front of it, the horns curled into the skull of the creature. “Interesting choice in attire.”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Like, none of her clothes even went together. She was a fashion disaster,” Clint comments. “Remember when you did the same thing when you got out? Maria took you shopping and you were just tossing in things to blend in until Maria stopped you and told you to get what you wanted. And none of your clothes went together really but it was all ‘you’ and we figured out how to make it work.”
Natasha carefully folds the shirt that had speckles of dirt on it from the tree and riding around in Clint’s grip. The shirt smells… odd. She recognizes the scent but she can’t put her finger on where she recognized it from. She pulls the shirt closer to her face to inhale the scent again.
“Smell nice?” Clint teased her and Natasha rolls her eyes.
“Just thought I recognized the scent. What did she look like?” Natasha pulls the shirt away from her face to glance at him.
“Probably just a smidge smaller than you. Very muscley. Uh, blonde hair braided back very neatly. Hazel-ish eyes? Russian accent,” Clint went on to describe. “She had so many pictures of you up on the wall and… she took them with her. Like they were important. She left behind money and some weapons but she took the pictures of you.”
Natasha frowns, looking down at the shirt in her grip.
“Ring a bell?” Clint questions hopefully and Natasha shakes her head.
Only, she wasn’t exactly being truthful.
Usually, when people go on the run, they will try to get as far away from their original location as possible, tracked to the other side of the Earth.
Yelena, however, moves two hours away into an apartment building with a lot of witnesses for the time being. Khonshu has to hunch over to linger in the tiny apartment and he gives her a disapproving glance despite his lack of a face as she pins the pictures back onto the wall.
“Those could have got you caught,” He tells her in a low rumble. “You should have left it.”
“No.” Yelena stayed away from her sister because she was the avatar of Khonshu. They had an agreement and she was keeping up her side of it. The least he could let her have was pictures of her sister. “They’re mine.”
Khonshu lets out a deep sigh as Yelena pulls out the only photograph she had of her and her big sister together. There was dried blood tinging the edges of one side of it from where she had died in the temple. The photos themselves were worn and fading from constant use and weathering.
“I have another mission for you,” Khonshu spoke up and Yelena resists the urge to sigh, flopping back on the bed to cover her face before she sits up.
“Where.” She questioned and Khonshu gives her the details.
Yelena returns three hours later with blood on her hands that drip down the porcelain sink under bad water pressure as she cleans up.
She has another nightmare that night.
The pictures don’t quite help the same anymore. She would much rather have the real thing.