Chapter 14
Natasha’s not upset about White Knight slipping out from under her fingers.
She’s not upset about the blood on her shoes or the scent of copper lingering against her skin.
She’s not even upset that the Widow didn’t appear to believe her.
She’s upset that a Widow dared to use the whistle she had once taught her little sister.
The noise she dreamed about echoed through the silence, the only noise White Knight had made before disappearing.
Come find me.
It’s a taunt. An insult.
Natasha’s baby sister is dead. How dare this Widow use that against her?
Natasha had been so startled upon hearing it that she froze. She couldn’t move until the Widow was gone and all Natasha can hear is the soft laughter of her baby sister in the back of her head.
The Widow seemed unstable. She was confused and jerked at something as though she had been burned, her masked head tilting up to look for something only she could see. Natasha tried to look, to find someone or something that would make her dare to look away. Widows didn’t get distracted.
Some part of Natasha hopes that it’s Yelena under that mask. That her little sister who would be twenty now, all grown up, is just surviving.
White Knight was an assassin. They went after some SHIELD agents for some unspecified reason and Natasha just wants a few moments to talk to them. To hear their voice. To see their face.
She needs to know. She has to.
Natasha has a violent night terror the night she arrives back at SHIELD after failing the mission. She hadn’t had one so bad in a long time and she ends up outside of Maria Hill’s room in the early hours of the morning.
Maria opens the door in her pajamas with a gun in her hand, staring down at Natasha with confusion.
“I need a day off.” Natasha tells her in simple terms.
Maria frowns, her eyes drinking in the sight of Natasha in her pajamas and unkempt hair, skin still shiny with sweat from her violent night terror. “You’re not going after the Widow alone.” She tells her in no uncertain terms.
“I’m not.” Natasha agrees easily and Maria eyes her once again before nodding.
“Very well.” Maria says. “I’ll put the paperwork through. Is that all?”
Natasha nods her head, spinning on her heel as the sound of Maria’s door shutting echoes behind her. She gets dressed and leaves base on her motorbike.
When Natasha got defected, she spent a lot of time exercising the freedom that she had been denied for so long. She did a lot of exploring and ended up finding a small place with cherry blossom trees that bloomed in the spring.
She had carved into the trunk N+Y. Nobody but her would know what it meant. It was a place she went when she was missing Yelena. She went on birthdays, Christmas, New Years, after bad nightmares, and just when she needed to grieve in general.
Natasha runs her fingers over the letters carved into the trunk and lets out a sigh, resting her head onto the bark.
If, by some weird chance, the Widow really was Yelena Belova…
Why did she leave?
Natasha only wants to help. She needs time. She needs to set up a perfect meeting where they can just talk.
White Knight was a ruthless assassin and Natasha had witnessed the aftermath of the carnage they caused, blood sprayed on walls and furniture, the Widow dripping in blood and guts in what was once a white uniform. If she really was Yelena then Natasha worried terribly for whatever caused her sister to become so violent and ruthless.
Natasha’s fingers trace the letters carved into the bark as she hums Yelena’s favorite song.
She doesn’t want to think of possibilities right now.