Yelena goes looking for Natasha, since people told her that she was here. The reunion is pretty
cuuute.
⚠
Talk of character death and probably some brainwashing mentions
In the blink of an eye, Yelena had gone from watching a bird bathe itself in some probably filthy puddle water to being… well, she wasn’t sure where she was, but here. It was just reminiscent enough of the Blip that a rare moment of panic seized her heart immediately after her appearance in the darkened hallway of some abandoned building, but being who and what she was, she calmed herself quickly enough and looked down at the phone now in her hand.
It wasn’t hers - she’d left her own in the hotel room she’d almost finished wiping any trace of herself out of, all in the name of having some plausible deniability if she missed a call from Valentina. Yelena couldn’t help but snicker to herself despite the situation; causing that woman even a scrap of grief was comforting in its own way, and if she couldn’t figure out where she was and how to get back soon, Valentina was going to be plenty annoyed.
On high alert, she poked at the phone until she found it contained a voicemail, which she listened to with a scowl that deepened when she reflexively caught a paper airplane from nowhere out of the air before it could crash into her face. It promptly got crumpled into a fist and shoved into her bag as the voicemail ended and left her more questions than answers, which figured for a place like this. Next it was time to source information from strangers, which turned out to be surprisingly easy… if they were to be trusted. But most of them seemed nice. Some even seemed familiar for one reason or another.
Almost all of them insisted that Natasha was not only alive, but also here.
It took a more than healthy amount of convincing on several sides to overcome the weight of Yelena’s skepticism, but once it had she felt almost sick with the whirlwind of things happening all at once. She rested her forehead against the cool metal of a doorframe - god, this place really was like a school - to help center herself, then took as many deep breaths as she had to until her blown out exhale wasn’t shaky anymore. Stone-faced and laser-focused, she adjusted her messenger bag over her shoulder and stomped her way out of the building and across the green toward the party. If she knew Natasha then starting on the fringes of the party seemed her best bet, where her sister could stand and observe the whole scene. And since that was easier than storming through the dance floor, it’s where Yelena set out for first. Case the perimeter, then spiral in.
Thor's party was a hit, and Natasha was grateful for that. The party god had lost the potential for a sister and was now trapped in a world with people he knew but didn't, people who knew him, but didn't either. She was a little concerned over those heart eyes he kept sending in her direction, but she hoped this version of Thor would quickly get over that. He didn't seem the long term type at the moment, but options were limited. Natasha also wasn't looking forward to potentially having to let him down.
With a drink in her hand, and a svelte black toga on (with combat boots), she had made her way to the edges of the party once again. Into the fray, out of the fray — it was the best way to keep an eye on things without seeming like a wallflower. (Note to self: check in with Loki the Tea Lover after the reset. She was really going to have to figure out shorter nicknames for them.)
Her eyes scanned the crowd. Judging from her posture, she wasn't really expecting anything (or anyone) out of the ordinary. This was internal security, not hyper paranoia. Natasha never drank too much at these parties, just enough to loosen up, not enough to lose focus. She watched as the people she had grown to call friends invited one another out to the dance floor or to chat. A few were flirting.
And then there was Takeshi Kovacs.
Natasha was adamant that her feelings for the Last Envoy were friends with admiration and a one-time benefit, but she'd be lying if she didn't feel some stirring of an emotional attachment. She'd shunted it off her mind as just leftovers from the mind link they'd had that one week, but everything was utterly and completely honest there. And it had been refreshing. There was an instant where Natasha had made up her mind to talk to him when her eye caught another blonde.
A familiar one.
Her posture immediately changed from loose to fully prepared for anything. She had no idea when or where Yelena had come from, and it was possible that it was before any of the events with the Red Room's destruction had gone down.
"'Scuse me," she said to someone who was now a blur behind her as she made her way through the crowd toward her sister.
It didn’t escape Yelena as she stormed up to the far edges of the party that under more normal circumstances, she’d think this sort of thing could be fun. While other people her age had been in college and going to parties like this, she’d already become an accomplished assassin. And the Red Room? Not very big on parties. So the drinking, the music, the dancing - it all would have been novel enough to make her giddy from the rush of a relatively new experience if she wasn’t on a suddenly very personal mission. And, after spotting a flurry of movement near the periphery of her awareness, that mission was entering its second phase.
Rather than altering her course to meet Natasha halfway, Yelena stopped dead in her tracks once she knew she’d been spotted by who was, from the look of her even with distance between them, very much her sister. It was better to wait here than give anyone the potential satisfaction of seeing them run toward each other like a movie after Yelena had been so adamant about how everyone must have been lying to her about Natasha’s presence here.
Besides, she couldn’t decide if she wanted to scream or cry, and she didn’t want to end up having to make that decision standing in the middle of a crowd of strangers.
Ultimately she gave herself away by popping up onto her toes before tipping forward from that balance point and running stiffly in Natasha’s direction. The last few steps were more her throwing herself the final distance, having decided that if she wasn’t going to scream then she was going to hug Natasha hard enough that she was left wondering if she had a bruised rib or two. It made for a fierce hug, but it didn’t last too terribly long - Yelena kept her head down to make sure she wasn’t actually going to cry, and once she decided she wouldn’t, she stepped back with her hands still gripping tight to Natasha’s arms just above her elbows.
“So you die and come here and then you don’t even check your phone every five minutes like a normal person?” The accusation lacked any heat whatsoever, delivered as jokingly as it was. Mainly to hide the quaver in her voice as a laugh; something that would normally work, but she expected wouldn’t with Natasha. Which meant the only thing for it was to keep talking. “I’ve had like fifty full conversations with random people on this stupid phone that just showed up when I did and you’ve been here the whole time?!”
The first time Yelena had arrived in Derleth, she hadn't believed that it was Natasha. She'd stalked her for a few days, then tried to fight her. It ended in a stalemate, and Yelena realized that Natasha was really here. The second time, Natasha was hesitant — because Yelena had disappeared almost as suddenly as she'd shown up. She'd seen her sister on the network and talked to her there, hoping that she wouldn't have to fight her again to prove who she was. Thankfully, some talking cleared it up that time.
After Michael's week, Natasha knew that at some point, Yelena would return. It might be a thousand years of weekly resets, but she'd come back at some point. It hadn't crossed her mind that it would be during Thor's Toga Party.
She didn't need to hear from Yelena that she died. Yelena's leap into Natasha's arms was enough to tell her that. She was also incredibly grateful for the superpowers the White Doe had given her, because the two of them might have tumbled to the floor if she didn't have them. Natasha was not an immovable object against Yelena's unstoppable force. It didn't take a Red Room specialist to hear Yelena's emotions; to Natasha, she may as well have been sobbing uncontrollably.
"Have you looked at my outfit?" The black toga was flattering, but didn't have many places to put a phone. Instead, it was hidden in one of Natasha's black combat boots. She must not have noticed the vibration when a new post went up. All the while, Natasha tilted Yelena's head and neck to make sure she wasn't injured. "Where would you hide a brick in this thing?"
Natasha certainly seemed solid, which meant Yelena probably owed quite a few people an apology for doubting them. Which she’d give them… eventually. If she didn’t forget. (She knew she was going to pretend to forget.) What was most important now was that Natasha was here and alive and - and being really annoying about moving Yelena’s head around, which she finally registered with a vexed noise as she swatted at Natasha’s forearms with both hands.
“What are you doing? You act like I fell out of the sky or something and landed on my head. I’m fine! I showed up in some dark old building alone in a hallway like in the movies where everyone rushes into a room except the one sad person who just got themselves broken up with.” Along with her newfound appreciation for naps, Yelena had also discovered the joys of making an entire box of macaroni and cheese and watching goofy teen romcoms. She stepped back a single wide step to give herself some space in a continued effort to ward off Natasha’s ministrations, still waving her hands like she was trying to swat an incredibly persistent bug.
“You!” The waving gave way to a frustrated stomp of one boot on the ground, one hand a fist except for the pointed index finger that suddenly came within an inch of Natasha’s nose as Yelena glowered up at her. It was suddenly much easier again to be angry at Natasha for dying when Natasha wasn’t actually dead. “I should be checking you!” The toga made that easy enough, at least as far as her physical state went. She certainly didn’t look hurt in the slightest from what Yelena could see.
“I nearly killed people to avenge you or whatever,” she muttered, her voice suddenly dropping to a much quieter register as she wrapped both hands around the strap of her messenger bag to give herself something else to hold onto. “I guess I’m glad I didn’t actually do it.”
As far as Natasha was concerned, none of them needed apologies. It was easy to think people were lying, even more than doubting them, when the person in question was long gone in Yelena's world. The disbelief was understandable. Anyone would shrug it off.
"Yeah, you nearly did, but you didn't because there was no need to avenge me." Natasha understood the drive for that, but considered she'd jumped for Yelena, for Alexei, for Bucky, for Sam, for T'challa, for every person she'd never met who suffered because they lost. It had been her choice, and she'd fought for it. Sorry, Barton, Natasha was a better, sneakier fighter than you would ever be — and that was one of the reasons why he needed to stay alive. "I did what I had to to bring everyone back, and I wasn't going to lose someone else. You, Alexei, Melina — you all disappeared. Most of my friends were gone too." Natasha pursed her lips. "You'd have done the same."
She was convinced of it. If it meant bringing Natasha back, Yelena absolutely would have done the same. That didn't mean that Natasha didn't have guilt that Yelena would come back to a world in which Natasha was gone, that they never got to have their New York City adventures together. What did Yelena call them? Sex in the City adventures? That name needed some workshopping.
"I'm fine," she told her, and while the music and atmosphere didn't fit the serious nature of this conversation, Natasha was able to block all of that out for this moment. "I wake up every week with my last memories, but I'm fine."
Yelena probably would have done the same, but that didn’t mean she needed to acknowledge it as truth. Natasha’s logic had no place in her mind at the moment because what Yelena wanted was to be mad to avoid having to be so happy she cried. Anger was a far more familiar emotion; she knew how to process that much easier than she knew how to channel unbridled happiness. So she wrinkled her nose and gave one of Natasha’s shoulders a half-hearted shove.
“All that superheroes stuff really went to your head, do you know that?” As hard as she was trying to get to anger, all Yelena really managed was sarcasm and a crooked smile that kept threatening to twitch into an outright grin before she ducked her chin and shook her head, feigning disappointment at Natasha’s selflessness. “Sure you sacrifice yourself for the good of the world. Whatever, you bring everyone else back but you take away you. And I want to be selfish, Natasha! Honestly!”
The ridiculousness of her own argument finally seemed to get to her, because Yelena suddenly laughed and brought a hand up to cover her eyes before throwing her arms around Natasha again. She gave herself one moment to be thankful she didn’t end up killing Clint Barton - something Natasha would probably learn about eventually simply because she was Natasha, after all - and then put the incident out of her mind entirely so she could focus on the here and now.
“Are your last memories… “ She drew back and peered at Natasha’s face for a moment like she could find the answer to her unfinished question there. “Some of the people, they were telling me that people can show up here after they die and they remember. Do you?” Skeptical as she had been before, now Yelena was taking things very seriously. Natasha being alive was real; that probably meant more of what people were telling her was too.
“That must really suck.” …she was taking things mostly seriously.
Natasha did not want to tell her that she remembered every single instant she was falling down the side of that cliff. No parachute, no turning around to see when she'd hit. She just wanted to look at her best friend and know that she was doing the right thing. That didn't mean it wasn't scary as hell, and the second she did it, she wished she could undo it. Even if it was just for those few moments.
"I brought back you, idiot. You can't be selfish because there was no you to be selfish for." She knew it sucked, she knew that Yelena and everyone else was going to have to cope with her death, but she'd done something good for the universe, right? She'd brought back people who should never have died at the hands of a mad idiot. "And yes, that's the last thing I remember. Falling. Dying. Waking up here and wondering what the hell was going on."
It had been a numbing few weeks when she got here. She'd toyed with the idea of whether or not being here completely ruined her sacrifice. There wasn't some grand reward that Natasha expected for one she did. She knew that if there was an afterlife, she was not going somewhere good. Sometimes she still wondered if that's what this place was.
"What's the last thing you remember? Before getting here?"
Confirmation of what she’d been making light of did at least serve to prove that Yelena had the grace to be remorseful for opening her mouth and speaking without being very sensitive about it. She dropped her gaze immediately to the ground between them and clung to the strap of her bag with both hands curled tight into fists, nudging at an imaginary rock on the ground before rolling her shoulders uncomfortably and looking up again. “I understand why you did it,” she muttered, the petulance of little sisterhood peeking through even during a conversation as serious as this one, “But I’m not going to start liking it just because I understand.”
Regardless of what this place was and how little she knew how it worked at this point, Yelena couldn’t be too mad about ending up here because it had given her Natasha back for however long it was going to last. Maybe not long, if what she’d been told in pieces was right.
“Nothing special, that’s what I remember. I was in New York getting ready to leave for who knows where, but I wanted to go walking around because who knows when I get to come back, you know?” She shrugged again, but since the subject matter had gotten significantly less heavy, she seemed much less weighed down by it this time. “I left my phone because the only calls I would get were people I wouldn’t want to talk to, I had just gotten a coffee at some cart in the park, and… “
She trailed off, patting her pockets like the coffee in question was going to mysteriously appear in them. When it obviously didn’t, she breathed a dramatically long-suffering sigh and threw her hands up helplessly. “And I put it down because I was going to sit down, and then boom. It’s like I fell down and hit my head and I wake up in a dark hallway here with this - “ She paused to wave vaguely in the direction of the party. “ - going on and a new phone in my hand with a bunch of strange people to talk to who all said you were alive. And so I come to find you, and here we are. They say that everything is going to change again? Soon?”
Derleth was a lot to take in. Sometimes Natasha forgot that. It had been so long since she'd arrived, and most people were still discovering it so she hadn't felt too alone. Loneliness came after she realized that being here made her feel like she'd gotten out of jail free. For nothing. Did her sacrifice mean anything if she wasn't dead? Then people came from after, and they were all too sad, too grieving when they talked to her. Wanda had come and gone three times, and each time, she'd spent more time talking about Natasha's death than doing anything with her in life.
"Yeah, every week… it resets. The campus. Where we are." She took Yelena's elbow and started to walk with her toward the edge of the party, to where some of the benches were. At least on the outer fringes of the party, there might be some space to breathe a little. It seemed to Natasha that Yelena needed a little space. "Tonight's the reset. The party's lasting through it. At 1:32 in the morning, everything resets completely. It's a bit disconcerting if you're awake. You suddenly find yourself in your bed — you usually stay asleep till morning, but if you're like me… Sometimes, you're jolted awake."
When they reached the bench, Natasha eased them onto it and held Yelena's hand. If the other woman wanted to jerk her hand out of hers, she was free to do so, but until then, Natasha was going to hold on as long as she was allowed.
For once, Yelena was easily led without putting up much - any, really - protest about it. The whole situation, from her arrival to Natasha being alive to the description of how this place worked, it was enough of a shock to her whole system that she didn’t even think anything of being directed toward the bench until she was already sitting on it. She pulled in a deep breath and held it for a second, then squeezed Natasha’s hand in hers as she let it out on a shaky exhale. She didn’t feel much more centered, but she’d at least given her mind enough time to catch up with almost everything she’d just been told.
“1:32? Why is all the mystical stuff always so weird and specific?” Maybe not exactly the most important piece to focus on, but it was always the illogical pieces of things her mind zeroed in on first. Her own little defense mechanism against the strange things that kept happening - if she could poke holes in the sense they made, they were significantly less scary. And she did so hate being afraid. After a roll of her eyes, she reached across her body and covered their joined hands with her free one. “So you can be doing anything, having a party, and then suddenly you’re in bed having nightmares? This place really hates people.”
In an effort to hide the sudden flicker of worry across her features, Yelena slouched a little so she could tilt her head and rest it against Natasha’s shoulder. “Okay. So maybe I come find you after this reset? I set an alarm for 1:33 and we meet… “ She lifted one hand enough to gesture vaguely at the campus around them, then dropped it back to where it had been resting before. “Somewhere here. It’s stupid to be alone if it’s going to wake you up anyway.” She tipped her head back just enough to realize that no matter how hard she looked up, she wasn’t going to be able to see much of Natasha’s face, then gave up the effort with another sigh. “As long as we wake up here, I guess, since you say that changes too. But I’ll be able to find you, right? Even somewhere else?”
"We're in a void world right now, despite the night sky." Natasha gestured upwards at Ikol's beautiful interpretation of the Asgardian sky, completely with the bifrost spanning the distance. Natasha would have liked to see it… This was as close as she'd get, though, and she was okay with that. "So the next world should be somewhere. Eliot and Mobius — they've been working on trying to find a place for us to stick to."
Natasha quirked the corner of her lips. "Derleth does not like to be messed with so we'll see what happens next week." She didn't want to bring up the various alternative versions of themselves, or the time they had no memories of who they were while someone was running around killing them. And that was just the times Derleth messed with everyone. That wasn't including the times some people were other people when no one else had been changed in any way. Or getting a second set of memories on top of your normal ones.
She rested her cheek against the top of Yelena's head. It was too bad the next world wasn't New York City 1983; she could have taken Yelena on that Sex in the City tour she'd promised her. Even if most of those locations weren't there in 1983. "We should be able to find each other. My room's got the crown with a sword through it on the door so if you ever want to find me, I should be there at some point."
The more this place was explained to her, the more questions Yelena ended up having. They were in a void. On a college campus that served as an island floating through time and space. (And a void.) No one was here on purpose and the college campus floating through time and space didn’t like it when people tried to be not here anymore. Apparently people were going to try anyway and she’d gotten here just in time for that. That was about all she could manage to process for now, and while she felt it was probably enough for a basic understanding of her situation, it still didn’t help her feel less helpless. And that, she hated.
But Natasha was here, so it wasn’t all bad. It might even be more good than bad. Still, Yelena couldn’t help heaving a dramatic sigh - it had to be, since Natasha couldn’t see the look on her face and Yelena wasn’t about to move just so she could. “Natasha?” It was leading, spoken in a quiet, little sister voice she’d almost forgotten she was capable of. Other little sisters might wait for an answer before pushing ahead with the inevitable question that followed, but Yelena didn’t bother; neither of them was going anywhere, so she was asking whether Natasha wanted or not.
“Why does nothing normal ever happen to us?” It was a serious question, but it sounded so absurd out loud that she couldn’t help but keep talking before she got an answer. “You know, like instead of toppling regimes and dying to save the world and ending up in voids, we were just like… “ After trailing off, she shifted in place a little and put on a voice. “Oh my god, did you see the last episode of that television show we all like? I can’t believe Brian cut his hair!” As much as Yelena might profess to want normalcy, her impression of it definitely made it sound like mockery.
She hesitated another moment, then lifted her head enough that she could finally look at Natasha again. “I’m glad you’re here, though. Even if this place sucks, at least I get to see you again.” This time she cut the sincerity by making a face, nose wrinkling and one eye squinting almost shut. “I’m also glad your door is really dramatic. Because that’s so typical, you know that?”
Natasha tried not to laugh. She knew that at some point, Yelena would show up once again. It was as Michael explained; if you had signed up for that beta network, you were bound to come around again. She just didn't think she'd be on the third Yelena in a few months. At least Yelena wasn't coming from before they'd made amends. That would have been a whole new mess, especially if she was under the control of the Red Room. How would it work, being cut off from Dreykov's network?
That wasn't something she really wanted answered, she put out to the gods or scientists behind Derleth.
"Weren't you the one who wanted a Sex in the City summer in New York City?" Natasha asked, narrowing her eyes to look at Yelena. She pulled her arm tighter around Yelena's shoulders and then latched her hands onto one another so that she could sit there for a few moments with her sister. Before Derleth swallowed them up and made them race from week to week. A quiet moment before the storm. "I'm glad you're here. Stick around this time, yeah?"
“Well yeah,” Yelena answered as if the desire for said summer and her disdain for the normalcy of water cooler talk weren’t in near direct opposition to one another. To her mind it all made enough sense that it wasn’t even a question, so Natasha’s sounded like she was simply restating the obvious. “And I kind of got that.” In a distinctly contract killer sort of way, granted. See the sights, do a little murder. Since she’d abandoned the last half, it essentially made it a vacation. She kept her gaze fixed on the sky as her next thought occurred to her, though she was quiet for a moment while she willed the lump in her throat away. Only once she was certain she could speak without sounding emotional, she added, “I guess you sort of gave it to me, huh?”
She smiled faintly and closed her eyes, content for the moment despite her unfamiliarity with what exactly was happening. If Natasha was here and unconcerned, then Yelena knew she could be too, at least for now. “I’m glad you’re here too.” After a quiet huff of a laugh through her nose, she balled a hand loosely into a fist and punched without any force down against Natasha’s thigh. “And I think I don’t have much choice sticking around. If this place was escapable, you would’ve figured out how already.”
In the quiet between them, the sounds of the party reminded her that it was happening in the background of their reunion. She slitted one eye open to peer in that direction, then breathed a sigh. “Do you want to get back to the party? You’re all dressed up and everything.” Noble as the question was, Yelena didn’t make a move to actually get up or so much as lift her head - she would, if Natasha wanted to go back to her friends. But she wasn’t about to make it easy, not after having lost and then found her again.
"Nah," Natasha answered. There was always another party, though maybe not exactly like this one. Maybe the next one would be another themed party. Maybe Eliot would pull out the haunted karaoke machine. Either way, there was nowhere else Natasha would rather be right now. "I am exactly where I wanna be."
Was it sappy? What had Melina said? How did you keep your heart? Natasha had lost almost everyone in the Snap. Even the ones who didn't disappear were never the same. Most of them moved onto other ventures — kids, retirement, turning himself into a composite of Banner and the Hulk — and Natasha had been the tiny little sun the Avengers revolved around. Even if she had to explain Derleth to Yelena a thousand times because she kept coming and going, she would.
She didn't get to be reunited with her sister in their world. Derleth was a little extra time for Natasha. Maybe it would be one more month, or three years, or eternity — she was going to take this chance.