Work Text:
Natalia loves Yelena as fire loves innocence. It destroys and ruins and is doomed.
She didn’t love her at first, of course, she didn’t. Yelena was mean. Cold. Distant. Beautiful. Fucking beautiful. She moved and Natalia watched. She wanted to peel back Yelena’s skin, see what was inside. She wanted to run her hands through Yelena’s hair and yank. Hard. She wanted to bite the dip of her neck, the heel of her palm. Wanted to see what was under her clothes, the pale skin and dark bruises she sometimes got- the bruises she always pressed even when Natalia told her not to. Natalia wanted to pin her down and see what type of noises-
Natalia wanted a lot of things. She ignored all of them. Every single one. She couldn’t want anything, it’d only get in the way. She has a job.
“You’re not going to win this one,” Yelena hisses as Natalia pins her down hard enough to leave bruises on her wrists. “Not this time. This time I will."
“I assure you,” Natalia says as Yelena flips them over, “you won’t.”
Yelena doesn’t win. Natalia won’t allow that, it’s a close call though. Far too close of a call, Madam B. smiles anyway, but she is always smiling. Her eyes say something though, as they always do. This time it’s something angry. Something too angry.
Madam B. wakes Natalia up in the middle of the night. She drags her to the sparring room, the only light is the moon coming through the stained glass windows. Yelena is already there. They fight. Natalia wins. Madam B. smiles, her eyes do too.
“Good,” Madam B. says. “Good.”
Yelena is sitting up now and Natalia looks at her, eyes pleading. I’m sorry, Natalia wants to say. I want you. You and your blonde hair, you and your blue eyes, you and your curves and slopes and dips and beauty. I want you and I don’t think I’ll ever not.
Madam B. puts them both to bed. Natalia gets cuffed and dreams about Yelena’s hair, under her hands, her mouth open in a whine, her eyes smiling.
(Before Natalia sat up, Yelena said something that chilled Natalia to the bone. “I will beat you next time.” Natalia sat up and looked at her, Yelena’s eyes were cold and earnest.)
They all break sometimes. It gets too loud. There are too many screams. There are too many blisters. The ballet shoes aren’t broken in. Yelena taught Natalia to slam the shoes in a door, held the shoes as Natalia slammed the door over and over. That's how it felt.
When Yelena breaks fully, Madam. B slaps her so hard there’s a red palm on Yelena’s pale skin for days. She cries at night, Natalia would wish to break free from the cuffs and hold Yelena close.
“I fucking hate this place,” Yelena says one morning in the bathrooms. Her voice is loud compared to the chilling silence of the rest of the girls. It’s always quiet. “This is hell. This is what hell must be.”
“This isn’t hell,” someone behind them answers. “This is worse.”
Yelena sighs, “I wish I could remember what life was like before here. So I could at least have a heaven.”
“Sing to me,” Yelena requests one morning. They’re both wearing their ballet outfits, both ready to be molded into what they someday will have to become.
“Sing what?” Natalia asks, looking over at Yelena. The dip of her collarbones is too distracting.
“Anything.”
So Natalia sings the only song she knows, some song that once was played in between the static of the radio Madam B. keeps in her office.
“Now he's gone, I don't know why, and 'til this day, sometimes I cry, he didn't even say goodbye- He didn't take the time to lie,” Natalia sings, her voice is quiet and raspy. Almost scared. Yelena grins from ear to ear. There is something peaceful in her eyes.
“I would like to die like this."
Natalia graduates before Yelena. The week before she graduates, Yelena hardly speaks.
"I will never be a mother," Natalia whispers. "I won't ever have a child. I won’t ever have a family. Or a life outside of this. This is my future. This is all I have, and I didn’t even choose it.”
Yelena grabs her hand and squeezes it so hard it stings. "None of us will. We didn't choose this life, this life chose us."
"I-" Natalia looks around, none of the teachers are there. No one is there to yell or scream or push and push and push. "I sometimes wish it didn't."
Yelena lets out a soft noise, her thumb runs over Natalia's knuckle. "I know. I wish that too."
“You changed your hair,” Yelena says. Natalia turns around, weapon raised to see Yelena standing there- in the middle of the bathroom, her hair back in a half up half down bun, her clothes dark and eyes lined with black.
Natalia almost reaches for her hair, almost reaches for Yelena. She doesn’t. She can’t.
The bathroom sinks are marble, just like she is. Just like Yelena is. “I did,” Natalia answers.
Yelena moves forward and reaches for Natalia’s hair, she wraps a curl around her finger. She smiles sickly sweet, she tilts her head, “I hate it.”
Then Yelena yanks Natalia’s hair and the fight begins. So it’s going to be like this. Of course, it is, why would it change? Why would how they fight change if their strategies work?
(Natalia grabs a fistful of Yelena’s hair and fucking yanks. Hard. It’s even softer than she imagined. Yelena doesn’t whine really, but there’s a soft noise that comes out of her mouth. Natalia plays it over and over until Yelena and her make eye contact again.
“How long have you been wanting to do that?” Yelena smirks. Natalia throws her against the wall. Yelena smiles again but her eyes are unfocused. “You’re supposed to take me to dinner first.)
Natalia wins the fight. The voice inside her head tells her good. You are unbreakable. You are marble. You are better than they ever will be.
I know, Natalia says back. I know.
Another voice inside her head, one that only comes out when the screams are too loud or when someone says she’s beautiful and means it. When they say I have a family. I have children, or I can give you anything you want. You don’t have to do this. You were not born like this and you don't have to die like this.
The voice says, are you sure?
And Natalia doesn’t answer. Just looks at the bloody bruised body that is Yelena. Yelena lulls her head and looks at Natalia, Natalia looks back.
“I will beat you next time,” Yelena rasps as Natalia turns around and heads to the doorway. “I will win next time.”
Natalia smiles quietly to herself as she reaches for the doorway. “I can assure you,” Natalia says over her shoulder. “You won’t.”
Yelena fights against Natalia’s hands on her wrists, her legs over her waist. Her hair in a tight bun and sweat dripping down her neck. Down her spine. Yelena grits her teeth, tries to claw at Natalia’s hands.
“I was made to destroy,” Yelena hisses.
“Not while I have you,” Natalia answers.
Yelena frowns, bared teeth and cracked lips, “you never had me.”
Yelena was smiling across the party it wasn’t real, Natalia noticed this. She always did. Yelena moved and Natalia watched.
“Why are you here?” Natalia hisses at her when she Yelena comes to the bar where Natalia was working, watching. Yelena smiles, there’s lipstick on her teeth. Natalia wants to lick it off.
“Enjoying the party, of course,” her accent is perfect. She is perfect. Everything about her. The lipstick, the bubbled white scar on her neck Natalia wanted to bite and taste, the slightly transparent dress so she could see the red lingerie she was wearing. Of course, she was perfect. They were sculpted to be perfect, no room for mistakes. They were molded and hardened, poked and prodded, pushed down until they pushed back. Until they stopped falling down.
I am better than you, Natalia tried to think and repeat. She got halfway through the sentence before she started to think, she is just so beautiful. So cold, so beautiful. Marble.
“Who invited you?”
Yelena smiled, “I’ll have my usual.”
“And that is?” Natalia tilts her head, knowing she’s pushing it. She's known Yelena's drink for years.
Anger flashes through Yelena’s eyes, Natalia is proud. “You know what it is, babe.”
Natalia makes the drink, Yelena’s drink. She hands Yelena the drink, their fingers touch for half a second. Natalia pulls back quickly. Yelena notices this, she smirks like someone who spies a bluff. She sits at a stool, throws her hair over her shoulder, a man across a few yards away looks at her. Natalia bites back a frown.
“White isn’t your color,” Yelena says, her accent slips through. “It stains too easily.”
“And that makes it not my color?” Natalia asks before someone comes over and asks for a drink. The person, a man with nicotine-stained teeth and spotted hands, asking for a beer, he leans against the bar and faces his body toward Yelena.
“Want to dance?” he asks, Natalia clenches her fists by her sides. Yelena grins as if she notices. She might.
“Sure,” Yelena giggles. She doesn’t giggle. Yelena laughs, fullhearted and angry. Her laugh has a bite to it. Her laugh is everything a giggle is not.
Yelena doesn’t look back. Natalia pretends not to notice.
“See,” Yelena says, “stains too easily.”
Natalia steps forward with a slightly dizzy head, glass shards break the skin. Blood seeps down her neck. Her hair becomes redder. Fucking mirrors.
“I fucking hate you,” Natalia says as she pushes forward and moves. “So fucking much.”
Yelena laughs, it echoes in the bathroom. She wonders if the janitors who stay to clean up after rich people parties can hear her.
“Oh, sister,” she says, every hair on Natalia’s body stands up. Yelena’s voice makes her tremble with notice. She listens to Yelena. “If only that were true.”
When Natalia leaves, Yelena yells after her. “I will beat you next time!”
“I can assure you,” Natalia says loud enough to be heard. “You won’t.”
Yelena laughs and something inside of Natalia shatters with want.
“We are human, Yelena,” Natalia says, she’s been out for nearly a year now. Clint is waiting outside. “We don’t have to do this.”
“This is my job,” Yelena whispers. “Now, hold the shoes and slam the door. Let me do my fucking job.”
“Yelena.”
“Hold the shoes and slam the fucking door, Natalia. Leave before I have to do it myself.”
The bullet leaves the gun before Natalia can do anything about it. Jump in front of her, push her out of the way, say no! or scream so loudly the person drops the gun. She would do anything, and she fucking means anything to put the bullet back into the gun. Yelena just had to come to Budapest.
“Lena!” Natalia screams, loud. So loudly. “Yelena!”
“I beat you,” Yelena says as Natalia falls to the floor next to her. “I did. I beat you. I told you I would. Imagine what Madam B. would think.”
She laughs. It’s nothing. Nothing. And it hurts. It fucking hurts. Natalia is already bleeding, there is a ringing pain in her head and her whole body feels like it’s covered in blood. It might be. But Yelena’s voice, her blue eyes, her curves and slopes, and dips and beauty, hurts far more than any physical pain.
“You know,” Yelena starts. Stops. She takes a ragged breath. “I loved you. And you loved me.”
Natalia shakes her head, pets Yelena’s hair. It’s still so soft. “There is no past tense in mine.”
Yelena smiles and it breaks half her face open into a blood sunbath. “Always so dramatic.”
“I was never dramatic,” Natalia scoffs.
“I’m going to die, let me say what I wish.”
Natalia bites back a sob, “you’re not gonna die.”
“I am,” Yelena says. “Don’t act like I’m not. I am.”
Natalia looks up and around, the person who shot her is already gone. Madam B. would’ve done horrible things to Natalia if she let someone get away.
“Sing to me,” Yelena requests. “That song you sang when Madam B. was in the other room. The one that she played in her office sometimes. Sing to me.”
Natalia sings because Yelena is going to die and Natalia will never see her again. She will never hear her voice or look into her eyes. She will never know what’s under her clothing or what her skin tastes like. She will never know the curves and slopes and dips and beauty by heart. She won’t be able to map Yelena’s body out with her hands and listen to the noises she makes. Because Yelena is going to die and so Natalia sings.
“Now he's gone, I don't know why, and 'til this day, sometimes I cry, he didn't even say goodbye- He didn't take the time to lie,” Natalia sings softly. Slowly.
“Remember what I told you?” Yelena asks. “About your hair? How I hated it?”
Natalia nods, some of her tears land on Yelena’s face. “I lied.”
Natalia lets out a sob, an echo, a calling to whatever God is out there to save Yelena.
“I don’t hate it,” Yelena rasps. “I love it.”
Her eyes shut and she whispers something. “I’m gonna die like I wanted to, isn’t that awful? A perfect end to a perfect story."
Natalia laughs until it breaks off into sobs. Yelena dies with a smile on her face, her body feels heavy. She’s marble, after all.