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The car is silent apart from Yelena’s quiet humming in the passenger seat. Her sestra is nearing sleep; eyelids drooping as she rests her head near the open window. The sun is dipping low over the dusty desert horizon. Luckily, Natasha feels no chill as she is currently sitting next to the human personification of the sun. She decides she likes the desert, the heat softens the edges of the landscape into something distinctly nostalgic. They were speeding away from their latest installment in their mission to free all the widows, and looking over to her right Natasha noticed Yelena had officially slumped over in her seat- asleep.
“Lena, c’mon,” she reached over to gently shake her shoulder, “stay awake, keep me company.” A crease appeared between her sister’s eyebrows as she protested, rolling over. “Let’s listen to some music, I have to stay awake so I don’t crash the car. That would not be a cool way to die.” Although Natasha knew that wasn’t really a possibility, due to her training she could likely go another 72 hours without sleep and feel no difference, it was nice to think like that. Acting quickly, before Yelena had a chance to turn on her disorientating playlist comprised of American classic rock, Nickelback, and the occasional punk Russian song she toggled to her own playlist. To her delight the opening whistling notes of her song drifted through the radio.
Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my Ma and Pa, not the way that I do love you
Yelena gave her a dirty look from the corner of her eye, growling out “Natasha, turn that off, I’m trying to sleep.”
“And I’m trying to drive. You’re a trained assassin, can’t you go a couple more hours until we get to the safe house?”
“Noo.” Yelena whined again, reaching up to turn off the radio, and finally sink into sweet oblivion.
Natasha huffed in frustration, finally resorting to her last option. “Wanna hear a secret then?”
Ah, that got her attention. Yelena had always dealt in the currency of secrets since childhood, a fitting characteristic for someone who would go on to become one of the greatest spies in history. “A secret?” she repeated, bemused, eyes sparkling in the light of the fading Arizona sun.
Man oh man, you’re my best friend, I scream into the nothingness. There ain’t nothing that I need.
“This song reminds me of you; of us.” Natasha confessed, staring at the desolate, shadowed road to avoid looking at her sister. She was never good at this ooey gooey shit that seemed to come so easy to Americans. “Sometimes- promise you won’t tell?- sometimes when I especially missed you I would play this song.”
She thrust her words into the air, allowing them to dissolve. After a couple moments of stillness, seconds that seemed to Natasha to be minutes, she finally heard Yelena’s raspy inhale and-
“Shit, the west has made you soft sestra.”
Natasha almost pushed her out of the car then and there. But then Yelena laced her hand with Natasha’s free one, bringing their joined fingers up to cover her mouth. Glancing over Natasha could see she was smiling, her face in an entirely peaceful expression that was so heartbreakingly rare these days on her baby sister’s face that Natasha seared the moment into her mind.
Oh, home, let me come home. Home is wherever I’m with you
Sometimes Natasha pondered the life they would have lived had those years in Ohio not been a calculated ruse. She imagines the existence of the girls through the veil, them in an alternate universe where they had never been sent back to the Red Room, never known real inescapable pain. She always imagined she would go to college. Little Natasha had always admired the college students returning from their adventures, fresh-faced and the image of youth. She imagines she would study something like literature. She had always loved to read, to completely immerse herself in worlds where men did not trade and sell little girls as though they were cattle, as though they were less than human.
After college, Ohio Natasha would fall in love. It would be a sweet, pure thing. A rose devoid of the thorns. They would do all the couple things that Natasha saw in the movies her family would gather around the tv in the evenings to watch, in the moments when the charade between Alexei and Melina became real, and later, more perversely, in the brainwashing material she had been forced to consume in the Red Room, where in between every candied kiss a couple would share would be interlaid a message to kill, kill, kill.
When the time was right Natasha and her lover would buy a house in the countryside. Their soft, unblemished hearts would guide their decision. The house would be filled to the brim with useless items they kept around simply for pleasure. They would paint the door yellow, so nothing but simple, undying joy would ever live within the walls. The house would be surrounded by unfettered flora, trees older than the Industrial Age standing guard over their home. Silent protectors. And in the summer everything would be cloyingly sticky with humidity, but Natasha wouldn’t care. She would never care.
When the time came they would have two little girls, boisterous and loud in the way little girls are meant to be. Natasha and her husband (wife? It had never seemed like a possibility either way so Natasha had never made much of an effort to consider it) would tie their hair back into braids and send them on their way. Thinking about it now she felt the familiar emptiness of where her uterus used to be. The last bit of free will she had stripped away from her in a fog of meager sedation, cold metal instruments and inhuman masked faces.
I’ll follow you into the park. Through the jungle, through the dark. Girl, I never loved one like you
Oh and Yelena. Natasha looked over to see her completely absorbed in the music, eyes distant in a fantasy of her own. Not Yelena, Auntie Lena. She would burst into their house at random intervals, grabbing the girls’ teeny hands in her larger calloused ones and whisking them away on another adventure. She could just see her spoiling them absolutely rotten, feeding them all the sugar they requested and then some. Oh, and how they would adore her. She could picture them now, clamoring to talk to and hug Auntie Lena as Clint’s kids did with their Auntie Nat. She would take the girls to see their first R-rated movie (something Natasha did not agree to) and would be the first to hear of her eldest’s first crush.
But it was just a mere fantasy. Looking over at Yelena made this quite apparent, blood still painted her face and stained her tacsuit. And with that the illusion disintegrated. In another life they may be driving through the Arizona desert on a road trip for no other reason then their own amusement. But almost nothing Natasha ever did was for her own amusement, so instead she was fleeing a crime scene when the mission turned gruesome. Looking more closely at Yelena she realized her sestra was singing along quietly to the lines.
Laugh until we think we’ll die, barefoot on a summer night. Nothing could be sweeter than with you.
Suddenly, Natasha’s heart didn’t just ache for the girl Yelena could have been, but the one she was. She hurt for the little girl from Ohio- the one who adored My Little Pony cartoons and strawberry ice cream. Was strawberry still her favorite flavor? Did she have a favorite flavor at all? She had missed so much; missed her little sister growing up. What did her sister look like at 10- at 15? They should have been gossiping about first crushes and kisses. She had missed so much because she had left her.
What a shitty fucking older sister she had turned out to be. Instantly she was reminded of that terrifying night when they were young, when that storm had raged across the Midwest. Yelena had been scared out of her wits, and admittedly Natasha was too. The house had creaked and groaned as though it would come down right then and there. But Natasha sobered up, instantly erecting a blanket fort and pulling Yelena under it with her. No storm monsters can get us under here tonight Lena, she had whispered into the night, I promise. And Yelena trusted her unconditionally, wiping her tears away on Natasha’s shirt.
Still feeling her sister’s tight grip on her she thought into the abyss I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry Lena. She had already said it once and once was enough for her sister, further apologies would only dilute it. But the guilt stuck with her as she squeezed Yelena’s hand tighter.
“Hey- wanna take a quick detour?”
And in the streets you run a-free, like it’s only you and me. Geez, you’re something to see
The only place still open had been a desolate Walmart. Ah Walmart, the perfect symbol of America. No questions were asked as the odd pair trudged in wearing blood splattered uniforms, heading straight for the frozen aisle. Yelena had picked out the strawberry flavor, not to Natasha’s surprise, and now they sat spooning ice cream out of the tub, looking up at the clear night sky.
“When I was young I always thought that stars were really big fireflies, miles and miles away.”
Natasha chuckled, “I remember that. One night you woke dad in a frenzy with a net, trying to persuade him to help you catch them since he was so much taller and could reach them better.”
Yelena smirked through a mouthful of ice cream, “I don’t remember that- did he help?”
“Of course it did, you had him ‘round your pinkie finger. He lifted you up on his shoulders and you both went firefly hunting. He would have moved the earth for you if you had only asked.”
“That’s a sweet story, I wish we had more.”
“Yeah,” Natasha sighed, “Me too.” Their stolen years in Ohio had been too short- too brief. Natasha had not had nearly enough time with her family- her real family.
Turning back to her sister she said, “Hey, at least we have now to make memories, right?”
“You are so sappy Tasha. I swear, today you sound like American greeting card.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Natasha smiled softly to herself. Yelena turned, giving her mischievous grin that was so unmistakably Yelena, before shoving her shoulder affectionately with her own. Natasha absorbed the moment, the cool, dry night air, strawberry ice cream melting in her mouth and her sister’s aura beside her. It would be a moment that would flash through her mind on Vormir, all those years later. But for now the memory was weightless, just two sisters enjoying each other’s company.
Oh, home, yes I am home. Home is when I’m alone with you