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I
Yelena is standing on the rooftop of her home in Ohio, and she wants to die. At six years old, the injustices of the world are already too much for her to bear.
She has become well-acquainted with losing — most recently, her ninth soccer game in a row.
She’s fine with it. Honestly, she is. Especially because her dad tells her sports are just for fun. (She doesn’t know why her mother bites her tongue — keeps herself from arguing with him. Doesn’t know why her sister flinches — clenches her palms as if hiding them from something.)
She likes to play goalie. She likes to protect it, protect the other girls from being sad if they let a ball whizz past them. Occasionally, she even likes to save the day — be a hero. Her dad says she gets that from him.
What she doesn’t like is when Emily’s older brother Eddie makes fun of her friend Missy for pooping in the middle of the field. So what if she did? The porta-potties had spiders, and dogs popped on the grass all the time. Yelena loves dogs.
She tells Eddie that, and he laughs in her face. He laughs in her face, so she punches him in his — hears a sound like the snap of a twig when she and Natasha are practicing backbends in the woods behind their house or a pretzel when she splits it in half with Missy at lunch.
Her mom’s lips curve into a frown (disappointed), and her sister’s lips go straight (scared), but the corner of her dad’s curves into a smirk (proud, so proud). “That’s my girl,” he mutters under his breath. “That’s my girl.”
Yelena still isn’t allowed to play in the last Thunderbolts game of the season, and it’s not fair. It’s not fair at all. She begs her mother to drive her to the field anyway, but she tells Yelena the sooner she learns that actions have consequences, the better off she’ll be. (She stubbornly insists she will never get used to it.) She begs her sister to run away there with her, but she tells Yelena that it’s too far — that she’ll never make it. She’s smart enough not to even bother asking her dad, and she’s confident enough that she can do it alone.
She climbs onto the roof and looks out at the grassy expanse, runs and runs as fast as her little legs will carry her before opening her arms and surrendering to the wind.
Yes, she’s going to fly there. She’s sure she can do it. If she just gets enough height, she’ll be free as a bird — soaring, soaring, soa—
Yelena has been shielded from life’s harshest lessons thus far, but she’s about to learn gravity. About to learn falling. About to learn the way the world works for creatures like her.
Yelena screams. She screams at the top of her tiny lungs and has her first of so, so many regrets.
But Yelena is still at the beginning of her sixth year of life. Yelena is still in the stage where there are hands that hug her. Hands that catch her.
She does not hit the ground.
She wraps her arms around her dad — wraps them so, so tight.
“What were you thinking, my little light?” he soothes, clutching her close to his chest, so warm and safe.
“I just wanted to play,” she cries. “I thought this way I could play.”
“Ey, don’t cry, Yelena.” He kisses her temple. “It’s all right. There’s always next year.”
There is not a next year.
There is not even a next week.
Four days later, she sees her dad for the last time in 20 years.
II
Yelena is standing on the rooftop of the Red Room in Russia, and she wants to die. Her sparring partner, Anya, wants her to die, too.
She has become well-acquainted with losing — most recently, her freedom.
She doesn’t think she’s going to survive here. Honestly, she doesn’t. Nothing here is just for fun. (She knows now why her mother would never argue — talking back is punished severely in this place. She knows now why her sister would curl her fingers — knows the feeling of a whip coming down on that tender flesh.)
She doesn’t like to kill. But she is barely managing to protect herself, so there’s no way she can protect anyone else. In less than a year, she has given up hope that someone will come to save her — that there will be a hero. Everything her dad ever told her was a lie.
She doesn’t like it when the other girls laugh at Anya for peeing the bed at night. So what if she did? They all had nightmares, and they were all handcuffed to the metal frame until dawn. She doesn’t like being forced to hurt Anya either.
But her instructor, Commander Petrov, screams in Yelena’s face to finish the job. He screams in her face, so she has no choice but to shoot Anya in hers — hears a sound like fireworks at the Fourth of July fair or thunder that made her crawl into her mom and dad’s bed at night back when she still had parents.
Her own lips curve into a frown (horrified), and Anya’s lips go straight (dead), but the corner of Commander Petrov’s curves into a smirk (satisfied, so satisfied). “Well done, girl,” he mutters under her breath. “Well done.”
Yelena still isn’t allowed to be finished with training for the rest of the day, and it’s not fair. It’s not fair at all. She throws up her lunch as she watches a ribbon of blood leak from Anya’s head, and Commander Petrov tells her the sooner she gets used to this, the better off she’ll be. (She fears she will never get used to it.) She no longer has her sister there to warn her that this place is too hard to run away from — that she’ll never make it. But she’s smart enough to know she won’t, and she’s miserable enough not to care.
She turns from Commander Petrov and looks out at the snowy expanse, runs and runs as fast as her little legs will carry her before opening her arms and surrendering to death.
Yes, she’s going to die. She’s sure it will happen. If she just gets enough height, she’ll be gone in seconds — heartbeat slowing, slowing, slo—
Yelena has learned many of life’s harshest lessons in the few months she’s been here, but she’s about to learn more. About to learn torture. About to learn the way the world works for girls like her.
Yelena screams when she wakes up in the medical bay. She screams at the top of her tiny lungs and has even more of so, so many regrets.
Yelena is now at the end of her sixth year of life. Yelena is now at the stage where there are only hands that slap her. Hands that bury sharp things into her flesh.
She is strapped to the bed.
She cannot even wrap her arms around herself — cannot move them at all.
“What were you thinking, you stupid girl?” the doctor asks, sneering close to her face, cold and dangerous.
“I just wanted to end it,” she cries. “I thought this way I could end it.”
“Stop crying.” He jabs a needle into her arm. “General Dreykov thinks you have potential. It’s not over until he says it is.”
Somehow, Yelena makes it to next week.
She makes it to next year.
She makes it the 20 after that.
III
Yelena is standing on a rooftop in Morocco, and she wants to die. She has never been allowed to die, but now she is not allowed to do anything on her own accord.
She has become well-acquainted with losing — most recently, her mind.
She has always been in a cage, but somehow, it’s gotten even smaller. Shrunken down to atoms and stuffed into the deepest recesses of her brain. She has never been able to control anything, and now, she doesn’t even have the luxury of illusion. Of pretending to have agency over herself.
It is not the kind of nothingness she craves. It’s bright and loud and hot. She still has to see all the blood, hear all the screams, pull all the triggers. Her mind is a helpless witness to the perpetrator of her body.
It goes on like this for years and years until she breathes the red powder.
If she’s being honest, it goes on for years and years after that, too.
IV
Yelena is standing on a rooftop in New York City, and she wants to die. But more than that, she wants to kill Clint Barton.
Yelena has become well-acquainted with losing — most recently, her sister.
There’s a complication, though — there always is — in the form of a girl named Kate who has eyes like Anya’s. Eyes like Missy’s.
She’s not a girl, Yelena supposes. She is a young woman only a few years younger than herself. But unlike Yelena, there is still light in her eyes.
(In her eyes that look like Anya’s. Like Missy’s.)
She raises a bow, and Yelena shakes her head despite the fact an arrow through her body would provide sweet relief. Killing is the only thing she’s ever been good for, and for once, she will use that to her advantage. She will not die until she sees a ribbon of blood leak from Clint Barton’s head, and this time, she will not feel sick. This time, she will not feel guilty. This time, she will not feel anything at all. (Against all odds, she has gotten used it it.)
Kate lowers her arms.
Yelena lowers herself off the building, disappearing into the night.
V
Yelena is standing on a rooftop…somewhere. She’s not actually sure. She travels a lot for work and she drinks a lot because of it.
Malaysia, maybe?
Yes, it must be. The Merdeka 118 — second-tallest building in the world. Home to one of Valentina’s labs or something.
Who cares.
She has become well-acquainted with losing — most recently, her will to live.
She has a parachute. Valentina provided it, which means it very well might snap. Let it, Yelena thinks.
It would be poetic, wouldn’t it? Going out the same way as her sister? Except Natasha saved the entire fucking world doing it, and Yelena can’t even save a fucking vodka bottle for more than an hour.
Who cares.
Recently, after downing one of said bottles, she cut off all her hair. (And then she cut some other things, too. So fucking what? She already had too many scars to count.)
She tells herself she did it because of some stupid Sex and the City quote about haircuts having the power to transform your life. (She knows she did it because she could still feel Melina’s fingers on her scalp every time she braided it, and fuck that. Fuck Melina. Her farm admittedly had shitty service, but it’s still decent enough to make a phone call.)
She’s not as hard on Alexei, and maybe that isn’t fair. He hasn’t called either, after all. But he wasn’t in there like Melina was. He doesn’t understand like Melina does.
Who cares.
(Evidently, not Melina.)
Who cares.
(Evidently, not Alexei.)
Who cares.
(Evidently, Yelena. A lot more than she wants to admit.)
VI
Yelena is standing on the rooftop of Melina’s farmhouse in Russia, and she wants to die.
She has become well-acquainted with losing — most recently, her ability to stay away from the place she was foolish enough to call home for a second.
She has not visited in over two years, and she has not spoken to Melina in just as long. She tells herself she does not want her — does not need her. She has her father back, after all. And her teammates — people she can even occasionally call friends. Ava has a wicked sense of humor, and Bob reminds her a bit of Missy, of Anya, of Kate.
In general, she has been doing much better because of that. Today, she is doing much worse.
It’s not linear, this whole healing thing. There is no finish line, and on days like today, she can't even manage to find the starting one.
It’s not actually a very high fall. The impact of the ground probably wouldn’t make her heart cease to beat. She’s never been that lucky, and she’s not actually sure she has one anymore. A heart, that is. Melina had always told her and Natasha to never let them take it, but Yelena isn’t so sure she succeeded.
It does not take long for Melina to join her on the roof. She still has her pigs and her state-of-the-art security system and her paranoia. Like nothing has changed since the last time. Maybe, for her, nothing has.
She grabs the back of Yelena’s shirt, yanks back hard before her second foot can pass the gutter.
“What were you thinking?” she asks. Yelena can’t read her tone. Can’t read her feelings. Maybe she doesn’t have them.
“What do you think I was thinking?” she spits back. Her intentions were obvious, and Melina is a lot of things, but she is not stupid.
Melina is silent.
“Why won’t you say it?” she presses. She’s learned to crave a fight the same way she craves a drink, a smoke, a blade. “I dare you to say it.”
Melina does not take the bait. She just stares, mouth a thin line. “Do not jump off my roof,” she tells her, turning to go the way she came — to climb back through the window of the loft like nothing had happened. Maybe, for her, nothing has. Melina has always been good at this: disappearing without a trace.
“Your other pretend daughter jumped off cliff, you know,” Yelena calls after her. “Or do you not remember? You don’t talk about that either.”
Melina pauses halfway to her destination. “What do you want from me, Yelena?” she asks, voice so infuriatingly even she can’t stand it.
“Fucking anything!” she yells. “Anything at all.”
Melina turns her head just enough to look at her. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
Yelena could laugh. She’s heard that one before. At a kitchen table in Ohio and in the very house she was ready to jump off just now. “You always are.”
Her lips get straight and small again. “Yes, I know.”
“You always disappoint me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“And yet I always come back.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Is that a mistake?” she asks. She means it to be snarky and cruel, but her voice betrays her by sounding shockingly genuine. Unexpectedly vulnerable. “Am I stupid for that?”
“I do not know,” Melina admits. “All I know is that I am grateful that you do.”
She chews on the inside of her cheek. She wants to hurt her. She wants to tell her. She does both. “You know, most days I still want to die.”
“Every day I hope you won’t.”
She’s not off the hook. Yelena cannot let her off the hook that easily. “You have funny way of showing that. Never calling me, never texting me, never trying to contact me at all.”
Melina blinks, the space between her brows furrowing in deep concentration as she finds her words. “I got very used to worrying about you when I could not see you. All those years—”
“But you can see me now,” Yelena argues, frustration creeping back into her tone. Can’t she? Can’t anyone see her and how fucking not okay she is? They must, right? They must. “You can see me,” Yelena insists. “But you choose not to. Why do you choose it, Melina?”
Her mouth curves into another tiny frown as a long, long beat of silence overtakes them.
“I call your sister’s phone, I know exactly what will happen when I do,” Melina reasons. “It will ring five times, and then I will hear her voice the exact same way as before. ‘It is Natasha. I’m busy right now.’”
“‘Leave a message or don’t,’” Yelena finishes, voice so quiet it’s barely audible.
“Mm," Melina hums, giving her a nearly imperceptible nod.
“Do you?” Yelena asks. “Do you leave message?”
Melina shakes her head, takes a deep breath. “I know she will not pick up. I do not know if you will.”
“You are afraid I won’t?” It seems such an irrational fear. The thought has never crossed her mind. She would have picked up before the first ring ended every time.
Melina shrugs a shoulder, averts her eyes. “You have many reasons not to. It is one experiment I am too much of coward to conduct.”
She lets out a breath, exasperated and tinged with sympathy. “Promise that you will call me,” she firmly demands.
Melina meets her gaze. “Promise that you will answer,” she challenges.
She rolls her eyes. “Will take your calls, Melina.”
“But you will not be able to if you jump off roof.”
Oh. Oh, so that’s what she means.
“Touché,” Yelena relents. It's a big favor to ask — the biggest — but she finds herself saying, “I will answer.”
Melina nods, seemingly satisfied. “You may call me, too,” she offers with the characteristic awkwardness that comes with caring. “If urge strikes.” The urge to talk. The urge to jump.
“All right.”
“All right.”
Yelena takes a seat, letting her legs gently swing as she looks over the grassy expanse. Melina lowers herself next to her. The sun begins to sink into the sky before either of them speaks again.
“One time,” Melina admits.
“What?” Yelena looks over at her.
Melina does not do the same, gaze fixed on her barn. “One time, I did leave message on her phone.”
Yelena tilts her head. “What did you say?”
“Something I could not ever say to her face, even though it was true from day I met you both.”
Yelena scoots closer to her. Close enough to lay her head on her shoulder. Warm and safe as her father's chest. “She loved you, too, Mama,” she whispers. “I love you, too.”
Yelena is sitting on the rooftop of Melina’s farmhouse in Russia, and she is making peace with being alive.