Next Target: Clint Barton

1 - She's gone

Italics are thoughts and this <> means its in Russian

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---Ohio, 2023---

Yelena felt the whole world slowly come back to her. Piece by piece every smell, sight and sound slowly came back to her after what felt like a short slumber. She looked around at the safehouse she, Melina and Alexei had been staying at. Strange. A few seconds ago the house was in good shape; it was clean and neat and now, now it looked as if no one had been there in five years.

After taking in her surroundings she looked to the other room and saw Melina materializing right before her. Her eyes widened in both concern and confusion. "What the hell?" she muttered. 

"What is it?" A man's voice came from the kitchen. The two women ran from the living room to the kitchen and saw Alexei's hand materializing as he stared at it in confusion.

They all just stood there and looked around until Yelena looked down at her phone and read the date, specifically the year. 2023. But it was 2018 a minute ago. She held up the phone to her parents to show them the year on it. They both looked at it with confusion. 

"I know I'm heavy sleeper, but there's no way I slept for five years!" Alexei said worriedly.

The static sound of the TV caught their attention before any of them could add anything else to the conversation. They all walked towards the TV as the picture began to clear up and the words of the news anchor became comprehensible.

"After five long years the Avengers have successfully brought back everyone that was blipped." The man on the news said. 

Yelena immediately smiled and looked up at both her parents. "Natasha."

"That's my girl!" Alexei excitedly laughed as he put his arm around Melina's waist who was also smiling at them. 

"Our girl." Melina added happily.

Yelena immediately went to her room and came back with a flip phone in her hand. It was the burner phone that Natasha had given her the last time they saw each other a few days before the blip. The line rang for a few minutes before it went dead. She didn't pick up.

"That's weird, she always picks up." Yelena looked at the phone confused. She was beginning to worry about her sister. Natasha had never missed a call from Yelena since they reconnected to take down the Red Room. What if something had happened to her during the five years she was gone.

"I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, she's probably just busy helping people like she always does." Melina told her. "Natasha can take care of herself. We can try again in a few days once things get settled down."

Alexei smiled in agreement. Yelena nodded and calmed her nerves as the family continued to watch the news.

---The Avengers Compound, 5 days later---

The Avengers weren't quite the same since Natasha had died. Sam and Wanda had woken up to find their leader and close friend dead. Meanwhile the original six had pretty much fallen apart without her. Even those who didn't know her long had felt her absence, the missing part of the team. They all missed her jokes, her sarcasm, her warmth and her leadership.

Normally they'd need Natasha's help with solving the newest problem they found themselves to faced with, but this time they would just have to make do without her. No matter how hard that would be.

Someone had broken into an old Hydra base a few days before the Avengers were there to shut it down and stole a package of unidentified items. They didn't know what was in the package, but if it was Hydra then it couldn't have been anything good.