Next Target: Clint Barton

7 - Sisters

Yelena tells the taxi driver to pull up to the parking lot of an apartment complex, where her safehouse was. It was in a quiet neighborhood outside of the main city. She paid the driver and dragged her unwilling body up three flights of stairs to get to her apartment. Her body was sore and tired from all the fighting she had put it through in the last 24 hours.

This safehouse in particular was one of her favorites, during the two years after the events of the Sokovia accords, she and Natasha had spent a lot of time traveling and freeing their fellow widows together. After all the different countries and cities they've been to, this safehouse had been the one that they always returned to, the one they both thought of as home. Yelena loved it so much that she even left some of her belongings here, though Natasha's were all gone. During the five years, after she had lost hope of bringing everyone back, she brought all her stuff from the safehouse to the Avengers Tower, though still keeping the apartment under her name. Unfortunately, that tower ended up being blown up during the final battle against Thanos, all of her belongings burning to ash with the structure, not even a single keepsake for Yelena to hold onto during the lonely hours.

She walked up to the door and reached for the door knob -she stopped before her fingers made contact with the cold metal. This was the home she and her sister shared for two years, where they laughed, watched movies together, where they were truly just two sisters -no Red Room, no assassins, just them -and now, now Yelena was about to walk through the door alone. She took a deep breath and opened the door, slowly walking into the two bedroom apartment as she looked around. Everything was as she remembered it, all the furniture and utensils remained where they always were, yet something was so different. That's when Yelena realized it, the place was void of the life and warmth that it once held, after exploring for a bit she realized that all of Natasha's stuff was gone. Her clothes, her weapons, blankets and even towels were all gone. All that remained of Natasha was an empty room with nothing but a cleanly made bed in the center of it. It all felt so empty. Though this was her home, she just felt like an invisible traveler roaming through a lifeless building, this place no longer felt like home, now it was just a reminder of everything she had lost.

After exploring the entirety of the apartment to see if there was anything else that was different she glumly walked towards the kitchen to see if Natasha had taken all of the alcohol with her, she could use a drink after the day she had. She walked to the cupboard before catching sight of something sitting on the kitchen island. It was flat like a piece of paper, but too small to be a letter.

She walked towards it to get a closer look. It looked familiar to her but she couldn't for the life of her recognize what it was, until she got close enough to clearly see it. Her heart dropped as she inspected the frayed and aged corners of the paper and its ripped bottom, she stared at a younger version of herself and Natasha playing together and smiling their genuine smiles, their innocence showing through. It was Natasha's half. The half of the photo booth pictures that she tore off and kept, while giving the other half to Yelena.

She didn't remember them being on the counter the last time she was at the apartment, which had to mean that someone put them on the counter after she had been snapped. Natasha. She stumbled against the counter while holding the pictures close to her heart, she looked up as her eyes filled with tears that she tried so desperately to keep from falling. She sat on the floor with her knees up to her chest as she held the pictures with one hand and ran the other one through her blonde hair.

She stared into them with an empty look before reaching into her pocket and pulling out her phone. She typed in the password and scrolled to her voicemail box. When she returned from being snapped, she found her voicemail box full of new voicemails, at first she thought they were all spam callers so she didn't bother to listen to any of them, but after she heard of Natasha's death she found out that all of the new voicemails were from her sister. They were recordings of Natasha telling Yelena that she would find a way to undo it but then slowly faded to them being about how much Natasha missed her and then to how broken and alone Natasha felt. The voicemail she played for Steve was the last one that was sent from her.