No Tears | NR

Chapter 33

Dorsington, United Kingdom

Yara woke up screaming. Natasha appeared at her side not much later, although the brunette didn't register her presence at first. She was too caught up in her latest nightmare which was similar to the previous one. Yara could still hear the shots in her head and see Natasha's body go limp. It haunted her.

That's why she flinched away from Natasha when she finally noticed the woman. She wasn't scared of Natasha. On the contrary, she was scared for her. She was scared that her nightmares would turn into reality - if not now then in the future.

Natasha, however, didn't know that and misunderstood Yara's reaction to her as discomfort. The idea of the brunette being afraid of her or feeling uncomfortable around her, hurt the Avenger more than she ever would have expected or admitted.

Despite that, she spoke up hesitantly. "You OK?" She elected to ignore her thoughts and doubts for the moment.

Yara replied with a short nod.

"The usual?"

Yara nodded again.

Natasha knew that the brunette had lied both times, but didn't push it. If Yara wanted to tell her what was really going on, she would do so in her own time and on her own terms. All she could do for now was to hand the brunette a wet towel and a glass of water.

Yara was doing her best to avoid looking at the woman next to her which didn't go unnoticed. Natasha was seriously beginning to wonder what had happened that had made the brunette this wary of her. Instead of asking, however, she got up and left Yara alone, giving her some privacy.

Yara was too busy with her own thoughts to even notice that the blonde Avenger had left. She remembered the conversation that Natasha and she had had a few hours ago. It had left her feeling strangely vulnerable. At the same time, it also felt surreal to her like she had dreamed it and it had never really happened. Yara would like to be able to say that she was sure that it had, indeed, happened. But she couldn't dismiss the fact either that she had frequently hallucinated throughout the past few weeks, so she couldn't really be sure of anything anymore.

What she did know, or at least hoped that she knew, was that she was in a safehouse in Scotland with Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow and that they needed to find a way to defeat Griebel and his people. So that's what she put her mind to. It also helped to get the Avenger out of her thoughts for the moment.

At some point, her body started complaining about a lack of food. She hadn't eaten in a long time and her stomach was grumbling loudly. Yara got up and made her way to the kitchen where she ran into Natasha.

The Avenger was seated at a table and was cleaning her handguns. Yara barely spared her a glance as she walked up to the fridge to see if there was any food.

"Top shelf", Natasha announced, not looking up from her weapons.

"Thanks", Yara replied shortly, opening the fridge and finding a plate of pasta right where the blonde had said it would be.

She was debating whether she should eat here or in her room while she was closing the fridge and putting the plate into the microwave. The air felt tense between her and Natasha ever since she woke up and she wasn't really sure why. Yara was still doing her best to avoid looking at Natasha, not being able to get that picture of Natasha's dead corpse out of her head. It was worse now than it had been before. When she had first had that dream, she had been too overwhelmed by all kinds of other things on top of that, to give her mind the chance to focus on anything in particular. But now, she couldn't shake the residing taste of bitterness and worry that had resulted from her nightmare.