No Tears | NR

Chapter 58

Avengers Compound, USA

Only one word was still legible: "Missing". It was printed in bold large letters on a piece of paper that was yellowish from the sun and wavy from the rain. Where there had once been a name and a description of the person that was missing, dirt and washed-out ink gave the paper an inconsistent greyish color that was mixed with some muddy brown.

The old note was barely hanging on to the wall that it was pinned to with one old nail. A breeze of wind made the piece of paper move and rustle lightly. The note had gotten stiff from the weather.

It had caught Yara's eye just as she was about to walk past it. She had left the compound to go on a walk and have some time to herself. In all honesty, there was mostly one conversation that she wanted to avoid and tried to procrastinate.

She didn't know why the flyer had caught her attention but she had been standing in front of the wall with her eyes glued to the piece of paper for over a minute now.

Trees rustled somewhere behind her in the cool wind and a few cars had passed her on the street. She didn't take notice of any of it as she stood transfixed by that not particularly interesting or impressive wall which had once been covered by many, many more posters and flyers, all of which described different people that were missing.

Most of these notes had been carried away by the wind by now. All but one.

It was a cool, windy fall day. The skies were dark and heavy, grey clouds were hanging low. It hadn't started raining yet, but that was just a matter of time. If the weather report was right, it would rain throughout the next few days as well.

'How fitting', Yara thought. She liked this weather.

Her thoughts had wandered to a different place and time.

A poster not entirely unlike this one was pinned to a different wall. Its state was only slightly better than this one. Even the tragedy that proceeded this particular poster was not completely different.

This piece of paper had been pinned to a different wall in a different country at a different time.

A picture of a young man was smiling at her. He couldn't have been any older than her when she had joined the military, maybe 20 years old. His face was among many more some of which were older, some looked about the same age, some looked serious, some looked content, and some looked sad. All of these people were dead. The war had cost them their lives.

Many, many lives were lost in that war, the Second World War, that is. In many places, walls were covered with pictures and notes of fallen soldiers just like this particular one.

For some reason, the boy's face was engraved in Yara's brain and that same face, that same smile, was haunting her now as she was absentmindedly looking at the single piece of paper that was floating in the air and was barely hanging on the wall by a single nail.

Finally, a cold breeze caught the old note, tore the last few fibers that had kept it attached to the wall, and carried it away. Yara watched as the note floated through the air carried by the wind. It flipped over a few times and finally touched down on the ground slowly and smoothly. It didn't stay there for very long though. Another breeze picked the piece of paper up again and whirled it around, carrying it further away from the brunette.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Yara turned her head and tore her eyes away from the note that wasn't visible to her anymore. It had been blown behind a parked car where she lost track of it.

The cold air had made its way through her coat and was making her shiver slightly. She pulled the collar up and shook her head lightly. Bad idea. Her head pounded with a dull pain.

Yara paused and waited for the uncomfortable feeling to fade before she started moving.

The streets were desolate and bleak, just like they were in every other city she had been to in the past year. The world had not recovered from the Snap and Yara doubted that it ever would.

She returned to the compound a while later and was glad to get back to her room unnoticed. As she closed the door behind her, something caught her eye. Something was lying on her bed; a file.

Yara picked it up with a hint of curiosity. The file had no name or title, just a number - no, the number. She couldn't stop herself from looking down at her clothed arm.

The brunette opened the file up and found a piece of paper and an old newspaper article. Must be the file, Natasha had told her about.

The paper was an information form on a person but it was mostly blank. The name, age, and nationality were unknown. The only field that contained some text was the "Other notes" field. It described a person in a few short sentences.

"Subject 131565 does not age and can't die. They are rumored to have links to Hydra and were first noticed in 1946."

That was the same year that the article was from. It was about two men who were found dead in a warehouse in Hamburg. They were shot cleanly and there were no traces of the shooter.

The shooter was never found. Yara would know. She was the shooter. She had killed those men after they had attacked her.

Yara was surprised that anyone had been able to link that article to her. But then again, Fury was supposed to be "The Spy". If anyone could have gotten it, it was him, at least from what Yara had heard about him.

The brunette closed the file and dropped it onto her desk. She was sure that Natasha was the one who had dropped it off in her room. The blonde had mentioned the file before and she was the only one living here at the moment besides Yara.

With a heavy sigh, she sat down on the corner of her bed. The thought of the blonde Avenger reminded her of the conversation that she would inevitably have to have with her. Well, she wasn't reminded. That thought had been on her mind all day. A more accurate way of putting this was; she finally took the time to properly process and think about it.

There was no way around it. Yara knew that. And she felt like she owed it to Natasha. They needed to talk. Yara just really didn't want to. But what choice did she have?

With another heavy sigh, her eyes wandered down to her hands which had started fumbling with the hem of her shirt.

Yara forced herself to stop and stood up which somehow required much more effort than it should have. Slowly, she started walking. The brunette left her room and made her way to the kitchen. She got two mugs out of the cupboard and busied herself with the coffee machine.

AN:

Took a while. University is keeping me on my toes at the moment and that will probably not change any time soon. So I don't expect to be uploading the next chapters any faster than this one. But I still hope that the next one will be up quicker.

Hope you like this one.