Starlight (Yelena Belova and Kate Bishop one shots)

When the light is gone

Natasha died, sacrificing herself to bring everyone back. Now that she's gone, it's up to you to help Yelena navigate her grief and cope with her sister's tragic disappearance. Except of course it is far from easy.

"Clint, where is Nat?"

Those fateful words &still haunted you even two weeks after they had been pronounced. 

Everyone's desperate face, Clint's eyes heavy with the death of his bestfriend, something he would never forgive himself for.

And above anything else, this cold and dreadful feeling. Yelena was going to come back but to her, nothing would ever be the same again.

This alone was scary. The thought of the girl you loved most in the entire world broken by the loss of her only family was scary.

But what had been even scarier to you was Yelena's reaction. You expected screams, cries, a full bloomed mental breakdown...Anything really.

Except your girlfriend had barely seemed to acknowledge the information. For a short second, a spark of...something you couldn't quite identify had crossed her gaze and then she had pretty much gone back to her normal self.

Not completely, of course. Yelena rarely laughed or smiled anymore and her beautiful green eyes were most of the time empty. 

She acted normal, went on missions, took care of you and did everything that was expected from her but something was missing.

The scary part was living with the ghost of the girl you had fallen in love with. Physically, the blonde was here and you could tell she was trying very hard to behave as if nothing had happened.

Still, a part of her had died with Natasha and you had no idea how to help. Grief was a tricky thing, always, but Yelena was a widow and you weren't even sure she knew the true meaning of this word.

In the Red Room, there was simply no place for grief. You watched the people you cared about fall and kept a straight face anyway because your mission came before anything else.

Your girlfriend couldn't heal from her sister's death (if you could ever heal from something like this), she had never learnt it was even possible.

You had never seen Yelena cry or show the tiniest sign of vulnerability. Of course, she was definitely softer around you (otherwise maintaining a relationship with her would have been difficult) but that was it.

Before the blip, the blonde had seemed to finally open up a bit more but Natasha's disappearance had taken her straight back to square one. Except this was even worst more because in this case, she needed to be vulnerable in order to heal.

You desperately wanted to help her. She was the person you loved most in the entire word and it was so frustrating to just sit there unsure of what to do.

You had tried giving her space or on the contrary insisting that you were here to talk if she needed anything. Both times Yelena had shrugged and told you she was okay.

You had been scared of seeing her crumble, now you kinda wish she could just to let her emotions out. Picking up the pieces of someone you loved was hard enough. Not knowing what they needed because they wouldn't talk to you was yet another story.

You were currently preparing yourself for a mission, the first risky one Yelena had been allowed to join since she had gone back from the blip.

On one hand, it was nice to be back in action with your girlfriend by your side, on the other...You hoped nothing would go wrong.

It wasn't like Yelena to act recklessly but who knew. Now that Natasha was gone, it was impossible to tell what she would do.

You had tried talking about it with her, even asked the others Avengers to help you convince her it was too soon. No one had listened. They were all convinced that Yelena was doing better.

Only Clint knew something wasn't quite right with her but she was an adult, he couldn't tell her what to do...

"You're alright baby?" Yelena hugged you from behind, her chin resting on your shoulder. "You've been acting weird."

"I'm fine El." You sighted. "Just promise me you'll be careful alright?"

"Sure, you know I always am"

You renounced to add anything and hugged her back instead. Discussing was pointless, all you could do was pray everything would be alright.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Yelena!!!" You heard Clint scream behind you. "For the love of god what are you doing??"

You turned around just in time to see your girlfriend charge at the monstruous creature you were trying to defeat all alone.

You had a plan. You, Clint and Yelena were supposed to attack together, taking each a different side. This sort of giant robot was wayy too big to be taken down by one person.

And yet, this was exactly what your girlfriend was about to do.

"Lena!!" You yelled, joining your partner. "Come back, we must do it together!"

She didn't even turn around, stabbing the creature right in the eye in one swift move. With a second one, she attacked the other and eventually the robot collapsed.

"See?" The blonde finally looked at you with a triumphing smile. "It wasn't that difficult was it?"

You and Clint sighted at the same time, both impressed and annoyed.

You were angry at her of course but nothing bad had happened so it was hard to say anything.

But then, the robot somehow woke up, sending Yelena who was completely unprepared crash against a wall.

She didn't even have time to scream and slumped to the floor, unmoving.

Yes I'm back. I know it's been a while but I'm going to do my best to update as soon as possible. Hope you enjoy!