Yelena yawns as she drops her bag next to her bed. This last mission had been longer and a bit more strenuous than she'd anticipated, leaving her with aching muscles, some nasty bruising, and a desire to sleep for a week straight. But despite her fatigue she desperately wants to see Fanny, and so she makes a quick call to the kennel where she boards her when she's away. They give her the okay to come pick her up and Yelena gets back in her truck to head there immediately.
When she gets there, Fanny is waiting by the front desk with the staff member and her tail begins wagging as soon as Yelena enters through the door.
"She's been an absolute angel," the staff member tells her with a smile. "You paid up front so just need your signature here and here," she explains while pointing to the clipboard she's pushed across the desk to Yelena.
She signs as instructed and then squats down to greet her dog who's now made her way around to the front of the desk. "Hi, girl," she murmurs while threading her fingers through her fur and scratching behind her ears.
"Like I said, she was an angel. No problems at all. By all accounts she had a great time playing with the two huskies we have this week."
"Great. Thanks," Yelena says as she hooks on the leash and leads Fanny out the door.
"See you next time!" the staff member calls out happily and Yelena gives her a smile and a wave even though the overbearing cheerfulness is doing nothing but making her want to gouge out her eyes.
"Let's go home, hmm?" she says to Fanny who barks and then spins in a couple of circles, causing Yelena to frown slightly. "I thought they said you were playing with huskies. Why do you still have energy?"
She groans as they reach her truck and Fanny hops up into the passenger seat energetically. "Well, shit," she mutters as she realizes she's going to need to give Fanny some time to burn off some energy before they go home. She rubs the bridge of her nose as she tries to think of where to take her. The dog parks she usually takes her to are on the other side of the city and would take way too long to drive there and back, and she isn't in the mood (or in the condition, if she's honest with herself) to take her for a run. Then she remembers the nearby beach that's been declared dog friendly and decides to head there.
When they arrive, Fanny hops out of the truck excitedly before immediately beginning to jump up near Yelena as she begins to lead them to the path. The dog's excitement finally gets the better of her and she runs ahead of Yelena, though never too far out of sight, and then makes her way back to check in before sprinting away again. By the time she reaches the actual beach, she can see a group of kids approaching who are watching Fanny with wide, hopeful eyes. She smiles at their carefree innocence and whistles for Fanny to come back so the kids can shower her with affection and cuddles. It's only a few seconds before Fanny has returned to Yelena's side and she guides them both over to the group of kids.
"Can we pet your dog?" one of them asks hopefully. In the back of her mind, Yelena wonders when exactly she became the sort of person people felt comfortable approaching.
"Sure," she replies while giving Fanny a little push toward the kids and murmuring an "okay" command to her. Fanny shamelessly rolls over onto her back, causing Yelena to scoff and then chuckle as she shakes her head. The kids focus their attention on giving Fanny belly rubs for a minute before she flips over and then makes sure to give each of them a few licks, only to roll over once again. Eventually they start running along the beach with Fanny jumping and running alongside them. Yelena smiles again as she takes a seat on some driftwood to wait. Looks like they're gonna tire her out for me.
"Is that your dog?"
Yelena turns and finds the man she'd noticed standing with the kids earlier. His posture is relaxed as he watches his kids, and she can see his affection for them clearly in his expression.
"Yeah," she answers while stretching out her legs in front of her and crossing her ankles.
"Thanks for letting them play with him," he says while slipping his hands into his pockets.
"Her," she corrects. "And it's no problem. She could use the exercise. I was hoping to tire her out."
The man chuckles. "I was thinking the same thing about my kids." Yelena smiles at his joke even if it's not all that amusing. "What's her name?"
"Fanny."
His brow furrows before his mouth twists into a lopsided smile. "Fanny, huh? How'd you pick that one?"
"Inside joke with my sister," she replies and then smiles. Natasha had been aghast when she told her that when she finally ended up getting a dog, she was going to name her Fanny after her fake ID. Her sister's reaction had instantly cemented her choice of name as the right one. Now it's a daily, gentle reminder of her sister that makes her smile now and then.
"That's cool," he says with a nod, and Yelena believes him. He pulls his hand out of his pocket to glance at his watch and then grimaces. "Oh shit, I didn't realize it was that late. My wife's gonna kill me."
Yelena laughs. "Blame it on my dog. She obviously desperately needed some attention."
"Worth a shot I guess," he quips before yelling out to his kids that it was time for them to head home. "Thanks again."
Yelena nods, amused by the normalness of it all. "No problem."
She watches the kids follow their dad up the path and through the small, wooded area between the beach and the parking lot. She hears the metal jingling of Fanny's collar and looks back in front of her to find her dog trotting toward her. "I'm good enough for you now that they're gone, hmm?" she teases while reaching out the scratch behind her right ear where Yelena knows she loves. "You still got any energy left? Because I was hoping for a nice, quiet night, and that does not involve me entertaining you for hours with a toy."
Fanny barks and Yelena reaches down to grab a nearby stick. She holds it up, waiting for Fanny to sit before she throws it down the beach for her to chase. Unsurprisingly Fanny retrieves it quickly and promptly drops it at Yelena's feet, waiting for it to be thrown again. Yelena chuckles and shakes her head as she throws it again. If only we could all be as happy as a dog with a stick, she thinks wryly. She throws it a few more times before Fanny abandons the game in favour of playing with a dog that has made its way down the beach. The two of them start sprinting up and down the beach, jumping and biting at the waves, and then wrestling with each other. Yelena cringes when she imagines the sheer amount of sand that's going to be on the dog (and consequently in her truck), but she can't bring herself to end her playtime just yet - she looks so happy and free.
A little while later the other dog and their owner leave, and Yelena waves politely when they do, before whistling sharply to call Fanny over. The dog complies instantly and begins sprinting toward her (being a halfway decent dog trainer had not been something Yelena had on her bucket list, and yet it had happened quite naturally to her surprise). Fanny skids to a stop and then sits down next to her, head stretching out to ask silently (but not at all in a subtle way) for some more attention.
Yelena obliges the request and absently scratches behind her ear as she watches the sun start to dip below the horizon. These moments of quiet beauty are the ones she most enjoys now, because they are precisely the sort of thing that she'd thought she would never get to truly enjoy. They are a lasting reminder that she is free in a way that she never even dreamed of until that day when she'd crossed paths with the Widow in possession of that antidote.
Just as the last rays of light are starting to disappear, she groans loudly as she gets up to leave. The aching muscles from the mission were making a long, hot bath sound more and more appealing. Maybe I'll order takeout too, she muses as she thinks of the Vietnamese restaurant not far from her house. It's been ages since I last had it...
"Alright. Come on, Fanny. Let's go."
She turns to head back to the truck but stops abruptly when she sees the lights of fireflies dancing in the sparse grass on either side of the pathway that goes through the small forest between the beach and the parking lot. Suddenly Yelena feels like she's going to throw up because all she can think of is Natasha.
"Look, Nat! Look!" Yelena says, lying on her back and staring up at the fireflies floating above them with wide eyes and a wide grin.
"I see them, Yelena," Nat teases, but she reaches over to squeeze Yelena's hand in a show of affection.
Yelena pulls in a ragged breath that doesn't help in the slightest. She can feel the overwhelming emotion spread through her like a tidal wave crashing over a city, uncaring for who or what lay in its path. She tries to ground herself to something - anything - but the memories keep rising.
Sitting on the roof of an abandoned building with a bottle of beer each, celebrating their latest success at freeing down more Widows and watching fireworks in the city off in the distance
"Look, lamp bugs," she says and points down at the grassy area below them where lights are floating and flashing.
Natasha smiles warmly. "Fireflies," she says, correcting Yelena, "or lightning bugs, as my friend, Sam, calls them."
"Is that the one with the-" Yelena trails off as she mimes wings with her arms.
Natasha chuckles. "Yeah, the Falcon."
"Black Widow, Captain America, the Falcon- What is with these names?"
"You're just jealous you don't have one."
"Don't forget - I also graduated. That makes me a Black Widow too."
"Not theBlack Widow though," Natasha teases with a wink.
"Yeah, yeah. I don't need a name or a pose or to be famous."
"You sure? If I drop my name, I can get dinner reservations at completely booked restaurants."
"Ew. You've totally done that, haven't you?"
Sitting on the ramp of the jet talking on the phone to Natasha while Melina and Alexei argued behind her about directions to their next target.
"Did they always fight this much?"
"No," Yelena answers as she munches on a protein bar, "it's new."
"I'm sorry," Natasha offers half-heartedly.
"Don't lie, sestra. You're not."
Natasha laughs. "No, I'm not. Where are you?"
"That's up for debate."
"You need a rescue?"
"You're not busy with your Secret Avengers?"
"Is that what they're calling us?"
"Not very original, I know. But you would come?"
Natasha pauses for a beat and then answers more seriously than Yelena had expected. "Of course. If you need me, I'll make it work."
Yelena lets the words linger for a moment before she breaks the moment. "Ugh, you had to make it emotional, huh?"
"Whatever. Where are you anyway?"
"In a field in the middle of…somewhere, I suppose. Who the fuck knows where. The view isn't bad at least. There's a sunset and some lamp bugs. Almost like Ohio."
Natasha hums in reply. "Doesn't sound so bad."
"It wouldn't be, if we had plans to move anytime soon."
Natasha chuckles then. "A rescue is still on the table…"
"I don't need a rescue," Yelena protests. "I need my FAKE PARENTS TO STOP ARGUING SO WE CAN GO," she finishes with a yell for Alexei and Melina to hear.
"Why so loud, huh?" Alexei says, appearing behind her. "You think I'm deaf? Who are you talking to?"
"Captain America's sidekick."
"I am nothis sidekick," Natasha protests indignantly.
Yelena gasps in another breath that comes out shakily. It's been a long time since something had triggered the grief in her to rise again so abruptly. It had been hard in the first few weeks and months after she'd come back from being dust to a world that no longer had her sister in it. Everyone showered the Avengers with gratitude for bringing everybody back, but all she could think is that everyone had gotten people back, but she'd lost Natasha. She'd lost the one person who was most important to her in the world. She'd lost the person who she'd just gotten back into her life not so long ago (but apparently five years longer than she thought).
It's been years since the day she found out her sister was gone and yet sometimes the grief still comes crashing down on her out of the blue. Sometimes it's obvious things that trigger it, like hearing her mentioned on the news (they seemed to be obsessed with reliving the tragedies of the past ten or so years), like Melina bringing her up (she knows Melina doesn't do it out of malice), or like seeing one of the few photos she has of them together. Sometimes it's less obvious things that bring the memories to the surface though, like seeing a leather jacket in the same style as one that Yelena had found in one of Natasha's safehouses, like eating some comically large American cheeseburger that Natasha had secretly loved and promised to introduce her to, or like seeing fireflies.
Most of the time these little reminders just make her smile now, but the beautiful little lights of the fireflies are, today at least, a painful reminder of the sister she'd once had and of the fact that she was no longer here.
Yelena squeezes her eyes shut, willing herself to remain calm, but she can feel her breaths quickening even further and her chest beginning to feel tight. She can't quite catch her breath, and despite the years of training against the very reaction, she feels panic sweep through her. Suddenly she feels Fanny's head lean against her and then knock into her again when she doesn't respond at first. Then she feels her cold nose on her fingers, and she uncurls her fist to splay her fingers through Fanny's fur.
"I'm okay," she whispers to her dog. "I'm okay."
Fanny leans against her again, pushing insistently for her to sit down, she thinks. "Alright, alright," she agrees and takes a seat again, this time facing the forest.
She remembers staring up at those fireflies that had always appeared in their backyard in Ohio. As a kid she'd always thought they were beautiful, and she remembers wondering if they'd been stars that had fallen and were trying to charge to go back up into the sky. There had been dozens of times that she'd laid on a blanket staring up at the stars and the little flashes of light from the fireflies, Natasha by her side, but one she remembers more clearly than the others.
"How was school?" Natasha asks.
"Fine," Yelena says with a shrug, but her sister sees right through the poor attempt at nonchalance.
"What's wrong? Did something happen?"
"It's okay, Natasha."
"Lenochka," she says softly, and it wasn't until Yelena was older that she understood the significance of the nickname. To her, back then, Russian wasn't something she understood or knew about.
She sighs. "Matty Sunderland said we're not really sisters 'cause we don't look alike."
Natasha reaches over to grab her hand and squeezes it tightly. "Do youthink we're sisters?"
Yelena nods enthusiastically. "Yeah."
"Then we're sisters, no matter what anyone else says. Okay?"
She nods again. "Pinky promise?" she asks tentatively, holding out her other hand, pinky extended.
Natasha smiles. "Pinky promise," she promises with a nod as she'd reached over to lock her pinky to Yelena's and shake it once.
Yelena sighs and drops her head into her hands. Most days, she was fine. It still hurt like a bitch that Natasha was gone, but she'd learned to live with that particular pain. But sometimes she would be reminded of something that was intertwined with her memories of her sister in such a way that Yelena would be overcome with emotion. Frustratingly, it wasn't ever straight-forward enough to be able to predict. She'd seen fireflies a couple weeks back with no issue. But apparently today is the day they're a trigger, she thinks bitterly.
Her breaths quicken again as she feels herself start to spiral once more and she starts to try desperately to think of something else. Anything else. She feels the panic begin to spread as she can't catch her breath, her chest tightening sharply, and her hands begin to tremble.
Suddenly Fanny is resting her front legs up on her lap and is licking at her face insistently.
"Okay, okay," she says, her own voice sounding foreign to her as she tries to soothe Fanny's apparent worry. She hears the dog whine softly and then feels her lean in, burying her head into the crook of her neck. She is only partially aware of her actions when she buries her face in the fur while wrapping her arms around the dog tightly, allowing the contact to ground her.
"I'm sorry," she whispers and then immediately chokes back a sob of emotion. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she mumbles. She's not even sure what she's apologizing for, but it just somehow feels right. She isn't sure who she's apologizing to either...maybe Natasha? She knows there's nothing she could have done to save her, but she'd spent a long time wishing that she'd made more of an effort to be with Natasha in those few years between taking down the Red Room and turning to dust. She still wishes that. She'll never forgive herself for squandering that chance to have more time with her sister.
Fanny whines again and begins to nudge her insistently. She squeezes her tightly and tries to slow down her breathing. Eventually her breaths even out and she feels the tightness in her chest begin to subside and the panic recedes. She has no idea how long she's been sitting there, but the world is much darker than when she'd first sat down, and the beach is now lit only by the light of the moon and the lingering pulses of light from the fireflies.
"Okay, Fanny," she says softly while giving her a gentle push off her lap, "let's go home."
Yelena leads them toward the path and when they reach the edge of the forest, she takes one last look at the fireflies. A small smile spreads as she remembers the feel of her sister's arms hugging her fiercely after taking down the Red Room. See ya, sestra, she thinks and then turns and heads through the forest, whistling the familiar two notes they'd once exchanged.
So - was the grief palpable? Realistic? Did it tug at the heart-strings?
Comments are always welcomed, and always greatly appreciated. 😉
More to come...