Roof Above Rockefeller Center
Yelena hissed as her shoulder pulled hard from the rope connected to her waist. With a graceful leap, she landed on the roof laid directly over the Rockefeller Tree. Bodies were still painted here and there as the familiar glow of red and blue lights surrounded the area. In a way, as she looked at the scene, she could consider marking the Rockefeller Tree off her list, but it didn't bring the distant feeling of Christmas spirit like it did when she was a little girl. The tree was toppled over, debris scattered everywhere on the ice rink. Pedestrians littered around the scene taking photos, probably uploading footage to their pointless social media platforms, and chatting toward one another, annoyingly.
She unhooked herself and sat on the ledge, letting the cold air freeze her face. She clipped her weapons, brushing away a strand of hair out of her face. She tried finding Barton, but it was pointless. Maybe watching him disappear would make the tearing cold deep in her heart seep away, but it still clutched tightly feeding off the warmth her heart gave off. The soft notes of that whistle continued on the wind, as she addressed her injuries mentally. She counted at least four wounds that would need to be taken care of, but she was lazy and tired from the fight before. Her thoughts wandered over to Kate Bishop, over confident, trigger-happy, but humorous. She still felt the slap on her cheek and it made her smile. The fight was fun compared to others. The others were so dull and bloody that made her wish for a better opponent, but Bishop held her own. Needed work, a lot of work, but she held her own still.
But now, it was over, the fight was in the past and so were the revelations. Part of her, the Black Widow, wanted to refuse Barton's words, cut them over and over with the sharpest knife in her armory back home, but Yelena, herself, just wanted to cry, mourn her sister. Take a moment and forget that she was a bloodthirsty assassin and cry, to hold her dog close and grief. Instead, she stayed on the ledge, watching the cleanup crew try and fail to pick up the tree. She laughed as the workers slid and fell on the ice, cursing out into the winter air.
She felt more than heard the presence behind her and quickly pulled out her gun, cocked and ready to fire another bullet. She couldn't see, but she knew someone was there. "You have one second to show yourself."
She heard a nervous cough. "Uh… maybe, maybe after you put down your gun."
The voice was male, young, maybe adolescent, and clearly naive. "No."
"Okay, just don't shoot me," He said.
"That's for me to decide." She said evenly.
She won't admit it, but as the person showed itself she didn't expect the famous red and blue costume that emerged. She lowered her gun a centimeter, but was still ready. Far as she was concerned, he was called in to bring her in. If Barton lied…
He couldn't have, the eyes of another couldn't lie in front of a Widow.
Spider-Man didn't move any closer, but he didn't move away either. He stayed evenly with her gun that was still poised at his skull. His hands still relaxed at his side.
Yelena decided to make the first move, her Russian accent coating her tongue. "Why are you here? More importantly who sent you here?"
Spider-Man tilted his head in confusion and she didn't have to see his face to know he was also analyzing her the same way she did. Good, maybe he wasn't so naive after all.
He had her immediate attention. "I'm not here because someone sent me, or for any reason other than the fact I came to see if everything is okay. Word got around, so I decided to swing over."
"So you weren't sent by any forces to collect me?"
"Collect you?" He asked. "Why would I need to collect you? And technically, I was here before you."
Before. He was here before her. "So you were spying on me?"
He quickly shook his head, pausing, and then nodded. "Okay, sort of, but I was only trying to figure out if you were part of Kingpin's red pajama gang, but I'm getting the vibes that you're a soloist."
She lowered her gun more, her shoulder beginning to ache as the cold was finally seeping into her suit. "I don't know who Kingpin is, nor do I care, I came here on business and I don't need a red and blue popsicle wearing spandex ruining that."
The male raised his hand in surrender. "Okay, okay, understand the business part, but… really, insulting my brand is crushing my Christmas spirit."
Yelena decided the male wasn't worth it and put her gun away. "You're a child."
He froze, looking at her intently, before finding what he was looking for in her and nodded. "Sure, and you're an assassin."
Yelena nodded her head, throwing her head back with a groan. "Yes, I am an assassin, who kills and murderers people, but I'm just kidding myself. I'm a rich assassin."
"You are not easing my conscience right now." The lenses squinted. "Your suit looks familiar. Wait…! Are you a…"
"I am a Black Widow," she responded. She was too tired for this child nonsense. "Like my sister, and thousands of others."
"Why would you tell me that?"
"Do you believe me?" She asked with a smirk.
"No, but you're smirking so I don't know." He responded.
She couldn't help it, she laughed. "Believe it or not, I hardly care, but tell anyone and I'll…"
"Kill me I know." Yelena didn't bother with saying anything else and neither did he, but she found herself relaxing like she passed a test of his, and from the looks of it the same went for the vigilante. The boy decided to test that theory, walking over next to her where she sat back down on the ledge. He looked over the ledge overseeing the cleanup operation, analyzing the scene like she did before. Now that he was closer, she got a better look at him. He was short, taller than her still, but short compared to the average height, lean but still built.
But what caught her attention was his suit. She knew about the crisis on the Statue of Liberty. The suit he wore now was different, almost handmade, and brittle against the cold air, but it didn't seem to bother him. He must've found the situation below deemable as he sat down next to her.
She quirked an eyebrow asking everything. "Why are you still here bothering me?"
"Uh… I can go if you want…" She shook her head. Why? She didn't know, but as she thought about it she realized she didn't want to be alone. Not now, please not now.
"You may stay, but annoy me…"
"Let me guess, you'll kill me?" He responded with a light tone.
"Nope, I'll tie your hands and push you off the edge." She smiled at the imagery it had in her head. "Abilities such as yours must come with a healing factor. So no, I would not kill, just make the next few days a living hell for you. Sound appealing?"
The boy coughed. "If I say no, will you still push me?"
"You're funny, I like you." She said after a moment. "But why are you here really?"
"What do you mean?" He asked slowly, as if he was making sure she said what she said.
"You speak half truth, I know you're here for another reason, and I want to know why?" Yelena asked, sitting up straighter.
The boy matched her stance, staring off into the sky. He sighed, looking toward her maybe wondering if he could really trust her, but his mouth moved faster than his brain. "Maybe for the same reason you did, to get away. To get away from…everything."
Did she? Was that why she was really here? She knew if she went back to her room where she booked it for New York,she would be compelled to leave and find business somewhere else, or go back and report to Valentina about her findings. Every thought seemed to weigh heavier in her mind, creating a storm in her chest. Even home was an empty thought.
She gave the male a dose of honesty. "Right now, the world is a monster, a monster who has done nothing but take and take and I'm sick of it." She chose to ignore how her voice quivered and shaked.
The boy gave a heavy chuckle, dark and sad. "I understand that. Believe me, I know."
She continued on, her sister deeply in her mind. "I have done nothing but serve the world as it sees fit, but no matter how… no matter how hard I train, or how many people I kill for the sake of good or bad, I still lose. I lost my childhood and now I lost my sister. The one person who made me feel safe, who made me feel like the little girl who knew nothing of what the world really is, just her, my mother, and my father."
She wiped her eyes as she gritted her teeth in defiance against the tears that threatened to fall. Refusing to look at the vigilante, she continued. She needed to continue. "My family wasn't created from blood, but from lies and secrets, but we still loved each other or that's what I like to make up for myself, to believe in. I don't know who I am, where I come from, or where I belong. The world doesn't know who I am or that I exist. I knew that I would finish what my sister started, by destroying the one thing that made us who we are, but now that she's gone, and I got so little time with her, I wonder if it's worth it at all."
The boy was silent listening to every word, but when the last sentence left her mouth, he opened his. "I lost my aunt. She was my world, day and night, I lost her because I made a terrible mistake."
It dawned on her. "Does this have to do with the incident at the Statue of Liberty?"
He slowly nodded. "It has everything to do with the Statue of Liberty. The choices that led to that moment changed my life forever and I couldn't turn back. I had to make a choice at the end to save the world. I mean I owed the world that, but doing so, I had to lose everything. My identity, my friends, my home, and my aunt." He sighed. "The world also doesn't know that I exist. I'm a ghost and I've come to the point where I've accepted that, that maybe I'm destined to win the battle but never the war. I've fought for so much, for so long, but I lost it all in an instant." He chuckled. "You're not the only one who second guesses the worth of it all. I've been wondering if I'll ever get the happy ending… as cliche as that sounds… that I deserve and want, but deep down it's like wishing my aunt back from the dead. It's never going to happen."
They sat in silence soaking each other's words in and the emotions that came with it. The boy's admission unlocked something in her, something that wasn't hardened into submission or sharpened enough to bleed. She wanted a friend, a real friend. She may consider Kate Bishop a friend in the future, but hasn't felt this comfortable in someone's presence since she was six. Bought back memories of the kids in the neighborhood in Ohio that she used to play with.
Here she was sitting next to a vigilante who shared more in common with her than others have before.
"How do you go forward?" She asked carefully.
Spider-Man looked toward her, his posture relaxed and settled. "By using the memories of the ones I lost. I know my aunt would want me to continue fighting for people who can't and to help others who need it no matter who I am, Spider-Man or not. I do it so my friends can have a better life, and maybe to make up for all that I have done in the past. But also because I need to move on, I don't want to be frozen in time with no name, a side character that no one knows about, I want to be somebody, I want to be the boy my aunt raised me to be, even if that means letting her go in the process."
"I'm not ready to let my sister go."
"I'm not ready to let my aunt go either." He whispered.
That spoke volumes and she heard everything. She didn't answer, listening to the city below. If she focused hard enough she could hear people singing Christmas carols she's heard so much about.
She looked down at her feet. "Who are you?"
"Even if I told you, you would still never know who I am." He responded. His voice was sad like he wanted to tell her, or someone so bad, but couldn't because it's probably true. If he lost his identity like he said, no matter how many resources she has, she would never find him.
"Just humor me."
Before she could hear his answer, sirens erupted into the air getting the hero's attention. He stood up looking back and forth from the sirens and her. An internal battle was going on, she knew, as he stepped onto the ledge. The wind blew harder like it was impatient, waiting for the hero to get back out there.
"You know you are the first person I've talked to in months. I... almost forgot what it felt like to have a friend, if that's what you're willing to call this." He smiled behind the mask. "We should do this more often, assassin."
She found herself nodding. "Sure. I'll still kill you if you bother me enough."
The boy laughed hard at that. "I'll remember that."
The siren blared louder as cars honked and screeched as a high speed chase flew past below them.
"...Peter."
Yelena's head shot up. "What?"
"...Peter. My name is Peter Parker."
She paused, collecting her thoughts before she stood up stretching her hand out. Spider-Man took her hand and gave it a firm shake. "Yelena. Yelena Belova."
"Nice to meet you, Yelena." He answered with a smile. She knew he was smiling. He let go, jumping off the ledge and shooting out a web. He turned in the air giving her a wave.
"See you later." He called. "And Merry Christmas!"
And he was gone, but she still felt the impact that he had. She was still an assassin at heart, but maybe she could also change some things.
She looked at the sky where he once was. "Sure, see you later."
She walked away from the ledge with a smirk.
She had some research to do. Even ghosts can still be found.
A/N: After watching Spider-Man: No Way Home and finishing Hawkeye I realized Peter and Yelena have way too much in common. I wanted to bring this to life for readers and to help me cope with everything Marvel has put me through in the last week. It broke me, but never made me so happy.
I know I haven't updated my books in a while and I wanted to change that, this chapter seemed like a perfect opportunity to do so.
I love the possibility of Peter and Yelena being friends maybe even siblings. Peter barely had the time with his Spider brothers and Yelena certainly didn't have enough time with Natasha. Its a score I'm hoping to settle.
Let's make this fanfiction trope trend, people.
Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year.
Stay Covid-Free.
