Warnings: drowning and a few mentions of panic
I could have made this a whole lot more angsty, but I chose to make it fluffy because I'm a sucker for fluff
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In hindsight, I never thought not knowing how to swim would come back to bite me in the ass. But it did anyway, and I would pay for my past decisions.
It had been a little while since Yelena and Natasha had been reunited, and the three of us were currently driving down to the beach. The two sisters wanted to spend some time together to try and make up for lost time, and I was being brought along by Yelena. Originally, I wanted to let Nat and Yelena go on their own so they could spend time together, but Yelena wanted me to come, claiming me to be an honorary member of their tiny family. It was a nice gesture, my girlfriend calling me a part of her family.
"What's my exit again?" Nat asked from the driver's seat, watching the upcoming sign of exits approach.
"Ironically, Beach Street." Yelena snorted, turning to look at the sand and the ocean with an excited gaze. I could be wrong, but I think this was the first time that Yelena had been to the beach since she was freed from the Red Room.
Natasha took the exit and eventually found a place to park. We all clamored out and began to grab our stuff. Nat found us all a good spot to set up, close to the water and far away from everyone else, giving us some space between everyone. While Nat and I were spreading out our towels and stuff, Yelena was acting like an over excited puppy, rearing to get in the water and mess around. She had already taken off her shirt and pants, revealing a bright blue two piece.
"Lena, come 'ere. You need sunscreen." I pulled out the tube of sunscreen and waved it in her general direction. Yelena just let out a dramatic sigh in response.
"Listen to them. I don't want to listen to you complain about your sunburns tomorrow." Natasha deadpanned, raising an eyebrow at her little sister.
"Ugh, you're such a mom." Yelena grunted, trudging over with a frown, that was very cute might I add.
"You love us anyways." I smirked, squeezing a generous amount of sunscreen into the palm of my hand.
I began smearing it across her shoulders and rubbing it in, making sure to get under the straps of her bathing suit. I took some more and began rubbing her lower back, turning her around and began rubbing her stomach. Yelena grew a kind of drunken-like smile as her eyes closed halfway. She seemed to be enjoying this. However, me being the little shit that I am, I decided to mess with her.
I took some more sunscreen in my hands and smeared it across her face.
"Hey!" she whined, backing away a little. Nat and I burst out laughing, and started laughing harder at Yelena's little pout.
"I'm sorry, baby. I couldn't resist." I giggled, helping her rub in the excess that was all over her face.
"Uh huh." she smirked, jabbing her fingers in my sides as she tried to tickle me.
This caused the two of us to begin ticking the other, tackling each other to the ground. Yelena had me pinned in a matter of seconds, trapping me in the sand while ruthlessly tickling my sides.
"Ok, you two. Save it for the bedroom." Natasha joked, tying her hair back into a braid.
Yelena just huffed at her sister, but got off of me anyway. She helped me up before planting a kiss on my cheek.
After Yelena helped me put sunscreen on myself and helped Nat, we finished setting everything up and shed our clothes, leaving ourselves in our bathing suites. About fifteen minutes later I was being dragged towards the waterline by my girlfriend. Once we were about ankle deep, she let go of my hand and ran into the deeper end of the water. Nat was hot on her heels and dove into the deep end with her little sister. I however, just stayed in the ankle deep water, watching the two dive under a wave and pop back up laughing.
Truth was, I don't know how to swim. I never learned when I was little. My parents weren't in my life a whole lot, so I never really got to experience things that most of the kids were experiencing, like learning how to swim. It never really got in the way of things though. Sure, not knowing how to swim made me boring at the beach and at pools, but it never really bothered me. I was used to being the boring person.
I had never told Yelena that I had never learned how to swim though, which was one of the reasons why I didn't want to come to the beach with them. When she insisted that I come, I just couldn't say no to her and her puppy dog eyes. I just figured I could sit at the water line while the two of them messed around in the deeper parts of the water.
It wasn't that big of a deal, not knowing how to swim. It was just that everytime I told people, they would always make fun of me and give me shit for it. I would always get the same response, that it was dumb that I didn't know how to swim. I didn't want to go through the same thing with Yelena, because I knew she would tease me for it. I know, that's petty, but it's just the way my brain works.
"Y/n! Come on!" Yelena called, waving for me to come in the water with her.
I just shook my head, squatting down in the ankle deep water and began fingering the sand a little.
After a few moments, there was the sound of wet, stomping footsteps. Yelena appeared in front of me, dripping wet with her hair all crazy.
"Come on, you have to get in the water." she tried, gesturing at the ocean before us.
"I am technically in the water." I retorted, smiling up at her.
"Y/n, being three inches in the water doesn't count." she smirked, sitting down in the water right next to me.
"I know. I'm just not in the mood to get in the water yet." I sighed, giving my girlfriend a tiny smile. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be boring."
"Hey, it's okay. I'll sit here with you, keep you company." she smiled, scooting closer to me.
"No, it's fine. Go be with your sister. This trip was so you two could spend some time together." I urged, trying to find an excuse so she could go have fun, because in reality I wasn't going any deeper into the water.
"I know, but I want you to have fun too." she tried, joining me in playing with the sand around me.
"And I will have fun. Trust me, it'll be fine. Go be with Nat." I smiled, looking over and catching Natasha's eyes for a moment.
"Are you sure?" Yelena asked, and I could see how badly she actually wanted to go have fun with her older sister.
"I'm sure." I nodded.
After a beat of silence, Yelena, smiling brightly, muttered a quick thanks and 'I love you' before pecking me on the cheek and running off towards her sister in the deeper end of the water.
I watched the two sisters as they swam about. Yelena splashed water at her older sister, starting an all out war between the two of them. Natasha eventually tackled Yelena and dunked her under the water in a fake attempt to drown her. The blonde instantly took hold of Nat's legs and took them out, making Nat fall with a big splash into the water. A little laugh escaped me when I saw Nat splutter and try to get above water.
Sighing, I began looking around the beach area from where I was sitting. The gentle endings of the waves were lapping against my legs as I took in the sights.
There was a pier on one end of the beach, crowded with people who were walking back and forth from the boardwalk and the pier.
On the other end of the beach was a cliff edge, and I could make out a few smaller crowds of people gathered at the edge, presumably for cliff diving into a deeper part of the ocean. The cliff wasn't that high up, but was tall enough to apparently make the experience exhilarating. I'm not sure what people saw interesting about that, but people were still there, jumping and diving into the water.
There were also a few shops that littered the beach and the boardwalk. I watched people go from store to store, renting bikes to ride across the beach. Others were sitting in small cafes or restaurants, watching the ocean and the people on the sands play volleyball and whatnot.
After a while, maybe close to an hour, Nat and Yelena began trudging towards me.
"Anywhere you wanna go for lunch?" Yelena asked, plopping down next to me.
"I'm good with whatever." I shrugged, laughing a little when Yelena pulled me in for a sopping wet hug.
"I think there's a sandwich shop down the boardwalk a little. How about there?" Natasha suggested, pointing down the walkway a little.
All agreeing, we packed up our stuff and put it all back in Nat's car. We all slipped our clothes back on and began walking down the boardwalk, passing several people who were blasting music and having a great time. There were a few street performers, like magicians and musicians.
I felt Yelena slip a hand into mine as we walked. This is what I loved the most, doing normal things with my girlfriend. It was rare that we would get these kinds of moments since both of our lives were chaotic with Avenger's duties.
We found a place to eat, ordered our food, and found a cozy table outside with a nice view of the ocean and the sands. Nat and Yelena had begun stuffing their faces, and I couldn't help but pull out my phone and take a quick picture of them.
"Hey!" Nat whined, her mouth full of food.
The picture truly was glorious, capturing Natasha mid bite while Yelena was mid chew. Stifling a laugh, I shuffled over to show Yelena, zooming in on Nat's face. Yelena almost choked on her food, trying not to laugh while her bite of food was halfway down her throat.
We sat there for a while, eating, laughing, making jokes with each other. Nat would often make jokes about the rest of the team and Yelena would sometimes make side comments about people walking by. Eventually our talking went to the topic of Nat's mysterious girlfriend. Yelena and I knew she was seeing someone since we had both caught her sneaking out of the compound several nights, or she would disappear for several hours a day and reappear with a kind of love-sick grin.
"I'm not telling you guys shit." Nat laughed, sipping on her beer.
"My money is on Maria." Yelena announced, leaning back in her seat with a smug grin.
"Really? I was thinking of Wanda." I laughed, looking over at my own girlfriend.
"Witchy? Really?" Yelena gasped, raising her eyebrows dramatically at me at the mention of our mutual teammate.
"Yeah! Can't you see them being a thing?" I asked, laughing a little as I glanced between Yelena and Natasha.
"I can see her and Maria as a thing though. They make more sense." Yelena reasoned before quirking an eyebrow at her older sister. "What's got you so quiet over there?"
Natasha was very focused on her drink, practically chugging her beer. She seemed very intent on not acknowledging our conversation, which I found hilarious.
"One of us is right." Yelena smirked, leaning forward in her chair, taking interest in Nat's body language.
"It's like I said, I'm not telling you guys anything." Nat huffed, setting down her now empty bottle of beer.
"Sure. You know we'll figure it out eventually." Yelena sighed, and I could tell that she didn't want to drop the topic. Yelena was really enjoying having her big sister back in her life.
After talking for a little while longer, we eventually got up and left, deciding to move on to the next part of the day. I honestly just wanted to go sit on the beach and relax for a while, but Natasha and Yelena had different ideas.
"What if we go up there?" Natasha suggested, pointing up at the cliff that I had been looking at earlier.
"Looks like fun." Yelena agreed, and soon I was being dragged up to the cliff for some fun, but everyone's definition of fun is different.
Getting to the cliff top wasn't that far of a hike, really only being around five or ten minutes of a walk from where we had eaten lunch. The area was considerably less crowded than it had been earlier, which I was kind of grateful for. Actually, the only people there besides us were just a few guys, but they were just leaving.
I had every intention of not jumping, because I don't want to drown at the current moment. I would be perfectly fine with holding their things while they jumped. I honestly would find it more entertaining watching them have fun then jump to near death. But if Natasha and Yelena would take no as an answer was still up for debate.
"Who's going first?" Natasha asked, glancing between Yelena and I. "Y/n?"
"Oh, no. I probably won't." I chuckled nervously, shuffling a little as I looked between the two sisters.
"Come on, you're the only one who hasn't gotten in the water yet." Nat tried, motioning towards the ocean.
"No, I- you two go first." I tried, bringing my hands up in a surrendering manner.
Nat and Yelena both glanced at each other briefly, seemingly having a conversation with their eyes before both nodding at the other. Suddenly, they both took my arms and began pulling me closer to the edge. Tensing up, I tried to fight against them, but the both of them together were stronger than me. Fighting against them was useless, but I still tried, call it fight or flight panic.
"No no no no no, please." I panicked, pushing against their forward advances with my legs.
"Come on, it'll be fun!" Natasha insisted, smirking over at her little sister, who had a shit eating grin plastered across her face.
"No, 'Lena please. I don't- I can't-" I tried, pulling against them as we got closer to the cliff edge. I was trying to get the words out of my mouth, tell them that I couldn't swim. But when I was trying to get the words out, my tongue felt ten sizes too big for my mouth and my brain seemed like it was short circuiting.
However my pleas seemed to prove worthless when I was suddenly tossed off the cliff edge.
I had experienced the sensation of falling several times. It had happened numerous times while on missions, whether I was jumping out of a Quinjet with a parachute strapped on my back or when I got thrown off a building, only to be saved at the last minute by my grappling hook.
However, the sting of hitting the ocean surface and then suddenly feeling weightless in the water was new, and it was like all of my senses had been taken away from me. I couldn't hear, I could barely see anything, and the moment I tried to yell for help, water flooded my mouth, trying to worm its way deeper into my lungs.
Drowning was the most peaceful thing I had ever experienced, however the most disturbing because I had no idea how to save myself.
I struggled against nothing, hoping to god that I would suddenly wake up from some horrible dream. The water felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, pushing me down further to the point of no return.
Sinking, feeling weightless, I watched as the surface slowly faded with the few remaining streaks of sunlight fading.
My lungs were suddenly burning, telling me to breathe, but I couldn't breathe. My body, though acted on its own, breathing in the water, making me gasp and gag, crying for oxygen. Everything started going fuzzy as a deep fog began to settle over me, and everything went black.
A sharp buzzing was slowly building up in my ears, a deep pounding that sounded like the blood was rushing to my head.
Of course, that bliss of being unconscious felt like it only lasted for a few moments when I suddenly jolted awake. My lungs were burning as I began coughing up water.
Nothing made sense and everything seemed so bright. Things were blurry and my brain was fuzzy.
Slowly though, I stopped coughing up water and things came back into focus.
Natasha was sitting in front of me with a very concerned look while Yelena was standing off to the side, looking so nervous that it appeared like she was going to throw up any moment. She looked like she had been sobbing.
They both were dripping wet, from what I guessed when they dove in to save me.
"Y/n, can you hear me?" Nat asked, and while it still sounded muffled, either because my ears were clogged or because my brain was foggy, I still nodded in response. "Good...that's good. We're gonna sit tight until an ambulance gets here."
"I...what-" I tried speaking, but immediately began coughing again from how raw my throat was.
"Shhh, you're okay." Natasha soothed, rubbing my back, trying to help me calm down from my coughing fit.
"I'm sorry...I-I should have told you guys." I tried, leaning into Nat a bit.
"No, you don't apologize for this. It was our fault, alright?" Nat replied, frowning a bit at me.
I looked up at Yelena, who was wearing a deep frown while she was picking at her fingers with tears in her eyes. I reached out an arm for her, wanting her to hold me, but I was just now realizing how weak I really was. My arm felt like it weighed a ton.
Yelena seemed to understand what it was that I wanted, but appeared hesitant. Maybe she was afraid of messing us again, but I didn't exactly care. I just wanted Yelena.
She did sit down next to me though and pulled me into her lap. I instantly leaned into her, feeling her wrap her own arms around me.
"I'm so sorry baby." she whispered to me, brushing a few wet strands of hair out of my face.
"You didn't know I couldn't swim. It's okay." I tried, my voice raspy and painful as I just snuggled into her.
Sudden waves of tiredness washed over me and my eyes began to flutter close a bit.
"Hey, no. You need to stay awake just a little longer. The ambulance is almost here." Yelena tried, and I could hear the tears teasing her voice.
"But 'm tired." I slurred a little, just wanting to take a nap.
"I know honey, but you need to stay awake just a little longer. After they get here, you can sleep for as long as you want." Yelena countered, glancing over at her sister, who had wandered away from the two of us, looking for the ambulance that was supposedly coming.
"Will you stay with me?" I asked, looking up at her sleepily.
"I will, baby, and we can do whatever you want afterwards." she promised, perking up when the flashing lights of the ambulance appeared out of nowhere.