Natasha paced around the room, her hands behind her back. Her chest hurt, and breathing became a harder task.
Sister.
Only one word.
That was all the note said. Natasha gripped it so tight in her hands that it crumpled and even tore a little.
She started to hyperventilate. Suddenly, she felt a whisper tickle her ear.
Natasha.
She whirled around to see little Yelena sitting on her bed, with daisies in her hair. Her blonde curls were braided, and she was smiling. Her green eyes were soft, foreign to the tortures of the Red Room. She was in her ballet dress, and she held two shoes in front of her.
Help me wear my shoes, sestra. I want to go dance.
Natasha blinked fast, and her little sister was gone. "No, no, Yelena," she whispered. Her ribs ached, and she could barely swallow with her heart thundering deafening thumps all the way up to her throat. She fell to the floor but barely felt it. She frantically clutched the bed sheet where Yelena had sat. "Yelena."
The sharp sound of knives being sharpened.
Natasha panted. She shook her head and the sound was gone. Just echoes of what this house used to be.
Familiar, angry murmurs.
A Russian lullaby hummed in Natasha's ears. That was one of Yelena's favorite songs that Natasha used to sing her to sleep with. "Yelena?" she breathed.
The lullaby ended abruptly.
Natasha could hear nothing but her gasps and her heart. Her chest seemed to cave in and her lungs folded in on themselves. Her vision started to blur and spin, then cleared again.
Yelena, older, sitting beside her, furiously scribbling in a notebook, her lips drawn back in a thin line in concentration.
"Yelena, come here!" Natasha reached out to touch her sister's arm, but with a blink, Yelena had disappeared, as though she was never there.
She is not here anymore, Natasha.
I'm losing it.
Natasha closed her eyes and tried to relax, but all she could see was Yelena's wide, scared eyes, drowning in her own blood.
The door opened in a hesitant way, and Natasha startled.
Her hands felt stuck.
I'm hand-cuffed! her mind screeched. She started to struggle, but couldn't do anything as the figure came closer.
Warm fingers grabbed her hands and pulled them away from each other.
Natasha squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. The handcuffs started to warp, then flickered into nothing.
Just an illusion. Just an illusion.
Natasha pulled her hands away from the hands holding it with a sharp jerk. She tried to make sense of the man's face. "S-Sam?" she croaked.
"Yeah, it's me. Are you okay?"
Natasha forced air through her nostrils, causing a loud wheezing noise to come out from her throat. A shudder rippled through her body violently, and goosebumps rose from her skin. "H-Have you seen Yelena a-anywhere?"
"No, Natasha. I haven't," Sam said gently. He touched her shoulder, and she felt herself relax. Though his touch was nowhere near Steve's, it still felt nice.
"I-I'm sorry," Natasha whispered hoarsely.
"Don't be." Sam settled himself down beside her and held out a hand. "You've got something in your hand. Can I see it?"
Natasha's fingers shook so hard as she passed the note to him. "W-Where's Steve?"
Sam didn't say anything for a while. "He...He went to check on Bucky," he mumbled.
"Bucky?"
"The...The Winter Soldier."
Natasha forced herself to calm down as both anger and panic started battling each other for dominance in her mind. She chose to not focus on it and instead studied Sam's face while he examined the note. His face paled when his eyes skimmed over the crumpled paper. "A-Any idea who wrote this?"
"When and where did you find this?" he asked gravely.
"When I went up here, it was lying on the middle of Steve's bed." Natasha nodded toward the smaller bed of the two occupying the room. "It means 'sister'."
"Your sister," Sam muttered. "This paper looks old. See, it's yellowed around the edges. And it smells like old library books."
Natasha rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, and they came back wet. She sighed. "It doesn't look like Yelena's handwriting."
"Isn't mine either." Sam squinted at it. "This is some neat cursive writing. Certainly not Steve's. He has good handwriting, I'll give him that, but his isn't so small."
"How about the other Avengers?"
Sam frowned thoughtfully. "I'll have to ask Steve when he comes back."
As if on cue, a bang sounded downstairs. That one sound triggered thousands of possibilities and worst case scenarios in Natasha's mind, which seemed to get worse by each scenario. Faster than Sam, she flew downstairs and pounced on the supposed intruder, pinning him to the ground and leveling her Widow Bites to his deep-sea eyes.
"Natasha!" Steve gasped.
Natasha rolled off him and helped him up, muttering apologies over and over again, like she was a malfunctioning robot. Steve must've seen how red her eyes were, and how her fingers trembled when they didn't before, for he brushed away the sticky strands of hair plastered on her forehead away and gently bringing her chin up, kissing her softly.
Natasha sank into his chest, feeling safe all over again. "Are you okay?" she whispered, pulling away. She let her palm stay on his chest, feeling his heart beat fast even after the kiss, whereas hers had slowed down a little.
"I...I found this on Bucky's bed. He's gone." Steve took out a piece of paper from his pocket and beckoned Sam over. The trio huddled close together as they read the note over and over in great incredulity and anxiety.
"'He will be dead.' That's all it said." Steve inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. "Bucky." His voice broke. His eyes blinked open, and they took a sheen in them. They went red along the rim, and soon grew wet.
Natasha had never seen Steve Rogers cry before. It's as though someone had pulled her heart out of her chest, stomped on it, and put it back in, damaged and broken. She patted Steve's shoulder lightly. "Come on."
He walked into her arms and laid his head on her shoulder. She kissed his temple, down to his ear, then his shoulder. His arms looped around her waist. She rubbed his back and let him cry into her shirt.
"What are we going to do?" Natasha asked Sam, who was staring at Steve with a broken look in his eyes. You know, when someone cried and someone else looked at them with that sad eyebrow furrow and slightly squinted eyes. That tortured expression? That was how Sam looked like.
"We need to find out who is writing these notes," Sam started. "I haven't seen anyone with handwriting like that."
"Same." Natasha kissed Steve's cheek. "Steve? Do you know who's handwriting that is?"
"No," came Steve's muffled response. "I was thinking about it all the way home. But the handwriting...I can't...I don't know."
"Maybe...Maybe it's someone from your hometown?" Sam asked Natasha.
Natasha's stomach plummeted like a boulder falling down a cliff. "It could be," she whispered.
Maybe it's Yelena's, a hopeful part in her hummed. She turned a deaf ear to it. Yelena had the world's worst handwriting. Natasha remembered how that notebook Yelena had found was full of her untidy scrawl and horrendous drawings. Then, a memory slipped into Natasha's mind gently. Yelena smiled up at her, young and innocent, with charcoal in her ears. She wasn't in the Red Room, but somewhere else warm and luxurious.
"Natasha?"
The memory quietly faded away as the weight on her shoulder disappeared, bringing her back to the present. She looked into Steve's electric eyes. "What?"
"You okay?" he whispered, hands on her shoulders.
"Yeah. Yeah. I am." Natasha nodded.
There was an intense moment where both gazed deep into each other's eyes. Time and sound fell away as Natasha basked in the feeling of safety and warmth as she gazed into his blue orbs. She could easily forget what they were discussing about if not for Sam, who interrupted their moment blatantly.
"I'm sorry to butt in your moment, but we have other more dangerous things to discuss about." Sam made his 'superior' face and cleared his throat. "If you'll excuse me, Your Highness America's ass, forgive me for the intrusion, for I have come in a time of great peril-"
"All right, all right," Steve said with a small chuckle.
"I could punch you so hard right now," Natasha said.
"Scary." Sam smirked.
"Okay, enough." Steve clapped his hands lightly. "Fury may know about this. Maybe our friends too. Go change into your suits, I'll gather the Avengers."
"Where to, Cap?" Sam asked as he jogged away.
"S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters."