Chapter Text
October of 2023
The wind cuts across the rocky plain. Clint keeps his hood low, bow in hand, his every sense straining. The figure floats toward them, dark and tattered, its voice knowing.
“Natasha, daughter of Ivan.” He says, and the ex-agents see the figure's red skull first from the black and white photos of textbooks and archives. “Clint, son of Edith.” And then, right in front of their eyes.
Clint freezes. His mother’s name is not one he has heard in a very long time.
“Who are you?” He asks.
“Consider me a guide. To you, and to all who seek the Soul Stone.”
“Oh, good. You tell us where it is then, and we'll be on our way.”
“Ah, liebchen— If only it were that easy.” He turns, gliding toward the edge of the cliffs. Clint trades a glance with his partner and follows. The figure floats ahead of them, shrouded and gliding just above the ground of barren rock. “What you seek lies in front of you... as does what you fear.”
The archer’s stomach sinks. He looks over the cliff edge only to see nothing but a black ocean of mist and an endless drop.
“The stone is down there…”
Of course it is.
“For one of you. For the other... In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. An everlasting exchange. A soul, for a soul.”
The words don’t quite hit him, until they do. That which you love? He glances over at Natasha, who has already wandered. She sits on a half-rotted log, hunched forward. Clint stands a few feet away, keeping his eyes on the Stonekeeper. His fingers tighten around his bow.
“How's it going?” He asks in jest, finally taking a seat beside her. A small smile plays at her lips. He sighs. “Jesus... Maybe he's making this shit up.”
He wishes he believed it. He wishes any part of this felt like some other unfathomable problem that they could solve some other way… that's what they do, they solve this shit. Together. Allways.
“No.” She says, certain. “I don't think so.”
“Why, 'cause he knows your Daddy's name?” He’s half-joking, but his voice cracks.
“I didn't.” She tells him. I didn't know my own fathers name, she thinks. How ironic that today of all days, is when I find it. “Thanos left here with the stone without his daughter. It's not a coincidence.”
Clint exhales, understanding the exchange. “Yeah.”
“Whatever it takes.” She says.
“Whatever it takes.” He echos. He should feel scared, sad. Maybe he is sad. He looks at his partner and wants to remember her face. He memorizes the little line in her forehead and the silver stud on her ears, the colors layering in her eyes. Remember the first time I saw her? He asks himself. Remember how different life got after that? How much better it got?
He hopes she’ll be the one to tell his family what he did to save them all.
Nat stands, resolve hardening in her features. “If we don't get that stone, billions of people stay dead.”
He feels something shift in him, and he thinks he is ready.“Then I guess we both know who it's gotta be.”
“I guess we do,” she says. She holds out her hand.
Clint takes it, squeezing tight. They lock eyes, and for a second there’s nothing else, no Vormir, no fucking war, no Thanos, not even the wind. But it hits him then, when she doesn't look away... No.
“I'm starting to think we mean different people here, Natasha.”
She pauses, but just for a moment. She’s thought about this moment so much already. “For the last five years I've been trying to do one thing: Get to right here. That's all it's been about. Bringing everybody back.”
“Don't you get all decent on me now.”
“What, you think I wanna do it? I'm trying to save your life, you idiot.”
“Yeah, well, I don't want you to, because I– Natasha, you know what I've done. You know what I've become.” He hears the breaking of bones and bodies, the screams. There is blood still on his hands. He needs this. It’s him who needs this. She— she deserves more time. So much more time, he knows that more than anyone.
“I don't judge people on their worst mistakes.”
“Maybe you should.”
“You didn't,” she says, and he might cry.
She'll make fun of him if he does. He doesn't care.
The quiet between them is deafening. He almost laughs through the ache of building adrenaline. “You're a pain in my ass, you know that?” They lean their heads together, and Clint shuts his eyes. “Okay.” He admits, a plan already formed. “You win.”
She smiles.
He hopes he’ll see her again someday. And Laura, and the kids. Everyone. Someday. In the next heartbeat, he sweeps her legs out from under her, pinning her to the ground. “Tell my family I love them.”
He turns, fires a grappling arrow into the rock, and bolts for the cliff.
Natasha slams into him, knocking him flat. “You tell them yourself!”
Electricity jolts through and his body locks up. He hits the ground hard, fighting to move. By the time the shock fades, she’s already running and dangerously close to the ledge.
Clint forces himself upright, nocks an explosive arrow, fires. The blast sends her off her feet. He sprints past, toward the edge and leaps.
For a fraction of a second, there’s air, and he's weightless.
Then a line snaps taut around his waist. Natasha has him hooked tight and he grabs her arm just as she is about to plummet past him. His grip is strong but already waning, muscles and tendons straining, but he'll hold her here as long as he can.
“Damn you!” He yelps and dangles, suspended, watching her hang above an ending.
“Let me go,” she says.
His grip tightens until his fingers ache. “No.” He begs. “No. Please, no.”
His eyes are blurry and wet and hot with ache. Hers are calm. Comforting. Resolute.
She was always that way. The cool one. Level. Unphased. Prepared. The one to calm everyone down. The one to make the right choice, to get them out of impossible binds.
“It's okay,” she tells him. And he thinks she means it, as her fingers slip from his.
XXX
Yelena gasps when she comes to, taking immediate stalk of her body— still reeling from time stuck in the strange spell realm.
The house is darker without the purple mist of magic to illuminate the halls, but from the corner of her eye she can see shadows moving, down the hall towards the exit, maybe from the near SHIELD floodlights.
Her skull feels heavy and strange, as if she has just been roused from a deep dreamridden sleep. Thoughts are still submerged as she slowly comes to her senses, breathing in the weathered smells of the old farmhouse. She turns her head the other direction, pressing her cheek to the cold floorboards. The entryway at the end of the long, narrow hall is half open, and through a strange fog she sees Clint. He must have opened the door. It was closed when they first arrived at the house. He’s already up, kneeling over the girl, Nico. She remembers the witch's face from Maria’s file, and her body laying pliant on the monolith just moments ago, but a world away.
A new, simmering red magic writhes like a living thing around the girl’s small body, illuminating the room a bit more than the dark hall. Beside them lies Dogson, his chest unmoving, arms sprawled out, sleeves rolled back to reveal strange rune symbols carved and painted along his skin.
Yelena exhales sharply and blinks until the dizziness lets go of her. She pushes upright, palms gripping the wood. Her legs feel leaden, but she staggers to her feet anyway and crosses a few steps toward the open door. She means to get to Clint, to help the girl. The archer even looks her way, seeing her move closer. But when the light of the room is just a few short strides away, something appears, like a towering road block, hindering any progression and freezing her in place.
Familiar, lifeless eyes stare into her. They sit like headlights on a long pale face. The figure is tall, head nearly brushing the door frame as it hunches over her with an indescribable presence. It looks thin and swirly like the leftover meat of an aging frozen corpse, stretched over sinew and long muscle. But there’s a terrible strength in the way it stands, not rotting at all… but she isn't sure if “alive” is just right either.
Its feet are bare, peeking out from the darkness of its own shadow which conceals the torse of its strange body— chalk white, long toes splayed unnaturally like fleshy claws.
Its head tilts just slightly down, to meet Yelena’s look of shock.
When it speaks, the words slither out, sharp and wet, in a language she must strain to translate.
“Lanua aperta est.” The door is open. Its head cants the other way, inspecting her like a small creature strapped to the cold glass slide of a microscope. It seems to think about its first words, deciding something about the girl. “Non me quaeritis.” You did not call me.
Her mouth goes dry.
Time itself seems to slow, dragging like honey slipping slowly from the belly of a tea spoon. Behind the figure, Clint is still in motion, but sluggish, barely advancing his hand toward the quiver on his back. Nico’s hair lifts slightly in the unnatural air, frozen in place. Perhaps time truly has changed in the presence of this being.
“Speak,” it hisses, this time in a voice of English, but with an impatience that vibrates against her bones.
Her lips part before she can think and she knows she must ask this thing to leave, it was not her who brought this upon the earth.
“No,” she rasps her answer. “It was him,” Yelena forces out. “A man. And he is dead.”
The figure stands very still. Then, slowly, it nods, as though considering this in some internal polygraph. When it speaks again, despite its message, she is not relieved. “You wish me to leave…” He comments, knowingly.
“Yes.”
Its long body twists with an insect-like grace as it turns its gaze toward Clint and Nico, who remain locked in that strange half-time. Clint’s hand is nearly on an arrow now, but still too slow to draw.
The figure’s voice lowers, almost soft, but with a hiss that raises the hair on Yelena’s arms: “I am afraid,” it says. “It is not so simple.”
XXX
Kate jerks awake.
Her heart is hammering in her chest. Her breath comes in through quick, shallow gulps as she gasps for oxygen to full burning lungs. Where is she? She was… she wasn't here a moment ago. Seconds ago.
She presses her eyes shut, trying to make sense of it all. The last thing she remembers is the little girl.
A scream in the field. She runs towards it, telling her remaining teammates to go. A child clutching her sleeve, begging her for help. “Please don't leave me ma’am.”
“I’m not going to leave you...”
“Are you a superhero?”
Kate carrying her up to the strange house.
A smile breaking through the stream of tears, “we– we can have tea. Ma’am. A tea party.”
The room spinning like someone has tipped the world on its side. Darkness.
Shit. Something happened. Some Narnia shit— some Wonderland from hell shit— She doesn't care to make sense of it right away. She needs to get out of this fucking house. Her muscles are still and achy. Her stomach is empty and her limbs feel tired and weak. Yeah— she really needs to get the fuck out.
She’s on her feet too fast. “Easy Bishop” she tells herself. The dark structure spins around her, vision narrowing, but she blinks through it and steadies herself with a hand on the wall.
Her bow is where she dropped it. She snatches it up and scans the room for her team. She finds two agents there instead, stirring on the floor, groaning as they come back to the world just like she did moments ago.
“Hey, come on.” Kate crouches, shaking the nearest one by the shoulder until he sits up, dazed but breathing. “We need to move. Now.”
She helps both of them to their feet, ushering them toward the door. Kate keeps her bow in hand as she follows them out, only looking back at the room to contemplate if the rest of her peers are further into the strange house, past the maze of halls and closed doors.
Outside, the fresh night breeze is a slap of relief. Ahead, medics kneel near Eli and America, checking them over. She sighs when she sees they are safe. Director Hill is standing with them, her expression tight but controlled, speaking low into her phone.
The two agents help each other down the stairs but Kate is stopped on the porch, taking in the scene— there were definitely not this many cars, tents and agents when she arrived. Kate wonders how much time has passed since they were sent in. Hours? Days? More?
Someone’s steps are loud behind her, and she turns, bow raised but lowers it when Cassie comes running into the light, eyes wide.
“Cass!” Kate says, glad to see her. The other woman runs into a hug, equally weak. Kate is glad to receive it, leaning into the warmth.
“What the hell just happened?” The girl demands, pulling away bewildered and dazed. “One second me and Teddy were fighting– some ugly motherfucker… and the next—” she hesitates, swallows looking up at Kate in shock “A- a clown thing. A hatter? Like that fucking kids book! What the fuck Katie. I think I died. I felt it. I—”
“I know” Kate grabs her by the arm. “Are you okay?”
Cassie nods, shaky but sure. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You?”
“Yeah.” Kate glances back toward the dark house, toward the hallway that still seems to hum.
“What the fuck was that place…”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “But we need to get out of here.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Cassie takes a step toward the door, then pauses, frowning. “Kate. Aren’t you coming?”
Kate tightens her grip on her bowstring, shoulders set as she squints out of the house at the SHIELD set up. “I don't see Teddy— you go. I’m going to get him.”
Cassie hesitates for only a moment before nodding, “be quick about it” and bolting down the steps into the harsh white camp lights.
Kate pushes down the sick feeling in her chest and turns back toward the dark.
She moves through the house fast, boots thudding on the warped floorboards, until she finds him. He’s sprawled on his side, breathing but out cold. “Ted— hey, Teddy come on Hulky.” She crouches and shakes him gently until his eyes flutter open. “Yeah, that’s it. Up we go big guy.”
She gets an arm under his shoulders, hauls him upright as best as she can, and loops his heavy arm over her own shoulders. He’s groggy and disoriented, but he stumbles along as Kate half-drags, half-guides him toward the door.
The cool air hits her sweaty face and neck as they reach the porch, and before they’re even halfway down the steps, a voice cuts through the night, “Bishop!”
Kate glances up. Maria is standing near the gate, backlit by portable floodlights.
“We have them both.” She says into a walkie and turns to an agent. “Get them out past the property line,” she orders. An agent at Maria’s side jogs toward them and takes some of Teddy’s weight off Kate’s shoulder.
Together they carry him across the yard toward the tents. In the distance, Kate catches sight of a familiar shape...
“You good Bishop?” Someone asks her.
Kate doesn't hear it.
The shape gains focus as they move closer.
It’s Clint’s truck, parked at an angle near the perimeter.
She looks away in time to see Maria approaching, dark hair shining under the light, concerned but stern look on her face. Kate’s breath comes hard as she blurts, “Clint is here!?”
“Yes,” Maria says shortly, already signaling to a medic.
“He’s still in there!” She accuses, understanding what this means.
“We don't know that. And you are staying out of it.”
Kate’s jaw sets. She passes Teddy off fully to the other agents, her bow still in her hand. “Like hell— ma’am.”
“Kate. That’s an order.”
“Nope,” she says under her breath, already turning.
“Kate!” Maria snaps after her, scolding herself for hiring Clint's mini-me and not expecting defiant behavior.
But Kate is already running— through the gate, back up the steps, and into the house again, the dark swallowing her whole.
Kate barrels down the hallway, fumbling through darkness until a faint red glow makes itself knows. She follows it down the hall; she practically sprints, barely missing a huge gap in the floorboards as she rounds the corner and freezes.
A cold rush of fear washes over her as something— backlit by red light, blocks the ending doorframe. In the split second it takes for her eyes to adjust the fear is gone, replaced by a sense of urgency. Because someone else is here too.
“Lena.” She says, unconsciously.
The widow is in the house, standing there, her back to Kate, staring up a… something. This ghastly thing. Behind them, Clint is half-knelt, his body caught in some invisible snare, moving only in a sluggish crawl toward his quiver as if stuck in an ocean of molasses.
The figure towering over Yelena doesn't need more than a breath to notice the young archer. It’s eyes shift, slow and reptilian, to meet Kate’s.
Just behind it, through the gap of its pale, sickly thighs, a girl lays before Clint. The moment Kate notices her, the girl stirs. Her eyes snap open behind wild strands of long black hair.
Kate’s breath hitches. She doesn’t think— she doesn't need to. She pulls an arrow from her quiver and lets it fly towards the creature.
The arrow slices through the air like a scream, an arrowhead tinted red from the glow. Just as it is set to hit the entity, Nico sits upright. She lifts a small hand, palm up.
A black staff—thin but striking, humming with power— comes flying to her from where it had fallen across the room. It lands in her grip as if it was always meant to be there. The staff flares.
A searing white flame bursts outward, blinding like the heart of a firework. It swallows the figure, Yelena, Clint, Kate, everything. The world goes silent except for a loud ringing in Kate’s ears.
For one weightless instant, it feels as if the entire house has been torn away, leaving only light.
XXX
Nico’s eyes snap open.
For a heartbeat she doesn’t move. Her whole body aches as if the marrow has been scooped out of her bones, leaving her hollow, fragile, and vulnerable. Memories of her last lucid moments come racing into her mind. The urge to cry swells in her throat, to curl up, to let the world pass her by—
An abduction. The chanting. The ropes cutting into her arms. Fear– his desire. A flash of rage burns through the fog. As her vision comes back to her, her worst fears are confirmed. Dogon succeeded, he really did it. The little power she has left swirls around her: a protection while she could not protect herself. But she's awake now.
Her fingers twitch, calling to the only thing she has left. The staff, lying across the room, leaps into the air and flies toward her open hand. Cold metal smacks against her palm with force and power.
She whispers the first spell she can think of— two syllables that come rough and dry through her throat. The room explodes with light.
It is pure, blinding, searing white, flooding the hall, drowning the shadows until there is nothing left but brilliance. The necromancer recoils, its long naked back flaring as it twists toward her, hissing. Its hollow eyes narrow to slits, more annoyed than afraid.
A second arrow slams into its shoulder.
The creature snarls, snapping its head toward the source just as the sharp bark of gunfire fills the air. Bullets spark against the walls. Another arrow strikes deep into its chest, then another.
Nico blinks through the blinding light and sees them— an archer just behind her, bowstring singing as he looses arrow after arrow, and two women bursting into the room, one with a bow, the other with a pistol, both firing without hesitation.
The necromancer staggers a step back under the hail of projectiles, pushed into the room— but does not fall.
It simply turns, and steps forward. One long, terrible stride, then another, until it is walking straight through the barrage and towards her staff.
Nico swallows back fear and throws another spell at its legs. Light burns across the floor, halting it for a second, but the effort tears the breath from her lungs. She doubles over, gripping her side, gasping.
The creature laughs. It is a horrible sound—low, wet, simple.
“Parvula,” it says, voice like knives. “You are powerful… but weakened.”
It lifts one clawed hand and waves it as if changing the scenery on a simple hologram of life.
A pulse of dark energy slams into Nico with the force of a battering ram. She cries out as she flies backward, striking the far wall hard enough to splinter wood. Pain erupts across her side as she crashes to the floor, her staff clattering out of reach.
The gunfire stops. The arrows stop.
The man with the bow lowers his weapon, chest heaving. The girl glances at him, wide-eyed. The other woman stands very still, pistol raised but not firing. Nico knows it is useless— no bullet or arrow will stop him from what he needs.
The necromancer turns toward the blonde. She looks at him with a stubborn confidence that splinters with what is unmistakably fear. It looms over her, its shadow spilling across the floor like spilled ink. Slowly, it crouches until its long face is inches from hers.
“Dont touch her!” The other woman says.
He doesn't spare her a glance of recognition.
“I can give you what you wish,” it says softly in Latin, its voice curling around the smaller woman like smoke. “I can take away your fear. Your guilt. I can make you whole.” The two archers look at each other in confusion, lost in translation.
“No!” Nico’s hoarse voice cuts through the quiet. She is on her knees, clutching her ribs, blood smearing her sleeve. She does not know this girl, but she knows this power. “He’s a spirit! A trickster! Don’t listen!”
Her jaw tightens. She stares up at it, eyes dark and unblinking, but something flickers across her face— a shadow of temptation, of longing. But she does not move or speak in response.
The necromancer turns its head slightly, amused, as if considering this stubborn being.
Behind him, the man raises his weapon.
The beings hand rises again, clenched to a fist.
In an instant, everything stops.
The archer freezes with his bow halfway drawn. His fingers are still curled around the string, mid-pull. Yelena’s gun is locked in place, her finger pressed against the trigger but unable to squeeze. Even Nico cannot move. The entire room is silent. Dust floats in the air, suspended, unmoving. Nico’s red glow dims to a slow, pulsing throb.
The creature stands very still in the center of the room, sweeping over them one by one. Then it smiles— slow, terrible, teeth glinting in the faint light as it turns to its prey.
“Now,” it says to the blonde, “without interruption.”
XXX
Yelena stands, gun still frozen in her hand. Its breath spills over her face, cold enough to sting her skin, as it leans close. “I can give you what you wish,” it whispers in Latin, the words curling around her head.
Yelena swallows hard and finds that unlike the rest of the room, she can still move nearly free. “I wish nothing,” she says, her voice sharper than she feels. It still trembles.
The creature’s long, claw-like finger rises, slow as moonrise. She aches to turn away, but finds her neck is paralyzed in place. It presses the tip to the center of her forehead.
Pain spears through her skull.
Her body locks, back arching as if struck by a live wire. But by the time she can yelp, her eyes roll back, and the room before her vanishes.
XXX
When she comes to, she is sitting on a wooden bench. It's clean and sterile, and she finds she feels so out of place there. The space around her stretches endlessly, perfectly white as if constructed from flawless marble, it’s a a room with no walls, no ceiling, no exit. LIke she is a dot on a black canvas.
In front of her sits a mirrored bench, the thing from the house rests its arms against folded legs and stares at her with an eerie sense of both patience and anticipation.
Her pulse pounds in her ears. She looks around, already knowing it’s useless. There is nowhere to run.
“I wish nothing,” she says again, her voice low but steady now. “The person who summoned you was a sick man.”
The figure tilts its head. “Did you kill him?”
“I did.”
“You have killed many.”
“I have.”
The figure lifts one hand lazily, and behind it, light stretches and forms: a screen blooming into being like smoke on glass.
For the first time, she sees her life from outside herself, moments projected through some cold, impartial eyes.
Maybe they're her own.
She watches herself:
A child in the Red Room, long hair braided neatly back, trembling as she learns to aim a gun too big for her hands.
Older now… thirteen? Face blank, pulling a trigger in perfect rhythm with a dozen other girls.
A widow is dying beside her next. Was it by her hand? She can't remeber… too many have to count.
Some faces she can name, others she was too young to remember.
One face she can't forget. It’s the widow who saved her in this scene. The woman chases after a mindless Yelena until she is pinned and the red dust frees her. Yelena watches herself, a cloud of red surrounding her, as she kills her savior anyway.
The images keep coming.
Returning from dust in a tiny bathroom, hands on a porcelain sink. She leaves quickly. She’s asking the first person she sees where her sister is.
She’s sitting against a bathtub next, drinking until an empty clear bottle rolls from her fingers, consciousness flickering like a dying bulb.
She’s perched on the edge of a high-rise roof, texting Valentina “It’s done” before letting herself lean forward into the wind and fall.
Clint Barton stands yards away, bow drawn. There are tears in her eyes. She remembers that moment— that feeling like she wished, again, that she was dead too. Because now there was no point, no mission. She could not even blame this man, or kill him, for the death of her sister.
Kate walks away from her, as the next memory plays. She grabs her bag and walks out of the bedroom. Yelena doesn't call out to her.
She’s laying on the carpet after, days later, staring at the ceiling until it swims out of focus.
Her throat closes. She can’t look away as the reel plays on and when it fades, she realizes there are tears clinging to her lashes.
“You wish for nothing?” the being asks softly. Its tone is almost saddened. “You wish for more than most I encounter pueri. You wish for the loneliness to lift. You wish for—”
She interrupts. “I am not alone.” Yelena forces her jaw tight.
“You wish to be someone else. You wish to be a child again. You wish for an enemy– for responsibility. You wish to rid yourself of a bloody past. You wish to wake and find the monster is under the bed not in mirrors. You wish she understood. You wish for family and you wish to be worthy of it.”
Behind the figure, new images appear— Kate laughing on the Barton porch, Kate asleep on the couch, Kate pressed shoulder to shoulder with Yelena on a rooftop, and the assassin is smiling in a way that few people make her smile.
“I am not—” Yelena starts. I am not a monster, she wants to say, but the words catch and die on her tongue.
“And you wish to bring back the one who was taken from you.”
The images shift.
Yelena and Natasha as children, braiding each other’s hair on wooden swing sets. Running around in bark-boxes across colorful structures. Whispering in the dark with large yellow flashlights.
“This, I can grant you,” it says, voice soft as a blade. “A life, this hour, has already been given. By your hand.” Behind him, the image of Dogson appears— his face pale, blood soaking through his shirt, his body crumpled on the farmhouse floor. “A soul,” the necromancer says, smiling thinly, “for a soul.”
“No.” Yelena shakes her head. “That is… impossible.”
The figure leans forward slightly. “You will find, human, that describes very little.”
Her chest tightens, thoughts spinning too fast to catch. For a heartbeat, she almost believes him. She almost agrees. Her lips part— she isn't sure what she’s about to say.
And then the large creature shrieks.
The sound is terrible, inhuman, rattling the air around them until the white room shatters like glass.
Yelena is yanked backward, falling through nothing and slams back into her own body.
The house comes roaring back, the red glow flickering stronger as if in protest. Kate, Clint, and Nico jolt as though shaken awake. The necromancer is already gone.
“Where’d it go?!” Kate shouts, pointing her bow around the empty room.
Yelena’s lungs seize as the room snaps into focus. She stumbles backward a step, sucking in a shaking breath— And then another presence enters.
A circular ripple of golden light tears open in the air, sparks trailing like embers. Wong steps through the portal, calm but grim, the light painting the lines of his face. Nico, pale but standing, leans heavily on her staff beside him.
“Nico,” Wong says, voice steady as she turns to him. The sorcerer looks like he is about to address the room when just as suddenly as it disappears, the creature returns stalking towards the young girl with the staff with immediacy, as strange words, this time in a langue yelena cannot identify, spill from its dry, white lips.
Nico tightens her grip and magic from her staff glows hot white. If Yelena didn't know any better, it would seem the entity is… afraid. It shrieks, but only briefly. And its long limbs twist unnaturally as it’s dragged toward the forming spell, its flesh seeming, not to burn, but to be sent away as if pulled into a void.
By the time Yelena’s brain can even comprehend the scene, its eyes are locked back onto hers. “Stop them!” it bellows, order echoing in a choir of a hundred voices at once. “Stop them!”
Yelena’s hands shake. Her pistol rises of its own accord, tears stinging her eyes—
“Shoot!” It commands “I can give you what you most desire. Your life! Your love! Your sister!”
The tears actually fall, and the idea of this… of everything being better at the snap of his fingers is tempting.. So tempting… it pulls at her heart— her core. She aches for this world he so tempts her with. A small sob escapes her lips.
But she doesn’t fire the gun.
She drops it to the floor with a clang.
The creature howls in rage and lunges, breaking free of the pull long enough to slam Yelena back against the wall. Its long hand pins her by the chest, its yellow eyes inches from hers. Kate fires an arrow, but is easily tossed straight through the old, weathered wall and into the floorboards with a loud grunt.
But Yelena can't see beyond its faces pushed against hers. Its arms holding her up as if she is weightless. “Vos contristabimini,” it snarls.
The magic still consumes it, black and roaring. She thinks she hears Nico shouting in tandem with Wong. But she can't make it out, the smell of its breath is too overwhelming as it is pulled away.
“You’re wrong.” Yelena says, with confidence, even as it pins her with the last of its body, just its torso remaining, “I am not alone.”
“Tu eris,” it says, calmly, just as it is pulled away into nothingness.
The mere moment it's gone, the light in the room dies. Nico sways on her feet and crumples. Wong catches her under the arms and lowers her gently to the floor.
Across the room, Clint has a hand on Kate’s shoulder. Her purple suit is covered in white drywall and dust. He brushes her off looking around the room for more danger. Yelena feels herself sink against the wall at her back, dropping with exhaustion to the floor in a slow side onto her ass.
Kate pushes her mentor away, bow clattering as she drops to her knees. “Lena.” She says, with worry, and guilt. She looks into the girl’s eyes, wanting to reach out and hold her, but trying to discern if the contact would be welcomed by the widow. Yelena doesn’t speak, still catching her breath. But Kate’s chest is far less tight when the blonde leans forward, and wraps her arms around Kate, clutching her tight, forehead pressed into her shoulder.
Clint glances once toward them, then moves to Wong’s side. “Is she breathing?”
This gets the attention of the other women, who look over at the girl laying still on the floor.
“She’s alive,” Wong says. His voice is quiet somehow, even after all that.
“I’m calling Maria. We’ll get a gurney in here.”
“She does not need your medics,” he says. He gathers Nico into his arms. She stirs only faintly as he steps back and summons another glowing golden portal.
“Where are you taking her?”
He only nods. “Trust me, friend.” Through the golden ring, a snowy field stretches under a pale sky, a lone house sitting in the distance. Wong steps through with Nico, and the portal snaps shut behind them, leaving the house dark and quiet.
Kate and Yelena pull further apart. Aware of the now– almost violent silence left behind in the wake of endless hours of madness.
Yelena cups Kate’s face in both hands, her thumbs brushing over her cheekbones, brushing soot from her skin.
Clint crosses back to them, bow still in hand. “Are you two okay? Lets get the fuck out of here.”
Before either of them can answer, a small sound cracks through the silence. Kate shuffles to the side and yelena pushes them both to their feet as a crack forms in the wooden panels beside them.
“Shit. Is this place falling apart right now?” Kate says.
Yelena doesn't look away from the crack, it grows larger again. “Let’s go.” She says.
“Way ahead of you.” Clint has his and Kate's bow in his hands now, heading for the hall. Kate follows.
“Come on!” She says, stopped at the end of the room. But Yelena only takes a timid step back, eyes locked on the crack. Then another step. And another. “Yelena. Let's go.” Her eyes don't leave it.
“Something…” She says, but she doesn't finish her sentence, as the wood now thumps, as if someone, or something is pushing it open from the inside, like a corpse– alive, breaking free from its coffin.
Slowly, she takes another step back and raises her gun.
“Yelena.” Clint says, forcefully this time, as if contemplating carrying her out.
The thumping continues until the wood finally gives into the pressure and the simple long crack splinters into a jagged rift. It tears open, revealing black soil underneath.
By the time both archers have their bows pointed, a hand reaches up into the room and claws for the air.
Yelena is frozen in place.
“Tu eris,” the creature had promised.
Kate pulls an arrow back and nearly lets it fly, but Clint shoots his arm out, pushing her back and away before she can release the draw. “Clint!” She shouts. But he doesn't hear her. His eyes are locked on the woman, pulling herself up from the earth, gasping for air. And he stumbles forward, nearly losing his balance, his ears ring in his head and he wonders if magic exposure might be damaging to his hearing-aids. Maybe he’s losing his mind. Maying he is still in some odd spell. Maybe he is dead.
Because he knows this woman. He knows her better than he knows himself. And she’s wearing exactly what she was wearing the day he let her fall.
Of all the people standing in this room, it isn't her partner or her sister who mutter her name into being, but Katherine Bishop, recalling her features only from magazine photos and billboards and posters in her childhood bedroom.
“Natasha.”