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quietlyimplode · 1 year ago

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What can I say!? Words, that often come so easily sometimes have just alluded me, because this is one of the kindest things someone has done and has made me smile so big. Thank you - your Yelena is beautiful. The way you capture her and the colours and casualness, the way she’s sitting and drinking, it’s like you took the imagery out of my head.

Friend.

To have some art made of my fic, is such such an honour. I don’t know how to repay it, but will be sending all the hugs and good thoughts your way.

Thank you so so much.

Yelena is perfect. <3

the language of flowers and silent things

Whumptober 2023: Day 12 - Red

Warnings: red room talk but nothing graphic

Word Count: 1.3k (gif not mine)

Summary: Yelena receives some help from unlikely sources. Natasha still has her back, despite what she may think.

A/N: (I forget how spoilt I was with no ads, if the anon who gifted them last month, thank you again.)

Masterlist

Whumptober Masterlist

2014

SINGAPORE

“Yelena, where are you?” Saffine shouts into the ear piece.

“Did you do it? Is she dead?”

“Yelena?” Irina asks, “where are you? Your tracker isn’t working. How did you do that?”

Panic suffocates Yelena.

They have safeguards against self harm. Poisons in their bodies that don’t allow them to harm themselves.

Saffine would know something has gone wrong.

Maybe they’d know it’s not her fault.

Choices.

A life with the Red Room, staying until she dies or becomes like Isla, training a new generation of widows and hating herself for it.

Natasha was right.

It’s not a choice.

Despite the connections she’s made in the Red Room and the responsibility she feels for others, she knows, running, escaping, it’s what’s best for her.

A choice like she’s never been given, the irony that it comes from Natasha is not lost on her.

She hates Natasha for it, and loves her all the same.

Looking at the bus schedule, Yelena chooses the one heading to Malaysia, she hears the panic on the line of the other two widows and she knows the punishment that awaits them when they get picked up and returned.

She drops the ear pieces into a teenagers bag, and then; she’s alone.

She knows she can’t think of that now.

People watching as she boards the bus, she calms herself, counting the people around her, and focusing on the time.

Five hours til she arrives and then can work out what to do from there.

Five hours to think about the decision she’s just made.

“Did you really expect her to be here?” Clint asks as they board the plane.

“Yes?”

Natasha’s answer is hopeful as she looks around again. The amount of people around them making it difficult to see faces and disguises.

Clint doesn’t follow her eyesight, instead looks at the bruising on her face, covered by make up but still visible. He’s not sure he wants to face Yelena right now. He feels so angry at the pain he knows Natasha is in.

“She’s not coming is she?”

Clint shakes his head, pulling their passports out and presenting them to flight attendant. He knows he needs to let it go.

“Would you have come with me?”

Natasha almost laughs.

“We both know I didn’t,” she replies.

“She needs time, Natasha.”

She frowns, feeling like she’s been told off.

“Why the full name?”

He shrugs, moving forward in line.

“For emphasis? I’m just saying; that she has no reason to trust you, even with everything that you’ve set up. You want an easy reunion but even you have to admit that when you were out of the clutches, it still took you time to trust me, and it was only because I could give you something you needed.”

He points to their seats and she passes him a bag.

“Give her time, yeah? She may not be ready, or she may have a different agenda to what you think she should.”

She sits and stares into the airport, searching again.

“Yeah,” she says softly.

2014

MALAYSIA

Yelena steps off the bus, and picks up a suitcase from underneath that isn’t hers, but likely is a womans. If anyone stops her she can play stupid.

They don’t though, and she makes her way to the tallest and biggest hotel in the city.

Kuala Lumpur is busier than she remembers when she was here last, but she was only twelve. Maybe under that light, it all felt different.

She checks in with a fake passport, a fake name, and stolen money, and requests a room furthest from the elevator.

“I’m such a light sleeper,” she grins to the lady, who nods and smiles back.

Easy, this is, manipulating people, Yelena thinks as the elevator takes her up.

She opens the suitcase in her room and luckily finds a range of tshirts and shorts to manage in.

Toiletries, medications, shoes that are probably too big, things she’ll need to reset.

Yelena sighs heavily.

She’s free.

She’s not sure why it feels so bad though.

She should be happy, light, pleased with her decision but instead all she feels is dread.

Red hair dye may have not been her best decision. She’s not sure how Natasha blended in so well with being so visible.

It’s strange, not having a mission, not being housed in a facility. The feeling of freedom after being under the rule of someone else feels terrifying.

Yelena doesn’t know what to do with herself.

Knowing they’ll be searching for her, knowing they’re coming, she just can’t seem to move forward, stuck in an awkward limbo of repeating the same day over and over.

She ends up at a small café, orders the same fruit drink and watches those around her.

She brings a book she took from the hotel and pretends to read it, instead taking the time to watch and learn how to be human.

She watches adults walk together, women with headphones walking by, men talking animatedly on the phone.

It’s the children she likes to watch the most.

The little girls who smile easily at their mothers, and the little boys that eat ice cream looking up at their fathers.

Yelena sorts through her feelings, knowing it’s jealousy that boils.

It doesn’t feel fair.

She pushes it down, turning it to anger.

That could have been her, it was her in Ohio.

“Good book?”

The approach of another startles her and even more so when she sees Isla.

Fear pulses through her.

If Isla was here, then so was the Red Room.

“Freedom is a tricky thing, isn’t it?”

She takes Yelena’s hand.

“She told me the tracker was disabled,”

There’s a even cadence of Yelena’s voice, even though she feels like throwing up in fear.

“Oh it is, but honey, you’re going to have to do better to run and hide if you want this to be a permanent thing.”

Yelena stares at Isla.

The Red Room poster girl; a terrifying individual, having cycled through at least twice, probably three times.

“I’m not the bad guy,” Isla smiles, wickedly, sipping her own drink and passing across a package.

“She’s given you an out, and I’m giving you a way to do it.”

“Natasha, she knew, she paid me to help, which is the only reason I’m doing this.”

Yelena opens the package.

Two passports peek out, and Australian one and an American one and a stack of US dollars.

Her heart catches.

“You’ll let me go?”

Isla shrugs.

“Is that what you want?”

Yelena feels her filter drop.

“How am I supposed to know? They said jump and I’d say how high. I don’t want to be theirs. I… this is not real. They made me like this, this shell, and now… now I don’t know; I want them to tell me what I should do, there’s too much grey— too much variability. When you take away the Red Room and what’s left? What’s left of… me?”

Yelena bites down hard on the inside of her cheeks, feeling the intensity of grief bubbling inside and the threat of tears come as she stares down at her drink.

“Sometimes we can’t leave, there’s too much damage. But you should, you might like who you find,” Isla tells her, in a moment of honesty.

“I tried once,” she whispers, more to herself.

She laughs out loud, a manic sound, breaking the introspection.

“If I catch you again, I’m taking you in, and they can do to you what they did to me.”

Yelena feels the insanity in the words.

“What am I supposed to do, now?”

Isla stands, hovers next to her and points out to the people around.

“Become one of them? Be like your sister? Or go the other way? Maybe you’ll like what you become when you don’t have someone pulling your puppet strings.”

She kisses Yelena’s forehead.

“She’s given you an out; I suggest you take it.”

As quickly as she comes, she goes, leaving Yelena with more questions than answers.

#wonderful friends #wonderful art #amazing art #yelena belova #whumptober2023 #oceanspirit9 draws #this is amazing and beautiful and ahhhhh #I cannot stop looking at her #thank you

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quietlyimplode · 1 year ago

Text

the language of flowers and silent things

Whumptober 2023: Day 31 - take it easy

Warnings: nightmares

Word Count: 3.4K(picture from the amazing @oceanspirit9 )

Summary: the wedding of Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff

A/N: well shit. I don’t even know where to begin with this. @broken--bow this is yours, without you this wouldn’t be here - from the bottom of my heart thank you so much. @oceanspirit9 I’m still in awe of your art, thank you for it and your entire encouragement this month.

Fic is about community - whumptober gives me a chance to set my mind to something in a month where, there are difficulties and hardships. It gives a whole other place to exist in. Without the communities of fic; life becomes a lot more convoluted and grey. Thank you all for being on this journey - if you’ve liked multiple chapters and followed (even at a distance) - I see you, and thank you. All your commented and likes and reblogs matter to me.

Long live this community. It’s so very dear to me.

(Oh and if we want an epilogue, let me know. It wouldn’t be part of whumptober but may be a nice ending.)

Masterlist

Whumptober Masterlist

2014

NEW YORK

AVENGERS TOWER

CLINT AND NATASHA’S WEDDING DAY

Dreykov circles her.

Sitting tied to a chair Natasha is powerless to move.

Fear paralyzes her.

A gun in hand as he points it at her face.

“You think you belong anywhere else but here?”

He places it under her chin.

“I would rather die than let anyone else have you.”

He presses in further, causing her to lift her head, unable to swallow.

“No one will ever love you, not when I’m through with you.”

He bends down and kisses her cheek.

Then stands and backhands her.

“You’ll never escape the Red Room, not even if you tried.”

She wakes alone.

Her chin sore as she touches it gently, trying to wipe away the sensation.

The room is dark and the world still.

The ghosts that haunt her still feeling present.

The dream dissipates as time presses forward.

She turns for Clint to find his side of the bed empty, and she pads out of bed to the bathroom.

Natasha looks at herself in the mirror, her reflection pale.

She did escape.

In the ways that matter.

She thinks of Isla, trapped and alone; fulfilling Dreykov’s prophecy and wonders how to help her. Tomorrow, she thinks, she’ll ask Clint tomorrow.

Glancing at the time, she realises it is the next day.

Her wedding day.

A day that was supposed to be by the beach, in the sun, a day that given the last 3 years grew less likely.

To have it here, Natasha supposes she feels apprehensive, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Something will go wrong.

She feels it.

All this good doesn’t come without bad.

Yelena sits on a chair staring at her.

It takes a moment for Natasha to orient to the time and space but when she does; she grins.

The night had continued to be rocky, but the spate of sleep she’d got from 6-7am would have to be enough.

Clint was staying in his own floor, surrounded by the other boys, whilst she was getting ready with the girls.

Maria, as she was officiating had the luxury of passing in between to keep everyone on time.

“Stop watching,” Natasha mumbles, throwing a pillow at her.

Yelena catches it and throws it back.

“Get up,” she commands, “you’re getting married today.”

She smiles menacingly.

“I’ve also been tasked with getting you dressed.”

Natasha sits up, still sleepy, growing more aware of the tasks ahead and pushing down the apprehension that grows.

Yelena does nothing to help it, except push her into the bathroom and tells her to shower.

The whole scene is surreal.

She wonders if Clint is faring any better.

Pepper greets him in the kitchen, and he’s momentarily confused.

“Yelena is with Natasha,” she tells him, “I’m just finishing up on some details upstairs then I’ll go help them. Where’s Tony?”

Steve enters after him and he holds up the coffee pot, questioning.

Steve shrugs and nods.

“It’s your wedding day, man!”

Clint sucks down the cup of coffee, not waiting to breathe, until he’s finished instead giving Steve a thumbs up with his other hand.

Pepper rolls her eyes and laughs.

“I’ll see you later,” she tells them.

“Make sure you’re here by 10.”

She looks directly at Steve.

“Okay?”

He nods and salutes mockingly.

“Come on. Bring that with you,” he ushers, pushing him towards the workshop.

Clint follows, dragging his feet as the time flashing of 8am feeling mocking on the microwave.

If only he got more sleep.

He doesn’t want to think about what it means that sleeping beside Natasha gives him much better sleep than sleeping alone.

The dreams, the overthinking, she just has a way of soothing it, and making it better.

Tony, half dressed in a tuxedo, greets him with a drink and a smile.

“Happy wedding day,” he says, handing him an arrow.

Clint takes it unconsciously, and then hands it back confused.

Tony presses the bottom collapsing it and it opens at the point, revealing a purple flower.

“To sit in your pocket,” he nods, he then pulls on the end and it turns back into an arrow. Handing it back, Clint, he gives it a go, marveling at the weapon turned flower.

“Thanks,” he says, playing with it like a fidget toy.

“You should start getting ready,” Steve prompts responsibility.

Tony laughs.

“He just needs to get dressed, how long do you think it’s going to take him?”

“Yeah, but Pepper has asked him to look at the roof, in like an hour, make sure it’s all okay for Nat, then make any changes. Plus, she’ll be there at like 11 for the ceremony to start at 11.10.”

He looks pointedly at Tony.

“What time do you need to be there?”

Tony waves him off.

“I’ll be there on time, I have alarms.”

Clint shakes his head and walks off arrow in hand feeling nervous at the pressure being placed.

He doesn’t like it.

Instead of heading to his room, he sends a message and heads for the elevator.

She gets a message, a slight code on it, and realises it’s from Clint almost immediately.

“Meet me in the elevator,” it says, “I need to see you.”

Halfway through her make up, she stands and heads for the door.

“I’ll be back,” she tells Yelena and Maria, who are also finishing their make up.

She hasn’t seen Pepper yet, and misses her no nonsense calmness of organisation.

“When you’re back, I’ll do your hair,” Yelena offers, and Natasha nods.

“Wait,” Maria calls, throwing two cupcakes at her.

“Eat something.”

Natasha catches them and makes it a show to take a bite, before backing out and heading to the elevator.

It opens to reveal Clint, still in a tshirt and pajama pants.

There’s a look of relief on his face as he sees her and he pulls her in, kissing her and hugging her close.

“I missed you,” he says, sappily.

She’d call him out on it, but she feels the same. The comfort of each other regulating, Natasha handing him a cupcake and he hands her the pot of coffee he’d taken from the kitchen.

They sit in the stationary elevator, not talking as they eat the cupcakes and drink the coffee.

“Pepper has me looking at the roof to make sure it’s at your standards,” he admits.

“Do you want me to text you photos?”

Natasha nods.

“Yeah, no surprises would be good.”

He nods.

“You’ll be standing ready to walk together right?”

He nods again.

“Everything else is ready, right?”

She nods.

“Only Yelena knows, she won’t tell anyone.”

Clint sighs and checks the time.

“We should go,” he says with a shallow smile.

“Yeah.”

Slowly they stand.

The elevator opening as if commanded and then, kissing each other, they go their separate ways.

The ribbon is gently braided in.

Both Natasha and Yelena don’t talk, the moment feeling sacred as the tie that bound them in childhood and helped to bring them back together.

There’s nothing really to say.

Shallow smiles and gentle touches as they both seem to understand the significance of the moment.

They’re both alive, against all odds.

Something maybe neither of their mothers expected.

“Thank you for being here, today,” Natasha says quietly.

Yelena doesn’t reply.

“I didn’t think…”

Yelena places a hand on Natasha shoulder.

“The past, I think will always play a part for us. But I am glad to be here with you too.”

It’s not an absolution.

It could never be, neither of them would accept it.

But it’s enough.

The wedding dress fits perfectly.

Pepper and Yelena help.

Pepper shed tears and Yelena just looks pleased. Natasha that leaves for the bathroom, feeling too many emotions and overwhelmed with them.

She needs time to centre herself.

Time is moving too quickly, and she feels almost dissociated and disconnected from the moments that keep happening.

It’s like it’s happening to someone else, or that she’s watching it happen to herself.

She should be happy, not apprehensive and anxious.

The time with Clint was the most centred she’d been since waking, and it just felt compounded.

“Nat?”

Pepper knocks on the door.

“I’ve got to go meet Clint, are you okay to meet us on the roof in about 11? It’s about an hour?”

Natasha squeaks out a response, and then keeps staring at herself.

She just needs a moment.

The rooftop is beautiful.

Chairs are placed in a semi circle around an arbour. The archway decorated with blue forget-me-nots as the litter the aisle and decorate all the chairs.

There’s pictures, of Barney and Coulson. There’s not just one of each but multiples, pictures of them Clint and Barney that Gus had given, of Natasha and Coulson, pictures he hadn’t seen before. He stops and sees the tiny one of Natasha’s mother holding her, and feels his breath catch in his throat.

“Pepper.”

He wanders around and takes a few photos of all of it, before sending it off.

“You did all this? In two days?”

Pepper shrugs.

“Some of you have super powers…”

“You have super powers,” Clint cuts her off, leaving no room for argument.

There’s blue ribbons on the chairs and tiny purple arrows in the bouquets.

He wanders for a moment, taking it all in and gathering himself.

“I didn’t know if you wanted that…” she gestures to the pictures of the people no longer here, “but I wanted to a acknowledge them, in some way I guess.”

He walks back over and stares at Coulson, and nods.

“No, it’s perfect.”

Pepper stands back and looks around.

“Is there anything else, or something more you need?”

Clint shakes his head.

“No, but can you keep a secret?”

He feels it’s only right in telling her after she had put so much effort into this moment.

She nods.

After Clint leaves to get Tony, he messages Natasha.

“Anything else needed? I told Pepper, too.”

A message comes, moments later.

Just one word that makes his heart stop.

“Red.”

Yelena stands at the bathroom door, and shrugs at Clint.

“She was fine.”

There’s a tone of worry he doesn’t think he has ever heard. Always so self assured or matter of fact, Yelena doesn’t seem easily put out.

Now, it’s a worry that bleeds through.

“Can you tell Pepper to get everyone seated and we’ll come together?”

He glances at the time, 10.55.

She doesn’t move, perhaps concerned with this part of Natasha that she’s never seen before.

He tries to dampen down the urgency, reassure her and get her out, he nods and smiles.

“Don’t worry. She’ll be fine, just cold feet maybe. Go, I’ll call you if we need anything, or Jarvis will let you know, okay?”

Yelena looks at Clint, a hard look that tells him she’s trusting him with this.

Backing up, she leaves and Clint knocks.

A secret knock that they use often.

The door unlocks.

He opens it and suddenly can’t breathe.

“You look beautiful.”

It’s an understatement.

Her hair braided, with small wisps coming down, make up done and in a dress that fits her perfectly.

He takes her hand, kisses it and guides her to sit on the side of the bath.

She’s not crying, she just looks sad.

“What happened?” he asks.

He draws circles on her hand, then starts tracing over her fingers.

“It’s going to go wrong. Good things can’t happen to me. If we do this,” she pauses.

“It’ll we do this, you’ll die. Something will happen to you. I’m the Black Widow.”

He shakes his head.

“Nat.”

She sighs.

“Tell me what you think will happen.”

“I don’t know. I just know it’s too good. You’re too good. You deserve someone who isn’t a void of bad.”

His heart is angry, and he doesn’t know how to dispute it in a way she’ll accept.

“What happened?”

Natasha glances at him.

“I was looking in the mirror, and nothing had happened. No one had broken in, no one had kidnapped one of us, and I kept thinking, what’s going to happen next?”

He stops the tracing and encourages her to do the same to him.

He sighs.

“Nat.”

“I know,” she sighs.

“I know it sounds stupid and we've made it this far, but I can’t help but think it. If you marry me, I’m dooming you.”

He laughs at that.

It seems to shake her.

“It is stupid,” he says seriously.

“Do you want to be with me?”

She looks at him and frowns.

“Of course.”

“Are you willing to risk doom for it?”

She hears her words repeated back at her.

Biting her lip, she looks to him.

“Yes,” she says, with a watery grin.

“I have you, and you have me. You know those stupid vows? You make me brave,” he tells her, “so doom is nothing with you by my side. You deserve good things.

I promise, okay?”

“I’m better because of you,” she thinks, the words of vows they spoke in what seems like a lifetime ago.

“We can do this, yeah? We can do this, and when we do, then…”

“I know… I know.”

Natasha stands.

“ I don’t want you to die.”

Clint smiles, taking her hand.

“If I die Nat, you can say I told you so, okay?”

Natasha nods.

“Are you ready?”

Yelena watches Clint and Natasha walk down the aisle.

Overcome with emotion, she cries openly.

She doesn’t care.

Half the people here she doesn’t know, and the other half look as teary as she does.

Pepper had admitted to her that all of them needed some happiness. That since 2012 every one of the Avengers had been flailing.

Since Clint and Natasha had admitted about being engaged, the wedding had been something they’d planned, kept tabs on, supported and gossiped about. It had provided hope for the future, and sometimes had supported grounding.

They couldn’t die, or break apart because they all had something to live for, to look forward to.

Yelena understood it.

Without hope, without that something to look towards, life became so much more difficult.

The words Maria speaks don’t feel rehearsed, and even Natasha cries as she talks.

Clint wipes away her tear, dabbing gently with a tissue.

Yelena sniffs.

She hadn’t expected to be emotional.

Offered tissues from Pepper (who always seems to know what to do), Yelena takes them and sighs.

She’s never been invited to a wedding.

Crashed them, sure.

Been on missions where they’d fabricated an invite.

But not this.

Natasha is the only family she has, and so this is likely the only wedding she’ll ever be invited to.

She dabs her eyes and takes a moment to look around.

The man with the eye patch, keeps looking at her and she ignores it hoping it’s just because he feels uncomfortable with public displays of emotion.

Steve sits next to Sam, both of them watching on in awe.

Bruce fiddles in his chair and she wonders if other emotions bring out the Hulk.

She turns back to the wedding, taking some candid pictures, even though she’s sure Pepper’s photographer has it handled.

Yelena feels that even though the wedding is small, everyone is here because they want to be.

Friends, found family, it’s a strange group of people.

She wonders if one day she’ll have this.

She hopes.

Natasha stands in front of her family and friends and tells Clint that she’ll be with him til death. He returns the words and finally Maria tells them to kiss.

Amongst the whoops and cheers and throwing of petals at them, Natasha can’t help but smile with Clint at the commitment they’ve just made.

He hugs her and kisses her again, to everyone’s delight and they walk out towards their friends leading the way to the grand room where they’d had Christmas lunch days earlier.

Now transformed, into a room fit for celebration, Natasha has no idea how Pepper did it.

Despite all the anxiety and fear to get to this point, she’s happy.

Glad they did it.

It’s the other shoe, finally dropping.

Except it’s not bad.

It’s good.

Clint glances at Natasha, taking her hand and leading her to the hallway.

“We did it!”

He picks her up and hugs her, relief evident on her face as he spins her and kisses her smiling face.

“You tell me when you’re ready,” he grins, and she nods.

“I want to check on Yelena and Tony, and we need to thank Pepper,” she tells him.

“Okay, I need to just tell Fury a few things, and we should thank Maria for doing such a good job.”

Natasha nods.

“She did. Maybe you can check on Gus too, he’s heading home tonight, I think Tony organised a car; maybe just make sure he’s aware.”

Clint looks past her down the hall.

“We’re so close Nat, just a little longer.”

They kiss again and split up, each with their own little list of things today.

She finds Yelena talking to Tony, and wonders when and how they became talking friends. Maybe being in an ordeal just makes it that way.

She talks to them for a bit, the pulls Yelena away.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Yelena tells her.

“It’s okay, it’s not goodbye,” she smiles.

Natasha shakes her head.

“Now I’ve found you, you’re stuck with me,” she replies.

“Plus, we need to talk about Isla.”

Yelena’s face turns serious.

“Yeah. I was talking to Tony about a weapon, and the trackers.”

Natasha nods, “that’s good.”

She hugs her again.

“Not too long, okay?”

Yelena bumps her head into Natashas.

“No, not too long.”

Clint approaches them, and Yelena spontaneously hugs him too.

“Congratulations, I guess,” she smiles.

“You’ll stick around for a bit?”

Yelena shrugs, “maybe a little.”

It’s a lie but they don’t call her on it.

Clint turns to Natasha.

“Ready?”

Natasha smiles.

“Ready.”

2014

OKINAWA

Okinawa is just as she remembered.

Beautiful beaches, lovely people and a relaxation that felt strange at first.

Her large oversized hat sits just over her head and she smiles as Clint runs in from the water.

Her husband.

What a concept.

“Next, you’re going to tell me that it’s time to build a sand castle,” she goads, handing him a towel.

He laughs ringing his hair out and laying next to her.

“What do you want for dinner?”

She shrugs.

“Whatever you want?”

Clint smiles, the sun shining as it sets.

He looks over to his wife.

He married the black widow.

“Sushi,” he decides.

Natasha nods.

“Perfect.”

They stand together, Clint holding out his hand and envelopes hers into it, bringing to his lips and kissing it gently.

“After you,” he grins.

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