The rain is drumming against the roof of the safehouse, a steady, rhythmic sound that usually calms you. But tonight, the air is electric.
Yelena is standing by the window, her back to the room. She hasn't taken her coat off, and the water is dripping from the hem, pooling on the floor.
For the last three hours of the mission, you’d worked side-by-side in perfect, lethal silence.
You moved the way you used to when you were kids—anticipating her every step, covering her back without a word.
But now that the adrenaline is gone, the reality is setting in.
“You’re alive,” she says. Her voice isn't relieved. It’s sharp, like a blade skipping over stone.
“Yelena—”
“Do not,” she snaps, finally turning around.
Her eyes are bloodshot and fierce. She looks at you like she’s trying to decide if you’re a ghost or a target.
“I spent ten years thinking you were buried in a field outside of Budapest. I went back for you. I looked for your name in every file, every grave.”
She takes a step toward you, her boots heavy on the floorboards. She’s not ignoring you anymore; she’s focused on you with a terrifying, narrowed intensity.
“And then I see you tonight. In the middle of a shoot-out. Using the same take-down I taught you when we were twelve.”
“I couldn't come back for you, Lena. I was deep under. If I reached out, they would have killed us both.”
“So you just stayed dead?”
She lets out a short, jagged breath that’s more of a snarl than a laugh.
“You let me grieve you. You let me think I was the only one left. Do you have any idea what that does to a person?”
She’s standing right in your space now.
She’s shorter than you, but she feels twice as large because of the sheer heat of her anger.
She reaches out, her hand slamming into your shoulder—not a hit, but a shove, hard enough to make you stumble back against the wall.
“You are a coward,” she whispers, her voice cracking for just a split second before she hardens it again.
“Yelena, look at me.”
You reach out to grab her arm, but she swats your hand away, her jaw clamped so tight it looks painful.
“No. Do not touch me.”
She turns away again, pacing the small room like a caged animal. She’s ignoring the fact that her hands are shaking. She’s trying to find that "Widow" coldness, trying to bury the fact that her best friend just came back from the dead and it hurts worse than the original loss.
She stops at the table, picking up a combat knife and putting it back down, over and over.
“Go to sleep,” she mutters, her back to you again.
“Lena, we need to talk about this.”
“There is nothing to talk about,” she says, her voice going deathly quiet.
“You were dead for ten years. You can stay dead for one more night.”
She doesn't move. She just stands there in her wet clothes, staring at the door, her shoulders hunched as she tries to breathe through the absolute chaos of seeing you again.