𝙗𝙡𝙪𝙧𝙧𝙮 𝙚𝙙𝙜𝙚𝙨

𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘦

1

<<<The Beginning>>>

THERE WAS A MOMENT YOU LOOKED BACK ON, later in life that could easily be pinpointed as the start of everything. As if, nothing else mattered until that moment, because at that very small, possibly inconsequential chapter in time, you were flipped so incomprehensibly on your head that you could no longer recognize yourself in the mirror. It was a stranger, with the same hair, same eyes, same nose as had always been there. But the memories, the struggles, and the scars were different. Everything could be traced back down to one singular moment. That was it; one thing was all it took to alter the course of a life, veer it so far off the predesignated path that the only way forward was to keep trudging blindly into the abyss.

For Yelena Katerina Romanova, she could confidently say her life went to shit the second she opened the front door. There had really been no reason to; it was summer break, and she had the day off from slinging ice cream to sweaty patrons at the mall, so it was well deserved in her mind to laze about and watch TV like every other teenager had the right to when it was over ninety degrees outside. And it wasn't like she answered the door much anyway; on top of being one of the most antisocial seventeen year old's out there – to her given knowledge – she was raised by a paranoid ex-assassin who never answered the door without holding a gun behind her back.

So yeah, she should never have opened the door.

"Lena!" She half-debated slinking further down in her chair, as if that would ward off the solicitors, except she recognized the voice muffled through the wood. With a resigned sigh, she slowly made her way over to the door, and opened it.

Robin Buckley stood there in full Scoops Ahoy regalia, with two people in tow. The blonde lowered her still-raised hand and grinned widely. "Finally! I was worried you were still asleep."

Lena's lip ticked upwards in amusement, and she shook her head at her best friend. "Nope. SpongeBob's on."

"SquarePants?" came another voice, this time male. It was then that Lena properly registered who was waiting awkwardly behind Robin, hands on his hips like he was two seconds away from scolding everyone within earshot for incorrectly mowing his lawn. Steve Harrington, in all his recently-graduated glory, who was for some reason standing on her front porch.

She narrowed her eyes. "Is there another SpongeBob I should be aware of?"

He spluttered, and she could practically see the steam escaping through his ears as he worked to come up with a witty response. "Well, uh–"

"Robin said you could help us," the third member of the party interjected. He was shorter than everyone there, but had a large mane of curly brown hair that more than made up for it. The kid turned a suspicious stare towards Lena. "Can you?"

Now, growing up Lena had learned to take those kinds of questions very carefully. Sure, you could say yes and it be for something as easy as helping plan a birthday party. Or, as her mom liked to remind her, you could say yes and end up knee-deep in some weird cult shit that would take years to absolve. There was a restless, teenage part of her that secretly really wanted to tackle the second option; Hawkins, Indiana was one of the most boring places on the planet and it would be strangely cool to get to uncover something weird like that.

But maybe she was just bored, and slightly psychotic. Between growing up largely on her own, to suffering the public education system, to more recently working in abysmal clothing with repulsive company, Lena was quite positive that her psyche had taken a couple hits. Although that last one wasn't an entire truth; she got to work with Robin most days, and sometimes their other coworker Bailey would show up and she wasn't so bad either. The repulsiveness was mostly Steve; while he had turned over a new leaf, Lena wasn't anything if not stubborn, and could not forgive him of his past actions so easily.