marvel oneshots

belova | peter losing wendy ( a )

summary - she was a shadow for so many years, but eventually she found her way back home to you. only, it wasn't as easy to leave dreykov behind as she expected

word count - 1.1k

After a while, the people we love who we lose begin to feel like shadows. They begin to feel like sunshine on a spring morning. They begin to feel like maybe, just maybe, they were never really there to begin with.

The person she wanted to be lives inside of you. The innocence and the childhood that was stolen from between her fingers like loose threads in a friendship bracelet lived vibrantly across the streets of Ohio. In your home, in your art, in your life, you carried those two sisters around with you like they were shadows stitched to your soul, like Peter Pan in Wendy's window, like a night of flight across London to an island of eternal youth. Like a shadow, you knew she was there, but you couldn't touch her, you couldn't feel her, you couldn't climb the fence that separated your backyards and watch her nose scrunch in a mischievous grin. All you could do was remember her. Remember macaroni and cheese, remember backbends and swing sets, remember bioluminescence. You never forgot her.

When she knocked on your door, dirt smeared across her cheeks, hair falling into her face and out of the braid that met the middle of her back, rips in her pants, blood on her hands... oh, you'll never forget the sight of her. It was almost cinematic, flashes of the girl she was and the woman she is now; back and forth the two images crossed over your vision, reminding you that for twenty years she was a shadow. She must've been on your front steps for minutes, nervously picking at her cuticles, waiting for you to let her inside- to let her back into your life.

Weeks had passed, and Yelena was only slowly beginning to become acclimated to the world without mind control and abuse. She was timid, silly, a sarcastic wrench in your side at all times. She was so different, but exactly the same in all your favorite ways. She still loved macaroni and cheese, she still loved fireflies and comedy movies. The four year old girl you knew still lived inside her, but there was somebody else to get to know too; somebody else who was just a shadow stitched to Yelena's side.

You were in the kitchen, cleaning up the remnants of dinner when Yelena came barreling in, dripping wet from the shower she'd taken minutes prior. Her blonde hair had gotten longer since she'd been here- been home, and you wished you could say it suited her well, but even she would disagree. The little girl who had loved her hair, who twisted it into braids and ponytails and colored it with sidewalk chalk to be like her older sister, was now a woman who hide herself in it, who hated braids, and hated ponytails, and cried into your chest about everything that had poisoned the well since her capture.

"Cut my hair." She didn't give you anytime to process what she'd requested, turning back to the bathroom where she waited. You threw the rag onto the counter, dragging your damp hands down your pants.

You found her in the bathroom, sitting on the closed toilet seat, staring down a pair of scissors in her hands. She looked to be deep in thought, too far away in her thoughts to hear you approach, so you watched her from the doorway. Leaning against the wooden frame, you crossed your arms over your chest. She was still just a shadow. All the progress she had made, leaps and bounds, had still only resulted in a few moments of clarity. Your poor girl was lost in trying to separate her past and present.

"Lena?" You knocked softly when you watched her wipe a tear from her cheek. She sniffled, standing up from the toilet and offering you the scissors. She avoided your gaze, she avoided your touch. She was sinking deeper and deeper into herself. "You want me to cut it."

"It makes you beautiful." She muttered so harshly, her voice didn't sound like her own. You'd never heard this amount of venom drip from her words, so sharp it felt like a slash against your weakest spot. "It makes you his. It makes you HIS! So he can drag you! So he can- so he can take everything away from you! We are all the same! The same braids, the same clothes! He took everything from me! He took everything!" She collapsed in on herself, crumbling to the floor, but not before you slammed the scissors onto the counter and pulled her into your chest.

"Hey, hey, honey. Honey. Yelena. Look at me. Look at me, there you go." You ease her into your arms, pressing your back against the cabinets beneath the sink, not bothering to shift away from the handles digging into your back. "Your hair is yours, Yelena. It belongs to you. You belong to you. Do you hear me? Do you hear me, honey?" Your heart was breaking into millions of tiny pieces on the floor of your bathroom, tears falling down your cheeks and tickling your lips but you paid it no attention. The only thing you cared about was Yelena. The only thing you could think about was how she didn't see herself the way you saw her. Despite it all, she needed you now, she had been strong for so long, for so many cold and lonely months and years. She didn;t need to be strong anymore. You could be strong for her, for as long as she needed. The childhood she never had, the compassion and empathy, the kindness and comfort, you would give it all to her in a heartbeat. You would be the one to finally allow Yelena to be human. To let her have bad days and hard nights, and not let it define her further. "You wanna cut your hair? We can do that. We can do that. But, we can do it for you. We can do it because you have the choice to choose. You have the freedom to do whatever you want."

"I don't want to feel his hands on me anymore. I don't want to remember all of the lives I took." She wept like a child and you let her. You held her on that bathroom floor for hours, you walked her to bed that night and held her all the way through, you didn't let her go once. For once, somebody let her be human. For once, you think she saw herself as something more than a Widow.