Chapter Text
Taking a swig out of some abandoned, half-frozen bottle of alcohol she finds sitting curbside is a new low for Yelena Belova.
It takes a second for her, but then she recognises it through the frost and dirt. Stolichnaya. Of course it is.
She once downed an entire bottle of it in some dingy bathroom stall while hiding from Madame B. It had burned like living hell then, but not like this. This is worse. This is karma, she supposes. Yelena gags slightly but finishes whatever’s left of it, anyway.
Yelena stares vacantly at the ceiling of her apartment while New York’s winter claws its way inside through an open window. She doesn’t move to shut it. She hasn’t moved to do anything purposeful in the past weeks.
It’s funny, how Yelena feels so much more lost and purposeless now when she’s already off the chemical subjugation. She should feel free. She knows she should feel free.
But freedom tastes hollow. Bitter. Her hands shake all the time now. She tells herself it’s New York’s winter. Or the meds. Or the lack of food. Anything but what it really is.
She doesn’t even count the days since Natasha died anymore. She stopped trying when the numbers got too high and too sharp and too loud. It’s easier to let time slip into the static.
She thinks about Natasha, not as a glorious, decorated Avenger, but Natasha, as her sister, the one who taught her to tie her shoes, who braided her hair, who would kill for her. The memories are always bittersweet and full of resentment, because Natasha had chosen. Chosen a world that had so cruelly turned its back against her.
And now, Yelena is left adrift, clinging to the wreckage, salvaging the barely-there threads.
She doesn’t think about the Ohio mission often. Not on purpose. But sometimes, when she catches a scent, like cheap fabric softener, barbecue smoke, or cherry shampoo, it slams into her like a sucker punch. They had bunk beds. Natasha always claimed the top bunk. Yelena would try to kick the mattress from below. Natasha would retaliate by dropping gum wrappers in her hair.
She still keeps the photostrip of them on her fridge. It’s crooked and curling at the edges, and she doesn’t look at it often. But she’s never taken it down.
Yelena wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, the burn of alcohol turning her sinuses raw. She hasn’t eaten in days. But drinking… Drinking comes easy. Her body knows the motion too well now. She fumbles with the prescription bottles on her nightstand. Whatever’s left in them ends up on her tongue. She doesn’t even remember if she’s been on Zoloft or Ativan longer than the other. Not that it really matters now.
The snow piles up outside her fire escape. She watches a car crawl by, headlights cutting white arcs through the storm. She wonders if she should go out. Try to feel something. Or nothing.
She throws on her coat and stumbles out into the cold again, not bothering to lock the door behind her. Let someone rob her. She has nothing worth taking, anyway.
Yelena ends up in an alley two blocks down. Her hands are stuffed deep in her coat pockets, fingernails digging into her palms just to stay tethered to her body. A delivery truck honks. A car blasts music three streets away. It’s good. The noise is good.
She crouches down next to a dumpster, lets the empty bottle of Stolichnaya shatter into a million pieces on the ground, and she finally cries.
The feeling tears through her like shrapnel, wraps around her throat like livewire. She tries to muffle her sobs, but the traffic does a better job of drowning it out. Her hands start to shake again, and her mouth opens around another broken sob, but that’s when she feels something, or someone, bump against her leg.
She opens her eyes, and right there, sat next to her is an impossibly small puppy.
It’s a scruffy little thing, a nondescript mix of chestnut brown fur and grime and dirt all over its body. One ear is tipped down, and its tail gives a tentative, almost imperceptible wag.
Yelena sighs. “Oh, great.” She waves a dismissive hand and presses the heel of her palms deep into her eyes. “Go away.”
The puppy takes a hesitant step forward, inching closer and closer to her, and the godforsaken thing lets out a whimper. A pathetic, pleading sound that grates on Yelena’s already frayed nerves.
“I said go away, dog.” Yelena repeats, letting out another sigh. “It’s cold, you go back home.”
It nudges her with its nose. Yelena relents and looks back up at it again, and that’s when she notices the glint of metal around its neck. It’s a simple nylon collar, and attached to it is a small, rectangular tag. Even in the dim light, she can make out the inscription.
CCI SERVICE DOGS SCHOOL
NAME: Kate
SERVICE TRAINEE
“Huh, a reject,” Yelena makes a humorless, choked sound. “Well, I guess we’re in the same shitty club, then.” Kate nudges Yelena’s hand with her nose, as if saying, I’m still here.
Yelena gets up and tries to walk past it. Kate, however, is determined. She scrambles after Yelena, and her yaps start turning into a more desperate, almost frantic series of barks.They’re not loud enough to draw attention, but they’re relentless. Kate seems to trip over her own paws in her haste, and she lets out another tiny, pathetic huff.
“Stupid little thing,” Yelena mutters as she turns a corner, thinking she’s finally lost Kate, but when she glances back, she’s back there again, a small, determined little thing.
That night, she trudges back to her apartment, and before she shuts the door, she blinks into the cold and sees the puppy waiting for her by her feet.
And so begins the next few nights, where she’d stumble back out into that same alleyway and Kate would still be there, waiting with those big brown eyes of hers. On some nights, she’d be nestled at the bottom of some chewed-up cardboard box. Others, she’d be trotting right next to Yelena.
Yelena’s tried different alleys. Tried walking faster. Even breaking into a jog. Once, she even clambered through a construction site and flipped over wired fences. But when she emerged on the adjacent street, Kate was still there, shivering, its tail giving that quiet, hopeful wag.
“Okay, what do you want, little dog?” Yelena sighs, half-expecting it to bark for food or something. But it simply looks up at her, head tilted ever so slightly. Then, slowly, it lays down beside Yelena’s boots, pressing its small, cold body up against her leg, as if offering warmth.
Yelena stiffens at the feeling. Some part of her wants so desperately to reach out and hug the darn thing in her arms. But it’s a weakness, a liability, and she can’t afford it. Not when she’s this broken.
So she tries pushing it away, gently at first, then with more force, but Kate stays, stubborn as an anchor. Eventually, the cold and the alcohol wins, so she simply sits on a curb and lets the puppy press up against her, offering her that sliver of warmth she so desperately needs.
The next few days aren’t any easier. Alexei calls, and he rambles on and on about family and being strong and coming home. Yelena starts punching walls just to feel the sickening sting in her palms, to prove she’s still in control of her body. The grief clings to her ribs, and it’s been so long since her lungs last felt full with oxygen. It’s seeping into everything, and it settles there at the bottom like a painful tumour.
One particularly bitter evening, Yelena finds herself clutching a bottle of cheap gin in her numb hands. The snow’s falling a lot heavier tonight, and the loneliness is starting to gnaw at her insides again.
That’s when Kate shows up again, seemingly even smaller than before. Her fur is caked with snow, her small body racked with shivers as she slowly trods towards Yelena. Kate looks up at her, eyes wide and desperate. She looks like she’s dying.
And so, something in Yelena, something buried deep beneath layers of guilt and grief and self-destruction, finally cracks.
This isn’t about her anymore. This is about a tiny puppy shivering to death in a snowstorm. She’s a reject. An outcast. Just like her. But unlike her, Kate hasn’t chosen this path. She’s simply trying to survive.
And Kate had chosen Yelena.
“God,” Yelena rasps, voice hoarse from the cold and the alcohol. She kneels on the snow precariously, feeling her world tilt precariously. She reaches out to Kate with trembling hands, and the puppy instantly leans into Yelena’s touch. Her fur is icy-cold beneath Yelena’s fingers, which have started to comb through Kate’s matted coat.
“You are going to freeze to death out here, you know?” Yelena mutters, not realising she’s talking to the puppy. “And I don’t need that on my conscience, okay?” It’s a lie. Yelena knows she has to save this puppy tonight.
With a groan, she scoops the little thing into her arms and tucks her inside her coat, zipping it up as much as she could around its tiny head. Kate whimpers once, then burrows deeper against Yelena’s chest, like a tiny furnace of warmth.
“Don’t think this means anything, dog.” Yelena mumbles as she makes her way back. But even as she says the words, something shifts inside of her. A tiny, flame of warmth that starts licking at her, from the puppy currently nestled against her.
The wind still howls, and the snow still falls, but Yelena barely notices any of it. Her attention is solely on the little puppy she has in her embrace.
When she starts fumbling for her keys outside her door, she looks down to find the puppy asleep, nestled snugly, like it’s always been stuck to Yelena.
For the first time in months, Yelena feels a sort of quiet peace settle over her. It’s not a cure, and certainly not an answer. But for one night, just one night, she’s not completely alone. And for a brief, fleeting moment, that feels just enough for her.