Chapter Text
You stared at the headstone below you, touching the cold, chiselled stone with the tip of your fingers with great caution. Your eyes had scanned the name engraved on it thousands of times already at this point, but your brain hadn't quite caught up yet.
Natasha Romanoff. Daughter. Sister. Avenger.
Even though it was set in stone, you couldn't bring yourself to believe it. You had just talked to her on the phone three days ago, or at least that was the case in your world. This world was different. It wasn't the one you hated and loved at the same time, it was a whole other universe entirely.
You woke up 24 hours ago with an incredible ache in your bones and a migraine that felt like a grenade went off in your head. When you opened your eyes, you were in a different room—although, room wasn't exactly the word to define it. It was a warehouse, with high ceilings and mysteriously stained walls. It took half an hour for you to figure out how to exit the building, especially in the lack of light, and when you finally made it outside, you were greeted by a vast parking lot with no signs of civilisation whatsoever.
It took another five hours of walking to the nearest occupied building, a gas station that you nearly mistook for an abandoned lot. You borrowed the man behind the counter's phone in exchange for five dollars—all the cash you had in your pocket, thankfully American currency stayed the same—and dialled every single number you knew by heart. Natasha, Yelena, Tony, hell, even Clint.
Unsurprisingly, not one of them were in service. So, you went out from behind and hot-wired one of the two trucks parked there, the phone you 'borrowed' still in your pocket.
Now here you were, somewhere in Ohio, after googling for what seemed like forever in search of your sister after finding nothing you knew worked. The first search result that came up was Ohio, next to the words 'the late Natasha Romanoff'. You felt like your heart had been ripped out of my chest by the Hulk. Nothing could have prepared you for that moment, not even one of Natasha's elaborate schemings and notes. At first, you thought you were being tricked, and then you thought you had accidentally swallowed an edible before going to sleep and was under some drug-induced trance. But it felt too real for it to be fake. Nothing in your head would've been able to come up with all this on its own, even if it was one of your greatest nightmares.
You didn't even bother googling anyone else, too shocked to think of anything else. You just hit the gas and drove to the location where she was supposedly buried and found her headstone just...standing there, upright. Your body went through a series of shocks just trying to get to it up close. You were expecting for her to be there maybe, laughing with Yelena, Tony and everyone else who played a part in this stupid prank. But there was nothing but the drumming of your heartbeat pounding in your ears.
No one in their right mind would play this kind of trick on you.
You had been driving all night and had only arrived by daytime, around 7 in the morning by the looks of it. The sun felt warm against your skin, a steep contrast in comparison to the cold, dead feeling you had in your chest. You were so confused. You couldn't even begin to comprehend what was happening to you. It was like a Supernatural episode playing right before your eyes, but without the characters and the humour. Just you and your anxiety.
You knelt so your head was somewhat level to the headstone. Your hand grazed over the familiar symbol engraved in the middle of the stone, just below her name. It was the Black Widow symbol, an emblem you had worn almost all your lives.
Ohio. It was somehow appropriate that she'd be buried here. A small smile tugged at the corners of your lips as a memory from your childhood resurfaced.
"Friend of hers?"
You jumped, jumped at the sudden sound of somebody's voice. Somehow, with all the noise in your head, this somebody managed to sneak behind you successfully without my knowing. You put your hands on your knees and brought yourself up, turning around to face the stranger.
Who turned out to not be a stranger after all.
Your eyes widened at the sight of him. It's been such a long time since you've seen him in person that it almost felt surreal...but then again, what about all this didn't? It was a relief to see a familiar face in a strange world. You took in his brown eyes and lopsided smile, unable to hold in a reciprocal reaction. "Sam!"
Your excitement got the better of you, so much that you forgot the situation you were in. His reaction immediately changed, like you flipped a switch by yelling out his name so casually. Then the smile returned, "Sorry. I forget myself sometimes. Yes, I'm Sam, nice to meet you. What's your name?"
He held out a hand for you to shake. This time it was your turn to falter. Having one of your best friends whom you've known for half of your life ask you that question felt like taking a baseball bat to the stomach. Sam seemed to notice the shift in your demeanour, especially since his hand had been hanging in mid-air for half a second too long.
"Are you alright?" He asked, eyebrows furrowed. He placed his hand back to his side.
You had no one else to turn to in this strange world. You wondered for a split second if you should figure it all out on your own and maybe wait and see if this was all a dream. But then if this was indeed a dream, what would the harm be in telling him, right?
As Nat would usually say in any type of situation–Fuck it.
"No, Sam. I'm most definitely not okay." You breathed out. "I'm Y/N Romanoff, and I think I might be in some deep shit."