Amazed

Chapter 37: One freight car

Hearing Y/N even touch on the trauma that they'd been on was enough to render Yelena silent, but she knew that she needed to respond in some way. Lowering her hand to meet their cheek, she pulled their face over to meet hers, "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, but if you're ready and you think it might help you, I'm always going to listen."

She grazed her thumb over their cheek as Y/N placed their hand over hers and leaned into it, "I think it might." They took in a deep breath before sitting back, removing her leg from their lap and moving so that their back was facing her. 

"There was a reason that I'd never shown you my back when we were intimate. I was lucky to only have the scars there, but..." They trailed off as they began pulling up their shirt to show what had been done.

Though she tried to hide it, Yelena's breath hitched seeing the scars that had been beaten all over their back. Some were thick, some were clearly done over others, and some looked larger than others and larger than something they could've been beaten with.

She traced over some of them lightly as Y/N continued, "When we'd been captured as a unit, they recognized me from the missions I'd gone on before I moved to work with SHIELD. They knew that I'd worked with the Avengers and had kept me separate from the rest of my team."

The thoughts were starting to race through as they had when Y/N sat in their bathroom after first being reminded, "They would question me about anything and everything. Where the compound was, where we would go on missions, how we got to missions, what our goal with HYDRA was... But I never broke. Not once."

Y/N pointed to a space between their shoulder and spine, "Most of them were beatings, but this one was from scolding hot water. They'd let it run over me until it blistered... and then done it again... and again, before it even healed."

Yelena pulled them closer, wrapping her arms around them and whispering next to their ear, "You don't have to keep going if it's getting to be too much, Y/N," She said as she was feeling their breathing pick up.

"No, no. It's okay. I have to get this out and right now I'm feeling... okay. So I need to do as much as I can," They responded as they laid their shirt down and turned to face her again.

Y/N began thinking through the other parts, knowing that it could change the way that she thought about them. As the silence grew a bit, Yelena took their hands in hers causing them to look up and meet her gaze.

If there was anyone in this world that they felt comfortable talking to about these memories, she was it. Y/N hadn't been able to talk about any of this as calmly as they had with her, but the idea of the next part was causing their body to tense up.

Just do it, they thought, you're right there.

"I would've gone through all of that a million times over though before doing the last part they'd put me through," They started as their eyes started watering with the memories rushing through, "When I was a child, my father knew that my relation to 'Captain America' would subject me to horrible things. We'd been given the super-soldier serum, a smaller dose than Steve was, but a dose nonetheless."

Yelena's eyebrows perked up wondering why this would be an issue, but Y/N continued on, "And when HYDRA did their hundreds of tests on me, they saw this. They'd tested their brainwashing abilities on me and started training me. They had a string of words... Trigger words. Even when I'd work myself out of the brainwashing, the words brought me right back in."

Y/N stopped short before continuing their story. Here goes nothing, they thought just before continuing.

"They'd trained me to kill. It was all I did, for months. Innocent people paid the price just for me to get close to those they needed to get to most. It took me nearly four months, but I broke it. I was able to break the brainwashing and get away just before they'd caught me to reel me back in," They finished as their eyes stayed zoned into their lap, refusing to meet her eyes.

The silence between them felt like years to Y/N, but Yelena quickly grabbed their chin and raised their head, "You know that my sister and I were literally trained assassins, right?" She asked with her eyebrows furrowed.

Y/N nodded. They'd known, but it's easier to forgive someone else when you see all they've done to work past it, to erase the red from their ledger. 

"Yeah.. I know. It's just.. I can't forgive myself. I've been trying to in therapy for years, but when I feel those scars under my shirt sometimes, I can see it all. Not only do I see the beatings and burnings, but I see the testings and the innocent people I killed. I tried to bury it all, but I can't forget a single face that was lost because of my brainwashing," They said as the tears finally fell.

It had all finally caught up to them as they were now sobbing while they laid in Yelena's arms. She held them tight, softly rubbing her hands over their arms to try and comfort them. It was unfortunate, but she knew how they felt. Nothing she could say would help, so she did her best to comfort them physically and just let them know that she wasn't judging them.

An hour had passed since they'd made their way to her room and they were now laying down in her bed in silence. Y/N had finally gotten the tears to dry and their breaths to slow down. Yelena was now running her hands through their hair which was slowly getting them to fall asleep.

Just as Y/N's eyes were closing, an alarm began going off in the compound. Each room was sounding, causing the two to jump up from the bed quickly and head down to the living room.

"What's happening?! What's going on?!" Yelena yelled over the alarms as they made it down to meet Nat.

As they were talking, Y/N began hearing a familiar voice, "Do you guys hear that?" They asked, but the two sisters were unable to hear them over the alarm.

Longing.

"Who the fuck-" They started.

Rusted.

"WHERE-"

Furnace.

Their face started to fall.

Daybreak.

They felt their thoughts begin to fall away.

Seventeen.

Their emotions drained.

Benign.

Their eyes locked in.

Nine.

Their breath steadied.

Homecoming.

Their back straightened.

One.

Their jaw clenched.

Freight car.

Fully submissive, they were now under control.

Welcome back, Y/L/N. We missed you.