The Avengers Are My Family

92 Days

Present Day:

Today is as normal as it gets for Drew in the Red Room. As usual, she wakes up to the sound of the handcuffs that prevent the girls from escaping being unlocked. Drew and the other girls get dressed in their Black Widow suits and go to breakfast before hand-to-hand combat training. After hand-to-hand combat training comes shooting practice. After shooting, practice is Ballet. After Ballet is lunch. After lunch, it's "school." Then it's dinner. Ending the long exhausting day is an hour of peace before lights out. Then at 5:30 AM the next morning, Drew and the other girls repeat the schedule. Day in and day out, rain or shine, snow, sleet, or hail. The only time things are different is if they have a mission. Then they wake up, suit up, eat, and go straight to Dreykov for a mission briefing before they leave to complete the mission.

It's currently 3:30 AM. Drew and the other girls are fast asleep. Two Hydra soldiers tiptoe into the room and unhandcuff Drew. Of course, Drew wakes up, and her reflexes kick in, and she fights the Hydra soldiers. One of them makes a slick move and ends up handcuffing Drew. "Listen carefully. You are going to suit up and leave quietly with us or else," says one of the soldiers. "Now, why would I do that?" snaps Drew. "Because I said so, and you must obey my orders," says the soldier. Then that same soldier slaps Drew across her face.

Drew doesn't know about the deal. Yet. But this is not part of the deal. Drew being kidnapped by Hydra almost four years after arriving at the Red Room is definitely not part of the deal. Not yet, at least.

The soldiers unhandcuff Drew and leave the room. Drew suits up and takes one last look around the room before walking out of it. Little did she know that she just walked out for the last time.

The Hydra soldiers handcuff her again and hold either of her arms as they march her out of the building and to a plane where she is sedated after she climbs in.

Drew wakes up on a hard cot in a somewhat familiar room. She looks around, and it only takes her a second to realize that she is in the same Hydra base that she was in before the Red Room. Her cell looks the same, as though it's frozen in time. There's a cot with what should be the world's thinnest blanket, a toilet, a contraption on which Drew stands while being experimented on, a digital clock on the wall, and a door that's always locked when Drew's inside, and that's it.

She changes out of her suit and into the scratchy hospital gown thing that Hydra provided for her. Then Hydra soldiers walk in and drag her over to the contraption, where they stand her up and strap her in. They put needles that do who knows what into her. The pain is unbearable, but Drew knows better than to scream. If she screams, she gets punished. If she winces, she gets punished. If she doesn't speak only when spoken to, she gets punished. If she disobeys orders, she gets punished, and so on. Basically, anything that she does can get her punished. Drew bites her tongue pretty hard to stop herself from screaming. After what feels like an eternity, the experiment is over, and the Hydra soldiers and doctors leave the room, locking the door behind them.

The door opens again shortly, and the Winter Soldier walks in. He has been assigned to train Drew. He grabs her by her arm and hauls her away to the training room. Lucky for them, there are no cameras or guards in the training room. The nearest guards are five feet away from the door. "Drew, I know you know me as the Winter Soldier, but my real name is James Barnes. You can call me Bucky," says the Winter Soldier. This shocks Drew. She thought he was brainwashed and couldn't remember anything. "Ok," says Drew, wondering where this is going. "There are a few things that Hydra and I'm assuming the Red Room haven't told you," says Bucky. Then he launches into the story about Drew's past, which explains why Drew has lived in Hydra and the Red Room. Drew's jaw drops by the end of the story. She's completely speechless. "So basically, I was born to be a toy?" asks Drew. "Yeah, pretty much. But listen, you can't tell anyone that I told you any of this or that I'm nice to you, or we will both be in more trouble than we would be able to survive," says Bucky. Drew nods in agreement. "Great. Now that we're on the same page, we have to start training, or they'll get suspicious," says Bucky. She nods yet again, and Drew and Bucky begin to fight each other.

They finish fighting, and Bucky grabs Drew's arm again and hauls her back to her room. Drew lays down on her cot and stares at the ceiling as Bucky closes the door behind him and locks it. Drew sighs and thinks to herself, "This is going to be a long visit." As tired as she is, Drew refuses to let herself sleep. Hydra is different than the Red Room. One night, when Drew was two, she fell asleep and woke up when some needles were being shoved into her arm. From that night on, she tried to never sleep at Hydra again. Of course, she always ends up falling asleep for a little while before waking up to make sure Hydra wasn't trying to pull any stunts.

Meanwhile, Hydra and the Red Room are fighting back and forth over who gets Drew. In the end, it is decided that the Red Room gets Drew back on June 30th at 1:00 PM. Today is March 30th, and the time is currently 9:00 PM. That means that Hydra has about 92 days to do what they please with Drew. Bucky stiffens a little upon hearing these terrible arrangements. In some ways, Drew is much better off being in the Red Room than being with Hydra, but some things happen in the Red Room that she would be better off at Hydra instead of participating in. So they both have their pros and cons. Of course, if neither were a choice, that would be best. But for now, it's one or the other.