Black Widow: Dark House

59. "Family Tree"- Arrested Youth

Bold Italics- Russian

Italics- any language besides English

**- thoughts/ memories

Yelena and Alexi sat in silence for a few seconds before the man could not help himself. Soon he started to tell stories, stories about himself mostly. About his hard childhood in the wintery Russian countryside that drove him to want to better his country. He droned on and on, despite Yelena's obvious distain. She sat, barely listening as she starred at the wooden wall on the other side of the room, hating the sound of his voice buzzing in her ear.

"So, there I am ice fishing with my father. It's very cool day in this little ice shed. Cold even for Russian, you know?" he looked down at Yelena with a small laugh, but she ignored him.

"'Keep the vodka by the fire' my father would say to me" he tried.

Yelena shook her head, "will you stop talking?" she growled.

"Please, wait, please wait" Alexi tried, becoming more intent on this story than all the others he had just told her.

"No, please, I don't want to talk" Yelena argued, her eyes closed, so close to losing her composure as she imagined breaking his nose with her knee.

"Please Yelena, there is a reason why I am telling you this, okay? Trust me" Alexi pleaded with her, his eyes serious as he looked down at her.

Yelena put the bottle on the side table as he continued, begrudging her fate as she clenched her jaw, her patience wire thin.

"I am reaching for fish" Alexi starts again, his voice growing, trying to add drama to his story, "oh! I lose balance. Ah! Splash!" his voice rises, his hands outstretched, shaking with the memory of his story, "My hands go in the river."

Yelena let out a groan, rubbing her forehead as she felt a headache coming on.

"In this weather, frostbite sets in quick" Alexi continued, "My father, he go toilet on my hands."

"Oh my god" Yelena groans, covering her face, trying to deflect the intrusive images flashing in her brain.

"Urine is thirty-five degrees Celsius, staves off the frostbite" Alexi crescendos his voice as he clenches his fist.

"How is this even relevant?!" Yelena shouted, angrily looking up at him.

Alexi stares at her with deep knowing eyes, "You know, fathers" he points out.

Yelena nearly breaks at this as she looks down at the floor between her feet. She shakes her head, "No. No, you have done nothing but tell me how bored you were" she argues, rage and pain in her voice.

"I was the chore, the job you didn't want to do" she raged.

"But to me?" her voice going quiet and soft, "to me, you were everything" she sniffed, hating the tears that stung her eyes.

Alexi sat on the mattress, dumbfounded.

"Exactly" Yelena spat, "you don't care" she brought her knees back to her chest and rested her elbows on them as she shook her head bitterly, "you don't care."

"The only this you care about are your stupid glory days as the Crimson Dynamo and no one wants to hear about it at all" she fumed, steeling herself for his inevitable reply.

Alexi looked down, a great weight seeming to press upon him as Yelena's words sank into his chest.

"It's the Red Guardian" he whispered gently, as if that could soften the correction he was trying to give.