The Younger Agent - Natasha Romanoff x OC

Chapter 108 - Alexei the Pig

Everyone's minds were racing as they made their way toward Melina's tiny house in the near distance as the sun began to set. The day had been long, and instead of getting a little rest when they reached their destination like they thought they would be able to, they were hit with a whole new barrel of stressors.

Eleanor's brain was transfixed on her mother. Feeling pride for her, how she had managed to escape and create a life for herself, and how she managed to find happiness after growing up in the dark. Yet she had never felt such anger before too. Her mum had been taken from her family and manipulated in awful ways to become a weapon without a face, and how the content life she had made for herself was torn away from her, leaving a baby without a mother, and a father without his partner. Not to mention the fact that Dreykov had orchestrated her father's death too a few years later.

He had quite literally taken everything from her.

Next to her, holding her hand, Natasha was worried about her wife, whilst also tackling the large emotions that came with seeing Melina, much like Yelena was. With both Nat and Eleanor in emotional turmoil, they were in no fit state to actively be someone for the other to lean on, not completely anyway. But, they still held on to each other as if their lives depended on it, not wanting to let the other go, being the pillars that held up the architecture of their minds.

Eleanor didn't want to admit it because it was probably Red Room-owned, but Melina's house was rather nice. The outside had a lovely amount of space and was well hidden in the confines of nature, and as they entered the small interior it looked rather cosy. Definitely somewhere where she would have loved to vacation at, before everything turned into a steaming pile of shit.

As they entered Natasha let go of Eleanor's hand and entered first, wanting to make sure she was ahead in case anything sketchy appeared out of nowhere. Eleanor got the gist of her actions, and though she understood Nat's worries around Melina, Eleanor highly doubted that a chainsaw was going to suddenly fly at their faces.

"Welcome to my humble abode", Melina announced as the pack entered her house, "Make yourself at home". There was a brief moment of silence as everyone took in their surroundings before they heard Melina sigh, "Let's have a drink". A drink was what Eleanor sorely needed in this situation, and there was no doubt about it that everyone else did too.

Eleanor watched with soft eyes as Natasha followed after Melina, very clearly not trusting the woman, but she just followed Yelena and Alexei into the dining area where a quaint table was set up.

Alexei disappeared off somewhere, not that Eleanor could find it in her to care, her eyes were trained on Yelena's fingertips softly trailing over the chair on the far corner of the table before pulling it out and sitting down, hard eyes staring forward. It didn't take a trained spy to know that Yelena was struggling and that she'd just pushed past a mental block.

"You can sit in front of me", Yelena gestured upwards with her head. Eleanor nodded and swiftly sat down, not wanting to prolong any awkwardness that was generated by everyone's anxieties. She guessed that there was some form of seating arrangement that Yelena was hellbent on keeping.

The muffled sounds of Melina and Natasha could be heard, coming from a room of which Eleanor did not know its purpose considering she had never stepped foot in the house before.

She spotted Yelena looking at her, to which she offered a small smile, seeing Yelena's hard demeanour falter ever so slightly before the walls flew back up. It was a tough situation that everyone had been thrown into.

"Hi", Nat spoke quietly as she walked into the room and took her seat beside Eleanor, her jaw clenched with stress. Eleanor placed a hand on the shoulder closest to her and gave it a small squeeze as Melina walked in looking like a lost puppy. She left her hand there to gently rub her thumb up and down. Due to the shoulder pads that their suits consisted of, Nat couldn't exactly feel the movements, but just the action itself was comforting for her.