"The Red Room's still active. Where is it?" Natasha asks as the sisters enter the store.
"We have no idea. He moves location constantly. And every widow is sedated on entry and exit for maximum security." Yelena answers as she and Aleks begin browsing.
"I'm just finding it hard to believe that he could stay off my radar." She says.
"Well, it isn't a good idea to attack and Avenger if you want to stay hidden, is it?" Aleks replies.
"Yeah, the clue is in the name. Dreykov kills you, one of the big ones comes to avenge you." Yelena adds.
"Wait, what are the big ones?" Natasha asks.
"Well, I doubt the god from space has to take an ibuprofen after a fight." She replies. She grows serious after a moment. "Where did you think we were all this time?"
"I thought that you two got out and were living a normal life." She answers, moving to wash her hands in the sink behind the twins.
"And you never bothered to make contact again?" Aleks scoffs.
"Honestly, I thought you didn't wanna see me." She replies. The twins both scoff.
"Bullshit. You just didn't want your baby sisters to tag along, whilst you saved the world with the cool kids." Yelena says.
"You weren't really my sisters." She tells them. Yelena pauses for a moment, while Aleks slams her items on the counter before storming out of the store, angry at her statement. Yelena joins her a few moments later, setting her things in front of her.
***
"That gas, the counteragent, it was synthesized in secret by an older widow from Melina's generation. We were on the mission to retrieve it, and she exposed us, and I killed the widow that freed us." Yelena explains. Aleks sits on the bench next to her, glaring at the mirror propped on the table in front of her as she stitches up the wound on her forehead.
"Did you have a choice?" Natasha asks from her seat across the table from them.
"What you experienced was psychological conditioning. I'm talking about chemically altering brain functions. They're two completely different things. You're fully conscious, but you don't know which part is you. Except for Aleks, she wasn't conscious at all, but me, I'm still not sure." She replies.
Aleks pauses to pat Yelena's shoulder, before going back to stitching her wound. Natasha moves her chair around the table to inspect Yelena's wound on her arm. She glances at Aleks, wondering if the letters she gave to Mason to keep safe have the key to why her memory is missing and her mind control was so much stronger.
"Is that all there is left?" She asks, nodding to the red dust on the table.
"Mmm-hmm. It's the only thing that can stop Dreykov and his network of widows. He takes more every day. Children who don't have anyone to protect them. Just like us when we were small. Maybe one in twenty survives the training, becomes a widow. The rest, he kills. To him, we are just things. Weapons with no face that he can just throw away. Because there is always more. And no one's even looking for him, thanks to you and Alexei." Yelena explains.
"Alexei?" She asks, moving back to the other side of the table after she finishes bandaging Yelena's arm. Yelena chuckles as Aleks tosses her supplies onto the table, finished tending to her forehead.
"'Dad'." She says, looking around at all the children with their parents. "Did you ever look for your parents? Your real ones?" She asks Natasha.
"Well, my mom abandoned me in the street like garbage. What about you two?" She answers.
YOU ARE READING
The Spring Soldier | Bucky Barnes
Fiksi PenggemarThe Spring Solider was HYDRAs secret weapon. As the only person able to calm and keep the Winter Soldier under control, she was an important asset. That was until they found out that the two had gotten closer than what was expected or allowed. Alek...
