Red Daughter

Six

The girls lay in the boxing ring staring at each other as they try to get their breath back. Both were covered in sweat and several new bruises, but neither minded. It had been a good workout, something they both needed.

"So why were you in such a bad mood earlier?" Wanda eventually asks her.

"It's just frustrating," Elodie groans.

"What is?"

Elodie sighs as she sits up and Wanda follows her. "This. All of this," she says as she waves her hand around them. "Natalia knows how bad the Red Room is, how all of us are treated and what we are used for. Most of us dream of getting out, of someone saving us," she gushes, unable to hold back anymore. "When we first heard about her escape, we thought that she was going to come rescue us. That Dreykov's favorite Widow was going to burn his house down. But she didn't. She abandoned us." Abandoned me, she adds in her head.

"El, are you mad at Nat because she got out or because she didn't know about you?" Wanda asked gently.

"She knew. She can deny it all she wants, but she knew about me." The hate in the girls voice was unmistakable.

"How do you know that she knew?"

"Dreykov told me. He had documents that she had signed saying that she gave up all rights to me. Giving him permission to do what he wanted with her dna. With me," she half yells as her voice gets louder with each word. "Natalia and I, we were supposed to rule the Red Room with Dreykov. We were supposed to set the standard of what it meant to be a Widow."

"And yet you both left," Wanda reminds her. Her brow furrows as Elodie's thoughts trickle into her mind, had to had to had to.

Elodie shakes her head and the thoughts disappear, "it doesn't matter. She left first and I was nothing more than another failed project. Something Dreykov reminded me of daily." She laughs humorously, "he once put me in a cell with Natalia's entire Widow record. All her training tapes, all her missions, the lists of her kills, everything. Including the documents she signed that gave me to Dreykov."

"He could have forged those El," Wanda says gently.

"Why would he?" The thought had occurred to her in the past, but Dreykov was the only family she had.

"To get you to hate Natasha. So that maybe, one day, you could get close enough to kill her," Wanda says factually.

Elodie sighs, "either way, she should have been trying to take down the Red Room."

They sit in silence for a few minutes until Wanda says, "I may have an idea."

"For what?"

"A way for you and Nat to learn the truth about things," she says slowly. "If you want?"

Of course Elodie wanted that. How could she not?

She nods slightly, "fine."

Wanda smiles, "JARVIS can you ask Nat to join us in the gym please."

"Right away Miss Maximoff."

Elodie looks at Wanda curiously, "why does it call you miss and everyone else agent?"

Wanda chuckles, "I'm not an agent."

"But you live here," she says confused.

Wanda nods, "Nat and Yelena took me in after my brother died. The government lets me stay here provided that I don't leave without permission and have a tracker and power dampener."

Disgust fills Elodie, "why would you agree to that? To being controlled like that?"

Wanda sighs heavily, "my brother and I.. we made a horrible mistake. Our parents were killed by a bomb when we were little. A Stark bomb. We hated Tony growing up so much that we volunteered for a Hydra experiment." She holds up her hand and lets her magic run across her fingers, "this was the result. I got magic and my brother got speed. And Hydra got its ultimate soldiers. We killed a lot of people before SHIELD came after us. Natasha got to us first and offered us a deal. She shouldn't have, but she did. She promised us that we would be safe, that we could live here and be normal again."

"What happened?" Elodie asks softly.

"Hydra happened," Natasha's voice says from behind them. The girls turn to her and she walks towards them, continuing Wanda's story. "The twins didn't trust us for obvious reasons, so they went back to Hydra and I followed them. We needed the location of the base and I wanted to be around in case they changed their minds."

"And we did, it was just too late," Wanda tells her sadly. "When we got back they put us in our cells and told us that they had a surprise. The next morning we found out that they were buying children and they wanted to use our dna to try and give them powers. They thought we were the key since we were the only ones to survive the trials."

"I was close by when I heard the first explosion," Natasha continues as she climbs into the ring and sits next to Wanda. "I called for the team and went into the compound. Found the kids and Wanda, covered in blood and crying but protecting the children." She puts a hand on Wanda's arm, "when we got them all out she collapsed the Hydra base and wouldn't say a word for months. She stayed in my room and I worked it out with SHIELD and the government so that she could stay."

Wanda shakes her head, "I should be in prison Nat."

"And I should be dead," she counters softly. "Clint saved me when he shouldn't have, gave me a second chance. You were a kid Wanda. You more than anyone deserved a second chance."

Wanda sniffles and smiles sadly, "ok enough of this sadness!" She offers Elodie and Natasha each one of her hands, "I might be able to help you guys understand each other better. Take my hand, close your eyes and try not to get lost."