Cornelia Street - Avengers

Iron Weapons

"Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead? Were you a sleeper cell spy? In 50 years will all this be declassified?"

Siberia, 2015

(The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, Taylor Swift)

...

The absence of someone is only amplified when you have nothing left to do but sit and remember them. It seemed that his forgetting of her, only made Alyona remember him more. If this were to become her reality, the curse of memory, then she wasn't sure how much longer she would be able to continue on.

She hadn't been on another mission, not even another training session for over a month. She barely left her cell, barely ate except for scraps when they would bring her food on a tray twice a day. Alyona was the void of who she was in Berlin, such a frighteningly stark difference between the glimpse of sunshine she had in a world so far from her own.

It was almost humorous, thinking that there may have been a time when she was known as HYDRA's sun. When she was the only thing good between HYDRA's walls that they couldn't destroy. Until now.

She didn't wish to see him like this, to bear witness to the monster they had turned him into, a weapon made to bend to their every will. Something which she knew she was too, but at least she was unaware when she was Crimson. But with him, she knew his heart, but she had no power to reverse the damage on his mind. Her heart had been entirely shattered. Her Zima. Her Soldier. Her friend. Love. Perhaps the only person she had ever truly loved or known was gone. 

James was gone.

Towards the end of the month, there was finally a sharp knock on the door, one which she debated even answering.

"Your father wishes to see you," Dmitri told her, softly, and she hated how his eyes softened as he saw her, as he took in her withered state. She hadn't been eating, or drinking. Any of it. Alyona bit down hard on her tongue. Some nerve he had to call him her father, some nerve for Dmitri had to even show his face here.

She released a breath, clenching and unclenching her fists, as she walked past him and down the hall, glaring at the side of his head. Promptly arriving before both pausing at Massimo's door. The monster's door. He was the evil of Siberia, not James.

"Thank you for gracing me with your presence so promptly," he said once only she entered the room. Standing by the door she didn't dare step any closer, she respected that he had the decency to not feign normality. She just stood and glared at him, crossing her hands in front of her protectively.

"Not feeling talkative today, are we? Fine, I have a mission for you," he scoffed, sliding a file across the desk. "In California. The United States."

She hesitantly stepped forward, flipping open the file to see an entire character profile analysis. "Tony Stark," she said. It was the man from the gala.

He nodded, watching her closely. "I need you to eliminate him. He's a threat."

Alyona raised a brow, shutting the file. "A threat? To whom?"

Massimo stood up from his desk, tucking his hands into his pockets before walking around to her side. "A level seven threat to us all. Someone failed to eliminate him once before. But you, you will not fail. You will take a flight to Los Angeles, and from there a car shall take you to Malibu. Let me make something clear, I want you to do anything it takes to kill him. Do you understand?"

He stood close, eyes unwavering as they tried to convey the desperation. She watched him closely. "Is that all I need to know?" She asked, not looking up.