Red Thorn

Chapter 29

October 2014

"I know you're out there," she said, her accent thick.

Natasha holstered her gun and pushed open the door. "I know you know I'm out here."

That was all that had been said between the two assassins before the fight broke out, the apartment that was the safe house destroyed one blow at a time. It was a fight to assert dominance, years of pent up frustration and anger bubbling to the surface but it wasn't a fight to the death, at least until the blonde grabbed a knife in the kitchen and before they knew it, the pair were lying on the floor, curtain wrapped like a noose around both their necks. Natasha had been the first to tap out for no other reason than she could see the other begin to fade, to lose consciousness.

"Вы выросли." Natasha easily slipped back into her native tongue, telling the young woman next to her she'd grown up.

"Нет, блин" she replied. No shit.

Natasha pushed to her feet, refusing to show how much she ached from being thrown into the door. "You had to come to Budapest, didn't you?"

"I came here because I thought you wouldn't," she admitted, dusting herself off.

"If you didn't think I'd come here," Natasha held out the little red vials she had received earlier that week along with a bunch of other stuff that she had once left in the Budapest safe house. A couple files, the vials and two pictures tucked between them, pictures of a younger her, blue hair and not a care in the world, a little blonde girl at her side; Yelena. "Why'd you send me this?"

"You brought it back here?" Yelena all but squawked. "Idiot."

"I'm not here trying to be your friend," she said, unamused with her former sister's attitude. "But you need to tell me what that is."

"It's a synthetic gas." Yelena sighed, she hated that gas, or more so what went with it. "The counteragent to chemical subjugation. The gas immunizes the brain's neuropathways from external manipulation."

Natasha quirked a confused eyebrow. "Maybe in English next time?"

Yelena smirked, the words coming out in Russian almost instantly. "It's an antidote to mind control."

"Real mature." Maybe she was a little amused.

"Why don't you take it to one of your super-scientist friends? They can explain it to you," Yelena sassed. "Tony Stark, maybe?"

"Things are complicated at the moment. We're all under a lot of scrutiny, being watched closely," Natasha explained. "Shit happened and now there's this General who is out for blood. To be honest, he's always hated Stark."

"Ahhh, yess, the fall of SHIELD," Yelena said in somewhat of a sing-song manner, clearly amused by the situation, something that Natasha caught on to.

"What?"

"I just find it funny, that's all," Yelena explained. "You ran away from one bad, straight into the arms of another without even knowing."

"Believe me, the irony is not lost on me." There was an edge to her words as she spoke, it was something that she thought about often and the wounds were still fresh. "I don't need you to point that out too."

"Touchy," Yelena raised her hands in moch surrender. "So, what? You have no backup? You came to find your baby sister alone? What if I killed you?"

Natasha smirked. "What makes you think I'm alone?"

Yelena spun on her heel, dagger in hand, suddenly acutely aware of someone behind her. "сука" she swore.

Red stood unnervingly still, silently watching the young woman in front of her. Yelena Belova, Natasha's baby sister. Red had heard so much about her, about their time together as children when they had been sent on a mission together to Ontario with Melina and Alexei. They weren't real sisters, not by blood, but by something so much more, by shared memories and by a love for each other in a place where love was all too rare.