Red. | marvel [1]

t w e n t y - f i v e

November has arrived, and with it the promise of Elana becoming stronger than ever. She's already been improving in leaps and bounds since she came off the suppressors for the white noise and now she can independently decide whether or not she wants to use her telepathy and how to focus it to one person. It had been painful, to do for Elana and to watch for Natasha, Bruce and Tony. Steve has had empathy for the girl but he hadn't showed it. He knew she'd come out of it.

Elana and Steve still felt animosity towards each other but it has been significantly less acted upon than initially. And as Christmas begins to creep forward, Steve feels less and less inclined to rip her a new one and in return, Elana is less of an ass on Avengers missions.

Avengers missions just like this one. They (Tony, Natasha, Steve, Clint and Elana) had been in flight for a while and Elana is getting bored. They're about to launch siege on a base belonging to an underground organisation suspected of dabbling in human experimentation. That's what the other Avengers knew, but Tony had done some digging (hacking) and had discovered something much worse. They have been in conspiracy with the Russians. Specifically the KGB and, in association, with the Red Room Project. Tony knows he should tell them but, as much as he loves Elana like a daughter, he can't imagine how she'll react. He's battling an internal war and the only thing he's counting on right now is that Elana isn't reading his mind. From the strange look she keeps shooting him, he can only assume she has.

Elana focuses on the mission over everything else, including the intrusive thoughts of Tony about their affiliation with the Russians and the KGB. No matter if they're responsible for her enhancements, they're using people as guinea pigs and it annoys her. The mistreatment of fellow human beings- innocent ones at that- is the lowest of the low. Even for her.

She moves to take the seat next to Tony, not having quite mastered projecting her thoughts into one person's mind.
"You know, I don't care," she says quietly.
"About what?" Tony asks nervously.
"The thing your mind is talking very loudly about. Their affiliation doesn't bother me, the human experimentation does," she answers.
"That loud, huh?" he chuckles.
"That loud," she confirms. "I'm not worried about that. They can't do much more than they already have."
This kind of comforting was something Elana had found herself doing a lot recently, especially during the hot and cold flushes accompanied the development of her thermokinesis. She had to convince her amazingly caring teammates that she was fine, even if she wasn't. She hated to worry them.

They land about three miles from the base. Elana is the first one off the Quinjet, quick and silent. Her and Natasha's job is to infiltrate and not trip the alarms, letting the rest of the group through in an assault without triggering any suspicions. They're dressed in plain black catsuits, unremarkable and rather standard. Their weapons are the same as they always are; Natasha's electrical gauntlet, Elana's electrified batons and both have handguns and knives connected to their thighs in holsters.

The two girls approach carefully, their earpieces giving no sign that anyone is behind the pieces of tech. Natasha and Elana pull on their confident facades and approach the building. Elana bumps into someone on purpose and steals their keycard easily, only stopping to apologise gruffly. The two continue onwards stealthily. Nobody questions their presence. Elana swipes the keycard and gives them both access. They look at each other before splitting up to try and find the control room.
"We're in and searching," Elana hears Natasha mutter into the earpiece.
"Be careful," came Tony's brisk reply.
Elana continues down a dark corridor, pretending that she's allowed to be there. Still, not one person approaches her to ask why she's there. She peers through a window and sees the security room. There are only three guards so she slips into the room and takes the one in the back out silently. He tries to fight and get help, but she had some string wrapped tightly around his neck and she's shrouded in shadows. The other two don't notice until a bullet is put in one head, but before the other can even react he is in the same position as his colleague.
"Found it. Secured the room," Elana says. She begins typing quickly. "Disabling alarms... now. You're clear. I don't know how much time you have, so hurry."

She immediately hears the sounds of an assault coming from outside the base. When people try to get the control room, Elana just shoots them, sat in a chair lazily as people still come running as they realise that they have an intruder in their security room. When she runs out of bullets, she snatches one of the guards' guns, beginning to fire that one at people's heads. She masters every headshot she fires, people dropping like flies until they can't get through quickly anymore because of the small pile of bodies. Steve comes skidding around the corner and sees the piles.

"Jesus, Elana. They all dead?" he asks.
"Yep. They won't be a problem anymore," she smiles sarcastically. She stands from the chair and begins making her way towards him, picking her way through the bodies and small splatters of blood.
"Good... good work, I guess," Steve coughs out.
Elana just begins leading the way down the hallway, helping Steve look for any files or serums that may be important. There are many labs, but none seem to possess any kind of records or formulas. As they check the last one on their side of the building, Elana shrugs.
"Any luck?" Steve asks into the earpiece. Elana strains to hear anything, but only the sound of Natasha swearing in Russian breaks through. Elana immediately sets off in that direction, snatching some ammunition from the bodies she'd dropped. She reloads the gun flawlessly as she runs, turning corners effortlessly. She reaches the room where she spots Natasha's gun on the floor. As she looks up she notices small pieces of her weapons littering the floor. A trail.

Elana begins following it, retrieving the dropped items as she walks slowly down another corridor that she doesn't recall from the blueprints.