Steve had endured more than one crash in his lifetime, but he had to hand it to Yelena, this one was the smoothest. As the chopper hit the dirt, Steve stood and stretched his legs, ready to get out and walk. More than anything though, he wanted to change into his uniform for when they got his daughter back.
Natasha was the first one off, followed immediately by Alexei, but Steve hung back, digging through the duffle bag Mason had brought the women's suits in. Yelena approached him, kicking his boot, "If he realizes who you are, he'll kick your ass."
"Yeah, I've gathered that." Steve mumbled before zipping up the duffle and slinging it over his shoulder. Yelena carefully grabbed it and tugged it down so she could carry it. "At some point I'm gonna need to suit up, too. He'll just have to deal. Plus, I can take him." Steve winked and Yelena shook her head, raising her gaze to see the others waiting for her.
"I still can't believe he doesn't recognize you. He's such an idiot." Yelena chuckled and hopped out of the chopper to follow Nat and Alexei toward Melina's home.
As they started walking away, Alexei grumbled, "You should have brought the Avengers superjet."
Sharing a look, Nat and Yelena picked up the pace, leaving Alexei behind as Steve easily kept up. "If he says one more word, I'm going to kick him in the face." Yelena warned as the older man chased after them calling Natasha's name.
"Come- come here, I want to ask you something! Come it's important." Alexei called and Nat fell back to speak to him, "Did he… did he ever talk to you about me?"
"Who?"
"Captain America." Alexei dragged out the name, causing Steve to chuckle ahead of them, "My great adversary in the theater of this geopolitical conflict. Not so much a nemesis, but more of a contemporary, you know? A coequal. I always felt like there was a great deal of mutual respect…"
Yelena didn't even turn to Steve as she spoke, instead kicking the dirt ahead of her, "It must be the beard, or the hair, or something. He doesn't recognize you."
"I have no idea who this person is." Steve replied dully, too impatient to deal with the supposed Red Guardian's infatuation with his alter ego. "If he's going to be a problem, I'll deal with him. Denver's been gone too long."
"We'll find her. Natasha is determined, and I know she won't let you down. You're her family now." Yelena mumbled sadly, stopping to turn around when she realized Natasha and Alexei had stopped, "Come on! We clearly aren't there yet. Chop chop!"
"You'll know when we're there." Alexei snorted, then gestured ahead, "Trust me."
Steve gestured with his head for Natasha to follow him, picking up the pace so they could walk ahead of the others. Once they were alone, he muttered, "If I tell him who I am, will he shut up and walk?"
"No, he'll probably keep talking and fight you." Natasha rolled her eyes and then looked up at Steve, "We're going to find Denver. I know this is taking a while, but I know we'll find her."
"But will we be too late?" Steve breathed, letting his shoulders fall, "My baby girl is in the care of a bunch of assassins. How do I know she'll be okay?"
"Steve, your daughter is usually in the care of a bunch of assassins, and she's always just fine. She's spunky, and she's not gonna take any shit from Dreykov. We're going to fix this, and then we're going to go somewhere safe." Natasha smiled a little, reaching over and taking Steve's hand in her gloved one, "You can pick next time."
He leaned his head back and sighed, looking up at the clouds in the pink Russian sky, "Part of me just wants to go home. Try and fix what I've done. Get you and Denny back to your lives and your friends."
Natasha just shrugged, leaning a little closer to Steve as they walked, "Home is wherever we make it, Rogers. Once we have her back, we'll be home again."
Throwing his arm around her shoulders, Steve pulled Nat in for a tight hug, stopping them for a moment. He closed his eyes and kissed her hair, not caring if Alexei and Yelena saw, "I love you, Nat. I couldn't do any of this without you."
She gently pushed away, shaking her head, "Let's get Denny back, then we'll talk, okay? I think you're running on high emotions, and those two are getting to you."
"Maybe. Maybe I just don't want to pretend I don't care anymore."
His words terrified her, but Natasha understood what he meant. They needed to get to Melina. To the Red Room, to Denver, to Dreykov. Then they could figure out what they wanted from each other.
Unbeknownst to them, Yelena and Alexei had wandered in a different direction, and the little blonde was waving her arms in the air and pointing towards a wire fence down the hill, "This way!"
"We'll be right there!" Natasha called back before looking up at Steve, "Once we get a location, we're ditching Alexei. You'll suit up, we'll get moving. Deal?"
"Sounds great to me." Steve replied as he helped her down the hill. She didn't need his help, but she allowed him to give her his arm anyway.
When they found Melina, she clearly recognized Steve Rogers. She eyed him as Alexei introduced him, and she stared at him occasionally over her shoulder as she led them to her home. She watched him wearily when he asked where the restroom was, but she didn't say anything until it was just her and Natasha alone.
"I'm surprised your friend made it here in one piece with Alexei." Melina confessed as she put her gun away.
"He doesn't realize Steve's Captain America."
"Ah." Melina answered as she started walking towards the kitchen, "That makes more sense. Probably the slight beard, the longer hair. He's even more handsome than he looks in the papers, but I have to wonder what he's doing here with you and Yelena and the Red Guardian, hmm?"
"Dreykov has his daughter. We need to find the Red Room and get her back." Natasha tilted her head, causing her braids to spill over her shoulder. "I'm going to kill Dreykov and I'm going to end the Red Room once and for all. But we need your help."
Melina sighed and led Natasha to the kitchen where they found Steve standing awkwardly, gesturing towards the bathroom door as Alexei grunted, "Your, uh, he's- is he okay?"
"I'm sure he's fine, sit. Have a drink." Melina gestured for Steve and Natasha to take a seat by the window while she and Yelena sat across from them. Yelena and Steve met each other's gaze when Alexei let out a strained cry from the bathroom. "So, Steve, Natasha tells me you have a daughter?"
"Don't." Natasha cut her off, shaking her head, "Don't pretend to be friendly and make small talk. We're not here for that. We're in a hurry."
"When was the last time you've eaten? I'm sure you're starving. Especially you." Melina pointed at Steve with her knife, "Your metabolism burns faster than the girls' so you probably need food. Especially if you're stressed."
Natasha shook her head and turned away, but Steve cleared his throat, "I'm okay, really."
"No, let me get some food. You all need to eat, then we'll talk."
Melina got up to gather dinner for them, leaving Yelena, Natasha, and Steve alone. Yelena smacked her lips together and leaned against her chair back, "So, you, uh, ever meet the family before?"
"Shut up, Yelena. This isn't a joke." Natasha barked, leaning her forearms on the table as Melina returned, "You've done nothing but harass Steve since the moment you met him, and in a way its your fault this all happened. You're the one who sent those stupid vials to me in the first place."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was an inconvenience you, it's not like I knew you'd be on the run from your fellow Avengers. If I'd known you were babysitting, I would have sent it to Tony Stark himself."
Suddenly the bathroom door swung open and Alexei appeared in his Red Guardian uniform with a beaming grin, "Still fits." In response, Melina let out a long wolf whistle as she sat the food in front of them, pretending not to notice the way Yelena and Natasha glared at each other.
He sat down at the head of the table, singing to himself as he grabbed food and dished up his plate, "Family. Back together again. And our little Natasha's even brought home a boy. It's like we're back in America, but our girls are all grown up now."
Steve looked down with wide eyes, choosing to scarf his food into his mouth rather than respond when Natasha, Melina, and Alexei all started talking over each other. Yelena just shrugged and knocked back three shots of vodka in a row before mumbling to Steve, "At this rate you might as well look for your daughter on your own."
"Enough!" Natasha finally banged her hands on the table, "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to tell us where the Red Room is."
"You can't defeat a man who controls the very will of others." Melina argued, then stood and grabbed a tablet from a nearby counter. She tapped on it and called, "Come in!" and then a pig pushed open the door and came to sit beside her.
Natasha and Steve shared a look, but she asked, "Did that pig just open the door?"
"Yes, it did." She praised the pig then ordered, "Stop breathing." The pig grunted, then appeared to stop breathing on command as Melina explained, "We infiltrated the North Institute in Ohio. It was a front for SHIELD scientists, or, Hydra scientists at the time." Steve reached under the table and gripped the side of his chair, only to have his hand pulled away by Natasha moments later. "In conjunction with the Winter Soldier project, they had dissected and deconstructed the human brain to create the first and only cellular blueprint of the basil ganglia."
Steve's breath hitched, realizing what she was saying. They knew what Hydra was doing to Bucky. They stole the information used to wipe his mind over and over again and implant orders and commands while pushing his memories away. Hydra's work lived on through the Red Room that now had Steve's daughter.
The pig collapsed and Natasha gasped, bringing Steve back to the present, "What are you doing?"
"I'm explaining that the science is so exact that the subject can be instructed to stop breathing and has no choice but to obey."
"It's like the widow in Budapest." Steve muttered to himself, remembering the charred face of the pleading woman. She'd been told to kill herself and didn't have the free will to do anything else.
Melina excused the pig, and it wandered out the door where it came from, but Steve couldn't shake the idea of Denver being told what to do and having no choice but to obey. She was half super soldier, and under their control, even now, she could cause damage. Steve placed his hand firmly on the table to get Melina's attention, "How old are they when they are given the chemicals?"
"I don't know, there isn't like, a minimum age. As young as they need to, I guess."
"Steve, don't go there…" Natasha squeezed his hand but he ripped it away and stood abruptly, causing the table to screech away. "Steve-"
"I'm done waiting. They have my daughter, and I'm done sitting around while you all have your family reunion. Sure, what's another day after a lifetime of subjugation for the other widows, but she needs me now. I'll take care of this myself."
He stormed away, grabbing the duffle bag from behind Yelena and storming into the bathroom. Natasha swallowed, dropping her head and massaging her temples as Alexei hummed, "Good luck with that." He chuckled and elbowed Natasha, "Where'd you find this guy? He's got guts."
"He's got a lot more than that. He's got heart." Natasha replied, then turned to Melina, "Stop playing games. This family was never real. None of it was, we're moving on. It doesn't matter anymore, what matters is that we stop Dreykov and end the Red Room, not just for Denver, but for all of them."
"It wasn't fake…" Yelena trailed off, "It was real to me."
"Who cares?" Natasha said, then quickly sat up, realizing what she'd said.
Yelena licked her bottom lip and nodded, ducking her head to avoid Natasha's gaze, "Please don't say that, it was real. It was real to me, you-" she looked to Melina quickly, "you were my real mother. The closest thing I ever had to one. The best part of my life was fake, and nobody ever told me." Yelena sucked in a deep breath and held it in her cheeks before blowing it out, "You know those agents you chemically subjugated around the globe? That was me." She told Melina before storming away, practically running into Steve as he exited the bathroom in his torn Captain America uniform.
Alexei stood, staring past Steve to Yelena as she closed the doors to the bedroom. It took a moment to register, but he gasped, "Steve… you're Captain America?"
"Yes. And I'm going after my daughter. Alone." He spat, turning to leave, but Alexei growled his displeasure, hissing "Captain America" under his breath. The sound of heavy boots followed Steve, and he quickly turned around and punched Alexei square in the jaw, sending him back a step.
"Steve, don't do this." Natasha warned as she stood, slowly moving around the table to stop the fight, but Alexei flapped his hands before moving them back into fists, attempting to swing at Steve, but he ducked out of the way and elbowed Alexei in the chest, knocking the wind out of his lungs before grabbing him behind the neck and whipping him over his own head and onto the ground.
Alexei gasped as Melina rushed towards him, but Steve just stood over the Red Guardian and huffed, "I don't even know who you are, but I don't have time to fight you. My daughter needs me. I kinda think you understand that."
With that, Steve stormed out of the house and towards the trees, needing some sort of transportation to get himself around. There had to be other widows, or other Melinas, people who worked for Dreykov and could get to his location. Steve could do his own research and still keep an eye on his friend. What the Avengers' Black Widow didn't realize, is that he'd placed a tracker of his own on her white suit, meaning if she made her way to the Red Room before he found it, he'd be right behind.
After no more than ten minutes, Steve sat down on a fallen tree, burying his face in his hands. What was he doing? Where was he going? He didn't want to waste time, but he didn't know where to start. Perhaps that was the way of the Black Widows: they took their time, they felt out their allies and their enemies, they got the information they needed by listening, not by beating up every bully in their way until they got what they wanted. Steve was never going to rescue his daughter without Natasha Romanoff, and he didn't want to. If he found Denver, but lost Nat… he'd feel just as lost as he did now.
He slowly started back to the house, but suddenly the sound of jets overhead alerted him that they'd been caught. Steve ducked, looking up to see who the jets belonged to as they flashed bright blue lights at the house, but they weren't quinjets and they weren't government. They most likely belonged to Dreykov.
"Natasha." Steve bolted back towards the house, summersaulting as several darts were shot at him. One hit his thigh and he ripped it out, pressing his back flat against the house as he crept towards the door. He pushed it open slowly, staying silent as he slid in, but everything was quiet.
After a moment, he heard a low voice murmur, "I'm sorry," followed by a crackling noise and a loud grunt followed by a thud.
Peeking around the corner, Steve realized Yelena and Natasha were unconscious on the ground, and Melina stood over them. He quickly grabbed her from behind, squeezing her neck as he whispered, "Don't." Before he could take any action against the older widow though, another dart hit him in the back, followed by several more until his limbs started to feel too heavy and everything went black.
The sound of loud grunting was the first thing Steve heard when he began to come to, and he furrowed his brows and groaned as he sat up. After a moment, he recognized the pained voice as Alexei. This was further confirmed by Natasha's frustrated voice calling out his name.
"Nat?" Steve exclaimed, jumping to his feet and pounding the wall beside him, "Nat, are you okay?"
"I'm fine Steve." She droned, then her voice softened after a moment, "Are you okay? How'd you end up here?"
"I came back for you." Steve confessed, leaning against the wall, "Nat, I shouldn't have left, and I'm sorry. I should have been there to help you, it was Melina, she took out Yelena and I tried to stop her, but-"
"It's okay, we're gonna figure this out." Natasha answered.
"It's like Wakanda all over again." Steve muttered, plopping down on the seat. "Ya know, after this mission, I might take you up on your offer to have sex with me. I think we both might need it."
A growl-like scream came from the other side of Natasha's cell and Steve smirked knowing it was Alexei. "I will not have Captain America defiling my daughter…"
"I don't think you know what that means." Natasha argued dully as Alexei started telling Natasha how sorry he was for not being able to save her, and how he'd fight Captain America a thousand times if it meant getting his daughters out safely.
Steve listened to him ramble for several minutes until his door slid open on its own. He slowly stood and crept toward the opening, finding Natasha standing on the other side. "Nat." He quickly grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her, then pulled her into a tight hug that she rebuked, muttering, "Yeah, no, please. Don't do that."
As quickly as Steve's heart sank at her rejection, his mind started catching up with their predicament and Alexei asked, "How did you do that?"
"I designed these cells myself."
Suddenly, Natasha pulled off a photostatic veil to reveal Melina. She pulled off her wig and looked over her shoulder at Steve, "Sorry to disappoint you, but in my defense, I didn't think you'd go straight for the lips."
"I-uh-um-"
"I bared my soul to you, and it was just you the whole time?" Alexei asked before turning his ire towards Steve, "And you! You plant your lips on my fake wife, thinking she was my daughter?"
Melina shushed him, pointing to her ear, "I'm on comms with Yelena. Yelena, it's me. It's Mama. You have a two-inch blade concealed in your belt line. Outside right hip."
Steve studied his surrounding while Melina gave Yelena directions, occasionally noting Alexei holding his fingers to his ear despite clearly not having a comm.
"Okay, okay girls, I'm having trouble hearing you, but Natasha, there's something I need for you to know…"
"You don't have earpiece." Melina admitted up at Alexei, "She can't hear you, you don't have earpiece."
"What? Why not?"
"Because it wasn't part of the plan, I only had two earpieces, so I have one and Yelena has one. You and Steve don't need one, and there weren't enough for you anyway."
"I have my own?" Steve offered as he pulled an old Stark earpiece from his uniform belt, holding it out for Melina to synch up with hers. When Alexei shot him a dirty look, Steve just put his hands up in front of his chest, "I only have one. Sorry."
"Captain America." Alexei growled, but Steve just put the earpiece in, hearing Yelena asking about the vials on the other end of the comm.
"He probably sent them down to cold storage. Dreykov still has the widows under his control, so you have to expose them to this antidote. I'll send Steve down to help you."
Steve looked at Melina, then down the long hallway, "I gotta find my daughter."
Yelena started running down the hall when she paused, hearing soft crying from one of the rooms. She slowly pushed open the door, seeing a small little blonde girl strapped to an operating table. "Hey… hey little one, you're okay."
Heaving Yelena, Steve pressed his hand to his ear, "What did you find?"
"Little girl. Blonde. Blue eyes." Yelena answered, using her knife to slice the straps holding down the child, and she bolted, "Hey, wait!" She called, taking off running after the child as she sprinted down the hallway. Finally, she caught up with the girl and tackled her, using her thigh to hold her down while she wrapped her arms around the girls torso, "Denver? Are you Denver?"
Steve waited with bated breath, until eventually he heard Denver's voice through Yelena's comm, "I want my Daddy."
"Tell her I'll be there as soon as I can. Tell her you're a friend of Daddy and Auntie Nat." Steve ordered as he looked to Melina, "Where are they?"
"Medical wing is on the third floor, but she'll be heading to the second to pick up the antidote. Good luck." Melina told Steve, pointing down the hallway as the lights flickered.
While Steve tried to find his way through the Red Room's halls to find his daughter, Yelena was trying to figure out how to soothe the crying child, "Hey, Denver. Your dad calls you Denny, right?" She nodded, and Yelena nodded vigorously in return, "Okay, yeah, he's gonna come meet us. We're gonna get you out of here, okay. Are you hurt?"
"No, they just poked me and took my bood."
"Did they poke you in the neck?"
Denver shook her head, "No, just my arm." She pointed to a little red dot where they'd drawn her blood, "I'm scared. I want Daddy."
Yelena stood, holding the heavy little girl in her arms as she started power walking down the blank hallways, "I know, we'll meet up with him soon. Him and Auntie Nat." She paused, looking to a grate below them, "Hey, I'm gonna jump down, and then I'm gonna catch you, okay?"
She dropped through the ceiling, landing with her foot out to the side like Natasha, then shivered and grumbled, "That was disgusting. Alright, come on down, I'll catch you."
Denver did as instructed, sliding through the vent into Yelena's arms. She wrapped her arms around Yelena's neck, and the woman's eyes widened in panic. She'd never had a child cling to her like this before, and knowing it was Captain America's precious daughter made her uneasy. The idea of seeing him so happy though, relaxed even, for the first time gave Yelena enough courage to push forward with her missions.
She sat the child on the ground and pointed to the wall, "Stay here till I say so, kay?"
"Kay." Denver gave a firm nod, and Yelena blew air out through her lips as she peeked around the corner at the guard blocking the cold storage unit. She quickly dove after him, gripping his neck and swinging around to take him down with a thunk. Denver peeked around and Yelena motioned for her to join her before dragging the man's heavy body towards the keypad for his hand scan. When Yelena lifted her head, she realized Denver was trying to push the man, too.
"Look at you being helpful. Much more helpful than your father." Yelena chuckled, leaning down to pick the heavy child up with one arm as she jogged into the storage unit for the antidote.
Everything was silent on comms, meaning Melina was probably working on getting them down safely while Steve tried to find them. Yelena looked over her shoulder, clenching Denver a little tighter as she spoke to the child soothingly, "We gotta save the widows and then we're gonna land and then you, and Daddy, and Auntie Nat are gonna go somewhere safe, okay?"
"To Auntie Dallas?"
"I dunno, maybe. You got a lot of aunts, don'tcha kid?" Yelena grumbled as she saw the vials in a refrigerator, "Melina, I've found the location of the vials."
Over the comm, Melina responded, "I've had a slight setback. You'll need to get to the widows. Has Steve found you yet?"
"Not yet." Steve said as he crept against the wall, looking past all of the cold storage units for Yelena. "What's your twenty?"
"Uhh, by the cold stuff." Yelena answered, smiling down at Denver before hiking her up, "Where are you?"
Steve came around the corner and placed his finger to his lips to quiet Denny as she took a deep breath, about to let out a yell until he ran towards her and pulled her from Yelena's arms, "It's okay baby, I'm here. Daddy's here." Steve clutched her tightly, releasing a heavy breath before pulling her away to study her, "Did they hurt you? Are you alright?"
"They poked me hard."
"I think they drew blood, but as far as I can tell, they didn't do much else. She said they just poked her arm." Yelena explained as she held onto Denver's tiny forearm. She leaned down and kissed it before looking up at Steve, popping an antidote out of its casing to hand to him, "Just in case though. Wouldn't hurt to make sure."
He nodded, pushing it into his pocket before looking down the long hallway, "How do we get out of here?"
"Not sure yet. One thing at a time. Just stay low, stay hidden. I'll get to the widows"
"Where's Nat?" Steve asked worriedly, pressing his hand to his comm, "Melina, where's Nat?"
"She's with Dreykov. She's going to kill him."