Now What?
"Where do we go?" Melina whispered. "What do we do?"
Alexei realized very quickly that while he was so focused on their reunion and being with her again after so long, he did not know what they were supposed to do now. At last Dreykov was dead and gone, but the Red Room was gone, too. There were no orders to be given to the Widows. And Melina was a Black Widow. She was under Dreykov's control just like all the others. She could not go back to her home with her pigs. And Alexei had been in prison for twenty years. He had no home to go back to.
Melina took his hand, bringing him out of his thoughts. Which was unusual. Alexei was not one to have thoughts most of the time.
"We live," he said simply. "We find a life to share." That was perhaps wishful thinking. But it was what he wanted. And he had no reason to play coy with her now.
"This leg has to heal first. Then I want to go back to my house," she said.
He frowned. "Won't they come for us there?"
A slow smirk grew on her face. "I can protect us. They might know where my house is, but they cannot get there. Not if I don't want them to."
Alexei had a very happy thought. "I can crush them?" he asked her eagerly.
She laughed. Oh, that beautiful sound! "If they ever manage to get close enough, yes. You can crush them. You can break anyone who comes anywhere near us, my love."
His jaw dropped. "What did you say!?"
"You heard me," she said in that prim way about her when she felt nervous or uncomfortable about something. She hadn't meant to say that to him. She hadn't meant to reveal that.
"Oh Melina, my love, my life," he whispered in Russian as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
She kissed him back for a moment before pushing him off her with a pained whimper. "Alexei, my leg," she reminded him.
"I will help," he insisted. He scooped her up in his arms as though she weighed nothing more than a small book. To him, that was all it felt like.
Melina put her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest, taking comfort in the way he held her. "You are so strong. How lucky I am to have such a big man to care for me," she said.
She was teasing him. Flirting with him. He loved that about her, the way she would compliment him in a way that was almost mocking. But he didn't care. She could say anything to him, and he would find it charming. He had loved this woman for twenty-five years, and nothing was going to stop him now.
In the end, Melina needed surgery to fix her leg. Alexei waited anxiously for the news that she was alright. The hospital was kind enough to give him a change of clothes, since his Red Guardian suit was attracting too much attention. He donned the largest size of green scrubs they had, and they were still tight on him. Melina called him a big man, and he was. Big and covered in tattoos and fat but still just…big.
He rubbed his arms where the tattoo of Yelena and Natasha's names were forever inked on his skin. His tough girls, his two perfect, beautiful girls. Being reunited with them was more than he could have ever hoped for in his life. He wished now that he had treated them better through this all. So focused on being the Red Guardian again and forgetting what it had felt like to be their father for those three short years that had been so important to him. To them all.
"Melina Vostokoff?" a doctor said, seeking whoever was waiting for news about her.
Alexei hurried over. "Is she alright?"
The doctor nodded. "She will make a full recovery. We inserted some metal pins to reconstruct her femur but she will be just fine."
"Thank you," Alexei said in relief. "When can I see her?"
"She is in recovery, but I can take you to her room to wait," the doctor answered.
Alexei followed, eager to be with his wife again. It was silly, he knew, to think of her that way. She was only his wife for three years in Ohio when they were undercover, but he had known for all the years in between that if he ever would have a wife, it would be her. Not that prison gave him any opportunity to have any other wife, even if he wanted one. No, Melina was the only one he wanted. Now and always.
He sat in a chair in the hospital room waiting for her. His knee bounced in anxious anticipation. He wanted to have a plan, something to tell her for when she woke up. He wanted to be able to say that they would have a home and a life together and everything would be alright. But Alexei was not one to think about things. About anything. He followed orders and he broke things. Melina was the strategist, the genius to plan everything. Alexei could do nothing.
But perhaps she was right, they could go back to the house where she had lived and trained her pigs. He had no doubt that her security was sufficient for their needs. All Alexei needed was her.
At long last, the nurses wheeled her bed into the room. Her leg was in a cast and suspended a few inches above the bed. But the rest of her was perfect and peaceful as she slept under the anesthesia. When they were finally left alone, Alexei sat himself on the edge of her bed to be as close to her as possible.
"Melina, my love," he murmured, holding her hand and bringing it to his lips to kiss gently.
It was strange, in a way. He had loved her for so long, and he had been able to be affectionate to his wife when they were in Ohio. But they had been apart for so long. He was not permitted to be open about his feelings for her. No one could ever know that he had loved her, that he still loved her. It would only put her in danger. He could not allow that. But now, the threat was gone. Dreykov was gone. And Alexei felt like there could be a future for them now.
A small sound fell from Melina's lips. Alexei gripped her hand tighter. "Melina?" he said tentatively.
"Alexei," she slurred, her eyes fluttering open.
"Yes, it is Alexei, I am here," he assured her.
Melina finally opened her eyes and looked at him. She smiled. "I thought it was a dream. I thought you could not be here with me."
"I am here. And I will always be with you now," he vowed.
She smiled. "We will go home. Together. And we will find our girls and they will come home to us."
It was a very optimistic thing to think, but it warmed Alexei to think it. Their family would be together again. One day.
But for now, it would just be the two of them. Natasha had to put her Avengers back together. Yelena had to rescue the rest of the Widows. And then they would come home. Just as Melina said.