Двенадцать (Twelve)

"And here I was, thinking you'd be happy to see me."

"Natasha my sister. After all this time, what brings you home?"

Having evaded the Widows and Taskmaster - for now - they headed as far away from the city as possible. They stopped at a gas station along the way, Yelena wanting to get some medical supplies to address her wound.

"If the Red Room's still active, where is it?" Nat was still in disbelief.

"We have no idea. He moves location constantly," Sascha explained. "Gone were the days of being a fortress in the mountains."

"And every Widow is sedated on entry and exit for maximum security," added Yelena.

Nat shook her head. "I'm jut finding it hard to believe that he could stay off my radar."

"Well it's not smart to attack an Avenger if you want to stay hidden. I mean the clue is in the name: Dreykov kills you, and one of the big ones comes to avenge you," said Yelena.

"Wait, what are the big ones?"

"Well, I doubt the god from space has to take an ibuprofen after a fight." A pause, then, "Where do you think I was all this time?"

"I thought that you got out and you two would stick together and were living a normal life."

"Well you're right about two of those things," Sascha admitted.

"And you just never thought to make contact again?"

"Honestly, I thought you wouldn't want to see me."

"Ha! Bullshit!" Yelena called her out. "You just didn't want your baby sister to tag along whilst you saved the world with the cool kids."

"You weren't really my sister. You aren't."

"And the Avengers aren't really your family," Yelena shot back. "Why do you always do that thing?"

"Do what?"

"That thing you do when you're fighting."

"I do a lot of things while I'm fighting."

Sascha snorted. "Do it, Yelena."

"The, like the-" Smiling, Yel crouched down, sticking out one arm and one leg. "This thing you do when you whip your hair when you're fighting. With the arm and the hair and the leg and you do like a fighting pose."

Sascha snorted with laughter. "She, she imitates you sometimes - ha!"

The two girlfriends were laughing now, but Nat sure wasn't. "It's a fighting pose, you're a total poser."

"I'm not a poser."

"Oh, come on, I mean they're great poses but it does look like you think everyone's looking at you, like, all the time."

"Yeah well all that time that I spent posing, I was trying to actually do something good-"

"And what did you think we were trying to do?"

"-To make up for all the pain and suffering we caused. Trying to be more - I thought that I could be more than just a trained killer."

"Well, then you're fooling yourself: because pain and suffering is every day and we're all still trained killers," Yelena told her. "Except I'm not the one that's on the cover of a magazine. I'm not the killer little girls look up to and call their hero."

"Who the hell even is that guy?"

Another piece of information given to them by the Masked Widow, or Widows was Taskmaster, Dreykov's first in command with their mirror-like combat style.

Sascha was helping Yelena clean and bind her wound.

"His call sign's Taskmaster. Dreykov's special project. He can mimic anyone he's ever seen. It's like fighting a mirror."

"Dreykov only deploys him for top priority missions," added Sascha. "Which it looks like we are." She finished bandaging Yelena's arm and kissed the bandage. "Okay, there, all done."

"Спасибо."

"Of course."

"That gas, the counteragent, we were told it was synthesized in secret by an older Widow from Melina's generation," Yelena explained to Nat. "What you experienced was psychological conditioning. I'm talking about chemically altering brain functions. They're two completely different things. You're fully conscious but you don't know which part is you. Now, they're manipulated, fully conscious but no choices."

Sascha held up their collection of the vials. "This is all the evidence we have, and all the evidence we need."

"Is that all that's left?" Nat asked.

"Mmm-hmm." Yelena nodded. "It's the only thing that can stop Dreykov and his network of Widows. He takes more every day, children who don't have anyone to protect them, just like us when we were small. Maybe one in twenty survives the training, becomes a Widow. The rest he kills. To him we are just things, weapons with no face that he can just throw away. Because there is always more. And no one's even looking for him, thanks to you and Alexei."

"Alexei?"

"Dad." They watched a nearby family, the Dad picking up the children and heading inside their house, all one big, happy family. "Did you ever look for your parents? Your real ones?"

"Well, my mom abandoned me in the street like garbage. What about you?"

"Well they destroyed my birth certificate so I reinvented it. My parents still live in Ohio and I tell people my sister moved out West."

Nat smiled a little. "Is that right?"

"You're a science teacher. You're working part-time though, especially after you had your son. Your husband, he renovates houses. You're thinking about moving but you're going to wait until the interest rates go down."

Nat snorted. "That's not my story."

"What is your story?"

"Not that." A pause, then, "I never let myself be alone long enough to think about it."

"Did you ever wish for kids?"

Nat didn't answer, but the way she fondly watched the children running around was answer enough.

"I want a dog."

"Where are you gonna go?"

"I don't know. We don't really have anywhere to go back to, so I guess anywhere. But wherever it is, we're going to go together." The girlfriends joined hands. Sascha kissed Yelena's knuckles.

Natasha leaned forward, resting her elbows and beer bottle on the table.

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"You're going to give us a big hero speech, I can feel it."

"Speeches aren't really my thing."

"Ah. But posing is."

"Shut up. It was more like an invitation."

"To what? To go to the Red Room and kill Dreykov?"

"Yeah."

"Even though the Red Room is impossible to find and Dreykov is too slippery to kill?"

"Yeah."

"That sounds like a shitload of work."

"Yup. Could be fun though.

"Yup..."

Nat's smirk grew. "I saw where he put the keys."

"Top drawer," added Yelena.

"Green cabinet," Sascha finished. She raised her beer bottle. "Cheers ladies. We're going back to the Red Room - though this time, it's on our own terms."

Russian Translations

Спасибо - Thank you

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :)