Chapter 13: Clint's Farmhouse
"Enough sleep, time for our run," Natasha knocked on Inessa's door and waited for the sound of the child getting up. Nothing. "Inessa? Sleeping in?" she opened the door to an empty room.
Natasha checked the bottom drawer of her dresser- the shoes were there, so she wasn't waiting downstairs already. Had she gone for a walk? Lost track of the time? "Bucky," she waited for her comm to connect to his.
"What do you need?"
"Can you check Tony's gear in the barn? Nessa isn't in her room."
"Have you searched the house?" Bucky was already headed for the stairs.
Natasha left the room and went to the main floor of the farmhouse, "I'm looking now, but she's always in her room."
Bucky wove his way around the worktable and over to Tony's main computer. On it was a constant feed of Inessa's implant. The readings were all blank. "JARVIS, what's the range on this?"
"The prototype transmitter works over a range of one hundred miles sir."
"Did you get that, Nat?"
"Yeah, so she's in the Valley," Natasha sounded weary, "maybe."
Bucky frowned, "You don't think she'd run away."
"No, of course not," Natasha couldn't say what she was worried about- Inessa showed no signs that she remembered anything the morning of her episode. What if she did though? What if she'd been looking for Berny to help Natasha and gotten herself captured? What if she was lost somewhere, trapped?
Natasha was back upstairs in a second, pounding on Tony's door. Steve opened it, dressed and ready to go for his run. Sam's door across the hall opened at the commotion. Natasha could hear the other Avengers stirring, "I need to talk to Tony."
"Tony needs to sleep," Tony snapped. Natasha pushed past Steve and walked around the dressers- which for some unknown reason had been moved to the center of the room between Tony and Steve's beds. "No crossing the line!" Tony snapped, "You stay on his side of the room!"
"I need to know if you can extend the range of Nessa's implant. She isn't here and I'm worried."
Stark rolled away from her and faced the wall, "She's just playing with her shadow, give her a break. I can't track anything in the Valley."
"I just want to make sure that's where she is. Going off with Bucky might have given her a taste for adventure and it's not safe for her out there." Natasha snapped. She felt a hand on her shoulder- Clint had come out of their room.
"She's fine, Nat," Clint was as confused as the rest of them, "Nessa will turn up any minute. You'll see. Just be patient. Yesterday was a big day for her."
A phone rang downstairs. "I'll grab that," Steve ducked out. It wasn't like Natasha to get overly excited about anything, what was her issue with Inessa taking a morning off from running? He picked up the phone on the fifth ring, "Holless Ranch, Grant speaking."
"Steve, Agent Simmons speaking," she sounded cheerful, as always, but there was apprehension there too.
"Agent Simmons, good morning. What can I help you with?"
"I was wondering- are you by any chance missing Inessa?"
Steve sighed and put his hand over the mouthpiece, "Natasha! Come down here!" he uncovered it again, "Did you find her?"
"One of our Agents picked her up around an hour ago in Gambell on Saint Lawrence Island."
"Where is that?" Steve waved Natasha over and covered the mouthpiece once again, "SHIELD has her," he whispered.
"Between Russia and Alaska. It's nearly three in the morning there now. Agent May has gone to retrieve them. There was a Hydra base under Gambell, not the largest we've seen, but nothing to laugh at. Based on what our Agent saw, Inessa used her wolves to wipe the base out."
"What?" Steve was incredulous, "That can't be right. Your Agent has to be wrong."
Simmons took a deep breath, "I trust her word. The only survivors reported were a handful of people from their research department- all of them test subjects or prisoners.
"Oh my god," Steve rubbed the bridge of his nose where a headache was already beginning. "Can you redirect Agent May and Nessa to us?"
"The order was already given," Simmons assured him, "I just wanted to give you forewarning."
"Well, thank you, we owe you one."
"Take care."
"Yeah, you too." he hung up.
Natasha waited impatiently, "Well? Why does SHIELD have Inessa? And why is May bringing her back- why doesn't she just come home?"
"I didn't ask," Steve glanced up as the others came downstairs. He tapped his comm to open a channel to Bucky, "SHIELD has Nessa," he explained to all of them at once. "Based on what Simmons told me, it sounds like Inessa went on a field trip to Alaska. She- Nat, you're not going to like this- she let the dogs loose and took out everyone on a Hydra base- save SHIELD's agent there and some human experiments."
"No," Clint was shocked, "no way."
"Why would she do that?" Sam asked, incredulous, "I mean, I get why, but why?"
"We'll ask her as soon as she gets here," Steve was still processing the shock, "How many bases has she done this to? Since when is she a killer?"
"It has to be Tony's machine," Natasha glanced at him, "it's affecting her in some weird way."
Banner held up his hands, "Now let's not jump to conclusions, alright? Is it so hard to believe, after what she's been through, that she'd want to stop Hydra? We need to be fair about this-"
"Oh, yeah, that's fair," Bucky came in through the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. "I'm Hydra's monkey and prisoner for 70 years and I can't even get away with threatening to kill a drunk piece of shit, but Inessa might have just killed dozens and she gets 'we need to be fair'?"
"Well, you didn't have to live with Zola," Natasha snapped.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Come on, you know what she meant. You got to come out of it and live with friends. She comes out of it and we're asking her to sleep a couple hundred yards from the guy who traumatized her."
Bucky was incredulous, "That isn't an excuse for murder."
"It's hardly murder if it's Hydra," Tony pointed out, "When you're dealing with them, it's justice."
"Cause you're so qualified to be any kind of judge or jury," Sam snapped.
The lights flickered and suddenly the room filled with static. Steve felt the hairs on his arms standing up, unbidden. The Avengers continued to argue until, without warning, there was a loud clap of electricity and everyone received a large (and exceedingly painful) shock.
"What. The. Fuck?" Banner was taking very deep breaths, but his skin had a decidedly green tint- he would Hulk-out soon if he couldn't get it under control, then he'd see if these idiots wanted to insult him- no. He tried to let go of the thought. If he listened to Hulk's voice, he'd change for sure.
Thor stood in the doorway with his hammer still spinning. He was prepared to deliver a second shock, if need be. Bucky's metal arm still crackled with static, but it was dissipating in small snaps of lightning. "Was your anger in earnest, friends, or caused by the creature Inessa beheld?" he honestly couldn't tell. He'd been woken by Steve's report over the communications device. By the time he got to the farmhouse they were already fighting. Without knowing the origins of the argument, he couldn't know if it was natural or not.
"Maybe both," Banner felt the Hulk's grasp easing. He won this time.
"Bucky, I'm sorry," Natasha half meant it, "I shouldn't have said that."
He nodded, still angry.
"Let's just get the report from Agent May and whoever found Inessa. Maybe there's a reasonable explanation. If not, we'll have to figure out a suitable response. Until then maybe we should steer clear of one another? In case it was whatever creature Inessa saw before causing that- or feeding it."
No one was satisfied, but all walked away to wait for May and her cargo. Tony headed straight for his lab and began to work.
"Everyone to the living room, we've got incoming," Tony announced as soon as JARVIS reported SHIELD's helicopter within weapons range. He barely made it to the farmhouse himself before May was flying away again and a young Agent was knocking on the door. Natasha opened it to see her and Inessa standing side-by-side. Inessa looked stressed, scared shitless, and guilty.
"Nadi, give me a few minutes with them, alright? No running off with Peanut Butter, got it?" Inessa nodded, resigned. She shared a quick hug with the Agent and walked past the Avengers nearest the stairs. "May I come in?"
"Of course, please do," Clint came forward and Natasha stepped aside, stunned. She spoke to Inessa with such informality, and what was more unbelievable, Inessa responded quickly, and readily.
"I'm Junior Agent Mallory Ivanou, by the way," she waved nervously to the other Avengers. Everyone shook hands and introduced themselves, getting the pleasantries out of the way as quickly as possible.
"Do you know Inessa? She just- she seems oddly normal around you, if you'll pardon the word choice," Sam asked what most of them were wondering.
Agent Ivanou nodded, "I know Nadya. We grew up together in Chicago- best friends pretty much since birth."
"Why haven't you come forward sooner?" Tony demanded, "SHIELD knows we've been looking for any of Inessa's associates. And why would she kidnap the JIF?" Steve looked at him, confused, "'No running off with peanut butter'," Tony quoted back.
"It's what I call the shadow-wolf, Peanut Butter. She never bothered to give it a proper name and it sticks to her like peanut butter. And for your first question- I've been working undercover for SHIELD pretty much since the Hydra uprising, I don't get news alerts unless Hydra gets them too. I didn't even know why I was in New York until the day of the attack. I'd have blown my cover pretty damn fast if they made me fight."
"Tony, everyone, let's settle a bit," Steve hushed the room, "Agent Ivanou, we are immensely interested in anything you know about Inessa's past, and we'll probably drive you insane with a hundred questions later, but the issue highest on the agenda is what she did to that Hydra base. Can you fill us in? I don't know how she is with you, but the kid was so traumatized by Hydra, we can't even get her to make eye contact, let alone speak to us. It's just hard to believe the Inessa we know is capable of taking on an entire base alone. She can barely be around more than three people most days."
"I was wondering what was with the sign language. As to what happened with Hydra- it's not the first time she's done this."
"That's what we were afraid of," Banner sighed.
"When we were kids Nadya would have these nightmares about scientists and labs and experiments, scared the crap out of her half the time. Eventually we figured out what was happening was a kind of sleepwalking- Peanut Butter-" Tony snickered, "-well what do you call it?"
Bucky shrugged, "Nadya."
"When we tried calling Inessa by her given name, she insisted we give that name to the wolf."
Ivanou frowned, "Is it too weird for you if I call them by the other names?"
"It makes it funnier," Tony prompted.
Natasha silenced him with a look, "Please, call them whatever you want."
"Alright. Anyways- P.B. is the alpha of an entire pack. She gives Nadya some semblance of control, but those things are too close to feral for my liking. If Nadya didn't focus on keeping her abilities in check, a shadow would open somewhere and one of these creatures would get loose until she closed it again. Nadya's nightmares were taking her to a place where the door was weak or where the wolves were coming out. When she realized they weren't dreams, she freaked. She started watching for it. I didn't know she had it in her, but she'd literally kill to try and protect the victim. She told me she had managed to save five people- and evidently put herself on SHIELD's radar in the process."
"After I got to SHIELD's academy I found a file from a few months before Nadya vanished- reports of monsters attacking from the shadows. Some were accidents, some were intentional. My guess is Hydra ran with it, somehow found her, and brought her in. All I know about what's happened since then is they had the Winter Soldier- an assassin with a freaky robot arm they used up until the Triskellion disaster- try to turn her into an Asset- if I'm right in guessing she's what Hydra calls 'Project Echo'." Mallory looked to the Avengers for verification.
There were several uneasy glances, "You're right. Also, in the interest of honesty-" Bucky had introduced himself by name, but he was wearing a hoodie and kept his left hand in the pocket. Now he held it up and pulled the sleeve back.
"Nadya hasn't killed you yet, so I won't, but we'll have words later."
"Understood."
"Anyways- from what I know, two Hydra bases were raided by an unknown enemy one month ago, they lost four guards and two experiments. After that another three were completely wiped out- but no bodies were found, and no blood. Security cameras turned up nothing as well. Based on what I saw in Alaska a few hours ago, I'd have to say Nadya is back on-mission, and she's using her abilities to hide the bodies. Before we left on the helicopter she handed over two people she was keeping tucked away because they were too dangerous to be around others for now, and indicated she has sent six others back to their families. At least, if I'm understanding her correctly- I can only get one-word answers out of her most of the time, and I don't know sign language."
"She must have great trust in you," Thor nodded, "she spoke once, to James Barnes, but beyond that we have heard nothing."
"I'm not surprised," Agent Ivanou side-eyed Bucky, "I can only guess what all he did to get her to talk."
"It was after that," he looked down, "in New York."
Steve glanced at the others, "Agent Ivanou-"
"Mallory, please."
"-Mallory. Would you mind giving us some time to discuss this amongst ourselves? Keep Inessa occupied? Maybe take her for a walk around the farm or something. We'll let you know when you can return."
"Sure," Mallory glanced at a coat closet nearby- the door was slightly ajar, "Come on, Nadi."
Bucky jumped- no one had felt the shiver that usually accompanied her appearance, at least not that they noticed. Inessa stepped out of the darkness and walked quickly out of the house with Mallory, ashamed. They knew the truth now. They knew she was a bad person- a killer and a liar. She thought she could kill to keep her secret- to keep hunting through the shadows for people to save. Before, she would only take the person back, she'd exaggerated to Mallory- the wolves killed, she couldn't stomach it. After? After it was more than just a mission- it was a desperate scramble to save people before Hydra took them beyond saving. Now it was all for naught- they'd kill her or imprison her for sure.
It took record time for the Avengers to agree on what should be done- only half an hour. A remote Suit informed Mallory and Inessa that it was safe to return to the farmhouse. Inessa opened a door in the first suitable shadow and they stepped out into the hallway of the farmhouse. Her insides rolled. She was terrified. Most of the group was looking away. Clint was pale, but he looked determined. They wouldn't meet her eyes- and for once she wished they would. Steve alone watched her, and his gaze scared her even more. Mallory stood back, waiting to hear what the Avengers had decided. If she disagreed, she was taking Nadya and leaving.
"Inessa, Natasha offered you a permanent place here. Do you still want it?"
Yes.
"Even if it means you can't keep attacking Hydra?"
She inhaled sharply and looked back to Mallory, alarmed. "I know more Hydra bases than you. SHIELD is putting together a joint strike force to start flushing them out. Nadi, I know what this means to you, especially now, but- I hate to say this- you have to let the grown-ups fight this war."
"Same. Age." Everyone was shocked by Inessa's harsh whisper. She spoke through clenched teeth and put great effort into the words. Her voice was rough, unused.
Mallory just shook her head, "Not anymore. As far as I'm concerned, you're only 16. After what you've been through? You could be 14 still. Nadi, we're trained for this. We're better equipped to handle both Hydra and the people they are hurting. We can't let a kid risk her life against these bastards. Even if you can rip them apart without so much as a stubbed toe."
Steve drew her attention back, "Until you are 18, you don't get to fight. You can be an Avenger one day, but for the next 2 years we focus on getting you better, and on training. Then you attack when we all agree to attack. Do you still want to join?"
Inessa looked from Steve to Mallory, lost. "SHIELD has ways to block your powers now, and we are willing to share them with Hydra to keep you out of harm's way," Mallory lied. Inessa looked at the Avengers one-by-one. She keeled by Clint and began to sign for him to translate.
I can save people. They can't hurt me- I can save people!
"That's not what we're discussing," Steve shook his head, "You're a kid. Just because a kid can fight a war, doesn't mean we make them soldiers. If you walk out now, SHIELD gives Hydra the ability to lock you out for good. If you agree to training and professional help getting through all of this, then you can resume the fight as an adult. Which one do you chose?"
She gaped at the group and tried to read their expressions. Natasha, Clint, Thor, and Banner were all united with Steve. Bucky and Sam looked less certain, and Tony was just on-edge about the whole thing. That frequency- the one Hydra used to use- she knew it had something to do with why she had been locked out of the Valley- she couldn't risk them using it to keep her away for good. The only way for her to get her revenge was to give it up- for now.
Fine. Inessa turned her back on the Avengers and pushed past Mallory on her way to the stairs. She didn't want to look at them.
"Inessa- there's one more thing," Steve's voice was soft. Inessa stopped with a foot on the steps. "We want to trust you- really we do. But the same rule applies to you as Bucky- you have to earn that trust again. Until then... Until then, you're grounded. Tony, go ahead."
She didn't have time to wonder what he meant by 'grounded' before Tony activated the device. It felt like someone had punched her in the side of the head. Inessa cried out and fell onto the steps. She grabbed her aching head, struggled to breathe. Her muscles were locked tight and straining. Tony dialed it down carefully and walked over to her. "The implant- as a feature I added a low-range speaker. It was supposed to act like a comm, since you don't have one of your own. I'm sorry, I calculated the frequency too high. You'll feel a little out of it at first, but I promise that will fade as we fine-tune the signal."
"You're grounded to this plane," Clint came over and put a hand on Inessa's back. She was panting, kneeling on two steps and holding herself up by the stair rail. "Until we're sure you'll keep up your end of the deal, you won't be able to go into the Valley. No more doors. No more windows."
The enemy-
"For your own sake, we'll risk it," more than anything, that had been what made the Avengers hesitate in their plan. If they were in someone's cross-hairs, did they really want to take out the one person who could see their enemy? She was still a kid. It always came back to that- no matter how grave their need.
Inessa strained to open a door to the Valley- but it was like she was hitting a glass wall. She reached back and tried to pull out the implant, desperate. A series of shocks emanated from it. The Avengers stood back and watched sadly as the implant defended itself and effectively tazed the attacker. Inessa gave up before the shocks reached too high of a voltage- it would knock her out if it needed to to make sure she kept it in.
Betrayed, confused, angry, Inessa scrambled to her feet and threw herself at Clint, knocking him over. She ran out of the farmhouse at full speed towards the heart of the cornfield- from there she would turn sharply, change her course. She couldn't leave the farm- not with Tony's suits on patrol, but she could hide until she found a way to remove the implant.
The Avengers watched her flee in silence, ashamed. They didn't doubt their decision, but every one of them regretted it. "She'll come around, Nadi's always been very level-headed. She'll understand, once the shock wears off." Mallory promised.
"Mind if we have that talk now?" Bucky asked, "Being yelled at might make me feel better."
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I promise, fun stuff coming soon (including an Avengers-wide prank war), the unpleasantness just had to be worked out first to move the story along.