Translate:
Для ублюдка, который ни хрена не смыслит в манерах, ты ужасно болтлив: For a bastard who doesn't know s**t on manners you're awfully chatty
Yelena breathed a sigh of relief as she finally felt the plane come to a halt. Hoisting herself up from her seat, she followed Sam and Bucky towards the rear of the plane as the ramp released a hiss and lowered back to the ground. For having only been a two hour flight, she was through with her share of the metal interiors for a while.
They emerged into a wide hangar much like the one back in New York with just as much coming and going; the only difference, she quickly realized, was the number of glances and stares thrown in their direction. It apparently wasn't everyday Captain America came for a visit.
Sam and Bucky failed to notice as they headed for the hangars opening. Just as Torres had said, an open military jeep was there and ready for them.
"It'll only be about twenty minutes to the drop sight," Sam explained. "From there we'll have to go the rest of the way on foot."
"Sounds refreshing," Yelena chimed in. "Will you be taking a head start?"
She tipped her head to the side to gesture towards his winged backpack. "We'll send Redwing 2.0 out for a perimeter check before we head in," he replied. At Bucky's slight scowl, his smug demeanor returned in full force as he said, "Yes I did name him that, and yes he is back."
"Perfect," she heard her partner mumble under his breath. Moving around to the other side of the jeep, Bucky pulled the door open and slid into the driver's side, igniting the ignition as she and Sam followed. "Where are we going?"
"Head north for now," Sam replied, glancing down at the screen on his wrist. "We'll have to cut on to a few back roads."
Bucky nodded as the transport jerked forward underneath them before taking off towards the street.
The drive passed in a content silence as the open area of the airport soon vanished behind them. Almost as soon as they had turned onto one of the quieter roads, Yelena was sure they had simply driven into another world.
She couldn't recall even from her memories back in Ohio of a time that she had seen this much greenery. The landscape around her transformed into a thick brush of forests, everywhere she looked covered in trees, vegetation and golden beams of light shining through the canopies. She could tell her cheeks had taken on a bright pink tone as a cool breeze whipped at her face and hair, blowing the few loose strands of her ponytail in every direction.
Bringing one hand up to keep them under control, she tipped her head back and looked at the clouding sky, the last rays of the afternoon sun shining through.
Yelena simply took a moment and closed her eyes, letting the hum of the jeep carry her farther and farther into the forest. It seemed all too soon before she heard Sam rolling off a few instructions to Bucky about where to pull off.
Rolling off to the side of the road, Bucky pulled the gear back in park and turned off the ignition. The hum died away and was replaced by the distant song of birds and rustling leaves.
"This is our stop," he sighed as he closed the door shut behind him. Hoisting herself over the side, Yelena landed in a patch of grass and looked up at the terrain before her. Nothing but forests.
"You're sure there's an entire warehouse district back in there?" Yelena asked, arching an eyebrow at Sam.
The moment the question slipped past, a triangular drone emerged from the back of Sam's suit, fitted with a pair of small metal wings and a propulsion beneath it. By Bucky's insistent glare, she could only assume this was the infamous Redwing. "I plugged in Hill's coordinates and he'll take us right where we need to go."
"Sure," Yelena mumbled. "Who wouldn't follow a drone into the middle of the woods?"
Redwing's mechanical wings shifted as it turned towards the brush of the forest, and after a second of simply hovering in place, began to move forward and up the length of the small hill. Sam turned towards Bucky with a small smirk, and the ex-assassin simply shook his head and sighed. Nonetheless, he followed in the drone's path and the three began the trek into the forest.
Yelena looked back at the desolate road only once, eyeing down their jeep as if expecting it to up and vanish. A funny almost queasy feeling had taken over her stomach since they had entered the forest. Her training as a Widow had many a-flaw to it, most of which still haunted her in her dreams. But if there was anything she had learned that paid to have use outside of doing the only thing they had trained her for, Yelena was thankful to know that she could trust her gut instinct.
It seemed like a trap plain as day. The experimentation shipments are suddenly leaked? The ones most likely always under surveillance of the watchful eye of Valentina's operatives, or perhaps even the woman herself? It was almost too easy, and it sounded too quick.
A chill ran down her spine, and she wasn't sure whether it was the cool weather or the uneasy feeling twisting her stomach.
Yelena looked away and turned her back on the road, following both of her partners further into the trees. Whatever trouble they came across, she could handle it. She had once been a Widow - an assassin taken and trained into a life that wasn't her choice, but she had risen to become one of the best of the best. The blood that tainted her hands was still there, and she had the chance to wipe it from her ledger.
She wasn't going to miss it.
"So what exactly are we intending to do once we get there?" Yelena called forward, lengthening her strides to catch up. "Hope to find something that looks like a lab and pray nothing explodes?"
"These warehouses should be where they're storing equipment at the very least," Sam said back over his shoulder. He paused as Redwing veered slightly to the left and righted itself again, this time headed farther west. "Whether or not we find anything about the serum is another problem."
"And if we do?"
"Then we deal with whatever the hell they're trying to do with it."
Yelena nodded to herself in understanding as silence befell the group once more. Around every tree root, weed, bush, shrub, they followed Redwing further into the trees with only the low whistle of wind to carry the sound of snapping twigs beneath their feet. It wasn't a silence that sat particularly well with her.
Glancing to the side as she hopped over another uplifted tree root and avoided a patch of what looked incredibly close to poison ivy, Yelena looked to Bucky out of the corner of her eye. As always and to none of her surprise, a stoic expression had settled over his face, cogs turning in that cyborg-brain that never seemed to quite shut off.
A small part of her couldn't fully blame him. Having gone from one fight to the next for nearly ninety years must have left a toll if the look in his eyes was anything to go by. Though they scanned the area around him and shot up at the rustle of leaves in the distance every once in a while, she could tell they were unfocused and something was bothering him again. Tense shoulders, unfocused eyes - there were other aspects to her Widow training that weren't terrible to know.
This time she was pretty sure he hadn't stashed a bottle of vodka back in the jeep, otherwise she would have gladly turned back to grab it.
"You're positive though we're not hiking all the way to Canada?" she mused, ducking under a low branch that hung in their path.
"Just about another half a mile or so," Sam replied. "Redwing's starting to pick up signal the farther we're going."
He wasn't lying; his metal bird had picked up their pace since they first started their little hike. It seemed it was just as anxious to get there and get it over with as much as she was.
"You don't like hiking much?" he asked, turning to glance at her.
"I once spent an entire day walking from the middle of nowhere to the outskirts of St. Petersburg," Yelena replied. "The bonus between the two is at least I have mildly decent company now. Emphasis on mildly."
"Red Room business?" Bucky said it more as a statement rather than a question. She gave a firm shake of her head as she recalled the memory all too clearly.
"You two aren't the only ones fond of breaking people out of prisons," she scoffed, more so to herself at the constant nagging Alexei had put them through. "My sister and I needed a lead to the Red Room, so we figured there wasn't much of a choice other than breaking Russia's one and only super soldier out of prison. We got half-way out to about the middle of nowhere in a dinged up jet before the fuel in our plane ran out. From there…"
Yelena trailed off and let out a high-pitched whistle. It gradually got lower as she imitated a crash landing with her arms, accompanied by a few extra explosion sounds. It took her a moment before she realized Sam had stopped to turn and look at her, his gaze questioning and eyes hopeful.
"Wait, what did you just say?"
Her brows furrowed in slight confusion as she asked, "Say what?"
"The guy you broke out of prison," he clarified. "He was a super soldier?"
"Yes, he was incredibly fond of telling everybody that detail," Yelena scoffed. It dawned on her that Sam hadn't been present when she reviewed the story to Bucky. Knowing he wasn't about to drop this without a bit of background, she released a heavy sigh and continued.
"Apparently he was given the Soviet Union's version of the serum and took on the name the 'Red Guardian'. The rest of his supposed glory days were spent doing who knows what and who knows where, but at one point he and Dreykov apparently became as close as brothers. That's
how he found himself deployed on another mission within the United States to infiltrate the North Institute of S.H.I.E.L.D. - or what would have been Hydra at the time."
Yelena glanced in Bucky's direction again, but no emotion flitted across his face. The stoic super soldier waited for her to continue with nothing more than a momentary glance down.
"After he had been compromised in Ohio, he and Dreykov had some sort of falling out and he found his ass right back in one of the Russian prisons. Or that was the case until the entire thing was buried beneath a hundred feet of snow. As of now, I expect he's lying low."
"How…how do you know this?" Sam asked, surprise written across his face.
"Before I was inducted into the Red Room, I was given to a staged family who lived in a small town out in Ohio," she shrugged, forcing her voice to keep steady. She watched as Sam's eyes widened with understanding. "I was Alexei's youngest daughter. Or that's the role I was given to play."
Yelena tried to avoid the memory as best she could, but she knew there was nothing that would directly erase it. Their "family reunion" at Melina's had been nothing short of a disaster, and their conversation at their first dinner had shredded her heart. Nothing about their family had been real, not even down to the blood that ran through their veins. It broke her heart to hear it out loud then, and the ache in her chest grew with the memory of it.
But that had been before the Red Room tumbled out of the sky like a paper airplane, and before Natasha really called her her sister. It had been before she knew that while the show they had put up on display was fake, the bond she had created with her family wasn't. With her sister Natasha. With her mother Melina. And on a good day, with her father Alexei.
"You said he's still around, right?" Sam checked, exchanging a glance with Bucky. Yelena followed the look and already knew his next question. She knew she was going to regret it.
"Laying low and probably turning more into a pig by the minute," she sighed with a small shrug. "Where exactly, I have no idea."
"Is there any way you could reach out to him?"
"I'm sure there's a way."
"We need all the help we can get," Bucky exclaimed, glancing over his shoulder in the direction Redwing was still pointed. "Do you think he'd know anything about any other developing serums? Other buyers, scientists, whatever."
"I think you're missing the point when I say he's a moron," Yelena replied, cocking an eyebrow in his direction. "One that's full of himself too as an extra bonus."
"So you're positive he would have nothing?" Sam clarified. "He wouldn't even know of anyone that might give us another lead?"
Of course he knew of someone. That very someone that had been the one to engineer her unwilling subjection into Widow training. A radical genius, and a mother nonetheless.
"There is someone," she said carefully. "An ex-Widow, the best in her field. She had also been at Dreykov's right-hand for quite some time before the entire operation went down. She's actually one of the very reasons the Red Room is nothing more than a scrap yard. But if anyone knew anything about mind-control or physical enhancement serums in undercover agencies, it's Melina."
"You know her personally too?"
"My mother, actually."
Sam nodded, seemingly unsurprised at the fact. "And he could reach out to her?"
"They could be together right now for all I know," Yelena exclaimed, kicking a stick into a nearby brush. Sam opened his mouth again to ask the question she knew she was going to regret agreeing to later, and she held out a hand to cut him short. "But yes. And I already know what you're going to say; it might take me a day or two, but I should be able to get to him through a phone call at the very least."
He and Bucky exchanged their secret-coded glance again, but she could see the posture in his shoulders had relaxed just a bit. Reaching out to Alexei might not get them anywhere, but it was a chance at a lead all the same.
"You think he'll actually be willing to help?" Bucky asked, his tone skeptical. After everything she had previously told him, she wasn't surprised in the least.
Her adopted father was many things, but humble and cooperative were not high on the list.
"If it means he has an excuse to gloat about his super soldier days, I'm sure he'll spill anything," she drawled. "A fair warning that he isn't the humble type, nor quite as gentlemanly as Bucky here."
Sam snorted and turned back to their waiting tour guild. Redwing started up their pace again when they were close enough and continued on their way through the forest, an almost reassuring feeling having fallen over the group. Yelena wasn't even sure if her adopted father would be willing to say anything about a supposed serum - although she had no doubt he wouldn't mind spilling the details on the one he was given.
"You're sure you'll be able to get to Alexei?" Bucky muttered beside her after a few minutes of nothing but the sound of their footsteps. Sam remained a few steady paces in front of them, but she kept in time with her partner.
"I think you sometimes forget that I used to be a Widow," Yelena replied. "One of the sole purposes of our training was finding the people who didn't want to be found."
"You know that's not what I meant," he shot back, stepping over another up-turned root.
"I do, but I don't think you understand how easy or entertaining it is to mess with you."
She did her best to hide the smirk begging to make its way across her face as he shot her an icy glare, blue eyes boring into the side of her head as she kept her gaze forward.
Their steps slowed as Redwing finally came to a hovered halt, a quiet beep sounding from its metallic body. In one swift movement, it swerved back around to Sam's winged backpack and tucked itself away with a small click. Dead ahead of them through a thick brush of trees, Yelena could make out the discolored outline of a rotting building.
"Entry point?" Yelena asked, the air suddenly shifting around her. Her moment of peace was gone as she remembered where and who she was - another mission, another target. She wondered if the feeling would ever truly go away.
Sam didn't answer immediately as he looked back and forth across the area before him, fingers pressed against the side of his goggles. "I'm not picking up any heat signatures, but it looks like we get our pick of the litter. There's at least five warehouses back there."
"Check the centralized one first," she caught herself saying as they slowly began to approach the edge of the tree line. "Perimeter?"
"Still clear."
The three remained silent as they made their way forward. By the time there was nothing between them underneath the cover of the forest and the ghost town of warehouses before them, Yelena was able to decipher the supposed layout.
What had once likely been a bustling activity of shipments coming and going was now nothing but a ghost town, the sheets of metal over the roof decaying with rust and the wilderness having taken over a majority of the walls. Three were visible from their angle, but she had no doubt there were more back there.
When Sam gave her and Bucky a small nod, she extracted the pistol from her waist band and moved out of the tree line and towards one of the alleys jutting between each of the buildings. She followed close behind her partners as they moved in carefully, glancing in every direction and around every corner that they took. It remained a ghost town until they got to the center warehouse, just as beat up and abandoned as the rest of them.
Though the tire tracks leading towards the back entryway embedded into the mud seemed a bit more than new.
Yelena kept her gun down by her side with her thumb over the safety and a finger on the trigger. Staying low, she crept across the path between the two buildings and ducked beneath one of the windows. Her partners came up along either side of her, though one glance up at the quiet hum above her head told her their tour guild was back.
"What now?" she whispered, glancing along the length of the wall.
"We'll see if this lead is a bust or not," Sam mumbled. Looking down at his wrist bracer again, Yelena watched as Redwing took off down the length of the wall and disappeared around the corner. The built-in screen showed it all as he hovered beside the wide doorway that was missing the designated door. The tire tracks left behind a muddy path as they disappeared inside.
Redwing was quick to follow them as he ducked through the doorway and flew up towards the metal ceiling beams. By the looks of them, Yelena was honestly surprised they didn't give away when the drone tucked itself into a far corner. The camera she assumed was attached to its back scanned the length and floor layout of the building, giving her heart an extra drive of adrenaline if this was the day she was going to have to put her Widow training to use again.
With a single beep, Sam released a sigh of what could have been relief. "No heat signatures. We're in the clear."
Even with the reassurance that they were alone, Yelena still kept her stance down and her body tucked against the side of the building. She noticed both of her partners followed suit until they made it around the corner and through the entryway.
Yelena really hadn't known what to expect if the outside was any give away. The walls were just as infested with grime, dirt, and dust from decades of no usage, and she was now mildly positive the ceiling was holding itself up on luck alone. But despite the rickety structure of metal and brick, the concrete floor was mainly cleared away - if not for what might have been its first purpose if the old storage crates lining one of the walls was anything to go by.
Or maybe for the corner protected by a layer of plastic sheets and the many various sized containers scattered around the warehouse.
She glanced to the side to see Bucky eyeing it with just as much suspicion. She figured something in that cyborg brain of his could tell when he was being watched, and he turned and met her gaze with a slight nod. Yelena returned it with one of her own and carefully approached the corner, hand still tightly wrapped around her pistol.
As she snatched the covering aside and poked her head in, she released a slow breath. "I wouldn't quite call this a bust."
Stacked in neat rows against one another, she eyed the pristine shelving units lined with everything she would have expected. Crates and containers with dozens of viles inside, a collection of gas tanks lined against the covered walls, multiple tables stacked on top of each other, each shelf brimming with more and more supplies all designated for chemical experiments. She even caught sight of a few lab suits discarded on top of their designated container. There was no doubt someone had been there not long before them, but as Yelena stepped through the plastic curtain and took a quick turn about the supplies crates, her forehead creased in confusion.
"Odd," she mumbled to herself. The plastic curtain creased behind her as her partner followed her inside, and his footsteps hung in the air as he stopped to inspect one of the crates.
"What is?"
She double-checked herself as she pulled a glass vile from its casing and ran it between her fingers. "Why have an entire supply unit deliver lab equipment…when you don't even have the chemicals or serum-starter to do anything?"
Yelena returned the vile to the shelf as she turned to look at Bucky. A frown marred his features as he circled the crates and shelves, the same question hiding behind a pair of striking blue eyes. They suddenly turned on her as he opened his mouth to say something.
"Find anything interesting?"
Another voice echoed along the walls of the warehouse, bouncing back into the sound of Sam's wing pack powering back down as he landed just outside the covered corner. Yelena's eyes shot to the entrance as the grip around her pistol tightened again. She spared herself a glance in Bucky's direction as she stepped towards the opening.
A dark look had settled over his face as his usually warming, blue eyes turned to a blistering cold. She didn't miss the way his shoulders set or how he flexed his fingers out to refrain from curling them into a fist. Bucky set his jaw and strode forward to join her at the entrance.
Whoever it was certainly wasn't a friend.
Pushing the curtain aside with the head of her gun, Yelena took slow and calculated steps back out into the clearing. Following Sam's gaze, she forced her face to remain stoic as she came to stand beside him.
Across from them on the other end of the warehouse, a group of four operatives slowly made their way forward, one of them taking the opportunity to step up in front of the rest of them. Even with the new costume and an odd glint to his eyes, Yelena couldn't help but think the man approaching them looked all too familiar.
"It's been a while, Walker," Bucky exclaimed, nodding his head to gesture at the dark uniform cladding him from helmet to toe. "You changed the look."
There it was.
There was no second-guessing herself now why her partner had looked ready to punch a hole in the wall at the sound of an old enemy's voice. John Walker, previously the "new" Captain America, had made quite a spectacle of himself from what she had seen in the news. Killing a man on foreign ground, with his shield no less in a crowded courtyard, hadn't blown over so well with the American government. In less than a month after the incident, he had been revoked of his previous title and the country was left without a symbolic hero. That was until Sam took up the shield and the responsibility.
For what it was worth, she had no complaints. If anyone were to have been the next Captain America, she was now thankful it was him.
"The shield didn't work out so well for me," he replied with a small tilt to his head. "I see you've made quite an upgrade, too."
Neither Sam nor Bucky responded to him. Almost as if realizing he had made some kind of rude mistake, Walker quickly cleared his throat and stopped to glance back at the four operatives still standing behind him. "My apologies, we didn't get introductions in order."
Yelena's mind cleared even as the previous Captain began listing off their names, accompanied by a hand gesture with each. She didn't listen to a single word as she scanned them over, each apparently weaponless with nothing to reach for in the event of a quick attack.
Bullshit.
Three boys, each no more than late twenties, stood at the ready. The boy farthest to the back was by far the tallest, dark hair falling in front of his face that he flicked out of the way with a quick breath. Despite his skinny frame, she could tell just by his stance he was ready to throw some punches into the mix when the time came.
The older boy next to him, practically identical in eye color and golden-brown skin, threw her a small grin. Even if it was meant as a "friendlier" gesture, she could see the warning behind the look they gave her.
Her gaze finally came to settle on the last operative of the group. She didn't even have to look him over to know he was going to be trouble. Between a shade of shaggy, brown hair brushing over his face and a rather sad excuse for a try at facial hair, Yelena didn't miss the way his eyes traveled up and down her figure in a slow and nearly taunting sort of way. The leering smirk he threw in for extra bonus points forced her to keep the pistol steady at her side instead of pointing it right at his head.
"Look, we get why you're here," Walker sighed, sounding almost exasperated that they had to come through all the trouble. "Some super secret underground serum trade or some sort of bullshit you think is going on over here, right? Things really don't need to get messy."
Her fingers were precise and careful as she reached for the strap at her thigh. Making sure each of the operatives eyes were occupied elsewhere, she slipped the small throwing knife into her palm and kept it concealed behind her leg. Shaking her head, she met Walker's fiery gaze.
If she didn't know better, a fight was exactly what he came for. It seemed a bit over do.
"Things always get a bit messy," she snapped, her grip tightening around the weapon's handle.
"Thought you might say that," he nodded. As soon as the words slipped out, two of the boys started forward and took off in a sprint in their direction. Her partners met them half-way.
Propelling his fist forward, Yelena momentarily paused as she watched Bucky take on the first few swings, followed by a few of his own. Despite the boy's skinnier physique, he was light on his feet and knew how to dodge a punch. A punch, yes, but a kick to the stomach…more or less.
As Sam busied himself with his own combat partner, Yelena's eye caught a swift form darting between the two's fight. In all due time, the operative that hadn't tried to hide his appreciation for her new uniform stood in front of her, his eyes once again seemingly trying to travel on their own accord.
"So…you're the little spider she wants?" he drawled, taking slow steps forward. It felt like a predator stalking its prey - only it didn't know the prey had a loaded electric shocker attached to its wrist.
"Or the only one she can get her hands on," Yelena shot back, her eyes almost burning a hole through his thick head. "She'll have anyone at this point, seeing as you're the one she had to settle for."
His smirk faded back into a sneer as his eyes shot back to her face. His stare not wavering from hers, he took his chance and lunged forward.
Knowing full well what his first move was going to be, Yelena stepped to the side in one swift movement. His momentum continued to take him forward as his eyes widened with the sudden realization that this wasn't an easy fight he picked.
They followed the path of her fist hurling towards his face. Ducking at the last second, his hand shot up and gripped her forearm to a bruising extent. In the same moment, Yelena saw the opening she needed and put her bodyweight forward.
His grip still firm, she kicked her legs forward up from beneath her and twisted her body halfway over his shoulder. He released a grunt of pain as he hit the concrete floor, Yelena following him.
Rolling to the side, she glanced back to see his eyes in a livid craze. Her operative pushed himself into a sitting position and tried to get to his feet. Yelena didn't hesitate.
Her foot met with the back of his arm as she kicked a leg out, knocking him off balance. Swiveling in place, and before he could comprehend rising to his feet, her leg came around and landed a blow to the side of his head. He stumbled onto his back with a small groan.
A small, bruising cut appeared just above his eyebrow and his face pulled back into a grimace. She hadn't even used her throwing knife yet and there was already blood. Sure she could land the final blow to get one more operative out of the way, Yelena lunged forward to land the final punch.
She released a pained grunt as two hands shot forward and held her shoulders in place. Gripping the underside of his arms as his hands continued to squeeze tighter and tighter to her collarbones, Yelena looked up and met his gaze. The raw, livid glint was still there, but that same leering curiosity had returned. Holding her tightly in place to the point she could barely try and struggle, she didn't miss the way his eyes began to travel again.
That simply wouldn't do.
Balancing her weight back onto her heels, Yelena clenched her teeth as she leaned back and tucked herself into a ball. With him practically on top of her now, she extended her feet out in a solid blow to his gut and followed the motion of her momentum. He went flying over her head and directly onto his back once again, if the growl of frustration was anything to go by.
Quickly rolling back into a low stance, the operative across from her mirrored her movements. He took the first swing again, lunging forward with a solid movement. Ducking beneath it, her fist shot up and did the same. He grunted and brought a hand to his jaw, shocked at the force behind it.
His head was thrown back as Yelena threw another punch into the mix, this one landing with a solid crack to his nose. The operative stumbled back, his eyes seeming glazed and suddenly uneasy. A brief moment of satisfaction washed over Yelena as she wound up for the final blow to knock him down. His forearm came up at the last second to block it.
Her eyes widened as she felt his grip on her other arm. She didn't have time to comprehend her next move as he whipped her around so her back was to him, one arm twisted and caged in behind her.
His other arm shot around and closed itself over her throat, pulling her against him as her hand shot forward to try to relieve the pressure from her neck. Gritting her teeth to keep herself from audibly struggling and choking, she barely held back a wince as she bit the inside of her cheek.
The taste of blood quickly flooded her tongue as she continued to fight against him.
Ahead of her, she could see her two partners still lost in the fight. Sam swung and missed at one of the other operatives and was met with a kick to the chest. Flying backwards, and a flash of metal later, he avoided rolling over himself and took off from the ground, his wings glinting against the dim lighting through the windows.
Her other partner was still engaged, ducking and dodging incoming punches. When the boy attempted a kick to throw him off balance, Bucky simply stepped back and went in for a kick of his own. Yelena swore she heard the crack of the operative's rib bones as the boy was thrown backwards and hit the concrete with a solid thud, followed by an all too obvious grimace.
"You see," the operative still holding her in a choke hold hissed into her ear. "We would have loved to have you on the team, little spider. We could have had so much fun…."
As his voice trailed off in obvious delight of whatever sick fantasy he had envisioned, she felt his grip on her arm still caught behind her back tighten.
"Flattery's never really worked on me," she bit out through clenched teeth.
Trying to keep the grip on her throwing knife, Yelena growled with frustration as she felt his fingers curl against hers and ripped the weapon out of her grasp. She gasped for another breath of air as his arm tightened around her throat, momentarily blocking her airway. It wouldn't be long before she started seeing stars.
The moment she felt his hand graze the back of her thigh, Yelena finally came back to her senses and threw her head back with as much force as she could muster. There was a satisfying crack followed by a loud yelp of pain.
The hold around her neck loosened enough for her to throw his arm off from around her. Stepping forward, Yelena twisted her body back around to face him, her arm still firmly held in his grip. Yanking it to bring herself forward, her knee followed with the momentum and went straight for the area just between his legs.
Finally releasing her arm, he doubled over with an audible groan and held his hands in front of it for further protection. It gave her the perfect window to finish the job, and taking his head in her hands, she slightly brought it up, and slammed it back down into her knee.
Barely able to take so much as a step back, the operative crumpled to the ground with a muffled cry. Tilting his head towards the ceiling, Yelena felt content with her final work as his eyes rolled back into his head and his body slumped to the side: a broken nose that had splattered blood all along down the side of his face, a blooming red bruise across his jaw, and a swelling spot just above his eyebrow that was already beginning to turn different colors.
And that was just from what she could see.
"Для ублюдка, который ни хрена не смыслит в манерах, ты ужасно болтлив," Yelena muttered, feeling the reminisce of his grip on her shoulders already settling in.
Snatching the knife away from his limp hands, Yelena rolled her shoulders back with a wince. She swallowed a gulp of air and tried to get her breathing back under control. Her throat was nearly throbbing, and bruising wasn't even a question on her mind.
Still, it was only one down, and they still had three to go.
Slipping her knife back into its holster, Yelena took a running start back into the heat of battle. Bucky, still facing off with the boy she had seen earlier, glanced in her direction for a brief moment. Apparently taking note that her situation had been taken care of, he gave her a small nod and focused his attention back on the operative.
Yelena didn't slow her pace as she came up from behind him, and he hadn't taken any notice of her. Lunging for Bucky again with what could have been called a battle cry, Bucky side-stepped and landed one final blow to his chest. The operative stumbled back and nearly lost his footing; Yelena decided to help him on his way down.
Wrapping one arm around his neck, Yelena used the momentum and swung her legs up to twist herself around. Before he could even process the shock of her attack, she ducked down and spun one of her legs out from underneath her, whipping his legs up from underneath him.
He groaned as his head met with the back of the concrete, and his face scrunched in pain.
"Your welcome," she muttered to her partner, blowing a loose strand of hair out of her face and briefly catching Bucky's look of mild surprise.
Yelena didn't have time to wonder if she had done serious damage before he was at it again. Glancing up at him, she noticed he wasn't holding back as he threw punch after punch in Walker's direction. The old Captain dodged each one, but couldn't duck away in time for the blow to his cheek.
Stepping back with a low chuckle, Walker shook his head and glared up at her partner. His eyes briefly darted in her direction, and if she hadn't believed he was missing a few bolts before, there was no doubt about it now.
"Just hand her over and this can all be over," he growled, his voice giving way to a warning and a threat. " We don't want you or Wilson. You know this isn't worth it."
Not seeming too pleased at Walker's choice of words, Bucky's eyes narrowed in on him as he took a step forward, ready for the next pick of the fight. All three of them froze as something was thrown backwards beside them and crashed through a stack of old crates near the lab space. Dust exploded into the air with a dim groan and a few short coughs.
Not something, but someone.
Sam landed again a few feet away from them, his chest heaving as he glanced between his partners and the boy he had just thrown across the room. By the looks of it, he hadn't been too thrilled about it.
One operative behind them bloody and battered, another trying to get back to his feet as he cradled the back of his head, and the final one buried beneath decades of old crates. The last one standing was Walker - and he certainly didn't look in the mood to talk.
"It's over," Bucky said, his tone dropping down. "And trust me - it was worth it."
Though it was meant as a warning, Yelena looked away and tried to focus on any of the other operatives in the room. This mission was meant to retrieve intel on what Valentina had in mind for her future hires, and it so happened to string her into the mess of things. She reassured herself he meant it only in that way, and nothing more.
"I thought you'd say that," Walker grumbled.
Yelena watched in mild astonishment as the leering operative she had left unconscious stumbled to his feet, tripping over his own two legs and, if she didn't know otherwise, looking incredibly drunk as he attempted to run towards the main entrance of the warehouse. What looked like as fast as he could manage, he turned his mangled face towards them and shot a heated glare in her direction. It took everything in her not to smirk and wave back.
His gaze traveled down to his partner still struggling to get to his feet off the floor, and his glare turned murderous.
Yelena tore her eyes away from him first and looked back at her two partners. In what seemed to be a flash of realization, Sam's eyes practically lit up beneath his goggles as his head swiveled back to the operative he had sent flying through the air.
Gritting his teeth together, she heard a hissed "shit" before he and Bucky made a move towards the corner designated to their stashed lab equipment. Yelena's brows drew together in confusion as she watched them sprint towards the corner while the operative she thought had been buried beneath the old crates darted out to follow his partner.
It all clicked a second too late.
An earsplitting BOOM that felt like it had shook the earth to its core resonated through the warehouse as the corner erupted in flames and Yelena was swept off her feet.
Hey readers,
I was not expecting to get this much done today, but as I have been bedridden for the last 24 hours with the stomach flu, I was able to get caught up on some writing and this is what came of it!
I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and the first fight sequence of more to come! Also, I'm wishing every one of you a happy and healthy new year!
And, as always, have a wonderful morning, afternoon, evening, or night!
-Summerwinds