"Are you sure you don't want to see Peter?" Wanda asked her sister.

It seemed like after Alya got her memories back, she had been avoiding the subject altogether. It was like she couldn't be bothered and that worried Wanda.

Alya and Peter used to be inseparable and now the former wanted nothing to do with him. Wanda had no clue what was going on between the two, but she was going to find out.

"No. I never wanna see him again." Alya huffed, changing the channel from Sesame Street.

They had been forced to watch Sesame Street all morning and quite frankly, Alya was sick of it. Now she knew how Wanda felt whenever she had forced her to watch Curious George.

"Hey! I was watching that!" Nate whined, a pout gracing his face as he reached for the remote only to have his cousin push him away and hold it out of his reach.

He was used to this sort of thing from his siblings, but Alya was different. She was always so nice to him and they got along great.

Even he could see that she was acting strange.

"So?" Alya quipped just to get on his nerves, watching his face grow red as tears flew down his face.

"Alyona, put the tv back on what Nate was watching." Bucky's voice rang in her ears. "You know better."

"Fine." Alya handed Nate the remote, crossing her arms with a pout of her own.

This totally wasn't fair. First her mother scolded her and now she couldn't get away from Big Bird. Not that she didn't like Big Bird, she had nothing against the yellow feathered muppet, but she was tired of seeing him.

"Come over here, please." Her father called from his place in the kitchen.

He was busy washing some dishes from breakfast. Tony always made fun of him for not using the dishwater, but back in the forties, they didn't have any. Washing dishes by hand was so much more satisfying than listening to the racket that dishwasher always made while it was running.

"Ooh, you're in trouble." Wanda teased lightly, trying to get the girl to lighten up.

Alya raised her arm to hit her sister, but caught the look that her father was giving her and thought twice about it. Instead, she pushed her head before making her way to the kitchen.

"What's goin' on, Pal?" Bucky asked once she was close enough.

"Nothing." Alya grumbled, digging her boot covered toe into the tiled floor to avoid looking at him.

"You're missing Peter?"

"No!" She snapped without meaning to.

Her nostrils were flared and she looked like she was ready to pounce.

"Hey." The man cocked a brow at her audacity. "Watch it. We're just talking."

"Can I go now?" She fought not to roll her eyes.

"Not yet. I know that you're not feeling your best right now and I'm sorry about that, but that doesn't mean you get pick on Nate to make yourself feel better. That's not nice."

"Wanda keeps making fun of me." Alya tattled.

If she was going to get in trouble for picking on Nate, then she was going to get Wanda in trouble for messing with her.

It was only fair.

"Then either tell me or ignore her. Don't hit, she's going to hit you back and I'm going to pretend like I didn't see anything." He warned.

"What can I hit?"

"Your pillow."

"That's not fun."

The whole idea behind hitting, was to get a reaction. If Alya hit Wanda, then Wanda usually would retaliate in some kind of way.

A pillow couldn't respond.

And it wasn't hard enough either.

"I'm sorry you feel that way. Go watch tv or read a book."

Alya muttered something under her breath that Bucky ignored. If he chose to dignify it with a response, he would only escalate the preteen wasn't too happy about his lack of retaliation, but walked back over to the couch all the same, pinching Wanda's arm once she sat down.

"Ow!"

Alya smiled in satisfaction at her sister's reaction, reaching over to pinch her again. Messing with her was so easy and it was so fun.

"Alyona?" Bucky narrowed his eyes. "What did I just tell you?"

"I didn't hit!" She smiled sweetly at her father, kneeling on the couch to face him. "I pinched!"

"Keep your hands to yourself. I'm not going to tell you again."

While the younger girl was distracted, Wanda pinched her right back, grabbing her ear, but she didn't let go.

Actually, she twisted a little.

"Ow, Wanda!" Alya squealed, as she leaned in close and tried to pry the girl's fingers off of her ear. "I didn't pinch you that hard! Let go!"

Her face crunched up in pain and her eyes squeezed shut. When she tried to push herself away, her sister only tightened her grip and forced her to stop and move in her direction.

"See how it feels?" Wanda taunted as their father did exactly what he said he was going to do. "Are you gonna stop?"

She hated to admit it, but this felt really satisfying. Alya was always getting on her nerves and she rarely ever did anything about it.

This was a nice change in pace.

"Yes!" Alya was willing to say just about anything to get Wanda to quit it. Her sister had a much stronger grip than she remembered. She was practically on the older girl's lap with how she was trying to relieve the pain. "Ow!"

"Are you sure?" Wanda asked, looking down at her. "Or do you need a few minutes to think about it?"

She swore that as time went on, Alya was just getting worse and worse. The twelve year old used to be so sweet and empathetic, and now she was just...nasty.

"Wanda, stop it." Bucky spoke after several more seconds. He allowed Wanda to defend herself, but he wasn't going to let things get too far.

Alya sniffled when her sister reluctantly let her go. Her hand flew up to her ear, which was red hot by now and her eyes watered. She raised her free hand to hit her sister, but Wanda grabbed her and leaned in to whisper something in her ear.

Neither Nate nor Bucky heard anything the teen said, but from the look on Alya's face, it was nothing pleasant.

When Wanda let her up, Alya began to cry, still massaging her ear.

"Alyona, don't even start." Bucky pointed a finger at her. She wasn't getting any sympathy from him. "I told you to cut it out and you didn't listen. Deal with it."

Alya whined, sliding off the couch to stomp her way to her room, slamming the door behind herself.

It was only morning, but she could already tell that today wasn't going to be a very good day.

"Did Alya tell you what she was up to last night?" Yelena asked her older sister.

She wasn't surprised when the redhead showed up on her floor that morning. For one thing, she didn't tell Natasha when she got home, so she knew that her sister was upset about that. And for another, she had a feeling that Alya told her what happened the night before.

"She did." Natasha nodded, grabbing a chip from the bowl Yelena put out. "She said you were fighting with Clint and that new friend of hers. Care to explain?"

When she found out that Yelena was home and she didn't say anything, she wanted to wring her little neck. But after a few hours of consideration, she decided that her sister was an adult and she had tough decisions to make.

Maybe this was one of them.

"Before the snap….I had to find work, so I did what I was trained to do. I'm not proud of it, but someone called and wanted me to eliminate Barton. She wants him gone because of his time as Ronin. Of course, I wasn't going to do it, but I did warn him."

Natasha muttered something under her breath with a shake of her head.

She knew that Clint's past was going to catch up with him. Those five years without his wife and his kids really messed him up.

"Did you have to fight with him?" She rolled her eyes.

"That was the fun part." Yelena scoffed.

Just because she was a changed person, didn't mean she had to be a boring person.

"What do you know about Kate Bishop? Alya's taken a liking to her, but I'm not so sure this is a good idea."

Natasha knew that once Alya decided she liked someone, that was the end of it. But she didn't trust this 'Kate'. What was her motive? Why did she think it was appropriate to by candy for a child she didn't know?

Did someone send her?

"Kate Bishop, twenty-two year old senior in college." Yelena rattled off. "She's double majoring, has a pretty high GPA, and is very skilled in archery. Clint is her favorite Avenger, she's naive and reckless, but she's a good kid. How did she and the baby meet?"

"Alya says she found her outside of the m&m store and offered to get her some candy." Natasha smirked when Yelena's face darkened.

"Did we not teach her not to take candy from strangers? You need to have a talk with her Natka. I'm going to be honest with you, she is out of control."

"I know." Natasha ran a hand over her face. "She's been spiraling. We don't really know what to do."

"You know what to do." Yelena deadpanned. "You're just too afraid to do it. That's why she runs all over you two. You're more upset at me for not telling you I was home than you are at the baby for sneaking out for the millionth time in a row. Priorities, Natka."

"Hungry?"

Alya grumbled something under her breath, remaining on her stomach as she chose not to face her father, who had just entered the room.

It was so nice of him to knock.

Alya swore that most of the time, everyone just barged in her room, which wasn't actually the case, but she was upset right now and she wasn't thinking clearly.

"Rough day, huh?"

"What do you care?" She asked, her chin resting on her forearms.

"Of course I care." Bucky furrowed his brows.

If this was a preview to Alya's teen years, then they were all in for a wild ride.

"No, you don't." Alya huffed.

"Try me. What's got you this upset?"

She took a deep breath and tried to think about what was actually making her mad, but she couldn't come up with anything.

"Mama." Is what she decided to say.

"The talk the two of you had last night?" Bucky guessed, sitting down beside her. "Well, I don't know what to tell you, Alya. Listen and you won't have a problem."

"I do listen." Alya huffed, flopping onto her back.

"Really?" Bucky raised a brow. "So you were listening when you snuck out of the house after we told you not to? Were you listening when we told you not to talk to people you don't know?"

Alya didn't have a response for that, but she did cross her arms to let him know that what he said struck a nerve.

Okay, so maybe she did have a little problem with following instructions, but it wasn't like she was out of control.

….Right?

"I think you already know the answer to that." Her father continued. "I know it's a big change, because your mom and I have been letting you get away with a lot of things that we shouldn't have."

He could admit that he and Natasha shouldered a lot of the blame for the way Alya was now. Though Wanda was older, Alya was their first child. Bucky half-raised his sisters, but having a child of his own was very, very different. Natasha helped with Yelena when they were kids, but this just wasn't the same thing. They both were bound to make some mistakes during the learning process.

"Why?" Alya asked, becoming a little more willing to have a conversation.

"Well, I think because your mom was really rattled by the Snap and she thinks part of it is her fault, she's feeling guilty, so she's been making her decisions based off of that."

Assuaging guilt was horrible way to parent, but Natasha wasn't doing it on purpose. Between the Red Room and the Snap, she was swimming in her own guilt. She didn't want to do anything that would upset Alya too much and she was terrified of traumatizing her any further than she already was.

She talked a big game, but deep down, she was soft.

"What about you?"

"I have my own set of….things to work on. Sometimes, that meant I was too afraid to hurt you and I couldn't be the kind of father I needed to be for you, but I've worked through a lot of it and I'm in a much better frame of mind."

Bucky still struggled a little with what Hydra did to him, but being surrounded by family and having stability was working wonders for him.

Alya only sighed and rested her chin on her knees in deep thought.

Those were pretty good points, but that didn't mean that she was going to be 100% receptive right now.

"Still upset?"

"Yeah."

"That's okay." He stroked her hair. "I'll leave you alone to think about it."

"Your mother says to come out for dinner." Yelena entered Alya's room without so much as a knock.

Alya jumped when the woman burst into the room with no warning whatsoever. "I didn't say you could come in." She mumbled once she recovered.

Yelena just rolled her eyes and plopped down on the preteen's bed. She looked down at her niece for a moment, sitting in complete silence before she decided to say something. "You're a brat."

Alya shot up and glared at the blonde, her nostrils flaring at the insult.

Yelena had called her a brat millions of times, but this time it was different. She usually said it as a term of endearment, but now it was like she really meant it. Alya could tell by the way her aunt was glaring at her that this wasn't going to be a very pleasant conversation.

"Oh, did I hit a nerve?" Yelena raised a brow. "Good. You have been out of control. What did you think you were doing following me?"

When she realized Alya had followed her, she almost turned around and strangled her. Why did she think it was okay to do things like this? Why couldn't she just follow simple instructions?

"Nothing." Alya shrugged. "I just wanted to see what you were doing."

Curiosity killed the cat...

"What I do is none of your business. I don't want you following me around and I don't need your help. Your mama and your daddy don't want to hurt your feelings, but I don't care very much for useless sentiments. You are twelve years old, not twenty-five. Twelve. Act your age."

Alya lowered her head as her aunt verbally dressed her down, thankful that no one else was in the room. If anyone was going to tell her the truth, it would be Yelena.

"I don't care about how strong you think you are, or how sneaky you believe yourself to be. This is not Hydra and this is not the Red Room. Little girls do not go out and put themselves in danger here. You are not invincible. If you keep this up, you are going to get hurt."

"But I can take care of myself."

"But you're not going to." Yelena wasn't even going to argue with her about that. "What you are going to do, is drop this new attitude and stop terrorizing everyone around you, because if you don't fix it, that means I will. I don't want that to happen, do you?"

"No." Alya vigorously shook her head.

"Then cut it out." Yelena wasn't afraid of scarring Alya for life, so she was much tougher on her than her parents were. At first, it annoyed her, but after a while, she learned to accept her role and fell right into it. "Do you understand me, Alyona?"

"Yes, Tetushka." Alya bit back tears that she knew wouldn't work in her favor.

"Good. Come here." The blonde pulled her in for a hug, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

She couldn't just sit by and watch her niece destroy herself. If that meant that she needed to get mean, then that's exactly what she would do.

She loved her way too much to do nothing. Which was ironic considering that when she and Alya met, they couldn't stand one another.

But now, Yelena didn't know what she'd do without her.