Chapter Forty-Two
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"It's a long story," Natasha said before I could respond.

"Well," Yelena threw up her hands, gesturing to the space around us. The crawlspace within the HVAC system was cramped and filled with bits of graffiti here and there, and was rife with dust and grime. With Taskmaster still roving somewhere below, there was nowhere else to go. "We're not leaving here anytime soon."

"Well, I'm definitely not no—" I began to reply, just as Natasha leaned over, grabbed my nose between two fingers, and wrenched the broken cartilage back into place "— Ow!"

I ripped myself away from her, clutching my sore face, as Natasha sat back again, looking satisfied. "There. Can't let it sit longer than an hour or it'll heal crooked."

"You could've given me a warning!" I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut. I could taste blood in my mouth, but at least I could breathe through my nose again.

"An hour?" Yelena snorted, throwing disbelieving looks between the two of us. "Broken noses do not set that quickly."

"It does for me," I said, faster than Natasha could stop me. She threw me a look, jamming her boot heel into my leg in rebuke, but I had no guilt. I just threw her a reproachful look. "Come on, Nat, she's gonna figure it out eventually. She already knows about the Winter Soldier."

Natsaha scowled at me. Yelena squinted, pursing her lips together. "I do?"

"You saw how she fought," Natasha sighed reluctantly, rolling her head to gaze at Yelena and looking very aggravated in doing so. "You said it yourself. She fights like —"

"L-like him, yes!" Yelena went pale, shaking her head in disbelief. "But I didn't think — not even the Winter Soldier teaches us how to fight like that. And he's never had a protege, not since — well, that was a few years ago…"

Now it was Natasha's turn to look confused. "What? There was another student?"

"No," I said, resigned as I slumped back against the metal sheet behind me. I already knew what Yelena was referring to. "That was me, too."

"What was you, too?" Natasha demanded, her voice getting dangerously tense as she glared between the two of us. She hated not knowing things. It was rare that she didn't know things, I realized. It hadn't occurred to me that this would be one of them.

Yelena was beside herself in shock, gaping. "It was you, wasn't it? The Madame was so angry! I missed it all, I was on a mission at the time but — when I came back it was a total shit show —" Yelena was laughing now, though it seemed less humor and more shock and horror "— Natalia, you have never seen her this mad before, it was incredible! Seething, for weeks! And I wasn't even there for the worst of it. She completely banned the Winter Soldier from coming back, not with her."

She pointed at me, and continued, "You killed one of her spiders. Well, indirectly, but still. We all blamed it on you. Shot right through her to eliminate the target. Amazing execution, terrifying results. You were a fucking nightmare!"

I stared at her baldly and without comment while Natasha absorbed all this, closing her eyes and trying to maintain composure, even as some of the color drained from her cheeks. She held up one hand, sharply, to silence Yelena. "Mia. You went to the Red Room?"

My voice was stiff. "Not willingly."

That was all the answer Natasha needed to know. She gave me a long look, then turned to Yelena. "So then you can probably figure out the rest, hm?"

"Oh, she's a super soldier, right?" Yelena raised her eyebrows, then shrugged like it didn't bother her one bit — as if she hadn't been screaming in terror two minutes ago when I was sprinting alongside the car. "Yeah, of course. I'm not stupid. Just didn't think there would be two of them out there. Yikes."

"Yikes," I agreed, trying not to grit my teeth.

"So then I don't have to tell you how imperative it is that Taskmaster never sees her in action," Natasha added, and was met with a sarcastic look. "Don't roll your eyes at me! I'm serious! You want three of them like that?"

Yelena scowled at the floor, before finally grumbling, "No…"

"That's what I thought."

"But Taskmaster isn't a super soldier! The Winter Soldier is as effective as he is because of that. Or at least mostly. She could still kick his ass!" Yelena protested, gesturing to me. "I think this problem would be over a lot quicker if we just let our own little Winter Soldier kill whoever gets in our way!"

Natasha's voice was cold. "No."

"No?! What do you mean no? You and I both know how he operates, and if Mia, if that's even her real name, is even half as good as he is, then problem solved! Taskmaster dead! Hell, Dreykov dead! If it had been the Winter Soldier sent to kill him instead of you, I bet he would've gotten the job done right the first time—!"

"Enough, this isn't an argument!"

Yelena just scoffed. "Why pretend she's not a killer like the rest of us? Why are you protecting her?"

"I'm not protecting her!"

"Why then! Why coddle her? You've never been the type," Yelena's tone was venomous.

"Because!"

"Because what?"

Natasha snapped, "Because —!"

"Because," I cut her off, before she said something I didn't want her to. I didn't know what kind of beef Yelena and Natasha had with each other, but it was clear to me that there was some history between the two that I didn't want to get involved in. I was done being argued about like I wasn't even here. "I don't want to kill. Sure, we're all killers. But we're done taking orders. Isn't that the point?"

Yelena glared at me for a long moment, before straightening up, taking a deep inhale as she did so. Like she'd never been mad at all, the expression melted away from her face like a mask. "Of course. We belong to no one now. Not the Red Room. Not Dreykov. Not HYDRA. But that doesn't mean you get to slack off while we do all the hard work."

"She can carry her own weight," Natasha finally said, a kindly vouch for me even if she still looked miffed I'd interrupted her. I could've said anything then. Could've mentioned more relevant details, but for now Yelena knew enough.

"I've got questions, too," I added, in case Yelena thought she had a monopoly of being out of the loop. "What happened to the dead widow in the courtyard? The one with the burns on her face?"

Yelena jerked her face away, closing her eyes, as if flinching away from the sight. "We were going to free her. But Dreykov activated her self-termination protocols too quickly. If only I'd gotten to the vials fast enough…"

Natasha's hand went to her jacket, where the vials still remained safe and intact. Considering the brutal car crash into the subway station, it was a miracle we were all in one piece.

"Her leg was broken pretty badly," I said at length, sensing that Yelena might be more upset about this than she was letting on. Her clenching fists gave it away, but she released them immediately after I spoke. "And that's only what I could see. We might not have been able to do much for her anyways."

"Still! We could've — she could've died with —" Yelena stopped herself, pressing her lips together in frustration. "She was already dead. I know that. But she'd been so afraid, she knew it was happening and she couldn't do anything to stop it…"

A cold feeling settled in my gut, rock hard and nauseating. I swallowed thickly and glanced at Nat, before asking, "Well, what do we do now?"

Yelena inhaled deeply, lifting her chin as she examined the two of us. "While I thought Nat would be hunting down Dreykov, which is what she should have been doing right now instead of hunting me down —" She ignored the daggers Nat glared at her "— I was going to pursue a lead I had on some of Dreykov's inner workings. It's not enough to kill the man, but to completely dismantle his operation, so no one else will try to take it for themselves."

"Makes sense," Natasha said, nodding with one hand on her chin. "Where's his main base of operations?"

"Wish I knew," Yelena made a disgusted look. "Dreykov's careful. Even with us fully under control, he still has us rendered unconscious before entering and leaving the compound, every time. I know what it looks like on the inside. But the outside…? It could look like anything. It could be anywhere. It could be underground for all I know. All the windows seemed fake. But it was a massive complex. Not something he could hide easily, especially with a power grid."

"Impressive, considering the Madame was never able to locate it." Natasha mused.

"But you must have figured out a way to track it down," I said, leaning forward on my knees.

"I have," Yelena jerked her chin with a smug look, then faltered. "Or, well, I think I have. The place isn't self-sustaining, it needs constant shipments of supplies. Food, clothing, expensive wine, whatever it is, I don't know. But I know he has to get them in from somewhere, and they have to be received. My last mission was in Morocco. Do you remember Oksana Averina? She'd managed to defect and was going to go back to the Madame. We were sent to stop her. And Oksana freed me, she had all those vials with her."

Natasha blinked in veiled surprise. "Averina…? I haven't seen her in years."

"Yeah, well." Yelena said. "She's dead. I killed her. N-not because I wanted to, Dreykov ordered it. But she still managed to free me before she died. I tried to get to her safehouse, but it was already destroyed. So I don't know how she made it. How to make more. That's all we have."

"Duly noted."

"So Dreykov picks you up and drops you off on mission locations," I prodded when Yelena fell silent, perhaps lost in Morocco somewhere. "Is that how we trace him?"

"Something like that. Between agent transportation and supplies, it means I have something physical to track," Yelena said. "He uses large cargo boxes, that's what I've figured out so far. Unmarked, randomly assigned. Go through enough of them and you can start to find a pattern in shell companies and offshore accounts and figure out which ones are linked and which ones disappear into nothing. Those are the ones I'm following. And the closest one I've found is not far from here. Waiting for shipment at a cargo facility outside Budapest. It was where I was going to go tonight before you two ruined my day."

I was doubtful. "Are we really going to pretend Dreykov's widows were only after us, and not you too?"

"Please," Yelena sniffed, dismissive. "He wouldn't have found me if you guys hadn't led him straight to me."

"Well, sorry for saving your life," Natasha said wryly.

"I didn't need saving," Yelena snapped, and once more I felt that tension rising again, that bitter infighting that seemed more like quarreling family than old rivals. Or whatever Yelena Belova was to Nat at this point. "I could've handled it on my own. You're the one who's always screwing everything up."

I never thought Natasha would fall for that kind of bait, and yet here she was, opening her mouth to snap back. Before another fight could start, I intervened, saying, "Tonight. We can still go tonight, yeah? After we've waited out Taskmaster."

The two widows pulled back from each other, almost reluctant to avoid another spat. Yelena had the grace to look mollified, at least, shrugging one shoulder in cool disinterest. "Sure. We can try."

"Probably our best shot," Natasha also relented, folding her arms across her chest. "Wait any longer and it gives Dreykov time to move the shipment."

And for the moment, at least, all seemed calm. Much in the same way, I thought, as the world was calm during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Everyone holding their breaths, not willing to make the first move — but ready to retaliate at any moment.

This was going to be a fun day.

~o~

It was six long hours in that cramped space before it was finally safe to move again. By that point, local, state, and federal police had come in to clear the area; they never found us, nor did they seem to find Taskmaster. Which meant he was probably out of the area. The station was closed that evening, with accident clean-up and further investigation taking place. Natasha had to lead us down further tunnels in the vent system before we could wiggle our way out of there, popping up on an empty street.

Nightfall was already starting to settle, so there were few eyes to see in the darkness as three forms emerged from a vent in the ground. From there, Yelena led the way out of the city, taking long circuitous routes in case we still had any tails.

But we left the city without so much as a bat of an eye. If Dreykov's agents were still in the city, they hadn't found us yet.

The cargo facility was a large complex out in what felt like the middle of nowhere. Such a space was needed when you needed a place to put a massive amount of large shipping containers in one place, and it had its own security. Nothing unusual, mundane and easy to sneak around. But someone was definitely paying extra to arm their security personnel with guns.

The containers were stacked in a maze of rows and columns, tall enough to feel claustrophobic and easy to get lost in. Guard towers were on every corner of the facility and flashed scanning searchlights in regular patterns across whatever open patches of ground there were. The towers of containers made it relatively easy to hide from the lights, with occasional dodging around to avoid patrolmen on foot.

The ground was muddy from recent rain. The darkness and water-slick metal made it difficult to tell apart different containers. Yelena had an ID number, but no physical description, so it was a lot of scanning blurry numbers and letters high up and far away, going down lines of containers that were set to be shipped off soon — removed from the towers and set down in single file, side by side. Natasha took down a patrolling guard with a hand over his mouth and a bite to his neck, all without a sound.

"Here!" Yelena whispered not long after, standing in front of a long container, fifth in the row. She scanned the ID number painted on the door several times to make sure, but there was no other markings or documentation to indicate where it was being sent off to. "Weird. Did the guard have anything on him?"

"The manifest was pointedly vague," Natasha replied, tossing aside a metal file casing to the mud. "It only says it's to be airlifted at four In the morning tomorrow."

"Airlifted…" Yelena mused, as she examined the lock on the door. "Interesting."

"So what's the plan?" I asked after scanning the area, making sure there was no one coming around to surprise us. Although I strained my senses, there was nothing to indicate what was inside the container. I didn't know if they were airtight, but I couldn't smell much coming from it, if there was actually food of some sort inside. "We sneak in, lock ourselves inside, and wait for them to take us to Dreykov?"

"Something like that," Yelena shrugged, in a manner I thought meant she was improvising a little. "Had not gotten that far in my whole planning thing. You think you can open this, Baba Yaga?'

Both Nat and I stared at her. Yelena blinked back in surprise, and I realized she was speaking to me specifically. Then she smirked, "What, you never heard that before? That's what everyone called you in the Red Room. Baba Yaga with a Gun."

I had not, in fact, heard that one before, and decided to keep my personal opinion on it to myself. Probably not the worst nickname I'd ever received.

"Yelena!" Natasha admonished, hand on her hip. "Don't be such a bully."

Yelena snorted, clearly no apology in mind. With Nat actually saying something, and Yelena's comments before about her coddling, I grew frustrated and felt the need to brush it off, at least make a show of it. Didn't want Yelena to think I needed Nat to defend me.

"It's fine," I said airily, sliding past Yelena to grab the padlock on the metal door. "I prefer 'KGBarbie' myself."

Natasha made a sound of disgust ("Where did you hear that?"), while Yelena could barely contain a guffaw.

But all signs of humor died when I broke the lock, and cranked open the door. It heaved open on heavy hinges, and a distinct smell wafted out, thick and rancid. Even before I could make out what was inside the dark interior, I knew it wasn't food.

Behind me, Yelena's laugh cut off short. At the same time, Natasha cursed under her breath.

The walls had been soundproofed, which was why I hadn't been able to hear it before. The heartbeats. The breathing. The crying.

The gaunt, pallid faces and ghostly wide eyes peering out from the depths. Most on the floor, curled up, shivering in thin shreds of blankets or coats. Dirty hair, greasy and unkempt. Some long, some hacked short. Dyed, shaved, or braided. Faces covered in blood and dirt. The smell of bodily fluids returned in full force; so strong that even the widows were recoiling, and it was all I could do to remain upright, trying not to heave.

"Not supplies," Natasha finally said, her voice low.

"No," I said, as I tried to approach the nearest. "Girls."

Girls. Packed in like sardines, of various ages. Eight to eighteen, I thought, maybe some older, too. From all walks of life. In various stages of malnutrition, none of them looked particularly healthy or well fed.

The girl, who couldn't have been more than thirteen, shrunk away when I reached out to her. She was curled up against the wall, and seemed to be curling in on herself, trying to disappear into the metal, eyes wide with fear. There had to be at least twenty or thirty of them, all stuffed in here like garbage. I spotted a few empty jugs of water and old food wrappers. Hardly enough to sustain all of them.

"Hey, it's okay —" I began, but didn't know if she could understand English. It seemed to confuse her, at least, and the others watched us warily. Some were already starting to cry again. None of them seemed to see this for what it was; only the next step in whatever hell awaited them.

Behind me, I felt a hand pulling on my harness. Natasha, urging me back. No, wait. Pulling on my shield. I turned, just as she pushed it in my hands. Something in her eyes, meeting mine. I didn't ask what she expected me to do, only turned again, allowing Nat and Yelena's flashlights to illuminate the design on the shield.

I didn't think it would work. If it would do anything at all, except maybe scare them further. But the effect was immediate; a soft gasp echoed within the container. Crying faltered, more faces looked up, and suddenly there wasn't fear into those small, empty faces anymore.

And then, slowly, they started to come forward. Rising to shaky feet, thin and emaciated and sickly. Voices rising, too, from murmurs to whispers, then louder, to questions and calls for help, in a variety of languages.

Rushing forward, an onslaught of relief, hope, desperation. Fear.

"I think it's time to rethink your plan," I finally said to Yelena, who looked like she'd been punched in the gut; as all these girls stumbled out past us, shambling slowly, their hands reaching out to touch us, our faces, my shield. Tracing the lines, as if they couldn't quite believe it was real. "I don't think Dreykov is stealing just widows anymore."

"No," Natasha agreed, as she placed one hand on the shoulder of a girl, then another, seeming to be counting as each passed. "He's creating his own."

I thought it a bit of a leap, but then, Natasha would know better than I would. The girls, too, stared at her face, appearing to recognize Natasha as they did my shield, in some way. Better, I thought, as I heard the same moniker repeated in different languages.

"C'est la Veuve Noire!"

"Czarna wdowa!"

"Η Μαύρη Χήρα!"

"Hēi guǎfù!"

"They recognize you," I said, to Natasha.

Her expression was grim, even in the solace she seemed to be for these girls. "That shield gives more hope than I can."

I wasn't sure about that; none of the girls had a name for me, I thought, as they did for the Black Widow. At least, I thought so, until a small hand pressed against the star of my shield, and a girl of about ten blinked up at me. In a quivering Russian voice, she asked, "бунтарь Колумбия?"

It was all I could do not to seize at the words, the phrase in just the right language. But just two words, it wasn't enough to do anything — just enough for me to stave off the lurking panic attack. It was all I could do not to recoil, to remain there, unflinching, for a girl who had no idea.

"Да." I tried to smile, but I didn't know how it came off. "Мы здесь, чтобы помочь."

The girl broke out into a grin, a startling visage of light and hope. "Я знал это! Мстители нас спасут!"

And with that, she tore past me, to dance in the mud outside, splashing and laughing. Yelena cast an ironic look at me, "Who's going to tell them I'm not an Avenger? Are you an Avenger?"

"No," I said.

At the same time, Natasha answered, "Today, you are." And with a sharp look at Yelena, she said, "So act like it."

Though her eyes blazed with offense, Yelena fixed a grimace on her face, a mockery of a smile as she reached out to a limping girl to help her outside.

The container was emptying. The last few stragglers were the most sick or injured, who needed help to move. Most of their injuries seemed to have been superficial cuts and lesions that had gone untreated, and gotten infected. I could smell it even from here. I had been looking away at one of the smaller ones when Natasha suddenly snapped her arm out, and grabbed a girl before she could walk past. "Wait. You."

Her sudden shift in tone had me looking around again. Natasha had stopped a girl, who seemed no older than myself, dark hair hanging in her face. It partially hid the marbled skin across her face and neck and, as my eyes traveled further down, her exposed right arm and leg. It looked like burns long since healed, as if she'd been in a fire.

Despite this, she seemed relatively unhurt, if hungry and shaken. She seemed startled, and increasingly frightened by Nat grabbing her. I raised a hand to get her to release the girl, "Hey, you're scaring her!"

"No," Natasha refused to let go, studying the girl hard in the face. The girl averted her eyes and tried to shrink away. "Use your head, Mia. Look at all these girls. Look at her. What's different?"

I thought that was a rude question. "Really, Nat —"

"Dreykov likes pretty girls," Natasha replied, not taking those cold green eyes off the girl between us. "He and the Madame shared that preference. It's not wrong to say it. They like perfection. A pretty face, but one that won't be remembered. So why would he take you?" She directed this last question at the girl herself, her grip tightening on the girl's arm.

"O-ow, please," The girl trembled slightly, looking quickly between the two of us. Her voice shook, an accented but competent English. "I-I don't know what you mean!"

"Your face…" Natasha frowned at the girl, tilting her head and squinting slightly. "I've seen you before. But where…?"

Then, as if it hit her, Natasha suddenly jumped back, releasing the girl in a soft gasp. It was such a startling reaction I thought maybe the girl had done something, but she looked just as taken aback as I felt.

But before I could ask Natasha what was going on, there was a commotion outside.

"Uh, guys!" Yelena called. "Problem!"

And then, beyond, a man shouting. "Halt! Intruders!"

A gunshot rang out, and the girls screamed.

Natasha sighed. "And here we go."