A/N: Sorry for the hiatus! The election took me the tf out. This is the result.
Chapter Fifty-Three
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Labour | Paris Paloma
One step at a time.
Just… one at a time.
The wind whipped and whistled and roared. With each new lashing it felt like we might suddenly be launched off at any moment. Someone inside this damn flying compound must be trying to right the ship, because as I continued along the side of the tower, I could feel the world shifting back a little into a slightly more horizontal position.
It helped, but only a little. Yelena and I were still dangling in the jaws of merciless gravity, and one wrong slip and we were both fucked. I didn't think my shield could save my life from impact in what must be over a mile into the air.
I didn't even want to guess how high we were or how fast we were sinking. Just looking down into the vast Russian wilderness below made me sick with vertigo. So the less I thought about it the better.
Thankfully, I was fully occupied looking up and around, trying to plan my route around the building, towards something like a flat horizontal surface on which we could reach Melina and Alexei for evacuation.
Easy-peasy.
"Lucky we aren't afraid of heights, eh?" Yelena tried to joke, but her laughter was ripped away by the wind, along with any humor I might have felt. My lack of answer must have clued her into my level of concentration, because she added. "Look, in terms of dying — this is pretty cool!"
I wished I had the space left in my mind to formulate a constructive disagreement. "Falling to my death? Again?"
A strong gust of wind smashed us into the metal siding, and I nearly lost my grip — all of a sudden I was hanging by one hand again, and Yelena was gasping, clutching so tight I was having a hard time breathing. But I managed to find another hand hold and hang on until the gust abated.
"Again?" She managed to say after our heartbeats leveled out again. "What do you mean again?"
But there was no time to count the number of harrowing experiences I've had, standing on or falling (or in one case, thrown) off of very high objects plummeting out of the sky. Yelena just had to hang on and wonder as I made slow but sure progress around the tower.
I swung us over gaps and slid along loose lines of cable. The ship continued moving beneath me, swaying and spinning slowly, so much so that I got dizzy if I tried to look out and only saw the revolving landscape.
I did my best to ignore my nausea — I doubted anything would come up if I did get sick, it had been so long since I'd last eaten.
Along we went, Yelena adjusted herself this way and that to help with my balance, and we made slow but steady progress, reaching the corner of one wall and coming around. And as we sidled along the next plane, I could begin glimpsing the interior of Kitezh come into view.
The main hub below was a lower structure, with a wing of corridors on either side. Atop each wing of the building appeared to be a landing deck, not unlike a smaller version of an aircraft carrier, with wide bay doors that allowed access to the central building. That was probably where we were first brought in. And now we had to get back down.
What aircraft remained had either been knocked off with the destruction of the thrusters and loss of balance, or else destroyed with gunfire. I saw plumes of smoke rising from both sides, with piles of wreckage where ships had been initially lined up.
But some of them had managed to take off. Several helicopters circled near the hub, tilt-rotor crafts with extra firepower attached, shooting at either Kitezh or each other. One of them, I realized, must be Alexei and Melina, identical if not for its more haphazard flying pattern and a glimpse of red in the cockpit. The tilt-rotor crafts were big and clumsy-looking, but hopefully large enough to evacuate all of the captive widows onto one. But no one would know until they were clear to land.
We were too far away to make radio contact, but even Yelena could tell it wasn't looking good. "If they get shot with anymore holes, there will not be any ship left for us to escape on!"
With the steep angle and hostile fire, Alexei could only strafe and return fire until conditions changed. But it seemed they were guarding the left-hand deck, so that's where we were heading.
"You think Natasha is down there?" I yelled over the wind.
"I hope so!" Yelena said. "Or we're fucked!"
That sounded like a pretty accurate assessment.
As we came around the third and final corner, directly facing the hub, things started getting a little gnarly.
Coming around, I could feel the angle of Kitezh starting to straighten downwards again. This was just as Yelena and I broke apart, as the angle of the wall was at a forty-five degree angle below us, making for a gut-clenching but stable plane to skim down on. Our rubber soles caught on metal and glass, but the descent was relatively controlled and fairly quick, crossing a lot of distance in a short amount of time. What was before a skyscraper was now a very fun, very dangerous adventure slide.
And then, as the angle set closer to ninety degrees, we kept going faster. And faster.
"Блядь!" Yelena cursed, as she tripped and the sudden drop had her falling much further before she caught herself again.
Pretty soon, we wouldn't be sliding. We'll be falling through thin air.
I didn't have time to swear before the tower fell out beneath me.
We were still too high — Now one hundred meters instead of five, it would still turn us into a nasty mess if we fell. I spun around as fast as I could, whipping out my knife and slamming it into the wall behind me. I didn't think it would work, that the metal would bounce or break off from contact.
Instead, it sparked, scratching into the metal for six feet before it caught against an exhaust vent. I caught it with my other hand and Yelena landed on my shoulders before she could plummet below. Now my feet were dangling over thin air again.
"Hang on!" Yelena called, and I couldn't quite see what she was doing, but I could feel her twisting around, climbing down to my legs, one arm wrapped around both my knees while she lifted her other arm.
The sound of gunshots were surprisingly small in the midst of screaming winds. The glass below took seven bullets before Yelena finished off by pressing her fist against the surface and using a pulse from her gauntlets to render the cracks to shattered pieces.
The wind alone nearly sucked us both in, the sudden change air flow from within. I hung on, waiting for Yelena to swing herself inside first, then clearing the glass away so I could let go, drop and catch the ledge without hurting myself. She grabbed my wrists and helped haul me in. For a minute we just sat there, half collapsed on mercifully flat floors, struggling to catch our breaths against racing heartbeats.
My hand was no longer bleeding, though my glove was so covered in dried blood it was hard to tell. It didn't hurt either, but I assumed that was my adrenaline at work. Super soldier serum was one hell of a drug.
After a moment where we were done being glad to be alive, we looked around. The room was large, and decidedly empty of any living soul. The ceilings stretched upwards, and there was wood and marble paneling. An overturned desk. Wall-mounted monitors that had been shattered. Splatters of blood, but no bodies. There was some smoke still left in the air, as if there had been some kind of explosion. Yelena was first on her feet, gesturing for me to follow. "Come on!"
No bodies, I told myself. That was probably a good thing. I had to believe Nat was still okay.
The entrance to the office was busted by whatever explosive came through here. The mechanism locked the metal door in place, but at a tilted angle, allowing Yelena and I just enough space to crawl through.
The other side looked even worse. Loose wires hung from the ceiling, sparking with live electrical currents. There were a couple bodies, but none were widows. Hallways filled with rubble and elevator doors gaping like horrible mouths of darkness.
We took the stairs.
We leapt down them, jumping entire flights of stairs or dropping down the gap in the middle. It got us down those last few desperate floors until we finally reached the hub.
It looked much different from the inside. I couldn't see the landing decks from here, but I could feel the air current from open gates, pulling on me as we ran out into a large atrium. The ceiling was dome-shaped and paneled, letting in long, narrow rectangular beams of light from one end of the room to the other. It was filled with boxes and storage crates, the main ingress for all of Kitezh's supply needs, of which there must be many. Though among them, I happened to spot what appeared to be a vintage limousine, still strapped to its pallet.
No sooner had we appeared, did gunfire ring out, bullets striking the walls near our heads, and we went diving for cover.
We curled up behind metal crates, flinching as bullets continued to ricochet off the back. Yelena had seen what I had, too. She locked eyes with me, her lip cracked with blood. "Widows."
I nodded. There were at least a dozen in the atrium that I had spotted right away, along with more armed sentries of the male persuasion. And if the Widows were shooting at us, that meant Natasha had failed to free them from Dreykov's Bliss.
Just as I was about to feel despair, a voice crackled in my ear. "—lena? Mia? Can you hear me?"
"Nat?" Yelena perked up, hand to her ear. "Yes, we hear you!"
"Where are you?" I added, looking around as much as I dared. But I didn't see her or hear her voice nearby, only in my comm-link.
"Busy!" Was all Nat said. "Just give me a couple more minutes — are you in the atrium now?"
"Yeah!" I said, trying not to sound as panicked as I felt. "We're surrounded!"
"Well, don't let Dreykov escape!" Nat ordered, which was not the sympathy I was hoping to receive. "Not with any of them. Give them a reason to stay!"
"Copy that," Yelena said, exchanging a look with me. There was only one way we could pull that off. She immediately began checking her pistol's magazine and the status of her gauntlets. To me alone, she said, "Don't kill any of them."
"Funny," I said, as I slung off my shield. "I was gonna tell you the same thing."
"Ha-ha," Yelena rolled her eyes, shifting around onto a crouch as she peeked behind cover again. "Hey, Terminator, one last thing before we die." She looked over shoulder to me with a grin. "Let's make it cool as hell."
I smiled back. "Say no more."
And with that, we launched from our cover position, and charged into the attack.
Minutes. Natasha only needed minutes. I hoped she was right.
Minutes of battle felt like hours. There were more than a dozen Widows, as I'd guessed, and the armed sentries were also a nuisance. But I could stab one and not feel bad about it afterwards.
I engaged the first Widow closest to me, using my shield to absorb whatever her widow's bite was about to deliver, before ramming it into her and flipping her over my head. She went down hard, but caught it in a roll, coming back to her feet in an instant. She had to be older than me by about ten years, but smaller than me by half or more. Still, she moved with grace and speed — they all did. I was fighting a small army of women who had trained their entire lives to fight and kill. I didn't have half as much.
But what I did have… it wasn't nothing. I learned enough to survive.
And hopefully, keep them alive, too.
I had to be constantly moving, ducking a garrote, a jab of a gauntlet, a cloud of gas. Something hooked into my shoulder but only got the loose fabric of my jumpsuit, and merely rippled a hole instead of yanking me back. I had five on me at once, then four, then three. I kicked one away hard, in the chest, and she went tumbling over some boxes and sent the whole thing over.
Another I took a fist to the face but held my stance, and their attempts to topple me were unsuccessful. Wires around my legs were easily caught, I dropped and rolled and got back up before they could dog-pile me. And even if they did, they weren't heavy enough combined to keep me down.
One sentry got too close and learned the hard way I wasn't going to be so lenient with everyone. Maybe he thought he was sneaking up on me with his heavy boots and assault rifle, but I turned and grabbed his throat just as he was about to raise his weapon to bear. All I had to do was clench my hand into a fist to crush his throat.
Yelena was nearby, though never in the same direction. She was working harder than I was, I thought, using the same moves as the Widows against them, her size and abilities matched far more easily. But we managed to work together with what we had — I blocked her from a sudden rain of bullets and Yelena stunned a Widow before she could get up on my shoulders to strangle me.
The fight pushed us further into the atrium, closer to the bay doors on either side. The right hand was blocked, I saw, the doors shut part way, with only a crack of light coming through. Part of the atrium's roof structure had collapsed, and the frame had come down on the bay doors and stuck them into place.
The other was also closed, but the green light above the door looked promising. It just needed to be opened again.
And as the fight progressed — one minute? Two? — a massive groan rumbled through the entire structure, and beyond the thin gaps in the paneling I thought I saw a tower crumble from Kitezh. But the floor remained largely steady beneath us, with the occasional swaying and sensation of spinning that I tried to ignore.
Some of the widows were down. Unconscious or wounded, but not dead. There were just so goddamn many of them, and in the heat of the moment, I couldn't get one off of me, and found myself on top of her, pinning her down as she jabbed into my torso, even though all the other tranq darts that had hit me so far had done nothing.
And just as suddenly as it started, it came to a stop. The woman beneath me stopped writhing, instead blinking and shaking her head. Something had gotten into her eyes, I thought, but it wasn't anything I did.
All around me, the gunfire came to a stop. I looked up, and saw all the Widows just standing there, rubbing at their eyes and mouths, or gazing about in a mild stupor. Studying their hands, turning their palms in and out. Through the shafts of sunlight glittered strange new particles, shimmering in a magical effect, almost like glitter — but all of it in a soft red shade, like a mist.
Rue.
I looked up, and saw that the red mist was spewing out of the ventilation system from the ceiling, and for a brief moment of insanity, I imagined we looked like the vegetable aisle in a grocery store, getting a refreshing mist shower.
Hoping it was safe now, I jumped off the Widow I'd been pinning down. She coughed as she could breathe again, curling over to one side before coming to her knees. Her big brown eyes met mine, and in hoarse Russian, she asked, "Все кончено?"
"Да." I nodded, and offered my hand.
After a moment's hesitation, she reached out.
A gunshot split the peace. The Widow recoiled as the bullet passed through the air between us, but neither her nor I were struck. A cry rang out, and everyone scattered. I recognized that voice — Yelena. I spun and saw her on the ground just a few feet away behind me, clutching her shoulder, trying to crawl away from the person standing over her. The one who shot her.
Antonia.
"Stop!" I shouted, and I was ready to lunge, to close that short distance. It would be so easy, and I knew I could keep Antonia from hurting herself — but I hadn't taken another step before a bullet, from a completely different direction, landed at my feet.
I turned as the Widow, still dazed, scrambled for cover. There, not twenty feet away, stood an unfamiliar man, somewhere in his sixties, with a face like a toad and a scowl like a bulldog, dressed in a suit that was now a little ripped and torn from battle. His gun only turned to me after his target had fallen.
The toad-faced man fixed his cold eyes on me. "You're not one of mine."
I shot him a look. "Would you even recognize me if I were?"
Dreykov — for who else could it be — smirked. "No. But I do know you. Kasyanenko had been so very irritated when he lost his little super soldier, his little Soldatka. Pierce wouldn't let him keep you." He grinned now, revealing old yellowed teeth. "I would've thrown my hat into the ring, but alas… you're a little too masculine for my tastes."
My eyebrows shot up. First time I'd gotten an insult like that outside of high school. "Oh yeah? I can't imagine it's because Kasyanenko and Pierce are dead now. Totally unrelated, right?"
His smile vanished. "Kasyanenko was a fool. Pierce, too sentimental. They never could have achieved what I did with—"
"With what? Stealing the Madame's work?" Yelena demanded, before letting out a bark of laughter. She flinched when Antonia's finger twitched over the trigger, but kept a brave face. "At least Pierce and the Chairman respected her. You never could get them to shake your hand, could you?"
"Silence, you little bitch!" He snapped, and a bullet went off. I wondered how close he would risk to shooting his own daughter. If he even really cared.
"Antonia," I tried to plead with her. "We aren't your enemy. We came here to save you."
Her eyes blinked back tears, and her voice was so soft even I had to strain to hear it. "All I see are nightmares."
"You can't reason with her, Soldatka," Dreykov goaded. "My daughter knows she cannot trust what she sees or hears. That is what I am for."
"Do you believe that?" I asked Antonia, not even offering him a glance.
Antonia bit her bottom lip, and the pistol trembled.
I opened my mouth to speak, sensing I had her, but another bullet ripped too close, cutting the sleeve above my shield. "Stop talking! I would've removed all your tongues if I didn't have need of them."
"What, not comfortable enough when getting your dick sucked?" Yelena snarled, with that savage grin; no humor, only fury and hatred barely contained. She shouted around me, even as she clutched her wounded shoulder, wincing at the pain. Antonia had her pinned in place, but the girl's face was stricken, she was clearly listening even if she couldn't, or wouldn't, speak. "A nice little perk when you've kidnapped a small army of Widows."
"As if your lives were any better under the Madame. Glorified whores!" Dreykov spat. "You trusted the Madame because you think she is like you. But she hasn't been. Not in many years. I just cut away the frivolous details, the excess, made it more efficient — the Madame had the world's largest resource at her fingertips. And she wasted it. But even she understood your core nature: All of you girls are infinitely disposable. Your mothers, all meaningless after they finished birthing you. They die and no one remembers. Your lives, forfeit to a greater cause your little minds cannot begin to conceive!"
All around him, women stood, straightened, rising over the bodies of dead men, blood on their hands and faces. Over a dozen faces, each unique, each gaze cold and piercing, faces hard as carved stone, depicting the faces of winged furies on a marble frieze. Each one carefully composed, but tightly wound like a snake about to strike — no longer the blank-faced, fraught little dolls he had commanded only moments before.
I looked back at his pistol. "You don't have enough bullets."
Dreykov saw it all. And for a man who only a moment ago lorded over them, now took a sudden step back. "Antonia, give me your gun."
His daughter stood there, staring at him. Her gun wasn't pointing at either of us now. It hung limply at her side. She did not move.
"Antonia!" Dreykov demanded, holding out his hand. When she still did not move, her eyes wide and unblinking, incandescent — he lunged for the gun at her side. She dodged out of the way, a casual sidestep. Dreykov stumbled and caught himself, starting to look distressed as the Widows stepped closer. Slowly, almost languidly, like spiders rounding on a fly caught in their web. Circling, circling. "What are you doing? I order you to give me your gun!"
"My mother," Antonia said, cutting him off from further command. "Who was she?"
"What? Now is not the time!"
"Did you even know her name?" Antonia demanded, her voice increasing in pitch.
Dreykov made a sound of disgust, reaching out for her again, and when she still did not acquiesce, he snapped, "It was years ago! What do you care, you never knew her!"
"And why is that?" Antonia asked. Her voice shook, and with their attention focused solely on each other, I thought for sure Yelena would have struck by now. But she seemed just as intrigued as I was by the drama. None of the widows struck, though they moved like synchronized shadows, dancing at the edge of my vision.
At last, Dreykov relented, "She did not live long enough to give me a son."
"I just want her name!" Antonia begged, but her father only returned her pleas with a cold, baleful look. Even if he did know, he would never tell her.
"Her name was Sévérine," A voice echoed out. From the shadows emerged Natasha, her hair windblown, her face bruised, and a fistful of empty vials dropping from her hand. Behind her the last of the widows emerged. "She was young when she had you, Antonia. She hadn't graduated yet when Dreykov took her."
Dreykov's eyes widened in alarm, and he quickly looked back to Antonia, who had suddenly turned on him with a new incandescent rage in her eyes. "The Madame wouldn't have let her live after that anyways! I only forestalled the inevitable —"
He did not get to finish. Antonia shot him first.
Dreykov went down with a cry, but he wasn't dead. The bullet struck him in the shoulder — Antonia's hand had been shaking, incensed by the revelation. After all that time with us, she would know by now that Natasha's words meant.
Blood bloomed across his shoulder, but the man was still conscious. He recovered quickly enough to raise his hands, shielding his face. "Antonia, stop! She was dead either way —!"
"She was just a child!" Antonia hissed, tears in her eyes.
"She was a spider!" Dreykov snapped, already struggling back to his feet. There was only one way out for him now, towards the edge of the balcony. "The Madame should have thought better than to spy within her own organization."
Antonia shot him again, as if punishment for speaking. This time, she struck his knee, and Dreykov dropped once more, wailing in agony. Now he could no longer run away.
"She was one of the first," Natasha said, coming to a stop next to Antonia. Her face was entirely impassive, looking down upon Dreykov with aloof contempt, in contrast to Antonia's anguish. "Dreykov explored many avenues before he finally developed Bliss. He kept your mother captive for several years."
"How do you know this?" Antonia whispered, her voice raw as she gripped her pistol with two hands now, trying to stymie the shaking.
"Because," Natasha said, lifting a hand, placing it atop Antonia's gun, and gently pushing it down. "I knew her. Melina knew her."
"All this time?" A tear slipped down Antonia's cheek, and she brushed it sharply away on her shoulder.
"Not right away," Natasha replied, tucking a stray lock of hair from Antonia's face behind her ear, a distraction as she delicately slipped the gun from her hands. "It's been years since I last saw her face. But it's in your files. Your father did know her name once. He just —"
"Didn't care to remember." Antonia finished bitterly, throwing another venomous look at Dreykov, who was now trying to drag himself away.
"You'll find most men are like that," Yelena said imperiously as she came around to Antonia's other side. Despite limping with pain and her white suit stained with a concerning amount of blood, she still managed to pull off a queenly level of arrogance. She smirked at Dreykov's feeble attempt at escape. "Selfish. Cowardly. Only think of themselves."
Antonia glanced at me. "Is your father like that?"
I did a slight double-take at the question. I almost laughed with incredulity. "No! He's nothing like Dreykov."
Behind us, the bay doors drew open, sucking out a gush of air, and filling the room with a tremendous roar. On the other side, sitting on the deck, a tiltrotor helicopter sat, its engines still humming. In the cockpit sat Alexei, who waved cheerfully before gunning down a wayward man that tried to go for one of the remaining aircraft across the deck. From the open bay doors, Melina appeared, cupping her hands around her mouth.
"Come now, my darlings!" Melina yelled over the roar of the engines and peal of the wind. "Time is wasting!"
"Let's get moving," Natasha waved her arms, gesturing for the other widows to move. Some needed help walking, bruised and bloody after the fight Yelena and I had, but they all looked stable and conscious, and there seemed to be enough room for them all aboard the helicopter.
"My girls!" Alexei threw up his arms. "Look at you! So beautiful! So alive!"
He did not hesitate in helping the injured onboard.
Antonia's eyebrows lifted slightly, and she glanced back to Yelena, raising her voice to be heard. "Alyosha isn't like that, either!"
Yelena pursed her lips slightly, then conceded with a shrug. "Well, Dreykov has set the bar in hell. But I suppose you're right."
"You mock me!" Dreykov snarled, leaving a trail smeared bloody like a gruesome slug in his wake. Where he thought he was going to go was anyone's guess. "Shostakov is a joke! And to compare me to the Winter Soldier—!" he spluttered with indignance. "A machine can't raise a child! I made you what you are, Antonia. You are nothing without me. You will be hunted to the ends of the earth for the name you carry now."
"That's the funny thing about names," I said, as Natasha grabbed Antonia's shoulder, keeping her from lunging for her father, pulling her back towards Melina's craft. "Those are disposable. I would know."
Dreykov panted with agonized exertion. He glanced behind him, at the room full of cargo crates and collapsing walls, then back at me. Just a wry smile as he glanced at me and said, "Don't take it so personally, Soldatka. My success was guided by centuries of tradition — I only learned from the best."
"Your power isn't tradition," I replied. "It's fear. And how has that worked out for you now? Turned out okay, or…?" I gestured to the place at large, burning down all around us.
"A twisted disruption of order," Dreykov grimaced. "A weapon cannot wield, it can only be wielded. You are nothing to be afraid of, Soldatka. I made the perfect weapon, and a perfect weapon has replaceable parts. Your father knows that all too well, doesn't he?"
I tilted my head and chose not to react to that. I leaned in closer, and watched him flinch. "Tell me again you're not afraid, and I'll tell you a machine cannot raise a better killer."
My eyes bored into his, unblinking. Dreykov's face drained of blood. With that, I straightened and called, "Yelena?"
"Yessss?" Yelena sidled up, while Dreykov began shying away once more.
"It's your call," I said, gesturing down to the man at my feet.
"Ooh, really?" Yelena grinned, while Natasha rolled her eyes. "I thought you'd never ask!"
She gestured for Antonia to come over, and for a brief minute we stood with our heads together, coming to a quick consensus. Yelena nodded once in absolution, and I turned and walked straight back to Dreykov. He tried to scramble away, but it was no use. I picked him up, as easy as a bag of potatoes, and walked him over to one of the large cargo crates, not unlike the one we found Antonia in a week ago.
It was already empty, the doors opened and the crate locked to the floor with a series of integrated clamps. I tossed Dreykov inside, and none too gently.
"What are you doing?" He demanded, wriggling there like a bloody worm. "You can't leave me here!"
"Uh." I paused to think about it. "I think I can, actually."
"Don't complain, Father," Antonia appeared behind me, taking a small round object that Yelena handed to her. "It's actually quite roomy when you're alone. Now you don't have to share a tomb like the ones before. But just in case you don't want to wait…"
She walked inside and laid it down next to him, as harmless as a children's toy. A grenade.
Antonia smiled, bent over to kiss his cheek. "До свидания, ублюдок."
She stepped back outside, just as the realization struck Dreykov and he began shouting obscenities at us, things one would never wish upon their own daughter and yet — it did nothing to stop us from closing the double doors on him, and bringing down the lock in place.
We turned, and there Natasha stood, with her arms crossed and an aggrieved expression. "Why didn't you just shoot him?"
"But an ironic death is so satisfying," Antonia pouted, then at Nat's look, she added, "What? I like the classics."
"We don't always get to indulge in poetic ends." Yelena smiled, as she patted Antonia's arm. "But I love fostering a homicidal instinct. It's good for you."
Together, we left the atrium, stepped out into fresh air once more, and boarded the helicopter. We were the very last, everyone else was accounted for. Alexei was back in the cockpit, Melina his copilot, and they deftly took off once more — just in time. Above, another tower was coming down, fire having broken out on one of its floors, and came crashing down on the deck just as we pulled away.
Our faces crowded the windows and bay doors, watching as Kitezh began to implode, crumbling down as it sank closer and closer to the ground. Another tower went this way, one went that. We were far away now that if Dreykov did use that grenade, there would be no way to tell — but I knew he was dead when the biggest tower collapsed, crushing the atrium beneath, right before it smashed into a great ball of fire across the Siberian landscape.
Alexei let out a low whistle, and I felt a hand squeeze my shoulder. I looked around and saw Natasha, suddenly looking very tired, smiling at me. "You did good, kid."
"Thanks," I said, smiling back. Then it faded. "I think…"
The words died in my throat before I could get them out. Natasha frowned at me. "What's wrong?"
"N-nothing, I think," I shook my head, stepping back as the doors finally shut, and the noise dimmed. All around us, women and girls sat or lied on the floor. Antonia had pulled a first aid kit and was now helping with Yelena's shoulder wound she'd inflicted. Melina was already getting up to check on the others. Looking at them all, I felt exhausted. "I just… where are you all going to go?"
"I don't know yet." Natasha shrugged. "We'll all choose our own paths now."
"Do you think some will go back to the Red Room?" I kept my voice low over the roar of the rotors.
Natasha tilted her head. "Maybe. I'll try to convince them otherwise, but… in the end, it's their choice. And I think they'll be welcomed back with open arms."
"But they just got free!" I couldn't conceive of anyone wanting to jump from one controlling power to another. Like escaping one cult just to wind up in another.
"The Red Room is still home to some of them," Natasha reminded me, softly and not without a hint of bitterness. "It's the only place that's ever felt safe. That's all they know."
My shoulders drooped. All of that, just for some of these girls to wind up back in the Red Room. It wasn't like there was a SHIELD for them to take refuge in anymore. "I wish there was more we could give them."
"Maybe someday," Natasha smiled ruefully. "Just not right now. You can't let it get to you, Mia. You've done the best you can. All we can do is promise them safety, and let them make their own choice. That's what freeing them really means."
She had a point, I realized, and I slumped against the side wall, utterly gutted. Exhausted. Drained. Natasha drew closer, tucking some loose hair out of my face. "You have a choice, too, now."
I didn't say anything for a long moment, arms coming up to hug myself. Natasha was right. She was always right. This was over. It was time. At length, I finally nodded. "Okay, I'm ready now."
Natasha lifted her chin, eyebrows rising. "Ready for what?"
I sighed, closing my eyes. Then opened them, and my gaze met hers. "To go home."