Chapter 53- Training and Future Plans
A/N: It has been awhile since I have updated on anything. I have been busy with work and I also have been running into writer's block. Then my computer mouse broke and I had to buy a replacement. Another thing is that some people have been saying they want to illustrate some of my stories. While I am touched that you want to, I can't afford to pay anyone to illustrate my stories.
Yelizaveta licked her lips and raised her sword. Jimmy raised his sword that Yelizaveta had found in a pawn shop. After testing the blade, she asked if Steve or Clint could buy it and she had gifted it to Jimmy.
Jimmy looked a little uncomfortable. "Hold the blade, James. It will become more natural the longer you hold it. Before you know it, it'll become an extension of your hand," Yelizaveta said.
"You would know?" Jimmy asked, raising his dark eyebrows.
"Yeah. I have been holding my sword since I was five. Now charge at me and hit me, if you can," Yelizaveta said. Jimmy charged and with lightning-quick reflexes, Yelizaveta smacked it out of his hand and caught it with her other hand.
"Wow!" Jimmy whistled under his breath.
"The problem isn't your technique. I anticipated your move. You had a good stance and you moved correctly. It's like what the priest said in "The Count of Monte Cristo." The better opponent doesn't always win. It's speed of hand. Speed of mind. If you have one plan and it fails, it's good to have another," Yelizaveta said.
"You can keep your wits, even with someone charging you?" Jimmy asked.
"Yes, she can. I trained her in that technique myself," Clint's voice came to them and Yelizaveta and Jimmy turned to see Clint, Steve, Sam, Banner, and Bucky watching them.
"Some of it Birdbrain did teach me. The rest I learned in the Red Room. Dreykov insisted I learn and I did until I was eight and Clint got me out," Yelizaveta said, walking over to Bucky. Bucky pressed a kiss to her forehead.
"But you went on more missions with me and Nat than anyone else at S.H.I.E.L.D. You know how to fight, Vetty," Clint said.
"Yeah, I guess so. Uncle Steve, do you want to help me teach Hulk Jr. here?" Yelizaveta asked.
"Sure, why not? I'll just go get my shield," Steve said, running into the house.
"I guess I'd better go get my arm guards," Yelizaveta muttered under her breath.
"Elizabeth, would you rather me, Barton, and your uncle teach Jimmy how to fight?" Bucky asked, cupping her face with his metal and flesh hands.
"It's okay, Dad. I can do it. I'm just taking a break before starting my next history book on the Civil War," Yelizaveta said.
"Women of the Civil War, Vetty?" Clint asked.
"Yep. Much like the book that I read called "They Fought like Demons." That was about female soldiers in the Civil War. This is about four women. A liar, a traitor, a temptress, and a spy. I know about the soldier and the spy as "They Fought like Demons" talked about the soldier and a fiction writer wrote about Elizabeth van Lew," Yelizaveta said.
"Sounds interesting, doll," Bucky said, stroking her face gently with his fingertips.
"Dad, do you like history?" Yelizaveta asked.
"Not as much as you do and your aunt Rebecca did. HYDRA let me and your mother have some historical books. Me and your mother would take turns reading to each other to pass the time. I am happy that you like history, doll," Bucky said, touching his lips to her forehead.
"They were written in Russian, right?" Yelizaveta said.
"Right. They wanted me to teach your mother, Russian," Bucky said, wrapping his arms around her shoulders in a breathlessly tight hug and pressing her head to his chest. His flesh fingers gently stroked her hair and ear.
"Mama probably had it easier learning Russian than I did learning Hindi," Yelizaveta said.
Bucky chuckled, his laugh rumbling through her. "She said she did. We would go to our quarters and if she got a Russian word right, I'd kiss her. If she got it wrong, no kiss. Fortunately, she rarely got one wrong. Her pronunciation left something to be desired, though," Bucky said.
"She sounded like a Gopnik, didn't she?" Yelizaveta asked.
"More or less. It took a few weeks to make her sound like most Russians. I usually knew what Dianka was trying to tell me when we would talk in Russian," Bucky said.
"But she did learn, right?" Jimmy asked.
"Yes. By the time our kid was born, Diana knew Russian fluently," Bucky said as Steve came out with his shield.
"Well, I guess it's time to get started," Yelizaveta said, pulling out of Bucky's hug and pulling her sword out of her back scabbard with a fluid, graceful, motion.
"Wow. How long did it take to pull out a sword like that?" Jimmy asked.
"Years. I have been handling swords since I was five. Just grab it by the hilt, not the blade," Yelizaveta said, gripping the hilt with both hands and raising it slightly in a fencing stance over her head.
Steve raised his shield and Yelizaveta charged and jumped onto the shield and over his head.
Diana watched out the window as Elizabeth jumped over Steve's head and deflected his shield with her arm and sword. HYDRA had made good on their promise to make her daughter a Winter Soldier like her father. The only thing they hadn't done was torture her with serums and shocks like they had done Diana and James.
"She fights good," her mother commented as she stood next to her.
"Yes, she does. And she did all that without James teaching her," Diana said, watching her husband talking to Jimmy Banner about the finer points of using a sword like Elizabeth did. She couldn't hear the lesson, but she could see James indicating their daughter.
"So you really love him?" her mother asked.
"Yes. Why do you ask?" Diana asked.
"I find it difficult to believe considering he kidnapped you and forced you to marry him for a baby to be like him," her mother said.
"Well, believe it. And HYDRA took me. They made James do it and he has always felt bad for that," Diana said, remembering all the times James would kiss her senseless in the first days that she had been with HYDRA and had just married him. It always made her want to kiss him back, running her fingers through his thick hair and stroking his stubbled face weakly as he showered her face with kisses in a way of comforting her after HYDRA would fry her brain.
"He could have said no, couldn't he?" her mother asked.
"No. HYDRA has a way of making you do things that you normally wouldn't. James is no exception. They did the same things to me too. I'm just glad Elizabeth didn't get the torture me and James did," Diana said, watching as James walked over to their daughter and raising her arm in a blocking technique that Diana had seen when James was training. She hated that Karpov and then Pierce would make her husband train where he would get hurt. Diana had lost count of how many times he sat and let her tape his ribs that had been bruised or clean the open cuts on his face or one time someone had slashed his flesh arm with a knife and Diana had cleaned it and insisted that HYDRA give him something to stave off infections.
"How do you know she didn't?" her mother asked.
"She would have told us. I think they tried something different with Elizabeth. They took her away and made her think we were dead or didn't want her," Diana said, feeling tears come to her eyes as she thought of all the years she had missed having her baby. Now it was difficult to take her eyes off her. Even leaving her to go to bed was hard. Already Diana and James had sat by her bed every night and watched her as she slept.
"Not necessarily. She is rather abrupt sometimes when I've seen you hug her. Meanwhile she hugs James, Barton and Rogers," her mother said.
"She's not used to being around me. She always gravitated to James when she was a baby. Barton saved her when she was eight. And Steve has been protecting her as he promised James he would during the second world war if James ever had a family," Diana said.
"That doesn't sound right. What child doesn't want her mother?" her mother asked.
"I'm not saying she doesn't. She just adores James more. Steve told me children always liked James and he does love children. He always felt bad that I couldn't give him a son. But HYDRA said no. They said Elizabeth was enough, but now that we're both free, I want to give him a son," Diana said.
"How does she feel about it?" her mother asked, indicating Elizabeth.
"We haven't really discussed it with her yet. James was thinking after I get pregnant, we'll tell her. I wanted a son after we had her too," Diana said.
"I just hope she's not going to be angry that you didn't tell her," her mother said.
"Me too, but Elizabeth seems to be pretty obedient when James tells her something," Diana said, watching as Elizabeth hugged James and he kissed her forehead tenderly.