Downfall
“You ready?”
Daisy hesitated. It had been her third week in S.H.I.E.L.D’s custody, and while it had been definetively unfun, May had kept her promise of being there when she woke up. She had come-to in a gray room with honeycomb patterned walls on what she learned was a plane they called a bus. And that was only the first of many confusing things about the aircraft.
The room (they called it “the Cage” - which Daisy thought was totally not intimidating) supposedly helped to reduce any shaking she caused. That and a pair of fingerless gloves designed by the team’s actually very nice and charmingly British doctor-scientist, along with an engineer she had yet to meet.
The gloves made her feel extremely woozy and were far too tight, but she had managed to avoid an in-the-middle-of-nowhere S.H.I.E.L.D. “secure site” (aka prison) by offering her skill sets in hacking. She didn’t want to push her luck by complaining about the gloves.
And they did help, she couldn’t shake anything when they were on. At least, not too badly. Which is why the prospect of taking them off when not in the Cage was terrifying, and that was exactly what May had asked her to do.
“If you’re sure.”
“Simmons is tracking your vitals, you’re steady, but no one’s forcing you to do anything Daisy.”
She almost laughed at that. “You know the room I sleep in is called the Cage right?”
May gave her a look she had started getting used to, one that said Do I really need to explain this to you?
“Okay, fine just, give me a second.” She took a deep breath, and slid the gloves off, running her hands over her arms to get rid of the tingling feeling. She sighed in relief, they really did feel restrictive, it was nice to let her arms breathe.
“See, no shaking.” May said with a smile. “Your lessons are paying off so far.”
“It’s been like- three seconds.”
“Three seconds more than usual.”
“Rude.”
May rolled her eyes. “Just copy what I do.”
They ran through a few Tai Chi drills together, and Daisy couldn’t help but feel the tiniest sense of pride that she had avoided the shaking for the rest of that day. At night, however…
***
Daisy feels something soft hit her head.
“Get up.” Natasha said bluntly, and Daisy rose with a groan, blinking away the sleep from her eyes. She pushes the jacket off her lap.
“We here yet?” She asks with a yawn, sliding off her gloves and stuffing them into her duffel-bag.
Natasha’s flying the plane, but Daisy still feels Natasha’s eyes on her. Daisy had lived with spies for the last 5 years, but Natasha’s way of cataloging everything was more intense than anyone else she had worked with. She’d be lying if she said it didn’t unnerve her a little bit.
“Almost. We’re landing in 15. May really never taught you how to fly?”
“She didn’t think I was a good candidate to learn.”
Natasha laughs. “Great, so you get to be a passenger princess and I’m stuck flying us to Alexei.”
“The plane doesn’t have auto?”
“I’m not putting it on autopilot when we’re flying over enemy airspace.”
“Sorry I asked.” She says with some sarcasm.
They land not too far from Arkhangelsk. Natasha has a safehouse she takes Daisy to and they spend the day going over the plan, with Natasha getting some much needed rest after flying over Greenland and across the arctic.
She calls Hunter (“I said with notice next time!”), and he (begrudgingly) arranges for a chopper they can use for the job.
The next time they’re in the air they’re wearing white combat suits to camouflage as best they can in the snow. Daisy feels a bit ridiculous, unused to the superhero regalia, but also she can’t help but feel a little bit cool, and she lets herself dwell on the latter.
From this high up, the world below looks almost unreal. An endless blanket of white stretches out over the expanse. In the distance, a tiny fleck of gray stands alone.
“I can see it now.”
Natasha flicks the communications on. “Which means we should be hearing from Alexei soon, bring up the blueprints for me?”
Daisy taps on her tablet from the passenger's seat, she turns it so Natasha can see the layout. Once she has confirmation that Alexei’s on comms, Natasha starts instructing the man.
“Move to the door on the south wall.”
The prison approaches closer, a full looming structure now. Daisy can’t help but think about how miserable it must be to stay there, especially for so long. She tries not to dwell on it, focusing instead on maintaining her hacked connection to the prison’s control systems. She opens the appropriate doors for her dad to walk through.
“Go left.” Natasha says, and then rather wisely, if not too late “Just don’t make a scene.”
Daisy raises her eyebrows, doesn’t see a world in which her dad doesn’t make his escape as ostentatious as possible, but she opens the next door.
Natasha shrugs slightly at her, as if to say I had to try. Not even seconds later Daisy hears commotion over the comms.
“You made a scene didn’t you?” Natasha states dryly.
Well their lives just got a whole lot more irritating. Daisy can see the chaos before more clearly now. Her dad is running full speed from a riot. A huge crowd of people flooding in his direction. Pushing him towards the edge of the prison yards. Their presence has been more than noticed.
“Move your ass, super soldier.”
Daisy watches as her dad leaps through the air, clinging to the wall in an attempt to get closer to them. Briefly she thinks of Cal, of his faux strength. She pushes down the thought that tells her that Alexei’s strength is going to get him killed too.
Her dad gets tased, and soon he’s falling back down to the yard center.
“He’s not going to make it like that.” Daisy sighs, unbuckling herself from the passenger seat.
Natasha immediately understands what Daisy’s up to. “God I wish you knew how to fly.”
“You’re just gonna have to trust me on this one.” She says with a playful smile. She grabs the cable attached to the side of the chopper and lets herself fall, once she’s at a height from the ground that won’t kill her, she jumps, rolling into a safe landing on the metal catwalk above where her dad is. She’s immediately greeted by two prison guards. She kicks one in his side and follows up with a blow to his face. The one behind her grabs her by the waist, and she kicks out, using the momentum to roll the man over to the other side. His head slams against the metal and he’s out cold.
Daisy hears as the fire turns towards the helicopter, ricocheting off the metal and causing Natasha to struggle for control. “This is getting bad!” She warns over comms.
Daisy looks over to the source of the firefight, a watchtower standing in front of a mountain, and takes a deep breath. It’s now or never, she hopes she can do it discreetly, but it’s not her primary concern. She looks above the watch tower and aims her arm out. May’s voice rings in her ears.
In the field it’s all about control, over your mind- and your body.
She hones in on the vibrations of the mountain, it’s loud enough, and she cranks them up as much as she can, unsettling the compact snow until the mountain begins to rumble. The sound echoes throughout the landscape, causing all of the yelling from down below to quiet for just a moment. And then the chaos resumes- prisoners scrambling over each other to get back inside the compound as the massive avalanche ravages its way through the watchtower.
“Tell me that’s a good sign for us!” Alexei yells into the comms. A desperate questioning tone.
She brings her hand up to her ear “Okay that solves one problem but we got to go- now!”
“Move your ass!” Natasha says, likely to the both of them. She moves the copter over the catwalk Daisy found herself on, and the young agent watches as the cable hanging from the aircraft swings closer.
She jumps out for it, using all her strength to hold on and pull herself up as her sister moves the helicopter further away from the Soviet prison yard. She stands on top of the hook of the cable, and looks ahead as the snow creeps closer and closer to where Alexei is standing.
“Waaaaait!” He yells, and Daisy focuses on where he’s standing as Natasha circles back to his location. She reaches her arm out, in awe of her sister’s accuracy, and hangs on as her dad takes her hand, hauling himself up onto the cable.
They fly through the kicked up clouds of snow and begin their climb up. When she’s through the door, Daisy is panting from the physical strain.
“You had to make a scene.” She breathes, incredulous.
“I need your help up here” Natasha yells above the sound of the helicopter’s spinning blades. Daisy moves to the front of the aircraft.
Alexei’s Russian booms behind them “FAREWELL BASTARDS!”
Daisy slides into the passenger seat. Natasha gestures towards some buttons and switches, and Daisy follows her silent requests. She grabs the headphones and let’s them give her a break from the obnoxious noise of the helicopter.
***
Masha screamed herself awake. She looked around the room, frantic. Yelena and Natasha were already up, groaning.
“You okay?” Natasha asked groggily.
“Masha you woke me up agaaiiin” Yelena groaned. “Stop screaming like that.”
“She can’t help it.” Natasha reminded Yelena, who flopped her head back on the pillow sleepily. Natasha got up to go sit on Masha’s bed.
“It’s okay, do you remember it this time?” She asked.
Masha had night terrors for as long as she could remember. The three siblings all shared a room in the house (Natasha technically had her own room, but she didn’t like to sleep alone), so Masha would sometimes wake them up with her screaming.
“No.” Masha sniffled. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Natasha consoled her. “Do you want me to go get mom?”
“I can do it.” Masha says. “I’m 7 now.”
Natasha smiled. “Okay.”
Masha had wandered into her parents room, her mom was sleeping soundly, but her dad had woken up, had turned on his dim lamp.
“Hello my brave little girl.”
Masha walked over to the edge of the bed, and her dad lifted her up, putting her between him and her mom on the bed.
“I’m sorry I scream so much.” She whispered meekly.
Alexei took a moment to think. “It’s okay.” He said with a smile. “Do you see a lot of bad people at night?”
“Sometimes.”
“You know, I had bad dreams too when I was a kid like you.”
Masha looked at him, confused. “But you’re a superhero.”
He laughs, warm, knowing. “I was not always.” He runs a hand through her hair. “But my mother told me that my dreams are in my head. I am the boss of them, not the other way around.”
Masha blinks, “I don’t think they would listen to me.”
“When you have a bad dream, just think of something strong to save you.”
“Like you?”
Alexei laughs. “If you want. But you are strong too, you will be able to save yourself one day.”
“But what if I can’t ?”
“You will. But until then I keep saving you.” He hugs her close. “Everytime.”
***
Alexei shuts the metal door behind him. Suddenly she hears his voice through her headphones.
“Wow… look at you… Masha? All grown up.”
Daisy is struck by his voice, familiar, completely strange. She avoids looking at him, doesn’t know what to feel. When she was a kid he was this monolith, this great protector against all harm. He had tried to defend her against Cal, too. Strangely, even after 11 years with her real father, Daisy couldn’t shake the title from Alexei’s image. Yet this was the man that would have handed her back to the Red Room without question. Who actually did turn in the girls he had pretended to father for three years, to the organization that would brainwash, mutilate, and turn them into unwilling assassins. Had he been half as brave as he pretended to be, they wouldn’t be half way across the world hunting for Yelena’s freedom.
Daisy doesn’t answer him, doesn’t think he can.
“What you think I don’t know it’s you? I’d know my girls anywhere. It means so much, that you two would come back for me”
She takes a breath, and Natasha saves her.
“No. No. You’re gonna tell us how to get to the Red Room.”
“Huh. Woah look at you huh? All business.”
“Trust me this isn’t pleasure.”
“Little Natasha” He says endearingly, a bit mockingly. “All indoctrinated into the western agenda.”
Natasha replies with measured patience. “I chose to go west to become an Avenger. They treated me like family.”
Daisy eyes her knowingly, her eyes squinting slightly with the sun reflecting off the snow out the window. She thinks briefly of May, and Coulson, Jemma, and more recently Fitz, even Ward who was only now coming around to her. She knew what it was like to find family in unexpected places.
“Really? Family?” Alexei says, and Daisy bristles, upset at the implication. Natasha just gives a quick nod, almost without thinking.
“Well where are they now?” It’s meant to be mocking, a gotcha. Said with such an air of superiority it makes Daisy want to kick him.
His voice suddenly grates her ears, and Daisy can’t help herself anymore.
“Not in Soviet prisons in the middle of fucking nowhere. And she left them to save Yelena, asshole. Which you’re gonna help us do.”
“Tell us where the Red Room is” Natasha asserts.
“I have no idea.”
Daisy watches Natasha switch the chopper to auto, rip off her headphones, and head to the back so she’s sitting right in front of Alexei. She yanks his headphones off too. They clatter on the ground, and he looks almost offended.
“Come on.” The anger is seeping into Natasha's voice now. “You and Dreykov were like-”
“Dreykov? General Dreykov? Gives me glory… Soviet Union’s first and only super soldier.
I could have been more famous than Captain America. Then he buries me in Ohio on that stupid mission. Three years! So tedious, boring me to tears. No offense, huh?”
He’s staring at Daisy as he says this, and she’s not sure she can hide the betrayal from her expression. She should have known of course, started to figure out the moment he had stepped onto the helicopter, but it still hurts that the man who spent the better part of three years acting like their father, imparting wisdoms, playing games with them, was exactly the fraud his actions after Ohio implied.
“Then puts me in prison for the rest of my life. Why, huh? Why? Why would he put me in… You know why?...” He continues to ramble, and Daisy tunes him out, until… “I’m not even the one who, uh, you know…” He gestures to Natasha.
“I’m not the one who killed his daughter.”
Daisy furrows her eyebrows, and looks at Natasha. Ignoring the dread in her stomach, she sighs, shaking the implications away and resolving to ask about it later. She doesn’t want to give Alexei the satisfaction.
“Excellent” she says sarcastically instead, one of the Russian words she still knows slipping out. “I say we just throw him out the window.”
“We should wait til we get to a higher altitude.”
Alexei switches to Russian too. “Why not ask Melina where it is?”
Natasha looks about as shocked as Daisy does.
“She’s alive?” Daisy asks.
Suddenly the helicopter jerks to the side, beeping in alarm as the sound of bullets ricochet off the side.
“Shit!” Natasha says, scrambling towards the stick.
“What’s going on?” Alexei asks slowly in the back.
“We’re under fire!” Daisy hisses.
“I can’t save it.” Natasha calls, she reaches for a parachute pack and tosses one to Daisy. She takes the other.
“What about me?”
“Find your own!”
Daisy puts the parachute on quickly, grateful it’s not her first time doing this. She opens the helicopter door, fighting against the dizziness from the helicopter’s spinning now that Natasha is off the stick. She knows it’ll only get worse, and she has to jump fast.
She leaps out of the helicopter, pulling on the parachute once she’s in a safe range from the blades. She looks to see Natasha has done the same, and Alexei has managed to find a parachute too, though he likely didn’t need one.
They land roughly in the snow, and Daisy looks up to try and find the source of the danger. Gunfire rains from another helicopter above, and Daisy runs towards where Natasha’s parachute is, scanning the area in a desperate search for cover on the way. Before she can find anything, a net weighed by heavy metal spheres falls over Daisy’s body, and she scrambles for escape, feeling very much like a wild animal.
“What the hell?”
In the chaos she realizes she can’t see Natasha anymore.
She watches helplessly as the helicopter begins to lower, finally landing in the snow. Then she sees her emerge. It’s Yelena, and she’s holding a rifle.
“Hello sister.” She says almost cheerily, and Daisy thinks she might throw up.
“You don’t want to do this.” Daisy says, searching the woman’s eyes for any sign of recognition.
“You have been a pain in my ass.” Is the only reply.
Daisy nearly breathes a sigh of relief when she hears Natasha say “Likewise.”
Natasha disarms Yelena as quickly as she can, and the two enter hand to hand combat. They’re fairly evenly matched, barely landing hits on each other. Natasha gains the upper hand for a moment, locking her calves around Yelena’s neck and pulling her to the ground. She kicks her in the head, ending the fight.
“A little help here?” Daisy calls when she sees it’s over.
Natasha helps her through the net, and it takes longer than both spies would probably be willing to admit. Natasha reaches out her arm, and Daisy takes it, pulls herself up until she’s standing.
“I did not like that.”
“Hey can we cut the bullshit?” Natasha says suddenly, and Daisy looks taken aback.
“What do you-”
“That’s twice now Dreykov hasn’t had you killed when he could have. Twice now that he sent Yelena specifically for you. I need to know why.”
Daisy looks at the Avenger, and feels a sense of shame she doesn’t quite understand. But she knows now she can’t get out of this. There’s nowhere to run to, no one to interrupt.
“I’m not, I’m not fully human anymore.”
Natasha quirks an eyebrow.
“When my dad kidnapped me from Ohio, he told me about these stories. These blue aliens who came from the sky and gave people gifts. I- I am the descendent of one of those people who got the gifts.”
Natasha gives her a look. You’re avoiding the question.
“He had me go down to a city, and long story short, I came out with powers.”
“What kind of powers?” Natasha asks, and Daisy can tell she’s exasperated that this hasn’t been answered yet.
“You know that avalanche? Back in the prison.”
Natasha’s eyes widened.
“I caused it.”