Volary
“You can cause avalanches… and you didn’t think to tell me?!” Natasha can’t quite keep the fury from her voice.
It was all making sense now, Daisy wasn’t just strong, she was catastrophically so. If the Red Room had powers like that..
“It’s not, no, you’re not listening to me.”
“Then explain.” She glares at her sharply.
“It’s vibrations. I can like… tap into them. Make things shake or not shake or whatever.”
“And they’re strong enough to cause natural disasters.” She almost laughs at the absurdity of it all. “And people? Can you ‘shake’ them?”
Daisy looks away from her and now Natasha does laugh.
“Oh my god, and that mountain was like what, miles away from you?” She lets herself run a hand through her hair, move away, not caring about masking her emotions anymore. “You have everything the Red Room could possibly want. A military trained long distance assassin who can disintegrate people from the inside out, not to mention any S.H.I.E.L.D intel you’d have. You could kill me right now without even breaking a sweat.”
Daisy is shaking her head “It’s not like that I don’t have that kind of control-”
“It doesn’t matter.” And Natasha is exhausted now, that she doesn’t see that “They will.”
Natasha takes a moment, lets the thought sink in, hopes it sinks in, anyway.
“You shouldn’t have come.” She concludes with finality. “We have to go home.”.
“That… might be a problem.” Alexei says, panting slightly from the run over. “Why you land so far away?” He sighs. “Anyway the helicopter is broken.”
“Then we take Yelena’s” Natasha says, it’s a no brainer.
“Aren’t we going to see Melina?” Alexei asks. “She’s their scientist, their strategist, works more closely with Dreykov than I ever did.”
He’s ignored. “The Red Room is definitely tracking it.” Daisy says, like it should have been obvious.
“Yes, but they’re tracking us anyway.” She gestures to Yelena on the ground. “As long as she’s here they’ll know where we are.”
“We should still go to Melina’s.” Daisy says.
Alexei looks offended.
“Are you kidding me?” Natasha deadpans.
“If Yelena’s brainwashed Melina will know how to help her.”
“S.H.I.E.L.D. can help her.”
“We tried that, didn’t work.”
“Because they were sloppy.”
“Then let’s be thorough.” Daisy counters. “Melina knows more about the Red Room than anyone, Alexei said it- she’s their scientist. If someone’s going to be able to break her programming quickly it’ll be her. Plus something tells me that helicopter won’t have enough gas to take us across the ocean.”
“I say we go see Melina” Alexei offers.
Natasha shuts him down immediately, “You’re not a part of this conversation.”
Daisy looks at Natasha sincerely. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my powers, I didn’t want you to ground me like Fury did. I’ve spent my whole life searching for you and Yelena. This is something I needed to do. Still need to.”
“Daisy if anything goes wrong.”
“Then I’ll get out of there. Or you can shoot me, whatever makes you more comfortable.”
Natasha nearly winces.
“That’s not fair.”
“Look I’m not the only one with secrets. I’m tired of you of all people grilling me for mine. Now, we can keep arguing in the middle of nowhere or we can get on the copter before the rest of the Red Room shows up to finish what she started.” She says with a glance at Yelena.
Natasha closes her eyes tightly, but relents. “Fine, get in before I change my mind.”
The flight to Melina’s is painfully quiet. Daisy stays by Yelena’s side, typing on the tablet, likely attempting to scramble Yelena’s tracker. Natasha is grateful for the modicum of distance. She doesn’t really understand why she feels so betrayed. Maybe it’s because a part of her knew Daisy was capable of that level of strength, and feels guilty for letting her come along anyway. A part of her wonders when she lost that objectivity she seemed to have over missions. When her heart started treating Masha- Daisy, like her true sister.
She’s startled when her burner phone rings. “Who is this?”
“Natasha, S.H.I.E.L.D’s been compromised.”
It’s Steve’s voice. Shit. Natasha pales slightly, looks behind where Daisy is pushing Yelena’s hairs out of her face and then back ahead towards the horizon. She keeps her expression neutral.
“Elaborate.”
“Hydra. Fury’s dead. You need to stay away while the dust settles. I’m handling it but I can’t talk long.”
Nick…
“I’m coming over.”
“Don’t. They’re looking for you already, they’re charging you with domestic terrorism, and kidnapping, among other things. I called to warn you”
“Kidnapping?”
“Your pal Daisy, they’re rounding up people on the index. Can’t end well.”
“You need to go dark. Do you have a place to lay low?” Natasha starts thinking through the fastest ways to get back home.
“Yes. Don’t come back. I’ll call you when this is over” Steve is curt.
The line clicks. Natasha resists the urge to throw the phone at the wall.
“What’s wrong?” Daisy asks, and Natasha stills for a moment.
“S.H.I.E.L.D’s been compromised by Hydra.” She says, deciding bluntness is probably the best move.
Alexei laughs, but Daisy’s alarm is immediately evident.
“What?!” Natasha notices Daisy’s breath quicken and the plane starts to shake slightly. “But that means… May oh my god, we have to go back-” She looks frantic.
And Natasha realizes she’s watching Daisy’s power in action.
“Daisy, the helicopter, relax.”
Alexei looks around, confused. “How is this happening?” he says softly in Russian.
“No- I, what? We need to save them. We can’t-”
Natasha struggles as the helicopter fights her for control, shaking more violently.
“Daisy.” Natasha warns.
“Natasha we can’t just leave them there-”
“Daisy! You’re shaking the helicopter.”
At this Alexei laughs in shock, and what oddly feels like pride. “You’re doing this?”
The girl pales, embarrassment flushing her cheeks, she looks around, takes a deep breath and the shaking settles. “Sorry…” She mumbles, she walks towards the back of the plane and sorts through the duffel bag until she finds the gloves from earlier.
“We won’t leave them. We’re going back.” Natasha asserts.
“And Yelena?” Alexei pipes up. Natasha glares at him, but he continues, undaunted.“What? You go this far for your sister and you abandon her immediately?”
“Will you shut up?” Natasha says, exasperated.
Daisy finishes sliding the gloves on, and Natasha notices her lose her balance for a moment. Daisy pinches the bridge of her nose, regaining composure but frustrated at the conclusions she’s drawn.
“He has a point. We can’t just leave her here. And we need to regroup anyway. Find an aircraft that can actually get us back.”
Natasha sighs. “Fine, Melina’s first, then S.H.I.E.L.D.”
***
There was a target in front of Natasha.
It had been an easy day. Four hours of ballet, lunch in front of American cartoons, and now this.
She shot it point blank, hesitation got girls killed. A woman loomed in the background, never quite giving approval, her praise was in what she didn’t do.
They swapped the targets. There was a time, when Natasha was still learning, that Madame B would make comments on proper form and technique. But it had been years since then, Natasha being 15 meant there was no excuse for mistakes. If you still had to be taught, then you were disposed of by now.
Natasha fired three consecutive shots. One in the head, two in the heart.
“Again.”
The motion had felt natural, like second nature. She almost didn’t have to think about it anymore, and she felt like she should have been grateful, but she craved any opportunity to focus on anything else. The more she trained the less the technical aspect of the activities gave her any escape from the misery in her own head.
The girl two spaces away from Natasha, Alana, had missed the target for the third time. Natasha would close her eyes, look away, but then Madame B would notice her weakness, and that would only make things worse.
So she watched as Alana was dragged away, kicking and screaming. Watched as she was placed in front of another girl’s target. Watched as the girl fired, one in the head, two in the heart.
The Red Room was red again, Natasha thought idly as she watched the blood splatter across the floor.
***
There’s a scarecrow standing still at the entrance to a farm. A lifeless imitation of a body directly in front of her.
“Nat.” Daisy says and it breaks her trance.
“Let’s get moving.” She says, and it’s in part a reminder to herself.
As they continue down the farm path, Alexei carrying Yelena behind her and Daisy bringing up the rear, she hears Alexei’s voice call out to her.
“Natasha!”
Natasha looks at Yelena in Alexei’s arms, and immediately fights the discomfort of seeing her sister in that state. She looks back up at Alexei, wanting to get this over with.
“Natasha, come here I want to ask you something. It’s important”
Natasha thinks she’s already close enough, but she pauses briefly, letting Alexei catch up before she keeps walking. Daisy passes them both.
“Did he talk to you about me?
“What?”
“Did he talk to you about me? You know, trading war stories?”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
“Captain America.” He drawls as if it were obvious. “My great adversary in this theater of geopolitical conflict. Not so much a nemesis more like a co-equal..”
And Natasha cannot believe what she’s hearing. She tunes him out, and then unable to stay quiet, cuts him off.
“You haven’t seen any of us in 20 years and you’re going to ask me about you?”
Daisy stops, turns to watch them.
“What is with this tension?” Alexei asks, “Did I do something wrong?”
Daisy laughs. “Seriously? Is that some kind of joke?”
“I only ever loved you girls.” He says and his voice is sincere and it only infuriates Natasha further. “I did my best to make sure you would succeed, to achieve your fullest potential and everything worked out.”
Natasha thinks she might kill him. “Everything worked out?”
“Yes!” He says confidently. “For you? Yes!”
“We accomplished our mission in Ohio.” He says, as if that matters. “Yelena became the greatest child assassin the world has ever known, Masha is a superhero just like her father and you-” He says with a sickening level of pride. “Not just a spy, not just toppling regimes, destroying empires from within, but an Avenger!” He breathes out, stars in his eyes.
Natasha can’t believe what she’s hearing. As if any of her accomplishments could be attributed to anything Alexei ever did. As if killing all those people for the Red Room was something to be proud of. She thinks back to Alana on the floor, she can’t handle it anymore.
“I couldn’t be more proud of you.” He says with a smile, and it’s the last straw. She turns away from him, resisting the urge to shove him while Yelena is in his arms.
Daisy catches up to her. “Ignore him, he's an idiot.” She says.
Natasha looks at her sister, nods. She grabs on something else to focus on. “The helicopter…”
“It was an accident, won’t happen again.”
“You can be sure? It sounds like it’s not always up to you.”
Daisy sighs.
“Remember how when I was a kid I’d get these like- night terrors?”
Natasha nods, “Yeah you’d wake the whole house up sometimes.”
“Yeah well, they never fully went away.”
Natasha makes eye contact with her sister, she looks nonchalant, but Natasha can tell it’s feigned.
“When I first got my powers I couldn’t control them. I’d destroy everything around me.” She says. “Then I started training with May, got a handle on it. But that was during the day…”
“So you’d shake everything at night.”
Daisy looks at her slowly, as if reading Natasha’s expression, then she nods.
“Jemma made these gloves for me. At first they were meant to be a temporary fix until I got everything under control but, well I never quite got everything under control. So I wear them at night, or whenever things are… particularly overwhelming.”
Natasha looks back at the gloves, suddenly understanding.
“They stop your powers?”
“They make them less intense, and make it so I don’t hurt myself too badly if I ever direct them inwards by accident.”
Concern etches across Natasha’s face “Does that happen a lot?”
Alexei suddenly marches ahead of them, “You hear that?”
There’s the unmistakably loud sound of pigs squealing in the distance.
“We are getting close.” Alexei hums with a grin.
***
Daisy watches the only mother she has ever known through the links of a barbed wire fence. She looks slightly older, and is holding a pretty sizable firearm, but beyond that nothing’s changed. Melina’s expression is unreadable.
She says nothing for a bit, ignores Alexei’s greeting and just opens the door, turns around towards the house.
The first time she speaks feels wrong. “Welcome to my humble abode. Make yourselves at home.”
Alexei immediately goes to a bedroom, dropping Yelena off, and Daisy follows after them.
Soon it’s just a passed out Yelena and her in a room she doesn’t recognize and she allows herself a moment to breathe. She knows Yelena will be waking up soon, and she’s aware she should take precautions while she still can but she’s tired, and worried.
Apparently Natasha had a similar thought because she walks in with some rope. “From Melina’s barn.” she says though Daisy didn’t ask.
Natasha works on tying Yelena’s hands and feet together. “This is a lot.” she admits.
“I just want Melina to tell us how to fix her and get this over with.”
“Any luck with her tracker?” Natasha asks.
Daisy sighs. “I shorted it when we were in the air, but realistically-”
“We shouldn’t stay long.” Natasha concludes. “I need to talk to Melina.”
“I’ll stay with Yelena, she should be waking up soon.”
Natasha looks at her curiously. “You’re avoiding her.”
“I just have a lot going on right now.”
“Okay.” She says, not judgmentally. “Be ready to move.”
Daisy nods as Natasha walks out the door.
***
“Mom said its’ a blue moon today.” Yelena murmured.
“It doesn’t look blue.” Masha says.
“Blue moons aren’t actually blue.”
“That's stupid. Why do they call it that then?”
Yelena rolls over on her side. It was one of those nights, their parents were out. They never said where. Natasha was in her room, so it was just the two of them left to entertain each other. They were laying out in the yard, it was winter, and chilly air whipped through the sky, rattling the leaves in the trees, and tickling the grass around them. Normally Yelena would feel a bit scared in the dark, but she hadn’t been alone.
“I dunno.” Yelena admitted. “But it's pretty anyway.”
“Guess so.” Masha says.
There was a silence between them for a bit. .
“I wish Natasha would play with us.” Yelena complains. “She gets so boring when Mom and Dad leave.”
“She just thinks she has to worry a bunch cause she’s older.”
“Yeah but she’s not an adult. She shouldn’t be so grumpy.”
“I’m here.” Masha said. “I’m not grumpy.”
Yelena giggles. “You’re always here though! You never leave me alone.”
Masha grumbles. “Well cause I don’t like being alone. And we’re twins we’re supposed to do stuff together.”
“We are.”
Masha smiled, and Yelena hesitated.
“Promise me you won’t get all grumpy when you’re older?”
Masha reaches out her arm across the grass, pinky outstretched. “Promise.”
***
Yelena stirs awake. Immediately she catalogues her environment. She’s in a room she doesn’t recognize, but it’s not a cell. It’s homey. Her hands and feet are bound with rope, which she could get through with enough time. But then she sees her, and she fights the urge to roll her eyes.
“You’re kidding me right?” she groans softly, her head was pounding and her body was achey.
“Yelena.” the woman says, concerned, alert, and then more relaxed. “Not so fun on the other side is it?”. There’s something about her shit-eating grin that’s familiar.
“I will say. You have been my most annoying mission yet.” she groans, shifts so she’s laying back on the headboard instead of flat on her back. She notices how the woman watches her intently. Looking for signs of escape, no doubt. “And I spent 72 hours in the Siberian desert with a politician.”
The woman hasn’t stopped smiling. “It’s good to see you. Even if the circumstances suck.”
Yelena analyzes the woman. She’s supposed to take her in. That’s been her only goal since it was assigned to her a week or so ago. The Red Room had been relentless about it. This mission was particularly important. The fact that she was currently failing scared her in a way she didn’t want to admit. This was already her second chance, and the Red Room never gave second chances. It couldn’t afford to. They were being gracious with her and she couldn’t understand why. She had never come above the greater good before, she wasn’t supposed to. Her life was in service of their world-saving agenda. They had the information, she was just their soldier. Knowing the details of a mission beyond what was needed to complete it had never been relevant.
So why was she entertaining conversation? Why wasn’t she angry? Why did she actually care who this woman was, deep down inside? Why did she think she knew her?
“You know I’m not actually your sister right? That was the cover story.”
Her target looks at her slightly confused, let’s out a light laugh Yelena thinks might be masking something else. “That’s exactly what you are. It’s not a cover.”
Yelena stares at her blankly.
“I’m Masha.” the woman tries.
No. A voice inside her screams. It screams that that’s her twin sister. That they’re finally reunited. She shuts it down easily. That kind of thought process would only interfere with her mission. Get her nowhere.
“You’re Daisy Johnson.” Yelena says in lieu of a reaction.
Daisy looks at her sadly. “Yeah. But we used to have the same last name.”
Yelena throws the information away as soon as it’s given to her. That’s not the mission. Not pertinent information. Speaking of the mission-
“Then you should let me go. I can take you home.”
“Yeah, I can’t do that.”
Worth a shot. Sometimes the easier solution is more likely to work than expected. Other times it’s just as fruitless as it seems. Nevertheless, Yelena starts shifting her feet, working on the ropes. She’s trying to be as subtle as possible, but Daisy seems to notice anyway.
“Don’t do that, I don’t want to knock you out.” Daisy pleads.
But Yelena can’t care about the pain that would cause. The mission has to come first.
Daisy sighs, she slides a glove off her hand. Yelena furrows her brows in confusion, but then her world goes dark.
***
“She was up for a minute there. I don’t want to keep messing with her head, she’ll get hurt.” Daisy tells Natasha.
“It’s okay, Melina’s poured drinks. We’ll figure this out and go get our people.”
“I shouldn’t leave her alone, if she wakes up…”
“Take her with you.”
Daisy tries to ignore the dystopian image of an unconscious Yelena propped up and sitting at the family table, but soon enough it becomes her reality. It’s only made more bizarre by Alexei’s choice of outfit being a too-tight superhero costume that resembles Captain America but more red and decidedly more Russian.
They’re seated at the dinner table, in an arrangement that matches the way they used to sit down and eat in Ohio, but instead of plates of food in front of them there’s shots of vodka. She could use a drink, so she takes a sip before downing it. She fights the urge to react to the burning sensation sliding down her throat. She pours herself another shot. Melina shoves a plate of bread with ikra in front of her. She doesn’t touch it.
“Family.” Alexei sighs contently. “Back together again.”
“Seeing as our family construct was just a calculated ruse that only lasted three years, I don’t think that we can use this term anymore, can we?”
Daisy ignores the pit in her stomach.
“Agreed. So here’s what’s going to happen.”
The pit in her stomach gets harder to ignore.
“Natasha don’t slouch.”
There’s an argument of some kind, Alexei’s talking too much and Melina and him flirt but Daisy tunes all of it out. She had spent her whole life searching for this. Remembering this, this scene, as her original family. She couldn’t even bring herself to call her real father “dad” until it was too late because this fraud currently sitting at the table had taken that title first. Yet here they all were. Three people who saw her as a mission, one of which was unconscious, and Natasha, who just admitted to not seeing her as family.
Suddenly there’s a pig in the dining room.
“Wha-”
“Did that pig just open the door?” Natasha asks.
“Yes. It did. Good boy, Alexei. Good boy.” Melina’s far too casual about this. Daisy is horrified.
“You named a pig after me?”
“You don’t see the resemblance? See, he sits just like dog. Amazing. Now, watch.”
“It’s a little weird, to me.” Alexei murmurs, but he’s ignored.
“Stop breathing.”
And Daisy could never describe the terror she felt when the pig does just that.
“Oh my god.” She breathes, because she doesn’t know what else to say. She looks at Natasha, at Yelena.
Melina continues, undaunted. “We infiltrated the North Institute in Ohio. It was a front for S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists. Actually, it was Hydra scientists at that time. In conjunction with the Winter Soldier project, they had dissected and deconstructed the human brain to create the first and only cellular blueprint of the basal ganglia. Was the hub for cognition. Voluntary motor movement, procedural learning. We didn’t steal weaponry or technology. We stole the key to unlocking free will.”
“Okay, you’ve made your point, that’s enough.” Natasha says, staring at the pig.
“Yes, all right. Well, don’t worry, Alexei could’ve survived 11 more seconds without oxygen. Good boy. Now, you go back, back home where it’s safe.” Melina says and ushers the pig away.
“The world functions on a higher level when it is controlled. Dreykov has chemically subjugated agents planted around the globe.”
Daisy stares at Yelena, they could say the same thing to her, at any moment. Stop breathing. And her sister would be gone.
“How do we stop it?”
“What?” Melina asks.
“That- what you did to the pig. That’s what they did to Yelena isn’t it? This… this is more than psychological conditioning.” She’s grateful she has the gloves on, she can feel them at work, trapping any outward shakes, stifling them, she fights the pang of vertigo it gives her.
Natasha’s expression is severe. “Melina. How do we break it.”
Melina eyes them carefully, she looks conflicted, Daisy stifles the urge to run out of the room, or to tackle Melina to the ground. Something changes in Melina’s gaze when her eyes settle on Yelena.
“There are rumors of Widows breaking from the serum.” She says. “I don’t know how much merit there are to them, but there’s talk of a woman, Oksana. They say she was the one who counteracted the chemical agent.”
“Okay well where is she?”
“If I knew that she wouldn’t still be alive.” Melina says carefully. “The Red Room has been hunting her for years.”
“Lovely.” Natasha says sarcastically.
“I need a minute.” Daisy says.
She rises from the table and enters the room she had been sitting in with Yelena. She hears May’s voice in her head. She focuses on the ceiling fan, the way it spins. Lets everything else fade away until she’s back in reality again.
She’s not sure how much time passes until she hears a frantic Natasha rush in.
“Melina called the Red Room.”
“Shit.”