Chapter Twenty-Two
"It's too quiet." Lainey broke the calming silence from her place in the backseat of the car.
"I like the quiet." Natasha glanced at her through the rearview. "Is your seatbelt on?"
"Yes." The child nodded. "I put it on when I got in, Mama. My shoes, too."
"Good, I'm proud of you." It was always a fight to get Lainey to put her seatbelt on. She didn't like the feeling of it by her neck and tended to forgo the whole thing. Well, until she met the Avengers. Natasha and Steve just wouldn't let her get away with it.
The two had totally different ways of handling it, though. It was hilarious. Steve would bribe her with things that she wanted, like candy or ice cream. But Natasha would threaten her until she heard that satisfying click of the seatbelt going into place.
"Can we play some music? Please?"
"Sure." Natasha relented, turning on the radio. She had to surf through a couple of stations before finding one that was actually playing music.
Lainey grinned and kicked her feet to the beat of the song, singing along.
As tired as she was, the sound of Lainey's voice never failed to make Natasha smile. And she full on laughed when the girl started dancing in her seat. She was so silly, wiggling around and whipping her hair back and forth.
But their fun was cut too short.
As Natasha turned left to drive onto a bridge, something powerful struck the car and cause it to flip several times before it stopped, teetering over the edge.
The slightest sudden movement, and that car would land straight into the water with a nose dive.
Natasha, being the one in the driver's seat, was in a daze. The hit had her seeing stars.
But when she heard Lainey's scared little voice, she jumped into action.
"Lainey?" She winced as the car rocked. "Are you okay, Baby?"
"Mommy?" The little girl's voice came out in a soft, fearful whine, her pupils wide and dilated at the prospect of danger.
"Can you tell Mommy if you're okay? Are you hurt?"
"My wrist hurts." Came the child's quiet sniffle.
After the impact, her arm hit the side door pretty hard as she tried to stabilize herself, which inevitably hurt her wrist.
She was sure it wasn't broken or anything, but that thought did nothing to comfort her.
"Does anything else hurt?"
"…No." She didn't think she was hurt anywhere else.
"Alright, good." The redhead sighed in relief. She could take care of her wrist later, right now, they needed to get out of the car. She could tell the child was crying, so she needed to work fast before the car tipped over the edge and fell. "I'm coming back there with you, okay?"
"No, Mama." Her daughter whimpered. "Are we gonna fall if you move?"
"Of course not, sweet girl." Natasha kept her voice leveled as her hand trembled to unbuckle her seatbelt. She waited a moment for the car to settle before carefully climbing into the back. "See? Look at me." She cupped the girl's chin to keep her from looking at the water. "Look at me."
"Mama?" Lainey's eyes widened when the car moved again.
"Look at me. Look at Mama." Natasha repeated herself. "We're gonna be okay. Do you think Mama is going to let anything happen to you?"
"No." She shook her head. "But the car."
Of course she knew that Natasha would never let anything happen to her. She also knew that there were just some things Natasha couldn't control.
"Don't worry about the car. We're getting out of the car." The woman got to work to undo the child's seatbelt, but it wouldn't budge.
"I'm stuck." Lainey exhaled shakily, panic rising. "It won't come off. I'm gonna fall."
It was a really long way down from here. The water was probably really cold and Lainey wondered how long she could hold her breath. She never tested herself before, not having many opportunities to actually swim, but it looked like she was going to find out today.
Maybe her mama could run and get help if things got worse.
"Lainey, stop looking at the water. Look at me. I'm not leaving you in here." Natasha pulled a knife from her boot. "Keep looking at me. Talk to me. What did you today while I was gone?"
Lainey let out a heartbreaking sob and brought her sleeve up to wipe her tears away. "I played outside."
She tried to get Mischief to come and play with her, but that cat was born for the indoors only. She watched Lainey run through the dry grass by the trailer, simply licking her paws as she lazily sat in the doorway.
"You played outside?" Natasha began sawing away at the thick seatbelt. "I bet that was fun, huh? What else happened?"
"Mason brought me some licorice." She whimpered. "And Mischief climbed on the counter."
"Oh, Honey, I know all about that." Natasha smiled at the confession, finally cutting right through the safety belt, freeing her daughter. She scooped her up into her arms and turned to climb out, but stopped when she saw a masked figure standing, waiting to attack. "Okay….Change of plans." She set Lainey down and had her stay as close to the floor as possible.
And just in time for the mysterious figure to begin to approach.
"I'm pretty sure Ross has no jurisdiction here!" She shouted, swapping her knife for her trusty firearm. "And you should know I'm a better shot when I'm ticked off."
Natasha clicked the safety off and shot at the figure, shocked when they lifted up a shield to protect themself. As soon as the last bullet hit, they sent the shield flying into the car, imbedding itself where the glass of the window once was.
She knew she and Lainey had to get out of this car before she could actually do anything, so she grabbed the girl and began to help her out the other way before crawling out behind her.
"I want you to listen to me." She led her away from the car and bent down to look her in the eye. "I want you to stay right here. Do not move."
"I won't." Lainey promised, still scared out of her wits.
She didn't want Natasha to go anywhere. She wanted her to stay with her, but she knew she needed to fight back.
Natasha checked her over once more before she went to attack.
It was hard to fight an enemy when she knew she had a child to keep safe from harm. If anything happened to her, what would happen to Lainey? She needed to make sure she was fighting to the best ability to get them both out of here.
It wasn't safe for either of them.
Lainey kept her eyes squeezed shut the entire time. After Siberia, she was having nightmares about what happened in that bunker. She never told Natasha about it, but some nights when she closed her eyes, she could see everything all over again.
She didn't need to see anything else to keep her awake at night.
The struggle was pretty quiet, all things considered. When people think of fights, they think of loud noises; screams, flesh on flesh, grunts. But this was a stealthy kind of combat.
Every once in a while, she'd hear that shield clang up against something, but that was it.
The eleven year old screamed when she suddenly felt her mother grab her by the waist and jump right off of the bridge. She still had her eyes closed, but she knew who had her. She knew her mother's touch.
Her screams got caught in her throat halfway down and once the two hit the water, the force from breaking the surface caused them to separate.
Lainey's eyes shot open when the cold water soaked through her clothes and she looked around for her mother. The water wasn't murky, but because of the frosty temperature, it was a little hard to see anything.
The freezing liquid made her ears hurt as it pooled inside of them and her eyes squinted in an attempt to keep warm.
She began to swim to the surface to get a breath of air, but her mother's arm shot out and grabbed her, helping her up the rest of the way.
And as soon as Lainey's head was above the water, she took that much needed breath before coughing up some liquid she hadn't noticed she swallowed.
"I'm sorry." She heard her mother apologize. "I'm sorry."
Lainey looked at her, wrapping her arms around her neck. She could swim, but she wasn't the very best at it. Natasha felt better having a firm grip on her anyway.
"C-Cold, Mama." She shivered as Natasha lugged them both to shore; the harsh wind wasn't helping matters at all.
Natasha made sure Lainey's entire body was on solid ground before she even thought about getting out of the water, collapsing right next to her.
Lainey laid flat on her back, watching as her mother pulled some red, glowing vials out of her jacket pocket.
Stuck between them, was a few pictures of two little girls. One had bright blue hair and the other, the younger one, had blonde hair. Lainey had never seen these pictures before, so she didn't know who they were.
"Who're they, M-Mama?" Her teeth chattered together.
"That's me." Natasha pointed to the girl with the blue hair. "And the little one, is my sister."
Whoa.
"Mama? Why didn't you tell me you had a sister?"
After making it to shore, the two girls had no choice but to walk back to their trailer. And ever since Natasha received the picture, she had been moving with purpose. She told Lainey to change out of her wet clothes before doing the same, and she started arming herself, shoving whatever weapons she could on her person.
They had to leave and they had to leave fast. She didn't tell Lainey that the guy who attacked them was really after the vials she was given, but the girl had some idea.
She was eleven, not stupid.
A few hours later, they found themselves on a train to Budapest where Natasha's old safe house was located. Neither of them had gotten any sleep after the incident on the bridge, so it was a good thing Lainey had that power nap before they left home.
The child liked riding the train and was excited to be riding one in a completely different country to a different country. She was pretty giddy, all things considered.
"It never came up." Natasha shrugged from the seat right across from her.
Her history with the little blonde girl in the photo was complicated and she wasn't sure that Lainey was old enough to completely understand everything that happened.
She didn't really want to talk much about it either.
"What's she like?" But Lainey's curiosity was relentless.
"Truth is, I don't know. I haven't seen her in a long time."
"How long?"
"Since way before you were born, kiddo."
"How come?" Lainey tilted her head, missing the soft texture of Mischief's fur.
She told her mother that if they were going on a long trip, then she couldn't leave her cat behind. It wouldn't be right to leave her home all by herself. What if she needed her and she didn't know because she was so far away?
But Natasha assured her that the feline could get by on her own. She needed to keep Lainey safe and she couldn't have any distractions while doing so.
Still, Lainey would've been happy to have her furry friend as a companion. She thinks she would've really liked the low hum of the train as it sailed along the tracks.
"Well, you know about the Red Room." Natasha hadn't told this story to a single soul, but she figured she owed her daughter some honesty, even if it made her uncomfortable. "When I was a little younger than you are now, I was put on a long-term mission with two other agents and a little girl. We were to go undercover in Ohio and pose as a real family. At first, I didn't really like it. Everything was new, the kids playing outside, the laughing, and the peaceful nights. I wondered how anyone could live like that and be happy. And I especially, didn't like the little girl I had been paired up with."
"Why not?" Lainey crawled onto her lap and rested her head on her shoulder, a clear sign that she was sleepy. Whether or not she'd actually sleep on this ride was yet to be determined. "Wasn't she nice to you?"
"That was the problem. She was nice to me."
"But isn't that a good thing?"
"Not back then." Natasha shook her head. "Kindness was weakness. I used to think she was weak. But, after a couple months of being around each other, I let myself fall into the role of her big sister. She was a lot of fun to talk to and to play with. She was smart, you couldn't really trick her into believing silly things…." She smiled fondly at her memories. "Her favorite song was this old Don McLean tune…'American Pie'. She could listen to that for hours."
"What happened to her?"
"Our mission ended and we had to go back to the Red Room. Before we were separated, I ripped a photo reel I had been carrying with me in half and I gave her one. After all these years, she held onto it."
"What's her name, Mama?"
"Yelena. You remind me of her sometimes. Both of you have a nose for trouble."
As hard as she tried to fight it. She missed her little Yelena. She missed running through the neighborhood with her, telling her stories, sneaking out of bed at night just to have a little taste of something sweet, making her laugh...
That mission, to pose as an American family in Ohio, was simultaneously the best and worst thing to ever happen to her. She had gotten a brief experience of what it was like to be a part of a real family. But it was too brief. So brief, that sometimes it felt like it never happened. It felt like a dream...or a dream of a dream.
She had hardened herself after all these years as a way to protect herself. But seeing that photo reel sent a wave of emotions through her body that she didn't quite know what to do with.
"Do you ever miss her?"
"We weren't really sisters, Малышка." She rubbed her back the same way she would if she were holding Yelena. Short up and down motions before running her hand in a circle. "It wasn't real."
If she convinced herself that none of it was real, then there was nothing to mourn. If it was just a mission, then she could go on with life as normal.
"But—"
"—It wasn't real." She rested her chin on Lainey's shoulder. It was better this way.
And Lainey couldn't help but wonder if she was trying to convince herself. Because her mother had a way of trying to run away from emotional situations she didn't like. This seemed to be one of them. Lainey believed that for however long she and Yelena had to pose as sisters, it was just as real to Natasha as it was to Yelena.
"So." Natasha expertly changed the subject. "You've been avoiding talking to me about finding out Bucky's your father. Do you want to talk about it now?"
It was a big piece of news, that was for sure. Lainey had gone her whole life without a father and now all of a sudden she had one?
Natasha was sure there would be some confusion on her end. Things like this just didn't get resolved in no time flat. She'd have to get Lainey and Bucky together so that they could figure out how they fit into each other's lives now. They both deserved that chance.
"Mama?"
"Yes?"
"Is it okay if I like him?"
"What do you mean? Of course it's okay that you like him. He's a good man and you should like him. Why?"
"I don't know." Lainey played with her shoe laces. "I thought maybe you'd be sad if I did."
As much as she liked Bucky, she didn't want Natasha to be upset. What if she thought that she loved Bucky more than her? What if she thought that she would want to stop living with her to be with Bucky? Did she think that maybe she was replacing her? It would break her heart if her mama was sad.
"Lainey." Natasha clicked her tongue and positioned the girl so that she could face her. "Why would I be sad?"
"Cause you're Mama." Lainey deadpanned like it was obvious.
"That's right. I'm Mama. That wouldn't make me sad. You have a right to get to know your father. You know what would make me sad?"
"What?"
"If you didn't give him a chance because you were too worried about what I thought. Lainey, I will never put you in position to choose between us and neither would he. We both love you and we both want you to be happy. You should have both your parents in your life."
"We talked." Lainey admitted. "Before we went to the airport…..he said he told me he named me…..and knew me when I was a baby. I asked him if I could call him, 'Papa'."
"And what did he say?"
"He said I could. But you're still my mama!" She looked up desperately.
"And I will always be Mama." Natasha gave her that little piece of much needed reassurance. She would never stop claiming to be. Not for anything.
"Even when I grow up?"
"Especially when you grow up." She tapped her nose, making it scrunch. "And you'll always be my baby, right?"
"Yeah."
"Even when I grow up?"
"You're silly." Lainey giggled. "You're already grown up!"
"Well, then I guess that answers my question then, doesn't it?"
The remainder of the train ride was peaceful. The two had nothing more to talk about, so they stayed silent and enjoyed one another's company.
Lainey found she really liked Budapest. There were so many different people hustling and bustling about, and so much culture to learn.
Natasha brought her to an apartment complex that was a little run down, but she didn't care. To her it was a new adventure. She'd never seen a place like this before and wasn't particularly in the mindset to judge anything she saw.
Natasha thought it was cute how she was so impressed by everything, and made a mental note to take her to as many places as she could while they were on the run. Lainey was a travel bug and she wasn't going to squash that out of her.
"Stay out here, okay?" She instructed once they reached an apartment door.
"Okay." Lainey nodded, wondering if the little girl in the picture was in there. She wouldn't be a kid anymore, though. She'd have to be a grown up, like Natasha.
She wondered if Yelena (she thought that was a really pretty name) would like her. Maybe they could be friends and she and Natasha could tell her stories about when they were kids.
"I know you're out there." A voice called.
Lainey noticed she had a thick Russian accent and keen ears. It wasn't like she and Natasha were speaking loudly, the woman had to've had good hearing to be able to pick that up.
"I know you know I'm out here." Natasha pulled the gun she stashed out of her waistband before entering.
Lainey didn't really know why she carried her guns there. What if they went off? Wouldn't she get hurt? Wasn't she afraid of them going off?
Whenever Lainey carried a gun, it was in a small holster covered up by an oversized shirt or skirt. That way, there was no danger of accidentally triggering it.
"Then why are you skulking about like it's a minefield?" Lainey heard as she pressed her ear up against the seemingly thin wall.
"Cause I don't know if I can trust you."
"Funny, I was going to say the same thing."
"So, we gonna talk like grown ups?"
"Is that what we are?"
Some shuffling was heard, but nothing happened. Lainey wondered when it would be safe to go in. If this woman was once her sister, then why were they being so mean to each other?
"Put it down before I make you."
"You put yours down."
Natasha wasn't the only one holding a gun, Lainey gathered. Smart.
"Watch your step."
And that's when it began.
Lainey was the first person to openly admit that she got an unexplainable rush from physical fights. But listening to them was exhausting. This was the second fight in twelve hours and it didn't sound all that promising.
The child slid down the wall and allowed herself to fall onto her bottom with her legs straight out in front of her as she listened to the two women going at it. She couldn't believe she was thinking it, but she wished that one day, they could encounter someone new without all the fighting.
Couldn't they just talk?
Nah. That would be boring, wouldn't it?
"Lainey?" She perked up at the sound of her name. "You can come in now."
The child groaned as she put pressure on her injured wrist and pushed herself back up onto her feet, stepping inside of the apartment.
It was a mess. Clearly the result of the fight, but a mess nonetheless. Curtains were on the floor, glass was shattered, there was kitchen knife lying around, and chairs were over turned.
"Who's the baby?" The woman asked.
She was still blonde and much older than in the pictures, but Lainey could see some other features in her that didn't change. Like her button nose and her green eyes.
She thought that she was really pretty, even with the nasty glare on her face. For a second, she wondered if this was how Natasha viewed her whenever she was in a rotten mood.
Pretty, despite the ugly attitude.
She was more than willing to give her a chance, but hearing her call her 'baby' destroyed all that. Lainey scowled and let it be known that she wasn't too thrilled at the form of address. "I'm not a baby."
"Yelena, this is Lainey, my daughter." Natasha introduced the two. "Lainey, this is Yelena."
The blonde only snickered at her reaction as if to make fun of her. It was going to be easy to get under her skin, she could tell. She was going to enjoy it.
And it was right then and there, that Lainey decided she didn't like Yelena. Not even a little bit.
"Be nice, you two." Natasha quirked a warning brow, moving over to a rack of clothes she had stashed some years ago to change into.
Lainey eyed Yelena before following her mother, making sure to stay close by her. Silently letting Yelena know that she was watching her every move and she didn't trust her.
Natasha was her mama. She wanted to make sure she knew that.
Yelena watched her carefully, clearly amused by the little girl's alter ego, her green-eyed monster. How silly of her to feel so strongly about someone she just met!
But it couldn't be that silly, could it?
Watching the baby latch onto Natasha the way she did stirred something up inside her. She use to cling to Natasha like that long before this...child was even born.
"You had to come to Budapest, didn't you?"
"I came here because I thought you wouldn't." Yelena shrugged. "But since you're here, what bullet does that?" She pointed to the holes in the wall to their left.
"Not bullets. Arrows."
It could only be the handiwork of Clint Barton.
"Ah, right."
"If you didn't think I'd come here, why'd you send me this?" Natasha pulled the vials out of her pocket.
"You brought it back here?" Yelena's eyes widened in alarm.
"I'm not here trying to be your friend, but you need to tell me what that is."
"It's a synthetic gas. The counteragent to chemical subjugation. The gas immunizes the brain's neuro-pathways from external manipulation."
"Maybe in English next time?" Natasha skimmed through her clothes, smiling when Lainey took a jacket from the rack and put it on.
It was far too big on her, but she looked adorable. Even Yelena could admit that. But she wouldn't tell Lainey that outright.
"Это антидота для управления вашим синапсе." Yelena sassed.
"Настоящая зрелая."
Lainey couldn't stop the giggle that left her mouth, but when Yelena turned to look at her, she stopped short and kept a straight face.
"The baby speaks Russian?" She inquired.
"I'm not a baby!" Lainey stomped her foot.
"Stop antagonizing her." Natasha pulled the jacket off of the brunette before putting it back on the rack. "And the answer is, yes. She does."
That was a useful piece of information. The baby spoke Russian. Now she could mess with her in more than one language.
"Why don't you take that to one of your super scientist friends? They can explain it to you. Tony Stark, maybe?"
"We're not really talking right now, so….." She noticed the way Lainey's face screwed up at the very mention of Tony and made a mental note to speak to her about it later.
"Great. Perfect timing. Where's an Avenger when you need one?"
"I don't wanna be here. I'm on the run. You put me and my daughter in danger."
"Well, what was I supposed to do? You're the only superhero person that I know…" Yelena trailed when Natasha took her shirt off, revealing the nasty looking bruises on her back. "That's why I sent it to you. I kept checking the news, expecting to see Captain America bringing down the Red Room."
Natasha bristled at her words and zipped up her jacket before turning to face her. "What? Taking down the Red Room? What're you talking about? It's been gone for years. Dreykov's dead. I killed him."
Now that didn't seem right. Bucky told Lainey that she was born in the Red Room. And that was eleven years ago. There was no way that Natasha could've destroyed the Red Room before that.
"You don't actually believe that, do you?" Yelena watched Lainey's reactions carefully, not wanting to strip the girl of her innocence. "You really do believe that."
"Dreykov's dead. It took almost destroying the entire city just to get to him." Natasha rolled her eyes and stalked into the kitchen, the two girls following her.
"Who's Dreykov, Mama?" Lainey asked. Bucky said that there were superiors who gave the order to have her taken away from him. She was wondering if Dreykov had been one of them.
"He's a bad man who can't hurt you. I made sure of that."
"If you're so sure, then tell me what happened. Tell me exactly." Yelena pushed.
"We rigged bombs."
"Who's 'we'?"
"Clint Barton." Natasha elaborated. "Killing Dreykov was the final step in my defection to S.H.I.E.L.D."
"How long ago was that?" Lainey tried to do the math in her head, but she wasn't sure when her mother defected. She had never asked.
"Eight years ago." She needed to stop with the questions before her mother grew suspicious.
If Natasha defected eight years ago, then Lainey had been three. Bucky said they spent three years together as a family before she was taken away. Natasha had not killed Dreykov. The Red Room was still very much up and running.
Which made sense, because Allison had always threatened her with using some of their tactics to get her to do what she was supposed to do. She couldn't do that if the Red Room was gone.
And at some point, she and Natasha had been in the Red Room at the very same time.
"Simple as that?"
"Yeah, sure. 'Simple'. That's what I'd call imploding a five-story building and then shooting it out with the Hungarian Special Forces. Took ten day in hiding before we could even get out of Budapest."
"And you checked the body?" Yelena pressed. "Confirmed the kill?"
And after slight hesitation, Natasha replied, "There was no body left to check."
"You're forgetting Dreykov's daughter."
Dreykov had a daughter? A man like that had a child of his own? How? Did he treat her well? Or did he treat her like all those other little girls he used and abused? Lainey's list of questions just kept growing and growing.
And she was about to ask one, but a loud explosion cut her off as the ceiling caved in and people began to descend from the hole.
Natasha grabbed her and kept her between her own body and the wall, shielding her from whatever was coming their way.
Red lasers searched for them, but they hid themselves well.
The footsteps of the intruders were quiet, but Lainey, Natasha, and Yelena had all been trained to keep a sharp ear in situations like these.
The footsteps got closer and closer. Natasha and Yelena gave each other a nod before jumping out and fighting two on their own.
One tried to grab Lainey, but instead of getting ahold of her shoulder, they received a harsh bite on the hand, making them yelp in surprise. And by the sound of the yelp and the light footsteps, Lainey could tell that these were women.
Widows.
She twisted her body around, still holding onto the arm she bit, twisting until she felt a satisfying crack coming from the ulna bone. Her body went into autopilot as she stole the woman's knife and cut her calf, so that she had no choice but to lie there, unable to fight back.
Once she was down, Lainey wiped the knife on her jeans and stuck it in her boot for later use. It was funny, because as much as Natasha lectured her about how much she didn't want her using knives, there was a little pocket in all of her shoes for one. She finished up at the same time Natasha and Yelena did, much to the blonde's shock.
Lainey guessed that Yelena thought she was some defenseless kid who needed saving and not some trained one who knew how to properly disarm someone with or without seriously injuring them.
That was okay, though, sometimes Lainey forgot, too.
"Let's go!" Natasha took the child's hand and ran out of the apartment with Yelena hot on their tails. "Where are we trying to get?"
"Motorbike!" Yelena answered, ducking when bullets began to fly. "East side of the building!"
The three ran as fast as they could across the balcony as the women above shot at them. They made it to the roof and slid, Natasha being the first to land safely, catching Lainey before she could fly off the roof completely, seeing how light she was, there would be nothing to stop her.
The redhead helped her grab onto the pole in front of them before she and Yelena latched on, kicking it away from the roof as they held on tightly.
But one of the women pursuing them jumped and managed to grab Natasha's wrist. Natasha being Natasha, was willing to overlook the fact that this woman had just been trying to kill them, and attempted to pull her up.
"I got you!" She said as they sailed.
But the lady didn't want her help. She took out her knife and cut herself away from Natasha, allowing herself to fall nearly twenty feet onto the harsh, unforgiving ground.
"No!"
Lainey screeched when the pole hit the next building and stopped abruptly, throwing them all like a slingshot.
Yelena landed inside, crashing onto the floor, Natasha hit the window sill, and plummeted down, all while hitting everything on the way, and Lainey flew right through the window, landing on top Yelena.
The Russian groaned and subtly checked the girl for injuries before shoving her off. "You're heavier than you look."
The baby hadn't been hurt. That was a good thing. Yelena hated it when children cried. It was annoying, there were better things they could do besides crying. The baby looked like she was one of those children.
Lainey let out a groan of her own before sitting up and looking around for Natasha. "Mama?"
When there was no answer, Yelena stood up and hauled her up onto her feet, dragging her down four flights of stairs before they finally reached the bottom.
"Mama!" Lainey sighed in relief when she saw her mother standing up without serious injury. She didn't know how that was possible, but she wasn't going to question it.
The woman the redhead tried to save couldn't say the same. She was just lying there in a puddle.
Yelena had been preparing to use one of the vials on the Widow, but it was too late. "Do you believe me now?"
"How many others?"
"Enough."