Chapter Twenty-Four
Yelena was right. They didn't have enough fuel to get to St. Petersburg. After a few hours, the chopper ran out of fuel and they had to make a rather harsh landing in the middle of nowhere.
Lainey thought it was funny that Yelena hadn't even tried to argue with Alexei about it. She just let the chips fall where they may and proved him wrong without saying anything.
"You should've brought the Avengers' super jet." Alexei quipped.
"I swear, if I hear one more word from him, I will kick him in the face."
"He's the worst." Natasha agreed with her sister, holding her daughter's hand so she wouldn't go wandering off and get lost.
Lainey whined a little, but she liked being so close to her mother, so she didn't really complain. She just had to put up a little fuss just to be difficult. Natasha had come to expect it, so she ignored it.
"Natasha." Alexei called. "Natasha. Come here, I want to ask you something."
"Can you take her?"
"No, Mama." Lainey protested, but her mother didn't pay her any mind. "I wanna stay with you."
But Yelena took Lainey's hand, albeit, quite awkwardly as Natasha stayed behind to speak to Alexei. "You need your hand held?" She asked the girl.
She thought Lainey was old enough to walk all by herself, but maybe there was something she didn't know.
"Mama doesn't like running after me." Lainey grinned cheekily.
"She doesn't like running after you?"
"She says I always run off when I'm not supposed to….wanna hold Mischief again?"
"No, thanks."
"What is with this tension?' Alexei raised his voice just a little. "Did I do something wrong?"
"Is that a serious question?" Natasha gave him a look.
"I only ever loved you girls." He continued. "I did my best to make sure you would succeed to achieve your fullest potential, and everything worked out."
"Everything worked out?"
"Yes. For you, yes. We accomplished our mission in Ohio. Yelena went on to become the greatest child assassin the world has ever known." Alexei explained proudly. "No one can match your efficiency, your ruthlessness. And Natasha, not just a spy, not just toppling regimes, destroying empires from within, but an Avenger."
Lainey could see the troubled look on her mother's face as Alexei went on. Her past wasn't something she was proud of. She never spoke about it and she tried her best to move on.
"You both have killed so many people. Your ledgers must be dripping, just gushing red." He took the older girls' free hands and pulled them in for a hug. "I couldn't be more proud of you."
Lainey pulled herself out of Yelena's grip just before she was brought into the hug and took a step back. She was so confused as to why Alexei thought that all that killing and all that bloodshed was something to be proud of.
Natasha gave him a fierce look of disgust and shoved herself away from him, pulling Lainey along with her, without ever looking back at him.
Yelena, on the other hand, she wouldn't admit it, but she was really taking in the affection that was being given to her. She hadn't felt it in so long, she couldn't help it if she melted into it a little.
But it didn't last very long.
"Okay." She began to push herself away. "Let go of me now. You smell really bad."
"Mama?" Lainey's feet dragged and there was a little hint of a whine in her tone. "My feet are tired."
"I'm sorry your feet are tired, honey." Natasha pouted.
"No fair."
"What's not fair?"
"Mischief doesn't have to walk. She's not tired."
"I know, baby, but we'll be there soon."
"Mamaaaa." Lainey made the executive decision to stop walking and stand in place with a pout on her face. She wasn't going to walk a step further than this. She was too tired.
Natasha realized the child was truly at her wit's end and lifted her up, setting her on her hip.
"Thank you."
"You're spoiled." Was what she said.
"Because of Uncle Steve?"
"Precisely."
"Are we there yet?" It seemed the impatience was going around, because Yelena was dragging her feet, too.
"You'll know when we're there." Alexei snorted like a pig, puzzling the three girls, but they kept on trekking.
"Pigs!" Lainey gasped when she saw all the Babe's and Wilbur's running around.
Natasha put her down as soon as they saw the house and all Lainey wanted to do now, was run around with the animals.
Her mother squeezed her hand to tell her that now really wasn't the time to be getting that excited. But the subtle smile on her face allowed her to think that she was being cute.
She'd have to read 'Charlotte's Web' to her again when they got home.
"Welcome to my humble abode." Melina greeted, leading them inside her home. She took a look at Lainey and her face changed to one of recognition, but she didn't say anything. "Make yourselves at home."
And upon hearing her voice, Lainey's eyes widened and she did her best to attach herself to her mother. Her body was telling her that she knew this woman and this woman knew her. But she couldn't remember anything about it.
She looked around to see tons of books on a big shelf, a loft that was also a space to read, and a kitchen. The little house was cozy and she liked it, but something was amiss.
"Let's have a drink."
"Hey, no funny business." Natasha eyed Melina very carefully, unsure of her intentions.
"I am putting away my weapon." Melina deadpanned.
"Are there any booby traps around here? Anything we need to worry about?" Natasha kept a firm grip on Lainey's hand, leading her over to the sink to get some water.
"I didn't raise my girls to fall into traps."
"You didn't raise us at all."
"Oh, maybe so." Melina spoke offhandedly, glancing at Lainey. "But if you got soft, it wasn't on my watch."
The older woman led them over to the dining table, handing them plenty of plates and utensils to use before she set various containers of food out for them to eat.
Lainey looked at everything and wondered what it was and if she had ever had any of it. She'd have to ask Bucky when she saw him again. He would know.
There was plenty of grunting and groaning coming from the bathroom. Lainey just assumed that Alexei was having a difficult time...going. But she thought it was a little ridiculous to be making all that noise and forcing something that wasn't going to happen.
"It still fits."
She was pleasantly surprised when her assumptions were proven wrong and Alexei came out of the bathroom wearing his old Red Guardian suit.
She didn't think it still fit, but if he thought so, then that's what mattered, right?
"I never washed it once. Come and drink." Melina clapped slowly before letting out a wolf whistle, beckoning him over to the head of the table.
"Family." Alexei smiled once he took his place. "Back together again. With new member."
"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?" Melina scooped some food onto her plate.
"Agreed." Natasha nodded, missing the look of hurt on Yelena's face. "So, here's what's gonna happen..."
"Okay." Alexei disregarded what she said. "A reunion then, huh?" His eyes wandered over to Melina, who was making eyes at him. "You haven't aged a day, huh? You're just as beautiful and as supple as the day they staged our marriage."
"You got fat." Melina spoke gently. "But still good."
Lainey pursed her lips in disgust as she watched the two flirt right there at the dinner table.
"I just got out of prison. I, uh, I have lot of energy."
"Oh!"
"Please don't do that." Natasha was just as grossed out as Lainey and Yelena were.
"Natasha, don't slouch." Melina scolded.
"I'm not slouching." The redhead sat up straight.
"Yes, yes, you are."
"I don't slouch."
"You're going to get a back hunch."
"Listen to your mother."
"Are you kidding me?"
"Up! Up!"
"Alright, enough." Natasha cut them off. "All of you."
"I didn't say anything." Yelena complained. "That's not fair."
"Me neither, Mama." Lainey added. "I was good that time."
"Here's what's going to happen.." Natasha trailed, watching Melina and Yelena interacting.
"I don't want any food." Yelena huffed while Melina served her more than she was going to eat.
"Eat a little something, Yelena, for goodness sake."
"You're gonna tell us the location of the Red Room."
And just like that, the air felt like it had been sucked out of the room. It took a bit of a moment for Melina to recover, but when she did, she dodged the issue.
"You know." She inhaled sharply, taking Lainey's plate to serve her as well. "It's like when you told them that they could stay up late to catch Santa Claus."
Lainey eyed the food with suspicion before deciding to try it to see if she'd like it. The eleven year old picked up her fork and scooped a small bit of it up before putting it in her mouth.
As soon as the food hit her taste buds, she knew what it was.
Olivier Salad.
Her mother used to make it for her back in Brooklyn. Lainey couldn't stand it. She didn't like veggies one bit. She tried not to be rude, but ultimately ended up pushing the food around on her plate instead.
Melina quirked a stern looking eyebrow that got the child to put another forkful in her mouth, fighting the urge to pout as she did so.
"What?" Alexei chuckled. "That was fun. You know, 'he come down the chimney, girls'. 'Look out. Where is he?"
Luckily for Lainey, there wasn't too much on her plate. Very unlucky for her, she was stubborn and didn't want to eat anymore of it.
"You eat that or you get no Pelmeni." Melina warned her, pointing a finger at the container full of the delicious dumpling.
And it was as if she knew how much Lainey loved Pelmeni. Well, she had to in order to make that kind of a threat.
This time, Lainey did pout, but she kept eating.
"You wait for him, and then when the cookies are gone, then you see he's here." Alexei stopped smiling when Melina shook her head. "What? I want them to follow their dreams."
"No good."
"Reach for the stars girls."
"Finding Dreykov is not a fantasy. It's unfinished business." Natasha glared.
"You can't defeat a man who commands the very will of others." Melina explained, serving a generous amount of Pelmeni to Lainey after she finished her salad. "You never saw the culmination of what we started in America."
Lainey beamed and took a bite, nearly relaxing at the wonderful taste in her mouth. She hadn't had this in so long, she'd nearly forgotten all about it and how much she enjoyed it.
"Nor did you." The older woman spoke to Alexei.
"Natasha, always focus, focus." Alexei grumbled. "Get what you want."
Natasha rolled her eyes and pushed some hair back behind Lainey's ear as she ate. She loved to see her eat so well, because most of the time, all the child wanted to do was eat sweets.
"Come in." Melina called, looking at a tablet.
Lainey's eyebrows shot up when the door opened and a pig entered. Mischief certainly got quite the fright and clambered up onto the counter to get away.
"Did that pig just open the door?" Natasha asked what everyone was thinking.
"Yes, it did." Melina smiled at the animal, giving it a piece of food. "Good boy, Alexei. Good boy."
"You named a pig after me?"
"You don't see the resemblance?" Melina looked genuinely confused. "See, he sits just like dog."
"Amazing."
"Now, watch." Melina told them. "Stop breathing."
The pig grunted as it did just that, alarming everyone else in the room.
"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."
Lainey couldn't believe that Melina was just talking as if there wasn't a suffocating pig right there at her feet.
Her blue eyes widened as she watched the poor thing struggle for oxygen it wasn't allowed to have.
"In conjunction with the Winter Soldier project, they had dissected and deconstructed the human brain to create the first and only 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."
So, in other words, the Red Room realized that Hydra had succeeded in controlling Lainey's father and they decided to do the same to a bunch of young girls?
If the Avengers had never broken into her apartment that day in Brooklyn...could that have been her, too?
Would she have been much different than that pig, struggling for air all because its handler told it that it wasn't to breathe?
Suddenly, she wasn't very hungry anymore.
"What are you doing?" Natasha was just as alarmed as she was.
"Oh, I am explaining that the science is now so exact, the subject can be instructed to stop breathing and has no choice but to obey."
"Okay, you made your point. That's enough."
"Yes, alright." Melina pressed a button on the tablet and the pig took in a big gulp of air. "Alexei could've survived eleven more seconds without oxygen. Good boy. Now, you go back, back home where it's safe. Good boy, Alexei."
The pig grunted once again and left the house as if nothing happened at all.
"The world functions on a higher level when it's controlled. Dreykov has chemically subjugated agents planted around the globe."
"And do you know who they test it on?" Yelena spoke up for the first time in a while.
"No, that's not my department."
"Don't lie to them, hm?" Alexei sighed.
"I'm not lying."
"You're Dreykov's architect, huh?"
"What were you? If I was his architect, you were his partner. You were his business partner."
"No, no, no. I was patsy!" Alexei banged his fist on the table. "He sell me ideology."
"Stop with the politics."
"All the while, bigger..."
"Shut up!" Natasha cut the both of them off.
It was safe to say that they both looked pretty startled.
"You are an idiot." She glared at Alexei before she turned her attention to Melina, her words cutting deep. "And you're a coward. You're a coward...and our family was never real, so there's nothing to hold on to. We're moving on."
"Never family, huh?" Alexei challenged. "In my heart, I am simple man. I think that for a couple deep undercover Russian agents, I think we did pretty great as parents, huh?"
"Yes." Melina nodded. "We had our orders and we played our roles to perfection."
"Who cares?" Natasha snapped. "That wasn't real."
"What?" Lainey hated to see the hurt behind Yelena's eyes.
"That wasn't real. Who cares?"
She didn't think that Natasha meant to hurt Yelena with what she was saying. She believed it was more of her putting her guard up to protect herself and by extension, Yelena.
She just wasn't doing a very good job.
"Don't say that." Yelena's voice cracked, alerting Natasha to her pain. "Please, don't say that. It was real. It was real to me." She looked at Melina. "You are my mother. You were my real mother. The closest thing I ever had to one...the best part of my life was fake...and none of you told me."
Lainey really wanted to get up and hug her, but none of this was her business and she felt too shy and out of place to actually do anything. There was a lot going on here that she didn't understand.
Maybe she'd insult her or something later to get her to laugh.
"And those agents you chemically subjugated around the globe? That was me." The blonde fought back tears. "And you." She trained her eyes on her sister. "You got out. Dreykov made sure no one could escape. Are you going to say anything?"
For years, Yelena had been stuck in the Red Room just waiting for her sister to come in and save her. Natasha got out, but she never looked back. She never tried to make contact, she never thought to make sure she was okay. She probably never even gave her a thought.
She could still feel that stab of pain she had gotten when Natasha walked into the flat in Budapest with Lainey following.
Natasha couldn't be bothered to find her, but she had found some other child that she loved, and cherished, and doted on.
For a while, every hug they shared made her stomach flip. Every time Natasha kissed Lainey's chubby little cheeks, Yelena felt like hitting something. Her face burned with anger and deep hurt at being somewhat replaced.
Being only eleven, and sometimes a little selfish, as children usually were, Lainey didn't see that. She hadn't immediately clicked with Yelena because truthfully, she didn't want to, not at the time. Yelena represented Natasha's past, a past that she wasn't directly a part of. A past that she felt wouldn't be able to relate to.
Yelena was an intruder, to put it mildly. Lainey couldn't remember having the kind of loving attention Natasha gave her before they met. Of course, she had it, she just didn't remember it. She loved being wrapped up in Natasha's arms, and how warm and safe she felt being there. She liked being the only one Natasha did that with, because she had been starving for affection and attention for so long, she felt she might break in two if it was taken away from her.
That's why, the very first time she had seen Lila and her mother interact, she felt jealous and was unexplainably angry and bitter inside. Lila had a mother already and a father. Why did she need Natasha, too?
It was irrational, because Natasha loved her and Lila both, in completely different ways, but that need for love was so strong, Lainey couldn't comprehend that at the time.
So when she was introduced to Yelena, she felt it all over again, but worse. She saw the pictures that the blonde had sent. She could hear the fondness in her mother's tone when she spoke about her. She saw how quickly Natasha had rushed to Yelena's aid back in the Underground.
It made her want to throw herself on the floor and beat her fists onto the ground until she got too tired to continue.
The sly comment about the vest was only her internal feelings reaching the surface. It burned her up inside when Natasha scolded her for it. She was never so harsh with her, but it seemed like now that Yelena was with them, things were changing.
She didn't like it.
She made the connection that it was only because she had never been so rude to anyone like that before, so naturally, her mother was shocked.
But she didn't want to acknowledge it.
She knew she needed to apologize, but deep down, she didn't really want to.
She wanted Yelena to go away and leave them alone.
Until now.
The overwhelming selfishness she was feeling had washed away as soon as she saw Yelena crying.
She didn't like to see her cry and she wished she had been a lot nicer to her these past couple of days.
For the longest time, Yelena didn't have anyone. But she had hopes that someone from her family would come along and save her.
They never did.
Yelena needed Natasha, too. Lainey knew that now.
"No." The blonde nodded before standing up, grabbing the bottle of vodka that was just sitting there. "Don't touch me."
"Yelena." Natasha tried.
"No." Yelena didn't look back once before shutting the door to Melina's bedroom behind herself.
"I'll go talk to her." Alexei volunteered, following the girl, leaving Lainey, Natasha, and Melina at the table.
Lainey blew out a quiet breath, opting to get up and play with her cat, who by now, had left the counter to find other entertaining things to do.
"Alyona, sit."
Her eyes widened at the fact that she knew her given name and allowed herself to fall back down in her seat.
"You're hiding something." Natasha had observed the way the two had been interacting all afternoon and something was off.
"Do you remember me?" Melina asked the girl.
"No."
"I didn't think you would." She sighed.
"Why would she remember you, Melina?"
"She was in the Red Room, Natasha." Melina just dropped the truth bomb, not being a big fan of beating around the bush. "For four years."
"I don't remember."
"There was a woman….Yekaterina Sokolovna Volkova." The dark-haired woman began to explain. "She was born somewhere outside of St. Petersburg during the harshest winter months. She was abandoned literally months after she was born, no one knows who her family was, or where they had gone. She became a product of the Red Room to be trained to be the best. But she couldn't measure up to Natalia."
"To me?"
"To you. But she had promise. Hydra lent the Red Room their prized possession. Their Winter Soldier. He was to train Katya, but the story is, the two fell in love. Dreykov saw an opportunity to breed a child with characteristics from both sides and allowed them to continue, forgoing the graduation ceremony. She was an experiment of sorts. And in the winter of 2004, Katya gave birth to a little girl, Alyona Morozova. You."
Lainey remembered the very abridged version her father told her, but she was taking in so much new information, she didn't know what to do with herself. She was glad her mother was there sitting right next to her, offering her support.
"But after three years, Dreykov believed your parents to be too soft and too lenient with you. He wanted you to be strong, ruthless. They weren't doing much to get you there. So he ordered that you'd be separated from each other. I want you to know, that your parents fought for you every step of the way. Soldat needed to be wiped to get him to cooperate and your mother was cycled through the Red Room a second time."
"What happened to me?"
"I was assigned to train you."
"Melina….." Natasha trailed.
"I tried so hard to rectify the mistake I made so many years ago. I didn't have a choice then, but I had a choice now." The woman continued with tears in her eyes. "I tried my best to give you the love you needed, but getting attached to you was very dangerous." She chuckled a bit at a memory. "You, little one, didn't make it any easier. You called me 'Baba'. You had your heart set on latching onto me because of the absence of your parents….and I didn't have the heart to turn you away. But I couldn't keep you forever. Half a year after that, Dreykov gave you and your mother a mission."
"No."
"You were to pose as a broken family in New York. Katya would do most of the work, taking out threats to the Red Room while you were there to tighten the alibi. You were given cover names. Your mother gave you the name, Alayna, and Dreykov accepted because he wanted no confusion from you. The name was close enough to your own that after a while, you wouldn't even remember the difference."
So everything had been a lie. Lainey's whole life was a lie. She was Russian. She had been born in Russia, not New York. She and Peter hadn't been friends for as long they were taught to believe, her name wasn't even her name, and her mother wasn't some heartless woman who didn't care about anyone but herself.
"Katya's first assignment….was to eliminate two S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives."
"What were their names?" Natasha asked.
"Richard and Mary Parker."
Lainey's face paled and she began to feel very sick.
Richard and Mary Parker were Peter's parents. She and Peter were friends! Her mother had been friends with his parents and his aunt and uncle. She couldn't have done it.
"No."
"I'm sorry." Melina shook her head, continuing. "The assignment was supposed to last only five years…when you turned nine, the both of you were to be brought back to the Red Room. But you weren't."
Lainey wasn't returned to the Red Room because the Avengers found her before that. They had saved her. What would she have turned out to be if they hadn't taken her in? What would her life be like?
"Your mother…she made it so that someone would find her and arrest her. She would rather be arrested than to be taken back to the Red Room. She knew that if someone found her, there was a chance that they could save you. So she left valuable intel lying around and did a very sloppy job on her missions."
"Until we found her." Natasha gathered.
"She tried so hard to protect you. And I am almost positive she didn't go about it the right way, but she loved you and she only wanted what was best for you, Alya."
At the sound of her name, Lainey was brought back to a time when it was used often. A time she didn't even think she remembered.
"Alya, it is late." Melina squinted through the dark of the night just to see the toddler standing over her bed.
"Baba, bad dreams." The woman could see the child's bottom lip jutting out even with no light.
"You're not supposed to take your cuffs off, sweetheart. You're going to get into trouble."
"Like Mama and Papa?"
"Yes." Melina nodded, not wanting to scare her, but wanting her to know the severity of what she was doing. "Come, let's get you back to bed."
She stood up and scooped the baby up in one fluid motion, walking across the room to her bed before setting her down in it.
She took a deep breath before slipping the handcuffs onto her tiny wrists, attaching the other end to her bed, taking the key so that she couldn't unlock them again.
"Where is my Papa?"
"He's somewhere fighting to get you back." She decided to give her a little hope, though she had no idea where Soldat was or what happened to him. "So you must get stronger and stronger, so that you can help him when it is time, yes?"
"Yes!" Alya grinned, her nightmare long forgotten.
"Goodnight." She leaned over to plant a gentle kiss on her forehead before she retired for the night herself.
Lainey shook her head to snap herself back to into reality. It was like now that she knew the truth, her brain was beginning to remember little bits and details.
"Papa! Papa! Look!" Her three year old self babbled in Russian, clad in a black leotard, pink tights, and ballet slippers. "I dance!"
"Wow." Soldat forced a smile at the sight of his daughter being made into a child soldier like all the other girls in the Red Room.
There wasn't a thing he could do about it. He had no free will. He had no agency. If he slipped up, they'd take her away and put him right back in the freezer.
He had to make the most of the time he had with her now.
"Just like Mama!"
"Just like Mama." The sentence had a sad double meaning.
Lainey would end up just like her mother if someone didn't get her out of this environment.
But she wouldn't be smiling then.
And she certainly wasn't smiling now.