Chapter Thirty-One
"What do you want with Peter Parker?" Alya marched into Tony's lab one day without any warning.
She was still suspended. She did try to keep busy, but there was only so much tv she could watch and there were only so many books she could read before growing bored.
Pepper was busy with work, which was understandable given that she was running an entire company. Mischief was a cat, and like most cats, she only wanted to play when it benefitted her. She would much rather be left alone to do her own thing than to be constantly held and pet.
So Alya decided to get a real answer as to why Tony wanted her to spy on Peter.
"I told you." Tony didn't bother to turn around. "He's my intern."
To him, it was odd that she cared so much about this. It wasn't like she knew Peter. How was this any of her business?
"You don't have interns." She crossed her arms. "You've never had interns."
"He's the first."
"Garbage." Alya scoffed. "You don't have the patience."
"You're right." He finally did turn around to face when she got close enough. "I don't, so why are you here?"
"You wanted me to spy? I'm gathering intel." She smirked. "What's so important about Peter Parker?"
"Nothing that concerns you, kid."
"It's not really Peter Parker you're after, is it?" She questioned, placing her hands on his work station. "It's Spider-Man you're watching."
She knew it was probably wrong, but Alya felt really good to have had the upper hand during that moment. She doubted her mother would approve of any of this, but she didn't like how he had gotten Peter into a situation he wouldn't be able to get himself out of if everything went wrong.
"How did you know that?"
"How did you?"
"That's not something that's known to the general public, I swear, Alayna, if you do anything to put that kid in danger…."
As if Alya would do anything to put anyone else in danger. Especially Peter!
"Me?" Alya had to laugh. "I'm not the one who lied to him and brought him to Germany."
"He was never in any danger." Tony waved her off.
"But you told him that anyone who didn't want to sign the Accords was dangerous. Uncle Steve was there, Wanda was there, Uncle Clint was there, too. They didn't want to sign, doesn't that make them dangerous? If you knew that, then why'd you bring him? Which is it?"
Alya was no longer that naive little girl that had walked into the Tower all those years ago. She was quick, intelligent, sharp as a tack.
"Actually." She continued, knowing she had his attention. "What did you really tell him about the Accords?"
"Alayna, I don't think this is a conversation to be had with a child."
"Why? I thought I was a spy?" She smiled dangerously, reminding Tony very much of her mother. "Did Peter have to sign the Accords?"
"Of course not."
"Why not? He's enhanced. Why wouldn't he sign them? After all, he was fighting for them."
"He's a kid."
"So's Wanda and so am I. Why is he different? Because he was on your side? I have a question…..why was he on your side? What did you tell him?"
"I didn't tell him anything that wasn't true."
"Okay." Alya knew she wasn't going to get him to open up on that front, so she dropped it. "If he got hurt, what would you have told Aunt May? You took her nephew to Germany, illegally, and without her permission. What would you have told her if he got hurt?"
"What do you know about the kid's aunt?!" Tony stood up abruptly, towering over Alya.
But she wasn't intimidated. Him getting up like that was only proving her point. He was wrong for what he had done and he knew it.
"I know more than you think I know."
"Alayna, this isn't some game to be played! His family is danger just by you knowing! No one is supposed to know!"
Tony really didn't know what Alya was getting at, but he hated the fact that she was getting some sort of sick amusement from this. It was one thing for him to know Peter's real identity and the name of his closest relative, but now that he knew Alya knew, there was a problem.
If she knew all of this, then what else did she know?
"Peter Parker, born in August of 2001. His favorite food is pizza, his favorite movie series is Star Trek. He hates Star Wars, but his best friend doesn't, so he sucks it up for his benefit. His parents were Richard and Mary Parker. His uncle was a wonderful man named Ben, and his aunt's name is May." She began to list. "Peter Parker was born and raised in Queens, his favorite color is blue, his favorite superhero is Captain America, and he hates peas. Peter Parker is my friend."
"What?"
"Peter Parker is not your pet project. He's a human being with feelings. He's not here for you to use when you need him. I'm not the one who's putting him in danger, Mr. Stark. You are."
And with that, Alya turned on her heel and began to leave the lab, but not before stopping and turning around.
"I'm leaving tomorrow. Whether or not I get that call from Mama. I don't want to be here anymore."
"Fine by me. However." He knew he should've stopped and quit while he still could, but the whole Accords situation and what happened in Siberia was really weighing on him and stressing him out. "I really don't think that I'm the one he needs to worry about."
And Alya's gut was screaming at her to just leave and never come back, but she really wanted to hear what he had to say to her.
"I've been doing a little research of my own." He pressed a couple of buttons on his watch, projecting a hologram of information. Alya's eyes widened slightly before she managed to school her features. "That's your mother? Right?"
There was a picture of Katya, clear as day for her to see. She looked younger, much younger, so Alya knew it wasn't a recent photo.
"Yekaterina Sokolovna Volkova." Tony continued now that he had her undivided attention. "Parents; unknown, birth date; unknown. But she's a Widow, isn't she? She was raised in the Red Room. Wasn't that just destroyed? Funny."
Alya knew she wasn't meant to answer these questions, but she couldn't help but want to scream at him for this.
This wasn't like him. Sure, he could tell an off-colored joke, but he had never been so unnecessarily cruel. Especially not to her.
"An extensive skillset, countless kills all over the world, and look at this." He pulled up a file with the details of her and Katya's mission. "A cover story; Allison Serrano of Brooklyn, New York. She has one daughter; Alayna Serrano, but that's not your real name, is it? She's a single mother, her husband walked out on her and her daughter years ago. Air tight alibi, I'd say."
"What're you doing?"
"And it's interesting that you say you and Peter are friends." He prepared to deliver the killer blow. "Is he aware that your mother was the one who killed his parents? Have you told him?"
"It's never come up."
"Convenient. You and Rogers, I can see exactly why you're so tight. He didn't tell me about my parents and you didn't tell your 'friend' about his. According to this, that week we found you? You were to receive orders to kill him and his aunt. Did you tell him that, too?"
This was news to Alya. She had no idea about that. If the Avengers hadn't found her, if her mother hadn't messed up the mission, she would've been ordered to kill Peter and May.
"Would you have done it? I mean, you didn't seem to take issue with breaking that girl's nose."
Would she?
As a product of the Red Room, a spy, a child assassin, would she have been able to pull that trigger?
"I don't think it would've been your first kill. It's what you were born to do. It's second nature, you can't help it."
Neither of the two had ever known that you could physically feel when a relationship was falling apart.
"So don't you dare try to reprimand me for doing my best to protect Peter, when you're the one everyone should be watching out for." A smile graced his lips before he properly stop it. "Glass houses and all that."
But they were sure of it after that.
"Please open…" Alya stuck a bobby pin into the lock of her old apartment back in Brooklyn and sighed in relief when she heard it click.
She wasn't kidding when she said she didn't want to stay at the Compound anymore. It wasn't just Tony, although he was a big, big part of it.
Nothing was the same anymore. There was no laughter echoing off the walls, no music playing, there was no wonderful scent coming from the kitchen, and there was no family to come home to.
There were only memories of things from the past.
Just like the apartment.
Everything was the way she and Katya had left it. Nothing had been touched. Nothing had been moved.
But it felt colder, empty.
Alya closed the door, locking it behind herself as she looked around. This was the apartment she spent so much time in. This was place she thought she had been raised in. This apartment was part of a mission she and her mother never completed.
She learned how to ride a bike in this apartment. She learned two languages in this apartment. Until a few weeks ago, this apartment was all she ever knew.
"This was my home, Mischief." She told her companion, setting the kennel down on the ground near the couch.
And now the apartment was all she had left of her biological mother. She loved Natasha more than anything in the whole world, but Katya had left an emptiness in her wake. Alya never got to know her mother. She knew Allison, but she never had the pleasure of knowing Katya.
Katya was the woman who, for years, risked her own life just to make sure that her daughter had a chance of having a better one. Katya was the woman who was abandoned in the harsh winter snow, the one who was used and abused by the Red Room, and still had enough love in her heart for her baby.
This apartment was full of lies. A life that wasn't even real.
But it was all Alya had.
The raven-haired girl took a deep breath, building up her own courage to open her mother's bedroom door. The hinges creaked from lack of use and the knob hit the wall behind it with a thud. Alya hadn't stepped in this room since she was eight years old. Her mother's room had always been off limits for her, but curiosity always won out.
She'd never find anything worthwhile, it was almost as if her mother knew she'd sneak in when she wasn't around. Doing something mischievous was what had given her a rush.
As she stepped further in, a floorboard creaked louder than it should've. To the average ear, it probably wouldn't have been suspicious, but for Alya, it was something to look into.
She quirked a brow before kneeling down, prodding the wooden boards to try and see if they would give. Proving her suspicions to be correct, one of them did move enough for her to pick it up.
And under the boards, she found a load of weapons. Knives of different sizes, firearms, a pair of batons, and plenty of widow's bites.
She had seen Natasha use them plenty of times, so she knew what they did. They were pretty useful to get out of a quick bind, so she shoved them in her bag, making sure they were safe and hidden.
She took a single gun and plenty of ammunition, just incase she'd need to use it. She didn't think she would, but she wanted to be safe. After everything that's happened, she couldn't be too careful.
The batons were easy enough to put in her bag without anyone thinking they were weapons if they were found.
Of course, she didn't leave all the knives. She took the small ones and put some in her shoes, the pockets of her jeans, and the rest in her bag. There was a little opening where George could be re-stuffed if need be, and she ended up putting one in there, too.
No one was going to catch her by surprise the way they had the night she had been kidnapped.
Not again.
She was going to be ready for anything now. No one was going to hurt her like that again. Ever.
Once she grabbed everything she needed, she raided her mother's closet, finding a few catsuits that belonged to the woman.
Alya figured that when she got older, she could grow into them, so she threw a couple into her bag, shaking it to make sure it wasn't too heavy or too full.
What really caught her surprise, was when she found a few catsuits in her own size in that closet. They looked like the ones that she had seen the younger widows wearing back in the Red Room.
Now, to Alya, that didn't really make any sense. She was told that she had only spent four years in the Red Room before moving to America for the mission. Why would she need a catsuit? These catsuits were far too large for a four year old.
There was something someone wasn't telling her. What, she didn't know.
The only one who could possibly tell her anything, was Melina. The problem was, she didn't know where she was or how to get in contact with her. No matter, she'd figure it out.
Feeling inquisitive, she pulled all of her mother's shoes out of the closet and felt around to see if there was a trapdoor or something.
The rug wasn't installed correctly and there was something underneath it that could have been of value to her.
And she was right.
But she didn't find more weapons or more tactical gear. What she found was even better.
A photo album.
It wasn't big by any means, but it was special regardless of its size. In it, were pictures of her through the years. There were even some of both her and her mother in there.
Even though Katya, was gone, she was still proving how much she loved her.
"Спасибо мамочка."