Chapter Forty-One
Alya grinned mischievously, rubbing her hands together as she found her new target. Being that there were two extra people in the house, it made her archery practice a lot more fun. She enjoyed catching everyone by surprise as a plunger arrow whizzed passed them and stuck itself into a wall nearby.
So far, she had gotten Wanda twice, Steve several times, and she startled Melina once, but that was just luck.
She wasn't crazy enough to try it on Natasha, and Peter's senses alerted him of the arrows, so he was never affected, just amused.
And Alya could admit, the only reason why she hadn't tried Yelena, was because of the blonde's short temper and quick reflexes. If it weren't for that, rest assured, Yelena probably would've gotten an arrow to the nose.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Wanda's voice went off so close to her ear.
Poor Alya shrieked and tumbled down the stairs before she could catch herself on the bannister. Luckily, Wanda was able to think fast and shot her arms out, encasing the child in red before she could hit the ground.
At the same time, Peter hopped up onto the ceiling and shot a web at Alya's back to pull her up. He had just come back inside after checking the mailbox when he saw the commotion. Even though he and his aunt were so far apart, it didn't mean that they never communicated. They exchanged letters very often to try to close the gap the distance created.
But as soon as he heard Alya scream, the mail was forgotten about and she became his top priority.
"Are you okay?" Wanda lowered her little sister very gently before she helped her stand.
"M'fine." To think that Alya had worse tumbles than that, but this was the thing that spooked her.
"Alya, I'm so sorry." She cupped her chin. "I had no idea that would happen. Don't cry. Please don't cry."
"Bring her here." Yelena waved them over to the couch where she, Natasha, and Steve were sitting comfortably. At the sound of Alya in distress, all three of them had shot up to see what was wrong, but upon finding out that she was fine, they sat back down in relief.
Melina was in the kitchen cooking, and even she peeked to make sure everything was okay.
Alya had never screamed like that before.
"Go to Tetushka, Alya. Wanda, Peter, come help me in the kitchen."
Alya wiped at her eyes and trudged over to Yelena with a pout.
"What's the matter, huh?" Yelena stared at her quite blankly. "Are you hurt?"
"No." Alya sniffled.
"Did you break anything? Are your ears falling off? Are your feet running away from you?" She fired quick, silly questions. "Is your head on backwards?"
"No." And this time, Alya managed a little giggle.
"Then why the tears?"
"I don't know." The twelve year old shrugged and looked at Natasha for help.
"Ah! Mama's not talking to you." Yelena regained her attention. "You fell down the stairs and you got startled. So what do you do now? Stop playing on the stairs, Alyona."
"Okay." Alya acquiesced. Yelena had been right, the feeling of free falling down the stairs had startled her because if it hadn't been for Wanda and Peter, she would've been seriously injured once she hit the floor. With all she had been through, she didn't exactly know why this situation in particular triggered such a response.
Maybe this was one fall too many.
"Ты собираешься дать мне седые волосы." (You're going to give me grey hairs.) Yelena smiled before she shoved her away.
Alya's giggles echoed off the walls as she jumped into her mother's arms, comfortably sitting on her lap.
"You know something?" Yelena tilted her head. "You're very spoiled."
"I'm not spoiled." Alya protested as her mother brushed some flyaways from her face.
Natasha swore that as soon as she taught Alya to braid, the girl very rarely wore her hair down. It was always tucked away in a neat dutch braid down her back, safely secured with a single hairband at the bottom. She missed playing with her daughter's soft curls and all the bonding that came with it, but she was also proud of how quickly she learned how to do her own hair.
"You're spoiled, baby." She chuckled in agreement with her sister.
"Ha!" Yelena stuck her tongue out at her niece before growing serious. "How come you let her call you 'baby', but every time I do it, you make a face?"
"Because I'm her favorite." Natasha kissed Alya's forehead, grinning at the offended look on Yelena's face. "Deal with it, Little One."
"We need to talk." Melina looked Natasha directly in the eye.
Now that the kids were out of the room and they were distracted, it was the perfect time to bring up the heavy topic she wanted to discuss.
"Yeah." Natasha agreed, leading her to sit down at the dining room table. Steve and Yelena followed suit as well. "We do. It's about Alya."
"I know."
"She's been having these horrible nightmares, she's sleep walking, and talking in her sleep." Natasha explained with a heavy sigh.
The way she had to talk Alya down from her nightmare that night was terrifying. What if she hadn't been successful? What if she actually had to use physical force to get her to stop? She didn't think that she was capable.
If she could get even a little bit of insight on what was happening with her daughter, then maybe she would be able to help her.
"I feel like there's something you know, that you're not saying."
"Natasha..." Melina knew this was coming, but that didn't make it any easier.
"Mama, please." Natasha's green orbs pleaded with Melina to disclose whatever it was she was holding back.
Yelena's eyes widened at the form of address. Natasha hadn't called Melina 'Mama' since Ohio. This was more serious than she thought it was going to be.
And it seemed to be just the push that Melina needed. "You said she was having nightmares? Does she tell you what they're about?"
"Not all of them. The ones that she does are usually about the Red Room." Natasha shook her head. "Sometimes she mutters about someone named 'Ksenia'."
"Ah, Ksenia." Melina nodded, recognizing the name.
"You know who she is?" Steve spoke for the first time since the conversation began.
"Yes. She was a child a little older than Alya back in the Red Room. She wasn't brought in as a baby and she didn't fit in very well. She was a very sweet girl, clumsy, she wasn't very skilled in combat like the rest...She and Alya took a liking to each other and were pretty good friends."
Yelena temporarily closed her eyes and slowly inhaled. Making friends in the Red Room was dangerous at any age. She never dared to do such a thing. Dreykov had eyes and ears everywhere, watching, listening, waiting for any one of the girls to make a mistake.
Alya was very bold for what she did and, it pained Yelena to think, but she was also very foolish for it, too.
"But Dreykov found out about their friendship. At first, he allowed them to grow closer and more comfortable with one another, and then he had them spar against each other."
"Spar?" Steve questioned, his jaw clenched as he learned more about the horrible Red Room these women were forced to reside in during their childhoods.
"In the Red Room, sparring isn't 'sparring'." Yelena answered him dully. "It was Dreykov's way of forcing little girls to kill each other. His version of weeding out the weak ones from the strong ones."
Steve couldn't believe what he was hearing. Little girls fighting against each other to see who would live? How was this allowed? How did no one know about this?
"How old?" Natasha bit her lip to keep from crying.
"I believe Alya had recently turned four and Ksenia was five."
"I see."
"Don't tear yourself apart. You didn't know." Melina reached out for her eldest daughter's hand to squeeze. "I did, and there was nothing I could do about it. Dreykov was a powerful man and he always got what he wanted."
"What else do you know?" Natasha found comfort in her mother's gesture. "I mean, why, all of a sudden, is she having these horrible nightmares all the time?"
"Did the nightmares begin after the Red Room was destroyed?"
"Yes."
"Did you, by any chance, spray her with the antidote?"
"I did." Yelena confirmed, remembering how Alya's eyes had glowed when it was given to her.
The antidote was meant to counteract the mind control that all the Widows were under. It clearly worked on Alya, but she had never been controlled. The option was just always there.
"Dreykov wanted to know if he could control the younger Widows without actually taking away their free will." Melina's eyes darkened. "He had his science department figure out how to block memories inconspicuously. I wasn't included in this project because Dreykov did not trust me to get the job done correctly."
In other words, Melina was far too close to his little test subject, Alya. He didn't believe that he could get her to experiment on the small child, so he found someone else to do it.
"An injection was created. It disrupted the work of the prefrontal cortex in the frontal lobe, used to store short-term memories."
"What does this all have to do with Alya?" Steve ran a hand over his face.
This just kept getting worse and worse.
"She was the test subject. During her long-term mission, every summer break she had from school, she was brought back for debriefing and training. Dreykov did not want her to lose her skill in combat or weaponry. She was his best pupil after Yelena and he could not afford to lose her." A single tear slipped from the woman's eye as she thought back to the past. "Right before she was brought back to New York, he would have her injected with that serum to make sure that she would forget her time in the Red Room, but be fully able to perform her responsibilities for her mission."
"Oh, Alya." Peter dropped an envelope on her lap. "I went out to the mailbox today and I found this. It's for you."
Alya studied the envelope carefully, trying to figure out who it was from. It was addressed to her, but there was no indication to who sent it.
That was odd.
"Who's it from?" Wanda asked.
After lunch, the three of them decided they wanted to hang out in the girls' room away from all the adults. It was good because it gave Wanda a better chance to get to know Peter better and see his and Alya's relationship first hand.
She had to admit, at first, she had been a little threatened when she found out how close the two were, but that didn't mean her relationship with Alya needed to change. Alya didn't love her any less than before and now, Wanda could make a new friend.
It was a win-win situation.
"I don't know. It doesn't say." Alya tore the envelope open and unfolded the paper inside of it.
It was a letter from her father. He wasn't under the ice anymore and now he was able to write to her.
"It's from Papa!" She lit up, her eyes scanning the carefully written words on the pages that were sent to her.
She didn't even wait for Wanda or Peter's reactions before she tore down the hall to the stairs to share, what was quickly becoming her prized possession, with her mother.
But once she heard the serious tone of voices coming from the dining area, she stopped short. They were talking about her and her time in the Red Room.
So, of course, Alya being a very curious girl, sat down and listened.
And she didn't like what she heard.
"They used my daughter as a lab rat." Natasha swallowed a painful lump in her throat.
"In a nutshell, yes." Melina nodded. "But once the antidote was sprayed, it looks like it counteracted the serum. Which, I would assume, has caused a plethora of memories to flood right back to her. It could be through certain triggers or phrases, or flashbacks and nightmares."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"For the same reason you don't tell an amnesiac about all the time they have lost and can't remember. It would have overwhelmed her and the results would not have been desirable."
"How will I tell her?"
Alya had already been through so much in her life and so many things had been forced on her. Natasha didn't have the heart to tell her that there was more she didn't know.
"You won't have to. If I know Alya, she is probably listening at the top of the stairs."
Alya, realizing she had been caught, though she didn't really care, stood up and dashed to her and Wanda's room in tears, hiding in the closet. But not before grabbing George on the way.
The two teens looked at each other, unsure of what could've caused that reaction. Wanda, being the oldest, slid off of her bed and knocked on the closet door, hoping that Alya would make this easy.
When did she ever?
"Alya? What happened?"
"Go away!" The young girl kicked the door to let her sister know she meant what she said, gripping the letter from her father as if it were a lifeline. "I don't wanna talk!"
It was horrible to find out that Dreykov had been messing with her mind and it was still affecting her present day.
She would never ever get rid of the Red Room. That was just a pipe dream. It would always be a part of her and she would always be a product of it.
There was no escaping it.
She was always going to be a Widow.
Unbreakable.
Made of marble.
"Alya." Peter tried.
But Alya kicked again. Through the slats, she could see that Melina had been the one to follow her up here and now she was trying to get Wanda and Peter to leave so they could talk.
She couldn't even find it in herself to stop the woman from opening the closet doors to sit down right next to her.
And at first, Melina didn't say anything. She just sat there in silence, perfectly content not to have to fill the void. But that wasn't what she was there for. The longer they stayed quiet, the harder the conversation was going to be.
They couldn't just ignore the elephant in the room.
"You didn't tell me." The tone in Alya's voice had been a little accusatory.
How else was she supposed to feel? Melina knew all this time and she never said anything.
"I didn't tell you, because you just weren't ready to hear it." Melina kept her focus on what was ahead of her, finding that that made it easier to talk. "I had to make a decision that I felt was best for you at the time."
"Oh." Alya's fingers found the soft carpet beneath her and gently tugged to keep busy.
"Do you understand why you're having such a hard time?"
"Yes." She nodded. "General Dreykov made me forget things and the antidote is making me remember."
"Exactly. You're going to have a few nightmares, but there's nothing wrong with you. It's just your body's way of healing itself."
"Oh."
"Would you like to talk about it? Do you have anything you want to ask me?"
"No."
"Okay. If you change your mind. I'm always here." Melina had to stop herself from reaching out and giving her a hug. She wasn't sure this was the right time.
"I remember you sometimes." The raven-haired child spoke wistfully, abandoning the carpet in favor of hugging her stuffed animal to her chest. "In my dreams...sometimes they're not nightmares. Sometimes they're nice."
It was true. Some nights, Alya would get lucky and have a good dream. In those dreams, she could feel Melina's gentle touch and the kisses she'd press against her forehead. She could see her strained smile and hear her soft laugh.
Unbeknownst to her, Natasha had followed the two upstairs, but stayed outside of the room to give them space while still being able to make sure that her daughter didn't need her.
She remembered her days with Melina in Ohio. The woman was so maternal for a Widow who was just on a mission, and as hard as she tried to fight it, Natasha ended up accepting her as her mother.
Melina wiped her tears away, she played board games with her, told her bedtime stories, and did everything a normal mother would. For three years, Natasha was able to experience the love and affection of a mother.
Which is why that day in Cuba hurt so much.
In just a few hours, everything had been ripped away from her and she had to start from scratch. It wasn't Melina's fault. She was just as trapped as any other Widow, perhaps even more so. She had been cycled through the Red Room four times before Natasha had even been born. That was enough to change anyone. But for Natasha, it was so much easier to be angry with Melina for what happened, than to express how hurt and how scared she was.
Watching her daughter interacting with her made her realize that.
It was like she was watching her inner child heal.
"Sometimes I would cry because I was scared, but you wiped my tears away and you told me everything was okay."
"I did." Melina managed a smile.
"Natasha?"
Eight year old Natasha hid in her closet, curled into herself in an attempt to make herself as small as possible. She had been playing a game with Yelena (just to indulge her of course, she had no need to engage in such childish activities) and accidentally knocked over a vase in all the chaos.
The shattering of the glass had startled Yelena and, as most three year olds would, she started to cry. The noise caught Melina's attention and she quickly found them and sprang into action. Natasha took advantage of the fact that the woman was preoccupied with Yelena and ran for safety, her heart pounding as she went.
She wasn't sure what Melina would do to her if she caught her, but she didn't want to find out.
Eventually, she decided on hiding in the closet of her room. It was an obvious place to hide, but hopefully by the time Melina found her, she wouldn't be upset anymore.
"Natasha?" Her voice brought the redhead back to reality as her footsteps grew closer and closer before the door to the closet opened. "There you are. Why're you hiding in the closet?"
Natasha's eyes darted towards the door, realizing that there was no clear escape route and resigned to looking down at the ground.
So Melina sat down in front of her.
"I'm sorry I broke the vase. It's not Yelena's fault."
"It wasn't anybody's fault." Melina spoke gently, reaching out to wipe away the child's tears. "It was only an accident."
"Accidents are not tolerated."
"Accidents happen, Natashka." Melina amended. "We are human. We make mistakes and we grow."
"But—"
"It's okay." She reassured her, glancing down at her hands, finding small cuts.
"And when I got hurt, you would kiss it better and tell me that my pain made me stronger." Alya tilted her head. "Mama said that, too. But she got it from you, didn't she?"
"I tried to clean it up, but I cut myself." Natasha explained, feeling more relaxed than she had ever felt before.
"You cut your hands?" Melina kissed the uninjured areas. "But let me tell you a secret."
"What?" Natasha's head tilted curiously.
"Your pain only makes you stronger."
Natasha gasped as she was pulled from the memory of her childhood and looked at Melina with an identical gloss in her eyes.
"I remember you."