Chapter 8
Yelena’s head hurts. There’s a ringing in her left ear and turns her head but is stopped by a strap across her forehead.
She tests her wrists and ankles only to see that they’re in a similar state. There’s a sharp shooting pain in her side that she knows is caused by a bullet.
She opens her eyes to look up at what appears to be a medbay. She’s getting flashbacks to the one at the tower. She can hear something with her right ear.
“--and I told you to bring back the assassin responsible and you bring me back a child!” The voice is coming from a female, her voice firm and cold as she speaks. “You insisted on bringing them in, promising you could make them compliant. Yet you bring in a husk of a body of a child with no light left in their eyes.”
“If I may, Co--” A male voice speaks up and Yelena shivers, remember the way the words fell off his tongue as he pinned her on the ground.
“You may not!” The female interrupts sharply. “You are dismissed.”
“But--”
“Dismissed, agent!” She barks and there is the sound of footsteps as he leaves.
Someone enters the room and Yelena tries to catch whoever it is. All she sees is a blob of blue from the corner of her eye.
She stiffens when the face swims into view. She knows that face. She’s seen it before.
“Good. You’re awake,” The female’s voice belonged to her. “Do you know where you are?”
Yelena stares up at her, giving nothing away. They knew her trigger words.
“What is your name?” She then asked and Yelena watches her tap away on the tablet balanced on her forearm.
Yelena twists her head as far as she can with the strap, looking at the other side of the room.
“Hey--” A hand grips her chin and Yelena flinches back, violently jerking her head away from the unwelcome touch. “Your name. Can you hear me? Do you understand English?”
Yelena falls into the role she knows best. The scared little girl.
“You’re hurting me…” She speaks in a perfect English accent, her voice soft and quiet. She gives her wrist a small tug. “Why am I tied down?”
She can watch the woman stare down at her with a calculating gaze. “What is your name?”
“I’m Lena Nova,” Yelena replies. “Where am I? Who are you?”
“Cut the crap,” The woman slams her hand against the table nearby and Yelena doesn’t even have to fake the flinch. “Who are you!”
Yelena curls her lips up into a sneer.
“Who do you think has the upperhand here? You, strapped down to a bed? Or me, with a gun ready to pull,” The woman tells her coldly.
“I think I do, Commander Hill,” Yelena drops back into her natual Russian accent, a grin creeping across her face and savors the way that Hill gives a blink of surprise. “I’m here at SHIELD.”
She had seen the woman’s face in a sea of agents pinned to the corkboard in Natasha’s room. Yelena asked about who they were and Natasha told her about her time at SHIELD as she tried to erase some of the red from her ledger.
SHIELD had fallen and disbanded but it was starting to build itself back up. Yelena remembers Natasha frowning. Natasha was a fugitive, she couldn’t just go back.
“Untie me,” Yelena orders, jerking her wrist again the cuff. “Now.”
“You are in no place to make demands,” Hill’s voice was cold.
Yelena lets out a laugh. “You don’t even know who I am, do you?”
“You’ve killed over twenty of our agents over the last three years. You stopped within the last year before killing thirteen more just three days ago,” Hill comments, scrolling through her tablet.
Yelena’s blood freezes. Three days? Oh god, Natasha was going to kill her.
“You don’t know who I am.” She repeats the statement because she was sure if this woman knew that she was Black Widow’s little sister then she wouldn’t be here right now.
“You’re a murderer,” Came Hill’s reply and Yelena grins.
“Takes one to know one, huh?” She laughs. “Untie me.”
A hand grabs her chin again and Yelena bites. There’s a gun on her forehead and Yelena immediately lets the hand go.
Guns did nothing but kill and Yelena had to make it back home to Natasha. She squeezes her eyes shut at the cold barrel pressing against her brow right where she has a scar. She prays that they don’t shoot her.
She hears a heavy sigh before the gun is pulled away. “That was my fault.”
Yelena opens her eyes, watching Hill tuck the gun back into it’s holster. “You really don’t like being touched, huh?”
“Not by bitches that kidnap me,” Yelena snaps at her. “Boo-hoo, you had to send two dozen men to apprehend a little girl trying to enjoy breakfast.”
“You killed over half the men we sent,” Hill levels a gaze at her.
“Aren’t you supposed to be the good guys?” Yelena snorts turning away from her. “I didn’t know you were accepting applications from ex-Hydra agents.”
She can see Hill’s hands still as the tapping on the tablet stops.
“Oh. You didn’t know either,” Yelena hums. “Interesting.”
“What are you talking about?” Came the demands and Yelena glances up at the woman.
She had a choice to make here. She could either refuse to tell her anything and continue to taunt her until they inevitably started to torture her. Or she could tell the truth and hope that Natasha hadn’t misplaced her faith in SHIELD.
“Untie my head,” Yelena demanded. “And I’ll tell you.” She could feel the leather strap digging into her forehead uncomfortably and it reminded her too much of the Red Room.
The buckle is undone and Yelena twists her head freely before she looks up at Hill.
“The man that pinned me down is from Hydra,” Yelena finally says, tugging on the restraint on her wrists. “He tortured me.”
Hill lets out a snort of disbelief.
“Fuck you too then you son of a bitch,” Yelena sneered, yanking on the cuffs again and again. She can feel her wrist get slick with blood.
Hill grabs her wrist, pinning it down on the bed to stop Yelena. “Another Russian assassin.” She mumbles under her breath.
“You don’t even know who I am!” Yelena jerks her head up to headbutt her, the stitches in her abdomen pop as Yelena spits at her. “Natasha was a fool for ever believing in you.”
That causes Hill to let her wrist go, turning toward her. “What?”
Yelena tilts her head up high. “I am the younger sister of Black Widow.” She sneers at her. “There’s a photo of you pinned up in her room. You and other SHIELD agents.”
“Black Widow doesn’t have any relatives,” Hill replies and she sounds so sure of herself and Yelena’s heart is thudding in her chest.
She drops her head back to the stiff pillow. “I’m bleeding.” She comments, looking down at the shirt she wore getting steadily soaked in red.
“How old are you,” Hill demands and Yelena grins up at her.
“Sixteen,” She replies, enjoying the way Hill observes her with an uneasy look. “Don’t stop shoving a gun in my face now that you’ve figured out I’m a child.” She gives her a wide grin as Hill backs away. “It was just getting exciting.”
A doctor enters and Yelena sees the white coat and lets out a strangled groan. “Take the coat off.” She demands, her voice low and dangerous as she tugs her wrist against the cuff again.
Hill nods at the doctor and they remove their white coat and Yelena inhales deeply.
She tries to pull herself back under mind control somehow because they were going to pull her shirt up to look at her wound and she was not ready for that.
But the only thing she knows how to deal with when someone is taking her clothes off is making sexual remarks and begging for more.
So she does that. To keep from spiraling into a panic attack where it’s not safe she croons at the doctor suggestive remarks that make him flustered.
“If you keep that up, I’m going to gag you,” Hill comments and Yelena turns toward her and bats her eyelashes.
“I didn’t know you were getting jealous, Commander,” She purrs. “We can have fun too.”
Yelena pours all of the fear and frustration into making lewd remarks and sexual innuendos. Hill doesn’t gag her and leaves with the doctor but another agent returns shortly after her stitches are done and forces a rubber bite into her mouth.
It’s tied around her head, the agent even redoes the strap across her forehead.
It’s a situation that Yelena had been in far too many times. The doctor comes back later and he runs his hand along the inside of her thigh and Yelena growls at him but it’s muffled by the gag.
It’s all her fault for spurring him on as he pushes her shirt up and his fingers find the button of her jeans.
Yelena squirms but he’s pushing on her stomach right below the fresh stitches and Yelena can’t move.
Yelena can’t breathe. She’s helpless to do anything as the zipper on her pants is pulled down.
He manages to get the jeans around her knees and has his fingers hooked in her underwear before the agent that gags her walks in, pauses, and then grabs the doctor, hauling him up and calling for reinforcements.
Yelena stares at the white ceiling, waiting for something to come. Punishment. Blame. More. Something. Anything.
She doesn’t even realize that there is someone next to her until the strap on her forehead is gone again. She’s looking up at Hill’s face, the woman looking down at her in concern. The gag is pulled from her mouth and Yelena’s jaw is sore.
“What happened?” Hill demands but her voice is much softer than before.
“Please let me pull my pants up…” Yelena sounds so defeated. She’s humiliated and tired and just wants her sister because she’s pretty sure she would have killed that man.
Hill does actually free her wrists and it lets Yelena shimmy her underwear and pants back into place.
“Why am I here, Commander?” Yelena asks quietly, rubbing her sore wrists. Her ankles are still bound to the bed but Yelena doesn’t care at the moment.
“You’ve killed a lot of people,” Hill replies slowly. “You need to answer for it. Those agents had families waiting for them. Loved ones. Children. You killed them.”
Yelena clenches her jaw and glances away because she didn’t want to do it. She didn’t even remember doing it. But she had no doubt that Hill was right. She killed those people. “Are you going to kill me now?”
“Would I free your wrists if I were?” Hill answered.
“I thought that was just because one of your doctors tried to assault me,” Yelena shifts, smoothing her bloodied shirt down. “You know, pity and all that.”
“What is your name,” Hill repeats the never-ending question.
“Yelena Belova,” She’s tired of playing games. They’ll either torture her or kill her and get it over with.
“Who do you work for, Yelena Belova,” Hill butchers the pronunciation of her name.
“Nobody,” Yelena replies quietly. “Not anymore.” Her fingers curled into her jeans. “I’m free now.”
“Who did you used to work for then?” Hill raised an eyebrow, tapping away at that damned tablet again.
“The Red Room,” Yelena mumbles, her fingers moving up to run over the bandage applied over the stitching on her stomach.
“The Red Room?” Hill straightens and glares down at her. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”
“Natasha didn’t believe it either,” Yelena lets out a huff, glancing up at Hill. “We finally killed him. We set everybody free.”
Hill is quiet for a few moments and Yelena glances at her.
“Can’t I just have one phone call? You can stand here and put it on the speaker mode and everything,” Yelena said tiredly. “Natasha will tell you everything.”
“You’re a wanted woman, Belova,” Hill glares but she’s pulling her phone out of her pocket.
“I’m a wanted child,” Yelena corrects quietly as she reaches for the phone. “And I don’t even remember who you are talking about.”
Hill grips her wrist and Yelena flinches away, her wrist rubbed raw and covered with crusted blood but Hill holds on tight anyway. “What do you mean you don’t remember? Do you kill so many people that you can’t remember? Are you so heartless?” She demands.
Yelena thinks she might actually burst into tears. “I’m not heartless…”
Hill then starts listing names and memories that Yelena doesn’t remember are bursting forth.
“Stop, stop!” She reaches up to cover her own ears because her mind is a mess of blood and screaming. “Please, stop!” She tugs at her hair to try and distract herself from her mind. The damn bursts and Yelena feels tears drop into her lap. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Please, stop. I’m sorry.”
Agents pleading for mercy, begging to go back home to their children. Blood and guts and Yelena grinning as her hands are coated in blood and--
“--stop, Belova, stop,” There are hands gripping her wrists, pulling them away from her head. “Yelena, stop.”
The firm order makes Yelena pull on a mask tightly because she knows and order when she hears it. The tears stop, the sniffling ceases and Yelena gets control of her wobbling lower lip.
“I didn’t mean to--” Her excuse sounds pathetic. She’s a horrible person. She killed all those people. Why should she get to live instead of them? Why should she deserve a family?
Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic.
You are a pathetic excuse for a soldier
Love is for children
Widows are made of marble
People can’t love monsters
‘If you want to survive here then you need to learn to hide your emotions. No more crying. Breathe deeply. There we go. Chin up.’
‘It wasn’t real’
Stupid stupid stupid
‘Don’t let them break you. They’re going to try. They will make you come undone to build you back up again. It will be okay.’
‘Not good enough. Again.’
Not good enough. Never good enough.
‘Please, I have a daughter. She’s your age.’ BAM
‘You don’t have to do this’ BAM
‘You Hydra scum are all the same’ BAM
‘Are you lost, little girl?’ BAM
‘Hi! Wanna be my friend?’ BAM
‘I trusted you.’ BAM
Number. Number. Someone wants a number. She doesn’t know what number. People she killed? Scars on her body? Times she’s been mind-controlled? She doesn't know.
“--her number? What is Natasha’s phone number? Yelena, you need to focus, we need the number--”
She thinks. She thinks but all she sees is red and her brain is on fire and her whole body hurts and she can’t drag air into her lungs and her cheeks are wet and--
She can’t fucking remember