Chapter 14
Ever since Wanda rifled through her head, Yelena has been remembering things that she hadn’t before. Sometimes they were spurred by a smell or sound.
She doesn’t tell Natasha about letting Wanda poke around in her head. She focuses on sitting in on meetings about Ross, telling them everything she can about Hydra compounds.
She describes how Hydra compounds used to host a handful of widows before the Red Room took off to move about in the sky. She tells them how they’re mostly shaped the same or formatted the same to make it convenient.
Yelena uses Tony’s hologram to draw a diagram. It takes her a few halted seconds between drawing each room. She’ll get lost in her thoughts for a few moments before adding to it.
Steve asks Winter Soldier if he knew anything about the layout. He gives a slow shake of his head and a mumbled apology.
Yelena tries to give them as much information as she can without slipping into memories that she’d rather forget.
She misses a blank spot on her map. Steve asks her about it and Yelena is hit with a memory so intense that she blacks out.
She comes to sitting on the ground with Natasha, the room empty. She feels so stupid to get carried away like that. Time was not on their side.
Natasha both tries to give her space but also tries to be close. It’s like she doesn’t know what Yelena wants.
Yelena doesn’t know what she wants either. She hates talking bout Hydra and the Red Room and tries to stay calm when she’d like nothing more than to curl up on her sister's lap and sleep.
But she can’t. Because what kind of pathetic, useless teenager would sit on her sister's lap like a little baby? She already did it once when she was too tired to wait for Natasha to come to bed. She can’t do it again.
She excuses herself for bathroom breaks every so often. They all know that she doesn’t have to go to the bathroom but let her take a few moments to collect herself.
Yelena shimmies her pants around her knees and marks her thighs with her blade. The pain helps keep her in the present. Each time she shifts or walks the stinging in her thighs helps keep her grounded.
Yelena is trying her best but she doesn’t know how much longer she’ll be able to handle talking about Hydra and going against everything she was taught.
MJ starts calling her with nightmares that keep her up. MJ dreams of seeing Yelena’s body in the diner and calls just to hear her voice.
Yelena can’t be mad. She knows that MJ worries. She’ll talk with MJ on the phone for however long she needs.
Meetings. Late night calls with MJ. Talks of Hydra. Making maps. Going through lists of people.
Yelena is tired. She just wants to curl up and sleep. Her mind hurts and she has a constant headache.
But she pushes on. Just like Tony said, there will be plenty of time to rest when she’s dead.
“There’s a section here of pipes that lead…” Yelena’s dragging her finger along one of the rooms on the map. “It, uh… leads…”
Her head hurts. She takes a sharp breath in. “The section of pipes here…”
Natasha is standing. “Yelena--”
“I… the pipes--” Yelena’s having a hard time putting her thoughts into words. “The section of pipes--”
Her knees are shaking. Her legs fail moments later as black spots fill her vision. Steve, the person closest to her, reaches out to grab her. Yelena shoves herself away from him in a fleeting moment of fear just before she blacks out.
“Your father isn’t available.”
She’s looking down at her shoes. She knows that John Daniel is not available. But she was sent here for a reason.
“My babysitter can’t come get me until six. She has school. She’s gonna be a doctor,” She lies, looking up at the woman. “And schools out for the day.”
“And your mother?” The commander questioned.
“My mommy’s dead,” Maybe she was a bit blunt with her words but it conveys her point. “I’ll just sit in a chair and wait for my daddy. Please? I’ll be really, really good.”
She thinks that she’s convincing her but she’s not too good at reading body language yet. She’s only eight after all.
There’s a sigh dragged from the woman’s lips before she pinches the bridge of her nose. “No. You know what? Come here.” There is a hand being held out to her.
She reaches out and grasped the hand. It swallows her small hand whole as she follows the woman down the hallway.
Agents pause and greet her with smiles and coos as she passes. She doesn’t reach for the knife in her shoe when they pat her head and compliment her braids.
They finally reach a big door and the woman knocks three times before entering.
The director is there. Her mission. The computer she was supposed to access was sitting right in front of her.
“Ah, if it isn’t the little miss,” Fury comments, waving them in. “Your daddy isn’t here right now. You should be at home.”
She pulls her hand away from the commander, tugging at the end of her shirt as her eyes drink in the sight of the room. The commander is speaking before a hand falls onto her shoulder and she jumps in fear, for a split second worried that she had been found out.
It’s only the commander. She tells her to sit in the chair by the desk and wait with the director.
She sits in the chair and takes the printer paper and pen she’s given to color with. She draws faces of those that are dead and nobody but her cared to remember. The commander asks her about it and she gives her a sweet smile, telling her that these were her classmates.
She waits, the feeling of the flash drive in the heel of her shoe pushing up uncomfortably against blisters on her ankle.
The Director keeps glancing at her. She tries not to look at him when his back is turned but she’s frightened that if she’s found out then she’s dead.
But the mission is important. She will give her life to the mission and lay down her life for the cause.
Because that is all she was good for.