“Stop it!”
“But that’s mine!”
“You stole it- stop get off me!”
“Then give me back!”
“No-”
“Melina!”
“Melina!”
The raven haired woman pulled herself up from her work table, reluctantly leaving the papers she had been analyzing behind. She sighed in frustration at the discussion happening downstairs, wondering why, of all scientists on the Red Room, she had been the chosen one for this hell of a mission.
Why would they even call her to solve things? She wasn’t an actual mother and they weren’t actually a family, there was no reason to behave like one behind closed doors.
But she needed to finish her reports as soon as possible, and there was no way of doing it if those two kept bickering for every stupid thing.
-
Arriving at the living room she found the usual day-to-day scene;
Natasha with her eleven-years old strength pinned Alexei down to the carpet and on his left hand was the apparent reason of the ordeal- a VRTX game.
Melina could have killed them with the amount of distress she felt rising on her- she had three missing reports and her ongoing research on pigs and that’s what she found herself getting busy with- instead she chose to calmly state “You are fighting over a video game” and at that, both of them immediately opened their mouths to defend themselves, so she raised one hand in detriment and they fell quiet.
“Natasha first” she allowed, trying to get over with that as fast as she could- she knew the girl never fought over nothing, to the contrary of Alexei, so she was almost always right.
“That is not fair” he exclaimed, looking visibly exasperated “You always let the girls first”
“That’s because I’m not the man on his thirties fighting with a teenager” came Natasha’s response.
She still held the man strongly on the ground, never once letting her guard down, Melina noticed with observatory eyes and a little something that could have morphed into a more defined thing if she hadn’t squashed it down immediately.
But, funnily enough, Natasha’s good technique wasn’t what caught her prime attention- it was the fact that she had referred to herself as a “Teenager?” Melina asked with humor, slightly questioning herself- she wasn’t a teenager already, was she? Not long ago she was still eight.
This humor, though, Natasha noticed, was different from the intonations the woman had always used with Alexei- it held no judgment and felt more like the kind of humor she remembered watching Snow White using with the dwarfs.
A gentle humor, if she would, almost like a soft nudge of a feather, maybe even mother-
No.
She immediately stopped her brain from stepping there, focusing on Alexei’s sessile body instead- because that’s what that was, a training, a mission, not, by far, a real family.
That’s why she reminded herself once again- to set her ground- that behind closed doors, Alexei was Alexei, Melina was Melina and Yelena was Yelena.
“Yes, I am” she answered, completely aware of her own age, shaking her thoughts away “I am eleven, that’s a teenagers age”
To Melina and Alexei’s own surprise, they shared a look, but what really scared Melina was that she didn’t know what it held- she had spent her entire life studying human and inhuman behaviors, mixing them with facial expressions and body language as much as she could… but she didn’t have the answer to what that look meant.
Nor why they felt the need to share it with each other.
All she knew was that it wasn’t a comfortable feeling, but definitely not uncomfortable. It was simply off-putting.
(She would eventually find that out, years later, while scrolling through their photo album she had taken with her)
“You’re not” Melina said, matter of factly “Teenagers have ‘teen’ at the end of their age and it’s not eleven-teen”
Natasha scrunched her eyebrows, not one to like being contradicted “That’s bullshit-”
“Language!” Alexei and Melina chastised her with stern eyes and raised eyebrows.
She didn’t really understand why they kept such frivolous rules, even less with Yelena being away at her ballet class, and while she really didn’t appreciate being told what to do- and that was a well guarded confession, maybe even to herself- Natasha didn’t mind when mundane things like that happened, it felt easier to fall into her role.
“Prosti, mama, otets” She hurriedly apologized, trying not to miss her train of thoughts nor her grip on Alexei “But the World Health Organization recognizes teenagers as-”
What Natasha did miss was the (other) shared look between the two adults, who were, then, long lost in their own heads, not listening at all to her banter of why she was, indeed a teenager.
Because to them she was not, end of story.
How could they pay attention to anything else in the world when Natasha had just called them by mother and father as if it was the most natural thing in the world?
Not Melina and Alexei, not the sarcastic ‘mom and dad’ when they were in public, but ‘mama and otets’ only for them to hear and understand.
Melina felt a wall breaking in front of her, the large icy glass that separated the mission from reality crumbled down at her feet making the kind of mess that would take months to organize- because, well, it went against every single promise she made Dreykov and herself.
-----
“Oh, and, Melina” Dreykov, held her arm as she stood up to leave the room.
She quickly swallowed her protests, not making any movement of repulsion and rose her eyebrows to show him she was listening.
“This mission has the power to either strike you up or shoot you down inside of the Red Room” he spoke slowly, searching for something in her eyes “We will have eyes on you, I would be careful”
'Be careful', she thought bitterly, what would a pair of children do against her and the Red Guardian?
“You know I will”
-----
What Melina wasn’t expecting was that living the life she was raised to loathe would actually make her wonder how differently things could have been to all of them- especially to Natasha and Yelena, who still ran to the porch to chase the ice-cream truck and tried to sneak the "forest starts" to their bedroom.
She sighed, trying to understand what to do, what to feel in a situation like that (without realizing she had already figured it out);
Letting out a silent chuckle, Melina kicked the small pieces of the imaginary broken wall from her feet as she grabbed the video game from Alexei’s hand and gave it to Natasha.
“Here you go, miss teenager” she bit down a smile as the girl paused slightly with the nickname, trying to hide the way her eyes shone “now come help me with dinner, dad has to pick Yelena up”
When Natasha didn’t roll her eyes or corrected her back to his name, but simply nodded and ran to the kitchen, Alexei stood up, facing her, looking almost as conflicted as Melina herself felt.
“You could have broken free from her” she pointed out before he could say anything to her.
“I know, but she enjoyed it” he answered, always wearing his expressions on the sleeve- pathetic, she mentally chastises him, as always, (and at each time, it holds a little less of meaning) “You didn’t correct her when she called you mama”
“I know” she answers with her face stoic as always- but she enjoyed it, she left in between the lines.
And only because she wanted to have the last word, Melina added “Neither did you”
“I know” he whispers, nor sure if to Melina or himself “We are fucked”
“I know”