The Product

She's smart, though, a clever thing. She dodges and weaves around him with the full benefit of the Kudrin serum. 

He's always hit harder than Kudrin's girls, but they tend to be faster on their feet. 

"You should get a couch, maybe." Yelena suggests. "Would look more normal."

He rolls his eyes. "Nobody comes in here except you and Sam."

"Hm. Still. Sleeping on the floor." She rubs her shoulder, considering him for a long moment. "Maria."

He tenses, unwilling but alert. "What about her?"

"She says someone has been coming around, she saw someone take a picture. I told her to move."

He breathes out. "Smart. Did she?"

"Hm. Yes, but she thinks it is not enough." Yelena talks in pauses, her hesitations almost as telling as her words. She is used to silence. 

"Who is it?" 

Because Yelena would have found out. 

She's like Natalia that way, she cannot help not knowing. 

Yelena says nothing for a time, studying the crown molding with greater intensity than is warranted - unless someone knew that was where one of his weapon's stashes is. "It's strange how quiet they have been lately. Even the dragon lost a few heads."

He scowls at the ground, thinking - Rebecca, twelve now, nearly a woman, and Evan, eight. The picture in his journal is out of date, but he dared not get close enough to speak to her. 

"They think, perhaps, that they have the serum. The benefits of both. Because Maria and because the Soldier." Yelena speaks Russian with him, and he always answers her in the same language, though he sometimes plays at German or French - her French is terrible, her accent almost unintelligible. She hates him for it, but there's a part of him that still views the surviving widows at his students and she needs the practice. 

"That's not likely, is it?" He says, mostly to himself. 

"Does it matter?" Yelena asks, and that is where they part. 

He obsesses over it for the next few nights, checking his scanners, watching videos and half writing a message to Sharon, once. 

Elijah has kids, and none of them....well. He can't be sure. 

And Steve's kids?

That's a dead end before he even starts thinking hard on it, he doesn't want to touch it. They exist and that's all he's willing to acknowledge. Steve and Peggy had children, Peggy is dead, they have grandchildren. 

He's staying far away from them.

Sam's over, like he sometimes is, when 'it' hits the untenable point of avoidance meeting need. 

There's a knock on the door, a quick, quiet one that puts him immediately on alert. 

He got a knife in his offhand as he walked to the door, aware of Sam watching him, aware, alert, alarmed. 

She's leaning against the door frame, Becca, twelve, under her arm. Evan is holding a cat carrier and a gun and watching down the hall.

There's blood soaking her shirt, and she looks like she is down at least two liters of blood. He's stepping out, past her, watching as Becca hustles her into the apartment and Evan follows. 

There's little luggage, Becca has a pack, Evan has the cat carrier and a backpack of his own.

He's never set at his kitchen table, but they use it to lay her down, to remove the wadded jacket from her side. 

Two close range shots to her stomach, one through, one fragmented. 

Sam leaves to get more medical supplies, Becca holds her mom's hands while he fishes bullet fragments out of her stomach because if he leaves them she'll heal around them and lead poisoning can still affect them. 

He's pretty sure Sam left to avoid vomiting. But he brings back blood, and they start an IV. 

She'll make it. He knows she will, but the kid is pale and looks worn out. 

"Who was it?"

"Red room." Marina reports, drowsy and watching the IV. "They've been chasing us. I thought we lost them in Houston, but no luck." 

"She's going to be ok." Sam is speaking to Becca - to the child with wild hair and wider eyes and blood soaking the t-shirt she's wearing. It's not what he wanted for the kid, it's not what he knows Mariana wanted for the kid. 

He's angry. 

"Do you have clothes?" He asks Becca, automatically speaking Russian. 

She stares at him blankly for a moment, before giving her head a solid shake. "Yes. We both have clothes, mama dropped her things at the hotel when they ambushed us." 

Her voice is calm, and he's....unfairly proud of her, because he's done nothing at all. This is the first conversation they've ever had, and he's only given her his name. "Which hotel?"

She flicks her gaze to her mother, who nods, and rattles off the address like a good little soldier. 

"I'll check it out." He comments. "Stay with them, watch them."

Sam doesn't look happy. 

But he's out the window before the man can object.