Chapter 216: Red Room Sisters

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Natasha Romanoff might have the ability to hold a rifle still for seven hours without letting her hands shake, but no trick in her repertoire could stop her anxiousness at the moment.

One wrong step and everything she had sacrificed to protect until now would burn.

Why did she trust someone this much? Had her brain turned off to make such a stupid decision?

She lied in the small containment cell as doubts and worries consumed her mind. The small pillow was the only thing stopping everyone in SHIELD to see her mental breakdown.

"Spirit," she whispered, addressing the presence that had a strange bond with her. Despite all her grievances with the Demoness, she owed her a great debt, a debt that might be impossible to repay in this life. "Did you tell him?"

"I delivered it at dawn." The Spirit’s voice always surprised her. A presence made to exact vengeance and enact judgment with Hellfire had no business sounding this gentle and friendly. "He said he would have you out within three hours. This leaves an hour from where we stand now."

"Sixty minutes..."

That was a long time to survive in her current condition. She was sure her heart would explode 59 minutes before that one-hour timer expired. She had to do something. In her position, she had a card to play to make things smooth for Dante’s side.

She got off the bed and walked to the comms unit right next to the door. "I need to speak with Director Fury."

"Director Fury is occupied with an important meeting at the moment," Maria answered the comm right away as it was linked to the device in her office. "What do you need, Romanoff? Odds are I can handle it."

"I want to see Yelena."

"There’s no cause for concern. Yelena is a grown adult and a rather skilled assassin. She’s more than capable of looking after herself."

"You know she can’t," Natasha said. "Not after what the Red Room put her through."

"You’re forgetting our stationed SHIELD agents. We would be informed right away if Yelena faces any danger."

The subtle threat veiled under the explanation made Natasha clench her fists. "Both you and Director Fury know Yelena’s condition to let me join SHIELD full-time."

She had to go home and see Yelena once a week.

"You did, but we—"

"Maria." The frustration got past her guard, seeping into her voice. "You arrested me for crimes SHIELD had complete documentation of before I put my name on your paperwork. You people knew what I was when you recruited me. Me fighting for SHIELD to wipe away my past sins was the entire point."

"I know—"

"No, you don’t." Her hand pressed flat against the door. "I did everything for them; they are everything I have left, but you won’t give me clearance to see them. Is this how SHIELD treats its top agents?"

The silence that came back was deafening. Natasha knew it wasn’t guilt that made Maria hesitate from speaking. Maria had been brainwashed, mind-controlled, and directed to act this way. The strict, loyal agent had been long killed in silence, replaced by a pawn made to fulfill Nathaniel’s orders like the rest of SHIELD.

"Let’s both take a step back here, Natasha," Hill spoke like a diplomat. "I’ll have a video call arranged for you in five minutes."

It wasn’t what Natasha had asked since a call would be monitored, and that would make things difficult.

She stepped back from the door and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Set it up."

Maria Hill wouldn’t relent more, so Natasha had to settle for this and hope Yelena catches the message concealed between the words.

***

The alarm went off at five in the morning. Yelena’s hand found her phone on the nightstand before her eyes had properly opened. She silenced it on the second ring and lay there in the dark, staring up at the ceiling.

She still didn’t feel like getting out of bed, leaving this comfortable warmth behind. There was no reason to get up at five, there hadn’t been any for the past eleven months, yet she still set the alarm every single night out of habit.

"Five more minutes..."

It was five minutes past six when she woke up again.

"Come on, Yelena, get a grip," she muttered into the empty room. "You have to train. You promised yourself."

The blanket didn’t want to release her, but she peeled it back regardless, planted both feet on the cold floor, and stood there swaying gently for a moment.

The first thing she did, before anything else, was turn on the small television in the living room. She wouldn’t be there to watch it, but hearing voices in the apartment felt comforting in a way she couldn’t put her finger on.

The morning routine took fifteen minutes and demanded no thought whatsoever. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, got into her training outfit of black sports bra and shorts, and styled her hair back into a ponytail so it would stay clear of her eyes. She stretched a pair of shoulders that once tackled hard enough to knock someone out and now ached from the crime of sitting on a couch for hours every day.

"Oh, mother of god... this is nice."

She walked down the short hallway to the once empty storeroom, which was now full of internet-bought equipment. Something a generous person would call a gym.

After a quick warmup, she trained. Her focus was unwavering, for a few minutes at least as she performed combos on the heavy sandbag. Then her attention wandered off, on the television in the living room, the programs that would start in the morning.

She turned and looked at the empty storeroom wall.

"Hmm."

Half an hour later, she put both hands on her hips and grinned. She was sweating profusely but quite satisfied with herself as she admired her work. The television had been freed from the living room and now hung bolted to the storeroom wall directly opposite the punching bag.

"Now I can train and watch television at the same time. Double the efficiency."

Had she spent ludicrous amount of time solving a pointless problem? Perhaps, but it would be worth it in the long run. Training with heart in it would yield better results than training without any heart.

She started the television and switched to a news channel. She wasn’t the type who obsessed with staying up-to-date with the world, but the recent events in New York had made it hard for her not to tune in. Not to mention Natasha had been involved.

A polished anchor with a slick hairstyle was already in the middle of yapping as he gestured at a graphic of a skyline filled to the brim with alien insects—the scariest thing she had laid her eyes upon. The anchor’s name was Gary and he had a colleague named Deborah who handled the weather segment and sometimes laughed like a hyena at his jokes. She was aware that knowing these things about people she had never met said something fairly grim about the current state of her life.

"—while Skullfire himself was missing a majority of the time, it was Skullfire’s bride who proved instrumental in the defense, with multiple footages showing her holding a district perimeter almost by herself through the worst of the incursion—"

"She is still popular. To nobody’s surprise." She frowned at the screen with her arms folded. "Also, Gary, can you please stop calling her that? She is not that man’s bride. She would tell me if she had something going on. She is terrible at feelings, but she is not that terrible."

It was not, strictly speaking, a position supported by a great deal of evidence. She and Natasha had never been the sort of sisters who braided each other’s hair and spent a lot of time doing sisterly things with each other. There were whole years that neither of them brought up because Natasha treated them as fabricated.

She still believed Natasha would tell her something with that level of importance.

"Anyway."

She threw herself back in the training while Gary kept rambling in the background. Though he spent more time speculating why Skullfire hadn’t appeared sooner to clear the aliens.

Sometime later, she stopped, breathing hard with sweat running down her face. She studied her reflection in the streaked mirror propped against the wall.

"Shit. This is not good enough."

The equipment was fine. It kept her at eighty, maybe ninety percent of what she had been as a Widow, which was already more than most people could handle. However, that was not her goal. Her goal had never been about besting humans. Humans were easy. Humans went down if she hit them in the right spots or fired one bullet. The point was monsters, aliens, and all the otherworldly beings that Gary discussed every day. The things Natasha fought daily to save New York. The things she couldn’t fight with guns or knives.

The point was to fight at her sister’s side the way Natasha had once helped the Widows. To be useful to Natasha.

"Tsk."

She kept going regardless and forced another twenty minutes out of her tired body, until she was completely covered in sweat.

The shower afterward was comfortingly warm, loosening her muscles.

Wrapped in a towel with her hair still dripping, she put on some clothes and walked into the kitchen to make herself a quick dish with potatoes with the last of the smetana on the side. Even if Natasha got the refrigerator stocked every week, Yelena always went for the simplest dishes. She was never a picky eater.

Out in the storage, the second television went on whispering. She carried the plate out onto the narrow balcony and ate standing at the railing in a T-shirt and bare feet. A little Manhattan chill barely registered as cold. Her body had been accustomed to worse, the Red Room had made sure of that.

She chewed as she gazed upon the street.

"That car again."

The same black SUV. Parked half a block down along the opposite curb. She could point at every spot it had parked in the last week, and every line of sight that gave someone an optimal view of her windows. If someone told her to monitor her own apartment, she would pick that same exact spot.

She nearly laughed at the absurd conspiracy forming in her mind. She was not the Widow anymore. She was not anyone, really. Natasha had become a big shot in S.H.I.E.L.D. with a second identity of a hero. Natasha got talked about on national television every day and received the admiration and support of millions.

Meanwhile, Yelena had accomplished nothing. She hadn’t taken a job because she wasn’t qualified for anything besides killing. She hadn’t taken a class. She hadn’t developed an interest, unless you counted knowing what time most TV programs aired as one. Heck, she hadn’t even made a friend. The Red Room or anyone else had instructed her how to acquire one.

She had spent the better part of the year rotting inside the same apartment, going through motions that had stopped resembling a life. It was more akin to a maintenance schedule being run on a body that nobody had any further use for.

Who on earth would want anything from her?

The buzzing in her pocket cut her thoughts in half. It was a FaceTime call. She almost dropped her plate when she saw the name on the screen.

"Natasha?!"

***

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