A Game of You, 5/6.
Title: A Game Of You
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: R
Pairing: Gen (pairings mentioned and present, but not really a focus in the story)
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Takes place after "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." The story was plotted and I started writing it before the second season of "Agents of SHIELD" began. I am jossed so hard by the MCU, but hey! Fic! :)
This is the fault of phoenixrising06/
romanovasledger and
futurerustfuture-dust during all of our characterization discussions, their watching Orphan Black and our headcanons for the Red Room. Also loosely inspired by this gifset, though I don't follow that plot at all. There is going to be violence, implied violence, and all sorts of fucked up stuff that is mentioned as part of the Red Room shenanigans.
Summary: A young woman is brutally murdered by the Vory in Saskatchewan. This is tragic enough, but she also wears Natasha Romanoff's face. And she's not the only one.
Prior chapters:
One - Twinning
Two - Collecting
Three - Sliding
Four - Meetings
Five - Confronting
Nina had her mahogany hair pulled back in a ponytail. Coupled with dangly earrings and a striped shirt over jeans, she looked like a teenager next to Yelena. "You make me feel like I'm robbing the cradle," Yelena teased.
"Well, technically, you are. I'm only ten, after all," Nina snarked, watching Yelena park her car near Marcia's dojo. "So. Given how I've comported myself on this trip... How ready do you think I am to be a professional badass?"
Yelena sighed and resisted the urge to shut her eyes or bonk her head on the steering wheel. "You are utterly incorrigible."
"You love me," Nina laughed, and playfully pouted at her. "So?"
"So?" Yelena parroted back at her, not wanting to answer. Nina had done a good job. She could fight, and she had Natasha's instincts. The sparring and training had really honed them, so that now that she was out in the field they came to the fore.
But she didn't want Nina to fight. She wanted Nina lying sprawled in her bed, limbs splayed in fucked out bliss, planning a wedding or some kind of future together. Hunting Hydra or AIM agents was not a stable lifestyle, and Yelena wanted better than that for Nina.
Nina poked Yelena in the side. "I kicked ass, Lena. Admit it."
"I don't have to," Yelena replied mulishly. She shut off the car and yanked out the car keys before looking at Nina solemnly. "I don't want you in the field. I don't want you getting hurt. I don't want you involved."
"It's too late. I'm already involved because of who I am. If you didn't want me involved, you would tuck me away with one of the American girls or with one of the others. Neveah would want my help with her children, and she knows German and Russian as well as Swedish. I'd have to learn Ukranian if I was going to help Natalia."
Yelena growled and seized Nina by the back of the neck to kiss her roughly. "Hell, no. You aren't leaving me."
"So let me help," Nina said against Yelena's mouth, cupping her face with her hands. "We need our resources pooled for this. There's eleven of us left, and we can't have them dropping off like flies. They deserve better."
Sighing, Yelena nodded and touched her forehead to Nina's. "Yes, they do."
"Let me help," Nina repeated.
"Let's see what the plan is first."
Nina let out a disappointed sigh and pulled away from Yelena to get out of the car. Didn't she know that Yelena was trying to protect her? Didn't she realize how much she loved her? If anything happened to her...
No, better to not even think those thoughts.
Marcia was done teaching for the day, so they went around back to the owner's entrance. They went upstairs to Marcia's living space, aware that Clint and Javier beat them there, and Olga had arrived with Natasha. Yelena couldn't help but worry, not just about Nina but about the other clones. They all had lives they didn't want to leave, and were refusing to think that these deaths had anything to do with them. How could she help protect women that didn't want her to protect them? How could she impress upon them the enormity of the danger?
Though she saw Natasha's face in Nina's every day, Yelena was still struck by seeing Natasha in the flesh again. It had been ten years since the Red Room burned down, since she and Ivan managed to escape the wreckage. She had dealt with the fallout of that act, but never once had gone after Natasha. She had made a name for herself in the underground as a mercenary, and then had become part of SHIELD. There hadn't been any opportunity, not with keeping the clones safe and with teaching Nina what she needed to know.
Part of her suddenly ached. Natasha remembered nothing of what they once had, the last vestiges of what had made her Natalia Alianovna Romanova stripped away to make more room for whatever personality overlays she was to be implanted with. So there was no longer any tie to Yelena, or to the Winter Soldier, no fondness for any of her comrades in the Red Room. Yelena had known that for years, had dealt with it, had moved on.
But it still hurt to see Natasha look at her without any recognition of their shared past. She accepted that Yelena had been part of the Red Room, that she had gone out of her way to save the clones that she could. She never asked why. She never wondered why Yelena would care, why she would take on this monumental task. Though it had been as much for the ladies' sakes as it had been for the love she once had for Natasha. That was still there somewhere, faded and lonely, abandoned and left to wither. Yelena would never push herself where she wasn't wanted, and Natasha didn't remember that they had once been lovers, that they had shared whispers in the barracks, had dreams of one day escaping into the wider world and making lives for themselves that their handlers didn't control.
They had done it, but not in the way they once had wished.
Nina was observant, could see that there was some kind of undercurrent in Yelena's behavior during this initial meeting. Yelena wanted to damn her for it, but she loved her for it as well. It was simply part of her, that intuitive sense of what made people tick. Now it simply made her want to cry, because it would rip open wounds she thought were sealed.
More fool, her. This was why the Red Room wanted to sever all ties. Emotions could be dangerous things, could lead people to trip up and fail missions. But they never understood that sometimes emotions were the very things that made people sit up and take notice and try despite long odds, and succeed in spite of everyone else predicting failure.
Clint had skills as a marksman, as well as ties to different organizations from his work with SHIELD and now Dynamic Solutions. Plus, though he didn't formally tell his boss about the situation, he had mentioned it to his current partner and tapped a few friends in the Avengers. That had to be promising. Javier knew Nancy and counted her as a friend, always a plus. He also knew Fyed, so he could bring further contacts to bear, particularly those in Western Europe. It wouldn't help Natalia in the Ukraine, or Neveah in Sweden, but it could be useful for Nadine in Amsterdam, Thérèse in Paris, and Constance in London. They didn't mention the US contingent, Marcia, Nina or Olga. Marcia and Nina could likely handle themselves, but Olga... That would be a problem best solved on a different day.
"I did call Izzy a few hours ago," Clint said after the room had settled into melancholic silence. "I trust her, and she said Steve planned to head this way. She said she had some surprises, but..."
"Steve?" Natasha asked in surprise. "But he and Sam were tracking the Winter Soldier."
No affection in her tone, just business. Yelena sighed, almost disappointed, even though she knew the Red Room would have punished them for their tryst.
"Izzy wasn't about to go into detail over the phone. Did you really think Steve would leave you hanging if you needed help?"
Natasha's abashed expression clearly told them all that she hadn't considered it. "He said he trusts me now..."
"Nat," Clint began patiently. "He's goddamn Captain America. When SHIELD is full of duplicitous lowlife Hydra thugs, of course he's going to raze it to the ground and not know who to trust. And you're a spy. He didn't trust me either at first, if it makes you feel any better."
Her lips quirked into something like a smile. "Not really, no."
"Well," Javier interrupted with an anxious expression, "If Captain America is helping, I will want to start seeing if I can find good help. He may be able to look after the sisters in Sweden or the Ukraine. I have no contacts there."
"What do we do in the meantime?" Olga demanded. "I'm not skilled as the rest of you are, and I'm caught in this just the same."
"You're feeling trapped here, aren't you?" Clint asked, sympathetic. At her nod, he glanced at Natasha. "Hey, why don't I sneak you out of here for the night? You'll have to pose as my girlfriend, probably, but I can take you out to a couple places."
"You're much better looking than my ex," Olga said with a shrug. "No funny business."
Clint raised a hand and gave her an earnest expression. "Absolutely not. Besides, I'm sure that even if you didn't utterly emasculate me if I tried anything, Natasha will."
"Of course," she said sweetly, a smile on her face.
The group dispersed in ones and twos, and Yelena drove Nina to their hotel room. It was a quiet trip, for all that it wasn't very long, and Yelena dreaded the confrontation that would inevitably come from this. God, she felt so fucking old.
"I saw how you looked at her," Nina said without preamble as Yelena sat on the bed and kicked off her shoes. Yelena looked up, shoulders slumped, a weariness settling into her bones.
"What do you want me to say?" Yelena asked quietly. She pushed herself off of the bed and stood in front of Nina, concerned.
For a long time, they simply stared at each other. Nina was likely trying to figure out how to ask the question on the tip of her tongue without asking it. Yelena prayed she would, and also prayed that she wouldn't. This would likely hurt either way.
"Do you love me because of her?" Nina finally asked, close to tears.
"Yes," Yelena murmured. She caught Nina's arm when she tried to leave. "Because you wouldn't exist if not or her. I wouldn't be alive if not for her. So yes, it's because of her that I could love you. Because I do. For you, not for memories of her."
"How do I know that?" Nina asked, voice hitching on a sob.
"I don't know if I can ever prove it to you. Yes, I loved her once. Yes, seeing her reminded me of that. But it was more than ten years ago, and so much has happened since then. We're not the people we were back then. And I never once kissed you thinking or wishing that you were her. I never once wanted you to be her."
"You tried pushing me away at first..."
"For your safety. Because of who I am and what I do. Not because of her." Yelena grasped Nina's face in her hands. "I don't know what to do or say to make you happy. I want to. Make you happy, I mean. I don't know how. I'm a killer, Nina. I'm a mass murderer. I'm a shadow, a lie. That's why I never accepted your proposals. I can't be who you want me to be. Who you need me to be. I can't be good."
Nina pulled her in for a crushing hug. "You idiot." She kissed Yelena's cheek sloppily, almost giddy. Yelena was confused. "You blind, stupid idiot. I love you. I know what you are, exactly what you are, and I don't care. I know this. You make me happy. Just being you, just being with me. Making stupid, lame jokes. Sitting in the plaza on a weekend. In the apartment with a book and arguing over whether or not it should have even been published because it's so bad. Laughing with me about how terrible my students' English is." Nina kissed her again, full on the mouth, and Yelena was stunned.
"I love you, you stupid moron. You're mine, don't ever think differently."
"Even if I'm a killer?"
"Nobody's perfect," Nina replied cheekily. "Besides, now I am, too."
Yelena let out a laugh that was almost like a hiccup. "I suppose that's true..."
"So stop being stupid. Tell me you'll marry me when this is all over. We'll take care of my sisters, we'll pack off Natasha to wherever the hell she wants to be, we'll make nice with their spy friends, and then we'll get married and have our lives to ourselves. I'm not taking no for an answer, Yelena. I'm not."
She laughed again, and clutched Nina close, crying and laughing at the same time. "You stupid woman, how can you love me?"
"I just do. So?"
Nodding, Yelena grasped Nina and kissed her. "Yes. So help me, yes."
"Good. I have plans for you, Lena. I've been pondering this for the past three years."
"Oh, dear God," Yelena groaned. "I'm not doing something fluffy or frou-frou."
"Would I steer you wrong?"
"Yes," Yelena replied emphatically.
Nina laughed, and practically danced around the room with her. "Okay, I would absolutely do that to fuck with you. But I promise, I would not ruin our wedding. Once in a lifetime, I'm not going to mess that up." She grinned brightly at her. "Alia can bake our cake!"
Yelena groaned dramatically. "I've created a monster."
But Nina's laughter was absolutely worth it.
***
Steve Rogers arrived in jeans, a blue shirt and plain leather jacket. Without the telltale uniform, most pedestrians didn't recognize him. They didn't recognize his dark skinned companion, who had a jovial smile and a steady head on his shoulders. He was also casually dressed, as was their companion, a tall man with dark hair pulled back from his haunted face. He wore a long sleeved hoodie and black gloves over his hands, and didn't make eye contact with anyone when he was ushered into Marcia's meeting room.
"Steve!" Natasha hissed.
"I know what you're going to say," he began, taking a small tablet out of the inner pocket of his jacket. "But wait a minute, okay? We're missing one more."
The missing one more turned out to be Tony Stark, gleefully Skyping in rather than attending the Stark Industries meeting he and Pepper ostensibly flew to Berlin to attend. "What? I was able to give a few friends a free and off the record flight into Europe. No underhanded business whatsoever," he said with a wide grin. "Hey, Cap, pivot the camera around, will you? I can't see everyone here."
"I saw you on television once," Olga said, a dubious look on her face. Tony zeroed in on her right away. "It was not very flattering."
"Holy shit. You do look just like Natasha. I thought Steve and Clint were exaggerating. Oh, who am I kidding? Since when does Steve exaggerate anything?" He threw up his hands and then leaned in closer to the camera. "Wow. There are four Natashas there. I find this highly disturbing."
"No, Mr. Stark," Nina said tightly. "There's only one Natasha. I'm Nina. That was Olga, and this is Marcia," she said, pointing to the sisters in turn. "Get the names right."
He blinked. "Wow. Yeah. Sorry about that. It's a shock, sorry."
Marcia nodded briskly. "So why did you need to meet with us?"
"Well, Natasha knows that after SHIELD fell and she went underground, Steve and Sam went off in search for his old buddy there." All eyes went to the taciturn brunet. "Better known as the Winter Soldier. He was in hiding for a while, then all of a sudden there were brutal killings of Hydra agents in Baltimore, Crystal City, three small towns in Mississippi, then Nashville-not a fan of country music, I guess?-and then two smaller cities in Oklahoma."
"We were trailing behind the body counts," Steve said quietly. "So I asked Tony to help me figure out where the next place might be."
"We wound up looking into SHIELD safe houses, office buildings, storage facilities, anything," Sam added for the others' benefit.
"Why did you start in Baltimore?" Marcia asked, looking directly at the taciturn man.
He looked up at her with empty eyes, every inch the ghost that the intelligence community thought he was. "Because they killed her."
"Dinah," Marcia whispered, stunned when he nodded.
"She found me," the Winter Soldier said quietly. "I wasn't quite free of their programming yet, and I walked from DC to Baltimore. I was homeless, and she found me."
"She was a social worker," Marcia said for the others' benefit.
The Winter Soldier nodded. "She was helping me find a place to stay. She thought I was a veteran. Because of my arm, the way I moved. Thought I was too afraid of the VA. She knew that type, thought I was like them." At a few of the others' nods, he took a breath. "She was killed for helping me. They made it look like an ordinary killing, but I knew it for what it was. Hydra wanted me back."
"So you got even by killing them," Olga said with an approving nod. "This is good."
"No, this is not good," Steve said with a sigh. He scrubbed at his face. "Because we're considered terrorists and amoral killers."
"Hate to interrupt you there, Cap, but there have been a couple more hearings and the terrorist label's been dropped from SHIELD," Tony added helpfully. "Now they're just considered one of many ineffectual government agencies."
That obviously didn't make Steve feel comforted.
"In any case, dragging me into this story got me looking into things," Tony said. He tapped on a Starkpad on his end of the connection. "I know it's only been a few days, but I work fast and I can help you with the US side of things. In fact, I am right this second in the process of hiring on a certain photographer that lives in California. Pepper loves visiting New Orleans, so maybe we could open an office building in the area. It would bring work to a post-Katrina city, always good. And if we happen to have a favorite bakery, well, so be it." He grinned at them as if the problem was solved. "And scarily enough, Nancy and Maria have already met online and are way too chummy for comfort. So I think she's fine."
"Holy shit, that does take care of the US contingent," Nina blurted.
"We still need to take care of the ladies here," Natasha sighed. She frowned slightly at Steve, Sam and the Winter Soldier. "What are your plans for all this?"
"Same as before, I guess," Sam said with a shrug. "Hunt Hydra, clear out the nest."
"I won't go into the chair again," the Winter Soldier said, voice hard. "And they will pay for hurting Dinah. She was good to me. She didn't have to be."
"That was Dinah, though," Marcia said with a soft smile.
Yelena nodded. "She wanted to pay forward the help we gave her when she was found."
The Winter Soldier turned his eyes toward her, but there was no recognition there, either. "I'll do the same, then. She helped me, I should help those like her."
"Now, I'm guessing the four of you are taken care of?" Steve asked looking between Natasha and her clones.
"The others, perhaps," Olga said. "I have not trained for combat. I trained as an engineer."
Tony perked up at that. "Really? SI could always use engineers for R&D. That would keep you protected in a heartbeat. And I'm here in Berlin! We should meet!"
"Or I could teach you to defend yourself," the Winter Soldier intoned.
Olga looked a bit uncertain, torn between the two choices. "Well..."
"No rush," Tony said quickly. He smiled at the assemblage. "Now, while I don't really have direct control over European factories, who do we have left to take care of?"
Marcia listed the last five clones: Natalia Korasova in Ukraine, Nadine Fisher in Amsterdam, Neveah Almgren in Sweden, Thérèse Levigne in Paris, Constance Claredon in London.
"I know people that can help in Paris, Amsterdam and London," Javier said with a shrug. "I'm not so good with Scandinavia or Ukraine."
"And they really won't move. Those are the ones with children," Nina supplied.
"Children," Natasha murmured, shock in her voice.
"Neveah's are adopted. She was too... Well, let's just say surgery was necessary to save her life when we found her," Yelena murmured. "Not to worry, the fuckers responsible are dead."
"I find that statement very sexy and very scary, by the way," Tony offered.
"Natasha, are all your spy friends like this?" Sam whispered in the awkward silence.
"More or less?" she replied. She looked at the others uncertainly. "What are you planning to do? I can't ask you to do this."
"Oh. That." Sam grinned at her and then slung an arm around her shoulders. "Just to be clear. You aren't asking. I'm volunteering, same as I did for Steve. Got it?"
She shifted her eyes to Steve. "And you?"
"We can't leave them vulnerable. You sacrificed a lot to help me. I don't think I realized how much until Sam and I went on the road." He looked over at Olga and smiled in the face of her uncertain expression. "How about this? You and Bucky can go meet up with Mr. Stark. Talk engineering stuff, see if you can manage to do both. Hydra doesn't seem to know anything about the rest of you ladies, so we're not in a rush to decide anything today."
Olga looked over at the Winter Soldier. "Bucky?"
"A nickname. From who I used to be."
"You do not like this."
"It isn't what I am now."
She nodded, understanding the difference even if the optimist Steve didn't seem to. "And what do you choose to be called?"
His eyes snapped to hers, assessing. She returned his gaze calmly, chin raised. All the others watched closely, palpably relieved when his lips finally curled into something resembling a smile. "I think I remember something like this."
"What shall I call you?" Olga insisted.
"James." He cast his eyes toward Steve and Sam, taking in the pained expression on Steve's face. Something in his own expression softened a fraction. "That idiot over there is the only one that calls me Bucky. Maybe Sam, too."
She smiled and went to his side, patting his arm. "I am Olga. I may not look like much, but I am tough. I refused to let Vory underlings destroy me. I won't let this either."
He returned her smile and then nodded. "Then let's get to Stark's for your interview."
Once the four of them left, Clint looked at Natasha. "Should I be worried about this? I mean, it's the Winter Soldier with your clone."
"Whatever else," Yelena began, cutting off whatever Natasha would have said, "the Winter Soldier was always a protector to the girls in the Red Room. Even if he is nothing more than the programming that they gave him, he will not harm her."
Natasha gave her a flinty eyed stare. "I have a scar that says otherwise."
"He shot you." At her nod, Yelena returned her stare. "But you lived, and none would have suspected that he deliberately let you live. The Winter Soldier was never about subtlety, never about leaving witnesses. It was about getting the job done and making a statement."
Sitting back, Natasha absorbed this piece of information. "But-"
"They made you forget many things. As they did to him. But some things are hard wired and cannot ever be erased, no matter how much they tried."
If there was a trace of bitterness in her voice, no one commented on it.
"On that cheery note," Javier said with a sigh, "I did promise to call my friend Etienne about our lovely marketing friend." He nodded at the tablet that Steve left behind. "Good to meet you, Mr. Stark. Perhaps next time it may even be in the flesh."
"Try not to make that as salacious sounding. Pepper frowns upon such things."
"That's never stopped you before," Natasha snarked.
Tony grinned. "There you are. For a while there, I thought the whole SHIELD crashing had gotten you down. Good to see that side of you again."
Natasha sent him a mock glower, making him laugh. "I have an idea about the Swedish mom, if you don't mind me contacting one or two other people."
"Do what you need to do," Marcia said firmly. "Our first priority is in keeping all of us safe."
After Tony logged off, Natasha looked over at the others in the room. "You know, I'm almost starting to think that this can work."
Nina beamed. "Good. Because I have ideas for how to move things forward, and it would really be a shame if something ruined those plans." She shrugged when everyone stared at her in surprise. "What? I'm being practical. I want all my sisters at my wedding, after all."
Yelena covered her face in her hands and groaned.
***
***
To Chapter Six - Finalizing
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: R
Pairing: Gen (pairings mentioned and present, but not really a focus in the story)
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Takes place after "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." The story was plotted and I started writing it before the second season of "Agents of SHIELD" began. I am jossed so hard by the MCU, but hey! Fic! :)
This is the fault of phoenixrising06/
romanovasledger and
futurerustfuture-dust during all of our characterization discussions, their watching Orphan Black and our headcanons for the Red Room. Also loosely inspired by this gifset, though I don't follow that plot at all. There is going to be violence, implied violence, and all sorts of fucked up stuff that is mentioned as part of the Red Room shenanigans.
Summary: A young woman is brutally murdered by the Vory in Saskatchewan. This is tragic enough, but she also wears Natasha Romanoff's face. And she's not the only one.
Prior chapters:
One - Twinning
Two - Collecting
Three - Sliding
Four - Meetings
Five - Confronting
Nina had her mahogany hair pulled back in a ponytail. Coupled with dangly earrings and a striped shirt over jeans, she looked like a teenager next to Yelena. "You make me feel like I'm robbing the cradle," Yelena teased.
"Well, technically, you are. I'm only ten, after all," Nina snarked, watching Yelena park her car near Marcia's dojo. "So. Given how I've comported myself on this trip... How ready do you think I am to be a professional badass?"
Yelena sighed and resisted the urge to shut her eyes or bonk her head on the steering wheel. "You are utterly incorrigible."
"You love me," Nina laughed, and playfully pouted at her. "So?"
"So?" Yelena parroted back at her, not wanting to answer. Nina had done a good job. She could fight, and she had Natasha's instincts. The sparring and training had really honed them, so that now that she was out in the field they came to the fore.
But she didn't want Nina to fight. She wanted Nina lying sprawled in her bed, limbs splayed in fucked out bliss, planning a wedding or some kind of future together. Hunting Hydra or AIM agents was not a stable lifestyle, and Yelena wanted better than that for Nina.
Nina poked Yelena in the side. "I kicked ass, Lena. Admit it."
"I don't have to," Yelena replied mulishly. She shut off the car and yanked out the car keys before looking at Nina solemnly. "I don't want you in the field. I don't want you getting hurt. I don't want you involved."
"It's too late. I'm already involved because of who I am. If you didn't want me involved, you would tuck me away with one of the American girls or with one of the others. Neveah would want my help with her children, and she knows German and Russian as well as Swedish. I'd have to learn Ukranian if I was going to help Natalia."
Yelena growled and seized Nina by the back of the neck to kiss her roughly. "Hell, no. You aren't leaving me."
"So let me help," Nina said against Yelena's mouth, cupping her face with her hands. "We need our resources pooled for this. There's eleven of us left, and we can't have them dropping off like flies. They deserve better."
Sighing, Yelena nodded and touched her forehead to Nina's. "Yes, they do."
"Let me help," Nina repeated.
"Let's see what the plan is first."
Nina let out a disappointed sigh and pulled away from Yelena to get out of the car. Didn't she know that Yelena was trying to protect her? Didn't she realize how much she loved her? If anything happened to her...
No, better to not even think those thoughts.
Marcia was done teaching for the day, so they went around back to the owner's entrance. They went upstairs to Marcia's living space, aware that Clint and Javier beat them there, and Olga had arrived with Natasha. Yelena couldn't help but worry, not just about Nina but about the other clones. They all had lives they didn't want to leave, and were refusing to think that these deaths had anything to do with them. How could she help protect women that didn't want her to protect them? How could she impress upon them the enormity of the danger?
Though she saw Natasha's face in Nina's every day, Yelena was still struck by seeing Natasha in the flesh again. It had been ten years since the Red Room burned down, since she and Ivan managed to escape the wreckage. She had dealt with the fallout of that act, but never once had gone after Natasha. She had made a name for herself in the underground as a mercenary, and then had become part of SHIELD. There hadn't been any opportunity, not with keeping the clones safe and with teaching Nina what she needed to know.
Part of her suddenly ached. Natasha remembered nothing of what they once had, the last vestiges of what had made her Natalia Alianovna Romanova stripped away to make more room for whatever personality overlays she was to be implanted with. So there was no longer any tie to Yelena, or to the Winter Soldier, no fondness for any of her comrades in the Red Room. Yelena had known that for years, had dealt with it, had moved on.
But it still hurt to see Natasha look at her without any recognition of their shared past. She accepted that Yelena had been part of the Red Room, that she had gone out of her way to save the clones that she could. She never asked why. She never wondered why Yelena would care, why she would take on this monumental task. Though it had been as much for the ladies' sakes as it had been for the love she once had for Natasha. That was still there somewhere, faded and lonely, abandoned and left to wither. Yelena would never push herself where she wasn't wanted, and Natasha didn't remember that they had once been lovers, that they had shared whispers in the barracks, had dreams of one day escaping into the wider world and making lives for themselves that their handlers didn't control.
They had done it, but not in the way they once had wished.
Nina was observant, could see that there was some kind of undercurrent in Yelena's behavior during this initial meeting. Yelena wanted to damn her for it, but she loved her for it as well. It was simply part of her, that intuitive sense of what made people tick. Now it simply made her want to cry, because it would rip open wounds she thought were sealed.
More fool, her. This was why the Red Room wanted to sever all ties. Emotions could be dangerous things, could lead people to trip up and fail missions. But they never understood that sometimes emotions were the very things that made people sit up and take notice and try despite long odds, and succeed in spite of everyone else predicting failure.
Clint had skills as a marksman, as well as ties to different organizations from his work with SHIELD and now Dynamic Solutions. Plus, though he didn't formally tell his boss about the situation, he had mentioned it to his current partner and tapped a few friends in the Avengers. That had to be promising. Javier knew Nancy and counted her as a friend, always a plus. He also knew Fyed, so he could bring further contacts to bear, particularly those in Western Europe. It wouldn't help Natalia in the Ukraine, or Neveah in Sweden, but it could be useful for Nadine in Amsterdam, Thérèse in Paris, and Constance in London. They didn't mention the US contingent, Marcia, Nina or Olga. Marcia and Nina could likely handle themselves, but Olga... That would be a problem best solved on a different day.
"I did call Izzy a few hours ago," Clint said after the room had settled into melancholic silence. "I trust her, and she said Steve planned to head this way. She said she had some surprises, but..."
"Steve?" Natasha asked in surprise. "But he and Sam were tracking the Winter Soldier."
No affection in her tone, just business. Yelena sighed, almost disappointed, even though she knew the Red Room would have punished them for their tryst.
"Izzy wasn't about to go into detail over the phone. Did you really think Steve would leave you hanging if you needed help?"
Natasha's abashed expression clearly told them all that she hadn't considered it. "He said he trusts me now..."
"Nat," Clint began patiently. "He's goddamn Captain America. When SHIELD is full of duplicitous lowlife Hydra thugs, of course he's going to raze it to the ground and not know who to trust. And you're a spy. He didn't trust me either at first, if it makes you feel any better."
Her lips quirked into something like a smile. "Not really, no."
"Well," Javier interrupted with an anxious expression, "If Captain America is helping, I will want to start seeing if I can find good help. He may be able to look after the sisters in Sweden or the Ukraine. I have no contacts there."
"What do we do in the meantime?" Olga demanded. "I'm not skilled as the rest of you are, and I'm caught in this just the same."
"You're feeling trapped here, aren't you?" Clint asked, sympathetic. At her nod, he glanced at Natasha. "Hey, why don't I sneak you out of here for the night? You'll have to pose as my girlfriend, probably, but I can take you out to a couple places."
"You're much better looking than my ex," Olga said with a shrug. "No funny business."
Clint raised a hand and gave her an earnest expression. "Absolutely not. Besides, I'm sure that even if you didn't utterly emasculate me if I tried anything, Natasha will."
"Of course," she said sweetly, a smile on her face.
The group dispersed in ones and twos, and Yelena drove Nina to their hotel room. It was a quiet trip, for all that it wasn't very long, and Yelena dreaded the confrontation that would inevitably come from this. God, she felt so fucking old.
"I saw how you looked at her," Nina said without preamble as Yelena sat on the bed and kicked off her shoes. Yelena looked up, shoulders slumped, a weariness settling into her bones.
"What do you want me to say?" Yelena asked quietly. She pushed herself off of the bed and stood in front of Nina, concerned.
For a long time, they simply stared at each other. Nina was likely trying to figure out how to ask the question on the tip of her tongue without asking it. Yelena prayed she would, and also prayed that she wouldn't. This would likely hurt either way.
"Do you love me because of her?" Nina finally asked, close to tears.
"Yes," Yelena murmured. She caught Nina's arm when she tried to leave. "Because you wouldn't exist if not or her. I wouldn't be alive if not for her. So yes, it's because of her that I could love you. Because I do. For you, not for memories of her."
"How do I know that?" Nina asked, voice hitching on a sob.
"I don't know if I can ever prove it to you. Yes, I loved her once. Yes, seeing her reminded me of that. But it was more than ten years ago, and so much has happened since then. We're not the people we were back then. And I never once kissed you thinking or wishing that you were her. I never once wanted you to be her."
"You tried pushing me away at first..."
"For your safety. Because of who I am and what I do. Not because of her." Yelena grasped Nina's face in her hands. "I don't know what to do or say to make you happy. I want to. Make you happy, I mean. I don't know how. I'm a killer, Nina. I'm a mass murderer. I'm a shadow, a lie. That's why I never accepted your proposals. I can't be who you want me to be. Who you need me to be. I can't be good."
Nina pulled her in for a crushing hug. "You idiot." She kissed Yelena's cheek sloppily, almost giddy. Yelena was confused. "You blind, stupid idiot. I love you. I know what you are, exactly what you are, and I don't care. I know this. You make me happy. Just being you, just being with me. Making stupid, lame jokes. Sitting in the plaza on a weekend. In the apartment with a book and arguing over whether or not it should have even been published because it's so bad. Laughing with me about how terrible my students' English is." Nina kissed her again, full on the mouth, and Yelena was stunned.
"I love you, you stupid moron. You're mine, don't ever think differently."
"Even if I'm a killer?"
"Nobody's perfect," Nina replied cheekily. "Besides, now I am, too."
Yelena let out a laugh that was almost like a hiccup. "I suppose that's true..."
"So stop being stupid. Tell me you'll marry me when this is all over. We'll take care of my sisters, we'll pack off Natasha to wherever the hell she wants to be, we'll make nice with their spy friends, and then we'll get married and have our lives to ourselves. I'm not taking no for an answer, Yelena. I'm not."
She laughed again, and clutched Nina close, crying and laughing at the same time. "You stupid woman, how can you love me?"
"I just do. So?"
Nodding, Yelena grasped Nina and kissed her. "Yes. So help me, yes."
"Good. I have plans for you, Lena. I've been pondering this for the past three years."
"Oh, dear God," Yelena groaned. "I'm not doing something fluffy or frou-frou."
"Would I steer you wrong?"
"Yes," Yelena replied emphatically.
Nina laughed, and practically danced around the room with her. "Okay, I would absolutely do that to fuck with you. But I promise, I would not ruin our wedding. Once in a lifetime, I'm not going to mess that up." She grinned brightly at her. "Alia can bake our cake!"
Yelena groaned dramatically. "I've created a monster."
But Nina's laughter was absolutely worth it.
***
Steve Rogers arrived in jeans, a blue shirt and plain leather jacket. Without the telltale uniform, most pedestrians didn't recognize him. They didn't recognize his dark skinned companion, who had a jovial smile and a steady head on his shoulders. He was also casually dressed, as was their companion, a tall man with dark hair pulled back from his haunted face. He wore a long sleeved hoodie and black gloves over his hands, and didn't make eye contact with anyone when he was ushered into Marcia's meeting room.
"Steve!" Natasha hissed.
"I know what you're going to say," he began, taking a small tablet out of the inner pocket of his jacket. "But wait a minute, okay? We're missing one more."
The missing one more turned out to be Tony Stark, gleefully Skyping in rather than attending the Stark Industries meeting he and Pepper ostensibly flew to Berlin to attend. "What? I was able to give a few friends a free and off the record flight into Europe. No underhanded business whatsoever," he said with a wide grin. "Hey, Cap, pivot the camera around, will you? I can't see everyone here."
"I saw you on television once," Olga said, a dubious look on her face. Tony zeroed in on her right away. "It was not very flattering."
"Holy shit. You do look just like Natasha. I thought Steve and Clint were exaggerating. Oh, who am I kidding? Since when does Steve exaggerate anything?" He threw up his hands and then leaned in closer to the camera. "Wow. There are four Natashas there. I find this highly disturbing."
"No, Mr. Stark," Nina said tightly. "There's only one Natasha. I'm Nina. That was Olga, and this is Marcia," she said, pointing to the sisters in turn. "Get the names right."
He blinked. "Wow. Yeah. Sorry about that. It's a shock, sorry."
Marcia nodded briskly. "So why did you need to meet with us?"
"Well, Natasha knows that after SHIELD fell and she went underground, Steve and Sam went off in search for his old buddy there." All eyes went to the taciturn brunet. "Better known as the Winter Soldier. He was in hiding for a while, then all of a sudden there were brutal killings of Hydra agents in Baltimore, Crystal City, three small towns in Mississippi, then Nashville-not a fan of country music, I guess?-and then two smaller cities in Oklahoma."
"We were trailing behind the body counts," Steve said quietly. "So I asked Tony to help me figure out where the next place might be."
"We wound up looking into SHIELD safe houses, office buildings, storage facilities, anything," Sam added for the others' benefit.
"Why did you start in Baltimore?" Marcia asked, looking directly at the taciturn man.
He looked up at her with empty eyes, every inch the ghost that the intelligence community thought he was. "Because they killed her."
"Dinah," Marcia whispered, stunned when he nodded.
"She found me," the Winter Soldier said quietly. "I wasn't quite free of their programming yet, and I walked from DC to Baltimore. I was homeless, and she found me."
"She was a social worker," Marcia said for the others' benefit.
The Winter Soldier nodded. "She was helping me find a place to stay. She thought I was a veteran. Because of my arm, the way I moved. Thought I was too afraid of the VA. She knew that type, thought I was like them." At a few of the others' nods, he took a breath. "She was killed for helping me. They made it look like an ordinary killing, but I knew it for what it was. Hydra wanted me back."
"So you got even by killing them," Olga said with an approving nod. "This is good."
"No, this is not good," Steve said with a sigh. He scrubbed at his face. "Because we're considered terrorists and amoral killers."
"Hate to interrupt you there, Cap, but there have been a couple more hearings and the terrorist label's been dropped from SHIELD," Tony added helpfully. "Now they're just considered one of many ineffectual government agencies."
That obviously didn't make Steve feel comforted.
"In any case, dragging me into this story got me looking into things," Tony said. He tapped on a Starkpad on his end of the connection. "I know it's only been a few days, but I work fast and I can help you with the US side of things. In fact, I am right this second in the process of hiring on a certain photographer that lives in California. Pepper loves visiting New Orleans, so maybe we could open an office building in the area. It would bring work to a post-Katrina city, always good. And if we happen to have a favorite bakery, well, so be it." He grinned at them as if the problem was solved. "And scarily enough, Nancy and Maria have already met online and are way too chummy for comfort. So I think she's fine."
"Holy shit, that does take care of the US contingent," Nina blurted.
"We still need to take care of the ladies here," Natasha sighed. She frowned slightly at Steve, Sam and the Winter Soldier. "What are your plans for all this?"
"Same as before, I guess," Sam said with a shrug. "Hunt Hydra, clear out the nest."
"I won't go into the chair again," the Winter Soldier said, voice hard. "And they will pay for hurting Dinah. She was good to me. She didn't have to be."
"That was Dinah, though," Marcia said with a soft smile.
Yelena nodded. "She wanted to pay forward the help we gave her when she was found."
The Winter Soldier turned his eyes toward her, but there was no recognition there, either. "I'll do the same, then. She helped me, I should help those like her."
"Now, I'm guessing the four of you are taken care of?" Steve asked looking between Natasha and her clones.
"The others, perhaps," Olga said. "I have not trained for combat. I trained as an engineer."
Tony perked up at that. "Really? SI could always use engineers for R&D. That would keep you protected in a heartbeat. And I'm here in Berlin! We should meet!"
"Or I could teach you to defend yourself," the Winter Soldier intoned.
Olga looked a bit uncertain, torn between the two choices. "Well..."
"No rush," Tony said quickly. He smiled at the assemblage. "Now, while I don't really have direct control over European factories, who do we have left to take care of?"
Marcia listed the last five clones: Natalia Korasova in Ukraine, Nadine Fisher in Amsterdam, Neveah Almgren in Sweden, Thérèse Levigne in Paris, Constance Claredon in London.
"I know people that can help in Paris, Amsterdam and London," Javier said with a shrug. "I'm not so good with Scandinavia or Ukraine."
"And they really won't move. Those are the ones with children," Nina supplied.
"Children," Natasha murmured, shock in her voice.
"Neveah's are adopted. She was too... Well, let's just say surgery was necessary to save her life when we found her," Yelena murmured. "Not to worry, the fuckers responsible are dead."
"I find that statement very sexy and very scary, by the way," Tony offered.
"Natasha, are all your spy friends like this?" Sam whispered in the awkward silence.
"More or less?" she replied. She looked at the others uncertainly. "What are you planning to do? I can't ask you to do this."
"Oh. That." Sam grinned at her and then slung an arm around her shoulders. "Just to be clear. You aren't asking. I'm volunteering, same as I did for Steve. Got it?"
She shifted her eyes to Steve. "And you?"
"We can't leave them vulnerable. You sacrificed a lot to help me. I don't think I realized how much until Sam and I went on the road." He looked over at Olga and smiled in the face of her uncertain expression. "How about this? You and Bucky can go meet up with Mr. Stark. Talk engineering stuff, see if you can manage to do both. Hydra doesn't seem to know anything about the rest of you ladies, so we're not in a rush to decide anything today."
Olga looked over at the Winter Soldier. "Bucky?"
"A nickname. From who I used to be."
"You do not like this."
"It isn't what I am now."
She nodded, understanding the difference even if the optimist Steve didn't seem to. "And what do you choose to be called?"
His eyes snapped to hers, assessing. She returned his gaze calmly, chin raised. All the others watched closely, palpably relieved when his lips finally curled into something resembling a smile. "I think I remember something like this."
"What shall I call you?" Olga insisted.
"James." He cast his eyes toward Steve and Sam, taking in the pained expression on Steve's face. Something in his own expression softened a fraction. "That idiot over there is the only one that calls me Bucky. Maybe Sam, too."
She smiled and went to his side, patting his arm. "I am Olga. I may not look like much, but I am tough. I refused to let Vory underlings destroy me. I won't let this either."
He returned her smile and then nodded. "Then let's get to Stark's for your interview."
Once the four of them left, Clint looked at Natasha. "Should I be worried about this? I mean, it's the Winter Soldier with your clone."
"Whatever else," Yelena began, cutting off whatever Natasha would have said, "the Winter Soldier was always a protector to the girls in the Red Room. Even if he is nothing more than the programming that they gave him, he will not harm her."
Natasha gave her a flinty eyed stare. "I have a scar that says otherwise."
"He shot you." At her nod, Yelena returned her stare. "But you lived, and none would have suspected that he deliberately let you live. The Winter Soldier was never about subtlety, never about leaving witnesses. It was about getting the job done and making a statement."
Sitting back, Natasha absorbed this piece of information. "But-"
"They made you forget many things. As they did to him. But some things are hard wired and cannot ever be erased, no matter how much they tried."
If there was a trace of bitterness in her voice, no one commented on it.
"On that cheery note," Javier said with a sigh, "I did promise to call my friend Etienne about our lovely marketing friend." He nodded at the tablet that Steve left behind. "Good to meet you, Mr. Stark. Perhaps next time it may even be in the flesh."
"Try not to make that as salacious sounding. Pepper frowns upon such things."
"That's never stopped you before," Natasha snarked.
Tony grinned. "There you are. For a while there, I thought the whole SHIELD crashing had gotten you down. Good to see that side of you again."
Natasha sent him a mock glower, making him laugh. "I have an idea about the Swedish mom, if you don't mind me contacting one or two other people."
"Do what you need to do," Marcia said firmly. "Our first priority is in keeping all of us safe."
After Tony logged off, Natasha looked over at the others in the room. "You know, I'm almost starting to think that this can work."
Nina beamed. "Good. Because I have ideas for how to move things forward, and it would really be a shame if something ruined those plans." She shrugged when everyone stared at her in surprise. "What? I'm being practical. I want all my sisters at my wedding, after all."
Yelena covered her face in her hands and groaned.
***
***
To Chapter Six - Finalizing