CHAPTER 65

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Destroying the Red Room in Russia was just step one. Organizations like these usually had roots all over the world; that much had become evident when I tortured the General. And while a bit of extra torture would've made him more... chatty about the operations outside Russia. I had no need for him anymore.

After all.

I had all the data I needed to update my search parameters with the information he had shared during our one-on-one and with what little I had collected through my raids in their bases.

Eventually, I would kill them all, but I didn't have to do it by myself.

Bucky had taken this mission after hearing the facts and was raiding a base a day.

It was easier than hunting Hydra; that much was a given, for one, the Red Room didn't have as much global presence as Hydra, and they weren't in every country, just some, like Cuba, North Korea, China, Italy, and others.

The point was, I was leaving the clean duty to Bucky, as in cleaning the other countries from that despicable organization.

As for me, well. I was trying to connect with the girls. One distrusted me because of her training, the other, well, because in her world, I had ripped her from her parents, making me a monster in her eyes.

But time would fix that, or one day I would wake up to see Yelena trying to kill me; I suppose I will see.

"What do you want, Natasha?" I said, feeling her presence behind my slightly open office door.

"Nothing." She eventually replied.

"It can't be entertaining to watch me read documents," I replied with a chuckle.

"What can we do?" She asked, coming into my office.

Looking at her, I put the documents I was reading on the desk and asked. "What do you want to do?"

She froze, contemplating the question.

"I told you, you are free now," I winked. "Well... as free as a child your age should be," I added.

"Can we go to school?" she asked, her voice soft.

"You can, Yelena. Well, I don't know." I sighed; a girl shouting I had kidnapped her would certainly break my public persona.

"She will forget them. Eventually." She replied, as I gave her a look that said, really? "Maybe."

"Look, if you want to go to school, I can enroll you." I sighed. "But, Yelena is.. she another matter altogether."

She looked at me and, with a low tone, muttered. "I know."

"I really don't know what to do with your sister. For her, life was normal before me; the realities you lived are foreign to her." I sighed; this entire thing was a broken mess.

"I will tell her." She stated. "She has the right to know what would've happened had you not been there." she paused, her gaze turning down. "Had you not interfered."

"Well, if she's gonna believe someone, I bet it's you." I smiled. "So... about school, you really want that?"

"Yes." She nodded shyly.

"Ok," I replied.

She looked at me and allowed a tiny smile on her face.

"So, next order of business. Your training." I said, looking at her.

At this, she tensed.

"Don't worry, I don't mean like the Red Room; I mean like you need to be able to defend yourself." I clarified.

"I would still be allowed to have friends?" She asked.

"Nat, but of course, you can have as many friends as you like." I chuckled. "We can even plan some sleepovers." I winked. "The self-defense training is only to help you be truly free."

"Truly free?" She asked.

"Those who are weak and good tend to be the prey of those who are strong and bad. The only way to escape that cycle is by climbing that ladder, in short. Those who hold the power, hold the cards of their own destiny." I answered.

"So to be free. I need to be strong." She stated.

"Yes, I mean... look at those who we call normal," I said. "They can become rich, they can become poor, they can be doctors or cops, but at the end of the day, people like Hydra, or SHIELD, or even the Red Room, are the ones pulling the strings, the ones that get to decide what happens." I sighed.

"They don't have control over their own lives, and they don't even know it." She added in understatement.

"Yes, in a way that is true." I nodded. "At any given time, those at the top could simply end them, which is why power is such an important part of freedom. With power, you can truly be free."

She looked at me, giving me a long scrutinizing look. "Are you free?" she eventually asked.

"I suppose I am." I chuckled, by the earth power ladder, I was free, but outside the earth power ladder, well, I was not.

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[Melina Vostokoff]

I woke up to find Alexei on the bed recovering from what the doctors described as impalation. Not only that, but the one who had impaled him had kidnapped Natasha and Yelena and had seemingly wiped the Red Room out of Russia.

"Alexei," I muttered, approaching his bed. Doctors were saying that even with his super-soldier body, the chances of him surviving were slim.

"He was right, you know." Alexei coughed.

"What?" I asked, holding his hand.

"We claimed to love them, and yet we allowed our country to hurt them." Alexei chuckled with a hoarse tone.

"It is our duty," I replied.

"I suppose as long as we say that, the bodies of children piling behind us won't matter, won't it?" Alexei chuckled. "I almost died, and perhaps I will, and almost dying helped me see, it granted me an epiphany of sorts, how can we claim to love someone, when we only hurt them?"

Our duty to our country, our love for them, two different things playing at once. To die for duty or to die for love. "I don't know." I eventually replied.