Chapter 54: Yelena Belova

A/N: Yelena POV!

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"Yelena!"

When the red gas had first filled the rooms and freed them from the mind control, Yelena Belova hadn't known what was going on. All she knew was that she needed to protect the girls under her care. Everything else could be figured out later.

Of course, then the doors had opened and a posh British voice had revealed to them that the Academy Guards' guns had been jammed, thoroughly ruining any subterfuge that Yelena and the other older Widows might have tried for. Still, this was their only opportunity… so they'd taken it. And so far, it had worked out. They'd taken down every guard in their path, only to find there were these robots invading the facility and helping them out.

It was all a bit much, but each robot had the same posh British voice as before so Yelena had just rolled with it. Until now. Now… she was beginning to realize she must be dreaming. Because she'd just heard the voice of her sister. Her very heroic, very dead sister.

Turning, she sees Natasha at the end of the hall coming towards them. A quick check shows the others see her too. Both the other Widows and the girls training to be Widows. So she's not hallucinating. Which means none of this is real. Not the escape and certainly not her dead sister's presence.

Natasha arrives in front of her and grabs her by the face, looking her in the eye.

"Are you alright? Any lingering effects from Dreykov's serum?"

It's tempting to play into it for a bit. To just pretend like the dream is reality. But Yelena hasn't allowed herself to get caught up in fantasies for a while now. She's not a kid anymore and hasn't been for a long time.

"They showed us your sacrifice, Natasha. They showed us how you died to save New York City from aliens. They said we should all be lucky to have even a portion of the impact you'd had on the world."

Natasha blinks and pulls back for a moment as Yelena expects the truth she's just spoken to unravel the dream she finds herself in. It was fun while it lasted, this fantasy of being able to take down their guards, save their girls, and escape the Red Room. But now it's time to go back to the real world.

… Except that doesn't happen.

"Ah… yes. Well, reports of my death were greatly exaggerated. Basically… I had to die so I could live."

What? Yelena furrows her brow and looks around herself. Why wasn't the dream fading? Why wasn't she able to see the cracks?

"Yelena. Hey, Yelena, look at me. I'm not dead. I'm here. I faked my own death so I could get out from under the people who wouldn't have let me leave."

The Red Room had been following Natasha's story through bits and pieces over the years. Yelena blinks as she remembers a name she'd heard associated with Natasha.

"From Tony Stark?"

"Did someone call for me?"

Now she knows she's dreaming, even if for some reason it's lucid. Appearing out of seemingly nowhere, Tony Stark himself turns a corner and walks up to them, a big grin on his smug American face and his hands shoved into the pockets of his incredibly expensive Armani Suit. Yelena reacts without thinking, truth be told. She might not be mind controlled anymore, but one doesn't shake the lifelong indoctrination of Mother Russia so easily. See a capitalist pig, shank a capitalist pig.

"Yelena!"

Natasha tries to stop her much too late; her sister's skills having grown rather rusty in her time away from the Red Room. Yelena's knife, already dripping with the blood of half a dozen guards, flashes out to take Tony Stark in the throat. Imagine her surprise when he catches her by the wrist, halting her progress in an instant. Impossible of course, but Yelena doesn't let it hold her back.

She snaps out her other hand, punching Stark right in the face. Only… it's a lot like punching a steel wall. His head still turns, but the pain… the pain is in her hand more than anything from the look of things. Only too late does she remember a phrase she heard once. Stark Men are made of Iron. Could it be true?

Releasing a string of Russian curse words under her breath, Yelena yanks herself out of Stark's grasp and backs away, shaking her throbbing hand. He doesn't attack her back, just giving her a raised eyebrow as Natasha steps between them.

"Yelena! Tony is a friend. He's the one who found you all… he's the one who let me know Dreykov was still alive after I tried to kill him. He's not one of the ones I had to fake my death to get away from, in fact he helped me do it."

Yelena just stares at that, slowly realizing that this is not a dream. The pain in her hand all but confirms this is reality. No, the world just no longer makes sense. Or maybe this is a capitalist superpower she doesn't know about? The more money you have, the stronger you get? It would explain a lot about why the rich hoarded their money so greedily over in America she supposed.

"I'll leave you two to catch up Nat. Apparently JARVIS found something that requires my attention."

And just like that, Stark is already gone. Yelena watches him go with a baffled expression on her face. He wasn't upset she'd attacked him? More than that… was that a pet name? Looking at her sister, Yelena narrows her eyes.

"What is your relationship with Tony Stark, Natasha?"

The pause is answer enough, truth be told. Natasha stops, considers the question, and then grimaces before sighing.

"I suppose at this point the most appropriate way to describe it… is that I'm one of his mistresses."

The words ring in Yelena's head. Mistress. One of. Immediately, she begins to plot how to kill Tony Stark, despite now knowing how strong and durable he is. It'll have to be a very big bomb…

"Yelena! I know that look! No assassinations necessary. I chose to be his Mistress… his and his wife Pepper's alike. They… share me. But it's not like that! I'm fine with it. In fact… well, I'm planning to bear his child."

Yelena's head snaps up, her eyes widening at the light flush on her sister's face. Natasha is serious. But that would mean.

"He healed me. He can heal all of us. And no, he didn't heal me solely so I would bear his child. In fact, he expected me to find someone else. I'm the one who's decided it's going to be him or no one, alright Yelena?"

Yelena hesitates at that. Considers what she knows. Considers what she clearly doesn't know. Her information is spotty at best but…

"Very well. I give my blessing; he seems like a strong man if nothing else."

Strong and wealthy and powerful. Natasha could do a lot worse, she supposed. And it did connect a few dots for her. She'd heard mention that Natasha had defected to SHIELD around the same time she'd also heard mention of Tony Stark. SHIELD would not let Natasha go easily. They would not let her just have a life and children. Hence the need to fake her death.

"… I wasn't asking for your blessing, Yelena. Last I checked, I'm the older sibling."

Pulled from her thoughts, Yelena narrows her eyes at Natasha.

"Last I checked, we are both highly skilled, impeccably trained assassins, Natasha. Do you think if I did not approve, that he would survive for long?"

Here, she gets a crooked smile from Natasha.

"Tony? Probably. I think he might have made it so he can survive just about anything."

Hm. Yelena wordlessly upgrades Stark's danger rating again at those words. But before she can speak up, the sound of boots has her and Natasha both turning to see Tony Stark has returned… and with someone at his side.

"Ladies… Dreykov is dead. This is Antonia, his daughter."

Yelena feels Natasha freeze up next to her. Truth be told, she kind of feels like freezing up as well. Antonia Dreykov wears the armor of the General's newest pet project, his 'Taskmaster'. She and the other widows have been training the masked figure for years now, even as Antonia had steadily surpassed each of them in their lessons to her, one by one. Fortunately this seemed to be Dreykov's design, because he did not have any of them killed for their failures against his pet project.

Still, she's never seen Taskmaster's face… until now. Wide eyes set into a grotesquely burned visage stare at her and her sister as Antonia Dreykov beholds them both… and then smiles, the movement of her lips pulling against her melted skin.

"My father locked me in my own head for years. So when the voice in my chip freed me from his control and the pain, I ended him. I am told I can… be healed?"

Yelena glances at Natasha at that, who is in turn looking to Tony Stark. And Stark is nodding.

"That's right. I know this lovely woman named Dr. Helen Cho. She's made something called the Regeneration Cradle… gorgeous invention. I had a hole in my chest that it took care of like that."

Stark snaps his fingers, a charming grin on his face as Antonia seems to soak in his every word. Her smile grows at the thought of being made whole again and Yelena almost feels her own mouth tug up at the corner just from the innocent joy on the other woman's face. Dreykov was dead. They were free. Natasha was apparently dead set on becoming a mother. This was-

"I'm… I'm sorry. I did this to you, Antonia."

What? Yelena looks to Natasha, only to see her staring at Dreykov's daughter with glistening eyes. Dreykov's daughter, who has been trained as a weapon by Yelena and the other older Widows for the last four years. Dreykov's daughter, who is now looking at Natasha rather intensely.

"My father did this to me."

But Natasha shakes her head.

"The bomb. It was me. It wasn't meant for you. It was meant for Dreykov. But I knew you were there. I knew when I made the call and detonated it that you would be caught in the blast. I'm sorry."

Fuck. Natasha had been away from the Red Room too long if she couldn't keep that sort of thing to herself. Yelena grits her teeth, gripping her knife harder as she watches Antonia's reaction for any signs of violence. She might have been happy for the girl to be promised healing, but that didn't mean she was going to let Dreykov's daughter kill her sister.

For a long moment, Antonia just stares at Natasha, her head tilted to the side. Only belatedly does Yelena realize she's listening to someone. She'd mentioned it. A voice on her chip. Whatever the fuck that meant.

"… You have a lot more blood on your hands then just mine, don't you Natasha Romanoff?"

Natasha tenses up but nods wordlessly all the same.

"I think if I still felt the pain, I would try to kill you right now. But the pain is gone. I can control my own body again. My father is dead. He wanted me to be a killer and I killed him… but…"

Antonia looks down at her hands. Closes and opens them… and then smiles as she looks to Natasha again.

"I do not think I wish to be a killer. Even for revenge. I do not forgive you, Natasha Romanoff. But I have been promised I will never see you again if I don't want to. And I think I would like that very much."

Then, without another word, Antonia Dreykov turns and walks off, leaving them behind with Tony Stark staring after her for a long moment. Finally, Tony turns back to them and flashes a smile.

"Well… that went well!"

Yelena gets the sudden urge to try to stab him again, but Natasha just sighs and nods.

"About as well as could be expected, I suppose. How's everything shaking out, Tony?"

Shrugging, the American crosses his arms over his chest and looks off into the distance. It takes Yelena a second to realize he's actually looking at something only he can see. Just how powerful does capitalism make you?!

"Oksana and her cohorts are currently loading the other Widows and the girls onto the transports. The facility has been cleared and everyone on site who willingly had anything to do with the Red Room has been neutralized. JARVIS has complete control of the facility and we've already downloaded all the relevant data for future perusal so at this point… it's your call, Natasha."

Natasha doesn't have to think about it for longer than a second.

"… Tear it down, Tony. Once we're clear, rip this place out of the sky. The Red Room dies today, for good this time."

The thought honestly makes Yelena a little weak in the knees. This was really happening, wasn't it? The Red Room, the only thing she'd known for most of her life outside of their fake little family unit in Ohio, was over. Dreykov was dead. It was honestly surreal. What was she without the Red Room? What were any of them?

"Hey, Yelena, come on. Let's get out of here, yeah?"

In the end, she lets Natasha pull her along. They wind up getting aboard an aircraft with Tony Stark, flying away from the Red Room. Turns out all this time, the Academy was in the sky. Who knew? Yelena certainly didn't.

As it begins to disappear into the distance, Yelena flinches when the first explosion lights it up. The sound barely reaches from this far away, and yet… the destruction is fast and total. By the time the aerial fortress is done exploding and begins falling to the ground, the debris has been rendered into tiny little chunks, raining down to the Siberian Tundra below.

While she stares, Natasha holds her with one arm around her waist, like she used to at times when they were little. It's a strange moment, filled with both hope and melancholy. And then…

"Oh by the way, Pepper wants to have dinner tomorrow night if possible. Just the three of us I mean. She's… excited to begin the process."

Yelena blinks at that, before realizing that her sister, a stone-cold killer of a Black Widow, has gone bright red. Natasha Romanoff was blushing. It takes her only a second to connect the dots. Pepper was the wife. Natasha was apparently their shared sex pet. And oh yes, she wanted Tony Stark to impregnate her. The process.

A small grin spreads across Yelena's face. The world didn't make sense anymore, flipped upside down as it was. Nothing made much sense. And yet… even so, anything that could make Natasha of all people blush like an innocent maiden was alright in her book.

Maybe the world was better when it didn't make sense.

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A/N: The world might not make sense, but Yelena is okay with that. The world was shittier when it made sense.

Tomorrow, as promised, will be the Breeding~

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