"The fuck was that?" Nat asked, keeping herself away from the red gas.
"No time, let's go!" Yelena said as she pulled the still-confused woman away. She'd stopped attacking them after being hit by that gas.
Nat followed after Yelena who seemed to be giving some instructions to the woman.
"Which one?" Nat asked.
"Black, Brown seat," Yelena said. And the woman that she'd been talking to separated from them.
"You owe me a very lengthy explanation," Nat said as she passed Yelena and took a seat on the bike.
"Where are my keys…" Yelena asked rhetorically as she started looking through her jacket. Just then, there was the sound of the engine revving as the bike came to life. Alex was pretty helpful when it came to any sort of electronics.
"Or you could do that…" Yelena commented as she got on the bike and took her seat behind Natasha.
Just then, a car flew from the side, making Nat and Yelena pause for a second. Then an armored vehicle came to view that took a turn to face them. Its presence brought Nat out of her reverie and the bike started moving.
What followed was a scene of a huge armored vehicle chasing after a bike through the streets of Budapest, sending whatever car came its way flying. After some expert maneuvering, Nat took a turn into a narrow alley, losing that truck. But then they had two bikes on their tail. They seemed to be driven by Widows who were shooting at them both.
"Be a dear and help me lose them," Nat handed Yelena a gun.
"Where did you—" She was about to ask where Nat got the gun from, but a bullet whizzing past her head made her take action and start shooting at the two bikes.
Yelena herself was also an experienced killer and was a very good shot. Both of her shots hit their mark and hit the tires of the bikes, getting rid of their assailants.
"I see that you didn't kill them." Nat noticed.
"They're being controlled." Yelena didn't say any more.
"I see…" Nat started connecting some dots but she knew that right now wasn't the time for this talk.
[Incoming!] Just as Nat took a turn to make her getaway, the armored vehicle appeared and almost rammed her and Yelena. Only with Alex's timely warning could she dodge the ramming of the armored truck, and the bike ended up being led into a subway down the stairs. Nat had to maneuver through groups of people that were here to use the train as she lost the armored truck again, it couldn't enter the subway entrance, so the person that was driving the vehicle came out.
It was a fully armored individual with a shield that was reminiscent of Captain America's Vibranium shield. Seeing that the targets were getting away, the armored individual made the only move that they could think of and threw the shield at the bike.
Nat wasn't able to dodge it due to the presence of the pedestrians and the shield ended up hitting the back wheel of the bike, sending both Nat and Yelena into the air.
"Ahh!" Yelena's hand got caught on the exhaust port of the flying bike and she got a horrible burn, "Fuck!" She suppressed her pain.
Just as Nat and Yelena landed, Natasha shielded Yelena being her and faced their armored assailant.
"Who is this, guy?" Nat asked Yelena who was busy trying to mitigate the effects of her burn.
"Dreykov's special project. He can mimic anyone he's ever seen. It's like fighting a mirror. Calls him Project Trickster" Yelena told her.
"None of this makes any sense," Nat took a fighting stance.
"A lot of things don't." Yelena's reply was a little snarky.
"You seem to have some problems—" Nat was talking to Yelena but the trickster was already upon Natasha and attacked her. Nat easily grabbed the gloved hand that was punched toward her and flipped the person over, "I'm trying to have a talk here." Nat held the person in a chokehold and held them down.
"You were really holding back weren't you…" Yelena was honestly in awe of Natasha's power.
Nat didn't waste any time and shocked this Project Trickster into unconsciousness. She was strong enough to deal with any threats, but that didn't mean that she was willing to fight an army of Black Widows right now.
She helped Yelena up and brought her away.
"You have got to teach me this stuff…" Yelena was awestruck by Natasha's power.
"Let's get you fixed up first," Natasha said and shocked Yelena too, leaving her unconscious.
[Alex, some help…] She asked, and invisible tendrils extended out of her body and wrapped around Yelena. At the same time, Nat and Yelena both turned invisible.
Alex and Nat brought Yelena to a suburban area, close to where Nat hid their helicopter and put her in the back seat of the car after having Alex heal her up, waiting till she woke up.
[What do you think?] Nat asked Alex who'd been strangely quiet for a while.
[You can trust her. I haven't sensed her lying to you yet, nor is she under any external mind influence.] Alex had probed her mind while healing her up.
[I see…] Nat went deep into thought and didn't say anything more.
[You don't have to think so much. Just do what you want. The Red Room isn't something that you need to be worried about. You can easily take care of that Dreyfuck or whatever without any issues.] Alex said.
[Dreykov…] Nat had a light smile on her face.
[Whatever. The point is that he doesn't matter. You can treat this as a bonding adventure with your little sister. Maybe take in a few of the Black Widows, and make your own personal army or something. It'll clearly be extremely difficult for them to adapt to normal life in any other situation.] Alex said.
[I'll think about it…] Nat wasn't decisive.
Alex didn't say anything after that and paid attention to his side project. He was looking for an opportunity to replace Killmonger and take over Wakanda. He'd been waiting for the past few days to do exactly that and he'd finally found the opportunity. He had many plans that could be executed after he took over Wakanda. Plans along the lines of an intergalactic empire spanning multiple worlds. But that's for later.
Natasha looked over at Yelena and decided to wake her up. Going over to her, she put her hand on Yelena's neck and delivered a fine controlled electric zap to wake her up naturally.
Yelena's eyes opened wide and she got up, banging her head against Natasha's.
"Oww…" She held her head while Natasha looked at her with a flat look.
"Where am I?" She asked Natasha while holding her bruised forehead.
"In a car, far away from any conflict. Now I want answers. Then we'll see what to do about this whole Red Room stuff that you've been going on about." Nat said as she got out of the car and let Yelena get out by herself.
"Yeah, yeah…" Yelena looked at her arm where she'd received the burn but was surprised to see the burn missing, "What happened? How did you heal me?"
"My questions first. What was that red gas?" Nat hadn't planned on exposing Alex to her.
"Fine…" Yelena grumbled, acting like an immature kid in front of her big sister, "It's an antidote to mind control. Specifically, the kind of mind control that the newer Widows are chemically subjugated to. This gas counteracts those chemicals" She explained to Nat who went silent for a while after hearing what she said.
"How is it different from what I went through?" Nat asked.
"What you went through was mental conditioning and brainwashing. This," Yelena held up a vial of the gas, "Is far more intrusive. It chemically alters brain functions. You don't even know which part is yours and which is under control. Dreykov can easily control the Widows with ease. And this is the only antidote." Yelena's eyes got a hollow look as she remembered everything that she'd had to do under the influence of that mind control. It was traumatizing for her, leaving her feeling like she was a prisoner in her own mind.
"That bad?" Nat asked.
"Worse. The person who made this was an older widow from Melina's generation. I was the one who killed her. Just as she freed me from the control, I stabbed a knife into her gut. She died in my arms…" Yelena said.
"So it's all real, huh? The Red Room, Dreykov… They're all still there." Nat finally came to terms with the situation. She couldn't avoid the fact that she failed. She couldn't do it in the end.
"Now, I'd like to know what happened with Dreykov's daughter," Yelena asked.
"Hm?" Nat had a questioning expression on her face.
"Don't play dumb. You gave me the details of your risking-the-city-bombing but never mentioned what happened to his daughter." Yelena wanted to know.
"Fine," Nat said, "She was bait. She was the one whom we'd tracked back to Dreykov. We could only be sure that he was there if she was too. I sacrificed a child to get to Dreykov. Happy?" Nat asked with a snappy edge to her expression and tone.
Yelena didn't have much to say after hearing Nat's words.
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