36. one happy family

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We followed Alexei to a home, surrounded in flowers and a farm. As we got to the gate, i saw her. Mama.

"Honey, we're home." Melina looked at us,, Natasha, Yelena, me... "Come on, girls." He pats us and heads to the entrance and Melina lets us in.

"Welcome to my humble abode." Melina said as she lead us into the home. I looked around, the walls were covered in books, paintings, "Make yourself at home. Let's have a drink."

"Please." I passed her, walking to the dining table and waited. Natasha sat next to me, Yelena across me and next to Melina, gagging and closing our eyes as we heard Alexei putting on his suit, trying. Just the sounds of him grunting and puffing made me open the bottle of vodka and took two shots. The door opens and we all saw Alexei, squeezed, in his suit, posing at the doorway.

"Still fits." Melina whistles.

"Oh, my God." Yelena closed her eyes, i just looked away and took another shot. Alexei danced to the table, laughing and clapping.

"I never washed it once." She looks at him. "Come and drink." Melina pours everyone a shot.

"Family back together again." Alexei shakes Natashas arm.

"Seeing as our family construct was just a calculated ruse that only lasted three years, I don't think that we can use this term anymore, can we?" Melina looks up. I dont care, im not related to them so why would I? After what they did to me, to us.

"Agreed. So, here's what's gonna happen..."

"Okay. A reunion then, huh?"

"Whatever makes you feel like a good person Alexei." I slouched back in the chair.

"I want to say something right off the bat." Alexei turns to Melina. Here we go, ew. "You haven't aged a day, huh? You're just as beautiful and as supple as the day they staged our marriage."

"You got fat." She tells him, smiling. "But still good." This was getting too much.

"I just got out of prison. I, uh... I have a lot of energy." No thats it, nope, i rather have Fisk go on about Vanessa than Alexei talk about this shit. The two smiled and forgot that we were there. Melina ran her hand over his arm, make him shiver.

"Please don't do that." Natasha groans.

"Pass the vodka, four shots isn't enough." I said as Yelena hands me the bottle and poured more.

"So, here's what's gonna happen." Natasha goes on but was stopped by Melina.

"Natasha, don't slouch." She tells her, slamming the bottle down the table.

"I'm not slouching." Natasha scoffed.

"Yes, yes, you are." She argued back.

"I don't slouch."

"You're going to get a back hunch." Then Melina looks at me, what now. "Devon, elbows! What did i say about your elbows!" She hits her elbows on the table.

"Stop it!" I threw my arms up.

"It's disrespectful."

"Its not!" I rolled my eyes.

"Listen to your mother."

"Oh, my God, this..." We swore.

"Up, up." Alexei sits up, touching Nat and moving my arms off the table.

"All right, enough. All of you." Natasha stops.

"I didn't say anything. That's not fair." Yelena says as she sits back.

"Here's what's gonna happen..." Melina pours some salad onto my plate.

"I don't want any food, im not hungry." I shoved the spoon off my plate.

"Eat a little something, you look thin, Devon for God's sake." She pointed at me. "Are you in love? Is that why you're not eating?"

"You're gonna tell us the location of the Red Room." Natasha finished. I knew Melina was avoiding it.

"You know, it's like when you told them that they could stay up late to catch Santa Claus." Melina turns to Alexei, changing the subject. She was good at that.

"What? That was fun. You know, "He come down the chimney, girls. Look out. Where is he? You wait for him, and then when the cookies are gone, then you see he's there. I want them to follow their dreams."

"No good." She scoffed.

"Reach for the stars, girls."

"Finding Dreykov is not a fantasy. It's unfinished business." This was more of a Natasha thing, ill let her handle this. Melina and Alexei were too stubborn to talk to.

"You can't defeat a man who commands the very will of others.You never saw the culmination of what we started in America." They went on and on, interrupting each other. Melina pulled up her tablet and started typing on it, "Come in." She shouted. We all looked confused at her. My hand went straight to my gun as the door opened, then a pig came in.

"Did that pig just open the door?" My eyes still on the pig, still wondering how it just open the door.

"Yes. It did." I said all concerned. "Woah."

"Good boy, Alexei. Good boy." Melina gave him a snack. My hand flew to my mouth, holding in my laughter, Alexeis face drops and looks at Melina.

"You named a pig after me?"

"You don't see the resemblance?"

"No i do, a spitting image." I snorted with laughter I couldn't hold. He slowly turns to me with a look on his face but I didn't stop,

"See, he sits just like dog." The pig sat there, waiting for more food. "Watch, Stop breathing." She hit a the tablet and the pig grunts, gasping for air. I lean back, i cant watch this. "We infiltrated the North Institute in Ohio. It was a front for S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists. Actually, it was Hydra scientists at that time. In conjunction with the Winter Soldier and the Silent Killer project.." yelena looks at me and Natasha, silent killer... "they had dissected and deconstructed the human brain to create the first and only cellular blueprint of the basal ganglia. Was the hub for cognition. Voluntary motor movement, procedural learning. We didn't steal weaponry or technology. We stole the key to unlocking free will." This is what they had us do. They chemically subjected us and Melina worked on it... yelenas face fell and so did mine, the pig gasping for more air and falls to his side.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, I am explaining that the science is now so exact, the subject can be instructed to stop breathing and has no choice but to obey."

"Okay, you made your point. That's enough." Natasha stops her.

"Yes, all right. Well, don't worry, Alexei could've survived." She clicks on her tablet and the pug came back like it was nothing. The way she just controlled it, Dreykov did that to me too many times, the not breathing, he watched as I begged for him. "11 more seconds without oxygen. Good boy. Now, you go back, back home where it's safe." She gave him another snack and he waddled away. "You go. You go back home, back home where it's safe. Good boy, Alexei. The world functions on a higher level when it is controlled. Dreykov has chemically subjugated agents planted around the globe." Yeah, us.

"And do you know who they test it on?" I spoke up as Yelena was too in shocked to speak.

"Hmm..." she had to think, "No. That's not my department." I scoffed at her, looking away from her.

"Ah, come on, come on." Alexei oats her arm. "Don't lie to them. Hmm?"

"I'm not lying."

"You're Dreykov's architect, huh?"

"What were you?" She fully turns to him. "If I was his architect, you were his partner. You were his business partner." She pushes his arm.

"No, no, no. I was patsy!" He bangs his hands on the table, making me jump and shake a bit. They, Natasha, melina, took noticed.

"Don't give me that..."

"He sell me ideology."

"Stop with the politics." They argued,

"All the while, bigger..."

"Shut up!" Natasha yells at them. They did and they turn to her. "You are an idiot." She looks at Alexei. "And you're a coward." She turns to Melina, "You're a coward. And our family was never real, so there's nothing to hold on to." She shakes her head. Yelenas eyes shot up, "We're moving on."

"Never family, huh?" Alexei laughs. "In my heart, I am simple man." He points at his chest, "And I think that for a couple deep undercover Russian agents I think we did pretty great as parents, huh?"

"Yes, we had our orders, and we played our roles to perfection." Melina agrees.

"Who cares? That wasn't real." Natasha said, making Yelena break. To be honest, so did I.

"What?" Yelenas voice cracks.

"Natasha stop it, now." I growled at her, grabbing her arm.

"That wasn't real. Who cares?" She looks at us. Yelena was broken, torn from those words.

"Be quiet!" I shouted at her.

"Stop it Devon!" Natasha shouted back, whipping her head to me.

"No you!"

"It was never real!" She shakes her head, repeating that, breaking the little sisters heart, "It was all fake, nobody loved anyone."

"Don't say that." Yelena said. We all looked at her, she was in tears. "Please don't say that. It was real. It was real to me. You are my mother." She pointed at Melina. "You were my real mother. The closest thing I ever had to one. The best part of my life was fake." She exhales deeply before she went on. "And none of you told me." She bangs her hand on the table, trying to get herself together. "And those agents you chemically subjugated around the globe? That was me.
It was us." She pointed at me and her. Melina was now shocked. Yelena hums. "And you, you got out." She looks At Natasha. "Dreykov made sure no one could escape. Are you gonna say anything?" Nothing from Natashas end. Yelena couldn't even look at me, but our eyes met. "I looked up to you, you were my everything." My lip dropped. "Then you left me at that diner, you thought that i would be safe, I wasn't. And then you left, you got your life back, a boyfriend who loves and cares about you, Dreykov was going to make me kill you and i refused, I couldn't walk for 3 months. Loving you almost killed me." A tear fell onto my cheek. Melina tried to take her hand but she yanked back. "No. Don't touch me." She gets up, grabs the bottle of vodka and walks away,

"Yelena." I cried out,

"No." She slams the door. The four of us sat there, no words.

"I had no idea." Melina said, looking down at her plate.

"No idea?" I squinted my eyes at her. "You knew exactly what you were doing when you worked for him, knew what he will do with it." I got up.

"Devon..." alexei calls back for me. "my little dove..."

"Dont you call me that, my father, my real one is the only one to call me that, not your pathetic little ass." I put my hands on my hips and looked down at the three. "Why am I here? I rather be back in the red room then be in a room with either of you." I headed upstairs and got into a room. I banged my head on the door and turn to what was Melinas room. On the bed was a familiar stuffed animal lying against the pillows. "Nico..." I whispered as I went to pick him up and hugged him. Its been so long.

"I found it on the ground." Melina said as she came in. "I kept it, you were my favorite, so sweet and caring. You had hope, no matter what we did to you."

"Like you care." I walked passed her.

"I did." She makes me turn to her. Her hand fell on my cheek. It was so warm, i missed it. I missed her. How can i miss her so much after what she had done? "You broke me the most, Dreykov knew how you made me feel, thats why he did what he did to you."

"Is that something you say so you don't feel bad about yourself?" I pulled myself back, this had to be fake. She never showed emotion. Why is she telling me this now? "You made me this way."

"Dont pretend you are a saint."

"Don't pretend you are a mother." I saw her tears forming. "Or a wife. You were just playing a role, like you said. You never cared about any of us."

"You will not talk to me that way." She grabbed my jaw, pulling me closer to her. "I raised you, i did. Do not bring your darkness here."

"You raised me to become a weapon." I slapped her arm away. "You gave me the darkness. You trained me, day and night, bleeding and broken. You knew what they've done to me and you didn't do anything to stop them." I held back the tears and pain. "If you cared about me so much, why didn't you take me back to my family, like you were supposed to?" Melina pats the bed so I can sit down. She sighed as this was a secret she held in for too long.

"You were selected by a program that assessed the genetic potential in infants." My fathers skills, that's probably why. "You weren't just taken out of random." I frowned at her. She takes my hands into hers. "Your father had enemies, especially the ones he worked for. He went behind that persons back and that man sold you to Dreykov to teach him not to mess with him." I quickly pulled away and hit my body with the dresser. The news was too much to take in. She slowly stands up, letting me take this in.

"I was sold?" I broke down, fell to my knees that i now know the truth. Melina held me. "Mama." I cried out.

"You were just a baby." She shushed me. "Im so sorry." She pulls my hair back, looking at me. Melina cried with her, she missed her so much. The stories she heard about Devon, the killings, it pained her. But when she heard she escaped not too long ago, she was glad that she did. "Look at me."

"Who would do that? I was just a kid." The dark sky was now bright. Devon stood up and looked out the window. They're here. "Mama, we have to go-" Melina had her arm extended and her widow bites ready. "Melina?"

"Im sorry my dear." The shock hit Devons body, making her yell, fall in her knees but it didn't stop her. The look she gave Melina tore her heart. "Dont hate me." She shot her again, now making her fall back and passed out.