IVANOV ~ yelena belova

𝟎𝟏𝟕

Yelena jolted awake with a start. Her loud gasp reverberated throughout the small cell. She looked next to her, expecting to see Karina's sleeping figure, but she saw nothing but the white wall.

Yelena sighed mournfully. It was the seventh day since the explosion, and she still believed that Karina would be beside her when she awoke. She didn't know if her girlfriend was dead or alive, and it pained her to think of Karina somewhere other than by her side.

She wasn't kept in the same room where she had previously been imprisoned; instead, Dreykov placed her in a room designed especially for punishment.

The Isolation Cell. For seven days, she stared at the white cushioned walls, wondering what she had done in her previous life to be so unlucky in this one. The silence nearly drove her insane, until Dreykov showed up at her door on the seventh day.

The top of the door's latch opened, revealing a pair of eyes. Yelena stared at them blankly, tired of the games the guards were playing on her. But then the sound of deadbolts opening filled the room, and the door opened, revealing Dreykov in his pristine suit.

"Get up," he said harshly, his previous falsely caring tone was gone. He turned sharply on his heel and exited the room, expecting Yelena to trail behind him, which she did. The guard slapped handcuffs on her wrist and walked alongside her as they followed their supervisor.

They walked into the room where the Widows had to wait for their operation during the graduation ceremony. Yelena's gaze scanned the girls in front of her, who were standing up straight with their shoulders back, but none of them looked her in the eyes. She had been shunned because she was an outsider in an already antisocial organisation.

The guard, on the other hand, ushered her to the front of the line, where Dreykov stood by an open door, waiting for her to enter. Yelena put on her most confident face and brushed past Dreykov, who had entered the room behind her.

As the doctor passed him a vial, Dreykov stood in front of her. "Your punishment should be death," Dreykov smirked, reasserting his dominance over the adolescent.

"Alright, do it. You've taken everything I love away from me," Yelena hissed, smirking when she saw his stunned expression.

"You're not going to get off that easy, Belova. I'm going to enjoy this a lot more," he said as he lifted his hand and opened the vile. Yelena had no choice but to breathe in the red gas that was emitted.

She was perplexed at first, having not felt the effects of the gas she had just inhaled, until she felt nothing at all. There was not a single thought in her head that was her own. Her memories were locked away somewhere in the back of her mind. Dreykov's direct orders were the only thing she could hear and feel.

"My perfect, little soldier."

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8 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳...

Twenty three year old, Karina Ivanov, sat on the floor of the cell she had grown accustomed to over the years. She lazily scratched small pictures on the stone wall with the small rock chip in her hand, attempting to relieve her boredom.

Bucky wasn't doing much better, staring at the wall in front of him. They'd both grown used to the easy silence as they awaited their next mission.

"What'd you think the next mission will be, Солнышко?" Karina asked absently as she tossed the stone she was drawing with at the door. She'd been calling him 'sunshine' since that day, eight years ago, after her first dose of super serum, since he didn't know his real name. She always thought it was ironic, considering he never smiled, but she thought it was funny.

"I guess we'll find out soon," Bucky replied, his tone equally bored. And they found out sooner than expected when they heard footsteps approaching their cells. "Here we go," he said, rolling his eyes as he sat up stiffly, ready to face the man who had control over him.

Karina discovered how they tortured Bucky mentally and physically not long after she was sent to Hydra. She was sickened and horrified when she discovered that they had erased any memories of his past, and she was soon afraid that they would erase his memories of her as well.

However, Pierce believed that it would be preferable if the Winter Soldier maintained his memory of his team members so that they could "function better." Karina was perplexed by this; shouldn't he have known better given her and Yelena's circumstances?

But she wasn't complaining; aside from the thought of Yelena still being alive, Bucky was the only thing keeping her going. Even after eight years, Karina clung to the notion that Yelena was still alive, replaying the day of the explosion over and over in the hope that Yelena had found a way out.

As the door to Karina's cell opened, she was jolted out of her reverie of that dreadful day. Pierce didn't think she needed handcuffs any longer because he thought she'd be too scared to run. Bucky and Karina walked side by side as they followed Pierce through the corridors as guards kept watch behind them. But they all knew it was pointless since two super soldiers could easily overpower any number of guards.

They were led to a room where they were normally briefed on the missions. However, the air was heavy this time, as if Pierce knew something that they didn't, which he most likely did. Only Bucky and Karina were unaware that the information he was about to give them would change their lives forever - they had to assassinate their closest friends.

Pierce sat at his cold glass desk, as Bucky and Karina stood in front of him emotionlessly. "Your mission is to kill this man," he said as he displayed a picture of the man on the screen.

The screen revealed a man with an eyepatch staring at them, as the name written underneath read, "Nick Fury."