Lila glanced around the room, her eyes wide, "How do three widows just vanish?!"
"They were on a mission in France," Melina responded. "We were communicating with them over the radio. There was a loud crash, then nothing."
Rima looked sick, her face twisting up into sadness again. Anna placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a sad smile. Adira clasped Rima's hand tightly, as if if she let go Rima would disappear too.
"We went down to find them, but we didn't see anything," Melina finished.
"What about their trackers?" Yelena asked.
Melina shook her head. "There's no signal being sent or received."
Silence fell over the group.
Lila tried to imagine what the widows must have been feeling, being reminded about the loss of some of their family. Or sort of family. Lila wasn't exactly sure how they felt about each other, but they all seemed close enough to be a family.
They feel like how I felt when Inaya took Nate. Lila realized.
She clenched her jaw, "We're getting them back."
All the widows turned to her in surprise. This side of her was different. It definitely wasn't the bubbly happy side that they had met a moment ago. No, now she was frowning, her tone of voice serious.
Yelena nodded, "Of course we are."
"How?" Rima asked, biting her lip, "We've tried already."
"Then we should try again," Natasha said.
"And this time you'll have us to help you," Clint added.
Lila nodded vigorously, glad that her dad supported her in the decision to help them.
"What if we don't want your help?" Vaani asked, "How can we be sure you'd actually help us?"
Wanda stepped forward, "We understand why you are hesitating to trust us. Is there something we can do to get you to trust us?"
Melina, Vaani, and Sonia glanced at each other.
"No," Melina finally said, "Nothing that won't take too long of a time."
"Then how about you let us help for now. If we do something to make you not trust us, then you can kick us out," Clint said.
The three protective widows glanced at each other again.
Vaani glared at them, "You'd like to make things better, but what can you do without making things worse?"
"Ella, Nichole, Adira, will you take the Avengers outside until we come and get you?" Sonia said softly before Clint could reply and most likely make things worse.
Ella nodded and grabbed Lila's hand, pulling her out the door. Nichole followed, taking Clint and Wanda with her.
Adira stood her ground, hands clenched at her sides, "I'm not leaving."
"Adira-"
"No. Vikki, Jaiyara, Hazel, and Asteria are our family too! We should get to hear this conversation!"
Evelyn nodded, "She's right."
Sonia sighed, "I know. I was just trying to keep you from worrying about this too... sometimes I forget how much you have already seen of this dark world."
Adira's hands relaxed, "Sometimes... I do too."
Vaani's gaze darkened. These kids shouldn't have to have dealt with the torture of the Red Room and the aftermath of it. Because that's what they were. Kids. They should be able to be what they want to be, not what the Red Room put into their minds.
"What do you guys think? Who should go to France?" Tatyanna asked.
All the widows started speaking at once.
"Girls! Girls!" Alexei said, quieting them, "One at a time!"
Melina nodded to him, "Alexei and I will be staying here, who else?"
Anna raised her hand, I want to stay. Nichole and Ella need some company.
"I want to stay too," Sonia said.
"I'll go," Evelyn said, stepping forward.
"Me too. I need to find my sister," Rima added, determination in her eyes.
"I want to go too," Tatyanna said.
"I'm going," Adira told them.
Melina's eyebrows furrowed, "Adira-"
"Melina, I know you're trying to protect me, and I'm thankful for that, but I don't need your protection. I was in the Red Room too. I can protect myself," she said.
Melina nodded, "Okay, but if someone tells you to drop back, you drop back."
Yelena smiled slightly. This was the side of Melina that she wished she could see more often. This side of her was soft, and gentle. This side of her wanted to protect the younger widows from the dangers of this world. She cared so much about each of these widows, of her family.
But not you.
"Deal," Adira smiled.
"So that makes the traveling team nine," Yelena said.
"Nine?" Sonia said, "There's six of you."
Avengers, Anna signed.
"If they're going with you then I'm coming too," Vaani said, "Just in case."
"That might be a good idea," Melina said.
"So it's decided then, the Avengers are coming with us?" Natasha asked.
Everyone nodded.
Lila didn't protest as she was pulled out of the door by Ella. She already thought that something like this was going to happen, the widows had to speak between each other before anything.
Plus, this was as good a chance as any to get to know some more of the widows, and to maybe get some tips on being Blackhawk.
Ella and Nichole led them to a tree, where they plopped down on the grass in the shade. They could still see the building they had just left, but were too far away to hear anything that was going on inside.
Lila wished she could hear what was going on inside. She really wanted to help find the missing widows, to help these people who she had already taken a liking to.
"So..." Lila started, "Ella right?"
Ella nodded.
"...when did the others free you from mind control?" Lila asked.
"You don't have to answer any of her questions if you don't want to," Clint added.
Nichole scooched closer to Ella so that their legs were touching, "She was freed a year and a half ago, same time as me."
Lila nodded, "How old are you guys?"
"Both nineteen," Nichole replied.
Wanda's eyes flashed with concern, "That's very young."
Ella shrugged, speaking quietly, "Sydney and Adira are younger."
A frown crossed Wanda's face, "I'm going to kill them," she said sharply.
Ella flinched slightly, "W-what?"
Nichole grasped Ella's hand.
"I'm going to kill the Red Room for doing this to people this young," Wanda said, "This shouldn't have happened. You two were supposed to have a good life. Not this."
Lila frowned, Wanda was right. These two people, who she was beginning to think of as friends, were only a few years older than her. But they had seen so many terrible things. They didn't have a good home like Lila did. They didn't even have the chance to.
"Natasha and Yelena already took care of the murder," Nichole said, "And things aren't so bad. I think that it's kind of a good thing it all happened."
"Why?" Lila asked.
"Sure, it was a terrible thing that happened, but now we have the skills to help take down people like the Red Room," Nichole said.
"A-and if we didn't go through the Red Room, how would we have met each other?" Ella spoke softly.
Nichole nodded in agreement, "Without the Red Room, we never would have found something that we all consider family. And, sure, our pasts weren't perfect. But we don't need them to be perfect for us to be happy with how things are now."
"Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections of your life," Ella added quietly.
Wanda stared at them for a second, before nodding, "You're completely right."
"Hey!"
Everyone turned to the building they left, where Sonia was standing. She waved them over to the house, "You guys can come back in now. We decided on something."
Lila and the others stood up and walked over to the building. Lila could feel a tightness in the pit of her stomach. She really hoped they decided that they could stay and help. If the Widows didn't, then Lila wasn't sure what she would do.
When they were all in the building again, Melina spoke up, "So. You Avengers are allowed to come with a team of Widows."
Clint nodded, "That seems fair."
"Who'll be on the team?" Wanda asked.
"Me, Evelyn, Adira, Rima, and Vaani," Tatyanna told them, "as well as you guys and Yelena."
Lila grinned, "Nice! We're going to find them and bring them back by the end of the week for sure!"
Vaani rolled her eyes, but some of the other widows smiled slightly.
Rima only frowned.
Later, while Melina and Alexei showed the Avengers around the Farm, Yelena found herself wandering around. It had been a long time since she had been at the Farm, but she still knew her way around. The first place she went was her room, nothing had changed. All her stuff was there.
Yelena left without spending too much time there.
She eventually ended up in the living room.
A lot of things had happened there just a few years ago. Things that Yelena wasn't sure she wanted to remember.
That was one of the reasons she left the farm in the first place. Because it reminded her of what went down with the Red Room.
And how she and her family had argued so loudly.
"And our family was never real, so, there's nothing to hold onto. We're moving on. That wasn't real. Who cares."
"Don't say that. Please don't say that. It was real to me."
Yelena drew in a deep breath, pushing the memory to the back of her mind. It was better not to dwell on things of the past. It could distract you, ruin you, destroy you.
Something caught Yelena's eye.
It was a book. Simply laying on the edge of the bookcase it looked so unimportant. But she remembered this book. She had spent a long time looking through it, leafing through the pages and running her hands across the pictures.
Yelena gently touched the cover.
She hadn't seen the book in a long time. Not since before she left the farm.
She opened it to the first page, eyes scanning it and lingering on the happy faces of a young Natasha and Yelena.
The happy faces that didn't exist anymore.
Yelena wasn't happy anymore.
She didn't know what that meant.
She wished she did.
"Wishing gets you nowhere. Trying, excelling, doing. That's what will get you somewhere. And you're going to be great at it. You're going to be perfect at it."
Yelena breathed in deeply again, trying to get the memory in her mind, and the pressure in her chest, to go away.
"You're going to be perfect."
You need to be perfect. Without perfection, what are you?
Yelena slammed the book close with a thunk. She couldn't deal with flipping through the other pages right then. She couldn't deal with flipping through the memories.
The memories of when it was all perfect.
She went to the kitchen instead, planning to get a drink.
Instead, Yelena found Rima sitting on the floor, her back to the kitchen counter. Her legs were drawn up to her chest and her head was buried in her knees.
"Rima?" Yelena asked.
Rima jolted up, her legs still hugged in close. Seeing Yelena, she gave her a sad smile, "Oh... hey."
Yelena got what she came for, then plopped down next to Rima.
They were silent for a moment, Rima resting her head back on her arms. She was looking away from Yelena, trying to blink away the tears in her eyes.
She didn't want to seem weak.
Yelena didn't know how to comfort her.
"...are you okay?" Yelena finally asked.
Rima turned her head to look at her. She took in a shaky breath, "What do you do when the only person you know loves you might be gone forever?"
Yelena looked at her for a moment. She knew how much trust Rima was putting in her to talk to her like this.
"....well...." Yelena rested her head against the counter, "...I broke down... and it was hard... because I pushed myself away from everyone that cared about me. I could have trusted you guys...but I was scared, and broken, and felt alone. So I pushed you all away."
Yelena let out a hollow chuckle, "I messed up. I guess what I'm trying to say is to not do what I did. You can ask for help. You're not alone. We'll help you find her.... and if we can't... we'll always be here for you."
A tear dropped from Rima's eye. She pushed her head back between her knees, not wanting Yelena to see.
Yelena stared for a second. The Red Room taught them not to have emotions. Widows were made out of marble. Marble didn't feel anything.
Rima would have been punished for acting this way.
But they were not in the Red Room anymore.
Unless this all was something Yelena made up in her head. That this all was some dream world the Red Room created.
It is. You're still in the Red Room. You'll never be free.
Yelena ignored the voice.
She wrapped her arms around Rima in a hug.
"We'll always be here, Rima," she whispered.
Rima's shoulders were shaking.
At least the marble was starting to crack.
Is that a good thing?