8:30
The next morning Seven joined the other four at their small table in the kitchen. She rubbed her eyes and took a seat on the chair next to Sofia, pulling her knees up to her chest to try and ward off the cold that had settled in the safehouse.
She spotted some candles over on the windowsill and lit them with her mind, no one else noticing as the flame appeared. She knew it probably wouldn't make much of a difference but she enjoyed the dim light.
The shield was hung on the wall, lopsided and dirty from the trek back to the safehouse, where they had used it to take turns sledding down a hill, even when there was no snow. Seven couldn't remember the last time she had laughed that hard.
"So," Anya had taken her place at the head of the table, arms crossed and staring them down. "The SHEILD agent survived, I received intel this morning that he's barely hanging on, but still alive."
This morning was all about business.
Seven sighed, she felt as if she had failed, even it wasn't her mission to eliminate the agent.
"However, the handoff was a success and wasn't intercepted. Therefore Dreykov has allowed us today to silently fix the mistake before he takes further action."
The widows reflected for a moment, they knew that if it had been any other team they would've been terminated already.
"What's the plan then?" Sofia asked, nursing her cup of coffee.
"Seven and Yelena are going to go finish the job, they're the smallest and we can't all go."
Seven glanced at Yelena who paled. No one else seemed to notice. Seven took a sip from her own mug, the tea almost burning her tongue. She didn't mind the scorching heat and kept sipping.
"Plus, Seven has her powers if things get hairy." Anya added, "But it won't get hairy, right guys?"
Seven and Yelena both nodded, "Will you guys be on comms?" The teenager asked,
"Yeah, you'll have earpieces in in case you need emergency extraction, but we can't access the cameras in the compound without them tracing the source. There are only a few major camera spots though, so as long as you avoid them, it should be alright."
Seven nodded, looking up at the clock. 8:34am.
"When do we go?"
"Tonight."
9:42
"What was she like at school?" The redhead questioned, looking up at the teenager.
Peter thought for a moment as they both stared down at the gravestone, he had just lay down flowers and his fingers were muddy from the ground. He picked the dirt from under his nails.
"She was smart but she hated going," He said, "She was always good at art, and sports, but she hated math, especially geometry."
Natasha smiled, she was enjoying the cup of tea in her flask as it slowly warmed her body.
"I remember her being awful at geometry." She recalled, pushing the gate for the boy as they moved away from the small cemetery.
"That was because she wouldn't listen in the lesson." He rolled his eyes and laughed.
The two had made a weekly routine of wandering out to her gravestone and laying some flowers. Sometimes they would talk about her, most times they wouldn't.
Peter sipped at his own tea, wincing at the heat.
The two made their way into the compound as they talked and walked the hallways until they found the conference room, they were expected at ten for a morning debrief. The whole team was supposed to attend.
Peter took a seat next to Wanda, as far away from the front of the room as they could manage. Natasha took a seat much closer, next to the brunette SHIELD agent.
"Alright, let's begin." Fury stood at the head of the table, with the blonde super soldier at his side.
"Yesterday's mission was a huge failure, you failed to intercept a package intended for the Red Room, and we ended up with a casualty. Coulson is recovering in the medical wing."
"He should be fine," Bruce interjected, just to reassure everyone. Natasha noticed Maria relax next to her.
"However, now we have a bigger problem at hand." Steve brought them back to the point, "The Red Room has been dormant for the last year, and our attempts to locate them has been unsuccessful."
He reached into his pocket and brought out two circular discs. "These two were used on Hill and Coulson last night and have been identified as widow bites, identical to the ones Stark makes for Romanoff."
He handed them to Bruce on his left, so the team could see them.
"There were three widows who interacted with the team yesterday but who knows how many were at the event." Fury picked up a pen from the table and moved to the whiteboard on the wall.
He wrote down:
'WIDOW 1: APPROX 25, BLACK HAIR, 5'8.'
'WIDOW 2: APPROX 24, BLONDE, 5'7'
'WIDOW 3: APPROX 18, BLACK HAIR, 5'3'
"This one fought Steve in the south-east hallway, she was able to knock him out and then steal his shield." He pointed to the first description.
Steve hung his head, "I don't understand why there isn't a tracker in that thing." He glared at Tony.
"Hey, don't look at me, you're the one who was beaten." Tony snarked back, silencing the blonde.
"The second was American," Sam said, "She had an American accent."
"Most widows can do about 20 different accents," Natasha argued, "They've probably all got natural Russian accents from being raised around Russian guards and teachers."
"You don't have one though," Sam argued and Natasha shot him a look.
"That's because I put one on," She said, "I haven't been around Russians in a long time."
Fury wrote it down anyway.
'WIDOW 2: BLONDE, 5'7, APPROX 24, AMERICAN?'
"Why do they only recruit from Russia?" Clint asked, question aimed at Natasha. She just shrugged, she didn't know.
"The third one was younger, definitely." Clint said, he was sat opposite Natasha and she nodded in agreement.
"I didn't get a good look at her but she must've been younger, the elder ones have all their humanity beaten out of them so I'd say eighteen at the oldest." She allowed herself to slip back into her natural accent as if to prove a point, she shot another challenging look at Sam who seemed amused.
"However she was freakishly strong, it was like fighting a young Steve." Clint added, "She carried on going even after I'd shot the arrow at her, and her punches were crazy strong."
"Super soldier?" Vision interjected, attempting an answer.
"Maybe, I don't know" Clint shrugged, "She was just really strong."
Fury added, "POSSIBLE ENANCED STRENGTH" to the third widow's description and then nodded, content with his work.
"We don't know why they were there. It appears they were there to make sure the hand off went of smoothly, but that doesn't explain Coulson's attack." He picked up the pen again and wrote 'MOTIVE UNKNOWN' underneath the three points he had already.
"Well what do we do now?" Clint questioned, "Did the cameras pick up good images of their faces?"
"The cameras were looped whenever they were in hallways or the casino, there is essentially zero footage with any of them in."
The avenger sat in a heavy silence.
"We need to come up with some sort of plan." Steve said, "Everyone think about it and we'll reconvene tomorrow."
Peter stood up and followed everyone else out towards her room.
17:03
Peter made his way down the hall to where Wanda's room was, he knocked three times before hearing her call for him to come in.
He had agreed to read some of her favorite books as Wanda had decided that he read far too little.
"What's wrong?" She asked instantly, eyeing him.
"Nothing is wrong," He replied, "Why?"
"Your thoughts are very loud." She shrugged and looked away. The brunette was already beside her full bookcase, browsing through her books.
The two stood in a thick silence for a moment. "Wanda?"
"Yeah?"
"What if I knew something that was possibly very important?"
She stopped flicking through her classics and looked towards him, "In regards to what?"
"The red room, possibly."
"Well I think you should tell someone then, who knows what's useful." She went back to pulling books off of her shelves. "You don't need to tell me, but you should tell someone, especially Natasha."
Peter made a small noise of acknowledgement, she was right.
"Here," she placed four books into his outstretched hands, the top one reading 'Little Women.' "And I also think you should be honest when people ask you what's wrong," She narrowed her eyes, "I just want to help you." The second statement came out a lot softer and Peter smiled.
"Thank you," He nodded before turning around and leaving, heading for Seven's room.
He hadn't been able to bring himself back here since he had retrieved his hoodie, and no one else had either based on the dust gathering on the handle. His heart sunk.
Peter gripped the handle before pushing the door open with a creak. He didn't know it was going to do that and jumped slightly.
The room was a complete snapshot of the place it had been at the tower, and how it had been when he had come for the jumper. The plant had died, and was sat alone on the windowsill.
Peter sighed and closed the door behind him. He put the stack of books onto Seven's desk which also had a thin layer of dust collecting. Peter wanted to burst into tears, the room still smelt like her.
He went into the bathroom and found everything the same as it had been at the tower. The same half-used shampoo bottles, the same perfume, the same toothbrush and minty toothpaste. It had all been moved here even though it would never be used.
Peter wet one of the towels underneath her sink and left the bathroom, desperate to escape the smell of her uncapped perfume. He ran the towel over every dusty surface and then placed it by the books once he had finished, now he had to find what he had come for.
He had felt awful about shooting her idea of investigating the red serum down, he had just been trying to protect his best friend, the girl he had been in love with even then.
Peter had never admitted it to himself but he had known anyway. He was in love with her a year and a half ago, and he still was now, even if she wasn't here to hear it.
He instinctively knew where the little black notebook would be and moved towards her side table, rifling past the soft pack of Oreos and stray papers inside.
He recognized the letter at the very bottom and pulled it out, laughing. He couldn't believe she had kept it. He knew it was the test results for that one stupid biology experiment they had done last year at school. Peter pulled the letter out and began reading the experiment details.
However, before he could reach the results on the other side he spotted what he had come for.
The small black notebook caught his eye and he pushed the letter back into the envelope, putting it back into the drawer and pulling out the notebook.
Peter shut the drawer and moved away, opening up the notebook.
The sight of her handwriting made him burst into tears and Peter closed it again, burying his head into his hands. He didn't like being alone with his grief for this very reason, it made him do stupid things like cry at the sight of a conjunction, and admit his self-denial.
He stood, grabbing the books and the towel and left the room.
"FRIDAY, please ask Natasha, Tony, Steve, and Bruce to meet me in the conference room." He called out, "Tell them it's important, tell them to come now."
17:09
"Anya?" Seven asked, calling out for the older widow.
"Yeah?" She replied, coming around the corner.
"This came for us." Seven offered her a small package and Anya took it, ripping it open.
"How do you know that isn't a bomb?" Vik asked, amused. She had her legs up on the table and had a book on her lap.
"It has the code on it,"
"What code?"
"Read the mission file, тупой" (stupid.) Sofia argued from the kitchen and Viktoria called something back, Seven had stopped listening to them when they mindlessly bickered.
"Блядь," Anya muttered as she pulled out a small bundle of red syringes, "More vials."
"What the fuck is that for?" Viktoria said, looking over again.
"There's a note, wait." Seven said, pulling a small string of paper out the box.
Yelena had appeared by this point, standing in the doorway listening.
"Refills for the serum to be applied every week, starting today. Use them, if you don't I'll know."
"That's all it says?" Anya asked, holding the vials out to the shorter blonde.
"Dreykov signed it too," Seven replied, crumpling up the note.
"We have to keep using this shit?" Yelena asked, coming over to grab the serum.
"Apparently, remember that it's still in the new stages, they probably haven't developed one that lasts forever." Sofia said before yelling at Viktoria to take her feet off the table and set it.
"It's clever, in a way," Yelena said, holding the serum to the light, "We couldn't not use them if we wanted to, we physically cannot break or destroy them. The serum means that we will continue to use the serum. How clever is that?" They all sensed the rhetorical nature to her question.
Seven cringed, she wasn't awfully fond of looking at needles.
"Well this sucks, shall we eat dinner?" Sofia held up the pan of food.
"Yeah, okay." Yelena nodded, heading for the kitchen.
17:20
"Are you okay Peter?" Bruce asked when he stormed into the conference room, eyes puffy and frantic. If he could be out of breath then he would be.
All four adults had beaten him there but chose to ignore his puffy red eyes.
"I need to tell you something, now." He sat down at the head before shooting back up again, restless. His legs needed to move so he started pacing.
"Okay," Tony urged him on, slightly concerned.
Natasha and Steve exchanged a glance.
"A year and a half ago on one of our patrols, Seven and I saw an exchange of something in this alleyway. It was super dark and stuff but there were these small vials filled with this red liquid. I initially thought it was just some drug that was either new on the scene or one that I didn't know about." He now stopped pacing and discarded the stack of books and dusty towel on the table. Tony had to make himself not question these items.
"Was it a drug?" Steve asked, unsure.
"I thought so, but maybe not. Seven approached me a few weeks after and said she wanted to look into it, and that she had some ideas but I told her to leave it," He swallowed, "That we can't always save everyone." He glanced at Natasha.
"We didn't talk about it again really, but when she came in she had this book in her hand." He held up the small black notebook.
"And recently I've been thinking, maybe it's not a drug, or some weird substance." He paused, "Maybe it's something to do with the Red Room."
The room was silent, the four adults just staring at him.
"She seemed to have the same idea," He passed the notebook to Natasha who flicked it open, she looked down on the pages of information. She quickly passed the notebook to where Tony and Bruce were sat on the other side.
Tony took a look at the drawing of the vial which Seven had done, rich in detail.
"I don't know if any of it means anything, but she's got more in it than I knew. She seemed to overhear some sort of conversation too that I wasn't there for." He stopped talking and just breathed, watching anxiously for a reaction.
"This is good Pete, maybe it means something." Tony reassured him. "Maybe FRIDAY can locate them on any street cameras, we'll look." Peter watched him leave, Bruce and Steve trailing behind. Peter knew that Bruce was needed, however he reckoned Steve just didn't want to be left alone with Natasha.
"What do you think?" Peter asked, looking at the redhead.
"I don't know Pete, they never used anything like this when I was there." She sighed, "But things change so who knows?"
He nodded slowly, taking it in.
"Are you okay?" She asked, voice soft. Peter had to restrict himself from instantly bursting into tears all over again.
He slowly sat down in the adjacent seat, sinking downwards.
"I'm in love with her, I always was." He admitted,
Natasha sat, shocked at his honesty. "I'm sorry Pete."
He shot her a watery smile and they sat in silence for a moment before Natasha started again.
"I'm sorry bout you're just realizing this now?" She asked, laughing softly. "Pete it was always obvious."
"To everyone?" He questioned, appalled.
"No, not to everyone. Just to me, and maybe Pepper."
He groaned, head in hands.
"Little women, eh?" She picked up the top book on the stack before looking at the next one down, "Pride and prejudice?" She crinkled her nose before realizing, "Wanda?"
"Wanda."
19:54
Seven held the syringe up to her neck before taking a deep breath and pushing it inwards. She didn't flinch and she pulled the syringe out, inspecting the now empty vial. Yelena had just done the same.
"Ready? It's a long walk." She asked Yelena, who was pulling a black hoodie over her tactical suit. Seven was wearing a matching one.
The girl had tied her hair up in plaits that sat neatly around her head, while Yelena had opted for her signature two pony tail look.
"Mmm."
Seven had noticed the older girl's distance all day. She had been quieter than usual at dinner and had barely said anything about the mission, evading any questions or looks directed at her.
Seven ignored her bluntness and turned to Sofia who was stood ready with an earpiece outstretched.
Seven pushed it into her left ear before checking it was working. She handed Yelena hers before swinging the door open, careful to check outside for any people, or any more packages.
"Clear," she said and turned back to the two blondes.
"Alright, well we'll be ready on comms." Sofia said, accent still heavy as she refused to mask it.
"Okay." Seven nodded, watching as Yelena walked straight past her and pushed the button for the elevator. Something told her that if the lift came and she wasn't there then Yelena would leave her behind.
"And Seven?" Sofia said, making the teenager turn back. "If you fail this tonight, there'll be no point coming back."
Seven nodded again, Sofia wasn't being rude, or harsh. That was the truth. If they failed tonight then they would have already failed to work as a team and complete their missions and they would all most likely be sought out and murdered.
She heard the ping of the lift doors opening and she slid into the metal box, watching as the safehouse door closed.
A.N: The notebook is referenced in chapter 51 for anyone confused.