Chapter Text
If there was one thing Melina was proud of herself for, it was her knowledge.
She prided herself in learning everything she could — everything that she had been allowed to know, anyway, that would benefit others far more than it ever would her.
She learned how to inflict harm — hit fast and hit hard so you only have to hit once — how to kill — memories of the first time she snapped one of her sestry’s neck buried deep in the recess of her mind — and how to be a figure of poise and grace that could take everything away from you without batting an eye.
She learned how to survive in a world so cold and unfair it took away every single one of her choices, so she had no option but to channel all her learned abilities into keeping her alive.
She became the Iron Maiden; a skilled assassin, seasoned spy, and one of the Red Room’s most prominent scientists.
And because of that, she had been hand-picked by Dreykov for a top-priority mission infiltrating a S.H.I.E.L.D facility in the United States. She had been chosen because of her science background, sure, but also because the Iron Maiden was true to her name.
Made of steel. Deadly and unbreakable.
The Iron Maiden didn’t get compromised.
Or so they thought.
//
As it turned out, Melina could get compromised after all.
The realization wasn’t something new for her — she had been collecting evidence of the fact for months now, noticing all the ways settling into a routine with her pretend family started to soften her edges. What was new to her was the realization of just how far gone she really was.
She just knew she had been compromised — pathetic, weak, Madam B.’s voice sounded so clearly in her head — since she had first laid eyes on Yelena’s sleeping form, curled up on the Red Room’s pathetic excuse for an infirmary; knew there was no turning back since she had first spotted Natasha making her way towards her, every move calculated, face so stoney like no child’s face should ever be — like Melina’s own had been so many years ago.
(It had been like looking into a mirror; the same, but not really. Different and yet so similar in all the ways Melina wished they weren’t.)
But it wasn’t until Alexei came home, his usual boisterous attitude diminished, that Melina realized just how compromised she truly was.
She had just come back inside with the girls after rushing outside as Yelena cried out for her — like a soft, pathetic, compromised mother she still didn’t know to be — and they were helping set the table for dinner when a noise from the backdoor announced Alexei’s arrival.
“Dad’s home!” she called out, belatedly taking note of how subdued he was, not noticing everything crashing down around her until it was too late.
Dread sat painfully on her stomach, her mind reeling with all the possibilities that could have caused the change in his otherwise vivacious demeanor — and all of them had the same outcome: their time in Ohio had come to an end. The mission was over.
White-hot panic overcame her like a massive crashing wave, taking her breath away.
The mission couldn’t be over. They couldn’t leave now — it was almost Halloween and Yelena had roped all of them into wearing matching costumes, the itchy lion onesies (she had become obsessed with The Lion King since Alexei rented the tape a couple of months prior) she had purchased for them earlier in the week hanging in her closet for safekeeping.
(Melina despised the holiday out of principle — the amount of processed sugar that kids were fed all in one night was worrisome and wrangling two sugared-up kids, trying to convince them to not eat all their candy in one sitting, was exhausting.
But she had been unable to resist Yelena’s pout and Natasha’s quiet pleading eyes. She would give those girls everything they wanted for as long as she could, she had promised herself.
She had also promised they weren’t going to go soft on her watch, and went soft herself instead.)
“Everything okay?” she asked him softly from her place at the dinner table, feeling her calm demeanor crack ever so slightly.
She had to be careful as to not alarm Natasha, the girl’s senses always on high alert; but she could feel her own control slipping away, spiraling with all the things she was about to lose.
Halloween.
Thanksgiving.
Yelena’s end of the year recital.
Christmas shopping.
Natasha’s regional balance beams competition.
Decorating their lopsided tree with all the mismatched ornaments they had bought at the dollar store.
Kissing Alexei under the mistlet —
“How was everybody’s day?” Alexei asked instead and she knew it was for the girls’ benefit as Yelena launched into a rapid-fire explanation about a world seen upside down and forest stars, Natasha smiling and letting her sister do all the talking.
She tried to catch his eye again, but he was fully engaging their daughters (the dread in her gut settled in even further) in conversation now, Natasha talking animatedly about a game of tag she played with the neighborhood kids earlier. They were all eating dinner — a normal activity, for a normal family.
Normal.
Nothing about their family construct, their calculated ruse fabricated by the Red Room, was normal. And yet, here Melina was, wishing with all her might that it was. That she could keep this, them, for as long as she could.
For as long as she needed.
She wasn’t ready for it to end so soon (she didn’t think she ever would be).
She wasn’t ready to send her girls back, to go back to the Red Room herself. Wasn’t ready to look into Natasha’s eyes, see the horror and dread in her usually shiny green orbs, and whisper I’m sorry like it meant something when they both knew it wouldn’t change anything. Wasn’t ready to watch the light fade from Yelena’s eyes as she had her childhood forcefully ripped from within her.
When Alexei finally looked back at her, his eyes were hard, pained, but the message was clear: it could wait until after dinner. And if it could wait, then Melina was going to commit every detail of their last? meal together to memory and store it away for safekeeping (just like their costumes).
Just in case.
It took all of Melina’s trained stoicism and compartmentalizing skills to make it through dinner and bedtime routines without losing her composure. She could cope with living one day at a time, not knowing when their mission would end and soaking up the domesticity of making dinner, and putting the girls to sleep for as long as she could. What she couldn’t take was knowing something was lurking, threatening that, and not doing anything about it.
She was cleaning up after dinner, focusing on the repetitive motion of scraping bits of food into the garbage disposal before loading everything up in the dishwasher, when she heard Alexei’s heavy footsteps descending from the stairs. Her lips were pressed in a thin line, shoulders tight, but she didn’t say anything as Alexei opened the fridge with a little more force than necessary and grabbed a beer.
“Are you going to talk now?” she asked as she closed the dishwasher and turned it on, unable to keep quiet any longer.
She watched Alexei’s burly shoulders rise and fall as he took a deep breath, downing his entire beer in one go and grabbing another. When he finally turned to look at her, Melina could see the same pain from earlier haunting his otherwise playful blue eyes. She wanted to reach out, reassuring him that everything would be fine like he had with her so many times in the past three years, but she was rooted to her spot, unsure if things would be alright herself.
“Alexei…” her voice cracked and she gulped, feeling the last remains of her composure slipping through her fingers. “Please. Just tell me.”
“I had the chance, Melina,” he finally said, voice gruff and bleeding with the accent they had worked so hard to get rid of. “I had the chance to… to complete the mission,” he confirmed Melina’s worst fears. “But I didn’t take it.”
Melina’s eyes widened in shock; out of all the scenarios she had gone through in her mind, this hadn’t been one of them. Nowhere near the ballpark.
She didn’t trust her own voice now, but bit the bullet and spoke up anyway, tone careful and calculated. “Why not?”
Her heart twinged painfully in her chest as Alexei’s eyes drifted to the mess in the living room — Yelena’s toys strewn over the floor in front of the TV, one of Natasha’s red shoes upside down next to the couch, mismatched pairs of socks on the laundry basket nearby, a small pile of Natasha’s book in the little corner beside the bookshelf where she liked to sit and read for hours on end — then he turned to look at her again.
“You know why,” his posture, so stiff before, deflated and Melina could see how everything had been weighing on him.
Suddenly, Melina felt so selfish. She had been so caught up in herself and her own feelings about their mission that she had completely ignored Alexei in the equation, what his feelings were. She had just assumed the man who thrived off action, fighting for a cause he so blindly believed in, was bored to tears with a mission that required none of that and longed to get back in the field, to his glory days.
It never occurred to her that he had become just as compromised for their family as she had.
Sighing, Melina reached to grab his hand, interlacing their fingers. “What are we going to do?”
At her words, Alexei’s eyes snapped up, surprise clear in his features. “What?”
“What are we going to do?” she repeated calmly, even if it wasn’t how she was feeling at all.
Her mind was already fast at work, crafting up scenarios where they could make this work, and keep what they wanted. What they deserved.
Keep their family.
“You… you do not want to go back?” his voice was still rough but there was a hint of something in his tone — hope, maybe.
“Do you?” she argued back, arching an eyebrow.
“No,” he answered quickly, resolutely, and she found herself breathing a little easier. “I do not want to lose you. Any of you.”
If Melina hadn’t been forcefully conditioned out of the urge — four times, a harsh, cold voice taunted in her mind — she would have allowed the tears burning behind her eyes to fall. Tears of fear but also hope, a chance to get everything she wanted.
“I don’t want to go,” she confessed to him. “I don’t want to go but more than that, I can’t, I will not,” she growled, the feeling sitting firmly on top of her chest. “Make them go through all the horrible things I went through.”
Send Natasha back to the place that haunted her worst nightmares. Send Yelena to get her spirit broken down, sharply beaten out of her like they had done to Melina.
(The first time around.
By the third time, she didn’t think she still had any spirit — or anything, really — to get beaten out.
She had been wrong.)
“But I thought you would,” she confessed, eyes downcast to their still connected hands. “Want to go back. Back in action.”
At that, Alexei let out a humorless laugh. “I don’t think General Dreykov will let me,” he shook his head in disbelief. “He sold me ideology I am less sure every day if he even believes in. We are not fighting for the same cause.”
Melina arched a surprised eyebrow at him; she knew that. From the moment she started getting to know Alexei she had wondered how he and Dreykov could even be friends — the worst man Melina had ever met and this sweet bear of a man who kept his heart and gentleness despite the chemical solution coursing through his veins and being used as a puppet for supremacist ideals.
She also knew that he was too naive to see things for what they actually were, see all the pain and harm Dreykov inflicted on the world around him — on them — so his words were a pleasant discovery for her.
“You should only sacrifice yourself for what you believe, my father always said,” Alexei continued, his hand holding hers a little more tightly. “I don’t want to sacrifice what we have here. I love you and our girls more than I ever loved anything I have fought for.”
Losing the battle against her emotions, Melina let out a choked laugh, feeling her tears stream down her face as she lunged herself towards him, crashing their lips together in a fierce kiss that he quickly reciprocated.
“So,” she asked again, a little breathless, resting her forehead against his with her eyes closed. “What are we going to do?”