Stones and Glass Houses (Book 1)

🕷(77) Black Widow Ops Program

Brooklyn POV-

After the chaos of last night, everyone was sleeping it off.

Not Brooklyn. She was in the lounging room watching TV with her brother, who had come into her room requesting some time alone with her.

Remembering the advice on the 'How to Sibling' books, Brooklyn allowed herself to join him for a movie at six in the morning, wondering how on Earth Harley could be awake before the sun was.

He was seated beside her, a bowl of cereal in hand, golden brown hair sticking every which way.

She'd been holding off on asking what had brought his invitation on, wondering if this was just his way of bonding with her. Just as they were halfway through the cartoon movie Brook had only been slightly paying attention to, he asked a dreaded question she should've seen coming.

He knew she'd been captured days ago, Harley had sworn to keep quiet about it, but she knew that with those events and whatever he might've heard around the compound, or on that day Brooklyn had been interrogating Yelena, he'd be curious as to why.

"Why did bad people take you away? Why was everyone so scared?" he asked quietly, setting down his spoon, locking those concerned blue eyes onto her own.

Though Tony and the others had been quite accepting of her past by now, some part of her was still afraid of what he might think. Before his family had died and he'd been brought here, Harley had been a fairly normal boy that likely did not know much of the horrors of the world.

Brooklyn had been hoping to keep him that way, oblivious to the bad of the world and her own past so he could continue living relatively carefree. But the books she'd read were very specific that trust between siblings was important, so she had no choice but to honor that wisdom.

Leaning back on the leather recliner, Brooklyn stared down at her pajama pants, unable to look Harley in the eye as she mentioned her upbringing, the reason why she was able to train to be an Avenger, something he'd always been curious about.

Brook still left the less that pleasant details of her time as a widow to a minimum, merely saying it had been a place that made her strong, not just Brooklyn, but Yelena and Natasha as well.

She'd explained her time after the escape, how she'd been an orphan, then ran away to be alone, always in hiding in fear of the remnants of the Red Room finding her. Brook had made sure to wipe his horrified tears then, following the awfulness of the past by talking about dad finding her, the good that came after that with the introduction of their family and friends.

Harley seemed to calm down then, but he kept hand on her own, letting the movie become nothing but noise to them.

"Because being a Stark made me so famous, the Red Room found me, and they wanted me back so I could fulfill who I was meant to be...their future leader" she whispered, trying not to flinch at the thought of what might've been had her team not found her, had Brook been handed over to Ivan.

"They were gonna take you away from us?" Harley asked past the lump in his throat.

She nodded.

"But I was rescued, and now I'm even more alert to make sure something like that doesn't happen again. You have nothing to worry about" Brook clarified, trying to sound more confident that she felt.