Arcane (Wanda Maximoff)

Nineteen

"The Red Room's still active. Where is it?" Natasha asked, carrying Maggie on her back as they walked into a roadside convenience store. Maggie was awake but she was too weak to walk without getting some food and water in her.

So, Natasha had carried her from the station, down a highway and into the service station store. She would carry her to wherever they went and would let Maggie sleep before they did anything else. She needed to take the Red Room down but Maggie and her health would always come before any mission, any job, anyone else Natasha had in her life, including her sister.

"I have no idea. He moves location constantly. And every widow is sedated on entry and exit for maximum security," Yelena said.

"I'm just finding it hard to believe that he could stay off my radar. We looked. We searched for the Red Room and HYDRA everywhere. We took HYDRA down but we never got any leads on the Red Room. I just assumed it had collapsed," Natasha said.

"Well, it's not smart to attack an Avenger if you want to stay hidden. I mean, the clue is in the name. Dreykov kills you or the kid, one of the big ones comes to avenge you," Yelena said, grabbing some bandages for herself and Maggie. Natasha grabbed some painkillers for herself and Maggie.

"Wait, what are the big ones?" Natasha frowned.

"Well, I doubt the god from space has to take an ibuprofen after a fight," Yelena smirked at the painkillers before turning to look at other shelves. "Where did you think I was all this time?" she asked.

"I thought that you got out and were living a normal life," Natasha said.

"And you just never made contact again?" Yelena said.

"Honestly, I thought you didn't wanna see me," Natasha said.

"Bullshit. You just didn't want your baby sister to tag along, whilst you saved the world with the cool kids," Yelena said, leading them back into the front part of the shop.

"You weren't really my sister," Natasha said. Maggie's eyes fluttered open to watch Yelena's face drop.

"And the Avengers aren't really your family," Yelena said quietly. "Why do you always do that thing?" she said.

"Do what?" Natasha asked. Maggie raised a tired eyebrow.

"The thing you do when you're fighting. The... Like, the..." Yelena trailed off as she eased herself to the floor, one leg bent and the other outstretched with one palm on the floor, her other arm pointed in the air. "This thing that you do when you whip your hair when you're fighting, with the arm and the hair," Yelena said. Maggie smiled tiredly. "And you do, like, a fighting pose," Yelena chuckled. "It's a... It's a fighting pose. You're a total poser," she said.

"I'm not a poser," Natasha frowned. Yelena laughed loudly.

"Oh, come on. I mean, they're great poses, but it does look like you think everyone's looking at you, like, all the time," she said.

"All that time that I spent posing, I was trying to actually do something good to make up for all the pain and suffering that we caused. Trying to be more than just a trained killer," Natasha said. Maggie winced as a dull thud echoed through her head. This arguing was doing nothing for her headache.

"Well, then you were fooling yourself because pain and suffering is every day and we are both still a trained killer," Yelena said. She opened a box of the painkillers and shoved two in Maggie's mouth for her.

Maggie swallowed them dry and winced again as the stitches in her face stretched slightly at the movement.

"Except I'm not the one that's on the cover of a magazine. I'm not the killer that little girls call their hero," Yelena looked at Natasha before leaving the store.