Dancing in Her Webs | Yelena Belova [1]

Chapter 10

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  "Favourite song, go!"

  Yelena hummed, hesitating before she answered, "American Pie."

  Irina's eyes lit up, widening, "Don McLean?" She smiled, "I love that song!"

  With both hands on the steering wheel, Yelena chuckled while quietly shushing her. She set the cruise-control and took her foot off the gas pedal, now steering the car with one hand. "What's yours?"

  Irina hummed in thought. Like her father, she loved the hair bands and rock n roll genre. "Mmm .  .  . either Hold on Loosely by 38 Special, One Headlight by the Wallflowers, anything AC/DC—" she turned in the passenger seat, her frontside facing Yelena as she pulled her tee out from under Yelena's blazer, "—if you couldn't tell."

  Yelena flickered her gaze to Irina and smiled, "Those are good ones. What about travelling?"

  "I went to Monaco once," Irina settled back into her seat, "but that ended up being kind of a disaster." She pointed her thumb in Natasha's direction, "Ask her. She was there too." She then blew a raspberry, "I lived in Malibu most of my life before moving to New York four or so years ago. That same year, I involuntarily went to Florida. By far the worse travel experience," she chuckled bitterly, the memories resurfacing.

"What happened in Florida? Isn't that place supposed to be one of the best?" Irina couldn't tell if Yelena was joking or being serious.

Instead of pondering on it, she answered, "Killian." She kept her gaze elsewhere but continued feeling Yelena's curious gaze.

"The man that destroyed your family home?"

Irina nodded. "The nightmares, the panic attacks, it's all because of him." She admitted, and finally met Yelena's unreadable eyes before turning her attention to the glovebox. "Killian upgraded this serum from the 90's called the Extremis. Once it's been injected, it enhanced the entire human body; super strength, incredible healing abilities, faster reflexes. But if your body rejected it . . ." Irina snapped her eyes closed, the image of Killian injecting Pepper playing behind her eyelids, before she exhaled a shaky breath, opening her eyes again, " . . . that was it. Game over," she finished in a whisper.

"Did you ever get injected?" Yelena sounded generally concerned, an odd tone for her, Irina's come to realize.

"Almost. Pepper did."

"And Pepper is—"

"My dad's longtime assistant now girlfriend." Irina sighed, shrugging her shoulders, "I'm not sure anymore. I stopped keeping up with my dad." Silence consumed the vehicle, nothing but the sound of the car's tires on the pavement and occasional bump.

"Did he hurt you?" Yelena randomly asked, almost aggressively and demanding that caught Irina off guard. She's not even sure Yelena herself noticed.

Instead of mentioning the odd behavioural change, Irina continued to furrow her brows more and confusedly asked, "My dad?"

"No. The Mandarin."

Irina fidgeted uncomfortably. "Uh, no. No." She glanced behind her in the backseat, to make sure Nat's still asleep. She doubted Natasha slept the entire time. "Can we talk about something else please?"