Alexei settled back against the helicopter's bulkhead, his expression shifting to something between amusement and condescension. "Little Natasha has been corrupted by Western ideology. Such a shame."
Natasha's jaw tightened. "I didn't defect because of ideology."
"No? Then what, assignment? Mission parameters?" Alexei's tone carried mocking edge.
Natasha ignored the jab, her focus laser-sharp. "Tell me where the Red Room is located."
Alexei glanced around the helicopter's interior, taking in John Wick's impassive profile at the controls, Smith Doyle's calculating assessment, Natasha's intensity. He spread his hands helplessly. "I don't know."
"I also know a thing or two about interrogation techniques," Natasha said quietly, the threat implicit rather than stated.
Alexei's false bravado cracked slightly. "I really don't know! Listen, "
"Don't lie to me. You and Dreykov were close. He trusted you with, "
"Dreykov?" Alexei laughed, but the sound carried bitterness rather than humor. "General Dreykov, my friend? The man who gave me glory, who made me the Soviet Union's first and only super-soldier? The man who promised I'd be more famous than Captain America?"
His voice rose with old resentment. "Then he buried me in Ohio for three years on that idiotic undercover operation. Do you know how boring suburban America is? How soul-crushing it is to pretend to be a normal father?" He glanced at Natasha. "No offense."
The three years Alexei referenced, the false family, the fabricated domesticity, Natasha and Yelena as his pretend daughters. A mission that had felt more like exile.
"And after I completed that mission flawlessly?" Alexei's hands clenched into fists. "He threw me in prison for the rest of my life. Why? Because I criticized the party's direction? Because I didn't like his haircut? Because I suggested maybe our gatherings should feel like actual celebrations instead of funerals?"
His voice dropped, carrying genuine pain beneath the bluster. "He just... discarded me. Locked me away while he ran off to hide somewhere safe. And I'm not even, " He stopped himself, then continued more quietly. "I'm not the one who killed his daughter."
Natasha's mind seized on that detail, puzzle pieces clicking into place. "Wait. You're saying Dreykov imprisoned you after his daughter died?"
Alexei nodded emphatically. "Exactly. Someone bombed his office in Moscow. His daughter died in the explosion, or so everyone believed. He was furious, completely irrational. He blamed me, somehow. Threw me in Deep Well and disappeared."
The words hit Natasha like cold water. The attack hadn't killed Dreykov at all. SHIELD hadn't destroyed the Red Room. Everything she'd believed for eight years, her redemption, her freedom, her sacrifice, had been a carefully constructed lie.
Her eyes shifted to Smith, searching for confirmation or contradiction.
Smith met her gaze evenly. "Dreykov's daughter isn't dead."
Alexei's eyes widened. "She survived?"
He looked at Natasha with dawning understanding. "You're hunting for the Red Room, aren't you?"
Natasha nodded, not trusting her voice.
Alexei's expression turned apologetic. "I've been rotting in a Siberian prison for years. You think I have any idea where Dreykov established his current base? He made sure I knew nothing before he locked me away."
Smith interjected smoothly. "Now that you understand Dreykov survived, we're going to visit Melina next."
"Melina?" Alexei's face brightened, then clouded with concern. "You should definitely see her. If you want to find Dreykov, she's the key."
He leaned forward, his voice carrying certainty. "She's been working for Dreykov far longer than I ever did. I think she's operating a farm outside St. Petersburg, that's where she was last I heard."
"She's been working for Dreykov this whole time?" Natasha's voice came out hollow.
The revelations kept piling up, each one dismantling another piece of her carefully reconstructed identity. The Red Room wasn't destroyed. Dreykov lived. Melina, her false mother, one of the few bright spots in that Ohio mission, had continued serving the organization that had tortured and conditioned Natasha for years.
And Dreykov's daughter? The innocent collateral damage that had haunted Natasha's nightmares, the guilt she'd carried like a stone in her chest? Not dead. Possibly still alive, possibly still working for her father.
Everything Natasha had believed about her escape, her redemption, her work with SHIELD, all of it suddenly felt like self-deception. Like she'd been playing a role SHIELD had written for her, keeping her compliant and grateful while the real Red Room continued operating with impunity.
She'd thought she was balancing her ledger. But the ledger itself had been falsified.
John Wick's voice cut through her spiral. "We have sufficient fuel to reach St. Petersburg. ETA approximately ninety minutes."
Alexei studied Natasha's stricken expression, then asked carefully, "What exactly are you planning to do when you find Dreykov?"
Natasha forced her voice to steady. "Yelena is under his control through chemical conditioning. I'm going to free her, kill Dreykov, and burn the Red Room to the ground."
Alexei started to laugh at the audacity, then caught himself, glancing at Smith Doyle. "With him along? Then yes, you actually have a chance of succeeding."
His expression sobered. "Yelena... I remember her. She went on to become the Red Room's most efficient operative after you. A child killer without equal, ruthless, precise, completely dedicated." He frowned. "But what's this about being controlled?"
"Neurological manipulation," Natasha explained, her professional training reasserting itself over emotional turmoil. "A chemical compound that suppresses free will while maintaining operational capability. Dreykov uses it to ensure loyalty."
Alexei's face darkened with disgust. "What a coward's weapon. Chemical chains instead of earning loyalty." He straightened, some of his old super-soldier bearing returning. "I'll help you. Whatever you need."
Natasha raised an eyebrow, surprised by the offer.
"Don't doubt the Red Guardian's resolve," Alexei said firmly. "Dreykov betrayed me, imprisoned me, and apparently has been controlling my daughters through drugs. That makes this personal."
Meanwhile, at a modest farmstead outside St. Petersburg, Melina Vostokoff stood in her yard observing a behavioral experiment.
She'd constructed a simple maze from wooden panels and wire fencing. Several pigs navigated the structure, moving according to cues only they could perceive. Melina studied her tablet, tracking their neural responses through implanted monitoring devices.
"Proceed straight, then bear slightly right," she murmured into the tablet's microphone.
The pigs obeyed with mechanical precision, their movements synchronized despite no visible communication. One by one, they emerged from the maze's exit. Melina produced treats from her pocket, rewarding each animal.
"Excellent work, my darlings. Very good."
The roar of helicopter rotors shattered the pastoral quiet.
Melina's head snapped up, her trained reflexes identifying the aircraft immediately, military configuration, attack helicopter, camouflage paint scheme suggesting covert operations. Not civilian. Not friendly.
Her mind raced through possibilities. Dreykov didn't use helicopters for contact, too visible, too noisy. SHIELD? FSB? Some other intelligence agency that had finally identified her location?
She opened the pen's gate quickly. "Safe locations, now! Move!"
The pigs responded instantly, trotting toward reinforced shelters she'd constructed specifically for this contingency. Years of Red Room training had taught her to always maintain escape protocols and secure valuable assets, even if those assets were experimental subjects.
As the helicopter's approach became certain, clearly intending to land on her property, Melina strode toward her house. She kept emergency equipment prepared for exactly this scenario: weapons, false documents, emergency cash, multiple extraction routes.
She reached her armory, a converted bedroom with reinforced walls, and began gearing up with practiced efficiency. Handgun in shoulder holster, assault rifle, ammunition, tactical vest. If this was hostile contact, she'd make it expensive.
Through her high-powered telescope, Melina observed the helicopter landing in the adjacent field. Four figures emerged: two men she didn't recognize, and two she absolutely did.
Alexei. Looking older, heavier, but unmistakably the Red Guardian.
And Natasha. Her false daughter, the girl who'd played her role so perfectly during that Ohio operation before disappearing into SHIELD's embrace.
Melina lowered the rifle slowly, her mind working through implications. This wasn't an attack, at least not a conventional one. But it was definitely complicated.
The group approached across her field, Alexei leading with his characteristic swagger despite years of imprisonment evident in his bearing.
"Honey!" he called out, arms spread wide. "We're home!"
Melina studied him through the fence, his false cheer, his obvious excitement at seeing her again, the two strangers flanking him with professional wariness. She turned without responding and walked toward her house.
"Follow me," Alexei said to the others, undeterred by her cool reception.
Melina opened her front door, holding it wide. "Welcome to my humble home. Please, don't be shy."
Her eyes tracked the two unknown men, one tall and stoic, moving with the controlled grace of an elite operative; the other younger, carrying himself with casual confidence that suggested either supreme skill or dangerous naivety.
"And who are these two handsome gentlemen?" Melina asked, her tone carefully pleasant despite the tension radiating through every word.