Bab 112: God of Internet
The story goes that every member of Natasha's temporary family was rather unfortunate.
Natasha never knew who her parents were from the day she was born. Not long after she started forming memories, she was thrown into the Red Room, where she was trained to kill and had to struggle for survival among other children. After barely making it through, she faced an even harsher life upon "graduation."
Yelena was said to be called the most gifted child assassin at a young age. Who knows what she had to endure?
Alexei, the man under the spotlight as a super-soldier, always dreamed of becoming a national superhero, someone like Captain America.
After finally completing an undercover mission in the U.S., he thought he could put on his uniform and become a superhero, only to be thrown into prison, where he wasted away for over ten years, spinning tales with the inmates.
Melina, the "mother" of this family, was also a former Widow from the Red Room in her youth. However, unlike the others, she was lucky enough to have a scientist's mind.
She went undercover with Alexei at a research institute in Ohio, stealing research data and destroying the remaining copies.
The data they stole involved a neurochemical that controlled people's nervous systems. After their mission in the U.S., Melina was sent to a pig farm outside Saint Petersburg, ostensibly for more research. In reality, she was experimenting on the pigs, working on further refining the neurochemical. The highly concentrated neurochemical Dreykov used recently to ambush Blake was partly her contribution.
In truth, all four of these people had their lives ruined by the Red Room, or more precisely, Dreykov.
Their three years in the U.S. might have been the only time when they experienced any sense of happiness or love.
Of course, Blake only learned all of this after watching the four of them have a meal together, drink some alcohol, and share their hearts.
However, compared to Natasha and Yelena, who both wanted to destroy the Red Room and kill Dreykov, Alexei remained lost in his past glory, and Melina lacked the courage to resist at all.
If Blake hadn't kept an eye on her, Melina might have even considered informing the Red Room.
"We can't kill Dreykov. You don't know what he's capable of. He has a kind of pheromone that can invade your central nervous system without smell or color. Once you've been affected, you can't attack Dreykov," Melina explained.
"Even if you hold your breath?" Natasha asked.
"No, unless you sever your olfactory nerves," Melina said, pointing to her nose.
"Can the pheromone be destroyed by high heat or something similar? You know what I mean?" Blake suddenly asked.
Melina looked at Blake, surprised.
"Yes, but it would need at least 800 degrees Celsius. If you've already been affected, 80 degrees is enough to cook you. So it's only… Oh my God!"
Before Melina could finish, Blake stood up, engulfed in roaring flames.
"Fifteen hundred degrees. You can see if I'm cooked, but the pheromone definitely is."
With a snap of his fingers, the flames vanished, leaving only a small fire on his hand.
Then, he casually pulled a cigar from his waistband, lighting it with the flame.
Taking a dramatic puff, Alexei, sitting across the table, stared in shock. His eyes darted to the cigar Blake had given him earlier and then back to Blake's waistband.
In horror, he quickly extinguished the cigar and took a swig of vodka to rinse his mouth.
"Puh! Puh! Puh!"
After that, the family of four unified their goals and resolved their emotional baggage. Before heading out to battle, they shared a more heartwarming conversation.
The two daughters and their mother talked about everything that had happened to them in the past, especially recounting what had happened with Blake.
Tony Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. were things they could still wrap their heads around.
But Thor, Asgard, and the Ancient One Sorcerer Supreme?
That was harder to process, and they didn't even mention that Blake now had a living body of an Asgardian god.
This was enough to leave Melina and Alexei dumbfounded.
Compared to the Red Room, this felt like something from another dimension.
What Melina shared also helped heal the regrets and guilt in Natasha's heart to some extent.
The first revelation is that Natasha had always believed she was abandoned by her parents. In reality, the Red Room used a programmed system to select girls with potential.
Natasha was one of them. Her parents were compensated financially and were required to keep silent. However, Natasha's mother was deeply troubled by the situation and vowed to find her daughter.
She exposed the mysterious department that took her child multiple times. In the end, Natasha's parents were killed by Dreykov.
The second revelation is about Antonia, Dreykov's younger daughter, whom Natasha thought she had killed.
However, both Dreykov and Antonia survived the explosion. Antonia was severely injured and disfigured, and Dreykov implanted a chip in her neck.
He also injected her with the neurochemical agent and has been training her to be a killer over the years. Dreykov's cruelty is inhumane—Antonia is only about 13 or 14 years old, and she's his biological daughter.
From fighting terrorists in the Middle East alongside Tony, this is the first time Blake has felt such an intense desire to kill someone.
Now the only remaining problem is locating the Red Room's base. According to Melina, Dreykov, to avoid exposure and detection, has placed the base thousands of meters in the air using massive jet engines.
It's a sky base, and given Dreykov's cautious nature, he never keeps the base in one location for more than a week. This makes it extremely difficult to pinpoint.
Melina suggested leaking information to the Red Room, letting herself get captured, and then launching an attack from within the base. But with Blake involved, the question is whether Dreykov would risk bringing them to the base. This plan is similar to what Blake and the others have already attempted, and Dreykov isn't likely to fall for the same trick twice.
"How do you usually contact Dreykov? Phone or something else?" Blake asked Melina.
"Email," Melina replied, mentioning a relatively outdated form of communication, but one that fits Dreykov's paranoid nature.
"The internet?" Blake's eyes lit up.
"Blake, tracking their emails isn't that simple. Even S.H.I.E.L.D. might struggle with that," Natasha quickly dismissed Blake's idea, knowing what he was thinking.
Blake smiled confidently.
"We're not going to track them. We're going to send someone in the email!"
"Send someone in the email?" Yelena asked, puzzled.
"Does Asgard have a god of the internet alongside Thor and the fire god?" she joked.
"Asgard doesn't, but Tony Fucking Stark definitely does!"
*******************************************
You can get access to early chapters on patr*on.
If you like my work and you want to support me then you can become my patron on patre*n.
My patr*on account is S_Pandey_0170
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone