The stark-white skeleton lay perfectly still on the ground, the metallic tang of blood mixing with a bizarre, hollow sense of closure that drifted through the stagnant air of the sixth subterranean level.
There were no tears, nor were there any triumphant roars. All the girls simply stood in absolute silence, staring down at the pile of bones as if bidding a final, quiet farewell to a past they never wished to look back upon.
Antonia smoothly slid her combat knife back into its sheath, stepped directly in front of Peter, and bowed deeply. Her voice was still slightly raspy, but it carried with absolute, crystal-clear conviction: "Thank you."
Behind her, the massive sea of rescued girls synchronized instantly, bowing forward in unison.
"Alright, alright, that's enough, everyone stand up," Peter muttered, waving his hand dismissively with his classic 'small scene, no need to overreact' composure. "Now that your absolute vengeance has been satisfied, what are your plans moving forward?"
The moment the question hung in the air, the entire chamber fell back into a dense, heavy silence.
"You're all entirely free," Peter stated, his gaze sweeping across the collective group of young women, whose average age barely scratched their early twenties. His tone was perfectly even. "From this exact day onward, you are no longer anyone's weapon. You can claim your own names, and you can live whatever life you choose to build."
Free?
To these girls, that single word was entirely too foreign, and infinitely too heavy.
From the very moment they were old enough to retain memories, they had been subjected to inhumane, systematic conditioning within the Red Room.
Their entire universe had been fundamentally reduced to three concepts: the mission, absolute obedience, and slaughter.
Now, the chains shackling their souls had been thoroughly shattered, yet they behaved precisely like birds caged for far too long—standing before an open sky, completely paralyzed because they didn't possess the slightest inkability of how to fly.
Pure, unadulterated bewilderment was written plainly across every single face.
Natasha stared at them, a flash of deep empathy swelling within her eyes. She understood this paralyzing sensation better than anyone.
Back when she had first severed her ties with the Red Room and stood on the bustling streets of New York, watching the endless torrent of cars and normal civilians, she had felt entirely incompatible with the rest of the world.
Amidst the prolonged, heavy silence, Yelena suddenly let out a slow, defeated sigh:
"Aside from taking lives, we don't possess a single viable skill. Does a world like this truly have any place for people like us?"
Her words instantly struck a deep, painful chord with the surrounding girls. One after another, their expressions sank into a look of profound inferiority, looking precisely like forgotten outcasts abandoned by society.
Seeing them look so completely lost, Peter hesitated for a brief fraction of a second before finally speaking up:
"I have an idea. Of course, I'm just throwing it out there casually; whether you choose to accept it or completely ignore it makes no difference to me."
"My adoptive parents are currently preparing to establish a massive charitable foundation back in New York. If you truly find yourselves with absolutely nowhere else to go, you're more than welcome to work there."
"Dedicate your time to helping those who are genuinely suffering, and feel the actual warmth of a normal society. It might do wonders to help dissolve the knots tied up in your hearts."
"Of course, if there are some among you who genuinely despise the idea of interacting with large crowds, you can always band together and start a small, quiet farm out in the countryside."
At that point, Peter callously kicked the scattered skeleton on the floor.
"This old piece of trash undoubtedly accumulated a staggering fortune of dirty money. It's more than enough to fully fund a massive estate for you all to enjoy a peaceful, completely undisturbed pastoral lifestyle."
"Furthermore, you could establish a private mutual aid society, specifically dedicated to hunting down corrupt, elite tycoons who abuse their power, or scum who systematically manipulate and destroy innocent people's lives."
"If, during any point in this process, you feel that you've successfully integrated into normal society and wish to strike out on your own, you can walk away at any second to pursue your own personal happiness."
As Peter finished laying out his options, the expansive office became so profoundly quiet that one could have heard a pin drop.
The girls exchanged long, uncertain glances with one another. Ultimately, it was the naturally energetic Yelena who broke the ice, a bright spark returning to her eyes:
"That's an incredible idea! No wonder you're qualified to be my brother-in-law. I've officially decided—I'm joining your family's foundation."
Antonia, after processing the options for a long moment, spoke up with a faint, hesitant murmur:
"I... I don't know the first thing about farming."
"That's the easiest part to solve," Peter noted, shifting his gaze over to Natasha. "If I recall correctly, you mentioned earlier that your mother operates a fully functioning farm, right? Why don't we arrange for the remaining girls who want the quiet life to head out to the countryside near New York with your mother to establish the estate?"
To this arrangement, Natasha naturally nodded in immediate agreement.
Hearing that they would have an experienced insider from their own circle helping them manage and navigate the complexities of running a farm, Antonia and the other like-minded girls felt an immense wave of relief. Every single one of them looked toward Peter, their eyes shimmering with profound gratitude.
Yelena observed her companions, then glanced at Peter's completely indifferent, relaxed expression. Finally, she quietly slipped over to Natasha's side, nudging her arm as she muttered in a hushed whisper:
"Hey, you seriously need to keep a tight leash on your man. Don't let him wander around collecting a whole harem!"
Hearing her little sister's blunt warning, Natasha's lips twitched in sheer speechlessness. However, after a brief pause, she leaned down, murmuring right into Yelena's ear with a smug smirk:
"I couldn't control him even if I tried. But you can rest completely easy—his standards are obscenely high. He wouldn't look twice at a scrawny little brat like you."
Yelena's round little face soured instantly.
Big sisters are officially the absolute worst!
Following a brief period of deliberation, the girls of the Red Room systematically divided themselves into three distinct factions.
The vast majority of the girls chose to follow Yelena, electing to integrate into normal society by joining the Parker Foundation. Another substantial portion of the girls opted to join Antonia, preferring to slip into a secluded, tranquil pastoral lifestyle far away from the chaos of civilization.
Finally, there remained a small core of seven or eight girls. They had become entirely accustomed to the operational rhythm of high-stakes infiltration and wetwork, possessing a strong desire to maintain their current skillsets.
To accommodate them, Peter executed his original contingency plan, officially establishing the black-ops intelligence network known as the "Black Rose."
He integrated these remaining elite operatives into the unit, tasking them with covertly monitoring the high-level political machinations within America to ensure no corrupt factions could smoothly execute another shadow conspiracy against his family.
Once the entire collective of girls had been systematically boarded onto the cloaked Quinjet, Peter didn't immediately chart a course away from Europe.
He still intended to finalize two remaining pieces of business: namely, extracting Natasha's maternal figure, Melina Vostokoff, as well as her surrogate father, the "Red Guardian," Alexei Shostakov.
Even though these two were technically nothing more than deep-cover sleeper agents assigned to play her parents, that three-year stint in Ohio represented the absolute only window of genuine, familial warmth Natasha possessed from her entire childhood.
Furthermore, those surrogate parents were far from emotionless monsters; within the original trajectory of reality, they profoundly cherished the memory of that fragile little family.
Alexei, the Red Guardian himself, would later stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Yelena through thick and thin.
Peter wanted to ensure that even during the moments he couldn't personally be by her side, Natasha would always possess a solid, unconditional safety net of a real family.
Therefore, he determined to extract both individuals simultaneously, bringing them along on their journey to the United States.
Siberia, Seventh Prison.
This location stood as the absolute most heavily fortified, maximum-security penal facility within the borders of the nation, designed exclusively to cage the most savage, volatile criminals alive.
Currently, a massive, heavily bearded middle-aged man was aggressively slamming another inmate's hand onto a wooden table. While systematically dismantling one challenger after another in continuous arm-wrestling matches, he boisterously bellowed out exaggerated tales of his glory days, claiming he had once fought Captain America himself for three hundred brutal rounds.
This man was none other than the vanguard of a bygone era—Alexei Shostakov, the Red Guardian.
"Who else! Who else possesses the absolute courage to challenge the might of the Red Guardian?"
Alexei roared triumphantly as he pinned his final opponent of the day. He burst into a boisterous, booming laugh, flexing his massive biceps with supreme arrogance for the surrounding inmates to admire.
Right at that exact moment, the prison's high-decibel emergency klaxons erupted into a deafening blare.
The heavy, reinforced alloy blast doors blocking the main entrance were violently torn off their hinges from the outside, crashing into the courtyard with a thunderous boom. Blinding sunlight instantly flooded into the dim, grim facility, casting three distinct silhouettes across the threshold.
The Red Guardian squinted his eyes against the harsh glare. The exact second his vision adjusted and he identified the figures standing at the entrance, he froze entirely in his tracks, his boisterous laughter dying instantly in his throat.
Standing directly before him were the exact family members who had haunted his dreams for a countless number of long, agonizing years.
After aggressively rubbing his eyes to ensure he wasn't suffering from a sudden visual hallucination, a massive, radiantly proud grin broke through his thick beard. He threw his tree-trunk arms wide open, happily shuffling forward as fast as his heavy legs could carry him:
"My little Natasha! And my sweet little Yelena! I knew it! I knew you would never truly forget about your heroic, unstoppable father!"