Peter, of course, could easily deduce exactly what was brewing inside that little girl's head.
This wasn't some cliché case of love at first sight; she simply wanted to use him as a pawn. By seducing him under her skirt, she wanted her dear older sister to experience the agonizing sting of betrayal—a metaphorical knife twisted straight into her heart.
Had this petty revenge plot been directed at someone like Tony, it might have actually succeeded. Unfortunately for her... Peter was entirely different.
And his difference lay in the fact that... his tastes were exceptionally discerning!
Peter scanned Yelena up and down, dispassionately calculating his assessment in his mind.
Her figure was undeniably solid. Though the scale of her headlights left a bit to be desired, her legs were noticeably longer than Natasha's, which pretty much balanced out the overall physical score between the two sisters.
However, when it came down to pure facial aesthetics, she fell drastically short. Not only was her face dotted with freckles, but her complexion also possessed a rough, weathered texture that completely lacked the sheer, intoxicating allure that defined the Black Widow.
More importantly, even if their looks had been a perfect match, he harbored absolutely zero interest in allowing himself to be maneuvered like a tool.
Therefore, Peter denied Yelena even a shred of room to entertain her delusions. He simply raised his hand and delivered a crisp, precise flick right to the center of her forehead.
Flick~
The sharp, resounding pop connected squarely with Yelena's brow. The young girl let out a sharp cry of pain, instinctively clutching her forehead as she stumbled a half-step backward.
"Calling me brother-in-law is perfectly accurate," Peter remarked, lowering his hand with his signature, effortless nonchalance. "But you can forget about any theatrical scripts involving seducing your brother-in-law for a forbidden affair. Your brother-in-law doesn't roll that way."
Standing nearby, Natasha—who was currently hoisting Dreykov by the scruff of his neck like a helpless chicken—felt her entire frame shudder upon hearing those words.
She whipped her head around, her gaze pinning Yelena with a glare as sharp as a razor's edge. In that split second, she looked precisely like a mother wolf fiercely guarding her prized kill, her eyes burning with sheer, unadulterated hostility.
But the very next moment, her gaze shifted smoothly onto Peter.
The fierce hostility dissolved instantly, replaced first by a look as soft as flowing water, and then by an expression so intensely sultry and captivating that it could melt a man's bones to ash.
Clearly, Natasha was profoundly satisfied with Peter's public declaration, and her eyes were practically negotiating exactly when and how she was going to reward him thoroughly for his loyalty.
Tony, who had been a front-row spectator to the entire domestic display, immediately muttered a low command to his AI the moment he realized nobody was paying attention to him:
"Jarvis, what are you standing around for? Take detailed notes on this, fast!"
It was the same realization all over again—no wonder Peter could effortlessly handle multiple women at once. I'm definitely going to try this exact playbook on Pepper next time and see if it unlocks an entirely new dynamic...
On the other side of the room, Yelena clutched her forehead for a good while before she finally managed to soothe the stinging ache. She shot Peter one final, venomous glare.
However, she ultimately possessed a realistic grasp of the power dynamics at play. She knew with absolute certainty that even if she multiplied herself a hundred times over, she wouldn't stand a ghost of a chance against this brother-in-law.
Consequently, she abandoned any ideas of hurling empty threats. Instead, she sharply turned her head, choosing to vent her frustrations on the easiest target available.
So the question remained: who was the absolute softest target in the room? The answer was glaringly obvious.
It was undeniably Dreykov, who was currently dangling limply from Natasha's grip like a dead dog.
"You know what, you miserable old corpse?" Yelena growled, stepping up beside Natasha. She grabbed Dreykov by his few remaining strands of thinning hair, ruthlessly yanking his head back to force him to look her in the eyes. "The absolute greatest desire of my entire life was to one day snap your worthless neck with my own two hands."
Hearing her words, Dreykov's portly frame shuddered violently with terror.
Natasha adjusted her grip, tightening her fingers just enough to force a choked, pathetic squawk out of the fat bastard's throat.
"Right now," Natasha said, exchanging a brief, understanding look with Yelena before opening her hand to drop Dreykov callously onto the cold floor, "I believe we can finally grant you that wish."
Just as the two sisters prepared to unleash their combined wrath to end Dreykov's life, Peter's calm voice suddenly cut through the air:
"Hold on a second."
The movements of both women froze instantly. They turned their heads toward him, their expressions clouding with profound confusion.
"Executing him right here is fundamentally unfair to the rest of the Red Room," Peter spoke without any grand emotional display, his tone as casual as if he were discussing a mundane, everyday chore.
Natasha's brow knitted tightly together. She remained silent, but her posture indicated she was listening intently.
"Those girls up there," Peter noted, tilting his chin upward to indicate the upper levels of the complex where the frozen agents resided.
"They are the primary victims of his atrocities. If you allow this piece of trash to die solely by your hands, how are they supposed to purge the absolute lifetime of hatred burning within their own souls?"
As his words fell, a heavy, contemplative silence blanketed the office.
After a long pause, Natasha spoke in a quiet, subdued tone: "You're right. Doing this without them would be a betrayal to them all."
Yelena turned her gaze back to Peter, asking bluntly, "...Then what do you propose we do?"
Peter offered no verbal reply. Instead, his figure blurred into a streak of pure light, vanishing from the sixth subterranean level in the blink of an eye.
Swif! Swif! Swif!
Transforming entirely into a luminous blur, Peter threaded through the corridors at extreme velocity, flashing between the frozen agents and the strike teams knocked unconscious by his Conqueror's Haki.
The brilliant, soothing energy of the Horse Talisman radiated from his palms, seeping directly into the bodies of the flash-frozen female agents.
A cascade of microscopic control chips and tracking electrodes began to systematically seep out from their skin, clattering onto the frosted floor in a chaotic, metallic pitter-patter.
Row after row of hollow, vacant eyes began to undergo a profound, violent awakening. Fear, bewilderment, and shattering grief rippled through the ranks... before ultimately coalescing into a volcanic, unified tide of absolute rage.
Once every single agent of the Red Room had fully regained her consciousness and autonomy, Peter guided the massive collective down into the deepest tier of the facility.
Dreykov remained pinned helplessly to the floor. He watched in mounting horror as the girls flooded into the expansive office room one by one, each of them locking their eyes onto him with a burning, lethal hatred that screamed of a desire to tear him limb from limb.
His body began to tremble uncontrollably, a prominent, dark puddle of moisture rapidly spreading beneath his trousers.
"Wait! Wait!" he shrieked, his voice cracking into a desperate, pathetic wail. "You can't do this! You can't treat me like this! You're nothing but a pack of worthless orphans! If it weren't for me, you would have rotted to death in some ditch decades ago!"
"I provided you with food! I gave you shelter—"
CRACK!
Before he could finish his desperate rant, the sickening sound of snapping bone echoed abruptly through the room. Someone had stepped forward and cleanly dislocated his jaw with a single, brutal twist.
The moment the surrounding agents identified the figure who had delivered the strike, a collective sharp intake of breath rippled through the crowd. Because the person standing over him was none other than Dreykov's own flesh and blood—Antonia!
Antonia looked down, locking eyes with her father.
The exact second their gazes crossed, Dreykov froze entirely. The face looking down at him was utterly flawless; the horrific scars were gone, the open wounds non-existent. She looked exactly like the pristine memory of his daughter before the blast.
Dreykov opened his mouth, desperately thrashing to vocalize a response, but only hollow, raspy wheezes escaped his throat.
Antonia knelt down calmly, sliding a sleek combat knife from her tactical belt. She held the blade loosely in her hand, staring down at his terrified face.
"Father," she whispered, her fingers gently tracing the contours of Dreykov's cheek. Her voice was incredibly quiet, carrying a bizarre, chilling undercurrent of tenderness. "You utterly destroyed everything I was. Now... it's your turn to pay the toll."
The moment the words cleared her lips, she drove the combat knife smoothly into Dreykov's mouth, severing his tongue with a single, cold stroke.
Once she completed her opening act, she took a slow, deep breath, stepping back to press the blood-slicked hilt of the dagger directly into Yelena's waiting palm.
One strike after another...
One person after another...
By the time Natasha stepped forward to claim the final piece of flesh, nothing remained in the center of the room but a pristine, stark-white skeleton...
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