black widow movie | dear violette romanoff,

chapter thirteen | sourpuss organization

Alexei shuts the sliding door, stopping any more snow from entering the helicopter.

"That was dramatic," I mutter.

He stares at me with peaked interest. "No, that was exciting." He breathes loudly. "Oh, I'm so proud of you girls." He puts an arm around my shoulder, but I slide out from the embrace too quickly for it to count.

Natasha and Yelena choose to ignore him, putting on pilot headsets.

"Oh, they can't hear me," he says to me obnoxiously. "You can't hear me. Okay," he laughs and puts on a headset, too. He stares between the two of them. "Ah... wow."

Yelena punches him in the nose, sending him back at least five meters.

He groans something in Russian, "Okay. Why the aggression, huh? Is it your time of the month?"

I can already hear the conversation that is about to play out.

"I don't get my period, dipshit," Yelena hisses. "I don't have a uterus."

"Or ovaries," Natasha adds, staring out the window.

"Yeah. That's what happens when the Red Room gives you an involuntary hysterectomy. They kind of just go in and they rip out all of your reproductive organs. They just get right in there and they chop them all away. Everything out, so you can't have babies."

"Okay, okay. Okay, okay!" Alexei shouts. "You don't have to get so clinical and nasty."

"Oh, well, I was about to talk about fallopian tubes but okay."

"No." Alexei shakes his head. "It means so much to me that you came back for me." He puts his arm around me again.

"Stop that, okay? Would you quit touching me?" I break away from him. "We're not that close."

"You're going to tell us how to get to the Red Room," Nat says.

"Huh," Alexei mutters. "Woah, look at you, all business."

"Trust me, this isn't pleasure."

"Little Natasha, all indoctrinated into the Western agenda."

"I chose to go west to become an Avenger. Cause they treated me like family."

"Really? Family? Well, where are they now?" Alexei teases. "Where is that family now?"

"Tell me where the Red Room is," Natasha argues.

Alexei brings the microphone up to his mouth. "I have no idea."

Yelena scoffs.

I sigh in exhaust.

"Okay?"

Natasha takes off her headset aggressively and walks toward Alexei and me. "Come on," she growls. "You and Dreykov were like..."

"Dreykov?" Alexei says the name loud with anger.

"Yeah!"

"General Dreykov, my friend, huh? Gives me glory... Soviet Union's first and only super-soldier. I could have been more famous than Captain America!"

Natasha groans.

"Then he buries me in Ohio on that stupid mission." He looks at me. "Three years! So tedious, boring me to tears."

I don't care what he thinks, but the first three years of my life were not a stupid mission.

Yelena looks furious, too.

"No offense, huh?" He looks at Natasha and me. "Then he puts me in prison for the rest of my life. Why, huh? Why? Why would he put me in... Do you know why? Cause maybe I want to talk about the withering of the state. Or maybe I don't like his hair or something and I say something casually about that. Maybe, you know, I want the Party to feel actually like a party instead of this sourpuss organization. But instead, no. He puts me in prison for the rest of my life. He just runs off and hides, huh? I'm not even the one who, uh, you know... I'm not the one who killed his daughter."

"Мудак," ("Asshole.") Yelena remarks. "Can we throw him out the window now?"

"We're too close to the ground," I respond, burying my face in my hands.

Nat agrees, "Yeah, I think we should wait until we reach a higher altitude."

"All right."

"Почему бы не спросить Melina где это?" ("Why not ask Melina where it is?") Alexei suggests suddenly.

The three of us stare at each other.

"Wait, Mom Melina?" Yelena asks.

"We thought she was dead," Natasha says, confused.

Alexei scoffs. "You cannot kill a fox that swift."

I refrain from enthusiasm after his comment. "Gross," I sigh.

"What? She was the scientist, the strategist. I was the muscle. She worked directly for Dreykov far more than I ever did."

Nat pauses. "Wait. Are you telling me that Melina is working for the Red Room present day?"

"She works remotely outside St. Petersburg," Alexei calls out to Yelena, who starts to redirect the helicopter.

Yelena scoffs. "Uh... I don't think we have enough fuel for St. Petersburg."

"No, we're good," Alexei says unknowingly. "We'll make it."

Yelena tilts her head and smirks. "Okay."