black widow movie | dear violette romanoff,

chapter fourteen | my red ledger

Five minutes later, our helicopter crashes into the dirt in the middle of nowhere. The three of us get out with a shocked, guilty Alexei trailing behind us.

"You should have brought the Avenger's superjet," he tells Natasha.

The three of us start walking and leave Alexei to inspect the helicopter.

"I swear if I hear one more word from him, I will kick him in the face," Yelena mutters.

"He's the worst," Nat says softly.

"Natasha!" Alexei shouts, hurrying up to us. "Natasha. Natasha. Come here. I want to ask you something. Come, it's important."

Nat slows down reluctantly, and Yelena and I try to match each other's anger-driven speed.

"I think we deserved more than that," Yelena tells me. "He just told us that we wasted three years of his life, and he doesn't even care."

"It's human indecency," I respond. "Don't beat yourself up."

"Don't. I'm not." Yelena shakes her head. "I've just never heard it out loud before."

I skid my shoes against the dirt, trying to lower the mood to increase my chances of not getting an enraged answer. "Why didn't..."

"No, tell me." She stares at me, squinting her watery eyes to avoid the burning sun.

"Why did you make me promise not to talk to you? In the Red Room."

"I just didn't want you to get hurt."

She doesn't pause or falter, but I'm not convinced, and I don't exactly understand, but I let her talk.

"I didn't talk to anyone," Yelena tells me. "I figured it might make the process easier if I didn't have to hear you or speak to you."

It made no sense to me, but I knew Yelena, and I knew the way her mind worked differently than mine. I needed people and she needed space.

I don't have a chance to respond or apologize. Natasha stops and gets louder, making both Yelena and I turn around.

"Wait. You haven't seen one of us in twenty years, and you're going to ask me about you?" Nat rages.

"What is with this tension?" Alexei asks, sauntering off the trail. "Did I do something wrong?"

My mouth drops open slightly. "Oh, my God."

"Is that a serious question?" Yelena asks.

"I only ever loved you girls," he responds. "I did my best to make sure you would succeed--"

"You gave away our childhood," I correct him.

"No, I taught you resilience. I made sure that you would succeed to achieve your fullest potential, and everything worked out," he smirks.

"Everything worked out?" Nat laughs furiously.

"Yes. For you, yes," Alexei almost screams at her. "We accomplished our mission in Ohio. Violette, you were a prodigy! Your strategies, your teamwork, your stealth. You put in your hard work, and you made the Red Room respected."

I don't know what to say in response to something like that. It was a compliment that my sixteen-year-old self would have dreamed of, but not now.

"Yelena, you went on to become the greatest child assassin the world has ever known. No one can match your efficiency, your ruthlessness."

Yelena scoffs.

"And Natasha, not just a spy, not just toppling regimes, destroying empires from within, but an Avenger."

It's freezing, and all I want to do is walk someplace with walls around me, but instead, I was here, listening to Alexei blabber on about something I'd worked at forgetting.

"You girls have killed..." he wraps his arms around all of us, and the side of my face bangs into his stomach. "...so many people. Your ledgers must be dripping, just gushing red." Yelena and Natasha are under either of his arms, uncomfortably waiting for him to let go. "I couldn't be more proud of you."

Natasha breaks free of the hug, scoffs, and walks away in revolt.

Yelena and I stay for longer.

I wanted it to be okay for me to want to be appreciated and to be hugged.

"Okay." Yelena escapes from underneath him. "You can... No. Let go of me now. You smell really bad," she mumbles.

We keep walking, and the sky turns salmon pink.

"Are we there yet?" I ask, and everyone turns to look at me. "Sorry. Old habit."

"You'll know when we're there," Alexei tells me, snorting.