black widow movie | dear violette romanoff,

chapter twenty three | offering

I'm skeptical to leave Nat alone in the crumbling building, but have faith in her, and with slight persuasion from Yelena, we evacuate the room to hunt down Dreykov.

The hallways are barely being kept together, and most floors are by now covered in death. I do my best to navigate us through the upper quadrant, but the mess and wafting dust make remembering where things are incredibly difficult.

Explosions fire carelessly from the bottom of the Red Room, leaving an unwanted challenge for Yelena and me as we approach the staircase, which is now blown to bits.

Yelena curses and drops her head, searching for an exit.

I nudge my head at the window left to the staircase: a five-story drop to the platform runway where Dreykov would board a jet in only a matter of time. There was no time to consider it. This was the option.

Yelena nods at me and shoots the glass, and we run at it with our shoulders high.

I hit the ground side first, letting out a distressed moan and quickly rolling over onto my knees to avoid getting too comfortable.

Yelena is not badly injured, but her upper arm is grazed and bleeding.

We're surrounded by parts of broken Red Room. So deeply buried that I cannot see out from where we are trapped.

"Melina and Alexei?" I ask Yelena, trying to stand up onto my feet. I start clawing for a way out.

"Melina's disconnected," she tells me gently, trying to pry us out from beneath the metal. She kicks the wall of built-up debris.

An explosion comes to our rescue, sending me backward, and with it, the wall confining us. Yelena offers me her hand and helps me up.

When the runway becomes visible to us, half of it has fallen, leaving one jet and scrambling Dreykov (and crew) trying to get inside of it.

A sharp scream catches my attention, and I turn around. It's Natasha hanging onto the broken-off upper-building platform by a wired fence.

I contemplate between my two options.

I hit Yelena's shoulder and she takes off at a record-breaking pace, allowing no time for Dreykov to spare.

I cautiously take a grenade from the ground and throw it at the left side of the platform that Natasha is holding onto. The explosion creates weight imbalance, and the platform moves closer toward the runway.

Natasha drops onto the ground seconds before the platform explodes and we both start running after she has spared me a thankful glance.

Yelena is running only a few meters in front of us when the jet takes off. She shoots an arrow from her wrist, using the rope attached to haul herself onto the jet.

She stands on top of the engine, holding an electrical staff tightly between her hands and directing it toward the source.

Natasha and I stop running to watch her, in awe and in terror.

"Yelena!" Nat shouts at her. It sounds concerned, not so much appreciative. "Don't do it!"

I shake my head at her, but she nods at me.

"This was fun."

"No!"

Yelena grunts and digs the staff into the engine, demolishing the jet before it can properly take off.

My eyes widen in shock, and straps tighten around my shoulders faster than I can think. It is not metaphorical, straps do tighten around my shoulders. Nat has given me a deployment bag.

Nat screams at me, "Wait! You don't have--"

I run off the platform for Yelena without a second thought, who has been thrown back into the air from the explosion. I can not be concerned with anything else.

Pieces of blonde hair cover her face as she falls back-first, falling in and out of consciousness.

I rearrange myself in the air and dive nose-first, keeping my hands tightly by my hips. I only bring them up from my sides when Yelena is an arms-length from me.

I keep my hands on her shoulders. I am shouting at her but can't hear myself over the sound of my own free-falling.

The ground is rapidly approaching, and I must think fast. One backpack, two people. I slide off my deployment bag and shuffle it onto Yelena's back, opening the parachute and throwing myself away from her.

As I fall with my back to the ground, I lay eyes on a desperate-looking Natasha holding another parachute in one hand.

Author's Note:

I never thought I'd be one to do an author's note, but I just have to because thank you all so fucking much for 30,000 reads. I mean it whole-heartedly when I say it means so much to me. I'm working hard on getting the final chapter out to you by the end of this week =).