Sweetheart - Yelena Belova

Chapter 5

Yelena was proud.

She told Alexei that they didn't have enough fuel left for St. Petersburg, and he told her it would be fine.

Jokes on him, the helicopter crashed midway.

"You should've brought the Avengers' superjet," Alexei accused, as if this wasn't his fault.

"Hey!" Jaya exclaimed. "You try finding an Avengers superjet when none of them are talking to you. And when you're borderline broke," she just woke up, and was buried under a bunch of leftover cargo in the helicopter. Yelena helped her up. 

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

Natasha agreed. "He's the worst."

The three females continued forward on foot. 

"Natasha!" Alexei called. "Natasha. Natasha!"

She turned around. "Come here, I want to ask you something." When the redhead hesitated, Alexei kept probing her. "Come, it's important."

She finally agreed. Not long after, she regretted it. "What?"

"Did he talk to you about me?" the Red Guard asked.

Natasha was confused. "What?"

"Did he talk to you about me? You know, trading war stories?" Natasha was sure that he hit his head on the way down.

"Who? What are you talking about?" she questioned.

"Captain America. My great adversary in this theater of geopolitical conflict. Not so much a nemesis. More like a contemporary, you know? Coequal. I always thought there was a great deal of mutual respect... "

Natasha didn't know whether to be shocked or angry. "Wait. You haven't seen either one of us in 20 years and you're gonna ask me about you?"

Yelena and Jaya stopped in their tracks and turned around.

Alexei himself looked surprised. For what reason, neither Yelena nor Natasha could decipher. "What is with this tension?" he asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

Yelena brought her hand up to her forehead. "Is that a serious question?"

"I only ever loved you girls." At that, Jaya had to contain a laugh. She knew this wasn't the time, but she couldn't help but think about Gru from despicable me, saying "Gorls" instead of "Girls."

Alexei continued bragging about himself. "I did my best to make sure you would succeed to achieve your fullest potential, and everything worked out."

Natasha looked at him in disbelief. "Everything worked out?"

"Yes." he answered. "For you, yes. We accomplished our mission in Ohio," he said, walking towards Yelena. "Yelena, you went on to become the greatest child assassin the world has ever known. No one can match your efficiency, your ruthlessness."

He turned to Natasha next. "And Natasha, not just a spy, not just toppling regimes, destroying empires from within, but an Avenger." He grabbed both of the assassins' hands. "You both have killed so many people. Your ledgers must be dripping, just gushing red. I couldn't be more proud of you." At this point, he was hugging them both, while they looked extremely uncomfortable.

That's some A+ parenting right there, Jaya thought to herself as she stood awkwardly to the side.

Natasha immediately shoved Alexei and starting walking down the path. Yelena, on the other hand, slowly pulled away. "Okay. You can... No. Let go of me now. You smell really bad."

About 15 minutes have passed when Yelena spoke up. "So...are we there yet?"

Jaya let out a snort.

"You'll know when we're there." Alexei responded. As they kept walking, Jaya started to hear pigs in the distance. A couple minutes later, they were all standing in front of a fence, with a slightly old looking woman with braided black hair on the other side. Melina. 

After a beat of silence, Alexei spoke up. "Honey, we're home." 

Melina walked out from behind the fence, just as Alexei said, "Come on girls." Jaya knew that Alexei didn't include her, but she started walking anyways. As they reached closer to a small house, Jaya was starting to feel more and more unsure about her decision. Once they reached the house, after lots of internal debate, Jaya decided that she would stay outside of the house. She knew her presence here created a disruption.

She lingered at the front, pulling three rubber bands off of her wrist to braid them. However, Yelena, the last one in the line, was about to go inside when she noticed Jaya standing off to the side. 

"Aren't you gonna come inside?"

Jaya looked up. "Nah," she responded. "I feel like I'd make things awkward. I wouldn't want to ruin a family reunion."

Yelena rolled her eyes. "Please," she said. "This is probably gonna go down as the worst family reunion in the history of family reunions. We're gonna need all the sane people we can get."

The short haired woman raised an eyebrow. "You seriously think I'm sane?"

"...no, but that doesn't change anything."

"I'm socially awkward." Jaya reasoned.

"And I haven't had any social interaction in years," the blonde shot back.

"Touché."

"Besides, you're only here on this mission under my terms, sweetheart. Keep that attitude up and we'll kick you back out on the streets."

Jaya froze for a split second, causing Yelena to wonder if she said anything wrong. Before she could apologize, Jaya walked up the stairs behind her. "Don't call me sweetheart," she grumbled.

Time for a family reunion which you're not even part of.

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND WE HAVE A CHAPTER FIVE! I managed to squeeze this one in before work, so it's kinda rushed, short, and boring. Sorry about that!

But thanks for reading! And have a good day!