YELENA BELOVA (MCU)

Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova Thunderbolts* (2025) dir. Jake Schreier

Thunderbolts* dir. Jake Schreier | 2025

Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova in Thunderbolts (2025)

"C'mon, you haven't heard that sound? Wait, you do have a tik tok, right?---don't tell me you're still on x..."

"No, no. I know the sound. I just don't know why you are talking to me about it." Kate Bishop had mentioned to Yelena some girl had broken into her apartment with an offer to start a team. While she was happy for her friend Kate, Yelena didn't know why said girl was now discussing TikTok with her. "Are you trying to make a TikTok right now?"

"witches have been surviving for centuries. it's what we do. so if one more person decides they want to remind me that my variant is dead, they'll be the next to join her. now... did you want a damn tarot reading or not? I take cash-app and venmo."

"Venmo, CashApp, actual cash. I will pay you. I'm not cheap." In some ways, she was stalling. "How do we begin this?"

"Did you know they don't sell walkman's anymore? I mean they do, but you can't just go out and buy one, you gotta pay some asshat online. Fricken' kid at Best Buy laughed at me and then tried to sell me an iphone pay plan and I was like--dude, I don't need an iphone, unless verizon's got cell phone towers across the galaxy I don't know about--which they don't--I just want to jam out to my tapes. Then he called me a fossil and said that he couldn't help me. What is with these earth kids, man--they're a buncha' dicks."

"This is so sad," she intoned as she continued carving. "How will you ever live? Will you need some support? The thing they keep saying..." Yelena paused before snapping her fingers. "We listen and we do not judge."

"Things aren't so bad here." Daisy tried to start, but then she processed what the blonde was actually referring to. "I mean, they could be better. I'm... I'm sorry about your sister."

"Eh, everyone's sorry." Yelena shrugged a shoulder. She was sorry. This woman was sorry. Natasha was such a martyr, she'd probably apologize for her own death if she could have. The apologies felt too much like pity. The thought of being pitied made the assassins skin crawl. It felt like she'd never win. "Sorry doesn't raise the dead or bring back the missing. I think saying it makes people feel better, though. I don't know. Do you feel better?"

Marc stayed silent at that point for a long few seconds, trying to keep himself from going down the same spiral he'd been clawing his way out of for years. Things couldn't be changed, and they never would be. New reality or not. "Would you've wanted to interact with her even if she was here?" He pointed out quietly, his voice void of any animosity as he raised a brow at her. He wasn't sure he could stomach meeting a Randall from another reality that potentially didn't die that day in the cave.

"I'd want to see that she was okay," Yelena finally said. "See that she was alive. That somewhere she got to be okay. I don't know if I'd talk to her, but I'd be happy she was here."

"Oh, you sound like you'd be really fun at a party." Even though she agreed with everything he was saying, Yelena couldn't help but be snarky. "Look, I can be used to it and still not like it. I'm having a pity party. I get one a year."

"Maybe this is really messed up to say but— this reality seems better than the one I came from. It's so similar but it just- it feels lighter. I dunno, does that make any sense?" Peter immediately felt guilty saying that out loud, especially when there was still a possibility that they were all here because of something he did.

"They do have the advantage of not having half of their population wiped out by the purple madman. It does great for the morale." Some people got all the luck, didn't they?

"If someone says multiverse like I'm supposed to know what it means one more time, I think I'm gonna get hostile."

"You got pulled through the multiverse. You are in a new reality. And you still do not know what it means? Tsk."

So this was what all the fuss was about: The Avengers Compound. It seemed sophisticated by human standards but the chaos running through the walls was another matter. The place reeked of anxiety and dread--a bunch of uncertain minds shadowed by even far more uncertain futures. Still, they gathered to try and save each other...it was refreshing. Druig had been around for centuries but he had never heard of humans assembling as global heroes, most of whom bestowed power beyond that of their majority. "Are you one of these Avengers, then?"

She laughed. Yelena couldn't help it . The question was so ridiculous. Was she one of the Avengers? No. That was Natasha. She was the hero, the one with the Barbie dolls and the little girls who looked up to her. Yelena was... well, she wasn't quite sure. A killer. Good at her job. Depressed. The only thing she knew that she wasn't an Avenger. "No, no. Not me. They must have lost my invite in the mail." The quip felt flat on her tongue. "And ah — what's your deal? What's going on here?"

"The multiverse could not have put us in the Caribbean? Somewhere warm?" Yelena had never been. It was on her list. She had promised herself a vacation after the Widow's were free, but she kept taking job after job. Some of them took her to beautiful places, but she never had time to just sit on the beach and be. "Maybe next time."

"Oh, yeah. It's real nice that we get to stay in this creepily abandoned complex until everything's sorted out. It's like a frickin' vacation if you ask me."

"It's better than a gulag. You ever been to a gulag?"

"If you've come to ask for my help, I know just as much as you do." Which was unfortunately, nothing. It was a hard pill for Stephen to swallow, but it was the truth.

"No one seems to know anything. Why would you be any different? Because you have magic glowing hands?"

"You have... a lot going on." Yelena regarded the red masked man for a moment before she returned to her food. "Are you normally this loud?"

"I used to think I was unoriginal for being a clone and now I just feel unoriginal being spider-man."

"You know, I've been thinking about a name change. Black Widow? Very unoriginal as well. People ask me why I'm not a redhead."