Avengers: Altruism [N. Romanoff]

30. Fundamentals of an Agent

CHAPTER 30

Fundamentals of an Agent

A few minutes of silence passed whilst the two ladies busied themselves around the room, impatiently waiting for Clint to wake up again. Claire thought about passing time with some light conversation, but whenever she tried to think of a topic of discussion, she nearly immediately shot down the idea.

What could she ask a super-spy?

As a therapist she knew there was a time and place for everything, that forced conversion was never really productive, specifically when delving into one's past. She was supposed to be able to easily make conversation regardless, manipulate that time or place. That's what made it so difficult to deal with the fact that she was completely speechless around this one specific agent.

The doctor looked over her shoulder again to see Natasha fiddling with an electronic device on the medbed table. She turned around before they could catch eye contact, taking in a self-encouraging breath of air.

She made her way over to the redhead's side, sending her a smile that was reciprocated.

"So, um, you..." her mind went blank of all the conversation starters she had built up in her head.

What the hell, Claire.

She cringed at this denied attempt and walked away to recover her now-broken ego.

Natasha smirked to herself at the doctor's nervous nature around her, if she weren't so worried about Clint she may even had been flattered.

"You don't have to carry this alone," Natasha spoke up unexpectedly.

"Carry what?" Claire asked, worried that Nat saw right through the guilt she was holding onto for Bruce's disappearance.

"Do you want to talk to me about you and Coulson?"

Claire stood still in her tracks, she was caught off-guard by the question. Natasha was attempting to comfort her over the recent loss.

"He..." she tried to start, avoiding eye contact on a whole new level, "he was the first person to tell me the truth."

The two of them circled around the bed to meet on the same side, their hands trailing along the sheets as they stepped closer.

"He told me... I didn't have to be the 'bad guy', or, he told me I was following the wrong path. He was realistic, you know?"

"Yeah," Natasha kept her eyes on the sleeping Agent Barton, "I have a person like that, too."

Claire noticed her staring, "Clint did that?"

"Clint brought me here, he took a chance on me. He took a chance on the fact that I could be different, and that I wanted to be different."