Functional

15. Exploiting Our Misery and Selling it Back to Us For a Cost

“What the hell.  I’m glad he didn’t do that when he rescued me,” Clint’s voice brings his attention back to the room.

He stops kissing Natalia and looks up, embarrassed to have lost control of himself.  Barton is looking at him in surprise, and Steve looks like he might be smiling.  He turns his attention back to Natalia, who is stirring and blinking up at him.  With difficulty, he resists the urge to kiss her again.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, hastily getting to his feet and helping her to do so as well.

“No need to apologize to me, man.  It looks like she was enjoying it,” Clint says with a grin.

He looks intently at the floor, but is aware that Natalia glares at Clint, who throws up his hands in defeat.  Steve makes his way over to him, but doesn’t touch him.  “I think we can call someone else to get this.  I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to be sore in the morning.  Let’s head home,” he says.  Then Steve claps him once on the shoulder, before turning away and pulling out his phone.

Clint goes to find more arrows in the room beyond, and Steve steps out to call someone, Maria Hill, presumably.  Natalia moves to stand in front of him, and waits until he relents and looks up, meeting her eye.  She smiles faintly at him.

“I always amaze you?” she questions, raising an eyebrow.

He looks back at the floor.  “You’re very impressive,” he defends himself, feeling sick.  This is not how he was hoping this would go.

She sighs softly.  “I’m sure they can take care of things.  My head is killing me and I think I’d like Dr. Banner to take a look as soon as possible.  You want to help me get home, James?” she asks quietly.

Nodding, he offers her his shoulder to lean on, then wraps his arm around her waist.  They make their way to the stairs and out of the building.  She directs them to a car, and he drives them back to the tower.  Once inside, he accompanies her to the labs downstairs.  He usually tries to avoid them, but isn’t sure she can make it on her own.  Once she is in Bruce’s capable hands, though, he slips away and goes to his floor.

“You never did like to talk about this kind of thing,” Steve’s voice behind him causes him to tense up briefly.

“No?” he asks politely, not turning from where he stands, staring out the window in the living room.

Steve joins him, looking out as well.  “Dames.  I mean, you’d try to get me set up with one all of the time, but we never really talked afterward.”

He shrugs.  “Maybe I just didn’t want to have a one-sided conversation with you.”

Steve laughs a little.  “Yeah, I guess it would have been one-sided if that was the topic.”  He pauses, sobering.  “So, when did you realize you’d fallen for our ex-Russian spy?”  His tone belies the jesting nature of the question, and he glances at him.

“When I saw her dance,” he says evenly, noting the lack of surprise or confusion on his friend’s face.

“Is she good?  She hasn’t shown us,” Steve replies with a small smile.

“The best,” he answers flatly.

“She must be, to make you break your programming.”

He grits his teeth for a moment.  “She told you?”

“Yeah.  We weren’t sure… if it would help for you to know or not,” Steve explains, sounding pained.  He shrugs.  He doesn’t know.  “Where is she?”