The Other Sister: Failsafe || Book 2

Two

"One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five." Claire repeats, going at it with a punching bag. She had been here for two hours already, in the same spot, doing the same thing, repeatedly punching the punching bag. Having woken up at three am from a terrible nightmare, she made her way down to the training room to try to distract herself.

"You want to tell me why you've been down here for two hours in the same spot?" Tony's voice rings out through the training room and Claire finally stops, taking deep breaths and turning to face Tony, wiping the sweat from her forehead with a towel.

"I don't need a lecture right now, Tony."

"No lecture, just a friend who's worried. You've been acting different lately, ever since we found out Wanda was pregnant. Don't you want this?"

"Of course I want this. I've wanted this since the moment I met her. She's the love of my life, I want whatever makes her happy."

"That's not my question, Claire. Do you want a child with her?"

"Of course." Claire insists, glaring at Tony, at the accusations he's making.

"Then what's going on? Why have your nightmares come back?" Claire steels herself, her face becoming an emotionless mask and Tony sighs, walking over to her and sitting her down on the bench. "I know you don't want to talk about it with Wanda, so talk about it with me."

"I just- I feel like there's something wrong. Something's going to go wrong. I'm going to put this child at risk and I know it. Something's going to happen and it's going to be my fault and Wanda's going to hate me and never want to speak to me again."

"Hey, Claire, look at me." Tony states firmly and Claire looks up at him, taking a deep breath to calm herself down. "You're going to be an amazing parent. Nothing's going to go wrong, okay? Dreykov is dead, the red room was taken down and HYDRA hasn't been active for years. You're safe, Wanda's safe, your child is safe."

"I know... I just can't help but feel like something's off. I know it's off."

"How?" Tony asks and he could see the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. She was nervous to tell him. "Claire, you can tell me anything, I won't tell anyone. All I want to do is be able to help you and I can't do that if you don't let me."

He could see Claire debating it before she just shook her head, walking out of the room and leaving him standing there, looking at where she had once been standing. He sighs, scratching his head as he thinks about the conversation he just had with her. She was obviously hiding something, and that something was going to tear her apart from the inside if she didn't tell someone. The team had figured out throughout the years that Claire was a very private person. She didn't like to accept help, even from Wanda. Since Wanda was her wife, she would tell her more than she would Natasha, Yelena or the rest of the group, but still not enough for them to be able to help her.

Now, with whatever was bugging Claire, Tony was afraid it was going to consume her. He was afraid she was going to go off the rails again and endanger herself. He knew the red room was gone, they had killed the last of the members and the red room girls had all been released from the mind control. So if it wasn't the red room that was scaring Claire, then what was it?

***

Claire stood in the common kitchen, making herself a cup of coffee after leaving the training room. After making it, she took a seat by the windows and sipped her coffee, watching Steve and Bucky run around the compound, laughing and racing each other.

She lost track of time, gazing off and getting lost in her own mind and soon enough the two super soldiers were walking in and talking to her. "Morning, Claire."