"Evening."
Her endeavor for calm and quiet had always pushed her to stay away from crowds, from noisy people and places. She would much rather listen to the soft drops of rain hitting the fragile surface of her window, than anything related to hard rock music, for example. Thus it explained that strange expression of hers when she walked in, discomfort contorting the usual blankness of her face.
Too loud. Too much percussion. Too fast. The electric guitar is too intense... How does Clint enjoy that? Humans are strange.
"Can you turn down the music a bit?"
It was a classic AC/DC song, Hyunjae could only recognize it after she had been forced to listen to Clint's music taste on an unfortunate summer afternoon— she might have broken his laptop that same afternoon, using her powers... But understand her! There was a heat wave that day. She was already overwhelmed by the temperatures, and her sweaty skin, and her clothes that fit too tightly.
It was because of that day that Hyunjae developed a sort of reticence towards rock music. Blame it on Clint.
"Why? It's AC/DC!"
"I'm going to become deaf at this rate."
"You must be so much fun at parties."
Due to her perfect pitch and hearing, Hyunjae felt a deep kind of aversion towards clubs, people screaming like dying ducks, and hotel rooms with thin walls.
"Cool, because I don't go to parties." Hyunjae managed to pull a stiff smile onto her face, though it wasn't sincere at all, "Now, turn it down or I'm leaving."
"Party pooper." He deadpanned.
What a sweet interaction, don't ya think?
"JARVIS, lower the volume." He said after sighing dramatically, wiping his hands with a tissue covered in oil that he threw onto his desk, carelessly. And then he, once again, dramatically spun around in his stool to stand up, and opened his arms a little eccentrically, "Shin... greetings. Been waiting for you." He declared, coming closer to, yet again, dramatically welcome his guest.
"Get to the point." But with yet another aversion towards strangers— in this case, co-workers— attempting to set any kind of physical contact with her, Hyunjae halted him by raising her hand and letting her eyes flicker in blue, her tone as cold as this color inspired.
Yes. This was enough to stop the grand Tony Stark.
But it wasn't enough to make his facade crumble.
So he turned away and went to pick up a bag of candies instead, gobbling one right away, "Want some?"
Hyunjae, who had been taking her marks in this unknown environment, snapped her eyes back on Tony's figure and stared at him for a second, before her gaze trailed down to eye the small package of candies. He couldn't decipher her expressions even if he studied kinesics, so he couldn't know that she enjoyed sweet things. The problem was, she wasn't fond of accepting it.
Not from half-strangers. Not from co-workers. The only food she had ever accepted was from the Bartons, though it hadn't even been with her own free will. As for Natasha, she was out of the equation because, well, it's Natasha. Hyunjae was almost blindly trusting her, and if anybody asked her about that trust, it was one which she would still need an explanation for.
So Hyunjae shook her head, making sure that no signals could slip off from her body language and facial expressions. If she had struggled so hard for a while to accept the meals so kindly prepared by Laura and Clint, Hyunjae wasn't about to take a mouthful of those candies offered by Tony, not anytime soon. Perhaps even never.
YOU ARE READING
Free Soul | Natasha Romanoff
Fanfiction"I'd give up the whole damn Universe for you." The Ghost of the East had lost all will to search for a small grass field and a few red roses to hug her trapped soul. So she had turned to the path of killing, because it was all she had known. Yet, s...
