Jaimie Solace and the Unavoidable Affliction of Love

Chapter Four

It was surprising how many members of the Avengers had time for an impromptu checkup. Bucky had apparently pretty efficiently spread the words, because after Steve came Tony, then Sam, then Wanda (accompanied by Vision, who apparently was curious as to what a check-up actually was), After that was Spider-Man, who Jaimie still didn't know the real identity of, not that she minded. He was nice, really talkative, but Jaimie was a little concerned over how obviously young he was. But she knew it wasn't her place to start anything over that unless she really felt she had to.

Clint came in after that, and Jaimie had been excited to have a chance to talk to him, as their interaction had been pretty limited until now. She was curious about him, and although it was very possible he was just a mortal who was crazy good at archery, Jaimie had a bet going with Will that he was a legacy of Apollo and she really wanted to win. But she didn't get a chance to talk to him much, because he was about as talkative as a stone wall.

Jaimie found that odd, because when she observed him interacting with the team before he had been friendly enough. So either he was just having a bad day, or it was something personal. Either way, Jaimie left it alone. It was important in her job as the team's general physician to make sure that they're comfortable with her, and if Clint didn't feel comfortable enough talking then she wasn't going to force it.

The reason Clint was so cautious was because he couldn't for the life of him understand why Natasha had been so immediately accepting. Clint worked with Nat for years, and they were good friends, so Clint knew that she was fiercely protective of her friends, which included Bruce. Clint had watched Nat's process when vetting the potential lab assistants, and it had been vicious. Resume after resume was thrown out because of even the most minor of offences. But then Jaimie Solace was hired seemingly in an instant. And not only that, but Natasha seemed to forget that she was maybe the most suspicious person ever, and basically became best friends with the woman. And she was trying (succeeding) to set Jaimie up with Bruce? Something was off about that.

Maybe not that they had become friends, necessarily, Jaimie was actually incredibly nice and Clint could see the two women getting along and being good friends. It was that somehow Jaimie had completely bypassed the usual suspicion that would have followed anyone else until Natasha was absolutely sure that Jaimie could be trusted. Clint found this incredibly weird, and until he could be sure that nothing weird was going on he would continue to be suspicious.

Jaimie didn't realize any of this, but she did know that Clint was technically a spy and suspicion was bound to be a part of his life, so she didn't really worry about his cold demeanor all that much. She would get him to like her, eventually.

The last person that was on her list for check-ups was Nat, but at this time it was already after dinnertime and Jaimie was hungry and tired. It was likely that Nat was busy, and she wasn't expecting to be able to see everyone today, anyways. And if Jaimie was being honest, there was another Avenger that she wanted to be talking to at the moment.

She hadn't seen Bruce since she kissed him this morning, having basically a revolving door in her office of Avengers. She had heard him head out of the lab a few moments before Clint had walked in, and she assumed he had gone up to his suite on the Avengers floor.

Although Jaimie technically had access to those floors, she didn't know if it would be weird if she were to go and knock on Bruce's door. Should she text him and invite him to her apartment or did that seem too much like she was propositioning him or something? Did he even want to talk to her, or did he regret what happened?

Jaimie sighed, letting her head fall heavily onto her desk. This was too complicated. She knew they liked each other a lot, and gods did she enjoy kissing him. But did he even want a relationship? Did she? Was it even a good idea if they did? Jaimie didn't know, and she had never really been good at going with the flow.