Unexpected

Work First, Then Play

So there I was, Agent Penelope Copper of S.H.I.E.L.D., a.k.a. the Catalyst, sitting at my desk in my little office space with my heels kicked off haphazardly at the foot of my rolly chair, my blouse and hair vaguely rumpled up from the impromptu sparring match I had with Captain America. I had now tried to fix up my appearance, but then gave up after a few fruitless minutes in front of one of the women's bathroom's mirrors. I'd noticed a rip in my slacks along the back of my left calf, a long one. Apparently I was going shopping then. Starring at the computer screen, my mind whirled with Spanish conjugations as I typed up a translation of a message sent from an apparent asset from Argentina, which was difficult considering that his original language is Argentinian, so the message's grammar was hard to understand.

My extra energy had worn away after I had spent a good ten minutes doing jumping jacks as I skimmed over several of the communications I was supposed to translate. Since I had been away in France for several days on the Broussard mission, unable to devote much time to this facet of my job, the work had started piling up. Apparently Agent Faraway was conducting the interrogations on Blanc, but I wasn't thinking about that now. I was too busy trying to figure out what in the world "caer como peludo de regalo" was supposed to mean because the literal translation into English came out to be something like "Fall as furry as a gift"

With a sigh I decided to pull up a credible Argentinian slang dictionary. I was just piecing together that the slang phrase somehow referred to unwanted, unexpected guests, there came a knock at my door. Confused, since I expected to be basically left alone for the rest of the evening, it took me a second before I figured I should say 'enter'.

Nat strolled in right away,smirking a 'hey' before plopping down in the seat across from me.

"Not trying to get me in trouble with Fury again, are you?"

"Course not." She laughed, her gaze flicking around my office, "What'cha working on?"

"It's confidential." I muttered. It felt weird to be telling this super spy that something was 'confidential', but I really had no clearance to tell her. She just nodded though, and there was silence between us, and it totally weirded me out. I was pretty comfortable around Nat now, she was my trainer, taught me all I knew about S.H.I.E.L.D. really, and I could count her as a friend and ally, but we never really just sat around. Why had she come to my office anyways? "Is there anything I could, I don't know, do for you?"

She pursed her lips before looking down at her fingernails that she was rubbing together a bit, strange behavior for her, "No, it's just, what happened earlier-"

"When you and Barton goaded me into having a sparring brawl with Steve while I was wearing slacks?" I interupted with a teasing smile, "It's fine, I'm not embarrassed at all, except that I have a rip along my left leg now, so-"

"No, not that. I still think that was funny." She quirked her eyebrow to indicate her joking tone, " I mean, before that, about the scepter."

Suddenly I went quitet, my thoughts and a small numb mound formed in the base of my stomach, sad and upset and confused and worried, like a tiny new, beating, temperature-less organ sitting below my stomach. "Oh, that."

"I just wanted to apologize." She said after a few eternity-long seconds, "I kept that from you, and you and Barton have the most right out of anyone to know what's going on with that thing after all you've been through with it, and you shouldn't have been kept out of the loop."

"It's fine. I wasn't given clearance, I get it, it was your job to keep that secret-" I said quickly, waving my hand to try to wipe it all under the bridge as I felt the worry, the questions start dissolving my train of thought.