Bed of Roses [N. Romanoff]

Chapter 2.3

Natasha Romanoff smiled at the scene unfolding in front of her as she watched a woman with white hair slam her elbow into the side of a punching bag.

She had noticed the amount of times Bailey had visited the gym in a day, twice or even thrice, and staying for a good two hours. She would make her way across the floor, testing out all the equipment, lost in her own little bubble.

She would hum to herself as she lifted weights, dance around the punching bag as she hyped herself up, try to teach herself new tricks with a knife (only to end up spilling a little blood and pretending nothing happened), and not keeping still when she went to meditation lessons.

Bailey Baxter was Nat's entertainment every day.

The two couldn't fight against one another in a sparring match because they'd get too mesmerised by the others body movements, and they definitely irritated the rest of the team when training because Bax would send winks to Nat, only for the Red-Head to roll her eyes and hit harder. No one liked being on the receiving end of Nat when Bax was feeling flirty.

If there was one thing for sure, Nat would never allow Bailey to train in an enclosed space where six walls would stare back at her just to haunt her with an image of the past. She made sure there was space, she made sure Bax was calm, and she definitely made sure that when she trained her phasing powers that she was completely comfortable. Nat has self-diagnosed Bailey as Claustrophobic.

They worked together like an unspoken team, just assuming what the other was feeling. For a majority of the time, they were right. Bailey knew when Nat was irritated or needed to get away from Tony as soon as possible, and Nat knew whenever Bax grew quite or let a smile slip for a split second that she wasn't in the correct mind-set.

"When would one even need to know how to free themselves from ropes using just a battery and chip packet?" a voice broke the silence in frustration, and Bailey punched harder at the hanging bag.

"Steve seems to think it happens on a daily basis. That guy needs a new hobby then," she hit harder, using all her shoulder muscles as she lent more forward.

Natasha tried not to laugh at the woman who was letting out her frustration from her tactics lessons with Steve. A lesson where she would google up videos for them to watch, and he would proceed to the physical way of learning by actually practising it themselves. Then he made her teach it to Wanda. It was a lot to do just to please one 90-year-old.

When Nat turned around to leave the area, satisfied with her hourly routine of checking up on one of her closest friends, Bax turned her own body to watch the Red-hair retreating. She smiled to herself, fully aware that the assassin had been there the entire time.

She pretends to be busy, not noticing Nat when she comes to watch her.

Truth is, Bailey didn't want Nat to figure out what she had been working on.