Bed of Roses [N. Romanoff]

Chapter 2.7

"Five years ago, I had a heart attack."

Bailey pushed her chair a little further from the conference table, leaning into her seat as she tried to block Secretary Ross's view from her sight using Wanda as a shield. She sat on the middle, left hand side of the table, directly across from Natasha.

The two of them could stare at one another and block out his words for a few seconds at a time before it became too suspicious to the egotistical Secretary.

He raised his arms above his right shoulder, "And dropped right in the middle of my backswing. Turned out it was the best round of my life because after 13 hours of surgery and a triple bypass... I found something 40 years in the Army had never taught me. Perspective."

Everyone around Bax fidgeting slightly in their seat, leaning backwards or forwards, looking around the room, anything. They would all rather be doing anything else than spend their afternoon sitting and listening to this Old Man tell another story about how he almost died, and his life changed in that lesson. But somehow, they truly found themselves drawn to this particular story. It might've been because of their most recent defeat they needed some uplifting, it also might've been that for once he was speaking a language they understood, trauma stories.

"The world owes the Avengers an unpayable debt," Nat briefly looked back to her, and Bailey shared the same look at how boringly slow he spoke, "You have fought for us..." he nodded his head in thanks, "Protected us, risked your lives... but while a great many people see you as heroes... there are some... who would prefer the word 'vigilantes'."

"And what word would you use, Mr Secretary?" Nat sweetly asked, sitting straight up in her chair like she was trained to do so from a young age. She held a smirk on her face that didn't shout that this was for business sake, but for the sake of pulling a leg or pocking a bone.

"How about 'dangerous'?" he looked up to meet her eyes. "What would you call a group of US-based, enhanced individuals who routinely ignore sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose and who, frankly, seem unconcerned about what they leave behind?"

Ross's eyes fluttered across the room, watching every person's expression and trying to come out as intimidating in order for no one to dare answer. What made Bailey spike enough courage to want to respond, was the locked jaw Steve held as he bit back his own tongue.

"I would call them 'Paladins'," she jabbed, responding to the rhetorical question.

His head immediately snapped over to her direction, not trusting his ears that her voice had been heard.

He stared at her, then took a few steps backwards towards the presentation he had set up. Bailey's team watched her as she stuck her eyes glued to him, challenging whatever he chose to do next to try shut her up. No one could predict what Ross held up his sleeve, but it wasn't comforting to think about it either.