Avengers: Altruism [N. Romanoff]

11. Red Lollipops

CHAPTER 11
Red Lollipops

Have you ever lost your breath completely? Not from singing too loud at a concert, not from screaming for your teammates from the side-line, but purely lost your voice, a loss for words in general. On a rare occasion, Claire wouldn't have a witty comeback, she would stay in her lane, but the woman would rather step out and take control over a situation. Phil Coulson was annoyed by that fact that she constantly got herself into his business, he called it nosey but she called it 'lending a helping hand'.

But never once in her life, until this specific day, had Claire felt as if she had forgotten her very own first language. She had lost her voice; it was far away, in a different country, maybe city, or even on an entirely different planet, she supposed that she would never find it again. It was all because she underestimated Tony Stark.

The day begun as a surprise, at the very beginning she was already left doubting her opinion on Mr Stark, or maybe she knew deep down that hypnosis was very, very, powerful.

She sat at the edge of the kitchen counter, too afraid to be lonely at the large dining table, with a single cup of tea warming up her hands. She was able to catch the ending of a sunrise above the metallic blue water, a quick reminder that she was not at home. Simba had been left in her room, locked away with a comfortable bed and food. She was too afraid of the cat going a-wol because of being in a completely new environment, wide and open unlike anything he had been raised in.

The magic voice of the house had tried speaking to her, JARVIS, but she wasn't quite comfortable with getting a reply from nothing just yet. It was crazy, all of a sudden sitting in the kitchen of the world's best-known billionaire, someone she had been assigned to, and someone she was supposed to hack into, recall all their memories and figure out what makes them tick.

Clearly her job was only beginning. She anticipated the soft steps on the staircase, expecting maybe a woman, Pepper? No, Mr Stark had been placed under a trance, he was stuck in her mind manipulation. Thanks to her hypnotic show yesterday, he was walking up the steps at exactly 7 a.m.

He had been underneath her, in the basement, working on who knows what, but the impact she had made on him had drawn him away from the mechanics, and up the stairs to talk about 'feelings'. He didn't believe anything had changed with him yesterday, feeling no different and only recalling the joke of a sandwich, yet here he was.

"Do you regularly eat lollipops for breakfast?"

Claire looked down to the spherical red candy that laid on the counter next to her. It was one of her methods, stolen from the doctor's office you could say, and it was all part of her plan.

"It's an addiction," which was true, it was her favourite candy, "you want?"

"Why not?" Tony agreed, coming to take a seat next to her, unwrapping the ball of candy and popping into his mouth.