The Irony of it All

13

The day finally came for the meeting with “F”. Clint knew something was up. She was acting differently, eating differently, acting like she’d been starved, but suddenly losing her appetite. So when Natasha snuck into his room at 7 a.m. and looked to make sure he was still asleep, he stayed as still as possible and made his breathing even. When she was sure he was fast asleep, she snuck out of the apartment. Clint waited a few moments before jumping out of bed fully dressed and following. 

    Instead of taking the elevator, which she was most likely on at the moment, Clint ran down the stairs as quickly as possible and jumped over the railing on the second the floor, reaching the first floor with a muffled thud as he rolled to lessen his impact. He came into the lobby through the door that read “EXIT”, and trained his eyes for any sign of her. There. He caught a glimpse of red hair under a baseball cap outside the sliding doors. 

    As he followed her through the streets, and onto the subway, and then back on the streets, he made sure to keep a good distance between them. He was considered a master spy, but Nat was ten times better than he was. He had to be extra careful for her not to notice him. The good thing was, even from the distance, Clint could pick up on the subtle signs that she was preoccupied with something, What that was, he didn’t know. 

    She crossed 8th Ave. in the Garment District and walked into a large building with the words “Wyndham Hotel”. He waited until he was sure she would have made it into the elevator before following. He took his phone out of his pocket and jogged up to the front desk. Pointing to the elevator with his phone subtly, he said, “Excuse me ma’am. My wife just passed through here, she has red hair and a baseball cap. She left her phone in the car.”

    “Ah, yes. She’s visiting room 317. That would be on the fourth floor.”

    “Thanks,” he said before quickly making his way to the elevator. He watched as the floor numbers popped up in the red pixels on the screen above his head as he passed each one. As the elevator jolted to a stop, he vaguely wondered what he was going to do or say now. How would she respond as he knocked on the door of room 317? It soon became apparent that he wouldn’t even get to door 317 to meet Natasha because as soon as he stepped out of the elevator, he spotted her leaning against the wall at the end of the hall. 

    There was no going back, and there was no where to hide, so he stuffed his hands in his pockets and made his way over to her. She was leaning her back against the wall, head in her hands. He was surprised it took her as long as it did for her to notice the presence of someone else and look up. 

    “Clint?” Her back straightened immediately. “What are you doing here?”

    “Visiting a friend. I could ask you the same thing,” He lied easily, though, he supposed it carried a lot of truth. 

    “You followed me,”  she accused, bristling. “You pretended to be asleep, jumped out of bed fully clothed, followed me, and got the lady at the front desk to tell you which floor I was on by pretending to be my husband and using your phone to pretend I’d left mine behind! Didn’t you?”

    He had the decency to look slightly ashamed at that. “That’s...uh...That’s awfully specific...and amazingly precise…” 

    “Please. You’re awfully predictable. I should of known you’d pull something like this. How’d you know I was even meeting someone today?” He was a master liar. You had to be, to be a spy. He looked at her levely, not giving anything away. Unfortunately, Natasha could read even the best of spies like an open book. “You read my texts.” He choked and guffawed. 

    “How do you do that?!” Instead of replying, she clocked him roughly in the shoulder, making him groan in pain as he reached his uninjured arm up to comfort the aching bone and muscle. That was definitely going to bruise.