Avengers: Altruism [N. Romanoff]

36. All's Fair in Love and War

Her following conversation was equally unpleasant. A minute alone to inspect her findings was non-negotiable, especially with an assassin tracking your every move. Claire's ability to hide in the shadows was majorly short-lived, as all Natasha needed to do was wait for her at the main exit of the helicarrier. Why she didn't think to go anywhere else, well, she blamed it on her lack of expertise in espionage. Perhaps she would take Fury up on his offer ... someday.
The sight of the dark red hair, like a blood stain on a white sheet, blew up the air in her chest. The atmosphere grew hotter around her, and she felt stuck in a fever dream- like walking through water. It was extremely painful to approach the agent, but an intriguing burn drew her closer and closer.
"I have things to explain," Natasha started.
"I have things to do," she snapped back, shuffling her bag to come between the two. She knew Natasha was an expert at body language and the agent stepped back in response.
"I have some time on my hands, I'll come with," she offered.
'Take a hint', Claire thought to herself. Though she'd never voice it, because deep down her subconscious couldn't accept what she really wanted.
"That wasn't an offer," she dodged.
"I wasn't asking."
They stared at each other, amber eyes against a dark green. A quiet, kind of beautifully natural green. A meadow green, Claire romanticised.
The blonde sighed, "Agent Romanoff, I can't condone a friendship between us. Consider my professional reputation within SHIELD, we have to be careful of how our relationship is perceived by those around us. This is strictly two colleagues passing by in the hallway."
"You don't have a job anymore ..." the red head trailed off, the words piercing into Claire's heart.
"You can't prove that," she bit back defensively.
"Considering I was the one who signed off your contract, I can in fact prove that you don't have a job anymore."
Natasha gave her a pointed look, a type of raised eyebrow that she knew cut through any man's dignity. From the way she stood, her feet shoulder width apart, back hung off a single shoulder, hands in her pockets. This was non-negotiable.
"You're stubborn," Claire huffed, her resolve slipping.
"I have things to explain," the justification flew out of her mouth quicker than the first attempt.
"You have the walk to my car to talk," Claire didn't wait for a response, and made her way through the largest underground warehouse SHIELD ran.
Said walk had never lasted so long before, the usual six-minute walk, and twenty second elevator ride had turned to what felt like hours.
"Claire," her voice deepened, yet still so soft, "I'm so proud of you, after the whole... battle. You really held your-"
"Romanoff," she interrupted, clearly drawing her boundary, "I understand what you did today, I am by no means downplaying your successes. You did good, you figured it out-"
"We did," Natasha corrected, risking a small smile which was not returned.
"I know closing the portal was for the best. But he- Tony," she stammered, earlier emotions creeping back up her throat, "he was still out there. He could have died, he almost died. We had no way of knowing..."
Natasha's guilt settled hard on her chest. She knew Claire's close relationship with Tony was risky, she was aware the thought of losing him would cause her unnecessary pain, pain she would never intend on causing. Especially not for Claire, after all this time.
"I'm... I'm sorry. We didn't, I didn't, know whether that would have worked, whether Selvig was being truthful. But regardless, it was a chance I had to take."
The therapist took in the explanation and noted especially the pause during its delivery. Someone who is usually so clinical and precise in manner, was now stammering out an explanation that almost sounded sincere. It was as if within the complexity of the agent's mind her emotional intelligence suddenly hijacked the driver's seat.
As they reached the car, Claire turned to her, eyes only an inch apart in height difference, "Natasha," she met in the middle, "I want you to know I don't resent you closing that portal... at least, not anymore. I can be a little too hard with my emotions, I realise that, and I acknowledge that this was a matter of one life, versus billions. You did what was right in that moment, I just.... I don't know how, that's frustrating me."
"You don't know how?" Natasha waited for the doctor to unlock her car, but Claire was frozen in place seemingly frozen in a faraway thought.
"I..." she wanted to tell her, how she tried to hypnotise Natasha, but some people don't take to being manipulated out of choice lightly.
"I'm here, to help you deal with the aftermath, any guilt," she settled with instead.
"You don't know half a story about guilt," her eyes darkened.
"What, I can't try?" Claire knew she had no clue about the past, about who this woman was before she was Agent Romanoff. Admittedly, she deeply wanted to know.
"You don't try. You do the things I do, and next thing it's always sitting there- forever. It sits with you every time you do anything afterwards, you- you live in it."
Claire's features softened. She wanted to take Natasha's hands in hers, feel the rushing floods of relief, the familiar calming buzz of electric waves. she wanted to understand her own powers and make sense of how Nat threw comfort like it was a mere blanket to protect her from the harsh cold.
"All's fair in love and war, I guess."
Claires ears rang the saying Natasha had muttered over and over, unable to hear any background sound for a good few seconds after that.
"We both have to move forward... we can't get stuck on the bad, you were a hero today." Natasha laughed at that word, 'hero'. Claire knew nothing when she said it, she had made that up in her mind already. Yet, despite the laugh, her eyes were still glassy the more she listened to Claire speak.
"It should have been me," Claire pipped, a thought she never even realised she was having, "closing the portal... it should've been me."
"No," Nat sympathised, she knew Claire didn't understand the kind of guilt she sat with, but that never meant she wanted the therapist to ever find out through her own experiences.
"Not at all. That was my only use up there, on that roof. You did so much already, with Selvig, with the machine. You were never expected to..."
Never expected. No one ever expects her to step up, and she knew why, she was quite obviously the Avengers weak link. She knew that; they all knew that. Why couldn't Natasha just say that already.
She laughed to not cry. She laughed to not actually give her a response. Claire knew that very private people have mastered the art of telling you little about themselves, but in such a way that made you think you knew everything.
She didn't need Nat to know anything. Not about how riddled with guilt she was knowing she was the reason SHIELD lost Mesmero, why they couldn't find him again. She didn't need Nat to know that she'd had a lapse in hypnotic judgement, and during that discovered that she couldn't use her powers on the spy anymore.
There was too much she needed to keep in the dark, and the more she stood there in the harshly lit parking garage, not giving a response, the more Natasha realised she was not in fact helping.
Claire made the next move, she wrapped her arms around Natasha and they both gave a small squeeze. The doctor's eyes began to sting a little, the exhaustion running through her like icy wind. Her thoughts had swirled in her mind, overwhelming her, not letting a single one come out they were all running too fast. So she jumped to the easiest fix, and this touch bond was that very scapegoat. The calm fell over and through her, almost as quickly as she felt it run though Natasha. The hug began stiff, the tightness of Nat's muscles in her shoulders and back evident, to which Claire soothingly laid her hand flat against.
But then they both melted with an exhale, getting their fix of relief, and then promptly pulling apart.
"Uh, Thank you," the agent watched her pull away, feeling lighter in the clouds. "We, uh, call it friends?"
"I could use a friend," Claire played along. She wanted to get out of the awkward space as soon as she could, and hustled their goodbyes along. "Come on, get out of here before aliens invade."
"I'll give Stark your regards," the redhead assured Claire that in her absence, Stark would not feel neglected.
But still Natasha lingered nearby.
"You don't need a lift?" Claire bit her lip, almost instantly regretting the offer.
"Uh," Natasha looked around. Her car was about four rows back. She looked back to Claire standing at the door to her car, "Sure. You know Amsterdam Avenue and West 103?"
Natasha watched as the therapist impatiently weaved in and out of New York traffic. It was rush hour and thinking back to the last time Claire's motor skills were called upon, perhaps she should've walked those extra four rows back to her own car. She gave her seatbelt an extra tug to be sure.
However, the cause of today's traffic jam served only as a painful reminder to the pair. They made slow progress, passing countless apartment blocks, the scars from earliers battle still fresh. Countless civilians milling about on the streets, displaced by the wreckage, trying to salvage what they could from their homes. Claire locked eyes with a dark-haired girl who couldn't have been more than ten-years old, clutching on to the hem of her mother's shirt. The girl's eyes flashed with recognition and Claire was faced with the sudden realization that she, along with the rest of the Avengers team and SHIELD were liable for the destruction to the city.
The blonde shook her head, dismissing the thought before it could grab ahold of her once again. Her passenger took this as a cue to begin conversing.
"Sooo," the redhead began, drumming her fingers on the dash, "are you thinking of going back into doing close up magic at kids parties again or ..."
This caused the blonde's eyebrows to deeply furrow and she was about to question it when Nat quickly added, "it's definitely a much safer line of work."
"Agent Romanoff, I don't think we're quite at that point in our friendship where we should be doing small talk ... and also- did you look me up?"
The spy nodded, opting to strategically ignore that last bit.
"How're your folks doing with all that's happened, I'm sure it's been a lot to take in."
Before Claire could point out that was still small talk, her phone lit up and began blaring the lyrics to "You Shook Me All Night Long". She usually waited for the drum solo to play before picking up but now she welcomed the interruption. 
"Claire I know you're probably super busy with everything that's going on but just really quickly right how do you get the milk all frothy like when you make coffee because we're over at mom's and she was saying how she could really use a nice calming cup of coffee and you make the best cups of coffee and so I needed some guidance." The voice of Claire's sister bombarded her from the other end of the line. She took a breath for the both of them.
"Cassia, aliens just descended from the sky and you're calling to inquire about milk frothiness," she stated exasperatedly, questioning how they were related once more.
Natasha sat beside her, an amused expression on her face as she watched the exchange play out.
"Sorry about that," Claire sighed, having ended the call and pulling to a stop outside the red-brick building Nat had directed her to.
"No it's ... nice. It's a good piece of normalcy to have with everything happening," the spy stated. "No matter how utterly ridiculous it may seem sometimes, hold on to that," she added wistfully.
She lingered a second longer, the small urge to share a bit more building inside her, but ultimately deciding against it. They had decided to start again and build their relationship anew and Natasha was determined not to reopen old wounds.
She settled for a warm smile and thanked Claire for the lift. The therapist watched the lean, redheaded figure of Natasha Romanoff disappear into the building, finally alone,  the paper in her jean-jacket pocket suddenly feeling like an anvil.
The woman left many thoughts jumping around her head, making the drive a lot less easy to concentrate on. The crumpled paper in her jacket was stored in a back draw in her mind, pocketed for another day, for another worry. She forgot she had to drive to her mom's to settle and relax, she forgot her own name for a second. What she never forgot was that whatever she did next, she hoped Natasha would be a part of it; for she needed a friend to teach her that at the end of the hardest days of your life, All's Fair in Love and War.

And another chapter to honour the brilliant co-author raeesah_khan02 !!
Happy Birthday Rae, just wait till they see what we've got up our sleeves.

Leave your comments below! We love interactions.

Soon to be published on AO3.