Budapest » [Clintasha]

Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Mocking Bird

"Where's 'at?" I sputtered like an old car exhaust, voice strained and struggled, oxygen was being wrung out of me, and I went limp.

"So far away that she can't help your sorry ass. Now fight back, Barton!" She heckled, my hackles high.

I gave one final wriggle, flapping my legs before flopping back to the mat. "I give up. You win. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Relenting, she dismounted me and released my arm, her ruthless resolve fraying. Bobbi wasn't cruel by nature, beating me up or not.

"No that's not..." She breathed, folding her legs under her and resting on her heels. "I just want you to have some self-confidence, Barton..." Motherly concern was written across her face, too eerie an echo of the only person who ever cared for me. Her voice had all the tender tones of a harp, and her artful words strummed my heartstrings with mercy.

~

"Sentiment is the biggest distraction in the field," the dreary professor spouted the doctrine with apathy, an apathy that I found antipathetic. Hairs sweeping in a silvery swathe on his sweat-sheened head, I supposed age had eroded his enthusiasm, and whittled his vocal range down to only one tone; inflection a thing of the past. "Friends, foes, they're all equally dangerous to your mission... I'd even postulate that your friend is the biggest liability."

The room toasty and his monotone words enveloping me like a blanket, I had to fidget to stay awake. And eventually, even twanging a ruler got boring, and I was elbowed by Hartley hard enough to bruise, so I stopped.

"Your friend falls..? First rule, don't be a hero: you have a job to complete, and it's not up to you to make calls on what's morally right or wrong-" I glanced at Phil Coulson who was sympathetically smiling at Doctor Pym, his head cocked attentively. God knows how he could look so inspired. "-because at the end of the day, you're expendable. We all are. Facts and figures in files..." His jaw ticked. "Don't go trying to pull of stunts and save the day. This isn't like one of those espionage movies all you kids are watching these days; it won't pay off... This isn't fiction. This is reality." He angrily pounded a fist on the desk and I snapped bolt upright, like a soldier caught dozing during role call.

He paced, the steam he'd pent up diffusing with the mindless wandering.

Outburst or not, Doctor Pym's lectures still weren't interesting. And I was struck with an idea. I dipped my hand into my pencil case-

"I'm not saying don't make friends. Companionship is what keeps us sane; humans are social creatures. But don't get too attached in this line of work. People can be there... Then be gone... All in the blink of an eye: which is why my daughter isn't going to be entering the business any day soon. And furthermore, that's why all relationships with your coworkers are strictly prohibited, nothing good can come of hormonal teenage flings-"

-And withdrew three chewed and stubby pencils, with blunted tips and splintered points. Arranging them into a V, with another pencil bisecting it-

"-and I don't expect any complaints. You all knew what you were signing up to... Or if you didn't, now you do. If you don't like it, now is your chance to leave. But enemies! Enemies..! Where was I?"

-and started winding some gnarly and aged sellotape around the pencils; the plastic film bunching up in the angles between pencils-

"An even more wicked vice is to fraternise with the enemy, which I don't expect any of you are stupid enough to do-"

-and the contraption held. Stringing the elastic band between the points of my pencils, I had constructed a make-shift catapult. I feld a piece of paper around the band, and shut one eye, aiming surreptitiously at the blonde two rows in front-