Reality in Motion

a daily limit of embarrassment

All it took was one week for everything to get royally fucked up. Her graphs, her charts, her notepad - all of it was ruined. Their progress had slammed to a screeching stop and then turned around and started going back in the direction they had started. It was like the past two months had been completely erased. And she was frustrated.

It didn't matter that his level of comfortability had been trending upward, or that his moods had positively leveled - only having small dips, normal dips, or that he actually maybe considered them friends. None of it mattered anymore. They were right back to where they had started, but somehow it was worse than it was in beginning because of the significant progress that had been made before their argument.

The shift was undeniable, practically palpable, and almost immediate. After their argument, she noticed a major dip in her graphs and charts, which she figured was just as a reaction to the argument. Sharon had told her about the hole in his wall and she had even seen it for herself. That was a clear reaction to the argument, a physical one. But then her graphs and charts had held steady. He had settled there - becoming apparent in both her graphs and her interactions with him.

Their talks had become tense and serious, but also uninformative and useless. She wasn't getting anything important out of him. Just when he was starting to open up a bit more, somehow their argument caused him to draw back. He started calling her Agent again (even if they weren't in the Triskelion) and answering her questions with one word answers (even though he knew she didn't like it). She understood why he was acting like he was - no one liked being yelled at or told off in a way that made them take a second look at their actions, but she couldn't help but take it personally. Like it was his way of punishing her for yelling at her.

As a reaction, she acted just as he was with her: serious and professional. She saw him in the mornings, talked with him before his training sessions with Natasha, then didn't see him again until that night where they had a brief conversation and then she left. They barely spent four hours together nowadays and only about two of them were spent actually talking. Her graphs and charts were suffering, which made her frustrated; there was a clear fix, but it was currently a last resort. She hoped that time would've healed all wounds by now, but it had been a week and she was getting impatient. Which wasn't good when paired with frustration.

Still, she kept her emotions to herself. Cap was doing the same, even if the graphs reflected what was truly going on inside. She didn't comment either, just silently fuming to herself every time she imported the data and saw how nothing positively changed. Part of her wanted him to apologize first; he had made the mistake which caused the argument. Another part of her knew she needed to apologize first; she shouldn't have yelled at him like that. And yet, nothing happened - except her graphs and charts kept getting worse.

"Hey, suit!" Agent Romanoff's voice rang out across the gym, getting Q to look up from her crossword puzzle, "Wanna jump in?" she asked, eyebrows raising, tongue pushing her cheek out.

Every single day for the past few weeks, Agent Romanoff asked Q if she wanted to spar with her. There were different variations of the question, but the theme remained the same. And each time, Q denied her offer, not wanting to take the time away from Cap. She was content with working on her crossword puzzle until they were finished. It gave her something to focus on rather than the guilt and frustration of what had been going on between her and him. And when she was stuck on a clue, she would take the time to watch Agent Romanoff's interactions with him, learning more about her without directly interacting with her herself.

For as confident as Agent Romanoff appeared, Q noticed that underneath it all she was just trying to impress Cap. She was trying to prove to him that she was a good person to have by his side. Show him that she was valuable as a partner and also as a friend. God, she was so desperate for friends - living a life as a SHIELD spy had to be a lonely one.