The Unquiet Thought, Interlude 6
Watch yourselves, the end is in sight.
Interlude (Natasha)
She gets into the habit of taking walks to a small grocery nearby.
It started by accident; she had entered on a whim thinking he liked these, and trailed to the snack aisle, stopping and staring at the racks. An hour later, time lost that she does not remember, she leaves. Her eyes are not wet, but when she passes the old foreign woman behind the counter reaches out to pat her hand.
She cried once, hidden away in the bowels of the carrier, but afterwards he was still dead. She stood up and wiped her face, tucked the emotion away, and then did what needed to be done.
One day she comes back to the tower with a package of small chocolate covered donuts. She eats one and leaves the rest on the table, still in the wrapper. They’re there at dinner when Clint walks in.
He walks back out.
-
Just like most things that bother her recently (“Unmaking a person and putting them back together to make them useful, how is this different from Natasha?”) it begins with Stark.
-
Natasha is unsure how she feels about Loki.
In the grand scheme of things, since his realignment he has done very little of note. His time is spent observing, learning. She shadows him, committing everything that he is to memory. If he were to go off-grid then she needs to know what he has to work with. JARVIS allows her free reign of the tower without being asked.
She has considered Clint’s paranoia, been hyper vigilant in a way that ensured no one else realized she cared at all. She has considered that Loki’s behavior might be an act made to lull them into complacency.
She has watched and she cannot believe as Clint does.
Stark takes his hand and helps Loki relearn himself. Little by little gathering up the broken pieces that have not been lost and making something of them that might be worthwhile.
She will continue to watch. She does not trust him.
But then, she does not trust herself either.
Chapter 17
Interlude (Natasha)
She gets into the habit of taking walks to a small grocery nearby.
It started by accident; she had entered on a whim thinking he liked these, and trailed to the snack aisle, stopping and staring at the racks. An hour later, time lost that she does not remember, she leaves. Her eyes are not wet, but when she passes the old foreign woman behind the counter reaches out to pat her hand.
She cried once, hidden away in the bowels of the carrier, but afterwards he was still dead. She stood up and wiped her face, tucked the emotion away, and then did what needed to be done.
One day she comes back to the tower with a package of small chocolate covered donuts. She eats one and leaves the rest on the table, still in the wrapper. They’re there at dinner when Clint walks in.
He walks back out.
-
Just like most things that bother her recently (“Unmaking a person and putting them back together to make them useful, how is this different from Natasha?”) it begins with Stark.
-
Natasha is unsure how she feels about Loki.
In the grand scheme of things, since his realignment he has done very little of note. His time is spent observing, learning. She shadows him, committing everything that he is to memory. If he were to go off-grid then she needs to know what he has to work with. JARVIS allows her free reign of the tower without being asked.
She has considered Clint’s paranoia, been hyper vigilant in a way that ensured no one else realized she cared at all. She has considered that Loki’s behavior might be an act made to lull them into complacency.
She has watched and she cannot believe as Clint does.
Stark takes his hand and helps Loki relearn himself. Little by little gathering up the broken pieces that have not been lost and making something of them that might be worthwhile.
She will continue to watch. She does not trust him.
But then, she does not trust herself either.
Chapter 17