WIP meme
I got tagged by alphaflyer for a WIP meme that I am only going to half-fill, but the half being provided is the relevant part, so...
"You developing qualms, Agent Barton?" Hill asked, half-joking and half really not. There was a shelf life for killers, at least the sane ones, and it wasn't the skill set that deteriorated first. For some people, it got easier to pull the trigger time and again, for others, it got harder. Letting the first go on too long would make you a danger to others, too much of the second would get you killed, and it was the wise operator who knew where they fell. Clint had understood before he'd even switched over from the Army to SHIELD that he was in the former category; Natasha had defected from the Russians when she'd realized she was in the latter. Fury and Hill (and Coulson, when he'd been alive) knew where their agents had landed on the spectrum, which was why both Clint and Natasha had started getting a steady diet of assignments that weren't just assassinations and why they'd been put in the Avengers in the first place. And why Hill's question hadn't been an idle one.
"You developing qualms, Agent Barton?" Hill asked, half-joking and half really not. There was a shelf life for killers, at least the sane ones, and it wasn't the skill set that deteriorated first. For some people, it got easier to pull the trigger time and again, for others, it got harder. Letting the first go on too long would make you a danger to others, too much of the second would get you killed, and it was the wise operator who knew where they fell. Clint had understood before he'd even switched over from the Army to SHIELD that he was in the former category; Natasha had defected from the Russians when she'd realized she was in the latter. Fury and Hill (and Coulson, when he'd been alive) knew where their agents had landed on the spectrum, which was why both Clint and Natasha had started getting a steady diet of assignments that weren't just assassinations and why they'd been put in the Avengers in the first place. And why Hill's question hadn't been an idle one.