[ The look Arthur gives her is irritated, but also a touch wry if you know where to find it. There's a particular tightness to the shape of his mouth, a shade of coulda, shoulda, woulda to the wrinkles in his forehead. The cuffs are heavy around his wrists and they settle upon are skin as he shifts his weight.
All in a day's work. ]
So I've been told.
[ He can hear Eames already. That blasé condescension. Well done, Arthur.
[ In return, the pitch to Natasha's smile is mild. The tension in his jaw, a quiet sentiment of yeah, yeah shuttering over the lines of his face — what's the saying. All in a day's work? (She'd tell him to take better care of himself, but it's a bad idea to start trading around empty things.) ]
It must mean there's truth to it, [ she says instead, her mouth quirking a little wider. Natasha's fingers lazily stir the contents of her coffee cup, the metallic clink of the teaspoon against its sides. ]
Or everyone's a critic. [ Arthur would know; he is one. Not that he's ungrateful for that particular personality quirk. (It's gotten him out of tight binds before. Has gotten him into his fair share of them too.) ] Equally likely.
[ He shrugs, his restraints echoing the dainty clink of her spoon in lower, baser tones. Nodding, he asks (as if he wasn't fishing for information): ] You gonna have time to finish that?
[ She gives a quiet, short hum. Next to her coffee is a pitcher of water and one stainless steel cup; basics in S.H.I.E.L.D infirmaries, but no guarantee that it's not dosed with something. Natasha glances at him, a shift of a green iris under that curtain of red hair. ]
Depends. [ Her smile dims, but that's no surprise. It doesn't quite reach her eyes anyway. ] Do you want one?
[ Natalie smiles in return; no, it's not genuine, but it reaches her eyes all the same, those tapered fingers reaching to curl around the warmth of her mug. ]
[ The exhale of smoke is polite, a quick push out of the corner of her mouth as Maggie sets the pitcher aside. Her eyes slide past Natalie's shoulder, out what she can spot of the door where Old Ben is bustling about, going to and fro about whether or not he really wants a skirmish with one of the little dogs. That damn rooster follows her everywhere. ]
[ Her own neck cranes to follow Maggie's line of sight. It's a good day (when is it not, around here?) and the breeze that comes in through that gap of the door is light, salt-stained and underneath that, the smell of fresh green. Idyllic, for anyone calm enough to believe it. ]
You should ask for a divorce, [ she says solemnly, the quirk to her mouth small but not unkind, as if inviting in on the joke. ] He seems pretty popular.
[He's still acclimating to the idea of working with someone other than Dig - though Dig himself seems thrilled with the fact that he gets to be Oliver's handler, with actual oversight and a way to keep Ollie out of the field if he thinks the younger man needs it.
Oliver glances at Natasha before he goes back to oiling his bow at the motel desk.
He's also still figuring out when she's mocking him and when she's simply amused.] I'm used to stronger coffee.
[ She hasn't been with him all this time, but enough. By now, S.H.I.E.L.D calls Oliver Queen's new tenure as training, though that couldn't be further from the truth — the island did that for him.
Natasha shrugs, but the quirk to her mouth is still there. She doesn't spare his bow more than second's glance, instead setting down a takeaway cup of something from the diner down the street at his table. ]
Tea, [ she says in explanation. From her, it's almost a joke. ] Maybe you'll like it better.
[He looks up at her, expression the particular kind of blank that says he's not sure what to do. If this can be called any kind of training, it's teaching him how to interact with people openly. People who know who he is and protect that identity.
He's used to being a liar. He has no idea how to be himself.] Thank you.
[He does prefer tea. But a sip of this says Lipton, and he splutters and sets it down again.] Maybe I'll stick to soda.
[ Her mouth quirks wider. It's almost enough to be a laugh, and maybe anywhere other than a motel room, it would be.
As it is: Natasha just smiles at him over her own cup, sipping at its contents. Impossible to tell whether it actually is the same kind of tea that he's drinking or just the particular kind of coffee she drinks, black as tar — they do share a preferrence for a soul-destroying caffeine intake. ]
Or sleep. [ Maybe it goes without saying, considering, but it is an alternative she offers, plain and without inflection one way or the other. ]
[He's partial to the all-natural or special blend fancy pants teas that you don't really get at diners or while staying in cheap hotel rooms waiting for a kill or capture order.
And he still won't sleep around other agents. Between the nightmares and the way an unfamiliar setting puts him on edge - yeah not happening.
He does, though, at least venture a smile of his own.] Were you going to?
[ She shrugs, mild and non-committal. Not out of a deliberate sense of purpose — Natasha's capable of evasion in better ways than this — but more in the way she hasn't made up her mind yet. She crosses the distance to the nearest window, fingers spreading the slots in the blinds to take a peek outside.
Natasha barely looks over her shoulder, fingers still neatly curled around the her cup, the round of it warm against her cheek. ]
Is that an invitation? [ Flirtatious, maybe, but not serious. It's always better to have more than one approach to a problem, especially when the final word is still on the line. Asset or liability. A distinction that gets drawn, but not by her hand. ]
[He ducks his head. Once upon a time he would have jumped on that. Turned the Queen charm up to eleven and tried to get her into bed before the hour was out.
Now, he turns his bow over in his hands with the small smile still on his face.] To keep watch, if you wanted to rest.
[ She hums and though she doesn't smile, the cadence of her voice is friendly. Natasha's hand pulls back from the blinds and they slot back into place with a sharp, plastic thwack.
It is, in more than one way, both predictable and relieving that he doesn't take the bait. She likes knowing she's dealing with Oliver, not whatever public face he's in the habit of showing. It's a slow-growing partnership, what they have here.
Natasha blinks, then smiles. Plainly: ] I don't know that I'd trust you not to leave.
[He settles the bow into its green box, shuts it, doesn't lock it. It all has the texture of ritual. The anchor-points for his sanity.] We're on a mission. Whatever I might want to do is secondary.
[And that is said with the rote tone of law. It is law, as far as Oliver is concerned. Mission first. Everything else second.]
[ Anchor-points for sanity. Natasha knows a little about those; she knows a little about single-minded focus too. Her chin tips and for the moment that she takes, all blinks and a thoughtful stare, she reveals nothing. Eventually, Natasha sits on end of the nearest bed, legs crossed at the knee. ]
What do you know about me, Oliver? [ It's not do you know who I am or a thinly veiled threat. It's a genuine question, plain, and knowing Natasha, highly relevant. ]
[ Her nails drum lightly against the cardboard surface of her take-out cup, neat peach surfaces with a muted thud-thud-thud.
Silence settles between them. It's not one Natasha seems in any hurry to diminish, and maybe to some it would be like a dare or a challenge, a quiet so tell me what you know but it's not that — it is, in her own way, her choosing her words carefully.
At length: ] I'm older than I look. I'm a survivor. Like you.
And I can tell you if you keep doing this, you're going to die. [ Natasha isn't talking about revenge as a valid method for catharsis — it is, and she's not disputing that. Whatever I might want to do is secondary, he says, and it makes her think that nobody's ever told him no, it isn't.
[Not sure how to take this. His hand moves immediately to the pocket where he keeps his father's notebook, the contents memorized down to their location on any given page.] I already died.
[It's the truth. Oliver Queen died on a life raft in the Pacific, by the same bullet that killed his father. He looks down. Dig would try to hit him for saying that. Or give him that look, the one suspended somewhere between disbelief and sadness. Remind him of the family he has to lie to, the friends he's used and betrayed.
Oliver slides his hand into his pocket and between the book's pages, feeling the worn paper. His father's last gift.] If my second chance lasts long enough to finish what I started, that's enough.
[ I already died. Resurrection is a familiar enough theme — Natasha's gone through that before, too.
Her gaze is pulled to his hand. Thinks about the touchstone he's got there — she can guess what it might be, but just because she can doesn't mean she's willing to call out that observation — and her eyes travel up, to the thick of his wrist then the bend of his elbow, the curve of his shoulder until they reach his face again. Oliver Queen is a very good agent. But he is also, undeniably, an anomaly. ]
I thought you loved her.
[ She's talking about— his sister, maybe. His mother, maybe. Laurel; maybe. Far be it for Natasha Romanoff to endorse something as quaint as live for love — that's bullshit any way you look at it. But Oliver is an anomaly because Oliver still has tethers that extend as far back as his old life. It makes her— curious. Among other things. ]
I do. [It doesn't matter in the end who she means. Because he loves them all. His friends and family. But he doesn't know how to show it any more, not in a way that lasts, and he's failed them enough in the months he's been home that he's not sure they expect him to do anything else. It's like he's a ghost, a poltergeist haunting his old room. Going through the motions of being who he was and doing nothing but hurting them in the process.
Except there are those moments.... Thea every time they're by themselves, insomniac nights watching old cartoons and two-am repeats of Maury and Dr. Phil, laughing at other peoples' problems and minimizing their own. His mother, sitting across from him at the burger joint, eating greasy food with her fingers and actually chuckling when spots of it landed on her clothes.
Laurel...
Oliver closes his eyes, fingers still on his father's book.] She loves someone else.
[Someone who's never coming back.
He leans forward, fingers pressed against closed eyelids. Even now he doesn't know how to tell them what he does. Even now that there's some organization-born legitimacy to his work, telling them the truth about it all would put them in harm's way. And keeping them in the dark keeps them distant from S.H.I.E.L.D., as well. No matter the agreements he's made, he doesn't trust the organization entirely.
Ollie looks up at her from under long lashes.] Why does it matter to you?
[ Her eyes quietly track his every movement, not like a predator but as an abject observer. It doesn't escape her notice that Oliver acts like a man who has lost everything, holds himself like he's unsure of his own skin — understandable except for all the parts that aren't. Natasha understands sentimentality, understands love, understands family because there is loss and then there is Coulson's funeral, the quiet anger that had simmered in her blood. But that doesn't mean Natasha looks at Oliver Queen and doesn't think don't lie to me; that doesn't matter when you still love them.
She shifts a little closer, half-seated now on the edge of his desk. She doesn't touch him, but she's close enough to do so if she wanted — instead, Natasha's expression is uncannily soft, her shoulder hitching into a mild shrug. ]
You're valuable. [ But it's the kind of cold brush-off that Natasha means only as a joke, a non-answer, and she amends it in the next breath. ]
[He tenses almost imperceptibly, conditioned into thinking those words will be followed by a list of shortcomings. When it doesn't happen he looks up, and goes still, surprised by how -
Kind is not the right word. Clement, maybe. How clement Natasha looks.
He hasn't had a friend who knows this side of him except for Dig, and Dig is... a partner. A guide. This is new ground, and Ollie is still probing for land mines.] You trust me?
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All in a day's work. ]
So I've been told.
[ He can hear Eames already. That blasé condescension. Well done, Arthur.
Goddamn, he hates it when Eames is right. ]
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It must mean there's truth to it, [ she says instead, her mouth quirking a little wider. Natasha's fingers lazily stir the contents of her coffee cup, the metallic clink of the teaspoon against its sides. ]
Careful, or you'll go grey.
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[ He shrugs, his restraints echoing the dainty clink of her spoon in lower, baser tones. Nodding, he asks (as if he wasn't fishing for information): ] You gonna have time to finish that?
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Depends. [ Her smile dims, but that's no surprise. It doesn't quite reach her eyes anyway. ] Do you want one?
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Is this leading to a pick-up line?
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Does it have to?
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I think I asked you first.
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I do hope that 'tired' wasn't code for 'old', by the way.
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In this case — no. Just tired. Long day?
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Wouldn't be worth it otherwise, would it.
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[ She smiles around the end of her cigarette, leaning across the flat of the counter to pour out a solid serving of the stuff into Natalie's cup. ]
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Would Old Ben let me?
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I think he's too busy to mind right now.
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You should ask for a divorce, [ she says solemnly, the quirk to her mouth small but not unkind, as if inviting in on the joke. ] He seems pretty popular.
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ohai der
Oliver glances at Natasha before he goes back to oiling his bow at the motel desk.
He's also still figuring out when she's mocking him and when she's simply amused.] I'm used to stronger coffee.
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Natasha shrugs, but the quirk to her mouth is still there. She doesn't spare his bow more than second's glance, instead setting down a takeaway cup of something from the diner down the street at his table. ]
Tea, [ she says in explanation. From her, it's almost a joke. ] Maybe you'll like it better.
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He's used to being a liar. He has no idea how to be himself.] Thank you.
[He does prefer tea. But a sip of this says Lipton, and he splutters and sets it down again.] Maybe I'll stick to soda.
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As it is: Natasha just smiles at him over her own cup, sipping at its contents. Impossible to tell whether it actually is the same kind of tea that he's drinking or just the particular kind of coffee she drinks, black as tar — they do share a preferrence for a soul-destroying caffeine intake. ]
Or sleep. [ Maybe it goes without saying, considering, but it is an alternative she offers, plain and without inflection one way or the other. ]
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And he still won't sleep around other agents. Between the nightmares and the way an unfamiliar setting puts him on edge - yeah not happening.
He does, though, at least venture a smile of his own.] Were you going to?
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Natasha barely looks over her shoulder, fingers still neatly curled around the her cup, the round of it warm against her cheek. ]
Is that an invitation? [ Flirtatious, maybe, but not serious. It's always better to have more than one approach to a problem, especially when the final word is still on the line. Asset or liability. A distinction that gets drawn, but not by her hand. ]
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Now, he turns his bow over in his hands with the small smile still on his face.] To keep watch, if you wanted to rest.
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It is, in more than one way, both predictable and relieving that he doesn't take the bait. She likes knowing she's dealing with Oliver, not whatever public face he's in the habit of showing. It's a slow-growing partnership, what they have here.
Natasha blinks, then smiles. Plainly: ] I don't know that I'd trust you not to leave.
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[And that is said with the rote tone of law. It is law, as far as Oliver is concerned. Mission first. Everything else second.]
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What do you know about me, Oliver? [ It's not do you know who I am or a thinly veiled threat. It's a genuine question, plain, and knowing Natasha, highly relevant. ]
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[What everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. knows.]
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Silence settles between them. It's not one Natasha seems in any hurry to diminish, and maybe to some it would be like a dare or a challenge, a quiet so tell me what you know but it's not that — it is, in her own way, her choosing her words carefully.
At length: ] I'm older than I look. I'm a survivor. Like you.
And I can tell you if you keep doing this, you're going to die. [ Natasha isn't talking about revenge as a valid method for catharsis — it is, and she's not disputing that. Whatever I might want to do is secondary, he says, and it makes her think that nobody's ever told him no, it isn't.
And you should know better. ]
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[It's the truth. Oliver Queen died on a life raft in the Pacific, by the same bullet that killed his father. He looks down. Dig would try to hit him for saying that. Or give him that look, the one suspended somewhere between disbelief and sadness. Remind him of the family he has to lie to, the friends he's used and betrayed.
Oliver slides his hand into his pocket and between the book's pages, feeling the worn paper. His father's last gift.] If my second chance lasts long enough to finish what I started, that's enough.
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Her gaze is pulled to his hand. Thinks about the touchstone he's got there — she can guess what it might be, but just because she can doesn't mean she's willing to call out that observation — and her eyes travel up, to the thick of his wrist then the bend of his elbow, the curve of his shoulder until they reach his face again. Oliver Queen is a very good agent. But he is also, undeniably, an anomaly. ]
I thought you loved her.
[ She's talking about— his sister, maybe. His mother, maybe. Laurel; maybe. Far be it for Natasha Romanoff to endorse something as quaint as live for love — that's bullshit any way you look at it. But Oliver is an anomaly because Oliver still has tethers that extend as far back as his old life. It makes her— curious. Among other things. ]
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Except there are those moments.... Thea every time they're by themselves, insomniac nights watching old cartoons and two-am repeats of Maury and Dr. Phil, laughing at other peoples' problems and minimizing their own. His mother, sitting across from him at the burger joint, eating greasy food with her fingers and actually chuckling when spots of it landed on her clothes.
Laurel...
Oliver closes his eyes, fingers still on his father's book.] She loves someone else.
[Someone who's never coming back.
He leans forward, fingers pressed against closed eyelids. Even now he doesn't know how to tell them what he does. Even now that there's some organization-born legitimacy to his work, telling them the truth about it all would put them in harm's way. And keeping them in the dark keeps them distant from S.H.I.E.L.D., as well. No matter the agreements he's made, he doesn't trust the organization entirely.
Ollie looks up at her from under long lashes.] Why does it matter to you?
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She shifts a little closer, half-seated now on the edge of his desk. She doesn't touch him, but she's close enough to do so if she wanted — instead, Natasha's expression is uncannily soft, her shoulder hitching into a mild shrug. ]
You're valuable. [ But it's the kind of cold brush-off that Natasha means only as a joke, a non-answer, and she amends it in the next breath. ]
I thought we were friends.
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Kind is not the right word. Clement, maybe. How clement Natasha looks.
He hasn't had a friend who knows this side of him except for Dig, and Dig is... a partner. A guide. This is new ground, and Ollie is still probing for land mines.] You trust me?