Chapter 3
Maria ignored the bright-eyed stares of her coworkers, knowing that she would be the next tidbit of watercooler gossip to moment she moved into her new office. And an office, that was no small thing, not for an agent who’d only been in the field four years. Of course, she’d been with SHIELD for longer than that, but training hours don’t count no matter how many of them you put in, much to the chagrin of many graduates.
Not Maria, though. She’d known better than that. She’d worked everywhere before graduation, so that she could find what suited her best and excel at it, and she had. One of her flings in the Academy had accused her of being calculating, “cold-blooded.” As amusing and novel as that had been for a girl born of la sangre, Maria had only raised an eyebrow and asked what her bedmate had thought they were learning to do there. That girl had washed out. Maria now had an office before five years.
She took a deep breath and grabbed her coat, striding out past the desks of people who were studiously pretending not to look at her. Natalia and Clint were indeed waiting by the elevator, engaged in a conversation that seemed to be as much physical as verbal. Well, at least they were already a cohesive unit, Maria thought. Made her life as handler easier if she wasn’t required to mediate them.
Based on the looks they turned on her as she came closer, though, Maria thought she may have to reevaluate that. Natalia was as impassive as ever, but there was tension in her, the slightest furrow in her forehead, the twitch of fingers that longed to be a fist. Clint looked harried.
“What do you want to eat?” Maria asked Natalia. The redhead raised her eyebrows half a centimeter.
“Does it matter?”
“If you don’t care, we can eat in the mess, but I don’t think that’s the right venue for this… meal,” Maria said, clearly meaning conversation without outright saying that she’d rather not be eavesdropped on by every junior analyst who pulled up a chair nearby.
Natalia seemed pleased by this, or maybe satisfied?
“Yes. I assume you have recommendations? I have not yet been allowed to learn the area.”
“There’s plenty of places to eat in a three-to-five block radius, depending on what you’re in the mood for. I just got back from Kabul, so the only place off the list is the kabob shop. I’ll take you some other time, they do a great lamb.”
Natalia seemed intrigued. Clint cleared his throat.
“Is anyone going to ask me what I want to eat?”
“No,” Maria said immediately, “because you’ll eat anything, up to and including pig slop, and the rest of us have slightly higher standards than you.”
Natalia’s face betrayed a hint of a smile, and Maria felt a rush of victory.
“You wound me, Hill,” Clint said, thumping his chest with a fist as though pulling an arrow.
“She’s right,” Natalia said. “You have no palate.”
“‘Scuse you,” Clint said, with no heat behind it. “I have an expansive palate.”
“If no one else has an opinion,” Maria cut him off, “there’s an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet a couple blocks from here, they do a great General Tso’s and the momos are to die for.”
All-you-can-eat had been the saving grace of her mother’s pocketbook growing up, what with five kids, three of them lobos. She’d seen Clint eat before, and made an educated guess as to Natalia’s own appetites; the quick agreement on their parts proved she wasn’t off the mark. Plus, she was really craving some greasy American-style lo mein.
“Agreeable,” Natalia said, pushing the button for the elevator. “Clint?”
“I’ll never say no to the Jade Dragon,” Clint said, “especially when I’m not paying.”
“Oh, I’m putting it on the company card,” Maria said, following them into the elevator and pushing the button for the ground floor. “Fury can foot the bill.”
“It’s like I always say,” Clint said sagely to Natalia. “Free food is the best food.”
“You said this to me before,” Natalia said. “But I think you were referring to a sandwich from a dumpster.”
Maria didn’t bother trying to hide her snort of laughter. “You never change, Barton.”
Clint looked from Natalia to Maria and sighed. “You two are already ganging up on me. This is gonna suck.”
“Chin up, luchnik,” Natalia said. “At least your food will be free.”
“But at what cost?” he said dramatically. Natalia and Maria shared a long-suffering look. Natalia rolled her eyes, the most expressive Maria had seen her yet.
“He is forever like this. Has he always been this way?” she asked Maria.
“Since I’ve known him,” Maria replied.
The women followed Clint out of the elevator and through the lobby out into the crisp DC sunshine.
“If you’re going to gossip, I’m leaving you behind,” Clint said, striding off purposefully.
“Reconnaissance looks very much like gossip,” Natalia remarked in her cool voice as they followed Clint down the sidewalk. “Men can be so blind.”
“There’s a reason he’s such a good sniper,” Maria said, “and it’s not his people skills.”
Natalia gave Maria an appreciative look as they stopped at a crosswalk, easily keeping up with Clint, who wasn’t much taller than Natalia and was slightly shorter than Maria.
“The restaurant’s just there,” Maria said, pointing at the sign a block away, sitting low on the building. The Jade Dragon nestled just below street level, and as they drew nearer the ease that had built between the trio dissipated in the chill breeze, leaving only questions.
Clint went down the steps and into the building, and Natalia followed him like a shadow, leaving Maria alone for a bare moment. She took a deep breath, bracing herself, preparing for the meal ahead. Nothing like a getting-to-know-you meal with a couple of spies on your first day back, she told herself. Well, at least the dumplings will be good.
She followed them in.