Laura said alright and thank you and talk to you soon, then lowered the phone and set it on the kitchen table. For a long moment, she did nothing but stare at the wood grain beneath her fingertips. She didn’t chase any particular thought but let it come to her, the way she’d been trained to. She’d spent too many years in analysis to miss a pattern once it revealed itself.
She replayed the conversation, this time listening for the absences. Maria hadn’t denied Clint’s competence or questioned Natasha’s value. She hadn’t hinted at failure, insubordination, or poor performance. The truth was, Delta hadn’t been struggling. It had been thriving.
That was when Laura reached for the mental compartments she relied on. One box sat there with a familiar warning attached: Do Not Open Unless Absolutely Necessary.
She thought of the way Natasha’s name constantly slipped into conversation—not fondly, not flirtatiously, but with a kind of intimacy that just didn’t require ornament. She thought of the half-second freeze when she’d asked if Natasha had done something. Of Clint saying we’re good instead of it’s over. She thought of Maria Hill's choice of words: two operatives' Personal Dynamics.
The conclusion settled in Laura’s chest with an odd, hollow certainty. Maria hadn’t ended Strike Team Delta because it was inefficient. She’d ended it because it was unsustainable.
Laura stood and crossed to the sink, turning on the tap just to give her hands something to do. She wasn’t angry, at least not yet. Anger required energy, and right now all she felt was tired, in the bone-deep way that came from holding too many competing truths at once.
But suspicion was one thing. Evidence was another. And she had none of that yet.
Still, once the thought had lodged, it refused to stay abstract.
She went down the hall to the bedroom, where Clint’s duffel still sat exactly where he’d dropped it, half open, untouched. After a moment’s hesitation, she lifted it onto the bed and unzipped it the rest of the way. She told herself she was just tidying. She wasn’t looking for proof. She told herself that too.
She picked through his dirty clothes, checked pockets and receipts, but apart from a bent boarding pass and some spare change, his work bag yielded nothing. When she picked up one of his shirts, she paused, then pressed it briefly to her face before she could talk herself out of it. It smelt solely of sweat and Clint, no unfamiliar scent, no trace of someone else.
The moment stretched, then collapsed under its own weight.
The absurdity of what she was doing finally caught up with her. Even if something had been happening—which it wasn’t—they were both professionals, people trained to erase themselves, to leave no trail behind. If there were secrets, they wouldn’t be tucked into a duffel bag like a careless confession.
What had she been expecting, exactly? A forgotten note? Lipstick on fabric? Lingerie that wasn’t hers?
Clint had lied before—to enemies, to superiors, to people who deserved it. But to her? She needed to believe he wouldn’t. Because the alternative meant admitting she might have built her life on a fault line she’d chosen not to see.
Laura zipped the bag closed.
Maybe it had been nothing more than a mistake. A line nudged under pressure, then stepped back from before it did any real damage. People were allowed to misstep, weren’t they? And if she was wrong—if this was just her analyst brain assembling patterns out of noise—then opening that box completely would only destroy something that still worked. The most likely explanation, statistically speaking, was that nothing had happened at all.
So for now, she chose belief.
Laura shut the box again, slid it back into its familiar place, and told herself—firmly—that Clint wasn’t cheating.
Ao3
