Phil blew at the steam rising from the mug in his hand, watching his sister sit across from him at the ornate steel table holding their food. She was people watching, her fingers idly playing with the rim of her drink as she chewed on a small bite of an oddly colored apple slice. Most people found her tendency to be looking in another direction when speaking to you unnerving, but he had known Penny for more than twenty years and was used to the 'extra sense' her animal side gave her and allowed for her to be aware of more than what was in front of her.
"Are you sure they will understand?"
The question wasn't exactly a non-sequitur given that it had been a topic at the forefront of both their minds, but it had nothing to do with their conversation beforehand of the cases she'd been assigned to lately; the abrupt departure from the topic of conversation was also something he was used to with her.
He sat his mug down and picked up a brilliant metallic green looking beetle with his fork and inspected it before biting off the head with a measure on nonchalance that would terrify the junior SHIELD agents, "Fury will more than like become a slight bit more paranoid, but that's of little consequence. Stark, and Banner with him no doubt, will try and dig up as much information as possible. Thor I don't think will react at all, for all we know they have an aesir equivalent. Captain Rogers . . . I am unsure about, though I doubt he'll have a horribly extreme reaction, he has and is working with odder characters. Natasha will probably just see it as a resource for one more biological weapon to use on assignments, possibly an avenue of intelligence gathering."
He popped the rest of the beetle into his mouth, savoring the crunch and taste as its insides seemed to melt across his tongue. He didn't know how they did it, but this café the two of them had found continued to amaze him with their ability to treat and cook their insects just right so they retained their crunch without making the exoskeleton particularly brittle or bitter.
"Ol' Red?"
His lips twitch in his normal interpretation of a grin before he took a drink of his Oleander tea, "Please don't refer to Agent Barton as a dog from a country song. For one, I'm certain his other half has nothing to do with the family Canidae, let alone the class Mammalia. And two, he's like us, he's either just never pushed hard enough, been afraid or unsure of his gifts, or they're not as strong as either of ours." He shifted slightly, his ribs and right lung stretching uncomfortably with the echo of an ache nearly completely healed, and poured some more of the sauce they were given onto his plate before dipping another beetle, this time a brilliant orange, into it and nibbling at its legs in an almost delicate manner.
His completely black eyes caught her copper ones, "Personally, I believe it is the first option and the fact that he has no information about his . . . extraneous abilities. Instinct has always led the both of us to disguise our unique attributes and I doubt he's much different; he just never met a person like himself as we have. Also, we had the benefit of the knowledge passed to you before you father's demise."
Penelope hummed in acknowledgement and flashed him a grin filled with three rows of sharp teeth, the top two framing the bottom between them, as she leant across the table to spear three of the insects on his plate with a single jab of her fork, her eyes flashing in the sunset behind him, "Well, my dear, dear, brother, I advise you explain it to him before you do anyone else. Hopefully, in the course of telling him, the two of you will stop dancing around whatever it is between you and I'm not saying that because you're beginning to drive me crazy with the pheromones you exude every time you talk about him, but because I love you and want you happy, too."
A disbelieving eyebrow rose as he wiped at the corners of his mouth with the cloth napkin before he threw it at her and the perfectly innocent smile she was trying to pull off, his response to her comments positively droll, "Why, thank you for the concern sister-mine, it's always nice to know you care."
Her laughter was rough, low, but in no way musical as she placed the amount owed for the meal on the table and they stood, the two of them walking through the partition blocking off the outdoor part of the café from the sidewalk. It was a companionable silence as she walked him back to the building SHIELD had been placed him in during his recuperation, despite the two of them knowing the reprimands they were going to receive for walking out of the hospital and right off the grid without checking with Phil's superiors. Two blocks before they had too, they turned into an alley and without breaking stride walked a few steps from the realm of the dead and into the land of the living, emerging a street closer to the SHIELD building and not a single camera catching them fading into sight in a gradient of grey to color, translucent to opaque.
Stuff like that was second nature and it was because they knew those things, the blind spots in their constantly recorded technological world, that gave them the edge that made them the best at their jobs.
Penelope left him in front of the nondescript building with a fleeting grin and a half hearted wave over her shoulder, her hands shoved deep into her fitted slacks as she walked away and down another alley with a blind spot half way in the shadows, fading from color to grey, opaque to translucent, all over again. Phil sighed and looked up to the building that was currently his residence, medical staff no doubt worried and infuriated by turns, wishing he could disappear into the grey tinged world filled with muted colors of blood and the delicious 'Adams Family' styled food.
It had only been two weeks since his injury, since the battle, but he was fine; he just wished he could convince them of that.
