Chapter 20 Conversations

I walked into the gym that took up the whole of the 79th floor. I walked over to a wall and simply slide down it to a sitting position. I groaned and closed my eyes, now that the others had brought up the past; it was all I could think about. I, not so gently, banged the back of my head against the wall in attempt to get my brain to stop remembering and thinking so much. I heard the sound of the elevator and the doors opening and closing, I opened one eye to see Sapphire walking towards me.

She sat down beside me and leaned her head against her shoulder.

"So you and Barton hey?" I asked with a grin after a moment.

"I swear to god I will kill you one of these days Evans" Sapphire sighed as she sat up straight.

"I'm just joking" I said with a roll of my eyes "and I give you my permission to date him."

"Since when do I need your permission to do anything?" she question.

"Since always" I informed her as I stood up. "Come on" I said as I held out a hand to Sapphire, she shoot me a confused look but grabbed my hand regardless and pulled herself up "since we're here, we may as well train."

"That sounds like an excellent idea" she said with a grin.

The two of us changed into suitable clothes and started to work out.

"But seriously Lucious, you and Barton" I said after a while. I wasn't joking around here; I was nosy and wanted to know what was going on between the two of them.

"Okay then Evans, what about you and the Captain?" she asked as she sped up her treadmill, we ran side by side and I pushed up the speed on mine to match her pace.

"There is no 'me and the Captain'" I said, mimicking her. There is no me and captain, I repeated in my head, telling myself it's true.

"You sure about that?" she questioned; yeah, she did not believe me one bit.

"Positive" I said "and besides, this is about you and Barton. Don't try to change the subject"

"There's nothing going on" Sapphire said with a shrug of her shoulders. I knew this wasn't true;

Sapphire and Clint had been on a number of missions together and I knew that they got on well.

"Come on!" I protested "did you see the way he was staring at you before in the kitchen? He obviously likes you! The man was blushing Lucious, blushing" seriously, if you could make an assassin blush, than my god. There is something going on there.

"You should just tell him how you feel" I told her. Though Sapphire constantly tried to deny it, I knew she had a crush on Clint and had for years.

"Oh yeah Evans, cause that will go down so well" Sapphire said, sarcasm dripping from her words.

"When's the last time you two even talked?" I asked, thinking about it. Saph had been in her cat form the past month or so and before that Barton hadn't been around S.H.I.E.L.D, presumably doing Avengers stuff. Sapphire mumbled something incoherent under her breath.

"What was that?" I questioned. Sapphire cleared her throat.

"Just before I walked into here" she repeated loudly, I couldn't help but grin at this.

"Oh really?" I said with a smirk "what did you say?"

"You should really learn to mind your own businesses" Sapphire commented, I just looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. "He just asked me how I was, just normal stuff!" she sighed.

"Well you're boring" I said, wrinkly my nose. We both stopped our treadmills and stepped off.

"Yeah, cause your just so exciting" Sapphire said sarcastically. Wordlessly we walked over and grabbed some boxing equipment. I grabbed some mitts and held them up while Sapphire grabbed some gloves and started punching.

"You know why I won't date someone anyway Claire" Sapphire said softly as she held her arms up defensively in front of her face and punched the mitts. I rolled my eyes and gently hit her on the side of her head.

"It's because you're an idiot" I told her. And she was, she was being stupid, especially seeing how it was Barton.

"Claire" she whinnied.

"I know!" I said with a laugh "it's because you don't think you should date someone because you're an assassin, and they could get hurt, blah, blah, blah."

"Exactly" Sapphire said as she punched past the mitt and landed the blow on my shoulder. Bitch. In retaliation I kicked her in the shin. It was good natured though; neither of us were aiming to hurt the other… much…

"Which is just retarted, seeing how Barton's an assassin himself." I informed her; honestly it was one the stupidest thing I've ever heard come from her mouth. I wondered if this was what normal girls talked about in their spare time, boys and stuff. Yeah, that sounded about right. The conversations I shared with Sapphire were probably the closest I would ever get to a normal conversation and that was kinda sad.

"How's Lucas going?" I asked. Lucas was Sapphire's younger brother, I had met him a few times and despite all the crap he had been through his life he was still a good person. Saph and Lucas's parents were dead, killed by assassins 7 years ago. Sapphire tried to support him as much as she could but I knew she was always torn, she wanted to see her brother but she was afraid that someone may hurt him if any of her enemies found out their relationship.

"Good" Sapphire said "this is his last year of high school" wow, has it really been that long?

"Yep" she said popping the p. I pulled the mitts off my hands and threw them at Saph.

"You gonna stick to your plan?" I questioned as I walked over to where some other boxing gloves where stacked at attempted to find a pair that fit my hands. Sapphire just nodded her head.

Sapphire wanted to be an assassin about just as much as me; but she also had this sense of duty. Saph believed she had to take care of her brother, to take care of him so she did that the only way she knew how. She earned a living by killing and gave Lucas the best education money could buy. What a messed up world we lived in. Sapphire promised herself that she would leave S.H.I.E.L.D once Lucas graduated from school, meaning the end of the year. I felt nerves tighten my stomach. Did that mean she would leave S.H.I.E.L.D before I would? Deep down in my heart, I wasn't sure if I could handle facing life at S.H.I.E.L.D by myself, and I also wasn't sure if I was noble enough to let her walk away. I knew that I was selfish enough that if it came to it, I would ask Sapphire to stay with me until I fulfilled my debt and satisfied my stupid pride. And I hated myself for it.

"What about you?" Sapphire asked "last I heard S.H.I.E.L.D where only about a year and a half away from perfecting the serum again" I nodded my head as I sighed. This was something that I didn't want to think about but I knew that I had to.

"Yeah, S.H.I.E.L.D is still looking for a suitable candidate" I explained "they want me to help train them."

"Will you?" she asked me. I chewed on my bottom lip, I in no way wanted to, but I really had no say in it. While I was an agent for S.H.I.E.L.D I had no control over my life, a perfect example of this would be that I was currently an Avenger and living with my father.

"Probably" I told her, I finally found a pair of boxing gloves in my size and put them on. I walked up to Sapphire and as she held up the mitts I focused all my energy into hitting the mitts. I was tired of thinking, of thinking of the future and of thinking of the past. So I ignored it, I tried my best to ignore everything else except of the rhythm of my hits.

Wow, 20 chapters. I know I say this a lot but you are all freaking incredible. 90 reviews, over 90 favourites and nearly 150 followers and over 20,000 views. Holy shit. When I first posted this story I never imagined I would get so much positive feedback. I can not begin to say just how gratefull I am for you guys, and the feedback I got from my message that I posted yesterday, you were all just so suppportive and blah! I'm rambling and need to get some homework done, so I'll let you go from my mushy-ness. Thank you all so much :3

Love, Fly.