The Poseidon cabin looks exactly like he remembers.
There is a layer of thick dust that covers everything, save for the bunk that had been stripped of sheets and mattress. Percy approaches the base of the statue of Poseidon and stares up at the face of his father. He looks so much smaller than he does in Percy's memory. A lump forms in his throat.
Percy drags a finger through the dust crowding Poseidon's feet and shakes it off. This cabin wasn't the home he used to have: it was a tomb.
He should have figured that no other kids would end up in it, but he'd hoped— how ever naive that might have been— that someone would care for his former home. It shouldn't tug at his heart the way it does. He had spent most of his life in this cabin, it had once been his sanctuary, and now it's nothing.
Worse than nothing: it's useless.
He swallows back tears and picks up his bag. The screen door squeaks on its hinges as it slams shut behind him.
"Not going to take your old bunk?"
Nico leans against the side of the cabin. He uncrosses his arms and pushes off, approaching Percy. The eyebrow he raises in regards to Percy's bag makes him want to roll his eyes.
"Clarisse won't leave until tomorrow morning and I am tired of shadow travel," Percy says.
Nico holds his hands up. "I wasn't going to say anything."
Percy gives him a withering glare.
"Do you want to stay in my spare room instead?" he asks.
"Fuck yes," Percy exhales. "That cabin hasn't been cleaned since the first Titan war."
Nico snorts. "I have a box of your stuff from there that I sent to Rachel. Just little things leftover. You can ask her for it; I think she put it in her closet and forgot."
Percy smiles at him. "You're so fucking sentimental, you know that?"
"Tell my boyfriend that," Nico says flatly. "Apparently a nice pair of socks isn't a good anniversary gift."
"Aw, that's cute." Percy punches him on the arm. "When did you get so domestic?"
"Somewhere between the first date and the second." Nico picks up Percy's bag. "I'll drop this at the house. I'm assuming things with Clarisse went well?"
Percy couldn't help the dark chuckle that erupted from his mouth. "You could say that."
Nico stifled his own self-satisfied laugh. "Good, good."
"Don't do that," Percy says.
"I don't know whatever you mean." Nico plays innocent.
"Clarisse is a good ally for the case."
"Yes, she is." Nico's voice has a hint of double entendre. "She did a number on you."
Percy groans and scrubs a hand over his face. "You're the worst."
"Hey," Nico shrugs. "Secret agent man seems to be okay with sharing, and you and Clarisse have always had a rivalry that seemed a little too—"
"I'm walking away now." Percy pushes Nico away and heads for the Big House.
"Say hi to Clarisse to me!" Nico calls after him.
—
He stops just shy of the Big House and reroutes to the dining pavilion instead when he sees campers beginning to congregate there. He'd forgotten how long he'd been at camp and it was already meal time. Percy's stomach growls at him in protest.
A group of campers who were a few years younger than him when he lived here spot him and run over.
"Percy!" one says, filled to the brim with breathless wonder. "That fight with Clarisse was insane. I can't believe you challenged her."
He tries to give a modest shake of the head and explain his reasoning, but another camper cuts in.
"Last time she sparred with someone full out, not pulling any punches, it took three days in the infirmary for them to recover. And that's with Will looking after them."
Percy takes in a deep breath, marveling at the absurdity of it all, and exhales. "Have you seen Clarisse?"
They blink. "She's at her usual table with the other senior staff."
He nods. "Thanks, guys. See you later."
They clearly want to chat more, but Percy is already walking away with a wave.
He should be used to admirers by now; he'd had plenty of them back in his day. His role in the Giant and Titan wars only intensified it, the glory compounded by quest after quest that he and Jason emerged victorious from. He was venerated back in his day. Percy imagines the funeral they had for him when he disappeared was the biggest event since Jason's. Did anyone cry, he wonders. Did anyone miss him? Love for a person and love for an idea are two very different things.
He always was more of an idea to them than a person.
The campers are arranged by their cabins, already halfway through their meals. Older campers and members of staff that aren't assigned to a specific cabin sit at a large table off to the side. There's papers strewn about and they seem deep in conversation. Chiron is nowhere to be seen.
"This seat taken?" He pulls out a chair next to Clarisse.
She looks up at him, surprised he's still there. "Uh, yeah. Go ahead."
The table eyes him suspiciously. While the younger generation of campers venerate him, he has a sneaking suspicion that those close to his age view him with a less rosy lens. Having not one, but two funerals for a man that is very much alive will do that to a person.
Percy sits, leaning back in his chair and observes the goings on around him.
"Didn't think you were going to stick around," Clarisse says as she pours over a few wrinkled documents.
He shrugs. "Too tired to bother with shadow travel."
"Couldn't your boyfriend pick you up?" she says it casually, as if she already knows the ins and outs of Percy's personal life.
He narrows his eyes. "He's tired of coming to Long Island at all hours of the night. Something about using up his gas and shitty drivers."
Clarisse hums. She flips through what she's reading while the others try not to look like they're eavesdropping too much.
"Get something to eat," She says to him. Her own plate is empty, already picked over earlier in the evening.
"Yes, mom." He sighs and gets up. "You want anything?"
Clarisse looks up from her papers and regards him with a raised eyebrow for a moment. They can both feel the awkward shift of their rivalry to an uneasy alliance, like sandpaper brushing up against itself.
"No, I'm fine."
He nods and goes for the food. It'd been a while since he'd been able to fill up a plate like this. On the road, he and Jason scrounged what they could. Demigods could go without food for a bit if necessary, but they needed a lot more food than their mortal counterparts in times of rest. He turns to go back to the table, but hesitates as he passes the brazier where campers make their offerings. He could do it, he thinks— he could give an offering. It'd show his intentions; a return to the status quo of years ago.
Percy breathes in and walks away.
Clarisse has handed off the papers she was reading to another member of senior staff by the time he returns and glances at his plate. She is blessedly silent on the topic of offerings as he sits down.
"Where are you staying?" she asks.
"At Nico's. He has a spare room."
Her brow furrows. "Not your cabin?"
He laughs and shakes his head. "No way. That place hasn't been cleaned since—" His voice catches in his throat for a moment. "It's covered in dust and I can't sleep with a statue of my dad glaring down at me."
"Have you seen him recently?" There is something unreadable swirling behind her eyes.
"No." He looks at her, food halfway to his mouth. "Have you seen yours?"
She shakes her head and crosses her arms over her chest. "Not since— uh… what we talked about earlier."
He hums his agreement and works to finish off his plate. "What are you working on?"
Clarisse glances at the papers the other members of senior staff were currently murmuring over. "New changes to combat and quest ages. They want to lower combat training to six and quests to ten."
Percy has to work overtime to not react. "That's young, Clarisse. That's really young."
"I know." She sighs. It seems like she wants to say something more, but she bites her tongue in exchange for something more diplomatic. "The quest age is out of my hands, but I'm fighting the combat one the best I can."
"What quests are ten-year-olds even going on?" His voice is bitter.
"You were twelve when you went on your first quest, Percy," she shoots back. "Remember that."
"Yeah, and I was too young then, too. I almost died, like twice."
She scoffs and shakes her head. "You wouldn't understand. Things have changed here."
"Yeah?" He tilts his chin up in a challenge. "How many kids haven't made it back from their quests since I was last here?"
She doesn't answer. Her eyes are a churning storm of resentment and guilt. "We'll talk about it later," she mutters under her breath. "I- we can't do it here. Too many ears."
He concedes the argument to her and settles back into his chair, polishing off his plate.
Clarisse was the biggest supporter of camp: she had to be. She was the only one left out of all of them. Annabeth, Jason, Travis, Katie, Drew, Conner, Rachel… they had all left her in some way over the years. It was just Clarisse now: holding the tenuous strands of her world together, getting on by the skin of her teeth. Remembering when no one else would. She was the stalwart sentinel of the demigods, the only one who knew what it was like to drown in the cruelty of war, to see the other side and keep on going despite it all.
He wonders what had happened to Chris. They'd been friends at one point, but he was nowhere to be found in camp now. Was that another body on the pile, or another demigod who safely exited stage left in pursuit of a better life? Percy can't imagine him leaving Clarisse willingly. If anyone was going to settle down with her, it'd be Chris Rodriguez.
Hazy memories of Chris's rescue from the hands of Minos's ghost come to mind. He'd gone mad down there in the Labyrinth and it was Clarisse who pulled him back from the brink. Maybe that had caught up with him again. Maybe Clarisse couldn't save him in the end.
There's a slant to Clarisse's shoulders that betrays her weariness. Percy tries hard not to notice it, the same way he did when he saw it in Jason. He taps her arm lightly.
"I'm going to head back to Nico's," he says, standing. "Come knocking when you want to leave. Pack a bag; we might be at the Tower for a while."
She nods. "Not sticking around for s'mores? That was your favourite part."
He rolls his eyes. "I'm not up for you shoving a flaming marshmallow in my face. My eyebrows took months to grow back right."
Clarisse snickers. "Sleep well, Prissy."
"Yeah, yeah." He turns to go. "Don't let your injuries bite."
She cups her hands around her mouth to shout back, "Likewise, asshole!"
He turns in time to catch her grin and gives her the bird. She responds in kind.
—
Clarisse is an early riser, contrary to what Percy remembers from their youth. She always liked sleeping in, but being thrust into leadership must have cultivated within her a need to beat the sun to rising.
Percy shakes sleep out of his eyes as he grabs his bag.
"Ready?" Nico looks at them.
They nod and grasp Nico's arms as he plunges them into shadow.
It isn't unlike the many other times Percy has traveled with Nico, but it had been some time since he had done it with another passenger on his other side. They materialize in the front hallway of the Avengers' common floor and Percy uses all of his self control not to stumble to his knees from the force of it.
"Fuck," Clarisse mutters. She smacks the side of her head with the heel of her palm a few times. "I forgot how fucked up that feels."
Percy rubs his forehead and cautiously lets go of Nico's arm that he was clutching like a lifeline. "It doesn't get any better. Trust me."
"You just have a weak stomach." Nico looks at the two of them. "You both good? Because if so, I'm going back to bed."
Before he can shadow travel back, Tony Stark leans up against the doorway to the kitchen, enormous cup of coffee in hand.
"Hey Shadow Kid." He slurps his coffee noisily.
"Stark." Nico inclines his head towards Tony.
"Seems you brought back one more enigma for us to unravel." Tony gives Clarisse a once over. "Friend of yours?"
Nico shrugs and Clarisse punches him in the arm.
"Ow." He glares at her. "She's another demigod. Friends is a strong word right now."
"She's here to help with the memory recovery," Percy says as he moves past Tony to put his bag by the table. "Clarisse, Tony Stark. Stark, Clarisse la Rue."
Tony holds a hand out for her to shake and gets a glare in return. "Okay then." He turns his attention back to Nico. "I need to talk to you a moment, My Chemical Romance."
Nico groans. "Stop calling me that." He sighs. "Fine, fine, what do you need?"
"Okay, so I had an idea about that shadow power you have. Pretty nifty trick, kid—"
They walk away into one of the side rooms. Clarisse puts her bag down next to Percy's and suddenly they find themselves to be alone. It's a minute before Percy clears his throat.
"This is the common floor for the Avengers, but I'm staying on Clint's floor. He's— that's my, uh, boyfriend. You're welcome to pick a room here or on his floor too if you don't want to be alone." He gestures to the room layout. "FRIDAY is Tony's AI that can get you anything. Mortal stuff, though, no demigod things. But she's handy for food."
"I can do more than that, Mr. Jackson."
FRIDAY's eternally chipper voice startles Clarisse, who looks to the ceiling in search of the source of the voice.
"Yes, FRIDAY," Percy says, beleaguered. "You're very helpful."
"Thank you," says FRIDAY in response. She goes silent.
"There you go," Percy gestures towards the ceiling. "Round the clock butler."
"It's like those damn wind spirits in New Rome." Clarisse shakes her head. "Just show me my room so I can get settled. The sooner we finish this, the sooner I can get back to camp."
He nods and is about to speak when the elevator opens. Purple streaks across his vision as Flora throws herself on Clarisse. There's a few moments of unintelligible sounds coming from her before she can full form words.
"I can't believe you're here!" Flora's voice comes out as a high pitched squeak. "Clarisse! What— how—"
Clarisse chuckles and looks down at Flora. "Hello to you too, kid. Percy thought I might be able to help you out some. It's all gonna be okay now."
Flora's lower lip wobbles until she bursts into tears. Percy is frozen in shock— he's never seen her cry. Not a single time since she he met her. She trembles in Clarisse's arms, while Clarisse runs a hand through her hair with surprising tenderness.
"Shhh… it's okay. I've got you." Clarisse holds her tight. "Don't make me cry too, now. I have a reputation to protect."
Flora lets out a watery laugh and pulls away from her. "It was so awful—"
She rubs Flora's back. "You're safe now, Flora. Percy's been taking good care of you, right?"
Flora looks at him and nods. "Yeah. He's kind of annoying but he's not bad."
"Ishta…" Percy groans.
"It's true." Clarisse shrugs. "You are a little annoying."
His gaze goes flat. "Pot, kettle, black."
She sticks her tongue out at him.
Finally, Flora and Clarisse move apart and she sees the bag.
"Are you staying with us?" Flora's eyes go wide with childlike excitement. She wipes her nose with the sleeve of her hoodie.
"Yep. You can't come to camp, so camp is coming to you." She ruffles Flora's hair. "Show me where you're staying, flower power."
"Yes." Flora jumps to grab Clarisse's hand and tugs her eagerly towards the elevator. "It's been so boring. Percy won't even let me use knives here."
"Hey! With good reason!" He shouts after them.
Flora rolls her eyes and returns to chatting to Clarisse about anything and everything. The elevator doors close on a wry smile she sends Percy's way.
—
He finds Clint in the gym.
There's a small portion of it reserved for shooting. Clint had filled it with the typical targets and a few unusual ones. A knee-high T-Rex dangles from a cord tied to the rafters, a camel stands at a middle distance, and a very roughed up massive butterfly stands precariously on a dais by the far wall. All have arrows sticking out of them.
Clint does a diving roll and whips out an arrow, lodging it in the eye of the T-Rex. It swings wildly on the cord from the force.
Percy lets out a wolf whistle and Clint whips his head around.
"Yeah, take it off!" Percy yells, clapping his hands in appreciation.
"You wish!" he retorts.
Clint shakes his head and gets to his feet. He sets his bow down on the weapons rack and divests himself of the quiver. Sweat glistens over his skin, his arms blessedly bare in his typical uniform of a sleeveless vest. He runs a hand through his white-blonde hair and it sticks up in a way that always reminded Percy of a 90s boy band. There's a smattering of band aids across his face.
"When did you get back?" Clint picks up a towel and slings it over his neck. His hands were still covered by his fingerless gloves and Percy has to tell his body to behave when a bolt of electricity travels down his spine.
"Around fifteen minutes ago." Percy tilts his head, admiring Clint with an unabashed, lingering look. "I got Clarisse to cave. It took almost getting beaten to death to do it, but I managed it in the end."
Clint chuckles, stepping closer. "Wouldn't have expected anything different. What's the plan from here?"
"Well…" Percy takes the ends of the towel and pulls Clint towards him by the neck. It earns him a grin that he's tempted to kiss right off Clint's stupidly handsome face. "I was hoping to take a shower. Clarisse is off with Flora." He lays an open-mouth kiss on Clint's jaw. "No kid. Room all to ourselves."
"You're impossible." Clint tilts his head back to give Percy better access to his throat. He laves his tongue over the tendons that stand so stiffly at attention when Percy touches them. Clint groans. "Keep this up and we won't even make it to the shower."
Percy hums in response. His hands travel down Clint's chest to clutch at his hips. "I wouldn't mind that."
Clint rolls his eyes. "I would. Tony has security cams in here."
That gives Percy pause and he reluctantly pulls away, laying his forehead on Clint's shoulder. "Fuck."
Clint rubs Percy's back. "I bet that was a long night you had, being back at camp. Tell me about it in the shower."
Percy shakes his head, nuzzling into Clint's neck. "I'd rather not talk about the awkward family reunion when I want to blow you."
Clint rubs circles between Percy's shoulder blades. "Fair. C'mon, let me take care of you."
—
The hot water tank for the Tower must be massive, because thirty minutes in and the shower hasn't flagged yet. Steam fogs up the glass door of the— admittedly large— shower. Percy had never been so glad for Tony's tendency towards luxury than in that moment, pushing Clint up against the tiles until is presses a pattern into his skin.
"You're— ah!— never going to get your hair clean at this rate," Clint gasps out. His hands were in Percy's hair a minute ago, lathering shampoo into the long locks. He isn't entirely sure how he ended up here, pressed against the wall, his legs supported by Percy's arms, his ass safely in Percy's hands. He can't help the whine that comes from his throat as Percy grinds against him.
"We're just going to have to shower again after this." Percy sucks a mark into Clint's skin. "I'm not too bothered by it."
Clint gasps and tilts his head back against the shower wall. Water pours over them, hot enough to make their skin pink and their cheeks red. He can feel Percy shift, his hand traveling over Clint's ass before spreading him open with one finger. It's unexpected in the best way; they hadn't been together like this in years and the case kept them from having enough time to do more than fuck when they collided in bed together.
He cants his hips to take Percy's finger in deeper, his breath coming in short pants.
"Like that, huh?" Percy grins.
"Don't be smug about it." Clint's forehead creases in concentration.
He adds a second finger, scissoring them as he works Clint open. Clint leans forward and bites Percy's shoulder to muffle the noises building up in his throat. His teeth leave a deep enough impression that makes Percy feel even more smug. It's not long before he's thrusting three fingers into Clint, his other arm supporting him.
The water pounding against Percy's back spurs him on, even as it heals him of the bite Clint left. He'd only fucked in the shower once before and he'd lasted for hours. At least Poseidon's blessing came with some perks for his sex life, if nothing else. He wonders what it'd be like to fuck underwater and if he even could, considering Clint doesn't exactly have gills.
"Jesus Christ, Percy," Clint groans. "Just fuck me already."
Percy chuckles and slows his fingers to a torturous pace. "This is payback."
"What for?" Clint grips Percy's shoulders, trying to ride Percy's fingers himself. "Fuck— is it for the padawan thing?"
Percy says nothing as he adds a fourth finger.
Clint bites his lip. "It is, isn't it? Okay, Jedi master, please fuck me pretty please? Is that better?"
Percy bursts out laughing, nearly dropping Clint in the process. His fingers slip out of Clint to catch him as Percy's shoulders shake. It takes a good amount of willpower to stop himself from laughing. He kisses his way up Clint's chest and positions himself to enter him.
"God— I love you."
Percy says it without thinking, halfway into Clint, and he stills, his eyes wide.
"I— I mean—" he stutters, trying to gauge Clint's reaction. Anxiety courses through him, hot and sticky.
Clint grasps him by the back of his neck and pulls him close. "Just fuck me, baby."
It takes a moment for Percy to process the request before he can get himself to move. By the time Clint's taken his entire length, he's forgotten the misstep entirely. They moan in tandem, foreheads pressed together.
Percy kisses down Clint's jaw. "Good?"
Clint's voice sticks in his throat. He nods, urging Percy faster. "Go. Please."
He doesn't need to be told twice. The pace starts off slow and sentimental and quickly rockets into Percy pistoning himself in and out of Clint as he's fucked up into the tiles hard enough to bruise. They cling to each other for dear life, chasing an end that has taken priority over all else. Cries come from their throats. Percy savours every sound he gets from Clint like he'll never hear them again, swallowing them down with kiss after kiss.
Clint never tells him when he's about to come, usually Percy can feel him getting close, but this time he grabs desperately at Percy's hand and repositions it on his cock with what can only be described as a mewl.
"Okay, baby. I've got you." Percy does it happily, stroking Clint with a rough, sloppy hand. They were both so lost to it, finesse never even entered the equation.
Pleasure builds in Clint until it becomes unbearable. He tightens around Percy as he slams into him. The eruption is like nothing he's ever felt before and he can feel his vision white out. Someone makes a ragged cry of surprise and raw emotion; it could have been him. Percy fucks him through it and comes a few strokes after Clint's limbs become dead weight.
He stills inside him, filling him deep, and presses his thumbs hard enough into Clint's hips to leave a mark. The only sound is water hitting the floor of the shower, sliding off their bodies to the drain below as they pant and gasp for breath.
Percy nuzzles his nose against the shell of Clint's ear. "Alright?"
Clint nods, dazed. "Not sure I can stand after that, but yeah."
Percy laughs into Clint's skin and lowers him to the floor to let the warm water wash over him.
"If that's what we're going to do when we're apart for a few days, you should leave more often" Clint looks at Percy with pleasure-clouded eyes.
Percy chuckles and leans down to kiss him, soft and slow.
"Think I can just say I had a really hard workout?" Clint asks. His head lolls back. "It wouldn't even be a lie."
Percy smiles, taking Clint's face in his hands. "Shut up and let me kiss you."
—
Clarisse was not quite sure what to think of the Tower. She had kept up some with the superheroes in the city, but not enough to have an opinion on them either way. She was far too focused on things going on at home and making sure the kids in her care wouldn't end up in situations she had at their age. No more, she always told herself. She would not bury any more demigods.
She runs her hand over a rack of weapons up against a wall in the gym on the Avengers' common floor. Flora was off following one of the other Avengers around with her new Stark phone, chattering a mile a minute about everything and nothing, giving Clarisse some time to explore.
Her spear lay in her bag. She never went anywhere without it, especially these days. Her campers used to joke that she slept with it next to her in bed, but they weren't exactly wrong on that account. It was normally safely stashed under her mattress, ready to be pulled out at a moment's notice.
"Are you a fan?" a voice comes from behind her.
Immediately, she rounds on them in a fighting stance, then stiffens when she sees it's one of the Avengers, but not one she remembers very clearly. The woman wears a loose t-shirt and dark trousers, her red hair tumbling down her back artfully. She's beautiful. Clarisse stands and clears her throat.
"What?" Gods, her conversation skills were rusty.
"Your shirt." She indicates what Clarisse is wearing with a nod of her head.
Clarisse looks down in dumbfounded shock. She was wearing a faded t-shirt with the image of Captain America going off to fight in the war. He has a Nazi by the throat with his trademark all-American smile.
"Oh, uh—" she reddens. "I got this at a rummage sale. I liked how he was choking the Nazi. I don't— I'm not really into the superhero thing."
She laughs lightly. "Steve would like that."
"Oh gods, no—" Clarisse starts, then tells herself to get it the fuck together. "I don't want to bother him. I'm sure he's doing very important…. American stuff."
She quirks an eyebrow.
"I'm Clarisse." She doesn't stick her hand out, instead stuffing them into her pockets to regain some semblance of control. "I— Percy and I— we grew up together."
She nods. "Another demigod. I figured. I'm Natasha."
Fuzzy images of a redhead with short hair in a sinfully tight black jumpsuit punching aliens in the face come to mind. Clarisse remembers getting the news alert. She looks different wearing something other than that getup.
"He—" She sighs. "I honestly have no idea what I'm meant to do, but I'm here, at least. We haven't always been… friendly, let's say. So…" Clarisse looks awkwardly to the side. "Um, have you seen him anywhere?"
Natasha looks over her shoulder out to the common room. "He's with Clint. That means he could be back anywhere from an hour to tomorrow."
The implied meaning dawns on her and she fights to stop from turning red. "Oh."
"Yeah," Natasha shrugs. "They're both a little too stupid to function when they're around each other. Clint missed him, so they'll be AWOL for a while." She approaches the weapons rack behind Clarisse and considers it carefully. "I know demigods are pretty good fighters. Want to spar in the meantime?"
Now she was talking Clarisse's language. "I don't usually spar against mortals. It's a bad idea— I could accidentally kill you."
Natasha laughs. It sounds like the wind chimes that used to hang on her mother's porch. "No, you won't. What's your specialty?"
"Spears." Clarisse swallows. "Mine's in my room."
Natasha takes stock of the rack and goes to the other end of the room to open a concealed closet. She tugs something free and returns with spear made of a light, silvery metal. "How's this?"
Clarisse takes it from her and measures its balance. It was slightly different from her celestial bronze one and she moves back from Natasha to heft it above her head, swinging it from side to side.
"Yeah," she says. "This'll be fine."
"Okay." Natasha nods and gets into a fighting stance. "Ready?"
"No weapon for you?" Clarisse cocks her head to the side.
Natasha smiles. "No."
She raises her eyebrows and gets a reasonable distance from Natasha. "Whatever you say." Clarisse nods. "I'm ready."
She doesn't even see it coming.
Natasha takes off at a run and launches herself off the wall towards Clarisse. Her hands grasp the spear's shaft and she wrenches it out of Clarisse's hands easily. The force throws Clarisse to the ground. Natasha is above her, knees boxing in her arms on either side as she holds the spear aloft with a grin.
"Wow." The leaves Clarisse's lungs all at once. She can barely comprehend losing a match in seconds and becomes hyper-aware of Natasha's presence over her.
"Good job." Natasha stands and offers Clarisse her hand. "Like I said, you won't kill me, accident or not."
Clarisse can't stop nodding to herself. She takes Natasha's offer of help. "Duly noted."