She smiled a little as she lifted her fork, swirled it artfully through the food he'd piled on her plate, breaking it up into little patterns and spirals before she finally took a bite. It was good. She'd figured it would be. They used to eat together a lot, when she'd been younger. He'd walked her through everything, how to use the multiple kinds flatware that Capitol citizens used, elaborate past the 'your hands, maybe a fork, maybe a spoon, again, mostly your hands' table manners that she'd grown up with. Shown her the different kinds of fruit that she'd never even known had existed, and when he'd laughed at her for not knowing how to do things, it had never been mean laughter.
He'd been the only one who'd ever tried to take care of her. He'd done his best in all those little ways and in bigger ones, and the sadness settled somewhere in the vicinity of her chest again, thick, heavy.
She took another bite to try and get rid of it. She hadn't come over here to bring a trail of doom and gloom in after her. Clint had gotten hurt; she'd wanted to check up on him. "I swiped you some painkillers when I went in to see her, I had a feeling she might use this opportunity to teach you a lesson," Natasha said, and smiled, this time a little wider. Really, she'd had no such feeling; Claire would scold, but she wouldn't be unkind about it. "And I'm all right. It's been an....interesting week, but no broken bones. No lasting damage, I suppose."
Not to anything but James's reputation, which was an uncomfortable, prickly reminder.