[ Camille walks away. Bond watches. Natasha thinks: you've changed after all. (Or maybe he's just grown more sentimental; maybe both of them have. Maybe this is what it feels like to grow old.)
It comes off him in waves and she knows him well enough, by now, to pick up on it. Natasha looks at him for a long moment, down the line of his nose and the pink-red sheen of his cheek to the set of his eyes, determined and steel and chrome, like he hasn't just given away a part of himself so a girl can live her life rather than drown in it. Some in-depth part of her, a remnant from the old days, tells her that this makes him weak and foolish. She doesn't think that anymore.
So instead, Natasha eventually turns the key and starts driving again, down dirt roads and long, empty highways, all dust and sand and a slowly setting sun. It's miles and miles later, when they're nearing main roads (likely Natasha's intent to find somewhere to spend the night, to regroup) and the radio flips between bursts of static and smooth violin strings, that she says anything at all. ]
You've grown a lot kinder, James.
[ No pointed use of Bond, no agent, no 007. Natasha's not the friendly sort. But he is, in a lot of ways, her oldest friend. ]
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It comes off him in waves and she knows him well enough, by now, to pick up on it. Natasha looks at him for a long moment, down the line of his nose and the pink-red sheen of his cheek to the set of his eyes, determined and steel and chrome, like he hasn't just given away a part of himself so a girl can live her life rather than drown in it. Some in-depth part of her, a remnant from the old days, tells her that this makes him weak and foolish. She doesn't think that anymore.
So instead, Natasha eventually turns the key and starts driving again, down dirt roads and long, empty highways, all dust and sand and a slowly setting sun. It's miles and miles later, when they're nearing main roads (likely Natasha's intent to find somewhere to spend the night, to regroup) and the radio flips between bursts of static and smooth violin strings, that she says anything at all. ]
You've grown a lot kinder, James.
[ No pointed use of Bond, no agent, no 007. Natasha's not the friendly sort. But he is, in a lot of ways, her oldest friend. ]