Parting Shot 2/2
Part 1
Clint half-expects to die, riddled with bullets, the moment he sets foot on the steet by the burning building. Already the flames are billowing up into the sky, the windows belching smoke into the chilly evening air. He's got Petar's good arm slung over his shoulders, though at this point it's anyone's best guess as to who is holding up whom. Petar's in better shape than Clint, overall, but he's rattled and his arm is badly burned. Even in the dim light Clint can see where the fabric of his shirt has been seared right into his flesh.
Miro is waiting for him, and with Katya's help pulls both him and Petar along the street until they can take refuge in an alley a block or two further away.
Clint leans heavily against the wall, coughing convulsively to get the remnants of smoke out of his lungs. "Stoyan?" he manages to ask between bouts of coughing, and Miro shrugs.
"I think he has more important thing to do. He's gone, for now."
Clint looks down at Petar's prone form. Stoyan's henchmen is moaning audibly, his injured arm cradled to his chest. It's obvious he needs a hospital, but there's practically no way to get him there without getting all of them killed. Clint glances at Katya, huddled in Miro's arms, and shrugs. Gingerly he kneels next to Petar, and when the pain in his knee makes that position impossible to keep he drops to sit on his ass on the cold concrete.
"Okay, Petar, here's the deal. That burn needs a hospital--not even Stoyan's illegal doctor can patch that up for you. That's supposing Stoyan even lets you see his doctor, because, let's face it, you were left in that building to make sure I never came out alive, am I right? As far as our buddy Stoyan is concerned, you should have let yourself burn before letting me get away. So, best case scenario, you're going to need skin grafts, some sort of advanced treatment. Otherwise it's going to get infected, and you're going to die in a lot of pain, and Stoyan is going to be pissed at you no matter what. You hear me?" Petar doesn't answer, but he nods. "Good, okay. I hate the idea of leaving you to die like an animal--I'm a soft-hearted guy, believe it or not. So we're going to find a way to drop you off at a hospital, but you've gotta help us first. Help us to help you, you get me?" That gets another nod. "Good boy, I knew you'd see reason. So, first, you tell me what Stoyan's got planned. I know something's happening, but you need to tell me what it is."
Petar coughs and moans, and whatever explanation he gives comes out in a jumbled mess of pained Bulgarian. Clint sighs, and turns to Miro, whose face has gone pale, even in the dark of the alley.
"What did he say?"
"He says the arms deal has been moved up. That it is in a few hours. That's why Stoyan left, he has to be at docks on time, and there are preparations. Stoyan worries that, if you are a spy, you will try to stop the shipment. You are spy, Clint?"
Clint gives him a sheepish smile. "That's a really fancy word for what I am. Makes me sound like James Bond. But yeah, I guess. I'm more of a... well, I'm an agent. I used to be, anyway. S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. But S.H.I.E.L.D. just imploded, from what I've heard."
Miro looks pained at that, but he shrugs. "Well, so it goes. Petar," he nudges the thug with the toe of his boot, making the man moan with pain again, and starts questioning him in rapid-fire Bulgarian. When he seems satisfied with his answers, he turns back to Clint. "Stoyan hears last night about S.H.I.E.L.D., finds out about you. You are on internet. The arms shipment is tonight, because there is... more weapons? Yes? Also, different weapons. I don't know word in English, but is a kind of bomb, with radiation."
Clint's blood runs cold. "A dirty bomb?"
Miro nods. "Yes, dirty bomb. There is confusion, no international agencies in place to interfere while S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone, da? So they make shipment of three, four times normal size. Smuggle weapons that cannot be smuggled."
"Shit, that makes sense. They're using the chaos to cover up what they're doing. Fucking Hydra."
"Hydra?"
Even Miro, it seems, has heard of them. Then again, if he's a fan of Captain America, that's probably not all that surprising. "Yeah. You know how you thought you were working for TIM? If that wasn't bad enough, you've actually been working for Hydra this whole time. They're the ones who've been Stoyan's financial backers from the start, laundering their money through TIM and all the other crime groups in Eastern Europe. All over the world, knowing them, but TIM's the only one I know about first hand."
Miro swallows hard. Katya's face is unreadable, may as well be made of stone for all the emotion she's showing, and Clint is pretty sure he doesn't want to know what's going through her mind at all right now.
"We need a car," Clint says, before they can get too deeply involved in the problem of which-bad-guy-did-what-when. They can deal with that later. Right now they're stranded next to the burning remains of everything Miro and Katya have in the world. "Petar, you're going to help us. Do you have a car near here?"
Petar moans and shakes his head. "Ne... Stoyan took car."
"Then we need mine. I can't get there on foot, but one of you can. I doubt my apartment's locked, you can get the keys there. I don't know if they'll have left anyone to look for me, but maybe we can distract them."
Miro shakes his head. "No, too much risk. Too far, and what will you do if Stoyan comes back?"
Katya breaks in, speaking quickly in Bulgarian, and Miro nods in apparent agreement.
"We take Katya's car. She goes, we stay here until she comes back."
Clint winces, but he has to concede the point. There's no telling what could happen in the time it would take even a healthy guy like Miro to run back to his apartment, find his keys and bring back the car, even if the place isn't being watched anymore, for which there's no guarantee. "Yeah, okay. Thank you, Katya."
"Za nishto," she says, then takes off at a run as the wailing of sirens in the distance grows louder.
He leans back against the cold wall of the nearest building, feeling his stomach perform another backflip as the last of the adrenaline deserts him, and a moment later he pitches to one side in order to vomit. It's mostly bile, since he still hasn't had the opportunity to eat today, but it still burns like hell coming up. He dry-heaves for what feels like an eternity until the gag reflex finally subsides, leaving him drained and shaking. His head and leg are throbbing in time with his pulse, and although the wound in his side doesn't hurt quite as much as before, the pain hasn't entirely let up, either. Miro crouches next to him and puts a hand carefully on his shoulder.
"You don't look good, my friend."
He manages a ghost of a smile. "I feel worse than I look. I'll be fine, I just need a minute or three to recover a bit."
"You need a hospital."
"No, Petar here needs a hospital. I need a shower, a bed, and maybe a bottle of vodka, not necessarily in that order."
Miro lets out a brittle laugh. "Before tonight, I could offer you all three. You make sure your contact knows we help, yes? When you call him?"
The message is clear. If Clint doesn't see them all through this, Miro and Katya may as well give up now. Their lives are forfeit, as far as Stoyan is concerned anyway, for helping a known spy. He's saved from having to answer by the rumble of a car engine coming up to the end of the alley. A moment later he hears Katya's voice--at least, he hopes it's her--calling to them. "Come now!"
Miro moves to help him up, but Clint waves him off. "Get him! I'm okay," he lies, and uses the wall to push himself to his feet.
Miro grabs the all-but-unconscious Petar by his arms and pulls him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, leaving Clint to limp behind him as best he can. Even slowed down by his burden, Miro reaches the car first and bundles Petar unceremoniously into the back seat before climbing in beside him. Without any prompting Clint drops into the front passenger seat, not bothering to buckle his seat belt before Katya presses on the accelerator and takes off in what he assumes is the direction of the hospital.
She drives slowly, or maybe that's just Clint's perception, but he resists the impulse to tell her to hurry the fuck up, already. For one thing, she's not trained to drive at top speeds, and a speeding car would attract too much attention at a time like this. Better to stick to the speed limit for now and fly under the radar... or drive under the radar, he corrects himself, and laughs at his own joke. Katya shoots him a worried look, and he can't quite find the energy to explain the humour in the situation to her. It's probably not all that funny anyway, he decides.
He loses track of things after that. The city goes by in a blur of white, green and red lights, of cars and muffled horns and anxious voices which he thinks he recognises. The car stops and goes, veers around corners so sharply that he sometimes lists against the car door before he's able to shove himself upright again. He should be paying attention, he thinks muzzily, keeping track of where they're going, counting the turns, but everything feels a little distant and fluid, and he can't quite bring himself to care much anymore. Finally the car lurches to a halt, and he almost breaks his nose on the dashboard. Katya shakes him hard by the shoulder, and he can't quite hold back a moan of pain as the movement jolts all his injuries again.
"Clint! You not sleep. Wake up!"
"'m not sleeping," he protests. "''m fine."
"Like hell you are, my friend," Miro says from just beside him, and Clint starts, because he never heard him get out of the car.
Miro opens the door, grabs him by the arm, and hauls him up without so much as a warning. That's probably a good thing, Clint decides, because otherwise he might have protested at the idea of getting up. The car seat was pretty comfortable. "I call Maria, we stay with her for now, until we have new plan."
Cint nods dazedly. "Yeah, okay. New plan. I'm working on it," he promises, right before his eyes roll back in his head, and the world goes dark again.
~*~
#
There's a weird murmuring sound around him. Clint can't quite make out what it is. Maybe if there weren't that annoying whistling noise in his ear he'd be able to get a better idea of what's happening. He tries to turn his head, get a sense of where he is and what's happening, and immediately regrets it when pain shoots right up into his head like a bolt of lightning. He swallows the cry of pain that threatens to bubble up in his throat, and struggles to sit up.
"Shh," a soft voice urges, just as strong hands pin him back down. "Tiho, Clint."
"You are safe here," another voice adds.
He blinks, opens his mouth, then closes it again, and waits for the world to come back into focus. He's lying on a bed in a small, sparsely furnished room. The only light is coming from a small lamp on a far table, for which he's grateful, because even that feels like it's uncomfortably close to blinding. There's a pretty woman hovering over him, all dark blue eyes and black hair trimmed to a bob that's falling in her face, her expression screwed up with concentration, or maybe worry. The resemblance with Katya is uncanny. He tries to remember how to smile like a normal person. By the looks of it, he doesn't succeed.
"Hi, Maria. Uh, long time no see."
She rolls her eyes, but pats his arm. She doesn't speak a word of English, he remembers belatedly, but he's pretty sure his brain is too scrambled to come up with anything decent in Bulgarian.
"How's Tomas?" He's half-expecting the little boy to come bouncing into the room, but the place is deadly quiet.
"He is with his grandmother, for now," Miro answers. He's sitting in a chair next to the bed, and he holds out a packet of frozen peas--a staple in all households, apparently. "Hold this to your head. You have a bad concussion. I thought you might not wake up."
This time no one tries to stop him when he pushes himself upright and accepts the makeshift ice pack. He winces as it puts pressure on his palm, and glancing down, he notes that both his hands have been bandaged with gauze. "I have a hard head."
"Katya says your hands are not too badly burned. You will have scars, but they will heal."
Clint nods, wishing the world would hold a little more still. Maria rises from where she was perched next to him on the bed, says something he doesn't catch, and steps out of the room.
His hearing aid is still whistling, which likely means nothing good at this point. He puts down the ice pack, carefully removes the aid and holds it up to his face, trying to see if it's been damaged. A moment later he starts when Miro taps him on the leg to get his attention. He turns in time to see Miro's mouth moving, but he can't make out the words, so he holds up a hand in a clear signal to wait.
"I can't understand you."
There isn't any visible damage or dirt, which means either it just got knocked loose during all the excitement, or something inside the electronics is irretrievably damaged. He sighs and inserts it back into his ear, hoping for the former, resigned to the latter.
"What did you say?" The whistling seems better, but everything else is still muffled, which is definitely not a good sign.
"I ask if your..." Miro makes a vague motion with one hand, "device is broken."
He shakes his head. "Not completely. Well, not that one. The other one is kaput, which is a pain in my ass, but this one seems mostly okay."
It's not a secret to anyone that he's deaf. He'd agreed long ago with Martin that pretending he was hearing would be more of a liability if the truth ever came out, than if he played it straight from the beginning. The fewer lies you have to keep track of, the better, especially in this line of work. No one had really seemed to give a damn if he was deaf or not, so long as he got the work done. Not all that different from S.H.I.E.L.D., when it came down to it. The thought isn't a comfortable one.
"How long was I unconscious?"
"Not long," Katya answers from the doorway. "One hour since we get here. Petar is in hospital," she adds, as if he'd just asked about the guy's welfare. Unlikely, since Petar did his best to gun him down not even two hours ago. "He says deal is at two o'clock."
"In the morning?" Clint sits up further, which only makes his head throb more. "Dammit."
Not for the first time, he finds himself wishing Phil Coulson were here. Not only because Coulson was always better at planning and logistics, but because you could always count on him to come through in a pinch. No matter how bad things were, no matter how deep in the shit you were, you could always count on him to come pull you out, to turn that sow's ear into a silk purse against all odds.
"You know how bad I am at plans, Phil," he mutters.
"Who?"
He shakes his head. "It's not important... he's dead now, anyway. Look, Miro, you've done more than I could ever ask of anyone. I gotta see this through, but you and Katya... if you want out, I'll understand. I'll give you my contact right now, and if I don't make it out..."
Miro breaks in before he can so much as finish his sentence. "Amerikanets," he snorts. "You are incredibly stupid sometimes, you know that? You think me and Katya, we turn our backs on you now?" he turns to Katya and asks a question that Clint doesn't really understand, except that he's pretty sure Miro was asking for her agreement. She rolls her eyes, nods, and replies with a long string of rather acid-sounding Bulgarian. Miro looks back at him, grinning. "You see? She thinks you are stupid too."
Clint finds himself grinning back. "I'm glad we've found something we can all agree on, then. Uh, okay," he ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck with a bandaged hand, hoping they won't see him blush. "Like I said, I gotta see this through. You understood Petar better than I did. He tell you where this deal is going down, other than the docks? Because that's a pretty big search area for the three of us."
"I have address. It's a warehouse that belongs to TIM. No one is using it right now, and it is right next to water. Perfect for sending and receiving large shipments, da?"
"Da," Clint agrees. "Okay. In that case, we better get going. You think we can still use your car without getting spotted?"
Katya puts her finger to her lips, then turns to her sister and speaks to her in an urgent undertone before shooing her from the room. When she turns back, she gives a rueful half-shrug. "She not know, she not tell."
"Good point."
Miro gets up from his chair and moves to close the door. "So, we are wounded spy, mechanic with no job, and nurse. We have my car, my cell phone and my pistol. Do you have a good plan?"
"I have a plan. Can't promise it's a good one." Clint grimaces. "We'll need at least a little money, and more weapons than your one gun. Katya, do you even know how to fire a gun?"
She gives him a look that suggests he's not much cleverer than the average bit of pond scum. "I live with Miro for five years. I know how to use gun."
"Okay, then. We need weapons for the three of us, and... I don't know, maybe something to use as a distraction. I work better from a distance, anyway. It's kind of what I did best, before I started the undercover gig. Let me tell you," he adds wistfully, "being a sharpshooter is a much simpler way of life than all this cloak-and-dagger bullshit."
"Sharpshooter?" Miro asks, looking puzzled.
"Like a sniper, sort of," Clint mimes pulling back the string on a bow, and Miro's eyes grow wide.
"Bozhe moi!" he exclaims. "You are Hawkeye!"
Clint winces and flaps a hand at him to keep quiet. "Jesus, Miro, don't yell! And I don't really go by that anymore. Not... not since New York," he says, but Miro is ignoring him entirely now, chattering excitedly away to Katya in Bulgarian. The only words that Clint can make out are 'Hawkeye' and 'Avengers,' and the rest all sounds like a bunch of very enthusiastic but jumbled syllables. "Miro, Miro! Dude, if it's that exciting, I can try to get you Captain America's autograph if we make it out of this mess alive, okay? Can you please focus?"
Miro subsides a bit after that, but his face has lit up like it's Christmas morning, and it kind of makes Clint want to cry, because Miro's looking at him like he's some kind of fucking hero, and Clint is about as far from a hero as you can get without actually being a bad guy.
"We all watch on the television two years ago, in New York. You and Avengers save the city! I did not recognise you, my friend. You were very high up on the roofs. Too far to see. But you defeat Loki and his army. Very exciting!"
Clint squeezes his eyes shut as the world threatens to turn blue again. He takes a deep breath, reminds himself that it was a long time ago, that Loki is long gone, that his mind is his own. No one here but us chickens, he thinks. "Yeah, well. It was a long time ago, and we've got bigger problems on our hands right now. Any thoughts?"
Miro leans forward and claps him on the shoulder. "For Hawkeye, I have perfect thing! You come, we go visit my cousin Georgi. He has electronics shop, but he sells weapons as a side business."
"Of course he does."
Both Katya and Miro have to prop Clint up between them to get him down the stairs from Maria's apartment and back into the car. Neither of them say anything, but he's pretty sure they both have serious doubts about his ability to take down a criminal organisation in his current state. By the time they get outside, though, his muscles have loosened up enough that he's able to walk on his own mostly unassisted, even if his gait leaves something to be desired in the balance department.
It turns out the 'perfect thing' is a longbow. It's an old wooden one, but good quality and kept in impeccable condition by Miro's cousin, who's an old-school archery buff. It's beautifully balanced, and for a few moments Clint allows himself the luxury of going through the motions of shooting, though without actually releasing the string. It has a good heft to it, and the grip has been lovingly carved and maintained. It takes concerted efforts by both Katya and Miro to keep Georgi from alerting the entire damned neighbourhood that they're there once he learns who will be using his longbow. So far they've been lucky, Clint knows. For whatever reason the people in Bulgaria are among the nosiest he's ever met, everyone constantly poking into everyone else's business, and he keeps expecting neighbours to come barging in at any moment, demanding to know who he is and what he's doing there. Thus far, though, they've been left almost completely alone.
Georgi wrings Clint's hand so hard that he yelps and pulls back--even without the burns on his palm he's pretty sure it would have hurt like hell--and that elicits a flood of apologies in rapid-fire Bulgarian. Luckily--or maybe unluckily--Georgi doesn't speak a word of English, and Clint is exhausted enough that he can't summon the concentration to string together a coherent sentence in a foreign language. He carefully offers his hand again to shake, and this time Georgi is a great deal more careful with him.
"Blagodaria," he says, with all the warmth he can muster. "Miro, you tell your cousin I owe him one, okay?"
"He says that the honour is his to help out the greatest archer in the world, and that you and he someday should go shooting," Miro translates the very enthusiastic reply, and Clint smiles wanly. His hand is throbbing, but he can still move all his fingers, so it's a win in his books.
"Sounds great," he manages, even though it's another promise he's probably going to have to break, sooner rather than later. "Okay, let's blow this popsicle stand."
Miro shoots him a slightly puzzled look--he probably doesn't get the idiom--but doesn't hesitate. He puts out a hand to help Clint back to the car, but Clint will be damned if he's going to let himself be carried on his own mission. Coulson would be furious with him for going like this, wounded and with no back-up, but it's not like he has a choice, here. Even Phil would have to agree that it's not like he can just let the terrorists ship a bunch of weapons and a dirty bomb to boot without at least trying to stop them.
"So what is the plan?" Miro asks as he helps Clint to load the considerable arsenal Georgi provided them with from the cellar below his otherwise innocuous-looking shop. They've got enough now to pose a credible threat, if they play their cards right.
Clint pauses, one of the pistols held gently in both hands, his fingers nowhere near the trigger for now, and chooses his words carefully. "We don't have time for a sophisticated plan. We have two things on our side: speed and surprise. We know where they'll be, and when. They, on the other hand, don't know we're coming, and that's to our advantage. So the plan is to get there as fast as possible, beat them to the punch, and lie in wait. Then when the deal goes down I do what I do best, and start picking them off one by one. People like these dealers, they don't like surprises. They spook easily. So the goal is to get them to back off, take their toys and go home."
"We leave them with the weapons?"
Clint lays the gun in the trunk of the car with the rest of the weapons and nods. "I hate to do it, but it's our best play. We're not going to be able to take down the whole gang, not the three of us, and not like this. Best we can hope for is that they delay the shipment, give us enough time to warn the authorities, and have people with better firepower take care of it then."
In spite of Katya's protests he takes the wheel of the car. "We have to go fast," he tells her, trying to meet her gaze so that she doesn't get offended, or anything. "I might be banged up some, but I've got the training for this--you don't."
She relents, but it's obvious she's not happy about it. Come to think of it, he wouldn't be happy to have the concussed guy behind the wheel either, but it's not like they have much of a choice at this point. He takes the first few turns more slowly than he'd like, getting a feel for how the car handles, then jams his foot against the gas pedal as hard as he can and sends up a thought that's halfway between a silent apology to Katya's car and a prayer that the transmission will hold out until he can get them to their destination. Katya, visibly terrified, buries her head in her arms in the passenger seat, and he has to give her props for not screaming. Miro, at least, is a little more used to being in the thick of things. Clint catches glimpses of him in the rearview mirror every so often, busily loading a pistol that he appropriated for himself. The last time Clint looks back at him, Miro grins and gives him a thumbs-up.
"Score one for the good guys, yes?" he says.
Clint opens his mouth to reply, but before the words leave his lips the world explodes in a welter of shattered glass and the shrieking of metal grating against metal. The car spins, lurches, and Clint's head snaps to the side to collide hard with the door frame, and his last conscious thought is to wonder how many times a guy can get hit in the head in the same day before it causes some sort of permanent damage.
~*~
#
Clint figures he should be getting used to his whole body feeling like he's been beaten with several baseball bats. Even without opening his eyes he can tell he's been tied to a chair, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. At least his wrists are bound with rope this time, easier to get out of, provided he's given enough time to work. His head is hanging at a painful angle--if he ever gets out of this he's going to need an army of chiropractors--but he risks peeking through his eyelashes in order to get a glimpse of his surroundings, hoping that whoever has him tied up this time, they're not watching him too closely.
It's a warehouse. Probably the warehouse, knowing his luck. It's mostly empty, whatever cargo or machinery was stored in here long since dismantled and taken away. It appears to be under construction, though for what purpose he has no idea. There are three men standing just on the edge of his peripheral vision, and he immediately recognises Stoyan and Dimitar, engaged in what looks like a pretty intense conversation. Even from a distance Stoyan is easy to recognise. The man is built like a bulldog, short and stocky, with a shock of steel grey hair that always looks like he's in need of a haircut. Over to the right he spots a large hole dug in the floor next to what looks like a cement mixer, it's huge barrel still rolling slowly in order to keep its contents wet, not that he has a particularly good view of it. He doesn't dare raise his head to look around, get a better view. The only way he stands any chance of getting out of this alive is if he manages to maintain what little element of surprise he has. Not that it's much, what with being tied to a chair without a good idea of how badly he's injured now.
He has to bite back a groan of pain as even the slightest movement makes him feel as though white-hot knives are being jabbed into his spine. He wriggles his toes inside his sneakers, and is relieved when it hurts like a son of a bitch. Whatever happened in the car, it didn't leave him paralysed. It's little comfort, since it's more than likely both Miro and Katya are dead. There aren't any other people here that he can see, no one tied up next to him, which can only mean one thing, in his experience. He swallows, throat threatening to close up on him, eyes stinging. This is all his fault, he knows. He shouldn't have dragged them into his business. He flexes his hands, wriggles his fingers, and even though the slightest movement makes stars dance in front of his eyes. He clamps his teeth down on his tongue until he tastes copper, trying not to make any sound that might be heard above the ambient noise.
In spite of his best efforts to look like he's still unconscious, his acting skills must be rusty, because a moment later Dimitar says something to Stoyan and jerks his head in Clint's direction. Leaving behind the third guy--Clint doesn't recognise him, but that's not altogether surprising in this line of business--they make their way over. Stoyan pulls a pistol from his belt and uses the tip of the barrel to force Clint's chin up.
"You disappoint me," he says by way of introduction. "Martin, he told me that perhaps you were one of us, but I see now we were both wrong."
Clint shifts in his chair, trying to find a more comfortable position now that he doesn't have to play possum anymore, and spits blood onto the ground. "Gotta be a hobby," he says to no one in particular.
"What?"
"Getting beaten all to hell," he supplies, forcing himself to smile. Judging by the look on Stoyan's face, he doesn't make a good impression. "See, I'm not getting paid for it, but I do it on a regular enough basis that, if I'm not making a living at it, it means it's a hobby. I need a better one. Something safer, like knitting. I could use more scarves in my life."
Stoyan isn't one to waste words when he can use his fists, Clint knows this about him, so he isn't surprised when his former employer smacks him hard across the face. He spits out another mouthful of blood, and pokes gingerly with his tongue at what feels like a loose tooth. Things are starting to make sense, though. At least all of the bad guys he's had to deal with lately seem to have a fondness for monologuing. The good part about human bad guys is that they're limited to guns. No freaky mind-control powers.
"So... you're Hydra too, huh? You guys are freaking everywhere."
"Cut off the head--"
"Two more grow back," Clint rolls his eyes, even though it makes his head hurt more. "I know, I know. Except if you burn the head, that much I remember from my Greek mythology. I don't suppose you'd do me a favour and set yourself on fire? Save me the hassle of having to get free and do it myself?"
Stoyan turns a calculating look on him, and a chill runs down Clint's spine. For a second he let himself get complacent, forgot that Stoyan isn't some mindless goon that he'll be able to take out without a second thought. Stoyan is one of the leaders of TIM, maybe not the top guy, but he's close enough to the top that it means he's earned his way there. And in organisations like this, you don't earn your way to the top by being soft. Stoyan slowly and deliberately uses the barrel of his pistol to lift Clint's chin again.
"You think you are alive now because you are talented? Good at what you do?" he laughs mirthlessly. "You are alive because I want it so. I needed to know who was helping you, and now I do. The only reason I keep you alive now is to make sure there are no more surprises tonight. You got away once, so now I make sure that you don't interfere with my other plans. How does that expression go? If you want something done right, do it yourself. So tonight I take care of business first, take care of you second, and when I am done with that I track down your accomplices and take care of them, too."
It takes all of Clint's self-control not to jerk in surprise. "They got away?"
"They are not important," Stoyan shrugs. "I find them and deal with them later."
If Stoyan isn't gloating about killing Miro and Katya, then it must mean they got away. Clint can't let himself think of that, not now. It could be another ruse, just another of the kinds of mind games Hydra likes to play. Keep everyone off-balance. The car crash was a bad one, the kind that happens only when your car gets deliberately targeted by a much bigger, much heavier vehicle. He can't remember most of it, but he's pretty sure the other vehicle came at them from the driver's side, and he has to clamp down on the little flutter of hope in his chest before he loses control entirely. If Miro and Katya were able to get away, it might be the only good thing to come out of this whole mess.
"Stay put," Stoyan tells him, as though he has any choice in the matter. "When the deal is over, you and I will have a long talk about S.H.I.E.L.D., and what you have been telling them about me all this time. Maybe after that I will kill you, if I am feeling generous. Or maybe I will hand you over to Hydra interrogator, and let them extract all the secrets from your mind in ways that are too terrible for me to even imagine."
Clint shudders in spite of himself, and bites his tongue before he can say anything he'll regret. If you're caught, you stay silent, Barton, Phil used to tell him before every mission. Every time you open your smart-ass mouth you're giving them an opening, showing a weakness they can exploit. They're looking for what makes you react, and sarcasm is a reaction. So you shut up, you sit still, and you don't make eye contact. You sit tight until I work out a way to extract you. Got it?
"Got it," he mumbles under his breath.
Except this time there isn't going to be an extraction. He slumps in his seat, and for a moment he's tempted to sit there, to simply wait until it's all over. His head is throbbing, his whole body aches and burns by turns, and his hands have gone numb where the ropes securing him have cut off his circulation. It would be easier to give up, that much is for certain.
There's a loud metallic clanging as one of the cargo doors opens on the far side of the warehouse. He looks up in time to see a large grey truck trundle inside and come rattling to a halt about twenty yards away. The driver hops out, leaving the engine idling, and four other men clamber out of the back, each more heavily armed than the last. Clint winces, watching as the odds of him getting out of here in one piece dwindle down to less than nothing. This isn't your ordinary weapons sale, that much is obvious. He hasn't seen this much firepower gathered in one place since... well, in a really long time. Two of the men, their weapons slung over their shoulders, are carrying a metal case between the two of them. It doesn't look especially heavy, but given the way they're holding it gingerly, as though it might come alive and bite them at any time, leaves little doubt in Clint's mind as to its contents.
There's the smoking gun, Phil, he thinks. That's what I've got to take care of. The rest isn't all that important.
Stoyan and Dimitar have already moved forward to greet the new arrivals. They're too far away for Clint to be able to make out their faces, not that he's all that good at lip-reading in Bulgarian anyway. His hearing aid is still whistling intermittently, and he still can't feel his fingers, but knowing what's inside that box has banished from his mind any thoughts of giving up. He tugs at the rope binding his wrists, feels it chafe against raw skin on one wrist, but the other hand is too thickly bandaged for him to feel anything. He chews on his lip for a moment. He can't slip free, not with his hand wrapped in bandages, but if he can get the bandage off it might work. It's either that or dislocate the thumb on his uninjured hand, which will leave him even worse off than before. He needs at least one hand to be somewhat functional in order to have a snowball's chance in hell of getting out of this alive.
Katya, bless her soul, is unfortunately really good at what she does. After a few minutes of fruitlessly picking at the edges of the bandages, Clint resigns himself to the inevitable. There's no way he's getting out of these ropes without doing himself some extra damage. Dimly he's aware of some sort of argument between Stoyan and the sellers, but he can't afford to pay too much attention to that now. Even if he could make out what they were saying, there isn't much chance he'd be able to use any of it to his advantage. Coulson might, if he were here, but he's not, and Clint knows enough to play to his own strengths. He takes a breath, steels himself against the oncoming pain, and takes hold of his thumb as best he can, praying he'll have enough leverage to see this through.
Something collides with the heel of his shoes. Startled, he looks down at his feet and sees a knife there, the blade glinting dully in the dim light of the warehouse. For a moment he stares at it incredulously, then looks up and around to try and figure out where the hell it could have come from. A moment later he spots the source: Miro is crouched about a hundred yards away, almost completely hidden from view behind some crates. Clint grins, his heart soaring in spite of himself as his friend gives him an exaggerated thumbs-up sign with both hands.
The odds are still stacked against them both, but suddenly Clint is convinced that, if he needs to, he can damned well grow wings and fly out of here.
~*~
#
It still takes longer than Clint would like to toe off one of his shoes and use his toes to pick up the knife. It hurts like the fires of hell to contort his body enough to shift the knife to his hand, but eventually he manages to get it properly positioned to saw determinedly at the ropes. The blade bites into his skin on more than one occasion, but he grits his teeth and forces himself to keep going, the handle of the knife now slippery with blood.
A moment later and he's free. He's right out in the open, there's no way for him to slip away without anyone seeing him. There's no choice but to abandon any hope of subtlety. All he can do is hope that the element of surprise will be enough to see him to the other side of the warehouse, where there's cover. A glance over at Stoyan and his buddies tells him that his little escape artist act so far has gone unnoticed. He turns to look back at Miro, jerks his head in what he hopes is an obvious indication for him to change positions. Luckily Miro seems to get the message, gives him another thumbs-up, and promptly disappears from view.
This is it, Clint tells himself. He shoves his foot back in his sneaker, tries to discreetly work the kinks out of his muscles, then gathers himself, and takes a deep breath. The graceful leap he was planning from his seat doesn't go exactly as planned. He gets his legs under him, but his wrenched knee promptly buckles and sends him sprawling. His foot catches the leg of the chair on which he was sitting, sending it crashing to the floor. A chorus of yells erupts from off to the side, and his heart leaps into his mouth. He scrambles to his hands and knees, pushes himself back to his feet and forces himself to run, to close the distance between him and the crates on the far side of the warehouse, even as he hears the first bullets whistle by his head. He resists the urge to duck--he knows the bullets are already well past him by the time he hears them, and ducking would only slow him down even more. His leg is screaming at him, but better that than it not hurting at all anymore after he's dead, he supposes. He throws himself at the crates, remembering his old drill instructor's directions--never be afraid to hit your cover; bounce off it if you have to, but never stop before you reach it, otherwise that last-minute hesitation will be your last minute. He hits harder than he intended, ears ringing, but at least for now he's out of the direct line of fire.
Miro, bless him, left him a pistol and the bow and arrows they got from cousin Georgi. He slings the bow and the quiver over his shoulder, ducks around the crates even as he's scooping the pistol up from the ground. He can feel rather than hear more bullets impacting against the wooden crates, mere inches from where he was a few seconds ago. He risks popping up over one of the crates in order to return fire, and sees one of the seller's guys go down, although he's knows it wasn't his bullet that did it. Miro has to have circled around.
Stoyan strides to the middle of the warehouse, and Clint ducks back almost out of view. Clint has to hand it to him, the guy has balls of steel to walk into what's essentially the middle of a firefight with no apparent concern for his own physical well-being. He holds up one hand, and everyone, Clint included, holds their fire.
"Barton! You come out now, and I promise that I will kill you quickly. You keep up your little game, and I will make sure that you die slowly, and not well. This is my only offer!"
The metal container is lying unguarded now, the men who accompanied it having taken up positions behind the truck in order to shield themselves from any bullets that might be coming their way. There's no way he can take them out from where he is, not even with Miro's help. Get to high ground, Clint, he can hear Phil tell him. I want eyes on the whole floor in thirty seconds!
You got it, he promises, and starts scanning the place for a vantage point, an access, anything. He finds it a moment later, a spot where the crates have been piled high enough that, with a little bit of skill and a whole lot of luck, he might be able to swing up to a catwalk. There's a rope and pulley at the other end of the catwalk, and he grins to himself. Access and egress. Easy peasy. He pops up again empties his entire clip in the direction of Stoyan and his men, although they've scattered enough that he knows he won't be able to get more than one or two, and is gratified when he hears a scream of pain loud enough to penetrate the whistling from his hearing aid. He leaps up onto the first crate, then the next, ignoring the burning, tearing sensation in his knee, finds himself flailing as one of the crates teeters under his weight, threatening to send him crashing to the floor. His arms windmill for a few heart-stopping seconds, and at the last moment he makes a desperate lunge as the crate shifts again under him. He catches the edge of the catwalk with his fingers, hoists himself up even as a bullet ricochets against the metal railing a scant few inches from his hands.
He doesn't pause to so much as catch his breath, is up and running seconds later, pulling the bow off his back and nocking an arrow in one fluid motion. Guns still require concentration, but archery is like breathing. He settles into the familiar stance, back straight, hand aligned with his jaw, and feels his spirits soar as the first arrow sails through the air to bury itself in the throat of Stoyan's henchman, the one whose name he never learned. He takes off at a run again, twists as he does so in order to loose another arrow, and watches a man crumple to the ground. A third arrow, a third target collapses. Stoyan is nowhere to be seen, finally gone to ground in order not to get shot like a rat at the bottom of a hole. It's too bad, really. Clint would dearly have liked to put an arrow through him as well. He can see where Miro has taken cover over on the other side of the warehouse, betrayed by the muzzle flash of his pistol, although Clint is pretty sure no one else has spotted him yet. It's only a matter of time before he's caught, though, which means Clint has to act fast.
He sprints along the catwalk, heedless of the shots being fired below him, intent only on the rope and pulley ahead. He slings the bow back over his shoulder, lunges at the rope and tries to keep himself from getting too badly rope burned as he lowers himself to the ground as fast as the pulley mechanism will let him. He lands hard, the impact spilling him onto the floor, but he's still managed to catch them all off-guard. The main advantage of working with Phil Coulson as your handler for years, is that you learned to think outside the box. Anything can be a weapon, anything at all can be used to give you an edge, if you know what you're doing. That's what he taught Clint, and today Clint's life depends on those lessons like it never has before.
The bow falls to one side, the quiver goes rolling across the floor, but there's no time to recover either of them. The impact must have jarred his hearing aid loose, because the only thing he can hear now is a high-pitched whine in his right ear. He keeps his eyes fixed on the grey box, now only a few yards away. Nothing else matters, except getting that box out of play. He can't just destroy it, blow it up the way he would any other bomb. Its contents would contaminate the entire port sector of Varna. Out of the corner of his eye he spots the cement mixer, and a desperate plan half-forms in his mind. He stumbles forward, grabs the box with both hands and nearly drops it. He curses loudly, hugs it to his chest. It's deceptively light, and he almost laughs at how ludicrous it is, that this box he can lift with just two hands could kill hundreds or thousands of people, or even more.
Clint doesn't know how he manages to make it all the way to the cement mixer without getting shot--he decides he probably has Miro to thank for that--but make it he does. There's no time to finesse this. He drops the box into the hole by the cement mixer, winces as the lid comes off and some of the components come spilling out onto the ground. There's nothing for it now but to hope he hasn't fucked everything up completely and keep going. Stay on target, Barton. Phil's voice is in his mind again, egging him on. Stay on target. He climbs up into the control booth, sends up a prayer of gratitude to whatever divinity decided to leave the cement mixer running, and starts tugging at the controls. Cement mixers aren't part of his training, but hell, he's driven every vehicle and flown pretty much every bird S.H.I.E.L.D. dad to offer at some point or another, he figures this thing can't be all that different. His heart is hammering in his ribcage, and he can feel where the bullet wound in his side has reopened, blood seeping warm and wet against his shirt. For all he knows he's already surrounded, seconds away from getting a bullet lodged in his head, but he can't afford to turn around and look to see what's happening. Stay on target. The world is starting to swim in front of his eyes--blood loss, he thinks vaguely, even as he locates the lever that will release all the contents of the barrel down the chute. He can't see the dirty bomb, just has to trust that it worked.
He slumps in the seat, and isn't surprised when, after he presses a hand to his side, it comes away crimson. The whistling in his ear has stopped, replaced by strange, muffled noise that's familiar and all the more maddening because he can't figure out what it is. He should get up, should go help Miro, try to get them all out of this alive, but his legs have different ideas on the matter. His head lolls to the side in time for him to spot one of the arms dealers, a man whose face means nothing to him, coming at him with his gun pointed directly at Clint's face.
"Sorry, Phil," he mumbles. "But hey, on the plus side, we saved everybody."
He lets his eyes close, figuring it doesn't really matter if he doesn't look his death right in the face. He's too tired to care. The mysterious sound gets louder, which makes no sense because he's sure his hearing aid isn't working at all. His last thought before he loses consciousness is that, in the end, it's pretty ludicrous to be hallucinating the sound of a helicopter approaching.
~*~
#
For the first time in recent memory, Clint isn't in pain when he awakens. He opens his eyes and finds himself looking at a set of off-white ceiling panels with pin-prick holes that form no discernible pattern. Even without the metal railing on the bed and the IV snaking out of his arm, the smell alone tells him that he's in a hospital. The world is silent, but he's pretty sure that if he had his hearing aids in, that he'd be able to hear the steady beeping of a heart monitor. He raises one hand to check for his hearing aid only to find the hand swathed in bandages and functionally useless.
Another hand, small and well manicured, catches him by the wrist. His gaze travels up, and he winces a little when he sees the expression on Natasha Romanov's face.
"You changed your hair," is the first thing that comes out of his mouth. "I like it. It suits you."
It's more of a croak than a compliment. His throat is dry, and his mouth tastes like something crawled in there and died. Natasha doesn't say anything, just holds a plastic cup of water with a straw to his lips and waits for him to drink. Barring the tumbler of very expensive scotch that Tony Stark offered him and all the other Avengers after the events of New York two years ago, it's the best thing he's tasted in his entire life. Natasha puts the cup down and glares even harder at him.
You're an idiot, she signs angrily.
He grins at her, now secure in the knowledge he's already been forgiven. "Thank you for coming for me, Tasha."
I am really, really mad at you. You picked up a dirty bomb with your bare hands! Idiot!
He raises his bandaged hand and rubs it in a circle over his chest. "It was in a box. And I didn't die of radiation poisoning, so it all turned out okay. I didn't have a choice. I'm sorry, really."
You're going to make this up to me for the rest of your life.
"My hand to God," he promises. He searches out her gaze and holds it. "Tasha... what the hell happened?"
She looks away, just for a second, but he's known her long enough to know that expression on her face, and his heart skips an uncomfortable beat in his chest. He can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he's seen her look absolutely shattered, and the last time was when Nick Fury told them both that Phil Coulson was dead. Clint braces himself, tells himself to wait until she's had a chance to explain before he starts jumping to conclusions. When she turns back to him, she faces him head on so he can read her lips.
"I didn't have a choice either. I'll explain everything, I promise, but not yet. You need to rest, and it's a very long story. Besides, there are people who want to see you," she adds with a small smile.
Clint feels a grin spread over his own features when the door opens and reveals Miro, pushing Katya in a wheelchair. Her face is bandaged and one leg is encased in a cast to her knee. She's covered in bruises, but she's smiling, and so is Miro. He wheels her all the way up to the bed, starts to speak, but whatever he's saying is lost as he bends over to lock the wheels on Katya's chair.
"I can't hear you, Miro," Clint tries to tell him, fumbling with the button that will let him raise the bed. "I don't have my hearing aids. You have to look at me when you talk. You're okay?"
Miro straightens up and beams at him. "I was saying, it is good to see you awake, my friend! Your colleague, Black Widow, she told us you might not... that your head injuries were very bad. You are feeling better, da?"
He nods, a little more carefully this time, now that the spectre of head injury is looming over him again. "Yeah, I'm guessing they've got me on the good stuff. Feeling no pain at all. How about you? You're looking pretty good."
"Me? I am tough old bird. So is Katya," Miro gives her a fond look, and she rolls her eyes. "As soon as we are able, we will go to America. There is a plane to take us. Some sort of jet, Black Widow says."
Clint reaches out to take Katya's hand between his own bandaged ones, and she lets him. "I'm really glad you're all right. When the car crashed, I thought..."
"We are both fine. Truly," she pats his arm with her free hand. "Don't feel bad."
"There are medical facilities waiting for you there, now that you're out of the woods," Natasha says, making sure he's watching her when she speaks. "You're going to need a lot of rehab. And no skipping out, this time. I'll sit on you if I have to. We didn't come out all this way just to have you die from a subdural haematoma."
"We?"
"Your boss, he says he has job for me and Katya, when we go to America," Miro says, seemingly out of nowhere. "He is good man, like you. He was very worried you might not wake up."
Natasha moves forward to put a hand on his shoulder. "Easy, Clint. Take it easy."
Clint is pretty sure he's forgotten how to breathe. His chest is burning from the lack of air, and he has to resist the impulse to claw at his hospital shirt, the thin fabric feeling as though it's going to smother him right here in this bed. He feels his mouth working to produce sound, but his throat has closed up, and when his dead former handler steps into the room, looking exactly the same in his familiar black suit as the last time Clint saw him, the whole world starts to swim before his eyes.
Natasha says something, but he can't see well enough to make out her words. She ushers Miro and Katya out of the room, leaving him alone with his former handler.
Clint, Phil signs his name, then clasps him gently by both shoulders for a moment before signing again. Clint, take a breath.
He manages to pull in a thin, wheezing mouthful of air, dizzy with the sudden rush of it all. His eyes are burning, but he's pretty sure Coulson won't hold it against him if he passes out right about now. All the death-defying heroics have probably bought him a little leeway in the falling-apart department.
Phil rubs a fist in a circle over his own chest. I'm sorry. I really enjoy these dramatic reveals too much for my own good. I should have stopped to think... "God," he says aloud, "Natasha's going to kill me." He switches back to ASL for the rest. Forgive me? Before she gets back?
"Christ," Clint chokes down a sob, can't even bring himself to laugh at the obvious joke. "Fuck, Phil. Phil..."
He can't think of anything else to say, but it doesn't seem to matter, because his old handler pulls him into a hug. It's not exactly protocol. He and Phil were friends, but they weren't exactly the hugging, share-your-feelings type of friends, not even when they'd been at their closest. After a moment Phil shifts his weight a little, from one foot to the other. Clint can feel the vibration that tells him Phil is speaking, pulls away slowly so he can focus on his mouth, on the way his lips are moving, scrubbing at the tears that keep streaming down his face.
"... wanted to tell you," Phil is saying, even though it doesn't explain a damned thing. "Everything just moved so fast, and by the time I was able to, you were gone, and the world thought I was dead. We didn't want to compromise your cover."
Clint pulls in another shuddering breath and nods. "I don't care."
"What?" Phil rocks back on his heels, and Clint realises he misunderstood.
"No, I mean, I don't care why. I don't care. I just... you're alive, you're here. I don't care about anything else. Fuck, Phil, I thought you were--" he stumbles on the words. "I thought I'd killed you."
"Never. It was never your fault, I know that. Everyone knows that." The relief is evident on Phil's face. "Okay. We can deal with the rest once we're home again. I'll explain everything, I promise."
"I feel like there's a lot I missed."
"Nothing we can't get you caught up on. If--if you still want to be part of this, I mean. You've been through a lot, and S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't exist anymore, not the way it was. There's just a handful of us left, so if you want out, now's as good a time as any--"
"To hang up my bow?" Clint shifts in his bed and winces as the movement pulls at his side. "Well, I always did want to have my own farm..." he grins at the expression on Phil's face. "Give me a break, Coulson. I wouldn't know what to do with a cow if it bit me."
A small smile tugs at the corner of Phil's lips, the way it always does when he's trying not to let on that he finds Clint's humour too funny. "So, you're with us, then?"
"Always have been, always will be."
This time, Phil smiles in earnest. "Good. Then let's get started."
~The End~
Clint half-expects to die, riddled with bullets, the moment he sets foot on the steet by the burning building. Already the flames are billowing up into the sky, the windows belching smoke into the chilly evening air. He's got Petar's good arm slung over his shoulders, though at this point it's anyone's best guess as to who is holding up whom. Petar's in better shape than Clint, overall, but he's rattled and his arm is badly burned. Even in the dim light Clint can see where the fabric of his shirt has been seared right into his flesh.
Miro is waiting for him, and with Katya's help pulls both him and Petar along the street until they can take refuge in an alley a block or two further away.
Clint leans heavily against the wall, coughing convulsively to get the remnants of smoke out of his lungs. "Stoyan?" he manages to ask between bouts of coughing, and Miro shrugs.
"I think he has more important thing to do. He's gone, for now."
Clint looks down at Petar's prone form. Stoyan's henchmen is moaning audibly, his injured arm cradled to his chest. It's obvious he needs a hospital, but there's practically no way to get him there without getting all of them killed. Clint glances at Katya, huddled in Miro's arms, and shrugs. Gingerly he kneels next to Petar, and when the pain in his knee makes that position impossible to keep he drops to sit on his ass on the cold concrete.
"Okay, Petar, here's the deal. That burn needs a hospital--not even Stoyan's illegal doctor can patch that up for you. That's supposing Stoyan even lets you see his doctor, because, let's face it, you were left in that building to make sure I never came out alive, am I right? As far as our buddy Stoyan is concerned, you should have let yourself burn before letting me get away. So, best case scenario, you're going to need skin grafts, some sort of advanced treatment. Otherwise it's going to get infected, and you're going to die in a lot of pain, and Stoyan is going to be pissed at you no matter what. You hear me?" Petar doesn't answer, but he nods. "Good, okay. I hate the idea of leaving you to die like an animal--I'm a soft-hearted guy, believe it or not. So we're going to find a way to drop you off at a hospital, but you've gotta help us first. Help us to help you, you get me?" That gets another nod. "Good boy, I knew you'd see reason. So, first, you tell me what Stoyan's got planned. I know something's happening, but you need to tell me what it is."
Petar coughs and moans, and whatever explanation he gives comes out in a jumbled mess of pained Bulgarian. Clint sighs, and turns to Miro, whose face has gone pale, even in the dark of the alley.
"What did he say?"
"He says the arms deal has been moved up. That it is in a few hours. That's why Stoyan left, he has to be at docks on time, and there are preparations. Stoyan worries that, if you are a spy, you will try to stop the shipment. You are spy, Clint?"
Clint gives him a sheepish smile. "That's a really fancy word for what I am. Makes me sound like James Bond. But yeah, I guess. I'm more of a... well, I'm an agent. I used to be, anyway. S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. But S.H.I.E.L.D. just imploded, from what I've heard."
Miro looks pained at that, but he shrugs. "Well, so it goes. Petar," he nudges the thug with the toe of his boot, making the man moan with pain again, and starts questioning him in rapid-fire Bulgarian. When he seems satisfied with his answers, he turns back to Clint. "Stoyan hears last night about S.H.I.E.L.D., finds out about you. You are on internet. The arms shipment is tonight, because there is... more weapons? Yes? Also, different weapons. I don't know word in English, but is a kind of bomb, with radiation."
Clint's blood runs cold. "A dirty bomb?"
Miro nods. "Yes, dirty bomb. There is confusion, no international agencies in place to interfere while S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone, da? So they make shipment of three, four times normal size. Smuggle weapons that cannot be smuggled."
"Shit, that makes sense. They're using the chaos to cover up what they're doing. Fucking Hydra."
"Hydra?"
Even Miro, it seems, has heard of them. Then again, if he's a fan of Captain America, that's probably not all that surprising. "Yeah. You know how you thought you were working for TIM? If that wasn't bad enough, you've actually been working for Hydra this whole time. They're the ones who've been Stoyan's financial backers from the start, laundering their money through TIM and all the other crime groups in Eastern Europe. All over the world, knowing them, but TIM's the only one I know about first hand."
Miro swallows hard. Katya's face is unreadable, may as well be made of stone for all the emotion she's showing, and Clint is pretty sure he doesn't want to know what's going through her mind at all right now.
"We need a car," Clint says, before they can get too deeply involved in the problem of which-bad-guy-did-what-when. They can deal with that later. Right now they're stranded next to the burning remains of everything Miro and Katya have in the world. "Petar, you're going to help us. Do you have a car near here?"
Petar moans and shakes his head. "Ne... Stoyan took car."
"Then we need mine. I can't get there on foot, but one of you can. I doubt my apartment's locked, you can get the keys there. I don't know if they'll have left anyone to look for me, but maybe we can distract them."
Miro shakes his head. "No, too much risk. Too far, and what will you do if Stoyan comes back?"
Katya breaks in, speaking quickly in Bulgarian, and Miro nods in apparent agreement.
"We take Katya's car. She goes, we stay here until she comes back."
Clint winces, but he has to concede the point. There's no telling what could happen in the time it would take even a healthy guy like Miro to run back to his apartment, find his keys and bring back the car, even if the place isn't being watched anymore, for which there's no guarantee. "Yeah, okay. Thank you, Katya."
"Za nishto," she says, then takes off at a run as the wailing of sirens in the distance grows louder.
He leans back against the cold wall of the nearest building, feeling his stomach perform another backflip as the last of the adrenaline deserts him, and a moment later he pitches to one side in order to vomit. It's mostly bile, since he still hasn't had the opportunity to eat today, but it still burns like hell coming up. He dry-heaves for what feels like an eternity until the gag reflex finally subsides, leaving him drained and shaking. His head and leg are throbbing in time with his pulse, and although the wound in his side doesn't hurt quite as much as before, the pain hasn't entirely let up, either. Miro crouches next to him and puts a hand carefully on his shoulder.
"You don't look good, my friend."
He manages a ghost of a smile. "I feel worse than I look. I'll be fine, I just need a minute or three to recover a bit."
"You need a hospital."
"No, Petar here needs a hospital. I need a shower, a bed, and maybe a bottle of vodka, not necessarily in that order."
Miro lets out a brittle laugh. "Before tonight, I could offer you all three. You make sure your contact knows we help, yes? When you call him?"
The message is clear. If Clint doesn't see them all through this, Miro and Katya may as well give up now. Their lives are forfeit, as far as Stoyan is concerned anyway, for helping a known spy. He's saved from having to answer by the rumble of a car engine coming up to the end of the alley. A moment later he hears Katya's voice--at least, he hopes it's her--calling to them. "Come now!"
Miro moves to help him up, but Clint waves him off. "Get him! I'm okay," he lies, and uses the wall to push himself to his feet.
Miro grabs the all-but-unconscious Petar by his arms and pulls him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, leaving Clint to limp behind him as best he can. Even slowed down by his burden, Miro reaches the car first and bundles Petar unceremoniously into the back seat before climbing in beside him. Without any prompting Clint drops into the front passenger seat, not bothering to buckle his seat belt before Katya presses on the accelerator and takes off in what he assumes is the direction of the hospital.
She drives slowly, or maybe that's just Clint's perception, but he resists the impulse to tell her to hurry the fuck up, already. For one thing, she's not trained to drive at top speeds, and a speeding car would attract too much attention at a time like this. Better to stick to the speed limit for now and fly under the radar... or drive under the radar, he corrects himself, and laughs at his own joke. Katya shoots him a worried look, and he can't quite find the energy to explain the humour in the situation to her. It's probably not all that funny anyway, he decides.
He loses track of things after that. The city goes by in a blur of white, green and red lights, of cars and muffled horns and anxious voices which he thinks he recognises. The car stops and goes, veers around corners so sharply that he sometimes lists against the car door before he's able to shove himself upright again. He should be paying attention, he thinks muzzily, keeping track of where they're going, counting the turns, but everything feels a little distant and fluid, and he can't quite bring himself to care much anymore. Finally the car lurches to a halt, and he almost breaks his nose on the dashboard. Katya shakes him hard by the shoulder, and he can't quite hold back a moan of pain as the movement jolts all his injuries again.
"Clint! You not sleep. Wake up!"
"'m not sleeping," he protests. "''m fine."
"Like hell you are, my friend," Miro says from just beside him, and Clint starts, because he never heard him get out of the car.
Miro opens the door, grabs him by the arm, and hauls him up without so much as a warning. That's probably a good thing, Clint decides, because otherwise he might have protested at the idea of getting up. The car seat was pretty comfortable. "I call Maria, we stay with her for now, until we have new plan."
Cint nods dazedly. "Yeah, okay. New plan. I'm working on it," he promises, right before his eyes roll back in his head, and the world goes dark again.
~*~
#
There's a weird murmuring sound around him. Clint can't quite make out what it is. Maybe if there weren't that annoying whistling noise in his ear he'd be able to get a better idea of what's happening. He tries to turn his head, get a sense of where he is and what's happening, and immediately regrets it when pain shoots right up into his head like a bolt of lightning. He swallows the cry of pain that threatens to bubble up in his throat, and struggles to sit up.
"Shh," a soft voice urges, just as strong hands pin him back down. "Tiho, Clint."
"You are safe here," another voice adds.
He blinks, opens his mouth, then closes it again, and waits for the world to come back into focus. He's lying on a bed in a small, sparsely furnished room. The only light is coming from a small lamp on a far table, for which he's grateful, because even that feels like it's uncomfortably close to blinding. There's a pretty woman hovering over him, all dark blue eyes and black hair trimmed to a bob that's falling in her face, her expression screwed up with concentration, or maybe worry. The resemblance with Katya is uncanny. He tries to remember how to smile like a normal person. By the looks of it, he doesn't succeed.
"Hi, Maria. Uh, long time no see."
She rolls her eyes, but pats his arm. She doesn't speak a word of English, he remembers belatedly, but he's pretty sure his brain is too scrambled to come up with anything decent in Bulgarian.
"How's Tomas?" He's half-expecting the little boy to come bouncing into the room, but the place is deadly quiet.
"He is with his grandmother, for now," Miro answers. He's sitting in a chair next to the bed, and he holds out a packet of frozen peas--a staple in all households, apparently. "Hold this to your head. You have a bad concussion. I thought you might not wake up."
This time no one tries to stop him when he pushes himself upright and accepts the makeshift ice pack. He winces as it puts pressure on his palm, and glancing down, he notes that both his hands have been bandaged with gauze. "I have a hard head."
"Katya says your hands are not too badly burned. You will have scars, but they will heal."
Clint nods, wishing the world would hold a little more still. Maria rises from where she was perched next to him on the bed, says something he doesn't catch, and steps out of the room.
His hearing aid is still whistling, which likely means nothing good at this point. He puts down the ice pack, carefully removes the aid and holds it up to his face, trying to see if it's been damaged. A moment later he starts when Miro taps him on the leg to get his attention. He turns in time to see Miro's mouth moving, but he can't make out the words, so he holds up a hand in a clear signal to wait.
"I can't understand you."
There isn't any visible damage or dirt, which means either it just got knocked loose during all the excitement, or something inside the electronics is irretrievably damaged. He sighs and inserts it back into his ear, hoping for the former, resigned to the latter.
"What did you say?" The whistling seems better, but everything else is still muffled, which is definitely not a good sign.
"I ask if your..." Miro makes a vague motion with one hand, "device is broken."
He shakes his head. "Not completely. Well, not that one. The other one is kaput, which is a pain in my ass, but this one seems mostly okay."
It's not a secret to anyone that he's deaf. He'd agreed long ago with Martin that pretending he was hearing would be more of a liability if the truth ever came out, than if he played it straight from the beginning. The fewer lies you have to keep track of, the better, especially in this line of work. No one had really seemed to give a damn if he was deaf or not, so long as he got the work done. Not all that different from S.H.I.E.L.D., when it came down to it. The thought isn't a comfortable one.
"How long was I unconscious?"
"Not long," Katya answers from the doorway. "One hour since we get here. Petar is in hospital," she adds, as if he'd just asked about the guy's welfare. Unlikely, since Petar did his best to gun him down not even two hours ago. "He says deal is at two o'clock."
"In the morning?" Clint sits up further, which only makes his head throb more. "Dammit."
Not for the first time, he finds himself wishing Phil Coulson were here. Not only because Coulson was always better at planning and logistics, but because you could always count on him to come through in a pinch. No matter how bad things were, no matter how deep in the shit you were, you could always count on him to come pull you out, to turn that sow's ear into a silk purse against all odds.
"You know how bad I am at plans, Phil," he mutters.
"Who?"
He shakes his head. "It's not important... he's dead now, anyway. Look, Miro, you've done more than I could ever ask of anyone. I gotta see this through, but you and Katya... if you want out, I'll understand. I'll give you my contact right now, and if I don't make it out..."
Miro breaks in before he can so much as finish his sentence. "Amerikanets," he snorts. "You are incredibly stupid sometimes, you know that? You think me and Katya, we turn our backs on you now?" he turns to Katya and asks a question that Clint doesn't really understand, except that he's pretty sure Miro was asking for her agreement. She rolls her eyes, nods, and replies with a long string of rather acid-sounding Bulgarian. Miro looks back at him, grinning. "You see? She thinks you are stupid too."
Clint finds himself grinning back. "I'm glad we've found something we can all agree on, then. Uh, okay," he ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck with a bandaged hand, hoping they won't see him blush. "Like I said, I gotta see this through. You understood Petar better than I did. He tell you where this deal is going down, other than the docks? Because that's a pretty big search area for the three of us."
"I have address. It's a warehouse that belongs to TIM. No one is using it right now, and it is right next to water. Perfect for sending and receiving large shipments, da?"
"Da," Clint agrees. "Okay. In that case, we better get going. You think we can still use your car without getting spotted?"
Katya puts her finger to her lips, then turns to her sister and speaks to her in an urgent undertone before shooing her from the room. When she turns back, she gives a rueful half-shrug. "She not know, she not tell."
"Good point."
Miro gets up from his chair and moves to close the door. "So, we are wounded spy, mechanic with no job, and nurse. We have my car, my cell phone and my pistol. Do you have a good plan?"
"I have a plan. Can't promise it's a good one." Clint grimaces. "We'll need at least a little money, and more weapons than your one gun. Katya, do you even know how to fire a gun?"
She gives him a look that suggests he's not much cleverer than the average bit of pond scum. "I live with Miro for five years. I know how to use gun."
"Okay, then. We need weapons for the three of us, and... I don't know, maybe something to use as a distraction. I work better from a distance, anyway. It's kind of what I did best, before I started the undercover gig. Let me tell you," he adds wistfully, "being a sharpshooter is a much simpler way of life than all this cloak-and-dagger bullshit."
"Sharpshooter?" Miro asks, looking puzzled.
"Like a sniper, sort of," Clint mimes pulling back the string on a bow, and Miro's eyes grow wide.
"Bozhe moi!" he exclaims. "You are Hawkeye!"
Clint winces and flaps a hand at him to keep quiet. "Jesus, Miro, don't yell! And I don't really go by that anymore. Not... not since New York," he says, but Miro is ignoring him entirely now, chattering excitedly away to Katya in Bulgarian. The only words that Clint can make out are 'Hawkeye' and 'Avengers,' and the rest all sounds like a bunch of very enthusiastic but jumbled syllables. "Miro, Miro! Dude, if it's that exciting, I can try to get you Captain America's autograph if we make it out of this mess alive, okay? Can you please focus?"
Miro subsides a bit after that, but his face has lit up like it's Christmas morning, and it kind of makes Clint want to cry, because Miro's looking at him like he's some kind of fucking hero, and Clint is about as far from a hero as you can get without actually being a bad guy.
"We all watch on the television two years ago, in New York. You and Avengers save the city! I did not recognise you, my friend. You were very high up on the roofs. Too far to see. But you defeat Loki and his army. Very exciting!"
Clint squeezes his eyes shut as the world threatens to turn blue again. He takes a deep breath, reminds himself that it was a long time ago, that Loki is long gone, that his mind is his own. No one here but us chickens, he thinks. "Yeah, well. It was a long time ago, and we've got bigger problems on our hands right now. Any thoughts?"
Miro leans forward and claps him on the shoulder. "For Hawkeye, I have perfect thing! You come, we go visit my cousin Georgi. He has electronics shop, but he sells weapons as a side business."
"Of course he does."
Both Katya and Miro have to prop Clint up between them to get him down the stairs from Maria's apartment and back into the car. Neither of them say anything, but he's pretty sure they both have serious doubts about his ability to take down a criminal organisation in his current state. By the time they get outside, though, his muscles have loosened up enough that he's able to walk on his own mostly unassisted, even if his gait leaves something to be desired in the balance department.
It turns out the 'perfect thing' is a longbow. It's an old wooden one, but good quality and kept in impeccable condition by Miro's cousin, who's an old-school archery buff. It's beautifully balanced, and for a few moments Clint allows himself the luxury of going through the motions of shooting, though without actually releasing the string. It has a good heft to it, and the grip has been lovingly carved and maintained. It takes concerted efforts by both Katya and Miro to keep Georgi from alerting the entire damned neighbourhood that they're there once he learns who will be using his longbow. So far they've been lucky, Clint knows. For whatever reason the people in Bulgaria are among the nosiest he's ever met, everyone constantly poking into everyone else's business, and he keeps expecting neighbours to come barging in at any moment, demanding to know who he is and what he's doing there. Thus far, though, they've been left almost completely alone.
Georgi wrings Clint's hand so hard that he yelps and pulls back--even without the burns on his palm he's pretty sure it would have hurt like hell--and that elicits a flood of apologies in rapid-fire Bulgarian. Luckily--or maybe unluckily--Georgi doesn't speak a word of English, and Clint is exhausted enough that he can't summon the concentration to string together a coherent sentence in a foreign language. He carefully offers his hand again to shake, and this time Georgi is a great deal more careful with him.
"Blagodaria," he says, with all the warmth he can muster. "Miro, you tell your cousin I owe him one, okay?"
"He says that the honour is his to help out the greatest archer in the world, and that you and he someday should go shooting," Miro translates the very enthusiastic reply, and Clint smiles wanly. His hand is throbbing, but he can still move all his fingers, so it's a win in his books.
"Sounds great," he manages, even though it's another promise he's probably going to have to break, sooner rather than later. "Okay, let's blow this popsicle stand."
Miro shoots him a slightly puzzled look--he probably doesn't get the idiom--but doesn't hesitate. He puts out a hand to help Clint back to the car, but Clint will be damned if he's going to let himself be carried on his own mission. Coulson would be furious with him for going like this, wounded and with no back-up, but it's not like he has a choice, here. Even Phil would have to agree that it's not like he can just let the terrorists ship a bunch of weapons and a dirty bomb to boot without at least trying to stop them.
"So what is the plan?" Miro asks as he helps Clint to load the considerable arsenal Georgi provided them with from the cellar below his otherwise innocuous-looking shop. They've got enough now to pose a credible threat, if they play their cards right.
Clint pauses, one of the pistols held gently in both hands, his fingers nowhere near the trigger for now, and chooses his words carefully. "We don't have time for a sophisticated plan. We have two things on our side: speed and surprise. We know where they'll be, and when. They, on the other hand, don't know we're coming, and that's to our advantage. So the plan is to get there as fast as possible, beat them to the punch, and lie in wait. Then when the deal goes down I do what I do best, and start picking them off one by one. People like these dealers, they don't like surprises. They spook easily. So the goal is to get them to back off, take their toys and go home."
"We leave them with the weapons?"
Clint lays the gun in the trunk of the car with the rest of the weapons and nods. "I hate to do it, but it's our best play. We're not going to be able to take down the whole gang, not the three of us, and not like this. Best we can hope for is that they delay the shipment, give us enough time to warn the authorities, and have people with better firepower take care of it then."
In spite of Katya's protests he takes the wheel of the car. "We have to go fast," he tells her, trying to meet her gaze so that she doesn't get offended, or anything. "I might be banged up some, but I've got the training for this--you don't."
She relents, but it's obvious she's not happy about it. Come to think of it, he wouldn't be happy to have the concussed guy behind the wheel either, but it's not like they have much of a choice at this point. He takes the first few turns more slowly than he'd like, getting a feel for how the car handles, then jams his foot against the gas pedal as hard as he can and sends up a thought that's halfway between a silent apology to Katya's car and a prayer that the transmission will hold out until he can get them to their destination. Katya, visibly terrified, buries her head in her arms in the passenger seat, and he has to give her props for not screaming. Miro, at least, is a little more used to being in the thick of things. Clint catches glimpses of him in the rearview mirror every so often, busily loading a pistol that he appropriated for himself. The last time Clint looks back at him, Miro grins and gives him a thumbs-up.
"Score one for the good guys, yes?" he says.
Clint opens his mouth to reply, but before the words leave his lips the world explodes in a welter of shattered glass and the shrieking of metal grating against metal. The car spins, lurches, and Clint's head snaps to the side to collide hard with the door frame, and his last conscious thought is to wonder how many times a guy can get hit in the head in the same day before it causes some sort of permanent damage.
~*~
#
Clint figures he should be getting used to his whole body feeling like he's been beaten with several baseball bats. Even without opening his eyes he can tell he's been tied to a chair, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. At least his wrists are bound with rope this time, easier to get out of, provided he's given enough time to work. His head is hanging at a painful angle--if he ever gets out of this he's going to need an army of chiropractors--but he risks peeking through his eyelashes in order to get a glimpse of his surroundings, hoping that whoever has him tied up this time, they're not watching him too closely.
It's a warehouse. Probably the warehouse, knowing his luck. It's mostly empty, whatever cargo or machinery was stored in here long since dismantled and taken away. It appears to be under construction, though for what purpose he has no idea. There are three men standing just on the edge of his peripheral vision, and he immediately recognises Stoyan and Dimitar, engaged in what looks like a pretty intense conversation. Even from a distance Stoyan is easy to recognise. The man is built like a bulldog, short and stocky, with a shock of steel grey hair that always looks like he's in need of a haircut. Over to the right he spots a large hole dug in the floor next to what looks like a cement mixer, it's huge barrel still rolling slowly in order to keep its contents wet, not that he has a particularly good view of it. He doesn't dare raise his head to look around, get a better view. The only way he stands any chance of getting out of this alive is if he manages to maintain what little element of surprise he has. Not that it's much, what with being tied to a chair without a good idea of how badly he's injured now.
He has to bite back a groan of pain as even the slightest movement makes him feel as though white-hot knives are being jabbed into his spine. He wriggles his toes inside his sneakers, and is relieved when it hurts like a son of a bitch. Whatever happened in the car, it didn't leave him paralysed. It's little comfort, since it's more than likely both Miro and Katya are dead. There aren't any other people here that he can see, no one tied up next to him, which can only mean one thing, in his experience. He swallows, throat threatening to close up on him, eyes stinging. This is all his fault, he knows. He shouldn't have dragged them into his business. He flexes his hands, wriggles his fingers, and even though the slightest movement makes stars dance in front of his eyes. He clamps his teeth down on his tongue until he tastes copper, trying not to make any sound that might be heard above the ambient noise.
In spite of his best efforts to look like he's still unconscious, his acting skills must be rusty, because a moment later Dimitar says something to Stoyan and jerks his head in Clint's direction. Leaving behind the third guy--Clint doesn't recognise him, but that's not altogether surprising in this line of business--they make their way over. Stoyan pulls a pistol from his belt and uses the tip of the barrel to force Clint's chin up.
"You disappoint me," he says by way of introduction. "Martin, he told me that perhaps you were one of us, but I see now we were both wrong."
Clint shifts in his chair, trying to find a more comfortable position now that he doesn't have to play possum anymore, and spits blood onto the ground. "Gotta be a hobby," he says to no one in particular.
"What?"
"Getting beaten all to hell," he supplies, forcing himself to smile. Judging by the look on Stoyan's face, he doesn't make a good impression. "See, I'm not getting paid for it, but I do it on a regular enough basis that, if I'm not making a living at it, it means it's a hobby. I need a better one. Something safer, like knitting. I could use more scarves in my life."
Stoyan isn't one to waste words when he can use his fists, Clint knows this about him, so he isn't surprised when his former employer smacks him hard across the face. He spits out another mouthful of blood, and pokes gingerly with his tongue at what feels like a loose tooth. Things are starting to make sense, though. At least all of the bad guys he's had to deal with lately seem to have a fondness for monologuing. The good part about human bad guys is that they're limited to guns. No freaky mind-control powers.
"So... you're Hydra too, huh? You guys are freaking everywhere."
"Cut off the head--"
"Two more grow back," Clint rolls his eyes, even though it makes his head hurt more. "I know, I know. Except if you burn the head, that much I remember from my Greek mythology. I don't suppose you'd do me a favour and set yourself on fire? Save me the hassle of having to get free and do it myself?"
Stoyan turns a calculating look on him, and a chill runs down Clint's spine. For a second he let himself get complacent, forgot that Stoyan isn't some mindless goon that he'll be able to take out without a second thought. Stoyan is one of the leaders of TIM, maybe not the top guy, but he's close enough to the top that it means he's earned his way there. And in organisations like this, you don't earn your way to the top by being soft. Stoyan slowly and deliberately uses the barrel of his pistol to lift Clint's chin again.
"You think you are alive now because you are talented? Good at what you do?" he laughs mirthlessly. "You are alive because I want it so. I needed to know who was helping you, and now I do. The only reason I keep you alive now is to make sure there are no more surprises tonight. You got away once, so now I make sure that you don't interfere with my other plans. How does that expression go? If you want something done right, do it yourself. So tonight I take care of business first, take care of you second, and when I am done with that I track down your accomplices and take care of them, too."
It takes all of Clint's self-control not to jerk in surprise. "They got away?"
"They are not important," Stoyan shrugs. "I find them and deal with them later."
If Stoyan isn't gloating about killing Miro and Katya, then it must mean they got away. Clint can't let himself think of that, not now. It could be another ruse, just another of the kinds of mind games Hydra likes to play. Keep everyone off-balance. The car crash was a bad one, the kind that happens only when your car gets deliberately targeted by a much bigger, much heavier vehicle. He can't remember most of it, but he's pretty sure the other vehicle came at them from the driver's side, and he has to clamp down on the little flutter of hope in his chest before he loses control entirely. If Miro and Katya were able to get away, it might be the only good thing to come out of this whole mess.
"Stay put," Stoyan tells him, as though he has any choice in the matter. "When the deal is over, you and I will have a long talk about S.H.I.E.L.D., and what you have been telling them about me all this time. Maybe after that I will kill you, if I am feeling generous. Or maybe I will hand you over to Hydra interrogator, and let them extract all the secrets from your mind in ways that are too terrible for me to even imagine."
Clint shudders in spite of himself, and bites his tongue before he can say anything he'll regret. If you're caught, you stay silent, Barton, Phil used to tell him before every mission. Every time you open your smart-ass mouth you're giving them an opening, showing a weakness they can exploit. They're looking for what makes you react, and sarcasm is a reaction. So you shut up, you sit still, and you don't make eye contact. You sit tight until I work out a way to extract you. Got it?
"Got it," he mumbles under his breath.
Except this time there isn't going to be an extraction. He slumps in his seat, and for a moment he's tempted to sit there, to simply wait until it's all over. His head is throbbing, his whole body aches and burns by turns, and his hands have gone numb where the ropes securing him have cut off his circulation. It would be easier to give up, that much is for certain.
There's a loud metallic clanging as one of the cargo doors opens on the far side of the warehouse. He looks up in time to see a large grey truck trundle inside and come rattling to a halt about twenty yards away. The driver hops out, leaving the engine idling, and four other men clamber out of the back, each more heavily armed than the last. Clint winces, watching as the odds of him getting out of here in one piece dwindle down to less than nothing. This isn't your ordinary weapons sale, that much is obvious. He hasn't seen this much firepower gathered in one place since... well, in a really long time. Two of the men, their weapons slung over their shoulders, are carrying a metal case between the two of them. It doesn't look especially heavy, but given the way they're holding it gingerly, as though it might come alive and bite them at any time, leaves little doubt in Clint's mind as to its contents.
There's the smoking gun, Phil, he thinks. That's what I've got to take care of. The rest isn't all that important.
Stoyan and Dimitar have already moved forward to greet the new arrivals. They're too far away for Clint to be able to make out their faces, not that he's all that good at lip-reading in Bulgarian anyway. His hearing aid is still whistling intermittently, and he still can't feel his fingers, but knowing what's inside that box has banished from his mind any thoughts of giving up. He tugs at the rope binding his wrists, feels it chafe against raw skin on one wrist, but the other hand is too thickly bandaged for him to feel anything. He chews on his lip for a moment. He can't slip free, not with his hand wrapped in bandages, but if he can get the bandage off it might work. It's either that or dislocate the thumb on his uninjured hand, which will leave him even worse off than before. He needs at least one hand to be somewhat functional in order to have a snowball's chance in hell of getting out of this alive.
Katya, bless her soul, is unfortunately really good at what she does. After a few minutes of fruitlessly picking at the edges of the bandages, Clint resigns himself to the inevitable. There's no way he's getting out of these ropes without doing himself some extra damage. Dimly he's aware of some sort of argument between Stoyan and the sellers, but he can't afford to pay too much attention to that now. Even if he could make out what they were saying, there isn't much chance he'd be able to use any of it to his advantage. Coulson might, if he were here, but he's not, and Clint knows enough to play to his own strengths. He takes a breath, steels himself against the oncoming pain, and takes hold of his thumb as best he can, praying he'll have enough leverage to see this through.
Something collides with the heel of his shoes. Startled, he looks down at his feet and sees a knife there, the blade glinting dully in the dim light of the warehouse. For a moment he stares at it incredulously, then looks up and around to try and figure out where the hell it could have come from. A moment later he spots the source: Miro is crouched about a hundred yards away, almost completely hidden from view behind some crates. Clint grins, his heart soaring in spite of himself as his friend gives him an exaggerated thumbs-up sign with both hands.
The odds are still stacked against them both, but suddenly Clint is convinced that, if he needs to, he can damned well grow wings and fly out of here.
~*~
#
It still takes longer than Clint would like to toe off one of his shoes and use his toes to pick up the knife. It hurts like the fires of hell to contort his body enough to shift the knife to his hand, but eventually he manages to get it properly positioned to saw determinedly at the ropes. The blade bites into his skin on more than one occasion, but he grits his teeth and forces himself to keep going, the handle of the knife now slippery with blood.
A moment later and he's free. He's right out in the open, there's no way for him to slip away without anyone seeing him. There's no choice but to abandon any hope of subtlety. All he can do is hope that the element of surprise will be enough to see him to the other side of the warehouse, where there's cover. A glance over at Stoyan and his buddies tells him that his little escape artist act so far has gone unnoticed. He turns to look back at Miro, jerks his head in what he hopes is an obvious indication for him to change positions. Luckily Miro seems to get the message, gives him another thumbs-up, and promptly disappears from view.
This is it, Clint tells himself. He shoves his foot back in his sneaker, tries to discreetly work the kinks out of his muscles, then gathers himself, and takes a deep breath. The graceful leap he was planning from his seat doesn't go exactly as planned. He gets his legs under him, but his wrenched knee promptly buckles and sends him sprawling. His foot catches the leg of the chair on which he was sitting, sending it crashing to the floor. A chorus of yells erupts from off to the side, and his heart leaps into his mouth. He scrambles to his hands and knees, pushes himself back to his feet and forces himself to run, to close the distance between him and the crates on the far side of the warehouse, even as he hears the first bullets whistle by his head. He resists the urge to duck--he knows the bullets are already well past him by the time he hears them, and ducking would only slow him down even more. His leg is screaming at him, but better that than it not hurting at all anymore after he's dead, he supposes. He throws himself at the crates, remembering his old drill instructor's directions--never be afraid to hit your cover; bounce off it if you have to, but never stop before you reach it, otherwise that last-minute hesitation will be your last minute. He hits harder than he intended, ears ringing, but at least for now he's out of the direct line of fire.
Miro, bless him, left him a pistol and the bow and arrows they got from cousin Georgi. He slings the bow and the quiver over his shoulder, ducks around the crates even as he's scooping the pistol up from the ground. He can feel rather than hear more bullets impacting against the wooden crates, mere inches from where he was a few seconds ago. He risks popping up over one of the crates in order to return fire, and sees one of the seller's guys go down, although he's knows it wasn't his bullet that did it. Miro has to have circled around.
Stoyan strides to the middle of the warehouse, and Clint ducks back almost out of view. Clint has to hand it to him, the guy has balls of steel to walk into what's essentially the middle of a firefight with no apparent concern for his own physical well-being. He holds up one hand, and everyone, Clint included, holds their fire.
"Barton! You come out now, and I promise that I will kill you quickly. You keep up your little game, and I will make sure that you die slowly, and not well. This is my only offer!"
The metal container is lying unguarded now, the men who accompanied it having taken up positions behind the truck in order to shield themselves from any bullets that might be coming their way. There's no way he can take them out from where he is, not even with Miro's help. Get to high ground, Clint, he can hear Phil tell him. I want eyes on the whole floor in thirty seconds!
You got it, he promises, and starts scanning the place for a vantage point, an access, anything. He finds it a moment later, a spot where the crates have been piled high enough that, with a little bit of skill and a whole lot of luck, he might be able to swing up to a catwalk. There's a rope and pulley at the other end of the catwalk, and he grins to himself. Access and egress. Easy peasy. He pops up again empties his entire clip in the direction of Stoyan and his men, although they've scattered enough that he knows he won't be able to get more than one or two, and is gratified when he hears a scream of pain loud enough to penetrate the whistling from his hearing aid. He leaps up onto the first crate, then the next, ignoring the burning, tearing sensation in his knee, finds himself flailing as one of the crates teeters under his weight, threatening to send him crashing to the floor. His arms windmill for a few heart-stopping seconds, and at the last moment he makes a desperate lunge as the crate shifts again under him. He catches the edge of the catwalk with his fingers, hoists himself up even as a bullet ricochets against the metal railing a scant few inches from his hands.
He doesn't pause to so much as catch his breath, is up and running seconds later, pulling the bow off his back and nocking an arrow in one fluid motion. Guns still require concentration, but archery is like breathing. He settles into the familiar stance, back straight, hand aligned with his jaw, and feels his spirits soar as the first arrow sails through the air to bury itself in the throat of Stoyan's henchman, the one whose name he never learned. He takes off at a run again, twists as he does so in order to loose another arrow, and watches a man crumple to the ground. A third arrow, a third target collapses. Stoyan is nowhere to be seen, finally gone to ground in order not to get shot like a rat at the bottom of a hole. It's too bad, really. Clint would dearly have liked to put an arrow through him as well. He can see where Miro has taken cover over on the other side of the warehouse, betrayed by the muzzle flash of his pistol, although Clint is pretty sure no one else has spotted him yet. It's only a matter of time before he's caught, though, which means Clint has to act fast.
He sprints along the catwalk, heedless of the shots being fired below him, intent only on the rope and pulley ahead. He slings the bow back over his shoulder, lunges at the rope and tries to keep himself from getting too badly rope burned as he lowers himself to the ground as fast as the pulley mechanism will let him. He lands hard, the impact spilling him onto the floor, but he's still managed to catch them all off-guard. The main advantage of working with Phil Coulson as your handler for years, is that you learned to think outside the box. Anything can be a weapon, anything at all can be used to give you an edge, if you know what you're doing. That's what he taught Clint, and today Clint's life depends on those lessons like it never has before.
The bow falls to one side, the quiver goes rolling across the floor, but there's no time to recover either of them. The impact must have jarred his hearing aid loose, because the only thing he can hear now is a high-pitched whine in his right ear. He keeps his eyes fixed on the grey box, now only a few yards away. Nothing else matters, except getting that box out of play. He can't just destroy it, blow it up the way he would any other bomb. Its contents would contaminate the entire port sector of Varna. Out of the corner of his eye he spots the cement mixer, and a desperate plan half-forms in his mind. He stumbles forward, grabs the box with both hands and nearly drops it. He curses loudly, hugs it to his chest. It's deceptively light, and he almost laughs at how ludicrous it is, that this box he can lift with just two hands could kill hundreds or thousands of people, or even more.
Clint doesn't know how he manages to make it all the way to the cement mixer without getting shot--he decides he probably has Miro to thank for that--but make it he does. There's no time to finesse this. He drops the box into the hole by the cement mixer, winces as the lid comes off and some of the components come spilling out onto the ground. There's nothing for it now but to hope he hasn't fucked everything up completely and keep going. Stay on target, Barton. Phil's voice is in his mind again, egging him on. Stay on target. He climbs up into the control booth, sends up a prayer of gratitude to whatever divinity decided to leave the cement mixer running, and starts tugging at the controls. Cement mixers aren't part of his training, but hell, he's driven every vehicle and flown pretty much every bird S.H.I.E.L.D. dad to offer at some point or another, he figures this thing can't be all that different. His heart is hammering in his ribcage, and he can feel where the bullet wound in his side has reopened, blood seeping warm and wet against his shirt. For all he knows he's already surrounded, seconds away from getting a bullet lodged in his head, but he can't afford to turn around and look to see what's happening. Stay on target. The world is starting to swim in front of his eyes--blood loss, he thinks vaguely, even as he locates the lever that will release all the contents of the barrel down the chute. He can't see the dirty bomb, just has to trust that it worked.
He slumps in the seat, and isn't surprised when, after he presses a hand to his side, it comes away crimson. The whistling in his ear has stopped, replaced by strange, muffled noise that's familiar and all the more maddening because he can't figure out what it is. He should get up, should go help Miro, try to get them all out of this alive, but his legs have different ideas on the matter. His head lolls to the side in time for him to spot one of the arms dealers, a man whose face means nothing to him, coming at him with his gun pointed directly at Clint's face.
"Sorry, Phil," he mumbles. "But hey, on the plus side, we saved everybody."
He lets his eyes close, figuring it doesn't really matter if he doesn't look his death right in the face. He's too tired to care. The mysterious sound gets louder, which makes no sense because he's sure his hearing aid isn't working at all. His last thought before he loses consciousness is that, in the end, it's pretty ludicrous to be hallucinating the sound of a helicopter approaching.
~*~
#
For the first time in recent memory, Clint isn't in pain when he awakens. He opens his eyes and finds himself looking at a set of off-white ceiling panels with pin-prick holes that form no discernible pattern. Even without the metal railing on the bed and the IV snaking out of his arm, the smell alone tells him that he's in a hospital. The world is silent, but he's pretty sure that if he had his hearing aids in, that he'd be able to hear the steady beeping of a heart monitor. He raises one hand to check for his hearing aid only to find the hand swathed in bandages and functionally useless.
Another hand, small and well manicured, catches him by the wrist. His gaze travels up, and he winces a little when he sees the expression on Natasha Romanov's face.
"You changed your hair," is the first thing that comes out of his mouth. "I like it. It suits you."
It's more of a croak than a compliment. His throat is dry, and his mouth tastes like something crawled in there and died. Natasha doesn't say anything, just holds a plastic cup of water with a straw to his lips and waits for him to drink. Barring the tumbler of very expensive scotch that Tony Stark offered him and all the other Avengers after the events of New York two years ago, it's the best thing he's tasted in his entire life. Natasha puts the cup down and glares even harder at him.
You're an idiot, she signs angrily.
He grins at her, now secure in the knowledge he's already been forgiven. "Thank you for coming for me, Tasha."
I am really, really mad at you. You picked up a dirty bomb with your bare hands! Idiot!
He raises his bandaged hand and rubs it in a circle over his chest. "It was in a box. And I didn't die of radiation poisoning, so it all turned out okay. I didn't have a choice. I'm sorry, really."
You're going to make this up to me for the rest of your life.
"My hand to God," he promises. He searches out her gaze and holds it. "Tasha... what the hell happened?"
She looks away, just for a second, but he's known her long enough to know that expression on her face, and his heart skips an uncomfortable beat in his chest. He can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he's seen her look absolutely shattered, and the last time was when Nick Fury told them both that Phil Coulson was dead. Clint braces himself, tells himself to wait until she's had a chance to explain before he starts jumping to conclusions. When she turns back to him, she faces him head on so he can read her lips.
"I didn't have a choice either. I'll explain everything, I promise, but not yet. You need to rest, and it's a very long story. Besides, there are people who want to see you," she adds with a small smile.
Clint feels a grin spread over his own features when the door opens and reveals Miro, pushing Katya in a wheelchair. Her face is bandaged and one leg is encased in a cast to her knee. She's covered in bruises, but she's smiling, and so is Miro. He wheels her all the way up to the bed, starts to speak, but whatever he's saying is lost as he bends over to lock the wheels on Katya's chair.
"I can't hear you, Miro," Clint tries to tell him, fumbling with the button that will let him raise the bed. "I don't have my hearing aids. You have to look at me when you talk. You're okay?"
Miro straightens up and beams at him. "I was saying, it is good to see you awake, my friend! Your colleague, Black Widow, she told us you might not... that your head injuries were very bad. You are feeling better, da?"
He nods, a little more carefully this time, now that the spectre of head injury is looming over him again. "Yeah, I'm guessing they've got me on the good stuff. Feeling no pain at all. How about you? You're looking pretty good."
"Me? I am tough old bird. So is Katya," Miro gives her a fond look, and she rolls her eyes. "As soon as we are able, we will go to America. There is a plane to take us. Some sort of jet, Black Widow says."
Clint reaches out to take Katya's hand between his own bandaged ones, and she lets him. "I'm really glad you're all right. When the car crashed, I thought..."
"We are both fine. Truly," she pats his arm with her free hand. "Don't feel bad."
"There are medical facilities waiting for you there, now that you're out of the woods," Natasha says, making sure he's watching her when she speaks. "You're going to need a lot of rehab. And no skipping out, this time. I'll sit on you if I have to. We didn't come out all this way just to have you die from a subdural haematoma."
"We?"
"Your boss, he says he has job for me and Katya, when we go to America," Miro says, seemingly out of nowhere. "He is good man, like you. He was very worried you might not wake up."
Natasha moves forward to put a hand on his shoulder. "Easy, Clint. Take it easy."
Clint is pretty sure he's forgotten how to breathe. His chest is burning from the lack of air, and he has to resist the impulse to claw at his hospital shirt, the thin fabric feeling as though it's going to smother him right here in this bed. He feels his mouth working to produce sound, but his throat has closed up, and when his dead former handler steps into the room, looking exactly the same in his familiar black suit as the last time Clint saw him, the whole world starts to swim before his eyes.
Natasha says something, but he can't see well enough to make out her words. She ushers Miro and Katya out of the room, leaving him alone with his former handler.
Clint, Phil signs his name, then clasps him gently by both shoulders for a moment before signing again. Clint, take a breath.
He manages to pull in a thin, wheezing mouthful of air, dizzy with the sudden rush of it all. His eyes are burning, but he's pretty sure Coulson won't hold it against him if he passes out right about now. All the death-defying heroics have probably bought him a little leeway in the falling-apart department.
Phil rubs a fist in a circle over his own chest. I'm sorry. I really enjoy these dramatic reveals too much for my own good. I should have stopped to think... "God," he says aloud, "Natasha's going to kill me." He switches back to ASL for the rest. Forgive me? Before she gets back?
"Christ," Clint chokes down a sob, can't even bring himself to laugh at the obvious joke. "Fuck, Phil. Phil..."
He can't think of anything else to say, but it doesn't seem to matter, because his old handler pulls him into a hug. It's not exactly protocol. He and Phil were friends, but they weren't exactly the hugging, share-your-feelings type of friends, not even when they'd been at their closest. After a moment Phil shifts his weight a little, from one foot to the other. Clint can feel the vibration that tells him Phil is speaking, pulls away slowly so he can focus on his mouth, on the way his lips are moving, scrubbing at the tears that keep streaming down his face.
"... wanted to tell you," Phil is saying, even though it doesn't explain a damned thing. "Everything just moved so fast, and by the time I was able to, you were gone, and the world thought I was dead. We didn't want to compromise your cover."
Clint pulls in another shuddering breath and nods. "I don't care."
"What?" Phil rocks back on his heels, and Clint realises he misunderstood.
"No, I mean, I don't care why. I don't care. I just... you're alive, you're here. I don't care about anything else. Fuck, Phil, I thought you were--" he stumbles on the words. "I thought I'd killed you."
"Never. It was never your fault, I know that. Everyone knows that." The relief is evident on Phil's face. "Okay. We can deal with the rest once we're home again. I'll explain everything, I promise."
"I feel like there's a lot I missed."
"Nothing we can't get you caught up on. If--if you still want to be part of this, I mean. You've been through a lot, and S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't exist anymore, not the way it was. There's just a handful of us left, so if you want out, now's as good a time as any--"
"To hang up my bow?" Clint shifts in his bed and winces as the movement pulls at his side. "Well, I always did want to have my own farm..." he grins at the expression on Phil's face. "Give me a break, Coulson. I wouldn't know what to do with a cow if it bit me."
A small smile tugs at the corner of Phil's lips, the way it always does when he's trying not to let on that he finds Clint's humour too funny. "So, you're with us, then?"
"Always have been, always will be."
This time, Phil smiles in earnest. "Good. Then let's get started."
~The End~