Fic: Gradient Descent 1/? [Avengers]
Title: Gradient Descent
Author: whisp
Summary:
When Clint was a kid, he rotated through a series of foster homes. Even at 6 years old, he knew that every placement was an elaborate game of illusions. Every smiling family poised, waiting for the moment he screwed up and the carpet got yanked out from under him again.
Now at 25, long past the time he thought himself too old for the game, Clint abruptly finds reality yanked out from underneath him and try as he might, there’s no secure footing to be found.
Please note: Clint goes through some serious issues. Read the warnings.
Pairing: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Warnings: Graphic torture, serious mental illness, language, hurt/comfort, will become nc-17 later on.
This fic requires more of a disclaimer than I usually give. The main character will be dealing with a major mental illness (I would prefer not to give it away, but if you'd like to know what illness it is before reading, please PM me). I am in no way trying to romanticize/make light of this illness. It is a very serious disorder. The way it is portrayed in this fic is in no way representative of a typical case. Nor is it typical of the challenges or co-morbidities that patients must face. I have taken the extreme presentations of the illness and used it to write something for entertainment purposes only. I have not meant to offend anyone in any way. Please PM/email me if you’d like to discuss anything further.
When Clint gets back to SHIELD headquarters, he is going to have a word with the staff from recruitment. A nice long chat about the misrepresentation of SHIELD activities.
When he was nineteen, SHIELD had swayed Clint over with romantic notions of espionage and intrigue; shooting bad guys and saving the world. At that point, Clint had been with the circus since he was nine. There had been a time in his young life when he wouldn’t have left it for the world, but years past and disillusioned by dwindling audiences and lacklustre performances, Clint had easily agreed.
Conveniently enough, SHIELD had neglected to mention the long hours spent gathering intel, waiting for shots, and generally being bored out of his mind. The ramshackle safe houses that alternated stifling hot and freezing cold. The bullets that rained down like hail. The sprains, the pulled muscles, the broken bones -
And oh yeah, Clint remembers idly as another fist cracks him across the jaw, the torture. They really should mention the torture.
It’s not that he isn’t prepared. If it’s one thing that SHIELD does right, it’s that they prepare their agents to withstand pain. In his five year tenure, Clint’s been shot, stabbed, starved, electrocuted, drowned, hit by cars, and thrown off buildings. A pair of guys working him over is nothing. He just really would have appreciated the head up before he signed up. So he could have run the other way. Or towards it. Whatever. Clint’s never been one for sane, rational choices.
Out of absolutely everything though, the part that really pisses him off isn’t the loose teeth or the burgeoning concussion. Not the eye currently swelling shut or the brightness of his blood smeared across his captors’ hands. It’s the fact that Clint doesn’t. fucking. know. anything. He can’t understand why these retards thought that grabbing the sniper would give them the location of a level 6 classified base. If Clint is going to be tortured, he at least wants the satisfaction of being able to withhold valuable information. For fuck’s sake, he’s only been at SHIELD for five years. He’s a field asset. They don’t tell you jack shit.
Not to mention he must be in the most clichéd interrogation ever staged. For one thing, they’re in an abandoned warehouse. And he‘s being worked over by a pair of thugs while cuffed to a chair. Seriously. Who the fuck actually does that?
He tries telling his tormentors this multiple times. They’re not amused.
So he settles for gritting his teeth and riding out the punches, listening to the faint static of the comm unit hidden in his ear canal. He’s seen their faces, so there‘s zero chance they‘re planning on leaving him alive, but hopefully they’ll take long enough for rescue to come. If they come. He’s been out of range a while now, so there’s no chatter over the comm channel, but he can’t quite quash the faint hope that SHIELD would send a retrieval team, instead of cutting their losses and heading back to base.
In retrospect, Clint thinks that maybe he shouldn’t have mouthed off as much as he did. Because after the third hour of momma jokes, they stop caring as much about the location of the base, and more about making Clint’s life a living hell.
The taller of the two, which Clint has dubbed ‘macho nacho’ guy says something to ‘stuffs his pants in overcompensation’ guy and disappears for an hour. When he comes back, he’s holding a car battery and a knife and a grin like Christmas had arrived early.
Clint takes back his competency remark. It turns out they’re very thorough.
They seem to be playing a game. Who can think of the most creative ways to make him scream. Clint starts the night holding back, biting his lip clean through and starting on his inner cheek after that. It doesn’t last long.
Before the night is over, Clint finds he can barely gather the strength to lift his chin off his chest. His limbs are heavy, his hands no longer feel like his own, all the strength and nimbleness have long since been stripped away. Half his fingers are missing fingernails, the other half are crooked and broken. There’s a slow line of blood meandering from the cut at his temple to the tip of his chin where it drips off steadily.
Hardly able to stay upright, the only reason he’s still in the chair is that he’s cuffed to it, the warm metal now slicked with sweat and blood. The air is permeated with the stench of urine and the distinct smell of charred meat from when they had skinned the flesh off his body in strips, then touched the ends of the battery to the raw wound, laughing as he convulsed.
Clint feels a hand bury itself in the hair at the back of his head and yank back roughly, forcing him to squint up at his captors though the eye not swollen shut. “The co-ordinates?” The taller one asks, like this time will be any different from the rest.
At this point, it’s pretty well established that Clint isn’t going to say fuck all. The question is really more a prelude to more pain than it is any attempt to get valid information. So when Clint refuses to answer, his captor breaks his nose and asks again.
This time, Clint tries to muster up a decent sneer, blood streaming from his nose around a shock of pain, but finds he can’t do much more twitch a lip back, as he’s much more preoccupied with wheezing for air, shallowly through cracked ribs. Distantly, he wonders whether he should be more worried about the amount of blood pouring from his nostrils, but he can’t really bring himself to care.
However, the next time he doesn’t answer, his captor clamps a hand over his mouth, and suddenly Clint cares a hell of a lot when that effectively cuts off his oxygen supply. His captor holds his hand there tightly, fingers pressing hard enough to bruise for long agonizing minutes, until Clint’s thrashing against the chair, sucking half clotted blood into his lungs in a desperate attempt to breathe. It’s only when Clint’s eyes start to roll back that his captor lets go and lets Clint gasp in deep shuddering breaths, coughing roughly despite the fire lancing through his ribs.
Clint spits out blood tinged saliva and in the process, probably some loose teeth as well. Most of it ends up running down his chin rather then landing on the floor where he aimed. “Fuck… you…” He slurs.
In response, there’s a crackling sound and a sudden flare of light from the corner of his vision. Clint’s usually trained unresponsiveness has been muted by prolonged pain so he can’t stop his sudden flinch.
“What’s that? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.” The shorter one asks, grinning widely from beside the battery. He sends sparks flying into the air once again, then yanks one end in close enough to ghost over Clint‘s skin. His face grows hard, “What did you say those coordinates were?”
Clint feels his throat seize up involuntarily and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t bring himself to snark back. He tries to look away, but they bring him back with a jolt of electricity, digging the ends of the wire into the muscle over his hip, where an inch of flesh had been already carved from him.
Clint screams, low and hoarse through shredded vocal chords. Every muscle in his body contracts, drawn taunt by the current of electricity running through him and suddenly he can’t breath, can’t think, can’t do anything but try to endure the agony running through him. When it finally stops, Clint collapses forward, reduced to a panting, shaking mess.
Then to his utter humiliation, he can feel the slid of hot tears start from the corners of his eyes.
His captors laugh themselves stupid. “Poor little agent.” Shorty coos. “Where’s that attitude of yours now?”
At this point, all Clint can do is shake his head and even that‘s an effort. He can’t do it, he can’t stand it anymore, and he almost finds himself praying for an end before he remembers that God had forsaken him long before this.
The absolutely worst part is that he would have told them. He would have betrayed everything he’d ever known if it somehow meant stopping the pain. SHIELD was right not to trust him. It’s that realization, beyond anything else that’s happened tonight, that finally defeats him.
There is no help coming. Clint knows this now with certainty. He possesses no valuable knowledge, has no irreplaceable skills. SHIELD wasn’t going to waste resources to rescue a dime a dozen sniper. They had probably already replaced him and slotted Clint’s file away with all the other agents that just couldn’t make the cut.
A palm taps roughly against his cheek. When there’s no response, the slaps get harder, but Clint is gone. Broken and exhausted, he has mentally checked out for the night, settling into a space that’s halfway between consciousness, where everything is fuzzy and floating and the only thing he has to concentrate on is getting in that next breath.
Distantly, he hears talking, “He’s done. What should we do with him?”
“Just leave him. If he’s alive in the morning, we’ll see if we can trade him for something worthwhile.”
There’s footsteps and the distant slam of a door and then Clint is alone.
The night cools the warehouse at an alarming speed. Clint, who’s bare-chested and covered in a tacky cold sweat, can’t decide if the shivering is from the lack of heat or if it’s leftover muscle spasms from the electricity. He’s trying to figure out a plan of escape, but finds he’s having trouble staying conscious for long enough to get his thoughts straight.
Several hours into the night, he’s slowly awakened when the static in his ear coalesces into a low steady buzz. Through it, he can hear the faint sound of someone talking.
Fuzzily, Clint tries to focus. The agent on the other end repeats himself sharply and Clint realizes he’s calling his name.
“Copy.” Clint rasps through razorblades, “This is Agent Barton.”
“Copy Agent Barton. Glad to finally hear your voice. What’s your status?”
“Completely fucked.” Clint chokes out a laugh, then winces as his body cries out in protest.
“Didn‘t think you‘d give up so easily, Agent.”
The smartass in him wants to make a comment, but another wave of dizziness suddenly overtakes him. Clint fights to hear the voice over the roaring in his ears. “Mmmhmm.” He mumbles, head lolling forward.
“Barton! Come on, talk to me.”
Clint tries valiantly not to lose consciousness. He can’t remember doing it, but at some point, his eyes have slid shut and it’s a struggle to lift them again.
The agent is speaking more urgently now, sharper and clipped. “Agent Barton, you stay with me. I need you to focus. Do you have a fix on your location?”
It’s that cool hint of steel that Clint grasps onto like a lifeline. He licks his cracked lips and croaks out, “Warehouse.”
“Going to need more than that. Description, street name, anything you can see.”
“’m cuffed.” He mumbles.
“Barton, I’ve read your file. I know you’ve escaped handcuffs while blindfolded and swinging upside-down from a trapeze. Move.”
Slowly, Clint pulls his head up enough to check his surroundings. The cuffs are too tight to slip, even if he manages to dislocate his thumb, but if Clint can get the room to stop spinning long enough, he can maybe find something to pick the lock. His captors have left him alone for the night, confident that Clint won’t be able to stand, much less escape. In truth, Clint’s not a hundred percent certain about the standing part either, but he’ll deal with that when he gets there.
He works his way over to the nearest crate, each scrape of the chair shooting spears of lightning through his brain, but it’s worth it when he spots the construction staple halfway embedded in the wood. He’ll has to work with his back to the crate, but visually Clint has an eidetic memory, so his hands can find the staple again easily.
By the time he works the metal out of the wood, he’s cracked the nail half off on his pointer finger, but he still has enough dexterity left to straighten the staple and insert the end into the handcuffs.
Once he’s out, Clint climbs to his feet, wobbling dangerously. The world spins wildly, forcing him over double and retching from the nausea. Eyes streaming, Clint clutches the back of the chair for a desperate moment before he can steady himself enough to stumble towards the door.
Belatedly, he remembers the voice over the comm. “West entrance. No hostiles. Location unknown.”
“Affirmative. Find an extraction point.”
Outside, nothing is familiar, which doesn‘t surprise him. He doesn’t think they travelled for too long after they snatched him, but he spent most of it unconscious, so he may have lost days, not just the hours that he noted from the position of the sun. Picking a random direction, Clint starts off, trying desperately to find any landmark, any street sign that can tell him where he is.
Some of his larger wounds have reopened with all the movement. Despite his best efforts, he still leaves behind a little trail of blood, droplets from his fingers, like breadcrumbs weaving haphazardly behind him.
He doesn’t know how much time passes as he stumbles around row after row of warehouses, just barely able to keep putting one foot in front of the other. He could be going in circles for all his knows. There‘s no answer over the comm, he can’t reach a contact point, and the dark’s creeping in from all angles of his vision.
He stumbles on the curb and can’t catch himself in time, hitting the pavement with a grunt of pain. For a moment, he just lays there, letting the night sounds wash over him. Clint’s pretty sure he doesn’t have it in him to get back up. At least he made a pretty good run at it, he thinks, and closes his eyes.
There’s a crackle of static.
“Barton?”
Clint lets out a sob of relief. “’m still here.”
The voice softens, “Clint. Don’t give up. You‘re so close.”
“I can’t.” Clint takes a shuddering breath, his fingers curled against the concrete. “I can’t do it.”
“Clint. Listen to me.” The agent says steadily, “You’re almost done. Just find a phone and we can bring you home.”
Home. In his life Clint’s had a lot of homes. Homes where he didn’t know when food was coming next. Homes where he nursed hand shaped bruises every night. Homes where the lock didn’t work on his bedroom door. But then he remembers the helicarrier and how the engines lull him to sleep every night. How the serenity of the range stretched over him in the mornings. And exactly how pissed Natasha will be if he doesn’t come back.
He takes a breath and steels himself. This is going to hurt.
Eventually, he makes it to a street lined with business fronts. The stores are closed for the night, and Clint breaks into the first that he can reach. He leaves rust coloured fingerprints as he dials the emergency number. SHIELD had drilled it into his head before his first mission, so much so that he had dreamed about giant numbers chasing him in his sleep.
He hears a series of clicks as he’s transferred through connections. The line rings twice, then the connection clicks open. Clint stumbles through his name, authentication code, and the last few street names he remembers seeing before hanging up and trying to clean the blood off the phone with the hem of his shirt.
Once outside again, he ducks into a nearby alley and hopes that SHIELD finds him before the police do. He finds a hidden away doorway and collapses. The concrete underneath his cheek is cold against his skin but reliably solid and he anchors himself against it.
“Don’t even know your name.” He mumbles just loud enough for the comm unit to pick him up.
“It’s Coulson.”
“Do you make a habit of picking up stray snipers, Agent Coulson?”
“Only when they get in the habit of trying to get themselves killed, Agent Barton.”
Clint smiles into the darkness, “Thanks.”
Slowly, Clint lets his mind drift, but jerks awake in a panic when he feels himself falling asleep. He doesn’t want to fall asleep. The voice on the other line is silent. “Coulson? You still there?”
“Did you need something, Agent Barton?”
Swallowing nervously, Clint says, “No.. Just, umm… Don’t stop. Talking I mean.”
A pause. “I don’t have anything to talk about.”
“Anything. Please.” Clint whispers, “I don’t want to die alone.”
“Okay.” Coulson says. He starts speaking in a low voice, reciting a poem with a steady, drumming rhythm.
Stubbornly, Clint fights for consciousness, clinging to the voice in his ear. He can’t make out words anymore, but lets the sound wash over him. Times slips away until he can see movement from three shadowy figures heading towards him. When they come close enough that he can make out a shock of red hair from the figure at point, it’s enough that Clint can let go, finally letting his eyes slide shut and the darkness to claim him.
Author: whisp
Summary:
When Clint was a kid, he rotated through a series of foster homes. Even at 6 years old, he knew that every placement was an elaborate game of illusions. Every smiling family poised, waiting for the moment he screwed up and the carpet got yanked out from under him again.
Now at 25, long past the time he thought himself too old for the game, Clint abruptly finds reality yanked out from underneath him and try as he might, there’s no secure footing to be found.
Please note: Clint goes through some serious issues. Read the warnings.
Pairing: Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Warnings: Graphic torture, serious mental illness, language, hurt/comfort, will become nc-17 later on.
This fic requires more of a disclaimer than I usually give. The main character will be dealing with a major mental illness (I would prefer not to give it away, but if you'd like to know what illness it is before reading, please PM me). I am in no way trying to romanticize/make light of this illness. It is a very serious disorder. The way it is portrayed in this fic is in no way representative of a typical case. Nor is it typical of the challenges or co-morbidities that patients must face. I have taken the extreme presentations of the illness and used it to write something for entertainment purposes only. I have not meant to offend anyone in any way. Please PM/email me if you’d like to discuss anything further.
When Clint gets back to SHIELD headquarters, he is going to have a word with the staff from recruitment. A nice long chat about the misrepresentation of SHIELD activities.
When he was nineteen, SHIELD had swayed Clint over with romantic notions of espionage and intrigue; shooting bad guys and saving the world. At that point, Clint had been with the circus since he was nine. There had been a time in his young life when he wouldn’t have left it for the world, but years past and disillusioned by dwindling audiences and lacklustre performances, Clint had easily agreed.
Conveniently enough, SHIELD had neglected to mention the long hours spent gathering intel, waiting for shots, and generally being bored out of his mind. The ramshackle safe houses that alternated stifling hot and freezing cold. The bullets that rained down like hail. The sprains, the pulled muscles, the broken bones -
And oh yeah, Clint remembers idly as another fist cracks him across the jaw, the torture. They really should mention the torture.
It’s not that he isn’t prepared. If it’s one thing that SHIELD does right, it’s that they prepare their agents to withstand pain. In his five year tenure, Clint’s been shot, stabbed, starved, electrocuted, drowned, hit by cars, and thrown off buildings. A pair of guys working him over is nothing. He just really would have appreciated the head up before he signed up. So he could have run the other way. Or towards it. Whatever. Clint’s never been one for sane, rational choices.
Out of absolutely everything though, the part that really pisses him off isn’t the loose teeth or the burgeoning concussion. Not the eye currently swelling shut or the brightness of his blood smeared across his captors’ hands. It’s the fact that Clint doesn’t. fucking. know. anything. He can’t understand why these retards thought that grabbing the sniper would give them the location of a level 6 classified base. If Clint is going to be tortured, he at least wants the satisfaction of being able to withhold valuable information. For fuck’s sake, he’s only been at SHIELD for five years. He’s a field asset. They don’t tell you jack shit.
Not to mention he must be in the most clichéd interrogation ever staged. For one thing, they’re in an abandoned warehouse. And he‘s being worked over by a pair of thugs while cuffed to a chair. Seriously. Who the fuck actually does that?
He tries telling his tormentors this multiple times. They’re not amused.
So he settles for gritting his teeth and riding out the punches, listening to the faint static of the comm unit hidden in his ear canal. He’s seen their faces, so there‘s zero chance they‘re planning on leaving him alive, but hopefully they’ll take long enough for rescue to come. If they come. He’s been out of range a while now, so there’s no chatter over the comm channel, but he can’t quite quash the faint hope that SHIELD would send a retrieval team, instead of cutting their losses and heading back to base.
In retrospect, Clint thinks that maybe he shouldn’t have mouthed off as much as he did. Because after the third hour of momma jokes, they stop caring as much about the location of the base, and more about making Clint’s life a living hell.
The taller of the two, which Clint has dubbed ‘macho nacho’ guy says something to ‘stuffs his pants in overcompensation’ guy and disappears for an hour. When he comes back, he’s holding a car battery and a knife and a grin like Christmas had arrived early.
Clint takes back his competency remark. It turns out they’re very thorough.
They seem to be playing a game. Who can think of the most creative ways to make him scream. Clint starts the night holding back, biting his lip clean through and starting on his inner cheek after that. It doesn’t last long.
Before the night is over, Clint finds he can barely gather the strength to lift his chin off his chest. His limbs are heavy, his hands no longer feel like his own, all the strength and nimbleness have long since been stripped away. Half his fingers are missing fingernails, the other half are crooked and broken. There’s a slow line of blood meandering from the cut at his temple to the tip of his chin where it drips off steadily.
Hardly able to stay upright, the only reason he’s still in the chair is that he’s cuffed to it, the warm metal now slicked with sweat and blood. The air is permeated with the stench of urine and the distinct smell of charred meat from when they had skinned the flesh off his body in strips, then touched the ends of the battery to the raw wound, laughing as he convulsed.
Clint feels a hand bury itself in the hair at the back of his head and yank back roughly, forcing him to squint up at his captors though the eye not swollen shut. “The co-ordinates?” The taller one asks, like this time will be any different from the rest.
At this point, it’s pretty well established that Clint isn’t going to say fuck all. The question is really more a prelude to more pain than it is any attempt to get valid information. So when Clint refuses to answer, his captor breaks his nose and asks again.
This time, Clint tries to muster up a decent sneer, blood streaming from his nose around a shock of pain, but finds he can’t do much more twitch a lip back, as he’s much more preoccupied with wheezing for air, shallowly through cracked ribs. Distantly, he wonders whether he should be more worried about the amount of blood pouring from his nostrils, but he can’t really bring himself to care.
However, the next time he doesn’t answer, his captor clamps a hand over his mouth, and suddenly Clint cares a hell of a lot when that effectively cuts off his oxygen supply. His captor holds his hand there tightly, fingers pressing hard enough to bruise for long agonizing minutes, until Clint’s thrashing against the chair, sucking half clotted blood into his lungs in a desperate attempt to breathe. It’s only when Clint’s eyes start to roll back that his captor lets go and lets Clint gasp in deep shuddering breaths, coughing roughly despite the fire lancing through his ribs.
Clint spits out blood tinged saliva and in the process, probably some loose teeth as well. Most of it ends up running down his chin rather then landing on the floor where he aimed. “Fuck… you…” He slurs.
In response, there’s a crackling sound and a sudden flare of light from the corner of his vision. Clint’s usually trained unresponsiveness has been muted by prolonged pain so he can’t stop his sudden flinch.
“What’s that? I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.” The shorter one asks, grinning widely from beside the battery. He sends sparks flying into the air once again, then yanks one end in close enough to ghost over Clint‘s skin. His face grows hard, “What did you say those coordinates were?”
Clint feels his throat seize up involuntarily and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t bring himself to snark back. He tries to look away, but they bring him back with a jolt of electricity, digging the ends of the wire into the muscle over his hip, where an inch of flesh had been already carved from him.
Clint screams, low and hoarse through shredded vocal chords. Every muscle in his body contracts, drawn taunt by the current of electricity running through him and suddenly he can’t breath, can’t think, can’t do anything but try to endure the agony running through him. When it finally stops, Clint collapses forward, reduced to a panting, shaking mess.
Then to his utter humiliation, he can feel the slid of hot tears start from the corners of his eyes.
His captors laugh themselves stupid. “Poor little agent.” Shorty coos. “Where’s that attitude of yours now?”
At this point, all Clint can do is shake his head and even that‘s an effort. He can’t do it, he can’t stand it anymore, and he almost finds himself praying for an end before he remembers that God had forsaken him long before this.
The absolutely worst part is that he would have told them. He would have betrayed everything he’d ever known if it somehow meant stopping the pain. SHIELD was right not to trust him. It’s that realization, beyond anything else that’s happened tonight, that finally defeats him.
There is no help coming. Clint knows this now with certainty. He possesses no valuable knowledge, has no irreplaceable skills. SHIELD wasn’t going to waste resources to rescue a dime a dozen sniper. They had probably already replaced him and slotted Clint’s file away with all the other agents that just couldn’t make the cut.
A palm taps roughly against his cheek. When there’s no response, the slaps get harder, but Clint is gone. Broken and exhausted, he has mentally checked out for the night, settling into a space that’s halfway between consciousness, where everything is fuzzy and floating and the only thing he has to concentrate on is getting in that next breath.
Distantly, he hears talking, “He’s done. What should we do with him?”
“Just leave him. If he’s alive in the morning, we’ll see if we can trade him for something worthwhile.”
There’s footsteps and the distant slam of a door and then Clint is alone.
The night cools the warehouse at an alarming speed. Clint, who’s bare-chested and covered in a tacky cold sweat, can’t decide if the shivering is from the lack of heat or if it’s leftover muscle spasms from the electricity. He’s trying to figure out a plan of escape, but finds he’s having trouble staying conscious for long enough to get his thoughts straight.
Several hours into the night, he’s slowly awakened when the static in his ear coalesces into a low steady buzz. Through it, he can hear the faint sound of someone talking.
Fuzzily, Clint tries to focus. The agent on the other end repeats himself sharply and Clint realizes he’s calling his name.
“Copy.” Clint rasps through razorblades, “This is Agent Barton.”
“Copy Agent Barton. Glad to finally hear your voice. What’s your status?”
“Completely fucked.” Clint chokes out a laugh, then winces as his body cries out in protest.
“Didn‘t think you‘d give up so easily, Agent.”
The smartass in him wants to make a comment, but another wave of dizziness suddenly overtakes him. Clint fights to hear the voice over the roaring in his ears. “Mmmhmm.” He mumbles, head lolling forward.
“Barton! Come on, talk to me.”
Clint tries valiantly not to lose consciousness. He can’t remember doing it, but at some point, his eyes have slid shut and it’s a struggle to lift them again.
The agent is speaking more urgently now, sharper and clipped. “Agent Barton, you stay with me. I need you to focus. Do you have a fix on your location?”
It’s that cool hint of steel that Clint grasps onto like a lifeline. He licks his cracked lips and croaks out, “Warehouse.”
“Going to need more than that. Description, street name, anything you can see.”
“’m cuffed.” He mumbles.
“Barton, I’ve read your file. I know you’ve escaped handcuffs while blindfolded and swinging upside-down from a trapeze. Move.”
Slowly, Clint pulls his head up enough to check his surroundings. The cuffs are too tight to slip, even if he manages to dislocate his thumb, but if Clint can get the room to stop spinning long enough, he can maybe find something to pick the lock. His captors have left him alone for the night, confident that Clint won’t be able to stand, much less escape. In truth, Clint’s not a hundred percent certain about the standing part either, but he’ll deal with that when he gets there.
He works his way over to the nearest crate, each scrape of the chair shooting spears of lightning through his brain, but it’s worth it when he spots the construction staple halfway embedded in the wood. He’ll has to work with his back to the crate, but visually Clint has an eidetic memory, so his hands can find the staple again easily.
By the time he works the metal out of the wood, he’s cracked the nail half off on his pointer finger, but he still has enough dexterity left to straighten the staple and insert the end into the handcuffs.
Once he’s out, Clint climbs to his feet, wobbling dangerously. The world spins wildly, forcing him over double and retching from the nausea. Eyes streaming, Clint clutches the back of the chair for a desperate moment before he can steady himself enough to stumble towards the door.
Belatedly, he remembers the voice over the comm. “West entrance. No hostiles. Location unknown.”
“Affirmative. Find an extraction point.”
Outside, nothing is familiar, which doesn‘t surprise him. He doesn’t think they travelled for too long after they snatched him, but he spent most of it unconscious, so he may have lost days, not just the hours that he noted from the position of the sun. Picking a random direction, Clint starts off, trying desperately to find any landmark, any street sign that can tell him where he is.
Some of his larger wounds have reopened with all the movement. Despite his best efforts, he still leaves behind a little trail of blood, droplets from his fingers, like breadcrumbs weaving haphazardly behind him.
He doesn’t know how much time passes as he stumbles around row after row of warehouses, just barely able to keep putting one foot in front of the other. He could be going in circles for all his knows. There‘s no answer over the comm, he can’t reach a contact point, and the dark’s creeping in from all angles of his vision.
He stumbles on the curb and can’t catch himself in time, hitting the pavement with a grunt of pain. For a moment, he just lays there, letting the night sounds wash over him. Clint’s pretty sure he doesn’t have it in him to get back up. At least he made a pretty good run at it, he thinks, and closes his eyes.
There’s a crackle of static.
“Barton?”
Clint lets out a sob of relief. “’m still here.”
The voice softens, “Clint. Don’t give up. You‘re so close.”
“I can’t.” Clint takes a shuddering breath, his fingers curled against the concrete. “I can’t do it.”
“Clint. Listen to me.” The agent says steadily, “You’re almost done. Just find a phone and we can bring you home.”
Home. In his life Clint’s had a lot of homes. Homes where he didn’t know when food was coming next. Homes where he nursed hand shaped bruises every night. Homes where the lock didn’t work on his bedroom door. But then he remembers the helicarrier and how the engines lull him to sleep every night. How the serenity of the range stretched over him in the mornings. And exactly how pissed Natasha will be if he doesn’t come back.
He takes a breath and steels himself. This is going to hurt.
Eventually, he makes it to a street lined with business fronts. The stores are closed for the night, and Clint breaks into the first that he can reach. He leaves rust coloured fingerprints as he dials the emergency number. SHIELD had drilled it into his head before his first mission, so much so that he had dreamed about giant numbers chasing him in his sleep.
He hears a series of clicks as he’s transferred through connections. The line rings twice, then the connection clicks open. Clint stumbles through his name, authentication code, and the last few street names he remembers seeing before hanging up and trying to clean the blood off the phone with the hem of his shirt.
Once outside again, he ducks into a nearby alley and hopes that SHIELD finds him before the police do. He finds a hidden away doorway and collapses. The concrete underneath his cheek is cold against his skin but reliably solid and he anchors himself against it.
“Don’t even know your name.” He mumbles just loud enough for the comm unit to pick him up.
“It’s Coulson.”
“Do you make a habit of picking up stray snipers, Agent Coulson?”
“Only when they get in the habit of trying to get themselves killed, Agent Barton.”
Clint smiles into the darkness, “Thanks.”
Slowly, Clint lets his mind drift, but jerks awake in a panic when he feels himself falling asleep. He doesn’t want to fall asleep. The voice on the other line is silent. “Coulson? You still there?”
“Did you need something, Agent Barton?”
Swallowing nervously, Clint says, “No.. Just, umm… Don’t stop. Talking I mean.”
A pause. “I don’t have anything to talk about.”
“Anything. Please.” Clint whispers, “I don’t want to die alone.”
“Okay.” Coulson says. He starts speaking in a low voice, reciting a poem with a steady, drumming rhythm.
Stubbornly, Clint fights for consciousness, clinging to the voice in his ear. He can’t make out words anymore, but lets the sound wash over him. Times slips away until he can see movement from three shadowy figures heading towards him. When they come close enough that he can make out a shock of red hair from the figure at point, it’s enough that Clint can let go, finally letting his eyes slide shut and the darkness to claim him.