Clint wasn't a daydreamer. Most of the time, his missions required him to keep his mind blank, to keep it clear so that he could observe and react at a zen level. It was a trick he had learned young and always excelled at. He spent more time in his subconscious, really, so that many people mistook him for quiet, or shy, or even stupid. But no, he was merely very deep, and down in the stillest waters of his thoughts, he could shoot arrows that never missed and see patterns apparent to no one else. He preferred it down there in the zen place, but every now and again he'd let himself bubble up and give his mind the opportunity to roam. Now, beaten bloody and tied to a metal beam in the paralyzing cold, he gave himself that luxury... if only to pass the time.
He spent quite a while trying to determine whether the ropes that bound him were made of jute or sisal (both were itchy and dug painfully into ligature wounds). He remembered chasing crickets in the summer fields as a child. He thought about his strike team designation, Delta, and how the greek symbol for delta was an isosceles triangle. In mathematics it is used to represent the concept of change, the "difference operator". A change in temperature, a change in volume, a change in mass or acceleration or whatever the equation... and he wondered if that was a deliberate designation on SHIELD's part. Strike Team Change. Strike Team Dynamism. Strike Team Chameleons. From there, his mind wandered to his favourite soft cotton pajama pants, the dark blue ones with a gold triangle pattern on them. They were back in his quarters, he'd left them hanging beside his shower stall the morning they deployed. Strike Team Pajamas. Delta Pants.
He chuckled aloud to himself, drawing the attention of the mercenary guarding him, who rewarded Clint's amused outburst by jabbing his SMG into Clint's abdomen. The pain caused stars to erupt behind Clint's eyes, supporting his suspicion that he had a few broken ribs. The guard shouted angrily at him, a few staccato phrases in the Hamgyŏng
dialect Clint did not understand. He tried to guess the message by context. "Stupid American! Stop laughing! Strike Team Pajamas will never defeat the Iron Triad!"
He laughed again, and the responding blow from the mercenary knocked him right back down into that still pool of unconsciousness. He liked it better down here anyway. The pain was easier to manage, the time passed more quickly and he didn't miss his comfy pants as much. Consciousness, he decided, in his line of work, was definitely over-rated.
Natasha had been parading around the North Korean border with Russia for over half a year, hanging off the arm (or in the bed of) of a besotted local crime lord. The parameters of her mission had been vague: infiltrate, observe, wait, and they would send an agent to extract her in six month's time. She had been ready to wash away her revolting paramour for weeks, and was getting twitchier with every day that went by.
Finally, after days of impatient waiting, the summons came, but not with the messenger she was expecting. Yeong-jun's voice always sounded like a squeal, she often wondered if he was part swine. It bounced off the walls irritatingly as he marched into her dressing room and announced, "My darling, my sleek tigress! I have a mouse caught in a trap for you to play with!"
Natasha didn't turn away from her ebony vanity as she re-applied her blood-red lipstick. She glanced up into the mirror and fixed the obsequious man behind her with a bored stare. "это так?" Is that so?
Pak Yeong-jun leered at his stunning Russian courtesan. She was his obsession, generally agreed amongst all his underworld peers to be the most beautiful woman in the world, with a penchant for cruelty that set his sadistic heart to quivering. "Yes, my jewel! My men have caught something special for you, an American spy!"
She slowly raised an eyebrow and turned to face her short, oily patron with a languid grace that completely disguised her suddenly racing pulse. "American?" her lips twisted into a sneer. She spat noisily on to the cold marble floor of her dressing room. "You waste my time, Yeong-jun. I dislike toys that break too easily."
He guffawed grandly. "Come, now, Natalia. This one has spirit, I promise you! I've been interrogating him in a warehouse in Tumangang for three days, he has said nothing but insult my men and sing American rock and roll!"
Natasha's heart skipped several beats, which she smoothly covered by pursing her lips and conjuring up a cold, appraising look. No. No, it couldn't be him. "Three days? You have my attention. Who is he?"
Yeong-jun squealed in delight that he had his goddess' attention. "CIA, of course. He is tough. All muscles and meat-headed. I had him cleaned up and brought to our palace in Rason. I thought perhaps you would like him, as a gift? Something to toy with as the weather is so cold."
Natasha allowed the corners of her mouth to twist into a sadistic smile. "Oh, my tiger," she purred, "you have made me so happy! Will you join me?" She injected as much sensuality into the request as she could, knowing full well that he had just been summoned to Chongjin by the cartel. As expected, Yeong-jun pouted.
"My flower, I cannot, as I have business in the south. Come with me to the palace tonight so that you can unwrap your gift, but I must leave in the morning."
Natasha fluttered her eyelashes and presented a pout of her own, but gracefully rose from her chair and reached for her favourite fur coat. "Very well, my tiger. Take me to my new plaything, so I might entertain myself while you are away from me."
He beamed at her, and reached out his pudgy hand for her to grasp. "You will not be disappointed."
"No," she thought silently to herself. "I certainly don't think I will be."
Several times a day, the guard would slap him to attention and pour several splashes of an unidentified fiery alcohol into his mouth. He wasn't expecting it the first time, and the resulting chokes and coughs both amused the guard and drove his broken ribs to unprecedented levels of pain.
It became his only way of tracking the passage of time as he hung limply in the other abandoned warehouse. The inept local despot he had been tracking appeared early on and made a pathetic attempt to interrogate him, which he rewarded with gusty renditions of Springsteen classics. At some point during Dancing in the Dark, Pak gave up with a frustrated screech and signaled to one of his guards, who quickly pummeled Clint into unconsciousness. It was worth it... Dancing in the Dark was one of his favourites.
He was bobbing around in semi-conscious thought ("Who was the best James Bond?", he had always been a staunch Connery man but Daniel Craig was really hitting it out of the park now) when a flurry of activity coaxed him into opening his eyes. Several of the mercenaries were there and he realized that one of them was untying his numb limbs from the metal beam. Aha, they were moving him! He figured he had a 50% chance of this working out the way he was hoping, which was to be taken to Pak's heavily fortified compound in Rason. If it didn't go that way for him, well, he was probably destined for a ditch somewhere. He just hoped it didn't occur to them to shoot him before shoving him into it.
Natasha knew it was him before Pak Yeong-jun's men carried him into the dimly lit room. She could feel him pulling like a magnet, getting stronger as they brought him closer to Rason. She couldn't explain it and was barely aware of it on a subjective level. What she knew is that she felt on edge, like a caged animal, and the uncomfortable vibration was increasing every minute right up until Yeong-jun knocked on her sitting room door with an obsequious smile.
Still as a statue she stood as Clint was dragged in before her. He grunted softly as the guards dropped him to the ground, he wasn't fully conscious and he landed awkwardly. She clamped down on her rising emotion, her practiced mask firmly in place.
Her paramour beamed at her as she slowly stepped towards his prisoner. Her feet made no sound, the silk of her bright red Chosŏn-ot swishing softly as she circled the man on the wooden floorboards. She was the living totem of a demon huntress, and Yeong-jun's heart swelled. He could barely contain his excitement, so he asked her in her native language. "Ну, что вы думаете?" What do you think?
She looked at him, her lips turned down in a blood-red moue. "он поврежден. Ваши люди идиоты." He is broken. Your people are idiots.
Pak threw a deadly glare at his men, who fidgeted uncomfortably. As close as they were to the Russian border, they were familiar with the language and they knew that when Pak's mistress was unhappy, it wasn't going to be a good day.
He looked back to her with pleading eyes. "моя тигрица, my tigress, he is still strong, I assur..."
She waved her hand at him, as though batting at an annoying fly. "No matter, I will nurse him back to health before I carve him up." She kneeled down with a grace that nearly stopped Yeong-jun's heart, and felt for the prisoner's pulse. It thumped against her cool, still fingers. She snorted. "Huh. Still strong, yes. Yes, you are right, my love."
Pak released an explosive breath of relief, but threw another icy stare at his guards just for good measure. He moved towards her and planted a solid kick into Clint's thigh. Clint groaned lightly, Natasha merely raised a sedate eyebrow and smiled.
Pak grasped her hands firmly, pulling them up to his glistening lips and pressing loud kisses against them. "Very well, Natalia, I hope this in some small measure pleases you, and keeps you occupied until my return."
Natasha conjured up a disappointed frown. "In small measure, yes... but don't tarry long, my pillar."
Pak snapped his fingers at his men and barked at them in their North Korean dialect. Natasha's understanding of it wasn't perfect, but it was sufficient to grasp that he was commanding them to stay outside the room and keep an eye on her and the prisoner. Her position here was fairly secure, but not untouchable. He turned back to his mistress. "I will leave you with your plaything. Once my business in Chongjin is complete, I will hurry home to you."
She bowed her head prettily towards him, and he captured her for a lingering kiss. She returned it with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, until he pulled away with an audible pop. With that, he waved his guards alongside him and they left with a clatter of boots and guns.
She counted several seconds before she glanced down at the man at her feet, and felt a jolt as she met his steel-grey eyes. He was having trouble keeping them open. "My... pillar?!" he choked out with a laboured laugh, then he passed out cold. She sighed. Her work was cut out for her.
It was the sound that woke him up, the sloshing and dripping of water as she wet and wrung out her cloth. His skin was numb, he did not realize that she was delicately wiping his wounds until he pried his eyes open and waited until his vision swam into focus. She was bent over him, robed entirely in red, her lips moving silently. She paused as she sensed his gaze, and glanced towards the door before she laid her hand on his cheek.
"Shhhhh," she whispered, moving her face closer to him. He could feel her breath on his cheek. "They don't speak English but they are usually watching."
He simply stared up her, unsure if she meant they were looking now, and also suddenly entranced by her luminous skin. How long had it been since he had seen her?
She ran her rough cloth along his cheekbone and checked the door again. When her head snapped back towards him, her eyes were wide and glossy. "Oh, Clint," she whispered brokenly, and he knew the guards were gone. "What the hell happened to you? Why are you here?"
He tried to smile at her, splitting the cuts on his lips open. She frowned and dabbed at them. "I'm here to get you, of course," he rasped. "I'm your extraction team."
Natasha froze, and gave him a sharp nudge with her knee that unintentionally (he hoped) sent stabs of pain through his ribs. "Are you completely crazy?!" she snapped through her teeth.
"It's been suggested before, yes," he murmured. She growled, but he continued. "Look, Pak is a moron but he's got this place locked up tight. Fury couldn't get anyone in under the radar, so I suggested a different approach."
"Dragged in with a bloody Christmas bow on you," she snarled.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," he coughed, and she abruptly squeezed his shoulder. He fell silent and she returned to cleaning his cuts. A moment later, one of the guards poked his head in through the door frame.
"Miss Natalia, do you require anything?" he asked in Russian.
She pursed her lips. "Yes. The prisoner won't be any use if he starves. Bring some food and some tea. Plain rice, and some soup."
The guard nodded briskly, and disappeared. Natasha waited a moment before slowly nodding at her partner.
"Oh, good," Clint croaked. "I was wondering when dinner was."
She rolled her eyes. "This is going to be messy, Barton. With them watching us, we'll have to put on a show. What's your damage?"
He winced. "Some ribs broken, for sure. Weak, no food."
She had picked up one of his hands, and swore at the wounds on his wrists. "дрисня, these look bad. They kept you hanging the whole time?"
"Yes?" he guessed. "Tasha, I don't even know how long I was there."
"Three days," she murmured softly, pressing his hand to her chest. He stayed quiet, and she busied herself by trying to clean his ligature wounds. Eventually, she exhaled loudly in frustration. "This is pointless. You need a goddamned doctor."
He smiled drowsily at her, and curled his fingers around hers with a slight moan of pain. "Natasha, listen to me. It's fine. We'll make it, okay? Get some food into me, I'll sleep a bit, and we'll waltz out of here. I promise."
She shook her head. "God, Barton, you're such an idiot sometimes. Where is your bow?"
"Left it behind," he whispered. "Didn't need it when the whole point of the operation was to be caught. Your boyfriend is a lousy operative, by the way. I practically had to tap dance on the hood of his precious Zunma before they made a move..."
Natasha curled her lips in contempt. "I hate that car," she hissed. "And don't even get me started on Yeong-jun..."
She broke off at the faint sound of approaching footsteps, and gently laid his arm back down at his side. She closed a steely grip around his jaw, and was seething at him in a jarringly mismatched tone when the guard walked in with a small aluminum tray.
"Some fish broth and rice," she growled cruelly. "Green tea." Clint fixed her with a defiant glare.
"You know I hate fish," he spat back at her, struggling in an exaggerated fashion against her grip.
"Don't be a baby," she replied sinisterly. She gestured at the guard, who cautiously laid the tray down at her side. "You deserve it for coming up with this ridiculous prank."
Clint ground his teeth. "I'm here, aren't I?" he jutted his chin out and she closed her fingers tighter, bruising his jaw and drawing faint crescents of blood under her perfect fingernails.
"Oops, that's leaving a mark," she hissed at him, her eyes dancing with a heartless fire. The guard quietly crept out of the room; even without understanding the words, the Black Widow was terrifying.
"That's pretty hot," he retorted ruthlessly. She smacked him across the face in reply, and he laughed at her. She snarled and jabbed her elbow, albeit deceptively lightly, into his upper thigh. He groaned loudly.
"Careful now," he gasped out at her.
"I know exactly where I'm poking you, hot shot. Want me to move a little higher?"
Natasha glanced at the doorway, and grinned viciously at the pair of Pak's guards, peeking in with nervous faces. "нож!" she shouted at them with a grasping gesture, and they both scrambled at their pockets. One of them located a knife and stepped gingerly into the room, holding it out to her, trembling. She snatched it away and he scuttled back to the hallway.
"This is gonna be fun," she murmured down at him, her face hard.
A flash of fear, possibly genuine, crossed his face, "I remembered your birthday this year, right?" he responded, watching as she spun the knife in her hand. "Christmas?"
"You gave me a mug," she replied flatly. "With a cat on it."
"How thoughtful of me," he squeaked. She slowly pressed the knife down onto his leg, her other arm pinning him at the hips. "What the hell, firecracker?"
"Shhhhhhhh," she responded, smiling softly. She looked up at the guards and winked, and methodically began to cut through Clint's trousers. "This is more like it, in terms of opening Christmas presents," she told him casually.
He widened his eyes. "Holy crap, woman," he snapped at her, baring his teeth. "Are you torturing me or teasing me?"
In a lightning motion, she jerked the knife up to his neck and jabbed the point under his jaw. He froze, his eyes dark. "The torture comes afterwards," she yelled at him, "when I feed you the soup!"
The corner of his mouth twitched, and she looked at the guards. "выйти!" she shouted at them. Get out! They bolted down the hall and a door slammed at the end of the corridor.
She waited several beats before glancing back down at her partner, who had closed his eyes. She leaned in close to him and whispered into his ear. "You're terrible. Don't laugh at me when I'm trying to keep us alive."
He opened his stormy sky eyes and stared at her, making her heart skip several beats. Oh god, she had missed him too much. He reached up with a trembling hand and cupped her face. "Natasha," he whispered. She held his hand against her cheek. "I need you to make me a promise..."
Her face darkened. "Don't say it, Barton," she muttered firmly. "I know what you're going to say, and I can't make that promise."
He ran his tongue across his cracked lips. "Natalia Alianova, you have to," he said softly. "Okay, I admit it, I might have made a bad call on this one. I didn't figure they'd leave me in Tumangang for so long. I gambled that Pak would wet himself trying to bring you his prize as fast as he could. Guess I lost."
He paused and swallowed painfully. Natasha reached down for the small cup of tea and brought it towards him. She cocked her head and tried to figure how to sit him up without hurting him, and he shook his head. Without a word, she took a large sip of tea and leaned down over him. His eyes went wide as she pressed her lips against his. He was too stunned to do anything, so she pressed her tongue gently against his bleeding lips, demanding he open them. He did, and she gradually pushed the green tea into his hot, dry mouth.
Without a single word, she slowly transferred the contents of the small clay teapot to her partner, then she moved on to the lukewarm soup. His brow furrowed slightly at the change in flavour, and she nipped ever so lightly at his bottom lip in response. His responding sigh was muffled and he began to move his lips ever so slightly against hers with each touch. His eyes pinned hers with his question plainly readable in them: "Is this okay?"
The next mouthful came with a lingering pull after he had swallowed it. He understood her message. "Yes. This is more than okay."
All too soon, the soup was gone. She pulled away, her face flushed, and he cleared his throat. She looked down at the small bowl of rice, dipped her fingers into it and forming a small white ball.
"Clinton," she murmured, holding the rice up. His pulse quickened. "I'm not leaving you here, okay? I can't. I just can't."
He nodded once, ignoring the protest from his neck. She pressed the rice ball against his lips and he opened for her. After she pushed it in, her fingertips lingered on his lips while he chewed. She lightly ran the pads of her fingers across his torn mouth, causing him to close his eyes. He swallowed the rice, yet she didn't move her hand, so he opened again and pulled her fingers inside. She bit back a gasp and his eyes flew open, watching her closely as she hovered above him, her mouth agape. He ran his tongue experimentally under her cool fingers, flicking it against the nails, sucking gently. She stared at him in disbelief, breathing heavily, until he broke into a wide smile. She pulled her hand away reluctantly.
"Natasha," he said softly, and she looked at him, still dazed. "We're going to get out of here together. But before that... can I have more rice?"
Her face broke into a sly grin, and she reached into the bowl. "Yes," she said throatily. "Lazy American spy. You can have more rice. But only if you prove to me that you're really hungry."