It was during an undercover mission that Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton's cover was blown, and both found themselves captive to a rogue enemy of the Avengers. While being prisoner was hardly a jarring concept to either, the trials of this specific imprisonment would prove to push both of them over the edge.
For the first two weeks they were kept and tortured separately. Natasha was beaten, cut, and electrocuted, as they tried to get the information they needed out of her. Of course, she was the infamous Black Widow. She was known for having the Intel everyone needed. And no one else paid Clint much mind, simply saw him as a co worker.
That was until one guard was dragging Natasha down the hall, and the sounds of a man screaming echoed through the walls. He felt Natasha jerk uncomfortably in her restraints, and looked down to see a scared vulnerability in her eyes. The brunette haired guard's brow raised, she cared for the man she came in with. A malicious smile tugged at the hostile's lips, as he turned around and ended up tying Natasha's hands behind a pole in a larger containment than before.
An hour later, the cell door opened and Natasha was nearly blinded by the light that shone in. But through the silhouette, she could see two guards drag in an unconscious body. They let Clint fall onto the floor, his nose taking the force of the fall and bleeding upon impact. They chained his ankles and hands behind his back, before exiting. His hair was plastered wet to his forehead and his clothes drenched in water and blood. When he eventually coughed up blood and water, and rose to a sitting position painfully, he admitted they gave him a few fresh beatings before leaving him underwater long enough to become unconscious.
Oddly enough, the next day another prisoner was put in their same holding. He was no one Natasha or Clint knew, but the guards made a point of bringing in a syringe of pink fluid and injecting the stranger with it. An hour after the injection was given, Natasha and Clint witnessed the prisoner's slow and painful death over the next 4 hours. He seized nearly a dozen times, blood was hacked out of his lungs, and he trembled violently from sheer pain. He said his head felt like it was being split in half, and his chest felt on fire. Clint tried to kick his water bowl towards him, but the man could barely control his actions anymore as his seizures caused that water to spill and be lost. He foamed at the mouth like a rabid animal, clawed at his throat to breathe as if it was tightening. He screamed for hours on end in between the coughing and choking, and in the end Clint nor Natasha knew what eventually killed him. He was bleeding internally from everywhere; nose, ears, eyes, mouth. His eyes open in pain, skin and muscles thinned as if shrank in that hour. Clint and Natasha had seen much in their time in the field, but nothing compared to the agony they saw that man in.
They used Clint against Natasha, punching him over and over until he bled from raw wounds when she refused to talk. They cut into his arms, palms, legs, and cheeks, causing deep lacerations and pools of blood under him. In the damp and cold cell they were restrained to, even when the torture stopped, Natasha watched as Clint's wounds didn't heal, but instead grew infected.
Every day she refused them they gave him less to eat. When Natasha managed to slip him her food, they came in and bashed his head into the metal walls, and knocked him unconscious with a punch to the eye.
Eventually they tied his hands around the same pole Natasha's was. She couldn't see him behind her, but she heard his labored breathing, saw the blood flow across the floor. Sometimes she found herself sitting in his blood.
It sickened her to her core, and in the middle of the night when she thought all were asleep she lowered her head and cried. Cried not from the pain, but at the fact that everything she did wrong she wasn't punished, Clint was. Whatever she let slip, whatever emotional she showed for him, now was resulting in Clint's slow torture.
She saw him bleed. She saw him slowly lose weight and grow sick. She saw him beaten half to death in front of her, and all she could do was scream and watch. She could stop his pain, but she knew it would put million's of lives in danger. These rogues were after weapons of mass destruction, and the information she had, could help even the most disorganized of criminals commit mass genocide. And yet still, as she watched the only man she cared about suffer so brutally, part of her felt none of this was worth it. Clint's pain was on her.
But their torture methods got more brutal. They starved Clint, beat him over the head, burned parts of his arms and legs, and threatened to inject the poison they gave the other man. They claimed it was a new biological weapon, with no cure, and developed to deliver the longest most painful death.
On one night as she stifled through long sobs, she felt pressure on her hand. Turning her head slowly over her shoulder, she looked down to see Clint's bloodied hand over her's.
"I'm still here," he said weakly, but from what she could imagine through a smile.
Natasha didn't answer but simply gripped his hand tighter, to return that comfort, return the support he lended her.
"We're gonna get out of this," he said hoarsely, his voice obviously laced with blood coughed up from internal bleeding.
"I can't watch you get hurt anymore, Clint."
"You can, you have to." He said confidently, but wincing at every movement which caused him pain.
"I can't," she said her voice cracking, and head lowering in defeat.
Clint let his hand loosen and lightly stroke the top of her hand. They couldn't see each other, but he knew from her voice that was breaking down. Rubbing his thumb, that shook with pain, over her palm, he inhaled slowly and said to her,
"Hold on for me."
The next day Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor raided the compound and allowed for the two assassins to finally escape. Steve cut their restraints, and instructed for them to run to the quinjet while the rest held them off. There was quite an infantry to fight, as none of the Avengers could risk not aiding in the fight to help the wounded assassins.
Clint could barely walk due to several nerves in his legs being cut or burned, but Natasha put one of his arms around her shoulder and bore his weight. Limping out of the compound that was falling apart, Clint tried to reach for the pistol that was at Natasha's hip.
She gave him a hard glare as she shook her head and continued to walk, "Focus on walking," she said sternly, both of them knowing his strength was limited.
However perhaps it was that moment Natasha took to protect Clint that ultimately doomed him, because before he had time to indicate what he was trying to, about the enemy approaching behind them, a dart plunged into Clint's shoulder and he screamed as a vacuumed syringe pushed pink serum into his blood.
His head fell limply to his chest, as he turned into dead weight and pulled Natasha hard to the ground. She fell easily with him, and it took her a moment to roll over and get her balance before she saw him lying there. Crawling towards him between the gunfire, it was when she saw the empty syringe in his shoulder that she felt the blood rush from her face.
Half rising to her feet she pulled him to the side of the building out of the crosssfire. Looking over her shoulder she could see the quinjet, but looking down at Clint, she saw as his grey blue eyes washed over in pure terror as his hands began to tremble. He was never going to make it to there.
Lowering herself in front of him, her own eyes widened in that same fear, she pulled the needle out swiftly. She threw it to the ground in horror. She knew she was too late. That poison was in him, and as he began to shake and his scream under the pain, she knew the poison was already beginning to take effect.
"Nat..." he breathed hoarsely, his voice weakening, but it was still loud enough for her to hear the genuine fear in his shaking voice.
His hand reached up towards the side of her face, before he seemed to either suffer a spasm or loss of strength and it fell to his side weakly. Natasha scrambled to pull his beaten form into her lap, but she could already feel him begin to shake as a seizure took hold of him.
"Oh god, Clint." She said as she let him seize, laying a hand gently on his shoulder. Her eyes widening hopelessly and her lip trembling at the loss of words.
Pain rolled over his eyes as he twitched and shook on the ground. Of all the torture he had felt, each second the poison ran through him, felt worse than anything he had felt before. And of all the torture she had seen, each second Clint looked worse and worse than she had ever seen him.
It all began to hit her as the strongest man she knew weakly succumbed to this serum. His whole body seemed to cripple, and his fighting spirit, was transformed into screams of agony as he coped with unbearable pain. The man that was poisoned in the prison was healthy, and he lasted four hours after the lethal injection. Clint was terribly weakened, and the closest hospital was 5 hours away.
As Clint came out of that first seizure, blood running from his nose, and curling into a fetal position in pain, Natasha knew one truth. She knew what was going to happen, and what she had to do to prevent it.
Her own eyes widened and hands trembled as she used her strength to pull him away from the gunfire. Every movement she made in pulling him, caused him to scream out in pain. As she was able to rest herself against the wall of a building, she pulled Clint's upper torso up onto her lap despite his larger stature and jerking movements of pain.
He seemed to have little control over anything: what he said, what he heard, what he did. He resisted her, tightened up and howled at every touch she made. But with slow and gentle hands she reached for his blonde brown hair and ran her hands through it slowly as she pulled him close to her chest.
"Clint." She said lowly, just trying to draw him out of that pain for a second.
He continued to tighten his muscles in pain, but grey blue eyes at least looked up to her in recognition of what she was saying.
She saw it in his eyes as she looked down at him. That deep fear, deeper than any fear she had ever seen from this man she so loved. He knew he was dying, and he feared the pain he had seen the other man endure.
"Natasha," he breathed weakly through a cough of blood. As that red liquid spewed from his mouth, Natasha grimaced and felt tears build up behind her eyes as she wrapped her arms around Clint and held him tight to her.
"Hold on for me, Clint." She said as she held him tighter to her chest.
"Hold on," she repeated her voice softening, as she used one of her hands to brush the back of his head, and hold his head up to lean over her shoulder.
His every movement followed her's with ease. She was easily able to hold his braced and painful form up against her chest, and his head only limply fell forward against her shoulder without much control.
"You're going to be okay, Clint." She said softly, as she let her hand rubbing the back of his head lower to hold the back of his neck.
"I'm not going to let them do this to you, I promise you." She said her voice breaking as she held his body closer to her's.
She could hear him struggling to reply, most likely through the blood in the back of his throat. Applying some pressure on the back of his neck to hold him against her shoulder, she turned her head to where his rested and gently kissed the side of his cheek.
"Just breathe," she said gently, almost a whisper as she slid her hand down to her belt.
Clint nodding against her head, and she saw his mouth part in an attempt to follow her instructions. She held his head close to her lips, kissing the side of his hairline gently, and holding his head past he's so he couldn't see behind him.
"Just breathe and close your eyes. I'm right here." She continued to say soothingly, as her thumb gently caressed his outside cheek.
When emerald green eyes saw him nod and close his grey blue eyes, she lifted her hand, finger on a trigger.
"Just relax." She continued in a gentle whisper. It took everything she had to hide the breaking sorrow in her voice.
She felt his tight and painful form in her arms relax in an exhale. She leaned her head into him softly.
One of her eyes watched as his face relaxed for a second in reaction to her words, as the other aimed.
"I'm right here, Clint." She said softly hardly, above a comforting whisper.
With closed eyes he nodded, and as he felt her hand hold his, he held back. In that brief second he felt her presence and her love more than the flaring pain that ran through him. He felt her hold him close, he heard her loving voice, felt the warmth of her body next to his, perceived nothing but unconditional love from the woman who tried so hard to pull him out of his pain.
"You're okay. You're going to be okay."
BANG.
Natasha had lined up the shot so that the bullet entered up through the back of his head and severed his brain stem, killing him instantly.
He didn't feel anything, but she felt as his head fell forward over against her neck limply. She felt the pressure in his hand disappear as his hand fell heavy from her hold. She felt his tense and pained body that leaned against her loosen and slacken, as relief from that burning poison fell over him.
Shakily dropping the gun on the ground, it took Natasha nearly ten minutes of holding him as he was before she shot before she finally was able to pull him back. Her hands supporting his head as if it still mattered, as she laid him down in her arms.
Looking down at his face, she saw the bleeding red hole in his forehead right between his eyes where the bullet exited. But aside from that lethal wound and one black eye, everything else about the body of the man in her arms was peaceful. His eyes closed gently and face at peace, it was impossible for anyone to guess he was in pain when he died. And that's because he wasn't, his focus in his final moments was only upon Natasha.
While now as she collapsed over his corpse, holding his bleeding head close to hers as she cried into the crook of his neck, she knew what she did what was right. She ensured he felt no fear or pain in the end. He didn't hear or see the gun, he didn't die knowing it was the end yet. He died knowing he was loved, and that was all she could give him. It wasn't much, and she would suffer far more than he would in the years to come from the guilt of the blood she had on her hands, the guilt of being the one to pull that trigger. But looking down at Clint who almost looked peacefully asleep in her arms, she would always know she had done right by him in the end.
/ Just the product of writing fanfiction based on a prompt with my friend and thought I'd share. If you all like it I may write a more extended version, going into more detail of Clint and Natasha's time captive. This will likely only stay up for a little bit, especially if I do decide to write a more indepth version. Hope you enjoyed it, despite the many broken hearts likely. But what can I say if you follow my writing you're probably used to it by now. \\