Clint stopped struggling against his bonds and sagged back down onto the floor. "You're finished," he ground out between clenched teeth. "Finished."

Jackson lay face down in the middle of the room, hands still cuffed behind his back. The floor was wet and dark under his head. Single bullet. Point blank. The guy hadn't had a chance. And he had known what was coming, had trembled under the pressure of the barrel those last few seconds on his knees. He had held Clint's eyes to the end, a silent plea for help in them, but there hadn't been anything Clint could do. Not with his hands cuffed behind his back and one gun aimed at his head, another one at Tony.

He knew the odds that he was next in line were pretty good, knew that he might die here, by his own gun just like Jackson a few seconds ago. The only one with any value to their captors was Tony. But no matter if Clint lived or not, Cortes and his crew would be living on borrowed time. If Clint survived he would take care of it himself, for Jackson. If he died, he knew Natasha would find Cortes and end him. He took comfort in that.

"Take him away, Cortes said and motioned at Jackson.

Two of the four henchmen that had crowded into the room with Cortes grabbed the back of Jackson's jacket and dragged him out. A smeared trail of blood painted the raw concrete floor behind them, and Clint saw Tony's still hazy eyes get stuck on it. They'd shot him up with something to keep him quiet and pliable. Apparently they had thought Clint wasn't important enough to waste pharmaceuticals on, so he'd had to settle for a good old fashioned hit to the head.

Everything had happened so fast. That morning Clint had reluctantly agreed to work security at one of Tony's public appearances, because they had suddenly found themselves short-handed, and Tony had nagged him to come as his personal body guard. It hadn't been a big event, just a quick in and out with Tony doing a little schmoozing and shaking the hands of politicians and socialites to make sure they stayed aligned with his social and technological agenda for the city.

They had been ambushed in the subterranean hotel garage just as they were leaving, and everything had gone tits up. Clint remembered a blinding light and a boom, a flashbang probably, but he was hazy on how they had gotten to their present location. He was pretty sure they were still in the city, because it hadn't taken too long reach their destination.

They were underground. In the basement of some kind of industrial warehouse that looked like it was still operational. As they had been taken from the van, Clint had still been groggy and confused, but he had managed to file away what he'd seen, how they had gotten to this room, doors, windows, equipment, and any other little detail that could help them get away.

Out of the room, twenty steps straight ahead to another door, unlocked, through it and a direct left up the stairs. Sixteen steps. Good places for cover along the way.

Cortes, a small Latino guy in his fifties, had been in the room waiting for them, and as soon as the three of them had been escorted in he had launched into a heavily accented tirade that basically boiled down to 'capitalism is evil and Tony Stark is the devil.' He had stabbed his finger at Clint and Jackson, called them lapdogs of the bourgeoisie, class traitors, and didn't they know it was their moral duty to support the socialist revolution and liberate the proletariat.

Which apparently meant liberating Tony from a lot of his money.

Despite his mid-level office worker look, Clint had been wary of Cortes from the start, because there was a quality to his rant that bordered on fanaticism, and he knew from experience that such devotion made people dangerous. Cortes didn't look like he fit with the entourage, though, and Clint assumed he had hired the goons for this job. Probably promising them a percentage of the ransom, because Cortes sure as hell didn't look like he had the cash to pay off these guys.

Too bad for all of them that Tony had this philosophy on the subject: No ransoms. No exceptions.

He had long ago issued a standing order for Stark Industries to not pay a penny for him, come hell or stock market high water. Pepper had the same orders. How did Cortes not know this? It was a well-known fact - he wasn't exactly the first person who had tried to get money in exchange for Tony. And what the hell had he been smoking when he thought kidnapping Tony was a good idea in the first place? Hadn't Cortes heard of his pals, the Avengers?

Cortes had listened calmly to Tony's slightly slurred dismissal of his demands, then he had shrugged and made a motion at one of his men who had stepped up to Jackson, kneeling in the middle of the floor. Cortes had put his fingers in his ears and then Jackson had been dead.

Cortes straightened his tan sports jacket and started towards the door. "I will give you some time to decide if you want to change your mind or not," he told Tony.

"Boss?" the guy with the gun called after him. He was all but colorless, light blond hair, pale skin and pale eyes, Whippet lean, and Clint had disliked him with a passion even before he murdered Jackson.

Cortes glanced back over his shoulder. "He's all yours. Just make sure he's alive when you're done."

Clint's heart sank. They were going to work Tony over. He caught Tony glancing at him, clearly picking up on the same thing.

But it wasn't Tony who was grabbed and dragged to the middle of the floor, it was Clint. Once there, a boot connected with the back of his knee and he landed painfully in the exact position and spot that Jackson had died in. He realized he had been wrong. They were going after Tony, but not by beating him up. Clint would be the emissary here, receiver of the pain that vicariously would hurt Tony almost as bad.

Whippet went to the narrow work table that ran the length of the opposite wall and put Jackson's Colt down. They had all been searched and stripped of weapons. He picked up Clint's H&K and peered along the sight for a few moments before lowering it and walking to stand in front of Clint. Clint had to crane his neck a little, but met his gaze coldly.

"You killed two of my men." Whippet held the gun in a relaxed grip by his side.

Clint gave a small, one-shoulder shrug. They attacked him, attacked Tony and Jackson, so yeah, he killed them.

"My cousins," Whippet growled, and in the moment before his fist struck, Clint suddenly realized that he had been double wrong. This wasn't about hurting him to hurt Tony. This wasn't about Tony at all. This right here was about hurting him. The blow almost knocked him over, but somehow he managed to stay on his knees. Tony shouted in protest.

Whippet shook his fist out. "I'm a firm believer in an eye for an eye," he told Clint, "and right now we're at two to one."

"Good on ya." Clint spat blood on the ground. "You know how to subtract single digit numbers."

"Straight A-student," Tony said, his voice a little uneven. "MIT material."

Without looking at him Whippet pointed his arm at Tony. "Shut him up."

Tony scrambled away from the two men who advanced on him, but even though he hadn't been restrained in any way, he was still too uncoordinated, too slow, and in seconds they had wrestled him to the ground. From the sound of it, he still managed to get a blow in, because one of them hissed. A second later Tony cried out in pain. He was cut off in mid-shout as something was stuffed into his mouth. They finished it off by wrapping several rounds of duct tape around his head to cover his mouth and keep whatever it was in place. As a finishing touch they duct taped his wrists together behind his back.

Whippet made a small movement with the gun, and Clint's attention zoomed back to it. He knew there was a full mag in there, minus those two bullets that had taken out Whippet's guys. His cousins, apparently.

Whippet thumbed the safety off and then the cold metal of the barrel touched Clint's forehead.

Tony shouted behind the gag.

Clint's world narrowed down to the gun and the bastard in front of him.

For a moment the gun didn't move, then is slowly started to slide lower. A bead of sweat trickled down his back. Shit. He didn't want Tony to have to watch this, didn't want him to have to live with having seen Clint's brain join the gore on the floor that Jackson had left behind. It would hurt him bad. Clint's heart pounded against his ribcage as the gun continued down. It slid down the length of his nose, passed lazily over the tip and came to rest against his lips. It smelled of recently fired ammunition.

Tony's shouts grew increasingly louder and more insistent.

Whippet's brows twitched. "Jesus Christ," he growled. "I'm gonna bash his head in if he doesn't shut up. Get him out of here."

Yes. Please. Get him out of here.

In seconds Tony was being dragged towards the door, shouting and struggling against his restraints. His face was red behind the gag. He managed to twist and look over his shoulder just as they hauled him out. There was fear in his eyes. Fear for Clint. A second later the heavy door closed between them.

Whippet looked back down at Clint with a grin, the gun still steadily pressed against Clint's lips. Little white buckshot-like scars covered his hands. He was missing a third of his little finger.

"If you want to live, I think you should kiss it," Whippet said and prodded him with the muzzle.

"I think you should kiss my ass," Clint gritted out through clenched teeth.

This time the fist knocked him right over. A remembered sigh whispered through his head. Why do you always have to aggravate the guy with the gun, Barton?

Whippet's two buddies hauled Clint up and put him back on his knees just as the door opened again and another two guys entered the room. New faces. At least seven people in the building, then. The two with Tony, Whippet and the three other guys in here, and Cortes. The newcomers joined the other guy by the wall. As the passed him, Clint could only see one gun, but he knew that more firearms were likely hiding under the bulky bomber jackets. Probably a couple of knives, too. They looked like the kind of people who snuggled up to their favorite serrated blade in bed and Clint didn't like the sense of dark excitement that rolled off them when they looked at him.

Whippet pressed the gun against his lips again, and the audience suddenly became a lot less important.

"Kiss it," Whippet repeated.

Fine. It would be a small price for staying alive for at least a little while, for giving the guys more time to find them. And besides, if their attention was focused on him, it wasn't on Tony. He leaned forward slowly and put his lips against the cool, black barrel, his eyes defiantly on Whippet. He stayed like that for two eternity-long seconds and worked very hard at ignoring the fact that his brain might paint the wall behind him at any moment.

"Oh, come on, you can do better than that," one of the guys called to him when he drew back.

Whippet seemed to agree, because he tapped the gun against Clint's lower lip. "That was pathetic. Come on, open up." When Clint didn't obey immediately, Whippet pressed the gun harder against his mouth, crushing it painfully against his lips. "Open up, or I will knock your teeth out with your own gun. I really don't give a fuck, but either way, it's going in."

"That's what she said," a voice snickered.

"That doesn't even make sense, idiot," someone else said.

Clint glared, but opened his mouth. Whippet pressed the gun in. He didn't push it far, just rested the tip of the barrel on Clint's teeth.

"He looks like he a natural."

"Probably sucks cock every chance he gets. Must be why they keep him around."

Long seconds passed and nothing happened. Everything felt amplified; the pulse that thundered in his ears, the concrete floor under his knees, the thick smell of blood and death in the cold air. He curled his hands into fists behind his back and tried to breathe around the gun. He needed to stay calm, needed to keep his head cool and clear.

But that was easier said than done when there was a gun in his mouth and he had just watched Jackson get his head blown off. He closed his eye, but Whippet tapped his cheek with the hand not holding the gun.

"Eyes on me at all times. Understand?"

Clint opened his eyes and nodded, more with his eyes than his head. He didn't want to jostle the gun. Yes, he understood; he understood that Whippet was all about control and humiliation and fear. He itched to glance down to see if Whippet's finger rested on the trigger guard, or if it was actually on the trigger, but he wasn't about to get himself in trouble by looking away two seconds after being ordered not to. He heard the door behind him open and close, and from the sounds he figured another two or three people had entered the room. They stayed behind him, out of his field of vision.

Then Whippet started to slide the gun along Clint's teeth, from side to side. He hadn't explicitly demanded eye-contact, so Clint focused on the point between his eyes where he would put a bullet if he had had the man in his rifle sight.

Whippet kept moving the gun back and forth. For a long while he did nothing else, and Clint eventually had to swallow, or drool all over himself. He did his best to minimize contact with the gun in his mouth as he did, but the barrel was big and unwieldy in his mouth.

Then Whippet pushed the gun deeper, and the iron sight scratched painfully against the roof of Clint's mouth. "Suck it properly."

The barrel tasted like oil and bitter propellant on his tongue.

"Let us see you lick it!" someone shouted.

Whippet wiggled the gun slightly in his mouth. "You heard the man."

It was awkward and difficult to get his tongue to move along barrel in his mouth, but he managed.

"Come on! Give us a real show, sweetheart."

I'll give you a show, fucker. As soon as I'm out of these goddamn cuffs and Tony is safe, I'll give you one hell of a show.

"Yes, put some feeling into it," Whippet instructed, his eyes darkly amused.

"Fuck his face with it!"

Encouragement was heard from the rest of the bystanders, and Whippet started moving the barrel in and out. Clint made a noise of protest when the sight scraped against his palate again and the taste of blood filled his mouth. He turned his head to the side, away from the intruding object. Whippet's fingers grabbed his hair and pressed the gun against his lips again. Clint reluctantly opened his mouth again.

"It's a nice gun," Whippet said conversationally. His eyes were glued to the gun moving in and out of Clint's mouth again. "Good balance."

It's a goddamn awesome gun. How about I show you just how awesome it is?

The metal ridges on the underside of the barrel knocked against Clint's teeth as the gun was pushed deeper. Fuck. The sight was tearing him up. The gun went deeper still, and he gagged.

"Aw. Can't take it?" someone laughed from Clint's left.

"Bet those pussies you hang out with don't have anything bigger than a pinkie."

From the corner of his eye Clint saw that they were moving closer, forming a half circle around the two of them. He carefully kept his eyes on Whippet, who was looking like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. His cousins were just a convenient excuse for this bastard. A justification.

"Such a pretty mouth," Whippet smiled. After a final thrust he pulled the gun out. The metal glistened with saliva, and Clint spat on the floor. He hit Whippet's shoes.

A moment later a steel-toed boot connected with Clint's groin and his world whited out with pain. He doubled over as it wrapped around him, deep, hot and all-encompassing. The pain spread up his spine and radiated down the insides of his thighs, and a heavy rock of nausea had suddenly formed in his stomach. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Agony didn't begin to cover it. Hands grabbed him and pulled him up to his knees, forced him to straighten despite the cramp-like burning. Another kick landed, and he hung dry heaving in their grip, struggling to breathe.

"That was for my cousins, asshole." Whippet grabbed an extendable baton from the back of his belt and snapped it into full length with a flick of his wrist. He crouched down in front of Clint and waved the baton slowly in front of his eyes.

"And so is this."

Clint tried to pull back, but he was held in place, and the baton pressed against his groin. A'click' was heard and his muscles seized violently and painfully. Loud curses registered distantly and the hands on him let go as the electricity zapped them, too. Clint dropped to the floor, muscles useless and locked, mouth open on a cry that couldn't squeeze past the crushing tightness. When the current stopped he curled up on the floor with a moan.

"Go get Babbit," he heard Whippet say. "He'll want a piece of this. And you two, get the table."

Clint caught the movement of the baton coming down again, and he tried to roll away, but it struck his arm just below the elbow, and he cried out. A one second flash of white noise-numbness skittered down his fingers. On its heels came the kind of pain that spoke of deep tissue damage, but it wasn't the kind he associated with broken bones, and thank god for that, it would have made life a lot more difficult than it already was. Whippet swung the baton again. The shoulder this time. Before Clint could recover, someone grabbed his ankles and he was dragged along the rough concrete floor on his front. Barefoot kicking wasn't quite as effective as kicking with combat boots, but despite the pain that shot up from his groin he managed to get a pretty decent hit in. His ankles were released.

"Son of a fucking bitch," someone groaned behind him, presumably the receiver of the kick.

The baton came down again, and Clint curled up, chin and knees close to his chest. With his hands still cuffed behind his back, there wasn't much else he could do to protect himself.