Disclaimer: Own not do I.
A/n: So, this one time, my cousin and I sent each other an Avengers fic prompt. It was supposed to be just for fun, to merely mull over. Then this happened. It's a long one, folks. Enjoy!
Prompt / Request: The team is trapped in some bad guy's base. Weapons have been taken from them. Some of them are sick and/or drugged. Lots of angst, injuries and sickness.
A New Way To Bleed
Clint's head was pounding as he opened his eyes. The room was dark and dank, and as it came into focus, it immediately reminded him of those medieval dungeons in the movies. It was cleaner, actually, he realized – just dark, cement, damp and musty. The door was complete with bars forming a window that started halfway up the door and ended about four inches short of the top.
As he made to get himself in a sitting position, he was immediately met with horrible sharp pain in his shoulder. He cried out involuntarily and stopped moving, blinking stars from his eyes.
He heard someone exhale nearby and noticed Steve, back against the wall, looking significantly worse for wear.
"You're awake."
Clint took a shuddering breath. "Yeah."
He grit his teeth and struggled to sit up, pressing his back to the cold wall, easing up, and realizing as he did so where the source of the pain was: his right shoulder was dislocated. After a moment or two, the pain subsided some and Clint opened his eyes again, focusing on his friend with difficulty – his vision seemed a little blurry.
"I wasn't sure... I couldn't…" Steve paused. "I've been awake for a while."
"What happened?"
"You don't remember either?"
Clint started to shake his head, but it aggravated the throbbing. He shut his eyes and sucked in his breath sharply. After a few deep breathes, it softened and he opened his eyes again.
"Where's everybody else?" he asked.
The other man pressed his lips together and shook his head. "I don't know. It's just you and me here, but I… I heard…"
When he didn't continue for several seconds, Clint prodded him. "Cap?"
"Screaming." Steve finished grimly and Clint felt his heart drop. He didn't want to know whose voice it had been.
He reached instinctively for the quiver normally on his back with his good arm, though he knew it wasn't there even as he did so.
"They took everything," Steve said with a heavy sigh.
Clint gingerly patted his chest then down his leg to his boots - his backup knife… his backup backup knife… He swore softly. They even got the one that slid out of a hidden compartment in the sole of his boots. It was his turn to sigh and he turned his gaze to the other man.
"Are you alright? You're looking rough."
"Says you," Steve smirked, looking at Clint's dislocated shoulder, but his small, weary smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. "I can't move. I can't – whatever they did to me, I can't feel my legs. Or my arms."
Clint stared. "How the hell are we supposed to get out of here, when we don't know where the others are or if they're even okay, and you can't walk?"
"And you're bleeding."
"What?"
Steve gestured and for the first time since he was awake, Clint took proper stock of his own injuries, past his shoulder. His hands were badly scratched, with bruised and bloody knuckles, his arms and legs sporting various scrapes and cuts as well. None of them seemed too bad, save a fairly deep gash on his left shoulder. He touched his fingers gently to his head and it came back red and sticky. He glanced with worry at Steve.
"It looks bad," he admitted. "But I don't think it's deep."
Clint clenched his jaw briefly. "Alright, so it would seem we're screwed. What's our next move, Cap?"
Steve swallowed. "I don't have one."
Clint sighed. "Well, let me get my arm back in place and we'll come up with something."
The other man shook his head just slightly. "I told you – I can't move. I can't help you pop your shoulder back in."
"Those bars," Clint nodded towards the door. "Will have to do."
He thought sitting up had been hard with his arm out of its socket, but standing up was just as bad. Trying not to jar his own body too much as he got to wobbly feet, he painfully made his way across the little cell to the door. Wincing and clenching his jaw tight, Clint eased his left hand vertically through the narrowly spaced bars. Once the bars cleared his wrist, he turned his palm down and made a fist. The bars were close enough together that his fist would be too large to come back through.
He eyed his own hand with trepidation.
"Is that going to work?" Steve asked with concern. "Maybe you should wait…?"
"I don't think I'll be getting to the hospital any time soon," Clint replied. "Got to pop it back in." He hesitated again, but putting it off wasn't going to be any easier. "God… here goes."
He inhaled deep, put his foot up on the door, shut his eyes, and threw his body weight away from the door, his fist clenched so tight his nails dug sharply into his palms. For an instant, it was like a small explosion in his shoulder and he hollered through his teeth. Then it was over, and he relaxed, sliding his shaking hand and tender wrist back out from between the bars, and blinking the tears from his eyes. He slid down to the floor.
"You okay?"
Clint's breathing was slowly returning to normal and while his arm was still throbbing, it was a far cry less painful than it had been moments ago. "Sure." He said.
The pair fell quiet for several moments.
"You don't remember what happened at all?" Clint asked after a time.
Steve shook his head. "We were called out to a… a heist." He shut his eyes briefly. "There was gas… a diversion… I can't remember the rest."
The archer nodded. That was all he could remember too – if he concentrated, he could recall foggy, disjointed images: throwing punches, choking on thick air, shouting over a dead comm.
"Then I woke up – exactly like this. I wasn't even able to move my head until about an hour ago."
Clint winced then said, "Well, maybe that means you'll get the rest of yourself back before too long."
Cap seemed unconvinced and the other man couldn't help feel a little unsettled by how hopeless the look on Steve's face was.
"Hey," he said. "Don't fret, Cap. We'll find a way outta here."
A ghost of a smile touched Steve's lips. "You sound like Stark."
"I hope not." Clint quipped.
He set to work inspecting the door, and could see quickly it wouldn't be possible for them to break it down – particularly with Steve out of commission. The hinges were on the outside, as was the door's lock. Clint stepped back and frowned. It was a pretty good cage, he had to admit, but in his experience every cage had its weak spot. He just had to figure out what it was.
"I've been staring at this room for hours, Barton," Steve sighed. "I can't see how we can escape."
"You also can't move."
Clint cast around their cell, but found nothing useful. The cell had no window, and seemingly no real flaws – the walls were made up of smooth cement blocks, the floor one seamless slab. He returned to the door and slid his right hand through the bars but could only go up to his elbow comfortably – his hand too far away to reach the lock. He pressed his body flat to the door and began forcing his arm between the bars, grunting and gritting his teeth against the scraping, squeezing pain.
"Can you reach it?" Steve asked.
Clint's fingertips brushed the metal of the lock. It occurred to him that he would still have to pull his arm out from these bars (hoped he could get it out at all, in fact) and was doing his best to ignore how much it hurt in the first place. Getting the hell out of this cell was more important than sore arms.
"Almost…" he hissed and his eyes watered as he managed to jam his arm through another couple inches.
He stretched and strained and could just feel the latch – a type of squeeze-and-lift, similar to the kind on big freezers. He nearly smiled – they wouldn't need a key. His right bicep was firmly and painfully lodged between the bars and he couldn't get it through any further. He relaxed his body for a quick moment, took a couple deep breaths, and then with a teeth-clenched bellow, Clint stretched as far as he could, curled two fingers under the handle and eased them back – his arm throbbing, his hand cramping, fingernails pulling, shoulder aching…
Click.
Clint exhaled, slid his toe in the door and then leaned his body away.
"Did you…" Steve began, sounding like he hardly dared to hope.
"Yeah," Clint sighed. "Give me a minute."
The process of getting his arm back out of the bars was no less painful then getting it in. Once he finally had extracted himself, his bicep was bloody and aching but he ignored it; the door was unlocked. Still recovering his breath, he turned to Steve, immobile on the floor.
"Ready to blow this popsicle stand?"
Cap dropped his gaze to his body. He clenched his jaw and seemed to be straining and then the fingers on his hands twitched. He managed to wiggle them and then lifted his head up, his face awash with relief.
"I can feel my hands," he said. "And my forearms are tingling."
Clint smiled. "I will find you something to walk with then."
It took Clint a while to find anything useful. Outside their cell were a number of hallways and other rooms and cells, almost all entirely empty. Once he found an old storage room (containing empty plastic jugs covered in a layer of dust and some old rags), and only two other cells showed any sign of having been used recently. One cell contained a ripped jacket that looked unnervingly like one Bruce owned, the other cell featured a dark pool of blood. Clint swallowed and carried on.
At one point he ran into a pair of men who seemed to be patrolling the corridors, but Clint dispatched them easily – it was clear they were not well trained. Strangely, the men carried no weapons of any kind. As Clint went, he did his best to keep track of where he'd been, but with a number of dead ends and so many identical connected hallways, it became increasingly difficult to stay oriented.
Eventually Clint stumbled across a room which held nothing but a small stack of wooden boards, a couple inches thick and roughly four and a half feet long. He scooped up a pair of them and found his way back to Steve.
"This place makes no sense," Clint said as he re-entered the cell where Steve was. He shook his head, setting the wood down beside the captain. "It's almost like it's deserted – everything is musty and damp, the rooms old and mostly empty. I came across a couple guys I thought were maybe guards of some kind, but they weren't trained whatsoever."
Steve scrunched his brow. "Unless they weren't guards?"
"What else would they be?"
"Good question."
Clint grabbed the boards and leaned them against the wall. By this point, Steve had decent control of his arms, though still not his legs. Between the two of them, they were able to get him to more or less a standing position. Clint put some rags from one of the storage rooms on the top edges of the wood, creating make-shift crutches. He helped Steve get them under his arms.
Steve winced. "It'll have to do," he said. "Let's go."
Clint went first, ensured that the coast was clear, then headed out. Steve hobbled awkwardly after him.
It was difficult to find their way. All the hallways looked the same, some had branches that headed in different directions, while others ended abruptly in dead ends. Clint did his best to mark where they'd already been by scratching a mark on the wall, but it didn't seem to help much – he wasn't sure if they were going in circles, or if there simply was no exit.
Steve was sweating bullets and the pair were about to stop for a break, when they heard an unsettling sound. They exchanged nervous glances and Clint gestured to a door nearby. As they drew closer, the noise grew: some sort of pained groan, but deep and rolling like mild thunder.
Clint unlatched the door and opened it wide. A shock of cold rocketed down his spine and he heard Steve gasp sharply behind him. They couldn't look away.
Bruce's arms, legs, neck and torso were all chained to the wall and his skin was rippling between green hues and flesh tones. His voice was a low rumble, a growl of anger and pain that would grow louder, recede, stop for a small moment and begin again. His limbs seemed to expand and retract as they watched – as if the Hulk was desperately trying to come forth and free Bruce from the bonds, but couldn't. The idea that Hulk was somehow being forcibly suppressed was one of the most terrifying and impossible things Clint thought he could imagine.
"God…" Clint breathed.
Steve was staring in horror too, hanging back a few steps. "What have they done to him?"
Clint glanced at the captain, barely managing to tear his eyes away from the sight before him. "What do we do?"
Steve shook his head, mouth open.
Clint looked around the room, but there was nothing they could use to get him out of the chains or get the chains off the wall. He glanced helplessly at Steve who was just as lost as his friend.
"Let's find the others and come back with something to help him," the agent said, running his fingernails through his matted hair. "Unless you have a better idea?"
Steve shook his head and swallowed. To Bruce, he said quietly, "We'll be back. We're coming back, Banner, just hold on."
The shimmering, groaning being before them lifted its head slightly – the eyes were furious and full of pain, but whether it was Bruce or Hulk or both, it seemed to understand. It blinked slowly and its head drooped back down.
Clint swallowed hard against the emotion in his throat and led the way out of the room, back into the hallway.
Several more hallways and two separate bouts with some guards (all mysteriously unarmed) later and Clint was hurting, exhausted and frustrated. Steve wasn't a whole lot better.
"Where the hell are the rest of them?" Clint snapped. "Are they even here? Is it just us, trapped in this hell-hole, running around in damn circles?"
The captain sighed, shaking his head. "It's like it never ends – we keep finding more hallways and rooms. They've got to be here, though. Somewhere."
"Why?" said Clint. "Whoever is holding us here could've taken them anywhere. And we don't even know where we are, let alone where the others are. And we have no way to free Banner."
"We have to keep looking," Steve insisted softly. "We can't give up until we've searched every room."
Clint nodded with a discouraged sigh. His friend was right; that didn't make the searching any easier.
Down the following corridor, Clint was momentarily relieved when he opened one of the many doors and found an occupant. The relief was incredibly brief, however, as he properly registered the sight before him.
The room was better lit than most of the other cells, and lining the far wall were steel mesh cabinets containing various tools and medical equipment – locked up tight with numerous chains and padlocks. A large, square object that looked horribly similar to an oversized car battery was visible right in the front, cables in a tangle beside it – one smeared with blood. In the middle of the room, tied down on an angled metal table, was Tony – eyes closed, clothes tattered, arms and legs bruised, a trickle of dark blood in the corner of his mouth.
Clint rushed forward. "Tony? Stark – can you hear me?" He touched Tony's neck and was reassured to find a pulse. He gently patted Tony's cheek, trying to wake him, as Steve undid the straps on the table awkwardly with one hand. "Stark, you alright? Wake up."
Tony finally groaned and Clint exhaled with relief.
"What happened about me?" Tony slurred, his eyes unfocused as he tried to sit up. He gasped in pain and laid back down at once and Clint winced. "The hell?"
Steve had only begun to explain that it looked like Tony had been tortured when Tony sputtered and mumbled, "The fire is too cold, and the sauce isn't gravy!"
Steve and Clint exchanged startled and worried glances, while Tony looked between them as if he didn't understand why they were confused. He blinked and still seemed out of it.
"Tony?"
"Black pots and pans, to the arrow, Colonel!" He shook his head and waved his hand towards the door. He pressed his hand to his chest, grimacing.
"What – Tony, we have no idea – " Clint began.
Tony huffed and became more insistent, pointing and gesticulating with his other hand, wincing a little. "The fairies took the horse and the milk to the galactic farm! It's the Queen of Hearts' hedges!"
"Okay… maybe we shouldn't have woken him up." Steve said uneasily.
Clint sighed. "Of course out of all us, they had to make Stark off-the-rails crazy." He helped Tony off the table and slung his good arm across his friend's shoulder. Tony kept mumbling incoherent nonsense, still irritated that the other two couldn't understand him, then as if he were testing out different words and phrases.
"Croquet and ice planets… Tastes like buttercream and pickles… Could be peaches… Under the canopy by the crocodile… Hmm, no purple hotel."
They opted to ignore him. Steve hobbled on his makeshift crutches while Clint and Tony stumbled into the corridor, neither particularly steady on their feet either. They headed the opposite way in which they'd come and at the end of the hall, had to go either right or left.
"Which way?" asked Steve.
"Your guess is as good as mine."
"Bank," said Tony. He shook his head. "Bark. Barbie!" He growled in frustration and pointed to the left. With a sigh, he added, "Lemon."
"Hey, did you mean 'left'? You got two letters right. I think it's wearing off." Clint smirked and Tony glared.
"Jiminy Cricket's basket – " Tony broke off and grit his teeth.
"Maybe they didn't do too much physical torture," said Steve. "They just did something so he couldn't talk properly. For Tony Stark, I'd say that's probably the worst torture." He and Clint both suppressed a smile and Tony huffed again.
"Blah blah, candlestick queen."
Finding Tony seemed to change their luck – or, maybe it was just that Tony seemed to have at least some idea of which direction to go, even if the other two couldn't understand him. It only took them a few minutes (and just one dead end) before they found Thor, curled up on a bench in yet another cell.
Cap sat down on the bench to rest and Tony leaned against the door frame as Clint went forward, a bit warily, to wake the god.
"Thor… It's Clint. Thor."
As Thor began to wake up, he luckily didn't seem to be injured or in any pain. He did however, seem to be struggling greatly with the simple act of waking up. He managed to open his eyes with a deep moan, barely focusing on Clint before sighing and closing them again. It took several minutes for Clint to coax Thor to a sitting position.
"Sleep," the god begged. "Please, I must…"
"Buddy, we have to go. We're trapped and we have to escape."
"Let me rest, but a moment." Thor leaned back groggily.
"Thor!" Clint shouted and clapped his hands, snapping the god's eyes open. Over his shoulder to the others, he said, "Looks like he's been drugged." To Thor, he cajoled, "Come on, big guy. You have to get up. Do you understand me?"
Thor almost nodded. "Escape. Mustn't sleep now."
"That's right. Now stand up."
The agent tugged at Thor's armor and with a reluctant groan, he managed to get to his feet. Thor swayed back and forth and Clint quickly steadied him.
"Hammer?" the god rumbled.
"You're asking me?"
Thor lifted a shaking arm, open and closed his fist, and Clint tensed, having had one too many brushes with the hammer in the past. Seconds ticked by, but nothing happened. Thor started to sweat, clenching his jaw and quivering with effort. He finally gave up, dropping his arm and panting as though he'd run a marathon.
Clint glanced from Thor to Steve and Tony and back with rising worry. "Okay, so they're blocking magic, they stopped Bruce from Hulking, you can't walk, Tony can't talk – "
"Atlas!" Tony protested (or at least, Clint assumed it was a protest) and then clapped his hands to his face in frustration. "Gargoyles insist on yellow! Upstairs! Argh!"
It was funny even though it was so not, Clint thought. It was funny because it was Tony.
"Who the hell are these guys?" Clint asked no one in particular, his stomach twisting with unease.
"Barton, forgive me, I must…" Thor trailed off as his eyes closed slowly and then his body began to crumple towards the floor. Clint tried to keep him standing, which proved to be basically impossible, and the god landed with a loud thud.
"Hey, Thor! Thor!" Steve shouted and Clint got down on his knees to gently tap his friend's cheek.
"Stay with us, buddy," he said, and Thor opened bleary blue eyes.
"Wha– Barton…" He looked confused and unfocused. "Sleep, please… Later – we can go later…"
"No, no – no sleep. We gotta go, Thor. We talked about this. You have to get up!"
"Why?" Thor sighed. "Home…"
"Hey, no – Thor, we're not at home. We're trapped in a base, or a prison – remember? Trapped. We need to get out. Thor."
The god rumbled and with what seemed like incredible effort, he pulled himself into a sitting position, though he seemed to fall almost immediately asleep again.
Steve shook his head. "Thor! Our lives are in danger – do you hear me? Get up!"
"Why does this feel like the scene from Wizard of Oz when they're in the poppy fields?" Clint mumbled and struggled to rouse Thor again.
"Wendy Darling said that yesterday, my fair green haired rooster." Tony mumbled. "The Thames swallowed his dragon. Damn Tardis and the Intersect."
Thor narrowed droopy eyes at Tony.
"Ignore whatever he says," Steve advised. "It makes absolutely no sense. They drugged him too."
"We think." Clint said. "Or they made him insane."
Tony glared.
"Although it's hard to tell the difference from how he usually is, I know." Steve shrugged, suppressing a smirk, and Tony turned his irritated gaze to the captain instead.
"When I saddle the coral, I'll – " Tony grabbed at his hair and growled.
Clint and Steve smirked with amusement. Silently they both hoped that Tony really wasn't actually insane, but they refused to think about it. Instead, limping, hobbling, swaying and straining, the four of them left the cell and continued on.
They still hadn't found anything to free Bruce, Clint couldn't carry Thor, and Steve still had no feeling in his legs. He was pale and shaking, Tony kept pressing his hand to his chest like it hurt, but couldn't explain what was wrong (at least, not in recognizable sentences).
Clint's shoulder ached, he was sore all over and hallway after hallway blended together. Hopelessness was creeping in rapidly and somehow he thought if he could just find Natasha, things wouldn't feel quite so bleak. He feared what they – whoever had captured and drugged the rest of them – might have done to her, but knew that as long as she was conscious, she would be able to help him and the others figure a way out.
They ran into a pack of four guards around the next corner. Clint rushed forward to take the brunt of the attack, dropping Thor, who slumped to the floor, asleep. Tony shouted nonsense and attempted some mixed martial arts moves on one of the guards, while Cap mustered the strength to wield one of his crutches as a weapon against a fifth guard who came hurrying down the corridor.
Clint blocked several blows but was hit in the head from behind. It sent him sprawling to the floor, seeing stars. He jumped to his feet and lashed out, catching Guard One first in the throat then stomach, finishing with a hard kick to the chest. Guard Two swung his leg out in Clint's direction and he ducked just in time, the boot whooshing over his head. He swept the legs of Guard Two out from under him as Guard Three took a flying leap at the agent, colliding with bone-jarring force.
Clint struggled with Three – this one had training – and cried out when Two stamped his boot hard on Clint's shin. Then Two was swatted away by Cap's board, and Clint took the opportunity to overtake number Three when the guard glanced at his fallen companion. When Guard Three was unconscious at his feet, Clint looked up to see Tony holding Guard Four in a headlock that was cutting off the guard's air, and the other uniformed men scattered around the floor.
Clint collapsed beside Thor, panting, his left leg radiating with sharp pain. Tony released Guard Four who slumped to the floor, passed out. Steve slid down beside Clint.
"You gettin' tired?" the captain asked.
Clint shook his head. "You?"
"I could do this all day."
They took only a few minutes to recover. Tony dragged the unconscious guards one by one into the nearest cell and locked them in, while Steve and Clint worked on getting Thor back on his feet. The four of them struggled down another few sets of hallways before they finally found Natasha.
Clint felt his heart stop when he opened the door and saw her. Unlike the cell where they'd found Tony, Nat's was dark, the only light coming from the hall. Her body was sprawled in the middle of the cement floor, eerily still and severely injured.
"Nat? Natasha!" Clint cradled her in his arms, panic coursing through him.
No, no no no… Not her. They'd all been beaten and drugged in one way or another, but she looked worse than the others to him. Her face was pale, bloody and bruised, and she'd been visibly tortured too – beaten to a pulp, he thought, his stomach rolling with fear and anger. He wondered what they had wanted from her but knew that whatever it was, she would never have given it.
"Is she…?" said Steve from the doorway, quiet and resigned.
Clint hastily felt for a pulse and then heard her softly groan. He almost collapsed with relief.
"Hey, Natasha, it's okay – I've got you."
She curled her battered fist into his chest as he scooped her up, wincing as his own injuries protested at the strain.
It was bad enough – beyond bad enough – that the rest of them had been hurt, and Clint was ready to kill them with his own two hands well before he even got out of his own cell with Steve. But this? What they'd done to her? Oh, it brought it all to a whole new level. He was going to fucking kill every last one of them.
Once back in the hall, the next step was to try and find something to free Bruce and of course, find the damn exit. Tony was babbling and trying to tell them something, though he was mostly being ignored. Clint kept whispering to Natasha that it would be alright and praying they found their way out of this nightmare as soon as possible.
Tony pushed past Steve and blocked the corridor, gesturing for them to stop.
"What is it?" asked the captain.
"Popeye," said Tony, pointing left and right. "Swimming over the moon!" He held his fingers out in the shape of a square. "The moon!"
"Oh God, we have to play charades with the insane person." Clint mumbled and Steve grimaced. They didn't have time for this, but his arms were shaking, so he knelt carefully and gingerly laid Natasha on the floor.
Tony glared. "Maybe if Honduras wasn't breeding with polka dots, the pen could shine!"
Clint pressed his lips together as he stood back up, trying not to laugh. It wasn't funny, it wasn't funny… Nothing about this situation was funny. Really, it wasn't.
"The peacock's tea party – back to center – no…" Tony shook his head in annoyance and then pointed insistently to the left before going back to drawing symbols in the air. It seemed like a square, with letters, but Clint had never been great at charades. He glanced at Steve helplessly, who was as confused as he was.
"How many words?" the archer asked. "Movie? Person, place or thing?"
Another glare from Stark.
"I have no idea what you're trying to tell us – I'm trying to narrow it down!"
The genius huffed and slowed down his movements.
"Sqaure. Square… zig zag."Clint tried and Tony repeated the motion, shaking his head in frustration, mumbling under his breath.
"Television?" Steve guessed with a shrug.
"Sqaure… walls. Square… rectangle?"
"Deity button castle sunshine Harry Potter lime juice maze roller coaster fish!" Tony burst out and then with a gasp, excitedly pointed at his mouth. "The candle of her brain!"
"Tony, I don't…" Clint shook his head and scrubbed a hand over his face. They needed to find the exit and get out of here, especially before any more men showed up. Nat was in bad shape, and they still had to free Bruce. "Stop screwing around! We don't have time for this."
"Something you said?" Steve asked, and Tony clapped his hands, grinning.
"That really narrows it down." Clint snapped.
"Say it again?"
Tony shook his head, made the signals in the air, and then pointed at his mouth.
"Uh, her brain… Harry Potter, castle, roller coaster…" Steve rattled off, trying to recall all the nonsense Tony had just spewed.
Clint tried, "Deity, maze, lime juice – "
Tony startled the other two when he whooped loudly. He jabbed his finger at Clint.
"Lime juice?"
Tony shook his head.
"Maze?"
Another whoop.
"Maze!" Clint and Steve chorused, Tony's gestures finally making sense. In fact, the seemingly moronic layout of the base suddenly made sense too – Clint didn't know how they hadn't figured it out before.
"We're in a maze," said Steve, and Tony nodded enthusiastically. "But you know the way out?" More nodding.
"Gee, Stark, why didn't you say so earlier?" Clint quipped. He was glad Tony couldn't properly speak, as he figured he probably didn't want to hear the words accompanying the look he was getting. Then Tony flipped him the bird, and Steve couldn't help chuckling.
"Well then, lead the way, genius," said Clint, and bowed mockingly to Tony who showed him both middle fingers this time.
It would've been another dead end were it not for the doors. They were massive double doors, unlike anything else they'd seen in the prison so far: towering, wide and brilliant white but smooth and closed, with no obvious way of opening them.
"I'd say we've reached the end of the maze," said Clint, glancing from the doors back to the others.
"Hopefully." Steve exhaled. "Either that or we're about to run into something worse than being trapped in here."
The archer swallowed. How much worse than this?
Clint turned his gaze down to Natasha in his arms, then back up at Steve, Tony and Thor. They were all in bad shape and certainly not fit enough to engage in any sort of battle – and they were still without Banner. And weapons of any kind, minus Steve's "crutches". There was no giving up, not ever, but the longer they were trapped and injured, the less hope he felt about escaping.
Still, they needed all the strength they could get, so they agreed to stop for a quick rest. Thor collapsed and succumbed to sleep almost immediately, and Clint gently laid Natasha down alongside him, before copying Tony and Steve and taking a seat on the floor beside them.
"Should we take bets?" asked the archer a few moments later, with a wry smile.
Cap's eyes glittered with faint amusement. "As to what we'll find behind door number one?"
Clint nodded. "I'm going with terrorists. Bonus points if they're terrorists recently escaped from a government facility bent on revenge."
"Revenge, I agree with," said Steve, and paused, looking thoughtful. "But I'm definitely getting a mad scientist vibe. Some sort of sinister mind game."
"What about you, Stark?"
"The frenzied baseball – no, eagle feathers and a hemi – " Tony clenched his jaw and threw his hands up in the air, letting them flop down, giving up. "Bullet smoke."
Clint sighed. He knew they'd dawdled long enough and things wouldn't get any better the longer they waited – Banner was still trapped, Natasha still in horrible shape, the others still drugged to different degrees. Clint faced the doors again and blew air out his lips.
"Well, let's find out who owes who drinks."
He and Tony climbed back onto their feet and helped Steve up. The captain could feel his left foot now, even though the rest of his leg was useless, which they all took as a positive sign. Clint wasn't about to leave Thor and Natasha behind, but decided that if enemies were on the other side of the door, it would be easier to dispatch them without carrying Natasha in his arms.
Clint rammed his good shoulder into the door, and it gave way beneath his body at once, swinging open. He stumbled forward and straightened to find himself in a room much cleaner than any of the others they'd encountered so far. High ceiling, well lit, and full of various pieces of equipment: massive computers, tables covered with glass beakers, bubbling containers attached to others with clear tubes.
One corner of the room was crowded with more tables and stands, crammed with monitors and screens, many depicting the empty hallways they'd been traversing. Print-outs and stacks of papers and folders were piled haphazardly from table to table. At a long table farthest from the entrance was a tall, wiry man with flyaway white hair who looked unsurprised and unconcerned at the sight of them.
"Wow," Clint breathed. "You win, Cap. I think you get bonus points for the stereotypical, crazy white hair too."
"Welcome, my friends," the man said, opening his arms wide and smiling cheerfully. "So glad you could make it."
Clint narrowed his eyes. What the hell?
"My name is Dr. Lucius Plax, and it gives me great pleasure to see you standing before me." He clasped his hands before him and sighed happily. "I knew you could do it. I knew it. Who figured it out? Hmm?"
Plax's smile was deeply unsettling.
"That your base is a giant maze? Yes, you're very clever," said Clint flatly.
"No, no, dear one. That you are the rats."
A chill swept over the archer as he stood there facing Plax and his thoughts immediately jumped to Bruce, half-Hulking out and chained to the wall.
"Oh, I see." Plax tilted his head down slightly and observed them with disappointment. "And with a genius in the group, too. Tut tut."
Tony rolled his eyes and uttered a string of nonsense that made Plax giggle.
"Is that the point of all this?" Clint spat. "Turning us into your little toys? Torturing us for your amusement?"
Plax pursed his lips. "It is slightly more complicated than that."
"Then why don't you enlighten us." Steve growled.
"Naturally – what kind of villain would I be if I didn't monologue for you, correct?" Plax laughed – an unexpectedly loud bellow that practically reverberated off the walls. "You will want me to talk as long as possible. Every second we are in this room together is another in which you might turn the tables, in which I lapse in focus and you have your window to overtake me."
Clint kept his features blank – he wasn't going to give this bastard anything. He supposed they might be able to ambush the scientist, but Clint had no concept of how trained the other man was. The only strength on his side of the room came from himself, Tony and Cap, one of which couldn't walk at all, the other was shaky and limping, and then himself (he wasn't much better off).
He decided his best course of action was to watch, and wait.
"I'm a scientist, of course, as I'm sure you've already discerned. I've spent my life studying data, creating experiments, recording the outcomes." Plax began walking back and forth as he spoke – a slow, strangely comfortable pace. "I grew weary – I could not find anything that excited me. And then… you super heroes emerged. And I knew."
The scientist stopped and smiled wickedly. "I knew I'd found a challenge – the ultimate rats for the ultimate experiment." He started walking again as he continued. "I won't bore you with science of it all. In summary, I created a set of serums – customized, for maximum damage, specific to each of you. I built a maze. I took you and I separated you – "
For a small moment, Plax seemed lost in his thoughts as he rambled, and Clint knew that all he had to do was get himself past the scientist and he could get a weapon. He lunged and dove –
And found a long metal rod with a gleaming blade against his throat.
"That wasn't your window, Agent Barton."
Clint swallowed. Okay, very quick. Trained. Not as dumb or spaced as he looks. He backed away slowly on his hands then got back up to his feet – cautious, calculating. Plax gestured with his blade and the agent returned to where he'd been previously standing. The scientist lowered his weapon and began his easy pacing again.
"I wanted to test you," Plax went on as if there'd been no interruption. "Stark held up well to the electrical torture, if not the doses of the serum. Your Asgardian was extremely resistant to physical torture, although I may have overdone it on the sedative – the same amount would've most certainly killed a normal man."
Clint clenched his jaw and swallowed the anger he could feel rising in his chest. Listening to Plax practically brag about how he'd hurt his friends was nearly unbearable, but losing his head wouldn't help matters – in fact, it was likely what the scientist was hoping for. To provoke and manipulate. Clint silently refused to give him the satisfaction, and relied on his training to come across disinterested while he silently tried to work on a way out.
"Now, Dr. Banner was quite the challenge, with his… condition. I ended up having to administer regular injections in order to suppress the monster. Even then, the two sides of him are constantly at war. I imagine he'll be exhausted and out of sorts for weeks after this – if he survives, that is."
Clint heard Steve shift behind him and glanced back to see Tony clenching his fists tight at his sides. The agent shot them both a look that said Don't and returned his attention to Plax. The scientist's sharp eyes missed nothing and his smile grew.
"Of course, it was the Black Widow who was the most fun." He said and Clint stiffened involuntarily. "She can keep her cool even under severe physical stress – quite remarkable. The serum weakened her strength and ability to conceal emotion substantially, but she was still impressive."
"Is there a point coming any time soon?" Clint snapped, louder and angrier than he wanted.
"Oh, I believe I've already made it." The scientist unclasped his hands and spread his palms. "I was testing you all. It was all one grand experiment. You didn't escape the maze because you wanted to – you made it this far because I wanted you to. Why else would the men you encountered be unarmed? Why else were all the cells conveniently unlocked?"
Clint felt his gut twisting. It was all a trap – planned. Maybe there was no way out after all.
"You are my rats, and after I completed the individual experiments, I wanted to see what would happen next – how you would handle the situation, gets yourselves out. And for the most part, I'd say you did quite well, despite your individual… disadvantages."
The archer took a slow breath in to help keep himself in check. Disadvantages? Try torture and drugs, you piece of shit.
Then Clint couldn't help silently noting that Plax seemed to have specifically targeted every member of the team in some way, except him. He didn't know what to make of that realization; he didn't like the possibility that something worse was in store for him. He had to focus, had to fight. He wasn't going to die here, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let any of the others die here either.
Plax cocked his head slightly, and as if he could sense Clint's unease, he said, "But what about you, Agent Barton? Aren't you curious why you were not tortured like your friends? Why you were not in a cell alone, but thrown in with your paralyzed Captain?"
"I'm lucky," the agent deadpanned.
"It's more than that – or rather, less. You are not an Asgardian god, you're not a genius, a building-crushing monster, super soldier or master manipulator." Plax narrowed his eyes. "It's a mystery to me why you are even counted as a part of this team." He gestured with sarcastic air quotes on the last word.
Clint swallowed hard again, determined not to let the other man get to him. Not now, not when they'd come so far. Not when he was struggling to hold back as it was…
"What did the drugs do to you, hmm?" Plax wheedled. "It took away your soldier's strength, your genius' ability to communicate. It suppressed the monster, silenced the manipulator – "
"You silenced her, you bastard."
Plax side stepped his comment without batting an eye. "And incapacitated the god. But you? What did it do to you?"
Sweat broke out on Clint's forehead, much as he willed himself not to show fear or strain. He'd been foggy when he'd awoke, and had injuries from the battle before they'd been drugged, a little blurry vision, but he hadn't been specifically affected – not to the extent of the others. He hadn't bothered to wonder why, not really. There'd been a little bit of niggling doubt – why was he in better shape than the others? – but he hadn't focused on it. He was much more worried on getting out than why he wasn't worse for the wear.
That was still his focus, he thought determinedly. Getting out.
"It's because you are nothing special," said Plax sharply. "There was nothing for the drug to attack. You're just a human. A lowly human, who has nothing to offer this group of extraordinary beings."
Clint clenched his jaw so tight it hurt, trying to shut out the doctor's words, to think his way out of this – there has to be a way, come on, think, damn it! – but nothing was coming. His head was starting to throb with a headache, he was doubting he had the strength to physically overtake Plax…
But the man was putting a voice to some of Clint's deepest fears and insecurities – he'd been the one brainwashed by Loki after all, and he was still dealing with his demons from that, nightmares that reminded him that he'd been weak, controlled – had killed friends and colleagues, tried to kill others. It wouldn't have happened to a real hero, he would silently reason – someone stronger, braver, smarter.
So despite his training, he couldn't push his doubts away the more the doctor spoke, couldn't reject or dismiss his statements. He was frozen, listening, believing and silently breaking down piece by tiny piece.
"How did you get here, hmm? How did you end up with the likes of them? Whose fault is it that you have been dropped in their midst when you have no right to be there?" Plax circled Clint, his tone low and smooth, penetrating and persuasive like the devil himself. "You carry an outdated weapon in the presence of superheroes – how are you not laughed out of their ranks?"
"Stop listening to him!" Steve burst out from somewhere behind Clint, and the agent nearly jumped, having forgotten everything but himself and Plax. "He's trying to get in your head, stop listening."
"I can't," Clint mumbled. "He's right."
"Clint – "
"Who am I to be a part of the Avengers? I'm nobody." He swallowed hard and added quietly, "I'm nothing in comparison to the rest of you."
Plax was gleeful as he came to stand before Clint again. The scientist rubbed his hands together and the malicious glint in his eyes seemed amplified – Natasha wasn't the only master manipulator in the room. This was another experiment.
"How can you say that?" Steve persisted. "After all this team has been through? All we've accomplished?"
"Luck…" Plax whispered. "You've been lucky. You've been in the right place, at the right time…"
"Clint, don't listen! You lead us here, you got us out of that damn cell."
"Your training as a spy and assassin has helped you – now and in battles past," Plax continued. "But it won't help you forever. You're not immortal, you can't save them all…"
Clint shut his eyes. Part of him was fighting, trying to focus on Steve, but Plax's voice was overwhelming. And he was right… God, he was right… His mind showed him Natasha, broken, bleeding… Showed him Loki's piercing eyes… What did it show you, Agent Barton?
"You cannot think your way out, you cannot change your form, you cannot fight… You only slow them down. You are worthless to them – a tag-along, a liability."
"Natasha is human too!" Steve shouted, trying to drown out Plax's verbal poison. "You're both as important as any of us! You wouldn't be part of the team if you weren't!"
"But you can't believe that," Plax pressed on, using Steve's protests as fuel. "She is better than you will ever be. And you're not important, Agent Barton. You cannot believe your captain because his words are untrue. Open your eyes and realize the truth: you are nothing. You don't belong, you never have, you never will…"
The scientist's words should have not have burrowed so deep, should not have gripped him so tightly, but they did. Clint felt small, useless, trapped.
"Clint, we cannot lose you." Steve insisted, sounding desperate.
The agent turned slowly to face his friend. "Would you even notice if you did?"
"Of course we would," the captain said earnestly. "You can't listen to him – he's saying anything to get in your head right now. He's trying to manipulate – "
"But he's right," Clint cut-in. "All I have is a bow and arrow. And I can see far." He snorted and shook his head. "Some hero I am. Why am I part of this team? He's right, Cap. I'm just a human – I'm not like you guys. Any of you. You don't need me."
"You're wrong. We're blind without you." Steve locked his eyes on Clint's and willed him to focus, to ignore Plax completely. "We can't be everywhere at once – when you're up on a rooftop calling things out, you are – you can be. We do need you."
When Plax began to speak again, Steve raised his voice, speeding up and talking over him.
"He's trying to blind you now – don't you see!" Plax tried. "Having great eyesight does not make you a hero!"
"Hey, focus on me! Shut him out! I owe you my life, on more than one occasion. Remember the Crawlers? And the Polathians? The Sycorax? Clint – listen to me!"
"You are not them," shouted the scientist. "You are not one of them!"
Plax's voice was like a stabbing knife in him then. You are not one of them. Echoing, hitting every nerve. Worthless, lowly, liability, unworthy… You are not one of them.
Clint didn't turn around to face him, but instead focused on the others – his team, his friends – one at a time. To look at them on their best day, no, he didn't belong. He wasn't on the same level as them. Human though Tony and Natasha may be, with his intellect and her physicality, they might as well be counted as super-humans.
Strong, beautiful and brilliant – now broken, battered and defeated. Steve was slumping against the wall, legs still paralyzed, arms barely working, his face shining with the effort of keeping himself upright. Tony was rambling nonsense under his breath, his head in his hands. Bruce was still locked in a cell in chains because he could do nothing, Thor was asleep, with Natasha unconscious and leaning against his unmoving form.
And yet the one who was supposed to be the weakest, the worst, the one who was nothing? He was still standing (albeit barely), ready to die to save them if it came to it. Without hesitation. His fears, doubts and insecurities wouldn't even factor into it – not for a second.
And that's when it dawned on him. That was why he was a part of this team. It didn't matter that he wasn't a super soldier or a god. The trust, the loyalty – knowing he had their back, and they had his, no matter what. Knowing without a doubt that they would lay down their lives to protect each other, to protect innocent lives, protect the Earth. It wasn't just any random person off the street who would be willing to do that, but he was. Unquestionably. It was a different kind of strength, but one they all possessed. One he possessed.
They were a group of people who had no business being together – full of opposing forces and damaged goods – and yet here they were, saving the universe every other week from monsters like Plax. Clint wasn't exactly like any of them, but that was perhaps the point – they were not exactly like him, either. Their strengths and weaknesses were different on purpose, to balance and compliment, to meld and bond and somehow create this team where there never should've been one in the first place.
Suddenly he didn't see them as individual pieces, but a whole – take one away and the entire system crumbled. A whole that he was a part of. Them, as a team? It didn't make sense – it shouldn't – but it did. They did.
The echoing stopped.
He faced Plax. "You're right – I'm not like any of them. But they aren't like me either." He advanced, hiding the pain he felt in his leg as he took a deceptively steady step forward. "But you're wrong, too: I am one of them." He took a breath, not taking his eyes off of Plax. "And if you think there is a chance in hell you are you going to win this – beat us – you are so sorely mistaken."
Plax was completely unruffled as he smirked. "It's adorable the way you're still fighting to get out of this situation, Barton, it really is. Maybe that's why they keep you around. Still looking for the window, hmm?"
"I hate losing," Clint quipped. "I'm very competitive. Ask Natasha."
"Perhaps I would – were she conscious." Plax's nasty smile was the last look on his face before Clint's boot connected with it.
This time, he'd caught the scientist off guard. Clint's injured leg shook with pain from the impact as Plax tumbled to the ground, his blade skittering across the floor out of reach. The agent grit his teeth and didn't waste a second, tackling the other man. Plax fought desperately without his precious weapon, his movements frantic, doing his best to attack any of Clint's visible injuries. He was quick and strong with an impressive level of training, but Clint was better. The fight would've been over quicker had Clint not been injured, but even so, it didn't last more than a few minutes.
Clint landed some solid blows and then knocked the other man into a table covered in glass beakers. The scientist crumpled with a whimper as glass shattered around him and by that time, Steve had hobbled near enough to toss one of his "crutches" to Clint. The agent used it to slam Plax into unconsciousness, then handed it back to Steve with a tired smile.
"Well," he panted. "That was easy."
By the time Plax had been neutralized, Tony had recovered some semblance of speech, though most of what he said was still nonsensical. He managed to communicate that they needed to move the long table covered in screens and monitors in order to access a hidden door. Clint and Steve also managed to discern that somewhere between being brought to Plax's base and being tortured by the scientist, Tony had glimpsed blueprints for the maze during a moment when Plax believed Tony to be unconscious. Clint didn't care how or why, only that his friend had managed to commit the layout to memory.
After the table was moved and the door was exposed, Clint gingerly scooped Natasha back into his arms while Tony and Steve worked to rouse Thor. Steve searched Plax's unmoving form (now tied and gagged to a set of thick pipes on the far wall) and found a cell phone, immediately putting in a call to SHIELD for extraction.
"What," Clint panted as they wove down a number of tight corridors beyond the hidden door moments later. "You didn't want to run the maze again? Try for best time?"
"Next time," Steve replied. "When I can actually walk."
"But where would be the fun in that?"
They finally reached another set of massive doors, these ones stained a dark green, and when Clint and Tony had opened them, they nearly collapsed in relief: they were out. It was dark, the sky overcast and the stars obscured, the air cold enough that they could see their breath rising in misty puffs before them. On the horizon, lights appeared and the noise of helicopters cut through the air.
Clint held Natasha close and fell to his knees.
He saw Maria Hill striding purposefully across the ground, dozens of armed agents and medteams trailing behind her. She was already directing men to locate and retrieve Banner, the only team member missing. Clint touched his forehead to Natasha's and whispered,
"We're safe."
8 hours later
Clint opened his eyes to a plain, neutral-colored room. He inhaled and exhaled deeply, recalling the nightmare of being trapped in Plax's labyrinth.
He gently flexed his bandaged hands and noted the pain in his leg was only a dull ache. He let out all his breath with another sigh of relief. Hearing movement to his right, he gingerly turned so he was laying on his side (his wrapped up left shoulder facing up) and saw Natasha. She was all bandaged and stitched up too, the skin exposed still sporting colorful bruises. She looked peaceful, eyes closed, hands pressed together between her face and the pillow.
There was movement in the doorway and Clint raised his eyes to see Steve, also bandaged and stitched, in a wheelchair.
"How're the legs?" the archer asked his friend.
Steve shrugged. "Mostly working. Whatever Plax gave me curbed my super-healing. I guess they need time to flush the drugs from my system. How's the shoulder?"
Clint almost shrugged but stopped himself just in time. "Mostly working." He hesitated. "Look, Cap, about what happened in the lab – "
"Clint," Steve began but the archer talked over him.
"I shouldn't have – I tried to…" He trailed off, struggling to find the right words.
"Hey, you got us out of there, Barton. That's all that matters." The captain eyed him and then added, "I just wanted to see how you were – I better let you rest. I'll see you." He wheeled out of the room.
Clint turned his head away from the door and closed his eyes, trying not to think. When he next opened them, he saw Natasha watching him, smiling softly. Relief bloomed in his chest at the sight of her awake.
"Hey you," she said, her voice a little raspy.
"Hey you." He smiled back even though the scabbed-over cuts on his lip and cheek protested. "They got you on morphine?"
She nodded.
"Me too."
For a long time, they simply watched the other, overwhelmed with the knowledge that for the moment, they were safe and alive in SHIELD's medical facility. The rest of the team was recovering in other rooms, the psychopath of the day had been arrested and imprisoned in some deep hole, and they had made it out, more or less in one piece. They'd won. He felt proud, and happy.
And yet…
He swallowed – his fears and doubts had always been there, even before Plax poked and stirred them to the surface, and Plax's words came back to him too easily now. Clint's realization earlier about the team being a whole had helped him put the worry aside, but now it was quiet and the threat was gone. Now they were safe and sound and the insecurities crept back in. The fear that he wasn't important enough to be a part of this team, that he wasn't extraordinary. That he had nothing to offer, that he was just a plain, unremarkable human man – weak, malleable, useless.
Natasha stared at him. He knew she could tell what he was thinking – she always could, no matter how he tried to hide it.
"Don't," she whispered.
He clenched his jaw, resolutely staring at the ceiling. How could he not? He simply wasn't enough, wasn't "special" enough… And then there was everything that happened with Loki…
"You belong here," she insisted. "With me – with us. If you weren't there, who would have saved us today?"
Clint wanted to argue but couldn't find the words. Normally the pair of them tended to communicate with few at all, but he supposed this moment was different – as she continued, he figured her uncommon openness was due to the morphine drip attached to her arm.
"Plax underestimated you, Clint. He believed you weren't worth destroying because you aren't superhuman."
Clint snorted. "So you're telling me I was better off today because I'm weak? Yeah, this is really making me feel better, Nat."
She rolled her eyes at him. "You know what I mean – you're not weak. He tried to manipulate you into accepting failure and instead you won."
"New York – "
"No one blames you. We all saw what Loki could do – what he did. He chose to possess you – that doesn't… It could have happened to any of us. I don't know how to make you see…" She paused, eyes searching his. "No one blames you but you."
She let that sink in before she went on, her tone quiet but firm.
"You keep up with them," she said. "You don't have Tony's brain or Thor's strength and you still fight the same battles they do. You see things they don't – whether it's because of your vantage point or your training, or your eyesight, you and your arrows save us time and time again, often without us even knowing it. You shoot backwards, for God's sake."
He couldn't help smiling a little.
There was something in her tone, something in the way she spoke that made him believe her. She wasn't just saying this to soothe his ego or merely as a friend giving compliments. He remembered how earnest Steve had been when he'd been trying to talk over Plax's taunts.
"We can't be everywhere at once – when you're up on a rooftop calling things out, you are. I owe you my life, on more than one occasion."
"You have no idea how valuable you really are," said Natasha. "We need you." A beat, then she added softly, "I need you."
Those eyes of hers captured his gaze, and Clint reached out for her. Though their beds were too far away for them to hold hands, she met his fingertips with her own.
"You never give up. You… never give up." She blinked, her eyes suddenly shining, and he couldn't help the jolt of surprise – Natasha didn't cry (it must've been the morphine again, he assumed).
She cleared her throat and brought her hand back to rest under her head, her previous gentleness and openness disappearing rapidly, getting buried back down where she kept it.
Natasha grumbled, "And Barton, if you ever talk about being unworthy again, I'll kick your ass. And you know I can."
Clint laughed. That was more like it.
-end-
A/n: Thanks for reading! Feedback appreciated. :D