A/N: Wow, I am so excited by how much people like this story! So here is the sequel. Enjoy and mebbe leave a note? :D Thanks to DarylDixon'sLover, Guest, helloyesimhere, Thegirlwhoneverforgot (hi!), Aunt Siduri, MagsSky, and I-am-a-Ice-cream-lover for reviewing last time. Y'all are amazing 3
The Raft
"I don't get it. You've got a wife and kids. Why didn't you think of them before you chose the wrong side?"
There were times when Stark was so clueless it was almost painful to sit and watch his mouth move.
And Clint got it. He really did. In Tony's lifetime there hadn't been much opportunity for emotional growth. Since Afghanistan, he'd been playing catch-up in an attempt to process a whole load of trauma he hadn't been prepared to deal with.
Clint had had, at least, a brother while growing up. That, and his common sense hadn't been stunted by a ridiculous amount of wealth. (Natasha might disagree with that one. Clint had common sense, he just didn't always act on it, but that was usually on purpose).
Unfortunately, Stark's emotional illiteracy didn't make his comments any less offensive.
Clint laughed, low and menacing. It was fun to see Tony look nervous. If he thought Clint had a screw loose, so be it.
Yeah, he did have a wife and kids, didn't he? He'd totally forgotten.
Laura was the one who told him to go after Wanda! Because the kid was part of their family, too. Why was that so difficult for Tony to grasp?
"You better watch your back with this guy," he slammed two palms up against the plexiglass.
Guilt was welling up in him for getting Wanda into this. For getting her to break the law in the first place. That should have been his job.
She hadn't been prepared to fight Vision. Maybe if she'd stayed with the android, she would've been safer. Clint hated wondering if he'd made a mistake, and if he made one this time, it could cost Wanda her life.
"Chance he's gonna break for it!" he called after Stark.
He was getting Wanda out of here.
… … … … …
Later, a young guard appeared, carting around plates to all the cells.
He was just sliding a plate under Clint's door when he froze, then looked up at him through the glass. He couldn't have been older than twenty-five.
"Where is she?" Clint met his gaze evenly with his own. "Come on, we're both countrymen here."
The young soldier swallowed hard, absentmindedly adjusting his cap. "What is she, your baby doll?" the barb wasn't spoken in a mocking way. More like the kid just wanted to get his confidence up.
"Look, this ain't that complicated," Clint adjusted his posture so he looked less menacing. "You got orders not to give me any information. Apparently, I'm crazy, and a terrorist, for protecting Captain America." He emphasized the ludicrousy of that last point.
The guard shifted, unsure of what he was allowed to say.
"I just wanna know if she's okay." He felt a lead weight roll around in his stomach.
The kid looked away briefly, swallowing. "Yeah, man, she's fine. No one's gonna—hurt her."
Clint's eyes narrowed. "Don't lie to me. I've been a spy about as long as you've been alive."
The guard straightened his jacket, gazing at the floor. "They've got her in a straightjacket. Shock collar, isolation. They're trying to keep her contained. She doesn't make any fuss, for the most part, unless the boys're trying to touch her. She's afraid of them, and they're afraid of her."
Clint felt his gut clench. "And you're not? Afraid of her, I mean?"
"Well," the guard replied slowly, turning to leave, "I was. Now that you mention it—maybe she's just a kid?"
"Yeah," Clint pressed his fingers up against his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. "I would know. That's what she is."
He'd never felt so helpless before.
… … … … …
There was always a way out.
That was what Clint had been taught early in his SHIELD training and learned to be true on a number of occasions.
To their advantage, the current situation was:
Not a prison in sub-zero, Eastern European temperatures while their bruised and mottled bodies huddled together on rat breeding floors, and
Not a mob boss' sweltering basement in Central America where they were kept without food or water for days on end.
To their disadvantage, it was the most secure facility Clint had ever been placed in.
Some disadvantage.
There were two openings in Clint's cell that he could see while lying down, eyes wide open, pretending to be perfectly calm and relaxed despite the fact that the harsh white light never shut off to allow them to sleep.
For security reasons, they didn't want to so much as dim the lights the guards used to monitor them via security camera.
It was as if they knew Clint's history, forward and backward. Did they even know how many times he'd broken out of highly secure hostage situations, he wondered?
One opening was the door and the other was the toilet. Even considering he could fit through the hole after removing the porcelain (or in this case, plastic) throne from where it was bolted to the floor, the sewers in these underwater prisons usually led to locations that were; well, underwater. Not likely to help with the survival aspect of this plan.
The door would have to suffice.
As he stared up at the single, blinding lightbulb overhead, a small smile crept onto his face.
Knocking out the source of their precious visibility would surely bring a few people running.
He settled back with his hands under his head, closed his eyes, and began counting until just the right moment arrived.
… … … … …
"All guards upstairs are accounted for," Hope Van Dyne announced in a hushed whisper, materializing in full size as she fell into step beside Steve.
"No alarms set off just yet," he replied, nodding. He started to hold up his shield, remembering with a pang that he no longer had it. The two of them prepared to open the door to the cell block where his teammates were being kept. "This is almost too easy—" he began.
CRASH!
Steve and Hope exchanged a bewildered glance. Suddenly, gunshots and yelling began coming from the other side of the door.
"Was that us?" Steve asked.
"RRRNG! RRRNG! RRRNG! RRRNG!" red lights started flashing and alarms began going off overhead.
Hope frowned wearily. "That had better not be Scott."
"On my count. One, two—"
They burst through the door to find chaos in the first cell. Five guards were gathered around, seven more already on the ground, a light was out and one prisoner in blue in the middle of it all, fists flying in all directions.
"Clint?!" Steve exclaimed, starting forward but stopping himself as a shower of broken glass sprayed through the doorway, followed by two more guards with bleeding faces who dropped promptly to the ground.
"What the heck is going on out there?" Sam's voice bellowed from the far cell.
"Yeah!" came Scott's voice from in between. "Come on, Clint, you can't start a prison break without us!"
"You get them out," Steve motioned to Wasp. "I'll get these guys off of Clint."
He conked the skulls of two guards together, disarming one of them and using the butt of the gun to take out the last guy.
Clint stood, breathing heavily as he leaned against the doorway, clutching a bloody arm as he did so. "You know, I had this all under control," he wheezed, raising his eyebrows at Steve.
"Yeah, only you totally screwed with our plan," Steve couldn't suppress a grin. "Now this whole place is on lockdown. We'll never get out of it."
"Hey," Clint panted, following him out of the cell, "Not my fault you have—impeccable timing. Come on, we've got to get to Wanda."
"She's not in here?" Steve wrinkled his eyebrows concernedly, looking around the room, just as the others walked up.
"Cap," Sam announced in a grave tone, standing at attention in his blue prison uniform, "I claim seniority. I am never bunking with this guy."
"Which one?"
"Neither of them."
Hope folded her arms across her chest, glaring at Scott as her wings beat gently behind her. "I must say, when I envisioned my first mission in the suit, I did NOT think it would involve breaking you out of prison. Again," she added in a dry tone.
"I'm sorry, did you wake up with that attitude this morning or were you always like this?" Scott snorted.
"Avengers!" Steve barked.
"We're Avengers?" Scott's eyes widened as he turned to Sam, who ignored him.
"Cut the chit-chat until we find Wanda. Everyone follow Clint."
"Who is already gone," Scott pointed out.
"Then follow the trail of blood," Steve retorted, gesturing in the direction they'd came in. "Let's move!"
They entered the control room as a group, finding Clint hunched over the main computer display. "We can't get to her," he bit out, noticing the others. "Her whole cell block's locked down."
"Scott can take care of it," Hope reassured him.
"Wait, what?"
"I thought you had a Master's in electrical engineering."
"I have a Master's in electrical engineering, yes, not three Ph.D.'s in electrical engineering! This is, like, nuclear missile-level security!"
"What exactly is the point of you?" Sam jabbed him in the ribs.
"I shrink!"
"She shrinks," Sam pointed at Wasp. "And flies. And is a whole lot cuter than you are."
"Will you all just shut up for a second?" Clint belted out, knuckles going white as he gripped the display desk in front of him.
The room went silent.
They all watched as Clint lowered his head, planting his arms on the table and taking a long, deep breath through his nose before speaking again. "You've got to get her out of there, Scott," his voice broke and he gestured to the security camera screen.
Wanda was being surrounded by armed guards, huddling into a corner of her cell as they jabbed her with their weapons and yelled. They were panicking because of the lockdown. As they watched, one of them activated her shock collar and her mouth opened in a silent scream as she fell the floor.
"I don't care how much you don't know," Clint went on, his voice thick with emotion. "But it's not an option to leave without her, all right? And if we stay much longer, they'll find a way to take us all out. Or send reinforcements."
Scott, jaw working slowly, stepped up to the computer beside him.
Clint met his eyes, determination sparking in them. "Figure it out," he ordered. "You're the only one that can."
Scott nodded and slipped into a chair, talking in a low voice with Hope and Sam. Hope shrank within seconds, prepared to dive into the electrical systems and follow Scott's lead. Sam pulled out as many files as he could find that might be helpful.
Clint was hunched over the viewscreen, a murderous look in his eyes as the guards continued to taunt, scare, and abuse Wanda.
Steve noticed and walked over to him, grimacing as he watched his young teammate be treated like an animal. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he assumed they were threatening her, calling her names, demanding to know if she somehow had locked them down there and set off all the alarms.
"We'll get her out, Barton," he said quietly. "You have my word on that."
Clint didn't answer right at first. When he did, he changed the subject. "Where's the shield?"
"Returned to its maker," Steve sighed. "Apparently, it was never really mine."
"Stark get away?"
"You think I should have killed him?" It was an honest question.
"It's hard to have a little perspective when you're watching something like this happen," Clint gestured bitterly toward the screen. "But I guess—" his voice softened. "Nat's keeping an eye on him. Guy's gotta learn somehow. She'll make it happen."
"She helped us get away."
Clint chuckled slightly. "Doesn't surprise me at all."
"Did you meet her when she was Wanda's age?"
"Younger. A lot younger." Clint sighed. "I guess I just— have a soft spot for formidable young Eastern European assassins who've been held and trained against their will."
"You have a soft spot? Never would have guessed that," Steve teased.
One of the guards on-screen shouted something extra-forcefully and kicked Wanda in the stomach. Clint's expression went dark.
Steve was silent for a moment, watching beside him as the others continued to work. "Do me one favor?" he asked quietly, after a while.
"What's that, Cap?" Clint's voice was as low as he'd ever heard it.
Steve's jaw twitched. "In the scenario where we're charging into a room full of well-armed and skittish national guardsmen on high alert, let me go ahead of you?"
Clint huffed a laugh. "Yeah, that might be less suicidal. You go ahead, I'll shoot 'em down. Then we both grab her and high tail it out of there."
"You're not going to shoot down American soldiers?" Steve arched an eyebrow.
"Nope," Clint's jaw set firmly. "Not gonna kill 'em. They can suffer instead."
… … … … …
Time passed slowly as Scott and Hope worked, Sam watched the radar for any signs of incoming reinforcements, and Steve and Clint went back to tie up the guys they'd knocked unconscious in the previous cell block.
They tied a makeshift bandage around Clint's arm, which had been nicked by a bullet during the brawl. Then, once they'd readied a few weapons (Clint cared more about which ones he used than Steve did), they waited.
"Okay, we have some good news, and we have some bad news," Scott announced at last, causing everyone to turn and look at him.
"Good news first," Clint prompted.
"The good news is that the cell block SHOULD open, any second now. The bad news is that we have helicopters on our six."
"They're set to arrive around the same time as Cat-Boy's," Sam continued.
"Which means we have about ten minutes and a possible firefight coming our way," Hope finished up with a grim expression.
"We can deal with that later. For right now, let's get these doors open," Steve instructed.
Clint lined up behind him, a short-range rifle hoisted on his shoulder. The second the doors opened, he sprinted down the hallway after Steve and began opening fire on the guards as they appeared.
Kidney shots, most of them. Enough to make most of these boys want to curl up in a ball and die rather than fight back, but not enough to actually let that happen.
The last kid to come up was a familiar face. Clint almost grinned when he saw him. "Sorry, pal," he followed after Steve disarmed him, conking him over the head with the butt of the rifle and watching him fall. "You've got promise. Make it count."
Hopefully one of his comrades wouldn't guilt him into donating a kidney. As far as Clint was concerned, the kid could keep his internal organs a while longer.
They made it into the cell block, only to find two guards huddled behind Wanda inside her cell, holding the terrified girl with a rifle to her head, completely helpless to use her powers.
"Put the gun down or I'll shoot her!" the man yelled. He was probably more afraid than any of them in the room.
Steve stopped, hesitated.
Clint didn't flinch.
Both guards were missing their wrists within seconds and the situation was reversed. The gun fell and went off at Steve's feet, but it just missed his boot. In an instant, Steve had leaped over Wanda and knocked both men unconscious.
Clint felt something unfamiliar prick at his eyes as he sprinted to Wanda's side, grabbing a knife he'd stolen and cutting her loose from the collar first and then the straitjacket.
Overwhelmed, her hair mussed and weak with relief, Wanda burst into tears. "C—Clint?" she gasped against his side. Her shoulders shook with sobs.
"It's okay," Clint murmured against her ear, feeling every bit as drained as she was. He cupped his arm around her head, holding her close to him. "It's okay, I'm here. Daddy's here, Daddy's gotcha. You're gonna be alright, I promise." He pressed a kiss to her forehead, feeling his own hands shaking as he held her. "You're gonna be okay."
Steve was watching them, eyes suspiciously going red. "We have to go," he said in a low voice.
"C'mon," Clint helped her sit up, wiping her eyes with his dirty thumbs. It left smudges of grime across her cheeks, but she sniffed, gulped, and nodded. "You wanna walk or you want me to carry you?"
She hiccupped and almost laughed, wiping her eyes again. "You really are trying to be like Pietro, aren't you, Old Man?"
Clint laughed shakily. "I'm gonna pretend you didn't call me that. Lone exception, you got that?"
Wanda stood up on her own, arms wrapped around his middle more for comfort than for support.
She was a strong girl. She'd been tortured and abused, and here she was, determined to keep standing.
Sam ran down the corridor. "Helicopter's coming in faster than we anticipated! We might not make it before our ride gets here!"
Steve turned to Clint. "You think we should sink this thing and hope they don't find a way to come after us underwater?" he asked seriously. "We could probably hold out for at least a couple days before finding another way out."
"Nah," Clint instinctively shuddered at the idea. "Better get out now, while we can. We can take care of a few helicopters."
"Not if they're firing at us," Steve furrowed his eyebrows.
Clint merely smiled.
Wanda straightened beside him. "Maybe we should rephrase the expression," she said with a dry smile. "I think I can take care of a few helicopters."
"That's a big job," Steve immediately sounded concerned. "You sure you're up for that?"
Wanda's eyes softened. Her skin grew warm and glowed red at the fingertips as she assessed her strength. "Maybe it has been a pretty awful day…"
Wanda sounded almost cheerful.
Clint's grip around her tightened.
He was so proud of her it hurt.
"…But I still know how to do my job."
