WARNING: This chapter includes rape situations.
He popped the chemical hand warmer and shook it. He smiled a little, thinking about benign single substances, explosive heat when they combined. His breath steamed in the air and he held the pouch between his hands. He hated the cold, but he knew Natasha would have loved it here. He had a gorgeous view of the moon from his vantage point. He can't feel his balls anymore from the cold and he had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he hears Natasha laugh over the comm, and his troubles melted away. He couldn't believe 36 hours ago he laid in bed, tracing slivery scars on her skin while she laughed and reminisced about each one.
But then there was a phone call and they had to go. She left first. They never took the same plane to a mission, but they always took the same one home. He laid there, smelling her on the sheets still and smiling to himself. They both knew he was the sentimental one.
Now he watched her twirl on the arm of another man through his binoculars. He watched the man dip her low and kiss her neck. He couldn't wait to put an arrow through his skull when he heard the things he muttered into her skin. He hoped he wouldn't get blood on her dress. He'd like to take her out when this was all over. He wanted to be the one she was dancing with. His comm watch beeped twice. 'Atta girl, he thought. It was Natasha signaling to get ready; she was taking the man to his room, which Clint "Hawkeye" Barton, the world's best marksman, had a clear view of.
Still, he couldn't shake the sick feeling he'd felt earlier. It was something he'd felt before Sao Paulo and Dubai, two missions that had gone so south they might as well have been in hell. He still isn't sure how either of them survived. Maybe they were cats instead of hawks and spiders. After all, they always landed on their feet and their lives seemed endless. But he knew that illusion wouldn't last long. They'd die or they'd fake it and disappear off the map eventually. Clint was already pushing the envelope on the lifespan of an assassin. Natasha was younger, but she'd started a lot younger too. Her eyes looked ancient to him. She'd seen more than any one person ever should. But she wasn't really one person, she was several. And he knew that best of all.
He could see the glint of her bracelet as the man led her into his room. The Italian diplomat had been planning a coup d'etat and was a little too big a fan of everyone's least favorite historic mustachioed dictator for everyone's taste and he had to be taken care of before he gained anymore traction. He had an impressive penthouse that was filled to the brim with is rich and equally crazy, but less ambitious supporters. He was the one who really mattered, no use burning the hen house to get the fox. He could hear his filthy words to Natasha as he pushed her up against the wall and groped at her. There was a pillar in Clint's way or he would have fired right then. He'd been jealous over marks before, but the things this man was saying to his Natasha were too much to handle.
She stalled him with requests for more drinks, and he generously poured her more champaign. She shimmied out of her gown, and Clint couldn't help it when his mouth dropped at the image. Between the satin corset making her hour glass figure look especially mouthwatering, and the way her garter straps stretched over her luscious thighs he was having a hard time not just repelling into the room and taking her for himself. She walked towards the bed, leading the man into the perfect position. He nocked his arrow and drew back. Perfect.
But things weren't perfect. There wasn't the beautifully destructive crescendo of glass breaking, there was a sickening "thunk" sound as the arrow stuck in the glass. And now he could see that it was thick. Very thick. Thicker than the intel had said. And he could hear the man laughing over Natasha's comm.
"You think I didn't know who you were? Oh Ms. Romanoff, you don't know much about my Russian friends, do you? They know all about you and your feathery friend."
"That's all very interesting, Marcola. But I have no idea what you're talking about."
He could see her stoic face, but he could see the telltale sheen of sweat on her face, something was going horribly wrong. Her legs buckled, and she tried to steady herself on the edge of the bed.
"Didn't they teach you not to take drinks from strangers in the Room?" He laughed wickedly, and Clint felt like he was going to throw up. He fired another arrow in the glass, and the same horrible absence of breaking glass was heard.
He stepped closer to Natasha, she threw an unsteady punch and he caught her arm, wrenching it behind her. She tried to elbow him with her remaining arm, and got him in the stomach, but not as hard as she should have because he grabbed her other wrist too. She struggled against him, trying to fight off both him and the drug was useless. Clint fired another arrow to no avail. Next time someone tells him that explosives are unnecessary on every mission, he's going to put a knife in their throat.
"I'm going to fuck you before I kill you. I'm going to have your pretty little head cut off and put in my trophy room."
Clint could see the handcuffs on her wrists as she was pushed too hard on the bed. Natasha was swearing in slurred and broken Russian. He fired another arrow at the window, it didn't breach this time, but a crack shuttered its way from one arrow to an adjacent arrow. Perfect.
The Italian seemed unconcerned. He's ripping off her expensive lace panties and calling her a whore when he sees the loving marks Clint left on her not even two days before. And Clint is hearing this all as he fires a line into the side of the building and securing it to the roof of his. Natasha is letting out painful choked gasps as he begins to violate her, and Clint's vision turns red as he repels towards the middle of that desperate crack in the glass.
His boots with steel heals hit the window first, he designed them to break the glass during repels. But this glass is thick, and he's going too fast and he knows it. He doesn't care when he feels his left ankle shatter, he only cares that the glass shattered too. He's grabbing the man off the bed, off of Natasha. He throws him on a pile of shards and cuts off the man's pathetic prick before he has time to scream Clint shoves it down his throat and watches as he chokes. It's embarrassing, and messy, and nowhere near dignified, and Clint only wishes he could make the man die over and over again.
Natasha is on the bed nearly paralyzed, half naked, with a tear leaking down her cheek. Clint kicks the corpses' head out of anger, hard enough to break his already wrung neck. He was too late and he could forgive himself for a lot, but not for this. He picks Natasha up and wraps her in a lush blanket. He's already signaled for an extraction, but he's furious they aren't here now. She's looking at him with panicked, broken eyes. And he's shaking.
"I'm sorry. Fuck, Nat. I should have said no, we should have said no. I shouldn't have let you come in here alone."
She didn't say anything. She couldn't say anything. She just weakly shook her head, it was almost imperceptible. She didn't blame him; she blamed the double agent in intel she now knew was there. She blamed herself for not telling Fury she couldn't do this gig. She just wanted to take a shower and go to sleep and forget everything that happened.
He rocked her gently. His tears made little dark spots on the red blanket. He could hear the helicopter coming, but it seemed hopelessly far away. He wondered if this is what she had felt as she lie exposed on the bed.
