Clint's head throbbed. His extremities felt like lead and every muscle protested the simple act of breathing; the cold tiles under his body leaching any warmth he had. Barton cracked his eyes open to find everything blurry and distorted. Blinking a few times and shook his head to try and clear the fog that had settled. He hated being drugged; the effects always seemed to last forever.

Licking his painful dry lips he looked around; the cell had clear walls that extended to the ceiling. The top of the cell was a criss-cross bar pattern with squares big enough to get a hand through but didn't seem to serve any real purpose. His prison was small and it didn't take him long to notice Natasha crumpled in the other corner. A metal shackle was fastened to her foot and he followed the chain from her ankle through a metal ring bolted in the floor, to a shackle around his foot. They were joined together but their movements would he hindered by the ring the chain ran through.

Whoever had grabbed him had managed to get the drop of him, which wasn't easy to do. Ironically being jumped had brought him to Natasha, but it didn't look like their reunion was going to be positive. Despite the circumstance he was still relieved to lay eyes on his best friend.

He painstakingly crawled over to the other crumpled form and turned the Black Widow onto her back. "Can you hear me Natasha?" A small flinch and low moan was her only response. Barton checked for any injuries but found none; whatever they gave the pair was still flooding Romanoff's system. She had been drugged before Clint had arrived and who knows how long the bad guys had kept them drugged after. It was at least long enough to move them here. Clint gently placed her head in his lap and leaned against the wall to wait.

Judging by the cell, they had to have been lowered in through the roof because there were no doors or hinges in any of the clear walls. There was a possibility he could lift Romanoff high enough to try and pick the lock securing the chain that was wrapped around two of the bars. If he got his foot close enough to the metal ring there should be enough slack in the chain for Natasha to climb high enough to reach the top.

Their solitude didn't last long, as a door creaked open across the room from the cell and two men carrying weapons walked in to take position in the middle of the room. The guards kept their eyes focused on the Avengers in the cage but didn't breathe a word. A third man entered the room; he was casually dressed and didn't strike Barton as particularly threatening. His whole body language screamed indifference and he lacked the usual heir of smugness and maniacal genius that accompanied most of their enemies.

The man stared at Clint; the silence growing in the room until the archer couldn't take it anymore. "This is usually where the bad guy starts monologueing."

The man chuckled. "I don't think you're in a position to go on a long rant, do you?"

"Me?" Barton couldn't keep the surprised insulted quality from his voice. "I think we have some sort of a misunderstanding here. I thought Hydra taught all of its people their 'we are evil' mantra."

"I'm not Hydra."

"Then I'm going to have to ask you to throw me a bone here because we haven't met before."

"No we haven't but your impact on my life hasn't been dissuaded by that. You can call me Jack and I'm nothing more than a concerned citizen." The man stepped closer to the clear wall.

Taken out by an amateur, that stung a little. "Well Jack, what is it you and the neighborhood watch are concerned about?"

"Someone needs to be held accountable for all the death and destruction you've caused; you and the rest of those supposed heroes. Did you give any thought to the innocent people that perished in your little battle? Do you realize the lives and families you destroyed or is it hard to think about that while reaping the spoils?" Jack's voice rose with each point, the calm demeanor slipping away.

The archer's retort was equally as vicious. "We didn't choose to have an alien invasion and we didn't pick where it was going to be or what unfortunate souls were claimed as collateral damage. We tried to save as many as we could but war isn't nice to anyone." A horrible feeling started to rise in Clint's gut. The man before him had no affiliation with the usual bad guys, yet he had managed to put all this together, gain followers and not only capture two of the Avengers, but figure out the identities of two of their more elusive members. Something like that required a lot of motivation and drive.

In a more calm and reasonable manner, Jack asked, "Have you ever lost someone important to you Mr. Barton?"

"Yes, I've been losing people my whole life," admitted the archer.

"Lose anyone to the debacle in Manhattan?" Anger flashed in Jack's eyes mixed with a desperate kind of hope.

Clint sucked in a deep breath. Coulson's death still stung, even a year later and the guilt over the part he had played in the man's demise hadn't lessened one bit. "Yes."

"Then maybe you can fathom what it would be like to lose your wife and daughter on that day. I'm going to make sure you know what it feels like to lose the people that matter most to you." The calm and collectedness, from the start of the conversation bled away to be replaced by seething hatred. "Better men than I have tried to take out the Avengers and failed so I have no doubt your precious team will be here to rescue you; in fact I'm counting on it. The chain is only long enough for one of you to reach the air holes at the top of the cage. As the water fills the cage you're going to run out of space to keep you heads above water. You will have to tread water but eventually you will run out of chain for both of you to breath at the same time. You can both drown or one of you can because you won't be able to take turns breathing forever; someone will get tired or refuse to share."

Clint did some quick calculations on his head. Jack was right; the chain was only long enough for one of them to reach the air holes at the top of the cell. If he and Natasha were at one hundred percent, they might be able to take turns breathing until the team showed up but Clint knew he hadn't completely burned the drugs off, and Romanoff wasn't even conscious yet. He was suddenly faced with the very real possibility that one of them wasn't going to make it out of there.

"You're going to have to watch someone you love die Mr. Barton or she can watch you drown, I care not, but your team will learn what it's like to loss someone. Maybe if you learn that lesson, you'll try harder next time to protect the innocents, if you insist on being heroes." The agony of loss pulsated through Jack, demanding to be shared with the world.

"People die; good people die all the time. We can't save everyone but we try to save as many as possible. You're putting future lives in jeopardy by doing this." Jack simply snorted at Clint's protests.

The archer had to get Natasha out of there. If either of them deserved to make it out of this, it was her. He had come all this way to rescue her when Furry had said she was missing, he couldn't let her down now. "Please." Barton's voice became soft and pleading. "If you only care if one of us dies, let her go. She can be the one the team finds and you can do whatever you want with me."

Jack thought it over for a moment. There was still the small voice in his head that said killing and vengeance were wrong. There was also the gut wrenching pain of loss he had experienced that seemed to trump everything. "I don't think the lesson will be quiet as well taught if I let you martyr yourself. We'll talk later though; until then enjoy your time together."

Jack turned and walked out of the room with his two lackeys in tow. A moment after the door slammed shut, water started to bubble up through the floor.


Heartbeat by Jjamz