Chapter Trigger Warnings: Addiction, Withdrawal, Rape Reference

Chapter 3 Characters: Clint Barton, Bucky Barnes

A bit of an exposition-heavy chapter, but it had to happen eventually…


Chapter 3

You must have passed out.

One minute you're smashing a glass of blueberry smoothie against Clint's face and watching the first traces of blood cut through it, the next thing you know the bed is down flat and you have an oxygen mask over your mouth. Your eyes are open and dry, and as you come to a nurse is gently putting drops in to help.

Both of your arms are free now, though your legs are still bound. Your hands are frozen in claws, squeezing the sheets so hard that your knuckles ache and burn. Another nurse is carefully injecting something into your IV. It feels different than the withdrawal- your brain isn't in as much of a fog, but it's like the world is moving disjointed from your own reality.

You turn your eyes towards the door- it's wide open and the white guy who tazed you in standing there with his arms crossed-

What the fuck? You blink a few times, I'm losing my mind… His arm isn't metal- is it?

He isn't looking at you, he's looking at the other side of the room, and he doesn't seem happy. You turn your head and spot Clint- glaring right back at Tazer-Man with one eye while a third nurse stitches a long cut through his eyebrow and into his forehead. Blueberry smoothie is drying in his shirt and pants, but he doesn't care.

"Congratulations on breaking the asset," Tazer-Man snaps softly, "that was a good plan."

"Her name is (Y/N). I didn't mean any harm, I just wanted her to understand-"

"What? Understand what, Clint? That we pulled her off the streets against her will and put her through hell just so she could go back to Alexander-fucking-Pierce?! Oh, and when exactly did you intend to tell me he's still alive? It's why you pulled me out of cryo, isn't it? To kill him?"

"Yes, but not until we find my family. If we told you he was still out there, you'd run off to shoot him in the head and then I'd never find them again." Clint's voice breaks at the end.

Tazer-Man is audibly pissed, but he does lighten his tone slightly in sympathy, "Look, I get that you barely know me, but I said I'd find your wife and kids. I meant it. I'll kill Pierce- that's a guarantee- but I'm not doing it until we find them. And, frankly, I don't think this girl is going to help us."

"She has to," Clint whispers, "otherwise we've got nothing. You went to the farm- you saw the destruction. A grenade was thrown into the panic room, the bunker was empty, and our safehouse had been burned to the ground. What strings Steve managed to pull turned up nothing… Pierce has to be behind this. He was SHIELD- he must have known about Laura and the kids!"

"Yeah, I was behind this when you just called him (L/N), remember?" Tazer-Man snapped again, then took a deep breath to steady himself, "I'm sorry about Laura and your kids, I really am, and I won't go back under until we have answers, but there has to be a better way to find them than relying on a meth addict to go on a covert mission. And there's a better way to ask her than to just dump it in her lap."

"I'm with electro-shock," you mumble, then wince. At some point you apparently bit your tongue. You manage to raise a hand and push the mask off your face- the band wasn't around your head, evidently. Your hand is still frozen, but its starting to feel more like the muscles are cramped than any kind of paralysis.

Small fucking miracles.

Tazer-Man comes over to stand closer (he, for one, saw you looking around), but Clint is still at the mercy of the doctor, "How are you feeling?" he calls from the corner.

"Everything hurts ten different ways, so basically the same," you snap. Your head feels thick and hard, your eyes feel too buggy, and there's a buzzing in your ears as though a bee was trapped between you and the pillow.

"Just relax," the nurse says softly, "you had a seizure."

"I'm not an alcoholic," you grumble softly, "that's an alcoholic thing."

"A methamphetamine addiction, correct?" You nod, "Tell me- were you mixing tranquilizers with it?"

You look away, but that's all the answer the nurse needs. For the last few months straight-up meth wasn't doing it for you, not like before. You knew the larger and larger doses might kill you, but a dealer in Newark told you he could cut the meth with Klonopin or Valium, whichever the dealer du-jour could get you.

You don't look at Tazer-Man or Clint or either of the other two nurses checking over your IVs and readouts from the various machines, you're too embarrassed. It's like your mind only just processed that you were with the Avengers. People you'd admired ever since the Battle of New York, people you cheered for when the news was filled with the collapse of the Triskellion (mostly because you thought they were saving your goddamn grandfather)… And now, thanks to an ugly twist of fate, they needed your help and you were just sitting there, some pathetic junkie who couldn't even fight their own impulses… Someone with the presence of mind to know what you were doing was dangerous but the stupidity to find ways to make it worse and yet tell yourself you were being smarter.

The Steve from that brief snap to consciousness you had before- he was probably goddamn Captain America. Great.

"I'm sorry," you mumble, mostly because the silence that began with the nurses' question has turned into a long and awkward one.

"You don't need to be ashamed," the nurse pats your arm, "but if we'd known that sooner we could have treated you more effectively." She shoots a sharp glare to Tazer-Man.

He holds up his hands- one is definitely metal, "I watched her for a week, as ordered. How was I supposed to know what was mixed into that junk?" He balks under her glowering stare and immediately looks down to you, "I'm sorry, that… I shouldn't have worded it like that…" now he was the embarrassed one.

"No it's… It's fine."

The nurse finishes stitching Clint's head and carefully applies a gauze bandage to the wound. As soon as she is done, Clint returns to his seat next to your bed, "I'm sorry about that," he also seems embarrassed, "I shouldn't have pushed."

"Can, can I ask some questions? Please?" you ask. You're drowning with nothing to hold on to beyond what you've overheard and what your fried brain can put together.

"Ask anything you want, we'll answer."

"You were looking for me? For how long?" You look up to Tazer-Man.

He glances up to Clint, then looks back down at you, "About three weeks."

"How did you find me and Hydra couldn't?"

"I have my ways. You've left breadcrumbs over the years, and Hydra collected those pretty well. I followed the trail they left behind and made a few lucky guesses. I found you in Wadena, followed you on to Racine from there."

A cold hand grips your heart, "Did you see-"

"The dealer go into the motel with you?" You can't exactly turn away from him, and you're too weak to sit up so you can at least hold your knees, but he puts a hand gently on your shoulder, "I didn't know what happened, but I've got a good idea now. I'm sorry I didn't stop it."

A tear slides down your cheek, but if you start crying now you aren't sure you'll ever stop, "You did all that with the door so I'd follow you?" He nods.

"And who exactly are you?"

"Bucky, I'm a friend of Steve Rogers."

"He was here before?" You turn to Clint. He nods.

"What happened to your family?"

Clint sighs and runs a hand through his hair, "I don't know. Half the Avengers are fugitives now, the world turned on us. I was locked up, Cap came to get me, and when I went home-" he shakes his head and lets his misery show fully.

"The house had been ransacked," Bucky fills in, "it looks like whoever hit them did it during breakfast. There were bullet holes everywhere, Hydra's favorite caliber, and I found tracks from several large vehicles. The panic room was destroyed, and- well, you heard the rest. They were captured, I'm positive about that."

"How many people did they take?"

"My wife Laura and our kids, Cooper, Lila, and Nathaniel. They're just kids- Nate's not even two yet…" A tear slipped down his cheek.

"And my g- he took them?"

"I'm pretty sure," Bucky nods. Clint only hangs his head.

"How do you know?"

"That's for Steve to say," Bucky answers immediately, "and I promise you he will tell you everything as soon as he's back. Can you hold off for a few days? You already heard the bad part, the rest are just details."

There's weariness in Bucky's eyes, but an underlying sincerity you want to believe, so you nod and accept that for a while you'll have as many questions as answers.

"I'd like you two to leave now," the nurse says gently, "and I'll be putting someone in here around the clock, so you needn't hover over her and these needn't be on." She puts a hand on your ankle cuff, "The scariest part is almost over, she won't hurt herself."

"Alright," Clint says reluctantly. The nurse makes it clear with her stony face that there is no other acceptable answer. Bucky squeezes your shoulder and walks away without a word, but the other Avenger takes your hand gently in his. You barely feel it.

"I'm sorry about your family."

"I'm sorry too," he pats the back of your hand, "and I'm sorry for yesterday. You were in bad shape, I thought a night's rest would help, so I'm the one who gave you sedatives… If I'd known about the other addiction I'd never have put you through that."

"I don't know if it will hurt more later, but… I slept," you twitch your fingers as best you can as if to squeeze his hand, "that was worth it." As your head slowly cleared, the hunger began to return to fill its place. You released his hand and turned your head away. You knew it would be another hellish night, and the part that wanted you to be as alone as you could won out over the part that wanted him to stay and help you through it.

His family is in hell, you don't hear what else the nurse says to you after Clint leaves. His family is in hell and he can't get them without my help. His wife… His children…

You shudder to think what your grandfather might do to them, the family of an Avenger. He stopped hunting for them to retrieve you, the Avengers- the very same people who saved the world from an alien apocalypse and a global plot to destroy humanity's freedom- they couldn't get one small family from your grandfather's claws without your help.

A junkie who'd whored herself for this or that so many times, what did you do after the latest rape? You went for pop-tarts, cussed out a store clerk, and stalked a man out of sheer boredom. That was who they wanted to help save people who an Avenger holds most precious.

They're damned. The dark voice at the back of your mind hissed.

aren't they?