Chapter Trigger Warnings: None, but there is a bit of NSFW adult content.
Chapter 9
"Hey."
"Hey." Clint doesn't look at Steve. He doesn't break eye contact with the picture in his hands. It's from about fifteen minutes after Nathaniel's birth. Laura is sweaty, exhaustion shows on the lines of her face, she's flushed, her hair is a wreck, and a deep, dark blue circles her eyes. She couldn't look more radiant. Cooper and Lila lay on either side of their mother in the hospital bed. Clint holds Nathaniel's tiny hand as he crouches next to his wife and family.
He remembers everything from that moment. The pride, the love, the adrenaline, the fear, the song playing on Laura's phone ('Dark Side of the Moon'), the smell of sweat, blood, birth, and hospital sterilizer. He remembers Natasha's proud grin as she took the picture and chronicled the growth of her surrogate family…
All of it is gone now. All of their pictures, all of their memories, left burning on the lawn. Only this one survived, and that's because it was in Clint's wallet when he went off to help Steve save Bucky.
"She didn't try to stop me from leaving," Clint says softly, "but… that doesn't mean she didn't hate me for it."
"I've seen you two together," Steve reminds him, "Laura loves you, unconditionally, and I know she understood why you left."
"Did she?" Clint lets a tear slide down his cheek as he traces her face with a finger, "I left her to raise one child on her own, and then I swore I was done… Then I left her to raise two children on her own, and I swore I was done… And then-" his voice breaks, "and then I left her again, this time with three children, and… I was a weekend father at best. I threw myself into missions without exit strategies, without plans- while I had a family at home! What kind of father does that? Laura is a saint, but… I didn't even leave to save the world this time. There was no alien army, no robot army, just… I left to referee a grudge match everyone could see coming a hundred miles away. Hell, after the Battle of New York Natasha bet me fifty bucks you two would be sworn enemies inside three years, I said five… I guess I win."
Steve hangs his head, "I'm sorry I called you in-"
"Don't." Clint closes his eyes and sets the picture down on a side table, "I hate to break it to you Steve, I know how much you love carrying the weight of the world on those shoulders, but I'm a grown-ass man… I'm just sorry my priorities were so fucked up. Besides, you couldn't have known Zemo wasn't going to unleash the other super-soldiers. You needed me there as much as I needed to be there to help."
"If you hand yourself back over to Ross and Stark, I'm sure they'd agree to help get Laura and the kids."
"I thought we had all of that handled?" Clint looks up at Steve, "Isn't that where (Y/N) comes in?"
"She knows we didn't tell her everything."
"Jesus, Steve-"
"I know. You were against lying to her." Steve hangs his head, "If I'd gone to Tony, explained the situation with the other super-soldiers, he'd have helped. I knew that, but… I wanted to fight. I was angry with the UN, I lost Peggy, and right when it looks like I might finally have found someone special of my own, everything goes to hell… And every call I've made since then has been a disaster. I called you in instead of swallowing my pride, knowing exactly what I was taking you from. I ran you all headfirst into an ambush and then left you all to take the fall for my mistake. I dragged you into hiding instead of taking you straight to Laura, I devoted valuable time and resources into locating and drying out (Y/N) instead of going to Stark's Avengers- even though we all know he'd have helped bring down Pierce in a heartbeat- hell, General Ross would have agreed as well! I made the call to lie to her and now… Now I don't know if (Y/N) will even help us get your family out of that hellhole. I failed you- as a friend and as a leader…"
"Laura has a kid sister- bratty little shit, barely in her twenties- when she was thirteen she got into the middle of a SHIELD mission, and I had to save her ass. Took a bullet to the thigh for my troubles. Laura came to the hospital to thank me for getting her sister out of dodge and… Well, you know. A 'thank you' dinner turned into a date, there were more dinners, more dates, a wedding, a family, our kids… But little Kate, she grew up wanting to be just like me- bow and all. She's a vigilante out in LA now, and every time she'd call to tell Laura about her new scars, Laura would just look at me and mouth 'I blame you'. It was like a little joke between us, except now the joke is on me. I might have killed her."
"We're going to get her-"Steve hesitates and cocks his head to the side, "wait, Clint, what did you say the sister's name is?"
"Kate."
"Kate what?"
Clint shrugs, "Kate Bishop. Why?"
"And she's in her twenties?"
"Yeah. Small, blonde, bratty, most likely to slip Cooper his first beer. Why?"
"Scott got a comm unit to (Y/N) earlier. She said she was being watched by someone named Kate Bishop, posing as a merc-turned-Hydra Agent. (Y/N) Tagged her as a 30-40 year old brunette."
"That's absolutely not Kate," Clint is visibly disturbed. "Steve, I know you don't want me State-side in case I jump the gun here, but I need to get to LA, now."
Steve's heart is pounding in his ears, "You think something happened to Kate too?"
"She would never let someone operate under her name," Clint scoops up the photograph and immediately gets up. Steve follows him back out of the lounge towards the residential hallway, "I was so focused on getting to Laura, I never thought about Kate." He spins around abruptly and points to Steve, "You need to find a way to get a message to (Y/N) to get away from that 'Kate Bishop' as fast as she can, however it takes. I've pissed off groups who frankly scare me more than Hydra and who wouldn't hesitate to worm their way into Hydra just to get at my family."
"Take Wanda," Steve is already turning back towards the rec room where he last saw Scarlet Witch. "I'm not letting you walk into some kind of trap."
"Tell Sam and Scott to do whatever it takes to get me a picture of (Y/N)'s Kate Bishop. I need to know who this bitch is yesterday."
"I will, good luck."
"You too, you'll need it."
It all sort of hits you at dinner. Halfway through your steak (as promised) and mashed potatoes, right around the time your stomach decides it's had its fill and the warmth of the food makes you feel good for the first time in weeks, the world starts to slowly tip sideways and your eyes begin to close. Even sitting across from your grandfather, even in the nest of evil and depravity that is Hydra, you can't help but remember when this was your home. When you felt safe here, loved, and protected.
Normally the nostalgia would make your stomach churn, but you're too tired for any more disgust. Too tired for bad memories or missions or decay and death- you just want to curl up under the covers of your bed and sleep… You know the feel of sedatives, you'd know if someone were drugging you, but this is simple, pure, honest exhaustion. Not even the aches and pains of withdrawal bother you tonight. You're numb- physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Pierce smiles as you blink slowly- one eye at a time. You're swaying slightly in your chair, fighting back sleep. He clears his throat and Agent Bishop steps in from the hallway, "You had your dinner?"
"Yes, Director Pierce."
"Good. Then please take my granddaughter up to bed. I've had a cot moved into the room with her for you to sleep on." He wasn't kidding when he said he wanted Bishop to watch over you like a hawk.
"Yes, sir." Bishop comes to your side. You don't look at Pierce as you get up and leave the room-Agent Bishop guiding you along with a hand on your back.
You don't remember going upstairs, you don't remember brushing your teeth or changing into your nightclothes, you don't even remember laying down, but you manage to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep almost immediately. For the first time there are no flashbacks to old memories, no nightmares, no chills, no itching, no buzzing in your ears- just the warm blanket of a good night's sleep.
You stir shortly after 2am. At first, you aren't sure what is waking you, and you try to go back to sleep. After a moment it comes to you and you groan. A noise or a light you can ignore, a full bladder you cannot. You are forced to relinquish the cozy blankets for the cool air as you walk across the plush carpeting to your bathroom.
The room is dark and silent, as it should be in the middle of the night, but it isn't until you leave the bathroom that you realize it's too quiet. There is no sound of another person breathing, no movement in the cot next to the moonlit window-
You're alone.
There is a lump in Bishop's bed, a crude attempt at disguising the emptiness. She isn't there- but she wants someone to believe she is. You glance to the door and notice that it is ajar ever so slightly, as though Bishop tried to close it as softly and silently as possible but did not quite get the bolt into the latch.
You slip over to the door and peek out into the hallway. A lone guard is slumped in his chair, fast asleep with a half-full mug of coffee beside him. Your grandfather never tolerated incompetence, and he certainly demanded the utmost from his guards- the man was more than likely drugged.
An odd noise comes to you from downstairs and you hesitate. On the one hand, Steve hiding your condition from you did nothing to change your desire to find Laura and her children as fast as possible. On the other hand- you weren't exactly itching to run headfirst back down to that basement. Not after what happened last time. A part of you knew the sound of wood dragging across wood was the secret hatch opening, revealing the Hydra base below, and for a long time that part of you was the one controlling your legs.
Eventually you inch forward down the steps. You take each stair slowly, carefully, and stay as close to the wall as possible to avoid creaky boards. You hear someone grumbling slightly in frustration as they tap on what must be a keyboard of some sort.
At the landing, you edge forward just enough to peek around the corner. There is a guard on the floor, also asleep with coffee at his side, and another sleeps in the window well near the front of the house. At the back, along a section of wall with white wooden wainscoting, Agent Bishop herself is typing away frantically at a small keypad. Every now and then she casts a glance over her shoulder, then goes back to her mission. A screen in front of her keeps flashing various file names and reports, but whatever they are they are certainly not what she's looking for.
This area is one you are unfamiliar with. The secret door to the Hydra base is further down, she appears to be at a terminal of some sort. The badge of another agent- maybe a guard- is discarded by her feet as she types.
So, she wants information?
A picture flashes up on the monitor of a stone-faced woman clamped to a chair with leather cuffs. She's covered in cuts and bruises, a black eye is swollen shut, and blood mixes with dirt on her skin. Under the image is a name- 'BARTON, 1 of 4'.
A thrill goes up your spine- they're here! You finally have confirmation! It's disturbing to you that this 'Agent Bishop', whoever she is, seems to also be after your quarry, but you've passed along her name to the Avengers. Now you can pass along some good news!
Your heart hammers. Bishop seems pleased with what she's found and proceeds to open some kind of text file- it's far too small for you to read. You know you won't be able to learn any more tonight, but you smile nonetheless and slip back upstairs before Bishop decides to check her surroundings.
At the top of the stairs, you slip down the hall past the sleeping guard and walk quietly towards your room. As you pass one of the guest rooms, the door quickly opens and a hand shoots out to grab your arm and drag you inside. Before you can scream, a hand is over your mouth and someone twists your arm behind you, preventing you from hitting back.
"Ssh," Silas whispers softly in your ear, "ssh, little one." He waits until the tension leaves your muscles to release your hand and pull his hand back from your mouth, but he stays too close to you, "I remembered how much you always loved midnight walks…"
"You drugged the guards?" Your skin crawls with goosebumps as Silas gently rubs your arm with the back of his fingers and buries his nose in your hair to breath in its scent.
"All but Agent Bishop, but I figured you would slip out sooner or later, and as you might recall, the bedrooms on this floor are well insulated against sound." His mouth is so close to you now you feel his lips brush against your ear as he speaks. Once upon a time you loved this man's touch. When you were fifteen just the thought of being with him like this would have made your knees tremble and shake.
Now your shiver was less anticipation and more revulsion.
"I hate you," you keep your voice soft.
"I know." He slowly takes the edge of your ear in his mouth and gently traces his teeth along the skin.
I have to let him think there is a chance, you are well practiced in talking yourself into repulsive liaisons. It kept the drugs coming during cold and hungry times more often than you ever wanted to admit. Silas sucks on an earlobe as his hand finds its way up your nightshirt. If he's willing to drug his own guards… I can make this work to my benefit. It could be the difference between getting out of here and ending up chained to a wall in the basement again. Silas always acted like saving you was done out of loyalty to Pierce, but you knew it was his lust for you as much as anything else.
"I miss you." You groan slightly as he gently squeezes.
"I know." His other hand slides around to the front of your pajama pants. He slips it under the band of your underwear slowly, "Me too." He pulls you gently against him and moves his hips side to side so you can feel exactly how much he's missed you, "No one else is as warm," he slips his hand down between your legs, "or as soft." He curves his middle finger up inside you.
Despite yourself, you feel a spark of that old desire waking up again after so long. You were putty in his hands for years, more nights than not, and all under the utmost secrecy. Your affair was never suspected, never revealed, and it was that dangerous, dark secret that kept you entranced.
"Silas," you mean to push him back, but instead you wrap one hand around the back of his neck and grab onto the footboard of the bed with the other to brace yourself as your knees tremble in some kind of pavlovian response. A second finger joins the first and you bite your lip and throw your head back, "Silas!"
It's more of a gasp than an admonition. His mouth on your neck, his hot tongue against your skin, makes you tighten your grip. Once again, your body remembers how it responded to his touch ever since you were a teen. Instead of pulling his hand up and away, you find yourself pushing it down further.
He slides his thumb out so that it rubs all the right spots as his fingers do their work. You cry out once more and feel him smile against your skin. Your hand comes off the back of his neck and you hold yourself up by the footboard. Sensing how close you are, he abruptly pulls his hand from your shirt and brushes your hair to the other shoulder so he can switch to the other side of your neck. The heat of his mouth combines with the cold shock of air on the saliva left behind, the renewed menstruations of both hands and soon his tight grip is the only thing holding you up as pleasure explodes throughout your body and you shudder uncontrollably in his tight embrace.
Silas slows his pace as you come back to earth. He waits until your legs are firmly beneath you before he slides his hands out of your clothes, "Welcome home." He whispers softly in your ear.
"I can't- I don't-"your body is still pulsing from his touch, but your mind is clearing and you know you do not want this to go any further. You don't need to be reminded of how much you loved him once, you aren't entirely sure your heart can handle reopening the hole his betrayal left in it. He was Hydra. He is Hydra. He's everything you hate in the world… Even though once upon a time he was everything your young soul loved.
"Don't worry," Silas rests his forehead against the crook between your neck and shoulder- his favorite place to nuzzle you, "I know you still need time. I will never push you further or faster than you want to go."
"Then what was that?" you say softly. Yes, the room is sound proof, but since he is whispering you can't help but whisper too.
"A welcome home," his hand slips forward again and rubs lightly over the front of your pants, sending a small jolt through you, "and an apology for being so cranky yesterday. I've always hated how I have to treat you around your grandfather."
"He'd kill you if he ever even suspected we got along."
"See? Nothing's changed. You can still be happy here. If you leave, we can't be together."
"And if I stay we get to keep creeping around in the dark?"
"Not for too much longer," Silas kisses your shoulder softly.
"What does that mean?"
"You'll see."
Goosebumps rise again on your arms, "Silas-"
"It'll all work out."
You turn slowly to face Silas in the darkness. You can just make out the slightest of grins on his thin face, "What are you planning?"
"It isn't my plan, it's yours." Silas smiles, "'Project: Cadmus'."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You'll figure it out," he leans in and kisses your forehead, "you're the smartest person in this house."
"Dammit, Silas-"
"Goodnight (Y/N)," he steps back from you towards the door. "Again, welcome home." He raises his right hand- the one that made your knees give out minutes before, and touches the two fingers most responsible to his lips to blow you a kiss. "I look forward to our next rendezvous. Just duck in here whenever you're ready and I will come to you. We can go as fast, or as slow, as you wish. I'm more than happy to repeat what just happened." He winks and slips out into the hallway.
What the fuck is going on in this place? You keep a hand on the footboard, but slid down to the floor, bewildered and exhausted once more. Silas is moving against grandfather, Agent Bishop is… something, and I'm- what am I? Avenger? Whore? Plaything? Conspirator? Co-Conspirator?
About 2/3 of you feels dirty for what you and Silas just did. The other 1/3 needs serious reminding of why you ran away from him and your grandfather so fast and so far. As a lover, you'd forced yourself to see only the good in Silas and allowed the rest to blind you. The sting of that was only made stronger tonight, when he reminded you how it felt to be with him. You weren't fantasizing of walking down the aisle with that cold, evil freak, but you hated him for taking away that person you'd actually called a friend and lover once upon a time.
"I need a shower," you grumble to yourself, "and a few grams of the purest crystal in this state."
Silas watches from around the corner as you slip out of the room and head back to yours. The redness in the skin of your neck will be gone before you ever notice it.
As the first shocks of orgasm rushed through you, when Silas brushed your hair aside, you never even felt the sharp pinch of the device he held to you. Your cry of pleasure and the long, hard shudder that ran through your body concealed the tingling of the needles attaching to inject their trackers beneath your flesh. His head on your shoulder kept you from feeling it as he carefully lifted the spent device from your skin and gently licked away the traces of blood.
Now everywhere you go, he'll know, and everything you say, he'll hear. Silas' whispers about Cadmus were a red herring- something for you to obsess over while he readies his true plan.
He presses the fingers to his lips once more as he watches you slip back into your room…
As much as you were unaware of Silas' actions, he was unaware of the actions of another- someone who heard you on the stairs, someone who saw you vanish into the room, and someone who slipped a wire-camera under the door to see exactly what was happening inside.
Agent Kate Bishop.
