AN: We're almost there, folks! Just a little bit left and then this story is complete!

As of this moment, I do not have another fic in progress. If you have something you would like to see in the universe I've sort of... well, inadvertently created through this story and "Made Me Realize," drop me a note and I'll see what I can do!

WARNING: Well. Without getting too spoilerific, there is indeed some blatant violence in this chapter. Not too graphic, I don't think, but in the chapter to come after this, there will be some mentions of some... unpleasantness.

The mixed yells of surprise and anger followed him and the sample out into the freezing air as the van raced on it's way and he sailed out of the vehicle. Clint didn't have long to appreciate the reaction as gravity soon claimed what was rightfully its own and his impromptu flight from the speeding van came to an unpleasant stop. He had just enough time to latch a flailing hand onto the case still wedged onto his toe and reposition it tightly against his chest as he curled into a ball and braced for agony.

And boy, did it deliver.

The ground slammed up into his shoulder first, sending an excruciating shockwave of trauma through every inch of bone in his body. His breath caught violently in his throat as he tucked his form as tightly around the case as he could and prepared to roll when the rest of his body made contact. The gravel dug into his skin as his arm followed suit of his shoulder and rammed against the ground mercilessly. A blunt, harsh snap resounded even over the roar of the highway and the disorienting muddle of noise from his one aid, and his vision tunneled dangerously close to blacking out as the pain radiated through his nerves a split second later.

And then he was rolling.

Arm over arm, legs flailing to curl under the sample, he rolled across the lanes of the highway, the road tearing into his clothing and nicking at his face as it ripped away at the fabric. His tongue caught between his teeth as his jaw snapped open and shut, and if he wasn't so focused on the sheer amount of agony roiling from every other nerve in his body and radiating through his brain, the sharp sting would have registered much sooner. He could feel his jacket practically shredding beneath him as it ground unrelentingly against the pavement, and his entire world became an unbearable blur of pain and noise and the taste of copper.

A bump in the pavement sent him airborne for a short moment in his uncontrollable tumble, and the jarring re-impact of the ground loosened his curled position around the case. A short, sharp cry of anguished frustration exploded out of his lips as the sample wrestled its way out of his grasp and skittered out of reach with a bump and a clatter. He didn't get a chance to spare much more thought to the loss, as his brain locked back up with the onslaught of pain.

He wasn't sure when he finally stopped rolling.

All he knew was that he was never visiting Canada again.

He didn't know how long he stayed wherever he had landed in a crumpled heap, the world around him spinning in a maddening blur of pulsing light. His arm was on fire, and he was on fire, and he would have given anything to not feel a damn thing just then as the pulse of torment ramrodded its way through his body, forcing him to curl in on himself with a shuddering gasp as his eyes screwed shut against the overwhelming presence of so much everything.

The distant screeching of tires and car horns made it to him groggily through the haze of holy shit, I'm dead that had overtaken his mind a some point, but he couldn't bring himself to care. The squealing of rubber and locked brakes multiplied tenfold, and muffled shouting joined the mix, and still, he shut it out. He kept his eyes clamped tightly closed against the intrusion as he rocked as slowly as he could onto his back, his good arm's forearm lifted in the air from where his elbow was solidly planted on the pavement. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't get past the sheer agony that had overtaken his body. It took much too long for the blackness he had been expecting to creep in on the edges of his vision.

But it could never be so easy for him.

"Clint!"

Oh, hey, that was him.

"Clint, get up!"

Okay, bit more difficult, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

"Barton, move!"

Shelle?

No.

Shelle was dead.

Because… why, again?

This was someone else.

Clint opened his eyes (and found it rather odd that he couldn't quite remember closing them), disgruntled.

Couldn't whoever was shouting just let him die in peace? He'd done enough, hadn't he? After all, he'd single handedly gotten back —

The sample!

A spike of realization rammed through what little was left of his consciousness, and Clint came back to himself with a snap that left him reeling. The world lost a small chunk of its haze around him, and the thrumming in his aid-less ear diminished behind the influx of clarity in his other ear. Holden was still shouting at him from somewhere in the distance, his name echoing over the highway desperately. The case. He had to get the case. Finish the mission.

Finish the mission!

Just how he was planning on finishing it, he wasn't certain yet.

He'd figure it out as he went.

Wonderful as the results had been with that little tactic this last week.

Clint forced himself to blink away the last of the cobwebs and inhale deeply. His vision ran a sickening red as he blinked furiously, and he felt the warm ooze of blood running steadily down from his forehead with a newfound anger. An enormous amount of willpower he didn't realize he even had coursed through him then, and he forcefully slammed the pain and the torment and the panic (had he been that willing to die just now?) under his metaphorical carpet.

He'd come too damn far to just up and kick off now.

They'd lost too much on this mission already.

Jeff.

Casey.

Neil.

He'd be damned if he let them lose their last chance of saving a hell of a lot of people from a hell of a lot of torment.

There was still work to do.

A heave of a breath prepared him as best it could, and suddenly, he was forcing himself to sit up. An explosive grunt left him as the movement jostled his busted arm, and he shifted it closer to his torso to keep it as steady as possible. His vision swam once, twice, and then it was blessedly clear, the adrenaline sharpening his focus just as he needed it to.

An oddly manic laugh drifted across the highway to him, and Holden's tone changed as he quit shouting for him to get moving.

"I told you he was a survivor, you absolute arse!"

Clint wasn't sure he believed what he saw as he turned dizzyingly in his sitting position to face the metaphorical music.

The highway was a mess of stopped traffic, cars spun this way and that to avoid collision on the slick road. There were figures inside and out of the cars, all turned in his direction, hands covering mouths in horror and others holding phones urgently to ears. Others were pointed at him, cameras eagerly hunting in grotesque fascination.

A chaotic, gurgling, rushing sort of noise registered, and the barest of glances around his vicinity revealed the source of the sound. His 'stop' had been on a bridge spanning a raging, foam frothed river, rocky outcrops jutting out from the depths like shark fins eagerly circling their prey.

Either the traitors had messed up big time in not simply tossing him over the edge, or the timing had just been incredibly unlucky.

Clint wasn't sure he cared.

The case lay some ten feet away from where he sat crumpled, the metallic sheen not showing a single scratch for all the abuse it had taken.

Thirty more feet beyond that was the van.

The doors were flung wide open, and Lucas was in the process of leaping down from the vehicle. He hit the ground at a sprint, bolting in Clint and the sample's direction as soon as his boot clad feet hit asphalt. Behind him, Clint could see Holden pulling frantically against the chains wound around his wrists, the two other men now joined by Doctor Petrosyan in the back of the cabin. All of their focus was held intently on the sprawled, battered form of the archer in the middle of the highway and their cohort sprinting hell for leather towards him.

Pain is a message.

Pain is only a message.

So MOVE, dammit!

With a flail of his good arm, Clint threw himself vertical in a stumbling, hunched motion, the momentum moving him forward more so than upwards. He found his feet with a difficulty that frankly scared the living hell out of him, but he found them all the same, and he lurched towards the case that Lucas was bearing upon. His stumbling sprint gained a terrifying momentum as he almost face planted, but he forced himself to straighten out and bear with the crippling pain wracking practically every nerve of his body as his broken arm jostled against his chest.

He had to make it.

He had to make it!

There were people shouting somewhere. Hysterical voices. Angry voices. Worried voices. He didn't care. He couldn't care. He'd deal with them later, but now, his whole world tunneled around the case and the case alone.

So it was impossible to miss it being yanked upwards when he was all of five feet away from it.

"Ah, ah, ah. Your ticket didn't include luggage, pal."

Clint could physically feel the snarl of frustration rip it's way across his face at Lucas' smug words. The man had the case in hand, his face twisted in a mixture of fury and victory.

That same expression warped in shock as Clint slammed bodily into him.

The duo crashed to the ground, the case skittering haphazardly to the side as Lucas released in in surprise. Clint could feel his training practically set his muscles into autopilot, and he let them react as he focused solely on not passing out. He delivered as sharp of a blow as he could manage to Lucas' throat with his bandaged hand as his other arm jostled agonizingly against his chest, but the man blocked the weak attempt with barely a bat of his palm. The traitor glared venomously up at him as he shoved Clint off of his torso and made to stand as the archer rolled off.

Not if Clint had anything to say about that little idea.

Or rather, act.

Lucas stumbled as Clint flung himself forward and latched onto his legs with his good arm, his own legs following the momentum and swinging around to solidly collide with the back of the man's knee. The agent dropped to the pavement again with a pained grunt as the collision rammed into his tendons, and Clint felt a dull thrill of satisfaction as he managed to use what little remained of his momentum to stand himself. He stumbled away from Lucas as fast as he could (which was really quite depressingly slow) and zeroed back in on the case a few feet away, glinting mockingly against the deep black of the road.

Holden's sudden shout of warning gave him just enough time to snap his head up and duck wildly as a fist flew out of nowhere towards his face. One of the men had leapt out of the van as well and sprinted towards the two tustling figures of the archer and the HYDRA agent, and as Clint ducked the swing, the goon leapt back to snag the case from the ground. He didn't slow down as he made to run back to the van, gradually increasing the distance between the archer and himself. Clint ran through what was left on his person somewhat foggily as he stumbled after the man, the increasing distance sending a pulse of desperation coursing through him. With half of his focus on the road passing blurrily beneath him, Clint swore hoarsely before shoving a hand in his pocket.

His hand struck something solid, and he whipped the offending item out with slight difficulty as the washcloths binding his hands loosened considerably. It was the stranger's phone he had stolen just hours prior, miraculously still sandwiched in his deep pocket. It was bent and shattered beyond recognition and whoever 'David' had been would never get a passive aggressive text in response to his message, but it didn't matter to him in the slightest.

It would do.

He pulled to an abrupt halt as he drew back his good arm, compensating for the lack of balance his broken limb gave him as he aimed. The effort was in vain, really, as his balance was shot to all hell from his abused ears, the influx of silence and sound muddling his senses.

With a short, sharp grunt, he flung the phone with what he only hoped was his renowned, deadly precision, the makeshift projectile sailing in an arc-

-and missing its mark.

It didn't matter in the end.

It missed the exact center of the man's head, flying high and colliding solidly with the top.

Clint would have mourned the minuscule miss had he been in a right mind. And yet, he couldn't bring himself to berate himself for the throw quite yet. A headshot was a headshot.

The practical brick of a phone made a positively comical thunk audible even over the river and sent the agent sprawling as he yelped in pain. Clint felt a thrill of satisfaction run through him as he stumbled up to the downed man, the slumped form unmoving on the pavement. He reached for the case, his fist closing solidly around the handle as he stood and pivoted in place to calculate his next course of action.

He spun directly into Lucas' right hook.

Clint fell like a ton of bricks as the fist collided solidly with his jaw, sending his already ringing ears into oblivion as stars exploded across his sight. The case was wrestled from his grip as he furiously tried to blink away the tunnel encroaching on his vision. He barely had a moment of reprieve when a hand jammed into his throat.

Lucas' snarling face filled his spinning sight as he clawed at the hand closing around his larynx, effectively cutting off his already labored airflow. Clint's ragged gasp for a breath that wouldn't come almost overlaid Lucas' vehemently spat words.

"You just don't know when to give up, do you, Barton?"

The hand closed a little tighter, and Clint could feel his own hand flailing futilely at the arm extended towards him as the muscles started to refuse response. Lucas had a wild gleam of victory in his eyes then as his vision tunneled entirely and spun with a dizzying spiral.

"Let me help you learn."

The last thing Clint heard before the ringing swamped his senses and the slowly encroaching darkness around his vision expanded was a woman's muffled, startled shout.

Petrosyan?

He couldn't tell. He didn't need to.

He was dead anyways.

He'd failed.

Would Natasha ever find out?

He almost hoped she never would.

He could see the official file now, all stamped and red and a whole new definition of ugly as they tossed it into the "expired" drawer of the cabinet kept in headquarters. Maybe they had a wall of fame for the "throwaways" they took down, the lettering covering the pictures withholding all of the information they damn well knew but were in no way going to share.

Clint Barton, agent MIA. Presumed dead.

It had a morbid ring to it that could have suited him much better in a previous life.

Either way, he wasn't certain he would have liked for her to read those words stamped impersonally across what little remained un-blacked out of his file.

It would appear he wouldn't have the choice.

The air quit coming entirely then, and he felt his hand flop to the pavement, as lifeless as Neil's had been after he'd finally accepted the lack of pulse and left the man to the sleet and snow. A short, dull pang of regret coursed though him at the thought.

They'd died for nothing.

And yet...

Just as rapidly as it had appeared, the pressure collapsing his throat in on itself was gone.

It took a long moment before Clint's brain stuttered back to itself and forced his body to suck in a greedy breath, his frame wracking with coughs he refused to yield to as fiery heat seared his abused throat. He gulped in the blessed oxygen as quickly as he dared in an unsteady attempt to clear his vision.

He wasn't sure he believed his eyes when it finally did.

The case was at Lucas' feet, and the man's hands were gripping at something silver and glinting wrapped tightly across his neck. There was a distinct rattling noise as the offending object shifted.

Chains.

Tire chains.

Clint gaped owlishly as Doctor Holden came into view behind Lucas, the Brit's white-knuckled death grip on the chains unyielding as he pulled back against the HYDRA agent's throat.

How on earth he had gotten away from Petrosyan and the remaining man in the van, Clint wasn't entirely sure he would have heard then and there.

Frankly, he couldn't care less.

The doctor's face was strained, a vein in his forehead throbbing as he grimaced against the struggling of the man beneath his chains. He darted a glance to Clint then, his glasses skewed and his face suitably panicked. When he spoke, every other word made it through Clint's pulsing consciousness. It took too long to realize what the man was shouting through gritted teeth to him.

"Joint— was brittle, but I don't— think the others-"

Fate must have had a serious grudge with the man, as the words had barely passed his lips when the second frail joint between the links of the chain chose that exact moment to snap apart. Lucas tugged the makeshift weapon away from his throat roughly, pulling a squawking Holden along with them. The doctor made to stumble out of the man's range, his eyes blown wide with a mixture of panic and outright terror. Clint fought for his footing again as Lucas coughed, spittle flying and raw red marks already blossoming across his throat. The furious man lashed out harshly at his assailant, his fist connecting solidly with the doctor's jaw. The Brit backpedaled with a stagger, the momentum sending him crashing to the ground, his expression dazed as his hands flew to his face. Clint was still struggling to figure out which way was up when Lucas stepped back into his line of vision, effectively blocking the doctor.

The man's breath came in a rattle as he stooped and gripped the case. He staggered slightly as he backed away from Clint, and the archer watched in some dull confusion as the man stepped away.

It was only when he spun that Clint realized what was happening.

Doctor Petrosyan remained in the van, her expression frazzled as the other man that had been in the vehicle grappled with clearing gawkers from the bridge in an attempt to reach the fight, one hand clasped suspiciously to the side of his neck, a small smudge of red visible even to Clint from across the distance. At the sight of his comrade returning, however, he spun to rush back to the van.

Clint caught Lucas' eye once more before the man turned away in full, obvious grudging acceptance in the HYDRA agent's eye.

Desperate panic coursed through Clint then, and he shifted as best he could into a kneeling position, the side of his foot flat against the pavement.

The prick of the blade against the arch of his foot was all it took to remember he was armed. He stared owlishly at the handle poking out from the boot for a full second before gripping it and removing it entirely.

Clint could have up and died from his sheer stupidity right then and there.

A bitter growl of a shout left him before he knew what he was saying, his hand curling carefully to conceal the impromptu weapon and a humorless laugh tailing the words in a last ditch effort of recapturing the retreating man's attention.

"Y' can't even finish the job?"

Lucas ignored him, his stride steady as he neared the crowd. The onlookers backed away furtively, their trills of fear not quite registering for Clint. He raised his voice as he struggled to sit up further, his yell hoarse and grating and full of venom.

"How'd y' get into th' agency in the first place, y' pansy?"

The man paused at that.

Before Clint could bait him further, Lucas stood long enough to pivot on his heel, and suddenly he was in front of Clint's kneeling form, the fury that had run unbridled in his eye only moments earlier reined in slightly as he regarded the downed archer with unmasked contempt. He opened his mouth-

-but Clint didn't let him even begin as he twisted the rusted pocketknife and slashed wildly for the back of the man's hand.

The case fell from his bleeding hand as Lucas let out a yell, and Clint scooped the sample up as he stood with a stagger. He backed away from the man slowly, blinking furiously to clear his swimming vision. Before he knew it, however, he hit the wall.

Quite literally.

The bridge's guard wall poked sharply into Clint's lower back, and a short glance revealed what he already knew. The river was churning just as eagerly beneath them, the froth oddly soothing as Clint felt his attention drift dangerously. He shifted his focus as he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and at the sight of Lucas making to approach him, hand clutched in the grip of the other as blood ran through his fingers, Clint found himself acting without fully realizing.

All motion froze, Lucas rigid in his stance as he stared openly, a glint of uncertainty in his eyes. Holden, mid valiant effort of sitting up, shook himself out of his stupor slightly in time to catch sight of Clint's half witted plan, and he gawked with open confusion.

Clint held the case over the edge of the bridge with a rigid arm, the sample dangling precariously in the open as he stared unblinkingly back into Lucas' wary gaze. He was slumped against the crumbling brick to keep from keeling over and his arm was on fire and he was practically curling in on himself from the abuse he'd taken, but he put every ounce of will he could scrounge that was left into the challenge in his stare.

Lucas moved then, his hand shifting up to one of bartering pause as his eyes shifted between the sample and Clint's steely face, the archer blinking resolutely past the blood running into his eyes. When the man spoke, his voice was low.

"Now, you and I both know you really don't want to be doing that."

Clint could feel the unbidden scoff on his mouth as he ground out a response, giving a rigid, minute nod of challenge. "Y'sure?"

Lucas gave him another long, searching look then before relenting and crossing his arms, ignoring the blood still seeping slowly from the gash across his fist as he stepped back to stare Clint right back. He gave Clint a once over, eyes scanning over the bruises and blood and the heaving chest from the ragged breathing before he shrugged.

"Drop it. You won't live long enough to feel clever."

The archer's arm wavered slightly, the case swaying dangerously close to simply slipping out of his hand and making the decision for him. Clint stared back into Lucas' eyes, the distant sound of sirens and the sudden hush of the onlookers around them not reaching him through the tension.

The moment stretched on as he slowly broke the eye contact, shifting his gaze to the water below. The churning of the current frothed furiously, the turbulence practically begging for him to simply drop the damned thing and just be done with it.

He darted a glance back to the doctor, who had sat up further, his hand forgotten and plastered to his jaw as he watched Clint carefully. There was something akin to fear in his eyes, but it seemed drastically different than the animalistic anxiety Clint had seen in the man over the course of their little debacle. The doctor sat still as the gawkers around them, his gaze riveted on Clint and Lucas' silent standoff.

Clint weighed his options, his gaze landing back on Lucas as the agent shifted forward none too subtly.

He could drop the case.

But that would land him in a situation of being… well, dead, really. And he'd have no way of stopping the traitors from retrieving the case once he was offed.

He could hand it over and go out swinging.

But then they'd have the case.

And he'd still be dead.

Wonderful variety of choices, so it appeared.

Lucas' gaze snapped away from Clint without warning, and suddenly he was shifting forward again as the sirens suddenly pierced through Clint's haze, the proximity of the blaring sound startling him slightly. He backed up further, the stone of the bridge pressing into his hip and anchoring him harshly.

It was only then that he realized he had a third option.

Well, not only then.

Option Number Three was always at the back of his mind.

But he had always hoped it would never be necessary in such a… well, real situation.

There was only one outcome in which Clint had the barest, remote, .09% chance of getting out alive and on top.

Time could have frozen for all he knew in that moment as he decided then and there exactly what needed to be done to ensure the safety of the sample alongside the possibility of him actually living long enough to see it to safety. A crisp sense of clarity that Clint had thought impossibly out of reach washed over him as the realization struck him, and suddenly, he could breath. Whether it was from acceptance or stone cold fear, he chose to ignore.

Fingers clenched painfully around the sample's handle as Clint inhaled deeply, adjusting his broken arm against his side as he shut his eyes for barely a second.

He was devastatingly surprised to find that he had far too much left to come to terms with.

He forced his eyes open before he could wallow in the fact, and he shot one last, long look to the doctor, who was watching with mounting confusion on his face. Holden had slumped forward at some point, drawing himself up to a low, curled stoop on his knees and apparently mid-attempt in standing. He caught Clint's eye, all fear gone from his own and replaced by calculating query.

Clint gave the nosy, general complete pain of a man the smallest of grins and inclined his head slightly, flickering as much remorse as he could into the minute gesture.

And horrified clarity rushed across the doctor's face with a jolt that struck the man's spine rigid.

Before Holden could so much as say a word, Clint was speaking, voice low and surprisingly clear. Lucas blinked as Clint forced himself to stand a little straighter with an exhale, stunned at the change.

"I don't feel clever."

Lucas furrowed his brow, the angry spark in his eye rekindling with a suitable amount of suspicion as he chose that moment to uncross his arms and step forward. "Well, glad we can agree on something-"

"But neither will you, I'm sure."

With that, Clint drew the case back over solid ground to his chest, looping his good arm through the handle and clasping it tightly to his torso. It took Lucas barely a second to realize what was happening as Holden chose that moment to regain his voice, the doctor scrabbling to find his feet.

"Barton, you absolute idiot-!"

The shout didn't hold any conviction for the insult it entailed. Rather, it sounded downright distraught.

It was a second too long for Lucas in the end.

The traitor launched himself at Clint then, his feet pounding the pavement as he practically threw himself at the archer with a snarl of rage.

"Don't you dare, you worthless-!"

Clint didn't hear the rest as he gave the rapidly approaching man one last, fleeting grin of victory before leaning as far back as he could and kicking his feet cleanly off of the ground.

And for the fifth time that day, Clint fell.