AN: This one's a little longer than usual, I wanted to get somewhere. And it's also a little dark, so... trigger warnings, domestic abuse, and general violence, umm.. yeah.
11. Cooper
When Clint woke up, he was in a metal chair, his head hanging limply. He remained in the uncomfortable position they'd put him in, his hands cuffed and resting on the backside of the chair, whilst his feet were tied together. He made sure his breathing was deep and relaxed, feigning to be unconscious still. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and saw a circle of light on and around him, everything else was dark and frightfully blurry. The drugs were still affecting him. Knowing he could get out of the handcuffs, Clint raised his head, groaning, and rolled his shoulders to stretch out his back and all the tight muscles in his neck and arms.
Two more beams of light came on and he saw Cooper trying to rest on his knees, not quite reaching the floor, his arms hanging from chains. He was in a bad shape, his face swollen, his bottom lip bleeding, they'd beaten him, his dress shirt was stained. He turned his head to the other spotlight and saw Laura gagged and tied to another chair, but thankfully unharmed. Anger hardened Clint's blue eyes and he glared at the darkness.
"Turn on the lights, coward. I promise I won't hurt you." He was lying, of course. He was going to make sure whoever was responsible for this hurt like they'd never hurt before.
"Promise?" A mocking voice bounced around the dark warehouse. "I once heard a man say promises are lies."
Aww, hell, they'd set up a sound system, he couldn't tell where the voice came from when it was being emmitted by surround speakers.
"I usually keep my promises." Clint kept talking, thinking. He tried moving his feet, but the thin ropes held.
"The keyword, I think, being usually. Am I right?"
"Look, you probably already know my name, you know where I live, you know my wife, you know her friend over there. What the hell do you want?"
"I want to see you broken. I want to see you helpless, on the floor, watching as what is most dear to you leaves you forever." The voice snarled, and Clint thought that if he could make them talk just a little more he could almost recognize the voice.
"That's very specific." He thought for a second. "Have we met before?"
Silence. Then the sound of someone sliding down a rope? Maybe a pole? Footsteps coming from behind him.
And suddenly there was a blade pressed up against his throat, and he winced at the pain, sure that he was already bleeding.
"Should I kill your pretty, pregnant wife first? Or let my men continue hurting the cousi-?"
Before the man finished Clint brought his head back angrily, smashing into the other's nose. He heard the crack and blood dripping.
"You son of a bitch! You'll pay for that!" The man was now yelling in a voice Clint hadn't heard in years. It couldn't be him.
"Bring her over here!" The man said, still behind Clint, who squinted through a blurry vision as they dragged Laura out of her chair. She kicked a guy in the shin and elbowed another in the stomach.
"Don't! Honey, it's not-" Clint got punched across the face and he groaned, welcoming the pain for his foolishness. "Worth it." He finished with a whisper. Looking up again, he found his vision was getting better, and Laura was standing in front of him, beside his offender. He was hiding his face, the bastard, wearing a black hood with holes for his eyes and mouth.
"Hey, asshole! Purple dinosaur! I'm not done with you yet, leave her alone!" Cooper spoke hoarsely from his corner, but with bravado.
"I'm not done with you, yet!" The offender said to Clint and punched him again in the jaw before grabbing his shoulders to knee him in the stomach.
Clint doubled over, gasping, and once he'd caught his breath, he could see well again. He felt gentle fingers caress his hair and face and he raised his gaze to Laura's frightened one. But she was pushed away by the man with his voice.
"You went off the radar, bab -" The man cleared his throat. "Barton," Purple Dinosaur finally spat out. "We was worried about you, and so we came looking for you."
The man kneeled in front of him, but Clint looked away, turning his face towards his chained Cooper instead. "Look. At. Me. When I talk to you. I'd hate to hurt her."
Clint brought his knees up and kicked the man in the chest. As the man fell, he swung the hand holding the blade, aiming to regain his balance but instead slicing through the bindings around Clint's ankles. Clint stood from the chair and jumped, getting his cuffed hands under his feet and in front of him just as Purple Dino charged at him, the wickedly sharp blade outstretched before him.
Clint dodged, but still got a shallow slash on his arm.
"What did you tell that CEO in Miami? 26 years old? Wasn't that your brother's age when you left him to die? How old are you really?"
"I was never much good at math." Clint retorted and faced Purple Dinosaur. "Add eight to 26, bagged face."
The man lunged at Clint again, but he was expecting it and he tangled his handcuffs' small chain around the knife, simultaneously kicking him in the groin. Clint threw himself onto the man and brought him crashing to the ground. The man's head hit the cemented floor and Clint heard him groan.
"Tell your men to cut off her ropes," he whispered menacingly down to the man, pressing the knife against the guy's sternum.
The man coughed, groaning again. "Go to hell."
Clint slammed down his elbow on the man's ribs and the guy cried out in pain. "Tell your men to cut off her ropes and let Cooper go." He applied more pressure on the knife and it easily made the man bleed.
"You think they won't turn their guns on you." The man said with the voice that Clint had once thought had had a pleasant intonation.
"I think - you think they won't turn their guns on you once they discover how pathetic, useless, and gutless you are." Dark emotion broiled in Clint's voice and his ire made his eyes water. "Tell them, or this knife digs into your windpipe and they'll have to lean in close to hear your voice."
"Let the trafficker loose and cut the woman's ropes." Barney groaned when Clint applied even more pressure on the knife. "Be gentle!"
Clint kept his once beloved brother on the ground, moving the knife underneath the hood, pressed up against Barney's jugular, as he heard his brother's men moving around. Once Laura was free, she ran towards Clint but stopped within a meter.
"Help Cooper, Laura, please." Clint said without looking up from a blue gaze that was almost identical to his, and Laura quickly went to her cousin's side.
Barney's men lowered the chains and Cooper would have fallen over as his knees touched the ground, if it hadn't been for Laura, who allowed him to heavily lean on her as his arms were freed from iron cuffs.
"Now, you miserable bag of purple dinosaur shit," Clint spoke, "I assume you killed anyone who might have been watching my apartment, which means I'm probably alone. So you are going to tell me how to get out of here, and if you try anything, I swear I'll make sure you stay dead this time."
"Sure, baby brother, whatever you say." Barney coughed again. "Clint, all those years you were playing marksman without me, I was FBI, man. I had a good run there. You should have seen, we were looking for you, before your file went to bigger people. CIA, then what are they called? SHIELD?"
"Shut up! Tell me, which way out?" Clint said, his voice laced with desperation.
"Is there a way out, baby brother? You know when Dad was beating the hell out of us, what was our way out? Remember! We didn't have one! Remember? Do you remember, Clint?!"
"Yes! Yes-yes-yes! I remember! I remember how he would hit you until you couldn't talk! I remember hiding with you, in the closet, under the bed! I remember how you would step out so he wouldn't find me!" Clint finished, furious that remembering made him cry. He always managed to finish with a silent tear, maybe, when Laura asked him about his family and he said the truth. But he hated that his brother had elicited such a reaction from him. "I remember! And I thought you were dead! My big brother, my friend, my ally, dead, along with Lynch!"
"You left me in that roof to die!" Barney leaned up from below Clint to shout in his face. "You abandoned me!"
Clint stood up off of Barney and brought his still cuffed hands to his face. "No, no, no, no! I saw him shoot you! It's not... possible." How was he going to live with himself if he knew that he'd left his brother behind?
Barney stood as well and took off his hood, so Clint would know it was really him. He approached Clint slowly, reaching into his pocket, but Clint looked up, still holding on to the knife with his left hand and backed away, the blade out in front of him.
"Hey easy, bro," Barney held out a peacemaking hand, then fished out a small key from his pocket. "For your handcuffs," he said as he tossed them to Clint, who caught it easily and quickly made work of the small iron restraints.
As Clint tossed them away, another man stepped into the light. He was dressed nicely, with a thick and expensive coat that almost reached his knees. The man was wearing white makeup that covered his entire face and had painted black arched eyebrows and black paint around his eyes.
"Well, what a wonderful family reunion!" The man said, way too happily, in a Polish accent. "And if it isn't THE Hawkeye! The one that's foiled so many plans. Well done, older Barton. The Clown is very happy!"
The Clown, however, didn't look happy, as he had a black tear painted on his face and he looked very hot and uncomfortable in the long coat.
"Kingpin, and the Owl and all those fools will certainly pay a pretty price for your head, Hawkeye! However, you are worth more alive, haha, maybe they'll teach ye some manners!"
A light shone at them through an overhead window and Clint turned to see the source. A black shape in the sky and spinning blades identified it as a helicopter. Then, the sound of shattered glass as windows were broken and guys in raiding uniform dropped in through ropes. The main doors of the hangar opened and all the lights suddenly came on, exposing his handler at the lead of a charge of SHIELD agents.
Clint ran towards Laura and Cooper just as the shoot out began. Laura was still holding Cooper up and he sort of tackled them both so they'd be in the ground as the Clown's men began firing at Coulson and all the other agents. Gunshots, louder than his bow, louder than the lonely gun he usually carried.
"What's going on?" Cooper said weakly from the ground and Laura hushed him gently, her hands holding his as Clint shielded her with his body.
Clint looked up when he heard a particular cry of pain, the Clown had shot Barney and his brother was falling to the ground.
He kept watching, willing his brother to get up. But he didn't. Looking around desperately, Clint saw a pistol about 10 feet away from him. Crawling close to the ground as bullets whizzed above him, he made his way to the gun, anxious and angry. Holding it confidently, he pulled the hammer down and aimed at the fleeing Clown's running legs. He wouldn't kill him. But he would make sure he couldn't escape easily. He'd avenge his brother.
But the Clown wasn't there.
He swiveled around, the bullets were slowing, an "All secure!" sounded, but the Clown had disappeared. Cooper was now standing beside him, looking determined and in pain but brave and strong, having managed to walk all the way to him.
"Clint. You take care of my sister. I'm glad she has you." Cooper spoke earnestly, hanging on to Clint by his shoulders. Clint's blue eyes met his cousin's brown ones and Cooper looked away, up, behind him.
Cooper shoved him roughly to the ground... A gunshot sounded, echoing... and Cooper fell backwards... Laura screamed... Clint stood, turned and pulled the trigger... the Clown fell out a window.
Clint kneeled beside Cooper, taking in the sight of red blossoming in his chest through his shirt.
Cooper grabbed his arm weakly, meeting his eyes bravely, resigned to the fate he had caused himself. "Clint... don't let her grieve too long... take her out of the city... keep her safe. Tell me you will."
"Of course. You know I'd do anything for her." Clint swallowed thickly, and watched in helplessness as Cooper's gaze went blank, and he succumbed to eternal sleep.
He hung his head. His shoulders began to shake and he cried shamelessly for the cousin who'd accepted him, loved him like a brother, and given up his life for Clint's. And when Laura kneeled beside him, tears already spilling down her cheeks, he took her in his arms and let her sob into his chest.
Kneeling on the dirty cement floor, they cried together, hanging on to each other.
Even after Coulson had secured the hangar, and an ambulance had taken the barely alive Barney, Clint was still holding on to Laura and Laura holding on to him.