The Screams All Sound the Same
By: Syntyche
Twelve: Nothing We Can Do
A fiery aches lances across his chest, sharp and merciless, but Steve Rogers ignores it determinedly, shifting grimly on his seat and hunching further over his bike's handlebars as he grinds his teeth against the aching pull digging into his lungs. Steve could have - should have - asked Jarvis to call him a chauffeur, but One, he's not Stark so he doesn't take a limo to a crime scene, and Two, he wants the speed his bike gives him, needs to close the gaping the distance between his rogue team and himself.
The wind pulls reluctant tears from his blue eyes as he speeds anxiously toward his destination, Jarvis chiming in helpfully with directions to the location of Tony's BMW. The soldier has to admit it helps him feel a little less alone in this desperate mission to hear the AI's modulated tones over his comm rather than silence. His team is MIA, and Steve is not happy to have been left behind, confused, angry, and apprehensive thoughts all churning through his mind anxiously. Steve is normally incredibly level-headed; he's taken to being dropped into another era with surprising grace, only receiving occasional chiding from Director Fury about hiding from the world as the soldier simply continues to do what he does best: protect those in his care, be it an entire city or his often trouble-prone teammates.
Steve frowns heavily. Getting shot by Agent Romanoff had come as a shock; he'd honestly thought she'd seemed like one of the mentally stronger members of their little group, more able to withstand outside influences. Barton or Stark wouldn't have been as much a surprise: Stark is rash and impetuous, jumping in feet first where a cautious look around would better serve, and Barton had already proved himself susceptible to mind control.
The soldier winces a little at the thought he may be judging the two a little harshly, but he can't help but feel bitter that they had left him behind, left him to sleep comfortably in his warm bed while they went after Romanoff. This rankles Steve no small amount: he should be with his team, not following them.
Rogers kills the engine one he spots Stark's dark BMW safely tucked away on a quiet street and coasts to a stop around the corner; one unfamiliar vehicle risked enough attention in this neighborhood, two was just asking for trouble. Through his comm Jarvis quietly directs Steve to a large house set far back from the street; apparently the Iron Man is powered down, which means Stark is out of it and this worries Steve immensely. The AI lacks Barton's cynical snark and Stark's clever wit, but Steve has found the infinitely patient voice a welcome companion since Jarvis had awoken him; apparently Doctor Banner getting shot immediately overwrote any previous instruction Stark had given that Steve not be disturbed. Steve had informed Fury and SHIELD is mobilizing an emergency evac for Banner and a strike team to capture Zola, but Steve hadn't been able to reconcile himself to wait for them to accompany him. Not when he should have been there already.
He searches for a way to safely scale the perimeter and is warily unsurprised when he finds a small, shorted out section of fence. Either Barton and Stark have been here, or he was meant to find a way in all along.
Steve's feet hit the ground and his lips thin into a grim line of determination. Zola. He shouldn't have been surprised; actually, he should have suspected the mad scientist immediately after Romanoff had attacked him. Steve had heard there had been some kind of experiments, attempts to prolong a life already long past due, and he knows the scientist is uninhibited and unethical, dangerous and crazy all rolled into one unpleasant package. If Zola is here, there must be a cure for Romanoff and Barton here too - the soldier desperately wants to believe it will be so, because Captain America is nothing if not relentlessly hopeful.
Jarvis leads him across a darkened lawn trampled by many heavy feet. Near the front of the large house Steve's enhanced eyesight can make out a slight, crumpled form, curled in on himself and shuddering. Too thin to be the compact Barton, it must be either Banner or Stark and a few more quick but cautious steps brings Steve to Bruce Banner's side. The soldier hunches in the grass, slick dew dampening his hands as he reaches down to gently turn Banner. Bruce inhales sharply and growls throatily between his clenched teeth: his skin is rippling green with effort and he's clearly in an incredible amount of pain. Steve can't imagine how the man is even coherent, considering the hammering onslaught from his alter ego and the gaping holes in his stomach.
"It's about time," Banner pants and Steve immediately feels guilty though he bites back the instinctive retort that jumps to the fore: if his own team had thought to inform him of their plans, he could have arrived with them, instead of possibly too late to help any of them.
"SHIELD is on the way," Steve says instead, calmly reassuring as he dutifully pushes his judgmental thoughts aside. "We'll get you patched up in no time, Doctor Banner."
Banner laughs shortly, coughing red flecks against his already ruined shirt. "No need," he assures stiffly, "Just do damage control." His eyes roll back as he finally gives up the fight and Steve hastily scrabbles backward as Banner shifts and grows, at last permitting the Hulk to emerge without any further resistance on the doctor's part. Steve can't help but admit Banner's bravery as he understands that the physicist could have spared himself terrible pain much sooner, yet he had struggled to last until help had arrived and the Hulk could be reigned in by his teammate.
Steve's throat tightens as he reflects, very briefly, on the shambles of his missing team: missing, mind-controlled, poisoned, wounded, dying, and he quietly promises to do whatever it takes to bring them all home.
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"This sucks. You know, I really feel your talents would be better utilized as an old-fashioned jukebox or something … you know, more for entertainment than experimentation."
Tony's rambling and he knows it. It's just what he does. Although Zola had let the out-of-her-head Black Widow have Barton, apparently, Tony realizes unhappily, the crazy mad scientist jackass robot must have plans of his own for Tony. At the moment it's deathly quiet in the labs and that scares Tony more than when Clint had been screaming, and Zola is pacing all crazy before Tony's incredulous gaze and muttering to himself - or to Stark, Tony isn't entirely sure - and the inventor thinks he hears something about evacuating but that doesn't make sense, does it? and Tony spares a minute to wonder why bad guys always exit the scene before, like, the final five minutes in the culmination of their otherwise extremely carefully laid-out plans.
Tony abruptly decides that if he ever plans something big like world domination or whatever, he's certainly not going to cut his timetable so close that he has to book it before making sure his arch-nemesis is actually taken care of. Why go to all the trouble of constructing a giant mousetrap or laser ray that bisects your captured adversary and then not stick around to make sure it actually works?
"Ridiculous," he mutters with certainty. "At that point, where would you really else have to be?"
He's actually started to work out the dimensions for a giant mousetrap when he realizes he's distracting himself. He needs to stay focused. Tony's analytical mind is intrigued by the intricate lab setup Zola's got here; it's almost SHIELD-worthy in terms of advancement and the inventor really wishes Banner were here so they could go all science-bro giddy over some of the weird shit down here.
God. Banner …
Tony blinks furiously, trying to dispel the image his mind obstinately refuses to take off repeat of Banner bleeding out alone on the lawn. Tony and Clint had shared a horrified look when Bruce crumpled even though they knew Hulk would never let something as simple as bullets take them down. It was still terrible to see, however, flash-burned across Tony's retinas as he was unwillingly reminded of why he hates letting people in, letting them get close, being part of a team. He can't protect them all the time. He can't keep them safe, though he tries, damn it; he'd even gone so as to move them all into Stark Tower where they'll be as secure as possible - when they're not working their ridiculously dangerous jobs - save Barton, who had stubbornly insisted on staying in that damned crappy apartment until he'd finally gotten too weak from the poison and just given up arguing with Romanoff, and she'd literally packed up his clothes and moved him into her rooms.
"I think this has gone far enough," he says loudly, pulling against the wrist restraints. "More than far enough, actually… "
There's a loud thump! from behind the door Romanoff had disappeared into and Tony instantly shuts up, trying not dwell on the terrible relief that floods him when Clint starts screaming again. At least he was alive. Zola's mechanical cackle erupts from amidst his muttering and he throws Tony a gleeful look as he continues pacing and planning. There's a rough, ragged quality to Barton's voice that's barely audible beyond the closed door, but Tony still hears it because even though he doesn't want to, he's desperately straining to listen, to catch every choking, sobbing, wispy breath from a man who is being systemically torn apart by his partner, the woman he quietly loves, on the other side of a door that's ten feet away but may as well be a thousand feet for all Tony can get to it.
Anger rushes through him, his heart pounding against his ribs. "I'm coming for you, fucker," he promises, his voice deathly quiet. Zola glances at him but says nothing, though apparently he reaches some sort of decision because he quickly busies himself at a table in the corner and Tony thrusts his neck out to see what's happening but can't quite make it out. Another thump! and another exhausted scream roll through the air, ripping across Tony's frayed nerves and he knows Clint doesn't have much longer … there's no strength left in the archer's voice, the ends of it unraveled and weary and more an exhalation from a body tormented beyond what it can reasonably take. Deep-seated and vicious hatred roils in Tony's gut as tears prick at his eyes, and he strains against his bonds again even though he's already tested them a hundred times.
This isn't how it ends. This can't be how it ends.
One more scream from the marksman that dies abruptly with a horrifying gurgle, and then there's silence again. Tony thinks there must be a leak in the ceiling above him because he can swear there's moisture rolling down his cheeks and someone really ought to look at that because a leak this bad could mean the integrity of the floor above is compromised and could come crashing down on their heads at any moment …
Tony leans forward desperately, anxiously craning for something, anyway …
Zola glances at him and smiles in cold satisfaction. The rage burning through Tony overwhelms him, scorching past grief he won't let himself feel because Clint's not dead, damn it, and neither is Bruce. "You fucking bastard!" Tony growls at Zola, his fingers scrabbling madly against the smooth wall behind him - even without the Iron Man suit, all Zola has to do is get close enough for Tony to reach him and the fucker's not going to see another day. Tony throws himself against his bindings furiously, knowing they aren't going to break but not able to just stand here …
… just … stand … here … ?
Surprised, Tony realizes belatedly that his knees are abruptly buckling and suddenly he's no longer standing at all. His arms pull taut against the restraints as his confused gaze snaps up to see Zola, now standing in front of him, pulling an emptied syringe from his thigh. It's only in retrospect that Tony feels the sharp pinch of a needle, only when the inventor focuses on the fire erupting in his leg that he remembers the way Clint yelled like a wounded kitten when Romanoff got him with whatever the hell this shit is, and Tony thinks distractedly for a split second that obviously he's going to handle this in way more dignified and manlier fashion …
OhmyGod, he suddenly realizes, whatthehell-isthatmescreaming?-holyshitIthinkitis-
And Tony's world dissolves into white.
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Her lolling head snaps up at the pained shouting reaching her ears, breaking through the listless fog surrounding her. She thinks for a moment it's Clint, but a slow-blinking green-eyed glance she can barely bring herself to give the slumped archer reveals that it can't possibly be him.
She drops her stained and mottled face back to his still chest, moisture dampening her cheeks mingling with her hawk's sticky blood. The guard bots she'd destroyed moments ago are in pieces around them as she listens dully to the archer's stuttering heartbeat, thudding fretfully slow below her ear as his wounds drip sluggishly to fill the cracks in the floor with red.
She needs to find help. She needs to help the team.
But she can't leave Clint. Not after what she's done to him.
A cough rumbles in his chest, reminding her that although he's dying from her desperate arrows now - to save them both, she tells herself fiercely, but it doesn't erase the stains she feels - he was dying from her syringe before, and the ravaging realization of how much she has taken from him and will yet steal slams her with the frantic urge to swiftly grasp one of the arrows protruding from his flesh with the intention of driving it into her own heart to stop the horrified voices in her head and try to bring some sort of justice to this world. How many different ways could she kill her partner, her best friend, the man she wanted? How many times has she hurt him?
As the arrow in his palm shifts Clint gasps and Natasha's fingers fly from the shaft. No more, she promises. She'll hurt him no more.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs wretchedly, eyes closing against the tears that threaten. She feels so empty, so wasted, so … alone without the whisper of the Black Widow that has been her constant companion for weeks on end. "I'm sorry… "
Clint forces his eyes open and blinks at her hazily, his gaze washed out grey that barely focuses on her. "Nat?" he whispers groggily, and she can see bright red behind his teeth.
Natasha wants to smile reassuringly, give a controlled nod, do something that looks focused and calm. But she knows her eyes are shining wetly, knows she can see the sick horror on her face as easily as she can read the fear he's trying to hide in his own expression.
"It's me," she says quietly. She knows the liberty isn't hers to take but she drifts her fingers through his damp hair anyway and tries to smile again.
"I'm glad you're back," he struggles to say lightly with a smile of his own, but she can feel him tense under her touch and Natasha closes her eyes in revulsion as she remembers the Black Widow's deliberate degradation of the archer, and she knows that's what Clint sees when he looks at her, what he feels when she touches him.
"I'll get help," she promises roughly, though she wants nothing more than to stay. Clint closes his eyes tiredly, shakes his head slowly and the black fletchings of the arrow buried in his shoulder rub lazily against his ashen cheek.
"No … Tasha," he whispers brokenly, forcing the words out on strained breaths. "Nat … just let me go … please … "
Tears slide down her face. "I can't. I can't." she answers desolately. Clint has never begged her for anything before, least of all this, and to know that she is responsible - her, not Zola, not the shit Zola had given her that had taken over her mind until she'd nearly killed Clint to bring herself back … the assassin wants to reach for the arrow again, to sear its sharp point across her skin and follow her hawk into the blackness he's already moving toward.
"Don't go," she says softly, and he lifts sticky fingers the barest fraction to gently stroke her pale cheek. "Don't give up." Her voice shakes. "You never give up."
"'m not giving up," Clint sighs quietly, his breath rattling terribly. "'m just … surrendering to the inevitable."
"Please," she whispers.
Clint cracks one exhausted eye open as his fingers slide off her cheek to drop limply to the floor. "You got this, Nat," he mumbles, the familiar words that are usually a comfort and a reassurance to her hanging heavy in the air between them as they trail off raggedly. "You got this."
Natasha reaches out to rest her palm against his cheek, her other hand reaching out to curl loosely around the arrow closest her, this one embedded in Clint's left thigh, ready to pull it out once her partner will no longer feel the pain she's caused, ready to cut her own throat with it, ready to stand guard over the archer in whatever afterlife is to come for them.
She smiles, a small, grim, determined smile. "And I've got you," she promises.
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