Here is the next chapter! I hope you like it! :)
Clint took in the scene before him. He knew it would be bad, but he hadn't expected what he saw: Natasha on her knees with a gun pointed to her head, John cuffed and unable to help. There were a couple – no, three – men unconscious around them and a fourth man holding a gun to John's back.
As he'd made his way to the warehouse, he kept thinking over and over again that he should just turn around and return to where he was hiding out. If by some chance the plan hadn't worked, he would be caught and imprisoned, probably executed for treason; when John had filled him in on everything, he'd had absolute confidence that the plan would work, and he'd been content, though a little restless, to sit on the side lines this one time.
But the more he thought it over, the more the thought of something going wrong – of Natasha being involved and getting hurt – had been too much and he'd come as back up. He'd planned on sticking to the shadows, like he was good at, and merely keeping an eye on the situation until the agency arrived.
It was a good thing he'd come, too. Things could not be going worse. As he looked over at the woman he loved, whose back was to him and whose hands were slightly trembling, he knew that, even if he got caught, he'd make the decision every single time to put her above himself. If he happened to get arrested or killed, it was a worthy sacrifice.
His hands steady despite his increasing heartbeat, he focused his gun on the point between Adams' eyes.
He should have known it was Adams. Now that he thought about it, he should have known something was up earlier. He was always too friendly, too eager, but then he was too methodical and aggressive in the field. It was a weird combination of traits. It was sheer ignorance that prevented him from seeing what kind of person the man was.
"Well, well, well," Adams said, looking over at him and lowering his hand. "Look who came to save the day." He placed the barrel of the gun to Natasha's forehead. "I guess I should thank you. Your little runaway stunt proved quite useful," he said. "Although, I didn't know what to make of it when Miss Romanoff disappeared – I honestly just assumed you'd both run off together. You always did get too involved with the missions, didn't you?"
Clint sighed impatiently. "Enough. Let them go or I'll put a bullet in your skull."
Adams laughed. "You wouldn't risk it with her so close. Do you really trust your own skill that much?"
Clint shrugged. "I'm a pretty good shot."
Adams raised his eyebrows. "Oh, I know how good you are. That's why I applied for your team. You were the perfect cover. I could move around without worry because I was under your command – one of the best. And with Bailey wrapped around my finger, it was a walk in the park."
"Why are you doing this?" John demanded. "Why do you want the blueprints?"
Adams' eyebrows rose even higher. "It's not the blueprints I'm after. It's justice."
Natasha spoke up for the first time since Clint came in. "Justice? You mean revenge, right? This is about revenge."
Adams glared at Natasha. "I never liked you. I should have just let my men kill you back at that airport."
Clint watched Natasha's head shake out the corner of his eye. "So it was you who orchestrated that. I thought it had been Bailey."
Adams looked at her as if she were a child. "Of course it was me. Bailey still doesn't have a clue, which might be a good thing for you," he said, nodding at Clint. "If he'd known, Barton would have been replaced as your babysitter, but I couldn't let that happen. He was my connection to John. And if I'd known John had actually returned, I would have gotten rid of you a whole lot earlier."
John struggled against his handcuffs, a murderous look in his eyes. Clint felt exactly the same way, but needed to keep calm for Natasha's sake. If he took out Adams, there'd be a chance he'd be able to pull the trigger before the bullet got him. Until he was sure Natasha was out of danger, he needed to wait – preferably until reinforcements arrived.
"You said you were doing this for justice," Clint said, trying to bide for time until Cane returned with back up. "Justice for what?"
Adams gave a short laugh, looking at Natasha. "You'll enjoy this."
Looking back at Clint, he started. "My father was an agent. He met my mother in the field and she got pregnant with me. Do you know what he did when she told him?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. Everyone remained silent.
"He gave her a hundred bucks and told her he couldn't stick around. That his job was more important than some kid he never wanted and that she'd be better off getting rid of it, because she probably couldn't provide for it anyway. So he left, and my mom never saw him again. She ended up keeping me, and when I turned eighteen she got fed up with me asking about him and told me what he'd said. I vowed then and there that I would make him regret ever leaving my mother."
Clint furrowed his eyebrows. His father had been an agent? When he'd once asked Adams about his family, he'd said he'd never known his father. But he never would have suspected that his father being a CIA agent was the reason why. He felt a tinge of sympathy for the man, but not enough to lower his gun. Something about this was bothering him.
"If you were trying to get back at your father, why join the agency?" he asked, genuinely confused.
Adams scoffed. "I figured it was the only way I could find him. So I enrolled in college, made sure the recruiters noticed me. After I graduated I tried to find him. My mother had given me his name, only when I searched for him in the files, you know what I found?"
Barton shook his head, and Adams laughed bitterly. "He'd been deceased since the year I joined. So I came up with another way to get back at him. I found out he'd been quite decorated, quite the loyal soldier. He was loyal to the end, which was how he died – he'd been killed because he wouldn't spill our beautiful country's secrets. So I figured hey, why not take what mattered most to him and crush it - his job and his country. By selling the blueprints off, I'll have destroyed the CIA's reputation and the country's defence. Neither will stand a chance once word gets out."
The warehouse was eerily quiet as everyone let Adams' story sink in. Natasha couldn't believe it. All this for a man he'd never even met? She thought about her relationship with her father. For years she'd thought the most important thing in John's life had been his career. Sure, she'd resented him. But he was good at what he did and she'd respected him for that. But if they had never met, if he'd said the things Adams' father had said to her own mother, would she have felt the same way? Would she have wanted 'justice', as Adams saw it?
The answer was simple.
No.
She prided herself on being a strong woman. She never would have felt the need to go to such extremes to prove something to herself like this, as well as someone she'd never met. She would never have given her father a second thought, but lucky for her things hadn't turned out like that.
Her life might not have been perfect, but it was the imperfections that made her the woman she was. She had a father who loved her, a woman who was like a mother to her. She'd gone overseas and gone to college. She'd made life longs friends and fallen in love for the first time. All these things wouldn't have happened if she hadn't been brought up in the world that she had. Although she'd experienced loss and pain, she'd been strong enough not to let it break her.
She felt bad for Adams, but this was no way to handle personal resentments. He wasn't strong enough to be able to move past this obsession for revenge either, she could see that now. He'd die before he let this plan of his fail; it was what he'd worked towards since he was a teenager. He was past reason. He wouldn't stop trying to destroy what the people she loved cared about and she needed to help them. She needed to stop him.
This newfound confidence fuelled her next actions.
With Adams still looking at Barton and the gun still at her forehead, Natasha shot her hands out, one gripping the gun and the other gripping his wrist. She forced his arm past her shoulder and upwards, and she felt a jolt go through her hands and a shot ring throughout the warehouse.
Still holding on, Natasha managed to stand up, and pushed Adams' hand toward his face, the gun smashing his nose. More blood trickled out and she repeated the motion, disorienting him. She pulled the gun from his hand and threw it to the ground, kicking it out of arm's reach with her foot.
She was aware of movement behind her as Adams came forward, fury distorting his features. He swung out to punch her and she blocked, but he was fast. He brought his knee up and hit her in the kidney, and she grunted. She just managed to duck in time before his arm came around again, trying to punch the side of her head. She grabbed his arm as he went to pull it back, and trapped it under her own arm. Before he could move she elbowed him in the chest and then in the face. He stumbled back, holding his chest with one hand and his bleeding nose with the other. She ran forward and threw punches which he expertly blocked.
She realised her mistake too late when she took her eyes off him to check on Barton and her father. Her fight with Adams had taken place in a matter of seconds, and while she had been distracting him, Barton had been dealing with her father's injury.
When the gun had gone off the first time, the bullet must have ricocheted. Natasha could see a large amount of blood seeping through the shoulder of John's shirt, and Barton had only just gotten the handcuff keys out of the now unconscious bodyguard's pocket. John looked pale as Barton freed his hands, his back facing her.
As Natasha took this in, Adams had reacquired the gun she threw down, and he came up behind her and hit the back of her neck with the handle of the gun. It was a hard blow, and she felt herself fall to the ground. Surprisingly, the blow hadn't been enough to knock her out, and she blinked several times as Adams spoke to her, assuming she was losing consciousness.
"You know, I think I might keep you alive a little longer," he sneered. "Have a little payback for what you did to my nose. Unfortunately, I have no use for your father - or your boyfriend."
He turned from her, about to raise the gun toward the people she loved.
It was if she were watching the following scene in slow motion. She watched Adams as he reloaded the gun, not expecting her to be able to stand, let alone run. She watched him click the safety off and hold it up directly toward the back of Barton's head while his eyes were on John, as she steadied herself. She watched her father's eyes widen as he realised what Adams was about to do, watched Barton turn around just as the trigger was pulled. But she was already there.
She hadn't thought as she ran toward Barton, her arms outspread. When she screamed "NO!" she felt like she was hearing someone else say it. When she tackled him, she felt like her body had been moving without her even thinking.
When she saw her father pull a gun out of nowhere with his uninjured arm, she thought for a second that he'd been about to aim it at her. Weirdly, she hadn't heard the bullet fire from Adams' gun, but she heard that one. She heard the sound of the bullet being imbedded in Adams' skull; she heard his body fall to the ground.
All this she took in as she slowly rolled off Barton, her breathing coming in short pants as she held her chest. Only then could she feel the pain. For a moment, she thought she'd just been winded from taking Barton down – until she removed the hand from her chest and saw red. She felt her throat constrict as her breathing became pained, laboured. She could feel herself slowly drowning in her own blood as the sound of footsteps echoed in the warehouse.
Suddenly Barton's face came into view. He looked as handsome as ever as he leaned over her, his features filled with horror.
"Nat," he shouted. "Nat, you've been shot, I think the bullet got your lung. Just lie still, alright? Keep your eyes open, you need to stay awake!"
She was getting tired and the noise was too much for her ears. There were too many people, too many voices merging together. The darkness was becoming stronger. She wanted to sleep. She tried to take a deep breath in and choked.
"Nat, stay with me," she could hear Barton say. "You're strong; just hang in there a little longer."
She felt him grab her hand in his, felt his lips brush her knuckles. "I can't," she whispered. "I can't…"
The look on his face made her want to cry, but she didn't – she couldn't, not in front of him, not like this. She had to be strong to the end. His face slowly blurred until he was just another shadow, and Natasha gave into the darkness.
What did you think? Let me know!
P.S. sorry for the cliffhanger :)