Defiance | Struggling | Crying
This one did not go at all as I'd planned it, but I hope you like it. It'll give you a little more insight into my OC, so bear with me at the beginning. If you like Clint and Mikayla (Fitzbarton), please check out my main story, Finders Keepers.
There's only one thing worse than being tortured, and that's watching the most important person in your world having to go through it, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. The interesting thing? This happened on what was supposed to be a night off. No insurgents, no aliens, no fanatical group trying to take over the world, or at least the city. Clint had demanded this from Fury. "Look, it's the anniversary of the day we met. I owe this to her, Nick. You know as well as I do what she's been through the past year. Let's go over it, shall we? Her apartment was bombed, she had to have emergency surgery, and she had to make it through seeing me in a coma after I died 4 times before making it to the operating table! I owe it to her, so you will not be sending me on any missions that entire week. I don't care if the mission is to go buy a case of Pop-tarts for Thor, I'm not doing it." The world's greatest marksman, Fury knew, never asked for anything, so he acquiesced. Of course, Mikayla was also his goddaughter, being Coulson's niece, so he had a soft spot for her, not that he would ever tell anyone.
"How did you ever get Nick to not assign you any mission?"
"A spy never reveals his secrets," Clint answered. "You should know that by now, babe."
"I'll accept that answer, for now."
"How's Misty?" Mikayla was apartment sitting for her best friend, who was going to be gone for a couple of months working on a huge renovation project.
"I talked to her last night. She said everything should be wrapped up in about a week, then I'll be back home to you."
"Well, the positive to this is we'll get to have a real date. It's not just us leaving the tower and going somewhere. I mean, even before the team knew about you and we moved into Avengers tower, our dates were you coming over to my apartment or me going over to yours. We never had an official date."
"Why, Clint Barton, I never knew you were so traditional."
"I can be when it's called for, and I thought you deserved a proper date. You know, I come and pick you up, we drive somewhere, have a nice dinner, a few surprises. Like normal people."
She laughed. "Clint, do we know any normal people? Let's face it, we live with a man who has more money than the world and flies around in a red metal suit, a god from another realm who wears a cape and carries a big ass hammer, a guy who at a moment's notice can turn big and green and destroy anything in reach, a 95-year-old soldier from World War 2 who looks like he's 35, and a woman who can turn anything into a deadly weapon seemingly by looking at it. Oh, and who all take orders from an A.I. Now, tell me again where normal fits in?"
"Which is why I thought we would try to do something normal. Speaking of, how close are you to being ready?"
"I'll be ready by the time you get here, just putting the finishing touches on."
"OK, I'll head out now. See you in a few, babe. Love you."
"Love you, too, Clint." The call ended. Mikayla looked in the mirror and found herself shaking in anticipation. "We've been dating for a year and he still makes me shiver. God, I love that man!" She put on her lipstick and ran a brush through her thick, jet-black hair. "Come on, Clint, hurry up, I miss that pouty face of yours." Her doorbell rang. "Be right there." She sprayed a couple of sprays of perfume on her neck, looked in the hallway mirror, took a deep breath, then went to the front door, and opened it. She gasped. "Damn, you clean up good, Barton!" Her boyfriend, who when not working normally wore t-shirts and sweats, was standing in her doorway wearing a dark blue suit, complete with waistcoat and matching blue striped tie. She moved aside to let him in the apartment.
"Could say the same for you, Fitzgerald. Though I do have to say I miss seeing you in one of my old t-shirts." He smirked. She was wearing a grape colored floor-length sleeveless dress. He handed her a bouquet of purple and blue roses. "See, told you, traditional."
She took them from him and found a vase to hold them, then set the vase on the bar. "Thanks, I'm glad you approve. It is your color, after all."
"And you make it look hot," he sexily whispered into her ear then kissed her.
"Keep that up and we're not leaving the apartment."
He pouted. "Fine, let's go." He held out his arm, she took it, and after locking the door behind her, they went down to the car and headed to the restaurant. He'd made reservations at one of the fancier restaurants in the city. They had a genuinely nice time being, well, a normal couple out on a date.
"Where to now, flyboy?" Mikayla asked as they strolled the busy Manhattan street.
"Patience, my young padawan." He patted her hand.
"I knew you'd get a movie quote in somewhere." She laughed.
"OK, here we are." He gestured to a carriage. "Your ride awaits, my lady." "Clint, I love it! I've lived here since I was 15 and I've never done this. Thank you." She kissed him as he sat down next to her. She shivered a bit.
"Crap, Mikayla, I forgot you didn't bring a jacket. Here." He took off his suit jacket and draped it around her shoulders. "Better?"
She nodded. "Better." She laid her head down on his shoulder as the horse and buggy took them around. He linked his fingers with his, brought her hand up to his face, and kissed it. "I love you, Clint Barton."
"I love you, Mikayla Fitzgerald."
"You do know if Nat heard us, we'd both get slapped upside the head for being saps."
"There's no one I'd rather be a sap with than you." He smiled.
She chuckled. "Which is about the sappiest thing you could say."
When the ride was over, the carriage pulled to the curb and stopped. Clint got out and held out his hand to help Mikayla out of the curb. As she went to step out of the carriage, she heard a gunshot ring out. "Clint!" She fell toward him, holding her leg.
"What the hell? Mikayla!" He took his coat and wrapped it around her thigh. Thankfully, the bullet missed the femoral artery but there still seemed to be a massive amount of blood. He activated the comm in his hearing aid (the one time he was thankful he remembered them) and called 911. Before he could get connected, a pair of large men showed up pointing guns at them. "This can't be happening."
"Oh, it's happening." One of the guys pulled him away from Mikayla and picked her up. The other one struck him with his gun, knocking him out, then dragged him to a waiting vehicle which sped off.
When he woke up several hours later, he found himself in a small room, surprisingly not tied up or being held in chains. Once he took a couple of steps, he figured out why. There was some sort of invisible fence that sent out electric shocks when he didn't walk in a prescribed area. He found that the only direction he could walk was straight ahead, which led him to a large window. He looked through it and saw his girlfriend, strapped to a table with her leg bandaged. "Mikayla!" He screamed and slammed his hands on the window.
"You can scream all you want, Agent Barton. She can't hear you. You, however, will be able to hear and see everything that goes on in the room, but you won't be able to do anything about it. I thought after years of the torture you reigned upon the world, that the world owed that to you." Clint looked around to see where the voice is coming from. He looked up and saw a blinking red light next to a speaker. "Yes, I think it's best you don't see me at the moment. I will reveal myself at a more opportune time."
"Let…her…go," Clint said, forcing himself to remain calm.
"When she has completed her mission, she shall be released. What condition she will be in, who is to know? That all depends upon you. If you respond correctly, the treatment will be relatively painless. If incorrect, well, we'll see how much she can handle."
"Clint!" He could hear her screaming. "Clint! Where are you? I can't see anything. Help me! God, my leg is burning, make it stop, please!" She tried to thrash and move, but her arms and legs were tied to the table, so all she could do was throw her head back and forth. Clint could see she was crying. "Why can't I see? What happened?"
"Don't worry, Agent Barton, that's only temporary. We gave her some medicine to temporarily blind her. Whether it remains temporary, we shall see."
"Whatever you want, I don't have! I don't know anything, I'm an IT person. Clint, tell them!"
"We know better than that, don't we, Agent Barton? She's Mikayla Coulson Fitzgerald," the voice growled, emphasizing the Coulson. "The one person your director, Nicholas J. Fury, has a soft spot for, and we intend to use that to our advantage. So, you see, we have the world's greatest power couple at our disposal. We have the head of SHIELD's ward, and the world's greatest spy/marksman/assassin. Don't worry, your services will come in handy. You've wondered why we've taken you, I'm sure. Well, here it is. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take out Nicholas Fury. If you don't accept or if you accept and fail, we will have no choice but to take out his goddaughter, Mikayla Fitzgerald."
Clint sank into his chair. He knew things wouldn't go well once the information got out who Mikayla was, but this was nothing he could have imagined. Choose between his boss and his girlfriend? He knew his girlfriend would win, but he had to figure out how not to kill Fury and keep her safe.
"Don't worry, Agent Barton, you will have time to consider the offer. We have some entertainment for you. Please look through the glass." Clint looked up to see a man in a lab coat approach Mikayla with a syringe. He bit his lip to keep from screaming as the needle was plunged into her neck. Her screams were loud and painful enough for the both of them. "Now, let us see which serum they chose to give her first."
Clint watched and listened as Mikayla's screams became more intense. "Oh, God, it burns! It hurts all over! Make it stop, please!" One of her captors barely touched her and she screamed even louder.
"Ah, the serum that intensifies the nerve endings. If the mix is correct, your girlfriend will never be able to handle being touched by anyone ever again. That's right, Agent Barton, you two will never again have those tender moments two lovers share. Of course, the consolation is she'll never have those types of moments again with anyone. She'll be living a life of isolation, making it easier for us to control her."
"Clint! I still can't see! What the hell is going on? Why am I in so much pain! Damn it, if you hurt him, I'll make you pay!" Suddenly, she started babbling incoherently.
"That would be the second level of the injection. We're clearing her mind of any language she has ever known so that we can replace it with a language of our own. You see, Agent Barton, we are transforming her into the perfect weapon, and you are privileged enough to be able to witness it.
As he was watching his girlfriend turn into, for lack of a better term, a blithering idiot, he felt the building begin to shake. 'About damn time,' he said to himself. Suddenly, the ceiling was lifted off and the room was filled with the presence of a big, green Hulk and the aforementioned Asgardian with a magic hammer. Clint looked up and the red light had gone off and he heard gurgling coming from the speaker. The door to the room he was being held in opened and Cap burst through the door.
"Don't worry, Clint. Romanoff deactivated the force field and took care of the guys."
"Steve, get Mikayla! They've given her several injections!"
"On it, bird brain." He heard Tony through his hearing aid comm. "What all did they give her?"
"Something to blind her, something to intensify her senses so bad it hurts when anyone touches her, and one to wipe her brain and make her incoherent."
"OK, I think we've got the antidote. Hulk, Thor, now!" If Clint weren't so scared, he'd be laughing. He never thought he'd see the people he knew with the world's largest hands inserting syringes with such tenderness into his girlfriend. Almost immediately she stopped screaming and seemed to calm down.
"Go get your girl, Barton," Steve said as he broke down the door.
Clint rushed to her side and touched her face. Color came back into his face as he discovered she didn't flinch back in horror. "Mikayla? You with me?"
She nodded, sobbing. "I still can't see you, though, and my brain's fuzzy, but I can feel you and it doesn't hurt." She grabbed onto his arm for dear life. "Don't let go, Clint, please."
"Never, babe, never." He picked her up after Thor had untied her from the straps holding her to the table. "Let's get you home." Thor picked them up and returned them to the tower.
A few hours later, the group was in the med bay watching Mikayla. "Doc, how long before she can see?"
"It may be a couple of days. The blinding serum had the most time to take effect, so it'll be the last one to clear."
Mikayla piped up. "I can live with that."
"Hey, welcome back." Clint stroked her hair. "How do you feel?"
"Relatively normal. My leg throbs where I was shot, my brain is clearer, and, most importantly, I can feel you when you touch me and not scream in pain. Why would anyone want to do that?"
"Because they could," Tony chimed in. "Apparently this was a group of researchers that were let go from R&D because their inventions were, shall we say, a bit radical."
"That's the understatement of the decade," Nat said. She motioned for the group to leave. "Gonna let you finish your date, Barton." She whispered in Clint's ear. "Cameras are turned off and I warned Steve not to open the door." She smirked as she left the room and shut the door behind her.
Clint lifted his girlfriend off of the table and sat her in his lap, taking care to not injure her leg any further. "Where were we?"
She smiled. "You were helping me out of the carriage."
"We'll fast forward, then." He captured her lips with his as she ran her fingers through her hair. 'This is my kind of normal,' he thought to himself.