Well..It's Wednesday and as promised..chapter 15…

Mistakes all mine..

Characters belong to Marvel…

Sigh….

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Chapter 15 – Serendipity

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Clint shook the chain once more hoping to dislodge it from the wall. His wrists were bleeding and his shoulders were sore. He still couldn't see shit and it was frustrating. He could hear people talking around him and machine humming. He didn't hear Barney's or Natasha's voice for a while now and that made him worried. His shout for Natasha's always met with a punch on his face or in his gut and he had had it with the invisible fist. He licked his lips and felt the split, a gift from the last punch. His thoughts drifted back to the sight of seeing Cross's crumpled body lying in a puddle of his own blood. He tried to rush forward but a pain on his head blinded him and blackness enveloped him. He felt he was responsible to what happened to Cross and that he had added his fate into his ledger.

He was glad, however, that Natasha's was here with him. His only hope was that Barney would bring his bow and quiver with him to this hell hole. He knew Barney wouldn't miss a chance to taunt him with his favorite weapon, just like during their circus time when he always belittled his skill in making perfect shots. Clint snorted at the memory and he was jolted with a hard slap on his cheek.

'Shit! Remove the blind and we'll …' another slap hit him, 'go one on one you fucking…' a punch in his gut that drove the air from his ranting, 'asshole,' he managed to croak with gasping breath. A laugh on his right side caused Clint to turn his head and kicked his leg to the general area.

'Oh my, this is one very wild bird, I must say. We've already covered the eyes; maybe we need to clamp its talon, or better yet, clipped its wings. What do you say Natalia. Don't you agree?' The man's laughter verged on hysterical maniac.

'Leave him, Alexei..' He heard Natasha's low hiss from across the room.

'Or what, my sweet Talia?' The mocking voice made Clint's blood boiled with rage.

'Don't call her that, you asshole!' Clint spat to his right but was rewarded with a fist to his already split lip.

'Shut. The hell. Up.' Each response was punctuated with a fist to his face and gut that made Clint's headache intensified and his breath wheezing.

'Stop it, Shostakov. We don't want to spoil the goods now, do we?' Barney quipped lazily. Alexei gave him a glare but moved away from Clint. Barney returned his attention to Natasha.

'Where were we just now? Oh yes, running commentary.' Natasha heard he dragged his chair closer behind her before he placed his hand casually on her shoulder. She tried to shrug it off but he gripped her hard and refused to remove his hand.

'Let me tell you a story first. Once upon time in a shitty little town in Russia, there was a man of science with great talent and vision. So talented that he had developed a perfect weapon for a perfect soldier. A great leader during that time embraced his vision and together they vowed to rule the world. Now the world only needs one leader, so once they had succeeded in their quest, the great leader decided to end their partnership. The great leader was so happy that he had the perfect soldier and weapon that he tried to make more but tut.. tut..he failed. Great leader not happy that the scientist had a backup plan. It seemed that the scientist had hidden the actual formula for the weapon in a ring somewhere in another shitty little town in Russia.' Barney stood up abruptly that his chair toppled backward. He walked in front of Natasha and gripped her chin.

'But alas, we've found it. We are about to mass produce it when a bird stole the ring from us and hide it in its nest. Way high up in the sky. Oh no…now we have to set a trap for the bird but we need a perfect bait.' Barney continued mockingly.

'God…you talked too much..Just end the fairytale story, okay or I might need to go for a therapy for hearing this shit.'

Natasha glared at Clint, even though he couldn't see her, for opening his big mouth. Clint hung his head loosely and started to chuckle. His chuckle turned to laugh and Natasha was sure that all the beating to his head had made him crazy.

Barney stopped in his monologue and narrowed his eyes at him.

'Shostakov, released his blindfold and lowered him down. I would like to speak with my brother, eye to eye.' He walked up to Clint who blinked several times when the blindfold mysteriously just drop off from his face and eyed Barney who stopped about two feet from him. The moment Clint's feet touched the ground, he charged up to him with all the intention of strangled him with his bare hands. His movement was stopped abruptly causing Clint to fall backward and hit his head on the wall with a crack. His shook his head and glared at him. His muscle twitched but a soft call from Natasha stopped him. He looked behind Barney and what he saw stopped him cold.

'Clint.'

Alexei had a knife; Clint belatedly realized that it was his knife, on her throat and a thin line of red had started to trail lazily down her neck.

'You see, Clint,' Barney continue from two feet away from Clint, 'we actually don't need her anymore but we do need her blood. Super serum from the good ole' Red Room and all. You see this perfect weapon that we need to duplicate requires the super serum, hence your girlfriend; and a very unique hormone that only a handful of human can produce. The only thing is you need to be dead to harvest the hormone. Quite messy creation, I know but perfect weapon, what can you say. This hormone will bind with the super serum and when injected with it you will have a soldier with a Midas Touch. Definitely not going to turn you to gold or something; well that would be great if it could, but one touch and you, poofed…dead. The bonus thing about our recent development, before both of you interrupted us last year in Paris, is that we could control it. Wasn't it wonderful…we are such geniuses, if I may say so.' Barney ended his story with an elaborate flicked of his hand and a smile that could challenged the Joker's sick grin.

'You are one disturbingly sick and crazy bastard. I don't know how I'm related to you. Could it be that you were adopt—arrghhh!' Clint's taunt was cut short when his short hair was pulled backward painfully by Barney and his other hand grasped his throat constricting his windpipe.

'You know, Clinton, I was totally agreed with you. We are not related in any way. That's why dad always beat you up and mom always looked the other way. Didn't you realize that you little shithead!' Barney snarled into Clint's face and slammed his head back to the wall. Clint's vision went white for a second. His steady headache compounded by the abuse he received recently felt about to blow his head off.

'Yeah right. That's why you did a makeover to look like me coz I'm more good looking than the original face you had.' That earned him a hard backhand that spun him hard on the wall and Clint's leg buckled. He hung limply before trying to get his legs under him and lean on the wall. Blood running down his chin and the steel gray eyes shoot dagger to their twin orbs in front of him.

'It is ready.' The declaration from the white coat man sliced the silence punctuated by the Barton brothers' heavy breathing.

'You know Clinton, Shostakov and me, we have this same vision about world domination and what surprised both of us, when we crossed our path couple of years back, was that we complement each other in our resources.' Barney walked away from Clint and stood next to the machine.

'Oh god, please don't tell me you two are in love and you want my blessing.' Clint couldn't shut his mouth. A strangled gasp from the other side of the room caused him to raise his heavy head and his eyes locked with the beautiful green ones that at the moment, were throwing knives at him for running his mouth.

Shut the hell up, she raised her eyebrow.

I'm buying time here, Nat. Some help would be nice. Clint lips quirk upwards and his eyes soften.

How far away are them? She squinted.

They'll be here soon…he smiled…I think. The smile dipped.

Natasha exasperated sigh caused Clint to chuckle quietly and Barney looked at him as if he had gone crazy.

'Hey Barney, where's my bow and quiver?' Clint called out to Barney who was still staring at him.

'Are you blind, Clint?' Barney pointed at the corner of the room near the door. Indeed, his bow and quiver were neatly tucked on the floor.

'Oh right. Wonder why I didn't see it when I came in before…oh right.. because you had me blindfolded, jerk!' Clint pouted. Natasha couldn't believe that Clint could pout at time like this.

'You are an asshole, Barton!' Natasha shook her head at the absurdity of the whole buying some time strategy from Clint.

'No, I'm not!' The combined responses from both Bartons startled her and she started laughing.

'Oh my God!..I don't think I could handle two Bartons.' She couldn't stop laughing and Clint couldn't help but to laugh too.

'Stop it both of you.' Alexei shouted and took out the device and press the red button again.

Clint was still laughing but now he was holding his head and his laughter slowly turned to grunt of pain. His body started to tremble and the grunt became louder bordering to scream. Alexei removed his thumb from the button releasing Clint from the torture. Clint had yet to release his death clutch of his head but breathed heavily. He raised his pain glazed eyes to Natasha and nodded at her.

'I think it is time for us to see how special you are Clint to us. Bring him. Don't try anything Clint. I'm trying really hard here to make sure you are well -preserved.' Barney tapped his cheek gleefully. Clint just send dagger at him. Two giants came in and grabbed hold each of his hand while an armed guard released the chain from his battered wrists. The giants' grips were strong and Clint could hardly move his hands. They dragged him to a table at the centre of the room and slammed him down on the hard cold surface. Clint vision went white when his head connected to the hard surface. They strapped his hands at his side and his ankles while another strap was thrown across his chest and pulled tight making breathing difficult – aside from his bruised ribs which already made his breathing labored. Both his thighs were also sufficiently immobilized with the straps. Clint tried to move and found out the only movement he could make was from his neck upward.

Wonderful…Coulson you better be right outside this door. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

'What are you doing…Barton!' Natasha's panicked voice caused Clint to raise his head to look at her. He could only see her red hair.

'Natasha..' Clint wanted to calm her down but a pricked on his arm startled him.

'Oppss sorry…should have warn you for that. My bad.' Clint wanted to wipe that sneer so badly off Barney's face. He saw that an IV line was inserted into one of his bulging vein. Someone was holding his head in a painful grip that Clint couldn't move it.

'Don't move.' The white coat man warned him. On his hand was one big badass needle that Clint swore he could see the opening of it. The side of his neck was cool and he realized that they were going to insert that into his jugular. That started him to struggle and threw curses in all the languages that he knew. He could Natasha yelling for them to stop when suddenly her voice was muffled.

Shit…they gaged her. Great now I couldn't hear her voice.

Clint stilled when he felt the needle break his skin. He closed his eyes and held his breath when they roughly insert it. It was painful and he gritted his teeth and closed his fists.

'There..it was not that bad isn't it if you stay still.' Barney patted Clint's cheek.

'Stop with the patting, will you please.' Clint exhaled loudly. His heart is beating loudly in his ears and he was not sure now, whether Coulson would find them in time.

'You see Clint. It was like your destiny to save the Widow from the Red Room and brought her to SHIELD. It's like you have been keeping her safe and warm for us to harvest when the time comes. And our lineage somehow related somewhere up there to this special gene that made us special. You remember the cocktail we gave you after the accident? Apart from giving you the terrible headache, it primed your body for this specific moment.' Barney walked to the end of the table and patted Clint's thigh. Clint just rolled his eyes.

'This IV line,' he pulled at it elicited a yelp from Clint, 'will bring in the drug which will cause you to have something like a heart attack. Then because of the trauma, your body will produced that special hormone that we need and will flow with your blood and be collected here,' he tapped at the big needle on Clint's neck.

'However, it needs to be of accurate concentration so we are going to have to do it by trial and error. I hope you don't mind Clinton. It's going to be painful for you. Sorry about that.'

Clint paled at that and he wished for Coulson to burst thru the door now. Clint didn't want Natasha to watch this. He wanted to say it to Barney to take Natasha away but a gag was placed across his mouth cutting into his cheek and silencing him. He pulled at the restraints and breathed thru his nose, nostril flaring in anticipation of the pain promised to him.

Coulson..where the hell are you? His inner voice yelling for rescue he hoped would come soon and saved Natasha. He had a feeling it was going to be too late for him.

He started to feel coldness seeping up his vein and traveled into his fast beating heart. It didn't help that the way his heart had been beating a mile every second, would hasten the drug that was making its way into his heart. He closed his eyes when another blinding flash behind his eyes stabbed him and he groaned. He could hear the muffled scream by Natasha at the background amidst the roaring of his blood in his ears.

I'm sorry Tasha…so sorry.

Another painful flash caused all his muscle to lock rigidly. Then his chest started to constrict slowly as if somebody was squeezing it. He thrashed about on the table and his painful grunt turned to muffled scream. The coldness turned to hot, blazing hot and it coursed through out his body burning him from inside. Clint couldn't hold off his scream any longer. He fisted his hands until his nail broke the skin. His neck muscle corded and bulged with every scream. The strap holding him grated at his wrists causing them to start to bleed again sluggishly. And he still screamed and screamed. Tears of pain from his eyes flowed down his cheek but the sound of his anguished muffled scream continued to echo in the room. Few of the technicians started to cringe to the back of the room clasping their ears trying to mute the anguished sound.

'We almost got it. Another minute or so, should be suffice.' The white coat man voice trembled and his hand shook adjusting the dial. He was also affected by the tormented procedure that he wanted it to end quickly. He was not sure whether the man would survive this.

All the while Clint thrashed and screamed until the only sound coming from him was muffled grunt. The machine humming sound rose to a pitch and a blue light started to blink on the panel.

'We've got it. We have harvested the hormone.' The man started to turn down the dial but Barney's hand stopped him. 'Leave it.' He sneered at the man.' But we have what we wanted.' The white coat man eyes widen at the evil smile plastered at both men.

'He wasn't meant to live afterwards. So leave it. Return to your lab and do what you are supposed to do. We shall bring you the other portion of the ingredients.' He glanced up to the trembling mess of red hair that was bound with a stricken look on her face. Tears streaked shamelessly down her face and her green eyes were wide and focused on the thrashing young man that he had assisted in inflicting tremendous pain in the name of science. So he collected the bag of blood and hurriedly signaled his assistants to exit the torture room and returned to his safe haven. The sound of the horrifying scream continued to accompany him until he shut the door and trembled behind it.

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Sorry guys…need to break here but no worries, I'll be back soon. Hang on Clint..Lemme find Coulson for you,k….gosh traffic after office hours were a bitch and it rained again…gahh..

Cannes Film is on guys…any of you managed to find a trailer for The Immigrant…pm me if you did, okay…sharing is caring guys….

Till then…stay safe uols.

Shila1378