Chapter 12: What You can't have...

It took Clint and Natasha four and half days of driving non-stop to get to their destination. After almost a week of sitting in the dirty old box truck, the two of them were almost glad to be in the middle of an enemy terrorist compound as long as it meant getting some fresh air.

"Well, this is it." Natasha said, hitting the brakes and letting the truck come to a halt where a man dressed in a Kevlar body suit, carrying an M16 motioned for them to park it. "That's SHIELD gear..." She whispered to Clint and they shared an anxious glance. If the insurgent was from SHIELD, what little cover they had might be blown already.

"Step out of the vehicle while we inspect the cargo." He said, waving the machine gun around like a toy. Nonchalantly, Clint and Natasha did as they were told. They'd killed and dumped the tied up men out of the truck on the highway the day before when the Mercedes pulled off at a rest stop. ...Loose ends all that. Wordlessly, Clint opened the doors to the back of the truck, while Natasha stood out of the way, making as many observations as she could of the exterior of the compound.

It wasn't much to look at, just an old warehouse in the middle of the desert. It had aluminum siding in desperate need of repair, and seemed to be surrounded by several large shipping crates. It was unlikely to be discovered by any aircraft as it was in a no-fly zone because of military maneuvers being practiced nearby. ...But not close enough to be noticed. It also had the advantage of being well hidden by the landscape. There were several checkpoints leading into the compound, with ten armed guards each. At least forty men, as far Natasha could see, guarded the warehouse proper. All of them were strategically placed and wore excellent camouflage gear. In other words, anything short of a major air strike would be suicide for a small group – possibly even the Avengers when taking into account their weapons capability that was still an unknown variable in the equation.

"Identification?" The man demanded. Clint handed him the Tea Party ID he'd taken from one of the truck drivers. Natasha forked over an excellent forgery she had made of one they'd found one of the insurgents Hollie shot at the Macy's bombing. The guard nodded gruffly and gave the IDs back to them.

"Everything's in order, boss." He said into an old walkie talkie. As soon as he said it, a woman in a sleek navy business suit hopped out of the driver's side of the Mercedes, and ran around to open the back door. A beast of man got out. He was nearly seven feet tall, bald aside from a neatly trimmed grey beard, and had an expensive cigar clenched between his yellowing teeth.

Dante Carnivale – the head honcho of a very powerful branch of the Sicilian Mafia, a man known for his cruelty, utter lack of morals and a temper to rival the Hulk's.

"You've done well." He said, approaching Clint and Natasha. "You took an enormous risk getting this here, and rest assured that such actions of benefit to our organization do not go unrewarded. However, traitors and spies don't go unpunished. You really should have covered your tracks a bit better, Natasha Romanov and Clint Barton of SHIELD."

"Shit." Natasha muttered and glanced at Clint. Both of them reached for their weapons, but there were a good thirty machine guns aimed at them before they had the chance to draw.

"We'll go quietly." Clint said, raising his hands above his head in the universal sign of surrender and submission. Natasha gritted her teeth and barely managed to restrain herself from shooting from Dante in the face as she followed suit.

"Sir, we received a message from our operative working in SHIELD!" Another insurgent said, as he came running from the warehouse. "We have discovered the alias of La Volpe (The Fox). She is deceased according to SHIELD records, but recent intelligence suggests otherwise." Dante screwed his face up into a scowl and bit down hard on his noxious cigar. Natasha and Clint watched him with wide eyes. There was only one person they could be talking about.

"Where?"

"Ah, we do not know her current location." The man explained. "Apparently she survived the Macy's bomb, though she has not been seen since."

"Find her and kill her. That is, again, our number one priority. Rip that bitch's heart out and bring it back to me in a jar. I am not being dramatic. Bring me her heart." Dante hissed. Clint looked like he swallowed a bug. Natasha elbowed him in the ribs and he quickly regained his composure, but it wasn't fast enough – Dante had seen Clint's reaction.

"...And throw these two in the pit. Tell Frank to have fun with them, and break anything he likes so long as they can still tell me where to find that cunt."

Now that he knew she could walk, Hollie had a hard time evading Tony. Oddly enough, she didn't mind. Her knowledge of computers came in handy, and he put her to work building the circuitry for the the Mark 43. Hollie didn't know it, but she was officially the only person other than Bruce that was not only allowed in the workshop, but allowed to touch Tony's tools. It was frustrating as hell, though. She lacked the refined motor skills to do it properly, and her soldering was a mess. After what had to be the fiftieth failed attempt at building a motherboard for the repulsor system, she finally lost it and threw the badly soldered mess of wires against the wall with an unintelligible yell of anger. Tony looked up at her, obviously on the verge of tears, and turned off the welding the torch in his hand.

"That's not how you do it, hun. It's more like this." He said, picked up the half-built repulsor for the left hand of her suit and blew the broken circuitry to shit. It lay in a smoldering heap against the concrete wall that sported a new burn hole. Hollie laughed, but it was hollow and she dissolved into tears almost instantly. Tony honestly wasn't sure what the hell to do with her. Seeing someone like Hollie break down and cry was almost physically painful. Honestly, he would have bet money on Steve screaming racist slurs at an old lady before Hollie sat in his workshop and cried like a little girl.

But, he knew it was coming. Hollie was human after all, there was only so much she could take and Tony cold tell she was getting more and more frustrated by her physical limitations with each passing day. Sure, she put on a brave face and made a monumental effort to pick up the pieces, but it wasn't that easy - not with living in constant fear of being murdered by the mafia, or god only knows what else.

"Okay, so you can't solder a circuit board. Not the end of the world. Let's start with what you can do." Tony said and handed her a clean rag to wipe her face on. "I'm thinking we can have you work on coding the OS. How's that sound? Right up your alley, yeah?"

Hollie just choked on a sob and shook her head.

"Okay. No. That's fine. We could always just say fuck it, get shitfaced and go to town on each other. I'm down for that anytime." Tony suggested with a shrug. Hollie just ignored him, pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them as she cried.

"Come on Moaning Myrtle, throw me a bone here. I'm trying to make it all better. Sympathy isn't my thing, but I feel kind of bad so... Jesus Christ! I'm going to find this Dante douche and fire a repulsor beam right up his ass. It'll be like a pig roast. He kind of looks like a pig, right? That driver's license photo sure did. His new nickname is porky, how about it?" Tony chattered, pulling up a chair next to Hollie. She just continued ignoring him. Tony fell silent and sighed. He was just about to go grab her a bottle of vodka from the mini-fridge as a last resort, when she finally spoke.

"I just want..." She shook her head."Nothing, it's nothing."

"Well, in my experience, nothing is usually a whole lot of something that I really need to talk about but, run away from like the giant pussy I am when it comes to emotional bullshit." Tony replied, putting a hand on her shoulder. ...Which he immediately regretted as it got grease all over her shirt sleeve.

"I have a habit of wanting things I can't have." Hollie said somewhat more coherently.

"Like what?" Tony pried. Hollie just shook her head. "What can't you have? A mansion in Newport? Brad Pitt's autographed dirty underwear? ...I think I could get you both of those, actually."

"You already know what it is, Stark. All the money in the world wouldn't help me." Hollie said, and shakily made her way out of the workshop. Tony knew better than to stop her, but he didn't have a clue what she was talking about, either. Yet, he had the nastiest feeling it was one of those things he should know that was going to wind up biting him in the ass later. ...Like that time he left Pepper on the balcony at that stupid charity event.

Pepper.

He really needed to stop thinking about her. It wasn't going to change a damn thing, and just made him want to crawl in his bed with enough alcohol to drink himself to death with. Pepper was everything. Still was everything. She was the one thing he knew he couldn't live without, even if she still wasn't really speaking to him outside of business. Even if they were destined to fall apart eventually, Tony still would give up everything if meant that she'd be happy.