this chapter is a bit longer!

"Cl- Hawkeye. Hawkeye!" Natasha called to him, withdrawing him from a peaceful sleep. He hadn't slept this well in weeks, he recalled groggily, it was strange since he was in a grubby cell. "Hawkeye." Natasha called out again

"Nat?" Clint opened his eyes and blinked at the light. "What is it?"

"You were out of it, I thought they had done something to you when I was asleep..." She trailed off.

Clint nodded slowly, understanding.
He was still wondering what they done to her to make her so afraid yesterday. He waited a few moments before he voiced his thoughts.
"Nat?"

"Yeah?" She replied.

"In the two days, before I woke up, what did they do to you?" He asked carefully.

Natasha fell silent as if even the memory scared her. "When I woke up," she began slowly, "there was a guard waiting in the cell. He told me our situation, he wanted out names. I knew what damage it could do so I stayed silent.
"The guard didn't seem so pleased and he threatened me, tortured me a bit, but I still didn't talk, he eventually gave up on that and said that he was going to kill you..." Natasha paused. "And see if that would persuade me to tell him our names. So he left... And didn't come back for a while. I thought... I thought you were dead..."

Clint nodded. He supposed he would be grief stricken too if he thought Natasha had been killed. He would feel defeated.

Natasha sighed "I was..." She paused as if she didn't want to say the word "scared..."

Clint was taken back. Natasha never admitted to getting scared, he wasn't even sure she got scared.

"I'm sorry" he said, "it's my fault they know your name"

"How come?" She asked inquisitively

"When I woke up..." He began "I tried to make sense of what had happened. I remembered you being attacked but the attacker disappeared so I went over to you to see if you were okay. But I must have been attacked because I was knocked out..."

He wondered if he should say the next part but Nat had told him her side of the story, it was only fair if he told his. "All I could think was: is Nat okay? I mustn't have been completely awake because I kinda just said what I was thinking and... I said your name."

Natasha was staring forward listening to see if there was any more. When she knew there wasn't, she nodded still staring forward.

"I'm sorry" he said again.

"It's fine." Natasha replied dismissively.

They were sitting as they were before they fell asleep. Side by side, shoulders touching, Natasha's arm still lay across Clint's lap. Probably not wanting to endure the pain moving it would cause.

They stayed silent for a while and Clint was about to break the silence when the doors opened, they were electrically locked Clint noted, and the two guards stepped in and hastily grabbed Natasha.

Natasha immediately started hurling swears and insults out in a different language (probably Russian Clint concluded), kicking out with her good leg and crying out when the guards kick her broken leg.

"Nat!" Clint cried after her. "If you hurt her-" he shot at the guards, holding Natasha, with as much venom as he could muster but the guards simply laughed and dragged Natasha out of the room.

Clint could still see into the other cell as the door was opened and Natasha thrown in. She tried to catch herself but she forgot about her broken leg and cried out before falling onto her injured arm, earning another cry of pain.

One of the two guards stayed in the cell with Natasha and the other came back into Clint's cell.

When the guard entered Clint glared at him heatedly. The guard simply laughed again "it's your turn today."

Great, Clint's turn to be tortured.
Well, he thought grimly, better me than Natasha.

"This time you will both be able to see and hear each other" the guard added a slim grin spreading across his lips.

Clint looked over to Natasha in the other room. She wasn't chained this time because she had been nearly immobilised by being unable to use her right leg and arm. She had made her way over to the window and was pulling herself up onto her one good leg with the windowsill. Once she was standing they met each others eyes, Natasha's were full of determination, giving him strength, Clint tried to give the same strength to Natasha but he wasn't sure if she got it.

Clint saw Natasha's eyes flick to her right, to where Clint's guard was slowly approaching. Clint looked over just as the guard kept forward, Clint's reactions were slowed because of the chains and the guard somehow managed to get a cloth over Clint's mouth. Clint instinctively held his breath and struggled to get away from the cloth. He couldn't take a breath, couldn't...
But his view was clouding over and he needed to take a breath. No! He couldn't he would get away from the cloth, his movements were becoming less accurate and he was beginning to lose consciousness from lack of oxygen! Must breathe- NO! You can hold it... You can...

Clint passed out and he was no longer in control of what his lungs did. His breathing returned to normal and he breathed in the sedative gas from the cloth still over his mouth.

The last thing he heard was Natasha yelling "NO!"