the end is nigh! 4 more chapters (not including this one!) ENJOY!

it took a few, what he perceived to be, days for Clint to regain most if his strength, constantly wondering the source of the hissing. Natasha nursing him back to health with the little scraps the guards occasionally threw them. Natasha still ate her fair share of the food, Clint made sure of that. He had asked her about the noise and des covered she could hear it too, well he wasn't crazy at least, but neither of them knew the source or the reason of it being there

The affects of the fever had all but worn off and his shoulder wasn't bleeding any more. It still hurt but he wasn't losing any more blood which, at this time, was a bonus.

They were left in the cell for a while, Clint would have thought they would have continued tormenting them but HYDRA left them alone for a while at least. Clint would have assumed that HYDRA had forgotten about them if it weren't for the scraps they were thrown.

Clint sat, now, with his back up against the wall, mulling over some tho writes about the hissing, sitting up against the wall opposite him was Natasha. They both had been silent for a while, it was a peaceful silence, he was so grateful for Natasha's help over the last few days. He doubted he would have survived if she weren't here.

He wanted to ask her something. Something he had been wandering over the past while. He was considering voicing his question when Natasha spoke: "okay, you want to ask something" Clint looked up at her and smiled, she could read him like a book.

She smiled back. It occurred to him that she didn't seem to smile often.

"Yeah." He said, "before I woke up, when you thought" he paused for a nearly unnoticeable fraction of a second, "I was dead... You seemed pretty upset." Clint looked into Natasha's eyes, she wasn't looking at him but somewhere distant, like she was replaying the memory in her head.

After a few minutes of silence she replied, "I thought I had lost you..." Her voice was barely a whisper, "I thought..." She trailed off but Clint didn't need to hear any more, he already knew.

She sat with her still broken leg laid out in front of her and her other leg drawn up to her chest, hugging it tightly to her. Se was staring down at her feet.
She looks lonely, Clint concluded and got up. Then fell down again. His legs had collapsed under neath him, they still couldn't support all his weight. He sighed to himself and resorted to crawling to her.

He crashed down ungracefully beside her. When he had settled himself she laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. She wasn't asleep, just closing her eyes.

"Clint?" She got his attention quickly, "stay here." She requested.

"Okay." He replied simply, putting his arm around her, avoiding the skinned part of her arm.

"Nat?" She opened her eyes and looked up at him. After he told her this she would probably tell at him but he had to, "if the worst should happen...-"

"No," she cut him off, "don't talk like that."

"I'm just saying, if it comes to that, you can't give up. You gotta let yourself get better then you blast out."

Natasha was staring at a spot on the wall, straight faced. "You too." She said simply. Clint nodded even though he knew it was unlikely he would break out and just abandon Natasha, even if she had been reduced to a corpse. "But that's not going to happen." She said confidently and Clint nodded again.

They sat there for a while side by side, Clint having drawn back his arm, when the hissing, that had constantly been in the background, stopped.

"What the...?" Clint wondered out loud.

He got up slowly, steadily trying to get his legs used to the weight. Eventually he was able to step away from the support of the wall.

Behind him he heard Natasha curse under her breath, Clint turned around to her. "What?" He asked curious.

"I think we are in an air chamber." She stated. "And they've just turned off the oxygen supply."

Brilliant! He cursed in his head. "Well, we can never say they don't find new methods to sedate us." He joked, Natasha didn't laugh but he hadn't expected her to.

Clint twisted around where he was standing and tried to find any cracks or seams in the wall, that he could widen to gain air from, but there was none. There had to be a way out.

"Clint." There had to be, nothing was this fool proof, nothing.

"Clint," Natasha repeated. "HYDRA are consistent, they don't cut corners"

Clint lowered his head. He was already beginning to feel the affects of lack of oxygen.

Clint backed up against the wall and slowly sat down again, beside Natasha, resting his head on the wall.

They both sat there silent and eventually the oxygen ran out and they were both consumed in darkness.