You guys are the best. Seriously.
She didn't scream, or cry, he had to give her that. She did tremble slightly, probably due to shock, but she took deep breaths and clung to him tightly. He wondered if it was luck, training, or good instincts that inspired her to shift so that she was clinging to his back, leaving his arms and legs free as they swung to a nearby rooftop. They landed lightly. Well, Hawkeye landed lightly. The woman practically barreled into the floor, taking most of the impact on her thighs and butt. He grinned crookedly. Luck, then.
He caught the arrow as it fell, then pulled her around a corner so that they couldn't be seen from the mansion. His focus now was to get out. The quinjet would be at the rendezvous in less than ten minutes, but it would leave if he wasn't there in twenty. Someone had known where he would be, where he would set his quiver, what arrows he would use.
And someone had switched them out.
All bets were off. There was no telling who- or what- they were running from now. And just to make it all that much harder, he'd just picked up a helpless civilian. He refused to look at her, instead taking in his surroundings, planning a route back to the rendezvous. If they could get onto the building just east, then make their way downstairs, they would make it in time. There was an air bridge arching overhead, connecting the building to one behind him. He eyed the metal grid supporting the bridge, calculating. He could make it, but not if he was carrying someone else. He finally turned around.
She was standing with her back to the brick wall he'd pulled her behind. Her eyes were closed, and she was taking deep, regular breaths. There was the slightest sheen of sweat on her forehead.
"Can you-"
She didn't open her eyes. "Shut up. Unless you are offering me water, shut up, and let me calm down, okay?" Her voice got more hysterical near the end of the sentence. She took another deep breath and opened her eyes. "I'm fine. I'll be fine. I just need to not go into shock. That's all. Do you have any water?"
He shook his head. He was tempted to just throw her over the gap, but she was right- she couldn't go into shock. He could get her out of this alive, as long as she could still move under her own power. After the way this mission had gone, SHIELD would want her alive.
"No. No, of course, you don't. Super-secret top-agent Robin Hood, and you don't have… No. Okay. Tell you what, give me something to do."
Hawkeye raised an eyebrow. She didn't look like she was in any condition to do anything. But if he pointed that out, she might lose it.
"If you jump, can you make it to that girder, there?" He pointed to a point midway across the bridge. She took a few steps forward and stared at it. Her eyebrows drew together, and she bit her lip. It was a good ten feet; he wasn't hopeful.
He was already trying to come up with another plan of action when she finally spoke.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think I can make that. Can I have five minutes first?"
He shook his head. "If you can't make it I need to know. If you try, and you can't, you will die."
She turned around to glare at him.
"I said I could make it. Can I have five minutes first?"
Her shaking had stopped. She was still breathing carefully, but her glare was clear and focused. Anger was better than shock. He peered around the wall to the mansion. He didn't know that they had five minutes.
He also didn't know that he'd be able to get her across otherwise.
He nodded. "Five minutes."
Her shoulders relaxed just a little, and she stepped back to the shelter of the wall. He repositioned himself near the edge of the roof, crouched, keeping an eye out for anything threatening.
"Do you have a knife?" He glanced at her, then pulled out his knife and held it out. She tried to reach forward and take her other heel off at the same time and stumbled. He saw it coming, and shifted slightly so that she wouldn't knock him clean off the roof, and pushed her back up straight. She opened her mouth, then shut it again and took the knife. She plopped down next to him, and yanked the hem of her dress around. She fingered the material, sighed, and then used the knife to start a nick at the bottom. Using that as a starting point, she tore a slit all the way up to her waist. He was surprised to see that she was wearing what looked like dance shorts under the dress, which just barely peeked out of the new slit. Clumsily, she started a new tear on each side of the slit, just above her knees, then tore a large section of the dress completely off. He stood and offered a hand to help her up, but she ignored it, picking up the loose fabric and tearing it into three neat strips, then tearing one of the strips in half. With the efficiency he'd seen earlier, when she'd taken out the arrow, she began to wrap her right ankle with one of the strips.
"What's your name?" He needed to be able to call her something.
"Asalynn Liretto. You?"
He bit his tongue. He already knew something was wrong with this whole mission. It shouldn't surprise him that this woman, so obviously not the agent he'd been sent to kill, would share her name.
"Hawkeye."
She pressed her lips together and looked up at him with one eyebrow raised.
"That's not really a name."
She looked so piqued, he almost laughed. Instead, he asked another question.
"The arrow, it was barbed. How did you get it out?"
Her face lit up, and she dropped what she was doing to explain with her hands. "He was wearing silk. The Huns used to wear silk in battle, because it was so tough that arrows would actually push it into the wound, rather than tear through it. Then they could twist it, and the silk would catch on the barbs and wind up, and then they could pop those suckers right out. It was a fear tactic thing; their enemies would think they were demons, and break ranks." With a brilliant smile, she turned back to what she was doing.
Hawkeye nodded thoughtfully. He hadn't thought about the intimidation factor.
"Did it occur to you that leaving it in would've kept him from losing that much blood? Maybe saved his life?" He hadn't meant for his voice to be so harsh. Asalynn stopped wrapping and stared off into the skyline.
"Of course it did. But he didn't die of blood loss. He did because there was a piece of metal in his heart." She dropped her eyes to her hands, which were fidgeting with the fabric, winding it through her fingers, then pulling it out. "The longer it was in there, the more the heart tried to beat around it, the more damage it did. I had to get it out." She shook herself, untangled the fabric, and continued wrapping, more slowly than before.
He nodded, but didn't say anything. She was right, but that didn't make it easier. Didn't make her feel any less responsible. He sat down next to her and pulled out his quiver and began to examine his arrowheads, making sure that each one was where and what it was supposed to be. He noticed that she had stopped again, and was about to tell her to hurry up, they needed to move, when she spoke.
"He's the first one I've lost. On my own, I mean. I didn't realize it would be so… different. There's just… nothing. You can't do anything, so you just do something. Hold their hand, maybe, CPR, whatever makes them think they're gonna be okay. You tell them they're gonna be okay. I mean, I knew that, but it's different, when it's your call. 'Cause even when you say it, you know it's not true. And you're a dirty rotten liar."
He watched her for a moment, waiting to see if she was done. When she still didn't move, he put a hand on her shoulder.
"Now isn't the time to deal with this. We have to go." She glanced up, startled, as if she'd forgotten he was there.
"Right. Of course." She tied off the strips, then deftly used the two shorter pieces of fabric to wrap her hands and wrists in.
"Tendonitis, both wrists, and some serious injuries in my ankles and feet. I don't want to try this without support." She stood clumsily, using her hands to push herself up. Then she brought one heel into the arch of the other foot, and transformed.
The dress, with its wide neckline and exposed back, now hung asymmetrically around her knees, and the midnight blue set off her dark eyes. The angle of her head created a beautiful line from crown to fingertip, over smooth skin, broken only by the bit of fabric clinging to her shoulders. But more importantly than anything else, the clumsiness that had clung to her so far evaporated. She moved with the ease of long training, lifting on to the balls of her feet, then sinking down into a deep bend. Without warning, she launched into a series of jumps, turns and balances that even Nat would've been jealous of. She spun to a stop, not even breathing hard, and nodded.
"I miss having a shank, but it'll do. Okay, you first." She stepped back and fidgeted, watching him carefully. He slung his bow across his back, checked his quiver, and took a running start. He sprang off the roof, and flew through the air until he caught onto the steel girder. He used his momentum to swing forward, and landed on the next rooftop. He turned back to watch her.
She used the same running start he had, and launched herself off of the corner of the roof with a power that was surprising coming from such a small body. Her body arched perfectly through the air, but the direction of her movement was off, her center of gravity at her hips. Her palms smacked into the girder, and suddenly she was off-kilter. She'd come in at too much of an angle, and now she was flying, feet-first, straight for the edge of rooftop. Even if her feet landed, she wouldn't be able to hold on; she would bend backwards, probably snap her spine, smack her head into the wall, and fall to her death.
Got another chapter coming soon. And I'm always open to suggestions!