So it goes with saying that only things I own with any connection to MARVEL I bought on Ebay or Etsy. MARVEL COMICS & MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE are their own creatures and I have nothing to do with either of them aside from the fact I enjoy reading or watching them, and am grateful for the ability to play in their world. I claim nothing, and I receive nothing for this, expect the pleasure of putting something out into the world.
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DAY THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT
FRIDAY MAY 3RD 2012
0915 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
CLINT
She started crying and hitting me again, but this time I welcomed it because of the broken laugh buried under those damn tears. "Shh. I know, I know, I'm a jerk."
When I put that gun in her hand I was absolutely willing to accept her squeezing that trigger if that was what she chose. That's not to say I wanted to be shot, I really don't like getting shot, but she earned that choice, and there was no way she was ever going to get the chance if I didn't give it to her. She could never take a gun from me, and if I wasn't aiming one at him to keep him still, he would never let her either.
But even with that willingness I felt her make the decision before she knew it herself, and I freed her hand from the crushing grip of mine, hearing the gun slide free from her fingers as the weight proved too much and dragged her hand down with it.
That's about all it took before she finally took her eyes off mine and gave into the sobbing, her tears soaking into the shoulder of my jacket.
My gun left my hand next, the relief and irritation rising in the merc's face now that I no longer was threatening to put a hole in his head. But that glancing observation is all the attention I give him. She is the only thing I care about right now.
I kept my touch light, because there's been a whole lot of skin contact going on in the last few seconds, and I can't tell if she is freaking out over that or all the other shit that's going on so I'm just following the old rules. Her hair acts as a barrier beneath my palm as I rest it against the back of her neck, my thumb shifting through the strands in a comforting gesture as the other one wraps around her back.
"Shhh princess, shh. I got you now." I whisper parallel to her ear as I endure the feeling of her shaking in my arms, her fingers twisted so tightly in my jacket she only has an inch of slack to gain momentum behind her tiny frustrated strikes. Those break my heart a little.
But the other emotion I'm feeling, which I take advantage of in her inability to see my face is massive relief. Thank god she didn't hate me enough to shoot me. Along with awkward discomfort because even if she is my sister, she is a sobbing woman dressed in torn silk, with blood and slivers decorating her pretty skin.
FRIDAY MAY 3RD 2012
0916 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
DUNCAN
Barton's got a kid. That's a bit of knowledge I stockpile for later. Dad's always been on the look out for things he can use as a contingency plan against the so called 'Fury Loyalists' and Hawkeye was always one that worried him because his list was almost none in existent and dad didn't like someone who he couldn't blackmail. A kid fills that list up pretty quick though, and if I deliver that information I might even be able to use it as a bargaining chip in my favor.
Its back burnered by the information my eyes are taking in though. He's got her resting against his chest, her face laying on his shoulder as he whispers and nods to whatever she is whispering back to him, his damn hands smoothing her hair in place before he cups her face in those hands and presses a kiss to her forehead, her only protest a tiny sniffle as she nods her head once again with wet eyes and a worbbling smile.
Then even worse she lets him put his hands on her legs as he tears quick strips off the bottom of her dress to wrap around her bleeding arms and her bare feet. He stabbed her! How can she just forgive him like that?!
FRIDAY MAY 3RD 2012
0917 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
NORA
Nora, you know what I do for a living. That was his answer when I asked him why he never told me before, and I didn't need to ask anything else.
Clint's not just a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, he's the guy they call in not when they need information, but when they need a body to fill a bag. Its why no one liked him, or liked that I liked him. Clint's a killer, and even though I always looked past that because I knew the hidden part of him he let so few see, I wasn't ignorant to that.
Some people thought I was, or that I didn't realize the severity of what he did, that he was taking people's lives every time he drew his bow. I knew, I understood. When Clint left and came back I knew it meant there was one less life in the world, one more orphan or widow, and one more funeral to be scheduled by someone. I wasn't condoning a murderer though, I was supporting my brother, a man who kept the world a little safer for others.
oClint was a man with secrets, which I always knew they were there, even though he shared more with me then he did with most. He was a part of S.H.I.E.L.D though, and everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D had their secrets, even I had some of my own secrets, Clint told me one of his once. His life before S.H.E.I.L.D, it wasn't rosey, it was rough and you either took the hit or you hit back. He hit back too hard once and he almost lost everything. Then a guy in a suit stood on the other side of the bars, and offered him a fresh start. He said he made a deal, and he never regretted it. His family must have been the deal, their safety for his service.
It made a whole lot more sense then when he jokingly would say 'well what else is a marksmen supposed to do?' I knew he wasn't that cold about the value of human life.
He answered the rest of my questions. She had brown hair and eyes. She was four, and yeah, she was born not long before I woke up. And yes, Natasha knew knew about her and so did Fury. He had a son too, who was gonna be 8 soon. They both were pretty like their mom, and they knew about me.
That threw me a little, I didn't know how to feel about that. Clint told his family, a family I didn't know existed, about me. I feel like I should be so offended by that but I can't get the giddy idea out of my head that there is a little girl out there somewhere who might think of me as aunt Nora.
"I'll take you to meet her." He told me as he tipped my face back and looked me in the eye. "Laura, Lila, Cooper. Hell I'll even put you to work on the farm." That last part earning a shaking smile out of me. "But we can't do that here, you understand. I'd love to give you all the time you need, but you need to trust me and we need to move, okay."
My nod in agreement prompts him to pull me a little closer for a chaste kiss of comfort, then the sound of tearing fabric starts filling the room and I do my best to pretend the sweat from his hands doesn't sting.
FRIDAY MAY 3RD 2012
0918 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
CLINT
God she's a miracle. Beaten, stabbed, lied to, and imprisoned. Those are my sins against her, she knows them now them too, but she is sitting here in front of me trying to hide the trembling in her flesh from me, and letting me put my hands on her. She's such a fucking miracle, and I'm such a piece of shit!
A second ago she even thought I was keeping her away from her kid for the the last three years! That didn't stop her from forgiving me enough to trust me as I tear her skirt into makeshift bandages for her bleeding arms and bare feet.
I should be glad she's not fighting me anymore, but to be honest I really wish she still was because she should be. From day one, I've been lying to her about everything. I've been earning her trust and her love. I made her believe me, and follow me like a puppy. I did that because it was my assignment, she is my assignment. I was like her DAMN ZOOKEEPER for three years, and she never saw it because I was smiling the whole time. She should not forgive me, ever!
But she is a miracle and she does anyways, my baby sister, and for that I'm making her my own mission again. Screw Fury, and S.H.I.E.L.D. Screw the will of the World Council and that old snake oil son of a bitch Pierce, I always felt dirty after I had to deal with him. Screw all of them, I'm answering to her now.
I'm still not satisfied with the knot but I know it's as good as I'm ever gonna make it. The bastard could of at least let her keep some sandals or something, but following the rule of 'a captive runs slower without footwear' Loki didn't even give her socks. So instead because I'm gonna have to make her keep up with us when we run I'm trying to turn bloody silk into a pair of slippers. Even that effort has a time limit to it, and I'm on the edge of exceeding it because I care too damn much so I'm making myself stop.
My knees pop a little as I stretch them out from the crouch I kept them in too long, and hold out my hand to her in a parody of a request. It looks like I'm inviting her to take it, but you can turn down an invitation, and as much as I don't want to steal anymore choice from her, I'll tie her up and carry her if I have to. And I'm a piece of shit again, because I'm using a bargaining piece to stack the table in my favor
"Come on Alice, we got a white knight who's waiting for you." Her 'daughter' isn't the only thing I'm betting she loves outside these walls. There's a 'vintage boy from Brooklyn' out there too, and for him she takes my filthy hand.
FRIDAY MAY 3RD 2012
0919 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
RUMLOW
"Boss" It's Jack's voice that catches my attention and even if his voice is about as robotic as it usually is, it's the fact that he spoke at all that catches my attention.
I'd been talking to the pilot, half assedly reading the instrument panel while I listened to him fill in the rest that the plane couldn't tell me. But the rarity of Jack's voice gracing my ears made me glance over my shoulder and let the pilot get back to flying us to to our mission. If Jack's speaking odds are it's important.
"What you got?" Most people answer questions with words, but now that Rollins has my attention he just pops the monitor out of the wall and hands the screen over to me.
At first I'm not really sure what I'm looking at because the feed is dark and much grainier than usual, but I can see clearly enough to identify two people in the frame. The grainy filter stays in place but the rest of it cleans up when a door opens and finally lets some light into the lense and onto the situation.
That's Barton, and the alien bitch, who looks like she just walked off the set of a horror movie for some reason, and they are pissing me off. That room is too modern and clean to be anything from the bunker that Asgardian faggot holed up with the Tesseract.
HYDRA wasn't happy about that alien just beaming in and walking off with that thing, but we didn't reveal that we had a mole in his base to the actual S.H.I.E.L.D because we saw this as an opportunity for the real HYDRA to take it underground, and start trying the real fun experiments with it. Not the kinder gentler shit we had to adhere to while we were pretending to be S.H.E.I.L.D.
But it looks like Junior is sticking to the plan. "Sitwell?" If the boss's son is going rogue, or rogue-er I guess, we might need a button pushed, but the negative headshake I get as an answer from Jack isn't much of a surprise.
Sitwell is on the Helicarrier right now, and they got him on the bridge trying to track down a piece of history, so he can't just walk away to have a chat on his phone. "Keep trying." That gets a nod too, but that's as far as my concern for the boss's son goes.
I'm sorta pissed that he started moving while we still have an hour in the air, but I'm sorta giddy too. Pierce's old man made it pretty clear that how high the body count rose was up to my discretion, as long as I didn't kill the women, and we have HYDRA's favorite toy sitting quietly in the back of the plane with us.
My promotion to Captain of STRIKE was meant to be temporary, because daddy is always gonna think of his son first, but I think I just got handed an opportunity to make this position a permanent one and I'll be damned if I'm not gonna take it. What's the harm of a little murder at the end of the day anyways?
NOTES FOR THE READERS:
For those out there who are Rumlow fans, I apologize if I didn't do his POV justice. There isn't a lot of characterization to him yet other than sadistic and cocky, and he has no established history yet in the MCU. So I drew a bit of his comic book counterpart personality into the POV. Also in terms of not a lot of material, there is even less for Jack Rollins, he literally has one line in the whole CATWS movie, and other then that he just looks stern.