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Nursing what’s hopefully only a sprained wrist, Clint can’t help but think there was more to this idea he probably should’ve put in the con list. It seemed so straightforward, when they figured it out. Nat said he was exactly the sort of person they were looking for, and she meant body type, sure, but of course everything else fell in line, too. Him with the history with fighting, both the more formal martial arts and the far less formal kind. Him with the temper that marks him a champion instead of just more fodder for the ring. Him with the bite that won’t release, even in death. So, yes, there were a lot of pros to dropping him as naked bait and waiting to be thrown into a cage match just so they could pull everyone else out of there. People were going missing. Clint wasn’t one to stand by and watch.
It’s impossible to know when it happened, but somewhere in there, between building a team and saving the world and learning firsthand what it felt like for someone to puppet his body, Clint stopped being able to do this.
Physically, there’s no problem – or the problem is mostly everyone else’s, at any rate. But Clint can’t throw himself into the fight the way he could once upon a time. He can’t give in to the fury of the fists and lose himself, let his mind hide back in the recesses of itself, and beat the rage out of every muscle in his body. Part of it is that he doesn’t have the anger he had as a kid, but that’s to be expected, really. Most of it is the mission. If he doesn’t keep it in mind at all times, he’s going to make a mistake, and not just one that will hurt him in the ring, but one that will echo all the way out of it, to the ears of whoever’s in charge, watching. The cages are really the least of his worries, while the people who seem to be doing nothing but observing are the worst of everything.
Even without the mission, even without keeping track of every minute movement of his body, his expressions, the words that accidentally leave his lips, Clint wouldn’t be able to push the rest of it away anymore. The men in the boxes he can feel at the back of his own mind, treating his body like it’s theirs. The crowd in the seats he can hear cheering, chanting, in ways that used to get his blood pumping, and now make it run cold. The captives – the other captives – he can see, feel every scrape and bruise and broken bone like it’s his own, worry for. And, of course, there are the ones he can’t see that cause him even more worry.
But Clint is only human, and knowing that he’s in the middle of helping doesn’t make it any easier to share too few beds and toilets that aren’t cleaned fast enough for the number of people packed in next to each other. It doesn’t help when they’re practically fistfighting over the slop the management likes to call food. They’re pissing, showering, vomiting over injury or injustice in front of each other. They’re patching up the souvenirs from their matches in front of each other, too, day in, day out, and Clint can’t even offer to help without someone pulling a shiv on him. So when he’s moved up to ranked, into cells that only hold two at a time, he’s grateful.
The relief pervades the entire march there, and the handcuffs don’t even pinch his wrists. The bars on the cells look shiny and new, the sinks clean, the beds made. It’s a cement block barely more outfitted than an actual prison cell, but without the overcrowding below, it almost looks like they’ve let him back into his apartment and he can finally lie down.
Clint may be an awful person.
He doesn’t cry about it, though, or say how grateful he is, or let it show in his eyes that the angry, frightened faces of all the other prisoners are stamped on his brain like so much pending paperwork. Clint keeps his chin tilted high, just slightly defiant, like he’s arrogant enough to demand what he deserves. Aims for something between a stalk and a saunter, the way he used to open shows, daring his audience to tell him he can’t. Wears the barely more than scrubs they give him like they’re a tuxedo tailored to his every measurement.
They don’t even throw him inside when he gets there. They take the cuffs off while the door is still open and clap him on the back.
There are more beds than people in these cells, actually. Two bunks per cage, and most cages only have three captives in them. His only has two. Clint takes the time to stretch, to go through an entire warmup sequence, to revel in the clear oxygen that actually smells like someone tossed an air freshener in the vents and turn his hearing aids back up to something less than the sounds of human rage and terror. He glories, for a minute, like it’s a present to him to have the space to stand and walk, to have basic clothes and bedding and bathroom access, the way it was when they left his hearing aids in. Like basic human decency – less than, given the kidnapping – is something kind to grant him alone out of everyone down below.
He’s definitely a bad person, but the amount of peace Clint feels no longer being surrounded by screaming makes it worth punching all those people’s teeth in. Breaking bones and choking people out. His own injuries are harder to recover from than they used to be, but they’re nothing compared to what he’s inflicted on people, even trying, even succeeding, at doing less damage than most of the prisoners here. His injuries hurt. They’re not bad enough to worry that much about.
Clear water runs instantly out of the tap, too, and Clint’s halfway through enjoying his third glass of that – a clear, freshly washed, actual glass – when he realizes that his cellmate hasn’t moved or made a single sound.
He’d thought the man was asleep. Clint was almost asleep, now that he can see clean, soft sheets on a decent mattress. Not that any of those words aren’t relative, but it’s a better quality than a lot of places he’s slept, even excluding his experience downstairs, and so of course any fighter would grab the rest he could get. No sense losing sleep over other people.
Walking closer, Clint finds a young man, maybe even a boy, unconscious in injury. Sweating a little, warm, maybe feverish, except that he doesn’t look particularly flushed. Could be an infection from any number of things; there’s some effort to keeping their living spaces sanitary, but wound care is a dumped stack of supplies and nothing else. The boy is stock still, face relaxed as if in the deep sleep Clint thought he saw, arms tucked neatly across his middle like a hospital left him resting that way. The boy doesn’t twitch or murmur, even when his arm is tapped, and Clint is reminded of Nat. When she’s so sick she can’t move, she goes quiet, like she’d draw attention to her healing otherwise. Predators pretending that they could never be prey.
The boy is tall, taller than Clint, stocky enough that it’s clear why he did well in here. The musculature isn’t obvious, because he’s practically nothing but muscle, but Clint can feel his own muscles going sore where he hasn’t drawn a bow in too long, and there’s something in the boy’s arms. Something else that reminds Clint of Nat, and he almost laughs, except that he really needs her here, right this second, to tell him the mission comes first, and there’s no use adopting a stray. To reassure him this boy will get rescued just the same as everyone else. Maybe he’d like Nat to tell him that he’s doing the best he can, under the circumstances, and still needs to figure out whoever the hell owns this place, if he can do that before the championship fight.
Maybe Clint needs Nat here to hug him for a minute, in silence.
Maybe he needs Nat to give him a second opinion on the boy’s injuries. There’s only the expected scrapes and bruises where Clint can see, on the boy’s exposed arms, shoulders, and face. A black eye, sure, the same split lip Clint sports, but nothing more obvious. Clint smooths back a white lock in the shaggy brown hair, just so he can feel the boy’s forehead, but it doesn’t tell him more than the shoulder – warm, but not necessarily to the point of fever. It’s too cold in here for that, but a lot of athletes run hot.
Peeling one of the boy’s eyes open – the one not surrounded by bruising – tells Clint he probably doesn’t have a concussion, but from the vibrant, almost inhuman green of the irises, Clint’s not sure his physiology is strictly the same as Clint’s. The boy’s face also contorts when Clint does, eye flicking around, trying to look at him, and Clint tries very hard not to dart back as he gently removes his hand. Eventually, the other eye falling slightly open, too, that bright green stare meets his in a slightly glazed, largely unfocused way, and Clint holds his breath.
“Listen,” hisses the boy, molding his lips around each word, like the injury to his mouth is more severe than Clint guessed, “when my family comes, tell them,” instead of anything like his name. He coughs, then, arm covering his mouth reflexively, even though Clint can see how much it strains, like someone ingrained those manners deep. The arm comes away flecked in blood. Lung injury. Or a throat injury, maybe, with the way the words strangle. His throat is bruised, not enough like hands that Clint registered it as a bad one, but bruised.
“Hey, kid,” says Clint, trying to keep his tone low and soothing, like he would with the local wildlife, but it’s kind of awkward when he’s bent over to hear, head ducked under the top bunk, so he crouches next to the bed. “My name’s Clint. What’s yours?” The burn in his thighs is testament to how much damage he’s doing to himself by being here, even aside from being beaten, but it’s comforting to keep low curled up like this. A return to the normal watchful position he takes, keeping people safe.
“When my family comes,” the boy says, more insistently, grabbing Clint’s shirt and dragging him forward, holding steady through the hitch in his breath, fist clenched tight and unyielding, also like Nat – she’d like this kid, Clint figures, and wonders if she’d have any insight into him – and grits it out like it's the last thing he’ll ever say. “You tell them Cobblepot did this to me. That he’s not as dead as he should be. You tell them he shoved me in a shipping container packed wall to wall and he had me downstairs in the pit for weeks. You tell them he’s taking kids as young as twelve, and most of them aren’t making it. He’s got cops making five figures as fight night security down here, and that’s how he’s hiding it all. Make sure they know.” He doesn’t quite go limp, at that, but he sets his arm down again.
“Your name kid,” Clint says, filing the whole rant away, in case he really does need it. It’s one thing for the kid to think he’s dying – he might be dying, for all Clint knows – when they all end up thinking that, after every fight, during every fight they miss, and maybe no one will ever call on Clint to remember any part of the speech. It’d be hell not to pass along a kid’s last words – maybe with a goodbye thrown in there, because even Clint has people he wants to say goodbye to – but all that information’s more important for Clint, probably. Shipping containers like so many sardines. They’d thought it was just in the city, so that’s where he got himself snatched, but if people are being shipped from all over – and the name, too. He needs that. Cobblepot.
“When my dad comes for me, tell him he was right,” the boy says, coughing into his shoulder again, then dropping his hand over his face like he’s struggling to get out all the words before it’s too late. Clint wants to hold his hand, maybe, if that would help at all, from a stranger. It hasn’t always, for Clint. “You tell my brother I’m sorry about what I said. And you tell my sister they only look innocent because they never think anything they do is wrong, and not to trust any of them for a second. She should trust her gut. Believe in herself. Give them hell.” He starts laughing when he says that, and the laughing leads to a coughing fit, and he end up curling in on himself so hard Clint has to catch him before he falls.
It’s hard to ease him back against his pillow. Usually, when you’re helping an injured party rest, they don’t fight you. Well, Clint shouldn’t say that. He’s never done anything but fight, and most of the people he knows best do the same, and why should he think anything else would happen with someone who reminds him so much of the worst of them? Someone who’s gotten this far through the ring in only the same time it took Clint, kept himself in the nicer tiers of cells at least since Clint has been here, won against an opponent who left him this bad off. “You’re not going to die, kid,” Clint says, and he can tell it’s not the most reassuring when he says it that uncertainly, but maybe the kid’s too far gone to hear the waver, anyway. It wouldn’t be the first time Clint made a promise he couldn’t keep.
His laughter turns sharp, just for a second, and subsides into something like giggling as he settles himself back on the bed, pulling the covers up just as far as they were tucked in before. He pats Clint’s cheek almost condescendingly, and closes his eyes. Clint watches his breathing even out, wanting with every fiber of his being to pull the sheet and blanket back to give the boy a full checkup, or at least triage what there’s supplies here to address, but also knowing there’s no trust and, depending, there might be even less for some grown man stripping off his covers. Almost as an afterthought, the boy adds, “Jason. My name’s – shit. No. Carter or something? Fuck, I forget. Just call me Jason. It doesn’t matter.”
Clint blinks at that. There’s all kinds of reasons for someone to be using a fake name, especially in the cage, but a teenager, especially with all the baggage he listed in his speech, well, Clint worries. Running away is often the best option, but it’s almost never a good one, and if he’s given up trying to keep his secrets to himself, maybe he is that bad off. “Hey. Can I look you over? I only know first aid, or at least, that’s all I’m going to be able to do here, but maybe I can help. At least with some of it.”
Jason laughs again. It doesn’t even sound hysterical, and that makes Clint worry more than if it had. “There’s nothing you’ll be able to do that I haven’t done already, but if it’ll make you feel better, sure. Knock yourself out, buddy.” He tugs the blanket to the side, folding it neatly, and then tucks the sheet neatly over it in turn, out of the way so Clint won’t have to move it every time he tries to turn Jason’s body. It’s covered in bruises.
It’s covered in bruises and fresh cuts, and it’s covered in older scars, probably back to childhood. There’s a Y-incision like his chest got cracked at some point, but there are too many of them, layered too deep, to all be from a car accident. Jason sleeps naked, like most of the fighters here do, which only makes sense just given the laundry situation, let alone how hot it gets down below. But it also makes it extremely easy for Clint to see the deep gouge carved across Jason’s hip and trailing down his thigh, clearly the reason he hasn’t even tried to sit up.
It makes Clint wonder how he’s managing to drag himself up to go. Which, in turn, makes Clint wonder if he’s even getting water, or how he would.
Clint gets up to fill a glass for him, and holds it to his lips, but Jason only manages a few sips before waving it away again. Clint sets it on the nearest thing to a bedside table, just in case. He doesn’t touch the leg injury. It’s clean enough that Clint wonders if someone gave the kid medical care, even though it isn’t bandaged. Maybe he’s a good enough fighter to be worth the investment. Jason makes a few mumbled complaints, or, really, he makes a few noises of distress as Clint looks him over, but there don’t seem to be any particularly bad injuries, other than the obvious, and a clearly injured ankle on the same side, where he wasn’t going to be using it, anyway. It’s either a bad sprain or a simple break, but it looks awful.
“Do you want me to bandage that?” Clint asks, wondering if they have anything to wrap the ankle, too. They might offering him something different, here, than they did in, as Jason called it, the pit downstairs. If he’s off it anyway, though, maybe better not to touch it more than Clint absolutely has to.
“Ran out,” Jason says, voice slurred like he’s pressed up against the limits of how long he can manage consciousness. He rolls over and reaches out for the blanket, stopping when he remembers Clint is trying to do some kind of medical care, and letting his arm fall. The turn makes the leg injury all the more obvious, livid bruising shading the underside of it. “If you want to ask them for more, be my guest.” The blood on the sheets isn’t as much as Clint expected, and he realizes the wound is stitched, albeit haphazardly. Some medical care after all. Still, they left him with some basic supplies when they escorted him here, and he carefully bandages Jason’s leg, trying not to press too firmly. Jason doesn’t complain.
There’s a bad bruise down his back that makes Clint wish they were out of here, not that he’s stopped wishing that so far. It’s nothing he can check out without actual hospital equipment, though, and so he leaves it, hoping Jason’s kidneys will stick with him long enough to get them both – all – out of here. He tucks the kid in, instead. Out already. Not a great sign.
Probably. Clint hopes he just hasn’t managed to sleep in days. Clint’s having enough trouble, and very little of it is down to the noise.
If this kid dies, right here in the cell with him, it’s going to be more of the same forever. Clint’s had people die on him, had kids die on him, had people die in his cell while he failed to sleep. He’s lost plenty of people he tried to help. It’s nothing special, and that’s the worst of it. Some kid dies sharing a room with you, Clint figures, you should remember them for more than a few months, but chances are he’ll lose Jason’s name before he loses the rest of the memory. That’s the hard part to fall asleep to, but Clint succeeds the way he always does, pulling off his clothes and folding them neatly so no one sees his scavenged supplies, washing his face and taking a deep drink of water, lying down and telling himself lights out.
Nightsticks ringing against metal bars is always better than an alarm clock. Clint wakes fast, but blinks slow, like he’s only just coming back to himself. One of the guards is shaking Jason to very little response. The boy’s paler than Clint saw him last, skin shinier with the reflections in his sweat, and he wants to pick up a cloth and scrub it off. Get the kid to a hospital, more like, but at least clean him up a little. More blood on his lips and, even though the bruising down his side wasn’t so much more than the rest of him, Clint knows someone hit him in the ribs just too hard sometime back.
He should say something. He should do something. Jason’s a worthless fighter if he can’t even wake up, and more than useless if he does just to give a crap show in the ring. He’s minutes away from seeing the kid dragged away in front of him to be put down like a lame horse, and somehow that’s so much worse than watching him die in his sleep, or walking back from the cage to an empty cell. But there’s everyone else in this whole place, too, and Clint shouldn’t be willing to abandon them for the chance at one kid, who may well already be past saving. Just remember his last words to somebody. Close his heart and only keep those words.
The guard shakes a little harder. He isn’t being particularly rough about it. He’s just trying to wake the kid, and when a couple of shakes don’t do it, and a slap to the face doesn’t do it, he spills Clint’s glass of water on the boy. Jason doesn’t so much as gasp.
The guards mumble to each other, and then just leave. Clint blinks after them. They’re not supposed to just leave, abandoning Clint with his heart hammering in his chest and all his contingency plans tossed out the window. It was one thing resigning himself to something he didn’t want to see. Now he’s reeling with all the possible reactions he could have, and he’s about to puke from the vertigo.
His first impulse was a good one, though, and he picks up one of the stringy, scratchy towels, and dabs at Jason’s face, patting the water away. The sink turns to hot more easily than Clint expected, and he warms up the cloth, dropping a little bit of soap on it. It’s not quite scrubbing, not with how careful he’s being, but Clint washes Jason’s face, then gets more water and rinses it clean. It’s time consuming, doing that everywhere he can see, but it gets his heartrate down again. Wiping down all the fever sweat – the fever’s as obvious a battle now as it was a threat before – is the only think Clint can think of.
He avoids the leg. Getting the dried blood off of it is a process for later, anyway.
Then he gets to later and, with nothing else left to do, starts working off the streaks of blood. The cloth is pink by the time he’s done, maybe permanently, and Clint finally sets it aside. There’s no point tucking the kid back in, not when he’s insensate anyway, since he needs the cool air at the very least. Probably there’s no point in much of it, if Jason can’t even tell he’s being carried. But Clint took the top bunk, the way he always does, watching from the highest vantage point even when it couldn’t possibly matter, and the other bottom bunk is open.
Which is good. He’s not sure he could heft a completely unconscious Jason into one of the top bunks. So Clint just folds the blanket onto his bunk, peels the sheets out of plastic to put them on the bed, and fluffs the pillow, all ready for Jason. Even just wiped down, he sticks to the sweaty sheets he’s been lying in, and Clint’s relieved to move him someplace clean. He strips down the damp and bloody sheets, anyway, folding them in a pile with the used cloth, hoping someone will come by for laundry, the way they do on some irregular schedule.
Except then he’s done all he can for Jason, unless Clint wants to sit, and whisper to him, and hold his hand. Which seems a little bit too close, for strangers.
He washes his hands and his face in the coldest water he can, like that will tell him anything to do. Probably best he just go back to sleep. It’s hard to catch sleep in this place, maybe, or else it’s just that Clint has too much trouble sleeping, anyway, and there’s so much to anticipate he’ll never catch it all.
And he doesn’t. He’s lying with his head hanging off the top bunk, wondering if he should dangle an arm down to pat Jason’s head, if he’d appreciate any of that, when the guards come back. Clint’s heart stops. They’re going to toss Jason anyway, but at least he had one last person to care, even if he didn’t notice it. Worth it. Always worth it.
Instead, they just turn their heads to Clint, and nod at him.
Clint’s like a schoolkid, pointing at himself like he doesn’t know who they’re looking for in here. He already knows they don’t want Jason anymore. Unless one of his cellmates is invisible as a matter of course, there’s no one else they even could be after.
“Yeah, you, get your ass down here,” the guard says, snorting, then rolls his eyes. The shrug he gives is halfway apologetic, and Clint once again wonders the kind of people they have in a place like this. Who chooses to dedicate their time to dragging sticks like that across the door? “Look, everyone else is… unavailable. I know you were just in a fight, but we need someone capable of putting up more resistance than anyone else can do at the moment. No one wants us to just drop in randoms from the entry pool. You injured?”
In a myth, Clint’s answer would be obvious, one way or another. It’s one of those points where he has two doors, and the audience would be shouting for him to take the right one, or the wrong one, but either way they’d know more than he does. He can say yeah, and ask for medical supplies to use on Jason, and then they can drag some other concussed shmuck out there to get beaten to death, and maybe the mission will go to plan. Or he can say no, and they take him out there, and he misses his rendezvous with Bucky.
Of course, it was never really a choice. “Sorry, but you’re conscious, at least, and that’s more than we can say of most of these poor assholes,” the guard says, not quite hauling him out of bed, but with an iron grip on his arm that Clint could only break if he wanted everything to go wrong much faster than it’s going to. “You understand. Look, I’d put my money on you, right? If you win we’ll give you extra rations, and you’ll like them, up here, I promise.”
Handlers are always touchy, because it’s the single point of contact between the mission and mission operations, so it has to be perfect. Bucky isn’t perfect any more than anyone else is, of course, but he hasn’t made a single misstep, and he was counting on that perfect record to get Clint out of this unscathed. He has a lot more riding on it, really. So it just makes sense that Clint’s the one who messed everything up. Bucky’s gone through every grueling step to manage to sneak in here just a handful of times, and Clint goes and screws it all to hell.
It might have made more sense to have Bucky in the cage. His arm is still way more recognizable than Clint’s face, though, and it would’ve raised questions they all have to assume the management doesn’t want raised. He’s always giving tips Clint doesn’t necessarily need, but it’s something to grab onto, for both of them, the idea that he can keep Clint safe from a distance, that if Clint just keeps all his instructions in mind everyone will get out of this intact. But Clint didn’t even think to warn them he was being moved, didn’t think it would happen this soon, and doesn’t have more than the standard grace for a checkin. And he’s already late. And if Bucky’s really inside this time, instead of just waiting by the phone, he’s already missing.
Down below, it was easy. The cleaning staff was always in and out, and some of the cooks, too, and it wasn’t hard to find someone to bribe. Bucky or Nat would drop some money at some agreed upon place out there, and the staffer would find it, and Clint would get his twice weekly phone call to some persona Bucky calls ‘Gordon’ and Clint knows very little else about. He’s not sure if the staff think they’re family, or lovers, or doing whatever the equivalent is of insider trading for an underground fight ring, but they leave him to a mostly private call in a mostly private linen closet, and it’s the only place on the entire level he can actually breathe.
They still have to talk in code. There’s a lot of codes, though, and they know what they mean, and Bucky doesn’t have to code it at all when he says how to survive the cages. He doesn’t have to hide his concern. Clint gets across as much as he can, which is always as much as he’s learned and never as much as they hoped, and fills up the rest of the time checking in on everyone else they know. He had a line on someone up here, someone who hasn’t quite been promoted yet, but he was hoping to bribe one of the guards. They’re affable enough, and according to Jason corrupt enough, to take him up on it.
Long concrete halls open up to an arena, at the other end, and they’re normally not quite this long, but Clint feels like he’s been walking for miles. They didn’t even bother to cuff him. They gave him the leathers they keep giving everyone, which are almost enough armor to count, and they fit too much like Clint’s uniform for comfort. He looks like a gladiator, which he guesses must be the point.
Bucky laughed his head off, first hearing that. This was early on, when they were still pretending that things here wouldn’t get that bad.
Anyone else would be better in the ring than he would, Clint thinks, the way he always thinks when the cheer of the crowd hits him, well before he can see their bloodthirsty faces. Nat would keep her head better; she can compartmentalize everything to hell and back. Bucky has so much experience at exactly that close quarters fighting. Steve’s got his reflexes and his stamina, and Tony’s always coming up with some insane plan, and Bruce would just have to let go. Even the up and coming heroes, as little as Clint knows their skills – but he’s the one in the ring, and he has to pick a weapon from the rack.
He considered a bow. They have them. They’re bad weapons in what’s so often a battle of attrition, because the management only grants a handful of arrows, and it might be recognizable enough to give him away through technique. There’s also not great places to shoot from – unless he wants to scrabble up to the corner of the fence and perch there, which would definitely give the audience a clue as to exactly who he is. It’s not really any of that stopping him, though. The bows they have on offer just suck.
So Clint goes with a staff. Every time. It’s become his signature weapon, pretty much, if anyone out there is keeping track of him, anyone more than whoever they have planted in the crowd to have his back, if they’ve managed to plant them there yet. He hopes so. He’d like some backup when Bucky comes in, guns blazing, ready to blast the hell out of everyone here, not figuring he’s in the ring again so soon. Maybe they can sneak off long enough to report.
Staves are fairly versatile weapons, for those with expertise in them, but all Clint needs is several ways to hit and a little bit of reach. They’re balanced well enough for his needs. It could be that all the weapons are shoddy work, no upkeep and cheaply replaced, and that an expert in staff work might be better off with a secondary weapon, too. He tries not to think about the logistics of all this more than he has to, or Clint finds himself thinking if I trafficked victims into a secret illegal bloodsport, I’d be so much better at it and then he hits harder than he means to while he tries to drive the thoughts away.
They’re not killing them, mostly. They’re not making them kill each other. Too many kill and too many die, and with terror for everyone’s life on the line, Clint understands why, but at least they don’t make him deal the deathblow to someone on their back, crying into the concrete, wishing for home. So it’s fine.
He wonders how many Jason’s killed in the ring. Given the injuries piling up, even before someone took out his leg, none of them went down easy and gave in to the tap out like Clint’s.
Distractions during a fight are deadly, that’s what everyone says. They’re deadly to everyone but Clint, it seems like, because he’s always inside his own head, trying to puzzle out how to get to Bucky, keeping an eye out for anyone who looks to someone who’s not acting like they’re in charge, wondering what to do about Jason. There’s still some chance they haven’t deployed yet, if he can send some emergency signal to the right place. There’s still an empty box someone might wander into. There’s still hope, while someone’s breathing, help will come.
Clint dodges with somewhat less than a dancer’s grace, because it’s calculated, every step. Choreography without cooperation on anyone else’s part. They like to use him to test out the new players, because he hesitates, takes the blows he needs to in order to make it seem like a fight, and does the least he can to bring them down. Clint’s good enough to be bumped up, of course, but he’s so gentle, he’s used to the gentle opponents, too scared to really give him a good fight, knocked over and pinned down, their skills assessed.
A shadow crosses all the way to Clint’s feet, and he realizes, with that exposition of every other enemy combatant they’ve chosen, this one wasn’t handpicked for him. He’s too big, too aggressive, exactly who landed that bloody trench on Jason, and Clint forgot what the audience wants this sport for. His opponent is slow, at least, as Clint avoids almost the same blows he ever would, but the man never opens himself up to an easy hit. Even when Clint does make contact, it’s like he shrugs it off. It’s better that Clint is distracted, at the moment, because his reflexes are saving him faster than his plans would.
The clack of staves is usually a comforting sound. That’s in training, of course, the rhythmic sound of stick against stick meaning they’re getting their workout in. Here, it’s just the coincidence of someone else picking the same weapon and hitting harder with it in an arena that, this late in the cycle, smells mostly of blood. Every smack shudders against Clint’s shoulders. He’s so grateful he knows how to plant himself against a heavier weight. His footwork is lighter, faster, an easy distraction for any other opponent who was willing to watch him move, try to second guess his footsteps, dart to block his path. This one just stays stock still, waiting like he’s luring Clint into a covered pit.
At the last, it isn’t his staff that ends it. Clint lands pinned, disproportionate force striping up his sides before the other guy knocks him over, then tosses his own staff in the direction he sent Clint’s spinning. He smirks before he wraps hands around Clint’s neck and it’s not hard to assume they’re the same hands that bruised Jason’s, even though they wouldn’t be, not this close together. Clint punches his throat. One strike, fist clenched in proper form, just to the right spot, and the opponent is fighting his own throat for breath, every attempt to suck in air squeezing his mucous membranes closer together.
They cheer for Clint, staggering to his feet as the other man falls, and he smiles in the overconfidence that felled his opponent when Clint was already down.
As they escort him back to his cell, narrating the highlights of the fight, Clint hopes that someone in there chose to let him breathe again.
The cell is cold, and dark, and almost empty.
Bucky’s going to be here any minute, it feels like, and Clint can barely bring himself to sleep, even though he’s sure by now he needs it. Time spools out before him, endless, and there’s so many missed nights Clint wants to cry. But he doesn’t want to lie down. He puts it off as long as possible, washing his face and neck and arms, fluffing his pillow and arranging his blankets, checking on Jason – who looks exactly like Clint left him. They were always on a clock, that’s the nature of a death sport, but now it’s like the timer on a bomb, and Clint’s not sure if it’s going to stop with a few seconds left. But sleep is precious here, and, like he’s done so many other times, he has to give in to it.
He wakes as soon as he does. It’s not, he’s pretty sure, judging from the light streaming in through the tiniest grate near the ceiling, so small he didn’t notice it before, but he’s awake and then he’s awake again, just as tired as he was falling asleep. There were no dreams, this way, at least. He hurts more, though, the muscle soreness stiffening his body enough to tug at deepening bruises, and it’s every effort to swing himself onto the floor.
Maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe he should just leave himself there, let himself drop like a puddle of goo, soaking into the gloom of the upper bunk until whatever happens happens. But there’s still Jason to see to, and Clint has a job to do. He’s doing very badly at his job right now, but he has one, and that’s always been enough to get him up before, most of the time. Everything protests as he limps towards the kid, but at least Jason’s eyes flutter open. Which means there’s still time. There’s still a little bit of time.
“Hey,” Clint says, quietly. He’s not close enough to touch the boy, but he can feel the heat radiating, and he’s not sure how much of that is his imagination. Looking him over, nothing seems obviously worse. Nothing seems better, either, and Jason’s soaked through, again, even if his eyes are, to the extent he can, looking at Clint.
“Time’sit?” Jason asks, blearily, then holds up his own hand in front of him, and sighs. Clint wonders whether he’s checking for concussion. Clint wonders if he could get a no and still be upset, and why he would. How much of that was learned here, checking himself over after every fight, and how much he had to learn in his life before.
“No idea,” Clint tells him, then gestures up to the tiny shaft of light, that for all he knows is the scraps of a fluorescent bulb up in some secret lab above them. It seems to be enough for Jason, though, who nods carefully. And then lies back down. Snuggles into his pillow, at least, like he’s rearranging himself, and Clint considers offering him a blanket, just in case it makes him feel better. The boy either has no problem falling asleep in any kind of condition, or is too fucked up to complain right now. Maybe both.
Definitely at least the second.
Clint makes up the other bottom bunk again, the one Jason was using the first time, and he’s gratified to note there are new sheets. The old ones have been taken away. Clint’s been happy about the laundry the whole time, with how many of them are letting him borrow their phones, but he’s especially thankful they did this little thing for Jason, just because they could. Little enough to be grateful for that he’ll take it.
He’s sitting, watching Jason, instead of moving him, fortunately, because the guards come back again. They don’t even open the cell this time, just gesture to him with vague, rude sounds, and then look at each other. Meaningfully. A wealth of unspoken words, like Clint has with Nat, coded gestures like he’s developing with Bucky.
“We should cut our losses,” one of the guards says, and the other just nods, not really agreeing, but not protesting, either, and the two stare at Jason for too long a moment.
“He’s just sleeping,” Clint says, annoyed, trying not to let any of his concern leak into his voice. It was hard, already, with Jason looking like that, and now with the guards talking about some handful of things he can’t decipher, Clint’s about to howl at the moon. “It was a tough fight, right? He’s still asleep.” He wonders if maybe the last opponent hit him in the head. Clint hasn’t checked himself for concussion, or if he did, he doesn’t remember what he found. He can’t defend Jason from where he is, and he’s trying anyway.
“Sure. Whatever. You look after him,” the guard says, amiably, crossing his arms and leaning against the grate they should offer him food through. Double rations, they said, if they weren’t lying. Clint doesn’t even know whether to believe they meant it. “I mean, look at him? We’re not having him fight like this, obviously.” It should seem so comforting to Clint, almost compassionate, but the guards walk down the hall, and the footsteps sound like the same timer on the same bomb. Clint takes a deep breath.
There was time to get to Bucky, before this. Or it felt like there was. Now, the worry might be that Bucky’s not getting here fast enough, that the cavalry won’t come in with horses rearing, that the mission’s a bust and Clint’s here having lost another kid to forces he should be able to battle, anyway. They have to get out. They have to get what they came here for, so this will never happen again, and then they have to get out. And Clint can’t just leave Jason here to the management’s tender mercies while he does what needs to be done. He may not be taken out back and shot, but he could still be thrown to the wolves, and that’s all on Clint’s head. Clint’s head is ringing with how much is piled on it by now.
No one wears them when they’re not being told to, but they have a sort of pajama set, here. It’s too warm downstairs for anyone to wander around in more than boxers, and up here – well, Clint can only see a handful of cells, but it’s too much like a bedroom for anyone to bother getting all the way dressed. The clothes are stark white and make them look like mental patients, but they’re clothes, and Clint dresses himself, then Jason. It’s a little bit of work to prop Jason up, but he cooperates better than most unconscious people would. Dressing someone in these things is easier than a lot of clothes. After that, it’s just picking the lock on the door, and heading out, hampered by the heavy weight stumbling along beside him.
A huge benefit to everyone wandering around mostly naked most of the time is that no one ever suspects they could be hiding something on their person. Clint’s managed to sharpen himself a lockpick set while everyone else was making shivs. He’s managed to swipe a few keycards, too. And since they told Clint to dress to bring him up here, probably because it was too awkward to walk someone around the halls in just his underpants, his pilfered treasures are all still tucked away, adhered to the outfit they haven’t bothered to replace. It was almost like being a kid again, hiding everything from all the other kids and The Man. As it turns out, those skills come back like riding a bike, if they ever left him.
Not that it’s so impressive to pick the lock on a cell. That one just swings open. It’s more for the doors they’ll encounter later, the ones with more than just keycards and codes. The codes will be an issue, but Clint’s always had good luck with that, and maybe it’ll hold. Maybe it doesn’t matter, with how much Jason’s dead weight is dragging him down, and Bucky will land here in a rescue chopper before he has to worry about it. Then they can all go through the files together, taking turns breaking through security.
Or maybe the tracker they stuck in him is a dud and they never fully triangulated any of the signals and the reason Bucky isn’t here yet is because they actually have no clue where Clint is. Maybe he’s trying to get a backup force, and no one believes the data they have so far, or they don’t think it’s robust enough. Maybe whoever Cobblepot is paid off everyone Clint knows and Bucky and Nat are hiding from them, trying to rescue Clint on their own. Maybe Clint’s fully alone and has to break out of here without any help from the outside.
None of that is probably true, but it’s always best to proceed as if it is. Next steps. And the next step is finding their security room and seeing what sorts of files they have there. Clues, at least. There are probably better places to go, but Clint’s been hitting brick walls getting any indication as to what or where they are, so no joy and the security room it’ll have to be. He hauls Jason out of the cell, and Jason does his best to actually walk, injured leg and all.
Heads turn towards them as they make their way to the end of the block. No one says anything. No one even gets up. Clint expects someone to beg him to help them out of here, or to threaten him with exposure, or maybe even to wish him good luck. But they all just watch somberly as he props Jason up, stumbling toward the other side of the hall, and even as he manages to swipe himself free and bring the kid with him they stay silent. Jason pats him on the arm and he’s not sure if that means anything.
The stairwell seems like a bad idea. A sea of concrete swirls below them, and Clint’s absolutely certain he’s about to let this kid drown, but there’s nothing else for it. He needs to go down two levels, and at least the door should be right there when they come out. It’s hard to avoid Jason’s bad leg when Clint boosts the kid onto his back, and Jason lets out a quietly aggrieved sound, but he wraps arms around Clint’s neck that seem almost steady, and Clint props him up by the knees instead of the thighs.
Two flights is an eternity on weeks of sleep and food deprivation, plus whatever injuries being tortured by stick left him with, even without a kid on his back.
“Where are we going?” Jason slurs, as Clint reaches out a keycard to open the door to the next hall. It’s not enough to push Clint over the edge, not really, but the kid really does sound like a kid, trapped at the last leg of a road trip and wanting to get outdoors already. Everything here was a bad idea, but like all bad ideas, Clint has to follow them through to the end.
“Security,” Clint says, quietly, steadying Jason on his back. “Now hush, or they’ll hear us,” and he hopes they haven’t already as he swipes the card and the light shines green. He pulls the door at the soft click. Hopefully they haven’t found Clint and Jason’s cell empty, already, hopefully they haven’t captured whoever Bucky sent in, hopefully this isn’t considered such a wash the government just bombs the whole place instead of sending rescue.
Clint hates himself for thinking it, but as he struggles to open the door, he wonders if he should’ve left Jason there to be slaughtered. Just to be sure he got it all in time.
The security door isn’t actually the first one, filled with mops and soap, falling to his lockpick in seconds, but it’s not hard to see, either, just a few rooms down. Protected by a keypad, of course. Clint props Jason against the wall, motioning for him to stay still and silent, and then stares at the numbers, willing some sort of epiphany to come to him. The keys all look shiny and new, and no one’s helpfully scrawled the code on the wall, and it’s not personal enough that anyone would’ve set it to a birthday, if he even knew whose birthday to guess.
“493452,” Jason says, quietly, still leaning against the wall, still with eyes closed and a pained look on his face. When Clint hesitates long enough for Jason to crack an eye and see the dubious expression, he adds, “they don’t change them as often as they should.”
He keys it in. The door clicks. And security is bad all around, because as it swings open, the people in the room turn slowly, interested in the visitor and not at all attempting to draw weapons or shut the door again. Clint doesn’t even have to decide between targets because they approach him one by one in confusion. Mostly he ends up kicking them in the head. They go down, and he doesn’t even care how hard they go down, because they’re disarmed faster than they’d have been able to arm themselves, and alarms are going to go off any minute now.
It’s honestly a surprise, even as he helps Jason inside, that they haven’t started hollering yet. It’s helpful, probably, unless someone is luring him into a trap. But for all the time and money poured into here, Jason’s right. The security is bullshit, through and through.
“What are you looking for?” Jason asks, curiosity bleeding through the difficulty he has at the words. He’s slumped into a chair without Clint even helping him into one, but he seems conscious, mostly, for the moment. He’s also swiveled himself into a terminal, like he’s about to input whatever Clint suggests. Clint wonders if the kid knows computers.
Monitors cover the whole wall, showing scenes that Clint would probably want to record, if there weren’t more pressing matters. Someone’s going to impound all of this, anyway, if they get out of here, and if they don’t no amount of procedure will help Clint regardless. “Blueprints,” he tells the kid, searching around one of the other computers, glancing at the desk to find anything helpful like a USB stick, “plans or bills. Inventories. Schedules. Anything that might help us catch up to who’s running things.”
“It’s a penguin,” Jason says, looking pale again, head flat against the table, keyboard and mouse pushed out of the way. “Told you that. And we have all of that stuff, anyway. Don’t need to worry about it. You’re fine.” Clint doesn’t have time to deal with a delirious teenager at the moment, so he just keeps rooting through files, picking up anything that looks interesting, downloading it on the convenient – branded, even – shitty plastic data storing salvation that he finds, hoping it’s not also a trap, set to detonate when they leave the grounds or something.
All that does, at least, tell him another room to go to.
Jason protests as Clint hauls him up again, but he tries his best to walk, and it’s better than fully carrying him, if slower. He keeps trying to change direction, and Clint has to turn him, spin him all the way around, even lift him up a few times, just enough to reorient himself. Eventually, Jason slaps at his chest, not nearly hard enough for Clint to feel the sting, and he worries. Jason manages to slur out, “the hell are you going. Civilians that way. They need our help, Clint. There’s kids in there.”
Clint could tell him that he’s in no condition to help anyone. The argument would probably go over his head, and Clint’s not sure he can hear right now, anyway. There’s a buzzing in Clint’s ears, only some of which is adrenaline, only some of which is feedback, and he heads towards an office that hopefully has, at the very least, a name on the door. Maybe there’s nothing but a desk and accessories inside, but even a favorite brand of pen is more information than nothing, and there’s nothing left to lose, no risk to being far away from the center of the action. Maybe even antipyretics.
The alarms finally start blaring, and it’s almost a relief. Clint doesn’t know if they found the cell abandoned, or security broken into, or someone in the pile of them woke up and reported whatever it is they think happened there. Outside chance it’s nothing related at all, and a fight broke out in the pit, or even someone managed to scale the ring the way Clint wanted to the first day, jumping over the fence and stabbing into the crowd. But at least he doesn’t have to keep flinching at every little noise, wondering if they’re about to start screaming.
Jason laughs. He doesn’t even cough as he does it. He just laughs his head off, tipping it back to rest against Clint’s shoulder, tears dripping from his eyes. It starts slow but it ramps up quick, until his whole body is shaking at Clint’s side, almost knocking the two of them over. Clint is worried Jason’s so far in the fever delirium his brain is fried, but that’s not anything he can help with. And a hospital’s already on the agenda, anyway.
“What’s so funny, kid?” Clint asks. He’s heard somewhere, he thinks, that keeping someone talking is good for a spike in fever. Probably it’s just because the only thing Clint’s ever been able to do, medically, was keep someone talking, keep them moving long enough to reach help. Not that he expects an answer out of the kid. Not one he can understand.
“My family’s here,” Jason says, sounding delighted, reaching up to pat Clint on the cheek and missing, patting his chest and shoulder instead. Clint doesn’t know in what world alarms sound like someone’s family, or if it’s a metaphor, if the kid’s family always rang alarm bells, so he thinks this is like them in some surreal sense. “You don’t have to worry. The family’s all here now,” Jason says, and starts chuckling to himself again.
Clint hurries to get to the office. Time to discovery is gone, time to capture is lower, but, given the sounds crying through his ears, time to rescue is soon, too, and he’d like something concrete to hand them. Clint reaches up to flip off his hearing aids.
It’s probably not the best idea, sticking around in a situation like this with no hearing, but he doubts there’d be anything to discern over the sound of alarms but ear pain anyway, so Clint sticks with it, all the way to the office, Jason intermittently trying to drag him back the way they came, to rescue people. Jason can fight, obviously, but Clint’s pretty sure he can’t fight in this condition, so to safety they go. Relative safety. Maybe. There’s a chair there that he can put Jason in, anyway, while he flips through actual paper files that don’t seem to say much of anything at all. He searches through drawers until he finds a beat up over the counter bottle, half full, not expired, and shakes two into his hand, offering them to Jason.
“Better not,” Jason signs, followed by a series of gestures too quick for Clint to tell anything but that they’re unfamiliar, that even if the boy slowed down he wouldn’t know them. Jason does slow down, then, looking frustrated, and gestures at his ears. The alarms stab through his head again, but Jason talks slowly, enunciating over the swelling in his face, to repeat, “better not. Help’s coming, and easier to land there naïve, especially if you’re planning to be unconscious.” Clint really wishes Jason said planning for and not planning to, but he turns the sound back down when Jason gestures again, offering him a thumbs up.
The lights are still giving him a migraine and the thrum through his body isn’t nothing, but at least Clint can work. At least he can look at all these pointless empty letters and numbers and try to make sense of them instead of wondering why this kid knows so many more signs than he does and why he has plans about medication and unconsciousness. Clint doesn’t even realize Jason was keeping watch until he feels a squeeze on his arm telling him to flip the volume up again; he thought the boy was just telling him that he was going to be okay, or they both were.
For a moment, Clint almost cheers, even through the sound. Almost cries. Almost runs to hug Bucky. Every tension coursing through his body washes away for the second between seeing rescue arrive and noticing that glazed look in his eye. Before noticing the person behind him. Nondescript clothing – not one of the guards’ uniforms, or the laundry, or the cooks, and nothing the audience would wear, but nothing that says anything in particular. Clint wouldn’t look twice out on the street. He’s grizzled, old or not as old as he looks, with a full beard obscuring that along with most of his features. It’s not so obvious he would’ve made the connection without the Russian accent the man uses to give Bucky his order, but not so impossible Clint even blinks.
The man gives orders in English, just to scare Clint, he’s pretty sure. Just to prove he’s the one in control. “Kill them.” That’s all he says. It’s all he has to say. Clint can hear lifetimes of history in that one command, and he watches Bucky’s eyes for the slightest flicker, waiting for him to come back to himself, waiting for Clint to countermand the order. They’ve worked out how to pass him from hand to hand, like his handlers would’ve, too difficult for one barked trigger phrase exactly so cases like this can’t be easily resolved, but doable. If he can get close enough for Bucky to hear. It’s just that every new trigger piling on puts Bucky deeper, and if he can break through on his own –
Jason lunges. Bucky’s not fighting at peak performance, holding back with whatever awareness has managed to cling, but he’s still the Winter Soldier, still a perfect assassin and nothing but. Clint’s work was all for nothing now, and Bucky’s not going to be able to stop himself from killing Clint, too, if he so much as twitches, so he just watches. Just has to watch as his friend kills the kid he’s been trying to rescue, barehanded and cruel.
Except that Bucky doesn’t get a single hit in, and the fight doesn’t last the way it should. Jason’s not supposed to be at peak performance, either, but he’s on alert like he’s been poised for combat the whole time, bright eyed and striking faster than a blink. He’s balletic, almost, the way Clint sometimes finds old performances influencing his own defensive technique, and Jason anticipates each strike, moving closer until they’re almost nose to nose, and somehow managing to flip him. Jason figures out how to, unarmed, in fever delirium, flip the Winter Soldier, get arms tight around his throat, and shush him to sleep, without getting a single mark on him.
Who the hell, Clint wonders, did they stick him in the ring with?
Jason walks up to the handler, snaps his neck, and promptly collapses.
Clint’s just been watching. It’s only a handful of minutes, of course, maybe not even a whole one, but he’s been here, standing and staring, letting someone raving through a horrible infection do all the dirty work.
And he did it all without hurting Bucky. The other guy, sure, he’s dead as fuck, and now Clint’s never going to get his answer as to what he was doing here, if this is all connected, unless they find some other agents left alive to beat the truth out of. But that’s still less surprising than Jason slamming forward, out of a stupor, to incapacitate two people, one of which was just as stunned frozen as Clint, sure, but the other – the other’s one of the best fighters out there. One of the best fighters their entire country has, even fighting with himself against it.
And he’s unconscious, and Jason’s unconscious, and Clint has to decide which one to check on first, and somehow that’s the hardest decision of the day. Bucky wins out by a hair, just because it gives Clint goosebumps to think that this kid he found can not only take Bucky out like that, but can take him down gentle when he’s in the middle of a kill. It’s almost reassuring to find the bruising there, mottling Bucky’s throat, but nothing is crushed; Bucky’s airway’s intact, and Jason set him down instead of dropping him. On the way to snapping someone’s neck.
Jason is a different story. He’s no worse off than he was, it’s just how he was got pretty bad, and Clint has no clue where this burst of energy came from when he’s clammy and cold even under his flush, shaking from the fever, now. He’s muttering something under his breath. Something about his family, which makes sense, but doesn’t help at all as Clint drags him over, setting him and Bucky both in recovery position, facing him where he can watch.
Moving them around and just leaving the dead guy there feels a little morbid, so Clint takes the time to drag him to the opposite wall, lay him flat, and at least close his eyes. There’s nothing to cover his face with. It’s really not that important in the scheme of things. Clint’s contemplating going back into the office for a manila folder when Bucky starts making the groggy sounds he always makes when coming to, a little hampered by the pain in his throat. No help for that, though.
Clint crouches down, looking him dead in the eye, and waits until Bucky’s fully conscious to snap out a dozen phrases, not all of them in Russian, and watch for the other man’s expression to shift – some kind of horror at attacking a kid, maybe. Or Clint. Not that he got very far. Sometimes he comes out of it when one of them tries to take over, and sometimes they have to talk him through a whole meditation routine, but at least he’s not acting on the orders of those same awful people again. The gaze doesn’t change as Bucky’s eyes come to focus on him, and Clint’s about to try the whole shebang again when Bucky groans.
“No, it’s fine, a nice little bit of strangulation knocked it out of me,” Bucky says, holding out his weak arm for Clint to help him up. He gets to his feet, brushes himself off, and stares at Jason, still lying there, now wheezing a little. “Not hypnotized anymore. It’s like it’s got less of a hold on me every time, which is good, I think, because he did tell me to kill you. And the kid. Who the fuck is the kid that he can do all that?”
“I don’t know. One of the champions in the ring,” Clint says, pulling Jason up. When it’s clear he’s not coming, Bucky scoops him up instead, cradling him like he’s a much smaller and younger child, and Clint realizes exactly how many of his muscles hurt, and how many have bruises stretched over them. “Jason. His name’s Jason. He’s got a fever.”
“I can tell,” Bucky says, not even bothering to make a sarcastic expression at Clint. Probably he looks too banged up for that. Maybe even Nat will give him some sympathy over all of this, if he can milk it past the rescue. Up to the rescue he’s actually just going to need the help. “Whoa, okay, we should probably get out of here soonish.”
Clint’s leaning against the wall, hands pressed to it, forehead resting against it almost incidentally, trying to catch his breath. He wasn’t even in the fight, and it’s not just residual panic, either. He lifts up his shirt, bruises like a zebra’s stripes mottling his skin, and, yeah, his last opponent in the cage took the time to cane him on both sides, but still. It doesn’t have to impact his breathing every time, does it? Clint could have one night off. Just because it’s been getting worse doesn’t mean it has to catch up with him when he’s so close to the finish line.
“I’m fine,” Clint says, and Bucky doesn’t even dignify that with a response.
They start walking, and it’s not towards the civilians. Clint feels like Jason, now, trying to turn them back, trying to head in the direction that they need to be, instead of heading off to some mysterious unknown in the distance. He should’ve been more sympathetic. None of it probably would’ve been that hard to explain. None of it’s probably hard to explain, now, to Clint, except Bucky doesn’t anyway.
“Report,” Clint says, not because it’s the right way to break the silence, but because it’s as much as he can get out without a coughing fit, and he doesn’t think that Bucky will trust he’s more fit for duty if he suddenly starts trying to hack up a lung.
“Oh, what, you’re my boss now?” Bucky says, in that joking tone with the slight edge that would probably be sharper if he’d actually hurt Jason, let alone Clint. It’s dull enough Bucky probably wasn’t under very long, but that’s still long enough for memories to surface, and it’s not Clint’s business to know which ones, so he stays quiet. Also because of his lungs. “There’s a huge number of unknowns in the building, possibly blowing it up. We should really do our best to leave while we still can.”
“Unknowns?” Clint asks, and he feels like there should be more to that question. He has a lot of followups, too, but he’s trying to sound like he’s mostly with it, like there’s enough oxygen getting to his brain from moment to moment, like he’s not about to collapse, too. At least there’s nothing wrong with his legs, not like where Jason’s bleeding through his pants enough that Bucky’s adjusted his grip. “Hostile?”
“Questionable. They’re evacuating civilians while we take who we can into custody, so we’re leaving them alone for now, but I don’t like the look of them,” Bucky says, tossing Jason over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes just so he can lend a little bit of balance to Clint, who tries to be grateful instead of annoyed. “Nat says she recognizes a couple of them, but then she got cagey about what she knows. In that weird tone she has, too, like they’re one of her childhood boogeymen. Assassin myths.”
“You were one of those, Bucky. You turned out real enough,” Clint says, without thinking, even though he has to pause between each word. Not that he’s exactly thrilled to meet people out of those nightmares, but if it turns out someone’s on their side? Maybe worth it. Probably worth it to see it in action, at least.
“They’ve got capes,” Bucky says, with a kind of derision Clint has no idea where he picked up. It’s not like his family got strangled to death by their own capes or anything. As far as Clint knows, they’ve never had anything to do with anything. “You think you look like an idiot in your costume, you should see these freaks.”
“I don’t think I look like an idiot in my costume,” Clint manages to wheeze, even if it takes leaning on Bucky a little more to do it. Even if it takes ignoring Bucky’s snort, like he’s so much cooler just for wearing motorcycle gear all the time. He doesn’t even have colors the way Clint does. The way he wishes he did now, just to feel a little more protected, even without the armor. Hawkeye can handle things that Clint can’t, just because he has to.
“Don’t you?” Nat asks. She’s been walking with them for a few minutes, apparently, and Clint’s only noticing as she’s taking more of his weight. He’s not even sure if she did the whole silent panther thing or he’s just too out of it to acknowledge a hello. “I may not be an expert in branding, but I would think you had at least a little shame left. No offense.”
Clint laughs, weakly, but it hurts his chest.
“They’re supposed to be in Gotham. No one ever sees them outside of Gotham. I didn’t even know they could leave,” Nat says, peeling back his eyelid to check for several different things, which Clint’s pretty sure he’s not suffering from at the moment, but is too tired to insist on his certainty about. “To be entirely honest, I wasn’t actually sure they were real. Every city claims to have their own superhero, but how many of them do you actually see?”
“I’ve seen a bunch of them,” Clint says, thinking of glimpses of color around the corners of alleys, all of which he’s insisted on, all of which Nat has questioned. She snorts at him, but he has to take that as capitulation, because she’s apparently seeing him proved right. “I thought the Bats of Gotham were a myth.”
“I literally just fucking said that, Clint,” Nat says, affectionately, as Clint wonders how she even recognized them. No one can describe them past dark shadows and terror, and conflicting reports about points on the ends of their masks. He wonders who has files, and if they were ever supposed to be files she had access to. If the pictures are clear enough for her to be absolutely sure. “Lucky we were already mobilizing, because when they smashed through the ceiling, every alarm in the world started going off, and we were worried you’d get caught in the crossfire. I mean, I’d still have come to extract you, but at least this way we’re getting through most of the arrests. If not the ringleader.”
“Cobblepot,” Clint says, the word somehow finding itself off the tip of his tongue. He wishes he had a first name to go with it. He wishes he had a picture, too, or could describe someone he’d seen, but all he has is Jason’s word to go on.
The thing is. Jason’s family? Possibly actually connected to the alarms.
“Oswald Cobblepot?” Nat says, in surprise, and maybe there was something to that asshole hypnotizing Bucky after all. Some older, deeper running connection than criminals rabbiting off to make their way into other branches of crime. She sucks at her lip, making a thinking noise. “He has some bizarre name he goes by. Emu? Shrike? Some kind of bird.”
“Some kind of bird like actually, or like me?” Clint asks. It’s like a joke, except it’s so annoying how many incorrect names people assign to him that he doesn’t actually have to risk hurting his lungs. And, anyway, it’s just making conversation to get him all the way out of the building, at this point, like medical help always is.
“Don’t know. Could be either,” Nat says, as they reach a landing, and Clint pauses a minute, almost pulling her over, to look at the carnage below them. A team as well coordinated as any he’s ever been on, with movements totally unfamiliar except, Clint’s pretty sure, for the minute and a half of Jason’s skills he has to compare to this. The difference being the entire lack of snapped necks, something reinforced by the sheer number of zip ties being passed around, not that he can really begrudge Jason a moment of extreme duress. “Yeah, they’re a lot more brutal with these than they were with the fighters, especially the kids. Chatter said there would be younger ones, but we haven’t seen any. Anyway, I thought Cobblepot mostly stuck to Gotham, too, so I guess maybe they followed him. Look over there.”
Clint follows her finger, seeing a long row of SHIELD agents trussed up way tighter than any of the patrons of the show. They’re lined up neatly, unharmed as far as he can tell, but when Nat laughs, he can tell the Bats of Gotham mean business. They’ll let people cooperate – the agents left seem to be struggling to cover them, or changing zip ties out for real cuffs – but get in their way? Nat was the right comparison the whole time. Yeah, better to leave all this in good hands, even when they’re not his own.
The Bats of Gotham must have come screaming in when Jason’s heartrate spiked, when the fever hit its high, when he passed out that last time. Something about the biometrics were worrying, probably because nothing about the biometrics wasn’t. The kid has a tracker in him, somewhere, and the readouts were something no one would’ve liked to see, least of all family – if he’s not a Bat himself, he’s related to at least one of them. Clint has no idea how many there are, total. Probably no one actually does.
Clint bumps into Nat from where he’s managed to trail behind her, nudging her forward into Bucky, who doesn’t rock at all, despite having a huge dude draped over his shoulder even though both his hands are in the air. Nat’s are, too. Clint follows suit, peeking around them to see an assortment of ambiguous foils, only one of whom looks like he might be important, simply because he’s not pointing a weapon like the rest of them are.
He doesn’t know why neither of them are attacking, but he has a sinking feeling that, if it’s not Jason, it’s Clint. He’s too much of a liability to risk combat, right now. Just because he can’t entirely breathe, and his arms don’t work super well, and he’s starting to find a little unreliable his ability to see.
Clint may also have been making impulsive or irrational decisions.
There’s a blur through the air. That one’s not his vision acting up, it’s just that fast, and he can see why the Bats are labeled shadows. The rest he could reconstruct, if he really thought about it, because combat’s usually this fast, and Clint’s had to give breakdowns of enough combat that he knows what he’s watching. Still, it’s a lone figure striking down a whole team, or some eclectic collection of villains on the same side, anyway, even the one without any weapons. It’s just that she doesn’t stop there, only pauses long enough that Clint’s pretty sure she is the right word, and then takes down the three of them.
Bucky’s not as impressive, after watching Jason, especially because he’s fighting one-armed and too furious someone would attack an unconscious kid to be playing at all the right angles. Nat’s a lot more impressive, because this Bat uses all three moves against her, and that’s all she has time to make.
Clint’s on his back, not sure if he fought back at all, trying to hold up hands that are just as zip tied as everyone else’s, saying, “wait!”
The Bat crouches over his chest, cocking her head. She’s analyzing something about him, but even her mouth is covered, and Clint can’t guess at the quirk of a smile or any anger she holds in her jaw. He keeps as still as possible, trying to project trustworthiness, trying his best not to seem like the threat that, at this stage, he clearly isn’t. At least she isn’t resting any weight on him. She crooks her hand, once, as if to tell him talking might stay his execution.
“You’re his sister, right? Jason’s?” Clint says, in a rush, still struggling to hold up his hands where they’re tied in front of him, except he’d bring them up directly into her butt. That’s not a good conversation starter even in a less tense scenario. “He had a message for her. His sister, I mean. He said to give you a message if he couldn’t.”
She stares at him for long minutes, and Clint could swear she hears the pounding of his heart. Almost certainly she can hear his wheezing, which at least the adrenaline is lessening, not that it’s going to be fun to come down from that. Maybe she can hear his neurons firing. There’s no way to know. Too many people have the power to see the parts of the body that should stay nicely hidden inside, and Clint never learned to control his involuntary functions, no matter what any of them says to her. All he can do is hope whatever his body is saying backs up his story. She sighs. “Tell me the message, numbnuts.”
Clint doesn’t laugh. The entire hall is clear of any sound but labored breathing, and a good thing, too, because myths of shadow and fear aren’t supposed to call him the same thing his teammates do on a daily basis. He struggles to remember, over that, what he meant. “Jason said to tell his sister – that’s you? Okay, he said to tell you that they only look innocent because they’re incapable of believing they’re guilty, which is probably true. People like the ones in there never think anything they do isn’t allowed. And he said, ah, trust your instincts and be proud of yourself. And kick their asses, but I think you have that handled.”
She shuffles to the side, crouching more casually, the way Clint does when he’s training instead of actually watching anyone. “I know that. He’s told me that before. How do you know that?” She seems to believe him, at least, which has him worried to relax in case she takes it as a sign that he’s lying, but they’re on the right track.
“Well, he was pretty out of it. He’s got a bad fever,” Clint says, not mentioning that he thought he was dying. If he did. Clint might’ve read the whole situation wrong, and if he didn’t, Jason might have a much better idea how close he is to dying than Clint assumed. Maybe the messages for his family meant more than he’d read into them. “He said, um. He said to tell his family Cobblepot’s in charge, packing people like sardines in shipping containers, gathering odds for weeks before putting them in ranked fights, and that some are as young as twelve. And that his dad was right and uh, he admits to his brother he was wrong, too?”
The Bat’s face contorts as he says it, under her mask, not in ways Clint can discern, but just enough to see movement. Her body language doesn’t change. Probably it’s about the kids in the ring, or her brother specifically – he’s propped up against the wall, not where Clint would’ve put him, but highly defensible, with as much tension off him as possible. She taps her ear – the actual one, not the strange little antenna on her head.
Probably there’s a lot of cross-chatter, with that many people on comms, no matter how disciplined they usually keep it, and Clint holds his breath while she waits for somewhere to cut in. Of course, at that point, he doesn’t like what he hears at all.
“Jason says sorry Red Robin for not believing in your secret murder blueprints,” she says, and, a moment later, in an offended tone of voice, “well, he did. And Batman was right about all the bombs moving through here. It’s Penguin, and the younger children aren’t going in the ring. The teenagers are. Yes, obviously I found him. I was always going to find him.”
“Cops on the take,” Clint breaks in, hoping she hears him. He wants to clutch his side, but that’s just about as difficult as trying to hold his arms up in feigned innocence was before, so instead he rolls as much off it as he can, fighting to keep his balance.
“The cops are always on the take,” the Bat tells him, patiently, before saying into the radio, “because I’m better than you at everything.” She stares at Clint, as if more information is forthcoming, and he has to ask himself if it is, even as shining yellow and red impose themselves over her matte black suit. Patiently, she helps him sit up. She even snaps the ties off his wrists. He rubs them, trying not to let his gaze flick to his friends. “It’s a tranquilizer. It’s safe,” she adds, as if that’s reassuring at all.
“Crooked cops working security,” Clint says, slowly, dragging the words out of the recesses of his mind, filed away as a kid’s last request but never fully processed when he thought Jason was just a kid, not like whatever family argument he was having. Another complaint about the hell he was going through. It seemed like he was guessing at pointing fingers, not giving Clint information he could use. “They’re paid on fight nights, so they keep everyone away.”
“Oh. I see,” the Bat says, and then, to Clint’s deep consternation, says into the radio nothing but, “cops on the take.”
She stands up, then, and Clint can tell there are people behind him, but he can’t manage to turn and look. It’s nicer to lie here, with his friend the floor hugging him so sweetly, and just wait for whatever it is that’s about to go wrong again. A winged figure lands in front of him, and he thinks he has it, except the conversation that follows is pretty calm, really, and then someone’s lifting Clint bodily into the air, and he can look behind him and see someone else with Nat, and Bucky, and Jason. A lot of people trail after them, and only some of them are his.
No one’s awake to see Clint fight off medical care, or at least not anyone he cares about, so just this once, he lets them have it. Sinks onto the stretcher and lets them poke him with needles. One of them has a painkiller in it, somewhere, because he’s fuzzy enough through the sudden hilarious lack of pain to watch them give Nat something, and Bucky, that probably isn’t that, but it takes him a long time to wonder. An antidote, maybe, given how they wake up swinging, and everyone has to duck.
The deep hum of the plane surrounding them is just as comforting to his friends as they catch it, and him, and Jason, who they pretend not to be surprised is deep in conversation with the Bats of Gotham, propped up with pillows and strings coming out of both his arms and even his legs. They aren’t strings, exactly, but Clint’s too far gone to care, and, anyway, all of them are going home, so it won’t matter soon, anyway.
The Bats keep staring at him. Most of them aren’t even facing his direction, but they keep looking. Clint debates between giving them a thumbs up or the finger.
Glaring aside, they can’t be too mad, overall, because they do wheel him up next to Jason, just so Clint can check on the kid. His color’s back to normal, or what Clint assumes is normal-ish, not sickly pale, not feverish red. Sweaty, sure, bleeding still, but none of that is Clint’s problem to fix, this time around, so he just watches the heart monitor slowing back to resting, hoping his own is doing the same. “Hey,” he says, just like he said before.
“Hey,” Jason says, a little raspy, but sounding mostly coherent for the state he’s in. He shifts, turning to face Clint, awkwardly, because he’s still trying to keep his hip from touching anything. The bandage there is sparkling white under his hospital gown, though, so Clint’s not as worried about it as he was. “I guess you were right. I’m not going to die this time.” Jason smiles big enough it catches Clint in its orbit, and the weight of a promise lifts.