The Winter guy
8 years ago
“Fucking Coulson” Clint mutters as he jumps down the fire escape. The grenade explodes behind him in a shower of glass, and clearly getting the attention of the locals on what used to be a former secret mission.
Now it looked more like a FUBAR mission. It had been 5 years since he saw the strange guy with the metal arm but hell, Coulson had said it was unlikely.
Unlikely my ass.
“Mendez?” Clint taps on his comm for good measure “Hill?”.
Ah busted. Hammer tech fucking sucked.
He takes off in direction of team Delta. If everything went to shit as usual, he just had to deliver the package to safety and get the hell out. Easy, right?
A crack of static fills his ears just as he is sprinting towards his team last position “hello?”
“Evacua-“ Mendez snaps before its cut off.
“Guys?” He asks concerned when nothing follows “guys?”
The line goes dead. Shit, time for a new plan.
Clint hesitates, people around him looks distrustful of his gear. Another explosion close to him makes everything descend in chaos.
Evacuations sucked. This entire fucking plan sucked since Rumlow roped them into it.
He got the information at least, all that trouble for a hard drive full of stolen Stark specs. What a damn mess, it only got worse when he spotted a glinting metal arm across the building.
So it was him after all.
“Oh fuck no” Maybe I just have the worst luck in the goddamn world Clint thinks as he avoids a spray of bullets behind a car. He retrieves his compact bow and sighs, this mission was supposed to be a milk run according to Rumlow. That cocky asshole.
Clint lets an explosive arrow fly at the position and he runs like hell, sweating through his shirt as the hot glare of the sun burns him.
The chaos outside somehow gets louder as he gets inside an empty office building. A silver blur right behind him. Shit, he had forgotten how fast the guy could be.
He was not even supposed to be on this mission in the first place but Good old Darren had died. God knows the guy ate too much weird shit, even for him. He just wishes he was home, Clint is man enough to admit he misses his goddamn cat. Macy probably doesn’t, she loves Nat more than him already.
Clint draws the string on his bow and readies. The soldier is somewhere close, it was only a matter of time before he got to him.
He wonders if he even remembers him after all this time.
The door behind him goes flying and Clint points. There, where a shadow’s supposed to be, a blur of black moves and Clint shoots. Once, twice.
The guy blocks them with his metal arm, glaring at him.
“Come on dude, you throwing me off my game” Clint draws three arrows and lets them fly. He gets the guy on the shoulder twice now, but that doesn’t slow him in the slightest, fuck it. Clint jumps over a chair, avoiding a knife to his face.
Hey good reflex.
“hey, I know I can be pretty annoying but thats taking it a little too far, don’t you think?”
He lands roughly on a desk hearing the scrap of the knife a second later, and immediately starts running toward the stairs.
“Stop” the voice sounds annoyed from that afar, muffled by the mask “and give me the file”
“and you will let me live? Sure, why no-” Clint ducks in time, the guy threw a fucking knife at him.
“Asshole!” He gives him the finger and keeps running towards the exit. He almost trips when a sudden pain erupts on his side.
A graze on his arm. Okay, honestly that's not bad but his pride stings a little.
He unclasp his vest and tries to blend in. The streets are filled with panicked people and Clint moves with them easily, his heart hammering on his chest because he lost sight of the guy. And shit, he lost sight of the guy once and now his comms are dead.
"nononono-oh wait" Clint does a double take. There. There’s a beat up car he could steal and forget about this fucked mission.
Clint moves seamlessly until he gets the car to start. “Oh thank fuck” he says putting his face on the wheel in relief.
He starts driving away to call Coulson when he feels a gun to his neck.
“I told you not to run” the voice says and Clint screams, a loud pitched sound that makes the guy flinch as the car swivels out of the lane.
“What the fuck?!” Clint yells, almost driving straight them into a truck.
“Pull over” the guy snarls at his face and Clint can see the beads of sweat on his face, the piercing blue of his eyes. He tells himself he doesn't find the guy's eyes pretty. Its hot as fuck outside and in the car unfortunately is not better, he's just hallucinating.
“Are you goddamn crazy?” Clint cries looking at the review mirror, his own scared eyes stare back at him. Really, his reckless driving doesn’t need any help.
“Pull over or I shoot” the guy repeats, pressing the gun on his neck harder.
Fuck.
“Uhm you seem-” the guy doesn’t look so good. And then Clint sees he still has- two of his goddamned arrows sticking out of his shoulder. Oh hell, that's why his eyes keep flickering around as if a daze.
“Pull over” the guy says again but its a drawl. The grip on the gun is almost lax now.
“Alright” Clint says sounding firm, relaxed and not at all panicking “see? I’m pulling over”
__
Clint doesn’t pull over, the guy is white as sheet. He recognizes blood loss when he sees it, and drives them towards a Hydra warehouse of all places.
The guy’s place apparently.
He locks the door behind him and hears the guy moving around “are you gonna kill me, man?”
The guy stares unblinking at him. Well.
“I have a cat to feed” Clint gets mad at it actually, he had done a- well enough job and now is going to get him killed.
“A cat?” guy asks quietly.
“Yeah, Macy. The cat you saw last time?” Clint tries “when you pointed a gun at my face?”
Unfortunately it makes the guy flinch, pulling the gun out of fucking somewhere. Clint had been sure he had taken the gun with him.
“I don’t know you, I don’t! ” the guy repeats frantic, his eyes wide open.
Shit. “To be fair you only saw me once” Clint says, his hands up where the guy can see them “I’m plenty forgettable”
“I don’t remember” the guy says with wide eyes, clearly hyperventilating and then he colapses on himself, the gun clattering to the ground.
“Huh” says Clint a little awkward when the guy doesn’t stir “are you alright?”
The guy is passed the fuck out.
“Just go Clint” he tells himself “just go” but he starts the car and sighs, he can’t leave the fucking guy to die.
“Man, I hate being the good guy” he tells no one in particular.
__
Clint tugs his arrows of the guy’s body with a sickening thud and then he stitches him up. God, this is worst than the time he had to play nurse for Nat, her arm heavily bleeding across the Hungarian pavement.
He checks his pulse, steady but he is burning a fever. Clint wonders if he’s even helping at this point, how many people survive a wound like this one? let alone two militar grade arrows on the shoulder.
“Hmmm-hm” the guy mutters pulling at his restrains, aka Clint’s hands trying not to let him bleed out. A desperate look makes his way into his eyes, when he can’t.
It’s like watching a rabid dog. Like hands trying to reach him, but being too slow.
“Hey” Clint says softly “can I get this out? So you can breath, you like breathing right? right” He gets the strange muzzle thing-mask he’s got on and god he stares.
And stares a little more because holy shit.
Holy shit “are you a model or something?” He babbles embarrassingly.
The guy blinks at him. Right.
“I’m functional” he says, sounding confused.
What the fuck does that mean, Clint wonders.
“For what? I mean-”
“The mission-“ the guy voice clicks “always the- the mission”
The guy is sweating a lot, does he have an infection? Clint puts a soup on the kitchen to heat.
He is gonna regret this, he is sure of it.
“Steve?” the guy asks out of nothing.
“No, It’s Clint” he is an idiot “I’m Clint, remember?” a fucking idiot.
“Clint” the guy says, his hair damp with sweat. “Are we dead?”
This definitely a mistake Clint thinks as his hand tightens on the spoon “No, we are alive”
That seems to make him sad “They don’t let me leave”
“What?”
But the guy gets lost again, maybe he is hallucinating “the tabby cat” he says, an almost dream like voice to him.
“Yeah, that’s Macy. The cat, remember?”
“Macy” the guy repeats and then smiles.
“What’s your name?” Clint asks, because apparently he really wants to know more about this guy. Who’s this Steve? Does he need help?
“I don’t have a name”
“Alias?”
“Ah” the guy says thinking it over “I’m Winter. They call me Winter”
“Are you gonna kill me if I let you out Winter”
“I don’t wanna kill anyone” and it sounds honest. But if it’s just work then why doesn’t he have a name.
Things don’t have a name Natasha voice reminds him.
There’s something wrong, something that doesn’t sit well with Clint.
“You didn’t seem to be there at all, before” he comments but Winter guy is fast asleep and therefore can’t answer.