Chapter 20
Back at the tower, Mikayla had refused to go back to medical or to her and Clint's floor. Instead, she was in Natasha's suite with Wanda and Nat. They had finally convinced her to take some pain pills for her headache. "The non-drowsy ones. I'm not going to sleep until we find Clint."
"Stubborn Bartons," Nat mumbled under her breath, though she understood the sentiment. The two women had at least talked her into lying on the couch. Mikayla was stretched out on the sofa, her head in Wanda's lap, her legs across Natasha with her feet dangling over the arm of the couch. Wanda kept her hands busy, trying to comfort Mikayla by carding her fingers through her hair and softly whispering what sounded like a Sokovian lullaby. Nat had pulled out her phone, letting the team know and asking them to provide any updates on the search. "No updates."
"Won't stop looking until I find him. He never stopped looking for me."
"We won't, either."
"I know what I went through, Nat, but he's much stronger than me. I have to believe he'll fight through it."
"Hold on to that thought, don't let go of it."
Mikayla nodded, trying to think of any way she could to help find Clint. After several minutes, she pushed herself off the couch and stood. "I've got to get to our suite." Mikayla rushed out of the room and towards the elevators. "Friday? Take me to our rooms, please." Once Mikayla got on the elevator and the doors closed, she leaned against the back wall and looked up at the ceiling as if it had any answers. The doors opened, and Mikayla hurried to the suite, Friday having already unlocked the door. "There they are," she said, grabbing her key ring from the table. She went to leave, but she suddenly felt a draft. Looking down, it finally hit her; she was still donned in only the two hospital gowns. "Geesh, way to be self-aware, Barton." Mikayla went straight to the bedroom closet and grabbed a dark blue sweater and a pair of jeans. After getting dressed, she slipped on a pair of shoes and put the keys in her pocket.
When she opened the door, Natasha was there leaning against the wall. "Something you'd like to share with the group?"
"Clint's laptop, the one he keeps at his apartment. He's been doing some searching, trying to track things down."
Natasha held out her hand. "I'll drive." When taking the stairs to the apartment, Natasha noticed Simone's kids on their stoop, practicing their trumpets. Simone waved at the two women. Natasha nodded in response, but Mikayla was too focused on getting to the apartment. As soon as the door was unlocked, Mikayla went directly to the floorboard, pried it up, pulled out Clint's old laptop, and then replaced the floorboard. She took the computer, sat at the kitchen table, and booted it up. "He told me he'd found some hinky things while looking for me but didn't know what to do with the info 'cause none of it made sense then." She opened a file and swung the laptop toward Natasha so she could see the screen.
Natasha scanned the information. "That has to be where they're taking them. They're going to use Barnes to train Clint."
"Or kill him if they can't wipe him." Mikayla looked up at Natasha, who'd been leaning on the table. "I'm not going to lose him, Nat. I can't."
"You won't." Natasha closed the laptop and picked it up. "We're going back to the tower. Time to let the team know we have a lead and a plan."
—
Clint woke up shivering, colder than he'd ever been. At least, he thought so. He couldn't remember a lot of his life at the moment. His head was pounding, and things were foggy. It made his head hurt more if he tried to think any harder. All he knew was he was cold, his head was about to explode, his feet were bound, and he was wearing underwear and sweatpants that weren't his. Oh, and he was in a cage. Hmm, that was new or felt like it was anyway. Why was his head buzzing? It was driving him crazy. "Think. What's the last thing I remember?" Even though it made the throbbing in his head almost unbearable, he tried to think. "I remember a forest, a shiny arm, falling, being stabbed in the neck." Clint also thought he remembered flashes of dark hair and brown eyes. "I know her name. What is it? Michael? Michelle? Mikayla, that's it, Mikayla. Focus on her." Clint closed his eyes and repeated her name over and over.
The flashes started turning into full-blown memories: crashing through a window, an exploding apartment, a farm. "Holy hell, that's my wife." He didn't know how much time he spent being assailed and overwhelmed by the number of memories slamming into his overworked brain. It could've been hours or days. Clint had to stop when he started getting nauseous, and his traitorous stomach decided to rebel. He dragged himself over to the drain in the center of the room and doubled over until his stomach emptied, leaving him with several moments of dry heaving and dizziness. Clint crawled back to prop himself up against the wall. He finally understood what had happened to him. "Fuckin' HYDRA." Now that he realized who had him, Clint felt he knew what he'd be up against, knew he'd be facing Rumlow for the last time. He'd determined that one of them would not be alive at the end of their confrontation. "Damn it. They got Barnes, too." That brought a slight smirk when he realized they didn't know the Wakandans had removed the trigger words. His next issue was getting out of this room and finding Bucky.
Clint looked up when he heard the cage door scraping open. He played into their hands by being sluggish, as if he was still under the influence of the drugs. "Still alive, good." Rumlow sneered. "Time for your next session." Rumlow stepped aside and motioned two men into the room. They picked up Clint as if he didn't weigh a thing and dragged him down the hall. Clint hung his head, hopefully making them believe he was still pliant and under their control. In fact, he was noting every step, every doorway, each entrance and exit he could see from his vantage point. When they reached the larger room, which doubled as a lab, the two goons tossed him into the chair and buckled him in. "Name?"
"Huh?"
"What is your name?"
Clint had to force himself not to scream, "Clinton Francis Barton, you asshole." He planned to stutter as if he couldn't remember, then hope they wouldn't wipe him again, thinking the treatments had done their job. Clint scrunched up his face to look like he was thinking, then shook his head. "Don't know."
Rumlow patted his cheek. "We'll have to come up with a name for you, then. Hmm, asset, specimen, and Winter Soldier are already taken." Rumlow stood and stared at Clint, tapping his finger against his pursed lips. "You know, I think we'll stick with Hawkeye, show what's left of SHIELD and the Avengers we're in charge of one of their own." Rumlow grabbed Clint's chin and squeezed it. "Say it."
"Hawk…eye," Clint repeated, hoping he sounded petulant enough.
"Good." Rumlow released Clint's chin and shoved his head away. "This should be the last round, then." He moved away, walked over to a table, and returned with a needle. "Now you can truly say goodbye to everything you ever knew, and when you wake up, you'll be a clean slate." It took all his training for Clint not to react and panic as Rumlow jabbed the needle in his neck, followed by Rollins putting the mouthguard in, forcing Clint to bite down on it, then Rollins stepped away. Clint took a deep breath as he knew what was coming next. Rumlow moved over to the control panel and pushed the button that moved the halo around Clint's head. Once it settled, the shocks started, and Clint couldn't help but tense up and scream.
_______
Natasha and Mikayla went to the conference room after returning to the tower. "Whaddya got?" Steve had reverted to his Brooklyn accent, which appeared when he was extremely tired or stressed. In this case, he was both. Two of his closest friends, hell, two of his brothers, were missing. Who cares what he sounded like?
"It's Mikayla's find." Natasha motioned to her. Mikayla grabbed the backs of the chairs as she walked to the front of the table.
"What's that? It's not a Stark Pad." Tony pointed to the beat-up laptop Mikayla had placed on the table.
"It's an old computer Clint kept from his early days in SHIELD," Mikayla explained. "It doesn't have any tracking software on it, so no tracing it." Tony started to comment, then shook his head, recognizing Clint's reasoning. 'Once a spy, always a spy,' he thought. "After I got kidnapped from the tower and HYDRA got me, Clint started researching old bases, or anywhere they might still have access to. He found this." Mikayla asked Friday to display the findings so everyone could see them.
"What are we looking at?" Thor asked.
"It's an old, decommissioned HYDRA base in Siberia. It should've been out of use from the records he'd found, but Clint found records of activity, mainly a large, unexplained power source."
"Why would HYDRA be powering a base in Siberia?" Tony asked.
Mikayla clicked on the next slide. "Because Bucky's not the only Winter Soldier."