The Third Meeting
“Something’s off.”
He knew he’d said it too much, that nobody could hear it anymore and that nobody really wanted his analysis of the Black Widow. They said he was sentimental, that it was because she was so young that he couldn’t see straight. And sure, the fact that she was young made it worse, but he’d have killed her in self-defense if she had given him a reason to. But this sarcastic, scarily skilled assassin wasn’t what she seemed, or not what people said she was, at least. Going through her missions again, Clint had noticed a pattern. Security personnel that was spared, people mysteriously not being at the fight scene because something had distracted them. It was all there, together with her cryptic remarks that just had to be placed correctly and made sense.
Maria agreed, grudgingly, but she saw things when they were there. Like him, it was the wounds that convinced her.
“If she’s as good as you say, she’d certainly not get beaten up that badly just like that. She must be dependent on someone and they make the rules.”
Clint nodded. “I wonder if we could convince her to come to the good side. I mean, I tried, but she thought I was lying. But we’d surely have something to offer and if it’s only not getting hit.”
“If you manage to get the Black Widow to work for us, you get a promotion,” she remarked with a grin.
And then, because she was awesome, she had convinced Fury to allow Clint to find the girl for a chat ‘the next time she’s in the US and you have nothing else to do’
That next time was now, in downtown New York, following a faint trail that didn’t really seem to follow a strategy, like she was strolling around without a goal in mind.
In this part of town, cameras were sparse, and Clint had to resort to the word of mouth.
“I’m looking for a red-haired girl,” he explained to whoever was walking by. “Around 18 years old.”
He got a lot of head-shaking, naturally, she wouldn’t want to be seen…
"Hey, you!" A hoarse, deep voice called out. Clint turned around to see a man with a dog sitting against a house wall. “Who are you looking for?”
Clint took a few steps closer.
“A red-haired girl. 18-ish. Maybe a bit younger.”
The man smiled.
“Thought the young one was up to no good. Climbed up the house like a monkey. Dead of night. Haven’t seen her leave.”
“When was that?” Clint asked, feeling excitement run through him.
“Three, four days ago. Seemed quite jittery, the girl, runaway I thought.”
And what if she were running from me? Clint asked, strangely angry. What if she were running from her abusive boyfriend and you just told him where to find her?
“Over there?” he asked, pointing at the house the man had shown him. The other one nodded. Clint murmured a half-hearted ‘thank you’.
The house was inconspicuous, all the windows were dark. It seemed uninhabited, whatever it was, certainly not a safehouse. What was she doing here?
He took his bow out of his backpack, the small, foldable one that was good for taking along. He was here to talk, of course, but he wouldn’t come unarmed.
Picking the lock was a matter of barely a minute, then he stood in the cool hallway of the derelict house. Faint sunbeams fell through the blind, dusty windows.
Bow drawn, Clint moved through the silent house quietly. The guy had said she had climbed up the facade, probably to the balcony. He wanted to try the upper story first, it was what he would have chosen as a hideout, too.
All of the doors were closed, maybe a security measure so she could hear them being opened. If she was still here. If it was her at all.
Grimacing, he knocked onto the door to the room with the balcony, immediately ducking away in case of a rain of bullets. Nothing.
“Hey kid,” he called out, loud enough for her to hear him if she was on this floor. “This is, uhm, well, I guess for you it’s still the bodyguard. I’m here to have a talk, nothing more.” He paused, but he hadn’t really expected a sound, no matter what. “I’ll open the door to this room now and it would be really neat if you wouldn’t shoot me. I’ll have my bow drawn in case you try, but I don’t want to shoot you.”
This had to be enough set-up. He was most definitely insane.
He pushed down the door handle and went into position. Carefully, he pushed against the door with his foot.
The room seemed empty, filled with dust and old furniture. You just waited for a ghost to show up or a corpse lying around somewhere.
Clint whistled.
“Behind the door? Smart choice. In that case, I’ll close the door behind me now.”
His heart was beating way too loudly, as he pushed the door shut slowly, bow ready.
She was sitting on the floor which brought him out of balance for a second, but this second showed him that she wasn’t any keener on attacking him than he was. She breathed out, lowering the gun.
“Couldn’t be sure it was really you.” Her voice sounded a bit hoarse, quiet, but not hostile.
He slung the bow over his shoulder, breathing out as well. Only then, he allowed himself to take a closer look at her.
He would have recognized her on the streets, her hair was as red as ever and the delicately chiseled structure of her face was familiar, too, even though it was looking harder today, the cheekbones casting dark shadows on her face. Much paler than he remembered, and he wasn’t sure if it was the make-up that she wasn’t wearing or her being unwell. Until now, he'd only seen her in fighting stance, strong, confident, standing her ground. But now, as she carelessly put down the gun on the old blanket and pulled up her knees, she didn’t look like an assassin, she looked tired and almost vulnerable.
“Are you here to kill me again?” Her voice was softer, too, missing the snarky tone.
Clint slung his bow over his shoulder.
“No,” he replied.
She sighed. “Pity.”
He frowned. “What does that mean?” he asked, genuinely surprised.
She shrugged.
“You went for my heart last time. You mightn’t make me suffer.”
“You’d still end up dead.”
“I’d rather have that than the thing that’s coming.”
He gestured at the floor. “May I?”
She scoffed. "Free country. Right? For you, it's probably free."
He sat down opposite her, cross-legged. She looked away.
“You don’t happen to have something to eat with you?”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“No, sorry. Why, you hungry?”
"I can't leave," she replied matter-of-factly as if that was perfectly logical. “And food ran out two days ago. I don’t have a penny left and I can’t steal anything from inside here, it’s a bit hard.”
Clint debated briefly if he should ask or rather keep the situation casual.
“Want to have this conversation in a restaurant?”
She sighed. “I would if I believed that a public place would stop them. I have to stay off the camera feed.”
Clint frowned, trying to piece things together. Them.
“You aren’t on a mission,” he realized in surprise.
She shook her head. “No.”
He searched her face for a reply. She did look thinner than last time, and apparently not only food was scarce, sleep also seemed to be a luxury she couldn’t afford.
“Are you on the run?” He couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice.
She made a sound, something that was meant to be a laugh but might have been easily mistaken for a sob. She was completely done, that much was obvious.
“Yeah, I’m on the run. I’m on the run from a place that you can’t escape. I’m insane, that might be the right word.”
Clint shifted his weight, smiling encouragingly.
“But that’s great, kid! It’s more than I hoped for, I hoped you’d be willing to leave, and you already escaped them…”
He stopped when she shook her head violently, pain written all over her face.
“I’ve not escaped them. They’ll find me and drag me back. There’s no way out of this. I was stupid to try.”
Clint shook his head.
“Come on, they’re not all-powerful. You can probably even fight them off if they find you. You don’t have to go back.”
She looked at him, and his chest hurt by how hopeless she looked. She really thought she didn’t have a chance. Naturally. Who knew what manipulative shit they had told her to make her stay for as long as she had.
“Will you tell me what happened?” he asked gently. “What made you leave?”
She shrugged, running her fingers through her beautiful copper curls. Battered knuckles, sore from boxing without wrapping her hands. He’d noticed that last time, too.
“We can find a solution,” he encouraged, and this time she laughed, sadly, hopelessly.
"No, we can't. I'll tell you anyway, it doesn't matter. None of it matters, if you tell the world, what do I care. I don't care about this reputation, I didn't want it, I don't want it. What do I care if everyone knows that I couldn't kill a child, that it didn't matter that it was the mission and missions have to be finished, that it wasn't even bending the eye-witness rule, I've done that a lot, I know I can take the punishment for that. This is different. Failing a mission is different, and not even because someone was stronger than me, just because I didn't want to. They'll break me because of this. They'll tear me apart and put the pieces back together until there's nothing left until I'm just a tool like they always wanted. They've let me develop for too long, my mind won't just let them in, and…" Her voice broke. "And it'll hurt even more the more I fight back."
Clint grimaced, noticing her fear, she didn’t try to hide anything and she wasn’t lying, this was too pure, too desperate to be a bluff, he was good at detecting bluffs and this was real fear, panic even.
“So I get this right?” he asked quietly, especially calmly. “They put you on a mission to murder a child? And you refused?”
She shrugged. "I ran. I felt strong enough at that moment, thought I could outrun them if only I didn't have to finish that mission. I can't kill children. I know people say I did, but that's the one rumor that isn't true. I killed innocent people, I'm a murderer, a monster, I'm not trying to make it look better, but I can't… Until now I could always arrange it, but this time there was no way out…" She had been talking quietly, frantically. Clint, quickly going through the records of her missions, wished that Hill was there, her knowledge on the case was more comprehensive than his, she'd remember if there was a dead child somewhere. But actually, he remembered one himself.
“What about South Africa?” he asked, challengingly. “The two kids who were killed in the hospital? After you murdered their parents?”
She shook her head.
“I injured them,” she replied quietly. “They came in inconveniently and I had to make it seem like I tried. But I didn’t kill them, they sent someone else after I failed. They couldn’t prove it, and they wanted me on another mission.”
Clint breathed in sharply.
“So that’s what you meant back then! I heard you say you had to make it convincing, make it look like you tried. That’s why you punched me so hard. You acted like you were careless and didn’t check properly. That’s the eye-witness rule, isn’t it? No eye-witnesses left alive to give you away?”
She shrugged. “I’ve been careless a lot lately. As long as I only do that, it’s more important I go on missions than have me punished properly. This time…” she broke off, fear flashing over her face.
He saw her bare arms on the blanket, thin, bruised towards the shoulders.
“They hurt you again before this,” he remarked softly.
“This’ll be nothing compared to what they’ll do this time,” she returned, looking at him again. Her green eyes were black in the dim light. “You think I’m weak, for letting them. You think I could fight them. You have no idea what they’re like.”
Clint shook his head, jaw tight. “You’re not weak, and I’m not blaming you for being hurt. I blame the culprit, not the victim.”
“I’m not a victim,” she returned, and he was shocked by the self-loathing in her voice. “I’m a monster for doing what they ask.”
Clint frowned. “I want to understand, if you feel like that, why have you played along for so long?”
Her eyes flashed, body tensing up. For a moment, he was scared she’d jump straight at his throat.
“Look at me!” she hissed, quietly but fiercely. “I went against them and look at me! Look at this, I’m trapped, like a damned rat! There’s no way out of this, nothing except you kill me or they find me! Yes, it’s pathetic, I was playing along because at least they were feeding me! Because at least I had someplace to go to, because I had rules to follow and could gain safety by following them! Because I’m not strong enough to escape them! Because I’m weak, don’t you understand that?”
She leaned back, back hitting the wall behind her quite roughly. A shiver ran through her small body as she wrapped her arms around herself.
Clint lifted up a hand and felt his heart sting as she flinched slightly.
“I’m sorry.” Barely air moving, but he had heard it.
“I wasn’t going to hit you, kid.” His voice was faltering. “I wanted to say ‘calm down’, that’s all. I won't hurt you unless you attack me, okay?"
She nodded, not really meaning it, and ran her fingers through her hair tiredly.
Clint cleared his throat.
“Listen, kid, I totally get that you're scared of them and as weird as it sounds, I understand why you can't fight them off, why you let them hurt you even though you’re probably stronger than them. I didn’t mean to come here and use this desperate situation, but it can’t be helped now. I’m here to offer you a choice, that choice being not to go back.”
She scoffed. “I thought you weren’t gonna kill me.”
Clint ignored the remark.
“I’m working for an organization as well, but I already told you they were different. You can come with me and work for them as I do. I swear, by everything I hold dear, that they won’t even try to make you kill a child.”
Her eyes met his, tired, hopeless.
“Is this your mission?” she asked wearily. “Saying anything to recruit me? Getting a new asset? For S.H.I.E.L.D?”
He hoped he hadn’t shown his surprise at her getting the organization right. He’d never told her that…
“You wore a uniform last time, you know?” she answered his unasked question. “I saw the logo. And the bow is unusual, S.H.I.E.L.D is known for being unorthodox.”
“This isn’t a mission,” he said softly. “I asked my boss if I could go find you and he allowed me to make this offer to you. I asked to recruit you. Would you ever try to recruit someone to the place you work in?”
A quick shake of the head, not even really ashamed. Her eyes met his again, deeply suspicious.
“Why?” The question sounded pressed, almost anxious.
“Why what?”
“Why would you care? Is this a humane way of stopping me, making me work for the other side? Why don’t you just kill me and move on? Why do you think I want to switch sides? Do you really think I’m worth the effort?”
Clint’s face grew serious.
“Yes. I think you’re worth the effort. Because you spare people and let them hurt you for it. Because you throw away your safety, your peace, to keep others alive. Because you’re good, and you could be better in the right environment. I want to recruit you because I see potential within you, human potential. And I’d hate to see them suppress it.”
She crossed her arms, leaning back against the wall with a small, pained groan. There had to be more wounds he couldn’t see.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped. “I’m not a child that needs pitying. If I wanted to, I could still totally kick your ass.”
He snorted. “I don’t doubt that, kid, don’t worry.”
“You are good at speeches,” she remarked, only a slight tone of mockery in her voice. “What if I say no?”
Clint realized all too well what she meant.
“Then you say no. I’d leave.”
“What if I want your help but don’t want to be useful?”
Clint didn’t look away.
“Then I guess you’d end up in Witness Protection Program or something. If you want to ask me for help, you’ll get it, it’s not attached to the job.”
She groaned, this time in frustration.
“This is just impossible!” she exclaimed. “This can’t be true, and it’s so maddening that I can’t tell! You’re such a damn good liar, S.H.I.E.L.D Agent.”
Clint raised an eyebrow.
“You think I can lie better than you? Thanks for the praise.”
“You have to!” she fired back, but it didn’t sound convinced. “There has to be a downside.”
“Kid, you are on the downside. It only goes up from where you are now, that’s not me making stuff up. And yes, S.H.I.E.L.D offers you a hand, and I guess that’s more than has ever been done for you. And honestly, imagine this was my mission, and my job was to lure you into a trap. Imagine it was your job to lure someone into a place as bad as yours. Whatever the price for failure would be, I think we both would rather pay it than have another person be pulled into it. I’m not lying. I genuinely want you to be better, not worse.”
She looked away.
“I don’t get you,” she murmured. “But I guess it doesn’t make a difference who is in control over me, and at least you get what you want.”
“We don’t want to control-“
“I can’t believe you,” she interrupted firmly. “I can’t, no matter how much I want it to be true. I have to reason myself into this, make it a worthwhile option even if you lie." She shrugged. "At the moment the main argument is that your people don't know me and that I'll be able to hide my weaknesses so they won't be used against me. That’s logical, right?”
“Perfectly.” Clint swallowed at the lump in his throat.
“So you’re coming with me?” he asked, trying to sound casual like he didn’t see the years of abuse shining through her desperately cold façade.
She shrugged. “I guess.”
Clint smiled, honestly happy. He 100% believed that she really wanted to make a change and she’d be so much better…
She sighed, lifting herself up. When the blanket fell down, Clint was shocked again. She seemed tinier and thinner every time they met.
“Let’s get you something to eat,” he said softly, hiding the anger he felt against them for treating her like that. “We can-“
Her hand shot up, interrupting him mid-sentence. Every muscle in her body tensed, eyes darting around nervously.
“You hear that?” Her voice trembled. Clint frowned. He’d heard nothing out of the ordinary but he went to the window, peaking out without showing himself.
“A car parked outside,” he informed her, unsure if that was what had scared her or not. “Black transporter, K-623a.”
Catching the look on her face, he knew all too well what that meant.
“No,” she whispered tonelessly. “Oh no, please…”
For the first time, he saw tears blurring her eyes. Her fists clenched, a violent shiver running through her body. Clint felt his stomach turn at her reaction.
“Them?” he asked unnecessarily.
A shaky breath, a small nod.
He offered her his hand. “Come on, let’s get moving before they get inside. We’ll outrun them alright.”
She shook her head, posture falling. “No, we won’t. I’m tired. I’d slow you down.”
“Then we stand and fight,” he returned with a shrug. “Don’t give up now, kid. We won’t let them take you back.”
She looked at him, blurry-eyed. “I’ll fight, don’t worry. It can’t get any worse anyway, might as well make them pay the highest possible price for me.”
She gestured at the door to the bathroom. “There’s a window in the back. I’ll follow you if I can.”
Clint took a second to understand.
“No, I won’t leave you alone, idiot. You have my bow." He winked but wasn't sure if she had understood the reference.
She shook her head. “Trust me, you they wouldn’t let live for a second.”
“Sometimes you are a bit arrogant, do you know that?”
“I didn’t say that I can keep them from killing me. They’ll leave me a chance, that’s all. Now go.”
“That’s insane!” he protested. “Why won’t you-“
“Because I don’t want your blood on my hands!” she returned fiercely. “You’ve offered me a lot today and I won’t repay you by pulling you into this suicide commando.”
Clint swayed for a moment but her eyes were so hard and serious that he was sure she would knock him out if that meant he would stay out of the fight.
“Here.” He threw her a small item. She caught it, looking down at a metal disk about the size of a thumbnail.
“Is that a tracker?” she asked.
Clint nodded. “It’s usually so my people have my coordinates, but if they were to overtake you, we could use this to track you. It should manage a wash, so if you hide it well enough…”
“And if they don’t undress me,” she added sarcastically, but quickly opened a small compartment in the sole of her shoe, slipping the tracker inside as deeply as possible. “I don’t think they’d look there. I think they’ll take me to Moscow, but if you know where their HQ is, you could take them down. They should never make another one like me.”
Clint nodded.
“That would be a benefit, but I’d come for you, kid. I’d come to find you and get you out of there.”
She scoffed but didn’t say he wouldn’t. She wanted to believe that he would.
“Go,” she urged. “Get out of here before they have the place surrounded.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me…”
“I’m not even sure if I can protect myself, I can’t concentrate if I have to watch you, too. What’s it worth if they kill you?”
“You really don’t want that price you paid for my life to be wasted, do you?” He asked it with a smile even though he didn’t think it was in the least funny, knowing that this girl had taken hits for him.
She smiled back, barely a twitch of her mouth.
“Get out of here, quick.”
Clint nodded, leaving for the bathroom next door.
“Show ‘em,” he said with a smile. “I’m gonna order lunch, don’t be late. Pizza place two blocks from here.”
She nodded, not even trying to fake a smile for him. If he were them, he’d be worried about his life, he had never seen someone fit the ‘cornered animal’ image better than she did right now. She was scared out of her mind and he didn’t even want to see how dangerous that made her.
He hated leaving her there to fight alone, and only managed to persuade himself that Laura wouldn’t want him to get killed by these maniacs which was true, but she would not have held him back or even tried to suggest that he should leave the girl to herself. She had always understood and agreed with his cause.
He contemplated staying closer to be able to intervene, but decided it would be better to wait at the checkpoint so he wouldn’t miss her. Who knew how quickly she could wrap this up.
“Hill?” he asked, finger on his comm. “How quickly and where could I get something that flies?”
Hill replied almost instantly.
“How big a bird would you like?”
“Doesn’t matter. Something I can fly myself.”
“Need back-up?”
“Wouldn’t hurt. Not for her, though, we have a third party involved.”
Hill sighed. “Okay, you’re in a bit of a bad spot for extraction right now, try to go South, I’ll send down a team but you’ll have to hold your ground for a bit longer, they’ll probably need 20 minutes or so.”
“Shit!” Clint replied. “Why so long?”
“This wasn’t supposed to be a real mission, Barton,” Hill replied indignantly. “You were supposed to have a chat, not get into a fight.”
“Sorry.” He knew she was right. He hadn’t wanted a team ready because it would have felt deceitful. How should he have known that they needed to fight a bunch of abusive fanatics today?
“Hill, I’ve got to keep an eye on the fight. Keep me updated.”
He’d reached the checkpoint and put on sunglasses. The girl had told him to stay out of the fight, but she hadn’t said he couldn’t watch. He’d left one of S.H.I.E.L.D’s small chameleon cameras by the bathroom door, blended perfectly into the old wood. A tiny, but very sharp picture appeared on his glasses and he found himself in the middle of the action.
There were a lot of them, more than he had thought would fit into the transporter. Now he at least understood what she had meant by “You they wouldn’t let live for a second.” Too many guns and the room would have provided no place to take cover. The red-haired girl, however, was in the middle of it all, and it honestly seemed like everyone regretted bringing their guns and only tried to keep them away from her. They have an order not to kill her. They want her alive; she’s too valuable to them. Apparently, they hadn't thought that their victim was aware of her advantage. Or they hadn’t thought that she’d use it so mercilessly. He saw two men drop, blood pooling around them.
Quickly, he checked the perimeter around him to make sure he wasn’t being pursued yet, but they seemed to be busy enough with her.
“C’mon kid,” he murmured.
Her small built couldn’t fool him anymore, he’d seen what she was capable of and was far from underestimating her again, but exactly because of that he was worried. He could tell she was fighting desperately, mercilessly even, but there were mistakes here and there, little faults that resulted in her taking hits. Of course, these people were much more skilled than the mercenaries they had fought last time, no question about it, but still, they would have been no match for her normally, not after how easily she had beaten him at their first encounter. He could tell she was tired and starved from here and that was worrying.
They came at her quickly, several at once, and sometimes he could see nothing of her apart from the red hair between the thugs. She was holding her ground -for now.
He watched for a while, holding his breath. She didn’t back down, but she didn’t gain an advantage either. How long would the adrenaline get her through this?
She needed a second to catch her breath but they wouldn’t let her and he saw her taking a real hit for the first time. Instinctively, his hand touched his ribs at the place she’d been hit. One of the men, a big, bulky one, used the moment wisely and closed his arms around her dainty body. She struggled against him but for the first time, she seemed to be in real danger.
Clint gulped a little at the man’s massive arms, enough to fit hers three times.
He threw her against the wall, making Clint flinch in her place. She lay on the ground for a few seconds, dazed, and they used the moment, closed in on her.
“No, kid, keep fighting,” he whispered helplessly, knowing there was nothing he could do. This was up to her.
From the way the wall of men was moving he could tell she was still fighting back, that she didn’t let them touch her. One of the men stumbled and fell and she rolled over, scrambling to her feet and running, towards the door, her face closer and closer to the camera. Clint knew he would never forget the horror in her eyes.
One of the men lifted up a chair, it slammed into the door right next to her, forcing her to dodge it. The camera cracked a little, but Clint could still see.
One of the bulkier ones lifted up a chair leg and Clint groaned as she failed to dodge the hit. He was glad he couldn’t hear the sound of pain she must have uttered. Blood ran over her forehead and he realized she would lose. She wasn’t out, not yet, but her fighting was less coordinated, clearly lacking the murderous strength she needed now. The man had both arms wrapped around her body, interlocked with each other, and another helped to choke her. She struggled, tried to bite, use the leverage in her favor, but the now three bulky men holding her down, using all their mass to restrain her…
She didn’t stop struggling, no matter how hopeless the situation was, but they were blocking her airways and he saw her efforts weakening until she fell limp in their grab.
“No,” he murmured tonelessly as he jumped up and ran back. He didn't know if he had enough arrows or enough skill for them, but no way he would let them take her just like that.
Faintly, on a lower opacity, he saw her being tied up and one of them roughly taking her over his shoulder. The strike unit left. They had what they wanted.
Clint swung up to a balcony, a parkour achievement that he would have normally celebrated as ‘did you see that?’ but now he just ran, crossing rooftops way too slowly for his liking.
It wasn't even because he was so attached to this girl, after all, they had met for the third time today, he barely knew her at all, it was the sheer force this shadowy organization used to make her go back against her will. Nobody, regardless of who they were, deserved to be so scared.
He switched off the camera because the room was empty now anyway and he hated his eyesight being impaired.
He jumped again, finally reaching the house, and sprinted towards the edge -only to see the doors of the truck being closed. No sign of her. He pulled back the string of his bow but the engine started and he knew he could only blow this truck up with her in it or he’d have to let them go. Slowly, he lowered his arm.
“Clint, where are you going?” Hill in his ear asked in surprise. “I said South, not North.”
“This isn’t me,” he panted, helplessly following the transporter with his eyes. “She has my tracker. Target is a black transporter, license plate number K-623a. Try to get them in a traffic control so we have time to catch up!”
“What the hell, Barton, can we get a little more info?”
“Yeah, she deserted from them, she was willing to come with me and they stormed the building and overtook her. And she probably saved my damn life again. Get this transporter, Hill!”
He started running again, trying to keep an eye on the truck for as long as he could. Coulson's voice appeared in his ear.
“Don’t follow, Clint, you can’t keep up with them anyway. Hill is alerting the police for the traffic control, we still have her signal.”
Clint hesitated for a second, then groaned and came to a halt.
“Dang it!” He panted. “Why did I listen to her? I could have helped her!”
“What happened?” Coulson asked calmly.
Clint groaned again. “She’s more than willing to get away from them, Coulson, she’s terrified by them. A minute longer and we would have been safely out of the building. She practically forced me to leave her alone to fight them.”
“You two are quite fond of each other, aren’t you?” Hill commented from behind.
Clint withstood the urge of snapping at her.
“I just witnessed a group of twenty or so people literally kidnapping a teenager,” he growled. “This isn’t fondness, it’s my sense of ‘this isn’t right’. I had someone tell me pretty much ‘I don’t care if S.H.I.E.L.D people hit me because that’s the bearable part of what these people do to me’, don’t tell me I shouldn’t feel a little bit protective of her now!”
He breathed through. “And about her, not wanting someone dead is a sign of a good heart much more than about a deeper feeling. And you have to consider how many people are probably nice to her on a daily basis.”
“Calm down,” Coulson mediated. “Let’s hope we can box her out of this, then we can all figure out our feelings about everything. Clint, where are you?”
“Back at the house. Someone pick me up?"
“Give us three minutes.”
Clint sighed and climbed back down onto the balcony, entering the now deserted house. They had left the corpses, six in total, all of them conveniently shot in the face so you couldn’t identify them. Not her work, she had aimed to kill, not to cover up. That’s what these people did with their own? Leave their corpses lying around to rot?
Quietly, he picked up the cracked camera from the door and restored it in his pocket. By the door, he saw a few drops of blood next to a wooden chair leg. Hers.
“We’ve lost the signal of the tracker,” he heard Hill’s voice, and his stomach cramped up a little. It could mean they’d found and destroyed it… and Moscow was a big place to search for a single person. But she had seemed pretty sure about the tracker not being found…
“Could the signal be suppressed, too?” he asked.
He almost saw Hill nod.
“Possible. If you need more than one hit to kill the signal completely, the tracker would usually send an SOS. But here the connection just broke out of nowhere. It might just be unable to reach us and we could get it back as soon as she’s back in the open.”
“Waiting for you, Clint,” Coulson informed and Clint decided that he had done enough parkour for today. He met Coulson and his car at the front door.
“At least the talk went well,” his superior said encouragingly. “We know that she wants to join us, that’s something. And if she’s really underage we can look at her record differently, too.”
“You mean we might make this into a rescue mission?” Clint asked.
Coulson shrugged. “We mightn’t call it that, but since this organization operated on our grounds, we have enough reason to launch an operation against them. I can’t promise anything, though.”
“Give the Security Council the word ‘incalculable threat’ and we get permission,” Clint groused and Coulson laughed a bit. Clint tapped his fingers on the dash nervously.
“We got the transporter,” Hill informed them softly via comm. “The police searched it completely, and she must be somewhere where we can’t pick up the tracker’s signal. A secret compartment, double floor, something, but they couldn’t hold them any longer without a warrant. We’ve lost her.”