Ice Filled Him

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Clint gunned the SHIELD motorcycle he had grabbed from the garage as he weaved around yet another SHIELD vehicle that the Captain had totaled. That made the eighth vehicle that he had seen that the Captain has taken out of commission and he grimaced guiltily as he sped by and saw the agents leaning or sitting beside the vehicle waiting for medical. A big part of him wanted to stop and help but he knew that it was more important that he complete his mission. As he cleared the wreck he glanced to his right as Natasha pulled up beside him and saw her worry in the slight stiffness around her eyes that anyone not very well acquainted with her would miss. He quirked an eyebrow at her and she responded with a series of finger signals that they had come up with so they could communicate more easily on covert ops when silence was a must or when distance made communication impossible.

'Watch your sixth. Bad feeling. This guy is better than intel suggested,' she signs quickly, a grim set to her mouth. Clint understands perfectly how she feels. No one in their field ever liked to walk into a situation lacking vital intel but against a man that had literally been referred to as a 'one man army' their lack of intel could be fatal to themselves or others.

'Plan,' he signs back as he races down the deserted streets. He is relieved that they had been able to get civilians off the streets, at least.

'Let me engage in close combat. Stay behind and snipe from cover,' she signed fast. He grinned wildly back at her before signing back 'My favorite plan.'

She smirked back slightly before they focused into the comms as one of the techs sent an all call message that Captain America had just been spotted near Carnegie Hall and without a word they raced forward.

"Barton and Romanof moving to intercept. Two blocks away. Anyone around to intercept and stall him," Clint called over the comms as they ducked through side alleys and ran through red lights without slowing.

"We are intercepting him now, Agent Barton," a voice called over the speakers and Clint heard the wom, wom of a copter before he say the slick, black shape descend from the sky to where the Captain presumably was.

Seconds later he heard a voice through the speakers and dimly over a microphone say "Captain, please put your hands up and...aww."

The voice cut off in a shriek and a second later he heard another voice yell loudly from up ahead and curse word before the sounds of the copter hitting the ground reached them followed by several tremors that rocked the buildings around them. Moments later they raced onto W 56th Street and were able to see the copter embedded in a building as the blades shrieked against concrete as the motor still turned. As they watched the motor finally blew sending sparks flying and with a wrenching of metal the destroyed copter started to peel free from the building in slow motion before with a wrenching sound it crashed the last ten feet to the ground.

Clint spotted the two agents from the copter several meters away and noted with a hint of relief that both were still alive though one was clutching a badly broken leg while the other seemed to have wrenched his arm out of socket. The two men spotted them and both waved them toward an alley further down the street.

"He ducked down that alley just a moment ago," the man holding his arm shouted to them as they approached. As they zipped by the man clutching his leg gasped over the comm "Be careful the intel way underestimates him. He jumped at least twenty feet up to grab the copter's skids and swing in. He had us both down in seconds and crashed the copter soon after."

Clint grimaced and saw the set of Natasha's mouth tightened. This situation was escalating fast and the only reason they had not had agents killed yet was that the Captain had seemed to be actively trying not to kill anyone, for whatever reason. Clint hoped that a small part of the man might still be questioning whether they were Hydra and that they could use that part to reason the man down without hurting him. He really did not want to see Phil's expression if they were forced to shoot his childhood hero, plus the press would eviscerate them once they found out that Captain America had been hurt by SHIELD. He had no doubt that this would eventually make it onto the news. The fight had been over too large of an area and while they had been keeping civilians off the streets he had seen more than one cell phone peeking out of windows as they rode by. It would be impossible to keep that many people quiet, no matter how hard SHIELD might try. He could already hear the PR department stewing and they tried to figure out how to spin this giant cluster fuck.

They zipped down the alley out onto W 57th street just as Captain America turned toward them from the opposite side of the street. Without a word they both brought their bikes around and to a stop as they eyed the Captain wearily. Clint climbed off his bike so that he could use it as a shield if necessary while pulling out and stringing his bow. Natasha remained straddling her bike in a way that Clint knew allowed her to start the bike quickly, use the bike as a shield, or use the bike as a launching pad.

Clint assessed the situation quickly, taking in the parked cars along the street, the lack of bystanders, and that only the car right behind the Captain was close enough to the man to provide cover if it came to a fight.

"I am really starting to get annoyed with this little game of hide-and-seek you and your friends have been playing with me," the Captain growled in a low voice that fairly screamed alpha. The voice clawed at a primitive part of him that screamed at him to submit but he just gritted his teeth and stared back at the Captain without flinching. The Captain was not the first pissed off alpha that he or Natasha had faced off against but Clint had to admit that he had the best alpha voice that he had ever heard. While betas and omegas could be leaders just as well or better than alphas an alphas voice gave them a certain edge as the subsonic edge they could inject it with called to the hind brain of a person and all put demanded respect and from that respect obedience.

Natasha held up her hands in a soothing gesture "I can assure you Captain we would like nothing more than for this to be over and I think if you will let us explain you will realize that an error has been made."

The Captain kept his eyes on her despite the fact that Clint was the one with the obvious weapon and Clint wondered if the man were dismissing him because he had a bow or because he was a beta. Neither scenario fit with the facts he knew about the man and he knew far more about Captain America than most just due to living with Phil. Phil had sworn the Captain was one of the most brilliant tacticians of this century and Clint had a hard time imagining that such a man would ignore an unknown quantity in battle and Clint was sure that the Captain did view this as a battle. Clint scrutinized the Captain taking in his expression and body language but for the life of him he could not figure out what the Captain was thinking or planning. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Natasha to see if she had a read on the man but while her body language and expression were seemingly open he could see by the slight tension of her neck that she had not yet gotten the feel of the man.

Clint's complete attention was drawn back to the Captain as the man seemed to sag slightly backwards onto the car behind him. The tension seemed to lessen around the man as he brought a hand up to rub tiredly at his eyes.

"And what would you like to talk about, Doll. Maybe how the last time I was outside the Hall most of these buildings weren't here or maybe about how the whole of New York has changed seemingly over night," the man asked them weariness in his every word and Clint had to keep himself from flinching in surprise and sympathy. None of them had thought the Captain would have noticed so much in his wild run through the city. For a moment, he saw that even Natasha had broken composure, only a slight tightening of the muscles around her eyes but in anyone else that would have been an exclamation of surprise. The moment passed quickly as Natasha allowed her body to smoothly shift into lines of sympathy, compassion, and understanding and Clint felt a little bit in awe of her level of perception. He was no slouch when it came to reading a situation and blending into that situation but Natasha took the art of espionage to a whole new level.

Clint watched as the Captain slumped further against the car staring sadly at Natasha before he asked softly a hitch to his voice "How long has it been?"

"Almost seventy years, Captain. The year is two thousand and thirteen," Natasha told him sympathetically a soft look on her face.

Clint wished she had broken it to the man a little easier as he slumped down to the ground staring straight ahead with a vacant, broken gaze.

"Captain," Natasha asked and Clint detected a real note of concern in her voice this time.

"Sorry, Doll, that was just a little bit more time than I thought," the man answered looking back up at them with a slight bitter twist of his lips.

"Captain, I understand you are distressed but if you let us we can help. SHIELD has people who can get you acclimated to this century, help you adjust and start a new life," Natasha told him quietly as she quietly slid off her bike and walked toward him. She crouched down several yards away from him and held out her hand allowing the final call to be his whether to take their help or not. Clint watched the scene for a minute as the Captain seemed to mull over her offer his head down and face obscured from his view. Natasha stiffening in his peripheral vision had him turning some of his attention to her but moments later his full attention was drawn back to the Captain as he heard the groaning of metal and saw a large blur coming toward them fast.

"Natasha," he yelled as he dodged to the left of the object which he realized belatedly was the car the Captain had been leaning against. He cursed mentally as he realized that the bastard had drawn them in and waited until they both had lowered their guard to attack. Gritting his teeth he brought his bow up as he twisted away from the car. He fixed his mental landscape in his head even as he dodged the car and was already releasing his shot as the car sailed by him and he was falling to the pavement. The glint of metal heading toward him had him reacting instinctively and without a thought he used his bow to block the first knife headed for him and deflect the second so that it buried in his leg instead of in his gut but he missed the third knife completely as it embedded into his left shoulder. He screamed as he smacked into the pavement and the car finished sailing by narrowly missing taking out his right leg as it skidded across the pavement.

Clenching his lip between his teeth hard enough to draw blood he forced himself to take in the situation around him. As he blinked back tears of pain the Captain flicked two more knives at Natasha before racing through a nearby alley and disappearing in shadow. Natasha dodged the knives but hesitated as she caught sight of him lying on the ground in a swiftly spreading puddle of his own blood.

'Go, I got this," Clint gritted out, hoping that was true but knowing she had to intercept the Captain before he reached Central Park and they lost him for good. She still looked worried but nodded regardless and raced after the disappearing figure.

Carefully, he dragged himself up into a sitting position and looked over his injuries. The knife in his leg had hit the bone but thankfully had not hit any major blood vessels but the knife still in shoulder had definitely hit at least one artery. As he watched bright red blood spurted sluggishly from around the knife then the blood flow slowed for a moment before surging once more.

'Flowing out with the beat of my heart,' he realized as he dug into a side pocket of his pants pocket looking for the small field kit he kept on him at all times. The process was made more awkward by the fact that his left hand refused to move so he had to use his right hand to root around in his left pocket. Finally he sighed in relief as he pulled the small field kit from his pocket and flipped it open with a flick of his thumb. He used the bonding agent inside to seal the area around the knife in order to slow the blood flow.

"Clint," Phil's worried voice sounded over the comms and Clint realized dazedly that he must have called for him several times as the tone of his voice was tight and worried.

"Yeah," Clint slurred then swallowing he dug the heel of his hand into the pavement to fight off the shock he could feel threatening to engulf him "I'm hear. Going to need a medic."

"One is on the way. What happened," Phil demanded loudly the worry plain in his voice making Clint wince. It was rare for Phil to fall out of the role of perfect lead agent while on the job and Clint knew he had only allowed himself to slip so far because of his worry for Clint.

"We thought we were getting through to him but he waited until we were distracted and threw a car at us," Clint snarled his voice rising in slight outrage at the fact that the alpha had actually thrown a car at them.

"It wasn't even a nice car," Clint muttered in a slurred voice as he continued to apply pressure to his shoulder wound. A beat of silence is his answer from over the radio before Phil's voice comes through his comm calm and all business again.

"Barton, how badly are you hurt?"

"Knife to the leg and one to the left shoulder. Captain must have picked up some steak knives from some of the tables in the outdoor restaurants he passed. Lifted knives from at least two different places judging by the designs on the knives," Clint forced himself to stop babbling as he gritted his teeth and took a deep breath "Think I am going into shock a bit. The knife to the shoulder hit an artery and I lost a lot of blood before I got the wound sealed. Still bleeding but it is minimal now."

"Natasha went after him," he added unsure if he or Natasha had told Phil that.

"Natasha, informed me that she was going after the Captain when she reported your injuries. The medics are five minutes away from you," a click sounds as Phil turns his comm to a wider broadcast making Clint grateful that his babbling and Phil's worry had not been on view for all of SHIELD.

"Agent Romanov, what is your position and do you have the Captain in view," Phil asked over the comms. Silence greeted them for several seconds, long enough that Clint could hear Phil taking a breath to repeat himself when a male voice came over the comms.

"So Romanov is the dame's name, umm," the male voice asked calmly and Clint felt suddenly more alert as a spike of adrenalin coursed through him. The voice, with its Brooklyn drawl, was unmistakably Captain America's which meant that he had taken down Natasha.

"Son of a bitch," Clint cursed loudly then froze as he realized that his outburst might just have signed Natasha's death sentence if she was not dead already. It was never good to anger a man that might have a hostage.

"I'll have you know that my Ma was a saint and she made the best apple pies this side of the Atlantic," the Captain's voice sounded over the comms and Clint breathed a silent sigh of relief at the amusement in that voice.

"Captain, I am Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD. We are a branch of the US government that," Phil started but was cut off by the Captain's snort of amusement.

"I take it back you guys can't be HYDRA. Even HYDRA didn't repeat themselves this much," the man said in amused derision.

"Every one of you goons is constantly going on about SHIELD, which I am sure stands for something very long and very impressive," the sarcasm in his voice was so thick that Clint was pretty sure it might be tangible. Of course the tangible sarcasm might just have been random starbursts in his vision from blood lose, he wasn't totally sure at that point "but at the moment I could care less what your super, secret spy organization is all about."

"And how do you know that we are a secret spy organization, Captain," Phil asked after a stunned silence.

"Please, I wasn't dropped off the boat yesterday. You don't train people like this dame or Robin Hood back there to go on army raids. Plus you were able to lock down at least a section of New York; that takes power and influence. The regular forces might have the clot but not even in a hundred years would they be as organized as this, not with all the politicking that goes on," the Captain replied with a snort but then his voice turned serious as he said "But I don't give a damn about that at the moment. What I do care about is the people you have chasing me. I've been being gentle so far but if you don't call them off I will have no choice but to eliminate every person you put in front of me."

"Captain, we don't intend any harm. We just want to help you," Phil said over the comm sincerity in his voice. Clint could well imagine that Phil truly just wanted to help his hero but he wondered if that was what the higher ups wanted. Fury was a good guy but totally focused on the mission which could make him forget about the individuals that his actions could affect and the World Security Council were out for themselves first and foremost. As if sensing his thoughts the Captain snorted before telling them "I think you might actually mean that but that is not what everyone at your organization wants."

"Captain," Phil started but the Captain interruptted him with a growl "I know about the blood samples that the team took from me before I woke up and that you are attempting to copy the serum."

There was a stunned silence on the comms and Clint winced as he realized what that conversation was going to do for moral.

"Captain, I wasn't aware of this," Phil said after a few seconds of silence then added "but we can settle that. Have the samples destroyed and help you..."

The Captain's bitter laugh cut him off until finally he spit out in a voice of such bitter, fury that it made Clint flinch "If you wanted to help me then you should have left me in that ice to rot."

Silence once again reined over the comms and that was the reason Clint heard the Captain's nearly broken voice whisper "At least then I could of dreamed of him instead of waking up in a world without him."

Clint was completely confused by that but before he could give it any more thought the Captain spoke angrily "Agent Coulson, if you value your men at all you will call off this hunt. If I find anymore of your people coming for me I will dump their bodies at your feet."

"Captain," Phil called but was once more cut off as a crunching noise came over the comms followed by a burst of static.

"Agent Coulson, we have lost the signal from Agent Romanov's comm," a female voice called over the comms her voice wavering only slightly.

"What was the last known position for the comm," Phil asked briskly.

"Two blocks east of Carnegie Hall, sir. I will send the exact coordinates to your phone," the agent said quickly.

"I want a medic team and two strike teams to head to Carnegie Hall. You are not to approach the Captain's last known position until all teams are at the hall and can move out together. If Captain America is still in the area retreat from the area immediately and we will wait for another opportunity to collect Agent Romanov," Phil ordered. Clint's heart clenched with worry as he was reminded that they still did not know what had happened to Natasha. From past experience, Clint knew that Natasha would not go down easily and he wondered if the Captain would have been able to take her out without killing her.

"Agent Barton, the med vac is only a block from you what is your status," Phil's voice called over the comms.

"Fiiine," Clint stuttered shivering suddenly causing his teeth to clack together.

"Clint," Phil called breaking his professional demeanor in his worry for him.

"Jussta coollld. Ssshoocck," Clint stuttered.

Red lights flashed before his eyes distracting Clint from Phil's concerned voice and the next thing he knew a person was grabbing his arm. On reflex he snapped the person's wrist back and was about to break the person's wrist when Phil's sharp tone of voice catches his attention.

"Clint, let the medic go. They are there to help you. Let him go," Phil told him sternly as he pronounced each word clearly. Clint blinked before frowning and finally releasing the man's hand. He blinked blearily up at the man in front of him and noted the beta's weary expression and his SHIELD issue medic uniform.

"Soorri," he slurred to the man who nodded looking somewhat reassured as he moved to tend to his shoulder.

Clint blinked repeatedly trying to clear his head but the black spots filling his vision just kept growing until he was falling into them and loosing track of everything else.