The Bunny Farm

"Why do you do it?" Clint asked, kneeling down to check a snare. He looked at Bucky as he stood, blue eyes clear and open. "The knight stuff. Monster hunting or whatever," he explained waving his hand in a vague circle that had Bucky smiling despite the question. In the few span that he and Steven had been traveling around the area, Bucky had grown quite close to the quiet, near-hermit ranger man.

He fell in step as Clint began walking again, only glancing at the other man briefly before turning his attention forward. "What else would I do? It's all we were raised to do." At the soft hum of confusion, Bucky continued. "Me and Steve. The orphanage we met in trained all able bodied children to fight against the dragons. My parents had been killed when our city was attacked. So was Steve's mom, and his dad had been a knight way back before. Training was the only thing that made sense. To take out the evil that had shaped us." He reached up, pulling a small shield emblem off his tunic and showing it to Clint. It was a close miniature of his official court uniform, a snake like dragon in bold red against darkened silver. The symbol of a Dragon Slayer. "Steve has one too, in different colors," he said gently, watching Clint's calloused fingers trace over the swirling shape of the beast. "This is who we are, a product of war."

After a few seconds Clint pulled his hand away and began leading them towards a clearing at the edge of a bluff. "Why though? Why not stop fighting?"

Oh poor, innocent, naive Clint. "Dragons are sick creatures. They're born without souls or the ability the feel anything other than rage towards other things. Rage and a need to claim as much as they can, destroy what they can't." Bucky followed, watching Clint take a few almost pacing steps close to the bluff's edge. He tried a softer approach. "It's a mercy, to put them down. We're saving them from themselves."

"What?" Clint stopped his slow wander to look at Bucky, and the knight felt a small smile at the thought of getting through to the other man.

"Maybe the dragon needs saving. That's what I'm here for. To save it from itself."

Clint turned his back to Bucky, looking out across the small cluster of buildings below them and at the decrepit castle across the valley. The sun was just beginning to sink into the trees of the mountains and caught in Clint's hair, making him seem to glow, and Bucky wondered how long the moment would last. If they'd be lucky enough to end up suspended for forever with the evening warmth and hush quiet of insects singing. But Clint sighed, straightened his shoulders, and began to speak. Recite, really, a short little rhyme for children. His voice rumbled over the words. Resonated like distant thunder. Like something else that pricked at the back of Bucky's neck.

Smell the burning sulfur ire.
Hear the roar that heralds danger.
See the dragon breathing fire,
Feel the smolder of its anger.
Hide inside while you still have breath
For the monster's shadow means mortal death.

The sun sank lower, chilling the air as the mountains' shadows grew and swallowed the forests, casting the village and estate below the pair into quickly growing darkness. Clint turned back to face Bucky. His normally bright blue eyes had darkened with the sunset and seemed to smolder dimly red. Bucky took a step back, hand instinctively going for his sword before remembering he'd left it behind. Panic clawed at his throat as Barton stepped-- no, stalked, forward. Bucky was suddenly very aware of his situation. Barton might have been considered dangerous before, but this was different. This was no huntsman in the woods, a ranger with a bow or snare. No, Bucky thought, stopping as his back meet a tree and Barton's eyes flickered like a hungry fire. No, this was no mere huntsman before him.

A hand pressed against his chest and Bucky felt his pulse race against points too sharp to be human fingers. He dared not look though. Couldn't break away from the inferno unfurling in Barton's eyes. The ease that the other held himself was at odds with the clumsy man in the village. Even the graceful hunter. The thing before him, wearing a human face and coiled with untapped power, was a predator unlike any Bucky had seen.

"Tell me," the beast snapped like popping embers. "Good Sir Knight Buchanan, Red Dragon Slayer Winter, what do you know of dragons? Of these monsters you seek so eagerly?" It leaned forward. In the fading twilight Bucky could make out sharp horns around the eyes, pointed teeth that sneered at his silence. Lightening burned in its eyes and thunder growled in its voice. "I am the dragon breathing fire. The so called monster in the night. Hear me when I tell you to leave. That you are not the mercy or redemption I need." Something changed and the beast stepped back, claws falling away from Bucky's heart. He dragged in a breath, watching the monster watch him. He'd never felt smaller, even fighting against full size dragons a hundred times his size.

"Tell me," the voice was closer to normal, and Bucky blinked and could see Barton through the fading light. He stood away, a few steps from the edge of the cliff, eyes burning into Bucky. "Tell me, Bucky, what mercy you could offer me. What sort of monster only becomes enraged when provoked. Which of us has more innocent blood on our hands. And, one last question, yeah?" It smiled at him, Barton smiled, all sad and tired and worn like the man had so often seemed. Bucky only swallowed as the creature took a step back

"I am the dragon, you the knight. Ask yourself, Bucky, are monsters born or created?"

It took another step, and suddenly Barton was plummeting out into the darkness. Some instinct drove Bucky to push off the tree, race to the edge. He was just in time to see a shadow morph, grow, and rise above the darkened valley. A sharp silhouette of massive wings took to the dark blue sky, then vanished.

Alone on the ridge, Bucky stared out long enough for the stars to all settle in, and only when he thought he saw a familiar shadow passing over the moon did he crumple under the weight of the blood on his soul.