Work Text:
The two teens looked like they'd been hauled into the principal's office as they sat opposite the suited Phil Coulson. But he wasn't passing out detentions across a desk and this was no school. The three sat at a stark white table in a medbay in a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe-mansion. A vein in Coulson's temple was throbbing. And the kids, god, the kids. Clint Barton, standing behind the observation mirror that looked over the scene clenched his fist. Still as a marble pillar next to him was his fearless leader, Nick Fury. His very quiet bespoke his tension and anger. “They should have a sedative, at least,” Clint murmured.
“No. Dr. Jaswaney said it'd kill 'em. But they're not in shock, you'll notice. Today was just another drop in the bucket.”
“She came out of nowhere and her eyes were dead. Just...dead.” The girl waved a hand in front of her own haggard face. Her friend, a black boy turned grey with abuse and stress, nodded. Coulson nodded too and refilled her tumbler with the bland, vitamin loaded slop that the S.H.I.E.L.D. medics had prescribed. It was all Tandy Bowen's starved body could handle. He offered some to the boy but he shook his head no. Tandy took a steadying sip and continued. “She shot Agent Tharp right through his head. Agent...Drakov you said? The woman. She was able to knock the gun away but then...” she made a downward stabbing motion with her fist. She tried to continue but choked and put her head down, her limp white-blond hair swinging forward to hide her face. “How can anyone do that? Be like that?” she whispered.
“Our best intelligence indicates that the Black Widow, ah, started her career young,” Coulson said. “There's no there there anymore.” He imitated Tandy's hand-waving in front of his own face.
“The Black Widow? Seriously? Does she have a real name?”
“We're working on finding out.”
“God, what a life she must have. I feel for her.”
“You f...f...feel for everyone. It's annoying,” Ty Johnson said and Tandy made a 'tuh' sound at him. He turned to Coulson and reluctantly took up the story. “Miss Drakov was d...d...dead before she hit the fuh...floor. Then whats-her-name came for us with her p...p...pig sticker. Tuh...Tandy...blasted her backwards and we got away. But she got away, too, when the rest of you guys came charging in.”
“Blasted her backwards?” Clint whispered.
“Mutates,” Fury answered. “Runaways turned science experiments. Tandy can shoot out some sort of light beam from her hands and Ty can turn into shadow and put the fear of god into you. Or something.”
Science experiments. Clint studied the needle tracks trailing up Ty's bruised and emaciated arm. Tandy's were just as bad. He swallowed back his disgust. He'd seen many terrible things in his lifetime but the shocks to his system just kept on coming. Well, what kind of man would he be if they didn't? If he became too hardened to feel? He'd be like the Black Widow herself, moving mindlessly forward from job to job like a shark that had to keep swimming to breathe. When he trusted himself to speak he asked, “The experimenters?”
“Homo Superior whackjobs calling themselves the Den. The kids were living in a shelter when the Den snatched them and spent the last month shooting them up with poisons designed to express latent X-genes. Also heroin to keep 'em docile. The poison worked but the dope didn't. Thanks to Ty the Den is still burning.”
“Good.”
“Very. That was two days ago. New York's finest pulled the survivors out of the rubble and every last one seemed to be compelled to talk. And talk. And talk. The backers panicked. The Mutants Made to Order project was scrapped. The Black Widow was sent in to get what data survived and take out anyone involved with the practical work. Especially the lab rats.” He nodded at the teens.
“And two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that beat her to them,” Clint said. “How did we get involved?”
“We heard the rumors but we didn't know about the kids until we were contacted by the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters. And when I say gifted I mean gifted.”
“The mutant school. Right.”
“They're stretched thin for some reason so they asked us to make contact when Ty and Tandy showed up on their radar. Drakov's girl and Tharp found 'em, they got killed, we got the kids.” Fury shook his head. “That's one way to open relations with the X-Men. But it's a poor replacement for my right hand man.”
Clint ran a hand down his face. Drakov, damn it, Shawndra Drakov, General Tobias Drakov's beloved daughter, Fury's Gal Friday, and Clint Barton's friend, was one of the finest people he knew. Had known. Oh, god. Ralph Tharp had been an utter prick but an invaluable agent. The men watched as Tandy pulled herself together and continued to tell Coulson all she knew. Ty looked around at the mirror with a weariness that would have done an old man proud. He wasn't looking at himself. He was looking through the glass straight at Clint. Then he studied Fury. He slumped as if too exhausted to care. “W...what are you going to do to us?” he interrupted.
Coulson's answer was immediate. “We're going to call your parents.”
Whatever answer Ty expected it wasn't that. Clint spared a thought for Drakov and Tharp's family who could also expect to be contacted soon.
In a voice as smooth as silk Fury said. “I am not well pleased with this 'Black Widow.' Make ready.”
“I'm ready,” Clint said and Fury turned and left the observation room.
It would be a while before intelligence could pinpoint his target so Clint turned his attention back to the kids. Indulging his curiosity might help him swallow his anger so he left the observation room, walked down the hall, took a couple of deep breaths while he adjusted his game-face, and entered the med bay. Coulson looked up and only someone who knew him well could tell that he was semi-annoyed by his presence. The kids seemed glad of an interruption, though. Clint turned on the charm and Tandy, at least, responded. She wiped her face and smiled weakly before inviting him to sit. She offered him Ty's untouched vitamin gloop. What a lovely little hostess. “Are you Debbie the Debutante?” Clint teased and that pulled a smile from Ty.
“Riiiich Girl!” he sang without a stammer. “Rich Giiiiirl needs a dozen pair o' new shooooes before cotillion.”
“I'm not that bad!” she protested. But she was, the ragged remains of a French manicure still showed on her prim little hands that were folded on the table. What was she doing on the street? He'd find out later. For right now there was chit chat chit chat (Coulson complaining about Clint barging in, no talk at all of favorite bands and other such insulting kiddie shit but plenty of getting-to-know-you about Clint himself, “I'm in catering. No, really, would I lie to you?”) chit chat chit chat and then, once the kids were as relaxed as they could be after their ordeal, Clint reached his main objective. “I want to see these powers for myself and then I'll be gone,” he promised Coulson. It wasn't exactly asking a superior officer for permission but Coulson nodded anyway. He turned to the girl. “I hear you can knock people over. Give me a small shot?” He raised his hand as if he were asking Tandy for a high-five. His new friend smiled and lifted her own. ”Small shot! Small shot!”
“Don't worry,” she said. A moment of concentration and then a dagger of the purest white light hit his palm with a soft whap! His entire arm tingled with warmth. Clint was surprised. He expected pain but Tandy's light beam was a pleasurable thing. He grinned at her. “You're gonna be fun at parties,” he said and she let out a indelicate snort. Then, polite to a fault, she turned to Coulson and offered to zap him, too. The straitlaced man had to think about it a moment and then reluctantly offered her a finger.
“Don't pull his finger, trust me,” Clint said and both kids let out a rusty laugh. Tandy extended her own forefinger and a tiny, white spark bridged the gap between her and Coulson. Very reminiscent of a certain scene on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Coulson shook his hand and actually smiled. “That's not electricity. It's nice.”
Tandy took a deep breath. “I think it's life energy. I see it in people, animals, plants, even floating in the air. I'm loaded with it now. I don't know what I'm going to do,” she stopped and wiped invisible dust off the table. “Do with it. I mean.”
Clint suspected S.H.I.E.L.D. would roll out the red carpet for a girl that could shoot destructive life energy from her hands. Fury was actively head-hunting mutants but Clint didn't want Tandy sucked into this merry band of, uh, dedicated soldiers until she was older and knew what she was getting into. His intense study made her blush. Mercifully, he noticed and turned to the boy. He raised his hand again. Ty shook his head no. “C'mon. How bad can it be?” Clint urged.
“It's p...pretty bad, man.” Ty murmured.
“Will it kill me?
“No. It...it doesn't kill. People just wish they were dead. I...If I'd been faster b...before...”
“Don't think about her, Ty,” Tandy said. “You were still weak from getting us out of there.”
“You cause pain?” Coulson asked.
“Maybe.” Tandy answered for him as girlfriends will do. “It depends.”
“Depends on what?” Coulson asked.
“It depends on you,” she said and slumped a little.
Clint and Coulson shared a look. “On me, she says. I'm intrigued,” Coulson said. “Do you have enough control for just a taste?”
“T...that's about all I can manage, yeah,” Ty answered, rubbing his weary face.
“One jolt and then you two call it a day,” Coulson decided. He looked over his shoulder and caught the eye of a passing medic. “Are their rooms ready? Yes. Good.” He turned back to the kid. “Okay, Ty, nobody can say you didn't warn us. Hit him.”
Clint blinked. “Hit me? Hit him.”
“No, go right ahead. I insist.”
“After you.”
“No, after you.”
Tandy giggled and even Ty smiled. Then he reached out for both of them.
For the rest of his extremely eventful life, Clint never forgot what happened next. “Ty can turn into shadow and put the fear of god into you. Or something.” Ty's brown eyes turned a horrifying white. His skin darkened, the freckles, scars, and other wear and tear of warm, normal skin vanished as all the light disappeared down a black hole where a boy used to be. Darkness. This cloak of shadow enveloped Clint and Coulson. Clint threw up his arms and Coulson shot out of his chair but the men were helpless against this terrible dark hunger and in Ty's shadow they met themselves, themselves, their very deepest selves and they were confronted, slammed with, had their noses rubbed in everything everything everything they'd ever done, said, committed, perpetrated, lied, admitted, accomplished, fought against, fought for, fought over, endured, dealt out, regretted, survived, helped, saved, saved, saved, saved, so many people saved, redeemed, healed, released, protected, so many people shielded and the balance came down with a heavy thunk on the good side, good men, good job, good good good...
Twin shouts of (surprise?) shock were pulled out of both men and the table was upturned and the slop went flying and the tumblers broke on the floor and Tandy shrieked “Ty, stop it!”
A flash of white light lit the world and the Mirror shattered. Beautifully solid reality came rushing back. Clint drew in the deepest breath his lungs could handle, sweet oxygen, and let it out again in another shout which made him feel so much better. The medics and guards came running but Coulson held up a commanding hand. “Stop! Keep back.” Staring, they followed orders and became still but ready, forming a perimeter around the foursome. Guns remained holstered.
Clint was shocked to find his head in one piece. Coulson was still standing, his eyes wide, then he righted and collapsed back into his chair. Tandy was doing a child's hoppy-dance of distress in the middle of them all as if she were breaking up a schoolyard brawl. Her shaking hands glowed dimly. Clint saw the grey in Ty's skin had faded, and the gaunt lines of his face had smoothed. He looked better. Almost sated. Despite the sludge in his brain and the hammering of his heart Clint made an important connection. “What?!” he shouted at Ty, who flinched. “What? You poor little shit! This is what you eat now?!” No wonder he wouldn't touch the vitamin-sludge.
Ty cringed away. “I...I...I'm so s...s...sorry...”
“It's not his fault!” Tandy shouted. “He can't help it.” She turned to Clint with a face begging him to understand. “I've been feeding him.”
“I'm a p...parasite...”
“You are not! I've got plenty!”
Clint was appalled. “Oh, honey! You can't...”
“I don't wanna talk about it!” She went to Ty's side and the four sat and rested and didn't talk about it.
Clint felt something wet roll down his face. Tears! The hell?! Kryptonite. He scrubbed his face of the evidence while he scraped his manly master-assassin dignity together. It was difficult. The sensation of being approvingly patted on the head by an all-encompassing Shadow Force more powerful than...than...than any and everything had wrenched his very soul. “But I made some big mistakes,” he muttered.
Which you deeply regret.
Clint jumped. Coulson recovered first, of course, the bastard. “Okay, we're all right.” That statement made him blink and he seemed to cogitate upon it a bit, like a cow chewing cud. Then he focused again. He straightened his tie. He smiled, a look almost of pride crossing his face. “Yes, we're all right. Aren't we?” he asked Ty.
“Y...yessir.”
“We won't try that again.”
Ty took that as an order instead of a simple stated fact, which was how Coulson meant it. “Nossir.” Tandy took his hand and glared around at them but all the fight had gone out of everyone. Ty seemed relieved. “You're okay,” he said. “The scientists s...screamed until their throats blew out. Th...then they keeled over and drooled.”
Coulson turned to the medics and started pointing. “You! Clean this mess up. You! Put these kids to bed. You! Go to bed!” The kids nodded. Really, it was past time. “We'll make the calls in the morning,” Coulson assured them. Tandy shrugged her shoulders dismissively. Not for nothing had the two run away from their homes. “You!” Coulson took Clint by the upper arm and dragged him out the door. “You come with me.”
Clint had to force himself to walk normally, we must all behave normally, down the hall. He had no idea where they were going and he doubted Coulson did. He stopped and yanked the other man into a side room. It was a bathroom and ornate mirrors stretched down the entire length of one wall above hammered copper sinks. He slammed the door shut. He checked under the stalls for feet. None. He straightened and rounded on Coulson. “What the hell?!”
“What the hell?!” Coulson parroted back and shrugged wildly. “What the hell?”
“Seriously. What was that? Did you feel that? What kind of near death experience was that?”
“Oy.”
“Yes.” Clint wandered over to the mirrors. Coulson joined him, looked hard at himself, then straightened his tie again and smoothed his hair back. Time passed slowly while the adrenaline faded and Clint felt his pulse return to normal. Coulson was frowning. Then he took out his cell and dialed. Whoever he was calling picked up. “Hill?” Coulson asked. Clint could barely hear the woman's yes. Why would Phil Coulson want to talk to Maria Hill? A grim, ambitious woman who had already put in for Shawndra's job. And why talk to her now? Clint listened closely. “When I advised against your placement...when I said Fury would be better served by a bellowing yak...that actually hurt you. Didn't it?” Clint heard silence on the other end of the line. A silence that was all the affirmation the men needed. “It did!” Coulson stared in horror at Clint. Clint understood. “I didn't mean to hurt you with that, I just wanted you to think before you put in your two cents worth on every damn subject. I mean, I'm sorry.” Hill asked a question. “No, I'm not drunk. You'll get a briefing later.” He ended the call as fast as he would throw a grenade away from himself and looked at Clint. “But I really am sorry. I didn't know Hill was human.”
“How can you know how Hill felt? No one else in the room knew. And Ty's no telepath, he couldn't have pulled it out of you.”
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” Coulson didn't follow that up with the proper MUAHAHA so Clint ignored him and continued.
“And it didn't feel like delusion or illusion. Here. Here's your life, Barton. We'll give it about an 83% grade. Passing but watch yourself.” Clint put a finger to his temple and pulled the trigger.
“There are other things I feel much worse about but insulting Hill was the one thing I could immediately verify,” Coulson said, ignoring Clint in his turn. Then he turned so quickly Clint jumped. “You and I, we're the good guys, Barton, I believe in that and I believe in what we do. We deal in lies and spies and lunatics. We kill killers. I'm not nice but I'm right, as the Witch said in that musical I hate. And the world is a better place for us being here. I knew that. But now I really know it.”
“Uh. Are we actually in good karmic balance or is this some sort of hypnosis?”
“I don't know. I don't know what this is. But you're right, it doesn't feel false.”
“It felt like Judgment Day. Pure clarity. ”
“We're starting to foam at the mouth.”
“Aaaaand break.”
The men retired to opposite sides of the gilded room and did some deep breathing. Clint went to a sink and washed the sweat (and dried tears, holy shit) from his face, just for something to do, and to feel some calming cold water on his skin. He yanked about thirty napkins out of the dispenser and dried off. His cell went off causing both men to hover off the ground for an embarrassing moment. It was Fury. He sounded smug. “The Black Widow's been found for you.”
“What? That was quick.”
“Dr. Reed Richards' worldwide face recognition thingy works like a goddamn charm. She's holed up at an abandoned firehouse on Mott and Pell.”
“Yeah, I know that area. One of New York's finest demilitarized zones.”
“Her file's on its way to you. Read it carefully before you go. We don't have much but we know this one is stinking with talent. And say 'Thank you, Mr. Fantastic!'” He hung up.
Clint powered his cell down and slowly put it in his belt. “Faaaantastic.” Coulson was watching him. “The Black Widow's found.”
“And I thought she was good.”
“She's a genius. But so is the Fantastic Four, apparently.” An intense exhaustion, perhaps the crash after such an intense adrenalin surge, sapped his very soul. One fact stood out clearly. “I can't do it. Not after that. That whatever it was. And not after what Tandy said.”
“Tandy?”
“'What a life. I feel for her,' she said. Goddamn. I feel for her, too, and I never even met her.”
“After what she did. After what she did to us, to old Drakov.” He stopped. An hour ago Coulson would have gone further into disapproval. Might even have mocked Clint or given a direct order to man up but now he gave in and just nodded. “Would you like a few days medical leave?”
Clint mentally rifled through the roster of possible replacements for this mission. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were the best of the best and the 'specialized' agents were even better but heading that list was Tharp and Shawndra themselves. And the Widow had killed them casually. “No, it has to be me. There's no other way.”
The door opened and they turned. A tall woman with her hair cut to resemble a hedgehog's ass walked in. She glared at the men and entered one of the stalls. There was a rustling, Coulson and Clint looked at each other in disbelief, and then there was a sound reminiscent of cows and flat rocks. Scraping their shredded dignity together the two men left the women's restroom. “She only had to say 'Excuse me,'” Coulson muttered and then Clint caught his shoulder and turned him around. “What?”
Clint pinned him with the certain stare of the newly converted and smiled. “Wait a minute. I have an idea.”
*******************************
The blank concentration faded from her pretty face and was replaced by a look of intense sorrow. “Who would choose this?”
“Especially when you're supposed to have started at twelve years old.”
“Oh, long before that.”
“Mmmph.” They passed other agents but no one interfered. If it was happening in the very halls of a S.H.I.E.L.D. stronghold then, hey, it must be authorized. “Hi.”Clint smiled at one or two of his friends and kept on dragging. “Yeah, hi. How's it goin'? Good.” It hadn't been an easy capture, to say the least, and Clint was bleeding and winded while the Widow was just making sure her considerable cleavage was rising and falling rapidly. That and the, oh, there's gonna be tears now? That and the tears would have destroyed a lesser man. Hard-hearted Clint just shook his head as he continued to haul her along, her boot heels skidding against the marbled floors. “Poor baby, your life is hard. ”
Her face went subtly blank again and Clint could practically hear the gears switching. What new angle would she try? Ugh, it was like watching those dancing Japanese robots. Form and motion with the soul of a toaster. Her face revved up into a parody of anger. “Pig! A soft fool like you has no idea what my life is!”
“A soft fool?!” Clint shouted back. “I'm soft?!”
“You're pathetic! Shooting me in the back from the rooftops like a coward.”
“A coward?”
“You wouldn't take me on face to face. You couldn't. Weak, useless pig, shooting women from behind. Weak!”
“Well, I'll just unwrap you and show you how weak I am!” Clint didn't break stride. “Or, y'know, not,” he said. “Heh!” A genuine emotion appeared in her eyes then. Puzzlement. Clint was honored to have seen it, it was like spotting a unicorn. “Listen, I'm not going to kill you. Or even hurt you. I think I'm going to help you.”
The tears were back, sparkling on her cheeks like teeny diamond dewdrops, awwww. “Please,” she gasped. “Please help me.”
“Yeah, okay, you're alive anyway. That's a start.” He kicked open a pair of double doors that led to the floor with the medbay. “My name is Clint Barton, by the way. And, yes, that's my actual name. Yours?”
“Anna Svenson,” she sobbed.
“No, try again.”
“Miranda Vaughn then.” The depressed weariness was back. “What does it matter?”
“No. One more time. It's important and not in an intelligence gathering kinda way. Who are you? What's your name?”
“Shawndra Drakov.”
Clint's fist clenched tighter in the mesh cocooning the Black Widow and it was only the memory of Shawndra that kept him from bouncing his prisoner off every flat surface he crossed. He rode out his anger and relaxed. “Oooh, almost got me that time. Congratulations. But I'm going to give you one last chance. What's your name?”
“Puddintame, ask me again and I'll tell you the same.”
He glanced down at her. She was smirking up at him as if she were gloating but the eyes, yes, the eyes gave it away. She didn't even have a gloat in her. “I'm so sorry for you,” Clint wheezed. He was sorry for everyone. Sorry that he'd never laugh with Shawndra again. Sorry that her father had locked himself away inside his home. Sorry that Tharp's family were almost prostrate with grief. They valued Tharp a hell of a lot more than Clint ever had. Of course they did, they were family. Family. It was always the family that suffered. “I'm sorry. That's all I can say.”
“Then let me go, Clint Barton. Please.”
“I wasn't talking to you that time. Besides, we've arrived.” He used her body to thrust open the last set of doors. Inside the medbay Coulson was waiting. Coulson and the kids who were mirroring him from his stance right down to the way he held his hands loosely clasped in front of him. They were clean, they were healing nicely, and the poor things had imprinted on him like baby ducks. “Remember these two?” Clint asked. The Black Widow looked and her eyebrow quirked up. “Tandy you've met. Well, now...” Clint rolled her forward and Ty stepped up, his hands out to catch her. “Now say hello to my leetle frien'!”
And the dark cloak swallowed her whole.
*******************************
Clint sat on the bed and watched her go. No change in 26 hours. He hadn't intended to drive the Black Widow into madness. Was it permanent? Would it have been kinder to kill her? He was in deep shit with Fury and the rest of the higher ups but Coulson was on his side and, hey, she'd been stopped hadn't she? Now everyone was curious as to the results. It would all blow over. But please, world, don't let him go through life with a broken woman repeating his name over and over and over in the back of his mind. And he'd used a damaged teenaged boy to do it. He should have used his walnut-sized brain. He should never have done it. She'd been a stone-cold killer but no one deserved this. Ty didn't deserve this. “I had to try,” he said. She stopped and turned around to face him. He was mildly surprised. She'd been unresponsive before. “I had to try,” he said to her again. “Maybe you were forced into this young. Maybe you're not accountable. Innocent?” Her eyes seemed to widen at that. Clint repeated himself, “Innocent. If there was a chance of pulling a human being out of this,” he waved his hands to indicated the entire world, “This pit then I had to take it.”
She looked at him with confusion. Everything she did was confused now. It wasn't better than the blank clarity she'd had before. Or was it? She seemed not only confused but astounded. Clint had an idea of how she felt. His 83% still gobsmacked him. 83% even after all the choices he'd made. If she'd had no choices? If she was suffering under an 100% approval rating due to no choices made at all? And approval from WHAT?! The Dark Force the mutants called it. Some of those poor bastards are conduits for this shadow power that watches. And judges. Further study is definitely necessary, said their mutant expert. Holy shit. “I'm sorry,” he said and he never meant any words more. “I didn't think this through at all.”
She swallowed, squinted at him and then she looked at the bed. “What's your name?” she asked it.
Clint got up. “C'mon.” The bed was made as tight as a tick but he freed the blankets with one good yank. He threw them back and gave the pillow an inviting shake. Then he stepped away and felt the first pop of hope as she made a beeline for it. She crawled in headfirst like a child. He threw the covers over her, still leery of getting within arm's reach, and then stepped towards the door. Why was he doing this? Why the hell did he care? He answered his own question. “I had to try,” he repeated. “Just in case there actually is a there there.”
She slowly raised herself onto one elbow. She looked him in the eye. Actually looked him dead in the eye and he felt a genuine shock as he realized he was in the room with a human being. A living, breathing human had arrived so suddenly he almost jumped into the closet. Oh, wow, who the hell was this? She leaned forward. He leaned forward. She was going to say something. Actual human words. Her face twisted with pain and he copied her without realizing it. “Just say it,” he encouraged, nodding.
She breathed in. “There can be no witnesses, woman,” she forced out. “If the Den's resources are traced back to me or back to S.H.I.E.L.D. you can kiss your ass goodbye. Your handlers look like they're capable of the 'ol worse than death. Are they? I bet you know.”
Clint held perfectly, profoundly still. The tone, the cadence...it sounded familiar.
Her voice went lower and became accented. “Don't waste your time threatening the dogsbody, General Drakov. there's no need. She is incapable of disobedience. Nick Fury will never suspect a thing as we wipe the slate clean. Go now and wait for us to contact you.” The Black Widow's eyes closed and her head drooped from the effort. “Go quickly,” she murmured.
Clint went so fast the guards at the door were badly startled and almost drew on him. Before he reached the end of the hall he had Fury on his cell.
The guards rolled their eyes at each other and one quickly relocked, remagnetized, and re-electrified the door. The other went back to his unending monologue about the merits of each and every one of the performers that had ever been on American Idol. His partner closed her eyes and fantasized about sticking a shiv between his ribs. She bangs, she bangs, she bangs a bullet right between his eyes. She smiled dreamily.
Inside the room the woman known only as the Black Widow sleepily opened her eyes again. They wandered the space as if she were tracking the progress of a lazy fly. “What's your name?” she whispered. A strange surprise and wondering peace appeared in her eyes as they gently closed again. “M...my name is...” Her face twisted strangely as if she were trying to smile. “My name is!” She slept flat on her back with her hands open and facing up beside her.
*******************************
please understand i wanted to create something great a super soldier
program for you me everyone and all those kids were worthless
runaways and druggies and criminals anyway
baby im so sorry
Clint gave the bloody note in its evidence baggy back to the specialist. He wanted to tape it to a bullet and shoot it back. Drakov the upstanding old general. Drakov the proud father. Drakov, the embezzler, kidnapper, and murderer, heading out the door feet first while S.H.I.E.L.D. agents turned his home upside down with an urgency that only anger and shame could fuel. Drakov had cut his own throat, obligingly leaving all his papers intact. Knowing Shawndra she would have killed him herself had she known. Three other other high-ranking military and government officials were going to swing and so were several members of Hollywood royalty who'd actually funded the entire Den project. Here was an autographed picture of one on the wall, a comedian Clint had actually liked. He wanted to put his fist through the framed glass. “They should have blown their money on whack-ass cults as is traditional,” said Coulson, reading Clint's mind as he came out of the disaster area that had been Drakov's neat office.
“They blew it on drugs. That's traditional enough,” Clint said, remembering the bruised and bloody tracks up the arms of the kids. Which reminded him. “Has anyone contacted us about Ty and Tandy, Dad?”
Coulson smiled, not at all embarrassed. “Their families finally spoke to us. Apparently Ty isn't the favorite son and his parents don't want him back. Tandy's mother didn't even know she was gone. She's Babe Bowen, the supermodel.”
An awful thought occurred to Clint. “She didn't help fund this garbage?”
“No. That would've been one horrible coincidence too many.” Coulson looked around the house in disgust. Suddenly he reached out and pulled a small framed photo of Shawndra, one of many, off the wall. He put it in his pocket. “Xavier's gave us a call, at least. Several calls. Professor Charles Xavier and company are finally back from outer space or wherever and they'll be picking up the kids tomorrow afternoon.”
“You okay with that?”
“I'm not thrilled but they're the best option we've got. It really is a genuine school. The Terror Twins will make friends, study hard, learn deadly combat skills from The Wolverine, go to prom. Y'know, like regular teenagers. What's wrong? You look a little green.”
Clint forcibly shoved the image of a certain hairy and Canadian-born sawblade out of his mind and shuddered. “Not...uh...not a prom. With frilly dresses and shit.”
“'Fraid so.”
“Poor babies.” Clint followed Coulson's lead (no wonder he went wrong with people like that setting him an example) and stole a small picture of Shawndra from a side table. She was in her civvies and smiling. Always smiling.
“You okay?” Coulson muttered.
“She deserved better.”
“Yeah.”
Clint couldn't stand the house anymore, and had no real reason to be there, so he about-faced and left without another word. He didn't look back at the lovely, white house. Lovely neighborhood. Lovely sky, lovely puffy-clouds, lovely little goddamn birds wearing on his last nerve with every chirp. That shit like the Den's backers were still alive while Shawndra was dead was an intense wrong and he indulged a fantasy of hunting them all down, one by one, for as long as it took him to get home. He was a grown man with a dark job and knew damn well that life was pain. But it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair.
*******************************
She was also a little excited to be, well, getting her life back. She was off the street (brother, if she'd known how rough that was going to be she wouldn't have left her mother's empty and indifferent house, as logical as that decision had been at the time) and the poisons were out of her system. Her bruises had faded to a sage green. Her night-terrors were slowly subsiding. Her nails were repaired. She was going to a school for mutants, mutates, aliens, cyborgs, etcetera, and it was going to be exciting. She and Ty were going to learn to get a handle on things. In their own place. In their own time. With Coulson secretly watching their backs. It was all going to be okay.
She pulled on an oversized S.H.I.E.L.D. t-shirt and, after breaking the crisp military folds of her sparkling clean hospital bed, crawled in with a grateful sigh. Oh, damn, she'd left the lights on. She aimed and a spark of energy flew from her fingers to hit the switch on the far wall. Ha. Lights out, thank you. It felt strange to enjoy the results of a month of torture but she did. She really did. Everything happens for a reason. She smiled and was asleep immediately.
She was awakened again when she felt a gentle tap on her forehead. She opened her eyes and was surprised to see the dark outline of another patient, a woman in a hospital gown, bending over her. “Hola,” the woman whispered. “Wake up please.”
“I'm up,” Tandy whispered back and rubbed her eyes. “What is it?” The woman's gown, white in the darkness, quivered and Tandy realized she was shaking. She sat up, concerned. “Are you all right?”
“Da. Ja. Yes. I need something to write on. And with. I need to write something. A lot. A lot of something. My name is not Clint Barton.”
Well, that's obvious, Tandy thought but didn't dare say as she slid out of bed. The poor thing had a brain injury, clearly. Best to humor her. She stumbled over to a new backpack and pulled out a notebook, part of her school supplies for the next day. Ah, that fresh paper smell. She dug around until she came up with a new rollerball pen, too. She turned back and held them out. When the woman clutched at them Tandy was finally awake enough to recognize her. Fear poured into her body so fast her ears rang with it and spots began to drift in front of her eyes. She gulped in air and forced herself to stay standing. How? How had she gotten out?
“Domo arigato, thanks,” the Black Widow said.
“You're welcome,” Tandy answered. She continued to breathe and the spotties in her vision faded. She checked the floor to make sure she hadn't peed. She hadn't. And she wasn't helpless. Not anymore. Her spine straightened. “Do you need a light?”
“Uh?”
“A light to write by?” Tandy held up her hand and life energy crackled though her fingers. The shadows retreated. The Black Widow squinted at the brilliancy and Tandy studied her closely. In the words of Tandy's late, and much beloved, Grandmama she looked like the last shit Moses took. She looked like a woman instead of a killing mannequin-thing as she stood in the light blinking in genuine befuddlement. The only thing familiar about her was her unnaturally red hair. No highlights, Tandy mentally sniffed, just a solid maroon color. She had bed-head. She was a mess in fact and she was just standing there looking at the light like a stoner watching cartoons. The girl's heart suddenly soared and the hand that she had raised in threat became brighter, warmer. “Holy god, Mr. Barton did it. It worked,” she gasped. Of course it worked. She was still alive.
“Yes, yis, it worked. Clint Barton. Clint Barton.” The Widow shut her eyes and seemed to fall into a peaceful sleep as she stood. Then she came to. “I'm going to have a talk with Mr. Clint Barton.”
“It's just that there'd been so much horribleness,” Tandy felt compelled to explain. “He had to try something different. Something besides, uh, catering. He's a good guy, I like him,” she nodded her head as if her seal of approval should be enough for anyone.
A strange sort of “Heeerrgh!” sound burst out of the Widow and Tandy realized it was almost a laugh. Evidently the attempt exhausted her and she swayed where she stood but she soon straightened again. “I like him, too. And that's a perfect light you have there. I like that light. Come on. Come to the table.” The Black Window took Tandy's glowing hand, the bones of her own hand temporarily visible, and led her over to a card table surrounded by four chairs, much like the one Ty had destroyed that first night. They sat down. The Widow adjusted Tandy's arm as if it were a goose-neck lamp until the light shone down on the notebook at just the perfect angle. She ran her fingers across the smooth, cool paper and then she picked up the pen. She hunched over, supporting her head with her other hand in anxious test-taking mode, and began to write.
She started with the Den and worked backwards. She wrote names, she wrote dates, she wrote places. She wrote the keys to codes. She broke alibis. She showed them the money, where it came from, how much, who it went to, and why. She drew maps. She peppered her manuscript with the names and descriptions of people she had been ordered to kill for known or unknown reasons. She did two pages on San Paolo and one page on Rex Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. One page was headed THE BLACK WIDOW but she didn't write anything on it. She set it carefully to the side. She didn't apologize. The writing went on and on and on and every word on every page was a death sentence for her but the Black Widow smiled as she kept going. Smiled, the Black Widow smiled, just the tiniest up-quirking of the lips but it was genuine. Her first genuine smile in so long. Tandy sat still with an endurance that not even Ty suspected was in her and her light didn't flicker once.
*******************************
“What happened?! Was it Ty?! What went wrong?!”
“Focus on me, please,” Dr. Teena Jaswaney insisted. “Ty did nothing, he's fine, too, everyone is fine. I swear no one is hurt, not even her guards.”
Clint immediately jumped to the correct conclusion. “The Black Widow escaped.”
“Yes.”
“Aw, shit.” Disappointment and a smothering feeling of failure washed over him but Dr. Jaswaney was shaking her head no.
“I did not say she left.”
“She's still here?!” Rocked again Clint stared at the woman.
She took a deep breath and Clint was annoyed to see her rather enjoying this moment. “Listen to me, it's story-time. The Black Widow released herself from her room using ice cubes and a plastic spoon. She overcame the guards in about two seconds and tied them up with bedsheets. She wandered away and, well, since she was in her hospital gown she was able to get some ignorant fool to kindly escort her back to where he thought she belonged.”
“The medbay, god, I'm going to kill her this time.”
“No, no, no, no, no, listen. We think she was looking for you but she found Tandy. Don't make that face. They are two Bee Ef Efs now! They stayed up the full night filling a notebook with confessions. It is amazing. Fury and Coulson are too excited. Oh, we're going now?” She took off after Clint who was half running to the medbay.
“I'm going to kill Tandy, too. Why didn't she blast her again?!”
“She is a sweet girl. Too sweet and so smart she is stupid. Ty yelled at her. She blasted him instead. Drama, drama, drama, I like this kind of drama. Not so much the other kind where I have to clean the walls afterwards.”
“I heard that,” Clint agreed.
“The Black Widow wrote so hard her hand seized up. She promises to write more. Fury says he will write for her and bring her coffee like a good little secretary if she keeps on talking. She has much to tell.”
“She's actually making sense now?” he asked.
“Mostly and in twelve different languages.” Jaswaney sobered and Clint heard her sigh. “Misery. Years and years of misery. So miserable she did not even know she was miserable. She knew nothing. But your bad idea worked, Prince Charming, she is awake now.” Clint slowed, then stopped there in the middle of the corridor. He looked at Jaswaney who nodded in answer to his unasked question. “She's been moved to a different cell, supposedly a stronger one. Good luck with that.” She pointed over her shoulder. “And she wants to talk to you. Very much she wants to talk to you.”
Clint turned back. “Very much I want to talk to her.”
“She's in the East wing this time. With Fury and Coulson and so forth. Good luck.”
“Fury's back? Great. Well, thank you. D'you think...? Nevermind, I'll find out.” Clint felt like a paternal moron as he took off at an even walk this time. Hello, Black Widow. You didn't kill anyone today? Are you a good girl now, huh? Huh? Will you stay good? Was I right or whut? God, this was so depressing.
*******************************
Kopetski shuffled through a large sheaf of copies he held in his arm and pulled one out. He handed it over with a flourish. “There. Just you read that, Barton.” Hill glared.
It was in Greek. Clint handed it back, “Sorry, I no habla Espanol.”
Kopetski wouldn't know a joke if it crawled into his ear canal at night. He took the sheet back with a smug look. “This is Greek, Barton. The details of the Onassis yacht burglary. You wouldn't believe what she was really after on that boat. Can you read French, at least?” He was pulling on another sheet.
Hill interrupted. “It looks like disobeying a direct order worked in your favor, Barton. This time. Next time you might get us all killed.”
“Japanese, Barton? This one's really juicy.”
“Not to mention compromising our security, our intelligence, the safety of our agents and...”
“Life is too short,” Clint mused out loud and sidestepped them.
“...the safety of the kids. You won't get a medal for this, Barton!”
“Oh, wunderbar, this one is in Latin,” Kopetski was swooning. “What happened with Father Piro in the Vatican. Oh, eeugh, that's just not right.”
Kopetski suddenly jumped when Hill turned on him. “Do you have clearance to be waving those things around? Do these people that can hear you have clearance? Do I? Does Barton?”
Clint left them to it and stepped through a final set of doors and guards. Inside was a long table with the Black Widow seated at one end, her hand soaking in a bowl of ice water, and flanked, not too closely, by three agents with their own hands on their sidearms. She almost stood when she saw who he was but her guards tensed. She relaxed back into her seat, her expression unreadable but her eyes never left his face. At the other end of the table was Fury purring over a notebook. Another translator, a pleasant looking woman Clint had never seen before, was telling Fury the gist of each sheet. He'd then tear the page out and send it to be distributed to other translators and entered into the databanks or he'd fold it and put it in a pocket. The woman acknowledged Clint with a smile and a hello and he nodded back in a friendly enough way. “Barton, sit down,” Fury ordered without looking up. There was a plastic chair against the wall. Clint picked it up, set it next to (but again, not too close) to the Widow and sat.
“Hello, again,” he said.
“You did this.”
“Yes.” He fought back a desire to shout And you did this! while pounding her head in with Shawndra's picture which he still had in his pocket. It was too small to do any real damage to her skull, though. Perhaps he could shove it up her nose.
“Clint Barton.”
“C'est moi,” said Clint, who did understand French, damn it.
“Thank you.”
“You're welcome.” Did she mean what she just said? While Clint tried to think of something more to say that wasn't stupid or angry a shadow fell over them.
It was Nick Fury and he held in his hand one last sheet. It was headed THE BLACK WIDOW in large block letters and it was blank. He slapped it down in front of Clint. He went through his other pockets and found a pen. He gave it a click and handed it over to Clint, too. “This is the info we're missing. I'll leave you two to it.” He jerked his head towards the door and the guards and the translator trooped out to Clint's surprise. Fury saw it and he turned back at the door. “Oh, yeah, you're not gonna pull a Frankenstein and run away from what you've made. Or unmade. She's all yours, Barton. Congratulations. It's a girl.” He turned a cold, old, and sad eye to the Widow. “Congratulations,” he said again. “It's a life.” He shrugged and then he was gone. The door shut.
Clint tapped on the paper with his pen in tired dismay. Of course he would have to take responsibility, it was his idea, his capture, his ass if she turned on anyone. “Wow, I really didn't think this through,” he muttered. He looked at her and a very young, very unkempt woman with her hand in a bowl of ice water looked back evenly. “D'you want to take a shower and get yourself together before we dive into this?”
“You're going to do it?” she replied in an almost-whisper.
“Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. And have you slept or eaten?” She lost all her air in a long whooosh as if he'd punched her in the gut and her eyes widened. It was a genuine emotion and painful to see, whatever it was. He was startled. “What?”
She dabbled her swollen fingers in the water and the ice clinked against the bowl. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
“Sure. Yeah.” Did she...? Yes, she meant it. “You're welcome,” he said and he meant that.
She smiled then, a smile big enough to actually show teeth. Despite himself, despite everything, Clint smiled back and felt a strange relief as the muscles in his face rearranged themselves. Yes. He could do this. For Shawndra's sake. For Tharp's. For those two kids. For his own. And for hers, whoever she was.
She leaned towards him then. “Can I have a puppy?”
“No.”
The End