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Clint heard the sickening sounds of flesh pounding on flesh resume and forced his eyes open. No part of him wanted to watch the captors beat the tar out of James, but they wanted him to watch. And to listen. Usually Clint hated when the bad guys took his hearing aids, now he wished they had; he wasn’t sure he’d ever want to wear them again.
These bad guys wanted Clint to witness every scrap of abuse they meted out. They had gone so far as to replace the batteries and shove the hearing aids back in to make sure he didn’t miss a single thing. They hit James harder whenever they thought Clint’s attention might waver, so he wasn’t able to zone out or doze in spite of the exhaustion of the past several days dragging at his consciousness.
Clint had no choice but to hear every grunt forced out of James’ lungs as he was struck. He knew James was doing his level best to keep silent; knew that it was pissing off the abusers that James refused to cry out or acknowledge the pain.
Clint was pretty sure that as long as they didn’t kill James they wouldn’t be able to do any permanent, long term physical damage with the serum on board, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch. To know each painful steel-toed kick, whiplash, and electric shock delivered were his fault. That each one was dealt for his benefit.
The captors had made it clear they wanted the Black Widow — either her location or a way to contact her. They had somehow known Clint held the information they needed and had decided they best way to get the information was to torture him through James.
Despite the tears of frustration, and fury, and hurt for his lover, that dripped steadily down Clint’s face as he watched James’ head get knocked sideways again, this time with a chunk of pipe, Clint wasn’t going to break. Clint knew James wouldn’t want him to.
Clint sat where he was strapped to a wooden chair and watched it play out, mouthing the word sorry over and over again, unsure if James could even see through the grotesque swelling around his eyes.
Clint sat there and wished he could switch places with his lover, spare him everything, he'd already been through too much in life. There was nothing he could do but act as a reluctant spectator. He couldn’t do anything for James and he wouldn’t give them anything on Nat. He didn’t need to.
She would come to them.