Colombia

A feather light touch brought Clint back to awareness as his mind tried to clear the thick shadows swirling around him. He was able to get his eyes opened slightly, focusing on the colored clock on the wall as the hands spun round and round, faster and faster. The room was painted a pleasant green color. A distant humming floated through the air, light and melodic, in perfect tune and he found his head turning slowly towards the noise.

A woman with dark brown hair sat in a rocking chair next to his bed, with closed eyes as she hummed along to the song in her head a colorful storybook open on her lap. There was something hauntingly familiar about the melody she was humming, he must have stirred as the woman turned to him and opened her stormy blue-grey eyes.

“What is it Clint?” Her hand brushed over his forehead smoothing his tousled hair back into place. Her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear it, a distorted echoey quality to the words. He struggled to find his voice, his mouth not wanting to form words.

“Mom?” The one syllable word came out slurred as he tried to reach a hand up towards her, but his limbs weren’t responding. He looked up at his mother, her dark hair framing her face as her familiar blue-grey eyes swam with tears. He was confused, why was she crying? Her mouth was moving but he couldn’t hear her.

He closed his eyes as two bright lights stole into his vision in the distance he could hear the sound of a car horn and when he opened them again his mother was still beside him but something wasn’t right. Her normally bright blue-grey eyes were glazed over and unfocused. Deep crimson liquid trickled from a gash on her head and it dripped onto his body. Thick and sticky with a metallic scent it dripped down, over and over, rhythmic, soon he was covered in it.

Panic began to settle in. Drip. He still couldn’t move. Drip. He needed help. Drip. Mom? Momma? Drip. The humming was back. Drip. A scream bubbled up in his throat. Drip. Did she just blink? Drip. His heart was racing. Drip. Shadows closing in. Drip. Drip. Drip.

The scene wavered, brick walls in place of the crumpled car seats, before flashing back. There was red, so much red. His mind was racing, trying to tell him something, anything. Sobs, echoed through his head. This isn’t right. Brick walls flashed again.

Brick walls. He put all of his effort into focusing on the brick walls. The red faded away, replaced by grey brick walls. The shadows receded and his mind cleared momentarily. Campos. He was drugged. None of it was real. He was hallucinating. He grabbed onto that thought like a lifeline, it wasn’t real. He was tied up somewhere in Luciano Campos’ home. He needed to get to Phil. He spotted a figure out of the corner of his eye.

“You sure this isn’t real kid?” His head whipped towards the voice meeting the penetrating gaze of a man with dark brown eyes. “Because this is going to hurt.” Fiery pain raced across his chest as a long black knife cut him from collarbone to hip. He cried out as his muscles spasmed and the shadows came rushing back up to meet him.

Campos grinned evilly as the archer’s body went limp, blood pouring out of the rather deep cut down the right side of his body. The assassin had been continuously administered high doses of Everglaze directly into the spinal column for the quickest transmission to the brain for over three days. The effects nearly instantaneous, excruciating pain followed by seizures, then finally the hallucinations. It was amazing how resilient his body had been, as most people had their hearts stop after only a day of high dosage.

The hallucinations were Campos’ favorite part, the archer would cry out different names as he sliced into his body, he would whimper or moan, but he still would not beg for Campos to stop. He crossed over to the door, opened it and handed the blade to the guard outside the door, he had a meeting to attend upstairs. He turned one last time and eyed the crumpled and bloody body laying on the floor again, the archer was beginning to grow weaker, it would only be a matter of time until he was begging for the end. And Campos was only too happy to give it to him.
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Phil glanced at the clock on the wall again. Nearly five days had passed since Clint had been taken by what he could only assume was Campos. With every hour that passed the chances of Clint escaping alive were becoming smaller and smaller. That is IF Clint is even alive still. He pushed back the pessimistic thought, knowing that Clint was one of the best agents he had ever seen, even if he was only 21 years old.

He walked back over to the computer set up at the kitchen table and refreshed the tracking program, praying that just maybe it would pick up a signal. When the now familiar error message flashed Phil had to take several deep breaths to keep himself from punching through the screen of the useless laptop.

Several ‘jogging’ trips around Campos’ mansion had revealed no abnormal activity, in fact there was not much activity at all, not even a perimeter guard. But Coulson was sure that a man with Campos’ resources and wealth would not have skimped on a total home protection plan, especially after the death of his son in their own living room.

There had been very little information released on the death of the only son, only quiet whispers that mentioned an arrow was what had killed the son. Phil straightened in his chair immediately, realization dawning on him. How had he been so stupid? There was only one assassin who used a bow and arrow to take down targets, he just hadn’t remembered that little bit of the rumor until now.

Son of a bitch. This had all been a set up to get to Clint. He knew he should have trusted his gut more, someone had to have know where they were going to land and had a team down around the site they touched down. Phil had not been able to spot anyone observing him or even mildly interested in him for that matter, which further cemented the notion that this had been all about getting to Clint.

If this was about making Clint pay for killing Campos’ son Phil could only hope that Clint was still alive, even the thought of his young agent being tortured for the past four days was better than the thought that he was dead. Coulson wasn’t even sure how the stubborn pain in the ass archer had wormed his way into Phil’s heart, but somehow he had. And Phil was going to get Clint, if it was the last thing he did.
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Clint’s eyes cracked open and he groaned at the small amount of light that filtered in, too bright for his sensitive retinas. He took a deep breath, attempting to inventory the aches and pains in his body, assessing the damage done from his latest ‘round in the ring’ with Campos. When he suddenly stopped, his head was relatively clear for the first time in days. There were no shadows, no faces from his past hiding in the corners.

He barely stopped himself from sobbing in relief, his drug addled brain had dissolved much of his regular strict self control. He felt like he had been shattered and sloppily glued back together, the things he had seen still waiting to haunt him as soon as he closed his eyes. Clint shook his head, regretting it the second the room spun and flickered in and out of focus.

Get it together Barton. He told himself sternly, he needed to figure out how bad of shape he was in, and gathering from the large puddle of dried blood he was laying in he assumed he was pretty worse for wear. He brought his hands up trying to ignore the fact that they were a dull red, covered in blood. With shaky hands he probed at the cut that went from his right collarbone down to his right hip, out of all the cuts this one seemed the deepest, some sections probably needing stitches.

As he poked a finger at the deepest part of the cut his vision wavered and he blinked rapidly trying to bring everything back into perspective. When he looked back down he nearly screamed when he saw another hand covering his own. It’s not real. It is NOT real Barton. He repeated the mantra in his head as his eyes traveled up the arm of the mystery hand and met the kind blue-grey eyes of his mother.

He knew her eyes were mirrors of his own, as people had always remarked on how unique their eyes were. After the crash he couldn’t look himself in they eyes because every time he did all he could see were the blank vacant eyes of his mother as she lay dead in her seat. He had never told anyone that he had been conscious throughout the entire crash, he, at eight years old, had heard the crunch of his father’s skull and his mother’s quiet sobs before she drew her last breath.

I love you baby. Whatever happens, you can get through it, because you are strong Clint. My beautiful baby boy. I love you. She had known he was conscious, using the last breath in her lungs she had to reassure him, to love him.

He closed his eyes against the sudden flood of tears. He couldn’t do this right now, he had to focus on getting out of here, getting to Phil. When he opened his eyes his mother was gone, but he could smell the fresh cotton scent that was uniquely hers, and it comforted him. The sound of footsteps outside his door had him snapping to attention, praying that he wasn’t just hallucinating the sound.

Now was the time to act, before Campos has the chance to pump him full of more drugs. He rearranged himself on the floor, looking for all intent and purposes that he was still unconscious. Campos’ heavy footsteps sounded as he crossed the small cell floor and kicked at Clint, knocking the breath out of his lungs.

Clint scrambled into protective sitting position praying that Campos wouldn’t pay too close attention to the fact that Clint wasn’t tripping out of his mind. His body was so weak, he had no idea how long he had been locked in this cell, a screaming, drooling mess thanks to the drugs pumping through his system. He had to wait to make a move until Campos was in the best position.

Lucky for him Campos was more focused on inflicting as much pain as he could instead of checking how drugged Clint was. Campos held his knife in one hand, crusted blood flaking off of the sharp blade. Clint knew he would have only one chance at wrestling the knife away from the large man and he watched carefully as Campos bent down tracing the blade over his right bicep, a fresh trail of blood welling up to the surface and dripping down his arm.

With a sudden burst of movement Clint reached up with his right hand and wrapped it around Campos’ throat and snatched the blade out of his grip with his left. It happened so quickly Campos was only able to give a startled squawk before Clint had the blade pressed against his throat.

“You will never break me Campos. Though it was fun to see you try.” Clint growled at the man allowing the most chilling grin to curl his lips, enjoying the flare of pure terror in Campos’ eyes. Clint pushed the blade down into the man’s throat, piercing the brain stem and killing him instantly. He stood up bracing himself against the wall as he prepared himself for the escape that he was going to attempt. He had to get to Phil.

Notes