Disclaimer: I do not own Tokyo Ghoul or the Avengers

Also, I fixed the previous chapter. Kaneki is not injured by the bullets. Thank you all for reminding me, and please if you ever spot more errors, feel free to tell me.

Chapter: 7

An hour before the end of the last chapter:

"Um, Natasha, Hill? I've got sights on the van, as well as the masked guy."

Good, put a tracker on them," Natasha replied to the message quickly.

"About that, the guy in the mask just jumped onto the van... and I get the feeling that he'll notice any tracking arrows I shoot onto his ride."

What? "Just get it over with and put a damn tracker on them!"

"I don't think you understand. The guy is literally looking right at me."

How was that possible? "He can tell where you are? Did you screw up on your location or something?" She asked with a raised brow.

"I'm offended that you'd think I'd do something like that! I'm literally in the top branches of a tree. In a forest. In the middle of the Goddamn night!"

"...trail after them, then. Can you see the license plate?" Natasha questioned.

"Yeah, it's —. You have a tracker on me right? I'll trail behind and we can join up."

"I'll call director Fury and let him no what's going on," said Hill, who had been silent up until that point.

Wrapping up their conversation, Natasha ran to her car to follow Clint's tracker. He had grabbed a motorcycle himself to trail the truck, keeping a distance as he followed.

He eventually ended up falling back, to the point where she caught up to him, because the masked man kept staring in his direction. She didn't know how the guy knew the archer was there, but he managed to always spot him.

It had nothing to do with the motorcycle either. They were on the goddamn freeway, and he still knew exactly where he was. How the masked menace even recognized Clint as the man who had been watching him from the trees evaded her.

They realized the truck stopped at a building and arrived perhaps 8 minutes later, having kept their distance to be safe. By the time they arrived, the building had alarms blaring and unconscious guards(?).

When she looked at the place, the first thing she realized was that she'd seen it before. It was a SHIELD base that was created by the former director, no longer in use.

The second thing she realized was that all of the fallen men were unconscious except for one. And, when she said not unconscious, she meant he was dead. Running to the man to examine him, she noted the large gaping hole in his stomach. Whoever had done this, probably the masked man, was able to cleanly pierce an armored man's body. That was not good news.

Looking at the men who were unconscious, she grimaced at the bloody scene. They all had large wounds, some even missing limbs. None were actually dead but would die from the blood loss if left untreated.

With a grim expression, both she and Clint walked into the building. The metal door at the front had already been ripped off its hinges(which was worrisome), and what awaited them was a bloody maze of halls and corridors.

The first room itself was actually large. It split into two from there, both being possible paths to the perpetrator. There was a group of armed men at the space between the split, five in total.

Two of them were dead, from the same pierced chest wound as before. Another was unconscious as he rested along a cracked wall. The other two? They weren't in much of a better state.

The one with a badge indicating his higher status was missing an arm. He gasped and panted as he held onto the wound with his other. He, along with the only other survivor, were muttering under their breaths. It sounded like they were counting down by sevens.

Clint bent down and waved a hand across the face of the man, but elicited no response. He just sat there, hand over the wound, mumbling and crying. The blood loss was so severe, she was shocked he was still conscious, much less alive.

She sighed. He'd be dead before anyone could come for medical help.

"Clint, we should split up. You take the left hall, I'll take the right. If you find the guy, call me and only engage in combat if you're confident in your skill," the redhead told her companion.

"It's also possible that he has help. In fact, that's probably the case considering all the damage. Be careful," she added.

He nodded and the two headed there separate ways. As the halls divided more and more, she realized that she had probably taken the same path as the target.

That's right, target. She had already began to label him as such, sure that he was involved in the cause of all of...this.

The body count littered across the floor of the base was disturbing, but just pointed more towards the danger of the situation. The question was how the masked man did it, though.

All the wounds Natasha had come across had been varied. However, the most common ones were pierced limbs, detached limbs, hard hits, and a few slashes and cuts. The weapon the target used was versatile, to say the least. She just couldn't quite figure out what exactly it could be. The pierces were too clean and large to be bullet wounds, and the cuts were obviously caused by a more melee weapon.

It made no sense. Not only was the weapon and combat capability of the man unknown, his motives were a mystery as well. She had no clue what could spur the man to suddenly follow the truck.

If anything, he should have left them alone. After all, they were the ones supplying him with the bodies he'd steal(even if it was unplanned).

Her footsteps echoed in the hall as she passed a room filled with cells. The door at the end of the hall was completely torn apart, much to her curiosity (and somewhat terror).

Clint Barton was taking his time walking through a much more empty path. As far as he could tell, there was not a single victim to the attack(mostly because they had chased after Kaneki in the other hallway, but Clint didn't know that).

He was kind of disappointed that he'd either ended up choosing the wrong hall or that the masked man had left after all the previous carnage. That last part was unlikely, though.

He noticed that the sleek white walls were pristine unlike at the intersection where he'd parted with Natasha.

That was also how he noticed the one small splatter of blood. It stood out amongst the white wash, and screamed of its presence.

Following the small splash, Clint found himself face to face with a door. Really, it was surprisingly one of the few door around in this ridiculous maze of corridors. Carefully and silently, he twisted the handle open and peered inside.

The room looked to be something like an office. It had the computers and the desks, a long with some cups of coffee which had been abandoned during the raid.

Speaking of coffee, he'd have to try that coffee place Natasha had been going on about. It must have some pretty damn good stuff for her to be praising it.

*cough* Anyways, the room seemed as silent and empty as all the others had it not been for the small breath that he heard. It was sporadic and hastily covered, but there nonetheless.

He stepped inside with a pistol at the ready, decidedly using it instead of his bow. Sure, archery was cool and all, but not exactly the right fit for this particular situation. Weaving around the tables and clutter, Clint came across the source of the sound.

One of the employees(?) of the building, wearing the same black guard like uniform as all the others, was huddled in the corner. He had a sweaty palm against his mouth, presumably trying to stop himself from making any loud sounds, and really just failing at it.

The poor sod stumbled back as Clint visibly appeared in front of him, knocking back a chair in the process. The resulting thud sound just made the man flinch and shake more than he had before.

Wow, this guy was a wreck.

He fumbled about his uniform for a bit, probably searching for a gun or another weapon of some kind, before eyeing the one in the archer's hand. He visibly deflated before dropping his hands and sighing in defeat.

Honestly, Clint wouldn't be surprised if the employee burst into tears right there from the utter fear the man was radiating in waves.

He lifted his arms up in surrender and shut his eyes right before letting out a quick mumble of words too fast for the SHIELD agent to catch.

The archer raised an eyebrow in question.

"I'm sorry, d-don't kill me please I-I swear I didn't do anything wr-wrong!" The other finally squeaked out.

Sighing, Clint placed a hand on the man's shoulder. The whole situation was rather awkward, what with these people using a formerly abandoned base for god knows what, and Natasha and himself storming it. Oh, there was also the attack performed by a mysterious masked man on said abandoned base. And then carrying corpses out to dump in suicide locations. Corpses that contained unknown chemicals.

...Okay, so a lot of stuff made it awkward.

But still, the man had necessary information, or at least enough to know some things about the enhanced that had attacked the area.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna hurt you," he finally let out, still patting the other. He needed information from the cowering guard regardless of the situation. "Just, tell me what happened, yeah?"

There. That should be good enough to coax some stuff out of the man, yeah? Nice and simple.

The enemy/victim suddenly gripped his arm. His eyes widened slightly as he shook and opened his mouth to speak. "Y-you gotta run. H-h-he, no no, it. It is a monster. I-it got everyone. T-t-the bullets don't w-work on it. Yo-you have, have to run!" He screamed at Clint.

Ooookay then. That was disturbing. The guy probably has a few screws loose.

"What was that about the bullets?" He asked instead.

"Bullets don't work! They bounce right off of that monster! And the limbs! It has some kind of extra limbs that skewer and stab and slice and kill! The blood, the blood. There's so much of it!" The stuttering was abandoned for honest to god terror. Tears slipped down the man's face as he began talking about this 'monster'.

"What did it look like?"

The grip on his arm tightened and the mad man looked the SHIELD agent right in the eye and said, "It looked like a man with a mask and white hair."

Shit.

Clint immediately pulled off the hand on his arm and rushed to reach for his communicator.

He looked at the whimpering guard one last time, before using the but of his gun to knock him out.

"Natasha! Don't initiate combat! The guy has some kind of armor that deflects bullets." He spoke into the mic as he ran, back back back, the way he came.

Natasha softened her steps as she watched her target in the doctor's room from around the corner.

From her position, she could spot the surprisingly familiar form of the barista from Milliane. Logan was his name, if she remembered correctly.

She shifted her eyes in disgust to all the tools around him. The bastards had obviously done something to a mere civilian. From her path tracking the masked man, it'd already become evident that the base had been used for some kind of human experimentation.

"Help! Help, anybody! The intruder-" the doctor screamed, and she merely looked at him with cold eyes from her location.

But then his stomach was pierced by the masked man. She saw for the first time his strange tentacle like limbs as they speared at him.

She gaped at him, blood dripping down the extra limbs. Natasha was no stranger to death, and by no means pitied the doctor, but she still flinched as it happened.

She flinched not because of the death, or the masked man's willingness to kill, but at the speed it had happened. It was quick and decisive, and would be damn hard to fight.

Then something that horrified even Natasha happened. The masked man cracked his neck and fiddled with his mask before speaking, "Now that I think about it, I never did get to eat, did I?"

And then he he opened his mouth and. Bit. Down. On. The. Doctor's. Flesh.

Disgust creeped into her as she heard him swallow, and her mind drifted to all of the missing corpses. The corpses of innocent civilians who'd been dumped after experimentation.

The masked man hadn't been hiding the corpses or using them for anything.

It was much worse.

He was eating them.

And without a moment's hesitation, she raised her gun and shot it at the back of his head. It was a perfect shot, straight at the skull, and should have killed him.

Emphasis on the should have.

"Natasha! Don't initiate combat! The guy has some kind of armor that deflects bullets." came Clint's voice through the transmitter.

The massage came too late, because the man had already turned around, not even flinching from the bullet, and turned to state right at her.

The four tentacles coming out of his back arched back and came piercing straight at her.

The mask slipped off, revealing a horrifyingly familiar baby face. One eye was the same gray as it always was, but the other was a black and red monstrosity. White hair slipped down messily as he looked at her.

"Kaneki?" Natasha whispered, and both of the boy's eyes widened a fraction, even the left.

The long red limbs stopped, just barely close to cutting into her. A streak of blood running down her cheek told of how close they had gotten to killing her.

"Oh? Natalie, was it? I wasn't expecting this, I will admit," the boy spoke first, snapping Natasha out of her stupor. Natalie was the name she had given to the boy and his coworkers not long ago.

"Lower the gun, will you? I'll forgive you for shooting me since you're a regular at the shop. I won't even kill you! Nice of me, right?" He asked with the familiar smile. However, unlike its previous warmth, it seemed so much more sinister.

"I'm afraid I can't do that. I'll need you to turn yourself in, Kaneki," she said, recovering her form and readjusting her grip on her gun.

Kaneki snorted, even looking a little insulted from her suggestion. "Why don't you make me," he said icily.

Natasha's grip tightened and she slowly shifted herself into the room.

"We can, and we will," she said as she inched towards the side of the room.

"We?" The boy asked curiously.

"Yes, we," Another voice cut in. Natasha turned her head to see the archer standing at the doorframe with his bow in hand and aimed.

The cannibal raised an eyebrow. "You think a bow is going to stop me?"

Clint shrugged, "I figured since bullets don't work, I might as well try with this."

Then he fired an arrow, electrically tipped if the sparks were any tell, and grabbed for another.

Kaneki batted at the arrow, not even bothered by the voltage, and used one of his tentacle-things to snap the next that came.

One of his other tentacles made a motion of attacking the agent when he suddenly swiveled his head in a snap to look at Natasha.

She had a gun to the head of the unconscious blond in the room, her finger at the trigger and ready to fire.

"Don't attack us, turn yourself in, and I won't shoot him," she warned the white haired boy.

He glared at her, his fists tightening. "You wouldn't shoot him," he finally said.

"Oh, but I would. I've killed more people than I can keep count of, kid," she said, and it was true. "Turn yourself in, or I will shoot."

Natasha watched as he grit his teeth, hissing at her.

"I won't turn myself in," he said slowly, flinching as she pushed the gun deeper into Logan's skull.

"But I won't attack you right now if you leave. Just-just give Logan back," he said, his voice containing some panic as he eyed her finger on the trigger.

Natasha smirked. That was exactly what she was aiming for. Sure, having him turn himself in would have been great, but he could have easily broken out. All they needed was to be able to leave, inform Fury about Kaneki and his abilities, and they could nab him another time.

After all, they had the perfect blackmail. The cannibal obviously was trying to hide his eating preferences and monstrous skills and appearance. So, what better way to threaten him than to dangle the threat of telling everybody what he was?

It was an awful thing to do, but they really had no other choice. This was a cannibal they were talking to. He was a threat, especially with his enhanced abilities.

"Deal," she said.

Um, sorry I've been gone so long? Again, my update speed is going to be pretty iffy... I personally didn't like how this chapter came out, which was probably why it took so long to write. It was one of those things that sounded better in your head but comes out as crap when you actually write it. Hehe, sorry about that...

So, anyways, thoughts and comments? I know I painted SHIELD in a pretty crappy light with the end of this chapter, and any Kaneki and Black Widow interactions will probably be strained in the future, but...?

Also, how would you feel about me writing another fic? Writing two may actually help me with writers block since I can jump back and forth. I've been getting into Katekyo Hitman Reborn, and it's surprisingly good. I'm thinking about writing a fic for it, but I'm still not quite sure. I haven't even finished watching the anime or even started the manga, so that'll probably take a while though.

Thanks for reading!