Would've had this done sooner but I burned my hand on the 4th of July ; a firework blew out the back while I was planting it. No worries, I was alright, burned my fingers red on my right hand but I have been wearing a glove to protect it. That helped it heal nicely... as did taking time to stare at Jeremy Renner's cameo in Thor, heha. I started this last week when I was both extremely giddy AND up at an insane hour of the night. Dunno why but my writing goes dark when I'm at my happiest. Weird, huh?

I've seen a few people take a crack at this scenario. Figured it was my turn.

"And when he wakes,
he'll have just enough time to see the work he's done,
and when he screams,
I'll break his skull!
This is my bargain, you mewling quim!"

...This wasn't home. This wasn't headquarters. This wasn't the Project Pegasus building.

He wasn't quite sure what this was.

Slowly he eased off of his back. He sat up with caution that came from countless weeks of battling injury, from gashes, gunshots, bone bruises, burns and whatever else the universe threw at him. The idea of jolting upright like a patient in a sitcom was laughable; the amount of pain that would cause could make one black out while imagining it. Healing burns would rip and peel, broken bones would pulse and grind, open wounds would strech and bleed. Save the theatrics for television sets and silver screens he did not watch, he was going about the correct way. In an unknown place, at an unknown time, in an unknown condition, the least he could do was check and make sure of what was and was not in one piece.

All four limbs were still attached. Soreness was a given, seeing as he was waking in some random, cast off state. Bruises lined the visible skin on his arms, some yellow, some red, some that would undoubtedly become purple as time went on. Whatever had happened, the assailant had done damage but he seemed to have deflected it rather well. Other than a patch on his chest where fabric was thin and armor absent that had been cut open to reveal a thin red mark, there were no open sores or gouges; blood did not pool under him. A quick glance over his shoulder, down at the silver grating floor, proved that true-

The motion of turning his head caused him to see stars. Had he been healthy he would have strung together a line of curses that would make a fisherman recoil; it had been proven, hadn't it, that profanities increased tolerance to pain? What better way to test it? (Then again, if he had been healthy, there would be no reason to curse to start with.) With a groan that he could not suppress, he was forced to complete the motion, to make his body follow his head until he had straightened out, essentially laying on his stomach against the silver grating that, thanfully, seemed to be clean of any sort of bodily fluid. Realizing that he was panting, he deepened his breaths in an attempt to slow his heart, to send the blood back to his head, his brain. His forehead was put against the grating, his eyes were closed, his fingers curled in between the rungs of the floor and clenched as if holding on to a net for dear life.

As his heart stopped racing and its pulsing became less evident in his ears, sounds of utter chaos began to register. Holding his breath, he cast out his awareness. Clammering, pounding, shooting, screaming were soon accompanied by the sick smell of fuel and fire. A strange sensation threatened to make him lose whatever was in his stomach; the feeling of beeing off balance, Barton finally realized that whatever he was in was tilting. Putting weight on one hand to keep him from rolling over, he continued his personal assessment; throbs and stings he associated with bruises were beginning to register, stemming from his arms to his back. Turning his head more slowly, apprehensively, he could still see no sign of an open wound on his person; while his head felt like he had either gotten punched or had fallen, there were no blood trails going down his exposed skin and no pressure from the hidden.

"Ah, Agent Barton."

Every single cell in his battered body went on high alert. The sickness to his stomach was forgotten, the headrush barely noticed as he jumped to his feet, because no, Clint Barton did not scramble. On his feet, his weight on his toes, one hand clutching his bow (which he discovered was beside him all along)-

The quiver was empty. Not even a single arrow, just a few dozen fistfuls of air.

From farther down the grated walkway, shrouded by the incoming smoke and darkness, the demigod gave a throaty chuckle. The Tesseract fueled spear in his hand cast a pale blue, eerie glow on the piping, railing and equipment that surrounded them, including his own features; if he hadn't looked the role of a devil before he did then.

"Welcome back."

Barton moved more cautiously now. His own eyes stared into the demigod's as he went from his knees to standing almost upright, his body still turned, his legs still spread as if he had an arrow to let loose. He had a fist clenched around his bow to where his knuckles were deathly white. There was still a good distance between them, perhaps fifty feet, but that began to shrink as the demigod began a leisurely pace across the metal bridge. It was sickening, how the god in man's clothing strode forth, his shoulders relaxed and swinging as if he was approaching an ally in a park. He was no ally and this industrial hellhole was no fucking park. Alarms were going off, Barton heard them now- sirens that struck him as if someone was slamming railroad spikes into every nerve ending on his skull-

The demigod was around thirty feet away now and, for the moment, stopped. Tilting his head, Loki put on a concerned face, one hundred percent meant to mock. He gave a few tsks of his tongue. "It looks as if you are all out of arrows."

There was no need to respond. What would he say? No shit, you melodramatic prick? ...now that he though about it, maybe he should have spoken up, if only to get the satisfaction from making the demigod sneer. His grip on the bow was becoming painful. As he eased his fingers to allow bloodflow back into them he brought the weapon in front of him, the black material creating a thin barrier between himself and Loki.

Said antagonist tilted his head in the opposite direction as before, narrowing his eyes and hunching his shoulders down in a challenge. "I don't suppose you plan to hit me with that?"

"Come a bit closer," Barton dared, the darkness in his voice making the surrounding shadows seem like sunshine during the summer. "We'll find out."

"I believe I shall pass. Bad things seem to happen to those who are... close to you."

It was going to take a lot more than inflection on a word to break his facade. Instead of narrowing his eyes and giving the manipulative man the upper hand Barton remained still, his eyes searching his enemy's. Loki was taunting him, as if the dialogue had not made that obvious enough but there was something more in those eyes, some sense of knowing, knowing something that he, codename Hawkeye, did not. What is it you're playing at?

The man spread his arms. Barton flinched, his hand tightening around the bow once more in anticipation of a blast from that spear- but it never came. Instead, Loki seemed to be motioning to the area around him, the smoke gathering at the ceiling and the noise echoing all around (he had to ignore the splitting headache, he had to ignore it, no matter how many orbs of light began to dance at the edge of his vision). Smiling as if addressing a work of art, the demigod gave a chuckle worthy of a famished hyena before warping his voice, making it a smooth purr that would have been better used on Wallstreet coming from the mouth of a crook. "Look around you. Tell me, where is this place? I belive you can figure it out. Enlighten me, how did you get here?"

As much as he hated to, Barton had to break the eye contact in order to glance around. With the air thick with black fog it took a moment to peer through and see distinguishing features, and with the pulsing at his temples it was almost impossible to concentrate and process the images once he did spy them. At last it seemed to dawn on him, most likely caused by the sudden leveling out of the walkway where he had once been having to compensate for the massive tilt to the right;

This had to be the hellicarrier.

Where he had kept his countenenance from shifting before he failed to now. The hellicarrier- how the fuck had he ended up thousands of feet above the planet when, last he remembered, he had been stationed in the rafters of a facility that was underground?

As his eyes continued the scan of the now familiar service walkway, his own weapon came into view. His gaze shifted down to the bow from attraction alone, just as a patron's eyes drift across a painting due to key points in the picture itself, not from their own free will.

Had he not had such a tight grip on the weapon he may have dropped it.

One end was smeared in blood.

Images flashed in the back of the archer's mind as the demigod smirked with pointed, canine like teeth. Did the man step closer? The steps were muffled by the noise roaring in Barton's ears, the siren that had existed both in the moment and the memory he had somehow triggered-

He couldn't go for an arrow to fire, not even an incendiary, not if he wanted to kill himself at the same time. She was crafty, he knew that, but he hadn't expected her to grab the bowstring, to hold it, drawing them into close quarters, her eyes blazing. Oh, was this about to get exciting. Adrenaline pounding in his chest from the thrill of the fight, he continued on- no mercy! From there close quarters continued, hit after hit being exchanged until he had one hand in her hair and the other on a knife, drawing her head back at as great an angle as it would go without snapping. Somehow she had freed herself, playing dirty and sinking her teeth into his wrist. God damn, was it going to be satisfying when-

His feet came out from under him, he was being brought down, his head hit the guard railing; momentarially stunned he remained still, his eyes staring down at his hands. The knife was gone, his quiver somehow empty.

But there was still the bow.

He looked back at her, putting on a neutral face. He snarled her name but the shock of the hit lessened the sound of aggression. She faltered; did she think he was free?

Compromised. He'd done it.

The way he was positioned, he had an arm hidden under him. The same arm clenched around the bow. With a scream, primal and insidious, he turned his body, coming to his feet with agility that would have made his SHIELD namesake proud; and just as a hawk tore through the pelt of its prey, the bow extended as his arm came around, the tip striking her neck, slicing with a satisfying sound, with dripping blood dropping down through the floor. The slice had been just perfect, going from the first bit of exposed skin to the right, across the jugular to her left jawline, but not as perfect as her scream!

"It was a lovely series of events,"

Loki's voice brought him back to reality.

The demigod was close now, trailing on fifteen feet as his boots crossed a SHIELD emblem painted in black on the silver grating. He still had his arms extended like the messiah he believed himself to be better than. "How marvelously you performed back there. I must admit, Barton, I had my doubts about you. You have heart, I meant it when I said that-"

With every step Loki took over an invisible fifteen foot limit Barton took one back.

"-but you are an assasin which relies on surprise, precision, time. She was an attack dog; Ready, fire, aim. If her first shot missed she had three more that would not. While it could not have happened better, her being the one to confront you, I feared her all out assault would wear you down. But you kept a calm mind, dear Hawkeye, just as an archer should, and won when she was blinded by her rage." Those wolfish teeth were bared again as Barton was forced to pivot, turning and following a new tangent when the walkway no longer went straight. "Though that rage faded, did it not? That red hued anger directed toward me was smothered the moment you swung that bow."

The scream was sudden and short, a shriek that he had heard from her lips only a few choice times before. With her stumbling back, a hand applying pressure to the jagged, flesh revealing tear on her throat, he swung again. This time she caught the body of the weapon with her free hand, holding it away from her where his aim had been to bludgeon. No matter; he lashed out with a foot, his heel connecting with her left leg below her knee. The snap he heard did not come from his bow. From instinct alone, not any action of her choosing, her body dropped to take weight off of the fractured, possibly broken leg. He had to strike then, while she was down for that millisecond, for he knew she would fight through the pain of a broken limb as she had so many times before. The upper hand was his; without wasting a beat, with a swing worthy of the seventh game in a World Series, he sent the bulk of the bow he would need to replace anyway into her ribs. Snap, crack, thud; reduced to laying on her side a stide away, her cough came in a dry, heaving sputter and blood not only covered her hand but flowed down her jaw, covered the teeth she snapped shut so tight it was audible.

Those eyes were still blazing.

"How awful must it feel?" Loki's exhale scattered the smoke that began to trickle down farther and farther. Barton's own breathing was getting heavier; he found himself crouching to get at the thinner, more pure air. "Knowing her final moments were spent fearing who she held most dear?"

The walkway was ending; The handle of a door pressed into Barton's back and any additional step would have it dig painfully into his spine. At the same time his heel nudged loose piping; something in those background images at the back of his mind told him that Banner had snapped, that he had probably knocked these loose before being calmed down (or whatever had happened to him). Feigning a cough, putting an arm over his mouth as if a cloud of smoke had gotten to him at last, he dropped down, putting his weight on his toes with his knees bent. Walking once more, Loki cackled and murmured about the weakness of the human condition. When the demigod stepped off of the straight path and onto the turn Barton jolted up, two of the broken steel rails in his hands. He threw them both. The genuine shock in Loki's eyes did little to slow Barton's painfully quick heart, but it was something. The demigod used the spear to eliminate one of the rails and had to duck away from the second. With Loki's eyes elsewhere Barton grabbed onto another section of loose railing, put his foot on the locked doorknob and thrust himself up, climbing onto an upper level, the same upper level as he'd seen in those flashbacks.

He took off sprinting, navigating the deck despite the smoke and darkness that threatened to impede him.

With her down on the ground and dripping with the red she wanted so desperately to wipe from her ledger, he felt it was safe enough to cast his sights around, to search for either his knife or one of his arrows. The moment she exited his focal vision, she moved. His first reaction was anger, the second was shock; how had she moved so sudden, so fast?
Her hands had gotten him by the ankles; he was going down. On his back, he gave himself no time to regain his breath; he kicked out again and hit nothing but air. Jolting up, getting back onto his feet, weight on his toes and poised to spring, he was too slow; she entered his vision again, using her hands to keep weight off of the injured and bloody leg. She threw herself forward. Confident that he could take her in a weakened state, he did little to move out of the way. Instead of her hands going to some weapon she had found in the background or on her body they went for his neck; her ams going around his throat, tight as if she intended to strangle, she used her weight to knock him back-

-and without the guard rails in place, torn away by Banner moments before, they both went over the edge.

That was why he had woke where he had, on his back, staring upward, trying to stand and falling over like a newborn foal.

Back on the upper level Barton ran like a bat out of hell; not his best idea given the way his heart pounded in his chest, his ears, racing to where it threatened to take his breath away. It was getting hard to breathe, fuck, and the taste of the smoke was beginning to linger on his tongue, in his mouth. However, just like the headache before, he had to push back his selfish thoughts of fresh air and water; he had to keep going; he had to glance over every inch of railing, searching the lower levels, searching-

After what seemed to be hours of running he found the section of the lower deck that was in complete disarray, the walkways being torn up and contorted in every which way, loose piping, steam coming out of who-knows-what, broken electronics sparking like lightning in the smoke, and a section of walkway smeared in blood.

God..

Oh god...

It had happened.

It had honestly fucking happened.

"Natasha?" He called as he knelt down; the word somehow managed to echo over the sirens. The grating by his feet was a deep red, stained and smeared. There was a pool on a soild piece of flooring below where the results of the fight had slipped through and collected... It made his throat tighten with nausea and a wave of emotion he could not identify. Maybe it was shame.

There was a shine from the level below, a glint, the travel of light across the barrel of something incredibly unfriendly. Instinct told him to duck back just in time; a shot rocketed out from the darkness, the muzzle flash a becon against the shadows, and the round buried itself into an electrical panel; after an initial burst of heat and light that had Barton shielding his face with his arms, a scream rang out;

"You son of a bitch!"

It was pure, raw, unprescidented anger, a sound that came from deep in the human psyche, buried where the most primordioal of instincts were hidden; like a rabid, cornered animal, the owner of the voice would stop at damn near nothing, and there he was was on the recieving end.

"Send Barton down here, I fucking dare you! I'll take him down, I'll put him out of your misery, then I'll put a round right through your skull! We'll see if you're imortal or not!"

The back of his mind was quite busy that day; something in his subconscious realized that, battered and bloody as he feared she was, that insane loyalty was still there. She was not a soft woman, no, she put bullet holes in every stereotype man could imagine- but no being, man, woman or god could say she was not true to her word, her alliances.

Instead of crawling away to seek help for her own wounds, she was still fighting for him. "Nat-!" For his own good he stayed away from the edge. She would fire, she had a half dozen clips just waiting to be loaded. "Nat, It's me, I swear on-"

A shot hit the railing dangerous close to where he crouched; she had used his shadow as a spot to aim. He jumped back to a solid panel, a hand pressed against the wall to help hold himself. Perhaps it was the smoke that was thick as hell at this height, or maybe it was the knowledge that her crazed fury was his fault, but he was coming close to retching.

"Prove it!"

"The last time I saw you before your stint at Stark Industries was in Texas," The words came from his throat before he could stop them and he was thankful that they were coherent, not slurring and tumbling over one another as if he was drunk. "You'd grown your hair out as your cover even though I thought it looked better on you short. You had taken a trip by horseback on a mare no one said you should buy; goddamned thing was so flighty and you had bruises and scrapes from where she tried to toss you. You went through the desert by night to an old frontier town, one where you've got that secret home we sometimes share. No one checks there for life, fuck, it's a goddamned ghost town not even history books or gold rush maps remember-" He was genuinely coughing by then. Tears blurred his vision; not all of them were from the dirty air. "God- where are you?"

After a pause that nearly had him fearing she had lost consciousness, she fired another shot, one pointed directly up and meant to serve as a signal flare. The muzzle flash's location committed to memory, Barton went back to the section of walkway where they had fallen. Ignoring the blood that now stained his clothing, his hands, he grapped onto the edge and went over. His feet did not touch the lower level; he let go, dropped, tucked and rolled once he landed. In cleaner air he took gasping breaths which his lungs thanked him for with fresh energy. Or perhaps the newlyfound purpose of finding her had put vigor into his steps.

The lower vantage point threw him off for a moment before he got his bearings. Right. He had to turn right, go down a small set of stairs, find where he could see the walkway he had come down from... or, as he came to realize, he could follow the trail of blood. Breathing through his mouth so the copper smell would not overpower him, he had to get on his knees to duck down under a platform to get into a service area. It was a wonderful place to hide; he never would have thought to look here, not with how dark it had become.

The sound of a gun being aimed was hard to miss, even moreso where he was since the sirens seemed more distant, quieter. Barton remained still, his eyes staring into the darkness, wide as possible to shorten the time it took to adjust as much as possible. Once he was able to distinguish a human form against the machinery, he lifted a hand, slowly extending it forward. "What... makes you believe this is me?" He asked, his voice hoarse from the run, the drop, the smoke. "I.. I could still be under control. I could be stringing this story, Nat."
"You didn't specify the color of the horse."

Barton narrowed his eyes. "...What?"

"You didn't over accentuate the details." Her voice was strained; God dammit, he couldn't hold still any longer. Inching along in the darkness he stopped only when his hand grazed then grasped her shoulder. He helped her to sit upright, an arm curled around her side but avoiding the ribs he feared were hurting her, the very ribs he had struck. Despite the fight that was burned into his memory she made no noises of pain, gave no hint at being hurt; only the way she allowed the arm to remain around her, to linger in an intimate gesture, gave her condition away.

"What color was the mare?" Barton kept up the small talk. His hands now at her jawline, he tilted her head back in the dark.

"Black.. but beginning to grey. She looked... looked like a blue roan because of it. But her face was wrong. White, not black..."

Where his heart had once jumped into his throat it now fell back into place. He exhaled a breath that shook more than his fingers; the gash on her throat, the one the tip of his bow had created, it was no where near as bad as that memory had lead him to believe. The grotesque image of the weapon cutting through muscle, tendon and artery was just that; a sick, twisted nightmare. That did not mean the weapon had not left its mark; instead of the deep, fatal gash that the demigod's trickery had lead him to believe there was a smaller gouge, one that slit skin and left uneven, gleaming edges. However, the carotid had been spared. For once in his life, he was glad to have missed a shot.

"If you'd said all that... every detail.. I would have known it was someone else. Not you. You are terrible at remembering coat colors..."

"Quit talking, please..."

In the darkness she smirked, her teeth flashing white with none of the blood he had seen in the false memory. (Thank goodness...) "You asked."

"How touching."

He did not need to hiss stay low under his breath. Beside him Natasha had crouched down, hiding in the shadows. Barton remained most of the way upright, putting his palms down on the flooring, one in front of him and one on the other side of Natasha, his arms forming a posessive barrier, a protective embrace because dammit all if he was going to let that that son of a bitch get anywhere near her again.

There were several ways I could have ended this but I decided to just leave it here; if I want to continue it, see how the movie would have ended with how I've twisted it, I will. Though, as some of y'all know, I've got another Fanfiction project to be working on.