Barnes laughs.

It’s an ugly, wet sound. The hollowness of it -- far too alike a dying man’s last, gasp for air -- has Clint shuddering. He’s glad suddenly, for the mirrored wall between them. Shielding him from the unforgiving harshness of Barnes’ bleeding edges, so raw and biting, they draw blood on everyone they touch. 

(Shielding him from Natasha’s eyes, who always sees that little bit more than he’s comfortable with. She’ll never accuse him of being too soft -- not out loud, not when she relies on his empathy as much as he trusts her merciless drive forward -- but he’ll notice the judgement anyways.

He’s Hawkeye. He can’t not notice.)

(Sometimes Clint wishes he could.)

“Everyone always thought if I’d go rouge for anyone, it’d be Stevie,” Barnes says inside the interrogation room. He’s still chuckling, but the sound is all wrong. Like a cardboard cutout pretending to be a real boy. Like a shell, carved out of all its warmth and humanity, leaving nothing but air and torn flesh behind.

“Guess that just goes to show how well they really knew me.” Barnes lifts his head from where he’s been staring at the steel manacles on his arms.

His eyes are grey. Blue, his file says, but Clint knows what he’s seeing.

“It was never about Steve.”

(Clint isn’t sure they’ll be enough to hold him, if it comes down to it. No one is. But-- Barnes has been on the run from every damn agency on the planet for over two years.

Mistakes happen, or so Sitwell waved his concern off. 

But Clint is Hawkeye, and he’s seen the look in Barnes’ eyes before. A mistake, maybe. What else can love really be, in a world like theirs?)

“Then who was it about?” Natasha asks, the picture of cool disinterest.

She hasn’t flinched once in the face of Barnes’ ragged agony. Hasn’t softened. It’s not her job to play soft hook -- and Barnes wouldn’t have bought it if she tried.

So far, the professional approach has been working fine. But Clint already knows how this conversation is going to end, has foreseen it before Natasha stepped into the room. 

And indeed, Barnes’ dark eyes, filled to the brim with tripwires and explosives just begging to be set off, settle back onto a point on the wall over Natasha’s head. Barnes’ expression closes off and smoothes out, leaves nothing behind, and Clint is grateful for it -- it’s easier to look at people when they don’t bare what’s left of their soul for you -- even as Sitwell starts cursing.

Barnes doesn’t talk. Natasha continues to prod, but from the sharp tilt of her chin Clint can tell that she knows a lost cause same as he does. Barnes has said everything he’s willing to share.

“We’ll get it out of him,” Sitwell snarls a couple of minutes later.

Clint doesn’t ask how. Doesn’t contradict the man either. Doesn’t say ‘Torture won’t work’. 

(Because it depends on the man, in the end, and Sitwell has been an agent for too long by now to remember how far a father will go to protect his child, how many lines a woman may cross to protect her lover, how far two friends can go for each other when push comes to shove.)

There’s a sick feeling rumbling in Clint’s stomach as his gaze slides back to the hunched figure of what is arguably one of the most accomplished killers of the century. Thinks of the haunted, broken gaze the wild hair doesn’t fully hide. 

Clint’s seen that look before, not too long ago, on just another a too bright kid he couldn’t save (”There’s no time, you gotta get out of here!” the Stark kid had hissed, hopeless, and shattered, and feral. Because. “If I’m gonna die here, you better bet I’m gonna take those bastards with me!”) and he wonders if there’s any point in warning Sitwell, who never listens, or Natasha, who always sees too much of herself in every murderer they bring in.

But what would he tell them?

That there was a death sentence in Barnes’ eyes, the first time the cold grey narrowed in on Clint, like a rifle taking aim? That every weapon you create can inevitably be used against you? That Barnes’ may drown in grief, but his rage continues to grow underneath the storm?

To what end?

There’s no disarming a man of Barnes's skill. There’s no letting him go either. (There’s no killing someone whom they might still have use for.)

WINTER SOLDIER #9

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