NOTES: The end of BlackHawk. This is what happens when you let me AU. I do terrible things.

Polite reviews of any opinion are highly appreciated. If your opinion happens to be positive, feel free to rec this on whatever site you see fit.

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RATING: T for violence, language, disturbing content, the lot.

The Bargain

He wakes.

He comes into consciousness in a slow flash of blue, into an exhaustion so heavy that half of him feels a desperate pull to retreat back to wherever his mind has been held hostage and just rest. The soldier in him proves to be stronger. He shuts his eyes, only to stop their burning, shaking his head to rid his vision of blue.

"Barton!"

He knows that voice; he doesn't know why at first, but then it turns his stomach. He looks up and sees, through the remaining filmy traces of blue, the last face he saw before going under, and it's the face of the psychotic son of a bitch that pushed him down. "I don't have all day," it murmurs, calm and threatening and snide, and all of Clint's instincts rebel against the thought that it ever controlled him.

He reaches for his handgun and that smug little piece of alien shit is about to get a minimum of three bullets to the forehead when Clint suddenly finds himself alone. He could swear the alien just vanished, but then again, he still can't trust his sight. One hand rests on the comfortable curve of the gun handle; the other reaches up to rub his eyes.

After a few more head shakes, his vision clears enough for him to feel like himself.

He turns.

Everything in him freezes.

Suddenly, he's on the floor and she's on the floor and there's warm blood on his hands before he even reaches her.

No.

Pulse and breath.

Pulse and breath.

Check the pulse.

Check for breath.

Check the pulse, check for breath, and don't jump to conclusions until you do.

No matter the blood, no matter any goddamn river of blood around your aching knees, you check the pulse, you check for breath, you make damn well sure before you let yourself react as anything but a soldier.

Trust your senses.

But check again.

Again.

The soldier's senses don't lie.

The soldier tries to cling to control, restraining the other half of him from clinging to her shoulders. Both halves try to curse her, but her name sticks in his throat.

The other half is numb.

The soldier is asking how. What the hell? Because this isn't death, this is slaughter.

The answer comes when his eyes find the arrow, buried up to its fletching, in her chest.

Cognition rips through his mind, forcing out his breath in a shuddering sob as he remembers, one by one, every second of the past hour.

He watches his own knives do their detailed work.

Come on, Natasha.

He remembers hearing laughter, and it's sick and sadistic and then he realizes it's his own.

Don't cry, sweetheart.

He watches his own hands exploit every weakness only he knows she has.

Tell me you love me, Natasha.

He watches his own unshaking hands slowly, carefully, calmly drive his own arrow through her heart.

Don't scream, now.

He watches her die.

He slumps forward in a cold sweat, clutching at his ears to block out the laughter echoing in a loop in his head. His eyes shut against the sight of her lying dead, only to be met with the image of her own eyes filming over and blood caking on her lips.

Finished, boss.

Masterfully done, Barton.

He remembers that same snide face as when he woke up.

What now, boss?

In his burning mind, it glares daggers through his infected eyes and murmurs, as a pale hand holds out its scepter, your turn.

"Are you quite finished?"

His eyes snap open as the other man's voice leaves his memories and enters his ears. The cold hum of the scepter and his own strangled breathing are all that fill the silence; he is resolved to never speak again, to never hear his own disgusting voice again. His hands slowly and deliberately fall from his ears and he feels her blood drying in his hair.

"As I said, Barton..."

His eyes take her in one last time, and though his face turns to stone as he swallows back a plea for forgiveness, he lets the tears fall freely.

"Your turn."

With a feral scream, he tears the arrow from her heart and throws himself on the creature behind him.

Before his arrow can reach the alien's eye, the scepter pierces Clint's skull.

He falls, his head coming to rest on her shoulder as his blood grows cold with hers.