A Lost Side

Part 2

A few months later

Clint:

I dropped down quietly from the rafters I was hiding in,  scanning the darkness for any movement. Natasha dropped down next to me giving a hand signal of  "all clear" as she unstrapped herself from the hooks and lines we had used. I relaxed slightly, falling into routine; this was a simple search and destroy mission of a suspected Hydra base, one that we'd done hundreds of times before. Even though Hydra had basically crumbled after its leaders were killed, there were still a few isolated patches that continued to cause trouble; nothing compared to what it was before though. Cut off one head, two grow back my ass.

We inched forward, my bow loaded and ready and her guns ready as well. According to the mission info, the hide out should be behind the corrugated door we were coming up on.  Once we get inside, we would take down as many Hydra agents as possible, that's my job, and download all of the files from the database located in the room, Natasha's job.

I lowered my bow and gently touched the rolling door. With a quick motion to Nat, I pushed it hard, rolling it open so we could enter. Natasha entered first, guns raised with me right after her, arrows ready. The only thing was, someone had gotten there first.

Shit. I sighed, nudging the first guy with an arrow tip. Definitely dead. I did a quick room survey, making sure they were all like that. There were fifteen of them, all in standard Hydra uniforms,  turned like they were running away from the door. Whatever came before us had scared them. 

Natasha jumped over one and quickly crouched down in front of the database after holstering her gun. She shook her head after going through it quickly.  "Everything's gone."

Looking over the murdered men, I noticed something about the killings. I crouched down next to the first few, the ones closest to the door. Their deaths were clean: their necks were snapped neatly. I moved towards Nat, looking at the attack patterns. After the first few, each person seemed to be killed with less precision. Their necks weren't snapped, instead I saw slashes or stab markings. The last one, the agent closest to the database looked like his chest had caved in. No, the killing might not have been neat but it was precise , it contained more rage and force as it progressed.

Natasha seemed to come to the same conclusion as she bent over the guy with the concave chest. She placed a fist over the center and frowned; it was punched in. "Who do you think did this?"

"I don't think anyone from the gifted list has had any activity lately." I spotted a pool of something other than blood and dipped two fingers in it. It was liquid and didn't have a smell.  I rose the fingers, showing them to Natasha. "Water, maybe."

I looked around the room, checking for any sources. No pipes or even drinks. I looked back at the caved in chest and something clicked. There was only one person I've seen do that before. I looked up at Natasha, hoping she had a different outcome.

"Sapphire." Nope, same outcome. I felt a tide of sadness and frustration roll over me. I threw a hand up and watched Nat try to hold her stony mask too.

She stood up and looked over the room again. I could tell that she was recreating the scene and watching her nod, she could definitely see what had happened. "But why did she change strategy? Do you think she went on a blood binge?"

I shook my head. She wouldn't want to lose control. Even if she wasn't in her right mind, Sapphire wouldn't want to hurt anyone innocent. The attack also didn't seem like blood thirst driven. "No, this was rage. She's trying to find Bruce."

When Bruce disappeared during Tony's crashed party, Sapphire flipped. She couldn't sense his thoughts, no matter how hard she tried and followed his scent trail as far as she could before it disappeared as well. There was enough evidence to connect his disappearance with the crumbling Hydra groups and after a few weeks, Sapphire went rogue. We had been doing as much as we could to look for him but when we came up with dead ends, Sapphire decided that she could do better. It was a hard blow for all of us, but I understood why she left as well. I would do anything if Lauren or my kids went missing. There had been a few reports from agents that they saw some strange things on missions in the past month but as far as we knew, she hadn't completely murdered an entire group.

"We'll have to let Fury know. If she's this desperate, she's not thinking clearly." Natasha frowned, clearly not liking the idea of turning Sapphire in, or the idea of having to go against her. I didn't like it either; it definitely wouldn't be a walk in the park if we had to go against. The poor kid was struggling but too stubborn to come back.

"I'll call the clean up team." Natasha started heading to the door and I stood back up, looking over the scene again. I shook my head and collapsed my bow before turning to the door too. 

"Great, more paperwork."

So this was just a quick one but I wanted to show Clint's point of view. The next few will probably be short as well, finals are coming and I won't have much time to write. What'd you think?