Time to go

Glass part 4

While Natasha stood frozen in front of the glass, reliving a memory that was seared into her mind. While Tony from the doorway watched the way Clint's chest wracked with heaving breaths and sobs. While Steve stared at the broken soldier who at one time had been one of the best warriors he had ever seen in his long life. Bruce planned.

When he had asked Fury to let them see Clint and Bucky, he wasn't thinking solely to see them, like his fellow Avengers were. No, the scientist was here to plan.

It wasn't that he didn't care to see Clint or Bucky, in fact it was quite the opposite. Bruce would've given the shirt off his back to see Clint and Bucky, but not in cages like criminals. He wanted to see his teammate and new possible ally free and happy and themselves. So he planned.

In Bucky's cell it was hard to see much of anything, thanks to the debris and occasional blood stain on the floor, but in Clint's immaculate prison he saw it.

On the ceiling, it wasn't much, just four horizontal cuts one underneath the other. To an untrained eye it was nothing, yet to Bruce it was an ace in the hole.

It was a vent.

The vent opened up many possibilities for escape and closed them just as quickly because of one little thing: the vent didn't open, it was built into the ceiling.

That presented a problem.

But what kind of scientist would Bruce be if he flinched away at the tiniest difficulties?

Yet, planning a jail break was not Banner's specialty. If he could he would've asked the other Avengers to brainstorm with him, but he knew that was a bad idea for two reasons. One, Fury was literally outside the door and two, he wasn't so sure his friends were even fully there enough to plan.

That meant he was on his own.

Bruce closed his eyes and curled his hands into fists, going into full on planning mode.

Come on! Bruce thought. Use that big, useless brain and think your way out of it.

The most someone has ever lasted before becoming a raving lunatic inside one of these solitary confinement cells is about two weeks. You have two weeks. Clint and Bucky have two weeks without any contact with other people before they become someone you put in a padded cell in a straight jacket. Bruce's eyes flew open.

The criminals who went insane had no human contact whatsoever. If Bruce could find a way to even just have Clint and Bucky talk to someone he could extend the amount of time they could survive in containment. That would give himself a bit more time to think up a plan, or if push comes to shove a bargain to strike with Fury.

The scientist's eyes shifted back up to the vent in the ceiling, this time with a ghost of a smile on his face. If Clint could climb the through the vents with such ease, who says that one of the other Avengers couldn't do the same?

__________________________

Steve looked at Clint and was ready to throw up.

SHIELD had reduced this man, this highly trained agent who could shoot the flea of a hound's back a 100 yards, and stripped him down to a criminal, an animal in a cage.

He grit his teeth. Clint didn't deserve this. Hell, Clint didn't deserve any of the cards life had dealt him.

In Steve's mind Clint had been cheated sorely out if a good life, and Steve knew this for a fact. Because life had also dealt him a hand that he in his more selfish hours would call unfair.

This was one of his more selfish hours.

Some people would say little Steve Rodgers had all the luck. I mean he went from a tiny shrimp to a muscle bound shark, became a national symbol and survived a plane crash and nearly seventy years as a Capsicle in the Arctic.

But Steve knew the real truth. Sure he went from a nobody to a superhero, but being super had it's costs. Steve lost both his parents. He watched his best friend fall into a ravine and out of his life. He crashed a plane into the ocean to save civilians, knowing that he would never see his best girl again. He fell so hard in love with that girl only to lose her so quickly. He woke up seventy years later to a world that was no longer his and problems that apparently his responsibility as Captain America. He had to see Peggy, old and frail, dying in her bed and know that she had moved on without him. He had to accept that everyone he once loved was gone. He had to see his best friend as a soulless murderer created by hydra. He had to fight for his life against his friend and now he had to see his Bucky in a cell for crimes that weren't his fault.

If Steve were alone he would've continued the list, but a shaky intake of breath to his right snapped Steve out of his own little pity party and made him turn. Next to him Natasha was falling apart.

The Black Widow was finally realizing that she has a good chance of being a true widow. But not in marriage. No, if they didn't find a way to free Clint before SHIELD kills him or drives him insane Natasha was going to be widowed in a much deeper way. She would lose her partner, her brother, her entire family and her anchor.

And Steve could feel deep in his ninety year old bones that if Natasha lost her anchor for good, the Natasha that he knew would drift away.

Natasha would become what she was before Clint, a pawn for the KGB, an assassin for hire. She would take suicide missions and she would risk her life whenever she was given the chance. And one day risking her life just won't be enough anymore, then she'll end it.

Steve could feel bile raising in his throat, he could not let that happen, he would rather die than see Natasha reduced to what she was in the Red Room. And he knew that on the other side of the glass there was a man who would break a thousand laws, sacrifice everything a hundred times over and die happily if he could stop Natasha from becoming the thing she loathed.

Glancing around at the other Avengers, Steve made the executive decision that it was time to get them back home to the tower.

He motioned to Tony who was closest to the door that it was time to leave and motioned for him to tell Bruce as well. For once Tony listened and didn't try to question his orders. Honestly Tony was actually happy to be told to leave, he would be happy to be told to leave for any reason as long as it got him out. Because if he had to watch Clint's muted sobs any longer he may just kill Fury outright.

As Bruce and Tony filed out of the viewing room Steve touched Natasha's shoulder lightly.

"Romanov?" Steve said softly, but in his Captain tone, not sure if Natasha would listen if he didn't use it. "It's time to go now."

Natasha nodded slowly and moved to follow Steve out. Tears were still dripping down her face like a leaky faucet, but as she stepped out the door Steve heard a noise exit he mouth that was so foreign to the tone of the room that he spun to stop.

Natasha had laughed.

It wasn't a loud or particularly hardy laugh, but it was a laugh none the less.

"Nat? What's going on?" he asked.

Natasha lifted a finger to point at a mud brown packet placed on a tray near Clint.

"Oatmeal." She said, her laugh becoming a mix of a laugh and a shaky sob. "Clint hates oatmeal."