Marvel One Shots

I. Arrow Shaft

They had her.

The man had her.

The man that had followed them, had her.

She stood with her back ramrod straight, even with the bullet in her knee that had made her limp all the blocks, dripping blood on the pavement and the walls. She still held her gun clutched in her hand, but she hadn't raised it. Didn't even make a move to raise it. Her breath was labored, and the Asset could see the pain behind her stoic features.

He didn't know her. But she somehow knew him. Maybe they had known each other in one of those other lives the Asset's handler spoke about. The voice in the Asset's mind that had quieted all the more after each mission, mumbled far away in the back.

'That would've been nice.'

The Asset swallowed. The Asset didn't think. Didn't feel. Didn't speak to those superior to him. He didn't fight them. Didn't disobey. Didn't fight the system.

But what's to say that the woman staring along the shaft of an arrow cocked against a bowstring, couldn't? Why shouldn't she think? Not feel? Not speak? Not fight? Not disobey? Why shouldn't she fight the system? He couldn't, but she could.

Heaving a light, quiet sigh, he pressed a finger to his comm.

The woman down below gripped her gun harder, before loosening her grip in confusion as she furrowed her brows. 

"уступать."

It was the voice she'd first associated with fear and death, before it'd changed to hesitant warmth and reluctant love. Right before it had been ripped away and replaced again, this time with the chill of winter and the rattling of frozen bones.

She pressed her own, blood coated finger against her own comm.

"Зачем? Я могу взять его."

The voice that snapped back had an underhint of light desperation. Fright.  The Winter Soldier wanted her to run.

"нет."

Natalia removed her finger from the comm with a heavy swallow, her stoic face melting into one of fear and desperation. She molded herself into the very impersonation of what her superior's had contained.

Dropping her gunarm even further, she was about to speak when the Archer spoke.

"I don't want to kill you. But I will if I have to."

Natalia listened to the comm. Nothing. This is what he wanted. Her to disappear when he couldn't.

"I don't want this anymore." She whispered, her English almost perfect, apart from her vowels over the 'r's. The Archer lowered his weapon, confusion written across his every feature.

"Really?" Relief washing over his face. She clenched her jaw. "Yes."

"You don't seem too sure."

Her eyes managed to flicker at this, something they always did when she was nervous. Her eyes caught the dark tinted glasses of the man on the roof. The Archer followed her eyes, and saw the same man. But they all saw him under different light.

Natalia saw the man she had once loved. As a child, the love had first been like that to a brother. As she grew older, it had evolved into that form of love that brought flutters to her heart and a thousand butterflywings to her stomach. Now she wasn't sure of what she felt, but there was still a hint of it whenever she spoke to him.

The Archer saw the man that had killed over a dozen people for almost a little over forty years. What he felt when he watched him, was fear. Childish at first, whenever no news of him came up. It was always a relief to know that he was not on the Soldier's radar. SHIELD could never know when he was out and about until he had killed, and by then, he was gone again. Now, staring at, rather than into, those tinted glasses that hinted of the coldest eyes, his fear was fullfledged and ready to burst from his chest. He was rarely afraid, and when he was, he never showed it, but at this moment, Clint Barton was terrfied.

The exchange of glances only lasted a second, but it was enough to give Natalia confirmation. The Asset had given her a sharp nod, before he had disappeared from view, the last thing leaving being the cold fingers of a lost limb.

"He will not stop me." Natalia said, holstering her weapon in her thigh holster. "You sure?"

"Yes. I cannot say the same for the rest."

"The rest?!"

"If you don't want to kill me, they will. After they get past him." She nudged her head to the rooftop where he'd been.

"Please."

Clint Barton nodded, sweeping his eyes over the empty streets on more time, before the two of them sprinted away, Natalia limping but keeping up enough pace.

Hours later, the Asset screamed against the pain. He was being punished. And he knew why. And he was glad he'd done it.

She was safe.

She was far away.

They would kill her if they found her.

They would never find her.

They would never kill her.

They wanted to kill him.

They couldn't kill him.

He was too important.

Too good of a creation to kill.

He was a weapon.

Nothing more.

He didn't feel.

He didn't know.

He didn't fight.

But he had disobeyed them.

The weapon had malfunctioned.

It had been dirtied down by free will.

But now the weapon was functional again.

But they had no further use of him.

Lust died.

Love died.

Everything died.

The cold came and the Asset tried to scream as the freezing water engulfed his throat.

And in the back of his mind, the voice that had once been him, screamed in joy and pain, and laughed Them in the face. He was alive down there, wherever there was. But he was alive nonetheless. He grinned at them through the Asset's frozen eyes, and he loved it.

***
уступать - Stand down

Зачем? Я могу взять его - Why? I can take him.

нет - No

A/N: my Russian really isn't the best, so if I have it completely wrong, please let me know! :)