sparrow // mcu

chapter 3 - for and against

When Imogen rose to consciousness, she was slumped in a kitchen chair, hands tied behind her back. Her head was pounding with a fog of pain that was hard to think through, and her whole body ached, like she'd gone a few rounds with a tiger. Gingerly, she tried moving and realised suddenly that she was firmly tied to the chair, which was definitely not a good sign.

Lifting her head, her eyes fell on Clint, who was sitting across the room watching her, and the gun lying neatly on the bench beside him. "What's going on?" she groaned, just as she remembered the fight. Her hands had been shaking, and the bullets had missed. He'd knocked her out.

"Well," Clint answered slowly. "For one thing, you're not trying to kill me. Which I'd say is a major improvement on our last conversation."

"Major improvement?" she returned incredulously. "I'm tied to a chair."

"Exactly," he replied smugly. "Much better for both of us." There was a bitter edge to his voice, one that she hadn't heard from him before. He'd been watchful, been distrusting and held aloof, yes, but never cold and angry.

In the silence that followed, they both became aware of the dull, insistant buzzing of her phone down the hallway, only audible because it was the only noise in the house. "What's that?" Clint asked sharply, eyes turning to her.

"My brother calling me," Imogen fired back. "Probably wanting to know why I haven't texted him." How long had she been out, she wondered? Minutes? Hours? The clock was behind her, so she had no way of telling the time. The window to her left was shaded in the half-light of twilight, so it must be either dusk or dawn. She really hoped it wasn't dawn.

Pushing off the bench, Clint disappeared down the hallway, coming back a moment later with her now silent phone and a laptop. He settled himself silently onto the benchtop, laptop perched on his knees, and didn't look up again, much to her disgust. The phone rang again, and again, but both times he ignored it, tapping away busily at his keyboard.

While he was preoccupied, Imogen busied herself with testing the limits of the heavy tape that bound her hands, and the short rope that kept her in the chair. Why he had rope or where he had found it was beyond her, save for this exact purpose. Neither bindings budged at all – Clint knew what he was doing, and she didn't have a trick good enough to get her out of them. It set her teeth on edge, being stuck in the same position as the time dragged past, her whole body getting stiffer with every passing minute. Clint didn't even seem to notice her discomfort, busy doing whatever it was he was doing up there and even leaving the room once, coming back with a bag of gear that he dumped at his feet as he picked the laptop up again.

"Are you going to kill me soon?" she asked, when she could bear it no longer. "Because if you are, I'd rather just get it over with."

"Actually, I thought I might just leave you there for a while," he replied lightly.

"Why?" she asked with a scowl. "What does that even achieve?"

For the first time since she'd woken, Clint looked up at her. "Thought it might teach you a lesson, actually," he explained, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "About patience or something."

"Oh." She wriggled again, but to no avail; her bonds were tied firm. "It's not working."

"I noticed," he replied lightly, and went back to whatever he was doing on the laptop.

"Any other wisdom you want to share while we're here?"

He paused again. "Don't trust HYDRA," he said, completely serious. "And I'm not just saying that as a SHIELD agent. They're nothing but bad news."