Bound By Purpose

1991: I Live Everyday Wondering

It's a large room... room isn't the right word. It's more like a cave of some sort. The walls are stone and they curve upward into a cavernous ceiling. There are controlled openings at the top where light shines through. The cave seems to go deeper, but here there are papers and files. We both get to work. Obviously there wasn't any panic in this room. There are no bodies as far as I can tell, and the files are all neatly stacked. I pick up one file that looks a lot heavier than the rest. Not expecting something to be loose inside I carelessly let the book inside fall. I kneel down and recognize the ominous soviet star on the cover. I slide it across the floor and then let go staring a hole into it as if it had bit me. I leave it beside me turning my attention to the file it fell from. I trace my fingers over it, knowing that it has to be his. Clint seems to be in his own little world on the floor with a large stack of his own. He has been a great partner but somethings need to be dealt with alone. With shaky hands I pull out his picture. 

It's not the dashing picture of him in his uniform like the one back in the states. Here he has is eyes closed in his chamber. He'd just been put under by the looks of the ice on the glass. Unfortunately the entirety of the documents are in Russian. I can speak a little of it, but I'm not as fluent as I should be. I scan it trying to pick out phrases I would know. I do catch a few but they are not at all comforting. 

 I don't realize that Clint is saying my name until he's slammed a ledger on the floor next to me. I quickly tuck my findings under my legs and to the opposite side of me. "Look at this." He says with fury. The cover has two Russian words I can make out... "Red Room". When I don't make a move to look inside he drops down beside me and starts flipping through the pages. From what I can tell they're children... girls actually. He stops at the random page of a young girl who couldn't be older than 10. "This is a 7 year old girl, and they're training her to become a killer. Look at these poor children!" He turns away from the page with the young red head to another who looks a little older. He can tell I'm uninterested. "How can you not care about this?"  He says shaking a photo in front of me.

"I do care." I say honestly, thinking back to my days of training. "But I don't see how we could do anything for them at the moment." 

"How do you live with yourself?"

"Excuse me?" I ask taken aback by his sudden accusation.

"I get it. You've been alive for it all haven't you. You've seen all the evil this earth has to offer... You're so far gone that you can't care for little girls who are being brought up to, maybe do the same thing you have to do everyday. That doesn't bother you?" He softens his tone at the end noticing my distress. 

"Of course it bloody bothers me." I say to him. I'm not mad, i'm actually rather glad he's willing to talk. "You're right I have seen all the evil this world has had to offer so far, but it's all the same. Soviets, Nazis, Hydra... Christ even SHIELD... They all just want to rip you apart for their own gain." I draw my knees up and hug them close trying to pick out words that could possibly help justify my feelings. "I grew up as a daughter of a man who was a higher up in the military. When we came to America it was the beginning of all this..." I turn my head to smile at Clint. "Steve Rogers was my first American neighbor, he and his mom." I continue on just kind of letting it all out. It's quiet and if Clint wasn't right beside me breathing I could've been absolutely alone in the world. I tell him about the mission with Peggy and how I lost myself after the war. The time I spent as a prisoner, and how the Winter Soldier saved me. I lean my head back against the leg of the desk and picture myself with Bucky and Steve walking home from school. It calms me down, but causes me to loose control of my words. "I don't know where I lost that part of me... The part that really, truly cares, but when they take me out and ship me off I know i'm only out here as long as they want me out here." 

"Is it awful... Sleeping for decades at a time."

I shrug. "I've never thought it to be painful. The worst part is waking up to a new face and realizing your old life is gone." I finally have the courage to look over at him. He's focused on me.

"Well maybe you don't have to go under again."

"Like I said, my life is gone. This... The mission is my purpose now. Something tells me it's going to be worse someday... That'll be my new life. Somewhere in the future."

"What about James? You said it yourself, he saved you last time."

"For all we know he could be in this blasted cave somewhere. He could literally be anywhere in the world." I give up the pretending and slide the file and the book back under my legs. He looks confused. "I'm not fluent in Russian. " I add. 

He takes the file from me. "That's not what I meant."

Even though I think I know, I question him anyway. "What did you mean then?"

"If you do find him, do you think you can save him?"

"I don't know, but I think it's now or never."

"What makes you believe that?"

I let out a puff of air. "Because I've tried to reach him before, and I think it'd just be a little too painful to watch him walk away again. Besides I'll be put back under when we go back."

"Don't you want to know what's become of him now that the Soviet Union is collapsing?"

"I don't. Whatever they've done to him. I can't see it being fair or kind in any way. He might still be out there, he may be down this cavern, he might be dead. I can live with the wondering, I've been doing it for decades."

"I don't think I could."

"Really?" I like subtle change of topic. "Do you have a family back home Barton?" I ask nudging my shoulder against his.

"Not a family. I have a Laura."

"I knew you were a married man." I say trying to confirm my suspicions.

"I never said married." He says matter of factly. I stare at him with a sly smile. "Okay yes we're married, but I don't go around proclaiming it to the world."

I nod in understanding. "Does she know?"

"Yes she knows. Fury helped me set it all up a few years back." I nod again my mind wanders back to the man.

"Fury seems like an honorable man." This time it's his turn to nod.

"He is. When he needs to be." Our talk ends here with uncertainty. Clint neatly stacks our important findings in a pile and then tosses them together in his bag. "Shall we press on then?" 

"Should I be worried that we haven't heard from Coulson?" I ask as I pull the walkie from my belt.

"Nah. We can't get a good signal this far under." I search the air waves once, but then put it away believing Clint's claim. "Let's go see if your man has been here." 

"Lets." I say.