Chapter Text
Bow in hand, Clint pauses just over the threshold of yet another empty room. Something is seriously off about this whole mission. As if she is sensing his thoughts, Nat’s voice comes over his coms, “Anyone finding anything besides dust and vermin?”
He hears the responses of the others as they all echo negatives. Clint hasn’t responded yet, some sixth sense of his telling him something was seriously off. His eyes track over the empty room, taking in the scraps of discarded paper and other detritus.
“Clint?”
“It’s the same here as everywhere else, Cap,” Clint responds as he walks quietly across the room to the door on the far wall.
“Intel seems to have been seriously wrong,” Nat says.
Stating the obvious , Clint thinks as he pushes open the door and steps through. He is in a short hallway now, with a door on either end. Looking between the two, he makes the decision to try the left door first. He steps through, letting his eyes sweep around the empty space before he moves to cross to the door at the far end.
As he reaches it, a sound from behind him has him pivoting, arming and aiming his bow in one fluid motion. There is nothing there. But his instincts are telling him something is nearby. Keeping his bow at the ready, he backtracks to the door he entered and sticks his head out to check the hallway.
Nothing. What the hell?
The sound comes again, and this time he thinks it is coming from one of the blank walls inside the room. He stops in front of it and examines it critically. Now that he is standing in front of it, he realizes there is something wrong with this wall. After a moment, he finds it. A nearly invisible seam in the middle. A hidden door. If there is a hidden door there has to be a way to trigger it.
Good thing he has a really good eye for detail. Clint scrapes his eyes over the wall as he moves slowly along it. Until they land on a minuscule notch in one corner. Using the tip of his arrow, he pushes into it until there is a very distinct click. Bow ready, he waits to see what will happen as a low hiss sounds and the hidden door pops open a crack.
Carefully, he pulls the door open and uses it as a shield to pivot into the room with his weapon at the ready. This room wasn’t empty like the rest of the place.
“I’ve got something,” Clint murmurs.
He hears the immediate response of the others, overlapping one over the other. Then he hears Steve’s barking command for silence before he asks Clint to clarify.
“It’s a person,” Clint responds.
Your head lifts off your knees in surprise when the unknown, fresh scent hits your nose. The door to your prison is open, and there is a beta standing there smelling like grass and fresh cut wood. He’s dressed in a purple and black suit, holding a bow, and has a curling wire of a communication device in one ear.
Head tilting, you study him just as he studies you and Clint has the faint thought that you have the eeriest eyes he’d ever seen. They are nearly luminous. Ignoring the questions still filtering through the comms, Clint returns his arrow to his quiver and holds the bow loosely by his side. Trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.
“Hello,” he says quietly, watching as you blink at him. “What’s your name?”
You don’t answer, holding yourself perfectly still as you continue to stare at him. Clint takes a moment to study the rest of the room. It is grey; grey walls, grey floor, grey ceiling. Dim lights filter down and there are no windows to speak of. The cot you are on is low to the ground and is the only other furniture in the place besides the toilet and the sink.
It is all rather bleak and depressing. He trains his eyes back on you, taking in your condition as best as can from a distance and with you curled up as you are. You look dirty and your hair is a tangled knotted mess that hangs lank around your face and over your shoulders.
With the condition of the base as it is, Clint wonders when the last time you would have seen another person or even been outside the room. Compassion wells up in him. What happened here and why were you left behind?
Clint shakes himself out of his thoughts and opens his mouth to respond to the questions still flooding in from the team. It’s then that something else hit him, and it’s perhaps the most significant fact about this whole situation.
You didn’t have a scent.
~*~*~*~
“Well, obviously we can’t just leave her here,” Steve says.
Clint, who has been given the task of keeping an eye on you, listens as the others discuss what to do with you. Besides a single filing cabinet of papers, which has already been secured into the jet, you are the only thing they found in the entire base.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Tony mutters as he studies the readout on his gear.
Nat shakes her head, red hair swinging. “I don’t know, something about this whole thing seems completely off. Why would they abandon the base and leave her here?”
“Has she said anything?”
Clint looks around when he realizes the question has been directed at him. “Nope. Other than staring, the only thing she has done is lift her head.”
The discussion continues, and Clint looks back into the room, seeing that you are, in fact, still sitting frozen on the mattress. Those eerie eyes watching him.
“But there is one thing,” Clint says, turning back to the group.
“What?” Steve asks.
“She doesn’t have a scent.”
The others process the news and then Steve shakes his head. “You mean it’s muted or indistinct?”
“No, I mean there is nothing. She has no scent at all. I have no idea what her designation might be. There is just nothing, no scent information at all.”
Striding over, Steve steps into the room and Clint watches his profile as his nostrils flare some while he studies you carefully. “Shit. You’re right. What the hell?”
‘Cap!” Tony says with a dramatic gasp, “ Language! ”
Steve lets out the smallest of sighs, and Clint has to fight to keep the smirk off his face. They still hadn’t let Cap live down that slip up of his years ago. After a few moments he makes a decision. “Let’s get her to the jet.”
Steve gestures Clint forward, knowing that one of Clint’s strengths is just how non-threatening he is to victims–something that went above and beyond his beta designation. Considering this is supposed to be a HYDRA base, and you’d been locked in a secret room for who knows how long, Steve figures that you’d likely gone through a lot. It would be best to be gentle about this.
Clint moves over and crouches in front of you, speaking slowly and quietly while he watches your face for any kind of emotion. “We want to take you out of here.”
Nothing. Not a flicker. But your head tilts a little as your eyes flick between his mouth and his eyes. Clint gestures to himself and then towards the door. “We can take you somewhere safe. Somewhere that isn’t here.”
After several minutes, he stood up and gestures towards you then the door and backed up a little before repeating the gesture. The whole time, he kept that soft gentle tone of his as he tells you that you will be safe with them. When you don’t move, he comes back over and holds his hand out. Your eyes drop to it, staring intently at it before you finally move.
Placing your hand lightly in his, you let him help you to your feet. He continues to speak to you, hoping even if you can’t understand the words, you’d understand the tone and intent behind them. Finally, they get you on the jet and Clint settles you into a seat and buckles you in.
Once you uncurled, Clint saw you were wearing a dress that is torn and dirty as your hair and skin. So he rummages around until he finds a blanket and brings it over to wrap around you. Satisfied he did all he could for the time being, he moves to the cockpit and sits down behind the controls.
“So,” Nat draws out the word.
“What?”
“Look at you being all caring and all,” she teases.
“Oh, shut it. You know this is gonna be a mess, right?”
The pair of them look over their shoulders at where the others are huddled together opposite to where you are sitting. Then they share a look and Nat nods. “It’s definitely going to be interesting.”