I lose the joys of life. (For speaks_latin)

Warning: Will contain violence.

Clint fiddles with his cufflink, looking away from the window overlooking the street below. This is the last step of a mission he's been working for the last two weeks, and while he's as anxious as ever for it to be over, there's no sense of victory on the horizon. He's used to that with these missions, of knowing that once he's finished, he'll feel a sense of accomplishment, of having something to be proud of. But no matter how hard he tries, he just wants this one to be over.

He's supposed to kill a child.

Not really, of course. The girl (The Black Widow. Natalie. Natalia.) is only a few years younger than him - their intel says she is actually eighteen, though he's wondered about that in the time he's been watching her this week, while he decided the best way to play this, while his contacts set up this meeting. Natalia was his date to a dinner for some rich assholes this evening, and the longer the night goes on, the more certain he becomes that he can't go through with this. She's a killer, has taken out more targets than S.H.I.E.L.D. can actually keep up with - but he sees more when people don't know he's watching. He's seen the black cars and men that dog her heels, and the looks she gives them when she thinks no one's watching aren't to reassure herself that they're there. He's seen her steel herself before she talks to them, before she came up to meet up, tonight, and they all paint a picture different than the one in her file.

He has weapons hidden nearby, should be hiding one of them on himself now while Natalia freshens up in the bathroom - he doesn't want to think about why she thinks she needs to freshen up, she's a child and not even one allowed to make her own decisions - but he can't. He can't do it.

But he has to, and he finally takes his hand away from his sleeve, turning to find the closest handgun, to tuck it away as the sound of water stops in the bathroom and the door opens, to school his own expression and posture back into the relaxed, confident swagger this cover requires, to let himself leer a little when he turns to face her.

Another hour, and this will be done.

Desperately close to a coffin of hope. (for speaks_latin)

Warning: Will contain talk of abuse and brainwashing, etc.

Clint is exhausted.

He doesn't even know how long he's been up at this point - doesn't even know what time it is considering his watch was broken at some point during one of the dozen fights he's been in today and he turned off his phone before they got to the safe house, not wanting his bosses to be able to track them.

Fury's voice is still ringing in his head, and he's pretty sure he might get thrown into a jet engine if the other occupant of the safe house doesn't kill him first - but she's his larger concern, right now.

The girl is on the bed, still unconscious, still dressed in the dirty, bloodied clothes she'd been wearing when he brought her here. He had dressed as many of her cuts as he could without taking off her clothes, because hell if he was doing that while she was out. She isn't bleeding anywhere, at least, and he's set more gauze and band-aids and ointment at the end of the bed where she can reach it. There's some of his clothing there, too, which will be huge on her, but it's all he has in the safe house, and he doesn't dare leave to find something else.

He eyes the handcuff around her wrist again, speculatively. He knows it's not too tight, but he's worried, anyway, and it's mostly how tired he is that keeps him from getting up and going to check it again.

"It's fine," a voice says from over his shoulder, and Clint startles - and then looks up at Shani where she's perched on the edge of the dresser he's leaning against.

"I hit her hard," he returns quietly, and the hawk ruffles and settles her feathers.

"She hit you harder. Are you sure you're not bleeding? Can you see out of that eye?" She hops down, landing in his lap and peering up at him.

Clint reaches up to touch his eye, tentatively. There's a spectacular knot over his left eye that's making the rest of it swell. He should be icing it. "Sort of."

"You should be icing it," Shani returns, because it's entirely likely she is actually narrating his thoughts, and he nods.

"I'll get up in a second. There should be ice in the freezer by now. And I'm fine." He's not exactly fine: there's a gash in his side that's just shy of needing stitches, his nose and the left side of his eye are a mess of scrapes and cuts and bruises of various severity, and he's still wearing his bracer for the support it provides his wrist, which he's relatively certain is sprained. Only his face can be blamed on his guest, actually, and he doesn't blame her for it, considering she was scared.

Shani trills at him, hopping up his leg carefully so she can rest against his uninjured side, and he sighs, shifting so he can run a finger over her head. "I'll be fine. I don't want her to wake up on her own, and considering what they give those kids, who knows when she will wake up."

The hawk repeats the noise, meaning to sigh at him, and he just nods and settles back in the chair, to wait.