(( jesus fucking christ. way longer than I intended to. I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT, YOU HOR. ))

It was all wrong.

Junior agents ran all over the place. They were doing a good job of pushing back the leftover HYDRA agents left. There were dead bodies all over the ground. Blood splattered against snow and smoke rose from the building. Bullet casings littered the ground and arrows covered a few bodies here and there, sticking from heads and throats like weird ornaments.

What’d started as a routine mission on an outpost near the Canadian border had quickly turned to shit.

‘Like always’.

Mockingbird and Hawkeye had been dispatched together as a team, despite their last colossal fuck up in Spain. Coulson advised against it. The agents were at odds with each other and there was an underlying sexual tension that needed to be taken care of but Romanova had been away on a secret mission with a higher priority.

And it was supposed to be routine.

So Fury gave it green light without a second thought.

The outpost got attacked on the second day. The HYDRA agents overran the place quickly but both special agents had turned the tide over. Bobbi was deadly with her guns and she’d knocked out any man that got too close with her batons. Clint’s accuracy and arrows took down man after man.

“Help! Please!” The strangled yell startled him and he looked down from his position in the rooftop. One of their own was covered in blood and yelling, desperation obvious in his voice.

Clint climbed down the stairs on the side of the building and ran to the man. “What’s going on?”

“It’s - it’s Agent Morse, I can’t - I couldn’t,” the man was falling apart, unsure of how to explain what he’d seen and Clint’s blood ran as cold as the weather around them when he heard Bobbi’s name.

“Where is she?”

He found her in the snow, covered in blood and shivering. Another agent was with her, cradling her head and whispering reassuring words. The woman shut up as soon as she saw the archer. Her face was grim and shook her head lightly but Clint ignored her and turned to the blonde.

“Bobbi,” he knelt next to her and saw the gaping hole in her middle. He could see bone and muscle soaked in blood. Her suit had been shredded in the middle and the leather stuck to the hole in a ragged mess of fabric and skin.

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at him. Her mouth moved but nothing came out.

“No, no. Bobbi, c’mon doll,” he grabbed her hand, squeezed and faltered when she didn’t react. Her eyes began to close and it felt like someone had knocked the wind out of him. “Don’t do this to me, Morse. Don’t you fucking dare die on me.” His voice shook and sounded odd to his ears - choked and desperate - not a common combination for him. “Morse!”

“Clint…” her lips curved up in a Mona Lisa smile and he grabbed her hand with both hands, leaving his bow forgotten on the snow right next to him. She was cold. Her face was pale, her lips were slowly turning blue and the blood was too bright, too high a contrast against all the white.

“Bobbi, Bobbi,” he yelled. “Don’t do this. Not here, not now. We’re better than this - you’re better than this.” He made silent vows, promises to whatever deity was out there to give her strength and to not take her away but it seemed like his prayers fell on deaf ears.

No sound came out from her mouth as her lips moved and he wasn’t sure if he was reading them right.

No. There was no way. It was wrong. It was all wrong.

He saw the life seep away from her. Saw how her eyes closed a last time, never to open again.

“Bobbi?”

He felt old. He felt weak. His eyes watered without his permission and his voice cracked, hitting a low desperate note. “Bobbi, don’t…please,” he begged her and cradled her hand close to his chest. “Babe, don’t leave me.”

The other agent stayed silent at their side; her fingers ran through Bobbi’s hand in a motherly way.

The blood flow eventually stopped but it didn’t make a difference. The red had covered the ground around them, tainting the pristine snow.

Clint let go of her. He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand and he leaned down to kiss her cold lips.

The other woman, who’d stayed silent from the moment he got there, looked at him when he stood up. “Agent Barton -”

“Stay here with her,” he ordered and grabbed his bow. There were only three arrows left in his quiver and he’d lost count of how many HYDRA agents were still alive. They would’ve retreated back into the woods by now but that wasn’t a problem. They were running away, desperate to get away from the failure of their mission, they wouldn’t bother to cover their tracks. And Clint would hunt them down.

One by one.