The chipped Formica countertop felt cold under my palm. I stared at the chipped mug, swirling the lukewarm coffee. It tasted like ash and regret. It was the best I could manage. I hadn’t slept in a week, hadn’t stopped replaying the images from the Triskelion. Fury, dead on the floor, barely recognizable. The helicarriers crashing, the chaos… I hadn’t even known Fury had a contingency plan. A dead man’s switch. A goddamn dead man’s switch.
“You okay?” Clint asked, his voice a low rumble. He was leaning against the doorway of the tiny kitchen, arms crossed, looking like he’d aged ten years in the last few hours. He always looked good in black. It suited him.
I didn’t meet his eyes. “As okay as I can be, considering the world just got a whole lot stranger.”
He pushed off the doorframe and came closer, his movements deliberate, slow. He didn’t touch me. He never did unless I asked. I didn’t want to feel his hands on me right now. Not when my skin felt like it was crawling with phantom pain.
“They’re saying it’s a Hydra cell,” he said, his voice flat. “Deep inside. For decades.”
“Decades,” I echoed. “How the hell did we miss that?”
“We weren’t looking,” Clint said, his jaw tight. “We weren’t looking for a ghost in the machine.”
I finally met his gaze. It was the same haunted look I saw in the mirror. We’d been good, the best. But good wasn’t enough. Not against something that had been hiding in plain sight for seventy years.
“They said he was dead,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Fury. They said he died.”
Clint’s expression didn’t change. “He played dead,” he said. “He always plays the long game.”
I took a long sip of the coffee. It burned going down. “He didn’t tell me,” I said. “He didn’t tell me any of this.”
“He didn’t trust you,” Clint said, his voice harsh. “He didn’t trust anyone.”
I flinched. It wasn’t the first time Clint had said something like that. I’d spent years trying to earn his respect, trying to prove I was worthy. It didn’t matter. I was still the kid. The one who got picked up off the street. The one Fury had rebuilt.
“I’m starting to wonder if any of it was real,” I said. “The training. The missions. Everything.”
Clint’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t go there,” he said. “Don’t you dare start questioning everything.”
“What else am I supposed to think?” I snapped. “They’ve been playing us, Clint. For years. We’ve been pawns in their little game.”
“We’re still alive,” he said, his voice low. “We’re still fighting.”
“Fighting for what?” I asked. “For a system that’s rotten to the core? For a man who doesn’t give a damn about us?”
Clint grabbed my arm, his grip tight. I didn’t pull away. I knew he was trying to calm me down, but I was beyond calming. I was past that. I was breaking.
“Listen to me,” he said, his voice urgent. “We need to focus. We need to find out who’s pulling the strings. We need to find out what they want.”
I stared at his hand, clenched around my arm. I hated the feeling. I hated the helplessness. I hated the way I still wanted to believe in him.
“What if there’s nothing left to believe in?” I whispered. “What if it’s all just lies?”
Clint didn’t answer. He just held my arm tighter. I leaned into his grip, trying to breathe. Trying to hold on to something, anything, before I completely fell apart.
“They took my brother,” I said, my voice choked with emotion. “They used him. They used him to get to me.”
Clint’s expression softened. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. I knew he understood. He’d lost his own family, his own life. We were both broken. We were both ghosts.
I closed my eyes. I could feel the tears burning behind them. I wanted to scream. I wanted to break everything. But I didn’t. I just stood there, letting Clint hold me, letting the darkness consume me.
“We’ll get them,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “We’ll get them all.”
I didn’t know if I believed him. But I didn’t say anything. I just leaned into his grip, and let the darkness take me.