"A bargain?" Fury's eyebrows rose in amusement. "Do your other Avengers know you are here?"

Bruce felt a bubble of resentment, but he pushed it down. "Yes, I want to make a deal. It doesn't matter if the other Avengers know I'm here, all you need to know is I'm here alone. No one is going to try and stop me and I have no one waiting to pounce on you."

Fury smiled, it was more unsettling than his scowl. "Very good Dr. Banner, now let's hear this deal. What do you want from me?"

The scientist took a deep breath.

"I want you to release Agent Barton and Sergeant Barnes."

Fury laughed again, it was a bitter short sound. "Not so simple Banner, I want something out of this deal. It isn't a bargain if only one side gets what they want."

"That's where I'm going." Bruce took a step toward Fury, gathering courage and calming himself. Too much courage could be deadly for him, because the second part of courage is rage.

"You have to highly trained soldiers in your basement, who are essentially rotting away to uselessness. My deal is that you get to use them once, send them on whatever suicide mission you want and if they succeed and come back alive they are free." Bruce finished.

Fury gave Bruce a look he would give a dull child.

"So you want me to send two of my prisoners on a mission that will probably kill them and if they live they go free? Why don't I just do that and then keep them? They are my prisoners. Also what mission? What could be so dangerous and important that I would waste Barton and Barnes on? Face it Dr. Banner, you have nothing to bargain with."

Bruce smiled, he was expecting this. "Not quite. You see, I know something that you don't."

"And what is that?"

"The tesseract is back."

Fury's face lost all colour.

"And," Bruce continued. "I'll tell you how I know where it will be, if you let Barton and Barnes go."

Fury seemed to recover slightly from Bruce's first words.

"Not going to happen, I won't let them go just for information."

"Then send them on the mission."

Fury rubbed his forehead. "Terms, lets talk over the terms first and then we'll make the deals."

"Fine. My terms are in exchange for this information that Barton and Barnes are given a week to prep before the mission. A chance to see their important people. To write any wills if they want to. And if they fail their bodies are brought back to be buried."

Fury nodded slowly. "Those seem fair enough, now my terms. Both Barton and Barnes will have trackers put into their arms so we can see if they try to make a break for it. SHIELD will not assist them in any way before, during or after the mission. To succeed and earn their freedom they must bring the Tesseract to me. If they don't they are my prisoners again."

Bruce swallowed. He was playing with other peoples' lives like poker chips, not like he wasn't before, but now it had sunk in. But not just Clint and Bucky's lives, with everyone who could be affected if Fury got the Tesseract.

"What would you do with the Tesseract?"

Fury's face was a unreadable mask.

"Dispose of it in any way possible. It is too dangerous to fall into the wrong hands."

Who are the wrong hands? Bruce wanted to ask.

"Fair enough." He said instead, masking his doubts.

"Good you think so, now are you ready to shake?" Fury jutted his hand out toward Bruce.

Bruce paused. "One more thing."

"Yes?"

"You can't tell they other Avengers anything if they ask until Barton and Barnes are on the mission."

Fury let out a low whistle. "So they others really don't know? I wonder what they'll think when they find out the reason their precious boys are being sent on a suicide mission is you?"

"You can't tell them. They won't understand."

"Understand what?"

"That this is the only way to save them."

"So shake my hand Dr.Banner and save your friends."

Bruce didn't want to.

But he did.

"Now hand over your information on the Tesseract." Fury outstretched his hand and Bruce dug into his pocket for a small flash drive.

He turned it over once in his hand then let it drop into Fury's palm.

And as he left that office he couldn't help but feel like he just handed Superman's kryptonite to his villain.

__________________________

Everything ached. The world was spinning. Maybe this was death.

Bucky's wondered if when he died would he finally see his Steve.

He had a foggy memory of a girl speaking to him through the vents, telling him lies that Steve was alive and waiting for him. Bucky didn't know how long ago this was, had he seen this girl hours ago, or had it been days?

Men with hydra patches on their arms came and went, beating him, burning him, drowning him. All he was absolutely certain of was of the pain, there was no imagining it. It was much too real.

Bucky was faintly aware of his cell door opening and two guards grabbing his arms. They drug him out and down the halls, Bucky made no attempt to fight and hung limply. It didn't matter where he was going, he was going to be dead soon anyway, either from his injuries slowly infecting or his hands around his neck to cut off his own air supply.

As Bucky was dumped into a blindingly white room, he noticed he was no longer alone. He knew the man in the room with him.

He knew that blonde and brown hair. He knew those startling blue eyes that could see forever.

"Clint?" His voice was ragged and every word bit at his shredded lips.

The man pulled Bucky into a hug.

"Yah it's me Buck." He said into his matted hair.

Bucky held back a groan in pain as he hugged Clint back. It didn't matter if he was in pain, he was going to hug Clint as tight as possible because that meant he was real.

__________________________

Clint was sitting on the floor now, because Loki had taken up residence on his bed. Clint remembered reading somewhere about lucid dreaming and how the dreamer could control their dreams, this wasn't one of those dreams. If it was Clint would've wished Loki away hours ago. Heck he would've wished everything away hours ago. If this was a dream he would kill Loki, free himself from his cell, free Bucky then leave this building forever. But this wasn't a dream, this was Clint's reality and he wasn't sure if Loki belonged in it.

At the moment the god in question was lounging like a cat across the cheap mattered and picking at his nails carefully. Everything about him made Clint want to pull out his hair. He watched Loki give his nails a long look, before Loki looked over to him.

"Somebody is at the door." He said simply before disappearing in a flash of harsh gold.

The cell door cracked open mechanically and a gruff voice seeped through.

"Come on Barton, don't make me drag you out of there."

Clint complied, but his thoughts were running like hunting dogs in an open field. What was going on? Why was he being taken out?

As soon as he stepped out the door the guard slipped a dark sack over his head and pushed his wrists together to drag him.

"Follow me, someone wants to have a word with you."

The hallways felt like an unending labyrinth to Clint with the bag over his head, but soon they ground to a stop and the guard let go of his wrists, only to shove him into an open door.

Once Clint managed to get the beg off his head, he gave the room a good look and didn't even try to suppress his groan. It was an interrogation cell.

Suddenly the door opened again and a man tumbled through. Or what as left of a man. What was thrown in had little fat left on his bones and was a kaleidoscope of bruises. The only way that Clint knew he knew the man was by the red star on his left arm, which even under the layer of grime was shining silver.

Clint hardly thought as he pulled Bucky into a hug.

__________________________

Only moments after the boys let go of each other,the door opened for a third time and a man stepped through. A man Clint knew very well, Nick Fury.

"Fury?" Clint said instead of asking what the heck was going on, he knew that he would only hear what Fury wanted to tell him.

"Barton. Barnes." Fury nodded to each of them. "I have a proposition for the two of you."