Steve shakes his head at you, wordless, and you knew it. S.H.I.E.L.D. will never agree to this deal, and neither will Captain America.

            You knew it was an inevitability anyway.

You bite down hard on your lip when Steve answers, “We don’t capitulate to enemy demands.” It’s nothing you weren’t expecting, but it still hurts when you translate his words into what they really mean, we’re not sacrificing Clint to save Natasha, and you taste blood on your tongue as you hope against hope that they were just bluffing.

            They had to be just bluffing, right?

            There’s no way they would kill an asset like an enemy prisoner out of hand, right?