Tumble

Dedicated to Itoma, who cheered me up after I broke an ankle in my own little tumble.

Kagome lay there, waiting for her breath to return and the pain to fade to manageable levels. Chanting in her head to accept the pain, her mind finally kicked in it's natural painkillers and returned control to her voluntary nervous system. Well, that's one benefit to training my mind, the black-haired beauty thought as she gingerly pushed herself up on her knees. Reaching for the banister, she heard the stairwell door open and she winced at being found like this.

She managed to pull herself up before they reached her, but a tentative touch to the ground let her know that her ankle wasn't going to support any weight. Concentrating on her breathing, she did her best to subjugate the pain and catalog her injuries. Ankle and hand sprained if not broken, possible knee sprain, road rash, broken glass impaling leg and unsprained foot from her broken kitchenware...

Inuyasha would go nuts if he saw me now.

"Are you okay?" a man asked, before looking down at the spreading blood. "Stupid question, hold on while I call an ambulance."

"Ah. Sorry, I don't think it's really that bad," she protested. It was, but the Shikon no Tama would have her healed in a matter of days... not something she wanted to get out. "If someone could just help me to my apartment, I have a first aid kit."

Clint looked at her critically and shrugged. If she was living in his building, she probably couldn't afford the medical bill, and he had experience with similar injuries. Time was all that would heal them... even if that foot was broken, they'd just boot it if it wasn't out of alignment. He started down the stairs at a good clip when he was stopped by her shout of "Wait!"

Embarrassed that she'd raised her voice, she continued, apologizing, "Sorry to yell, but I think one of the stairs is bad. It went out from under me when I was going up."

Tough little thing, the archer thought. Standing there, white as a sheet, and still able to think concisely and warn of trouble. He came down the stairs more slowly, seeing where the old, thin, slippery tile had broken away and sent the girl down the steps.

"Well, since I bought this place a couple of days ago, I'm deciding this accident's my fault. I'll carry you to your place and get you patched up. If anything's bad enough it needs to go to a hospital, then don't worry, I'll take care of the bill."

She flushed, wishing she could turn away the help, but knowing she couldn't get back home, even crawling. "Thank you, I'm sorry to bother you. I'm Higu- Kagome Higurashi... I keep forgetting to turn my name around in English." She gave him a little bow, but he was already beside her.

"You don't need to apologize all the time. We barbarian Americans don't usually have trouble helping a lady in trouble, even if we don't know them. Take a deep breath, I'm going to pick you up. Just remember to keep breathing, no matter how it hurts." He picked her up gently and went up, avoiding the loose tiles. "If I remember right, you've got the apartment across from mine."

Brilliantly red, she just nodded.

Activating the voice dial on his earbud (S.H.I.E.L.D. always gave out the neatest toys), he called the janitor to grab her stuff and clean up as he walked back up the stairs, thankful he'd put on his work boots this morning instead of his treadbare tennis shoes. He'd forgotten how reserved the Japanese could be, and she was most definitely new to the U.S. Her English was passable, but the accent heavy; she retained their societal rules, even in her secondary language; and the dishes in her box were directly from Japan. She was a cute little thing, though. Maybe 5'2", 100 lbs if he had to guess, true black hair and a figure he'd love to get to know when she felt better.

"Got your key?"

"It's open... that was my last box."

"Even if you're exhausted, keep it locked. New York's a great city, but it's got it's weirdos." I ought to know, I work with them... Tony would probably consider it an invitation.

He carried her straight to the dining room, where the linoleum would make cleanup easier. "Your first-aid kit?" he asked, fairly certain he was going to have to get his own professional kit. The dinky pharmacy kits most people got were barely useful, with his line of work, at least.

"It's the box on the kitchen counter."

Looking up, he was surprised to see a bulky ambulance kit, though when he pulled it down, he was left in the dark... they were all labeled in kanji, except for a large amount of neatly filed, silk-wrapped herbs and a collection of hand-made pots in the bottom. "I think I should go get my kit-"

She shook her head. "I'll tell you what to use and where it's at."

Intrigued with himself, since he was the one folding to her desires without a decent protest, he nevertheless continued. "Tweezers, alcohol, antibiotic ointment, bandages."

Letting the cold linoleum chill her ankle, she began her recital. She'd become quite a healer in the past, and knowing where things were, even in the dark, was a necessary evil in a time before electricity. "Surgical tools, white silk bag on right first tier. Wound antiseptic and antibiotic the fourth medium jar from the left. Mix a bit with water in the irrigation syringe to make a cleansing wash, then smear some directly into the cleaned wound. Bandages are in the paper bag beside the sink."

He tried to keep her distracted from the pain while he got up to get the bandages and an ice pack. "Looks like someone knows her stuff. Are you certified in homeopathic treatment? 'Cause this doesn't look like just a hobby."

"Homeopathic?" Kagome hated to ask, but some words just weren't taught in school.

"Oh, sorry. Natural healing, like what you have here," he smiled at her briefly before putting a rolled up kitchen towel he'd found under her ankle and putting the ice on top. Grabbing the tweezers, he shuffled closer to her leg and started removing glass.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and started concentrating on her breathing again. "I am trained in healing, but your government wouldn't acknowledge it. Being apprenticed for many years to a shrine healer isn't their idea of a proper medical education."

His eyebrows came up. He'd met those old healers when he was much younger and learning the way of the bow. Besides being slightly creepy, they knew what they were doing. "Honestly, if you've completed your apprenticeship, if you don't mind I may come to you when I need it. I spent many years in the backwoods of Japan learning kyudo, and I have rarely received better treatment."

Her smile was tight, since he'd moved on to cleaning and treating the cuts. "I finished, and even was going to take over for her, but her... granddaughter... chose to keep it in the family." Rin truly was a granddaughter to her in her last years, and with Enma forcing the youkai and hanyou to another realm... It's been two years without you, Inuyasha, and still I cannot forgive him for separating us.

"Ah. Not something to dispute, then." He wrapped her leg in a thick, homemade bandage, then moved on to check her foot. "But you have her love of you with you always, every time you use the knowledge she gave you."

"Aa." She took a chance and looked at him, seeing the weight of memories on him. "You did spend time with us, to understand acceptance." She had relaxed a little when the anesthetic properties of the salve used had relieved some of the pain in her leg, but now she tensed up again as he manipulated her foot.

"It's one of the few things my boss can't stand about me, as he's an impatient American through and through." Clint told her, grinning at the thought of Fury having to put up with his people collecting tendencies. Nat wasn't the only target he'd refused to kill and given a second chance at life to. "It's a bad sprain, but if there's anything broken it's not out of alignment. If you can swear to keep off that foot, we'll keep an eye on it. If you're the type that will try to keep going, then it's the hospital. Let me see that hand."

She gave him her hand, which had blown up like a melon. "I do push myself, but I know when not to. The foot is too delicate to mess with... I don't want to cripple myself."

"Nasty bruise here, the swelling's coming from the contused veins. You may have a fractured finger, but there's nothing a doctor can do except tape or splint it. So, hospital or home?"

"Home. Even still packed in boxes, it's better than a hospital."

"I'd say the same." He grinned at her. "And as your landlord slash medic, I'll keep dropping by. Have you found any American food you liked?"

He was flirting with her, she realized, stumped at even the possibility. The smile, the excessive hospitality-

He knew when she figured it out. "I know I'm coming on strong for a stranger, but it's been years since I lived in Japan, and I'm just finding out how much I miss it. And you are quite beautiful, as well as knowledgeable. I hope that doesn't upset you or put you off."

At twenty-seven years old, she'd been propositioned in many ways, usually by youkai upon first meeting her. But this was an intriguing turn around, since he was human and was leaving it up to her... not something most youkai males were very good at.

Ducking her head a little, she answered two questions with one word, "Yes."

~oOo~

She had numerous times to be thankful she'd been open to seeing him. Such as when he came back to check on her a couple of hours later with a friend named Kate, who not only loaned her a pair of crutches, but taught her how to get around on them. Then to her surprise, the two of them offered to unpack her, laughing when she told them she couldn't ask for so much.

"Twenty boxes is not a lot," Kate laughed. "We're professionals when it comes to packing and unpacking, and it looks like you are too."

And it didn't take them long, no more than five hours, most of which were spent handling her collection of weapons with awe and exaggerated care.

"Those two were my ancestor's weapons," she explained, heart aching a little. "The oversized boomerang belonged to an ancestress who is said to have been the only survivor of a hidden village of taijiya, demon slayers. It really does work, but you have to train very hard to master it. I'm told my father could take out targets, but didn't master catching it before his death. The staff belonged to her husband, a houshi of the Sôtô sect of Zen Buddhism. I also have parts of their regalia and more of her concealed weapons, but that is for the family alter. I will have to take care of that box myself."

"And the bow and arrows?" Clint asked her, recognizing them by their feel inside their wrappings.

"Those are mine. I'm a miko, and I received them upon passing a sacred ritual." She thought it was very strange when the two looked at each other, then back to her.

Kate laughed at her expression, then explained, "We're both archers as well, rare as the sport is, although we use compound bows. Can we see your set? I'll bring mine by sometime when you're well, and we can shoot a few rounds. Clint here put some targets on the roof."

Smiling, Kagome extended her hand for the cases. She unwrapped her quiver first, passing it to them as a distraction while she surreptitiously removed the wardings on her bow sling.

"These are handmade arrows," Kate said with reverence, feeling the fine balance and looking at the heads. "And this technique of iron folding... it takes a master of the ancient ways to make them, and those masters are extraordinarily rare these days. Don't tell me you actually use these?!" she said, finding the wear and tear on the fletching.

"Yes, I do, during ceremonies." And youkai attacks, target practice, to focus my energies... She pulled one last sutra off, and drew out the Asuzan bow. "This is a yumi made on the sacred mountain of Asuza. I'll never find a bow that suits me as well."

"You're shorter than that bow, don't tell me-" Clint said critically.

She just nodded. "Yes, I can draw it; yumi are traditionally taller than the archer. I routinely hit zaiteki-"

"Wait, this is a stickbow. A compound is more accurate-"

"If that's what you shoot. I've been shooting yumi almost the entire time I've been in archery."

Kate thumped Clint. "He's into modern bows and toys. What does zaiteki mean?"

Kagome took her bow back and slipped it into it's carrier. "There are three levels. Touteki is where the arrow simply hits the target. Kanteki is when the arrow pierces the target, and zaiteki is when the arrow goes through the target. At a distance of sixty meters, I send the arrow through the target over ninety-five percent of the time."

"Nice, though you're going to have to watch that up on the roof. Don't want to skewer the perverts in the building across the road."

~oOo~

Thanks to the Shikon no Tama she healed fast, and two weeks later was getting around just fine. She was taking time to clean her apartment, when Clint knocked at her door. She opened it to find him bleeding heavily with three bullet creases and a hole in his leg. She didn't bother mentioning the hospital, just took him to the kitchen and pulled out her medkit.

With her swift, agile fingers, she had him treated and the wounds bound in record time... at least by his reckoning. "You patch up bullet wounds often?" he asked, only half-jokingly.

"No, but puncture wounds are common in a farming community. It's all very similar, except they were more likely to get tetanus."

It was an excellent, true answer, but he still wondered why it bothered him. But then he got lost in her smile and it didn't matter anymore.

But the fact he healed faster and more cleanly than any time he'd been shot was impossible to ignore, or hide.

~oOo~

Fury sat down, sipping his coffee while looking out the windows of his office on the helicarrier. When Hawkeye came in, he wasn't even using a cane, which intrigued the Director. He knew how to wait for answers though, and motioned to the coffee maker. "Just made a fresh pot, help yourself."

"Don't mind if I do."

They spent a while going over Hawkeye's report, and which mission he'd be sent on next.

"You know, I've never known you to recover so fast," Fury said, finally digging for the answers he wanted. "Doc's cleared you to come back after just three weeks, it's enough to make me wonder."

"Well, I sure haven't spent any time around General Ross, just found a good healer."

"Your new tenant, one Kagome Higurashi?"

Clint couldn't really get mad... he'd signed up knowing S.H.I.E.L.D. would never give him privacy. But he did like her enough to get slightly irritated. "Yeah, she's trained in the ancient Japanese healing arts. Damn good neighbor to have."

"I would say so." Nick went to the coffee maker for a refill. He had a lot to do today.

~oOo~

Months passed, and a little worried about the number of times Clint had wound up in her care, she gave him a protection omamori for the building-wide New Year's party. "To keep you a little safer in the coming year," she told him with a smile while slipping it over his head.

Looking down at the slip of paper, he could see patterns and kanji. He began to lift it up when she caught his hand. "Usually a man carries it in his business card case, but with as much trouble as you get it, I thought it should be something you could keep in a pocket or around your neck. Just don't open it, and return it to me in a year."

"A year? So you aren't going to get sick of patching me back up, then?"

"Hmm..." Her eyes flashed with mischief, making him laugh.

Kate drained her glass of champagne and grabbed an unopened magnum before slipping away from the roof party to Clint's empty apartment. She'd crushed on him for years, but he'd always been too much of a manslut. Since Kagome'd moved in, however, Kate rarely found him running bare-assed after the woman he'd forgotten the name of by morning. In fact, she hadn't caught him en flagrante delicto in a month...

Somehow though, it didn't hurt as bad as it could of. Hating Kagome was virtually impossible... there weren't too many women that could keep up with her in archery without a snide, competitive attitude, and the woman herself was just so damn fun to be around. So she lifted to bottle in toast to them in the coming year, and proceeded to drink herself into oblivion, having a New Year's wish for her own heart.

~oOo~

The two halves of Clint's life didn't just shake hands six weeks later, they collided like a Sumo match between Godzilla and MechaGodzilla. Tony had hit a block when it came to making the arc reactor last longer, and had, with some very fancy doubletalk, gotten Dr. Banner to come back to New York to help him out, leaving Fury to run interference in General Ross' search for the physicist.

Hawkeye had been assigned to keep an eye on things, but only spotted Ross in civilian clothes after he'd gained the elevators in Stark Tower. Fury took a jet helo to try to get there in time, but all he managed was to infuriate the career armyman.

"I knew it, I knew you guys were hiding him from me. We're both S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Fury, so why are you concealing my fugitive?" Ross radiated restrained anger, racheting the tension up a little more.

"Dr. Banner is an invaluable help to both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the United States. He does not deserve to be hunted down-"

Ross dismissed Fury with a sharp swing of his hand. "Doctor my ass, he's a walking timebomb with the secret to the military's next evolution in his veins. I want him tranked and turned over immediately."

"Uh, if anyone tranks anybody else here, they are not going to like the consequences." Tony butted in. "Knowing your little predilections, I put in a few..." he stuck his lower lip out for a second, and threw his hands up, "Well, actually, JARVIS put in a few counter measures just in case you did come after lean and green here. Of course, I had input, but JARVIS knew quite a few little tricks. I think I might have to start monitoring his internet usage-"

Ross pulled out a gun. "Turn over the fugitive now, or I am taking you all in as conspirators. And the place I lose you in will have you begging for the comforts of Guantanamo."

Clint couldn't quite put the pieces in order after that. He was fairly certain there had been a series of flashbang grenades going off, disorienting him. He'd tried to make it to Fury, and had heard the popping of what may have been bullets or tranks; but after that there was only the roaring of the Hulk and a vague memory of snagging Nick's body out of the air before they hit the wall.

Regardless of how they got there, when he awoke there barely any room to move since he was surrounded by pink concrete. Pink. Concrete. Still, there was enough room for the two of them to lay flat, so he flipped Fury over, and was looking for a pulse when the Director groaned. Slitting his eyes open, he closed them again quickly.

"I have heard of dying men seeing white lights, but where'd the pink concrete come from?"

Barton laid there, staring at it some more. "Good. I thought I'd damaged my head in some way."

However, when the last of the rubble was lifted off of them, all of it was as gray as concrete could be, but the omamori Clint had been wearing was singed and burnt. Quite difficult to discount as well, since it was under two shirts and a vest... but his skin wasn't even reddened from whatever had burned the paper.

"So let me get this straight... she can heal you better than our doctors in less time, and she gave you a protection charm, that, put frankly, kept both of us alive according to JARVIS' calculations. But you don't think she's recruitable?"

~oOo~

"Honestly, no. Without a shrine to draw on, I can't make more than a couple of omamori like I gave to Clint. I was in bed for two days after that incident." Kagome explained. "And I would never accept any job that restricted who I helped. My duty is to the people, not an individual organization."

"And if you had a shrine?" Fury asked, desperate to get her after he'd read up on ancient accounts of what miko were capable of.

"Then I would be right back where I was, only not with my family," she said, having enough of the conversation. "I came to America to put my past behind me. I'm not ready to go back into a life of service yet."

He finally got a glimpse into her eyes, and saw they were old with sorrow. "Very well. But if you ever change your mind, S.H.I.E.L.D. could really use your assistance."

She nodded, putting his business card in a prominent place before showing him out.

~oOo~

"Were you wanting me to join your organization?" She asked Clint as they cuddled on the couch, watching the snow flurries turn the world white.

"No. I'm grateful you saved my life with that charm, but something tells me you've done your share of saving the world. You occasionally get this look I recognize all too well..."

She leaned her head against his shoulder and he wrapped his arms around her. They lay there as the afternoon went by; the outside world trapped in frozen silence while inside two hearts tumbled a little further into the fire.

.

.

.

Kate is Clint's friend in the comic Hawkeye and has a major crush on him. However, he's clueless and rather indiscriminate in his choice of company, which leaves her kicking her own metaphorical rear for liking the wrong man. She pulls his trouble-finding self out of the fire fairly often. She works in his profession as a freelancer, though not for S.H.I.E.L.D.

General Ross witnessed the creation of the Hulk and has been hunting him ever since. That story is told in the 'Hulk' movie.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the information on Kyudo.

Oneshot folks! The story is told and the rest is left to your imagination.

Still not up to restarting ELT, but it should be soon. You just don't bounce back from injuries as quickly when you're my age.