A/N: Two things before you begin:

1.) Story is rated T for some moderately graphic torture.

2.) I borrowed a quote from The Princess Bride and I like to give credit where it's due. It goes something like, "Or I may be lieing here because I lack the strength to stand."

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy. :)

"A routine threat? Feeling like going on a little mission, Cap?"

"What?" Steve feigns shock, "You want me and not Natasha?"

Natasha makes a face from where she is resting comfortably on the couch with her feet propped up on Bruce's lap. "I'm on vacation. And calling seniority. A little mission will be good for you."

Bruce smirks, but wisely keeps his nose in his book.

"C'mon, Cap. We'll be home before dinner."

My eyes feel heavy and it takes several tries to get them to open. I don't know where I am. I tally everything in my vision to find a clue as to my whereabouts:

Ugly beige blanket.

A standard-protocol hospital bed railing. Well, that clears up where I am.

Bright sunshine pouring in through a window that won't open.

An IV stuck in my hand. Yep, definitely a hospital.

I shift to get a better look around the room and every muscle in my body cries out as I attempt to move.

What happened?

I close my eyes and try and think back to what I last remember.

It's cold and dark and my body feels vaguely...tingly. Not in the good way, either. I try and remember exactly what happened. Nothing's coming to me, but nothing feels broken, so it's probably safe to move. Just as I try, though, I am blinded by a burning white light. Someone must have turned on the lights. I'm sitting up, I think; bright lights are kind of disorienting. I blink and try to get my vision to adjust...and a solid blow to the face knocks me over. I land, hard, back down on the ground. There's a yell from somewhere. I don't think it's me. I blink away the pulsating flashes of light and plant my hands firmly on the floor. Before I can get up, a heavy weight catches me in the chest, slamming me back down to the concrete floor. I try once again, rolling to the side and pushing myself up off the ground in one quick movement. I am pinned back in place by a boot to the chest. I try to catch my breath, which is not the easiest thing in the world with a construction boot grinding down on your sternum. Clearly, escape may not be feasible at this time. I need a plan B. I am still gathering my thoughts when a kick to the gut doubles me over. Ok, message received: I'll stop resisting.

This I know: It's easiest if you just stay down. Another punch to the face lets me know that this is not about keeping me down or still. So, that means torture. Very well.

I've been in this business long enough to know that the key to surviving torture is to find something that distracts you from the pain. Combat boots I recognize as belonging to Steve are right in my line of sight.

I focus on the color first:Black.

The steel toes of my tormentor's boots connect with my abdomen. The air leaves my lungs in a whoosh.

Slightly scuffed around the toes.

A kick that probably rearranged a few internal organs.

The boots are old, but they have been lovingly maintained and polished.

A series of rapid kicks to my lower back.

I wonder if these are the same boots Steve owned before he was frozen?

Another boot entirely descends on my hand, grinding savagely. I grit my teeth. Steve's boots swim before my eyes. I can hardly breathe around the wave of pain. I need something...something else to focus on.

I start counting backwards from one hundred. In Russian. 100, 99, 98... Sharp kick to the ribcage. 97, 96, 95...

The kicks are angrier again and they fall in rapid succession: 94. 93. 92. I can feel a rib crack. 91.

But the next blow never comes. Instead there's a mighty crash, a cry, and a shadow lands over me. My reflexes are sluggish, dulled by pain, and it takes far too long for me to react. I force my eyes open, and in one quick, desperate move, bring my knees and arms up to push the shadow off. I stare up into familiar blue eyes. Thor's on all fours above me, one hand still holding the hammer on my attacker, the other arm coming up off the ground to block my assault. I fall back against the ground.

"Thor!"

"Barton." I have just enough to time to register the fury in his eyes and then my assailant flies across the room, accompanied by Thor's hammer.

Thor turns to look to his left. "Are you hurt?"

I am thinking that this is rather a dumb question, all things considered, when I hear Steve reply sharply, "I'm fine. Completely untouched."

Right. Steve. I had actually forgotten about him for a minute. I turn my head-it hurts!-and notice Steve is shackled to the wall, with Hulk-strength iron. My foggy brain has just enough time to register that whoever did this knew what he was doing before everything goes black.

I wake up again, being laid gently down in the helicopter by Thor. How come it always seems to end like this, with Thor having to carry me back to the chopper? This is the second—no, the third, definitely the third, well, maybe it could be the...

When I wake up again, I'm in a hospital bed. There's a movement out of the corner of my eye and I know who it is without having to look.

"A routine mission?" Tasha asks, eyebrow raised. Oh, I'm in trouble.

My smart-alek reply is lost in a fit of coughing. When it passes, I realize I am gripping her hand. Hard. "Sorry, Tash." I loosen my grip, but don't release her hand completely. She quirks an eyebrow at me again.

She slips her hand free of mine and pours me a cup of water. She holds it to my lips. "Small sips," she warns, like she thinks I suffered a head trauma. Heck, maybe I did. How would I know?

I follow her instructions, and manage to drink half the glass of water, in between violent spasms of coughing. My head falls back against the pillow after I finish. My vision begins to cloud over again. I'm so tired...

I fight back the tiredness. I want to know more about what happened.

"...Who?" Is all I manage to spit out. She'll know what I mean.

"His name is Michael Frost. He's been on S.H.I.E.L.D's radar for several months for making vague threats against the agency. As you know, we receive plenty of those regularly, but this guy was beginning to sound seriously unstable. Any of this sounding familiar yet?"

Oh. I must have been debriefed on all this before heading out. No wonder she thinks I have head trauma. Natasha's no stranger to missions that are mere fragments in your mind afterward, though, and she continues.

"He wasn't judged to be a serious threat and you and Steve were sent after him, just to bring him in for further evaluation. Clearly, we misjudged him."

"Never...getting to go on a mission...without you...again, am I?" I grin at her. She smiles back. She lays her hand on top of mine. "Get some rest, Clint."

I close my eyes and sail back to dreamland, which I am beginning to feel like a resident of.

Natasha must have slipped out while I was sleeping, because when I briefly wake up, I am alone again.

I wake an indeterminate amount of time later to Thor and Banner hovering over my bedside.

I weakly raise my hands to push them away. "Back up, guys. Seriously, I can smell what you had for breakfast."

Thor just grins, "Ah! You're awake."

"Mmph." I grunt noncommittally.

"How are you feeling?" Banner asks, fiddling with the IV tubing.

There's a smart-alek answer on the tip of my tongue, but I'm tired and Bruce looks worried, so I just reply, "Been a bit better, honestly."

Bruce smiles. "Be sure and ask for medicine if you need it. Don't be a hero." He gives me a stern look.

"No, sir."

"He's been worried about you-"

"We all have." Banner interrupts Thor.

Thor continues, "We don't like it when you go off reservation." He looks over at Banner. "Is that the correct use?"

"No, not really." Banner grins.

Thor merely shrugs, without a trace of care. I suppose when you are thousands of years old, you don't let things like proper usage of the English language slow you down.

"We will let you rest." Thor pats my leg and turns to leave.

I have something to say before he goes, so quickly I say, "Uhh, Thor? Thanks for the whole falling-out-of-the-sky and rescuing me thing."

He smiles. "You're welcome."

I'm glad he was there, not just for the obvious reason of it it being in my best interest, but because the truly happiest I've seen him is when he saves people. Especially one of us. It's been this way since London...

"Get some rest," Bruce says, in what I assume is his best doctor voice.

"All I've been doing," I protest, but my voice betrays me by cracking and crackling and they both raise their eyebrows at me.

"Point taken," I grouse. I close my eyes to demonstrate my compliance.

And I guess that's all the permission my body needs, because I fall asleep. Again.

By the middle of the afternoon, I am alone again, and I have had enough of the hospital bed. I pull the hospital covers back gingerly, wincing at the glimpse of my bruised torso it affords me. I am wheezing like a freight train by the time I get upright and to the side of the bed. I take a minute to catch my breath. I still want out of this bed. I could go look out the window. I always feel better when I have a good vantage point to see from. I plant my feet on the floor and stand. And stand. C'mon, Barton, pull it together. Not gettin' any younger. Move! I take a step forward. And then another. There you go.

I save myself from a close, personal acquaintance with the floor miraculously more than once on my way to the window. I wonder briefly if it is worth it, but dismiss the the thought quickly. I am too stubborn to give up. (Although, if Natasha asks, I am going to say I persevere through hardships. Sounds better.)

At long last, I fall more than walk the last step to the window. Success!

I grip the window pane and stare out. It's bright out there and I am so out of breath from walking here, and I ache all over, and the call light to get the nurse to bring more pain medicine is on my bed, which is...really far over there.

I am still standing at the window, contemplating the unfairness of life, when I get a visitor.

"Feeling better, I see."

"Or I may be standing here simply because I lack the strength to move."

"Ohh." Tony sets down down the take-out box he was carrying. "Let me help you with that."

He crosses the room in three easy strides—and how I envy him for that—and slides his arm under my shoulders.

We hobble back across the room, Tony politely ignoring my sharp intakes of breath as my footfalls jostle my worn body. I slide back on to the bed with a sigh of relief. I focus on carefully carefully laying my torso down while Tony sweeps my legs back on to the bed. It's humiliating, but I hurt too much to care. I do draw the line at Tony tucking me back into bed, though. Man's gotta have standards.

I kick petulantly at the blankets Tony's attempting to pull up over me. "Too hot." I offer by way of explanation.

Tony shrugs.

"Hey, you look like you're hurting pretty good. You want me to get a nurse? I'll make sure they send in a cute one." He winks at me.

My vision's getting blurry and I think I might pass out again. Before I do, though, I ask the question that's been bothering me: "Have you seen Steve?"

Tony frowns. "Yeah, he's fine."

"Did I miss him? He hasn't been by to see me...I don't think."

The frown on Tony's face deepens...I find it frighteningly unnatural on him. "You got to give him time, Clint. He'll come around."

Time for what, I wonder, but I am out before I can ask.

It's darker now. The sun is in the final stages of setting. As my eyes adjust, I notice Steve. He's standing near the window with his back to me. His arms are crossed, his posture's rigid. I'm glad to see him. I feel like there's something wrong. If only I knew what it was...

"Cap?"

Steve turns slowly, but doesn't reply. His gaze sweeps over me and settles on the chair next to the bed. I try to make eye contact, but he won't even look at me. He looks everywhere but at me—at the tubing dripping fluids into my arm, at the picture of the New York City skyline hanging on the wall, out the window at the actual New York City skyline. I wonder what's eating him. I mean I'm no beauty queen at the moment, sure, but this can't be the first time he's seen the aftermath of a beating?

I stare at him for a few minutes, hoping to get him to look at me. I've been told I have a scary stare, so it's worth a shot. My attempt is interrupted by me coughing, a harsh raspy sound that makes both Steve and I wince. Still he doesn't look at me.

I decide to ignore him back and start reading the menu the nurse gave me earlier. Nothing looks appetizing. I mean, what do you expect from something labeled "Full Liquid Diet Options"? Yuck.

I sigh. Ignoring Steve is not working, and the silence is getting to me, simply because he seems so uncomfortable, so I break it as innocuously as possible.

"So...how's the weather?"

Steve laughs, a harsh, ugly sound. I frown. This isn't like him at all. Before I can think of how to respond to that, Steve continues.

"It doesn't phase you at all." There's bitterness, and something else I can't quite pinpoint in his tone.

"What doesn't?"

"You don't remember?" Steve sounds shocked.

"Most of it's hazy..." I admit honestly.

I look at his face and then the pieces start to click together, the ugly details creeping in from the corners of my mind.

This had been all about Steve, right from the beginning.

I had shut out most of what Frost had said, but now I remember the tone of the words he punctuated with kicks: anger, mocking, taunting.

They weren't directed at me.

I open my mouth to say something—what I'm not sure, but before I can, Steve starts talking. It's like someone opened the floodgates.

"I begged him to stop." Steve's voice breaks and he's obviously struggling to stay in control. "It was all just a power play to him." There's a pause and I wait. "Look at what I can do. Where's your super-strength now?" Steve mimics, his voice violently bitter. He's shaking.

I've never seen him like this.

I move a hand forward to comfort him, but the movement hurts too much, and he's standing just outside my reach.

Steve must have seen it, because he crosses his arms tighter across his chest and turns his back to me.

The tense silence is back, broken only by the drumming of my heart in my ears.

"Look, Cap, I've got beat a lot over my life, a lot. I don't … internalize it anymore. I have been beat up for men—for reasons—far less worthy than you." It's matter-of-fact for me and I say it just so, but Steve stills looks choked.

I forget sometimes that some people got a nice, normal childhood, one that didn't involve getting beaten by whomever had the power at the time.

There is silence again, but Steve no longer looks so defiant. He sighs and heads for me.

"You know what the worst part is?" Steve asks sadly, sitting down in the chair next to the bed. "I've never even met him. This wasn't personal. He was just...some maniac, getting his kicks from subduing someone with super-human strength. You were more or less incidental."

"Comforting."

"Well," Steve replies, sounding slightly cheered, "He's feeling a little less powerful after spending a few hours in interrogation with Hill and Natasha."

I grin.

We sit quietly after that, watching the evening sky darken, then brighten again as the city lights come on. Silence stretches between us, comfortable as an old friend.

"You should get some sleep," Steve says eventually.

"Will you stay?"

He looks over at me, surprised. "If you want."

I shrug, then instantly regret the motion. I've spent plenty of nights alone in hospitals, so it isn't that, but I thought Steve might prefer to stay here and feel like he's doing something to make this better, instead of going back to his apartment alone. And, truth be told, some company would be nice.

–end-