Hey guys! I am adding a fake new chapter, to pull this story out of the depths of forgotten archives, to celebrate the fact that woah- I have been doing this Fanfiction thing for over a year now! Whaaaaaaat! I have always loved this story, and decided to see if it would get a little more attention with a different summary :) Sorry to all six of the people who follow it and thought this was an update. Just read it again and see if you still like it or something ;) Please read and review!
I sit in the room of the too cold hotel, on the too soft bed. I have been in thousands of hotel rooms, and they all blend together not because of the amount I have been in, but because of the similarities between them. The neutral colors, the slick bed spread, the dingy carpet, they are all the same. Many people asociate hotel rooms with vacations and fun- I associate them with fights to the death and assassinations. And Clint. Clint- I look towards the closed bathroom door, he said he was just going to freshen up, but I have an awful suspicion he is jut trying to hide the extent of his wounds from me. And after today, after New York, I am sure his wounds must be as spectacular as my own.
I press an ice pack to the bruises blossoming across my torso as I flip through the channels on TV. Cooking. Sports. Children's. Today every channel may as well be identical as they showcase the catastrophes from the battle of New York. I see the same footage over and over again. Aliens gushing from the hole in the sky, Tony flying through that same hole, a bomb pressed to his back. Thor slamming his hammer down. Captain Rogers is showcased quite a bit, saving pedestrians and killing aliens, and of course the Hulk gets a hefty portion of footage as he crushes everything in his path. Of course Clint and I are missing from all the footage. Thanks to special shield software if our images are ever inserted into any type of Internet or satellite download they are instantly wiped out. So why do I still search every frame of video they are showing, hoping I will see my partner or myself? Because deep down I sometimes wish we could get credit for what we do?
Then Loki is shown on screen, using his glowing death stick to level a skyscraper. I turn off the TV and walk towards the bathroom door, I knock on it. "Clint? You ok?" "Fine! I am fine Tasha!" He doesn't sound fine, but I am in no shape to argue with him. I turn away from the door, when I hear a stifled moan that normal ears would probably not be able to detect. I pick the door knob in less than ten seconds, and get inside. And see a nightmare.
"Oh Clint!" I gasp in horror. Then I am yelling. "Why didn't you tell me? I should be helping you!" Curled up on the floor of the shower, Clint can only moan as bloody water pools around him. His back looks as if it is a pincushion, with rivulets of blood streaming down it and small hardly formed scabs indicate where glass is burrowed beneath his flesh. Under his normal scars I see new nicks and cuts, and gashes and scrapes. He has roughly the same amount of bruises I do, but in a wider array of colors. I hate to see him hurting:and I am mad. "Get up!" I shout at him furiously. "Get up you total Ass! Why didn't you tell me? You should be in a hospital you idiot!" He tries to protest as I help him up off the shower floor. "Nat, it's fine. I can do this, I didn't want to worry you." As he stands gravity forces more blood to cascade down his body, his pants are drenched in his own blood. I worry about how much he has lost- Should I get him to Shield for a blood transfusion? We both share a hatred for doctors and hospitals, until he absolutely needs more help, I will take care of him. No matter how mad I am at him right now, I will help. And he knows that. And I kind of hate hime for knowing that.
"Get out!" I order sharply. In spite of my harsh words I am as gentle as I can be with him, easing his battered body from under the steaming shower, forcing him sit on the closed toilet. "You idiot!" I seethe scornfully. "You have to remove the shrapnel before cleaning the wounds. I should have started helping you with this the minute we were done fighting!" He sighs, "I know Tash, I know... I just didn't want to worry you and- AURGH!" His body convulses as I pull out a hunk of twisted metal that was sticking out of a knot in his back. I bite my lip, ignore the fact I am causing him more pain. He needs to get this done, and now before an infection sets in. "Geez Nat, you could have warned me first!" I order him to shut up, as I leave the room to find my medkit.
It takes hours to remove every piece of glass and metal from his back, and bandage his wounds. When I am finally done removing the shrapnel and begin to swab every individual cut with stinging iodine, we try to talk to help him forget the smarting of his back. But of course nothing can really help. When I have bandaged him up, I help him clean the rest of his wounds, then wait in the bathroom as he showers in case he needs my help. This is the closest we have been since Loki invaded him and everything feels different. Strained. But when he is done and I have helped him into pajamas, we lay in the same bed as if nothing has changed. It is not for romance, it is for the feeling of being close to someone. For the feeling of being safe. In this moment everything is different, everything is the same.
We are silent for a bit before he speaks. "I am sorry Nat. About everything. About Loki, about the fight, I should have stayed by you. We fight together. I shouldn't have let us be separated. If something had gone wrong-" "No Clint!" I soothe him. "We had to separate, it's what was best for the mission, you know that! And everything worked fine. Look, we are both here. It all worked out." He nods and we just lay besides each other for a while, enjoying the company. I look at his face, once again trying to memorize it. I have come so close to losing him so many times, and I never want to forget him. I am so scared I will forget him. That one day he will be gone, then I will forget him and have to lose him a second time. We lie besides each other for what feels like hours, eventually I wind up curled in his arms, things feel almost normal in the darkness. Then, when I am almost asleep, he speaks.
"Nat? What did you mean about Budapest earlier? Because I was trying to remember and- I don't think we ever worked Budapest together."
