So, I have been approached about this by SO many of you that I decided it was high time to get down to business and write it. The story prompt was courtesy of a perfectly timed PM by KakashiScarecrow. (i had just gotten out of Ant-Man) It read like this:

(Hi, first off I just want to say I love your writing. It's so hard to find an amazing Clint-centric story with some good whump in them. I've been reading all of them in order and have fallen in love. Anyways, I read your most recent Avengers story, Avenge Me, and a thought popped into my head. On the plane in the story after Clint is shot and he's talking about how he came into Laura's emergency room and proposed, it hit me. I was wondering if you had considered writing a story about that specifically. Like Clint getting injured, meeting Laura, and getting to know each other. I just personally thought it could make a good story and would definitely read it. If you don't pursue it I won't be offended, but I just thought it pass on the idea. Thank you!)

So, for all you desperate people out there wondering how our favorite knuckle head landed such an amazing catch, here is the story. From Clint's perspective.

"Avenge Me" the prequel

"No," I said, and meant it.

Director Nick Fury leveled a glare at me, the one he thought I'd never seen before but in fact was his go-to for forcing men to do his bidding. He forgot the effort it took to get me to bend beneath his thumb. Bribery, burgers, and promise of improved tech did that. Not "the glare" from daddy. I sat, arms crossed, steadfast in the passenger seat of the Lincoln town car and refused to budge. Sitting in the middle of the rear seats, Agent Phil Coulson cracked a smile and tried to hide a snicker beneath the collar of his shirt. I heard it regardless.

"Agent Clint Barton, you are picking your butt up out of that chair and getting it through that door or else I am going to shoot you in the thigh and drag you in myself," Fury attempted his second tactic beneath all out request. Threats.

I glanced out the passenger window for a third time. The rain drove down in sheets like a Thailand monsoon. It nearly obscured the sign swinging in the midnight darkness. "All Creatures from Small to Tall", the wide, blue letters read. Someone must have thought themselves clever, or at the least talented. Beneath the artful scribe was the silhouette of a cat inside a dog inside a cow inside a horse. We had parked in front of a veterinary hospital.

"No," I put my second foot down. Fury didn't make threats lightly. I knew him capable and willing to do everything he said. I also knew he needed me back in the field for the Keiv mission in four days. Considering the nick in my arm, I returned my attention to him. "I'm fine, director. Just drive back to the apartment."

"If you were fine, I wouldn't have driven here at all. If you were fine, I would have told you to spit in it, grind some dirt around it, and get back to LaGuardia yourself. Instead, Agent Coulson had to go pick you up, shoot five men, and then I had to uproot myself from a meeting I didn't necessarily want to be in to begin with, and drive you here." Fury's voice escalated as he spoke. He didn't yell, he often never required it, one could simply hear the venom he infused into the syllables the sharper they exited his mouth. Ending the recitation, he sat back in the driver's seat and flexed his hands on the steering wheel. I could hear the pull of the leather against knuckles.

"Look, Barton. I don't trust much. And yes, I need you back in the field, as in yesterday, to handle this Black Widow problem. I cannot in good faith think you can face that like this." He pointed to the stab wound in my arm.

"I can shoot with my left—"

"OUT!" He roared.

I narrowed my eyes at him, grabbed the handle of the door and kicked the side panel open. I left a Russian curse behind as I booted the door shut. Fury winced at my abuse of his favorite city car. Frankly, I didn't care.

I yanked up the collar to my jacket and pulled the fabric around me. The rain stung like a swarm of wasps. It was hot, humid, steaming rain like only the middle of July can produce. Somewhere in the distance I heard the clap of thunder. I used to like summer rain. Not in the middle of the night, not when I was standing in it, and not when I was walking up to a veterinary hospital outside New York with a five inch stab wound in my arm I'd much rather treat myself.

I stood on the porch beneath the wind-thrashed awning and glared into the dark parlor. It looked abandoned. Glancing the way I'd come, I realized Fury had taken off with the car and Coulson.

"Hell," I whispered at first, then moved on to a stronger words. Turning, I noticed a buzzer by the door frame and hit the button. I didn't hear any sound inside, and reached out to try again.

The inward swinging door sprung open and a cacophony of noise and light poured out. A black woman with short hair stood in the crescent of fluorescent light. She wore thin, green scrubs and a surgical mask dangled from two tied strings around her neck. She launched an accusatory eyebrow my way.

"Name and agent ID number?" She demanded.

The gatekeeper, I thought and gave her both.

She produced a digital pad emblazoned with the Stark Industries logo and scrolled through the information. I'd been through this process before, though never at a veterinary hospital as a front. SHIELD had many so-called private clinics for agents throughout the countries it frequented. Most hospitals had rules, protocols, and guidelines to file with red tape long enough to circle the moon and back forty-three times. Fury proposed to host its own clinics, staffed with skilled doctors on SHIELD's retainer. We called them Pop Tents, but I'm not sure why.

"Hawkeye?" the nurse affirmed.

I nodded.

She stepped back, propping the door open with one hand and allowing me to come in. "Be a bit of a wait. Had a steady influx all night. Y'all been busy out there. My name's Jamiqua and I don't make your coffee, so you go on and do it yourself. You planning to die or pass out or throw up in my waiting room, then I got a few rules. You die, you tell me first. Saves me having to poke you in an hour and figure it out myself. You pass out, lemme know before hand. I hate calling in the plastic surgeon this time of night just to fix your broken face for something stupid. You vomit, I aint your momma, so I aint cleaning it up. This place gets turned over at 6 a.m., so we are on a tight schedule and so is the doc. There's five ahead of you."

Jamiqua pointed out a chair along the wall and I headed for it. She disappeared around a corner and a few minutes later I could see her sit behind the paw-print covered desk.

Five agents ahead of me might take hours to get through. Most of the clinics outside major cities had normal activities they ran during the day. Apparently this place was a veterinary hospital to the thousands that attended it in the day, while at night, SHIELD paid to outsource the space as a one-stop agent fixer-upper. The day shift received a healthy compensation for entertaining this little service, though one might not see it by the outside looks. I'm sure the "Hang in There" kitten poster over my head hadn't been switched out in fifteen years.

If SHIELD turned this place over to the day-shift at 6 a.m., most likely I'd not be seen and I'd have to try one of the day-run clinics east of Manhattan. Fighting my way through the city at that time of day made me want to roll through the standard ER, paperwork or not. I sized up the competition in line first, trying to decide whether my stabbed arm muscled me into a higher rank than them.

One guy had a patch over his eye stained in blood. Another laid on the floor next to the first's leg. Blood seeped under the chair on a slope away from him. I'm not sure where it came from. The third and fourth men looked visibly ill. They shared a trashcan and occasionally bent over to vomit into it. The fifth must have been in the exam room already.

"Is that guy dead?" I asked the man with the patched eye. He looked over at me a little dazed. I assumed he'd sustained a concussion from the imprint of an iron someone steamed into the side of his face. Emerging from his confusion he suddenly dropped his head down to the man lying on the floor.

"I—I guess I don't know," he stuttered. I wondered that if I hadn't pointed the body out, whether he'd known someone was there at all.

Thinking of Jamiqua's rule of three, I trudged across the exam room and looked down at the agent. I prodded his shoulder a little with my boot, stooped down, and felt for a pulse.

I looked up at iron-face. "Did you bring him in here?" I asked.

He had to think about that for a long time. It didn't matter, the man was already dead and he had all the time in the world now.

"I . . .uh . . .yeah. Yeah, I carried him. He wasn't—I mean—they hit us so fast."

"Who?"

"That, uh, the thing, ya know?"

I shook my head slowly. "No, I don't know."

He blinked in his confusion. "You don't know?"

"Barton?"

I shifted on the balls of my feet, still kneeling over the dead man and saw Fury in the doorway. He curled his finger, begging me over. I didn't bother dismissing myself from the other agent.

"Guy called himself Doc OC, real nutcase," Fury said when I came close enough. "Shook most of them up. Thompson?"

I hiked a thumb at the dead man and Fury nodded. I shook my head and he nodded again.

"Tore up half the city. Lot of agents down. You were on an independent radio line, so you didn't get the chatter. They see you yet?"

"Nope. Got iron head, thing one and two, then some other one in ahead of me." I reported. Turning to the front desk, I leaned over the purple pawprints and whispered to Jamiqua, "You can move me up a slot, Agent Thompson's dead."

She seemed unphased. "I ain't movin' you nowhere. I knew he was. What you think, I got my degree out of a cracker jack box? 'sides, I know what you did to my cousin Tamara and her girlfriend Alisha, and my girlfriend Bobbi. You are Bad News Barton and darn proud of it!"

I narrowed my eyes. So I liked girls. What man didn't? I never realized my reputation preceded me. Fury pushed in, elbowing my arm out of his way. Maybe he forgot it was the same limb I'd been stabbed in, or maybe he planned that, either way I went reeling backwards clutching at the bleeding wound while stars danced around my eyes like cherubs riding unicorns. I grunted angrily.

Before I'd recovered my wits, he grabbed me, by the same arm again, and proceeded to drag me for the exam room hallway. A giggling Jamiqua fanned herself behind the front desk and checked out Fury's rear while we passed.

"Oh Lord!" she exclaimed, hotly.

I never asked, or wanted to know, what Nick Fury was capable of saying to that woman.

He opened the first door were came to, found it occupied with an agent screaming about his leg wound, and tried the second. This one proved empty and he deposited me on the stainless steel table inside. It had been built for a dog, or similar ornery animal. As I sat, a scale at the top boldly declared my weight in angry, green numbers. A chart across from me explained the importance of periodically brushing my dog's teeth while another declared the "bold new advance" in flea care was something called Frontline. I simultaneously enjoyed the fact I had no pet, and wanted one.

"Just sit there and they'll send someone back. I don't have all night for this." Fury said, looming over a plastic, worm infested heart.

I wanted to bark back at him and declare how much I never agreed to come here in the first place, but knew it wouldn't do any good. I got cut, not him. Any argument was officially null and void. I never expected the Black widow to be as fast as she was. My mistake, not his. I had to get to Kiev and track her down. Again, my mission, not his. I decided to say nothing.

Then again, I can't just say nothing. It's not how I work.

"We could just glue it," I suggested.

His good eye closed. "The last time you did that, it got infected."

"Yeah, but that was like, ten days later. I could be in Kiev and back in ten days."

"We aren't gluing it."

A knock came to the door at the same time Fury's phone rang. He turned away, placing the receiver to his ear and I watched him. The doctor filed in beside us.

"Calm do—Stop—Greg, no, Greg, listen to me I am not issuing that order. The answer is no. I am sending Barton in the minute—You tell your men to pull back or else—" Fury stalked out of the exam room, slamming the door shut hard enough to rattle the doggy dental chart.

The minute Natasha Romanov showed up on SHIELD's radar for the first time, everyone spun out of control. A Black Widow sighting hadn't occurred since Peggy Carter worked in the original SHIELD office in the days before SHIELD even existed. Fury had a sense on how deadly one Black Widow could be, though he shared little of that with me. He felt I could take her out. I agreed, but a little more information would have been nice. In the meantime, he wanted every other agent pulled back until I was back on the hunt.

"He seems upset."

I'd forgotten the doc arrived. My head swiveled to check him—well her—out.

"Special Agent stuff," I said.

She nodded, scanning through what amounted to fifteen pages of recent medical history. Surprisingly she didn't comment on how many time's I'd blown through various Pop Tents in the past. After a while of catching herself up on the details, the stool swiveled in my direction and I had a chance to see her face.

She had a nice smile. A surprise for a girl just getting to the end of what I would discover is her 18 hour shift. She tucked a long strand of brown hair back behind the petit lobe of her ear and raised curious eyes to mine.

"Agent Barton, my name is Dr. Smith. I'll be taking care of you tonight. I see you have a stab wound to your upper arm. Would it be all right if I took a look at it?" I must have given her a strange expression because she went on to explain. "Some agents are dragged in here against their will. Most big, bad men like yourself prefer to handle these sorts of things with a little dirt, a slap, and walk it off. I am happy you have come to me, but I will only treat you if you want to be. I've had enough experiences where trained operatives accidentally try to kill me because they get a little excited and angry about being worked on."

I glanced at the door, wondering if Fury could hear the doc talking smack about me. More so I wondered if he put her up to it.

"Agent Barton?"

By way of answer, I yanked the hastily tied pressure bandage off my bicep. I meant for it to look manlier, and then a gush of blood literally erupted out of my arm. I swore, frightened by the shock of it, and hurriedly slapped my free hand over the cut. Blood proceed to squirt between my fingers and in ten seconds flat half of me, and the doc, was covered in it.

She glided out of the chair like a seasoned pro, grabbed a pack of gauze, a tourniquet, and some white bandage tape. It took only moments for her to arrange it all while I sat, looking like a fool. I was happy Fury stepped out. At least he didn't have to see that I'd let the Black Widow nick one of my arteries.

"Well, Agent Barton, I believe this requires a minor surgery," Doctor Smith said smoothly. I wondered if anything ruffled her at all.

"Now?!" I exclaimed.

"Right now. By me. Just lay down and I'll go get some things. Don't take off the bandage, arm higher than heart, and all that. You know the drill." She stepped away to the in-room sink and proceeded to wash the blood off her hands. "Do me a favor, and go easy, all right? I have a presentation in the morning I still need to prepare for." She pulled a handful of paper towels off the wall and turned back to me. I could see her now, a woman hiding beneath the doctor garb and medical jargon.

"Presentation?" I asked, lying down.

"I'm a resident. We sign our lives away for a few years to get talked down to and cry ourselves to sleep at night. This gig pays my student loans, but it isn't conducive to me working on important things."

"So you aren't a doctor?" I asked, confused.

She snickered. "Typical agent. Don't worry your pretty little head about what I am. I'll patch you up, send you out, and don't come back until Thursday, at the earliest. A girl could use some beauty sleep."

I decided to throw a little charm at her. After all, it was my calling card and women seemed to like it. "I don't think you need a bit of beauty sleep. You're pretty gorgeous as you are."

I never expected the absolute, dead-pan look she threw at me. I might as well have said she'd been born with three eyes and a uni-boob. Scoffing, laughing, and snorting at my apparent ill attempt at making her swoon, the "resident" Dr. Smith went trotting out the door to grab some supplies. Fury leaned inside, holding his phone against his chest so the man on the other line couldn't hear.

"Barton, don't try it with her. She'll burn you."

Ok, so this is totally finished being written, but editing is in progress. (i literally took 8 hours and banged this thing out). As i re-read it i will fix all the minor errors.

Please review! Updates are going to be FAST on this! like, within the rest of today!