The first thing Andie felt was the headache.
"Unghhhh." She rolled over and rested her forehead against the cool metal table -
Wait...metal? Her eyes shot open. Metal tables. Bright lights. Floor to ceiling freezers.
"Why on earth...?"
The tag wrapped around her toe answered that question. "Oh my god."
The morgue. She was in the morgue.
She stood up and wrapped the sheet around herself. The room was dark, save for a frosted office window on the other side of the room. Her head swam and she fell into another table, nearly knocking it over. "Hello?"
A clatter from behind her caught her attention, and she spun around to see a mortician standing beside a security guard.
"DON'T MOVE!" The guard stood at attention, aiming a taser at her.
She raised a hand slowly. "Please, I don't know where I am. Why am I -?" She was cut short by the sharp stinging of the taser in her chest. "Ahhh!"
"Put her under!" he ordered. The nurse tackled her and plunged a large needle into Andie's arm.
"Please, I don't understand!" she yelled, her voice starting to sound muffled. "Who are you? And why...? Where...?"
Everything faded to black.
"Good morning, sunshine!" When she woke up again, a man was standing at the foot of her bed wearing purple sunglasses and a armored suit, eating out of a pudding cup. "I hope you don't mind," he gestured to her uneaten dinner tray. "The vending machine's broken."
She looked around, perplexed. She was lying on a hospital bed and hooked up to dozens of machines and medical hoses. "What...?"
He took off his sunglasses and set a folder down on her lap. "My name's Hawkeye, and I heard you had a long night."
Hawkeye held out a thermos of hot chocolate. "More?"
Andie shook her head. "No, I'm fine."
The two of them sat in silence. Aside from the machines at her bedside whirring, it was pretty quiet in the ICU. Andie eyed the thick packet sitting on her lap, with A SHIELD insignia stamped over with a red 'classified'.
"Technically, I'm not supposed to leave without you."
"Meaning that there's no room for me to say 'no', right?"
"Yep."
"That's not likely," she yawned.
"I know, but the hospital's giving me free food, so I figured I'd hang out for a while and keep you company," He threw back the last of his drink and refilled it.
Andie opened the packet again and thumbed through it - a contract, confidentiality agreements...
He leaned in. "So you really don't remember anything?"
She shifted and covered up more with the blanket. "Well, that's not entirely true. I mean, I can't remember little things like what I ate for dinner two weeks ago on Sunday… But I can remember things like my name, the reason I'm here."
Hawkeye sighed. "Well, I'd think that since you know why you ended up here, that maybe might convince you to join us."
She looked away.
"We could protect you, you know." He soothed. "No one would know you're there." He approached the bed. "May I?"
She scooted over a bit, and he sat down.
"Look, I don't blame you for being scared," he said. "But, all we're asking is for you to think about it. You'd have your own private room and bath, high security, a panic room - heck, we'll put in a mini-fridge."
She chuckled.
"And JARVIS will always be around when we're out kicking bad guy butt," he added, nudging her arm with his. "Trust me, we've got this on lockdown."
She closed the folder and looked at him. "And me moving in wouldn't have anything to do with Mr. Stark's and Dr. Banner's obvious interest in my...abilities?"
He hesitated before answering. "Well… I mean, I'm sure they wouldn't mind having a human petri dish. I know I'm interested in learning how you survived a fall from over twenty stories."
She shook her head. "I can't go through with this if don't understand how it works. It's extremely delicate, and not easy." She placed a hand over her chest. "It's like your heart - you don't tell it how to beat - it just does."
"Maybe you could show us?" He offered. "Then we'll understand better."
She looked at him uneasily. "I don't know..."
"What better way for us to understand than to see it in action?"
She took a long look at the Avenger. Hawkeye had been the most sociable of the group she'd seen, and definitely the easiest to talk to. Somehow, his promise of safety and understanding felt fuller. But still...
She rubbed the back of her neck and shook her head.
He sighed and picked up his quiver and bow. "Fine. I understand. But just so you know - " He knelt down beside the bed. " - The longer you stay here? The more at risk you're putting all the patients and their families if this guy comes back during visiting hours."
Andie looked away.
"The Avengers can give you protection, but it's not only your life that will be protected. It's everyone else's here. But we can't forcibly take you out of here. That's your call." He straightened himself up and handed her a card. "You'd be helping a lot of people, you know. Text me when you make a decision." He turned and walked out of the room, grabbing another donut on the way out.
Andie watched the doorway after he'd left, turning the card over and over again his her hands.
Outside at the nurse's station, she watched people walk back and forth. A little boy with a cast around his arm swung his legs back and forth, blissfully unaware of anything aside from the grape sucker in his mouth. Countless others passed by her room, drowning out the humming of her heart monitor.
She pulled back the sheets to look at her leg, which - just last night, had been snapped in half, but now, was completely healed.
"I'd be helping a lot of people," she whispered under her breath, running her hand over the faint bruise left there.
She sighed and sent out a text.
Hello, Hawkeye? It's Andie. I've changed my mind.
"Called it!" Hawkeye blurted out, leaning in her doorway from around the corner. "So, is that a 'yes' on the mini-fridge?"