Clint swallowed a hard lump in his throat. The sun was dropping rapidly, and the cold Alaskan day would soon turn into an even colder night. When the ground came up, he flared his chute and landed on his feet. As the parachute dumped out its load of air, he started pulling the lines, gathering it together, all the time scanning the leaden sky above. He frowned when all he saw was an eagle soaring high. He had hoped to see Thor, his fellow Avenger swooping to his rescue, or at least Iron Man, but the sky was clear of any flying men at the moment.
He was pretty sure Natasha had seen him fall. If she had, why wasn't the team looking for him? Had something happened to his partner? The lump in his throat had changed to a fear that he pushed aside, not wanting to give it any credence by addressing it.
Sighing, Clint put the memory of his failure on the plane out of his mind. There was no point in dwelling on it. He'd been taken out by a sniveling nobody who in Clint's mind just got lucky.
Once he had the chute gathered, Clint sat down on it and took inventory. He had a pounding headache, but that was to be expected with oxygen deprivation. His left arm and both hands were badly bruised, but no sign of any broken bones. His biggest problem was the cold. He'd been shivering steadily since regaining consciousness, and his core temperature was dropping.
He checked his weapons. All of the knives, throwing stars and garrotes were in place, but the gun that had been in his hand when he first fell was long gone. He regretted the loss because it was a favorite of his, fitting his hand as perfectly as his bow. Fortunately, the gun strapped to his ankle, and the one hidden at his waist were both secure, so he probably could survive a bear attack, maybe… If the bear was old and toothless... If he was lucky.
In his mind's eye, he saw the tray table where he had been working on his arrows. No doubt still sitting right where he had left them in a charging dock, were his SHIELD issue smart phone and the little cheap burner phone he used as back up. He sighed, knowing that Natasha would rip him a new one for that little mistake.
He also regretted taking off his uniform jacket. The plane had been nice and warm, and Clint hadn't needed the heavy Kevlar lined coat. Of course that meant he was wearing nothing but a lightweight uniform. Even the socks in his shoes were for the hot conditions the team had faced in the Simpson Desert.
Clint scanned the sky again, then gave it up as a pointless task. He had run his last moments in the plane through his head several times, and he still wasn't sure if he heard Natasha cry out as he was kicked from the plane. If she had, and his instinct said she had, he could not be sure if it was because she had seen his plight, or for any of a hundred different reasons.
He started to shake his head, then the pain warned him not to. Even if Natasha had seen the fall, Clint wasn't all that sure that would translate into Tony Stark agreeing to look for him. Even after being assigned to the Avengers for almost a month, Clint still hadn't gotten a good handle on the genius. He could practically hear the man say, "Well, if he fell, then he's dead, and I have a charity ball to attend."
Then again, the man had practically broken down at Phil's funeral, and from conversations with the senior agent, Clint knew the two men could hardly stand each other. Clint would like to believe that people would look for him. He knew it wouldn't be because they actually gave a damn about him. Maybe because it would be bad publicity?
Clint sighed. It was the whole Loki thing that had him so down on himself. He was going to have to engage in a lot of 'positive self talk' or the next time the shrinks got a hold of him, they'd lock him in a padded cell. "I choose to think thoughts that serve me well," He muttered.
Wrinkling his nose in self-disgust, Clint tried to think logically about it, and he realized that unless someone had seen him grab the chute, they would all just assume he was dead. And with that idiot Ivory blocking Steve and Natasha's view, chances were they hadn't seen his last minute frantic grab.
No, rescue wasn't happening. Nobody was going to have a sense of urgency to get to a damn grease stain in the snow. He scrubbed at his face with a cold hand. He had to stop with the damn self-loathing.
He realized he wasn't being fair. Natasha would look. Hell, she'd probably think he could defy the odds and what? Float down 50,000 feet? Fly like his namesake?
His mind went back to her yell just as he was pushed over the edge. If Natasha knew he had fallen, she would have pulled her gun if necessary to get Stark to come back. Why hadn't she?