AN: I will probably be looking for a beta for this story, if anyone currently reading is interested.

And the neuroscience here is shoddy at best. Going into the details would take way too much time.


Fury stood at the front of the conference room, arms crossed over his chest, staring down at the rest of the room's occupants as the doctors discussed Agent Barton's and Dr. Selvig's conditions.

"See, the scans show some flares of overactivity in these regions," Dr. Mattock indicated on the scan, "when he's exposed to violent images. And many vessels in these same regions are so thin they could burst at any moment."

Fury's lips tightened. "So what exactly, does that mean?"

Dr. Blanc spoke up, "That means, that at any moment, Agent Barton could suffer a stroke and bleed into his brain. I can operate, but it'd have to be soon. The longer we wait, the higher the chances that these aneurysms will burst."

"Not to mention," Dr. Mattock continued, "the dead tissue in this region here." He indicated again, treating Clint's brain as nothing more than a printed picture, remaining clinical and objective. "As far as we've been able to see, much of this tissue is in the areas of the brain that regulate self-control and emotions, which seem to have been the main areas affected in his personality from what you've told us."

Fury's lips thinned even more. The room could hear his leather sleeves squeak and he tightened his crossed arms.

"The tissue seems to be spreading. I don't know what your Loki did, when he took over Agent Barton's brain. He may have altered the protein structures within cells of the areas he sought to regulate, maybe planting the seeds of some prion-like protein. This could explain the spreading. Or maybe he inserted a virus. We really won't know. All we know, is that his brain is dying in these areas."

"And his seizures?" Fury was now pacing the room.

Dr. Mattock steepled his fingers and rested his forehead against them. "The seizures we can't explain. It may just be due to the increased activity in response to violence, that I mentioned before. It may be some lingering effect of this Loki's control. We don't see the seizures in Dr. Selvig. He has only a fraction of the damage to his brain. But from what you described, he was allowed much more freedom under, uh, Loki's mind control. His brain just suffered less damage because of this."

"Our best guess about the seizures, however," Dr. Blanc rubbed his eyes tiredly, "is that it's just an aftereffect of the tiny strokes he's been having. We found subdural bleeding in Agent Barton's brain, probably due to the massive trauma he suffers in his line of work, or maybe because some of those weakened blood vessels have actually began leaking."

Fury began pacing. He had an epileptic, apparently partially brain dead (in the most technical sense of the word) agent several floors above him, a frustrated superspy that refused to leave the tower for missions, and fucking Tony Stark barking at his heels, trying to get answers about the previously mentioned partly brain dead agent. Captain America was still god knows where, and Bruce Banner felt it prudent to stay away for these stressful times.

"So these seizures, which apparently don't seem to be triggered by anything at all. Will they stop once you've fixed the bleeding, or potential bleeding in his brain? And will his brain stop dying, once you cut out the already dead parts?"

"Well we're assuming they're triggered by some sort of excitement. Which is why he suffered his first attack while rock climbing. He was able to fight in New York because nothing had progressed far enough to wreak real havoc on his brain. That's what we hope, at least."

"Alright, well—"

Jarvis's cool voice cut off the rest of Fury's sentence. "Agent Barton has just experienced another seizure. Dr. Bamer requires assistance."

The conference room emptied in less than a second, with two doctors rushing to the patient, and Fury on his phone, dialing Natasha and Tony.


Clint was aware machines were beeping like crazy around him, and doctors and nurses were shouting at each other, scrambling around the room and trying to hold him down. Something was inserted into his mouth, between his teeth, and he felt his body reflexively clamp down on it.

"Someone get Dr. Blanc right now!"

A needle was re-inserted into his arm—the one from the IV drip had been knocked out. As the seizure passed, padded cuffs were wrapped around his wrists and ankles, locking him into place.

Heavy footsteps and sighs of relief. The ruffle of papers indicated that charts were handed to Dr. Blanc, and after several moments of silence, he handed the papers off. "We need to take the patient to surgery. Tell Stark we need to prep his OR room."

Jarvis's voice filtered through the room in answer. "Mr. Stark has had the room prepped and sterile since Agent Barton was brought to the Tower. It is ready for use."

As Clint was wheeled into the OR, and Dr. Blanc went in to scrub up and sterilize himself, Colleen felt a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from following her fellow surgeon.

"What the hell happened in there? Were there any signs? Any triggers?"

She could hear the terror in Dr. Mattock's voice; terror that she too felt. What if they killed this man? Before this, it had all be tests and scans, recording information and trying to process it. But now, it her. They were operating on a not-so-secret government agent. A superhero. If they killed him, who's to say it wouldn't come down on her's, and her superiors' heads?

They didn't notice the red-haired agent who came to a stop around the corner, her eyes narrowed as she listened to the conversation.

"Jesus, did you do anything? What did you do!" Mattock ground out. The blame was evident in his voice.

"I don't know what happened." Her voice was shaky, unconvincing. She tried again. "I don't know. We were just talking. About Star Wars or Star Trek or something, for god's sake. I didn't do anything. It was my first time talking to him about something even vaguely personal. I don't know the guy at all."

Dr. Mattock put his hand over his face and rubbed his eyes. Jarvis's voice cut through the air.

"Dr. Bamer, Dr. Blanc is requesting assistance in the OR."

With one last terrified look at Mattock, Colleen pushed through the doors to the OR.


Colleen's breathing deepened, and her heartrate slowed as she entered the OR. If there was one thing she knew, it was surgery. It seemed to calm her, somehow. Despite all the unknown factors, surgery was one thing she could do. When she was in the OR, it didn't matter that she had been chronically single until her current boyfriend, who she was pretty sure was cheating on her when she broke up with him to leave for New York. It didn't matter that she was so overworked and stressed out that she barely spoke to her friends anymore and that her Boston apartment had a grand total of four pieces of furniture in it.

She steadied her hand, readying herself to peel back the patient's scalp. It didn't matter that this patient was the funny, tired man she'd spent 24 hours a day tending to for the past several weeks. Listening to his jokes with Mattock, watching him play videogames they provided for him, while his shaved head was covered with a series of electrodes, childlike glee evident on his face.

None of it mattered, because this was the world she knew. And she was good at it.

"Begin drilling."


Tony Stark and Natasha sat in the waiting room, staring at the pink marble floor. A camera in the OR projected the surgery on a screen outside, but neither Tony nor Natasha even glanced at it. Dr. Mattock refused to take his eyes off the screen.

Occasionally, Jarvis's voice would update them on Clint's status, and on the surgery itself. Tony had brushed up on his neuroscience over the past few weeks, and calmly translated the medical jargon for Natasha. Apparently, both Bamer and Blanc were operating on Clint, trying to "clip" as many of the aneurysms as possible, working in tandem.

Two hours passed, and Tony stood up to get coffee. "Want some?"

Natasha nodded and stood, the two of them walking down the hallway to another room with a professional-grade espresso machine. As Tony fiddled with the knobs, Natasha leaned over, her voice low and frantic.

"I heard them talking. She did something. The young doctor, she did something, Stark. Mattock was blaming her, saying she must've triggered it somehow. Who's to say she didn't do something on purpose? They could have their own agenda. Could be using Clint as some sort of guinea pig."

Her voice was suspicious and angry, and Tony couldn't help but wonder if she was right.

"Jarvis, please send the recording of Dr. Mattock and Dr. Bamer to my phone."

"Right away, sir."

Tony's brow furrowed as he read the conversation, scrolling through it on his phone. "Natasha, I really don't think anything's going on. From what it looks like here, she's as confused as he is."

Natasha sighed in annoyance, "But I can tell. My instincts tell me something's not right here!"

She began pacing.

"Alright, ok." Tony relented, trusting Black Widow's judgement. "Jarvis, please run as thorough a background check on Dr. Colleen Bamer as you can. I want everything, from her entire life. And include her family too, any suspicious connections they might have. Make sure to point out inconsistencies from any different files."

"I'm on it, sir."