aye another chapter. This was a pretty quick update as well since I had it ready already. The next few updates might take a little longer but I'll try my best to update new chapters as quick as I can. Thanks for all the feedback and support guys! Continue being awesome!
Clint wondered whether him and the other avengers should have gotten some kind of upgraded life insurance policy considering the amount of times they were almost getting killed.
When he heard JARVIS relay the message of Tony and Bruce being in a car crash he knew that that was starting to become more and more likely by the day.
He was in the shower when the call came through.
"Mr. Barton, it appears that master Stark and Dr. Banner are in trouble."
Clint groaned. "Is this some sort of prank?"
"I'm afraid not sir. It appears they have been in some sort of car accident. Master stark has ordered me to alert you and the others."
Clint at this point came to the conclusion that no, JARVIS was not lying, not about something this big. Right?
"Damn..." He muttered as he got out of the shower as quick as he could, just a tad bit annoyed. He headed down the elevator to their meeting place - the one area in the tower that stark had set up to be sort of a makeshift briefing area.
When he arrived, Rogers and Natasha were already there.
"I got the message. What the hell's going on?" Clint asked, his hair still damp from the reminiscent of the wonderful warm shower he'd been taking.
"Stark and Banner have gotten themselves into a car crash." Rogers replied.
"Well yeah, I got that much. But how?" Clint rolled his eyes at Rogers' obvious statement.
"We don't know." Natasha shifted her feet. "JARVIS doesn't either apparently. All he knows is that Stark told him to tell us."
"If I may interrupt, I have pinpointed a location on Master Stark and Dr. Banner."
"Great. Lets move." Rogers stated authoritatively.
They left to the huge garage of the tower and not a few seconds later they were sitting in a black SUV.
"Ok I think the real question here is why we haven't heard of any sightings of the hulk. Banner was in the crash too." Clint said the thing he knew was on everybody's mind ever since they heard the news.
"I don't know..." Rogers muttered quietly while Natasha continued to sit quietly in her seat.
The ride was quiet and full of unspoken tension. It didn't take long for them to get out of the city roads and into the more industrial sectors of Manhattan. 15 minutes later, when they came across an empty road surrounded by factories on one side and open fields on the other, they knew that this was the place where the crash happened.
Clint could see a plume of smoke coming from the car, which was sitting in the middle of the road. It was beaten and tattered and looked like it had been through something bad. The car looked smashed from the backside like it was hit with something big. Clint thought it looked almost like a bomb blast - he knew one when he saw one. The car was smoking and creaking and overall, it didn't look good.
"Oh no..." Clint heard Rogers mutter. As Clint glanced over to Natasha, he could see no emotion on her face but her eyes betrayed the worry he knew she was feeling.
They stopped the car and climbed out as fast as they could. Clint followed Natasha as they sprinted over to the wreckage. But, as Clint ran, he noticed a dark figure out of the corner of his eye hiding behind a tree off the side of the road. He stopped abruptly and turned to look closer but the figure was gone.
A little bit of scouting with his 20/20 vision and soon enough, he saw him running towards another smaller car a few ways away from the wreckage.
"Hey!" He yelled as he made a move to draw an arrow. He shot it with impeccable accuracy towards the man. But in horror, Clint looked on to see the man expertly duck and dodge the arrow. It looked like it barely grazed the top of the hood he was wearing to cover his face. Clint growled and was just about to run towards the man when he heard Natasha calling at him.
"Clint! We need some help here!"
He hesitated for a moment, seeing the other man jump into his car.
"Clint!"
"Dammit..." He muttered as he sharply turned away from the car, which drove away in the opposite direction. He started to run over to where the others were.
"Clint help me get Tony out first he looks bad" Rogers yelled as he ran.
Clint ran over to the driver's side of the car. Rogers had ripped off the door of the car and inside; Clint caught a glance of Tony. When he saw Tony, he knew it was bad. He looked pale as a sheet. He was unconscious that much was for sure; Clint could still see his slow breaths. Rogers placed two fingers on his neck to check his pulse.
"His heartbeats there, but its weak."
Clint figured as much. As his eyes wandered towards his shirt, he noticed the pool of crimson that had soaked through. There was a cloth in his hand that Clint knew Tony had used to press at the wound. Granted it didn't do much, the wound was still bleeding and it looked like it had been for a long time now.
"Shit, that looks bad."
Rogers didn't answer as he ripped off Tony's shirt. Doing that, Clint could see the gaping hole in his abdomen that was oozing hot, sticky blood.
"Dammit we need to get him to a medical building now." Rogers fished his SHIELD appointed phone out of his pocket and quickly dialed for reinforcements. After a couple minutes of conversation, he hung up and said, "An airlift will be here in a couple minutes. We can get him out when they get here."
Clint nodded gravely. Through the inside of the car, he caught a glimpse of Banner in the passenger seat. He looked pale but decidedly not as bad as tony. He had a bad gash on his forehead, which was oozing blood and one his arms and one of his legs was bent oddly. He was unconscious as well, which Clint found weird because usually when something like this happened, the jolly green giant made a pretty big appearance.
He decided not to dwell too much on the fact, because just at that moment he heard the sounds of a jet in the distance. When he looked up, he saw one of SHIELDS medical quinjets appear on the horizon. A minute later and it had landed beside then on the road. The ramp lowered and a couple of men with two stretchers came running out.
With a grunt, they carefully lifted tony out of the car and onto the stretcher. Tony let out a soft groan but did not awaken. The men rushed him into the jet. The other medical staff efficiently got Banner onto a stretcher right after and soon, they were all hitching a ride on the jet with their two injured friends.
Friends...
It was strange. Considering anyone but Natasha a friend. Well she was, evidently, more than a friend to Clint, but he didn't know if she felt the same way. And he didn't like emotions clouding his judgment so he never brought it up and never planned on bringing it up ever.
But Tony and Bruce...after spending so much time fighting enemies together, it was hard not to consider them friends let alone just acquaintances. And as much as he hated Tony and his ego sometimes, he never wanted him to die in the literal sense.
He heard Tony let out a grunt as the plane rocked sideways in the turbulence. Over the span of time that they got him out of the car, both him and Banner had gotten hooked up to heart rate machines and an oxygen mask put on. Medical staff was buzzing around the both of them and Clint only saw glimpses of their bodies. But he knew without having to look that Tony was pretty bad off. The gash looked bad and from his knowledge of wounds like that, he knew that time was of the essence here.
He tried not to think much about it for the rest of the ride. He was trained well in distancing himself from missions and injured co-workers as well as compartmentalizing. This was a perfect chance for him to put his skills to the test. The only person capable at doing this better than himself that he knew of was Natasha. He sneaked a glance over at her and saw her face set in stone staring at the medical workers - no semblance of emotion in her expression.
Rogers on the other hand looked stern and rigid. He knew that he also felt worried for his teammates and was trying to not let that show. Clint thought he was doing a pretty good job at it and anyone not as trained as him would never have known the worry behind the expression. But Clint knew and kept quiet.
Five minutes later, they arrived at SHIELD medical base, which was an extension of the main headquarters, which coincidentally (not really) was held in New York close to the avengers tower.
When they landed on the helipad on the roof of the building, Tony and Bruce were rushed out of the quinjet, still hooked up to monitors by the medical staff and were then rushed into the building. Clint knew exactly where they were going - the medical bay - as Clint himself had been there a countless number of times. He pretty much knew the route by heart now.
Steve rushed alongside the medical staff, explaining to them about Bruce's blood and how it was dangerous to touch and soon enough, they disappeared into the bay. Clint didn't follow them, figuring that they would need some space. Natasha stayed with him.
With Rogers gone and no one but Natasha with him, Clint let his guard down just a bit. "Do you think Tony will be ok? That wound looked bad."
"He'll be fine." Natasha stated curtly with no explanation. Clint knew about the security detail she had kept on Stark when he was supposedly dying and if Natasha said that he would be fine, Clint believed her.
They walked together down the stairs to the main corridor to wait on any news.