I'm making big progress here, though I wish I could get the chapter to be a little longer.
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Again, thanks to all of those who reviewed the last chapter:Jane S. Winchester, jessica, Sail. Away64, HopeSproutsWings, LaNaturalBreezeOf-Books, Margaret, Cello06 and Elcee.
Also thanks to the ones who fave or follow this story. You all people are wonderful, but more wonderful is my beta Anna575 because she had helped me a lot and thanks to her I haven't lost my inspiration.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers or the comic characters here mentioned they belong to Marvel and Stan Lee.
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"What do you mean by 'lost the signal'?"
"I'm sorry sir, but it's apparent that the signal of Agent Barton, Stark, and Captain Rogers has somehow been blocked. We can't trace them."
"We have the best of Stark's technology, and you're telling me someone blocked our signal?"
"It appears that way Director. We caught a last shot on their location but…there is something in there you need to see."
…
"Get me the rest of the Avengers in here NOW."
There was a numbing sensation coursing through his body, and he didn't know how to explain it. He had never felt like this. Not before the serum at least. This sensation was worrisome, but welcome. He was sure that as soon as he started to get back to normal, the pain would come.
"Wake up! Come on, nap time is over, Rogers." The voice was distant and tinted with pain, but also very familiar to him, although he couldn't point out where he had heard it before. He got the feeling that the owner of the voice was the one tapping his cheeks insistently, and he maybe groaned at the rude movement. He wasn't sure about that, thought. All he knew was that his head was pounding hard, and his body was dead of most of the sensations. "Snap out of it, Steve, this is not the time to play sleeping beauty," the voice said snarkily.
He was becoming more aware of his surroundings. Steve was conscious enough to feel more than one presence around him—he was good at that. His heavy eyelids fell open, and there was a blur of colors in his eyesight that made him blink a few times more to clear his vision.
Barton was there, just ten inches from his face, with a worried glint in his silver eyes and an innocent fake smile on his lips. Even with all the drained energy he was feeling, Steve managed to smile back at the man.
"Hey, Cap, how are you feeling?" Steve blinked blearily at the gray ceiling, wondering when he had laid down on the floor. He quickly forced his arms underneath his body to prop himself up, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He stared back at Clint in confusion.
"Careful, you had lost a lot of blood….Super soldier or not, you need to rest," Clint said firmly. His tone brooked no argument.
Steve nodded, but still tried to at least sit against the wall with Clint's help. He stared at the man in front of him, remembering everything that had happened and the sudden wince that flashed on the Hawk's face. Steve put a hand on the archer's shoulder, squeezing with more force than necessary to which Clint offered a pained smile.
"You should be resting, too, your back…" Steve trailed off.
"It's fine. I'm fine. I can take the pain, and this is not the first time I ended up being on the wrong side of the torture. And it won't be the last either." The truth behind Clint's words sent a small spike of concern through Steve. "Besides I'm trained to withstand pain. I may not be a super soldier, but I got my own set of useful skills."
"Yeah, but I bet they never used someone else against you, Clint. You gave up pretty fast," Steve pointed out, which caused Clint to lift his gaze to meet his. Something in the stormy orbs told the captain that there was something the archer wasn't telling him, but he didn't want to press on the subject. If Hawkeye made a decision, it meant he had run all over the probabilities before doing it and that whatever one he chose must have been the wisest one. "Where's Stark?"
Clint pointed to his other side, and Steve saw the billionaire curled up in the corner. They were new cuts and bruises on his face, and even his left cheek seemed to be swelling awfully. There was some dried blood on his lower split lip, and the Captain could bet his chest was covered in similar dark bruises. His arm had been placed back in its place, probably by the archer, and was pressed lightly against the wall to keep it from moving. He could only pray that all the abuse he had suffered hadn't broken any rib or caused any lethal damage.
"He okay?" Steve asked, still looking at Tony.
"Woke up about fifteen minutes ago. He was aware enough to recognize me, but he was silent and we both know that is never a good sign with Stark."
"Are you okay?" Steve looked over at Clint.
Clint's left eye had a darkening bruise around it that was swelling pretty badly, and there was dried blood trailing down his hairline and onto his chin. The younger man was shivering from the lack of his vest and shirt, and his cargo pants were tinted in a darker color with blood. There were bruises and cuts all over his arms. Steve noticed the way he was hunched over to avoid stretching the wounds on his back. The Captain could only assume that his fellow Avenger was in a lot of pain by the whipping he got and whatever they had plunged into him.
"Steve, don't worry about me. I told you this is nothing. I feel fine, just a little pain, but as long as I don't make any unnecessary movement, I'll be okay," the archer explained, sitting beside him and keeping his wounds away from the cement wall, far away from the only door. "You know, I'm not sorry for giving up that easily. You were in danger Cap, Tony was being tortured and almost drowned. I had to do it. I may have the training, but Stark is a civilian. His safety comes before mine."
Steve was set to argue but had to swallow his words when the archer leaned forward, coughing and wheezing out a sound that accompanied the action. Steve jumped to his side supporting Clint's body until the fit passed.
The tremors on the younger man's body were starting to escalate to a point in which neither felt comfortable, and a thin layer of cold sweat started to cover his overly pale features. Clint groaned when Steve helped him lean against the wall, mindful of the wounds on his back. He rested there, closing his eyes to ride the wave of pain that assaulted him.
"You're definitely not fine. That bastard is going to pay for all of this, I swear to god." There was bitterness in Steve's voice that made Clint feel bad. He had guided his companions into this hell hole. The mission wasn't supposed to be this way, and he refused to let it end like this. Clint was a strong man and one that have suffered too much to let something like a whipping stop him from saving his friends.
Although he could be sure it was not the whipping what worried him more.
"Cap…"
Shallow pants of suffering, a cold sweat, and his violent shivering interrupted his speech. Steve hovered over his friend worried, watching him grow paler by the second if that were even possible. It was a clear sign of Clint becoming sick.
"Clint, are you with me?" Steve was in front of him now, kneeling. A groan was his only answer, and he put his hand on the archer's chin to encourage him into opening his eyes with no result. Steve tried to prompt him again by squeezing his shoulder, hoping whatever damage their captors had inflicted was no match for the agent's determination.
A pair of sparkling grey-blue eyes focused hard to mix the two images of Steve into one. Slowly, the blur became fine-tuned for his own taste.
"Fuck," Clint grunted out despite his wheezing. Steve tried to ease him down, but his friend's energy seemed to be a distant memory, only outmatched by pain. Clint would have fallen down if wasn't for the Captain supporting his weight.
Steve's expression softened to an apologetic look, and his hand upon his shivering back helped keep him steady enough to be half-leaning half-falling against the super soldier's chest. The leader was surprised at what he found when his skin touched the archer's back. He expected to find that Clint was ice cold, but instead the skin was feverish and clammy.
"You okay?" Steve asked in concern.
"I'm fine." The lie shook loose from shivering lips, and Clint caught the I-don't-believe-you look from Steve. "Little dizzy that's all. Just need…a few minutes."
"You would be lucky if it was just a dizzy spell," a female voice rang out in the cell room. Steve was up on his feet shielding his friends from this new enemy, letting Clint finally lay in the ground on his side. "Relax, Captain, I'm not here to hurt you."
The stranger lifted her hands in the air in a universal 'I surrender' motion, showing a white medical kit in her hand and two buckets of water near her leg.
"I'm a doctor, you see. I was sent here to make sure none of you die…at least not today. If I'm honest, I would love to interrupt their plans and not see you die any day. But unfortunately, that is out of my reach." She closed the distance between them, putting the med kit at Steve's feet before repeating the process with the water buckets.
"Why should I believe you?" asked Steve still not daring to move from his spot. Over his dead body would they hurt his friends further.
"Look, either you let me help your friends, or they pay the price. I know more about what's going on in here than you do at this point. I just can't walk away. Not like that; it will only make things worse."
"Steve!" The glare of the soldier was quickly changed to a look of worry as he turned to the archer and knelt down, immediately grabbing hold of the clammy hand. Clint's fingers contracted in pain upon the soldier's hand, and his face was already twisting in pain. The doctor side stepped the bulk of Steve, tilting the archer's head towards her.
"Clint?" Steve let the young man fingers dig hard at his hand, not daring to completely let go of him. Steve trusted he was in a good position to move in case the strange woman tried something.
"Barton, can you tell me where it hurts?" she asked, ignoring the glare from Steve when she regarded the archer. The hand crushing Steve's own shook violently. A pallid face pleaded for the building pain to end.
Clint had been holding it all in check, but now it was too much to hold back. The agent looked up at the strange woman, and his brow lowered in pain as his spine bent forward. The sharp agony sent a hiss to his lips that was an attempt to conceal a scream. After a few moments, he twitched again, feeling the ice cold fingers of pain in his spine and stomach.
"Everywhere—I can't…gonna get sick." Clint folded his arm, trying to curl up as best he could, his face contorted to hold back the agony he was feeling.
"They inject him with something?" asked the doctor, already pulling out a syringe from her kit. Steve nodded, putting a reassuring hand on his teammate as he helped him stay grounded. Clint's hand crushed the fingers of his other hand in his tight grip, but the Captain refused to let go. "Do you know what it was?"
"They really didn't give us a warning on when they were gonna drug him, much less tell us with what," Steve replied dryly.
"How long ago did he start to feel the pain, the nausea, and the cold sweat?" she asked, ignoring the jibe.
"About five minutes ago. Not sure how much time has passed since the injection," Steve supplied, watching the doctor plunge the syringe on the archers arm. "What are you putting on him?!"
"It's a sedative; it will help with the pain. Don't worry, Captain. What I put him on is not as bad as what they put in him. By the symptoms, I'm pretty sure it's an experimental drug Maynard has being working on. The drug is deadly, and if I don't put a stop to it, he will die the most painful death you can wish upon an enemy eventually," she explained, putting the discarded syringe back in her kit. She watched as Clint's eyes slipped closed, and his breathing fell into an uneasy rhythm. The pale face eased a bit, and as his mouth parted, soft pants escaped, filling the small space between them with worrying sounds.
Steve patted the sleeping man's shoulder in comfort."Can you cure him?"
"Unfortunately, they didn't give me the cure, but I can at least make him feel more comfortable until your team rescues you…if they rescue you." She dipped a cloth in one of the water buckets and rested it on the top of the smaller man's forehead. "Now, can I take a look at your other friend?" She looked expectantly at Steve.
Steve nodded unconsciously and watched her move towards Tony, getting bandages and some cream that looked like antiseptic. While she worked, Steve took the time to study her for a moment. Something looked odd about her; she held a familiar air around herself, but it was hard to pin point from where. It was as if Steve felt safe and relaxed around her presence, like he knew she wouldn't hurt his friends any further.
"You're here against your will, aren't you?" he blurted out, looking for her eyes to see any reaction from her.
A flash of sadness was all he needed to prove his assumption before she concentrated on her current job, checking on Tony's shoulder and making a temporary sling with some bandages.
"Yeah. At least some part of me is held captive in here…" she whispered, glancing over her shoulder. Steve took it upon himself to cradle the archer and give his other friend some space for him and the doctor. But it was not enough space that would give the woman any chance of harming Stark.
Tony never regarded the ministration. The only sign was his breath hitching when the doctor hit a particularly painful spot, but she tried to be as gentle and fast as possible.
"Listen to me. What is about to come may be the hardest battle you ever faced. I'm sorry, Captain. I don't want to put a painful weight on your shoulders, but the lives of your friends depend on you," the doctor said, her voice very low. Her back was to the Captain. "I want to help you—I really do—but it's gonna take us some time. The Ringmaster employer will come here sometime next week for Stark, so we need to get a plan of escape before that happens. This also depends on how well your friends can hold and heal. You will be safer back at home."
Tony grimaced when she touched a tender part, but didn't move or show any signs of waking up, allowing her finish her administration.
"I want you out as much as you want to be, Captain, believe me. You three don't do me any good by dying in this place."
"I'll warn you…if I see something funny going on with you, I'll make sure you pay for it, got it?"
She nodded, finishing her work on Tony. She was relieved that he wasn't as bad as he seemed, and she moved to look at the cuts and scrapes on the Captain. After that, she worked silently again on Clint's body, stitching and bandaging his back wounds the best she could. With the help of Steve, she turned Clint on his side to avoid infection. She and Steve moved Tony closer to the captain so he could take care for them both.
"I'll come back tomorrow night at the same hour to check on them. That bucket has cold water, and the other one is warm. Use them wisely." She pointed at each bucket as she said that, offering a smile at the Captain. The soldier nodded his thanks watching her retread.
She smiled at him over her shoulder again before picking up her kit and disappearing behind the metal door. Steve took a place in between his two friends, taking turns to put the cloth on their foreheads. His mind was set to stay awake to watch over them.
It was going to be a long night for all of them.
TBC…
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