a/n: Here's the next installment!
In Which Hawkeye is a Pimp
Chapter 5
The heat in the cab was hard to overcome, despite the windows being cranked open as much as the corroded gears allowed. Clint had already gone through the motions of stripping out of his suit jacket. He loosened his tie, with one hand steadying the wheel, and it now lay on the seat between himself and Skye. Without asking, she helped him pull out of the sleeves on his button down dress shirt. The sweat had already plastered it to his body. Perspiration still collected in the crease between his shoulders.
He laid May, Ward, and Coulson in the bed of the truck. Clint had the option of fitting one, maybe two in the cab between himself and Skye, but given their poor condition, he preferred to keep them as flat as possible. They were going to need rest, especially with the hike back to camp still ahead of them. All of them were worse off than he surmised would be the case. If he allowed himself to consider the other alternative, that all of them were dead, then he had to admit they made out fair.
Not for the first time, Clint reached forward and tapped the gas gauge. It had a tendency to stick so he was attributing the current rating of empty to that. He knew starting out that getting all the way back to base wasn't going to happen. But he had to try and get close. Doubling back and forth in the desert, hitting the main road and turning off into the desert flats did nothing to improve their fuel situation. He wanted to be positive, absolutely positive, that no one was going to follow them.
"Thank you."
Clint glanced at the girl beside him. Her legs were under her chin and her back was against the door. She'd been staring at him the entire three hour drive without saying so much as a word.
"You're welcome." Clint said.
"Are you Hawkeye?"
He grinned a little, wondering if Coulson spoke about his favorite pain-in-the-butt with his new team. "Yeah, that's my call name."
"Like Avenger, Hawkeye."
He looked at her a little longer, rooted around on the floorboards for another water bottle and handed it to her. That was his job: Keep driving, hydrate the passengers.
"Drink the rest of that. And I am part of the Avengers Initiative, if that's what you mean, so yeah."
"And you just walked in there with a pocketful of cash, and got us out. That's it."
Ah ha, Clint thought. That was what her hang up was. It seemed too easy. When she put it in those terms it sounded simple. Anticlimactic, almost.
"You just talked to that guy and he agreed to let you just walk out the door with us, no questions asked. No badge, no gun—arrow—nothing. You just walked us out." She went on.
"Is that all you've been thinking about this whole time?" Clint asked.
"It just doesn't make sense. If that was all they had to do, why didn't SHIELD do that before . . . before—" Her voice hitched in her throat. She stopped looking at him and instead concentrated on the desert rolling in the distance.
"It wasn't easy."
"Sure sounded easy."
"If it was then I wasted a lot of time coming here to do it myself." Clint told her. He didn't mean his voice to come out as irate as it did, but the heat was getting to him. And the gas. And the fact that at any point, their 40MPH truck could be overtaken by an entire compound of angry men he just pulled an epic con on.
"I'm sorry." She said after a time.
Clint sighed. He righted himself in the vibrating bucket seat and tried to relax into the threadbare cushion. "It's not your fault. It's been a long mission for everyone. Me included. I wasn't brought in until after they sent in the second team to retrieve you."
"Second team?" Her attention returned to him.
Clint figured there was no reason to keep the truth from her, and he'd had a run of honesty lately. Con excluded, that is. "Yeah, the first team responded to the distress call from your technicians, Fitz and Simmons?"
She nodded, her eyes watered again at the realization they were all right.
"The field team arrived within the day and set up a mobile operations base. Hazim, your captor, moved your location at least seven times that we recorded. Our base commander, Hatcher, sent out a scout team of seven agents to track down your location. None of them ever came back. Egypt was too hot to continue operations there, and they kept moving you, so the outpost packed up and moved across the Libyan border. So far we've been invited, but we'll see how long that holds out. Field nailed your location through an IR feed from one of SHIELD's satellites. They decided to hit Hazim with a head on full extraction team. Guess how many agents made it out of that one?"
"I don't know." She said quietly, dreading the answer.
"One. He came back missing most of his fingers and half his face melted off. After that, it was decided our friend Hazim was too hot to hit head on with standard personnel."
"So they called you in." She guessed.
"I was brought on base in day seven of your captivity. You've been officially out of SHIELD hands for the past thirty seven days, including today that is. I tracked your movement through the desert from one rat hole after another till Hazim set up what I hoped was a semi-permanent residency. I finally found the compound seven days ago. I had no clue whether you were actually there or not, but I was running out of time. So I decided it was better to act now. I set up sort of a reputation for myself in the local town about thirty miles south of here. They know me as a sex trader. I buy up women to sell across the country borders. So when I got to the compound-"
"You told them you were there to buy us." She guessed.
Clint shook his head. "No, I let them suggest that. I didn't know what I was walking in to. I just got a tip from the prostitute I befriended after kidnapping a couple compound guards this morning. I needed a way to get Coulson and Ward around without people getting suspicious."
"So you dressed the guards in the veils."
"And switched them in Coulson's cell." Clint ended. He looked over to see how the news was sinking in. "Yeah, so it was not as easy as you think. A place like that you can't just barrel into, guns blazing, Tony Stark style. You have to spy your way in. We got out lucky...real lucky. There are a thousand other ways that could have gone down."
She quieted. She was still staring at him, as if trying to understand how this unassuming, normal (if not hulky) man could have done so much just for them. Then she remembered a familiar scene, one of the only introductions she'd ever had with Coulson's other half of life.
"Are you the Bagel Thursday guy?"
Despite himself, the heat, the worry over being overtaken, Clint laughed. "Yeah, why? Does he still do that?"
She smiled. She looked cute when she smiled, he thought.
"Every Thursday, no matter where we are. It's like this homing beacon he has and, all of a sudden, it's all hands on deck, Coulson needs a bagel."
Clint continued to giggle to himself. He cast a glance in the rearview mirror to see if Coulson was listening in. it was hard to tell. From where he'd placed his mentor, all Clint could see were his borrowed black shoes.
"I wrote that program for him."
Clint rolled the hardly drank water toward her again. "I said to finish that up. Drink it slow, but all of it." She picked it up and began sipping as instructed. "What program did you write?"
"The one to change your file. Your personnel file with the medical records in it."
He knew someone had tampered with his personnel file some time back. Actually, he knew that person was Coulson, but, in order to do a lot of the finer integration work, he wasn't surprised that his mentor had an accomplice. Changing Clint's personnel file had become a paramount part of his continued existence. He had gone deaf very suddenly on a mission and risked SHIELD pulling the cord on his agency work. Coulson stepped in and practically rewrote Clint's history to make it seem as if he was still on active duty with his physical impairment since the early 2000s. The change literally saved his life. After the change in his personnel file, Clint had received an anonymous e-mail alerting him to the alterations. At the end of the e-mail was a signature written in code. It didn't take Tony Stark to figure out that the signature was from Phil. It was the first indication to the Avengers that their good friend was alive.
"I guess I owed you one then." Clint told her.
"No, after all that I don't think so. Can I ask you something? Are you really deaf? Like, its not just some ploy or something?"
He got that question a lot lately. Especially after the implantation. It was difficult to cover up the fact that he had undergone brain surgery. He extracted one of his ear pieces and passed it over to her. He figured with her credentials as a tech specialist, she'd be able to handle it without dropping it out the window.
"And this links in with the implant?" She asked.
Clint held up a finger. He removed the implant in his left ear and placed it temporarily in his right ear. "Sorry, wind is strong from the window and you have my other hearing aid so I can't hear you. What did you say?"
"You really are deaf." Her surprise was difficult to hide.
"No, I just like to wear them for the fashion statement."
She inspected the work of the device. Almost imperceptibly on the long end was the Stark seal. "What's it like?" She asked. She wasn't sure why. Maybe she just missed having a conversation for once.
"Being deaf?"
She nodded.
"Weird. You can't hear yourself talk, which makes it hard to control your volume or what your voice sounds like. Tony says its like I'm talking with marbles in my mouth if I don't have my hearing aids in for a couple days. I learned sign language just in case I should ever need it. We worked out a sign system for the few of us. Keeps me on track. Then there's my wol-dog. He's been trained as a search and rescue and a service dog. If I miss something he picks it up. Like cell phone calls and alarms and things."
She handed it back to him and watched as he re-situated them in their proper positions. As small as they were, it was impossible to see them unless she really got close to him.
"I had tinnitus for four weeks after the assault. After that went away, there was just...nothing. I can hear Tony's TV, but only with the volume at one hundred with the external surround sound going. That pretty much clears the top two floors of Stark Tower. I can hear fire engines, loud alarms, things like that but they have to be really loud. JARVIS built in a light sensor into my room for an alarm clock. I wake up with the sunlight. If that doesn't do it, the bed vibrates and I usually get up. Most of those I never really have to use since I got my dog. He wakes me up at five sharp. I lip read now even though I can hear with the aids in."
"Do they ever not work? Like on a mission or something?"
Clint shrugged. "The biggest problem is I've already lost one of my senses. If I lose another one, like my sight, then I'm going to have serious issues. That's one of the reasons I learned sign language. As far as having hearing aid issues, I haven't had a problem yet. Then again, most of the time, I'm out in the field with Tony or Banner. Either of them could fix it. "
"Iron Man and the Hulk." She said.
Clint smiled. "I don't call Tony that. His ego would explode."
"What about the Hulk?"
"I call him whatever he wants. He's OK with the name, I think. At least he's never complained about it. We get along pretty good together."
The engine to the lugging Toyota coughed and sputtered. Clint cursed under his breath as he tried to drop the lugging truck into a lower gear. They were hardly making it over the sand hills at their current pace as it was. The field base remained another hour out, at least. On foot that amounted to a three hour hike. The truck just made the crest of the hill before rolling down the other side. Clint pressed the gas, trying to steal whatever fumes he had left to propel them even a little bit farther. Eventually, they rolled to a stop and the beast was dead.
Clint slammed a palm against the steering wheel. "Hell." He cursed.
"What just happened?" Skye asked, looking around the area through the windows. As far as she could tell, there was no potential SHIELD base in sight.
Clint threw a foot into his door to jar it open. The engine was smoking and out of fuel all at the same time. He knew they didn't have much left to go on, but he hoped that they could have made it. It was a pipe dream. Into the cab he told Skye, "Finish up that water like I told you. We need to hike."
"Hike?!" she exclaimed.
"Yeah, hike."
He reached inside and fished another couple bottles from the floor panels. He'd packed seven, but two fell through one of the rusted holes in the floorboards sometime before he infiltrated the base. With the liquid in hand he went to the back of the truck to rifle through his duffel bag and check on the rest of the passengers.
"Everyone still intact?" He asked. He lifted the hitch on the tailgate and dropped it down to aid his climbing in. May was still sitting against the sidewall, unconscious. He felt beneath the protective shade of her visor with a hand. Her face was warm, but not overtly so.
"Who taught you to drive? A bumper car clown?" Coulson joked.
Clint held out one of the clear water bottles to him. "Yeah and his name was Bronzo. He had a dancing Chihuahua he called Taco and a flying monkey too."
Coulson smiled as he took the bottle and undid the cap one handed. Between Ward and him, they'd fashioned a sling out of a veil which now kept his arm close to his chest. Clint didn't even want to attempt putting the arm back into its socket after it had been out so long. More likely than not, the muscles were so tense that Clint could try all afternoon to reset it and get them nowhere.
"Hey, I never had a Chihuahua." Coulson pointed out.
"Yeah, and you're the one who taught me to drive, so stop complaining about it." Clint replied. He stooped down to grab his duffel from beside Ward. From inside, he pulled out a pair of track pants. He wasn't about to trudge across the desert in his dress clothes. At the bottom of the bag he'd packed a trauma kit. This, he pulled out and gave to Ward.
"There's some cotton batting and hemostatic packs in there to get your feet patched before we start walking. Skye's too short to carry you, I need to carry May, and Coulson's one-armed with, I bet, at least six broken ribs. So you need to be able to walk at least some of the way on your own."
Ward accepted the trauma kit with little more than a nod. Clint at least expected a wise crack, but that was something he could do without. With track pants in hand Clint vaulted over the side of the truck to strip down. Skye had come out on the opposite side to stand near Ward.
"How far are we?" Coulson asked.
Clint looked up, gauging the position of the sun. He'd started out early, reached the base by nine in the morning. Now, three hours later, it was just after noon nearing one. "If we keep a good pace, I can get us in by four. We'll be there before night."
Clint half folded his pants and left them over the side of the truck. He was traveling light, which meant the suit was staying behind with the puke green Toyota. He climbed into the bed again and, as Ward began wrapping his left foot, Clint rooted around the trauma bag to come up with the emergency fluid line he'd packed. He grabbed the catheter with hub, a role of tape and alcohol prep pad.
"Skye?" Clint called, indicating for her to climb up beside him.
She approached. He sat her on the side of the truck bed and placed the fluid bag in her hand. He went back to the trauma bag and grabbed a syringe.
"Hawk?" Coulson said.
Clint smiled. He couldn't resist the urge to show off, just a little, in front of the man who'd been like a father his entire adult life.
"Yeah?" Clint asked.
"Not that I want to stop you or anything, but do you know what you're holding?"
Clint pulled the syringe cap off, jabbed the needle into the fluid bag and drew himself a catheter flush. With the cap sticking in the side of his mouth, Clint said. "Yeah."
"That's a syringe."
"Very observant." Clint twisted the catheter open and analyzed the veins on May's right hand. Then the left. Neither was good enough for him to feel confident getting a line in. He opened the crook of her arm and flicked the skin a few times before prepping it with the alcohol pad.
"But, Clint, that's a needle."
Clint extracted the catheter from the cover and, with precision, slid it right on target into May's vein. He grabbed the catheter hub and twisted the end in place before he began to tape it down.
"Yeah, it's a needle." Clint said.
Using the prepped needle, Clint flushed the fluid through the catheter. The clear fluid entered smoothly without puffing up her skin. It seemed his impeccable aim included hitting veins with catheters too. With the strips of tape he pre-ripped, Clint secured the catheter in place.
"Clint you just gave her an IV line."
Clint attached the fluid line to the port on the catheter hub and opened the line. He pushed Skye's hand up a little higher as she created the gravity necessary for the fluid to flow down. Clint turned his attention to a thoroughly proud, and confused, Phil Coulson. He felt like an absolute champion.
"Yes, I did. I handle needles now."
"When did that start happening?!"
Clint shrugged as if him handling the one absolute terror in his life was nothing at all. "Bruce taught me one day. I went for a recertification on my CPR techniques and he came along. Then we stayed after for an advanced trauma course."
Phil's mouth would have hit the truck bed if it could. "You did a COURSE? Like a class."
"Yes, I did a class. And if you don't believe me, I have witnesses and a certificate. And," he indicated his perfect catheter. "apparently I even had the ability to learn something."
Ward and Skye listened to the exchange like a set of outsiders watching as a married couple bickered. Actually, it was more like a prodigal son proving his worth to a father who always knew he was priceless. The pride on Coulson's face was difficult to surpass. His heart could seize and kill him now, and he would die with a smile on his face.
"Well, you went to the Academy didn't you?" Skye interrupted them.
Ward, Clint, and Coulson all answered a resounding "No" at the same time.
Skye held her hands up. "Whoa, OK, apparently I was wrong."
"I was field op trained." Clint explained.
"And his officer training was under me. Like Ward is your supervising Officer, I was Barton's." Phil said. "He didn't exactly gel in the academy."
Ward snorted He was finishing his second foot, packing enough gauze and cotton between him and the oversized shoes to make walking feel like he was dancing on pillows. "That's a laugh. You never even finished high school."
"Grade school." Clint corrected, as if it helped his case. "Get your facts straight if you want to insult me. The reason I didn't go through Operations grunt school was because I was already enlisted in the army at the time and running my own ops with Coulson."
"Seriously?" Skye asked. "He wont let me do anything until I memorize the hand book."
Clint threw Ward a sideways squint but said nothing. The fact that Ward even had an officer-in-training was news to him. Skye seemed like a good kid. Young and naïve maybe, but she had a decent heart. Apparently, Clint was an expert on those.
"I was different back then." Coulson said. "SHIELD was different. Starting out, there was no Helicarrier. No mass operations base. Clint and my first outpost was in a bunker in – "
"Norway." Clint said with a chuckle. "That place was cold in the winter."
"You froze your hand to the door knob." Coulson recanted.
"Because someone told me it was thirty degrees and it was negative forty five." Clint replied.
"The thermometer broke."
"Because someone threw their shoe at it."
"I was aiming for you because you threw it at me."
"Because you were snoring and it woke me up."
Skye's head bobbed back and forth as if she was watching a tennis match between the two. Years after the incident occurred, it was apparent neither had forgotten a single detail. It was surprising and sweet to see Coulson and Clint together again. They had a history Skye could never have even dreamed up. Now that they were thrown into each others path again, the magnetism was intoxicating.
Clint inspected the line as the fluids ran dry and he stopped the flow from the bag. He disconnected the line and tossed the empty bag into his trauma kit. It wasn't much but some hydration into her now was better than nothing. It was time to get moving. They had a long walk ahead of them.
Coming next: Next time: Carrying the weight of the world
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