Thank you to:::
iskaen, finabin, Lost it Never Had it, Ms. Hawkeye, Hamato Alexa, Niom Lamboise, discordchick, BecauseImBatman108, Qweb, comicsans-spideydehaanfan, horsequeen1379, natashgriz, m klindt, NorthernMage
Guest (best fanfic ever?! Aw, thank you!)
chris.(Thank you! I hope you love the coming banter just as much!)
TheNaggingCube (Natasha's little realization was totally a last minute thing right before i posted the chapter. I think it turned out pretty good!:)
Batghost (eh, who wants to sleep in their own room when they can potentially watch Clint shoot Tony?LOL)
Friends Check for Bullet Wounds
Chapter 9
Third Day Post-Op 7:43am
Clint groaned as he stretched his arm over his head and the muscles along the side of him tugged. It felt as good as a cat extending his back after a long nap by an open window. That reminded him, he was warm. He rolled to the side, trying to escape the heat from his thicker winter blanket but reached the edge of something and nearly fell right to the floor. Two hands laid hold of his arm and leg, keeping him steady.
"Whoa, my friend! Do not attempt to depart from the couch so swiftly." Thor said.
Clint opened his eyes to see the thunderer hovering over him. Thor helped replace his friend on the cushions and dropped back until he was sitting on the floor by Barton's face. He was simply dressed in a shirt, borrowed from Steve most likely, and loose sweat pants. A black brace decorated his knee though most of the straps were looser than they should be. Either he didn't know how to use it properly, or he didn't need it as much as whatever doctor he'd seen insisted. Either possibility were likely in the Asgardian's case. His right eye had a deeper rim of yellow/green than the left from a bruise that hadn't quite healed yet.
"Geez, Thor, who whipped you?" Clint asked.
"A mutual enemy of ours, though I do wish I had know of his presence before he felled you." Thor replied.
Ah, Balfore, Clint thought. His memories were hard to access, as if a steel vault locked them into solitary confinement and only occasionally cracked the door for him to gander in. Now that he prodded that bolted gateway, he began to recall the feeling of what he reclined on.
"Couch?" Clint asked, trying to focus his unwilling eyes on the world around him. He saw the windows first. The whole wall of them with their internal shades tinted to keep the sunrise from completely blinding him. Still the light filtered in, warming his face under its fresh new rays. Someone had grabbed the fleece blanket out of his room and tucked him in as tight as a sausage. So that's where being hot came from. Clint pulled the blanket down a little and kicked one of his legs out from under it.
Thor nodded. He itched the brace over his knee and occasionally Clint caught him scowling at it. "You awoke with a peace about you on this occasion, friend archer. Indeed you even appeared to enter your sleep more restfully after being returned here. We were all quite glad for it. You had warned us over the consequences should we not adhere to your wish of returning to your quarters. It may have taken all of my might to lift your monitors here, but the challenge was happily met. We feast your recovery soon." Thor went on, smiling through his glad tidings.
"Feast what?" Clint pushed himself up just enough to see over the back of the couch. His entire kitchen had been invaded by the Avengers team. Tony was sitting on his counter. Pepper was cooking bacon. Steve stacked flapjacks onto an array of plates and Natasha warmed the maple syrup in the microwave. Bruce had just stolen himself a spoonful of eggs and he turned around to see Clint staring at him.
"Hey look who returned to the land of the living!" Bruce grinned striding over. He hiked a thumb backward into the kitchen. "Now, don't be mad. We didn't touch anything."
"Like Hell you didn't!" Clint yelled. Thor placed a hand on his shoulder, but Clint pulled away from him. He struggled to get himself into a seated position and eventually Thor gave up watching the herculean trial take place. The Asgardian stood, hooked himself under the struggling Barton's armpits and hoisted him up and back against the arm rest. Thor reclaimed his spot on the floor and said nothing more about it.
Bruce held up his hand, plate, and fork. "Scout's honor! All we did was plug in the stove and the microwave, which we will unplug. We all thought we'd let you wake up somewhere more familiar like you wanted."
Clint's eyes narrowed first at Thor for daring to touch him without being asked, then at every other Avenger. "Are you trying to convince me that Tony Stark showed up in my apartment, that he technically owns, and he didn't buy me a bed, or lay down flooring, or paint my walls?"
"Clint, no one messed with your feng shui." Natasha removed the maple syrup from the microwave and dropped it on the counter. She grabbed a paper bag from beside Pepper and came over with it. She held up the bag just in his arm's reach. "Two double cheeseburgers, no pickles, no mayo, extra cheese."
Clint shot his hand out to take them, but a sharp pain went right through him. He froze in place, the depths of his pain clearly evident on his face. Bruce came forward a little faster and took Clint's hand. He carefully directed it back along Clint's side. He ducked down behind the back of the couch and Clint watched his shoulders roll together as he worked on something there. A few seconds later, the machine he adjusted resounded a few familiar beeps.
"I changed the morphine drip." Bruce said, standing up to see him. "I'm sorry, Clint. I was trying to wean you down a bit. You shouldn't move around too fast though. It's only been a couple days."
Clint turned to him. "That's not possible. I was just here last night!"
"Actually, it's been three days. You've been out of it from the meds. Last night you got a little sick too. We've been toying around with a few things to try and keep you comfortable. You gave us a bit of a scare but the docs thought it was all right to bring you back here. We knew you'd be happier too."
The archer tried to rub his face. There was still a catheter in the side of his left hand. Needle condom. When did he say that? Was it last night? Everything ran together. Night and day, faces, procedures, fruit Jello . . . he could see the glimpses of those memories like watching a movie screen through a fog. It was morning, that much he could see. Exactly which morning was impossible to tell without trusting them. "It's really been three days?"
Even Thor nodded. Natasha came over and perched on the end of Clint's cedar chest with his burgers in hand. She had fresh stitches on the right side her face, rimmed in a purple bruise and unhappy red edges. The analytic half of his mind began assessing the weapon that could have done it. Hammer, round end of a baseball bat, either of those were possibilities. That meant the assailant got close to her. That didn't happen often, and almost never on purpose. So she must have let them close. Lured them in. Allowed them to fancy an upper hand where none existed. Those were things he could expect from her.
"You could have just borrowed my bow and sniped the guy. You didn't have to let him get that close, you know." Clint said privately to her.
Natasha gave him a sly grin, the one that meant he'd deduced correctly. "I hate how you do that."
"Only because I'm right. He was dangerous, Tash, I told you that."
Thor glanced up to Bruce, checking to see whether he was the only one not party to the conversation or if the doctor was similarly out in the woods. Banner shrugged his answer. This was spy talk and they were not invited to it. Luckily enough, the two didn't begin speaking in Russian.
"And I always listen to the things you tell me."
"Mostly, yes because you know me, and I know you, and you trust me. Doing stupid stuff is my shtick. You get reckless and I'm out of a job."
She held up the paper bag again. "All you're doing is convincing me not to give these to you. They said we could try some solid food, but I'm inclined to throw these crappy food joint burgers out instead."
"You love my favorite, crappy food joint." Clint complained, crestfallen. She unwrapped his first burger and said nothing to his statement. She handed it over. He held it against his chest for a moment, wondering whether or not it was a good idea to eat it. "Has it really been three days?"
"Yes, Clint, it has. You didn't punch anyone, though. You actually settled down for a little bit too."
"That is weird." Clint decided to take a bite and rolled the bread around in his mouth while he thought. He remembered the handcuffs chaining him to the bed. A face close to his that might have been Banner's. Soft words spoken in his ear when it seemed he wouldn't ever breathe again. "We've got you, Clint. You're ours. Nothing's taking you away from this team. You're stuck with us and we're stuck with you. Don't you dare give up."
Clint looked at Bruce, imagining the moment the few days before when the doctor he hardly knew did everything in his power to keep Clint calm. It didn't matter what kind of man he was before, what Clint did in his past on the Heli-Carrier, or the fact that he didn't mingle well with others. Bruce, Tony, Steve, Thor, the whole team stood there with him. They refused to leave at his lowest moment and chose to avenge him the way only the Avengers could. He knew he was part of a team before, but had he let the team become part of him?
Banner picked up on the private thought much the same way Natasha might. He squeezed Clint's shoulder reassuringly, punctuating that earlier promise, and he slid to the floor beside Thor. He propped his dish between his knees and started to carve into his pancakes.
While Clint chewed on his food, and the issue in front of him, the others converged on the living room. Pepper glided over to plant a kiss on his cheek. Natasha shot him a playful, schoolgirl look at the expression on Clint's face. Tony's girl then grabbed a table cloth she'd brought down from the common room and laid it out on the floor to prevent any potential stains on Clint's white carpet. Bruce lifted his feet and stretched them out on the newly available space, despite Pepper smacking them away from her ham hash casserole. Steve helped arrange their picnic. He looked a little like Clint did with no shirt and bandages almost up to his neck. Leaning over was a battle of stiffness, grimacing, and eventually he just fell onto his backside. Clint wanted to laugh at the face Steve made.
"Looking at the three of you mugs, I should be happy all he did was throw me through a wall and stab me." Clint snickered a little to himself. His body was oddly warm as he felt the level on his drug infusion change. Out of curiosity he edged up along the couch and glanced down at the floor. Thor wasn't kidding when he talked about dragging the medical equipment into his room. Somehow Bruce had arranged all of his monitors along the back of the couch.
"He threw you through a wall?!" Bruce exclaimed.
Clint straightened. All of them were staring at him with mixtures of horror and shock. "Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot that part. I didn't go through the cement one, I just bounced off it. The restaurant had thinner walls, I guess. Went right through that one."
Pepper's fork hovered between her chin and her plate. "Two walls?"
"I didn't go through the first one."
His appetite waning, Bruce set his plate down beside his leg and rubbed his eyes. Clint was proving to be just as frustrating conscious as he was semi-conscious. "Clint, when I asked you how you were it would have been nice to know about your potential concussion. Especially when you were so out of it."
"I told you I got knocked out." Clint defended.
"By the guy's fist! Walls never came up!" Bruce stopped, found his center, and began again a little calmer. "Let's discuss this all again. You and an Asgardian faced off in an alley and he threw you . . . at this point I should stop and ask how far."
Clint took another bite of his cheeseburger. "I don't know, ten feet? Fifteen? I wasn't counting. I was flying through the air and trying not to die."
Tony joined the circle at last. He shoved Clint's feet aside so he could sit on the end of the couch next to him, despite having another four cushions worth of free space to choose from. Clint's attention rapidly switched from Banner's inquisition to his latest target.
"Excuse me, who invited you to sit right there?!" He growled.
Wordlessly, Tony slipped two pieces of bacon Clint's way so he could add them to his burgers. Barton scowled at the offering as though they might be poisoned. Natasha shot him a hazardous look. She'd warned him about this. The play nice and stop sticking out, thing that he did. Obviously no one was planing to leave anytime soon after they'd made themselves comfortable on his floor. Fine. Fit in. That was something he could do and he'd prove it. He snatched the bacon slices, he was going to ask for some anyway, and flattened them between his patties and bun. Not bothering to acknowledge Stark's offering beyond that, he returned to his conversation with Bruce.
"The concrete wall came first. I hit that, got up, and put an arrow in his knee. He threw a dumpster into the SHIELD agents. I almost got away then I went flying into the Shabu Shabu. The Sous chef, who, by the way, was there at two something in the morning, sees me and loses it. The big guy followed me in and off the chef ran. If that field officer wasn't so Hell-bent of dragging Balfore in, I would have resolved the situation before he broke the other agent's back."
Pepper had resumed eating and found herself stopping again. "Broken back?" she asked.
"I told them to clear out. I told them I wanted back up." Clint kicked Tony's leg with his foot. "I even told them to get your shiny brass into the action. Twice. You know what I got for my trouble? He shoved a knife in my back, slammed that beef-slab fist of his into the back of my head, then he threw a cabinet on top of me. When I came to, shocked that I was even still breathing, there was Agent Daniels standing outside with some other guy I didn't know drinking Starbucks. They thought I was dead, and they were out there drinking coffee?" Clint shook his head in disgust. Across from him Natasha was progressively tensing until at the end of his tale she shot straight out of her seat, excused herself, and stalked away, muttering Russian curses.
"That's seriously what happened?" Steve asked.
Clint picked up his catheterized hand to indicated the IV drip of tongue-loosing pain medication. "I'm being surprisingly talkative, Cap. Yeah, that's what happened. Why?"
"We didn't know you asked for back-up. The field officer said you wanted to handle it yourself, prove yourself. I didn't know any different." He explained.
Clint looked around behind him for Natasha. She'd disappeared down the hall. "Hey, Cap, I'm laid up apparently. So unless you want to be the friend that helps Tasha hide the bodies she's off to go collect, I think you better lay off the next course and go get her."
Steve dropped his food, whispered his own little words, and took off calling Natasha's name.
"Should just let her go." Tony remarked, scooping a fork full of Belgian waffle between his lips. "I'll help with the bodies."
Awe, only 1 chapter left! It's been such a fun ride! I hope you've liked it too.
I have my Dermatology Final tomorrow, Toxicology Final Thursday, Food Animal Internal Medicine Final on Monday, Equine Internal Medicine Final on Wednesday, and lastly my Small Animal Internal Medicine Final on Friday. It's the end of my 3rd year in vet school... what a ride!
Please review! I'd love the inspiration to keep me focused on studying:)
