What have you been thinking these last few days since you read the chapter title? Has it been horrible to wait?
Chapter 8 -Amputation
Out of all the elves on Alfheimr, Haladarrel Bywater never expected to be chosen as a kingsman. He was outrider, or scout, of Outer Glencove for the majority of his adult life he entertained the ideas of one day being inducted into the king's service. Unfortunately a grand amount of his time consisted of patrolling the shores of Earthenden or Woodrenkell, servicing the hunts of lesser royals, or in general travel. He never had what one would deem a home life and had yet to take himself a wife from any clan (a point of which his mother often made a remark of). Outriders tended to have little personal time themselves as such great expanses of land existed between one clan and the next. His own area of expertise incorporated hundreds of kilometers of beach, wood, plains, and sea. He did not have a faralir of his own as none had yet to choose him, and riding the back of any great owls or hawks never agreed with his stomach. So he often traveled on foot or by horse back when one such beast made itself available. Today he decided to go on foot.
Six teams of outriders were commissioned by the king to distribute across the entire mainland of Alfheimr. The undertaking was as massive as any he had ever seen in his life. To be chosen to ride among them was an honor that Haladarrel would never refuse. His experiences made him more familiar with the parts of Woodrenkell that most elves refused to walk along, so it came as no surprised when the leader of his faction, Reylano, instructed Haladarrel to go north east.
They rode in a single group northerly from the king's encampment along the beaches of Earthenden into that great forest until the roads split into their myriad of lanes at the first bifurcation. There Reylano made his request for Haladarrel to continue alone into the darkness of the wood. Again, the outrider did not faint at the request. To those who knew nothing of its dangers, the wood could be a death trap of its own right. The possibility of him discovering the archer, wounded, dying, and alone was unlikely at best. Finding him in this part of the wood, where even the most dastardly of these Southlings refused to tread, would be only another layer of ridiculous folly. But they had to at least be sure Clint of Barton was not there and the only way to accomplish such a thing was on foot.
Haladarrel bid ado to the other members of the riding party, wishing them the greatest of success as he, alone, took his first steps into that oppressive melancholy of the sunless forest path. He stayed on the Elven Way, diverting only when he heard the footfalls of the great beasts appeared ahead. He anticipated that if Barton had been transported to the forest at all, his first inclination would be finding the ancient path through the wood. He had been to Alfhiemr on one occasion previously and during a few festivals and the death of Queen Frigga he'd come into contact with many higher elves. Reportedly he knew some of the local tongue but Hal had never met Midgard's champion himself so to that he could not speculate.
He knew some details about the human he'd been sent to track though most information came from stories he'd been told by other outriders. The archer tended to be shorter than one would assume, even for a Midgardian. He had terribly short hair the color of blood moon leaves, eyes like glaciers, and the build of any excellent marksman. To prove his identity one must only ask to see the product of Odin's generosity, the Sleiphner bow. Designed by dwarves and forged in the fires from the Blueskin mountain coals, the bow was a symbol of Asgardian craftsmanship and beauty. Haladarrel had never seen a weapon of similar metal or fortitude and likely never would. He convinced himself that in this great wood of Alfheimr he must be in the one place that the Midgardian must not be.
To find him would come with the greatest responsibility, one that he felt ready to shoulder, but no doubt held the same opinion as many of the other outriders. He did not want to be the one to uncover the corpse of Barton. If the Southling menace could be believed, then the only possible way to find the Midgardian was dead. Elaren could be a terrible death, one that luckily their king would be spared. But for this man to go, untreated, into the wilderness alone? Haladarrel shook his head at the prospect. No, no this would not do at all.
He consoled himself in the fact that he would most likely never see the archer. Until, that is, he found the ancient runes carved into the earth like the Asgardian calling card it heralded from.
Haladarrel had just exited the thicker parts of the overgrown Elven Way. He peeled off the cobblestone path and passed through a faralir run of brambles and treaded down grass and reeds. When he arrived at the field just through the path, he noticed at once the blown back earth. His heart thudded in his chest as he broke forward. He slung his bow over one shoulder and hit his knees in the earth as he traced one hand over the runes. There could be no doubt in his mind. Whoever had come through the Bifrost arrived at this precise location.
"Nai!" he exclaimed to no one but the air. The archer may have gone a great distance already. Did he travel on foot? Had he been attacked at all? To answer his questions, Haladarrel checked the tracks in the ground.
Blood. He touched a had to it from the cover of his gloves. He brought the clot to his nose and inhaled briefly. Hours old. Barton hadn't even made it out of the runes of the Bifrost before he'd been pierced with the arrow. The Southlings knew he would come. They lay in wait for him. But how could they possibly have known such things unless and Asgardian told it to them?
Loki? Was it possible? But that fated brother of Thor had been killed by the Dark Elves not long before. Who else would conspire such atrocities on Alfheimr? Haladarrel thought he'd stared evil in the face when he met the Southling who attempted to kill his king, yet here he uncovered a much darker plot. His very bones shook.
More footsteps existed beside the archer's. At least two others had come through the Bifrost with him. They struggled briefly, then he saw a scorch in the earth as all steps disappeared entirely. Haladarrel backed up and followed the line again to be sure he'd read the tracks appropriately. He raised his head and scanned the trees around him. Broken limbs, signs of smoldered wood, a path. Barton must have made an escape, somehow, from the death field. Getting to his feet Haladarrel rushed into the descended dark in search of the archer before the bite of venom stole him from this worldly plane.
:(:):(:):
The first wave came down on him with a Spartan force. They approached, flying through the trees from above and below. Some were on the backs of ferocious faralirs others swung from limb to limb like primeval monkeys in a rainforest. Before they even reached him, Tony's position was covered in flying spears. Arrows lined his every move, pierced against his armor, but thankfully the plates held strong and true and did not suffer a full breach. He didn't wait for them to get too close before he opened fire.
Missiles lit up the night sky. Faralirs flew end over end through the dirt and slammed their massive bodies into the tree trunks. One's antler broke free and sailed like a projectile through the air, piercing the unfortunate elves too close to the animal. Tony fired a second round, alternating between his heavier artillery and repulse blasts. A faralir broke the line to his left and came crashing through the trees on top of him. Tony hit the roadway on his jaws snapped in his face, threatening to remove his head from his shoulders.
"Sir, power is depleting beneath this weight. I estimate we will be crushed in—"
"Not now, JARVIS!" Stark shouted. He let the arc reactor in the center of his chest power up, exploded out, and in a single deafening blast the faralir went screaming onto its side. The elven rider on its back became trapped beneath the colossal weight. Tony dug himself out again as JARVIS rescanned the incoming heat signatures. Despite his best attempts, the waves of fighters kept coming. Hundreds flooded along the pathway, through the trees, and rode in on the faralir backs. As much as he wanted to fight them all off on his own, Tony knew that soon they would realize he was alone. They would get around him and that left Steve to defend Clint alone.
Tony cursed to himself. This situation was impossible. Dogged at every step, how long would it take them to get to safety? Was this entire planet suddenly after them? And beneath all that, how in the world could they find their ways home? He hated admitting it to himself, but Steve was right. They needed to get away. In this case, retreat wasn't the best option, it was their only option.
He laid down a final bed of cover fire, taking out all the targets he could get a solid lock on, and turned tail in midair. He blasted down the path with repulsers on full tilt. They had to get away, find help, and bed down. Right now this fight was about life and death.
"STARK!"
He heard the captain's scream before he rounded the final corner. He never let up speed, instead opting to blast straight ahead until he collided full-on into the faralir rider who'd gotten passed him. Steve clambered to his feet from beneath the fur and jaws of the beast. He rushed to the path, grabbed his shield from the hide of another beast, and turned poised for attack.
"Where's Clint?" Tony demanded from him. He punched a gauntleted fist through the side of the creature's face and avoided the swipe of four flesh-tearing claws.
"He's right here, I have him!" Steve announced. He threw his shield again, rebounding it off one tree, into the chest of an elven warrior, and back into his hands. "How many are still out there?"
"Too many!" Tony's hands came together and the beast fell under the power of two repulser blasts. His back clanged under the impact of another arrow shaft between his shoulders. Still the armor held, though barely.
"Stark, get us out of here!"
"Yeah, you think!?"
Tony threw his knee into the gut of the faralir rider and threw him from his mount. He blasted through the air, grabbed Steve under the armpits and, with Steve bear-hugging Clint's chest against his own they tore off down the path.
Tony's decided to loop back the way they had come and pass through the heart of the attacking elven warriors. It was possible that the pressure they put on the Avengers, keeping them moving harder and harder into the woods, meant to keep them as far from rescue as possible. Were they being herded toward their eventual death? Were they trying to assure that the longer the three stayed out of reach, the more likely it was Clint would die before they found him help? Steve agreed with turning around but he had a restriction. Along the way he wanted to pick himself up a hostage.
They did both and neither proved to be fruitful.
The Elven Way curved on and on into the vast darkness into thicker and thicker brush until the path itself nearly obstructed from view completely. They were forced off and on again and again as the pitch of night closed in. As for Steve's stipulation, they accomplished nothing of it. The first elf they grabbed from the throng slit his own throat in Steve's arm. The second spit in their faces before thrusting himself right into the base of a tree. He cracked his own skull open rather than endure their questions. The third resulted in no better circumstances. So, left with three dead bodies, they had only one mission. To keep going, keep flying, and try desperately to find a way out.
But Clint couldn't keep going. Nearly from the start he suffered another fit of coughing that left him quaking and weak. His dying shoulder tissue screamed as the nerves frayed and tore free. Without the aid of the sling holding his arm to his chest, it was likely his entire arm may pull free. Steve didn't share that observation with anyone beyond the confines of his own mind. He couldn't begin to comprehend how a poison had the ability to hit Clint so fast and eat away at him. They made it a good distance beyond the last of the faralir riders, but that was all Clint's body could stand.
Tony slowed them to a stop. Clint pulled himself away only to collapse some feet from them. His flesh flushed red as his veins pulsed in deep purple. He gasped with each inhalation and hardly managed to exhale. Steve hovered over him as Tony stood by.
"Clint, look at me! You need to breathe!" Steve looked up. "Tony, find us some water and something to carry it in. We can't stay out here like this."
"We can't move him either." Tony pointed out.
"Then find us some cover."
"You find us cover." Tony replied, pulling his helmet off. He bent down at Clint's side. He placed a hand on his friend's chest, but Clint weakly pushed him away.
"We don't have time for—"
Tony shot a glance at the captain. "No, we have time. He doesn't. If you haven't figured it out yet, Cap, we're lost and he's dying! I'm done flying. I'm staying right here." He thrust his helmet into Steve's chest. "You scout around. I'm not going anywhere."
Steve wanted to protest, to say how much he truly believed everything was going to work out. But even his unfailing resolution wavered. The longer time went by, the bleaker their predicament became. Without help, Clint was going to die.
:(:):(:):
Seven months, two weeks, and three days. Steve could count down to the final second since he'd seen Clint last in the flesh. He'd felt him over his shoulder, wondered on more than one occasion whether the archer had hovered over his back on a mission in the field. He never outright saw him, but Steve still thought about him. They'd been friends. They were still, as far as he knew, but the less-than warm reception Clint gave them in Germany made the Captain rethink everything between them.
He couldn't understand where this animosity came from. Thinking back to their last conversation left him even more bewildered. Clint seemed happy then. He joked and made them all laugh, and declared how much he had planned to come back to the Tower. Steve recalled the conversation as if they'd just had it moments ago.
The team gathered, every last one of them, from Natasha Romanov to Tony Stark in the bathroom at Bruce's Princeton apartment. The part-time Hulk had taken a job, at Clint's request no less, going back to the work that he loved: teaching. The university wanted to hire him on as a full time professor, but Bruce remained loyal to his work with Stark and the tower. He stayed in his new apartment a few days during the week to make commuting tolerable. It was the perfect place to create a wire-free, tracker proof environment. The bathroom was perhaps the only secure place they could contact Barton, beside the elevator in the Tower.
Bruce initiated the call. When Clint's voice came on the line, Steve breathed the smallest sigh of relief. He didn't like being interrupted so early in the morning, but he only turned his emergency phone on between 4am and 6am every few days. They were lucky he answered at all.
"There's some strange guy sleeping on my rug, and I got stabbed in the back last night. Besides that, I'm great." Clint told them nonchalantly.
The entire room exchanged glances. The last time they spoke to him, Clint had been shot. Apparently he'd survived that run-in, but it didn't improve his self-preservation.
"That's it, you're coming back." Steve didn't give him a request, it was instead a flat out order. They had no idea what Clint had gotten himself into besides the wounds he decided to share with them. He didn't want to risk Clint's mortality one moment longer. He even considered having Tony run a tracer on the disposable phone. Clint was coming out of the field if Steve had to extract the man himself.
"Thanks for the sentiment, but I'm not. I had a major break last night."
"Why didn't you just call us?" Tony butt in. The affianced-former-playboy had taken to sitting on Bruce's sink. He flicked a few screens around on his holographic phone. No doubt he was already doing what Steve considered asking of him.
"Because I didn't have time between firing rounds from my sniper rifle, and sailing through plate glass windows. Forgive me, guys, but I was a spy way before you were."
"I beg to differ." Steve quipped.
"To that, I have a few choice words, Star Spangled Man with a Plan."
Steve's eyes narrowed. He had forgotten about Clint's quick wit. Tony snickered, Bruce laughed, and Natasha very near guffawed. Thor, not understanding what the reference meant, continued to inspect Bruce's shower. Bruce threw a bar of soap at him.
"That's not fair." Steve said.
"Of course it's fair. I'm working on two hours of sleep, one of which I spent writhing in pain, and, the second, you are waking me up from. I'm close. I'm getting in touch with Fury in a few days, and I'm going to blow this thing wide open. Now, will you give me a little peace and quiet? You don't call for two weeks; now, all of a sudden, I'm on the top of your to-do list?"
Steve looked around to see if someone would fess up to contacting Clint. When everyone returned to him the same bewildered glance, he said, "Clint, the last time we spoke was the day after Thanksgiving. It's almost March."
Someone on Clint's end snored, then stopped.
"Is someone in your room?"
Clint yawned. "Yeah, my hostage. I'm trying to smother him. And my calendar broke, so it's not my fault I don't know the date."
"Your calendar broke?" Banner asked, incredulously.
"Yeah, after November it just stopped giving me new days."
"Clint, you need a calendar for this year." Steve said.
"I didn't have the correct one for last year. Stop judging my life."
Someone snored again, then abruptly stopped. Apparently Clint did have company and he felt safe discussing even this highly restricted conversation with them. Who could possibly be there? Who could he trust over his own team who he refused to let in?
"Look, my prostitute just woke up, I gotta go."
"Clint—" Steve tried to stall him. Tony worked a little harder at finding a location.
"I'm calling Fury tomorrow. I'll be home after that."
"Clint!"
"Get your storage stuff out of my room, too. I need a shower, and Banner's cooking."
"Wait a min – "
The phone line went dead, and they were left in the silence of Banner's bathroom without a proper location. The best they could determine was that Clint resided in New York still, but they knew that already. He seemed determined to come back, his tone fit that. If he was letting another person help him, he must be getting near the bottom of his rabbit hole.
"We've got to trust him." Steve said to everyone. "Clint can do this. We're not going to lose him."
At the time, Steve thought he was right. He thought he'd made the best decision for everyone until the moment he got back from the ship hostage crisis and all of SHIELD began to shake apart beneath its very foundation. Steve felt swallowed up by it all. Even Natasha became a suspect under his glare, and that he could have never imagined. She was SHIELD through and through, but she was more loyal to individuals than organizations. Clint, Steve, Fury, her heart lay with the ones she loved whether for better or for worse.
When he stood in Bruce's apartment, sharing a beer with Stark and Sam over the close call they all suffered, he never expected the warning on Bruce's computer to go off. Like a fire alarm, it blared across the room loud enough to stop them all in their tracks. Not believing his own ears, Bruce rushed to the console. He brought up the constantly running program he and Tony started since the first day Clint left the Avengers. It was a distress beacon for lack of a better term. Designed by Stark and Bruce to track the vague Asgardian signature Loki's staff emitted, they had recalibrated it for Sleiphner's bow. They all agreed that if an emergency arose and they were needed, Clint would summon up the bow and the team would come immediately. In the months he had been gone, even after being shot and stabbed, he had never once summoned that bow. But for some reason they couldn't understand, that day, he finally did.
There were no jets to scramble, no SHIELD handlers to call in. There was Tony, Steve, Sam, and Bruce. They didn't want to wait for Thor. Sam had to get to the Tower for his wings. Bruce decided to stay behind and get the other members of the team together while Tony and the captain blasted across the ocean together for the Bavarian Alps. The altitude and high speeds nearly worked to peel the captain off Stark's metal plating more than once, but each time he gripped a little harder, a little stronger, in his desperate attempt to get to his teammate before the worst happened.
Apparently, they weren't fast enough. At least, in Clint's mind, they failed him. After all he'd been through alone, he finally called for their help. But the sheer distance between them kept the Avengers from getting to him fast enough.
What had he lost? What had he been forced to do that he thought he might be able to avoid if they were there? Did this have something to do with his brother? Steve racked his mind to try and understand, but came up with no one thing that made sense. All he could do now was find them food, water, shelter, and hope that help would come. For the first time in a very long time, Captain America felt absolutely helpless.
He followed the scanners in Stark's helmet to a small, fast moving creek bed, half a mile away from where he'd left the two. The majority of the trees lining the water had expansive bases and wide reaching limbs that continued to keep the sky far from view. Dangling between the man-sized leaves were objects he could only acquaint to acorns. The nuts had elongated fleshy bodies, as soft as grabbing a handful of feathers. The cap that held them onto the branch was made of thicker wood. Peeling the nuts free, he collected a few caps to hold the water in.
As he worked to siphon the water through the soft mesh on his glove, Steve peered over the creek to the wood beyond. A small clearing, covered in moss, resided just on the other side of the massive river stones, and an even larger tree encompassed the midst of the clearing. The Captain set the water caps aside again and, using Tony's helmet, shined the light from the top into the distance. If he wasn't mistaken, the tree was not just a tree. It had a tiny door carved into the trunk.
:(:):(:):
In the span of an hour, Clint went from walking, running, and hiding on his own, to being barely mobile at all. His chest continued to squeeze down on him like a vice had been laced across it. Each time he felt the urge to cough, a pain flared into his shoulder. He gasped against it. He pushed his left fist in between his teeth and bit down into the tight flesh. It helped keep his mind from focusing on his shoulder, but only briefly. The smell was inescapable. He knew this wouldn't end well. He wanted to find help, but feared hearing that word that he has managed to escape his entire life: amputation.
The one thing Clint feared. The only thing that could touch him now was the pain that came with losing his bow arm. His brother tortured him with that possibility once. Clint lived through a false life where he could never shoot again, and it was the one thing that drove him to near complete madness. Even as the venom flooded his system, his entire mind focused on only that idea. Never being able to shoot again would unmake him.
"Don't let them take it." Clint whispered.
Tony sat in the roadway beside him, with Clint's back against his iron chest. Clint had trouble holding himself up, but if he laid down he couldn't breathe.
"Don't let them take what?" Tony asked him.
"My arm. Don't let them take it. Promise me they won't take it." A spike of pain, like a fire being set in his nerves, made his muscles tense. He breathed through it, slow and shallow. Tony would do as he asked. Steve would make the decision that saved Clint's life, even if it meant destroying his very soul, but not Tony. Tony would honor this.
"You know I'd just make you a new one. You and the Winter Toddler could match."
Another flare hit him, harder and deeper than the first. From his neck to his back, everything electrified at the same time. The intensity of it caught him off guard and he gasped. He shoved himself back, trying to escape it. Tony tightened an arm on him as if somehow that may help.
"All right, don't take it like that. No chopping. Got it. But you have to do me a favor and stop making us meet like this."
The second wave subsided, leaving Clint feeling hollow and empty. His muscles relaxed, and he nearly collapsed into Stark's chest. He tried to breathe a little deeper, but met resistance. Blood continued to flood his lungs.
"As long as we're making orders here, how does a slice of pizza sound? You know, I heard that place in Brooklyn—"
A third wave hit him like the blow of a typhoon. The pain went even deeper, spreading, as if with each pulse the venom pushed farther and harder into the very marrow of his bones. No manner of tension could keep his pain in check.
Clint screamed. His nails dug into Tony's iron leg as the flames of Hell itself consumed him from the inside out. The pain lasted longer, killing him slowly, then ebbed away like the thud of a marching war drum. He gasped, trying to suck in whatever oxygen he could get.
"Clint, talk to me!" Tony demanded. Had he been talking this whole time? Clint couldn't remember. He felt dazed. The world was black and silent around him as the woods themselves pushed in to watch the archer die.
"Ton—y." A fourth crest smashed him like a punch from the Hulk. Clint had nothing left to resist it. He screamed into the night even as his body struggled to breathe. Between his cries, he tried, taking in one shuttering gasp after another until the pain hit him again.
Steve didn't need the help of Stark's helmet to find them again. He merely followed the sounds.
"I found us a place to bed down." Steve said as he came closer. He handed the helmet to Tony.
"Help?" Stark asked.
Steve shook his head a little. "We have to get him up, they'll hear him out here. We've got to move. I left water there for us."
As the last spasm slowly drew away, the two worked together to get Clint on his feet. The archer stopped talking, stopped responding. His mind filled with hardly more than fantasies and delusions from an intoxicated mind. He didn't resist when Steve scooped him up against his chest and carried him through the forest din.
despite how much he blames Tony for letting him down, Clint stills knows to trust him. daw!
Next time: Elven Song
