A/N: I cannot sufficiently thank all the awesome reviewers for overall response to the last chapter - you really rolled with the Muse's whim, and I have to admit that bringing Natasha back in earlier than I'd planned has, I hope, made this fic better (we'll see what you all think after reading this chapter) while in no way dimming Clint's interaction with the rest of the team.

There are so many reviewers I want to respond to - please be patient with me! I am extremely grateful for your thoughtfulness in reviewing, but unfortunately gratitude doesn't translate to time and a better internet connection, so I'm going to get this chapter up while I can, and hopefully reply to reviews and get the next chapter of Unlikely Housemates (for anyone following that story as well) tomorrow.

Thanks again!

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Slipping

By: Syntyche

When Clint opens his eyes next, it's a little less dramatic than the last time. No redheaded assassin, no leering demigod are waiting for him. Phil's gone from his usual spot on the couch, too, and the hawk wonders if the fact that he's alone means that he's actually awake and has finally left behind the confusing realm of his nightmares that he hasn't quite been able to escape before now.

It's a sad thing to consider, and Clint doesn't dwell on it; it'd be like moping about all of the birthdays he's had that no one knew or cared about. Pointless. So he moves on.

Clint has a few fuzzy memories involving Stark and possibly Rogers, but they're just added to the jumble already muddling his brain. What the archer does remember, with incredible clarity, is the sense of danger shrouding him in all of his conscious moments; that at any second someone who's been haunting the shadows surrounding him - an agent from SHIELD; his brother; that asshole Loki - is going to come through the door, reaching for him, and Clint thinks … he knows … he's afraid … that he just can't take any more.

Clint blinks, swallows, forces himself to breathe and focus, to catalogue his surroundings as he does each time he thinks he's awake. This time feels a little different than all the others before it; maybe it's because he seems more aware of the full multitude of hurts his body is complaining at him about, or maybe it's because his mind is infinitesimally clearer. The archer isn't complaining either way.

Lighting in this room is dim, easy on his aching head; he turns his head to the window and sees that it's dark outside, but he isn't sure if it's morning or night. There are tubes and IVs running into various places of his body, and Clint muses with a hint of his old practicality that if he really is hallucinating he needs to work on his imagery: a sunny beach maybe would be nice, or any one of the amazing places he's been to in his many travels both for SHIELD and as a contract assassin, but this dark and boring room is really just sad.

A bright throbbing runs along his arm, startling him, and Clint's eyes dart to the source of this newest pain, half-expecting to see a bloody weal opened along his forearm thanks to some fucker who just won't leave him alone … but there's nothing there. It was just a muscle spasm.

Not real.

The archer coughs on a sob; it's so frustrating not to know what's real, to keep veering between being sure he's awake and in his right mind and in the next second being completely uncertain and inept and talking to people like Phil who can't possibly be here - or finding himself shaking in terror at a brother he can no longer trust or a demigod who ate him alive. He's so pathetic; why can't he tell the difference?

When did big, badass Hawkeye become scared of the monsters under his bed?

With determined hands Clint goes to pull IV lines, push himself up because he can't lie here in useless misery for one more second, it's not who he is, even now that he's been shattered one more time. The archer manages to lift his arms slightly before a fiery pull in his right shoulder stops him. Clint hisses and grunts and tries again, and a bone deep ache digs into his left side and stops his breath in his chest.

Tears of pained frustration are leaking from Hawkeye's grey eyes, adding to his humiliation. A low groan slips from his lips because he can't even raise a hand to hide them, this damning display of his weakness. This isn't right. This can't be right.

Clint grits his teeth.

Clint Barton is not weak.

He's reaching for the IVs again when he realizes there's someone standing by his bed. Heart lodging somewhere in his throat, breath hammering against his ribs, Clint lifts his eyes slowly to regard the extremely unamused man at his left shoulder, arms crossed judgingly as he glares down at Clint with a combination of relief and irritability.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Clint's first indicator that he may actually be awake is that he has to read Tony's lips to know what he's saying.

The second sign is that his voice also doesn't seem to be working properly. Damn, he's a hot mess.

"Nnnn…" Clint slurs, and a fresh wave of embarrassment washes over him at how ridiculous he must sound. The archer's voice is in shreds, so he immediately switches tracks to sign defiantly, What the hell does it look like?

Tony's not impressed by his one-handed sign language, especially since Jarvis dutifully reports that it's nothing the AI is familiar with or able to translate.

"Is that a really elaborate way to give me the bird?" Stark asks with a raised eyebrow, "because otherwise I don't know what the hell you're flapping your fingers about." A tired grin crosses the inventor's shadowed face. "Oh, ha, get it? You're Hawkeye, and you're giving me the bird. That's really funny and somewhat ironic at the same time."

It weird for Clint to see Stark like this, tired and wary, like all of the sharp edges that make his personality so vibrantly alive have been dulled and blunted, and Clint wonders what the hell has been going on while he's been out of it. He wants to assure Tony that he's fine - even though he doesn't believe it, there's no reason the archer couldn't convince Stark that it's all good if it would erase some of the deep lines from the man's haggard face - but with no voice it's a lost cause. Clint sketches in the air one more time helplessly, an angry croak sliding from between his clenched teeth.

Tony immediately reaches a hand forward, his expression flashing instantly from skepticism to concern.

"Hey. Hey, it's okay, man," he says, and Clint's brow furrows deeply because even though he doesn't know Stark well, he's definitely noticed that the other man has an aversion to being touched by anyone but Pepper. But Tony's hand is warm on his forearm, and even though Tony unintentionally squeezes a few bruises that are working slowly at healing, Clint doesn't try to say a word because he's more confused than anything, caught between believing this is actually real, and waiting for Stark to morph into another pissed-off SHIELD agent about to kick the shit out of him while he can't defend himself.

"Jarvis," Stark mutters - his voice is pitched soft because he doesn't know that it doesn't matter, that it's not just that Clint is incapable of speaking, but that the archer can't hear him even he could say anything - "Get Agent Romanoff, please."

Clint thinks he might have misread Stark's directive because that would be just too convenient, a little too perfect for his messed-up life for Natasha to be here, but after a few moments where both men exist in a not-uncomfortable silence and Tony helps the archer sip a little water that is really nice against his too-warm and too-dry mouth, the door opens and Natasha strides in, clearly just pulled from the shower because her hair is swinging in damp ringlets and her clothes are sticking to her supple body in wet patches where she's missed drying off in her haste to dress.

She's stunning, and Clint really, fervently hopes she's real, and it's not just that his hallucinations are getting extremely detailed.

Ever observant and knowing his partner as intimately as he does, Clint can't help but catch the almost imperceptible wince as Natasha glances quickly at him, and suddenly it doesn't matter if he's actually lucid or not: Clint feels incredibly self-conscious. From what he can see, he looks like shit, and he can just bet that the parts he can't see don't look so good either. He tries to quirk a grin at his partner even though it pulls at his cracked and chapped lips.

Hey, he signs with a nervous swallow. Get the number of the helicarrier that hit me?

Clint's signing is stiff and awkward as he tries to work muscles that haven't been utilized for weeks, and it's always been an odd mix developed between the two of them of standard ASL, code words, and slang they've added over the years for when you just needed to spice up what you were saying, all done with one hand since the other hand was usually gripping a weapon of some sort.

Natasha smiles at him; her eyes are suspiciously bright and her hand is pressed against a full mouth thinned even more tightly than usual, but she stands on the opposite side of the bed from Stark and signs carefully, Don't be so dramatic. It was barely a quinjet.

Clint huffs a small laugh through his nose. My mistake.

Tony's watching them, clearly wishing he could add his own smart comments to the conversation but choosing to remain uncharacteristically silent, fidgeting restlessly but with his hand still on Clint's arm, grounding the archer in a way he's unexpectedly and supremely grateful for.

What the hell happened? Natasha asks, her gaze darkening, and Clint's eyes track her fingers carefully, appreciatively - though he excels at reading lips, signing is so much easier for his fatigued mind to process. Who did this?

Clint shakes his head minutely, shuts her line of questioning down immediately. Doesn't matter, he signs decisively. Help me up.

Natasha actually laughs out loud, partly because it's a ridiculous request, but also because it's so Clint.

Not gonna happen, hawk, she says gently, and Clint flashes her a furious look, mixed with a dose of fear that he can't quite cover at the thought of being trapped and defenseless in this fucking bed.

I don't have time - he starts.

"Okay, enough of the mime show," Tony finally interrupts, his patience clearly maxed out. "What the hell are you guys saying?"

"Agent Barton wants to get out of bed," Natasha answers dryly, enunciating clearly for Clint's benefit.

"Uh huh," Tony responds, and Clint doesn't like the feeling that washes over him, like they know a lot more than he does and he just doesn't know yet how screwed he really is. "I don't think so, Feathers," the genius adds firmly. "Don't know if you've noticed yet with all your beauty sleep, but you've got so many holes in you that you're even more holier-than-thou than Rogers."

It's not Stark's best quip but Clint still forces a smile at the effort even though his stomach is churning anxiously. He glances back at Natasha in just in time to catch the tail end of her sentence - and he really wishes they'd stood on the same side of the bed, because all this back and forth trying to read their lips is giving him whiplash; she hadn't waited for him to look since her words are addressed to Stark:

" - alone, please."

Tony nods shortly, clearly displeased, and the warmth of his hand disappears from Clint's arm. Clint settles questioning eyes on Natasha but his partner says nothing; knowing that she's with him, however, makes Clint feel safe, like whether she's actually here or not, she's got his back, so slowly allows himself to give in to the exhaustion creeping over him, to the tired pull of his eyelids, and he drifts off quietly.

Something wakes him, he doesn't know if it's been minutes or hours. Gentle rivers of warm water are winding through his shaggy hair, and Natasha's hand is cupping his stubbled chin gently. Clint will learn later that Steve has been doing his best to keep Clint's scruffiness to a five 'o clock shadow at best - Natasha turns her hand, tilts his face, and skillfully catches the drops of water beading down near his right ear with a soft damp washcloth.

Clint is still, barely breathing as his partner carefully washes his hair, working shampoo in and through with light ministrations that almost bring him to his metaphorical knees.

It's been a long time since Clint Barton was touched this gently.

Natasha slowly pulls the washcloth through his hair, cleaning out the remnants of soap, and towels his sandy strands patiently. Her hands disappear for a minute, and then she has fresh warm water, a fresh cloth that she touches to his skin lightly, brushing his closed eyelids and across his bruised face with a tenderness that leaves him quivering with a tension he can't release, can't quite make it past the fear that he's dreaming again and monsters of darkness are waiting for him when he opens his eyes. She keeps at it, though, with a delicate touch that he thinks is usually reserved for cleaning her pistols, and when she regretfully moves away from his face to his neck Clint cracks his lashes open to study her silently, noting the stiffness of her strong fingers, the barely-there biting of her lower lip that he notices because he knows to look for it.

Natasha is angry.

She slowly works her way down his weakened body, washing carefully, skirting bandages and tubes and Clint tries not to watch, his unease and shame multiplying as he sees every wince, every frown chasing across his partner's face as her feather-light fingers dance over his ashen skin, tracing old scars, counting new ones as she washes him tenderly.

The assassin finishes her work, and then shows him a small box. Clint knows exactly what it is and he doesn't try to control his desperately eager nod; it's been too damn long that he's been trapped in silence. Natasha opens the box, gently slides his hearing aids into his ears and patiently helps Clint adjust them until he thinks he's ready.

"Th-anks," he stutters weakly, and Natasha slides a hand behind his neck to help him slowly drink a glass of water she holds to his lips.

"You're welcome," she says with a half-smile, but he can tell she's still angry, furious under the surface of her calm. Clint hopes her anger isn't directed at him for getting himself fucked up this badly, but he forges on bravely, his own face lighting up in relieved joy at being able to hear again.

"We're gonna get the bastards who did this," Natasha promises, and Clint doesn't feel like arguing with her.

"Not … to-night…?" is what he manages to rasp out, inclining his head to the side; she readily gives in to his request and carefully settles herself next to him on the bed, her familiar curves molding to his body and Clint feels so damn tired but he has one last thing to ask:

"Please?" he says softly, and his spider knows exactly what he's asking, what he needs. She begins talking quietly, soothing words that he can finally hear as she murmurs in his ear and his hair tickles her nose, reminding him of past missions, snatches of current news, whatever comes to her mind to say.

Natasha keeps whispering long after Clint's body has relaxed into sleep, long after the fingers of morning creep their way across the sky. She's made her decision, and she wants Clint to know she's here with him, even after his scores are settled.

Whether he wants them to be or not.

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Wow. This chapter got really long! Lol. Pleeeeeeeeeease review! Reviews equal love and also updates because they inspire the Muse to get me out of bed at 4am to write instead of sleep, as it felt the need to with this chapter. It probably shows. lol