Day 19

Alternate Prompt #1

Punctured

"Clint, report! Are you okay?!" There was a note of panic in Steve's tone over the comm.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Clint gasped. "Not the first time I've been thrown through a window. Just give me a minute."

"You know that you don't build up an immunity the more you get thrown through windows, right Barton?" Tony asked dryly.

Clint snorted, but didn't bother answering. He lay his head back carefully and took several deep breaths. His whole body hurt and he glanced down at a few shallow cuts from the broken glass, but they weren't too severe. He had managed to protect his head, so though the wind was knocked out of him he seemed to have avoided a concussion. All in all, it looked like he had gotten lucky when that hostile had thrown him through that window.

He placed one hand on the ground and went to push himself back up into a sitting position… and a raw cry of agony tore it's way up this throat. It happened so suddenly that it took Clint's brain a long moment to really comprehend what was happening, the pain actually hitting him a moment after the involuntary scream.

"Clint?" Natasha demanded.

"On second thought…" Clint ground out as he twisted to look down at his side. His stomach clenched as he spotted the jagged piece of glass roughly the width of his hand buried who knew how deep into his side just above his hip. "Maybe I could… use some help…"

"I'm on my way," Natasha said immediately.

Clint swallowed thickly as he rode out the waves of pain that were now ripping through him. He sucked in air, but it seemed like it was never enough and soon he was panting and sweating as his vision swam around him.

Was this what dying felt like?

"Clint!" Natasha gasped as she finally appeared in his field of vision, dropping carefully to her knees next to him as her gaze swept over him, looking desperately for what was wrong.

"My side," Clint murmured, his hand going to where the shard of glass was sticking out of his body.

Natasha visibly paled at the sight. That wasn't comforting. Natasha had a strong stomach and wasn't easily scared. But for just a moment before she seemed to remember herself and blank her features… she looked absolutely terrified.

"We need med evac, right now," Natasha said tensely into her comm., her hands hovering unsurely over the wound. "Bruce, can you pinpoint our position and bring the Quinjet around?"

"Um, Natasha, flying this thing is not my strong suit…" Bruce pointed out slowly.

"I can fly Legolas to the jet," Tony pointed out.

"No!" Natasha snapped. As Clint looked at her, he wondered why her hair looked so much brighter all of a sudden. And her face kept blurring in and out of focus. "We need to move him as little as possible."

"I'll get to the jet and fly it over," Steve said. "How bad is it?"

Natasha's eyes shifted up to Clint's face. He was sucking in labored breaths, but he suddenly felt so tired. He blinked heavily as a shiver ran through his body. Why was it so cold? And why was it getting so dark?

He was fading away. It felt like he was floating outside of his body, leaving the pain and panic behind. Just before he lost all consciousness though, he heard Natasha's voice floating to him as if from a great distance.

"It's bad."

The first thing he was aware of was the annoying beeping of a heart monitor. He winced as the noise seemed to drill into his skull.

"You with us, Clint?"

Clint squinted his eyes open, grimacing at the painfully bright light of the hospital room. He glanced around. The entire team was packed into the small room, all staring down at him. It felt a bit strange, but also comforting to have his team here with him.

"Wha' 'appened?" Clint rasped through an oxygen mask.

"You scared the shit out of us, that's what happened," Natasha said with a small, strained laugh from where she sat perched on his bedside.

"My bad," Clint murmured with a light laugh, his eyes already feeling heavy again.

"Get some rest, Clint." He wasn't completely sure who said it as he was fading away again.

They would never admit to him how close he had come to dying that day. They would never tell him about the desperate favors that Tony had called in, about the dangerously experimental procedures they had performed in order to bring him back from the brink. They would never tell him that under normal circumstances there was no way that he would have survived.

But the Avengers would never let him go that easily.