Day 26
If You Thought The Head Trauma Was Bad…
Migraine | Concussion | Blindness
Natasha reached blindly for the cell phone buzzing insistently on her bedside table. Muscle memory had her sliding her thumb across the screen in order to answer the call, even before she had fully come back to consciousness, rolling over onto her back as she brought the phone to her ear.
"This better be damn important," Natasha murmured into the phone, her words slurring with exhaustion. She had just come off a particularly difficult mission and she couldn't have been asleep for more than a few hours.
"Can you come get me?"
For a long moment, Natasha couldn't get her only semi-awake brain to really comprehend what the words meant. She pulled the phone away from her eye and squinted into the annoyingly bright screen, blinking heavily until the caller ID came into focus.
"Clint?" she said as she put the phone back to her ear.
"Yeah." There was something strange in his voice that Natasha couldn't quite place. "Can you? Come get me?"
"Where are you?" Natasha asked, confused as she pushed herself up with one arm and glanced over at the digital clock on the bedside table. 2:46 am.
"Um. Out by… East Orange? I think?"
"East Orange?" Natasha said, suddenly feeling more awake. "In New Jersey?"
"Uh, yeah. I think."
"Okay, what the fuck are you doing in New Jersey?" Natasha demanded as she pushed herself out of bed.
"I couldn't… uh… you know…" There was a long pause and Natasha opened her mouth to ask if he was still there when he went on, "...sleep."
"Are you okay?" Natasha asked, her tone softening significantly.
"Yeah. Can you come?"
"Of course I'm coming," Natasha assured him. "Turn on the tracking on your phone and I'll be there in about twenty minutes."
"Okay. Thanks, Nat."
"Hang tight. I'll see you soon."
Natasha pulled on the first clothes she could find, grabbed her keys and hurried out of her apartment in Avengers Tower. She hit the button for the elevator and waited impatiently for it to arrive on her floor. When the doors opened she went to stride in… only to stumble when she found that the elevator wasn't empty like she assumed it would be at almost three in the morning.
"Natasha?"
"Steve?"
"What are you doing up?" they both said in unison.
"The serum doesn't need eight hours of sleep," Steve said. "I usually get up in the middle of the night for a work out. What about you?"
"I just got a call from Clint who needs me to pick him up at," she looked down at her phone, "a Shell station in East Orange, New Jersey."
As Steve stared blankly at her, she stepped fully into the elevator and hit the button for the parking garage. The elevator had already descended several floors before Steve finally found his voice.
"What the heck is Clint doing in Jersey?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," Natasha sighed as she tapped her foot impatiently as she watched the floors countdown agonizingly slowly. The elevator stopped at the floor with the gym and Natasha sent Steve a questioning look when he didn't immediately disembark. "Aren't you going to the gym?"
"You want some company on the drive to Jersey?" Steve offered.
Natasha gave him an appreciative smile. "Yeah, that'd be good, I'm still pretty tired."
Steve nodded as he reached out and hit the "close" button.
Just a few minutes later they were pulling out of the parking garage, Steve in the driver's seat and Natasha in the passenger's seat, and heading toward New Jersey.
"Does he do this a lot?" Steve asked after they had been driving a good ten minutes.
"Huh?" Natasha hummed distractedly as she stared down at her phone, checking for the ump-teenth time that the little dot tracking his phone hadn't moved.
"Does Clint do this a lot?" Steve repeated, then went on to clarify. "Disappear in the middle of the night?"
Natasha sighed as she dropped her phone back into her lap. "It happens from time to time. He's had chronic night terrors ever since he was a kid and not that he'd ever admit it, but I think he rarely sleeps through the night. It gets worse after difficult missions. And when he's up in the middle of the night he usually can't sit still. So he'll go to the range, go to the gym, or sometimes he'll take his motorcycle out for a ride."
"Has he ever called you to come get him like this?" Steve asked.
"Once before," Natasha said flatly. "When he got in an accident and crashed his bike."
Steve looked over at Natasha in surprise. "Do you think that's what happened? Do you think he's hurt?"
"He sounded… strange on the phone," Natasha admitted. "He sounded kind of… unfocused and his words were slurring…"
"Maybe he's had a few drinks?"
Natasha immediately shook her head. "Clint doesn't drink. Never has. Something about having a violently abusive, alcoholic father has always put him off the idea of drinking."
"Oh," Steve said. "Sorry, I didn't know that."
"He doesn't like to talk about it," Natasha acknowledged.
"I don't blame him."
It took them just over twenty minutes to close the gap between their dots on the GPS tracker on Natasha's phone.
"It should be up here on the right," Natasha said as she studied her phone.
"Yeah… I think I have an inkling of where he is," Steve said uneasily.
Natasha looked up and her stomach dropped. She spotted the flashing blue and red lights coming from multiple vehicles before she spotted the gas station where Clint was supposed to be.
"Shit," Natasha breathed.
There wasn't much extra room around the gas station, so Steve quickly pulled into the adjacent parking lot of the Taco Bell next door. Natasha was out of the car before he came to a complete stop, hurrying over to the gas station and squinting through the bright, flashing lights that disoriented her for a moment.
Finally, she spotted Clint sitting on the curb outside of the convenience store attached to the gas station, a police officer standing over him and jotting something down on a pad.
"Clint!" Natasha gasped as she ran up to them.
Clint looked up at the sound of her voice, but his gaze was hazy and slid past her for a moment. He gave her a strained smile.
"Hey, Nat."
"What happened?" Natasha demanded as she dropped down to a knee next to Clint, looking him up and down for any sign of injury. At least at a glance he seemed to be in once piece.
"He was in the store when three guys went in to rob it," the police officer said. "After they got the money, they were gonna shoot the attendant, but your boyfriend intervened. Saved the kid's life and took down all three robbers." The officer sounded impressed, obviously having no idea who he was talking to or about. "He did get a nasty bump on the back of his head from one of the guys' guns during the altercation, though. I told him he should go to the hospital, but he's refusing."
"Are you okay?" Natasha asked, putting a hand to Clint's cheek and tilting his head up so she could get a better look at his eyes. His gaze was a little glassy, but his pupils at least seemed to be dilating properly.
"'M fine," Clint mumbled. "I don't need a… a..." he sighed tiredly as he waved a hand vaguely, "you know."
"Well, I'm convinced," Natasha said sarcastically. He looked up at the police officer. "Thank you, officer. I can take it from here."
"Yes, ma'am," the office said, nodding his head before walking away.
"C'mon," Natasha said, standing up and reaching back down to pull Clint up to his feet. He swayed dangerously and Natasha wedged herself in next to him in order to keep him from falling over. "C'mon, let's go," she urged as she led them over to where Steve was hovering back by the car.
"Is he okay," Steve asked with concern as he eyed the way that Clint was leaning on Natasha as they approached.
"Steve?" Clint said, confused.
"He got caught in a robbery attempt," Natasha explained. "He subdued three guys, but apparently took a pretty good hit to the head. He's likely got a concussion."
Then, very suddenly, Clint tipped to the side that Natasha wasn't supporting. She panicked for a moment, thinking he was about to collapse and she shifted quickly to try to catch him, Steve doing the same from Clint's over side… until he leaned over, braced one hand on the car and heaved the contents of his stomach onto the pavement at his feet.
"Make that, he definitely has a concussion," Natasha said flatly as he heaved again.
"I'll call Bruce," Steve said, pulling his phone from his pocket. "Have him meet us on the med floor of the Tower."
"Thanks," Natasha said appreciatively, wincing as Clint dry heaved a few times, having emptied his stomach.
As Steve stepped away to make the call, Natasha put a hand on Clint's back, rubbing it gently in order to provide what little comfort that she could. The dry heaving episode seemed to pass after a few minutes, and Clint braced both his forearms on the car as he struggled to catch his breath. He winced and then spit, trying to get the rancid taste out of his mouth.
"C'mon," Natasha urged. "I think there's a bottle of water in the car."
Clint blinked blearily at her, looking even more dazed than he had before. She opened the door of the car and gently guided him into the backseat, closing the door behind him.
"How is he?" Steve asked as he came back.
"I think he's getting more disoriented," Natasha said grimmly. "Let's just get him home. We can come back for his bike tomorrow."
"Good idea," Steve agreed.
As Steve slid back into the passenger's seat, Natasha rounded the car and got into the backseat on the other side so that she could monitor Clint on the ride back to the Tower. She had Steve locate a bottle of water that had been rolling around on the floor of the front passenger's seat for a week weeks now, and as Steve pulled back out into traffic, Natasha managed to get Clint to take a few small sips. As he sipped, she leaned over to check the back of his head with the flashlight on her phone. There was no blood, but a large bump where the gun had made contact with his skull.
"I need you to stay away until Bruce checks you out," Natasha told him when he leaned his head back and his eyes sagged.
"I jus' need some sleep," Clint slurred.
"Hey," Natasha snapped, poking him in the side as his eyes were sliding shut. "No sleeping."
"Mean," Clint mumbled, though at least his eyes were open again.
"It's what you get when you go off on your own in the middle of the night," Natasha scolded.
"Sorry," Clint said with a light smirk.
"You know, Clint, if you ever need a sparring buddy in the middle of the night, I'm usually up at all hours too," Steve spoke up, glancing at them in the rearview mirror.
"Between Steve's Super Soldier Serum, Tony being a workaholic, Bruce's ability to completely lose track of time, and my own shitty sleep schedule, there's always someone awake at all hours in that damn Tower," Natasha added. "There's no reason for you to go off on your own when you can't sleep, Clint."
Clint looked a little surprised, like he'd never thought about that before. "I guess. Yeah."
"So, no more running around New Jersey of all places, playing one man vigilante?" Steve prompted pointedly. "I'll drive to Jersey once to pick you up as a professional courtesy, but next time at least confine your escapades to New York. Okay?"
Clint snorted a laugh. "Yeah, whatever you say, Cap."