Poisoned

There is a warning for slight language

Clint was walking down the hallway at the Shield center when he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on one end. His eyes flashed and he stopped in his tracks, unfortunately even he wasn't a match for what came next. The bag was thrown over his head and arms tied behind his back with textbook placement. He felt himself being dragged into another room before having the cloth ripped off of his head.

All while struggling against the bonds, he managed to kick someone in the face before the men managed to tie them down too.

Clint looked up. He saw nine men, all in shield uniforms. A couple of whom he recognized from basic training.

"How may I help you?" He asks, none to kindly.

The man in the front, probably the leader, speaks up. "You know what you did and you'll tell us why you did it. You killed my wife. My beautiful sweet darling. And you took her away from me!" Clint pales. "Shit…" He mutters.

"Look man, you know I had no control of what I did. I cou–" Clint is cut off

"You killed all of them. That's why we're here. To find the truth." Before being able to question him, a needle is stuck into Clint's neck and Clint can feel the liquid get injected into his bloodstream.

He jerks away from the needle but it's too late. He's already feeling the effects, even though he doesn't show it.

"Why did you kill her?!" The man shouts at Clint only a couple minutes later. But now Clint can't think straight and is feeling very lightheaded.

"I didn't have a choice." Whoops, he didn't mean to say that. "Loki controlled me. I tried to fight." By now the men were frustrated.

A man in the back stepped forward and punched Clint in the face. "Stop lying!" He shouts.

"M'not…I didn't ha-holy shit!" Clint's eyes face towards the corner of the room, no one is there but the drugs are making Him see something. "Mom…?"

"Let's get out of here Kyle," the man says. "Your stupid injection didn't work." The group of nine walks out of the room calmly and they lock the door behind them. Leaving Clint tied up in the room, all along with his worst thoughts.

That's how Fury finds him an hour later. With wide tear filled eyes, mumbling apologies and flinching back away from him. "Crap crap crap. Agent Barton can you hear me?" Clint's eyes gaze right past him. Fury reaches for his walkie. "Agent Coulson, I need you in room 69202."

Five minutes later, Phil rushes in and he takes in the scene in front of him. Clint on the ground with ropes scattered on the floor, fury was kneeling over him trying to get his attention. "Clint?"

"M'sorry." If possible, the man curled in on himself more. "Stop it Barn."

"There's a puncture wound on his neck from a needle and the door was locked when I came in. I'm guessing a group of men did this because Agent Barton would be able to take down one of them." Fury states, turning Clint's head to show him the hole in the neck.

"Help me get him up." Phil asks before bending down with Fury and throwing an arm over his shoulder. Together they pull the man up and start to drag him to medical. "Nononono stop!" Clint starts struggling. "Get…get away from me." Phil and Fury still manage to carry him to the med wing and lay him on a bed, only to have him tied down again by the doctor's order.

"Barn look, I won't do it again." Clint flinches back and yanks the padded cuffs wrapped on his forearms.

A doctor walks up to the Director. "Sir, my name is Doctor Macauley, but you can call me Thea. We have a slight problem with Agent Barton, we need him to calm down. But we can't risk sedation due to the other drugs in his system."

Fury sighs. "What do you recommend?" At the doctor's suggestion, Phil sighs too.

"We can isolate him until the drugs are out of his system, we cannot risk him injuring any of our coworkers." She says grimly. That's what they end up doing. Dragging his bed to a white room with nothing in it. Just padded walls and flooring. They uncuff Clint and let him by himself. While this happens, Fury alerts Captain Rogers that his teammate is down.

…

"What do you mean he got attacked?!" Steve was furious. How could this happen to his teammate when he was at the safest place possible. "I sent him to you for one thing, and that was to turn in the debrief form, which he did."

"It was out of my control, Captain. Agent Barton is inside this room if you'd like to see him." Fury starts leading Steve to the white room.

Clint is a wreck. His eyes are bloodshot and there are dried tears on his cheeks. Steve winces in sympathy. The man is curled in on himself in the corner of the room, stuck watching his demons Steve could never imagine.

Before anyone realizes it, the door is open and Natasha is already in the room. Fury doesn't even ask how she unlocked the door.

"Clint? Please look at me. See me." Natasha says, walking towards Clint slowly. He doesn't even glance at her. She places a hand on his shoulder, knowing she's taking a risk. He flinches back and slams his head into the wall. "No!" He shouts.

"Don't fucking touch me!" The courage in his eyes turns to fear and he pushes himself into the wall. "Tasha…" he practically whimpers.

"You see me? That's good, that's good. Now keep your eyes on me. Okay?" She waves in the doctor to administer the vaccine.

"You're gonna feel a little prick but it's okay just keep your eyes on me." He locks eyes and holds her gaze. When his eyes start to glaze back over, she shouts at him, "Clint!"

"Sorry sorry. M'just tired." He sounds breathless. "I can only see them, Tash. Barney, Jacques, and m'dad. I saw my mom at first, she was too young. Couldn't…couldn' stop 'em…" he runs out of breath and looks ready to lose focus again and go back into his delirium. "Who? Who couldn't you stop?" She asks in hope that he hears her.

"The men. They…they jumped me. They had a needle." His head lolls to one side and his knees go weak. Steve runs in and helps Natasha lower him to the ground. By now the vaccine has been provided and it is working to get the excess drugs out of his system.

The only reason they could put the new drugs into his body was because of all of the blood tests they took. Apparently the new compound mixture was only meant to last a short time, which is why now he could see Natasha.

…

A couple hours later Clint was transferred to a hospital room, he was now currently drugged up over his head with different compounds and was sitting on his bed groggily staring at the wall. His hands were still cuffed to the bed rails as a precaution, not that he actually noticed.

Steve was sitting on a dinky, plastic blue chair drawing in his sketch book. Natasha was sitting on another chair at the end of the bed watching over him.

"…sha?" Clint mumbles and turns his head over to her. He gives her a tired smirk.

"Hey." She whispers smiling at him and swiping his wet hair off of his forehead. Symptoms and after effects from the drugs left him with a raging fever that just managed to start going down.

"How do you feel?" She asks lightly. "Like a truck ran over me." He gives a dry chuckle. This prompts Natasha to give him some water. She gets a small paper cup and heads to the tap, and when she comes back Clint is fumbling with his restraints.

"Here, let me." Steve leans over and undoes the Velcro and buckles. "Thanks." Clint says while rubbing his wrists. He takes the water and sips it gently.

"Sorry you guys had to see that." Clint interrupts the silence. "I uhh…I couldn't control it." He looks down at his lap, ashamed.

Steve jumps in to comfort him. "It's fine, besides I'm happy you're okay."

"Thanks Steve, but did you ever catch them?" Clint wonders.

"The men? Yeah. We caught them on video tape. The leader was Agent Daniel Blaese. He's currently in interrogation now." Steve replies happily.

Clint sighs in relief. "Thanks." He gives the water back to Natasha. The weight of fear that the men are still out there lifted off of his shoulders. And while the guilt will always be there, he will recover. There will always be setbacks, this just happened to be one, but he overcame it.

Thanks to Robin-Hoody and Katie MacAlpine for reviewing. It makes my day.

Chapter 6 coming tomorrow, for those who followed the story and I'll try to keep up with it. Hopefully I'll get it done by October 31st!

I hope you guys enjoy this so far, and I can't wait till the end for two reasons. One meaning that I completed it, and two I'm getting my braces off the day after.