**Endgame spoilers
"Jesus Christ. Ohmygodohmygod." Clint continues his crazy rambling as he runs through the pipes with the freaky creepy slimy-ass aliens chasing him. The golden gauntlet is heavy in his arm as he tries to run. Normally, he would be shooting but he only had one free arm so that wasn't an option. And to be honest, these things are kind of scaring him. Then an idea pops into his mind.
He secures the glove in his arm, pressed against his side and reaches his left hand into his quiver and grabs an explosive arrow and once he gets a grasp on one, he pulls it out and throws it on a pipe in the wall. He does it two more times and grits his teeth in anticipation for the explosive blast.
His body flies in the air and he crashes onto the ground . He groans and hauls himself up to his feet. The monsters are relentless. He still hears the snarling just before they burst through the flames. He raises his arm and shoots his grappling hook out of his wrist, except nothing comes out. It clicks empty. "Shit."
That's all Clint is able to say before the monster slams into his chest and flings him into the adjacent wall. The creature jumps on top of him and Clint lets out a wheeze when the air is knocked out of him. He hears a crack beneath and when no pain hits him, he realizes sluggishly that it was probably his bow.
It's claws scrape along his chest and torso, not drawing blood yet. Not until another one comes over and slashes Clint's chest. Excruciating pain hits Clint like a brick and he lets out a scream. The long nails drag along his chest and sink deeper and deeper into his flesh before they rip out. Blood squirts in the air and the claw comes back down.
This time on his left bicep. Only one nail comes down and Clint has run out of air so he can't scream, not even shout. He manages to secure the glove in his arm when the claw hooks into it. It begins a small round of tug of war and a Clint feels himself losing, it's slipping out of his grip.
His right hand reaches towards his quiver and grasps the last explosive arrow. With a click, he turns it on and throws it at the monster's forehead. It lets out a disgusting squeal before stumbling backwards. Both of them leap away from Clint and he takes the opportunity to roll out of the way and shield himself from the repercussions of the blast.
He still stumbles back a couple steps before tripping over rubbing and falling onto his butt. He feels the black creeping into the sides of his vision but he jerks back to awareness when he hears more snarling from down the pipe.
Clint gets up slowly and hisses when he bends over his stomach and the wounds fold over each other. He places his hand on his chest and it comes back bloody.
Shakily, he reaches back to his quiver and winces when the scratch on his arm twists uncomfortably. He grabs a grappling arrow quickly and hooks the rope that attaches it through his belt loop. The arrow is a comfortable weight in his hand. He breathes out a sigh in preparation.
"This is gonna hurt." He says before launching the grappling arrow towards the ceiling brought the pipe probably a couple floors above. It starts pulling him up immediately after it clinks to metal, just in the nick of time because a monster jumped for his legs and missed by mere inches.
Clint takes out the collapsible sword in his left hand and the stupid glove in his right. He swiftly chops that head off the shoulders of the next monster who tried to kill him.
Clint barely had time to look up and tried to cover his head when he hit the ceiling. His head slams into metal and he grunts before going limp and left panting from the exertion, the thin rope leaving him dangling on the ceiling. The glove almost slips out of his grip before he manages to catch it. The movement causes a sharp piece of metal to scrape along the taut rope. It slices it in half and leaves Clint falling towards the floor.
With a loud crash and a thud, Clint hits the floor like a brick. While he lands on his side, the side of his head slams underneath him and then black takes over. The glove is still in his now loose grip.
…
Evil Nebula walks over to the unconscious body of the idiot who was trusted with the gauntlet. She scoffs at his bloodied head. "Pathetic." She mutters.
She leans over gracefully and grabs the glove, ready to return it to her father. "Nebula! Stop!" Gamora's feet make light thuds as she steps closer to her. "This isn't you."
The two stand there for a couple seconds, each with a gun raised at the other, until the actual Nebula walks in behind Gamora. The gun is immediately trained on her.
"Give us the glove." None of the convincing could've ever been enough. Nebula spots her lookalike's finger pressing harder on the trigger. But before any movement could be made, Evil nebula is on the ground with a burning and searing hole in her chest. Gamora gasps in surprise towards Nebula before running over to Clint. Nebula picks up the glove and balances it on her hip.
"Who even is this?" Gamora asks, holding her green hand against his pale neck, feeling for a pulse.
"I don't know but I saw him standing with Tony earlier. That's enough for me to know that he's with us." Nebula says from behind her.
"He doesn't even look like he's anything special, how could any villain want to possibly hire him. He's a meager human." Nebula continues observing out loud.
Clint, of course, chooses to wake up as Nebula leans over and he starts struggling thinking that they are enemies. He starts trembling and attempts to back away from them. "G'way" he mumble-shouts.
Clint's eyes finally open and reveal slits of hazy, blue-green eyes. "Oh. Hey…I know you." He slurs slightly and the adrenaline leaves his system just as quickly as it entered.
When Gamora sees the panicked man before him almost falling back asleep, she taps him on the cheek. Not minding the blood she gets on her fingers and palm.
"Stay awake." His eyes open slightly more but slip back a couple moments later. "Hey hey, what's your name?"
"Why d'you need tah know?" The man in front of her slurs. "Because I want something to actually call you." Nebula breathes out a lung full of air.
"Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye." He breathes out. "Okay Clint. Do you think we can get you to a safe place for you to rest while we fight this battle?" Gamora nods to Nebula, who was standing there awkwardly with the oddly weighted glove in her arms.
Together they pull him up over their shoulders. His eyes squeeze shut and he groans through clenched teeth.
"Are you okay?" Nebula asks in his left ear. "Yeah…yep…Absolutely. Was jus' scratched by a monster." He chuckles dryly at the feeling of his numb legs scrambling underneath him. He eventually gives up on trying to walk and just practically collapses on the two girl's shoulders.
"Oof." Gamora grunts under the weight.
"Nebula?" Gamora asks quietly. "I need you to get the glove to someone outside, we need to stop father."
She nods quietly and tightens her grip on the glove that tore her family apart. At least she has her sister. "You got him?" Gamora grunts when most of the dead weight is out onto her. "Yeah. You got this Nebula." Nebula let's a shy smirk peek through before turning around and running though the busted up rubble and towards the sounds of battle.
…
Gamora grunts as she lowers Clint to the ground. She taps him back to awareness and asks him "do you have a comm? I lost mine."
Clint hums in response. She turns his head to the side and is relieved to see the shining metal underneath the crusty blood. She raises her hand and reaches into his ear to pull it out. He panics.
"No!" With more strength than she thought that he had, he grabs her wrist and pushes her away from his ear. But the small metal piece is still in her hand and she scoots away from him as he struggles to stand up but fails. And collapses down and hisses in pain.
Once Gamora is positive that he's staying down, she puts the device in her own ear. It's larger than she's used to and emits a low hum, but it's easy to ignore. She hears the chatter of voices before interrupting. "Hello? Does anyone copy?" Multiple voices respond at the same time.
"Yeah?"
"What's up?"
"Gamora? You're alive?" It's Quill. She mentally face palms.
"Yes, I'm alive Quill. But I have a man here who's seriously injured and I was hoping any of you guys know who he is."
There's a pause of silence until a strong voice speaks up again. "Does he have blondish hair, wearing a quiver, black and gold suit, maybe a bow but I'm assuming not because he probably lost it in the blast, is he wearing hearing aids?" She repeats confirmations at each description before pausing at the last one. "Wait, he only had his comm in."
There is a grunt as the person across the line gets attacked again. "They're part of his comm." Gamora winces. "Oh."
"'Oh?' What does that mean? What'd you do?" The man asks. "I lost my comm so I just took his. I guess that explains why he panicked." There's a sigh on the other end of the line. "Look, his name is Clint and just tell him that Steve is here. "What's your position?"
"We're in the rubble of the building, he was attacked because he had the gauntlet. I gave it to Nebula, it should be somewhere out there in the field." There is a long moment of silence as Steve looks with his enhanced vision for the large and reflective glove in someone's arms. "I see it. T'Challa has it and I'm going to go help him. You, stay with Clint and put his aid back in. Try and keep him alive. Please, I can't lose him too." She chuckles at the order. "Yes sir." She responds sarcastically. The line clicks off.
…
Clint is in a world of pain and quietness. Everything is beyond muffled and he swears he hears his name but he doesn't recognize the tone. The fact that he's hearing it probably means that it's a girl, because the pitch is higher than a males.
Hands grip his head and turn him to the side before a small metal piece slides its way into his ear. It's comforting, despite not knowing who the person was.
"Nnng." He grunts when static assaults him for a couple seconds. Then his hearing clears up and he can hear someone softly repeating his name.
"Tasha…?" He slurs out.
"What, no? It's Gamora. Look, you're seriously injured and have a pretty bad concussion. Steve ordered me to keep you alive so, please do that." Clint chuckles wetly.
Together, they sit there for hours until the battle is over. More than once, Gamora has gotten up and was so close to just walking out into the battle and fighting with her team. She did not want to be here babysitting the mumbling and babbling man that was lying on the floor by her feet.
Instead she was stuck in this small room listening to the battle unfold around her. A couple times around, Clint's fever, from infected and dirt filled wounds, has led him to having hallucinations about this lady named Natasha and a man named Phil.
Suddenly, what seems like out of nowhere, it seems like outside goes quiet. There is a loud explosion and a couple shouts and then all the noises stop.
"What…?" She walks outside and takes a couple steps, there's no one to be seen. Smoke is gathering above in the sky and it looks peaceful next to the dark and star-filled sky.
"Gamora?" It's Nebula.
She spins to her left. Nebula is closer to her. "Tony got the gauntlet and snapped. Father is gone, as is his whole army." Nebula states. Gamora inhales quickly but pushes down the small amount of grief for her father that started to pile in her stomach. Instead she focuses on Nebula, who's grown a liking for Tony. "I'm so sorry Nebula."
Nebula nods and ducks her head, trying to hide the tears in her eyes. She changes the subject instead. "Where's the other man? That was with you?" Nebula asks before looking around her. "He dead?"
Gamora chuckles. "Nah…he's in here." Together they walk back to Clint, who's shuddering on the hard floor with his pile of dried blood around him.
His eyes hold a glazy gaze up at the ceiling and slowly focus on her, albeit blurry.
"Hey…" he slurs drunkenly. Blood loss was taking a toll on him.
It takes all of Clint's spy training to push down his gag reflex and not barf as he is heaved upright. His legs give out from beneath him, barely working properly for more than a second.
The two women drag outside of the sheltered cave that had kept him safe and he whimpers as his feet drag behind him, pulling on his stomach.
Clint's vision keeps going in and out of whack, he thinks he blacks out a little bit before coming back to reality.
He hears someone shout his name and it causes pounding in his head. Ice picks stab behind his eyes. "Clint?"
Two hands grab his head by his cheeks and lift his head up, examining his blurred eyes and wiping the crusty blood out of his eyelashes and off of his eyes lid. "Crap, okay…thank you." Steve looks genuinely thankful as he looks at the two girls.
Just then, Scott comes running over and gasps at the state of the man in front of him. "Oh my god!"
The girls walk away silently as Steve lowers Clint to the ground. Scott stands there awkwardly and leaning over Steve's shoulder. The only thing they are able to do is try their best to stem the bleeding and wait until a jet of theirs is sent down to them.
Clint's pulse is thready underneath Steve's fingertips. Every time Clint's breath hitches, Steve holds his breath in fear.
There's a loud blasting noise above him, and a large jet is landing about a football field away.
"Need help Cap?" Scott is eager to help his captain to carry a Clint towards the awaiting plane.
Clint is fully limp and when he is suddenly upright, he swears that his brain turns to liquid and sloshes around his skull. Bile rises up his throat but he manages to focus on his breathing and eventually push it back down. "T'sha…?" He questions once he feels hands on his body. Clint is too weak to struggle.
Steve and Scott haul him to the plane, making slow but steady progress. Since there are no medics available it's left to whoever is willing from the team.
Having received medical training, and watched Clint get tended too multiple times before, Steve already knows what to do. With a spool of prepackaged thread and needle, Steve stitches up the wounds along with a dose of morphine for his unconscious friend on the cot.
About a couple hours later is when the jet lowers itself onto the grassy terrain in Missouri. A small white house in the distance. Laura, who heads the jet land, gathered her wits and opened the front door with a creak. She ran all the way down to the jet in order to get to her husband who she had no idea if he was alive or not.
Within the 5 minutes it took for Laura to run down here, Steve had aroused Clint by tapping his cheeks multiplpe times. Clint comes to with a groggy and choked off groan and his glazed over eyes see right through Steve before slipping back shut. "Clint? Nono stay awake, your wife is coming."
"L…Laura?" Clint breathes.
Steve smiles lightly. "Yeah, yeah. Laura.
The gate opens to the jet to reveal to Laura her husband lying on a cot with the Captain leaning over him. "Clint? Ohmygod…Clint!" Steve looks at her and backs away from Clint so she can get the full view.
"I'm assuming you can take care of him?" Steve questions her.
Laura chuckles slightly and Steve takes that as a yes. "Yeah, I've seen him like this many times before."
"Nahh…" Clint slurs drunkenly from beneath her.
Laura lifts Clint off the firm bed and steadys him when he wavers. "You good?" She whispered in his ear.
"Mhmm" he humms back with his eyes drooping and jerking back open with a blink.
Steve and Laura haul him back to the cabin and place him in his bed before Steve turns around with a wave and a formal goodbye.
"You concussed?" She shouts from the kitchen because she's getting a glass of water for him.
"Oh yeah. Definitely. M'head hurts 'lot" He says to her as she walks back into the room.
The mattress dips as she sits next to him and the glass full of water clinks as it settles on the bedside table. Laura runs her thumb softer over the newly set stitches lacing through the skin in his face. "Your eyes are pretty hazy too. How many fingers am I holding up?" She holds up her pointer and middle fingers.
"Ughh, umm." He stutters as his eyes try to focus on the fingers but only end with his head pounding. "F-Four…?" He asks.
"Nope" She pops the p sound and then sighs. This was going to be a long recovery time.
Welp, this was very long and I'll try to make the others shorter, more like one-shots. Cause this is 9 pages long and I'll never get 28 chapters done if I keep this pace up.