Tony wasn't sure how to feel, when he woke up in one of the rooms on the medical floor of the Tower, alone. It had taken him months, but he had stopped waking up, expecting Clint to be asleep in one of the chairs or sitting at the foot of his bed playing cards; still, there was usually someone from the team there. He was a bit hazy from whatever they had given him for the pain, and since he wasn't feeling much, it must have been the really good stuff. Even through the haze, his mind was catching up fast and started going through everything that could have happened. Thor and Steve were down. Hulk was distracted, somewhere. And then… the arrow. He looked down at his chest. The arc reactor was glowing bright.

He was in the Tower, so someone on the the team was alive, else he would be, well, dead and in SHIELD's morgue; they wouldn't have been able to fix the reactor. They wouldn't have even been able to get him out of the suit.

"JARVIS?" he croaked. Man he needed some water.

I'm here, Sir. It is good to have you awake.

"Don't get mushy on me, J."

I wouldn't dream of it, Sir. You have been unconscious for nineteen hours. The arc reactor was damaged beyond repair. Ms. Romanoff was able to transport you to your lab in time for me to replace it. The procedure took longer than anticipated, as the arrowhead damaged a portion of the housing wall and three wires.

Damaged the housing wall? "How the hell did-"

"Adamantium arrowhead," Natasha answered, moving silently into the room.

He held his hand up to the reactor, a bit less dramatically than usual, but, eh, "We've talked about this, Romanoff. I have a heart condition; you can't walk around here like a ninja. You agreed to wear the bell."

Natasha lifted her left wrist, handing him a cup of chips, and shook it, making the attached bell jingle.

Any humor Tony had been keeping alive, died. Shit. Bad word choice. She was wearing the bell. She only wore it to make fun of him when she snuck up on him anyway. This though, felt more like she was trying to be reassuring. Something was wrong.

"Thor and Rogers?"

"They're going to be fine. They're both in SHIELD medical. Apparently someone got their hands on some uru and somehow forged it into a bullet. It cut through Thor like a bullet would have through anyone else, but he's lucky he heals faster. If he had been human he would have died. As it was, he was already beginning to heal when the medics started patching him up. He could actually show up back here anytime. SHIELD can't contain him and he keeps insisting it's a flesh wound."

Tony snorted.

"Steve… if the medics hadn't got to him when they did, he wouldn't have made it. SHIELD's still trying to figure out what was in the dart. They've never seen the like. It was shutting down his body." She paused. "They said, he was turning blue he was so cold."

Tony felt his anger spike. "How's he doing?"

"It shook him pretty bad. It didn't help that he was conscious for most of it. They have him sedated now. Not sure when he'll be ready to be released."

Tony nodded, keeping hold of his simmering rage. "We got him, right? He didn't get away?" he asked.

A weird look crossed her face, then vanished. "We got him. Hulk showed up just in time."

His eyebrows shot up. "He was beating you?" he asked, in disbelief.

"It's hard to dodge a bullet, Stark."

Tony gave a tiny flinch and Natasha actually looked sorry. What the hell was going on? Had this really affected her that much?

"So, his plan was scary effective. He seemed prepared for everyone. And Hulk? Do we know how exactly the guy was planning on taking him down?"

Natasha's frown deepened. "He wasn't."

Oh. "Well we all know Brucie's special."

Natasha held his gaze. "What would have happened if the rest of us were dead, Stark? What would Hulk do if he came back and we were dead? And then SHIELD showed up?"

Tony let himself fall back to the bed, looking pale and stricken.

They left it unanswered, but it was obvious. Hulk would run. Then Bruce would run. The communications were blocked. If Tony hadn't been able to work through it, SHIELD wouldn't have known what had happened. They wouldn't have blamed Hulk, but he would be the only one alive. The media would report him running from SHIELD. Bruce wouldn't remember what happened and he would blame himself, because it was Bruce and why wouldn't he? He had come so far and that would have all been taken away in an instant. But what else could you do to someone who couldn't seem to die?

"But that didn't happen. So what's wrong?" Tony asked, because Natasha was way off and it was actually starting to freak him out. "SHIELD's got him, soon we'll know who he was working for yadda yadda yadda we go blow them up."

"SHIELD doesn't have him. I told them that we would handle it. He's in Hulk's room."

Tony blinked. "And SHIELD went for that?"

"Yes."

"Natasha, what the hell is going on?" Hulk's room was the nice name for the Hulk-proof room. Even Natasha couldn't get out of there.

Natasha sat down on his bed. She sat down on his bed.

Tony tried to laugh, "You weren't lying to me, were you? Everyone's alive right?"

"Everyone is alive." There she went again. Why did she say it like that?

"But, Tony," she began.

Tony. Tony. Shitshitshitshit.

"The shooter," She paused. "It's Clint."

Tony's whole body froze. "What?" Clint looked up at him, blood staining his hands, opened his mouth... "That's… that's HIM?" he spat. "The man who killed-"

"No," Natasha interrupted. She was looking straight into his eyes, and now, for some reason he wished she would look away, because her eyes seemed haunted. "Listen carefully Tony. The shooter, the man in the mask that almost killed all of us, IS CLINT."

Tony took a breath. And then another.

"Clint isn't dead," she clarified.

"No." Tony shook his head. "No. I saw him." He grabbed her arm. "I SAW him. I recorded it. You saw it. He was shot through the chest. There was blood. He fell in the river. He didn't come back up. We didn't find him."

"He's alive."

Tony couldn't seem to breath drugs must have been wearing off because all he could feel was pain. He breathing was too shallow. "No. I…" They never found his body. He looked desperately at Natasha. "He's alive?"

He'd never seen Natasha look so sad. "Yes."

Tony's mind whirled. It was too perfect. Clint had had the only EMPs to counter those things. Nothing had attacked him as he had come to save Tony. The shot… Tony tried to block out the blood. But it couldn't have been blood. That was one of the reasons they had stopped looking; the shot would have been fatal. So it was faked. Why… "Someone took him?"

Natasha shook her head. "I don't-"

"Faked his death so we wouldn't come looking and took him?"

"I don't know, Tony," Natasha replied, firmly.

Yes you do! he wanted to yell at her. Because if he figured this out in the ten seconds he had to think about it, then she most definitely knew.

"He's still unconscious. Before we knew it was him, Hulk hit him pretty hard. Our doctors say that he's going to be fine, but they're keeping him under until the swelling in his skull goes down."

"You said he was in Hulk's room."

"We moved some medical equipment in there for now."

"In the Hulk's room?" he asked, angrily, beginning to push the blankets away, "Why isn't he in medical if he's hurt that badly?"

Natasha pushed him back. "Think, Stark," she coaxed, her face solemn. "He attacked us. He tried to kill us."

"We don't know-"

"When I was fighting him, I could tell he hated me. He shot Thor, he poisoned Steve, he destroyed your reactor. He wanted us dead."

The reactor felt heavy in his chest.

"Do you know what someone would have to do to him, to make him turn on us like that?" she asked.

He saw Clint sitting on the kitchen counter, stealing pieces of meat from the dish Bruce was cooking, laughing at something Thor had said. Dunking Steve in the pool, then hiding behind Tony. Whispering something dirty, completely inappropriate and perfect to him during a briefing. No, no, he didn't want to know. Because nothing could do that.

"No. There's something else we don't know about," he insisted.

"Tony-"

"There's something else." He refused to believe that Clint would really try to kill them. No, there was something else. There had to be.