As Natasha woke up, she found herself lying in one of those white beds of the hospital station they especially had for S.H.I.E.L.D Agents. That meant she must have been asleep for more than one day, because otherwise, she still would've been on the Helicarrier. The room had several medical set ups and a stand with an infusion bag hanging on it stood next to her. She pulled off the needle that injected her whatever was in that bag and removed the clip on her finger, which lead to the heart rate monitor. A long high beep tone sounded in result.

Ignoring it, Natasha stood up and went straight to the door. She didn't felt any signs of pain in her shoulder, what made her worry. Normally there would have been at least a sting, but now it felt as if nothing had happened at all. Deciding to deal with that later she first wanted to find out where she was.

Two steps ahead of the door, it flew open and a really tensed Clint nearly ran her down. She just so, managed to step left, before they both would have found themselves lying on the floor. She hadn't time to say anything before a couple of earnestly looking doctors followed and stared at her.

"Tasha, what the hell are you doing?", Barton asked. She was both confused and alarmed after that performance. Nearly every doctor in every S.H.I.E.L.D. hospital knew that she just left when she woke up and felt okay. She's done that a thousand times before and Clint shouldn't even be near the United States at the moment.

He made a really alarmed impression, so she scanned the room for possible dangers, but there was nothing.

"I could ask you the same", she answered, "Shouldn't you be out on your mission in Europe by now?" He launched into a reply, when one of the doctors interrupted their conversation and tried to pull Natasha back to the bed.

"Please, Miss Romanoff, you have to rest…", the women explained, but she just pushed her away and eyed up Clint. The tensed expression in his face was gone now. Instead he looked kind of tired, he didn't seem to had that much sleep last night. But there was something else in his gaze, she couldn't quite tell… As if he would be concerned and relieved at the same time.

"Clint, what's up?", she asked him, trying to figure out what he was thinking.

"You should really sleep Natasha, okay. I'll explain it to you later", he replied.

"No, I'm fine, tell me now!", she demanded. What could possibly sorrow him that much?

"Miss Romanoff, I'd really advice you to…", she made the doctor fall silent with one angry gaze.

Barton sighed and took his fingers through his hair. He knew she wouldn't get back into that bed.

"Tasha, you were asleep for three days now", he told her.

That was indeed not usual, but it couldn't be the only reason he came running through that door a few second after the heart rate monitor alarmed. So she waited for him to go on, tell her the bad information.

With an abrupt 'click' there was silence filling up the whole room. One of the doctors had shut down the beep tone, she hadn't even thought about anymore. Its absence left a pushing feeling in the not too large chamber.

"So…?", she broke the stillness, demanding an answer from her friend. He sighed, but there was no relief in it. A few seconds he seemed to try finding the words, but one of the medics answered instead:

"Miss Romanoff, I'm afraid we don't know anything about your injury." She didn't understood.

"It seems like something otherworldly might have caused it, and we can't get clear X-ray images, to find out what's wrong", he tried to explain, "I suggest you just stay at the station, until we're able to tell more details"

So that's what this was all about. Loki must have hit her with some kind of Asgardian weapon.

"I'm fine", she said and tried to get to the door. Barton stopped her.

"Tasha…"

"Clint, my shoulder is fine, I don't have any other problems and if I stay here, this would be just a waste of time", she answered. There seemed to be nothing that the doctors could do for her and it wouldn't help to test her over and over again.

"Miss Romanoff, you can't do this! We don't know…", the doctor wanted to stop her, as Clint let her pass, but she just said:

"I'm leaving" and slid through the door.

Okay, that took longer, than I thought, but here is the new Chapter! Please let me know what you think about it, and only to clear this, Burton is not in love with Natasha or anything, he's just worried about his friend ;-)