Kate ignored the gunman. He was currently pacing the room, swearing to himself in Russian and running an idle hand through his hair. Kate's hands, usually so steady, were betraying her now, trembling, a physical manifestation of her fear.

"You actually worried about me, Bishop?" Clint croaked at her from the floor. Kate let out a sharp chuckle.

"Worried? About you? That's a good one, Barton." It was half-assed. They both knew it. She looked down at him. "How're you feeling?"

"Oh, you know," he said. He was right; she knew. It was evident in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the tight line of his lips, the shallow, measured breaths. He was hurting and, though he would never admit it, scared.

Kate shifted her hands, putting a little more pressure on the bullet hole in her partner's side. He let out a little grunt of pain, bending one leg and scraping his heel on the floor as if to find bearing.

"Try to stay still, Clint," she said softly, all joking gone from her voice.

"Shouldn't be too hard," he answered, his voice breathy and tight, eyes shining as they stared up at the ceiling.

He'd already lost a lot of blood, and though Kate had slowed the flow significantly, she couldn't quite manage to stop it. What they both knew but refused to acknowledge was that if they couldn't get him out of here, even the slow stream would kill him eventually. His face was steadily losing its color, and it wouldn't be long before shock took hold.

Kate had to get him out of this. Of course, the Russian (whose name Clint was pretty sure was Andrei; Kate thought it was Alexei) was pissed off, freaking out, and clearly a bit emotionally unstable. And he'd taken their weapons. And the entrances (and therefore exits) were heavily guarded by angry Russians. And Hawkeye (both of them) were hated by the Russian community as a whole. But still, she had to try.

She cleared her throat. "Alexei?" Her throat was so dry, the word barely came out.

Clint glared at her. "What the hell are you doing?" he whispered. "And his name is Andrei!"

Kate shot a glare back at him and swallowed, raising her voice. "Alexei?"

The young Russian man didn't even look over his shoulder. "It's Andrei." His accent was very light, and Kate guessed he'd immigrated to the states as a child.

Clint smirked. Kate didn't see it, but she knew. "Andrei. Of course, I'm sorry. Andrei. My name is Kate Bishop, and I-"

"I know who you are. All of us know who you are. I want you to shut up now, or I'll kill him."

Kate closed her eyes, hoping she'd correctly interpreted what little Russian she'd been able to pick up from his phone conversation. "Andrei, I know your boss told you to keep an eye us until he gets here. I know he wants us alive."

"I don't give a shit what he wants," Andrei muttered, though his heart clearly wasn't in it.

"Oh, you say that. But you know what happens to people who don't give him what he wants." She could feel Clint glaring up at her, but she ignored him.

Andrei still didn't turn, but his neck straightened and his shoulders stiffened; she'd hit a nerve. "You don't know shit," he said, his voice pitching up just enough to let Kate know he was starting to get nervous. "Stop talking or I will kill you."

Kate smirked, though her heart was hammering so hard she thought it might burst. "Either one of us ends up dead, what do you think happens to you?"

"I said shut up!" Andrei cried, waving his gun in her direction.

"Listen, Andrei, I have an idea that just might help you, okay? Let Clint go." Clint opened his mouth like he was going to argue with her, so she put a hand over it. "Tell Yury he got away. Let him get to a hospital and I'll stay here. If he..." She lost her focus momentarily as she felt Clint's tongue against her palm. She grimaced, but didn't move her hand. "If Clint gets out of here and gets help, my father can get you a great lawyer. The Avengers can offer protection. You'll be safe from Yury and get a reduced sentence." Kate removed her hand from Clint's mouth and glared down at him as she wiped the dampness off on her pants. "What are you, five?" she whispered.

"I don't believe you!" Andrei cried, slamming his fist into a pillar. He turned around and marched toward them, gun held casually at his side. It looked huge in his slim fingers. Clint let out a small sound, though whether it was out of pain or worry, Kate couldn't tell. She looked up at Andrei. Time to cut the bullshit.

"Look, Barton here is in trouble. Real trouble, okay? So either he gets out of here now and lives to face your boss another day, or he dies and you're gonna be in really deep shit."

Andrei looked at her, then Clint, then back at her. His face was unreadable.

"I can't let you go," he said finally. "Yury was...very clear. I'll be back. You try anything, I break his fingers."

Kate felt her shoulders sag, real tears threatening to spill over. Andrei walked out of the room and disappeared down the hall. A minute later he came back, a small, white plastic box in his hand. He threw it on the floor next to Clint, and Kate could see the red cross on the top of it.

"Keep him alive," he said, and went back to his post by the door, though he kept it shut and locked it now. His phone rang, and Kate felt a stab of fear. Who knew what Yury had planned for them when he got there? She took a deep breath.

There were more important things that required her attention.

"K, Clint, your turn to put pressure on here for a minute," she said, pulling Clint's hands down from where they were resting against his head and pressing them against the wound. His face tightened, his brow furrowing.

"It hurts so much worse when I'm doing it," he muttered.

"You're doing great," Kate said distractedly. She was rifling through the meager contents of the first-aid kit with an increasing sinking feeling. She finally found a pair of gloves, sterile gauze, and some medical tape, and took them out of the box. "Okay, Barton, I'm gonna have to lift your shirt up," she said, pulling on the pair of blue latex gloves with an audible snap.

"The hell are you doing?" Clint muttered.

"What?" she asked. She had taken the edge of his shirt in her hands and she paused, waiting for him to explain.

"Coulda blown up those gloves as balloons," he said with half a grin.

She snorted. "You really are five years old," she said, pulling his shirt up and away from the wound. She tried not to react when she saw it; it was her first time seeing a bullet wound up close, and it was a mite unsettling. She tore her eyes away from it and opened the package of gauze, placing it carefully over the surprisingly little hole, then tore off four pieces of medical tape, pressing one down on each side of the gauze to secure it.

"How's it lookin', doc?" Clint asked, cracking a crooked smile.

"Like you're acting like a baby and you're gonna be just fine," Kate answered, though she thought she could see a bit of pink already leaking through the gauze.

"That's good, because…'m starting to get a bit chilly. You a bit chilly?" He tried to smile, but it was clear he knew what the answer was. And what it meant.

It was shock. Shock was bad, bad news.

"Hey, Andrei?" Kate asked, her voice thin with real emotion this time.

"The hell do you want now?"

"He needs a blanket.." She looked over at Clint, who was back to staring at the ceiling. "He's going into shock."

Andrei rolled his eyes, swearing under his breath in Russian as he went for the door, and in a few moments he threw two blankets into the room.

"Thank you," Kate said, but he'd already left the room. She took one blanket and folded it up, then tucked it under Clint's feet. The other blanket she draped over him. "There. How's that?"

"Like the shittiest B&B ever," Clint answered, and Kate responded with a short chuckle that was mostly nerves. He looked up at her, and there was something new in his eyes that she hadn't seen there before.

Fear.

Shit.

"Hey, you're gonna be okay, Clint. Okay? You're gonna be fine," She said softly, lacing her fingers into his. "You're gonna be just. Fine."

"You sound worried, Bishop," Clint breathed in what was barely more than a whisper.

"I am. There's no one on this earth that would take in that smelly, pizza-thieving dog of yours."

He narrowed his eyes. "You're...you're just saying that because he has one eye."

Kate frowned, wrinkling her nose. "No, I'm saying that because he's smelly and thieves pizza."

Clint didn't respond.

"Clint?" Kate asked, and she was met with a hollow groan.

"'t hurts," he gasped, and his eyes rolled, his lids drooping.

"No. No! Nonono, Clint, don't do that!" Kate cried, shaking Clint's hand in her own. His eyes fluttered open and he looked up at her uncertainly.

"Wha'd I do?" he slurred.

"You tried to take a nap on me, Hawkeye! You can't sleep right now. I need you." Kate could barely keep the quaver from her voice. A corner of Clint's mouth perked up a little.

"Y'...y'need me, huh?"

Kate sighed. "Yeah, Clint, I need you."

She looked down at her mentor, who looked back up at her, brows furrowed. She forced a smile. She needed to keep him awake.

"Hey, Clint, tell me a story will you?"

Clint let out a harsh breath that could have been a snort or a sigh. "What story?"

"How 'bout the story of how you got Lucky?" She'd heard it a million times, but it was one Clint loved to tell. She could handle listening to it again.

Clint managed a smirk that was just as mischievous as ever. "How I...how I got lucky? Not sure tha's appropriate. I gotta...gotta talk to HR?"

"Lucky the dog," Kate replied, rolling her eyes. "Sicko." She was pretty sure the Avengers didn't even have an HR.

Clint smiled again, and this time it was real, his face relaxing some. He closed his eyes. "Lucky. Y'know, it started with a...a man. In a tracksuit. More like...ten men really."

"Last time it was six," Kate pointed out.

"Oh, hush you. You'll spoil it. So this...this tracksuit mafia…"

She ran her fingers absently through his hair as he talked. There was no way she would be able to get him out on her own, and no way in hell she was going to leave him. All she could do was wait, and hope Tony or someone would come before it was too late.

xxx