The five worn and exhausted Avengers sat quietly around the rickety wooden table; silence gripped the remote cabin that Natasha had directed Stark to fly to. The last three days had been extraordinarily difficult on the team; so far the council hadn't found their safe haven but they knew it was a matter of time before they would have to move again, they just prayed it wouldn't be too soon.

Their main goal upon arrival was to see to their teammate and fortify the cabin. The fortifications had gone well, Clint's condition wasn't as fortunate. They had managed to keep him alive, but his vitals still hadn't stabilized over the last few days and he had yet to wake up. Bruce was at a loss to explain what was happening; the archer should have regained consciousness when the second drug wore off, but so far nothing. He wasn't out of the woods yet, and being forced to run right now may finish what the council had started.

Pepper walked out of the back bedroom and poured herself a glass of water; all eyes sought her out and she shook her head softly. Tony had retrieved his CEO yesterday, deciding that she was just as safe with them as she would be in any place Tony thought to hide her.

Rogers clinched his fists at the disappointing news and abruptly stood up. The chair skidding across the floor at his sudden movements and all eyes turned to him. "I'm going to do a perimeter check," he muttered, quickly making his escape to the less depressing world outside.

"I'll go sit with him for a while," offered Banner, rubbing some of the tiredness from his face. The team were sitting with their ailing friend in shifts leaving the other Avengers to take turns standing guard and trying to get some much needed shuteye.

"Yeah," muttered Stark, as he got up from the table to continue flipping through the files from the trial. He knew there was nothing there that could be of any use, he knew that the fifty-sixth time he read them; but, having the need to do something, he picked them up and began reading for the fifty-seventh time.

Sensing that the women were going to exchange words, Thor grabbed his hammer and went to seek out Rogers. Alone at the table, Pepper sat in the vacant chair beside the Black Widow. Trying desperately for reassurance she offered, "He's going to be alright Natasha."

The red head shook her head. "He hasn't been alright for a long time. Bruce doesn't know why he won't wake up and with everything else..." It was hard and getting harder to face each moment. Her world had been turned upside down for so long now, and there was still no end in sight. She needed her partner to reassure her and tell her everything was going to be ok, but he wasn't there and hadn't been for a long time.

Accompanying the growing resentment Natasha felt building towards Clint, was the guilt that she in turn hadn't been there for him like she knew he needed. All of her energy had been going into over compensating for the fact that Barton had been shutting down. She'd been avoiding getting him to open up and deal with everything because getting him to deal with it meant that she would have to take a good long look at the events that had led them to this point, and she wasn't sure she was ready to deal with them either.

She was glad that there was something else to focus on right after her fight with Clint on the helicarrier; in fact it took several days for the possibilities to actually sink in. The coulda, shoulda, woulda game started playing in her head with frightening results; and not feeling up to dealing with the fallout, she erased the incident from her mind and refused to acknowledge anything that would remind her of those moments when Clint's hands were dangerously close to pressing that knife against her throat or that gleam in his too blue eyes that promised all the evil things Loki had spoken of. She had tactfully ignored talking about it when Barton so desperately needed to.

"He'll wake up and when he does this team will come together and find a way to fix this mess."

"I think I'm just going to go lay down; I have the next watch." Romanoff made it to the door of the second bed room pausing for a moment to look back at Pepper. "I hope you're right," she sighed before slipping into the darkness.

"I hope I am too."

It wasn't hard for Thor to track down the Captain; if the council did have men in the forest looking for them, the sheer sound of Rogers' anger would direct them straight to the cabin door. A loud snap followed by several clunks led the thunder god to the vastly growing wood pile not far from their accommodations. He watched for a few moments as Steve let out a growl and dropped the axe down with such force that the log shattered into five pieces. Without pause the Captain chucked the smaller pieces onto the wood pile and grabbed another large piece and placed it on the chopping block.

"You have an impressive swing," said Thor.

"Yeah? Well I guess you'd know," replied Steve as he grabbed another block of wood.

"Yes, I would. I also know what troubles you my friend."

Rogers wiped the sweat from his brow. "What's that?"

"You feel you have lost your place again. As a man out of time, you have lost all those you held dear. Now in the face of our current battle, you may well lose those you care for again."

"And what would you know about it?" snapped Captain America. He hadn't meant to snarl at Thor, but his frustration was building and there didn't seem to be an appropriate release in sight.

"I myself was once exiled from my home."

"And how did that work out for you?"

"It was indeed troubling at first, but I did meet the fair maiden Jane and her companions; I gained valuable insight which allowed me to realize my true destiny and become the man you see before you. The greatest of my lessons learned was that misguardians are capable of so many things and should not be underestimated."

Steve paused for a moment to really listen to Thor's words. "Our friends will rise to the challenge and we will be victorious. This fight is not solely on your shoulders my friend; you must have faith that they can do this."

Turning to place the axe back into the chopping block, Steve had missed the Asguardian's silent departure. For a man from another planet he was oddly insightful; perhaps he didn't give the rest of the Avengers enough credit to stand on their own feet and hold their own in battle. Maybe they didn't need Captain America to save them, but to trust them to be able to stand alongside him.

He'd found a new place to belong; but assuming that it would be lost, was admitting that Steve didn't feel the team was up to the challenge. Maybe being the team leader meant having faith that they could stand on their own and thus let him focus on his part of the mission, instead of worrying about friends that had proven they were more than capable of facing any challenge. They all had special talents and didn't need Captain America to babysit them rather to fight with them; they would get through this and they would be victorious.

The frenzy of alarms in the next room woke the team from their slumber. In record time they stumbled through the dark and into Barton's room, to find Bruce manually pumping air into the archer's lungs. He had been breathing on his own for the last few days but was apparently now taking a giant medical step back.

"Is he flatlining again? Cause he only gets to do that once and then he's used his turn," said Stark as he watched Banner dig through one of the medical bags with one hand.

"His respiratory system keeps trying to shut down," corrected Bruce.

"That's equally as horrifying."

"Do you know why?" asked Steve as he took over bagging for Banner, when the doctor waved him over to the bed.

"It shouldn't be happening. I flushed the drugs out of his system, and anything they would have given him during his medical eval. would be out of his system before the trial."

Steve watched Bruce as he began pulling equipment out of the medical cases. "Can you figure it out?"

"I'm a physicist with self taught medical knowledge. He needs a real doctor." There was genuine fear in the doctor's eyes that he just might not be enough to help their teammate.

"Well right now you're all he's got." Rogers locked eyes with Banner and in his most reassuring voice reminded, "you can do this."

Bruce ran his hand through his hair and adjusted his glasses. "We're going to have to hook him back up to the portable ventilator. Tony, I'm going to need you to wire something together to keep the batteries charged; it wasn't designed to be used long term."

"On it," replied Stark as he left to begin his task.

Natasha moved in to help Banner start setting up the equipment and begin re-intubating Barton.

It was early in the morning, or late at night depending on one's point of view, when Clint started to stir. He had managed to start breathing on his own again the day before. Natasha had taken the seat by his bed, having relieved Tony who had taken over for Banner hours before. The slight hand flinch was so small that if she hadn't been so focused on the man in the bed she would have missed it; reaching over she grabbed a hold of his hand and squeezed it in reassurance. "Clint can you hear me?"

A small tap of his ring finger and muffled moan was his only response. Biting her lip in anticipation she squeezed his hand harder. "Come on, open your eyes."

His head twitched to the right and his eyes started to move under closed lids. Clint's breathing had picked up slightly, and Natasha was torn between fetching Bruce and staying to be Barton's tenuous grip with the world.

He was fighting his way back to them, but it was a long and arduous battle. Romanoff's words of encouragement floated in the distance of the dark storm that was plaguing his efforts. Clint remembered being escorted to the infirmary and strapped down; then the feel of the warm and oddly comforting grip of the chemicals they were pushing through his veins. Surely fate wouldn't be so cruel as to conjure such a picture of safety and love as Natasha by his side, only to jerk it away as they administered the final injection? Not wanting to lose the comforting sensation of his hand tightly grasped in hers to be replaced by the cold and frigid scene of reality, he kept his eyes tightly closed.

"Come on Clint, you can do it; come back to us."

There was a desperate quality to her voice that clawed at his skin; he couldn't remember the last time he had heard her sound so vulnerable. Whatever was troubling her might be worth the tremendous effort to open his eyes.

Ever so slowly a slit of grey replaced his clenched eyelids and Natasha let out a sigh of relief. "Hey," she whispered.

Barton licked his dry lips and swallowed in an effort to sooth his aching throat. His mind caught up to the situation as he realized that at some point he must have been intubated, which meant that the team had rescued him. "wh-what happened?"

Natasha grabbed the pitcher of water from the nightstand and poured him a glass. She lifted his head gently and tipped the water forward. He took a small sip, then pushed the glass away. "Tony escaped and came back to get us; we broke into the base and rescued you before they could kill you. We managed to get away and take refuge here in the mountains."

He didn't need her to add that they were probably being hunted like dogs while he laid there. "You shouldn't have done it."

"You almost died Clint. What did you expect me to do, just sit there and let it happen? You can't tell me you wouldn't have done the same."

If the situation had been reversed he knew he would have moved heaven and Earth to save her, but it would have been different. She was worthy of being saved.

She watched the flicker of doubt reclaim the soul of a man that once used to exude quiet confidence. She wanted to slap him upside the head and knock some sense into her friend, but instead she pushed her frustration down. "You need to get some rest." Natasha didn't have to work hard to persuade him as his eyelids quickly began to droop.