A/N For those of you who are worried about Clint and have been waiting for him to wake up, this chapter is mostly Clint centric. Also, because poor Clint has been unconscious for so long he needs to be filled in on what's happened. So we have a bit of reap in this chapter. Next chapter we'll get back to Tony.

Chapter 9

As soon as the wheels touched the helicarrier, the medical teams rushed Tony and Clint off of the jet, the rest of the team following right behind.

They ran through the hallways, SHIELD agents leaping out of the way and looking on in shocked horror at the sight of the two men on the gurneys. Clint was still pale and unconscious and Tony looked more dead than alive, with a bag valve mask over his nose and mouth and one of the medics squeezing the bag to force air into the billionaire's faltering lungs.

The medics didn't waste any time getting to the medical facilities on board and hurriedly wheeled Tony and Clint inside. The rest of the team were forced to stop outside the doors by an orderly who told them that at the moment they would only be in the way and if they wanted to help their friends then they needed to wait outside. Basically they were told pretty much what they had expected to hear: wait.

Every single one of them wanted to break down the doors, which they weren't allowed to do. Or kill every last person who had been responsible for Clint's and Tony's conditions, which was something that wasn't possible for them to do. Or go to the gym and destroy everything they could get their hands on, which was something they weren't willing to do as it would mean leaving the medical wing.

So they got the happy pleasure of pacing, fidgeting, or internally seething/worrying as they waited for news on their friends and for the opportunity to fulfill their gym destruction scenario.

)()()(

Hassan made it to the helicarrier without being discovered and waited until he was sure the jet was empty before leaving his hiding place. He peeked out of the jet and saw all kinds of commotion on the deck. With that many people, there was no way he could even get off the jet without being seen, let alone get to Barton and Stark. He cursed and retreated back into the jet's compartment. He would just have to wait until nightfall, but it was no matter. If it meant finally getting to kill Tony Stark, then he would happily wait.

)()()(

He returned to consciousness slowly. The first sensation he was aware of was the overwhelming pounding in his head. A soft moan escaped his lips as the pounding in his head spiked. Moments later, voices began to filter into his awareness.

"He's waking up."

"It's about time."

"Clint?"

The voices were familiar but he couldn't place them.

"Clint? Open your eyes."

He recognized that voice. Natasha. He felt a hand touch his arm and he struggled to do as she had commanded. He pried open his eyes, clamping them shut again as the bright light assaulted his eyes. He tried again, this time more slowly. He cracked his eyelids, opening them wider once his eyes had adjusted to the light. He blinked a few times and forced his eyes to bring the blurry images around him into focus. He glanced around the room, recognizing it as belonging to the helicarrier medical facilities. Then he saw Natasha standing beside his bed, her hand resting on his arm and he gave her a small smile before he looked to the foot of his bed to see Steve and Coulson.

"What happened?" he croaked.

A cup of water suddenly appeared in front of him. Natasha held the cup to his lips as he drank thirstily.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Phil asked him.

Clint slowly sat up, gritting his teeth and clenching his eyes shut as the room tilted sickeningly. "We were fighting, there was an explosion. I turned in time to see a chunk of metal come flying at my face. Then nothing," he answered.

"So you don't remember any of your captivity?" Steve asked.

"Captivity?" Clint asked confused. He suddenly had a very bad feeling.

"I'll take that as a no," Phil said.

"How long have I been out?" Clint demanded.

"We're not sure, but if you don't remember any of your captivity, then it's been about eight and a half hours," Natasha said.

If he had still been drinking his water he would have spit it across the room.

"Eight hours?" he cried. "What- How-" He wasn't even sure what question to ask.

"We're not sure on all the details yet but, near as we can figure it, after you were knocked out you and Tony were captured by terrorists," Phil explained.

"Captured? How?" Clint asked. He couldn't believe Tony would allow them to be captured that easily.

"They used you as leverage to make Tony cooperate," Natasha said, causing Clint to pale slightly.

"They had him remove the suit and then we believe they loaded you two onto a chopper and took you to their hideout," Phil said, picking up the story again. "We're not real clear on the details after that but at some point within the next several hours Tony was tortured."

"What?" Clint cried. The pain in his head spiked again but he ignored it. "How bad?"

Steve knew Clint wouldn't want them to sugarcoat it so he told him everything.

"Pretty bad. Aside from severe dehydration, he has bruises, a broken rib, and two cracked ones from the beating he received. The doctors say he was lucky. Much more moving around and his broken rib could have punctured his lung. He has lashes on his back from the whipping and cuts on his chest from the knives. They've treated and wrapped all of those. He has some slight strain on his heart from the arc being removed and he had some fluid in his lungs from the water-boarding, which they have since removed. He has electrical burns on his chest and abdomen from the electric shock and second degree burns on his arms, boarder-line second, almost third, degree burns on his feet from walking in the hot sand for hours, and he has first degree burns on the palms of his hands, which we don't know the cause of. Those have all been treated and wrapped as well and he won't have to get skin graphs. He was struggling when we first got on the helicarrier but they were able to stabilize him once they got him here and miraculously he didn't need any surgery, just a lot of treatment and bandages. He's currently on a ventilator to take the strain off his body and he's still unconscious but the doctors say he should be all right in time," Steve said, having memorized everything the doctors had told them just a few hours previously.

Clint just stared at him for several long moments trying to get his brain to absorb and accept the information. Looking and feeling a bit sick, Clint finally managed a coherent thought again.

"How are you so sure of the specifics?"

"Uh…" Steve said rubbing the back of his neck. "There was a video."

Clint didn't say anything in response to that. After a few seconds Phil continued the explanation.

"There were two videos. The first came about an hour and a half after you were taken and the second was about two hours after that."

"That doesn't add up to eight hours," Clint said.

"We searched where you were taken and the surrounding area for six hours after you were taken before we finally got a lead," Phil said.

"Six hours?" Clint exclaimed. "What took you so long to find us?"

"Actually, if it hadn't been for our sensors picking up the explosion that Tony caused we would still be in the dark as to your whereabouts," Steve said.

"Tony caused an explosion?" Clint said, trying to keep up with everything.

"Well, we think it was Tony," Natasha said. "We picked up an explosion about an hour from where you were taken. When we got there, we found a destroyed bunker. We're pretty sure it was where you were being kept and near as we can figure, Tony somehow managed to escape and set the place to blow before getting you both out."

"Okay so six hours in captivity and an hour for you to get to the bunker. I'm still not coming up with over eight hours," Clint said, starting to get frustrated with reluctant explanations, and the nail-in-the-head headache wasn't helping his patience any.

"When we got to the bunker, there was no sign of you two. We searched the bunker before determining, or rather hoping, that you two had escaped. At that time, we didn't know that you were still unconscious. We thought that you two had gotten out of there and had probably started walking in search of help or civilization. It wasn't until after organizing aerial search teams to start scanning the desert for you, and searching for almost an hour, that we found Tony stumbling through the desert half-dragging you behind him," Phil said.

"So, basically, I owe Tony my life several times over," Clint said, "seeing as he did everything, including getting us both out of there after being tortured while I was unconscious and completely useless."

"Don't blame yourself. You would have done the same for him had your roles been reversed. And you couldn't help being unconscious" Steve said.

"Yeah I guess," Clint murmured mechanically, before falling silent in introspection.

He had been unconscious for over eight hours (which still didn't add up but he was done trying to figure that out. He just assumed that after the eight hours that had so far been accounted for he had simply been unconscious for the remaining thirty, or so, minutes while on board the helicarrier). During six of those initial eight hours, he had been in captivity, and his best friend had been tortured and he had never been aware of any of it. The pounding in Clint's head intensified as he tried to process it all, but he did his best to ignore it. His thoughts were interrupted by a doctor coming in to examine him now that he was awake.

"So, am I going to make it?" he asked with a smirk as he rubbed his forehead.

"We ran several scans of your head and brain once you were back on board and we didn't find any swelling of the brain or skull fractures," the doctor explained, "but what is concerning is that you were unconscious for so long. Are you sure you don't remember anything at all?"

Clint concentrated on the empty void of memory that was the time between his head injury and waking up a few minutes before. His head pounded at the strain but he ignored it as a murky almost dreamlike memory floated to the surface.

"I think-" he started, wincing slightly at his headache.

"What?" Natasha encouraged.

"I'm not sure if it was real or not, but I seem to remember distantly hearing Tony's voice calling my name and I think I remember feeling someone tapping me on my face but I'm not sure," Clint said.

"That's good. It sounds like you were probably at least semi conscious at some point which means your brain was at least trying to return to consciousness. To go that long without consciousness is usually an indicator of something being very wrong, but in your case it could just be that your brain needed that long to fully return to consciousness. We will need to run more tests to make sure there isn't something more severe going on than a bad blow to the head but the fact that you are awake and coherent is a good sign," the doctor said, giving Clint a reassuring smile.

Clint mumbled a 'thanks' absently as he rubbed his forehead again.

"Are you in pain, Agent Barton?" the doctor asked in concern.

"Just a headache. No big deal," Clint said, brushing off the concern.

"I'll have a nurse bring you something for it."

Clint nodded his thanks as the doctor left to order more scans.

"I want to see it," Clint said suddenly, once the doctor was gone.

"See what?" Natasha asked.

"The videos. I want to see them."

The three others shared a glance before Steve spoke.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I need to know," was Clint's reply. The others understood.

"I'll set it up," Phil agreed, fully intending to put it off for as long as possible.

"Where's Bruce and Thor?" Clint asked, finally taking notice of his friends' absence.

"Bruce is with Tony," Natasha answered. "We've all been alternating between your rooms since we were allowed to see you. That's also where Thor is. He just left a few minutes ago to check on Bruce."

"Why aren't Tony and I in the same room?" Clint asked. "It would be easier."

"While you were unconscious, they took periodic scans of your brain to be sure there was no swelling. Tony is in the ICU on the deck above us. The CT scanner is on this deck so having you here is apparently easier on everybody. Except us, of course," Natasha answered.

"We're hoping now that you're awake they'll move you at least to Tony's deck if not his room," Phil said.

"And while you get that sorted out, I can watch those videos," Clint said with a pointed look, knowing full well that Phil had every intention of stalling.

Phil just nodded resignedly and left the room.

)()()(

An hour later, Clint was almost finished watching the videos and feeling sicker by the minute. He was really beginning to regret having eaten.

After Phil left to get the videos, Clint's doctor had returned and Clint was taken to have another CT scan, just to be safe. Clint had gone for the scan and everything had looked all right but because he had been unconscious so long they definitely wanted to keep him for observation.

Now Clint sat on the bed, his eyes fixed on the video, as his stomach churned. Clint was no stranger to torture. It pretty much came with the territory. But to watch one of his best friends being tortured mercilessly, was a nightmare. If the men who had done that weren't already dead, then there would have been arrows with their names on them.

Clint finished watching Tony get electrocuted and dragged from the room. The video ended, leaving Clint feeling numb and the room completely silent. He just stared at the blank screen, feeling his stomach churn again. He swallowed trying to calm his stomach and took in a deep breath.

"Clint?" Natasha said quietly.

Clint just shook his head. He didn't want to talk. He couldn't talk. Emotions rolled through him, anger and guilt fighting for supremacy. He was rotating between hating the terrorists, blaming himself, and feeling grateful to Tony for saving his life, when the doctor from earlier walked in.

"Good news, Agent Barton, you are to be moved to Mister Stark's room," the doctor said.

A quiet 'thanks' was all Clint was able to manage.

The doctor sent a questioning look at Natasha and she shook her head at him. The doctor decided not to ask any questions and ten minutes later, Clint was being settled in Tony's room. The rest of his team was there but one look at Clint's face and they gave him some space to sort through his emotions.

"How is he?" Clint finally asked, breaking the silence that had settled over the room.

"He's improved and is off the ventilator. He should be waking up soon," Bruce replied.

"Those other burns. Where did he get those? They weren't on the tapes," Clint asked, referring to the heavily bandaged burns on Tony's arms and feet.

"He got them from walking in the desert sun for two hours," Bruce answered.

"Why didn't I get burned?" Clint asked.

There was a long pause as the team shared a look.

"What?" Clint asked.

Bruce stepped closer to Clint and sighed before breaking the news.

"You didn't get burned because Tony put his shirt and shoes on you."

Clint gritted his teeth and took a deep breath, a tidal wave of guilt crashing through him.

"What happened to my boots?" he asked.

"We don't know," Bruce said.

"What happened to his hands?"

"We don't know that either."

"What possessed him to put his shoes on me? I wasn't the one walking," Clint asked in confusion. "That's just kind of dumb."

"Well, when we found you, Tony was pretty out of it. He probably wasn't thinking real logically," Bruce said.

They all fell silent again and the silence lingered for several minutes, until it was broken by the sound of a low moan.

Another cliffie, I know. I'm sorry, and yet I'm not sorry at all. After all, what would keep you guys coming back for more if I left every chapter nice and wrapped up? :)