8! Yay! Gonna try finish this by the end of the week if my schedule allows me to!
Thanks for the reviews and the favs and the follows and the sacrifices to the underworld!
Enjoy! :) And review so I know I'm ok!
Reviewers!
Odd's Little Girl; I'd love to say I'm sorry, but I'm really not! :D I'm evil like that, that's why I'm doing this to you! Honestly, I didn't mean to leave it there, but I thought it flowed better and liked it and yeah! I'm glad you're enjoying it and thank you for letting me know you like my work :) Means alot!
Niom Lamboise; Great minds think alike, my dear! ;) All in this chapter! Glad you liked the last one :)
Disclaimer;
Tara; We good, Pietro?
Pietro; ... *Ignoring*
Tara; ...*Holds up a Clint plushie* ...?
Pietro; O.O *Grabs and snuggles!* Ok! We're good! Tara doesn't own us! Just like she doesn't own this Clint plushie anymore!
"Natasha's out."
Pietro glanced up to his sister at her words, seeing her holding a small smile as well as a cup of coffee towards him. He took the steaming cup with a nod of thanks before looking back to the point on the floor he found so interesting the past few hours.
She let him cry himself to near exhaustion in that bathroom, and he was never as thankful to have a sister as he was in that moment. She didn't offer any soothing words, didn't try convince him that he should stop crying and be strong, others probably would have but Wanda just held him close and let him get all emotions that needed to break out of his system do just that. When he calmed enough, she actually made him feel more like a child by helping him into the set of scrubs the doctor had given him.
Then they went to the family room, and he was in the same seat, staring at the same spot, refusing to move, for the past six hours. It has to be the longest he's ever stayed still, the longest he's ever gone with his ass in a chair. But he didn't feel like moving. If he moved, he could miss some information. If he left, then maybe something would happen and he wouldn't be here to hear about it or give an opinion. More than anything, the one thing he wasn't about to admit to anyone if they asked, especially since the other two excuses seemed viable enough, he could feel that if he moved he'd just collapse in a ball on the floor and wouldn't move.
Three hours ago, all the tests on Romanoff were done and they were waiting to bring her into theatre to fix her arm. She wouldn't be happy when she woke up, even Pietro knew that, but it was a bad break and needed some bars to help it heal. An hour ago, they got word that Tony, Steve, Sam and Bruce would only be another two hours at most. Knowing the billionaire though, he'd be speeding his way here, so Steve's guess of two hours might be cut in half and they could walk in the door any second.
That was all the information they were given since they got here.
That's it.
Notice something missing?
Every single time a doctor passed, every time a nurse came in to ask if they want anything, he felt like grabbing them and demanding answers. But there's nothing he can do. Over six hours and there hasn't been a single word uttered about Clint. Nothing on his condition, nothing on if he's alive or not, not even a guess at if he's in surgery or not. They probably wouldn't tell him if he asked anyway. They weren't family, even if they were as close as the archer has besides Natasha.
"They moved her to a room and say we can see her when she wakes up." Wanda continued softly, taking her place in the chair beside her brother then with her own cup of coffee.
He gave a slight nod to let her know that he heard what she said, but didn't offer anything beyond that. He had barely uttered a word since they got here, and he could feel the worry radiating off his sister, but he couldn't find any words to say.
He was worried about Natasha, of course he was. But they were told enough about her. Bad concussion, stitches to the gash on her head, fractured arm that needed surgery, a sprained ankle that shouldn't bother her too much after a bit of icing and rest. Her vitals were fine, blood pressure fine, blah blah blah.
All that was going through his mind while the doctor was telling them all this was a yelling voice begging the medical professional to just tell them anything about Clint. The littlest thing. How much blood did he need? If they were the same type, he'd willingly give it. Was his leg ok? Did that need surgery? How about all the gashes? Were there any other broken bones? Did they check for drugs in his system? Pietro knew the list off by heart, the list of all the drugs that Hydra used on it's captives and what they were used for, because he was trained up on interrogation and, unfortunately, did it once or twice before.
But there was nothing. Not even the tiniest of comments.
He was so pale on that table though. So lifeless. He had never seen the archer looking so frail and fragile, it was such a difference from the strong and healthy Clint who would kick his ass into submission each day in training. In Pietro's mind, there was no way he survived. No way anyone could survive something like that. In Pietro's mind, the doctors and nurses were just trying to find the best way and draw straws to see who the unlucky bastard was who would tell the speedster that his love was no longer with them, that he didn't survive. Because he didn't. He couldn't. There was no way.
"They would have told us if something bad happened.." Wanda whispered after a while, her hand rubbing small circles on his back while he got lost in his thoughts. Now that he was out of them, he could feel her in his brain, and he shook her out of it as soon as he realised. He was the only one who could do that, who could push his sisters powers out, and neither of them knew how.
"They should tell us if something good happened too.." He whispered back, not to match her tone or anything, but because he seriously didn't trust his voice any higher than that. "Just tell us if he survived.. Then I can rest.."
"You aren't going to rest until he is back to one hundred percent, and you know it." Wanda said through a slight laugh, and Pietro found himself giving a shy smile.
She knew him too well sometimes.
"Well, he looked after me." He shrugged, taking a sip of his now cooled coffee. How long was he spaced out?
"And you know he won't leave you until you repay that." She said softly, and he could hear the smile in her voice.
That is honestly the most true thing to come out of her mouth today! Clint is stubborn like that. He was going to play the 'Well, when you were hurt I did it for you!' card so much over the next while!
He looked to the open door when he heard some raised voices, noticing from the corner of his eyes that his sister was doing the same.
"Listen here, you damn paddy!" Pietro heard, and he brought one hand up to face palm. Stark wasn't happy then! "They're our friends! We're more than family! So you tell me where they are right now or I swear!"
Wanda was more amused than ashamed if her laughs were anything to go by. He let his hand drop to his lap as he watched his sister cross the room and poke her head out the door.
"Calm down and get in here, Stark." She called with an amused smile, whatever insult Stark was about to throw died off and in a second he was by the door.
Steve, Sam and Bruce were behind him, and they all followed Wanda into the room.
"What's the latest?" Tony asked when he was barely a step in the door, no pleasantries exchanged with the group.
Pietro frowned at the billionaire and looked back to the coffee in his hand, feeling a hand running through his hair a moment later as Wanda took her seat once again.
He wished he knew the latest to tell them, but he didn't even know the basics. He let Wanda fill them in, because she knew more, and she'd be the one out of the two of them to remain calm throughout explaining.
Clint was only brought to the interrogation 3 the day before. That's what Natasha said.
They were one day out of keeping him from going through that hell.
They were one day too late.
Why was that thought only crossing his mind now?
He had been begging the people in the room with him now for three days to go get them. He was telling them for three days that something was wrong, that something in their mission had gone wrong. Had they have listened to him, had they have agreed to help him, then they'd be back at the tower right now sipping on some beer and he wouldn't be afraid that Clint was dead right now.
"Bruce, you have to get in there." He heard Tony say, and that had his head snapping up. If they could get Banner in there, then they could get to know what state Barton was in and he could stop worrying.
He looked to Bruce, who just had a frown set on his face. His arms were folded across his chest and he was rubbing the top of his nose, a pose he's seen the doctor in when thinking something through in the lab that had his brain a little stumped.
"I keep telling you guys, I'm not a medical doctor." Bruce eventually sighed, shaking his head at the plan.
"But you're the teams physician." Tony said with a slight smirk, taking out his phone then to work away at something. "And it will now say on both of their records that you're their doctor so they legally have to let you in!"
"Can he do that?" Steve asked with an eyebrow raised, his question directed to Sam.
"No, but when has that stopped him from breaking the rules before?" Sam laughed, the only one of the new comers to be sitting down.
"Hey, when our team is in danger, we have to help somehow!" Stark grinned, and Pietro could feel the laugh bubble in his chest.
He couldn't stop it from escaping. It came out as a quiet chuckle before turning to a full on humourless boom. He has to help? Where was that mentality three days ago!
"Something wrong, junior?" Stark asked with an eyebrow raised. Pietro realised that all eyes were on him, but he was just struggling to calm down from his laughs.
"Pietro.." Wanda said by his side, her voice holding a warning tone to it. She knew he was about to snap, even without using any connection they had.
"Everything's wrong!" Pietro yelled as he stood, finally stopped in his laughing. He glared at the shocked looking billionaire. "You can go fuck yourself if you think you can just walk in here now and act like you care!"
"Watch your tone." Stark said through clenched teeth, never one for backing down so he simply squared up to the younger man. "We care alot more than you think."
"Is that why you sat on your asses while my sister and I fought to save them?" Pietro said lowly, not backing down from the billionaire, though the reminder that the rest of the team did nothing to help the pair currently being tended to seemed to be enough to make Tony falter a little. "Because you care so damn much. You care so much about them that when someone raised a genuine concern for their safety you just sat back and laughed it off."
"Look, kid, we didn't know things went to shit.." Tony said quietly. A look passed his face that Pietro's never seen on him before. He's seen it on Clint a few times during his recovery, and he placed it on the archer as the look he got when he thought about Pietro taking the bullets for him.
It was regret.
"We would've been right by your sides if we did." Steve piped up, stepping up to try separate the pair currently butting heads. "But they never usually contact. It wasn't enough of a reason for us to go bursting in."
"I'm sorry." Tony said quietly, looking Pietro square in the eye. It shocked the speedster to hear it. As far as he was aware, Tony never apologised to anyone. "I should have listened, I should have been there for my team. Trust me when I say this is gonna haunt me for a while to come. But we trusted the two of them to look after themselves."
"Yeah, look how well that worked." Pietro sighed, feeling the fight leaving him. He ignored Wanda's hand on his shoulder and just walked towards the door. He needed to make sure they knew how much they fucked up when they ignored him, needed them to know how close they were to making sure Clint wasn't fighting for his life right now. "He was only taken yesterday. If you had of listened to me, he would have been fine, and we would be home right now."
He didn't give anyone the chance to reply, he just left the room and walked down the hall.
He didn't know if she was awake yet, or if they'd let him in, but he needed to go see Natasha.
He needed to take his mind off Clint.
She was always the one Barton went to when he was upset or annoyed or any negative feeling really. If she could help Clint, then he was sure she could help him.
"Was hoping to wake to a different face.."
"Sorry." Pietro chuckled, sitting back down after she finished drinking some of the water from the cup on her bedside table.
When he got to her room, Natasha wasn't awake. But he sat anyway, watching and waiting for any signs that she'd be fine. There weren't any machines to her, just an iv going into her hand, so that settled his mind enough, knowing she was fine enough not be completely monitored. She was lying at an angle so her heavily plastered arm could rest comfortably on some pillows. The gash on her forehead was covered in a thick bandage and he could see the start of some bruises on her jaw forming.
He sat there for two hours. Nurses did come in and out, but they just seemed to ignore the fact that he was here before the time they said he was allowed to be. He'd like to say it was because they were nice and just wanted to leave him with his friend, but it was more than likely because of some threats from Tony Stark to leave him to it. He did hear the billionaire's voice outside a little after he came in.
When she finally woke, he was ready for it. He assumed her reaction would be the same to Clint's when he'd have a nightmare, and sure enough, she sat bolt upright and swung out with her good arm. He had just enough sense in his distracted mind to hold her down a little to stop her hurting herself more while simultaneously calling in a nurse. A bit of calming down, a bit of pain killers, and a bit of water later, and she was now sitting back comfortably with Pietro sitting at her bedside. Her eyes were still a little glassy, but she was just out of surgery so he guessed they would be for a while.
"I suppose I can forgive him this one time." She said with a slight smile, and Pietro nodded with an amused smile of his own. He felt a little awkward sitting there, especially now knowing this was where Clint would normally be. His twiddling thumbs probably gave that away because Natasha would never normally try spark up a conversation.
Then again, the next question told him that she was just trying to get information.
"How is the idiot..?"
Pietro sighed and ran a shaky hand through his hair. He spent the past two hours thinking of Natasha, watching her chest rise and fall with each breath, counting the scars on her arm that he really wanted to know the story to, making sure the room wasn't too hot or too cold for her. He was thinking of her so he wouldn't think of Clint. But now, he had to, and it just brought everything back to him.
"None of us know.." He whispered with a shake of his head, watching the sheets instead of looking at Natasha. "Been here for, what, 9 hours or so. And they refuse to tell us a thing."
"You'll get used to it." She replied, and when he looked up he confirmed his suspicions by seeing her with a smile. She was just told they had no idea if her partner was alive or dead and she was smiling. "They never tell you a thing until they're all clear or dead."
He watched her with an eyebrow raised, not really knowing if he wanted to know or not how she figured that out. But she could read him just as well as Wanda could, it would seem, because she shrugged with a grin.
"We find ourselves here alot. I guess you were only told about me after all the tests and when I was already in surgery. Same'll be done when everything's done with Clint."
"He was in such a bad shape.." Pietro said through a sigh, sinking down in his chair and rubbing a hand over his face. "If we got there sooner, if I just dragged the team out, I could have stopped this."
"It's our fault." Natasha said softly, but Pietro kept a hand over his eyes so he wouldn't have to look at her. "Don't blame yourself. And definitely don't blame the others."
That had him looking at her, his eyes slightly wide. She was still drugged up, just awake after surgery, in who knows what amount of pain, and still she could read him so easily.
"We usually pull this plan. It's a simple one. We get captured, get wailed on a little bit, let them think they have us right where they want us. Then we talk, but we don't tell them what they want to hear. We work around it, by asking them questions, by making them spill and have them thinking they're getting information when really they're giving it. We're usually fine. We were about to break out. I was less than a half hour away from it, and from going to get him out. Our plan messed up. It was our fault, not theirs, and not yours."
"But if we got there sooner.." He started, but she cut him off with a shake of the head.
"I'd still have a broken arm, he'd still be cut to pieces with broken ribs and a broken leg."
Well, at least now he knew he had some broken ribs too!
"So, he was like that when he was taken down..?" He asked quietly, and she nodded slightly in response. He should have known that. They never hurt anyone down in experimentation, so there was no way those injuries were inflicted on him outside of that little cell. The knowledge that, even if they got there sooner, there was no way they could help lifted such a huge weight off his shoulders.
"Pretty much." Natasha nodded, her eyes slipping closed as her head lolled a little to the side. "He's an idiot.. He was in worse shape and he still told them to take him instead of me.."
Pietro smiled a little to himself and looked to the window. Day was just breaking now, and it made the room a little warmer.
"As soon as you can.. Go sit with him.." She whispered after a minute or two of silence. She was just about asleep, and Pietro stayed quiet to let her rest. "He'll need someone there.. I need someone there with him.."
"I plan to be there as soon as they let me." He whispered with the slightest of smiles, knowing she wouldn't fall to sleep without knowing he agreed to look after the archer.
It was moments like these when he wondered what kind of relationship the duo held. They were partners, and held that bond. He guessed that having each others backs so much, looking after each other in the field the way they did, created a bond that was probably on par with the one he shared with Wanda. But they flirted, they joked around, they shared looks that none of the other team members could decipher. They literally threw themselves into deaths hands without a second thought to save the other.
But Natasha was one of the ones who told Pietro to go for it. She was the one joking around about Clint hitting on others in a bar and didn't seem fazed by it. The relationship was stronger than a couple, stronger than partners. He would even go out on a limb and say it was stronger than the one he held with his sister. It made him smiled despite everything that was going on. He knew Clint didn't really have a family. He heard him talk about a brother every now and again, heard him call a name through nightmares. He didn't know details, but it filled his heart with some happiness knowing that he had someone as close to him as he did Natasha. That was family enough.
He jumped a little when he felt a hand on his shoulder. His eyes were closed, so he must have slipped into a bit of a sleep. When he looked around he saw his sister standing there with a smile on her face.
"Hey." He said in a whisper, not wanting to wake the sleeping assassin by his side.
"Clint's doing fine." She whispered back, grinning when he pretty much jumped from his seat and dragged her from the room. She didn't waste any time telling him that because she just knew that it was what he was waiting for.
"What did they say?" He asked quickly, his hands gripping her shoulders as if he was afraid this was a dream.
"He is in bad shape." She said with a sad smile, her hand reaching up to pat his. "But they got him stable and he should be fine."
"Injuries?" He asked with a frown, not knowing if he wanted to hear them, but he probably should.
"He lost alot of blood, that was the main worry." She replied after a moment of thinking. "Leg was broken but did not need surgery like Natasha's arm did. He broke some ribs, has a concussion, alot of bruising."
"And.." He trailed off before he could even start his next question, but Wanda would know what he was getting at.
"They tested his blood." She whispered with a shake of her head. "They couldn't find any drug traces. It must have left his system already, you know how quick they are designed to leave so they won't get caught."
He sighed and nodded, letting his hands leave her shoulders to run through his hair. Clint was fine, he'd make it through this!
"Room 37." Wanda said with an amused smile, and that was probably the one and only time he was ok with her reading his thoughts.
He grinned and kissed her cheek before running off to the room in question, probably scaring alot of people as he zoomed past. But he'd gone long enough without seeing Clint, and he literally couldn't wait a second more than necessary!
He took a moment by the door to take a breath, his shoulders relaxing as all the worry drained from his system.
Carefully, he pushed the door open. His heart sank at what met him though.
Unlike Natasha, there were a fair few wire coming and going.
A heart monitor beeped softly, falling into a kind of rhythm with the rise and fall of the archers chest. He was hooked up to three different iv's, Pietro guessed one was for fluids and the other two were a nice mix of pain killers that were keeping him completely numb. An oxygen mask covered his all too pale face, helping him with the struggle of breathing. He was lying flat on his back, a blanket covering the bottom half of his body, so Pietro could clearly see the mixture of bandages covering his torso. They ran all the way from his neck down, making him look more like a mummy than an actual person. His hands were wrapped up too, and something knotted once more in Pietro's stomach. He hoped it wasn't a break, because he really didn't want to see the look on Clint's face if something messed with his shooting. Though he couldn't see it properly, the lump under the cover told Pietro that the leg that he was worried about was freshly casted up.
He looked like hell.
That was the simple way to explain it!
Pietro silently crossed the room, making it to the bedside without once taking his eyes off Clint's unnaturally peaceful face. He can't remember a time he saw the archer looking so at ease, besides the black eyes and odd bruises gracing his features. It broke his heart a little more knowing that the only time Clint could be fully at peace was when he was doped up to the nines on painkillers and unconscious to the world.
He couldn't find the words to say. Nothing to sprang to mind. Well, actually, a million an one things sprang to mind but it didn't seem to be the time or place.
'You complete fucking idiot Clint Barton!'
'Wake up now so we can go home and I can mind your sorry ass!'
'Natasha's going to kill you then I'm bringing you back to life to kill you myself!'
They all seemed a little to harsh considering the archer nearly died.
He couldn't think that. Each time that thought crossed his mind, his heart stopped and he had to choke down a lump in his throat.
He carefully brushed a few strands of hair off Clint's forehead before leaning down to place a soft kiss on his warm skin. He was too warm, yet too pale. It didn't fill Pietro with much hope at him getting out of a hospital bed anytime soon.
"You'll be out of it tomorrow if they stories I hear are true." He whispered with a slight smile, pulling up a chair to sit by Clint's side. He reached over and took the archers hand in his own, frowning a little when there was no squeeze back. It was just limp.
"You have to wake up soon. Forgetting what your eyes look like." He whispered, again, because he didn't trust his voice any higher. He kept his sights trained on the archers closed eye lids, waiting for any kind of movement.
"Just you and me, old man. So don't worry about anyone else annoying you."
Nothing. He might be here a while.
But that was fine, he didn't mind as long as he could hold Clint's hand.
"Just you and me.."
He stayed there all day. Not one soul could move him from that chair. No doctor, no Avenger, not even Wanda herself. He was never more thankful for not needing to eat like a normal person than he was at that moment, because there was no way he was leaving Clint's side, even for food.
He couldn't.
He wanted to be there when he woke up, he wanted to let Clint know that everything was ok, that he was safe, that he had nothing to worry about. He wanted to make sure the archer rested, to make sure he was ok when doctors came in, wanted to make sure he wasn't scared and alone.
And he couldn't do any of that if he was down having dinner.
He stayed the whole day, watching the beams of sunlight that were drifting into the room trace their way along Clint's unconscious form.
He had an odd heart beat. Pietro was convinced it was some kind of heart defect that he never knew about. He didn't know alot about the man he loved after all, and getting to know everything and anything about him was one of the things he was most looking forward to when they got home.
But his heart would sometimes beat three times. Every maybe fifteen minutes or so, the heart monitor would sound Beep-Beep... Beep-Beep-Beep.. Beep-Beep.. Before falling back into what Pietro would call a normal rhythm. It became some kind of odd time measurement for him as the night approached.
He sat in that chair through the night, not letting tiredness get to him. The others drifted in and out from time to time, bringing him some coffee, checking up on Clint, before drifting back to Natasha's room for a while. He didn't object when coffee was given, nor when a blanket was wrapped around his shoulders.
The next day was the same, though he was forced to leave for a time so a nurse could change Clint's bandages. Banner was allowed stay in, which oddly annoyed Pietro. But he soon took up post again, and remained guarding the man lying in the bed.
There was no change. He just wouldn't wake up, he wouldn't come back to them. He just stayed lying in that bed like the lazy sod Pietro has grown to know him to be. He wasn't getting worse, which was good. He wasn't getting better, which was horrible.
Pietro was up for way too long. He was fighting off sleep come the early evening of the second day, and slowly he was losing. His lids would take longer to open each time he blinked, his head was starting to hurt that little bit more. He often went days without sleep, just to test the limits he could push himself to. But this wasn't a physical tiredness on it's own, this was an emotional tiredness piled ontop of it. It drained his system of everything he had.
For the day he didn't let go of Clint's hand. He couldn't. He needed to know the archer was still there, needed to feel the heat that was in his body to be sure that he was still fighting, still with them.
He would be fine. Doctors assured them of that, and Banner backed it up so that was what sealed it for Pietro.
He just had to wait for Barton to decide to wake up. But for now, he slept. And come the second night, around 11pm, Pietro couldn't help but sleep too, the warm hand still held protectively in his own.
The third day, after he woke up and scolded himself for falling asleep, he was surprised when Natasha wheeled herself into the room. He shouldn't have been, he should have fully expected that she'd steal a wheelchair if they wouldn't give her one.
That was one of the only times he willingly moved from Clint's side, to let Natasha pull up and have a moment. He stayed by the wall and watched as Natasha went through whatever emotions were going on in her right then. She would trace his hand, move her hand along the bandages, move his hair, soft tender movements that Pietro never knew the deathly Black Widow could be capable of.
Eventually, they fell into a nice peace next to one another. Pietro felt weird over by the wall for too long, his hand itching to have Clint's again. So he moved up beside Natasha and took Clint's hand once again, back to watching the closed eyelids in the hopes they'd open soon.
"The two of us are bunked up in hospital, and the gang are worried about you." Natasha whispered after easily an hour of silence, no spite in her voice, Pietro could actually hear amusement.
"Well, kind of been in this chair since I left your room." He replied with a shrug and shy smile, his eyes not leaving Clint's face. "They keep trying to drag me out, but I can't leave him."
"I know the feeling." She said through a slight sigh, from the corner of his eye he could see her run her good hand through her hair. "Though they soon learned they can't tear us away when the other's like this."
He looked to the heart monitor when the extra beep picked up, looking back to Clint then since he just expected it to die back down.
It didn't though, and it had Pietro shooting to his feet. It kept going, the beeps picking up at an unnaturally quick rate. It would no doubt summon some nurses in. He watched with wide eyes as Clint's face contorted a little, his eyes darting from side to side behind his lids. What caught his breath in his throat was that his hand was squeezing the life out of Pietro's.
"He's panicking.." Natasha breathed out by his side, and in an instant she was on her feet, bad ankle and all. He watched as she moved him aside a little, down towards the foot of the bed, so she could move in next to Clint. She placed her good hand on his chest and leaned in close to the archer.
"Clint. It's ok." She said calmly, sternly. He had no idea how she was this, because he was panicking just as much as Clint was! "Take a breath for me. Everything's ok. You're in a hospital right now, in a bad way. But we're both fine, we both got out."
If Natasha wasn't here, he had no idea what he'd do. He took a quick glance at the door and saw two nurses there waiting, obviously realising that Natasha had this more than they could.
"Breathe easy." She said after a moment or two, and to Pietro's amazement, Clint seemed to calm down ten fold. He still had Pietro's hand in a vice grip, but his breathing was slowing down, eventually turning to short breaths instead.
"'Atta boy." Natasha grinned, the way she said it made Pietro think it was a personal joke between them. She did that patronising tone with Clint alot. "Gonna open your eyes or are you avoiding my ugly face again?"
He really needed to take a class from Natasha. He wouldn't have been able to calm Clint down like that, no matter how hard he would have tried. Slowly, his eyes pulled themselves open, and Pietro could see the foggy orbs try their best to focus on Natasha.
"How do I look? Better than Budapest?" She whispered with a smile, and Pietro smiled to himself when he saw the corner of the archers lips try turn up, even though he was still panicking like he did after nightmares.
"Easy Hawk." Natasha scolded when a movement had the archer hissing in pain, his eyes shutting again and his hand increasing it's pressure on Pietro's.
He must have realised that he couldn't possibly be holding Natasha's hand, because his eyes shot open a moment later and landed on Pietro. He thought seeing those eyes would fill him with relief, make him happier than ever. But the look of panic in them, the look of terror and confusion, nearly had Pietro crying.
No one dared move. Not a single soul in the room dared move a muscle in case they broke whatever trail of thoughts were going through Clint's head.
He stared at Pietro for the longest time. Even after Natasha moved away to sit in her wheelchair again, even when the nurse finally crossed the room to check him over, that intense Hawkeye gaze stayed fixed on Pietro.
"But.. You're dead.." Clint eventually rasped out, Pietro barely picking up the words behind the oxygen mask.
He smiled a little sadly at the archer and shook his head, moving back around to the top of the bed so he could take his seat again. Clint's eyes never left him.
"Me? Die before you, old man?" He chuckled, giving Clint's hand a little squeeze to let him know everything was ok, that they were all ok. "Not a chance. I'm living forever."
Pietro watched as a smile tugged at Clint's lips, his eyes slipping closed and three words falling from his mouth before he slipped under again. "Quick little bastard.."
Clint would be fine.
He let that thought circle his mind as the archer slept, Natasha quickly following suit and falling asleep in the wheelchair next to him.
He smiled to himself and brought Clint's hand up, ghosting a kiss across the archers knuckles.
Clint would be absolutely fine in no time.
There was no doubt in his mind about it.
Because Clint was a fighter. It was one of the many things he found himself loving about Clint Barton.