Warnings: language, drug use, some violence and blood.

I do not own the Avengers.


Natasha didn't know if JARVIS had conveyed her message to Tony, or if, watching what was happening via surveillance, he had decided to come of his own volition. Either way, a bit less than five minutes later, he was there.

"Christ, Romanoff, I could hear him laughing two floors up, what the fuck?" Tony said, striding into the room. His words were flippant, but that couldn't mask the shock in his voice or the pallor of his face. She knew then that he had seen everything.

He had, she saw, washed the blood off his face, but had not yet managed any kind of treatment for his injuries. At this point, though, she had to concede an ice pack would be mostly futile.

Clint had stopped laughing. He had, in fact, mostly stopped moving for the first time since Natasha had entered the lab. He was lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling with glassy, unblinking eyes. His breathing was rapid, as if he had just run a great distance. His fingers tapped and scratched at floor, making a frenetic pattern in the broken glass and blood that surrounded him.

Natasha felt that he wasn't going anywhere right this minute.

"Did he bring a bag with him?" she asked Tony.

There was no reply.

"Stark?"

The man was staring at Clint, seemingly transfixed, watching as he ran his hands ran through the shards of glass, indifferent to or unaware of the way it was cutting his fingers.

"Stark! Tony!"

He jumped.

"Did he bring a bag with him?" she repeated. "Or a jacket?"

Tony nodded, pointing vaguely towards the other end of the lab. "Yeah, he left his stuff over there."

"Could you go grab it?" she prompted. He complied.

Natasha opened the main compartment of Clint's bag. Sitting right on top were two bottles.

Jesus, Clint, she thought. You're not even trying anymore are you?

She opened the first one. It contained the pills she'd seen him taking before. Must be the other one, then, she thought.

The other bottle contained different pills, these ones colored a soothing blue. She shook a few out, capped the bottle, and tossed both bottles back into Clint's bag.

She briefly considered confiscating them, but she didn't think he'd appreciate her taking that kind of control over him. In fact, she knew he'd resent the hell out of it. He needed to be free to make his own decisions, for the moment, even if they were terrible. And stupid. And dangerous.

Shaking her head, she said, "Give me a hand, Stark," and began maneuvering Clint into a sitting position.

If she'd thought that Clint would be any help at all in this endeavor, she was sadly mistaken. He had not lapsed into unconsciousness, but he was mostly unresponsive. His only contribution to the effort was to mumble a barely-intelligible, "Tasha, that tickles," followed by a weak giggle. Now that she was closer to him, she could feel excess heat radiating off of his body in waves, could feel how his heart was trying to burst out of his chest.

Once Tony figured out what she wanted, the pair managed to lean Clint up against the legs of one of the lab tables.

"Hold on to his shoulders," Natasha instructed Tony. "Make sure he doesn't fall over." To Clint, she said, "Open your mouth."

He stared at a point behind her, with a vaguely concerned look on his face.

"Barton!" she barked. "Open. Your. Mouth." This time he complied, and she tossed the pills in with one hand, using the other to close his mouth and hold it that way. He choked for a moment, then swallowed.

"What was that?" Tony asked.

"Honestly?" she said, with a shrug, "I'm not sure. Some benzodiazepine. Probably Valium or something like it."

"Valium," Clint said, roused momentarily from his stupor and struggling to focus on the pair crouched in front of him. "It's...Valium. I think."

Natasha restrained herself from slapping him, though it was a struggle. "You don't know? You've been taking it, and you don't KNOW?"

"No..." he breathed, closing his eyes against a sudden wave of nausea. He snapped them open again a moment later, the manic energy from a few minutes ago replaced with blind panic. "Tasha—don't—I can't—"

He rolled onto his side. Worried that he was going to vomit and undo all her hard work, Natasha heaved him back upright. "Clint! Calm down! It's going to be all right."

"I have some...pretty serious doubts," he replied, with a short, derisive laugh.

"You trust me, Clint. Right? You can trust me now. Just relax." She took a breath and continued, the words awkward and unnatural, "I'll make sure nothing happens. I'll be right next to you. I'll...take care of you." She settled in next to him, careful to avoid the broken glass. Tony followed her example, taking Clint's other side.

For fifteen minutes, they sat that way. Clint's breathing began to slow and his eyes dropped closed. Natasha felt for his pulse, satisfied that it was slowing down to a more normal level. She pulled Clint towards her, so that he was leaning into her chest. After another ten minutes, she found she was supporting his weight alone.

"Okay," she said. "He's out."

Tony found that, for once in his life, he couldn't think of a thing to say.

"Why don't you tell me what happened?" Natasha said.

He could do that.


Tony had been surprised as fuck when Barton had flipped out.

Sure, he'd been acting a little...off...all night. He'd arrived around ten o'clock, which was strange. Of course, Tony had told him to "stop by anytime," but he hadn't expected the marksman to take him quite so literally.

Barton hadn't told him he was going to come by, so Tony wasn't quite ready for product testing. He told Barton to take a seat and started running the calculations he needed to do before he felt he could safely proceed with phase one of testing. Which involved guns.

Barton hadn't sat down, though. Well, he had for a moment. Then he'd been up, pacing, asking a seemingly unending barrage of questions about the new armor, the lab, Tony, everything. His words were fast, his thoughts apparently rushing from one topic to another with little apparent connection.

He needs to lay off the coffee, Tony thought, dismissing the worry gnawing in his gut.

Tony's calculations had taken a bit longer than he'd anticipated. It was a bit over two hours after Barton's arrival that Tony was finally ready to proceed. It didn't help that Tony was being continually distracted by Clint's questions, his pacing, his nervousness. Being in the same room with him was physically exhausting.

"Barton, come here," Tony said, when he was finished. He peered around the lab and tried to figure out where the assassin had gone.

"What?" Clint said, from directly behind him. Tony managed to refrain from dying of a heart attack. Barely.

"Put this on." He handed Clint his most promising prototype. "It's lightweight, flexible, bullet proof, resistant to knives and a whole lot of other shit. Including, incidentally, shit."

"Why's it purple?" Clint asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Honestly, Barton? 'Cause I thought it was funny. Now put it on so I can shoot you."

"You said it was bulletproof. Why are you testing if it's bulletproof? You're not shooting me if it's not bulletproof."

"Look, I know it's bulletproof. I did the math. I just want to see how bullets, uh, impact it. Now be a doll and go stand over there."

Glaring at Tony, Clint pulled off his shirt and replaced it with the new one. The material felt really weird on his skin, like some kind of oily spandex, and he hated it. He scratched at his arm, his chest, his other arm. God, this thing was awful.

Tony walked to one of the many consoles in the lab and punched a few keys. "Could you stick your arms out?" he called to Clint. "Like an airplane?"

Clint rolled his eyes, but complied. He hoped no one ever saw the video footage of this. Impatient, he bounced on the balls of his feet, very nearly jumping in place.

Tony took note of his movement. He tapped a few more commands, and Clint watched a robot wheel out of somewhere. It disappeared behind him, and a second later, he felt something fasten around his wrists and ankles. He tugged against the bonds, and found he couldn't move.

Oh, God. He could feel his heart rate picking up.

"Stark. What the fuck?" he choked out.

Tony was oblivious to the assassin's discomfort, too buried in his work to notice something as unimportant as body language.

"STARK!" Clint yelled, and Tony looked up. "Let me go. Now. I'm not...I can't..." his chest was practically seizing up on him.

Tony said, "But we haven't done any testing."

Clint struggled to take a deep breath, but couldn't. "Stark, stop this shit, okay, just let me go!"

"What, you don't like being tied up?" Tony said, with a laugh, somehow still unaware of the other man's distress.

That was the wrong thing to say.

Something flashed across Barton's face, but before Tony could process it, the other man had twisted himself, snapping the hold the robot had on his legs. Okay, Tony thought, that robot was pretty sturdy. How damn strong is this guy?

With his legs free, Clint, dangling from his wrists, snapped his legs backwards, kicking the robot as hard as he could with both feet. The panel on the front caved in under the blow, and with a shower of sparks, the robot died, releasing Clint's wrists. He hit the ground hard, rolled, and found his feet.

He stood for a moment, chest heaving, before prowling towards Tony.

This isn't good, Tony thought.

"Barton," he said, backing up, "Calm down." Clint didn't seem to hear him. Tony began backing up faster, until he felt the shelving he had placed on the far wall of the lab against his back. Fuck.

He managed to dodge the first punch, but the second followed so closely he didn't have a chance. Stars exploded in his vision as Barton's fist slammed into his eye.

Clint's third and fourth attempts missed, because Tony had gotten lucky and fallen over. Instead, the punches connected with the carefully organized and stacked Pyrex glassware on the fourth shelf. The glass cut deeply into Clint's fists, but he didn't notice, or didn't care.

Tony tried to scramble to his feet, but Barton's elbow caught him in the mouth. So he went down again.

He knew that, without his suit, he was no match for the assassin. He had no idea what the fuck had come over Barton, but it didn't show any signs of stopping soon.

Clint heaved Tony up by the front of his shirt and slammed him into the wall, knocking the air out of his chest. "Do you think you're fucking funny!" he growled, and Tony saw for the first time how dilated his pupils were, how flushed his face. "DO YOU THINK YOU'RE FUNNY, STARK?"

Tony choked out, "No. No, Barton. Not...not funny."

Clint tossed Tony across the room with for more ease than seemed possible, and he landed hard on one of the tables. He rolled, ending up on the floor under the table. He was pretty close to the door now, if he could just get out—

Barton grabbed his leg, dragging him from under the table. Reacting on instinct, Tony kicked out as hard as he could. His foot didn't connect with anything, but he felt Barton's wrist twist and his grip loosened. Tony yanked his leg free, and, scarcely aware of how he managed to do it, launched himself out the door.

"JARVIS, lock it," he barked. Clint slammed against the door and tried to yank it open. He pounded against it with his fists. The door shook, but held. With a snarl, he turned from the door and stalked back into the lab. He threw himself onto one of the stools, and was still for all of ten seconds before he began scratching at his arms and chest, tugging at the fabric of the armor. He did this for a few seconds, motions becoming more and more frenzied, before he ripped the offending garment off entirely and slammed it on the table, glaring at it as if it had personally insulted him.

Tony, somewhat dazed, pulled out his phone.

What the fuck was that?


"So," Tony asked, "What the fuck, exactly, was that?"

Natasha hesitated, but decided to just go with it. "After what happened with Loki, Clint...I guess the 'official' word for it is 'somniphobia.' Or 'hypnophobia.' That's what I read, anyway. He's afraid to go to sleep."

Tony nodded. "And let me guess. He's enlisted some help with staying awake. Cocaine?"

"Amphetamine."

"Ah."

Silence.


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