Warnings: language, brief drug use.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, a psychiatrist, or a scientist. Everything in this chapter related to the topics of medicine, psychiatry, and science comes mostly from Wikipedia.
You might get tired of reading it, but I don't get tired of saying it: my beta, irite, is awesome.
I do not own the Avengers, and this is the source of all my angst.
Clint thought that Fury's proposition was unreasonable, but he honestly couldn't tell for sure.
This was largely due to the fact that, in his current condition, he had lost the ability to determine what was and was not reasonable. Paradoxically, he was aware that this had happened. Clearly, he hadn't been thinking straight for days, perhaps even weeks or months, as evinced by a lengthy string of alarmingly poor decisions. It was obvious.
But even so, there is always a gap between knowing something intellectually and embracing it as truth.
Clint was currently exploring this gap. And he had discovered that there are few things more annoying than listening to yourself trying to reasonably convince yourself that you are being unreasonable.
He was so caught up in this convoluted train of thought that he'd largely stopped listening to Fury after the director had said the words "complete physical." Clint hated that pair of words more than almost any other combination, except for the pair that had immediately preceded it: psychiatric evaluation.
Although, really, he couldn't get too upset about the whole psych evaluation thing. Rationally, Clint knew that having a panic attack in front of his boss, who happened to be the head of one of the most powerful government agencies in the world, was probably not something that was going to be brushed aside. Really, the psych eval was probably going to have happened anyway. Fury wasn't stupid, and it wasn't exactly a stretch to see that this went further than the drugs.
Irrationally, he felt that since this particular episode had been pretty minor (only ten minutes this time, no puking, no sobbing) it should be brushed aside. It wasn't why he was there, damn it. And talking to SHIELD's psychiatrists and psychologists was akin to torture on his best day. In his current condition, doing so was...
"Not happening," he choked out.
Fury stopped speaking. It occurred to Clint that he hadn't actually been following the conversation for the better part of a minute, and that he had no idea what he'd just interrupted. So he clarified, "The psych evaluation."
Never one to be ruffled, Fury backtracked in the conversation to the point where Clint had apparently tuned him out. "I was just explaining the protocol, Barton. After the psychiatric evaluation and the physical, we move forward on the recommendation of your physicians. Of course, you have the right to refuse any and all of their recommended treatments. It's worth nothing, however, that your continued employment with this agency is contingent on your full cooperation."
"That's pretty shitty, though, don't you think?" Tony spoke up, having fulfilled his quota of quiet listening for the day. "I mean, Jesus, talk about backing the poor guy into a corner." He stood up, clapping his hand on Fury's shoulder. "I have a better idea."
Fury shrugged his hand off, irritated. "Stark, there is a reason we have protocol—"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, hear me out. So, we send Barton down...up? To the nice men in the white coats, and they poke and prod at him and make their little recommendations. We listen to whatever the fuck they have to say, and then Barton decides what, if any of it, he's okay with. And we work with that, and instead of you firing him, maybe you could, uh, not?"
"Stark—"
"He's kind of got a point, director," Bruce agreed. "The whole, uh, coercion thing. It might not be the best plan. Since, um..." He trailed off, clearly unsure of how to best describe exactly why Clint wouldn't respond well to being forced. He decided to circumvent it entirely (it was kind of obvious, right?), instead adding, "And it's not like SHIELD's never broken protocol before. One of us is currently on the government's 'Most Wanted' list, and is also on their payroll."
Fury had to concede the point. "Sure. Right. Rules are made to be broken. You rag-tag bunch of fucking weirdos are proof enough of that. But there's an issue of liability. If something goes wrong, or if someone gets hurt, it's on SHIELD."
Natasha interjected, "Don't be ridiculous, it's not like—" just as Bruce pointed out, "I don't really think Clint's the biggest liability SHIELD has to worry about."
With a raised eyebrow, Fury looked between the two of them. Thoughtfully, he shifted his gaze to Steve and Tony. After a moment, he stated with finality, "Fine."
"Sir?" Steve questioned. Because, for a moment, the director had looked almost calculating, and that never boded well.
"Barton. If you do the physical and the psychiatric evaluation, and agree to at least consider the options that they present to you, I will release you into the custody of..." He stopped to think for a moment, then decided, "Agent Romanoff, who will be assisted in her task by the rest of the rag-tag weirdos. She will present twice-weekly progress reports. At the end of a month, if you have made improvements, this arrangement can continue. If you have not, then we'll proceed my way. During this time, you will be removed from all active duty and placed on unpaid leave. Does that meet with everyone's approval?"
After considering for all of three seconds, Tony grinned and declared, "I knew you'd come to see things my way." He clapped his hand on Fury's shoulder again. Something in his expression indicated that he clearly knew how annoying he was being, and that he found it immensely satisfying to do so.
Steve and Bruce shrugged, a little disconcerted by how quickly Fury had changed his mind. "Sure, I guess?" Steve said.
Natasha had some objections, though. "Sir, I'm not sure if this is really the best idea—" Because that kind of responsibility was terrifying. What if they fucked up? Fury was right; something could go wrong. There were so many ways that this could end badly...
"Romanoff, we'll be fine," Tony reassured her, still thrilled at how easily things had begun to go his way.
That did little to assuage her doubts. Tony Stark's definition of 'fine' was questionable at best. For God's sake, the man lived with a magnet in his chest and called that 'fine.' But, she knew that the alternative option wasn't any better. And at least this way, Clint got to choose. He deserved that chance.
So, she nodded her acceptance.
Clint, though, remained silent.
Fury prodded him, "Are you amenable to this arrangement, agent?"
Clint was thinking, as quickly as his unfocused, restless mind would allow. The idea of the psych evaluation was enough to start his heart pounding again, but the anxiety was ameliorated slightly by knowing that they couldn't do anything to him that he didn't expressly agree to. Without the imminent threat of losing his job, his choices would be truly his. And that was way more than he had expected to be given. Finally, he agreed. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm amenable."
With something approximating a smile, Fury said, "Good. I'll call medical and let them know you're coming. You're all dismissed."
As they filed out the door, Natasha couldn't help but feel like, somehow, this was what Fury had wanted all along.
Bruce hung back a bit from the departing Avengers. "Director, I need to have a word with you."
"Oh. Is it about the Thompson case? I hope you can say it in English, because I have no fucking idea what those reports you've been sending me say."
Bruce thought that maybe, if Fury didn't like his reports, he could hire a damn biologist to write them instead. "Sorry, sir. Yeah, it's about Thompson."
Fury gestured at the chairs in front of his desk. Bruce resituated himself before beginning, "I have no idea how this is possible. It doesn't make any sense."
Steepling his fingers, Fury gave Bruce a long look. "Banner, if I got all worked up every time something didn't make any goddamn sense, I'd be on my fifth fucking stroke by now. Just get to the point."
"Sure. Uh. Okay. I managed to isolate a compound from Thompson's urine. I'm not quite sure what it is; it's nothing I've ever seen before. As far as I can tell, it's nothing anyone has ever seen before. But it's kind of like..."
Fury made an impatient gesture. "Go on."
"Sorry. It's, uh, kind of like a peroxide. It might be a peroxide, I don't know, there's something off about it, but that's the closest thing I can think—"
"Banner, why does this matter?"
Bruce shot him a look like, 'duh, isn't it obvious,' but then realized that, to the uninitiated, it probably wasn't. "Some peroxides are massively explosive."
"Ah."
"So, it looks like a peroxide, except the mass is completely wrong, unless it's made with some element that doesn't exist."
"Doesn't exist, or doesn't exist yet? Because give Stark two motherfucking weeks and it might exist."
"Uh...doesn't exist yet, I guess. But that's not the point."
"There's a point?"
The look Bruce gave him was tortured and long-suffering, and Fury almost felt bad for him. "The point is that peroxides can form on contact with atmospheric oxygen. So whatever was in his urine probably wasn't a peroxide before it hit air. And if I'm going to make any progress on figuring out where this came from, I need to know what it was before it hit air."
"Do you think it was whatever Thompson spilled?"
"I don't know. It's possible. Whatever he was exposed to might have been converted to that form in the body, though, I don't know."
"So, why don't you just test it?"
"What do you mean?"
"I'm pretty sure there were two barrels of the shit that Thompson spilled that the forensics team picked up. I had them sent to you with everything else."
Bruce's expression was puzzled. "I didn't get those."
"The fuck you didn't; I got the inventory sheet you sent over."
Bruce thought, Oh, so you could read that part? He didn't voice that, though, opting for the much safer, "I didn't get any barrels, director. That would have been something I noticed. And, uh, it kind of would have been the first test I ran. I just figured you hadn't been able to find any, or hadn't sent it over because it was too dangerous..."
Fury pulled out a file and dug through it. He wordlessly handed one of the sheets to Bruce.
It was the inventory sheet that Bruce had sent over. Except, clearly marked as "received," were two barrels of "unknown liquid" that Bruce had not included in his list.
"What the fuck is going on, Banner?"
Dumbfounded, Bruce looked at the sheet. "I have no idea. I didn't get those."
Fury could tell that Banner was telling the truth. He was such a dismal liar that it was pretty much immediately evident when he tried to do it. The physicist was genuinely perplexed.
"So you're telling me that, somehow, these two fucking barrels full of god knows what—that also happens to turn living creatures into bombs—have gone missing, and that someone hacked your files to hide that they were taken?"
"Um..." Bruce tried to think of another possibility. He couldn't. "Yeah. It looks that way."
"I think we've got a pretty serious problem, Banner."
The physical was first, and it was fucking awful.
The word the physician used was "comprehensive," but Clint thought "fucking awful" was far more apt.
After being poked and prodded extensively, stuck with needles, put on a treadmill, x-rayed, and CAT-scanned, the doctor declared him dehydrated, malnourished, tachycardic, and hypertensive, with a slight fever. "But you're not in imminent danger of death. So that's good."
Given how he felt, Clint found that a little hard to believe. "Are you sure?"
The doctor actually smiled, and Clint fought the desire to punch him. He was successful. Look at the progress you're making, Barton. Maybe in a century or so you won't be completely fucking crazy.
"It probably feels like you're dying. Headaches, muscle pain, nausea? Some of that's related to the dehydration. Some of it is excessive muscle tension. Mostly, it's just your body bitching you out for the shit you've been putting it through for months."
Clint wondered where SHIELD found these people. Talk about bedside manner. "Uh, okay...?"
The doctor closed his chart. "Try massage for the muscle pain, and Tylenol. For the headache, too. Though it might increase the nausea. I can get you an antiemetic for that. You need to eat, drink a lot of water, and sleep, Agent Barton, more than anything else. Try that, and come back in two weeks. You're going to be off the amphetamines then?" The doctor had approved a schedule for cutting his usage down that more-or-less followed what he'd already been doing.
Clint nodded slowly, ignoring the jab of shame stabbing in his guts. The doctor had been amazingly non-judgemental, and the shame wasn't necessary, but Clint couldn't escape it. Not entirely.
"Good. We'll be able to get a better look at the any long-term cardiovascular issues then. And we'll see if your blood pressure has come down. It should. Now, I know psych is expecting you. I've arranged to have one of your, er, friends take you over, but I need to have a few words with Agent Romanoff. Send her in?"
"...Sure." Resenting the implication that he couldn't (or wouldn't) make it to psych on his own, Clint sulked out of the exam room.
By some amazing stroke of luck, it was Steve and not Tony who was waiting for him outside. As helpful and supportive as Tony had been, Clint didn't know if he could handle that much...stimulation at the moment. Steve was much more reserved in general, and just asked him quietly, "How'd it go?"
"Fucking miserable. Where's Tasha?"
"She went—"
Natasha appeared from around the corner and walked towards them. "You done?"
"No. Psych," Clint informed her, his voice flat. "The doctor wants to talk to you. Room 302."
"Oh. Sure. I'll find you when you're done?"
"Whatever." He stalked down the hall.
Steve threw an apologetic look and shrug over his shoulder at her. She waved it off. She could understand Clint's current mood; if she'd just had a medical examination lasting well over two hours, she'd probably be approaching homicidal. Given how much she knew Clint didn't want to be doing this, and how awful she knew he felt, she thought it was pretty impressive that the doctor in room 302 was still alive and up for another meeting.
She slipped into the exam room.
Clint led Steve through a number of doors and hallways, tracing a complicated path that, even with the signs and arrows pointing the way, Steve wondered if he could have navigated on his own. It occurred to him that this obviously not the first time that Clint had made this trek.
When Clint stopped abruptly outside a pair of double doors, Steve nearly walked into him. The sign on the wall read, "Psychiatric and Psychological Services."
Clint had been carried this far by the irritation resulting from his two and a half hour physical and an overwhelming desire to get the fuck out of here. Now that he was there, though, the next part—the 'going through the door' part—was something that he wasn't quite prepared for. Because this was the terrifying part.
Maybe that doctor wasn't so far off base to set up an escort, Clint thought, bitter. If I was alone, I'd have run already.
Steve thought he knew what was going on—the rigid set of Clint's shoulders, the way he had very nearly frozen in place, were pretty clear indicators. But he didn't know what, if anything, he should do. After twenty seconds of this, though, he started to feel just a little bit ridiculous and decided that a little encouragement was in order. "You gonna go in there? If you're not, that's okay, but—"
"No. It's not okay. I'm...going. I am." But he didn't move.
So Steve took the initiative and walked through the double doors. Surprised into motion, Clint followed him. Walking to the receptionist, Steve said, "Agent Clint Barton is here to see...someone."
The receptionist, a complete professional, was entirely unimpressed by the presence of Captain America and nonplussed by the disheveled, nervous, and clearly uncomfortable countenance of the SHIELD agent he was escorting. "Of course. Dr. Williamson is expecting you, Agent. Her office is in room 399, down the hall and on your left."
Feeling more than a little bit like he was being thrown to the wolves, Clint slowly walked down the hall until he found room 399.
He knocked, then entered. He closed the door behind him.
"Agent Barton?" asked a female voice, from somewhere out of his line of vision.
The anxiety creeping through him was undeniable. Maybe if he just closed his eyes, this would all just go away...
No luck. "Agent Barton, are you all right?"
Well, that was an easy question. He shook his head. It was probably better to be honest. It would get this over with faster, and part of him, a pretty large part, actually, wanted desperately to break free of this awful fucking panic. And that was only going to happen if he could face it.
When a hand gently grabbed his wrist and began guiding him across the room, his first instinct was to lash out and flatten whoever was touching him. But he'd been having a pretty good day about attacking people and things, and so he restrained himself. He let himself be led to what he assumed was a couch. After a few seconds of sitting, he felt up to opening his eyes.
Dr. Williamson had retreated to her desk after depositing him on the couch, and Clint appreciated the space. Which, he thought, she probably knows. Since she works with crazy fucking nutjobs all day.
"Does this happen often?" she asked him, when he'd had a moment to gather his thoughts.
He gave a mirthless laugh. "Only seven or eight times a day."
She nodded, writing something in her notes. "It says here that you, uh, were subjected to some kind of brainwashing several months ago. I have the notes from Dr. Shayne, who you spoke to immediately following the incident in Manhattan. But I'd like to hear about it in your own words. Could you please tell me more about that situation?"
From the way he went completely rigid, Dr. Williamson deduced that no, he probably couldn't. "Or not. Okay, why don't you tell me..."
Things went in a safer direction from there, for which Clint was immensely grateful. They talked about his troubles with sleep, and the increasing frequency and severity of his panic attacks. Although Williamson was clearly concerned (Clint thought that SHIELD ought to train their doctors to have better poker faces), at no point did she reach for the phone to call for security. She didn't even suggest hospitalization—a vague fear that had been living in Clint's mind, buried amongst all the other vague fears.
She did suggest medication. And therapy. "Agent Barton, from what I can see, you have both a specific phobia and a more general anxiety issue going on. Your issues with sleep are...unusual, but not unheard of, and I think this is something that you could work out with psychotherapy. I can prescribe something for the panic attacks and for the recurring anxiety."
"No, I don't want—"
She gave him a look. "Whatever objections you have to medication, Agent Barton, I can assure you that they are probably completely unfounded. Clearly you are not opposed to using chemicals to alter your brain chemistry—" Clint thought that was a little low "—so I'm not sure what your issue is."
Jesus, these SHIELD doctors were blunt.
Clint thought about ranting about how needing medication was weak, and pathetic, and his issues stemmed from him being weak and pathetic. He also considered questioning the wisdom of treating a drug addict with more drugs. But the vicious headache that was growing with every passing minute and the increasing tension in his muscles and shaking in his hands made him reconsider. Questioning her would just keep him there longer, and he wanted out. Now.
He'd just have to trust that she knew what the fuck she was doing. "Fine."
She beamed at him, looking so pleased at his choice that he felt like an asshole for being such a recalcitrant jerk.
...He also felt just a little bit like he'd been played.
"I'll write this up and send it to the pharmacy, then. I'll put a rush on it; it'll be ready in a few minutes. As for the therapy...?"
She was giving him an opportunity to reject that, too. Well, fuck that. In for a dime, in for a dollar. He could always back out later. "Whatever."
That bright smile again. God, that was kind of unnerving, now that he was thinking about it. Or maybe that was just his mind fucking with him. "I'll make some calls, then. I have your number; do you want me to contact you, or have the prospectives contact you directly?"
"I don't care."
"I'll call you, then. I see you're going to be back here for a physical examination in two weeks. Why don't you come by then and we can see how everything is working out?"
"Fine."
She tapped some keys on her keyboard, then looked up. "Great! Don't forget to go to the pharmacy. I'll see you in two weeks."
Feeling more than a little overwhelmed, Clint wandered out of her office and into the hall. Steve and Tony were waiting for him.
"So are you crazy or what?" Tony asked in lieu of a greeting. Steve punched his arm. "Ow! What? It's a legitimate question!"
Clint wasn't offended, though, because he suspected that the gross inappropriateness was a not-so-clever way of disguising actual concern. "Seems that way. I need to go to the fucking pharmacy. Where the fuck is Nat?"
"Uh, she went to find Bruce," Tony said, leading the way towards the pharmacy. "We drew straws. No one wanted to see Fury again."
With a snort, Clint asked, "Did you really draw straws?"
"Of course not. We didn't have straws. We played rock, paper, scissors."
Clint looked at Steve, who just shrugged helplessly. "Tony insisted. I was just going to go, but he wanted to be 'fair.'"
Clint shook his head, regretting it almost immediately as it intensified his already-epic headache. He looked at his watch and saw it was almost 2:00. Well, that explained a lot. Like, for example, why he felt about ten times worse than he had when he woke up—and he had felt pretty terrible then. He'd been so distracted by his shitty day that he had completely forgotten to get his last dose at noon. Well, they'd find Tasha in a minute and get this under control.
At the pharmacy, he took the bag they gave him in silence and thrust it indifferently at Tony. He didn't want to carry it, and he figured Tony was so nosy that he'd want to know all about this shit anyway. This way, Clint figured, he didn't actually have to talk.
Exactly as expected, Tony tore into the bag and started pulling out the documentation that the pharmacist included with new prescriptions. "Geez, Barton. Diphenhydramine? That's just overpriced Benadryl. Alprazolam? Oh, that's Xanax, okay, that's nice. Sertraline?—"
"Could you not read that out loud?" Clint snarled at him, irritated that his plan of 'not talking' had been shot to hell so fast.
"Oh. Sure, sorry. Wasn't thinking, Barton. HIPAA and all that shit, right? Well, I won't violate your privacy, nope. Not me. Well, I will. But I'll do it quietly."
Clint didn't think that HIPAA was exactly relevant to this situation, but if it got Tony to shut up, he wasn't going to argue.
They were heading through the lobby when Natasha and Bruce appeared. "Hey, guys," Natasha greeted them, her voice tense. "Bruce and Fury think they've found something...bad."
Bruce explained as simply as he could.
"Sounds like a job for the Avengers," Tony mused, both eyebrows raised.
"Be serious!" Steve said. "This could be really bad. I mean, someone accessed Bruce's files, Tony, don't you think that's kind of a problem?"
"Well, yes and no. I mean, his password for everything is SMASH so it's not like it would be hard to hack—"
"What the hell, Tony, no, it's not—"
"But why would someone want to do that? Did they break into the Tower and do it manually, or was it remote? Because either way we've got a security breach..." he trailed off thoughtfully. "I need to get back and run some diagnostics."
Natasha nodded. "Take Clint with you. I need to stay here. Bruce is going to go talk to some of the biochemists. Steve, Fury wants to talk to you—"
"Wait," Clint interrupted. "If something's going on, I should be here—
"You're on unpaid leave, Barton."
"Fuck that!" His eyes flashed. Tony placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Come on, Barton. We'll get you home and all drugged up, then you can help me do security scans, it'll be great."
At the words 'drugged up,' something clicked for Natasha. She pulled a pill out of her pocket. "Here, Clint, sorry this is late, I forgot—"
He snatched it and, without a backwards glance, stomped towards the parking garage.
Natasha sighed. "Stark. Don't forget to feed him. Don't drive like an asshole. And don't forget—"
"Yeah, mom, I've got it. We'll be fine." And he followed Clint, yelling, "Hey, Barton! You're not going to get very far since you don't have the keys! Be nice or I'm going to make you sit in the back!"
"All right," Natasha said, with another heavy sigh, watching them depart. "Bruce, do you need me to bring you to the labs, or do you remember the way?"
"Um. I wouldn't mind an escort. Someone might call security again if I go alone."
It was a legitimate point. "Okay. You good, Steve?"
"Yeah, sure. I don't think anyone's going to call security on me."
"Good. Let's try and meet up in a few hours, make it back to the Tower if we can. I don't trust Stark and Barton alone for more than four hours."
They went their separate ways, so caught up in the drama of the moment that they didn't even notice how what had been a sunny afternoon had suddenly changed into a thunderstorm.
Classes resumed on Monday, so updates are probably going to be less regular. On the plus side, I've come to realize that this story is probably going to be twice as long as I had originally anticipated.
Please review. I've got a bad case of I-hate-my-whole-life, and each review brightens my day by 3.9%.
