The next morning Barton managed to find something for Rogers to do. He told Rogers that Fury wanted someone to keep tabs on Stark whenever possible. That part was true enough. Clint made an excuse about having two long appointments at SHIELD medical and asked Rogers to stick close to Stark for the day. Rogers seemed to appreciate the assignment. Truth was, Clint only had one quick appointment, which gave him at least 2 hours.
Clint made his way through the maze of rooms and labs that was SHIELD medical and approached a secure door. Clint dreaded entering his code on the pad, he was sure if had to go through this door one more time, he was going to lose it. The guard greeted him on the other side.
"Good morning, Captain Barton."
"Morning," said Clint wondering if the guy was a complete moron. There was nothing 'good' about this wing of the medical bay.
"Just thought I'd check in on him again." Clint mumbled.
"Of course, Sir." Again with the moronic cheerfulness.
Clint made his way to the end of hall and for the 4th time in 2 weeks looked through the window at Phil Coulson. A nurse approached him with a compassionate look on her face.
"Still no change, I'm afraid." She said gently.
"Yeah, I know. Just wanted to say Hi." Yah, saying Hi to a man in a coma. That made a whole lotta sense.
"You can go in" the nurse said, patting Barton on the shoulder.
Clint pulled a chair over his usual corner and sat down. Staring at Phil, he was reminded of how often they'd all been in this situation, but that it was never Phil in the bed. Up until now, it had been Clint twice and Nat once. Never Phil. And now it was.
Clint just sat there for a while, staring at nothing, thinking about everything that had happened in the last few weeks. Still not sure if it was all real, or just some really long stupid dream. "So, uh, they still haven't gotten all those things cleaned up. Hear they're starting to smell real bad. Midtown is still closed off, really starting to piss people off." Clint said to Phil as if they back in the bar in Sliver City. "Hill told me the council scattered like someone stepped on an ant mound. She thinks a couple of them might even get replaced. Guess there's a silver lining in all this shit after all…" Clint knew he was supposed to talk to people even when they were unconscious, because some docs swore it made a difference, but he was beginning to wonder if any of mattered anymore.
It was almost 3 weeks now. He and Nat had been so incredibly pissed when they watched Fury plunge a hypodermic with one of his damn chemical concoctions into Phil's chest when Phil flat lined for a 3rd time after getting out of surgery. Phil had told Fury he never wanted the stuff. But Fury did it anyway. Problem was, it didn't seem to work very well. Sure, it kept his heart going, but not much more. As far as they knew, Fury hadn't done it again. Truth was, Clint hoped that he would. He didn't care about Phil's distaste for 'better living through chemistry'. Clint just wanted Phil to wake up and for everything to go back to the way it had been before that bastard Loki had shown up.
Clint stood up and checked the time on his phone. "Gotta go rescue Rogers from Stark." He said softly.
"See 'ya later man."
And Clint left the room, walking back down the hall toward the cheerful moron, wondering if the next month was going to be as incredibly shitty as the last.