Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. I lost my focus there for a bit, but have no fear; I'm back with more shenanigans from Avengers Tower.
Disclaimer: I still own nothing. I'm just playing around with Marvel's characters for a while. No infringement intended.
Fury has to have the worst timing known to mankind. Well, the worst or the best depending on the viewpoint taken. As soon as Clint declared the words and Natasha's ears processed the request, JARVIS interrupted with an urgent message from the one-eyed director. The archer grumbled while the assassin mentally thanked the older man for helping her side step a conversation she wasn't particularly sure she wanted to have.
"We have an issue," Fury announced.
"What's the mission, Director," Captain asked, his voice filtering through the PA system in the building, altering the partners that this was a team mission.
"Some dumbass decided it would be a brilliant idea to breed Chitauri-like minions. Said army is ravaging Idaho. Our intel says the plan backfired, and the army destroyed its creator. Go contain it before the fuckers take over the Mid-West." There was a long pause. "Yes, I'm aware the Council is on the other line. Tell them I'm working on it." Another pause. "God damnit. I'll tell them just where they can shove their stupid ass decision. You," Fury addressed an un-seen junior agent. "Hold. Put them on hold. Why did we hire you?" Clint snickered as the director berated some poor kid. "Avengers," he paused. "Are you part of the Avengers? No, at this rate, I will never clear you for the field much less my elite team of superheroes. Now shut up. As I was saying," Fury growled, "the Council is up my ass. Fix it."
"Yes sir," came the general reply. As JARVIS announced the termination of the call, Clint bent over laughing.
"He's in a mood," Tony grumbled from his suite, the PA system still connecting all the Avengers.
"Well, with the Council up his ass, you can see why. I wouldn't be chipper with that many people shoved in my backdoor, either," Clint jabbed with a smirk. He narrowly avoided Natasha's elbow colliding with his rib.
"We should give him an industrial-sized bottle of lube for Christmas," Tony bantered easily.
"Boys," Pepper chided as Captain ordered them all to the roof in the next five minutes.
Clint and Natasha immediately started their normal routine. It was a well-oiled machine. They dressed accordingly, each turning to fill the holsters with an array of knives, guns, and ammo. It was something as normal as breathing; suiting up was, in fact, a daily routine. And as usual, the two turned to each other, checking zips and ammo, security of the holsters and the clips of the utility belts, snugness of the arm guards and gloves. Two sets of eyes never hurt. Wordlessly, the two well-armed parents slipped into Philip's nursery and each kissed him, the boy still fast asleep.
As the left the suite, Pepper stepped in with a nod, smile, and a whispered "Good Luck" before dropping herself on the couch. The assassins were on the roof in four and a half minutes flat.
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"Intel says most of the fuckers are still surrounding the lab. They have scientists and civilians cornered in the underground floors. Reports from those already fighting say these mutants are different in the fact that their blood, or fluid shit, is infected. It's acidic and seemingly contagious. Don't let it touch you," Fury instructed as the team flew.
"That should be fairly simple. It's not like we have to fight them or anything," Clint mumbled agitatedly from the pilot's seat. Natasha sent him a glare.
"If it does touch us," Banner asked.
"Nothing good happens."
"Could you be a little less vague, Director," Stark snipped.
"We've got a cure, but it's damn painful. The real danger is blood pressure and heart rate from the pain; it also causes hallucinations. From the agents unfortunate enough to be doused in it, it feels like fire in your veins, burning you from the inside out. The agents are fine now, after having numerous rounds of injections and taking chemical baths, but they all have varying degrees of burns that have to be treated."
"Got it. Don't touch the mutant bodily fluid," Clint affirmed. He looked over at Natasha with a pointed look. She returned the look easily, as if to say dumb-ass-you're-the-one-without-sleeves. He rolled his eyes and focused on the sky.
Landing some ways away from the lab, the team loaded out of the QuinJet and surveyed the scene around them. "They look bigger," Clint quipped. "Much bigger." Captain nodded in agreement before calling out plays.
Iron Man took the perimeter while rounding up the few mutant warriors that had already left the lab. Clint climbed through the ventilation system of the lab, firing arrows left and right at Chitauri-like aliens. Hulk smashed through walls, effectively destroying a good number of the alien team. Widow, Captain, and Thor entered and immediately spread out, killing those that came in their paths as they made their way to the hostages.
Natasha shot two of them quickly as she rounded the corner- one a fatal shot, the other almost fatal. She stepped over the fallen bodies and continued down the corridor. When she heard a commotion, she turned to see the alien she just shot regenerating, its wound closing. As it healed, it grew, seeming to grow at least a foot taller, before advancing on her. She holstered her weapon and lunged at it, delivering a solid punch to its jaw before taking it down with a trademark thigh choke.
"They can regenerate," she breathed heavily into her comm. "The fuckers grow."
"Well that's just fucking fantastic," Stark grumbled.
The fighting continued; each shot taken by any of the Avengers was a kill shot. The minions seemed to keep coming from everywhere.
"The fuck?" Clint grumbled loudly. "Where are they coming from? The lab isn't all that big."
"There's a labyrinth underneath," Natasha responded.
"It seems like they all have the same thought. They're being controlled by something," Captain mentioned.
"They're being controlled by someone," Fury corrected, interrupting their general commentary of the battle. "The original scientist, one Nathaniel Miller, mixed his DNA with some of the Chituari DNA he could salvage from a body pulled from the wreckage in Manhattan. It altered everything about him, but also gave him the mental control over the minions he spawned with his DNA mixture."
"He's the key," Captain declared. "Do we know where he is?"
"I think I found him," Natasha whispered quietly into the mic. "We might need the Hulk for this one, Cap. Miller is huge." There was a long pause, a strangled curse word, and the familiar sound of rounds being fired.
"Tasha," Clint called, demanding a response.
In the control room, Natasha found herself standing face-to-stomach with a very large, very unhappy being. Its skin was green tinted like the Chitauri. Though its face held more of a human quality, the rest of its body had morphed and mixed into a blend of human and alien. It was easily double her height. She chose not to guess its weight. The thing had remarkable senses as it identified her hiding spot based on her brief whisper to her teammates. She went through a full round of ammo as she ran backwards through the hallway, trying to remember which way she had come while focusing on the giant creature barreling down on her.
Her bullets seemed to be small nuisances to the mutant. They nicked its skin, penetrated its torso, but didn't slow it down. Another murmured curse word before she was tackled through the wall by the creature. She could vaguely hear people screaming in her ear, but she kept her attention focused on the man-alien above her. Surrounded by a pile of dry wall and crumbling plaster, Natasha can feel the concrete pieces digging into her body; she can smell the material of her tactical suit burning where the mutant's blood transferred to her. She can look up and see the monster the man has become.
For the second time in her life, she felt her body being lifted off the ground and thrown like nothing more than a rag doll. The assassin hit the wall behind her at full force, crumpling to the floor. Between the pain of the blood now touching her skin through the burned holes in the suit and the overwhelming pain of colliding with a concrete barrier at the speed of a moving truck, she distantly heard herself scream.
Stark shouted commands to JARVIS about the blueprints of the maze of hallways beneath the lab while Thor trampled through the corpses of the aliens. Clint scrambled through the ventilation trying to find his wife as Captain tried to follow the path he thought Natasha had taken. Her first scream stopped them all momentarily. None of the teammates had ever heard Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow, scream in agony. Within moments they were urgently trying to find her in the destructed rubble of everything.
The thing that used to be Doctor Miller crushed through the debris to stand in front of her, its chest heaving and its eyes yellow and black. It seemed to breathe deeply and she had a single second to wonder what the hell it was doing before it retched onto her, covering her body in fluid.
There was a split second of wondering if the mixture had the same acidic properties as the blood before the searing pain hit her skin. There were gaping holes in her suit where a majority of the fluids hit; leaving a tattered garment that barely covered her. The screaming in her ears didn't sound like her own.
Hazily, she watched the figure in front be tackled and beaten by a raging Hulk. She writhed in pain from the acidic fluids, and as she writhed, her bruised and battered body sustained more damage and caused more pain. It took around two minutes for the pain to reach an unbearable level, and her brain shut off, a defense mechanism, and drifted into unconscious.
Stark was the first to find her. He scooped her up in his arms, her body hanging limply. She whimpered, and he was floored. He had never once in his life heard her make that noise. "JARVIS, find me a contamination shower in this lab. I've got her."
"Where are you," Clint and Captain demanded simultaneously.
"4 floors down from the main level through the two demolished hallways to the right. We've got to move her though. That thing wrecked havoc on the structural integrity of this building. The sooner we get out, the better. I have JARVIS finding a chemical shower, so we can rinse of whatever the fluid is on her before we fly her back to medical," Stark responded as he stepped through the debris carefully. He briefly debated about whether he should have picked her up or not; given the force she went through the wall with the giant beast, he figured she could have injuries that needed to be set before moving her. When she whimpered in pain through her unconscious again, Stark banished the thought and quickly worked his way up to the main floor.
One of the scientists who had previously been held hostage pointed him to a functioning chemical shower. Stark briefly and mentally commended his genius for making a waterproof suit. He stepped under the shower with the assassin in his arms. Captain was the next to appear, quickly urging another scientist to shed his lab coat. His large body served as a visual barrier, keeping Natasha from peering eyes. Barton practically fell through the ceiling and rushed to them. "Barton, you can't touch her," Captain reminded. Thor held him back, keeping the archer from taking his wife from Stark's hands.
"Medical and clean-up crews on their way. What happened," Fury questioned through the comm.
"Romanov got a full blast of the fluid. Stark has her in the contamination shower now. Barton and Thor are leading the hostages outside for pick-up. Hulk terminated Miller," Captain relayed. He gave a pointed look at Barton and Thor. The former clenched his jaw and his fists, wanting desperately to disobey; he didn't though and started leading the living scientists through the rubble.
When Stark and Captain made it to the QuinJet with Natasha, a medical team rushed to them, taking her from Iron Man's hands and onto the medical jet. Barton didn't hesitate for a moment and quickly followed. The lead on the medical team started to say something, started to object the archer's presence on the jet, but he was silenced with a single look from Captain.
"We'll meet you there," Stark promised and Barton nodded.
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"ETA 65 minutes. Medic on site ready and waiting for the second round of injections. Authorized first round of injection by on staff medic," the pilot dispatched through the system.
Natasha started to come to briefly as the flight continued, fading in and out of consciousness. The medics flitted around her- checking her ribs, neck, and spine; confirming functionality of her organs; monitoring her blood pressure and heart rate. With the nurses buzzing around her, Clint was pushed off to the side where he sat mostly out of the way. He couldn't see his partner, but he could hear her screams from earlier reverberating in his head like an echo in a canyon. It made his head thrum and his heart ache. It was easily his least favorite sound in the world, and he would give almost anything if he never had to hear it again. Unfortunately for him, that wasn't the case. As Natasha came back, the fluid induced hallucinations started.
The medics worked around her, trying to keep her flailing limbs from knocking them out of the way. The assassin thrashed on the stretcher as her delirium altered the reality she saw. In her diluted mind, the nurses were monsters and the inside of the jet turned into flames surrounding and suffocating her. Memories of her parents' death fueled the hallucinations until she felt like she was in hell, her own personal hell in which every drip of red in her ledger would be tortured and pulled from her until she was no longer red, no longer in debt. She screamed as she struggled, and they couldn't hold her still long enough to give her a sedative.
"Barton, do something," the lead medic pleaded. "We can't help her if she doesn't calm down."
He nodded and jumped into action. He dodged a swing of her left fist, easily catching it in his palm, and he repeated the process with her right. "Tasha," Barton whispered into her ear not housing the comm link. "Tasha, breathe," he requested. Her arms stopped tugging and fighting against him. His hands, after releasing her, reached up to cradle her face. "Look at me, Tasha. Can you see me?" She nodded heavily, a look of unadulterated fear in her green eyes. "What do you see, Tash? Tell me what you see."
"Fire," she mumbled, the words hoarse and broken.
"Am I on fire?" She shook her head. "Are you on fire?" She nodded and her body seemed to contract with pain beneath him. "The medics are here to help you." Natasha tensed and shook her head vehemently. In her hallucination, she hadn't seen medics; she saw monsters and she couldn't handle monsters, couldn't fight them off when her body was in so much pain. Another wave of burning washed over her, drowning her wave after wave in fire. She bit her lip, hard, to keep from crying out; a tear slipped from her eye before getting lost in her hair. "I know it hurts. They can help you, Tasha." She shook her head again and locked her hands around his forearms, wincing as the movement caused a shift in her ribs.
"I'll give it to her," Barton said. "Get me whatever I need and stay out of her visual. Where does the injection need to go?" As the medics fumbled around to get him the items he requested, he turned back to her.
"Do you trust me," he asked. He knew the answer, of course, but he wanted to give her the feeling of control. She closed her eyes, a few more tears escaping, and nodded her head. "Okay then. I'm going to give you the first round of injections that Fury talked about, remember?" She nodded again, less certainly this time.
"The injection needs to go directly into her blood stream. It's recommended to use one of the veins in the neck. It's going to feel like ice running through her veins for a minute or so until it starts to react with the acidic fluid. Then it's going to burn. You'll have to hold her down or she'll hurt herself more. After waiting two and a half minutes, you're going to give her the second shot in the same place. It's a strong antibiotic that we've found combats the burning sensation in the veins." The medic lead instructed as he passed the alcohol wipe and the first syringe. "Do you want to sedate her?"
Barton looked down at his wife, who was sweating and rolling in pain, her lip bleeding from biting it. He locked eyes with her. "Just like Budapest, Tasha?" She nodded as her body writhed. "Okay," he confirmed, straddling her body on the stretcher. He kept his weight off of her, but effectively pinned her lower body down. "No sedative," he replied to the medic behind him. Again, he locked eyes with her as he disinfected the injection site. "Ready?" She gave him a curt nod and he pierced her skin quickly and efficiently, emptying the syringe into her system.
Her body slacked for a moment, the cooling effects easing the pain momentarily. Barton swapped the used syringe for the second during the moment of rest, before pushing his strong forearms against her biceps. Like the medic said, a minute later, pain flooded her body more intensely than before, and her body bucked into his, trashing beneath him. Tears leaked from her eyes as she whimpered and cried out.
It was the longest two and a half minutes of his life.
The second injection dulled the pain significantly and her body gave out under him, no longer tensed like a drawn bowstring. He brushed hair from her face and kissed her forehead. He didn't care who was watching. Barton slipped off her body before kneeling on the floor. The rest of the flight to headquarters, he whispered in her ear words no one else could hear and held her hand.
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Medical kept her in the infirmary for the first week and a half. It wasn't after she made three nurses cry and threatened SHIELD's head of medicine within an inch of his life that they released her to Avengers Tower with very detailed instructions about treating her burns. Stark assured the doctor that Natasha would have access to all the medical attention needed. He was, after all, Tony Stark, and he made that very clear.
Fury signed off on her release immediately because Philip had turned his helicarrier into a damn Gymboree.
"Fuck," Stark shouted as he raced through the halls of the helicarrier. He physically collided with the Director. "Fuck. Fuck."
"What did you do now?"
"Why do people constantly ask me that question? I didn't do anything for god's sake."
"Then why are you cussing like a sailor and turning my orderly hallways into a free-for-all, Mr. Stark?"
"It's part of my charm," Tony tried with a smirk that caused the vein in Fury's left temple to pulse with irritation.
"Let me repeat. What did you do?"
"I lost the kid."
"The kid? There aren't children on this base, Stark." Fury paused and violently glared at the shorter man. "The kid," he said again as if tumbling the words in his mouth. "The kid. You lost the kid. Romanov's child. The Black Widow's child. In my helicarrier. Are you out of your fucking mind?"
"He was there, and Captain had him. And now he's gone! And fuck we're leaving to take her back to the Tower before she actually makes good on her threat to the physician. We lost her kid," Stark rambled.
"Hill," Fury called into the comm link that was part of the daily uniform. "We have lost a baby in the carrier. We need to find him ASAP."
"He's only one," Stark shrieked, already fretting over his impending doom. "How far could he have gotten?"
"Philip is the child of two of the world's best assassins. Do you really want me to answer that question," Fury returned with a look that clearly read stop-being-such-a-fucking-idiot. The director put a hand up to his ear. "He's where," the bald man all but shouted.
"Where? Where is he?" Stark demanded, bouncing anxiously on the balls of his feet.
"He's in the ventilation system."
"Fuck, he really is Barton's kid. I'd always thought that there was the slight inkling that maybe he wasn't. The kid's too good looking to be Barton's kid," the genius mused.
"If you like your balls where they are, Stark, I don't recommend voicing that particular thought to either of the assassins. Get that baby out of my damn AC system, and then get her the fuck off my helicarrier before I have to hire a whole new slew of nurses." Fury turned on his heels, his long coat flapping slightly, before dangerously stalking off to find someone to yell at.
"How am I supposed to get in the vents," Tony called after him. He desperately turned his vision towards the ceiling as if maybe it would grant him an idea.
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The young boy turned two the night of a meteor shower. It was late at night, and Clint took him from his crib before climbing into his perch. Philip snuggled against his chest, his head tucked under Clint's chin. His little fist gripped Clint's shirt in one hand and his blanket in the other. When the shower began, he rearranged his grip on his son, so Philip could see the brilliant stars in the sky.
"See, buddy? Isn't that cool? Look at the stars."
"Pretty," Philip mumbled around the thumb in his mouth. "Pretty stars." He drew his attention from the sky and looked at his surroundings. "Daddy's nest," he noted happily.
Clint laughed, knowing the boy had picked up that phrase from his mother. "Yeah, kiddo. We're in Daddy's nest. Guess what today is?" Philip looked up at him with his big blue eyes, a question clear in their depths. "Today's your birthday. You're two today!"
"Two," Philip repeated with a smile. He leaned back against his father's chest and his eyes fought to stay open.
"Good night, Philip. Happy birthday. I love you," Clint whispered reverently to young boy in his lap. When the shower was over, he climbed down carefully, tucked Philip back in his crib, and slid into bed next to Natasha. The woman, sensing his returned presence, turned over and curled herself against his side, one of her legs thrown over his and her head pillowed against his chest. He breathed in her hair, kissed the top of her head, and burrowed into the pillow and blanket formed nest.
"Our son is two," he whispered in awe, his words muffled by her red curls.
"He is," she returned. Even in the dark, he could hear the smile on her face. "Damn."
"Yeah, it doesn't feel like two years at all. I blinked, Tasha, and now he's two. We've really got to stop blinking. We miss things."
"You're Hawkeye. You don't miss things."
"It's just going by so fast."
"It is," she agreed sleepily. "You really want another one?"
"Yeah," he affirmed into the darkness. "Yeah, I do."
"You realize how crazy this is, yes?"
"I learned long ago to embrace the crazy."
"Okay," she agreed.
His excitement skyrocketed, sleep nearly banished from his mind. "Okay," he asked. "We can have another child?" Natasha nodded against his chest. Smiling widely, Clint rolled them over, kissing her soundly. "Thank you," he mumbled against her lips between kisses. "Thank you."