Hey people! Just so you all know, I'm going off to a week-long summer camp in a couple days, so it might be a while before my next post. I'll try to sneak one in before I leave, but that's not for sure. Thanks again to everyone who's reading, favorite-ing, and reviewing. You guys are my bestest buddies!

Disclaimer: The Avengers aren't mine. That's not to say I don't wish they were…

"Hey Kyla…You know how you said you would walk me into the ground?" Asked an exhausted Clint Barton. Kyla, walking beside him, threw him a look.

"Yeah."

"You win." Barton groaned, crumpling to the ground beside a dumpster. Kyla frowned at him. They had been walking in silence for several hours now and the sun had sunk low in the sky. It would be night soon and she didn't want to crash until they were in a safer and better hidden location. Kyla hadn't really paid much attention to Clint while they had been moving, but now that they had stopped she saw that he was a lot paler than was probably healthy. Blood was visible seeping through the bandage on his upper arm and his leg looked swollen through the pant leg.

Kyla didn't want him to overdo it more than he already had, but if they didn't move they were about as exposed as they could get. They were only about twenty feet off a main road. Kyla nudged him with her foot and her huffed at her.

"What?" He muttered, his eyes already closed.

"We can't stop here. We're too exposed." Kyla said, looking anxiously into the street. "Up!" She added when he didn't respond. He still didn't answer. She glared at him and kicked him with a little more vigor. Clint was silent and unmoving. Now slightly concerned, Kyla kneeled in front of him and shook his shoulder, saying in a slightly kinder voice, "Clint? Hey, get up man. Clint?"

Something wasn't right here. Trying to stay calm Kyla put two fingers to the side of his throat, feeling for a pulse. There was one, but it was a little too slow for comfort. She put an ear to his chest. Barely breathing.

"Merda!" She swore quietly. She did the only thing any sane woman would do. She slapped him across the face. "Get up you idiota!" She yelled. Barton jerked awake suddenly, gasping and bleary-eyed.

"What the hell?" He yelled. Kyla sat back with an angry frown.

"Don't do that!" She said, as if that would explain why she had slapped him.

"What?"

"You were almost dead for ten seconds!" She said, failing miserably to hide her alarm. Clint groaned and looked like he might pass out again. Kyla shook her head. "Nope, nope, none of that. Up you get…" She reached forward, grabbing him under the arms and attempting to pull him to his feet. He was dead weight however and they both fell back to the ground.

Déjà vu…Where have I seen this before…? Kyla thought to herself, thinking how one-sided this relationship had become. He passes out, I carry him.

Kyla knew that they wouldn't be going anywhere until he recovered from whatever had come over him…blood loss, probably. That could be a while. She planted herself on the ground next to him, pulling both of their legs out of sight behind the dumpster. Anyone who happened to stumble into the alley would have seen them, but it would have to do for now.

Kyla snapped out her pocket knife with one hand and held her blowgun under her sweatshirt with the other. She could already hear regular breathing beside her. Clint was asleep…or unconscious, depending on how you looked at things. Kyla looked up at the starless sky, wondering what they were going to do. If the police were after them, an airport was out of the question. A boat might be possible…she knew some smugglers that owed her a favor, but honestly she had never been desperate enough to risk a trip on one of those ships. Either you got caught by the US Coast Guard smuggling illegal immigrants or you got captured by some other smugglers or pirates. Frankly, she'd rather starve.

Today had been about escape, tomorrow would be survival. Then they would get the hell out of here.

It was the middle of the night when Kyla was awakened by a loud crash. She must have dozed off while keeping watch. She looked up sharply, her eyes scanning the darkness. A man had fallen into the alley, a beer bottle broken in his hand. It must have hit the wall as he fell. He was unshaven and smelly. He looked up, saw Kyla and Clint, and gave a stupid grin.

"Ei quer-ida! Qual é se-u nom-e?" He slurred. („Hey Sweetheart, what's your name?")

"Get lost." Kyla hissed, pulling out her knife. The man picked himself up off the ground in record time, stumbling into the street with a few hurried "Okay, okay!" 's.

Kyla waited until he was gone before lowering the knife and heaving a sigh. She hated herself for falling asleep. What if that had been a mugger? Or a police officer? She and Clint could be dead! She blinked several times to wake herself up and looked over at Clint. He must have moved in his sleep because now his head was leaning against the dumpster and his splinted leg was stuck out at an odd angle. Kyla watched him for a minute, making sure he was breathing alright. She noticed that he was shaking. How could he be cold? It was still over 80 degrees out.

Right… She thought. Blood loss…probably shock too.

As quietly as she could (knowing that Barton was a light sleeper) she took off her sweatshirt and gently draped it over him.

She then scooted as far away from him as she could. Why had she done that? Why? A little shiver wouldn't kill him. She was being kind again… She flicked herself in the arm.

There you go again Kyla! She told herself. Helping a total stranger just for the heck of it!

She sighed and rubbed her eyes with her thumbs. If she was going to keep this up she'd have to regain some macho real quick. She couldn't let herself get soft…especially if she was actually going to go with this guy to the Helicarrier, or whatever it was called. She had to stay sharp.

She held her knife's blade between her fingers and practiced throwing it into a cardboard box across the alley.

After several minutes of this, the holes in the box spelled out the word "Macho".

Barton woke up and was for a moment unable to remember how he had gotten to where he was. Then he remembered the police, and Kyla making him walk with a broken leg. Right…

He let his eyes slowly open just enough to see his surroundings. Sweet Lord he was cold. Wasn't this Brazil? He shivered and looked to his left. Kyla was beside him, sleeping like a baby, a knife just visible in her hand. Yeah, he defiantly respected any girl that slept with a knife. He panicked for a second before remembering that she had been carrying his bow and quiver on her bag all day. He knew he probably wouldn't be able to fire it anyway, but having it close at hand was really helping with his healing process. It gave him something to look forward to once he could lift his arm again. He let out a long breath as he tried to stretch, aggravating the knife wound in his side. The mugger had been pressing hard on it earlier and it was probably bleeding again. He shivered. It was defiantly bleeding again.

The next time Clint woke up Kyla was awake. She was talking to herself, something in Portuguese, and he made himself a mental reminder to get a language-learning program when he got back to the Helicarrier. She sounded angry, or at least upset. It was too dark for Clint to clearly see her face, but she had moved away from him and was sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest.

If his mouth felt any less like sandpaper he would have said something, but as it was he could only watch her in silence. He realized that for the first time she wasn't wearing her black sweatshirt. He had thought she was nuts, wearing that thing all the time in this heat, but now he knew that it was for concealing her small armory of blow darts, a knife, and a gun (with no bullets, he noted). Barton also noticed somewhat belatedly that he was no longer shivering. He looked down at himself. Her sweatshirt was covering his torso and arms, keeping off the light breeze that had picked up and stopping his teeth from chattering.

Barton didn't really know how to react to this. He still hadn't figured her out. He knew she wasn't as tough as she appeared, no one could be. There was something about this 20-year-old girl that reminded him unavoidably of himself. He hadn't grown up on the right side of the poverty line either and it had made him a fighter, and frankly a little distrusting as well.

He hadn't decided what Kyla wanted from him; a way out probably, but what about after that? Was she really going to follow him to SHIELD? Was she going to make a run for it? She was obviously capable of murder, would she kill him if he tried to stop her? Clint looked back at Kyla. She was throwing a knife into a cardboard box across the alley, spelling out a word he was too tired to read. Yeah, she could probably kill him. Hell, a bad cold would probably kill him in his current state, but she didn't always act like a killer. Bringing him to her home, giving him food and water, saving him from the mugger, giving him her sweatshirt…obviously she was more than just a hired assassin minus the "hired". He should know, how had he made his living before the Avengers?

Clint fell asleep again and this time didn't wake up until it was nearly dawn. At first he didn't know what had woken him. Then he heard the second gunshot.