Okay…NOW whump and sadness…Sorry people, but there has to be something that really sums up Clint and Kyla's relationship. Also, getting shot and falling off a building isn't exactly a minor thing, so for the sake of realism I have made his injures a touch more severe than I had previously intended. Oh well, he'll get better…I promise! Oh, and unlucky chapter 13 too…Oooo…SCAREY! ;-)

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"How long is this gonna take?" Kyla asked. Tony put his phone back in his pocket and looked down at her. There was a weird moment when all he could see was this girl, Kyla, clinging to Clint Barton's hand with anger and concern plastered on her face. Tony kneeled beside her and put two fingers to Clint's neck, checking his pulse.

"Not long. If I know Fury at all he's probably booking it to get here." He assured her, though he wasn't entire confident himself. A lot had been happening at headquarters and Fury might have bigger fish to fry.

"He overdid it." Kyla said quietly. Stark looked up and noticed that every hint of emotion had been wiped from her face. "I made him walk too far too soon. I was being stupid."

"Hey." Tony said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She flinched and moved away, but didn't say anything. "This isn't your fault." He looked at Clint who was still out cold. He decided that if Fury didn't show up within the hour they were going to have a pretty rotten day.

"You wanna help?" He asked Kyla. She was looking distractedly into the nearby street and her bight green eyes shot back to him when he spoke.

"How?" She said quickly. Tony bit his lip for a second, knowing that everything they did could raise or lower Clint's chanced of a clean recovery. He called on a few first aid classes he had endured in high school and something he had read about anatomy while building his suit.

"Okay…so I think the first thing we should do is stop the bleeding…"

Kyla sent him a critical look. "No duh Sherlock." She muttered. Before he could think of an appropriate comeback she had pulled out a knife. Tony was at first alarmed and scooted back across the asphalt. She rolled her eyes at him and gently held the side of Barton's shirt between two fingers. She then made a slice through the fabric all the way across, revealing the bullet hole in his stomach. Stark was no slouch, nor was he squeamish (he had a freaking hole straight to his heart), but this made him gag.

The wound was pouring blood in an amount that seemed disproportionate to the injury. Both Kyla and Tony's eyes tracked over to the dead man on the ground where Kyla had left him. Beside him was a scratched and beaten-up .22. It would make a small hole, but at close range it was as lethal as anything.

"Put your hand here." Kyla commanded, pointing to the injury. Tony looked at her with distaste and she glared at him. "Now!" She shouted. Stark jumped and winced as he laid his hand on the gushing wound. He threw the unconscious Barton a look and wanted more than anything to be somewhere else.

Kyla was hard at work. She had picked a sweatshirt up off of the ground nearby and was using her knife to cut it up into strips. The longest of these she handed to Tony who took it in his free hand.

"Tie that tight around his stomach, okay?" She said. Tony nodded with a disgusted look on his face but did what she asked, the black fabric barely able to slow the flow of blood. Meanwhile, Kyla was holding more of the stripes to another injury on Barton's side with one hand and using the other hand and her teeth to tie a third bandage around his upper arm. Tony noted how painfully efficient she was. Didn't she have a gag reflex? He shook himself.

I'm being such a little girl… He told himself and held out his hand.

"Can I have another one? He's bleeding like hell over here." Kyla, without looking up, handed him another bandage and continued tending to what Tony assumed was the knife wound Jarvis had described.

"Hey, is there a hospital near here? We can't do this for long." He said, wiping sweat from his brow and smearing Clint's blood across his forehead. Kyla looked up at him, frowning.

"No."

"Right…" He returned, her tone having told him everything he needed to know. "You seem to know what you're doing." He added, trying to remain calm, but fearing that he was rambling instead.

"Shut up and open my bag…" She said tersely, angling herself so that her backpack was facing him. Tony was silenced and managed to unzip the pack with his bloody fingers. Inside were a number of random objects including a change of clothes, some canned foods, and Clint's bow and arrows, the bow in its folded position. Immediately Tony's opinion of Kyla went up. Clint wouldn't let Fury touch his bow. The fact that he was letting Kyla carry them was proof enough that she was trustworthy.

"Get my water bottle." Kyla ordered, shaking him loose of his thoughts. Tony dug around the bag until her found a plastic water bottle and took it out. Kyla swiped it out of his hand and opened it. Tony watched her as she poured some water onto the knife wound, clearing away the blood. While it immediately bled out again, it gave Kyla a quick look at the injury, enough at least to cover it completely with the cloth in her hand.

"What now?" Tony asked after a momentary pause. Kyla shook her head, deep in thought. She didn't answer immediately.

"Wait." She said hopelessly. "Just…wait."

Tony couldn't argue with her logic and silently held the bandage to Clint's injuries, adding a new one every time it bled through. For once he was lost for words. He wasn't really sure how he felt about the situation. Was Clint going to die? What if he did? He had no idea how he was supposed to feel about that. Sure, they didn't always see eye to eye, but they were still semi-friends most of the time. Tony decided right then that he wasn't going to let Clint die. He turned to Kyla, who looked equally absorbed in her thoughts.

"You live here?" He asked her nodding to the street. She looked up and shook her head.

"No. About a day's walk that way." She said, gesturing the opposite direction of the road.

"How did you, you know, find him?" He asked her, nodding to Clint. She shrugged like it was no big deal.

"He fell of a building right in front of me. He wasn't exactly hard to find." She muttered. Tony got the impression that she was trying to end the conversation, but he was determined not to let silence take hold.

"Why did you save him though? You didn't have to." He pressed. She glared at him.

"What do you care?" She snapped. "He's alive. Isn't that enough for you?"

Stark didn't like being yelled at, especially not by young women.

"Hey, I was just trying to figure out what you're after, kid!" He shouted back. Clint moved a little with a groan, but it was unclear whether it was because of Tony's voice or pain from his injuries.

"Don't call me "kid"." Kyla snarled.

"Fine. Don't yell at me." He retorted.

"Fine." She said grudgingly. Tony decided that conversation with her was worse than silence and gave up trying to talk to her.

Tony lost track of how long they were sitting there. It was long enough for his legs to get sore from kneeling and he stood up to stretch, letting Kyla take over holding Clint's bandages. It was beginning to get hot out under the sun and Stark was sweating under his hoody. He took it off and tossed it to Kyla.

"Put that on him. We should keep him comfortable." He said lamely. He didn't know what else to say. Kyla nodded in agreement and draped the large shirt over Clint's shoulders. The time of silence seemed to have lightened her distrust of Tony a bit and he decided to reattempt conversation.

"Are you worried about him?" Stark asked. Kyla didn't look at him.

"Yeah. I'm worried." She said, her voice uncharacteristically low. "Are you?" She asked, her sharp green eyes tracking over to him. Stark stuttered for a second, unsure how to respond.

"I guess so. I mean, he's a friend. So yeah, I'm worried about him." He said, stumbling over his words. He was trying to keep it together in front of Kyla, but he was finding it harder than he had thought. Clint was his friend…

"I think we can save him…but we're going to need help." Kyla said. Tony laughed hollowly. He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted.

"Yeah. I'm gonna need more than aspirin, guys."

Kyla and Tony's eyes both shot to Clint. His eyes were squinting open and he was smiling weakly. Tony ran to his side and Kyla gave a relieved laugh.

"Jeezes, Barton…" She sighed, still holding the bandages to his side. Clint's eyes rolled over to her and he groaned.

"I feel like crap." He said simply. Tony shook his head.

"Stop talking man, you're supposed to be dead, remember?"

Clint frowned and shook his head. "Am I? I sure feel like it…" His eyes closed for a second and his head rolled to the side. Kyla reached forward and kept him from falling sideways.

"Clint? Hey, Clint!" Tony said, snapping his fingers in front of Barton's face. Clint took in a deep breath and his eyes opened again, this time he was blinking, trying to stay awake.

Kyla continued to hold him up, afraid that he would hurt himself if he passed out again. She tried not to think about the stories she had heard of people waking up from unconsciousness seconds before they died. Clint wasn't going to die. She wouldn't let him.

"Clint, stay awake, okay? Help's on the way." She assured him, ignoring Tony's incredulous look at her gentle words.

"Help?" Barton rasped, coughing hoarsely.

"Yeah." Kyla said, nodding. "The Helicarrier thing, Tony called it. They're gonna come and get us now." She looked up at Tony who, for once, had nothing to say. She looked back at Clint and put another bandage on his side where the last strip of fabric had bled through.

Tony was almost as out of it as Clint. He kept thinking,

No, not again…not again…not another Coulson.

He would never have admitted it while he was alive, but Coulson had actually become his friend. And now he was gone. Now he was gone and he would never have a chance to tell him that. Even so, Tony couldn't bring himself to talk to Barton at this point. He'd pull through, of course he'd pull through. How could he not? He was an Avenger for Lord's sake! He'd seen worse…

It was several minutes later Clint was out again. She was trying to wake him up and checked his pulse. She found it to be a low, but at least it was still existent. She jumped when someone touched her arm. She was surprised to find Tony giving her a sympathetic look that didn't quite fit his features.

"Take a fiver, I've got him." He said gently, but in such a way that she knew better than to argue. She was too tired and too mixed up in her own thoughts to put up much fight anyway. She hesitated, but stood. She cast Tony a look that all too clearly told him what she would do to him if Clint died while she was away.

With that, she started walking. She didn't know where she was going, only that her feet were moving. It was helping her organize her thoughts, but she couldn't help but feel like she wasn't getting very far in that department.

Kyla had never cared about someone so much that she was terrified that they might die. Sure, if someone who was about to pay her for a job kicked the bucket she would be pretty mad, but this was so different. Clint wasn't giving her anything…was he? Nothing tangible at least. Not money or food, not even the promise of a favor later on. She told herself that she was going to leave Brazil with his help, but she couldn't make herself believe that. If Clint died Tony would take her to the Helicarrier and out of this hellhole.

So why in the hell was she crying?

Kyla's hand leapt to her face as the first wet drop rolled down her face. She wiped it away and stopped walking. She looked at her hand where the tear glistened in the sunlight. She could only remember one time that she had cried. That had been caused by a different sort of pain. This hurt so much worse.

There was only one reason. She cared about him. Plain and simple, in three days Clint Barton had become her one and only friend on planet Earth, and now he was dying. He was dying and she was standing here worried about her own psyche.

Kyla turned on her heels and started to run back the way she had come. She wouldn't let herself believe that this was Clint's last day, but if it was…she sure as hell would be there for him.