There weren't any windows on the helicopter, so Tony didn't have a chance to see the Helicarrier in flight before they landed on board. He was still going over the calculations in his head of how the massive piece of engineering could possibly fly, but still he couldn't come up with a single "solve for x". It just wasn't possible. He was annoyed that he thought this because obviously it was, but still…he wanted the math to come out. He didn't like flying on an unsolved equation.

The gentile bump of the helicopter touching down got him to his feet in a hurry. He was itching to get back to the lab. All he wanted right now was to get away from all the sickness and depression and occupy himself with hacking into Fury's personal computer.

Flinging open the doors before the rotors had stopped turning, he took off across the tarmac, not bothering to stay for the pleasantries of Fury showing off his flying fortress to the new recruit. He didn't disliked Kyla, he just didn't want to spend time with new people right now. Maybe Banner had been sleeping at night and would actually talk to him today. He liked the guy, but he did get a little wound up in himself sometimes. Not without reason, but still, he could make an effort to show up to breakfast every once in a while.

Maybe he should call Pepper? Girlfriends liked it when you called, right? Stark had been spending more and more time away since New York, partially because the team was on alert and partially because of something Happy had said.

It had been a long day and he and his sort-of-assistant had been sitting on the roof of Stark Towers with a six pack of beer and a stack of "Popular Mechanics". The conversation had drifted and Happy had said something that really got to him. He hadn't meant it to, obviously, but only Tony Stark could be so chilled by the sentence, "You know Mr. Stark; if you keep it up with a steady girl like this you'll end up with a ring and three screaming little-Starks!"

And so…he had run away. The genius, billionaire, Playboy, and philanthropist had run away for fear that the woman he loved would ask to marry him.

Maybe calling wasn't such a good idea for the time being.

Clint was in the operating room for way too long…way too long. Kyla was sitting in a metal chair in the steel-walled waiting room outside the emergency-care unit of the Helicarrier's medical section. She had been waiting there for well over four hours. She had run after the doctors as they rushed Clint to surgery, hardly registering the fact that she was on an aircraft carrier…in the sky. She had been held back from the operating room by soldiers who were kind to her, but made it clear that she wasn't allowed in. She had taken a seat and was determined to wait it out.

She had only seen two people in that time. A doctor had come in and smiled warmly at her before disappearing through a windowless door without a word. Natasha had also come in, cast Kyla a meaningful look, and had stormed with purpose into the operating room. The fact that she stalked out several minutes later, furiously slamming her fist into a wall on her way out, was enough to convince Kyla that attempting to enter the room herself was foolhardy in the least.

And so, she waited some more. Unfortunately, the longer she waited the more nervous she became, not the other way around. The longer she sat there, the more she became convinced that Clint had died in surgery and that they had forgotten that she had forgotten that she was waiting. Would she just sit here all night waiting for news on a dead man?

The sound of a door opening made her jump a good foot out of her chair. The door to the operation room had opened and a doctor stepped out. He had on a full medical coat that dropped down to his knees and sky blue trousers and white booties on his shoes. He had short-cut brown hair and stunningly white teeth as he smiled at her. He crossed the room and she watched him intently.

"You're Kyla, aren't you?" He asked, sitting down in a chair opposite her. She nodded wordlessly and he sighed, offering a hand. "My name is Doctor Jeffery Hoffner. I'm the chief medical officer on board the Helicarrier. You can call me Jeff."

Kyla shook his hand weakly. "Kyla Amano. Apparently I'm an Avenger now."

Jeff smiled. "Yes, I heard about that. I'm happy to see some fresh blood around here." He chuckled and Kyla's face remained perfectly straight.

"Sorry…bad doctor joke…" He said apologetically. He cleared his throat in a down-to-business fashion. "One of my surgeons told me you were waiting for news on Agent Barton."

Kyla nodded with a little more vigor than she had intended. She was enormously relieved that Jeff didn't look like someone delivering bad news.

"Well, I'm happy to report that his condition is stable. I wouldn't put my money on his doing a whole lot for quite some time, but he really owes you a lot."

Kyla gave him a questioning look and he gave a small laugh.

"If you hadn't given him the care you did he would have been dead two days ago. He's got a number of life threatening injuries." He paused, waiting for this to sink in. Kyla nodded slowly.

"Can I see him?"

"Well…ICU patients aren't really supposed to have visitors…" He began. Kyla's face fell visibly and she nodded. "But…" Jeff added in an undertone. Kyla looked up and met his mischievous eye. "You don't look so good yourself. What happened to you wrist?" Kyla glanced at her wrist where she had been injured one year before. It still hurt, but she had grown used to it. It certainly looked worse than it was. Slowly she caught on to the doctor's game.

"Yeah, you know, I'm not really up on my shots either…" She added in a stage-whisper. Jeff feigned shock and got to his feet, grabbing her by the arm.

"Dear Lord! We can't have an untreated foreigner onboard a government aircraft! You're coming with me!" Kyla couldn't suppress a grin as Dr. Hoffner led her through the door to the ICU.

The Intensive Care Unit was a tangle of white tiled halls with doors all down their lengths. It reminded her unavoidably of a very clean version of the slums she grew up in. Slightly disturbing labels were hung on the wall beside each door, some of which included "Enemy Combatant Treatment Center", "Unknown Weaponry Injury Treatment Center", "Specialized Care Center", and, most off-putting to Kyla, "Non-Human Treatment Center".

"What's that for?" She asked Jeff, pointing to the last door they passed.

"Well, let's say you were trying to kill someone but you didn't and now you feel guilty and want to make them all better…"

Kyla got the impression that he didn't care for the particular area. She didn't press the matter and around the next corner was the end of the hall. A single door with no window was labeled, "Surgery and Intensive Care Unit". Jeff pulled out an ID card he was wearing on a strap around his neck and swiped it on a small black panel beside the door. He typed in a five digit code on the keypad beside it and the door beeped quietly. Jeff gave Kyla a friendly smile and led her through.

The surgery room was off in another door to their left, and to their right was a second door. This one had a small window that allowed Kyla to see a row of hospital beds beyond the door. Jeff pointed to the door.

"You can go ahead in, I'll be right there to take a look at that arm of yours." He winked and went to a sink set into a counter in the corner and washed his hands. Kyla hesitated, but made her way to the door. She pushed the handle down gently and it swung open silently. She stepped in, closing the door behind her, and looked around the room.

It was uncomfortably medical in her opinion, but she figured that there must be a reason for that. There were two rows of beds along each of the walls and a counter ran all the way around the room, littered with medical supplies and more than a couple instruments that Kyla couldn't even begin to recognize.

It didn't take long for her to find Barton. He was in the bed in the back corner of the room and as Kyla approached she could see that he was hooked up to a tangle of wires and tubes that made her stomach drop a few inched toward her feet. It was sickening, but she tried to keep it together, just for a while longer. If that's what it took to keep him alive…then fine. Clint was also dressed in a medical gown that really, really…actually she couldn't stress this enough…really didn't suit him. Like all the other beds, this one had a chair beside it and she took a seat as quietly as possible. Barton looked asleep and she didn't want to wake him up.

It turned out that even she wasn't quite enough to avoid Barton's sensitive hearing and his eyes opened slowly. He didn't see Kyla right away, and she saw his facial expression morph from pain to confusion to surprise and finally annoyance.

"Damn…" He groaned.

"Tell me about it…" Kyla muttered. Clint's head tilted toward her and he regarded her with skepticism.

"Right…and you decided to come to the Helicarrier after all, huh?"

Kyla nodded with a shrug. "How are you feeling?"

"Bad." he answered without hesitation. Kyla gave a sympathetic smile. At least he was doing better than before.

"Hey, thanks for putting in a good word for me. Fury hired me you know."

Clint frowned in confusion.

"A good word?"

"Hey, you know…'Kyla's good, we need her'?"

Clint settled back against his pillow.

"I have no memory of that conversation."

"Ah…" Kyla said, deciding that it was probably best not to stress him out by insisting that he had spoken out on her behalf. "The doctor says you should be fine." She said, trying to find words that didn't sound insensitive. Barton raised his eyebrows at her and she shook her head. "Yeah, you know what? Never mind…" She stood up and turned to go. She couldn't do this. It was so damn awkward!

"Thank you."

"Beg pardon?" She snapped, spinning around to face him.

"I said 'thank you'. Jeff sad you saved my life."

Kyla's jaw clenched and unclenched for a second.

"Yeah, well, I couldn't let you croak in my front yard, could I? You'd smell terrible by morning." To her enormous relief Clint took her words as sarcastic rather than an actual denial and laughed weakly.

"Uh huh…Come back here. I'd like the company." He nodded to the chair beside him and Kyla sighed and sat back down. Really, it wasn't like anything else she would be doing was much better. "So, Fury made you an Avenger?"

"Uh, yeah. I think that's what happened…" Kyla said with a slight grin. Clint nodded thoughtfully.

"That's good…how'd he do it? Formally or did he just wing it?"

"Seemed pretty formal to me."

"Did you shake hands?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, that's good." Barton said, smiling. "That means he likes you."

Kyla chuckled slightly. "Really? He doesn't seem like the "liking" type."

"Just stay on his good side. Stay on his good side or you'll end up like Stark."

Kyla's eyes widened a bit at that and she decided to make Nick Fury her best friend for the time being. Their conversation was interrupted as the door of the recovery room opened and Dr. Hoffner entered. He smiled warmly at them and approached, a clipboard under his arm and a metal try containing a number of medical tools in his hands. He put the tray down on the counter by the bed beside Clint's.

"Ah, it's good to see you up Barton. How are we feeling?" He asked in typical doctor conversationalist. Clint cast Kyla a side glance.

"What is it with shrinks and talking about other people in the plural?" he murmured. Jeff shrugged.

"Tools of the trade… If you could just take a seat here, Agent Amano…" He patted the bed next to Clint's and she nodded, standing up from her chair and walking over. Agent Amano…she liked that.

Jeff politely asked her to put out her right arm and she did so, albeit a little nervously. She had never been to a real doctor before, unless you counted the one that came to treat the young children at the orphanage. Even then, she usually hid under the stairs until they were gone. She didn't care for needles…too much like what druggies used on themselves…it brought back memories.

"Have you ever had an injection before?" Jeff asked gently, apparently reading her expression as he put on a pair of blue medical gloves and pulled out a syringe that seemed greatly out of proportion to her arm. Kyla shook her head and honestly felt like she was going to throw up. She mentally cataloged all of the sinks in the room, just in case, and Jeff put his gloved hand over the crook of her arm, hiding it from view as he slipped in the needle. It helped not being able to actually see it as he slowly…very slowly, pressed on the syringe's end, injecting the clear contents into her bloodstream. With an expert hand he pulled out the needle, laying it out of sight behind his back and holding his thumb to the place on her arm. It hurt, but hardy at all.

"There, see? Nothing to worry about." He pulled a circular band aid out of nowhere and placed it over the pinprick. He patted her on the shoulder and she gave him a lopsided smile. She looked around him to Clint who was watching them with mind amusement.

"Kyla Amano…the girl who can kill you twenty different ways with a playing card and she still can't handle getting her shots…" he said with a teasing grin. Kyla threw him a dirty look and Jeff put an arm around her shoulder.

"You kiddin' me Barton? She handled that beautifully." He winked at Kyla before adding, "At least she didn't whine about whose blood we were feeding her during surgery…"

Clint's expression suddenly darkened, like he had remembered a really important appointment he had missed.

"Oh no…You didn't actually…"

Jeff gave the equivalent of a mad scientist's cackle. "Sorry Barton, there's only one other person on board who has O- blood."

Clint rose up a fraction from his pillow, propping himself up on his elbows, and glared threateningly at Hoffner.

"If you tell him I swear to God I'll…"

"Bleed on me?"

Barton glared at him for a few more seconds before his arms gave out under him and he flopped back to the mattress with a groan. It wasn't clear to Kyla what was going on, but Jeff was still smiling like a maniac.

"You sure get a lot of enjoyment out of this job, don't you?" She asked him, running a finger over the bandage on her arm. Jeff did the evil chuckle again.

"Yeah, well, there's not a whole lot to do at the end of the day around here. Pitting these guys against each other like betta fish keeps most of the staff sane."

Kyla frowned at this but had to find it slightly amusing. She risked a look at Clint and saw that he was asleep again. She lowered her voice to a whisper.

"Whose blood was it?" She asked. His smile grew significantly.

"Tony Stark's."

Kyla almost snorted with laughter. "Don't you dare tell him!" she snickered, having known Tony just long enough to understand Barton's concern.

"You're right…that's almost too cruel." Hoffner chuckled. He straightened himself up, checked some monitors by Clint's bed, and turned to go. Kyla reluctantly stood up from the bed and followed. She almost ran into him as he suddenly stopped and spun around.

"Where do you think you're going?" He asked. Kyla shrugged. She really didn't know what she was supposed to do now. "Oh, no, no, no…you're staying right here." He held her arm and steered her back to the bed. He was at first confused, but soon caught on. "I haven't taken care of that wrist yet. You should stay here until I have a chance to treat it." He winked and Kyla winked back, resuming her seat on the bed. She decided that she liked Jeff Hoffner. He understood her…not an easy task for sure.

Kyla smiled at Jeff as he left the room and closed the door behind him. The lights dimmed themselves to a comfortable glow as the door shut and Kyla took another look around. A clock on the wall opposite her read 10:30 pm. Had she really been on board for four and a half hours already? She suddenly realized how tired she was. She had only caught a wink of sleep the night before in the alley and hadn't slept at all for at least another two days. She didn't bother pulling the covers over herself before she fell into a deep sleep.