I forgot to post that you can look at Clint's future radiographs from this book on my Ezra Cross facebook page. cause sometimes, its fun to have a visual.
Thank you for all the fantastic reviews! i still dont know where I'm going with this thing. but here we go!
Thank you to::: Hamato Alexa, Niom Lamboise, Batghost, Qweb, MO-5431, Lillehafrue, The Guest, Everlily Emrys Holmes, Soul Bucket, iskaen, discordchick, ELOSHAZZY, Ms. Hawkeye, and m klindt !
Friends Check for Bullet Wounds
Chapter 2
An iceberg in Bruce's chest broke free and floated through his veins. It sent a chill up his spine. Clint nodded down at his hand, indicating that Bruce should feel whatever he'd found there. Gingerly, the doctor leaned forward with his hand extended where Clint took it in his and directed the fingers to the spot he woke up and found amiss. Bruce could understand why. There was the flat wedge of blade protruding from Clint's side. It wasn't much, but just enough to clue the archer in that something terrible had happened.
"It doesn't hurt." Clint told him, moving his hand aside while Bruce inspected him. "None of it hurts. It just felt like a kidney punch when it happened. It was around two this morning. I barreled into him but the guy's built like a brick house. He came down hard on me. When I woke up he was gone."
"You actually lost consciousness?" Bruce asked.
"I knocked out, it was dark, I woke up it was sunny. I finished the mission, which wasn't much, called in, and took a taxi here. I stretched out and didn't wake up until a few hours ago. I caught my arm on it when I sat up."
Bruce's head shot up from his inspection and gazed around the room. "Light switch?"
Clint pointed it out and Bruce launched up to flick it on. Barton closed his eyes against the shock of bright which swamped the room. Eggplant, Bruce realized but wasn't sure why. The walls were eggplant colored. He waited for Clint to better adjust before inspecting his eyes for signs of a concussion. He had a minor goose-egg on the back of his skull but beside that he seemed to be doing well.
"Ok, move this arm, just a little. Not much. Right there. Stop. Don't move." Bruce directed Clint's left arm away from his side so he could see without the added shadow. He turned up the edges of the Avenger's shirt, guided it over the knife handle, and up until it stopped beneath his armpit. Sure enough, Clint was right. He'd been stabbed.
Bruce met Clint's face. "How big is this? Did you see it?"
"Ten inches. Like a steak knife with a serrated edge." Clint swallowed again. Bruce noticed the tension was merely his overwhelming attempt to keep himself as physically still as possible. Clint moved his right hand across his chest until it stopped just to the right of his sternum. "I can actually feel it, the point of it, right here. The dang thing almost went the entire way through me."
Bruce pulled up the rest of Clint's cotton tank top, he carefully ran his fingers along the elevation Clint indicated. Sure enough, he felt it to. Like a point covered by a thin layer of muscle and skin. Bruce leaned back a little, extended both of his hands to indicate the size and with his right hand by the handle, and the left at the tip he tried to judge the trajectory. Clint watched him then the blue spheres searched through Bruce's silent features for something to grasp hold of.
"It's bad. I know it's bad. I wish I didn't sit up, but I was afraid to move after I found it. I've been sitting here for hours trying to figure out what the hell to do."
Bruce leaned back again and pulled the glasses off his nose. He could list a dozen things the knife either displaced or completely shredded. The fact that Barton was even breathing right now was a miracle. He very well could have bled to death already. A serrated edged blade was nothing to joke about.
"How big was this guy? A giant?" Bruce asked, wagging his head. A force like the one it took to stab a man all the way to the hilt was immense.
"He might have won a Thor-look-alike contest." Clint replied. He waited, wanting Bruce to say something. But Bruce seemed to be so trapped in his own surprise he froze. "Bruce, should I start making up my will while I'm sitting here, or what?"
Bruce blinked. "I—sorry—Clint this is…" he swore, considering it all again. It was bad, that's what it was. "Ok. Sorry, it's just not what I expected to find. I'm sure it's not what you ever expected to find, but seriously." Bruce set a hand toward his forehead where it rubbed against the wrinkles wanting to form over his thinking frontal lobe. Clint had to move, but at the same time he absolutely could not move. They had to get him down to medical, immediately, but how were they possibly going to do that? "Ok, Clint, this is what I'm thinking. First, I want you to breathe a little less deeply. I know it might be uncomfortable, but please just take shallow, slow breaths for me. If this thing shot through your diaphragm, we might have a very serious issue. I mean, we definitely do have a very serious issue. Let's not dispute that at all. Just do that for me. Slow, shallow, in nose, out mouth."
Clint swallowed loudly again and barely nodded. He adjusted his breathing pattern to short, shallow breaths. It wasn't exactly comfortable though it did keep him from expanding his lungs so much the knife shifted in his guts.
"Better. Second, don't move either your chest or your abdomen. Not even an inch. The last thing I want you to do until this is over is move. You understand, right?"
Clint wanted to nod again, but didn't "Yeah. I'm all cramped up. My legs I mean. After I sat up I was too scared to do anything. I couldn't call anyone, leave, nothing. I've been just sitting here in the same position."
"Can you feel your legs?"
"Not my right one." Clint admitted.
Bruce considered the limb. It was tucked under the left, which was halfcocked up and bent at the knee. The rest of Clint's body was at a slightly over ninety-degree angle at the waist. His back rested on the deep, comfortable looking pillows.
"It went pins and needles first, then started to go numb. I did try to adjust it, but then I had to stop. I felt it moving. The knife I mean." Clint went on.
"Ok. Shallow breaths, ok. Don't move. I want you to put your hands," Bruce half stood, took Clint's right arm first and slowly draped it along the back of the couch and off of his chest. He then took the left arm and rolled it away from Barton's body along the couch cushion. "There. Keep them away from your body. No excess pressure on your chest. The next thing I need you to do is relax."
The pupils, once expanded in fear, constricted slightly now. "Yeah, cause that's the first thing on my mind right now. Relaxing."
"You know I'm serious. First off, you're using up all your energy by sitting there like a wound up rubber band waiting to snap. Secondly, Barton, you are already getting tired. I can see that pretty clearly. You get tired, you begin to sink down, your body shifts without you knowing it and suddenly this knife unplugs whatever leak it may have stopped up. If you value living, then please. Try to relax."
Clint closed his eyes again. He fell into another relaxation technique Bruce had become familiar with in his days of preventing Hulk-outs. One by one Clint's muscles systematically tensed, then released. He started with his left foot, calf, thigh, then his pelvis, core, chest, and face, he continued down both arms until every piece of him had tightened and loosed. It took almost two minutes but finally Barton opened his eyes again. Bruce might have learned the technique for his Hulk-outs, but why Barton ever knew it was a mystery to him.
"Untensed, sir." He reported robotically. Bruce often forgot Barton had a soldier's history. "If you're worried about a pneumothorax, there's a stethoscope in the med bag, my bedroom, chest, right side bottom drawer."
"You've had air in your chest before, I'm assuming." Bruce said, rising to fetch it.
"No, but Natasha has." Clint replied.
"What about your phone? I need to call Tony and get a med team here before something happens. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy you're stable now, but I can't just let you sit on your couch for the rest of your life with a knife sticking out of your chest."
Clint wanted to point with his hand, but thought better of it. "Mission pack on the floor by the window. Outside pocket."
Bruce went there first. He stooped down next to the duffle bag and rifled through the four outer sleeves. He came up with bandages, Neosporin, arrow fletches, and plastic nocks, but nothing more.
"Inside it then, I guess. I know it's in there." Clint panted. The slow shallow breaths, while it may keep the knife in position did nothing for his anxiety. It was like being in a constant state of hyperventilation. The longer he did it, the more he wanted to yawn, sigh, or simply take one long, deep breath.
Bruce unzipped the top and met Clint's collapsible SHIELD bow. He plucked it out, rested it to the side, and peered in. There was a blinking screen shining through the fabric of an inner pocket. He yanked it open and emerged with the phone. "Missed call. Pepper from earlier about dinner tonight."
"What about dinner tonight?" Clint asked.
Bruce tapped a few keys and redialed the missed number. "She called it Family Night. Pepper heard we were all going to be back to and cooked us up something. She invited you, but you never answered."
"I heard the phone. Tasha called me earlier about it, before she got on the first plane from Munich. Wanted to make sure I'd be back." Clint admitted.
"Yeah, when you never answered they sent me down to invite you up."
"Good thing they did. I might have been sitting here all night."
After a few attempts the line connected. Bruce gave a thumbs up to Barton and with the phone cradled against his shoulder he headed into the next room to locate the medical bag. He needed to grab it anyway, but being able to discuss the severity of what he found without letting Clint overhear his concerns was also a bonus. Once he managed his way passed earshot, be spoke.
"Hey, Pepper, no it's not Clint. It's me. Is Tony sitting right there?" Bruce glanced around for another light switch and finally located it beneath the mirror on his left. He flicked it on.
"Bruce, you missed lighting the candles. Therefore you are elected for the group prayer." Tony came on with a smile in his voice.
"Yeah, forgive me, but I think we're all going to be missing dinner." Bruce replied. He paused then because he had to. The moment he got a good look at Clint's private bedroom his entire mind filtered blank. Frankly, there was nothing there. No bed, one small dresser, nothing in the closet, an open bathroom door with a lonely toothbrush on the counter. He didn't even see toothpaste to go with it. He crossed to the wall of windows similar to the main room and found a heap of blankets piled there. One was an old comforter, folded once long ways and placed on the carpet like a sleeping bag. The second was a thin, army style throw blanket which lay crumpled to the side. The newest thing among them was the pillow. It had a depression where Clint's head often lay, but nothing else. Not even a pillow case. Bruce looked back at the room door as if expecting Clint to be standing there watching the scientist judge his life. He was still alone.
"Hello, Bruce? Did I just lose you?"
Tony. Bruce shook off the peculiarity of the find and crossed to the chest of drawers. "Yeah, sorry, I walked into the next room. Tony, you said you were working on staff for that ER you built downstairs?"
Tony snickered a little. Relatively speaking, everything in Avengers Tower was "downstairs" when compared to how the team itself lived. "I'm still interviewing. SHIELD has a team they keep loaning me, but you know SHIELD. Why? Planning to go into a turkey coma?"
"Not quite. Look, I need you to give whatever team you have a call. If you don't think they can handle it, then I need a life flight to land upstairs." Bruce pulled open the drawer Clint indicated and found a treasure troth of stored medical supplies. From bandage material, to hypodermics, antibiotics, charcoal, anti-toxins, and even the odd stethoscope or two. He considered taking only the items he needed, but then again, the material was so well organized it made more sense to simply pull out the entire drawer.
"What happened?" Tony demanded, an obvious change in his voice.
"I came down to check on Barton. He got himself in a knife fight of some kind this morning. He didn't realize it at the time, adrenaline, he'd been hurt but now he does." Bruce finally worked the drawer loose over its firm attachment. He sat it on the floor and ran a hand through his hair. "It's serious. I need you down here with Thor and Steve. I'll figure out what we're going to do after I have a better look at the situation."
There was the briefest pause on Tony's end preceding the sound of chairs being pushed back and the clank of silverware. "Got it. Calling the team in now. We're coming down. Clint's room?"
"Yeah, see you in a few."
Bruce pulled the phone away and dropped it into the drawer. He placed his fingers under either side and lifted as he stood and returned to Clint.
Soooooooo I still have no idea what's happening next
please review. because honestly that's the only way this is ever getting finished.