Oh baby... This looks Bad.

Thank you to:::

AvengerOfFiction, musicmixer08, NorthernMage, Lillehafrue, BecauseImBatman108, Boooyakasha, Ms. Hawkeye, ELOSHAZZY, Hamato Alexa, icanhearthedrums, Qweb, discordchick, Batghost, YukinaKid, shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod, comicsans-spideydehaanfan

Selective scifi junkie (someone knows their medatomidine:)

TheNaggingCube (the author claims no responsibility for the injury of computer mice in the production of this epic)

WhoAteMyEnchilada (We're all mad here:)

iskaen (keeping characters IN character is a huge passion of mine. I love them just the way they are, and I'm so happy you do to!)

Niom Lamboise (sedatives...we shall see what happens with sedatives...)

Friends Check for Bullet Wounds

Chapter 7

The two-person radiology suite had been invaded by Tony, Bruce, Pepper, Dr. Martinez, the three trauma surgeons Jackson, Alex, and Diehl and lastly the hyper-muscular bodies of Thor and Steve not to mention the actual radiologist. They attempted to decrease the body count four times already but after a fight nearly broke out, Dr. Martin Field, their clinical radiologist, finally gave up.

Field explained, "From the scans, the 3D mock-up Mr. Stark provided, and my assessment, this is where Agent Barton stands right now. The knife sliced through his left epaxial muscles (the muscles of his back), nicked his colon, missed his stomach by maybe a quarter of an inch, entered his liver, transected his caudal vena cava (pretty much the aorta for veins), pierced his diaphragm, and entered his lung. The reason he suffered the pneumothorax is when he shifted at some point, the air was able to leak from his lung and became trapped in his chest cavity. The influx of blood I believe may be related to the vena cava. Now that the tube's in place we can keep that managed."

Tony held his hand up and the doctor stopped. "Can we go back for a second," Iron Man asked, "You know to that point when you said his aorta-vein was "transected". Then how is he even alive?"

For that, Field indicated the three dimensional model the doctors currently held in their hands. "According to our imaging, the blade sliced through about a quarter of the diameter of his vena cava. Currently, it's keeping that hole plugged like a cork in a bottle. The same thing is happening with his colon. He will definitely suffer peritonitis post op."

"I've just started him on an antibiotic drip. We don't want to start fluids just yet. We called over to NY General and we have eight or nine liters of blood in stock now with access to another ten. None of us want to start him on fluids yet. His blood pressure is stable, and increasing it at this point may cause him to bleed prior to surgery." Dr. Martinez told them.

"Is it safe for him to be here?" Steve asked. "Would it be better to move him to NYG?"

Every doctor in the room disagreed instantly.

"It's much too dangerous. Any way we try to take him out of this building is too high of a risk." Dr. Jackson said.

Bruce scrubbed his hand through his hair. This was just as horrible as he thought it might turn out to be. Clint needed not just abdominal surgery, he needed chest surgery. Both of those had to be performed concurrently, and there was still the problem of removing the ten inch knife sticking out of him. This wasn't going to be pretty at all.

"What odds are you giving him?" Bruce asked, much to the horror of his teammates. It was likely they'd all considered it, but having a raw number fact made the entire situation too real. Beside Banner, Tony looked around and found a place to sit. He was not going to take this standing.

"Are you looking for an honest answer?" Dr. Field asked. "I've never seen an injury like this beyond post-mortem. These patients just don't make it into the hospital. You said he was walking around with this thing, and I don't know how he did it. I don't know how you didn't find him deceased. What we are about to do is unprecedented. Dr. Jackson has worked three impalement cases during his career. Most doctors never see one. Dr. Diehl was a battlefield surgeon and was brought on specifically for his specialty working with IED victims." A few of the Avengers cut a glance toward Tony. This was his team after all, gathered for his own surgery. "Dr. Alex is a proficient cardiovascular surgeon who has worked aortic aneurisms and dissecting aortas on a monthly basis for the past ten years. Probably the best thing we have in our arsenal is Dr. Martinez. He's uniquely familiar with Agent Barton's idiosyncrasies as a patient. I will tell you, Barton is in no better hands anywhere than he is right here."

"You're taking him to surgery now?" Pepper asked.

Dr. Jackson nodded. "Immediately. We've delayed long enough."

"Can we talk to him first?"

Before Dr. Jackson could answer, Tony cut him off. "You aren't saying no, because I'm just going to go see him anyway."

Jackson back peddled his planned statement and sighed. "We're prepping him now. He's going to need to be sedated. I've been informed that when we begin the sedation, the room must be empty. Hospital personnel only. Dr. Martinez?"

Martinez nodded steadfastly. "Doctor-patient confidentiality. You can see him now, I've already explained everything we've just talked about to him. But the minute we start his surgical anesthesia, everyone clears out."

"Wouldn't he be more comfortable if we were there until he went to sleep?" Pepper asked.

"Unless he agrees to it, the answer is still no." He replied.

"I believe we can agree to this." Thor said, more to end the conversation. "Let us see our friend. He has a great trial ahead of him and I believe he may require our support."

The conference ended and the Avengers made their way to the next room where Clint had been transferred to his hospital bed. The stacks of equipment around his body only increased over time. Now he had a metal tree with three bags of fluids and the same amount of blood. His IV lines were hooked up and ready to flow, though nothing dripped in yet beside the antibiotics Martinez mentioned. A few of the nurses were adding monitors to his chest while others set out his induction instruments and unlocked his cuffs. Though he continued to shake, his procured blanket had been moved down to his naked waist. The rest of his clothes had been cut off and lay in a pile on the floor. Clint saw them enter from the corner of his eye.

"Natasha's not back?" He asked instantly, reaching over to yank his oxygen mask off.

"Not yet." Bruce replied, heading the group. "Clint, I think you should keep that on."

"It's cold," Clint panted. "Blowing air. Don't like it. Can I call her?"

"Of course you can." Pepper said. She laid her hand on Bruce's arm and pushed in beside him. Her cell phone withdrew from her pocket and she scanned for the number. She handed it over as the ringing appeared on the other end.

"We'll give you a second to talk to her alone."

Clint shook his head. "No, 's fine. Stay."

"Are you sure?"

Clint paused as Natasha's voice appeared. In clipped Russian she stated her inability to reach the phone and if it was Barton calling, she planned to call him back when he was dead. Before the words had been playful, created a year ago when Clint had accidentally rolled into a gunfight and fired an exploding arrow beneath her hide out. She'd paid him back with a fork in his ankle and a nasty voicemail. Natasha hadn't changed it since. Given his current predicament, the words were simply cold and foreboding. He spoke to the voice recording in Russian, a language he knew that the others didn't speak. When he finished, he pulled the phone away.

Pepper took it from him. "Was she there?"

"Voicemail." He explained.

"You speak Russian?"

"Yeah."

A knock came to the doorway. Dr. Martinez meant to hurry them along.

Pepper reached out and squeezed his hand. "Don't be scared. You're going to be fine. She's probably on her flight from Atlanta. We'll make sure she's here when you wake up. We'll be here too. You still owe me dinner."

Clint almost smiled again. "Yeah."

"Clint we're going to be standing by while you're in surgery. Is there anyone else you want us to call? SHIELD? Fury?" Bruce asked.

"No."

"Anything more for us than single syllables?" Tony asked. He stood by Clint's feet, listening in as the conversation progressed. He was slightly frustrated at Clint's utter lack of emotion. The guy could be dead in an hour, and he seemed completely passive to it all, besides wanting to get in touch with Natasha. The temporary panic that erupted before had smoothed over beneath his spy face and Tony didn't like it. It wasn't real.

The emotion he waited to see, exploded now.

"What do you want me to say?" Clint asked with heat in his voice. "Great? Can't wait to see if I live? See you on the other side if I don't? You want me to pour my heart out and ask you to find my estranged brother and tell him where to attend the funeral? No. I'm not saying that. You don't know crap about my life, Stark, and the things I'm trying to do to keep it all together. You don't even know what I just did for this team to end up here. I'm going to live through this stupid thing and when I do, I'm hunting down the guy that put me here and I'm giving him his knife back. That's what's happening."

"You will not get the opportunity. I will uncover this foe before you are allowed the chance." Thor told him. He tapped Steve in the chest, and the Captain agreed at once. Somehow he'd simply assumed that Clint had taken down the man who came against him. Hearing that wasn't the case surprised everyone.

"What's his name?" Steve demanded.

"He's mine." Clint growled.

"Name, or else I'm calling Fury and I'm getting it from him. So you might as well just tell me."

Clint's eyes cruised over the others and understood instantly this was another fight he wasn't winning. He was beginning to like this group think less and less. It seemed every decision he wanted to make was either over ruled or taken from him. "Slade. Elijah Slade."

"We'll see you when you're out." Steve told him. He squeezed Clint's shoulder once in that awe-inspiring Captain America way he had and with Thor on his heels the two disappeared together.

Clint watched them go, and refocused on Tony. "I'm now feeling a little sorry for Slade."

"You should. He's probably going to end up with four broken limbs because of this."

Dr. Martinez abandoned knocking, as they'd decided to actively ignore him. He came into the center of the room and claimed their attention. "Clint, I'm sorry, we've got to start knocking you down. Sedation has to go in. The big guns are scrubbing. We need to get this moving."

"Can we stay?" Pepper asked instantly. She refused to relinquish her hold on Clint's hand, and surprisingly enough he held her tighter too.

Martinez noticed the surprise as well. "Barton, you realize you aren't tied down?"

"Nurse forgot." He replied.

"And you didn't remind them?" Clint didn't reply, but the answer was easy to see. "This is on you. You want them to stay, they can stay, but it has to be your decision. Your sedation is starting in twenty seconds."

Clint considered it. A small measure of dread flooded across his face. He wanted to say no. He wanted to do this alone, like he always did. He didn't need anyone to see the person he became when that sedation hit home like a bucket of alcohol. Martinez met that version of the agent almost four times now. He wasn't silent as a tomb when it came to revealing the details of Clint's difficult past. Having that level of trust was both foreign, and satisfying.

"Where'd Tony find you?" Clint asked, he wasn't sure why.

"I applied through SHIELD. Director Fury told me about the position. Clint, make a decision." Martinez picked up Clint's removed oxygen mask and replaced it over the Avenger's face. The last time they met was actually on the Helicarrier. He'd checked Clint over for a concussion after Natasha dragged him into the infirmary. He slipped the restraint cuffs on him there too. It was simply how SHIELD handled things with him. They tried talking him through it first those years ago, but nothing seemed to work. Management, not correction, was how they handled his fears.

"They can stay. I think." Barton said.

Martinez leaned forward and hit a button on one of the new machines stacked around the hospital bed. Something infused into the liquid IV line in the back of Clint's hand. "Ok, then. You know the drill. You're going to start feeling woozy. Try and remember not to move. I know that's going to be hard. Everyone here is meant to help you. We are not here to hurt you." The doctor turned to look at the three others while his hands deftly worked to tie Clint's wrists again. But he didn't stop there, two ankle straps came next, followed by full leg ones and a last he considered fixing to Clint's chest, but thought better of it. "What we're giving him will make him drowsy, drunk almost. It helps him process the anesthesia better. He tends to fight it, so keep talking to him."

"How long does it take?" Pepper asked, disturbed by it all. She looked down when she felt Clint's grip slacken in hers. His pupils were slowly beginning to widen and she had her answer. "That was fast."

"Clint, I want you to tell me your name and the color of Dr. Banner's shirt. Can you do that for me?" Martinez asked. At first, Clint responded appropriately. Then, very quickly, he deteriorated.

"No, don't, no. I won't—I'm not—" Clint's head fell to the side as suddenly he went from the world's most mono-syllable patient to a complete nervous breakdown. His slack grip flexed. He pulled against the shackles and before he had a chance to break Pepper's hand, Tony pulled her away. Rather forcefully he took over her position and clamped both of his hands around Clint's, braving the archer's bone-crushing struggle. "Stop! Stop, I won't! I'm not! Can't break!"

"What's going on? He shouldn't be acting this way." Bruce kept his voice flat, but the strain on his face was as evident as Clint's descent into mental hellfire. He thought about Selvig, about how Barton had been cleared by the SHIELD psychologists and how maybe the Avenger's team was being played. He'd done a residency during his medical degree at various institutions. He'd seen patients undergo pre-anesthesia and this was not like them. If the straps weren't working to keep Clint flat, it was very likely the archer would have leaped out of bed and stormed off in a psychosis induced state.

"Agent Barton is merely reacting to previous stimuli. It's common for his case. Actually, right now it's mild."

"Mild?!"

Clint's arm bucked back, it took everything Tony had to keep him from jerking too much. He rammed his elbows into the mattress and attempted to sit up, but Banner, Martinez, and Pepper all fell forward to hold him down. The doctor shouted for the anesthetic to get pumped in and the anesthesiologist set about to do just that.

"Clint, stop fighting." Tony said to him while the team finished with his drug cocktail. "You're going to surgery and we'll see you right after, got it?"

A swift moment of lucidity returned. Clint's dilated, drug swamped eyes cut through Stark's. "You better kill—me," the archer whispered. "You can't let me live. If you do . . . if you'd do . . . I'm going to find you. Kill you."

"You won't need to do that." Stark told him.

"You won't break me." Clint whispered as his eyes began to fall closed.

"We don't want to."

Clint jerked once more, and finally he dropped into unconsciousness.

:(:):(:):

Tony leaned against the wall across from his glass-lined surgical suite. Clint lay on the table inside, covered under massive blue drapes, three surgeons, countless support staff, and nearly every surgical monitor Tony bought or invented. It looked like they were doing surgery on sheets until the odd instrument floated by coated in Clint's blood. They'd run through their first bag of blood and were working to pump in the second. The anesthetist had gone bone white.

"PTSD, that's what you're describing."

"Agent Barton has been on many high profile missions in the past. One in particular has caused us to be more cautious when it comes to his patient care." Martinez replied.

Tony filtered through the conversation sailing between Dr. Martinez and Bruce. The three had felt utterly unprepared for the results when they asked to stay at Clint's side until he was brought under anesthesia. Understanding the root of his behavior would help them come to terms with what sort of recovery they might expect. Slightly traumatized by it all, Pepper decided to avoid actively watching the surgery and returned upstairs to try and fix Natasha's location. It took an hour of breaking down Martinez's doctor-patient confidentiality before they finally started making some headway.

"So, he was tortured in a hospital." Tony interrupted with his guess. He glanced over to see how the words struck the doctor. "You didn't tell me you had history with him when I hired you."

"I've been a field surgeon with SHIELD for multiple missions. We call Barton a frequent flier for a reason."

"He endangers himself." Bruce asked.

"He's a man doing missions against monsters." Martinez elaborated. He swept a hand toward the glass. "Case in point. It would be easier on everyone if he handled hospital settings better, but under the circumstances, I think that was the calmest he's ever gone down."

Bruce's eyebrows raised. "That was calm? That was controlled chaos. It's no wonder he hates it. I would to!"

"Bruce." Tony said warningly. The doctor's tone had altered just enough for him to be concerned. Bruce, despite never suffering a Hulk out in the Tower, was dangerously close to the edge now. Banner recognized Tony's meaning and took a few steps back to clear his head again. While he worked on finding his inner Zen, Tony took on Martinez. "What happened to him? Don't start feeding me lines, either, you've been dancing around this issue enough. Clint's a member of this team. We need to know everything we can if we are going to be able to trust him and rely on him. Besides that, if we did end up med flighting him and no one knew to strap him down, he could have just jumped himself off a table and died."

"It was never SHIELD's intent to have him be a danger to himself."

"Good for you. Tell me."

Martinez hesitated a little longer. Whatever final wall he'd built up on a false sense of patient security, or SHIELD duty finally broke. The story that came out of him was increasingly hard to swallow.

Before joining SHIELD full-time Clint was completing his field assessment under Coulson's guidance. At nineteen he'd already completed forty-three high profile missions as the primary agent and it wasn't until his final assessment that crap hit the fan. Clint was discharged on a mission to a classified location. The purpose was a snatch and grab, sneak in, find the target, and take the individual into SHIELD custody. Three seasoned agents went in as back up and observation. Apparently, their intel was swamped in misinformation and blatant lies. The team was ambushed, two agents killed outright and the remaining two taken into enemy custody.

"We found Barton three countries away in the basement of a hospital. He'd been out of SHIELD contact for fifty-three days. We found half of Agent Tomslin at the US embassy for that country. The other half was still handcuffed to Barton."

"Oh my God." Bruce shook his head at the horrific mental image.

Martinez shrugged. "What happened to Barton I'm not privy to. It's sealed in his files. What I do know is the results. He's stable, don't get me wrong. He's passed every mental exam we've ever given him. He just has hospital-related idiosyncrasies that we work around. He gets strapped down because if he gets confused, he might act out. He's a trained weapon, that's what happens sometimes with agents. Sedation, mood altering drugs, heavy alcohol burden all can trigger past events. Agent Barton doesn't take drugs, and he stays away from alcohol. He's managed."

"Would have been nice to have a heads up." Tony growled, cursing under his breath.

"Barton has never allowed this to affect his work in anyway." Martinez tried to defend.

"That's not the point." Tony shot back. "The point is our teammate's lying in there with a knife in him and we got to sit next to him with our thumbs up our—"

"Tony." Bruce cut him off.

"He's an Avenger now. He's our problem. I told Fury no secrets and here he lays this on us and what? Did he just hope we'd never have to deal with it?"

"If you think Agent Barton isn't qualified to—"

Tony took a few steps toward the field doctor, prompting Bruce to cut him off and hold him back. "After telling us something like that you think I'd let him go back to SHIELD? He's not ok. He's not managed. You might think handling a guy by strapping him to a bed and never sedating him isn't cruel, but I've got news for you. You're crazy. SHIELD just hung him out to dry on this case! He wouldn't be on that table now if Fury didn't give him back up or tell his own team what was going on! I'm sure you've got to report to the one-eyed jackal, so how about you run and do that. Tell him Clint's not moving back. In fact, he's moving in permanently. I'm even going to buy him a bed and plug in his stove."

"Mr. Stark—"

Bruce looked at him and in no few terms told the physician to take a hike. Tony's aggression wasn't exactly directed at the man, he just happened to be in the firing line at the time. Thor and Steve might be able to busy themselves hunting down this Slade character, but the others did not. Someone had to stay behind. Until they knew a little more, sending in Iron Man and the Hulk would have been a show of excessive force.

There was a fluster of movement on their left. Tony pulled out of Bruce's hands and pressed against the glass. They watched in abject horror as a shot of blood ejected from Clint's open wound to splatter the surgeons wrist deep in his abdomen. Behind the glass, they could hear the scream of monitors as Clint edged closer and closer to death.

what? WHAT? What is this mysterious history? How are the Avengers planning to help? Will Clint live? Stay tuned!

(I'm actually a 3rd year veterinary student, studying for my finals before I begin the 4th year clinical rotations this June. So all medical references are derived from my personal experiences in ER settings (but...uh...with animals...) and intense online research into the adaptation to human med. And, maybe, a few episodes of Life in the ER and Grey's Anatomy.)

Please keep reviewing! Let's break that 100 mark:)