Chapter Six
Clint sprinted to the barn after listening to a few words from his panting son who was in almost hysterics. He didn't have to look to know Bruce and Natasha were on his tail, the couple filled with the same urgency he had to get to their comerades. Laura had stayed back to calm the kids, but was also getting some ice packs ready in case Tony's fever had risen too high.
The man hoped they wouldn't have to take Tony into the hospital. They were in hiding and it was extremely likely that news would break out if Tony Stark had been admitted to the hospital. That would make it incredibly easy for Ultron to find them.
He bursted into the barn, the door crashing into the wall with the force, and found the sight of Steve holding a seemingly unconcious Tony in his arms bridal style, jogging forward to meet them. Bruce slipped in front of him, medical bag in hand, and pressed a thermometer into Tony's ear. Clint and Natasha came forward, keeping room for Bruce to work. The dirty blonde got a full view of his prank buddy's situation and couldn't help the emotions swelling inside him.
Tony's face was pale and his eyes were closed. The only color was in his rosy cheeks and his brown hair was plastered black to his forehead with sweat. He was shivering despite the heat in the stuffy barn and his eyes were more sunken, the bruises under them looking deeper than they had been.
"What happened?" Natasha questioned Steve. The blonde opened his mouth to answer when the thermometer beeped rapidly, flashing bright red.
"104.1," Bruce reported grimly. "We need to get him back to bed and with a lot of ice. We might have to dunk him in a bath if it doesn't go down."
"That won't go over well. Tony hates water," Clint said, finally finding his voice as he tore his gaze from his friend. He locked eyes with Natasha briefly, having a silent conversation with her in a language only they understood. She nodded and ran out of the barn, sprinting toward the house.
All of them knew that Tony Stark had a fear of water that came from his three months capture in Afghanistan. The genius had confided in them after he was pulled into the pool during a team vacation when he refused to get in, none of them expecting the panic that followed. He trusted them with his fears, and it had made something In Clint a little more... protective, of him. He also hated Obadiah Stane impossibly more when he saw the effects on him, not just read about it.
Tony stirred a little as they began to move toward the house, causing the group to tense up and radiate with false hope that he might open his eyes, but he didn't. Clint reached out and pressed what he hoped was a comforting hand onto his forehead and watched as Tony's face screwed up for a moment, then relaxed. Steve's arms tensed, holding him a little closer to his body.
They made their way back to the house, moving slower than Clint liked but there wasn't much of a choice when Tony kept fidgeting and making a sound like a pitiful mewl, body burning up. They needed ice on him, and fluid in him. The archer didn't know how they were going to do the latter, considering the unconcious state.
It felt like forever before they got into the house and up the stairs. Laura was distracting Lila and Cooper in the boy's room, by the sounds of it, and Natasha was already in the guest bedroom that had come to be known as Tony's room. Two ice packs were already on the bed, the sheets pulled back, and Natasha holding more ice packs in her arms. Every bag was wrapped in a tea towel so the cold wouldn't touch bare skin.
Steve placed Tony down on the mattress, gently adjusting his limbs to where they were splayed out. There was a small whine of protest from the sick man, who's eyes opened blearily as Bruce and Clint moved the bags of ice around to the best positions. The man's temperature was worryingly high, higher than it had gotten when he collapsed the first time.
The usually sharp brown eyes were clouded, dull as they moved around the room, not quite taking anything in. He shivered harshly before a round of coughing had Steve raising him up a bit. The coughs were chest rattling and loud, a wheeze now easily audible as the brunette tried to suck in air.
Water. He needed some water. Clint grabbed the glass and pitcher from the bedside table, both empty, and sprinted down the stairs again. He jumped the last five to get to the bottom quicker, using the momentum to throw himself into the kitchen. He slid around the counter and to the sink. Turning the tap, he filled the pitcher with water and grabbed ice with two glasses. Moving quickly, he filled the pitcher with ice and water before running back up the stairs, barely remembering to turn the water off. He had to go slower now, with the water that brimmed on both the cup and pitcher, but he managed to get back to the room in record time.
He settled the pitcher onto the bedside table once more while Natasha took the water from him. Bruce was now trying to coax Tony into taking some water, the barely concious genius squirming and not listening. He was shuddering at the cold of the ice packs and Clint winced with sympathy, but they couldn't let him overheat.
"Steve, with me. We're going to go get fever reducers," the archer said, already leaving the room. The soldier had been standing off to the side, unable to do anything besides wring his hands anxiously. Clint knew his friend needed something to do and hastily followed him.
They raided the medical cabinet until they found a partially full bottle of liquid medicine that would be best for the situation. Steve also found it in pill form. "Which would be better?" The blonde asked.
Clint shrugged, glancing up the stairs. "Take both. We'll ask Bruce." It was unclear to if Tony was even going to take the water, much less medicine. The man worried that they would have to put him on an IV, which he might not have. Their medical kit was full of different supplies due to his mission, though, so maybe they would find something.
An hour later found Clint once again sitting at Tony's bedside, only this time Steve was there, pacing back and forth across the room. The room had been over crowded and while no one had wanted to leave, the kids needed tending to, the house needed maintained, and food needed to be made. Clint and Steve had volunteered to stay for a while as others peaked in every once in a while, asking in a whispered tone if they needed anything and how Tony was so they could pass the message on.
The genius had ice packs over his body, a thin blanket pulled up to his neck. He shivered near constantly, but if they wanted to bring his stubborn fever down without putting him in an ice bath that might trigger a flashback, this would have to happen. His temperature was now 103.5, which wasn't an incredibly improvement, but it was improvement nonetheless.
Bruce checked in the most. He used a stethoscope to listen to Tony's overworked lungs, a grimace forming on his face every time he listened. Clint couldn't imagine what he heard, considering the man's decreased lung capacity and how fast he'd come down again. The doctor said he had pneumonia, which was really bad but not surprising. If his temperature didn't go down or breathing became more difficult than it already was, then they would have to take him to the hospital.
To think he had been improving so much that morning. He hadn't been good, but he had been better than the day before. All of that recovery went down the drain in less than two hours and Clint wondered multiple times as he sat there if it was due to emotion. What had Steve said to him?
He watched the Captain pace back and forth for another minute before sighing. "Sit down, Steve. You're making me tired just watching you," he whispered, rubbing a hand down his face tiredly. He glanced at Tony again and noted how his breathing was coming a little stronger, less stuttery and a bit deeper, or maybe that was just a trick of his hope. He didn't look at Steve settled down in the other chair on the opposite side of their friend.
The room was quiet for several minutes, the only sounds being their breathing until Steve whispered something to himself, "Gosh, how did I not notice?"
"Notice what?" He whispered back. The blonde sighed.
"He hasn't been sleeping. He wasn't eating that much before he became sick. Heck, it's been harder to drag him out of the lab lately. I thought he was just being stubborn, but now..."
"He has more nightmares than we knew of," Clint mumbled, voice solemn. "He saw something up there, Steve, and ... and that witch played on it." The archer stood abruptly and started pacing like the captain had, hands behind his back and mouth pressed into a thin line. He was aware of the blue eyes watching his movements, but he could care less. Tony was his best friend and they hadn't been listening to him. They had all been somewhat willing to blame him for Ultron and something in Clint wanted to curl up and die at that thought. Guilt swirled in his stomach, pushing at the back of his throat.
"That witch," he spat with venom. "She showed you all something, your worst nightmares, and we didn't even think of her having gotten to Tony. He'd been acting even stranger, became more closed off to everyone but Bruce, I..." a hand landed on his shoulder and he was surprised to see that Steve had stood without him noticing, too wrapped up in his anger at the witch and himself.
"We know we all did wrong, Clint," he said softly. "But we can't change the past. All we can do is try to make up for it now."
The spy slumped a bit with a heavy sigh, feeling his anger retreat into a dull flame for a moment. "So what will we do about the manipulator and her brother? We can't just let them roam free."
"Give them another chance."
It was not Steve who said the croaked words, but Tony. Both of them turned to see the genius pushing himself to sit up, brown eyes focusing on them. His breathing was still harsh and sweat still covered his hair and clammy skin, but he was aware.
Neither Clint or Steve moved, which seemed to cause Tony to roll his eyes and reiterate in his hoarse voice: "Give them another chance." He coughed harshly into his elbow and his shoulders shook with the force of it. That pushed the other two heroes into action as Steve moved and placed a hand on Tony's back as Clint grabbed the water from earlier. It was still cold.
The archer helped his friend drink the water as his grip was too weak to even hold the glass properly, much less keep it from sloshing. The coughing eventually faded and half the cup of water disappeared. Tony sighed audibly and Steve gently pushed him to sit back. There was a slight tension between the two, but Clint couldn't figure out the cause of it. Unless Steve hadn't actually apologized...
"How are you feeling?" He asked, pushing away the questions to the back of his mind. Tony opened his mouth with a defiant expression on his face, so Clint quickly interjected, "don't you dare say 'fine.' It you do, you will regret it."
"What would you do? Throw a shoe at me?" Tony asked, voice slightly less rough than before. He wiped at the sweat on his forehead as Clint nodded very seriously. "That's low, Barton."
"Aim low and get the best results. That's why they tell you no hitting under the belt when boxing. The match would be over too quickly."
A wry smile formed on Tony's face at the comment and Clint couldn't help but return it for a few brief seconds. "Now answer the question, shellhead," he prompted.
"I feel like I got hit by a truck and an eighteen wheeler," he said flatly. "What happened? I have no memory after..." he glanced at Steve, who mat his gaze for a short moment. Tony shook his head like he was clearing it as he turned back to Clint. "It gets hazy. So, what happened?"
The archer wanted to ask what was going on, but at the same time he knew not to get in on and Steve and Tony argument unless it was banter or a loud argument. This silence was unnerving and made it known that there was a big issue going on that they weren't going to talk about with the team around. "You passed out," he said instead. "Again. You nearly gave me ten heart attacks."
"That's not anatomically possible," Tony muttered with a raised eyebrow. "You can not have ten heart attacks at once."
"It's called sarcasm, genius."
"Aw, you finally admit I'm a genius," Tony grinned and Clint could only shake his head in exasperation, yet relief was flooding his chest. If he can joke, he's on his way to being fine. Then again, he did crack a joke after nearly dying in a wormhole after taking a nuke into it, which now causes him nightmares that none of them knew about until recently.
"An idiot genius," Clint corrected, getting a look that was an almost pout. Tony's back was now resting against the headboard while Steve's hand sat on his shoulder. The brunette's breathing was still worryingly short and it occured to Clint that he shouldn't be talking so much. "You need to rest some more."
"I've been stuck in this bed for like a day," Tony grumbled, which turned into another bout of coughs.
"Stop talking so much," Clint said firmly, but not unkindly as he brought the glass back to Tony's mouth. Steve lightly patted the man's back, face pinched in concern. Could he hear Tony's lungs?
The door opened. "Tony," Bruce breathed out, practically running over to the bed as the engineer's coughing fit finally stopped after one last painful hack. He drank what was left of the water and more after Clint refilled it.
"Hey, Brucie," Tony greeted, waving a hand tiredly. Bruce put his stethoscope on from where it hung around his neck, slipping the end under his friend's shirt and pressing it to his back. "That's cold," the sick man winced.
"Sorry," Bruce mumbled as he listened to something only himself and probably Steve could hear. He nodded to himself after a long minute of silence and hung the stethoscope back around his neck as he spoke: "Your lungs sound a little better than they did earlier, but not by much. You should be on bedrest for a couple of days, but with Ultron..." the unspoken mention of the battle that was for sure to come hung in the air.
Clint looked down, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. The threat of Ultron hung heavy over their heads, but there were moments where he forgot all about him. Not all good moments, but moments. Ultron was like ocean waves - you get a chance to breathe before being pulled under again.
He glanced up when the door opened and Natasha walked in. Her tense shoulders relaxed a bit when she saw Tony sitting upright in bed. "Nice to see you awake, Tony," she said, relief showing in her usually blank tone.
The genius gave her a lopsided grin, eyes glazed with fever and exhaustion. "Did you miss me, Agent Romanoff?" He asked. Her lip twitched up and Clint knew it had to be some kind of inside joke. She moved by Bruce as the doctor rummaged through his medical kit, mumbling to himself, and pressed her hand to the man's forehead. Tony looked confused for a second longer than he should have before batting her hand away.
"Still burning up," she said, more to herself than the others in the room.
"Hopefully in a good way, too," Tony responded, but he was becoming less and less coherent by the minute, the spaces between his words long and his energy visibly lagging. He glanced around with lazy brown eyes and mumbled, "looks like the gang's all here," before dropping off to sleep again. Steve and Nat adjusted him so he was still propped up on the pillows, but his head wasn't lolling at a bad angle.
"When he wakes up again, he needs to take more medicine," Bruce said as he closed his kit. He took Tony's temperature again - 103.2 - and said that he would take next watch over. Clint and Steve protested, but were told very sternly that they needed to eat. Reluctantly, they headed down to the livingroom where Laura was just entering with Subway sandwiches. The two superheroes helped her set the table for dinner silently, Clint working on autopilot as his mind wandered back to the sleeping, sick man upstairs, his thoughts turning into one plea.
'Please get better, Tony.'
It may have been irrational for him to think that Tony wasn't going to get better, but he had watched his best friend crash so many times in the past few days from this sickness. He would take two steps forward, only to he pushed four steps back. He had no clue what happened in the barn and he doesn't think he wanted to know, but he hoped that it wasn't too much for the genius to handle, mentally or physically. It had obviously cut deep and there was a tension in the air between Steve and Tony, but also something else. Something Clint couldn't quite put his finger on, which was saying something because he had been a trained assasin for years.
'He'll get better,' the archer thought as he went to place another plate down, only to realize that this was Tony's place where he had sat for the meals they shared here. With a slightly trembling hand, he held the glass plate in a near crushing grip. 'He'll be fine.'
He had to be.