Nihil

Chapter 4:

Clint should have felt guilty about the increased urgency, it was clear everyone felt once the prisoner was verified as being Tony. He should have felt furious at the treatment his friend had received. He should have felt terror that he couldn’t look at the man and imagine him surviving. He should have felt… something.

He had the vague feeling that if he had been standing, then his legs would have been shaking. Hadn’t he been standing? When did he sit down? Cap’s legs certainly were shaking enough for the pair of them. Cap was leaning one hand heavily on Clint’s shoulder and almost vibrating with the adrenaline that must have been coursing him. This was an enemy they couldn’t fight. Weakness. Injury. Sickness. Who knew what else?

Thirteen months.

Thirteen months, three weeks and … three days. No. Four days.

That’s how long Tony had been away from them for.

How many of those months had he been wearing that fucking mask for?

How many times had his skin been split? How many times had that leg been broken? What about the other one, had that been broken too?

Tony had been gone for long enough to have bones break, heal and then rebreak again. Several times. His skin would have healed, cut, bruised… All of these injuries would just be layered. Injury upon injury. He’d been gone for so long. Had they looked hard enough for him? Or had they given up, believing him dead. Had they really left every stone unturned? Could they have found him sooner?

“ -ton!”

Clint jerked back in his seat, only just noticing the medic’s face so close to his own that they were almost kissing. “Please tell me nobody kissed me.” echoed through his mind, ghosts of words from years in the past as he blinked, re-orientating himself.

“Agent Barton! Hawkeye!”

Right. That rude medic was trying to get his attention. “What!” he snapped irritably. He was tired, alright? Tired people were prone to distraction, just look at all those times that someone had to practically carry Tony to bed when he’d been pushing the limits of human endurance and had to remind him to complete simple tasks due to his distraction.

The medic simply raised an eyebrow, and it was far too unfair how many people in SHIELD could say volumes purely through their eyebrows. Were there training sessions in this? Nat would surely be the trainer, and she’d have told him if she taught those classes. “You need to touch him again. He is recognising you and can’t hear us. He needs your reassurance.”

Clint’s eyes were drawn back to Tony, not realising that he’d looked away, why couldn’t he just focus? Sure enough, one of those battered, broken arms was reaching out. It was desperately pathetic the way it was searching for something, anything of reassurance. And even more agonising to think about how it barely resembled an arm, littered as it was with swollen lumps from the bruises and misshapen from the bones being out of alignment. Tony’s muffled voice was muttering words that were barely audible, let alone discernible, but Clint was fairly certain that if he had been able to understand them, then he’d recognise his name.

Thankfully, his legs didn’t seem to require instructions from his brain to move. He found himself crouching down next to the man lying limply on the bed. One hand was placed on the less bruised looking shoulder and began stroking it, whilst the other clasped the shrivelled limb as gently as he could.

He wanted, so much, to be able to pet the man’s hair, or engage in some conversation with him to distract him from the obvious pain. He wanted to be able to warn Tony when someone was going to move him, or touch him, but none of that was possible. Why did he have to be so fucking useless. He couldn’t find his friend in time. He had allowed him to get captured in the first place. And now he couldn’t even comfort him; could only uselessly watch as bandages were applied with a skill that far surpassed his own. The medic had looked at the mask askance on his head and decided that the Quinjet was not the kind of place to remove the staples, despite the ongoing distress it was so clearly causing Tony.

Clint really didn’t like him. Stupid man. He liked even less that his suggestions made sense.

He wouldn’t administer any strong painkillers despite the obvious pain due to the inability to gain consent, even. That’s where Steve was – trying to contact Colonel Rhodes who acted as Tony’s medical proxy apparently in things like this. It was just a fucked-up situation all round. Tony was technically conscious, so the medic refused to administer anything that would be remotely strong enough to do anything. He just spread numbing cream and wrapped bandages around some of the deeper gashes. Clint did his best to help by maintaining contact with the terrified form before him, but the helplessness grated on him. More than a little.

This was one of his best friends, for fuck’s sake, why was he being so Thor-be-damned helpless.

“Breathe, Clint. We are doing the best we can.” The warm, heavy hand on his shoulder instantly identified the speaker as Steve who had somehow returned to the bedside without Clint’s notice. Steve. Who could, and did, trip over dust particles when he wasn’t focusing.

“Did you get through to Rhodes?” was the only thing that Clint could think to say in return as one hand stroked soothing circles on the limb he was holding. His gaze was laser focused on the figu-Tony, who was lying on the bed, his frame still spasming as he fought and won over the panic and pain that kept cresting over him. Wave after wave, he, somehow, kept them from overwhelming him.

“I did, yes, he’s on the phone now with Agent Bronson.” That was one of the most amazing things about the Captain. His voice so rarely betrayed any inkling of the stress that he was under when offering support to someone else, and Clint was definitely not unaware enough to recognise the man’s ‘reassuring’ tone. It was rich, warm and somehow did cause a feeling of calm to wash over his battered nerves. The asshole. How could he even have a patriotic tone of voice?

Clint ‘allowed’ the conversation to glaze over him as he sat and stared at Tony, hoping that his minor attempts were helping him at least a bit. He certainly seemed much calmer than he’d been earlier. Was calmer, no ‘seems’ about it. Clint just couldn’t imagine having his sight and hearing taken from him – it was bad enough having slightly worse than normal hearing. To be blinded, deafened, and then tortured? Clint vaguely felt a shudder run through his body. Amongst his worst nightmares, for sure.

Time…passed? Supposedly? It felt like thick, like treacle, dripping through a funnel. Gloopy. Anyway, before Clint fully realised it there were more medics entering the Quinjet, and they were apparently at the Tower. With a Rhodes and Pepper present. And a Nat gently removing his hand from Tony’s with the fond-sounding words “Your watch has ended, Hawkeye.” Hah! He knew she’d either watched Game of Thrones or read the book series! “You can quit your mantling, Hawk.” The words soothed the spikes of anxiety that had been growing as more people had entered his sphere of awareness like nothing else would.

And damn the woman for noticing.

“Sure,” he grunted, releasing Tony’s hand from where it had been caged within his own. Clint took a determined step backwards and watched, with no small amounts of paranoia, as two vaguely familiar doctors swarmed into the place he had just vacated. He was fairly certain that one had treated him before, something about that beard was familiar. And the other he’d definitely seen around the tower, flirting with some of the interns. Tony had liked her, he was certain.

…This level of paranoia was really unnecessary. Rhodes and JARVIS would have ensured that only the best people were going to treat the missing Tony. He knew this. What was wrong with his brain at the moment? This was unlike him!

Clint growled quietly to himself and followed the others who had gone ahead whilst he was, once again, wool gathering. They stood together, as a team, as they watched Tony being wheeled away on a stretcher with an annoyingly squeaky wheel. Someone should really grease it. That noise must be so aggravating if you were conscious and on that trolly.

It was at that point that Tony disappeared from sight into the room where assessments usually took place pre-surgery. The team sagged as one, as though they were marionettes whose strings had been cut post a performance for someone’s sick amusement. Tony was beyond their sight once more.

But he was safe . At least they could only hope so. No one could really know for sure until they were given some results by the doctors.

Bruce allowed himself to slip to the ground in the familiar crossed-legged pose he took for his meditation sessions as he settled in for the long wait that no doubt awaited them all. Clint leant his solid frame against the wall, arms folded protectively across his chest, next to the scientist and heaved out a purposefully obnoxious, long sigh. “So. Back to waiting. Damned Stark.”

None of the team present doubted the concern that lay hidden under the words.

Nat sidled alongside him and gave him an encouraging shoulder bump whilst Bruce leaned his torso slightly against the archer in a further display of silent support. They’d all noticed the way the usually astute, alert Hawkeye had been dissociating on the journey back. It had been long, long hours for months only to come to the almost surprising conclusion of finding their missing team member. Clint wasn’t the only uncertain whether to believe it was all real.

Steve surveyed his team, his perfect brow etched deeply by lines of fatigue and concern. He’d escaped this battle completely unscathed, and, for once, it looked like the rest of the team were mostly uninjured too. Thor had an already healing cut along his face, Bruce hadn’t been needed beyond his medical capacity and neither Clint nor Natasha had been heavily involved in challenging combat. That their combined injuries were so light seemed such a drastic contrast to Tony…

Steve steered away from that thought rapidly. No good could be gained from it. What could he say to the sorry group of people before him. Despite their success, they all seemed curiously subdued. Deflated, almost. Mostly exhausted. They should have been elated, but the inability to gain a solid identity… That had to be bothering all of them. How could he bolster them, despite his own worry about Tony not surviving those truly horrific injuries?

“Today is a win, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. We must remember that. I suggest we head off to wash up before meeting back here.”

…That… wasn’t what he should’ve said. But Natasha nodded at him, clearly understanding his fumbled attempts. “Come on Clint, move it.” She bullied the quietly protesting archer into moving towards the lift before turning back to face the others. “I won’t hold the lift for you if you don’t come now. Tony will still be here when we come back”

The implied threat was enough for them all to get moving as they headed into the lift.