Chapter 2
*******
They're rescued, and that should be the happy ending, and for about half an hour it is just that. They sit in the jet while SHIELD agents mill around outside talking to one another. Natasha is still not back and Steve looks over Tony's minor injuries while Hulk cradles Clint, who is more unconscious than asleep.
Steve murmurs in a low voice that Tony mostly ignores, listening instead to the rumbling of the Hulk, which is subtly replaced by a differently pitched noise that almost sounds like words. Steve dabs at Tony's face and he closes his eyes obediently as Steve makes a pass with the towel, only to see Bruce Banner when he opens them again. He clutches Clint as tightly as his alter ego, his face horrified instead of possessive.
"What....are.....doing?" he slurs, trying to talk, trying to snap back into Banner too quickly, making a poor showing of it. "Hos..." Bruce shakes his head violently, trying to clear it. "Hospital."
In hindsight maybe it was naive, Tony supposes, to think that all Clint needed to do was to sleep, that he would be okay after about a hundred hours of rest. To ignore that his body had been systematically shutting itself down over the past week and a half. Steve goes out and signals for the medical team, which arrives promptly to whisk Clint away. They want to take Tony as well, but he refuses, gripping his seat and silently daring them to force the issue.
They don't, but it is almost midnight by the time Natasha finally emerges, angry but satisfied, and it's even later still by the time they drag themselves to SHIELD Medical, only to be immediately kicked out by a terrifying nurse.
*******
It's over a week before any of them get to see Clint; at first he's sleeping, then the doctor thinks he's not ready for visitors, then he has surgery to fix the rotator cuff in his right shoulder. Tony is just about to lose his mind and is only half joking when he suggests a jailbreak, but they are finally allowed a visit, probably due to some intervention by Nick Fury. Tony and Natasha go first, she due to her longstanding claim over Clint's wellbeing, and he because no one dares suggest otherwise.
"Hi, guys." Clint doesn't smile, or even look happy to see them, and Tony wonders how much of that is from the drugs he's on, and how much is still fatigue. Clint is pale and his eyes deeply shadowed, his left arm casted at a right angle where his elbow had broken, the right arm heavily bandaged and immobilized against his chest. His hair lays plastered against his forehead from dried sweat, sticks up crazily in the back where it has pressed into the pillow.
"Tomorrow," Natasha says firmly, taking in his appearance. "You're coming home tomorrow." She tries to take his hand, but finding neither one functional enough to hold easily, settles for patting his leg instead.
"Sounds good," he says listlessly, then hesitantly looks at Tony. "You're okay."
So flat is his affect that Tony can't tell if it's a question or a statement of fact. "Well, you know me--can't keep a party princess down." He tries to pass it off lightly, but his shrug is more self conscious than dismissive, and Clint just stares at him. "Yeah, I'm okay," he adds, and is relieved when Clint's mouth twists into the slightest of smiles. "How about you? How are you doing?"
The smile disappears. "I'm tired," he answers, again in that tone Tony can't read at all.
*******
They leave pretty quickly, and a small part of him is disappointed, had wanted them to stay. But mostly Clint is just happy they're gone.
When he arrived in Medical he had slept for almost twenty hours straight, but since then he's been struggling. The doctor finally started giving him a sleeping aid, despite Clint's protests, insisting that his body needed rest to heal, and the painkillers tip him the rest of the way into the abyss. But the sleep doesn't last, because not only are the nightmares garbled and violent, but doctors and nurses also bustle in at all hours of the day, wake him up to check vitals, change bandages, draw blood. He wants to be away from here and back home, where he can lock the door and keep everyone away. Maybe then he can sleep, if he's sure no one else can get close.
Clint zones in and out, staring at the TV but not really watching it, his mind and body fighting a futile battle against pharmaceutically induced unconsciousness. After his teammates' visit the next thing he's really aware of is one of the doctors sitting on the edge of his bed reading from a piece of paper. Clint glances at it with a mild interest and realizes it's a long list of medications, tries to focus a bit harder and pay attention.
"--for two more weeks, along with physical therapy. At your follow up we'll see how things are healing and go from there. Now this medication...I want you to continue it, okay? It's an anti-depressant. Twice a day, every day. Later we can determine--"
"No," he forces out finally, and the doctor looks surprised. Clint supposes he hasn't been talking as much as he should have recently. "I don't want--" He clears his throat, tries again, relieved when he sounds stronger. "I don't want to take anything."
"Well, I really think you should," the doctor scolds mildly, as if that explains everything, as if that will convince Clint to suddenly agree.
But he does agree, eventually, but it's only to end the conversation, to make the man get the hell out of his room and let him wait for Natasha to come and drive his sorry ass back home. Clint has zero intention of taking that medicine, or any of the others, plans to come off this mindnumbing cocktail he's been floating on as soon as he can manage it.
*******
She deposits him at his apartment with the promise that she'll be back after she runs to the pharmacy. She smirks knowingly as she says it, then tweaks his nose when he scowls back at her. It's so normal that it takes him by surprise, and somehow that makes him even more irritated. Clint opens his door the minimum amount he needs to get in, then slips inside and slams it in her face. He knows he's acting like a jerk and gives not two shits about it.
"JARVIS?" he says hesitantly, ignoring the colorful swearing coming from the other side of the door.
"Yes, Agent Barton?"
"I don't want anyone to be able to come in. No one. Not for any reason. Alright?"
"Of course, sir."
"Not anyone," Clint insists, unwilling to say Tony's name but hoping JARVIS will understand anyway. "Promise me."
"I promise, sir."
"Promise."
"I promise, sir."
He fights the urge to ask again, because it's a little ridiculous to wring assurances out of an artificial intelligence, much as he wants to. Clint drops into bed carefully and pulls blankets around himself, but can't get them as tight as he wants due to his stupid cast and stupider shoulder sling. He feels too open, too exposed. He considers hiding, but that's just pathetic, hiding in his own apartment, hiding in Avengers Tower, where he's surrounded by superheroes and should feel safer than safe.
*******
Tony also can't sleep. He's had insomnia for ages, but never really considered it a problem since so many of his best ideas come while the world slumbers but his mind continues racing. But now sleep doesn't happen because he's full of ideas, but because he can't shake the feeling that something terrible will happen to Pepper, or to his friends, if he dares to drift off. That every moment he sleeps they will spend suffering.
He knows that's not true, knows it perfectly well--everyone is safely at the Tower, even Clint is back, and Tony has JARVIS keeping closer watch on the team than ever before. No one would be pleased about that, but they don't need to know. Tony needs to know. He needs to know that they're okay, that nothing will happen if he can prevent it.
Pepper was with him non-stop the first week, but Stark Industries is a growing, living fire that needs constant tending, and she was needed soon enough.
"I don't feel like I should leave you," she told Tony, even as she was packing. "I want to stay. I think it would be good if I did."
"Well, I love having you around, but don't feel like you have to stay if there's work to do. Don't do it for my sake. I'm a big boy." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "As you well know." She laughed obediently, then curled into his open arms. "Be safe, Pep. Give Europe hell and then come home to me."
He did want her to stay, really, but also knew that there would never be point where he could let her go without misgivings, so it might as well go ahead and happen. Tony had never been much of a worrier but now he's consumed by the thought that anything could happen to her, to any of them--a plane crash, a car crash, a kidnapping, a robbery gone wrong, a flash flood, an earthquake, a fucking tsunami. The list is endless and so overwhelming to think on that he kissed her goodbye with a big fake smile and spent the rest of the day drinking himself senseless.
Now Clint is back from Medical, and Tony is glad--for the most part. But when the archer hadn't been around it was easier to imagine all of it had never happened, to blot those twelve days of misery out and act like things were normal. But now that he's here it's going to be almost impossible to pretend, and harder to forget.
Clint disappeared into his apartment and hasn't been heard from since. JARVIS reports that Clint forbade anyone to be let inside, but Tony knows that Natasha will force her way in eventually, then Steve, then Bruce. They'll take care of Clint, will coax and bully him back to health. Tony hopes he can avoid the man until then; can just not see him until he emerges, fully restored to his grinning, sunny self.
Maybe by then Tony will be himself again, too.
*******
It's around midnight on his second day home that Clint has to admit things are...not good. His neck, back, and arms are a solid block of screaming pain that makes even the simplest of tasks almost impossible. It's lucky that he doesn't have much of an appetite, because he can't reach any of the food in his cabinets, and eating and drinking are tricky anyway. His casted arm has its own bad shoulder and can't reach his mouth at all, so he has to pick everything up with that hand and pass it awkwardly to the one pinned to his body. It would almost be comical if it weren't so frustrating, and his hands shake so badly that he ends up spilling most of whatever he's drinking down his shirt.
Sleep is a joke, sleep isn't happening at all, sleep seems to be part of an old life that just isn't allowed to him anymore. The pain makes it impossible to get comfortable, even on the couch where he can kind of sit up and recline at the same time, but even if his body could relax his brain is stuck in hyper vigilance.
He leaves the television on but muted, ears straining constantly for the sound of anything amiss, of anyone approaching, as he sprawls out uncomfortably, trying to drift off. It's not working very well; he keeps shivering, which jostles everything agonizingly, and is also sweating to a disgusting degree all over his poor, beleaguered couch. When JARVIS' low voice suddenly breaks the silence it sounds as loud as a gunshot, startling Clint so badly that he almost tumbles to the floor.
"Agent Barton?" -then- "I apologize for alarming you."
"What?" Clint growls, angry but also a bit euphoric, temporarily pain free thanks to all the adrenaline just dumped into his system. "What do you want?"
"Agent Barton, may I please call someone to help you?"
"No!" he snaps then amends it to "No thanks." There's not any call to be rude, especially to the artificial intelligence that controls the heating and cooling of his apartment.
Then, about thirty minutes later, "You appear to be unwell, Agent Barton, may I please call some assistance for you?"
"Fuck you, and fuck your assistance," Clint grits out between waves of returned pain, abandoning politeness, trying to focus on the movie playing. It's hard to follow without sound, but there are British soldiers and werewolves and explosions, and Clint isn't sure if he's not thinking clearly or if the movie is just that incomprehensible.
"Agent Barton, you appear to be in medical distress," JARVIS says in an automatic voice quite unlike his usual velvety one. "Protocols dictate that I must summon assistance for you. I am doing so now."
Clint glares at the ceiling; hiding behind protocols as a workaround to the locked door situation is clever, but it's also a pretty low blow. "JARVIS, you traitor. Turncoat. Lousy double crossing Judas!" He'd probably sound more intimidating if his teeth weren't chattering so hard. "You promised. You promised me."
"I'm sorry, Clint," JARVIS says, and he actually sounds it as the front door bangs open and Steve, shirtless and wearing only a pair of striped pajama pants, comes tearing into the the room.
*******
"Oh my God," Steve says. "We need to call your doctor."
"I just need a blanket," Clint protests blearily. "I would have gotten one, but they're up too high in the closet." He hopes maybe he'll get lucky and Steve will just throw one over him and leave.
"Let me help you to bed, there are plenty of blankets there." Steve reaches out then hesitates, not knowing how to best lift him from the couch.
And then there she is, the Black Widow, in all her furious glory.
"Oh, fuck my life," Clint moans.
"You locked me out." Natasha seethes. "You ever do that again, and I will do things to you that make Budapest seem like a tickle party. Understand?" She shoves Steve aside and puts a hand to Clint's cheek, glaring into his eyes. "Christ, look at you. Where's your pain medication?" He looks at her blankly and she pops his jaw in an almost-slap. "Clint. Where's the huge bag of pills I dropped off yesterday--before you slammed the door in my face a second time?"
He scowls and Natasha snorts indignantly. "You threw them in the trash, didn't you? Jerk." She stalks to his kitchen muttering angrily. "They'd better be at the top and still in the bag, or you're getting murdered today, I shit you not."
Bruce and Tony arrive also, Bruce hurrying over immediately, Tony hanging back in the doorway uncertainly. Clint groans, considers burying his face in a pillow so he can smother to death. "God, everyone's here now. Great, this is just so great."
Bruce reaches out carefully to feel Clint's forehead and neck. "I don't think you have a fever. You look terrible. You should have called us sooner."
"You do realize that I didn't call you in the first place," Clint points out.
"How about you just not speak, and that includes arguing with me about these." Natasha returns with a handful of pills and a glass of water. Clint tries to reach for them but she narrows her eyes in warning and starts pushing them one by one into his mouth.
*******
Tony edges into the room as the others fuss over Barton. They seem stressed and worried but also relieved; the whole lockdown thing had really rattled them until Tony and JARVIS came up with a valid way to circumvent it. Clint is pale and soaked in sweat, shaking both from pain and going cold turkey off whatever drugs they'd stuffed him full of in Medical. His eyes keep skipping over to Tony, as if tracking his position to make sure he stays far away.
Bruce unfastens Clint's sling and peels off his shirt to check all the wounds underneath; Tony flinches at the bruises, at the bite marks that march up his skin in irregular lines. Clint balks at the suggestion of Bruce and Steve helping him with a shower, then wisely reconsiders after Natasha's withering look. They pull him to his feet and set to the task as she goes to straighten up the kitchen, tossing things around and slamming drawers more than really cleaning.
"Can I--Should I help?" Tony asks.
She glares at him but he can see the worry underneath the anger. "Food. He'll need something in his stomach with those painkillers."
"Food, yeah, I'm excellent with food." He isn't, not in the slightest, but he tells himself that cooking is just science and he's amazing at that. He opens cabinet after cabinet and discovers only bread, one can of diced tomatoes, and a perplexing quantity of boxed raisins. "Or, I can, you know, order some food. I'm even better at that."
"Toast some bread, Tony, it's not that hard."
"There isn't anything to put on it." The refrigerator is also empty except for one lonely bottle of orange juice.
"Then the asshole gets dry toast."
The drugs have fully kicked in by the time Steve helps Clint into bed and he's wobbly and passive as Bruce wrangles him into clean clothing and immobilizes his shoulder. Tony hovers in the bedroom doorway, awkwardly holding a plate with a single burnt piece of toast, sure Clint will fall asleep any second. His eyes droop but remain stubbornly open, and it's obvious that he's fighting to stay awake.
Clint is just starting to breathe rapidly when Steve asks what's wrong. "I can't...I need you to leave. Everyone to leave. Please."
"Not happening," Natasha declares, then exchanges an alarmed look with Bruce when her words tip Clint straight into panic, though muted from the medication.
"Get out," he slurs loudly. "I won't make JARVIS lock you out, I promise, but I can't have you here when I'm trying to--" Bruce moves toward him but backs away immediately, hands up, when Clint kicks at him sluggishly. "Please leave. Get out." Clint's eyes settle on Tony. "Get out. You can't be here."
They're the desperate words of someone in the midst of a panic attack, and Tony knows that he shouldn't take them personally, but he does. He does, because it is personal; he knows the history behind the sentiment, why Clint can't fall asleep with anyone around him. Especially not one of his former tormenters.
The others remain, still trying to reason with Clint, but not Tony. He's gone.
And he does his best to stay gone.
*******
The team is called out a few days later. Clint doesn't respond at all, not even to mope about not getting to come along, but Tony suits up immediately. It's just what he needs, to kick some ass, to pretend to be a hero for awhile. It's pretty great, even if he does overextend a little, trying to keep his eyes on everyone. For one horrible moment it looks like an enemy is going to get the drop on Natasha, but Tony intervenes. He hurls the man from the rooftop she's on and doesn't bother checking if he survives or not. He turns to Natasha, expecting a look of approval, surprised when it doesn't come.
On the way home everyone is uncharacteristically silent.
"That can't happen again," Steve says finally, and Tony realizes the odd expression on Steve's face is actually barely contained anger.
"What can't happen? Undisputed victory? You'd think it'd get old, winning over and over," Tony observes, flipping controls back and forth, spinning his seat, too keyed up to sit still. "But it never does. Never!"
"I can't have you out there that way again, Tony. It's dangerous...for everyone."
Tony laughs. "Oh, please. We're already a man short due to Badly Broken Barton."
"I'd rather be two Avengers down than see you in that condition."
Tony huffs in disbelief. "'Condition'," he scoffs. "At my worst I'm better than ten of you guys. You need me." Steve doesn't answer and Tony doesn't care for the way no one is really looking at him. "Fine, you can bench me, but I might just come along anyway. It's not like you could stop me." He grins to show it's a joke. Which it is. Mostly.
But Steve doesn't take it that way. "I could stop you," he says seriously, and Natasha raises her eyebrows, following the exchange with cautious interest.
Tony snorts derisively and is about to push the issue when Bruce interrupts quietly.
"I would stop you."
*******
Tony raids the ice cream Bruce has hidden in the back of the freezer that night, a petty retaliation for his betrayal, but it's the best he can do at the moment. He's just finished all the neopolitan and is eyeing the vanilla speculatively--it's Banner's favorite--when Clint appears.
"Hey, Barton."
Clint jumps noticeably, but when he turns his face is carefully neutral. "Oh. Hi. I didn't think anyone would be up."
"No one should be; it's one million o'clock," Tony points out. "How have you been?" It feels awkward and formal, like running into a old lover after a nasty breakup.
"Good, good. I'm just great." Clint doesn't look at him as he continues into the kitchen and slowly gathers bread, peanut butter, a knife. "Yourself?"
"Fantastico." He watches Clint carry everything uncomfortably with two mostly useless arms, but doesn't offer to help, certain he'll be rebuffed.
There's something unusual about the way Clint is dressed and it takes Tony a moment to realize that he's wearing a long sleeved shirt. Clint could never stand long sleeves, unwilling to wear anything that interfered with his archery, but now he's wearing them, one sleeve cut raggedly off to accommodate the cast. Tony starts to comment but stops himself, remembering the bite marks on Clint's other arm. He's chosen this shirt to cover them up, probably embarrassed, and something about that makes Tony incredibly sad.
"So, hey, I've been meaning to ask you..."
Clint stiffens, then turns his head to look at Tony, his back and neck so tense that Tony can almost hear the tendons creaking, like the door of a haunted house. "Yeah?"
"That story you told--with the girl and the three clowns and the watermelons...was any of that true?" It's an opening, a chance for connection, a plea of sorts. Come on, Clint.Talk to me. Joke around like you used to. Let's pretend to be normal, until we can stand to be normal for real.
"Oh." Clint laughs--a staccato 'ha ha ha' that is a sad mockery of his usual loud guffaw. "No. I mean, some of that did happen, but didn't have anything to do with sex. Well, not overtly, anyway."
He picks up the knife to spread the peanut butter, his hand just hovering in the air, then sets it carefully on the counter again. He stands there for another moment, looking at his partially constructed sandwich, before he turns on his heel and walks stiffly out.
"Yeah," Tony sighs into the empty room. "That's what I thought you'd say."
*******
Tony isn't three sheets to the wind--more like one and a half sheets, maybe. It's only ten in the morning, and he would be bothered by that fact except that he had never gone to sleep the night before, and this buzz is just a carryover. That makes it far more acceptable.
He's looking for a screwdriver. He has a multimillion dollar tower with all the luxuries a person could ever want, filled to bursting with toys and tools and state of the art fucking everything, and yet he can never find a simple screwdriver when he needs one. Pepper had jokingly suggested including one in every room of the building--even bathrooms--tethered permanently to a wall, and now he thinks that maybe was not a bad idea.
He heads to the library, remembering vaguely that he had stuck a screwdriver once through the globe there to prove a point, and hears them talking. Part of him is pretty pissed that they are having a team meeting without inviting him. Or Clint, apparently, which means that the meeting is probably about him. Or about both of them, more likely.
"We just need to be patient; sometimes it takes time to get better," Steve suggests, but Natasha disagrees vehemently.
"No. You've got to get ahead of things like this. Clint will barely communicate and Tony is coming apart at the seams."
"Neither one is sleeping," Bruce says. "Clint seems...unwell. I'm wondering if we should try to convince him to go back to Medical."
"Or how about a psych ward?" Tony suggests casually, and they look up in surprise--Bruce and Steve a little guilty, Natasha just annoyed. "It's always been just a matter of time before an Avenger ended up in the booby hatch. Might as well be Barton as anybody." He shrugs.
"Listen, we were just--" Steve starts to say, but Tony waves him off and liberates his screwdriver with flourish--it's in the globe, just as he thought, shoved in between Afghanistan and Iran--and stalks off. He hears someone coming up behind him and is steeling himself to deal with the disappointed earnestness of Steve Rogers when Natasha pushes him into the first empty room, slamming the door behind them.
"Don't get me wrong," Tony says with a leer, trying to cover the way his anxiety skyrockets the second she touches him, "this is kind of hot, but I'm with Pepper."
"What happened between the two of you?" she demands. "What did Clint do?"
"He didn't do anything." Tony is frustrated to discover he's not as drunk as he had hoped, just exhausted. "The head guy, Franklin, was into mindfuckery and kept trying to turn us on one another. Clint was balls deep in NeverNeverLand and walked right into it. It wasn't his fault, and I know that."
"He did something," she insists. "What was it? Tell me."
"Oh, he couldn't do anything, but he said plenty. But, like I just told you, I know why he did. He wasn't himself."
Natasha just raises her eyebrows and waits. Tony rolls his eyes and balances the screwdriver on his palm until she snatches it away. "Tell me what happened," she says again, this time more gently.
"They made me help." He hasn't told anyone that, unable to make himself face them after they understand that he had willingly participated in Clint's suffering. "I yelled, hit him, did everything I could think of. Franklin was tearing him apart and I thought I could make it better if I--" God, it sounds so stupid as he says it now, but at the time it had seemed the only option, the best of a bad bunch. Tony can't look at her, can't bear her burning gaze now that she knows. She'll probably kill him, and at this point he'd gladly let her.
She puts a hand on his arm. Nothing more than that, just a steady pressure.
"You hurt him." Natasha shrugs pragmatically. "And I can guess how he responded to that. Clint is the best person I know, but he's ugly when he lashes out, and he goes straight for the tender spots. He fights dirty when it comes to survival, unapologetically dirty. It's why he's so good at what we do. No one works for SHIELD and comes out clean." She sighs. "But that's not who he is all the time. Not who he wants to be when he gets to choose differently. And the same goes for you."
"I know that. I do."
"Well, knowing and believing are two separate things, unfortunately." She reaches out to tip up his chin, Tony's dark eyes unwillingly meeting hers. "They tried to break you both, and maybe it would have happened, had it continued. Maybe not. There's no way to know, and it's pointless to wonder. But don't let Franklin keep working you now. He's lost his agency in the world. He's dead. But you and Clint aren't."
*******
There's a knock at the door, and Clint groans in frustration. "What?"
"It's Steve." His voice is pitched low, muffled. "Can Natasha and I see you for a minute?"
Well, crap. The last person on earth Clint wants to deal with is Captain America, with his determined jaw and sad, puppy dog eyes. He considers telling Steve to get bent, but cooperating whenever they come to check on him is the compromise he agreed to in return for someone not staying with him all the time. Clint sighs and lets them in, checks the hall for anyone else, and kicks the door closed.
"How are you doing, Clint?" Steve asks, moving blankets the coffee table so he can sit on the couch. Natasha parks beside him and frowns at the state of the apartment.
Clint sits in the only other chair, an overstuffed thing that he never uses, feeling uncomfortable, anticipating an interrogation or similarly unpleasant conversation. "I'm good."
"The doctor came by yesterday, right? How's everything healing up?"
"I have about three more weeks in this thing," he answers, frowning at his cast. "Physical therapy on the shoulder starts next week." He sighs glumly. "And it looks like I'll probably have to have surgery to fix the other one, too."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"It's taking you too long to shake this off," Natasha declares bluntly, ignoring the pleasantries. "You're not coming out of it like you should."
"Well, excuse the hell out of me," he snaps back. "Not everyone can be a supersoldier or Lady Terminator. I'll endeavor to get back on your recovery timetable as soon as I can fucking manage."
"It's not like that at all," Steve insists. "We only want to help."
Natasha's love is a little tougher. "This moping around is beyond ridiculous, you sad sack. It happened, it's over, it's done. Pull yourself together. No more wallowing around in your personal mud puddle of woe."
Steve is obviously taken aback by her choice of words, but Clint finds himself chuckling, in spite of himself. 'Personal mud puddle' had been one of Phil Coulson's favorite expressions, and he applied it liberally to a number of Clint Barton situations--swanning about in a mud puddle of joy, stewing in a mud puddle of anger, flailing about in a mud puddle of inebriation. What he would give to have Phil here now; he had been as steely as Natasha and yet more open handed with his comfort--the perfect kind of balance that Steve always attempts, but doesn't quite pull off.
"Alright," Clint sighs. "I have a headache, so just give the condensed version of what I must do to please you."
"Counseling."
He'd throw up his hands in disgust if he had any good arms left. "Therapy, really. Groundbreaking. Earth shattering. Why is that always your goddamned solution?"
"Because it's usually the best one," Steve says seriously, and Clint bites back a smile, because this time he does sound like Phil.
*******
They send Bruce for Tony.
"Brucie! I was just making a drink. Want one?"
"No thanks." Bruce sits at the counter and pushes the napkin holder, moves the container of straws by tiny increments, adjusting them in a kind of minibar feng shui. "Tony," he says finally.
"Ugh, can we just not." Bruce is easier to read than a picture book, and Tony can see the heartfelt platitudes coming from ten miles away.
"Tony, it's time to stop treading water. Time to head toward shore."
"Swimming metaphors, yay!" Tony gulps his drink and pours another. "What about Clint? Gonna reel him in, too? Better call the Coast Guard, cause that motherfucker's lost at sea."
"Of course we want to help Clint, too. We want to help both of you."
"Is this the royal 'we' or a specific 'we'?"
"The team. Your family. People that care about you." Tony snorts dismissively and Bruce adds "Natasha told us what you said happened."
"Oh." Tony raises his glass and then sets it down instead. "So now you know."
"I know that it isn't fatal. I know that it isn't insurmountable. I know that you both have gotten past other traumas and come out stronger on the other side. Those are all things that I know. But what I don't know is how you feel about it, because you won't talk to any of us."
Tony sighs and plops down on a bar stool beside Bruce. "I hated him a little," he forces out finally. "Not for what he said, but because they used him to get to me. Then I was disgusted with myself and hated him for that, too." Bruce doesn't say anything, just waits. "Near the end he was so far gone I even thought about..." He can't go on, can't admit to what he had considered.
Bruce knows anyway. "But you didn't. He wasn't too far gone, and neither are you."
"Are you sure? It reminds me of this one time I was brushing my teeth and left the water running--and I looked down and there was a mayfly in the sink, trying to get out. I felt bad; I would have let it go if I'd noticed it beforehand. But it had been hit with all that water, it wouldn't be able to fly anymore, so I just turned up the faucet and let it wash down the drain. It seemed kinder than watching it struggle. But then, the second it disappeared, I regretted it."
"You made fun of my metaphor?" Bruce observes wryly, smiling and nudging Tony with his elbow. "This anecdote is a wee bit on the nose."
"You think?" Tony has to laugh. "Subtlety has never been in my wheelhouse."
"I'm just wondering if you're comparing that mayfly to Clint, or to yourself."
"To Clint," Tony says in surprise, having thought that was pretty obvious.
Bruce shrugs noncommittally. "If you say so." He picks up an empty glass and tosses it lightly back and forth between his hands. "I know another guy who thinks like that, in absolutes, in terms of only powerful and weak."
"The Hulk. Our big green deus ex machina."
Bruce's face is solemn. "You don't want to think that way, about how you're capable of thinking that way. Neither do I. It's something I war with--quite publicly, I might add. I would always choose compassion, always choose the gentle path, if I could. But sometimes it just isn't up to us. And you have to sort through the pieces afterward, put them back together the best that you can, and shore yourself up for the next battle. And the one after that."
"Sounds like a real bummer," Tony observes, then adds unhappily, "I don't think I'm looking forward to that at all."
"Then it's a good thing you won't have to do it alone."
*******
It's a testament to their longtime friendship that when he asks Natasha to sleep with him, she doesn't even blink, just agrees.
His arm and shoulders are an ongoing nightmare, but even if he were physically ready SHIELD wouldn't approve him for duty. He still can't handle anyone being nearby when he tries to sleep--medicated or otherwise--and he needs to be able to do that to go back in the field. They are holed up for too long in strange places too regularly for him to pretend otherwise. He has to push past this, and Natasha is the logical choice to help.
"Which shrink did they give you?" she asks as she tosses her pillow onto Clint's bed, then pushes most of the covers away from her side toward his.
"Thorsett." Clint decides even he can't handle that many blankets, wads them up and throws them across the room to the laundry basket, grimacing painfully. Natasha gives him a blank look and he adds, "Late 40's, freckles, glasses, looks like an adult Hermione Granger."
"Oh, yeah, I know who that is." She smirks a little at the description. "So, how's the exorcism of your crazy coming along?"
"Okay. Still, I have no doubts of its resiliency. Bartons don't do anything self destructive halfway. But she thinks this is a good idea, so here we are." He's already anxious about this and unable to hide it, not that he ever could, not from Natasha. They get into bed, she curled up on her side, watching him, and he flat on his back, eyes resolutely on the ceiling, willing himself to relax.
Maybe a half hour goes by, Natasha just waiting, Clint shifting uncomfortably, scratching at his cast, fiddling with his pillow. The silence starts to be too much and Clint grasps the first thing he can think of to fill it.
"How did you do it?"
There's no need for her to ask what he means. "Maybe this isn't the right time to talk about that."
"I disagree. I could use a bedtime story. I'm in the perfect emotional state to hear about how you killed Franklin."
She considers this, then answers, "Slowly. He felt all of my tender ministrations."
"How?" he insists, turning on his side to face her, ignoring the numerous pains that flare up.
Natasha sighs, then trails her finger over the marks on his arm, healed to crisscrossing red ovals that crawl up from his wrist like a tangle of vines. "I saw the look in your eyes, and then I saw this. And I knew what I wanted to do after I played with my knives, with my hands. I let him hover there, on the edge, for hours and then...I bit him to death."
"That's a pretty fucked up thing to do," he observes after a long moment. "Steve wouldn't like that."
She shrugs indifferently. "He doesn't need to know."
"The team wouldn't like it." He generally avoids looking at the bite marks, but he does it now, imagines placing his mouth over them, lining each one up perfectly with his teeth. "They wouldn't understand something like that, but I do. God forgive me--that I can understand something like that."
"I love our teammates. Every single one." Natasha pulls Clint close, her words a sigh in his ear, holds him almost too tightly. It's more affection than she usually allows herself to show, and more than he usually allows himself to accept. "But I love you more."
He clutches her back, and he tries, he really does. Tries to let those sweet words be the cure that makes him miraculously well again. Tries to keep his eyes shut and trust that the sensation of falling, and then of a painful catch, will not come. That no one will scream his name, no shocks will turn the world bright white, that no water will come to drown him.
But it happens anyway, that his terror overpowers his trust, and he shoves her away in a panic before he can fall asleep. She moves right back, undaunted, refuses to leave.
And that is why he really chose Natasha for this--not because she goes on missions with him or because they've been friends for a decade, but because Bruce or Steve would be driven away immediately. They would respect his wishes and retreat, all sad-eyed and worried, but not Natasha. She loves him, maybe more than anyone in his life ever has, but she is also relentlessly practical and a believer in getting shit over and done with.
"Get away from me," he gasps, pushing at her again, but it's a token effort, because he already feels faraway and fuzzy from a lack of oxygen as his throat closes up.
"No." She scoots closer still. "It's just a panic attack, Clint, like the any of the others that you and I have had before. Not the worst one, either, not even by half. Just let it happen, let yourself go through it." She leans forward, touching her forehead to his. "Just keep breathing, because it won't last. It will end, and when it does it will be gone, but you'll still be here. And so will I."
She says it with confidence, her voice low and strong and steady, says it dozens of times, maybe a hundred, until it's over, until he believes it.
They fall asleep together, and repeat the process again the next night and many after that.
*******
The following week Tony hears from Steve that Clint is having more surgery and isn't especially surprised; he'd seen the way those chains pulled and wrenched his friend's body. "Ouch," he says sympathetically. "Poor old Tweetie Bird. It'll be ages before he can shoot again."
"Probably," Steve agrees.
"Shouldn't he, uh, wait to do that till he's not also recovering from...stuff?"
"He wanted to get it done while his other arm is out of commission anyway."
"Oh. That makes sense, I guess." Tony can't help but notice that everyone else has been doing a lot of discussing and planning, even Clint. He wonders why he has been kept out of the loop, but supposes that he hasn't exactly made himself available. They could well be having these conversations together openly in the common area, which he has scrupulously avoided for weeks.
"He only has to stay over in Medical one night, then will be back home," Steve goes on, and his voice is suddenly careful. "We've been working out shifts to stay with him the first few days, to help out during the worst of it." He lets the sentence hang meaningfully.
"He won't want me there," Tony says quickly. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I am the last person on earth Clint would want around when he has two busted arms and can't defend himself."
"You don't know that; he's doing a lot better," Steve insists. "He would like to see you. And I think it would be good for you, too."
"For me? I can't imagine how playing nursemaid to a grumpy Barton could ever be a positive thing for me."
"It would be good for you to help him. To help him now the way you couldn't back then."
"Stick to inspiring battle speeches, Captain America," Tony advises, not unkindly. "Psychology is just not your thing."
*******
A few days later he watches Clint return from SHIELD Medical with a solicitous Bruce, who herds him immediately to his apartment to begin yet another recovery period.
Tony makes up a bouquet of explosive arrows and scrawls "Stop being hurt" on a card. He intends to take them over but pauses outside the door, second guessing the gesture. Then several days go by and he decides he's waited too long, and scraps the idea entirely.
Bruce fishes the arrow bouquet out of the laboratory trash and delivers it immediately.
******
Clint sits next to him, as tense as a live wire, staring inscrutably at the floor. Tony wants to take it personally, but reminds himself that his own face probably looks just as strained and unapproachable. He tries to make himself relax, but only manages a graceless full body twitch instead.
"Who would like to start?" Dr. Thorsett asks.
They're both here, they're both trying--Clint asked for this and Tony grudgingly agreed. He typically finds counseling a gigantic waste of time, but as much as he wants this conversation to be over, he wants things to be better between them more. Clint had made the first overture, so Tony thinks he should make the next, and he might as well go for broke, swing for the fences.
"I will. I'm sorry," he says, turning toward Clint, who looks up at him quickly. "I'm sorry that I couldn't help you. What's worse, I hurt you, and I hate myself for that. I'm so sorry."
"Me, too," Clint surprises him by saying. "I don't remember most of it, but I know I made things harder for you. I hope you believe that I wouldn't do that...wouldn't do that on purpose. If I--if I could--you know..." he gestures vaguely, flustered.
"If you could choose," Tony offers, thinking of Natasha's words, and Clint nods, relieved. "I know. And I understand. Better than I ever wanted to."
Clint sighs unhappily, looking away. "I'm sorry for that, too."
"What do you mean?" the doctor prods.
"There are some things--" Clint trails off and shakes his head sadly, helplessly. "When it comes to things like this, to understanding things like this...what I wish the most for my friends is ignorance."
They sit in silence for a long time, and the doctor lets them, lets it unfold, lets them think.
Tony feels, well, not like a weight has been lifted off his chest, but more like it has been moved. Set carefully aside so that he can take a few deep breaths. And maybe that weight won't stay away, maybe it will come right back, but for now, for right now, he can breathe a little easier.
"Now, you've said you can't remember much about what happened," the counselor says gently. "And you and I have discussed that, but could you share with Tony what you do remember?"
Clint covers his eyes with his hands, pressing hard. "It's bits and pieces mostly. Hurting, yelling, begging. I remember wanting to die but also thinking I could get out of there if I just worked hard enough. Being worried for someone that I hated at the same time. I remember blood and chains and colors, threats and promises." He sighs deeply, then moves his hands away.
"And that," he adds slowly, after a long pause, "is the story of my first sexual experience."
Tony barks out a shocked, delighted laugh while the doctor sputters, and Clint winks at him, mouth quirked up in his old crooked grin.
*******
Epilogue
A few days later Tony is still awake at 2am, surrendering to the reality of another sleepless night, trying to zone out in the common room to a movie. He looks up in surprise when Barton walks in, and they nod at one another, Tony grinning when Clint gives the clock a forlorn grimace. He hesitates, then sits on the couch. There are a number of other seats, but he sits right next to Tony, who thinks there must be some meaning to the gesture.
"What is this shit?" Clint asks finally, brow furrowed, eyes on the movie.
"It's called 'Cat People'. It's about people that turn into panthers when they have sex. It's...a documentary."
"Uh huh." Clint rolls his eyes but smiles a little.
"It has a really kickass David Bowie tune at the beginning; I can restart it if you want to hear."
"Yeah, sure, okay." He pauses. "Wait, hold on--did that guy just eat what I think he ate?"
"Yes."
"Aww, man, that's gross."
Tony sets the movie back to the beginning. Clint raises his eyebrows appreciatively through the Bowie song, then nestles back into the couch cushions in an attempt to get comfortable. He is obviously tense but trying to appear otherwise, and neither of them say anything as the minutes pass.
The movie is in its final acts by the time Clint's breathing seems to come a little steadier, easier, and he drifts off at a painfully slow rate, Tony watching surreptitiously the whole time. When Clint's eyes snap open immediately at the sound of screams from the television Tony curses himself inwardly for not muting it.
"Just a routine cinematic murder," he murmurs. "Not even of a main character." Clint's eyes flicker to Tony's face, considering, then close again. Tony waits a few more minutes, turns the volume down to a low hum.
As the credits roll Clint is asleep, and so far there are no bad dreams.
Tony feels himself wanting to nod off also, thinks that it might feel nice to do just that. But not right now, not just yet. He wants the chance to do what he hadn't been able to in that cell, to watch over Clint, to make sure that nothing happens. He wants to ensure that no one ends this peaceful moment that they've both had long in coming, to still be keeping watch when his friend finally wakes up.