Colombia

A little more than two hours later the bright lights of the city of Miami shone through the darkness as Phil watched out the small window of the quinjet. He was tempted to feel relief that they were almost in the clear, but with Clint’s luck as of late he wasn’t going to take anything for granted.

After the initial scare of losing Clint the rest of the flight had been relatively low key, the archer’s heart monitor still beeping in a near steady cadence, and the two seizures he had were nothing like the ones that stopped his heart previously. The medic worked tirelessly to keep pumping blood into Clint and try to stem the flow of the bullet wound as best as she could. Phil knew he would need emergency surgery once they landed, in order to remove the bullet from Clint’s side.

He still hadn’t made the call to Director Fury to fill him on what had happened. He knew deep in his gut that Fury would never have sent Clint walking into an ambush like that, but Phil wasn’t sure who he could trust, and right now making sure Clint was given the best possible chance to survive was priority.

The quinjet landed rather smoothly on the runway, a crew of people running immediately to the ramp, a larger stretcher and crash cart with them, as they had been fully prepared for Clint’s arrival. Phil watched closely as Clint’s unconscious body was taken down to the ramp, to the awaiting medical team, who crowded around him, running more lines into his arms, supplying more fluids as well as morphine to make the archer more comfortable.

He trailed behind the medical staff as they whisked Clint inside no doubt to prep him for surgery to remove the bullet from his side. A friendly face greeted him on his way in to the medical bay of the base, none other than Dr. Caden Graley.

“Hey there Phil, tell me, why is it we can never see each other unless there is some sort of crisis?” The light haired doctor joked, trying to lighten the mood despite the heavy lines of stress on his face. Phil smiled slightly, the motion feeling foreign on his face, and clapped a hand to the doctor’s shoulder.

“You know maybe one of these days we could try to catch up over coffee instead of over a hospital bed?” Graley chuckled a brief flash of humor flickering in his eyes before a somber look replaced it. He shifted his feet slightly, thinking of how to phrase the question that was tumbling around in his mind.

“What the hell happened out there man?” Graley decided to hold off on the burning question he had as he saw Phil’s face fall, it must have been worse than the initial reports said, because he had never seen Phil’s eyes as shadowed as they were right now. Phil steeled himself as he weighed how much information he wanted to divulge to the doctor, he decided to go for bare minimum until he had a chance to dig and figure out who the hell wanted Clint dead.

“We were ambushed and they managed to capture Barton.” Phil’s voice was tired as the events replayed in his head, the sheer panic he had felt when Barton’s comm link went down fresh in his mind. “I got to the safe house and tried to pull up his tracker and it was dead. I knew Campos had to have something to do with it, so I stayed close by and watched the mansion, trying to figure out where they were keeping Barton.”

“Then in the middle of the day, I heard gunshots as I was staking out the property. I followed the noise and found him, bleeding out.” Phil glanced down at his hands, still seeing Clint’s blood soaking them, even though they were clean. “I lost him while we were waiting for extraction.” His voice broke slightly, and Graley put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly.

“You did good Phil, you did everything right and managed to kept him alive until the medics could get to him, he’s alive thanks to you. Now they’re going to get him put back together and he’ll be good as new before you know it, and back to his dark, surly ways.”

“I was finally getting through to him Caden, I mean really getting him to open up. He has so much darkness inside him, but I saw hope in his eyes for the first time since I brought him in, if he can conquer it he will be one of the best agents we have ever had.” Graley’s pager went off and he glanced down before looking back to Phil apologetically.

“I hate to bail on you, but I need to get scrubbed in and start putting your archer together. He’ll be in good hands.”

“Thank you Caden.” Phil finally felt some relief rush through his system, it seemed like things were finally starting to go right as he watched Graley’s retreating figure.
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He completed what felt like the millionth lap of the small hallway outside of the surgery wing of the medical bay, waiting to hear something, anything really, on the archer’s condition. Phil looked at his watch, nearly cursing when he saw only three minutes had passed since he had last checked.

It had been nearly six hours since Graley had left him and Clint’s surgery had begun. Roughly two hours ago three more doctors had been paged into surgery, and as they walked by Phil had noticed their tense looks, and the pit in his stomach deepened. He began another lap, too nervous to sit still anymore, every veneer of calm he had was gone. If Fury could see him now he would probably have a cow, Phil was known as the unshakeable agent, which was part of the reason he was Agents Barton and Romanoff’s handler because anyone else would have surely shot the two agents already.

He let his mind wander, thinking about all the struggles he had been through with his two agents. Out of the two he had made more tangible progress with Clint rather than Natasha, which didn’t surprise him that much from what little information he had been able to glean from the red-haired assassin trust wasn’t something given easily. Whereas Barton seemed to be searching for someone to trust, and Phil was doing everything he could to coax the archer out from the shadows and walls he kept around himself.

Approaching footsteps shook Phil from his thoughts and he whirled quickly to meet the tired, but satisfied grin of Graley. He felt the feelings of hope and relief fluttering through his system but tamped them down until he could hear what the doctor had to say.

“Well you look like shit.” Graley greeted him, a twinkle of humor in his eyes. Phil had to channel all of his remaining patience, which wasn’t much, into resisting the urge to flip his friend off. “I’m sure you’re wanting to hear how Barton is doing?” He couldn’t help but push Phil a little more, he knew Barton was in the clear, and couldn’t resist the opportunity to watch the usually unflappable agent look like he wanted to strangle him.

“Barton made it through surgery just fine.” He didn’t add the parts where they lost him on the table two more times, not wanting to increase Phil’s agitation. “We got the bullet out and patched him up, he has quite the array of stitches in him, so movement is basically out of the question right now. But in a week or so he should be able to be mobile.”

“His blood toxx screen came back and we believe that Campos had kept him continually dosed up with his hellish drug cocktail. That’s what was causing the seizures, once we figured that out we were able to give him something to counteract its effects and we’re continuing to flush it out of system now.”

“Son of a bitch. I really hope he managed to kill Campos, because if he didn’t I will.” Phil’s jaw clenched with uncharacteristic anger.

“Well you should be able to ask him pretty soon, we’re bringing him off of the heavy sedatives, and you know how quickly he wakes up from those things.” Phil’s shoulders drooped a little, and he could literally see the tension draining out of his friend. There must be more to the story than Phil was letting on, but he wasn’t about to push, Phil would tell him when he was ready.

Phil followed behind Graley down the long hallway to the Intensive Care Unit where Clint was resting in his own room, per Coulson’s orders. Graley stopped him as he put his hand on the door to open it.

“I forgot to tell you, one of the side effects from the drugs Campos had pumped through his system are extreme hallucinations. We’re still trying to flush the drug from his system but we aren’t sure if he is still experiencing the effects.” Coulson looked at his friend, his heart breaking a little again at the thought of how much his agent had gone through and still managed to escape.

“So he may not remember you, or you may appear as someone else to him, I just don’t want you to be surprised if he is that out of it. We are 99% sure he doesn’t have any brain damage from the drugs or when his heart stopped, but we’re monitoring him carefully. If you need anything hit the call button on the bed and I’ll be right there.” Graley gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder before walking away, leaving Phil alone in the hallway.

He paused just outside of the door and took a deep breath attempting to calm the multiple emotions raging in his head before he went inside. Once he felt he was sufficiently calm he opened the door and stopped short at the sight of the archer lying so still on the bed in the center of the room.

There were so many lines running from his arms and connecting to various machines which beeped quietly breaking the silence of the room. Almost every bit of skin Phil could see was wrapped in bandages or mottled with deep purple and green bruises. He shook himself from the shock of seeing the usually imposing kid reduced to a beaten body that looked so frail in the bed.

He snagged the chair and pulled it closer to the bed, intending to stay until his young agent woke up. As he got comfortable in the chair he felt the bone deep exhaustion wash over him, after six long nightmarish days he finally allowed himself to fully relax. He closed his eyes, swearing he would open them in just a minute, but as the various machines beeped steadily in the warm room he surrendered to the urge to sleep, knowing he was just an arm’s length away if Clint needed anything.
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He floated in the light grip of the shadows, the pain mercifully gone and he was allowed to simply enjoy the rush of warmth through his veins. He was finally content, there was no pain, no harsh voices echoing in his head, or the faces that haunted his dreams. There was no guilt clawing at him from the inside, there was only peace. A small part of his mind clamored to remind him that he couldn’t stay floating forever and he tried so hard to ignore it, but the shadows slowly began to clear.

The first thing that registered in his foggy brain was the distant sound of soft, regular beeps, followed by the stringent scent of antiseptic. He pushed through the remaining shadows and cracked his eyes open slowly, squinting against the harsh glare of the artificial lighting and a soft snore caught his attention. Looking to his left he saw his handler, mouth open, snoring in the chair next to his bed, one arm outstretched towards him.

Clint concentrated hard and was rewarded with a slight twitch of his hands, gathering his strength he managed to lift his hand and flop it onto Phil’s open one. His handler jerked awake, his eyes immediately going to Clint’s bed, widening when he saw the archer was awake.

“Barton. Damn is it good to see you awake.” The words sounded casual, but Clint was able to see the shine of emotion in Phil’s clear blue eyes. He wondered how bad it had really been, as he didn’t remember much after seeing Phil coming up the hill. He just gave his handler a weary smile in return as he wasn’t sure he had the energy to come up with any words.

His handler seemed to understand and leaned back in his chair, his eyes traveling over Clint trying to determine if he was in any discomfort. Clint slowly did an inventory of his body, trying to catalogue the injuries he had sustained. The dull ache with every breath he took told him he had a couple broken ribs, not a big deal really, and he could feel the tiny sting of the cuts he knew he had all over his torso. But it was the absence of feeling in his back and legs that caught him off guard and sent a chill of fear down his spine.

His brain kicked into overdrive, questions flooding his mind, was he paralyzed? What had happened while he was out? Did the bullet cause him to lose a leg? With each successive question he tried harder and harder to move his lower extremities, and failed. Phil noticed the stricken look pass over the young agent’s face, and tried to determine the cause of his discomfort, it wasn’t until he took in the thrashing of the archer’s legs that he realized what was distressing Clint.

“Your legs are fine Barton. They’re moving just fine.” Clint instantly froze and his head rolled towards Phil, troubled and drug glazed blue-grey eyes met his clear blue ones. “They had to dig that bullet out of your back, you’re just still numbed up from the anesthetics. The feeling will come back soon, I promise.”

At Coulson’s reassuring tone Clint relaxed back into the softness of the pillows that were propping his head up, releasing a pent up sigh. The shadows were starting to whirl again, and he was suddenly so, so tired, he just wanted to float again. Phil watched as Clint embraced sleep and his breathing evened out within seconds, the kid looked at peace, the drawn, pained look he usually wore, replaced with the innocent look of sleep. He settled himself back in the chair at Clint’s side and spoke softly.

“Go ahead and get some rest. I’ve got first watch.”

Notes