Budapest

Deadly Bite

The next time Clint woke up, he could tell something big had happened while he was unconscious. He tried asking the nurses and agents at his bedside, but they just fidgeted and told the man it was nothing. Nick Fury striding in the room seconds later definitely told Clint nothing was a lie meant to placate the man, cause if eyes, or rather an eye could kill, Clint would be dead in seconds.

"Clint Barton, you damn fool! You disobey my orders, saving the assassin who I so nicely sent you to deal with! Tell me why I shouldn't fire you right now Agent Barton, because the Widow is uncooperative and the WSC would love your head on a platter for bringing a terrorist onto American soil! Did I miss anything else, Agent Barton?" Fury asked after shouting so loud, Clint had to turn down his aids to stop the ringing.

Clint wasn't an idiot, he knew he was in deep, deep shit but he wouldn't be who he was if the first thing that slipped out of his mouth was: "Well... she didn't kill me- she stitched me up, didn't escape, and accepted my proposal."

If Fury's eye could twitch any more than it was at the moment, Clint would be afraid the man had suffered a seizure when Fury replied, "A proposal?! What kind of damn proposal did you make? Marriage? Then, you've gone truly insane!"

"Come on, have some faith in me Fury! No not a marriage proposal, a business one. After she'd shot me, I had my arrow pointed and ready, but I just couldn't shoot-"

"-Why the hell not?" Fury shouted in a tone rather close to that of his name.

Clint was getting tired of being yelled at before debrief and shouted back: "She asked me to kill her Fury! ... I know what that's like and she was drugged and so vulnerable for an escape, so I offered her one. I gave her a choice and she chose defection; she doesn't want to be there just as much as you don't want her there."

***

Nicholas "Nick" Fury rubbed his temple as a migraine formed from listening to the WSC and what Fury liked to call Barton's bull-shit. He had come up with the name after the various schemes Clint had conducted would magically turn out to benefit himself. Fury had seen a lot of things one would consider a 'miracle' but the man couldn't understand how Clint could could pull off something miraculous from a literal pile of shit. Because of this, the director's patience was wavering very thin, a feat very few besides his parents could accomplish.

"Look Barton, I don't know how or why you pulled this out of your ass but I need you to fix it, now. The Black Widow won't talk until she sees you, so, roll or crawl, just get to her cell and she better sing like a bird or you're going to be put in the cage right beside her!"

"Yes, sir," Clint responded, swallowing his nerves in his throat as the director swiftly left the med bay. The nurse was kind enough to give Clint a few minutes to recover from the screaming match before she gave him the run-down.

"Agent Barton, you are doing well considering your circumstances. Your abdomen has began to heal as the bullet went straight through and you were stitched quick enough that none of your vital organs were disturbed in the process. However, we did have to give you some blood transfusions because you lost quite a bit of blood, so I'd recommend taking it easy over the next 2 weeks. That means no archery or combat in the next two weeks unless you want to cop up the money for a major surgery."

Clint nodded in disappointment, but wasn't stupid enough to get himself re-injured, especially considering he didn't know if he would be an agent much longer, much less one with his high rank privileges. Mulling over things in his head, Clint knew he had to escape the med bay, it was the only way to get Fury off his back and Natalia to talk. Problem was, he wouldn't get discharged until tomorrow, and that was after the deadline Fury had made quite bluntly. The nurses already weren't fond of him, pulling an escape scheme like this sort every time he entered, but unlike previous schemes, this one was actually a life-or-death situation. Slowly turning off the monitor while the nurse was turned away, Clint detached himself from the IV and began his plan.