Bartoned

Chapter 15

You had ended up waking at four thanks to the pressure on your bladder, and you decided it would be best if you went back to your room. You did sleep, but not as well as when you had Clint there to rest your leg on. You considered that maybe a body pillow would solve that issue as you drifted off into a restless sleep.

You woke the following day to Clint giving you a small shake. You gasped and looked around. "Sorry," he said. "Sorry, I kinda wanted to let you sleep. But work. I gotta go. And so do you. I need to get coffee and I know how the smell is getting to you. But... I guess we need to talk too. Tonight?"

You nodded and stretched. "Yeah. That's a good idea. Thanks, Clint."

He nodded and headed back out of your room, giving you a wave. "It's okay. I'll see you at lunch."

You didn't though. He, Natasha, Sam, Wanda, and Kari had been sent out to deal with something that popped up in Arizona. You had no information aside from that. That was all normal though. Avengers business was 'need to know'. You didn't need to know so you just carried on as normal.

It was four days later when you did see Clint again and he was being stretchered into the med bay with Kari holding something against his side that was already drenched in blood. He moaned as the surgeons and nurses all rushed in taking over from Kari. It sounded weak rather than in pain and you weren't sure if that was better or worse.

You went to follow them, unsure exactly what you were planning. You were a field medic, not a surgeon. You could do an emergency stitch-up. Under extreme conditions, you might be able to do more complicated surgery. But that would only happen if there was no other choice and actual surgeons would have to fix your work. There was a team of people seeing to him that were all more competent than you in this situation.

Kari grabbed your arm, leaving a bloody handprint on your scrubs. "Let them do their job," she said.

You turned back to her. "What happened?"

"He Bartoned hard is what happened," Natasha said, coming through the door, covered with almost as much blood as Kari was.

"He what?" you asked.

"Bartoned," Natasha said. "You know? When you do something really stupid and end up hurting yourself? You haven't heard us use that yet?"

You'd laugh if you weren't so worried about Clint. He did tend to do things like that. He was somehow both the clumsiest and agilest person you'd ever met. "How exactly did he Barton?"

We were just handing the people we'd arrested over to the feds and he turned around, tripped over the side of a garden bed, and landed on one of their swords.

You barked a laugh and covered your mouth. It was awful but you pictured it perfectly.

"Of course, Kari said don't pull the blade out but he was already doing it," Natasha said, rolling her eyes. "You'd think he'd have learned by now."

"Don't let Nat's cool exterior trick you. She was freaking out on the ride back," Kari said.

"Well, we used four bags of blood. I was worried we weren't going to make it," Natasha argued. "But we're here now and we have the cradle. He'll be fine and Bartoning it up in no time."

You kept forgetting about the cradle. When you were in the field you needed to do whatever you could to keep someone alive, so it was easy to forget that here in the tower there was a piece of tech that could simply regrow people's damaged tissue inside their bodies with no need for transplants. You just passed the people off to the surgeons. After that, it was their job.