Clouds slowly started to blot out the sun, showing little patterns of light and shadow on the walls of an abandoned warehouse, you stood. Clothed in your black uniform, helpless in front of a man youâve known your whole life, at least you think. Youâre staring into the gray eyes of your uncle, Clint, with a shapeshifter copy of yourself. The copy has a gun, pointed to your head, talking to Clint in a weak voice, pleading to him that it is real, and that you are the copy.Â
âClint, itâs me, I promise, please, just let me go inside and you can finish that alien shit off yourself. You want to do it, and I canât,â It pleads. You look up at him, the only person youâre sure you love thatâs still alive, and the only person on the planet youâre sure is real. Clint looks at you closely, your eyes, they were green, but in the dark light, they look black and one is swollen shut, a cut above your eye drips in crusting blood down your face, filling your nose and mouth with the awful, metallic reek.Â
âClâŠ.â You barely make out. You take a deep breath and muster up your strength to pull away from that inhuman monster and stand. You see Clint draw his bow, and you know heâs calculating, thinking, praying that who he shoots isnât real. You see the shapeshifter, itâs getting impatient, soon it will attack, and whatever defense Clint can think of, itâs not enough, youâve seen these things fight. They donât fight to win like he does, they fight to kill. They fight to feel blood under their claws and flesh in their teeth. You see the alienâs eyes flash with malice, and your legs carry you over to it, jumping onto itâs back, the monster turns and pushes you off, you regain your posture, just as you hear a bowstring snap. Almost as if in slow motion, you see the arrow for a split second, until you see, feel, and taste the blood erupting from your throat as the arrowhead buries itself into your abdomen. Clintâs eyes widen, he turns and stabs the bow through the throat of the shapeshifter, who had reverted back into its grotesque form, and had begun to change into the form of Natasha. You gasp as both you and Clint realize that it was the same one that had killed her, by ripping her lower jaw off in a sickening fashion, causing you to pass out and Clint to throw up, that was the last time you saw him until today. Green, acidic bile spills onto the ground as the creature dies, mixing with the blood beginning to pour out of your wound.Â
You look up at Clint, tears beginning to fall down your face as you begin to slump to the ground. Clint catches you and breaks the arrow lodged in your abdomen into pieces, leaving nothing but the arrowhead attached to a three inch fiberglass rod inside you. You gasp, and then vomit down into the ground. Clint holds on tighter, and you feel warm tears on the back of your cold suit.
âI-Iâm sorry, Iâm sorryâŠâ Is all he can mutter, or at least all you can hear. You keep breathing heavily, thatâs all you can focus on. In, out, in, out.Â
âCliâŠâ You struggle to get out, Clint pulls back and you see the tears on his face.Â
âWe need to get inside.â He chokes out. You feel your legs and arms beginning to go numb from shock. Clint lays you across his lap, cradling you as he stands and goes back into the warehouse.
Your vision slowly fogs, watching the path behind you get stained scarlet. You hear a fast, panicked thump to your right, pressing your cold cheek against Clint, you hear his heart, panicking and uneven and loud. The noise somehow soothes you. And you drift off right as you hear a door open to bright light deep underground and Clint shriek,Â
âBanner!â
âŠ
Silence.Â
So quiet itâs almost loud, you can hear faint voices mumbling, one sounds panicked, the other, more calm, but still very upset, you can hear the faint sound of sobbing a few minutes later as a plastic breathing device is placed over your face. You feel several needles poked into various places; your left hand, your right wrist, one near your stomach, and the other three right to the center of throbbing agony. You gasp as the most of the needles are removed, and the pain in your abdomen subsides to numbness.Â
You hear muffled words in the quiet. Some belong to Clint, some belong to the doctor you knew long ago, before he was stripped of the power that could make him become a monster on the experimental tables of those revolting aliens. You knew banner, he was your friend. He was. Now, heâs a cold shell of a man who has seen one too many battles.Â
You hear the voices fluctuate in tone, from worried, to panicked, to relieved. You hear a few phrases distinctively.Â
âNo anesthetic hereâ
âSmall doses of morphine,âÂ
âAll I can do,â
You feel sharp pains to your abdomen as the arrowhead is slowly pulled out, and gloved hands reaching into your bloody wound. You cry out as the hand is removed and a needle is slowly pushed into the hole as the hand is reinserted. Another needle is injected into the area of your wound, and your cries soften, you gather the strength to open your eyes. Your vision is fuzzy, as it clears, you see countless tubes attaching somewhere on your body, a bag of dark scarlet hanging above your head feeds into your arm, you see the graying, tired, and thin doctor banner injecting you with more numbing agents. You look to your side to see Clint sobbing in another room, pressed against the glass. Bruce turns and resumes sewing up whatever the arrow pierced, causing you to caterwaul in agonizing pain. He finishes, and pulls out his gloved hand, covered in bright red. The sight of your own blood and the gaping wound makes you nauseous. Banner injects more of the number right as everything turns dark.Â
âŠ.
âHey, (y/n)âÂ
You feel a soft hand brushing your hair from your face. You feel⊠Clean. Youâd almost forgot what clean felt like. Cracking open your eyes, you see three tubes, two leading to your arm and one leading into your hand, one leading to a bag of blood, one with water, and the third leading to a morphine drip.Â
âYou passed out. Youâre lucky to be here, yâknow. When we came with the anesthetic, we hooked you up as soon as we could. A few more minutes and you couldâve died.â A sultry voice says softly. You turn your attention to a young man, maybe 27? You notice his entire left arm is replaced with a dull metal replica. The scratched out remnants of a red star gleam in the bright light.Â
âWh-who are you?â You murmur. He smiles, you like that smile, you havenât seen one in a very long time, and it makes you smile.Â
âIâm Bucky, I was in another shelter, me, and three friends came here at Bannerâs signal to bring medicine.âÂ
You sigh, letting your head fall back onto the soft pillow. The door opens, you see Clint. Bucky stands, and excuses himself. Clint crosses to the edge of the bed. He sits down on the side.
âHere,â he whispers, reaching over the bed, he presses a cool towel to your head, you drowsily groan.Â
âYouâve been running a fever since you came in, itâs a miracle you made it this far with pneumonia. That takes guts,â he whispers, stroking your hair. You can see shielded emotion in his eyes, heâs hiding something.Â
âClint?â You ask, he turns away.Â
ââM sâŠâ He murmurs.
âTell me whatâs wrong,â you ask, Clint turns, tears falling, he pulls you close, shaking, he starts to sob.
âIâm- Iâm so sorry I did this to youâ
