Chapter Text
"It's Agent Barton. He took out all our systems. He's headed for the detention level. Does anybody copy?"
...
There were two things she hated about enhanced lockdown procedures: computer tracking at every checkpoint, and the difficulty of bypassing checkpoints when she was carrying an unconscious Clint Barton. Junction callouts were a joke. She announced them anyway, but it wasn't until she hit Medical's outer ward that anyone holstered a weapon to help.
She didn't let go of Clint until she caught the eyes of Aria Sharden - green, not blue - and they shoved him into an isolation chamber. Natasha hesitated in the doorway, which no one would thank her for, but Aria wasn't stupid enough to trust Clint and the place was buzzing. She wasn't locking herself in a room until she knew who was out there.
Fury. The swirl of black couldn't mean anything good, but he was on his feet and shouting orders into his comm as he strode beside the stretcher instead of on it. An occupied stretcher. He wasn't hurt; he was with someone.
She put a hand to her own earpiece but it was dead. No click, no hum… Clint's first arrow had been a short-range EMP. Damn it.
There was only one person Fury would come to Medical for at a time like this.
Natasha lifted her chin when his eye swept over her. "He dead?"
Fury's hand went to his earpiece before he snapped, "Not yet." Glancing past her, he added, "Him?"
She didn't smile. "Not yet."
"Good." Fury's free hand tossed something at her, and he was lucky she didn't shoot him for it. She knew what it was before the chain made it halfway through the intervening space. "Pass it on," he said.
Her fingers closed around tiny clinking metal, circles and smooth edges biting into her palm. Fury was already gone. He made it as far as critical care before someone blocked his path, and she heard him say, "Report any changes to Romanoff."
She stepped back into isolation just as Aria was coming out. She didn't bother touching her, just said, "I need a new comm."
"Ten minutes," Aria said. "Medical report's in the system; update it if you can."
The door closed between them and Natasha turned around.
Aria didn't play games. Clint was as restrained as he could be short of a straitjacket and a rubber room. He also looked like he'd gone without sleep for several days, without food for longer, and he probably needed an IV.
No one gave a compromised assassin a needle. Which meant he needed to wake up, and soon, or every minute he laid there would only make him worse.
She drew in a breath, her hand tightening around the metal chain with its single ID tag. One of the tags would have stayed with Phil, of course. But she'd seen the blood, the chest tube, she knew where he'd been hit. They would have removed anything that could possibly get in the way.
Fury had given her the primary chain. Not just a tag, it held Phil's wedding ring beside it, and he wasn't going to be happy when he woke up. On the other hand, the ring wouldn't get lost or buried in the shuffle, so maybe he would thank them.
She didn't dare "pass it on." Not yet. Not until she was sure Clint was himself again.
"Clint," she murmured, hovering as close as possible. Out of direct reach, restraints or no, the ring in her hand like a promise. "You're okay.
"You need to wake up now."