11. Chapter 11

Natasha was sitting in the chair next to his bed when Clint woke up. He looked at her and she looked at him and neither one of them spoke for a while. She finally got up and fed him some water through a straw.

"We're not with AIM, or any crime syndicate." She spoke plainly without looking at him.

"Got that," Clint croaked out, nodding. She gave him some more water.

"Pretty ballsy cover you made for yourself," she said in Russian. "Francis Booker had been active on the east coast for years before Clint Barton disappeared. We never linked the two."

It had been a couple of years since he had spent much time speaking in Russian, so Clint had to think about it before he answered. "I always took my vacations to shore up Booker's identity. It worked, yes?"

She nodded gravely. "You have skills."

"For all the good it does me. I am restrained to a medical bed in a government facility." He jangled his wrists, which were tied to the frame. He switched to English in surprise. "Hey, Phil didn't shoot my arm."

She frowned at him.

"He threatened to shoot my arm. Is his aim just that bad?" Clint fell back against the mattress, the drugs keeping him fuzzy headed and lazy.

"He must really like you," she said in Russian before walking out, her smile small and cruel.

"See ya'!" Clint tried to yell after her, but it came out sounding more like a bull frog in heat.

And then he was alone.

He stayed that way for two days. Aside from the nurses, who all seemed unusually skilled in hand-to-hand combat, Clint didn't see anyone. He didn't get his hands out of the restraints either, unless they were doing something painful to his leg like changing bandages. On the up side, they continued giving him the really good drugs for most of those two days.

The shot Phil took was a through-and-through on Clint's lower thigh but he had missed the artery, so Clint reassessed Phil's aim. Nothing about Phil struck Clint as someone who relied on luck, so the shot had been deliberately non-fatal and designed for minimal damage. For a gunshot wound. Which in and of itself kind of pissed Clint off.

He finally got released into a wheelchair and the stern displeasure of a suit named Agent Sitwell, who was very visibly heavily armed. He walked next to the chair while a beefy maybe-nurse pushed Clint down the beige, unmarked hallways. "You give me any shit, Barton, and I'll throw you so far down the hole you'll forget what the sun looks like."

"Sweet talker."

"Shut up."

"Where am I going?"

"Did you miss the part where you're under fucking arrest? And where I told you to shut up?"

"Did you miss the part where not a damn one of you actually arrested me or read me my rights?"

"This isn't the NYPD, kid."

"My point stands, ass wipe."

"Not my fault you passed out like a virgin after getting shot. You must have missed the Miranda reading."

"Bullshit."

"Welcome home, sweet heart," Sitwell smirked as the "nurse" pushed Clint out of the chair and onto a small bunk set against the wall in a small, small cell. Clint hissed in pain but didn't bitch about it, because he could mouth off as much as he liked but chances were he had just found his new forever home and they all knew it. Clint glared at them as they left, for the good it did him.