4. Chapter 4

The sitting area in Barton’s private room—Stark was nothing if not concerned with comfort—had a revolving door for the following 24 hours. The main constant was Phil, who left only once around 21:00 to shower and eat, and only then because Stark had dropped by and would talk Barton into a coma. The rest of the team and Pepper dropped by casually through the night, but they figured out pretty quickly that Barton was not in a position to be very social, because when Doctor Sveda said “mild discomfort in the ocular region” what she really meant was that when he was awake, Barton was in near-constant agonizing pain.

Phil had experienced something close to third degree burns over part of his right thigh during one op gone bad in his 20s. He still had the scars and it still ranked as one of the most excruciating experiences in his life. He could not even imagine a similar injury inside of his eye. Everyone else seemed to feel the same way, and spent most of their time reading quietly while Barton faded in and out of coherence.

Barton’s eyes were kept wrapped so that the eyeballs would not to track movement or light. The nurses would unwrap the dressing, drop liquid painkillers into his unseeing, unfocused eyes, and re-bandage them. The doctor had explained, patiently, repeatedly, to the entire team one after another that there was nothing she could do except relieve the pain he was feeling, and she point blank refused to answer questions about recovery times or permanent damage.

Phil knew Barton was terrified of losing his sight, or even just a portion of it, but he figured they would cross that bridge when they came to it. Phil suspected that even completely blind, Clint would be one of their best agents although he’d probably be benched to desk jockey, becoming a handler by proxy. Between Stark and SHEILD there wasn’t much that couldn’t be overcome, and it wasn’t as if SHEILD didn’t already have a number of physically challenged agents on staff. Everyone had their talents—not everyone was meant for field work—and Phil was confident that if Clint decided to stay on he would become their top staff tactician within a year.

Although the “if” in that thought was a big one.

In the meantime Phil decided not to buy trouble until they knew exactly what the prognosis was going to be. He set himself up a mini-office in the sitting area with his tablet and a box of files and several legal-pads, because Phil always thought things out better in longhand. Everyone came and went around him, mostly quiet, although at one point he and Romanov and Barton had a short conversation about the last op, and what if anything could have been done to avoid Barton’s situation. They all came to the conclusion that there had been nothing for it, and that was what Phil wrote into his report at 05:00 in the morning, trying not to fall asleep on his keyboard.

Which was when Stark came in and gave Phil three sets of sport-style eyeglasses, clear and wrap around.

“Arc eye is caused by the UV rays in the light. This material, it’s plastic, sort of, but anyway…it blocks UV rays. We get caught in a factory again, you guys wear these bad babies.” Stark waved a hand around self-consciously, gave Phil a smug and patently forced smile, and walked out again.

“Tha’ Stark?” Barton slurred from the bed. He was still on the full dose of pain medication, although the doctor had said on her final visit at 01:00 that she would be cutting it back in the morning.

“Yes. He apparently stayed up all night inventing protective eyewear for us.”

“Not like I’ll need it,” Barton said, his voice uneven. Phil looked over at him, wondering about the sudden-onset pessimism. Not that Barton always looked for the silver lining, but he usually put up a fight whenever backed into a corner. This sounded too much like defeat for Coulson’s tastes.

He got up and walked over to the bed, putting his hand back on Barton’s forearm. Barton sighed, the tense lines around his mouth relaxing at the touch.

“Don’t count yourself out yet. We’re not even through the first 24 hours.”

“Yes, sir.”

Phil stood there silently for a moment, listening to the other man breathe, trying to find the words to comfort him. Barton was not one who took well to being coddled. “We’ll find a way to make it work.”

A small, shy smile appeared, and Barton moved his arm. Phil realized that he was trying to grab Phil’s hand, so he made it easy for Barton to find and hold it.

Barton sighed. “You mean us? Or this?”

Phil knew he was in trouble because he understood exactly what Barton was asking. “You’re drugged out of your mind, Agent.” He couldn’t help smiling, though, when Barton squeezed his hand.

“I could do us.”

Barton was severely injured and scared of being permanently disabled, and Phil knew better than to see Barton’s needy ramblings as anything more than the fear they represented. “There is no us. We’re a good team, and that’s good enough.” Phil tried to sound firm, but he did not think he was pulling it off, stress and worry and exhaustion knocking down his defenses.

“It’s not enough.” Barton’s voice was breathy and thin, and Phil realized it was because he was starting to fall asleep again.

“It is. It will be,” Phil said like the professional liar he was.