WHO:Clint & Kate WHEN: Tonight; super early morning WHERE: Clint's place WHAT: The prelude to the Siege has some affects on Clint in the waking world. RATING/WARNINGS: Language, non-descriptive injury STATUS: Complete
Traumatic dreams weren’t anything new for Clint. He’d gotten past that during his first tour, the sights and battles, the outcomes and the destruction during any assignment meant that you either got through it or you walked away. Clint had gotten through it, he’d pushed himself through it. He refused to really let something like unsightly images imprinted on his brain hold him back. He’d loved his job, settled into it, he found ways to cope.
So, all in all, weird dreams in the OC didn’t rate too high on things, since he’d already found the coping mechanism for this stuff. Sure, it was a little different, but he still found that an hour or so at the range could calm him down sufficiently to avoid injury or anxiousness.
This felt a little different from that.
He’d been getting used to the dreams of leading the team; he’d done it before, taken on the West Coast Avengers and training the Thunderbolts, leadership wasn’t new for Clint, it just wasn’t entirely suiting for him. He was too impulsive for it to really work. And he should’ve figured that someone like Norman Osborne would really trigger all that pent up heroism. Taking on all of the Dark Avengers in one go was idiotic, especially in their own turf, but it seemed to be exactly what Clint had opted for.
Between capture, torture and the mind probing, Clint wasn’t overly surprised that he woke with a start, wincing in what he assumed was a phantom pain in his shoulder before he settled back and the burning agony kicked up a little more. Okay, not a phantom pain.
A glance to the side told him that much, the imprints of Venom’s teeth around the meat of his shoulder, marks from Daken’s claws along his ribs and the broken nose and cut face thanks to Moonstone (how did anyone believe she was Ms Marvel? She was way too violent, Carol was never that violent) indicated that dream suckage had decided to follow over. And as Lucky whined slightly, jumping up onto the bed in his usual manner when Clint had some kind of flashback dream-nightmare, Clint just wasn’t ready to deal with that.
“Not now, Luck, c’mon, you’re gonna wake Kate. Back off.” Clint just needed to get to the bathroom and start a clean up. But Jesus, that was right, Bullseye cracked him in the knee.
Kate was deep in a dream when the bed moved. Suddenly. There was movement beside her, warm and heavy on the bed, drawing her out of her sleep… then four paws jumped up onto the bed and the whole thing shook again. Kate rolled over and lifted her head, hair messed around her head, sleep crowding her eyes. She cocked her head to the side and cleared her throat. “...it’s ‘kay, Luck,” she mumbled, reaching over to scratch behind the dog’s ears. “...’m ‘wake.”
There were pros and cons of having a dog that tended to react to the distress signals of bad dreams, one of the cons was when Kate was over and Lucky just reacted anyway. “It’s okay, just go back to sleep.” Provided that Clint hadn’t bled all over the bed. Snapping his fingers at Lucky to get him down off the bed, the dog whined a little, and Clint would feel bad about that later. Pushing to the edge of the bed, Clint winced slightly as his knee ached.
Half way there -not really but he’d count it as a win anyway.
Kate lifted her hands to rub at her face, still mostly sleeping, but awake enough to know that something was seriously wrong. She sat up to watch as Clint climbed out of the bed, and red alarms were going off left and right. “It’s not okay. What’s wrong with your knee?” She asked, cutting straight to the chase.
“Nothing, it’s just stiff.” It was just stiff, he knew that much, that it wasn’t quite broken or shattered or even sprained too much, just stiff from an asshole with a complex stomping on it. He really hated that Bullseye douche and he only dreamed about the asshole. No, the problem was his shoulder, which, okay, only bleeding a little sluggishly, and his ribs. He’d need to find Wolverine at some point and glare at him in lieu of being able to be straight up pissed off at Daken.
“Just some dream bleed over.” Great choice of words there. He was at least thankful that it was moderately dark right then and not glaringly obvious that he was a little more injured.
“Dream bleed--wait,” Kate said eyes landing on the blood on his shoulder. It was slowly trickling down his back. The sight of the red (even though the room was dimly lit) woke her up better than a cup of strong coffee. She sat up even further, suddenly, startling Lucky. “What’s on your shoulder? What happened to you?” She asked. He hadn’t looked like that when they climbed into bed last night.
“Hey, it’s okay, it’s just--” Okay, so, it was just getting his ass kicked by the Dark Avengers, and it was just Venom’s teeth plowing through his shoulder, just that damn mind search that pulled up everything from that life. And sure, there was so much whiplash going on in his head that he wasn’t even entirely sure what was more painful, his shoulder or his head.
Glancing to look at the damage done, even if he knew what it was, Clint winced slightly as he poked at two of the teeth marks, damn. “It’s just a giant bite from a fucking spider symbiote.” And Jesus, how did anyone buy those psycho’s as heroes ever. Osborne was unravelling as it was, but the others just enjoyed inflicting pain. “Fuck that stings.” At least he was pretty sure there wasn’t too much muscle damage.
“Jesus, Clint.” Kate climbed up out of the bed and followed him toward the bathroom, leaning in a little to get a good view of his shoulder. She lifted a hand to tap at his skin, and hissed a little. “Come on, let me take a better look.”
Of course, once Kate helped usher Clint into the bathroom and turned on the light, she saw his face. A little gasp escaped her. “What… holy hell, man.” She dug through the cupboard for a washcloth to dampen at the sink so she could help him clean up his wounds. The amount of stuff in the bathroom had gone up since she’d started staying over. She’d left washcloths and bathroom towels under his sink, and some sweet smelling bath salts and shampoo and whatever else. She didn’t see a first aid kit--that was still in the kitchen.
Rather than try to balance on the edge of the tub, Clint dropped the toilet seat and lowered to that. The movement had cracked a few of the bite marks, some more blood trickling out of it. Of course the stinging in his face likely meant that the slash from Daken had carried over along with his broken nose. Yay, looking like he got hit by a truck.
“I lost a very brutal fight with the Dark Avengers.” Well, he’d been doing fine at first, but Clint and his impulses only ever got him so far. But really, what was he meant to do against a modified Iron Man suit? Especially with a bunch of sadists running the show? At least nothing was overly deep or bleeding profusely. Some cleaning and dressing and then a hell of a lot of painkillers and Clint could go back to bed. “I think it looks worse than it is, but I can’t tell.”
Mostly because moving his shoulder hurt like fuck.
Kate ran the washcloth under the tap and then wrung it out. She moved to Clint’s face to very, very gently dab at it and clean the blood away. She wondered if he was gonna need some stitches. That wasn’t something that Kate thought she could do. They’d come out crooked and wonky, and… she might throw up.
“It always looks worse than it is with you,” she said, and gave him what she could muster of a smile. “How… I mean, how big does the gash need to be before you need stitches?” She had no idea about these things. For a gal who got all kinds of roughed up in her Dreams, she was pretty sheltered in this world.
Lucky followed them into the bathroom, gave a huge, dog-yawn, and then laid down on the bathmat.
At least Lucky wasn’t too mad at him for snapping earlier, not if he was still trailing around behind them. For all that Lucky wasn’t a trained dog, he was very attuned to moods. Specifically Clint’s, more recently to Kate’s too. If he was still hanging out nearby, he wasn’t annoyed that much.
“If you can stop the bleeding, or at least dress them, I’ll worry about stitches tomorrow.” He could find somewhere or go see Nat or something. One of them would actually be able to safely stitch his face or shoulder should it need it. He was a little worried about how scrambled his brain was, from the pillaging through it painfully and without pause. He knew a few psychics over there, Wanda had a bit of that, the X-Geeks’ boss was all over that, but he’d never had his mind played with like that, tossed ass up and every memory it held just thrown around.
He was more than a little drained from just that.
The small amount of pressure from cleaning the wounds wasn’t too bad, and Clint figured if they were clean he could sleep, get himself a little together and worry about fixing them up properly tomorrow.
Seriously, what was it with Clint and getting banged to shit? Not that Kate minded the scars and stuff, they were hot. Everything about Clint was hot to Kate. But she worried this was taking a toll on him.
“We have got to start stocking Neosporin and shit in these cupboards,” Kate said, frowning as she dug around in the cupboards. After she came up empty-handed, she commanded, “Stay right there.” Then she jogged into the kitchen to grab the first aid kit. Thankfully, it was still there from when she burned the fuck out of her arm. It had bandages and ointment and stuff in it, so she brought it back to him to put some cream on his cuts, then bandage them up.
Clint was fine staying right there, leaning back to press his head against the wall before grabbing the wash cloth, dampening it and slapping that over his eyes while he attempted to ignore the pounding in his skull. Painful mental probing was not the best way to spend the ass-crack of dawn.
They really would need to look into getting their shit stocked up; good medical crap or a lot of bandages, either would suffice, provided there was some decent booze in the kitchen too. Maybe he should start stocking that in the bathroom cupboard too.
“I might just sleep here, toss a towel over me and I’ll be good.” The residual tiredness from the dream seemed to be bleeding over just as much as the injuries.
“...you’re not serious?” Kate asked, using some of the oily Neosporin stuff to treat the wound on his shoulder. “No, you’ll be so much more comfortable in the bed.” She put a bandage over the wound, then taped it down with the like… tape stuff from the first aid kit. “I’ll help you.”
Kate leaned over and moved the washcloth on his face, just slightly, so she could treat the wounds on his face. Hey, this wasn’t as bad as she thought it might be. She couldn’t do anything for the break in his nose--that might have to be fixed by a doctor eventually--but she could definitely treat everything else. “...I think you should curl up with Lucky. He’ll help you heal.”
“But movement.” Okay, he was just being a little bit pouty right about now, because he probably should get his but into a better place, he’d fall off the damn toilet anyway. “Okay, okay, fine. I’ll move.” Even if it was a struggle, and painful, and a bitch. “Remind me to shoot Logan if I see him, yeah.” If only because the guy could heal and it was as close as Clint would get to bitch slapping Daken right now.
“And yell at Tony.” For no reason at all, other than his suits were too fucking impervious to knives and Clint should’ve so taken his bow to launch an EMP at that damn suit. “Maybe steal one of his repulsors.” Probably not, but when Clint could actually bend his knee again he was so glaring at Stark for like ten minutes.
“What’cha think, doc?” Because Clint couldn’t help at least throwing Kate’s words from a few weeks ago back at her, “Think I can keep the arm?”
Kate simply gave him a look when he complained about moving. She raised an eyebrow, then went back to work medicating and bandaging his face. On closer inspection, it didn't look like he needed stitches. Which was a bit of a relief. Once his face was medicated, his wounds all bandaged to the best of her ability, she started putting things away.
"Shoot Logan, yell at Tony." She nodded once, then bit her lip. "...just don't get impaled by claws or blasted by ... whatever fucking Ray Gun Tony Stark has invented, hmm?" There was a little smirk on her face as she turned back to him, remembering full well their conversation when she'd burned herself.
"We'll have to keep you for observation."
“Tony loves me too much.” Maybe enough to feel pity for him too, “No impaling.” He at least managed a bit of a crooked smirk at Kate, pulling himself to sit up properly, ignoring the small pull in his side. “Ray gun? Really Kate?” He wasn’t going to go there, because Tony with the Iron Man suit was bad enough without him making random ray guns.
“Okay, I’m good, I’m good.” He was more tired than sore at this point, or at least the pain was dulled by the exhaustion really. “Back to bed. Lemme sleep it off.” If it was still bad in the morning, maybe he’d give Liv a call or text and see what her medical opinion was.
It seemed like the kind of thing that Tony Stark would invent. Rays, lasers, sharks with lasers attached to their heads… whatever. Kate was in complete awe of the man. She’d interacted with almost all of the Avengers in her Dreams, but Tony Stark probably the least. And she hadn’t even met the Tony Stark of this world, though she knew that he and Clint were besties.
“Back to bed,” she agreed, then helped him up from the toilet. His uninjured arm was draped around her shoulders and she wrapped one arm around his waist to steady him. “And I’m turning off your alarm clock.”
Lucky jumped up to lead the way back to the bedroom.
“Okay, seems logical,” he wasn’t going anywhere in this state anyway, “I’m sure ‘my dreams fucked me up’ is a legitimate sick day around here.” And if it wasn’t, it should be. He’d pop more pills in the morning and see how he felt.
“I may emulate an octopus from here out,” heat helped, right? There was nothing wrong with wrapping himself in heat, “please just don’t elbow me.”
“It is.” Kate didn’t care if it technically wasn’t, though a lot of people worked for and with Dreamers, and a lot of those Dreamers understood. She helped him into the bed and then lifted the blankets up and around him. Maternal Kate was not, but this she could do. Showing care and kindness to another human being who needed help. It didn’t hurt that she was in love with said other human being.
Then she climbed carefully in next to him and turned to the dog. “Lucky, stay down.” Hopefully the dog would understand. Then Kate curled over next to Clint, careful not to jostle him too much, and closed her eyes. “Wake me up if you die. Okay?”
Clint tended to just sleep off sickness and poor health, it was like his body knew that he wouldn’t rest otherwise, so it went into complete shut down and he was just unable to really do much of anything for the duration of it all. It all made perfect sense to Clint really.
He just muttered a soft agreement as Kate climbed into bed again, already starting to drift, despite the slight throb. He could ignore it and sleep and hopefully it wouldn’t be as hellish in the morning, and he’d have no more of this dream bullshit tonight.