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The cab of a Hagglund BV206 arctic track vehicle weighs 5,974 lbs.
This was apparently a useful number to be aware of when crawling noisily across snow-covered ice in the arctic. Clint Barton remembered this figure precisely because it was etched on a panel above the passenger seat he'd been huddled up in hours, pressed close to the heating vent.
However, that same passenger seat was now smouldering lazily and sending a thick cloud of choking, toxic smoke into his lungs, and he was pretty sure he could feel those same 5,974 lbs, in their entirety, crushing his frozen legs.
"Well, fuck," declared Clint Barton to no one in particular.
Exhaling a long growl, Clint tried once again to reach his bow and quiver, his fingers scrabbling across the mud and snow. Well, dammit. He wasn't sure what would be worse: if they'd been destroyed in the blast, or that they were laying right fucking there just out of his reach….
With a howl of frustration, Clint slammed his arm against the ground, swearing at the resulting jolt of pain. An agonizing bout of coughing followed.
The driver of the ATV was dead, there was no doubt, given the horrible head wound that had splattered considerably on Clint's parka. The second explosion had ejected him from the cab and flipped the vehicle over on top of him. The next patrol wasn't due for another twelve hours. With growing desperation, Clint realized he was running out of options.
The plumes of poisonous black smoke from the burning upholstery made his fading attempts to scan the wreckage useless. Confusion settled in as he could faintly hear strains of carnival music, stretched in discordance. For several moments he though his hearing aids were failing, before screams began to punctuate the dissonance and the memories came flooding back. He was losing consciousness, he realized sullenly, and his past was clawing its way to the surface.
Her name was Valerie. She was eleven years old, blonde, and could ride a horse as well as the teenaged Clint Barton could shoot a bow. The Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders had picked Val and her family up in some forgotten town, as they had a tendency to do with strays and misfits. One single demonstration of the acrobatics Valerie and her sisters could manage on the backs of their galloping ponies kept them in good stead. The elfin blonde gravitated towards Clint naturally, he was the closest to her in age and she was easily impressed by the boy who never missed. Val's dad was an alcoholic, something intimately familiar to Clint and as such, they'd bonded.
The reality was that they were both just kids, and there wasn't much that kids could really do against the level of larceny and alcohol that flowed freely through Carson's Carnival. A drunken fight between Val's dad and another man spilled into the stable late one afternoon while Val was running a curry comb over her horse. The circus had just opened its gates to the public, the familiar carnival melodies audible behind the brawling. Clint was about to leap down from his perch in the stable rafters when Val's father pulled out a gun. Unsure of what to do, Clint froze.
The gun went off.
Valerie's horse reared and stumbled in its stall. The little girl cried out as the terrified mare slammed into her and lost its footing, Clint watching as the massive animal fell over onto the girl. The music twisted into frenzied dissonance as Valerie and her horse screamed in unison. Within a few heartbeats, one of them had stopped….
An excruciating pain in his lower extremities and a prolonged choking spasm pulled Clint back to consciousness. He realized several things in slow sequence: the black clouds of smoke seemed to be pulling away in front of him; hoarse shouts were echoing off the snow around him and something was tugging persistently at the back of his parka.
Remembering the solitary polar bears the mission team had seen trundling across the snow, Clint panicked. He stubbornly refused to survive Norse Gods and space aliens only be eaten by a bear. He tried to yell, realizing only then that the ragged shouts he'd been hearing were already coming from his own mouth. Pain exploded in his legs anew and he looked down to see that he was leaving a wide red trail as he was dragged away from the crash.
Twisting ineffectually, Barton raised his arms and batted at whatever was behind him. The feeble motion caused something to tumble off his chest. Confused, he saw it was his bow, now laying on the snow beside him. It slipped several feet away before he stopped moving.
A new sound emerged, a guttural curse, and Clint's head hit the snow as he was unceremoniously dropped. He stared up into an arctic sky and saw it was punctuated by occasional clouds of thick smoke. Just as his eyes were about to slide shut again, a figure loomed over him.
"Goddammit, Barton," it said, dripping with familiar irritation. The figure reached past him and retrieved his bow.
Clint let out an explosive breath as his eyes closed. "Natasha."
"Of course it's me, hotshot," her voice floated hazily back. "Who else would it be? So stop fighting me and let me get you off the ice before you bleed to death."
"Yes, ma'am," he murmured in relief, and the blackness claimed him.
When next Clint woke up, the world has turned bright orange. He blinked slowly, confused.
"Oh!" A familiar face was there, pinched with concern. "Don't move around, okay? I thought you'd be out longer, I'm not finished suturing."
"What…ugh…" his voice felt like sandpaper in his throat and he coughed. "What the hell? Natasha? Where are we?"
"The arctic. On the Ellesmere Ice Shelf."
He stared blankly.
"Uhh. In a tent?"
"That's the one," he winced. "I was wondering why I lost consciousness and now everything is orange."
"Orange is the new black, you know," his partner murmured. She leaned over his face and placed a cool hand on his forehead, her lips pursed into a tight line.
Clint frowned in response. He was cold, nauseous and felt oddly weightless. "Am I going to make it?"
Natasha Romanoff sat back down on her haunches and wiped a bloody arm across her forehead in exhaustion. "Don't jinx us by asking. Both your legs are broken and you've lost a lot of blood. There's a medical evac unit on the way."
"I can't feel anything," Clint mumbled, trying to move his arms.
"It's for the best, Barton," she sighed, pushing an errant lock of red hair behind her ear. "I'm being free with the opiates while I'm patching you back together."
"I thought I was being dragged off by a polar bear," he admitted. He was still dizzy and his brain felt sluggish. "What are you even doing here? Actually, wait… how the hell did you find me?"
His partner lifted up his battered left arm with a conspiratory grin. It took him several beats to realize she was glancing in exaggerated fashion at his watch.
"You hacked my Forerunner?" he exclaimed, unsure whether he should be impressed or annoyed.
She waggled her eyebrows. "Of course I did. That watch has been sending me your vital signs and GPS location since the day you bought it."
"I can't believe you," Clint muttered in irritation. "Is SHIELD getting all of that data as well?"
"Don't glare at me like that, it's unquestionably what saved your life today," she retorted. "And don't be ridiculous… I'm the only one with access. Coulson doesn't need to know what gets your heart pumping. Speaking of which…"
"Whatever you're about to say, the watch must have been faulty, and I'm sticking to that story until my dying day. Which is hopefully not today."
She bit back a laugh, and Clint slowly smiled. "You really scared me this time, Clint," confessed his partner. "You stopped moving and I lost your vitals a few times before I could get out here. When I saw the smoke, the wreck…." she trailed off. "I was already in Vilnius, luckily. Not too far
"Not too close, either," he winced. "Tell me that you didn't blow off an op for this."
"Nothing that was worth your life, Barton," she responded with finality.
"Well, thank you for spying on me, then. I guess."
"It's what I do," she shrugged. She squeezed his bicep gently, for some reason he actually felt it and it made something in his chest stutter. "When shit goes bad, I'll always come for you, Clint. I swear it. I promised Laura I would, a long time ago."
"Hey, firecracker," he whispered, and she looked at him with shining eyes. "Don't compromise yourself for me, okay? It's not worth it. I'm not worth it. I'm just a soldier… I'm no one."
Her mouth fell open in surprise. She stared at him blankly for several moments before her expression hardened. "This is the trauma talking," she concluded, moving to check the IV drip on his far side.
"It's true," he whispered.
"It's not," she snapped back. "No one is no one, Barton. Even you. Especially you. Good God. You're a dad, you're a husband, you're a hero, you idiot. You have more to live for than I could even dream of." She smiled fondly at him. "And you're my best friend, which is a pretty rare honour. So suck it up, soldier. You're a VIP."
Clint chuckled. "You're such a harpy."
"And you love it," she retorted with a smile. She turned away and he closed his eyes for a few moments.
"We were scheduled for Mustique at the end of the month," Clint murmured fuzzily.
Natasha snorted. "Yeah, well, don't rush out and buy sunblock just yet. I hate to break it to you, hotshot, but I don't think you'll be making that op. Assuming I get you out of here in one piece, you're gonna be grounded for a good few months, I'd say. The kids will be thrilled, though."
"Just in time for Nathaniel's molars," he winced.
"He's teething again?"
"He's always teething," Clint groused, squinting his eyes back open. "That's what they do, Nat. Like little sharks. They hit six months old and BAM! Non-stop drool and fussing until like… three. Then you get a couple of years off…. but it starts all over again. Only now you have Tooth Fairy bills to contend with."
"You love that, too," she teased him.
He gave her a tired smile. "Yeah. Yeah, every second of it."
A chime on Natasha's phone interrupted them. "Evac is almost here," she explained after checking the screen. "Let's get you prepped for transport, okay?"
"Oh good. Sounds like fun. Think I'll make it?"
Natasha leaned over him again and looked him straight in the eyes. "You'd better," she warned. "I made promises, you know. You'd better make it."
"Hey Nat?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
She smiled, and rested her hand along his cheek. "Sure thing, Barton."
"Can I go home now?"
She nodded. "Yeah, why not? Good idea. Let's go home."