Status: in progress and will be finished this year wohoo and will probably get a sequel

Unravel

XXIII

“Liz, I need you to wake up.” The deep vibrating voice shook her out of her sleep and with a start, Elizabeth shot forward with a gasp, everything that had happened rushing back into her mind. Electricity, pain, fear. More pain.
But it didn’t last too long until her attention zeroed in on her leg again, the pain sharp and with every movement of her body it seemed to get worse, like it was a tear in her flesh that kept ripping with each and every involuntary move her body made. How had she even been able to fall asleep? “Can you get up?”

“Give me a minute,” she hissed with her eyes closed tightly, her hands grabbing violently at the cars backseat and with a quiet groan she nodded, still obviously in pain, “Okay, I’m good.”

Without hesitation, James grabbed her arms gently and pulled her along the backseat of the car and towards the door. Swinging her legs out of the car to plant them firmly on the floor, Elizabeth had to steady herself with James’ help. The street lights seemed almost blinding to her, her knees felt weak, the surrounding area of the gunshot wound on her thigh kept throbbing, she felt woozy and just plain nauseous. But she ground her teeth and willed herself to keep it together.

Finally being able to stand somewhat upright with James’ help, Elizabeth used the short moment of them standing still to look at her surroundings. They had ended up in a rather suburban area that didn’t look all too much like New York City anymore from what she could see. The houses were neatly placed beside each other and the gardens seemed almost meticulously cared for. She could understand why they would hide here. No one would ever suspect vigilantes and criminals to live in an area that seemed like Wisteria Lane 2.0. Although that probably was a bad example.

“Come on,” James urged her to move quickly into the house to avoid being seen. The neighbourhood seemed void of people, everyone being inside of their own houses, but one could never know who was prone to spying out of their windows, so Liz complied and hobbled along, her arm slung around his shoulder and Steve purposefully striding towards the door of the white house in front of them.

Once inside, the door behind Elizabeth swung shut with a quiet thump and she had to keep herself from sighing. The house wasn’t her own home but it seemed very much safe and well cared for, albeit lived in.

On their way to what seemed to be the living room Clint suddenly walked towards them, his eyebrows raised high unamusedly. “Target practice?”

“Not the time, Clint,” Steve told him as he briskly walked into another room connected to the living room. “You can remove bullets and stitch people up, right?” he called out as he rummaged through several drawers, then pulling out a medkit.

“I.. Yeah, but don’t you think a doctor would be better equipped? Even just one of those shady private ones?” Clint asked confusedly as he watched James help Elizabeth onto the sofa.

“Not an option,” Elizabeth ground out as she tried to make herself somewhat comfortable.

“We don’t have any anaesthetics here, guys,” he continued, clearly not on board with their idea. Elizabeth couldn’t blame him. She would have preferred a real doctor, too, but not at the expense of everyone’s safety.

“Do it, I can handle it,” she responded, trying to sound convincing. She wasn’t sure whether she actually could handle it but right now she had no other choice and things weren’t about to get any better while the bullet was still inside of her.

Hospitals and doctors were a no-no. They had made it clear that they wouldn’t care whether she was alive or dead, tortured or almost unharmed, and any sort of records about her wouldn’t be in her favour. But Elizabeth couldn’t help herself wishing for a doctor or any sort of painkiller even more as Clint nodded in compliance. “Try to get her out of her pants, I’ll be right back,” he threw over his shoulder as he was heading out of the room towards the room Steve had went into before.

Elizabeth could have imagined a hundred different ways she would have rather spent her friday night than in nothing but her underwear in a stranger’s house with blood dripping down her leg. But with a sigh she tried to unknot the piece of cloth James had tied around her leg before. Looking around the room, her eyes fell on a pair of scissors on the table. Reaching over, she grabbed them and with a snip, the piece of cloth fell onto the sofa. Pulling off her pants as slowly and carefully as she could manage without further hurting herself, she saw that the wound had started bleeding again. “Fuck.”

Grabbing her pants, she pressed the piece of clothing against the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding. As soon as she felt the pressure she winced and turned her head away. James was sitting in the chair opposite of her, a stern but distracted look on his face. She didn’t want to startle him so she stuck to keeping her attention on her leg.

James had talked more to her that day than he had on all days when he stayed with her combined. It was unusual but she didn’t know what had happened to him after he went with Steve. Things seemed to have gone okay for both of them. She couldn’t really speak for Steve but James seemed almost at ease in his company and she was glad.

The moment Clint came back with everything he would need to stitch Elizabeth up as best as he could, she had to will herself to sit still. She had never been shot, never even been shot at, but now she was trying to get through the removal of a bullet without any way to relieve her pain.

As soon as Clint started assessing the damage, a colorful string of obscene curse words left Elizabeth’s mouth. When left alone the wound would throb dully but as soon as it was touched, the sharp pain seemed to spread out into every part of her body. Grinding her teeth and balling her hands into fists, Elizabeth wheezed out, “Okay, this is so much worse than I thought.”

“And where not even at the fun part yet,” Clint remarked sarcastically and kept assessing the wound. “Doesn’t seem like it hit your bone, you’re lucky. But you need to keep still, otherwise it’s going to be more painful than necessary, got it?”

“Got it,” she ground out and squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation. “Just hurry up.”

The moment Clint stuck the pair of tweezers into the wound, Elizabeth cried out loud, willing her body to stay still. But with every move of his wrist and prodding of his fingers, the pain got worse and Elizabeth would have lied had she said that there weren’t any black spots coming up in her field of vision.

“Keep still,” Clint muttered and tried to steady her leg.

“I’m gonna kill you if you say that again, I got it the first time,” Elizabeth hissed and stole a glance at James’ blank face before letting her sweaty head fall back onto the armrest of the ugly flower-patterned sofa. “Enjoying the show?”

Groaning out loud at another twist of the tweezers inside of her thigh, Elizabeth willed herself not to wriggle. But when Clint forcefully pushed her thigh onto the sofa to steady it and opened his mouth to protest again, he was interrupted by Elizabeth’s furious glare.

“Don’t say it!”

“I wouldn’t have to say it, if you could stop squirming!”

“I’m trying! I know I shouldn’t be doing it but it feels like you’re mincing me!”

“I’m gonna count to three and then you’ll hold still for a total of five seconds, got it?” Clint told her, exasperated. She couldn’t quite believe he was the most suitable person they had on hand for this job. But she repeated her mantra: with the bullet still inside of her leg things weren’t about to get better and any hospital was out of the question. “If you move again I’ll have the supersoldiers pin you down, understood?”

“Fucking do it,” Elizabeth ground out, squeezing her eyes shut and digging her fingers into sofa as hard as she could. She could at least do with a hand to squeeze but Clint needed his and even if, he’d probably need his fingers for his bow. The pain she was feeling each and every time Clint tried to grab the bullet would probably have caused her to break someone’s bones. Well, except for-

“Three, two one,” she heard Clint count and the next thing she could feel was blinding hot pain radiating from her thigh and groans mingled with screams working their way up her throat as she tried not to move, causing her to break out in cold sweat. But she felt her muscles contract anyway and her upper body short upward until a cold hand pushed her back into the soft sofa. The cooling sensation was a welcome change but did nothing to redirect her focus. The pain was real, sharp and seemed to last a lot longer than the promised five seconds.

Inhaling sharply against the hand on her collarbone, the pain suddenly subsided and was replaced by a dull throbbing. Gasping for air, Elizabeth slowly opened her eyes only to come face to face with James hovering above her. “Not enjoying it.”

Elizabeth let out a wheezy and wry laugh until she felt Clint prodding at her gunshot wound again with disinfectant, causing her to wince. James studied her for another moment and with a satisfied nod he went back to his seat.

“It’s out, gonna get you stitched up,” he told Elizabeth who sighed in relief. Getting a wound stitched up wasn’t ever going to be as painful as what she had just experienced and she already knew what to expect from it, having been prone to little accidents when she was a child. It was by no means pleasant but bearable in comparison to getting the bullet out. So she pressed her back into the sofa, trying to relax as best as she could and, even with occasional wincing and hissing on her part, Clint kept stitching her up with a steady hand.

Turning her head to face James, she studied him for a moment. He still had on this stoic façade, his body rigid and shoulders squared underneath the blue sweatshirt he was wearing, his hair long and covering parts of his face. She didn’t know whether this was normal for him. He had been like this during his time with her, too. Distant and somewhat cold. But it seemed he had changed a lot since then. He talked more. He didn’t seem as confused. He liked her.

Elizabeth snapped her attention back towards her own leg, the wound angrily red and puffy, blood crusted around it, with Clint pushing the needle in and out of her skin. But she couldn’t concentrate on it. He liked her.

The only question that came up in her mind was Why?. Did he really like her or was this some kind of imprinting with her being one of the first people to treat him with dignity and some kind of respect? Was she really that desperate to explain another one’s feelings by comparing him to ducks?

Her own feelings. It had never been a question whether he was nice to look at. Elizabeth had known that since she was a child. But being around him things might have changed for her, too. Although she didn’t know whether she liked him or liked caring for him. Her own feelings. That was the other thing. As if she had ever had any fun in dealing with them.

“I heard you and Steve talking in the car,” she hesitantly stated and James’ face got even more stoic than before. Hadn’t it been for the twitching of his jaw, she would have guessed that he hadn’t even heard her. “I’m…,” she started but abruptly stopped with a wince as she felt the needle enter her skin. She didn’t know what to say and he wasn’t going to speak up on his own. But the silence was unbearable. Not even Clint was making any sound. “So when can I leave again?”

The way James’ gaze instantly snapped towards her seemed almost comical. But he didn’t get to speak his mind.

“You’re not, let’s start with that,” she heard Steve speak up from behind her as he stepped further into the room. She hadn’t even realized that he hadn’t been around.

“No offense, Captain, but I’m sure you’ve got more important stuff to do than to constantly take care of me,” Elizabeth muttered, smothering a yawn, and tried to ignore her own hypocrisy. She had been the one to call them for help, not the other way round. But she had been too scared to deal with this on her own.

“No offense, m’am, but this is non-negotiable.” Elizabeth didn’t fail to notice his choice of words this time. M’am. Distant and authoritative.

“So what, you’ll babysit me until I’m well enough again to make off on my own? I don’t think you really thought this through,” she retorted and glanced at James who was staring right at her, his brows furrowed in discontent. “You don’t really think this is the best way to go about this, do you?”

“We don’t really have any other choice. You’re not only on Hydra’s radar but now they know that you’re protected. They’ll use that connection to get what they want,” Steve answered with a shake of his head.

Breathing out audibly, Elizabeth fell silent. She knew they were right but she didn’t want to end up as someone else’s responsibility. They were all involved in this mess one way or another but Elizabeth had ended up in it because of her own sheer stubbornness. And now she had to pay the price.

“Okay,” she relented eventually. “But I probably need to call in sick at work.”

“They probably already filed a death report for you,” James muttered and Elizabeth looked at him quizzically.

“Call in on monday, that way you’ll buy yourself an extra two days,” Clint chimed in as he was cleaning up the mess left from stitching Elizabeth up. “But you’ll need to figure out a way to keep them from noticing you’re having trouble with your leg.”

“Right,” she sighed and nodded, more to herself than anyone else. She almost wanted to shudder thinking of the web of lies she had to entangle herself in.

“Can I just- ask you one question?” Steve suddenly interrupted her thought process. “Why the FBI? Did you never consider joining S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“It’s-,” Elizabeth hesitated. She was sitting in a small living room with three men that were practically strangers to her. They all had good intentions but she wasn’t sure whether she should really disclose one of the things she had been grappling with since she was a teenager, so she evaded his question. “It’s a long story. I’d really like to rest now, though.”

And with that, a blanket handed to her by James and poorly concealed confusion on all of their faces, the three men left her alone to pretend to sleep while her thoughts kept running wild.
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holy shit, I'm so sorry for the delay but uni is killing me and finals are a Mess

I hope you keep enjoying and lemme just tell you, if everything pans out the way I want it to in the next chapter you're in for something goooood