#I need a sneezy partner. this is crucial

[perfectpaperbluebirds]

@sicktember #1

Prompt # 1: Fever

Title: Damn Nick Fury

Fandom: Avengers/MCU

To kick Sicktember off, I'm starting with some classic Avengers sickfic. This is actually part of a longer work that I posted many moons ago on AO3. Still one of my favorite whump fics that I've written.

Clint Barton breathed slowly and deeply as he drew back his bow, sighting in his next target. He was so far unnoticed by the cultists they were fighting, perched high in a tree as he was. Below, Natasha was baiting and dodging them with ease, dispatching one every now and then to keep them occupied. Clint's task was to pick them off as she did so.

Another arrow met its mark.The archer sniffled wetly as he reloaded while cold water continued to trickle down the back of his collar. He had made Fury aware a day or so ago that he had a mild cold, as was his duty as an assassin. If he wasn’t at one hundred percent, his commander needed to know. However, Fury had insisted he and Nat take this mission, since no one else was available. The soaking rain they encountered when they arrived was unexpected. However, it turned out the rain had actually made it easier to obtain the objective of this particular mission. Meanwhile though, it was making Clint thoroughly miserable. Compared to other missions it was going quickly, but the five hour stakeout leading up to the current fight had not been pleasant in the continuous downpour, even up in a tree.

Wiping his nose on his shoulder, Cint again loosed an arrow. Only five more cultists to go. Then they could loot the bunker, get the map they needed, and go home. A drip of water hit him right in the eye, and he growled to himself, inwardly cursing Fury. He had started to shiver an hour ago, though he made sure his hands were steady as ever. He couldn’t wait to take a long, hot shower and sleep for at least twelve hours. He only needed to hold out a little longer.

The tickle in his throat had gradually become a low, irritating ache. He coughed softly. The sound did little to make his throat feel better, but it did make the nearest cultist look up at him. Before the man could do anything other than widen his eyes, Clint’s arrow ended him expertly.

Hawkeye sighed wearily. Four more to go.

~~~~~~~~~~

Thirty-six hours later, Clint and Natasha were relaxing on the couch in Avengers Tower. Natasha had her legs tucked up under her and was reading a book while Clint had his head pillowed in her lap with his arm flung over his eyes. Suddenly, his breath hitched warningly. Natasha lifted her arm in a practiced way to give him room to turn and bury his face into a tissue:

"HehyYIIZSHHhoo! hihtESHHHiew!"

She looked down at him with an irritated sound. "That is the third time you've sneezed in as many minutes. I'm making zero progress in this book. You're going to be finding yourself a new pillow in a minute here. Plus I'll kill you if you get me sick."

He sniffled wetly and blew his nose before replacing his head in her lap with a weak cough. "Aww, you would ndever kill mbe, 'Tash. I'mb the only one who puts up with your crap. But I'mb sorry. I can'dt help the sneezing. It's mbaking mbe mbiserable too if that helps."

She sighed in an annoyed way, but couldn't help looking down at him fondly. "You're lucky I know you well enough to understand what you're saying. And you're also lucky that it just so happens to be true that we tolerate each other better than most, so you're safe from assassination for now."

"Blame Fury. This cold wasn't so bad until I had to sid oud id the rain for hours." He sniffled thickly again, barely turning his head away as he followed it up with a cough.

Natasha made a face, swatting his shoulder lightly. "You're gross. Cover your mouth when you cough. And I don't *have* you let you lay here, you know. You have a perfectly comfortable bed only a short elevator ride away."

" 'm cold though. And if I go ubstairs there's ndo one to mbake mbe tea." He swiped at his reddened nose with the tissue, trying to look extra pitiful.

"You're extra whiny when you're sick. Not a good look on you, Hawk." She carded her fingers once through his hair. "And you're just cold because you're a little feverish."

Instead of replying, Clint halfway sat up again and brought a tissue to his nose, breath scissoring and nostrils flaring.

Natasha groaned as Clint once more exploded into a sneezing fit:

"Gihh-ESSHHshuuu! hehKSHHHshuu!" He coughed, then sneezed again: "ERRSHHhuh! Hih'EZSHHyue! --guhhh." Clint miserably rubbed the space between his eyebrows, slowly lowering himself once again to Natasha's lap.

"Apparently my partner has managed to catch the world's sneeziest cold. How did I get so lucky?"

Once again Clint was kept from replying as Natasha's communicator began to ring. She glanced at the screen, then at Clint.

"It's Fury," she warned.

Clint quickly sat up. She answered the device, turning it so they could both see. Fury's single eye met theirs, looking as serious and commanding as ever.

"Good, you're both here. Barton… your nose looks red. How are you feeling?"

"Aboud the sabe I guess. Sneezy."

"And feverish," Natasha said with a warning look at her partner.

"How feverish?"

"Ndot very. One hundred or so," Clint mumbled.

"That's… not ideal. But I don't have any other option… if at all possible, we need you both out in the field again ASAP. We've discovered a small Hydra base, but it's a crucial one. Some of their brainiest goons are posted there, working on something big. From some communication we intercepted, it sounds like their project is almost finished. I need eyes out there immediately. Recon only for now. Think you can handle that?"

The assassins glanced at each other. "We're good to go," said Clint firmly, though the sore-sounding rasp in his voice betrayed him slightly.

"I hope so. Don't disappoint me. I expect you in the air in an hour or less." With that their director ended the call.

Barton and Romanov glanced at each other once more, this time with a weary sigh from Clint before they stood and went to get ready.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Barton! What's your situation?"Natasha's voice crackled over the com.

"Being... chased by three. Heading... to the roof… of the base," Clint gasped around labored breathing.The metal steps made a sharp clanking noise as the archer sprinted up them, nocking an arrow as he went.

"Can you handle them on your own?"

"We'll… see...," he panted, sweat rolling into his eyes. "Backup… would be nice...."

"I'll be there as soon as I can. I've got 4 of my own. Hang in there, Hawk!" The line went dead for the time being.

"I'm gonna … kill Fury…," he mumbled breathlessly as he reached the roof. He darted to the far side of the area and spun around, taking a knee and aiming his bow at the stairway he had just vacated. The sounds of the three Hydra agents sprinting up behind him were unmistakable, but he was as ready as he was going to be.

"This was supposed to be... an easy recon mission, but noooooo…. It's another... full-on assault," he continued to mumble, trying to catch his breath as the shouting on the stairs got louder.

As an extra stroke of bad luck, it was pouring rain here too. Clint flipped the water out of his eyes with a toss of his head, his hair and clothes hanging on him limply. He hadn't stopped shivering since they'd gotten off the jet. His teeth were now chattering and his fingers were blue with cold. His throat was absolutely burning now, raw and inflamed, the pain exacerbated from running. He couldn't suppress a hoarse barking cough just as the first baddie poked his head through the opening. Clint dispatched him immediately, but the two still coming up were not dissuaded.

The second goon got lucky. Clint's hand slipped on the bow a fraction, and the Hydra agent got hit in the shoulder instead of the heart. The archer knew he was in trouble now. With trembling hands, he managed to kill number three with a final arrow, but the one he had wounded, by far the biggest of them all, continued to advance menacingly.

Hand-to-hand combat was evidently imminent. On any other day Clint could have made short work of this, but this miserable, feverish cold had him operating at around fifty percent capacity and falling. Clint pulled out his knives with shaky hands and another rasping cough. When his opponent was a foot away, Clint tried to leap up to get in the first hit. Instead he slipped and staggered, and the Hydra agent's fist, with all of his weight behind it, caught him in the ribs. Clint heard a dull cracking sound as he was flooded with pain, but he couldn't pause. He spun and ducked, trying to avoid the worst of the blows while trying to get in some of his own. At least ⅓ of his opponent's swings met their target though, and in minutes Clint was battered and bruised, barely clinging to consciousness.

He knew he only had enough stamina for one more try. In a split second, while the Hydra agent was off-balance winding up for another swing, Clint leapt once more, and at last his knife met its mark.

As the baddie crumpled to the ground, so did Hawkeye, wheezing weakly, every breath agonizing. He activated his com as his vision threatened to gray out:

"Roof... clear. Good...Nat?"

"All clear down here too. Mission complete. Nice job, Hawk. Let's turn this bunker inside out and go home."

"Mmph."

"You good, Barton?" she asked, concern suddenly in her voice.

"Gonna need... medevac… Won't… make it down… stairs…."

If Natasha replied, he did not hear her. He let his head fall against the cool, wet metal and let the grayness overtake his vision.

~~~~~~~~~~

48 hours later found Clint lying on a bed in S.H.E.I.L.D. medical with broken ribs and and a confirmed case of pneumonia. He was drifting in and out of consciousness from the drugs they were giving him, but his ears perked up when he heard Natasha arguing with someone nearby.

"He's stable. Not on oxygen. Fever is controlled. He can tolerate oral meds. There's no reason he needs to stay. I promise you, he won't recover while he's here. You need to discharge him home."

The haughty-looking orderly she was speaking with huffed angrily, muttering about shortness of breath and heart rate and changing oxygen requirements.

Clint let himself drift off again to the sound of their voices, trusting his partner to deal with the situation. A cool hand on his cheek awakened him a little while later. He blearily opened his eyes to meet Natasha's, for of course it was she that had roused him.

"We're busting you out of here," she whispered with a little smile. "They're bringing a wheelchair now."

"Thangk god," Clint groaned. "And thangk *you*, 'Tash. You're a lifesaver."

"Eh, you've saved my life plenty of times too. I think we're pretty even."

It took some maneuvering to get a very breathless, battered, and achy Clint out of the bed and into the wheelchair, but they managed it with minimal damage. Once he was settled in the chair, Natasha wheeled him away to their rooms.

Inside Clint's suite, they again had to coordinate getting him from the chair to his bed. Natasha was grateful Clint's pain tolerance was high, because she knew the transfer was far rougher without the assistance of the medical staff. He didn't make a sound throughout the process however, though his face was drawn in pain. As soon as he was settled though, he let out the breath he'd been holding in a rush, which quickly became a nasty coughing fit. He had trouble catching his breath for several moments even after the fit ended. He gasped and wheezed and clutched his ribs, sweaty and reddened and miserable. Natasha could only watch helplessly, stroking his hair to try to help him relax.

"Damn Fury," he croaked weakly when he could finally speak. "This fugcking sucks. "

"Language, please. But I can't argue with you there."

"I'mb gonna kill himb for sending me od thad mission."

"I think he got his just desserts since now his best archer is out of commission for a few months. But at least it seems like the sneezy part of your cold is better."

"You h- had to s- hih- say sumbthing, dih- dn't you?" Clint croaked, gingerly bracing his ribs as his breath scissored and his red nose twitched:

"Gih'tsschh! Ghhnxt'chf! Oh Fugck. Ow! Ow ow ow...." Clint groaned, gritting his teeth, eyes squeezed shut in pain. "Not doing that again."

"Yeah, stifling is probably not wise. Poor sick guy," Natasha murmured, carding his hair with her fingers as they waited for Clint's pain to subside.

After a moment, Clint opened one eye, looking suspicious. " 'Poor sigck guy?' Who are you and what have you done with mby partner?"

Natasha smirked as she sat on the edge of his bed. "Would you prefer I call you a whiny asshole?"

"Yes. Maybe. I dunno," Clint mumbled with a weary sigh and a grimace of pain as he exhaled.

"Well too bad for you, because right now *my* partner is sick and miserable and I plan to baby him at least a little until he's feeling better."

"Guess I'mb nodt complainig," Clint mumbled, stifling a cough, which only made him clutch his ribs in pain. "Hurts whed I cough. Hurts whed I try not to cough. Fugck me."

"Language, seriously. But what can I do to help? You need water, food, drugs, anything?"

"Nodt hungry or thirsty. Too sood for drugs. I just want to sleeb, 'Tash."

"That sounds like a good plan. I'll leave you be then. But I'll be back to check on you soon." She stood up right away, fussing around and tidying up his nightstand area before moving toward the door.

" 'Tash?"

She turned expectantly.

" 'm still cold," he mumbled thickly, looking pale and weary now.

Her face softened affectionately. "Well you're still running a fever, hotshot. You're gonna feel cold."

He groaned pathetically. She moved to his side once more.

"Aww, you're shivering," she murmured, stroking his cheek.

"Told you, I'mb freezing…."

She sighed, looking at him fondly. "Is this you trying to say that you need some extra body heat in bed with you for a while?"

He looked at her pleadingly.

"Okay, okay, no more puppy eyes. I'm coming. But if you get me sick--"

"I know, I know, you'll kill mbe. I'll try ndot to share."

"That's all I ask." She kicked off her shoes and slid into bed beside him, doing her best to jostle around as little as possible. They carefully arranged themselves so that Clint was tucked against Natasha, most of his weight resting against her, while her weight was against the stack of pillows behind them. This position seemed to cause the archer the least pain, and in fact he relaxed against her right away, his breathing deepening.

" I'mb sorry I'mb so warmb. You'll probably swelter," mumbled Clint sleepily.

"It's not the first time I've slept with you when you're running a fever, and I'm sure it won't be the last. As long as you're warm enough."

"Am now," he breathed, nearly asleep.

"Then that's all that matters to me."