Sorry for the wait! Here is the next chapter! I actually wrote two chapters...well, two versions of this chapter, but I finally settled on this one!

If you're a fan of the Avengers, Ant Man and the Wasp, or Disney's Lab Rats, could you please check out my new story: Ghost in the Machine? Feedback would be highly appreciated. Thank you!!!

Clint didn't remember how he escaped the lab, but he also didn't remember how he got to the place he was at now.

Oh, wait. Where was he?

"T-Tasha?" Natasha was the first person he would always call out. He slowly sat up in bed and looked around his Avengers Facility apartment. 

Wait, apartment?

Clint pushed the sheets off and kicked his legs over the edge of the bed. What was he doing here? Was being captured only a nightmare? His hand gently reached up and lightly stroked the bandages covering his abdomen. He noticed a small amount of blood seeping through the thick, white strips of material. 

As he stood up, he noticed a slight pulling on his left wrist, which made him turn his head to see that someone had attached him to an IV line at some point during his time unconscious. 

And when did he fall unconscious?

"Agent Barton?" The AI unit's voice came through the speaker in the north corner of the room. 

"Jarvis, for the last time, it's either Barton or Clint..." Clint groaned and laid back down in bed as he covered his eyes with his free hand. The natural light came through the large window on the south side of the room. 

"Miss Romanoff requested to know if you were awake." Moments later, Natasha came through the door. 

She didn't look happy or upset. "You're awake. Good. Bruce wanted to get your post-operation fever down."

"Please just tell me I had to get some kind of procedure here and I was never in a crazy lab..."

The Black Widow sat on the edge of his bed. "I'm sorry, Clint, but you know that's all true." There was a pause before she said anything else. "Anyway, Thor found you unconscious on the side of the road. Tony contacted your family and told them you were now here and recovering."

"I'm still sick, Natasha. I don't know how, but I still am." He gripped the IV tube and pulled the needle out of his wrist. The puncture wound bled a little, but not enough for the archer to care. 

Natasha sighed and looked away. "Bruce wants you down in the lab for tests. Do you need me to walk with you down there?" 

Clint took a second before nodding and looking at her in response. 

21 Days

Have you ever had that feeling where you were constantly being watched, but every time you would look up, there would be no one there? Well, Clint could say that as they walked down to Bruce and Tony's lab at the new facility.

Hawkeye would constantly look over his shoulder and out the windows on either side of them. Natasha didn't worry too much about it, thinking it was just a reflex from being held in a tortuous place for a few weeks.

Clint stopped dead in his tracks and wouldn't budge. "T-they'll send me back. Shield wanted to put me through that surgery, Nat! They'll kill me! They'll kill me!" Clint broke down in tears and fell to his knees, reminding his partner of a terrified young child who knew they would get a dreaded vaccination at a doctor's appointment. 

Natasha knelt down in front of him, held him close, and ran her hand through his short hair that had had a while to grow back in. "Fury doesn't know you're here."

"They'll kill me..." Clint sounded like a broken record. "Eu-euthanize...I'm not the same agent I was before I fell through that glass roof."

Natasha stood up slowly, cautiously helping Clint to his feet so they could continue their walk to the lab. To her, Clint wasn't...Clint, if that made any sense. Sure, he was always the one person on the team who would keep quiet about a bleeding wound until his body was drained of half it's blood supply, but Clint seemed terrified. "The only person who can kill you is me, got it?" she tried to crack a joke a flash a smile, but nothing affected Clint. 

The Avenger stood beside his teammate as they made it into the lab. Bruce and Tony stood in the middle of the room, ready to go. 

Clint stopped and looked at Natasha moments after they arrived. "W-why did I shoot those people? I-I wanted to shoot them and--" Natasha cut him off.

"Don't. Don't do that to yourself, Clint. You know that wasn't you." A glass bottle that fell off a lab shelf and shattered on the floor made the archer jump ten feet in the air. What was going on? 

He had to get back to the lab. The hellish place he was held for roughly two weeks.

Wait...where? Who was he anyway?

"Clint?" Natasha's voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. He didn't even notice that she had guided him over to a reclined dentist-like chair and sat him down in it. He looked over Natasha's shoulder and watched Tony stroll over with a opaque plastic bag swinging in his right hand. 

Iron Man raised the bag in the air for a moment, acting like he was wanting Clint to guess what was inside it. After he dropped the bag to his side, Tony opened it and pulled out the contents. 

Clint's bloody vest that Red Nails had sent to them. 

"W-what is that?"

"More like tell us why they sent this to us in the first place." Tony had a glare in his eyes. 

Clint tried to shrink down in the chair. "I-I don't know. They first wanted you to think I was dead, then...they wanted you at the facility. They wanted you to think I was recovering in a hospital, so that when they killed me, you guys wouldn't know. You would think I was in a safe place...but the injuries would turn out to be too fatal..." Clint gulped; it was all coming back to him now. "I-I..." he trailed off and stared at the glass door. 

"What, Barton?" Bruce took a step closer to him. He slipped a capped syringe behind his back, thinking Clint hadn't noticed, but he did. He would be ready to tranquilize the archer if he attacked the Avengers again. 

All of a sudden, Clint jumped up out of the chair and shoved his best friend back into Bruce as he made a break for it. The Avenger sprinted out of the lab and down the hall. 

Tony went after him moments later. After he reached the commons, he froze and looked at the two people sitting on the couch closest to the window. 

The one with the bow looked directly at Tony, not surprised to see him standing there in shock. "Oh, look!" It was sarcastic, "The Iron Man is home."

"And company." The woman with the blood red fingernails stood up and walked up next to her companion. She motioned with her eyes that Natasha and Captain Rogers were now standing beside Tony. The Captain had his patriotic painted shield in his hand, prepared to throw it. 

"Where's Barton?"

The man, who was roughly Clint's size and age, flashed a smile at the startled Avengers. "Don't worry. We haven't done anything to him...yet."

"He's still in the compound, find him." Natasha whispered to Steve. She knew Clint was not out of the building yet. Steve nodded, then left to find Clint. 

Natasha recognized the young woman from their supposed 'hospital' visit. "You're the nurse."

She smiled. "I played the nurse in that little gag, Romanoff. Wasn't Barton adorable as the fake patient? He knew exactly what was happening and he couldn't believe you people fell for that." Red Nails then motioned with her hand for Barney to leave and track his brother down. Barney nodded once, looked at the device strapped around his wrist, then left to find Hawkeye.

Natasha glanced at Barney before looking back at the woman. "If he finds him, what'll happen?"

"Simple. He'll end the program."

Again, sorry for the wait! I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Please continue to follow the story!!! Thank you so much!!!

No flames please! Sorry for any mistakes!

I hope to update soon!