The first time Clint realizes this mission is far more dangerous than any of them thought, he's being strapped to a table in a medical ward and he realizes the restraints are not as easily slipped as they suspected and the needle sliding into the joint of his arm is injecting far more than a simple saline solution.
That is, in retrospect, the last clear thought he has. A desperate knowledge that this has become a one way trip, and all of it because someone hadn't done enough research, had intel that implied that the patients were volunteers, were treated reasonably well, were bribed for their cooperation. They knew about the kidnappings, of course, because that was why SHIELD had gotten involved, but the data they'd been getting from their trusted sources all indicated that sending an agent under cover as a patient would be the fastest way to infiltrate the corporation. Clint was chosen because he was new, he was talented, and there were more than a few higher ups that still didn't trust him. But it was assumed (even by him) that his strength and his skill at hand to hand would keep him safe, that if any of it got to be too much, he'd be able to get to something to send off a panic alarm and they'd send in the big guns and they'd all be liberated. None of them had counted on the drugs.
His life had become nothing but a series of needle pricks. Measurements. Medical Tests. Procedures when the drugs wore off so they could make sure the body was reacting in a perfectly human fashion, and then drugs again when the pain ended and the tests showed no results. And with the drugs came the side effects. The ones they were looking for, of course, the lack of coordination, slow thought processes, dizziness--everything to keep them in line and sedated and from rebelling, and then the ones that turned their world into a sort of living hell. The nausea that left bile and liquid for interns to clean, the nightmares that left the compound awash with screams that echoed on the concrete walls, and the hyper sensitivity to pain that only seemed to grow with each dose he was given.
And there was no shortage of pain in his life, not now.
There were the tests where they injected various serums that seemed to light every nerve on fire and left him thrashing for hours and shivering for days. The stress tests where doctors monitored just how much the patients could handle before they collapsed--under pain, under heat, under cold, under pressure--running until their legs couldn't hold them up, and being dragged back to their feet to do it again after being injected with adrenaline, being strapped down and shocked until they passed out--all of it testing just how successful of candidates they might be for the genome project the doctor's whispered about when they thought no one was paying attention. Though, really, no one was, and if they were, there was nothing they could do about it. Despite the lack of coordination and reflexes, there were guards dispersed through out the building, mixed in with the orderlies and posted at the doors. Their intel had been wrong.
no subject
That is, in retrospect, the last clear thought he has. A desperate knowledge that this has become a one way trip, and all of it because someone hadn't done enough research, had intel that implied that the patients were volunteers, were treated reasonably well, were bribed for their cooperation. They knew about the kidnappings, of course, because that was why SHIELD had gotten involved, but the data they'd been getting from their trusted sources all indicated that sending an agent under cover as a patient would be the fastest way to infiltrate the corporation. Clint was chosen because he was new, he was talented, and there were more than a few higher ups that still didn't trust him. But it was assumed (even by him) that his strength and his skill at hand to hand would keep him safe, that if any of it got to be too much, he'd be able to get to something to send off a panic alarm and they'd send in the big guns and they'd all be liberated. None of them had counted on the drugs.
His life had become nothing but a series of needle pricks. Measurements. Medical Tests. Procedures when the drugs wore off so they could make sure the body was reacting in a perfectly human fashion, and then drugs again when the pain ended and the tests showed no results. And with the drugs came the side effects. The ones they were looking for, of course, the lack of coordination, slow thought processes, dizziness--everything to keep them in line and sedated and from rebelling, and then the ones that turned their world into a sort of living hell. The nausea that left bile and liquid for interns to clean, the nightmares that left the compound awash with screams that echoed on the concrete walls, and the
hyper sensitivity to pain that only seemed to grow with each dose he was given.
And there was no shortage of pain in his life, not now.
There were the tests where they injected various serums that seemed to light every nerve on fire and left him thrashing for hours and shivering for days. The stress tests where doctors monitored just how much the patients could handle before they collapsed--under pain, under heat, under cold, under pressure--running until their legs couldn't hold them up, and being dragged back to their feet to do it again after being injected with adrenaline, being strapped down and shocked until they passed out--all of it testing just how successful of candidates they might be for the genome project the doctor's whispered about when they thought no one was paying attention. Though, really, no one was, and if they were, there was nothing they could do about it. Despite the lack of coordination and reflexes, there were guards dispersed through out the building, mixed in with the orderlies and posted at the doors. Their intel had been wrong.