Shark Week: Part Three

Summery: Tony takes the boys deep-sea fishing and things get…interesting.

Some of you caught me! lol, not so much 'caught' since I was planning on revealing this anyway and forgot. This little story was inspired by Shark Week's rather … mean? Megalodon mock-documentary and an episode of Hawaii Five O, however, I tried to make it as unique as possible ^^

Warnings: A little bit of blood…

The shadow that passed underneath the life raft wasn't big enough to be the monster-shark from before, however it was still unmistakably a shark.

"Steve!" Bruce and Tony shouted loudly at the same time, loud enough that Steve stopped his strong, even strides and poked his head up from the water. Clint continued to swim in the dangerous water undisturbed, but he didn't have the advantage of above-average hearing like Steve.

"What?" Cap called back to the life raft as he treaded water and looked back towards them. Seeing Clint completely unaware sent a sliver of panic through Tony.

"Shark!"

"There's a shark in the water!"

Steve's eyes narrowed before he looked towards Clint. "Clint!" He called, tugging on the rope tied around the archer's waist. Clint stopped swimming and his head popped up to look back at Steve.

"What's going on?" Clint asked.

"Tony and Bruce think they saw a – " before Steve could finish Clint was dragged under the water violently.

"Shit, shit, Clint!" Tony sputtered his curses. "Steve! Shit!"

"Steve!" Bruce managed to find something slightly more intelligent to say. "Can you get to him?"

Steve didn't waste time responding. Instead he dove down below the waves and bravely opened his eyes to face the sting of salt. The water turned everything a transparent hue of blue, but there was something else mixed in – ribbons of red.

Blood.

Steve's heart beat faster as he refocused his mind to search for Clint below.

He spotted Clint struggling with a large gray mass – the shark. Steve gave a powerful kick to propel himself forward and towards Clint. The archer's head whipped back as Steve approached, eyes wide and panicked as bubbles escaped his mouth. The jaws of the shark were wrapped around Clint's foot and very suddenly the creature let him go. Once he was free Clint struggled to kick properly towards the surface. Steve reached out, grabbed Clint and guided them both towards the surface. They broke the surface together and Clint harshly started to cough up the water that had slipped into his lungs.

Clint wasn't struggling, or even moving at that point as he focused on breathing, so Steve pulled the injured archer to his chest and started emergency swimming back towards the raft.

When they arrived Tony and Bruce worked together to pull Clint up into safety with Steve's help from the water. Once Clint was in the raft Steve pulled himself up and took in the sight of his friend's leg. All in all it wasn't that bad of a wound, at least there was no bone exposed.

"Thank God, it was just a test bite." Bruce breathed a sigh of relief and he stripped off his shirt to wrap it around the imprints of the teeth that lined Clint's ankle. "Any harder and you would have probably lost your foot."

"Test bite." Clint made a growling noise as Bruce wrapped the wound Clint tossed his head back in pain. "Test bite?" He ground out through clenched teeth. "Bullshit."

Steve glanced out to the spot where they had been swimming moments ago, a crimson cloud of blood extended from the spot they had been to the life raft. There was no sign of the 'smaller' shark until something massive broke the surface to the left. The shark from before, the massive beast that owned the shadow they had seen, rose up from the depths of the ocean in a flash of violence with the smaller shark captured in it's powerful jaws as it struggled for freedom and it's life.

It didn't stand a chance.

Clint's head snapped up and all eyes were on the sight before them. "Well, shit."

"That would be a kill bite." Bruce mumbled in numbed aw.

"Poor little guy," Tony swallowed thickly next to Clint. "On the bright side that isn't you."

"On the bright side." Steve cleared his throat and moved away from where the others were looking pale. "Well, hopefully, that'll be enough of a meal for that thing."

Silence fell over the raft and the tension was thick as the creatures slipped back into the depths, taking its prey with it.

Everything died down and became quiet. Only Clint and Bruce were moving due to the injuries.

"I'm not going to lose my foot?" Clint asked breathlessly. "Bruce? I'm not going to lose my foot." The second time was a statement, not a question.

"Nah, you're not going to lose your foot." Bruce promised, patting a blood covered hand on Clint's sunburnt shoulder. "I know it doesn't feel like it, but it's really a flesh wound."

"It's like getting stabbed with several knives all at once." Clint closed his eyes and tried to relax against the raft. "Bastard." Clint cursed the shark. At least Bruce was fairly sure Clint was cursing the shark.

Tony caught Steve's worried eyes. "What should we do?" he asked fearfully.

"There's a monster shark in the water," Steve summed up in a nutshell. "I'm not sure if I should get back in the water, but we need to get to shore." He looked concerned towards Clint's pale features.

"What I'd give for my suit." Tony grumbled, sulking like a child instead of the fear-stricken man he was. "I'd bag the monster shark and Clint would be my chef-slave forever."

"Size didn't matter." Clint grumbled, eyes still tightly closed.

"Says the guy that was making fun of my boat." Tony huffed in response.

"Says the guy who's boat was so small it got eaten by a shark." Clint bantered back.

"Says the guy who doesn't even have a boat. And, that was a monster shark. It's so much cooler than a normal shark. If we survive this I'll have major bragging rights."

"How exactly would that go?" Bruce asked curiously as he poked at Clint's bloody makeshift bandage.

Tony shrugged. "I don't know. Hey, guess who survived their boat getting eaten by a huge ass shark? Me."

"Whatever. Size of the fish," Clint corrected with a pale laugh. "Didn't matter. Wouldn't have mattered. Still would have only been a week of chef-ness."

"Would have been." Tony grumbled. His arms crossed over his chest like an unhappy child pouting. Tony didn't like losing. He didn't like it at all. In fact, Steve knew Tony hated losing. Part of Steve was worried Tony was going to jump in the water and try and kill the shark with his bare hands to make sure he didn't lose the bet. That of course wasn't really probable – probably. Steve was pretty sure the sun, dehydration and stress were getting to him.

Bruce was giving Clint the last of the water and Steve swallowed thickly.

"I'm going to get back in the water." Steve announced.

All eyes, even Clint's, were suddenly focused on Steve. "I have to, we need to get back to land." He tried to defend his rash choice. He knew the danger of the shark, but he also knew the danger of their situation.

"Steve, give it up," Tony shook his head. "You'll end up as the sushi-special for that thing! Not sushi, manshi – the Manshi special. I just made it up. It's legit."

"If you just made it up," Clint tossed his head towards Tony. "How does that make it legit?"

"Because I'm awesome." Tony answered simply before reaching out to stop Steve from jumping back into the water. "You can't be serious."

"Deadly." Steve sighed. "Look, we need help. Clint needs help."

"Dead is what you're going to be." Bruce threw in, his hand still on Clint's shoulder.

"Steve, seriously, you can't." Clint shook his head. "I'm going to be fine."

"You are going to bleed out." Steve pointed to the blood soaked tee shirt wrapped around the archer's leg.

"I am not!" Clint responded as if he had just been offended. Like Clint thought it was a personal insult that Steve thought he could bleed out at all.

"Sorry?" Steve apologized even though he was terribly confused as to why he was apologizing.

"If we managed to roped that thing I bet we could get to shore faster." Tony suggested, looking at the water as if he were trying to formulate the plan to put it into action.

"You're kidding, right?" Steve asked cautiously.

"He's not kidding." Bruce deadpanned.

The sound of a motor caught the four men's attention. A small fishing appeared out of the blue and seemed to be heading towards them. Steve's eyes lit up with excitement.

"See? No one has to do anything!" Steve stood and waved his hands in the air to capture the attention of the individuals.

Tony looked slightly disappointed that they were being rescued and sighed. "Roping the shark would have been awesome. Just saying. These guys just messed up the best story ever."

"Next time." Clint offered quietly, his eyes closed again as he leaned boneless against the edge of the raft.

Steve smirked at the two of them before returning his eyes to their would-be rescuers. The smile fell off his face when he spotted the guns.

TBC ^^

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