Hello! Welcome to day 25. One point to make, I've never had a neck injury so I'm making it up as I go along. I've done a lot of research so hopefully it's believable.
Also, there will be a surprise guest in this one!
THROWN
"Widow on your six!" Hawkeye grunted into the comms, arrows firing rapidly from his expert fingers.
They often worked that way, when Shield wanted their enemy to know who was killing them. Then Clint would don his Hawkeye costume and take out his flashiest bow. Natasha would wear her red and black cat suit, Widow's mark on the belt, her bites at her wrists and red guns in her hands.
Natasha, thanks to Clint's warning, ducked out of the way and fired a shot into the temple of the man in front of her.
Get to the 0-8-4, grab it, get out.
When the room was clear, Hawkeye dropped down from the rafters, landing beside Natasha.
"Shall we?" He hummed, notching another arrow as they headed to the next door.
"On three." She murmured, taking her place by the side of the doorframe.
"One, two-" Clint kicked in the door and they advanced.
What they found was not a magical item, a bomb or a piece of tech.
They found a woman, girl really, at least 8, maybe 9 years younger than them. And she was inexplicably, somehow wearing a Shield issue tee.
Clint and Natasha looked at each other before looking back to the girl.
Did she have the 0-8-4 on her?
"Hey...are you Shield or did you find that shirt at a store?" Clint raised an eyebrow, taking a step forward.
The girl in front of them was shaking lightly, her head pressed against her palms.
She had dark brown, almost black hair coming to her shoulders and the Shield tee was falling off her shoulder, like it was someone else's.
Natasha saw a flash of the label in the back of the shirt and her heart hammered to a stop.
It had to have been a coincidence. It had to be.
There across the stitching in black marker sat the initials 'P.C'.
But it wasn't a mistake because there, at the hem of the shirt was the hole Clint had put there when he'd been wearing it. He'd snagged the material with one of his practice arrows and after that, Phil had taken all his shirts and childishly scrawled his initials in all of them.
"Who the hell are you?" Clint growled, coming to the conclusion about Phil's shirt just seconds after her.
"Where the fuck did you get that shirt?" He asked, taking a step forward.
The girl lifted her head, still shaking and flung her hand out.
"I'm not telling you anything!" She screamed, her eyes flashing open.
Then things got hazy.
Natasha and Clint were thrown backwards into the wall, without the girl even touching them.
Natasha had been further back so she crashed against the wall first, Clint slamming into her.
The girl had stood and was staring at them now. Her face twisted and her mouth opened.
"Shit." She breathed. "Fuck. Shit. I'm sorry. I...I thought you were them...I didn't..."
Clint groaned, falling forward onto his knees.
The pain was intense, blood dripping down into his eyes. But he forced himself to turn, eyes falling on his partner.
"Natasha?" He whispered, his heart pounding in his ears.
His partner was half slumped up the wall, her eyes closed and an unnerving amount of blood dribbling down her head and coating her neck.
Please, he prayed silently, please.
His fingers shook as he pressed them against her neck.
The girl stepped towards them, her face pale. Clint vaguely realised something was wrong with her arms. There were dark tendrils up her forearms, bruises dark and black winding up her fingers and wrist. He couldn't bring himself to care.
"Is she-" the girl whispered.
"She's alive." He said flatly, eyes dark.
His fingers hadn't just felt her pulse, he'd felt the grating of bone beneath his fingers.
"Her neck is fractured, broken maybe." He touched his comms. "I need Shield med evac, Agent Romanoff is down, neck appears to be broken."
"Do you have the 0-8-4?" Came Hill's voice in his ear.
"I don't know." He growled, looking up at the girl. "Do we?" He asked pointedly.
"I...I'm the 0-8-4." She said quietly, nodding her head.
"We have it. Get here." Clint spat.
The girl took another step towards them.
"My...I'm Daisy. I'm a Shield agent." She said quietly.
"Shield doesn't exist anymore." He said flatly.
"Doesn't it?" She pointed at his outfit. "It looks like it does from here."
Clint only glowered at her.
"I'm sorry. They...they've been questioning me for days. I thought you were just...more of them. I was expecting a rescue, yeah, but from my team." She said softly, taking Clint's silence as anger but still getting to her knees beside Natasha.
"Your team?" Clint asked quietly, eyes on the hole in her shirt.
"Who are they?" She asked for him. "There's six...five of us." She said quietly. "I'm Daisy, Daisy Johnson. I'm...an inhuman."
"Yeah. I got that."
"Right. Of course. There's me, Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz, two amazing science guys. Melinda May and Phil Coulson."
Clint actually had to sit down at that, his head swimming.
"Phil Coulson..." the name hurt to say, "is dead." He said flatly, daring her to argue.
"I...I saw him a few days ago before they took me. He...he was fine." She frowned, face twisting with panic.
"No, no Phil died two years ago." His chest was tight.
"Oh!" The girls eyes widened. "Oh, no, no I get why you think that. Fury...The Director, he brought him back. I still don't entirely know how but it was awful for him. He has nightmares all the time but...uh, you don't need to know that. I talk a lot when I'm nervous, I'm sorry." She mumbled.
Clint was shocked into silence, just blinking and trying to register what the fuck was going on.
Eventually he spoke. "Do you know who we are?"
"Yeah of course. I mean you guys are legends, like seriously."
"Then you know who our handler was?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Oh uh...no, I don't actually." She frowned.
"Coulson. He was our handler for ten years." His voice was strained.
"Oh...fuck. I...he didn't tell you about this? I mean, of course he didn't. You didn't even know he was alive. Fuck...I'm sorry. Shit." She rubbed a hand over her face.
From beside them, a soft groan pulled their attention.
Clint gave her a look that said their conversation was far from over.
"Nat? Hey, just look at me. Don't move. Stay still." He cupped her cheeks, both for comfort and to steady her neck.
"You're injured, you hurt your neck so just stay still for me."
"Clint-" She rasped, her eyes wide with panic. "Clint...I can't...I can't-" She was half gasping now.
"I can't...feel anything." She whispered, eyes on Clint's face.
"Hey, hey you're in shock. You're okay. It's not permanent." He whispered back, trying to put on his reassuring face.
"Can't...move-" She gasped, anguish plain on her features.
"We'll sort it. I've got you. It's gonna be okay." He said weakly.
Daisy had watched the exchange silently but when Natasha looked so scared she was close to tears, she spoke.
"H...hi Agent Romanoff. I'm Daisy. I'm sorry about throwing you, I thought you were one of them."
Natasha watched her out the corner of her eyes, saying nothing.
"I know, I know nothing I say can make it better but..." She swallowed hard. "I think I can help."
"How?" Clint glowered, hands still on Natasha's face.
"The...the powers I have. They're not just good for throwing. I can...manipulate things, bind things or pull them apart. I can...I can try to fuse the broken pieces back together. I've had months to practice, train..."
Clint looked uncertain, he didn't want her anywhere near his partners neck, not after what she'd done. But it wasn't his choice to make.
Natasha flicked her eyes down at the shirt she was wearing, thinking sluggishly through her options.
"I know that shirt." She said quietly, wincing in pain. "He's alive, isn't he? And you're one of his."
"AC…I mean…Phil's? Y...yeah I am." She said quietly. "I'm sorry."
"He trusts you. To give you that shirt. He really...trusts you."
"I like to think he does." Daisy said quietly.
"Well then, from one of his previous agents to his new one." She was only a little bitter. Okay, a lot bitter but that would be dealt with later. "Do it."
"Are you sure, Tash?'' Clint frowned. "I'm seems like a bad idea."
"If there's a chance...I won't have to go through surgery, I'll take it. You know how long these things take to heal." Natasha said weakly, swallowing at another wave of pain, only hitting her head and throat and nothing below that.
Daisy nodded, rubbing her hands together.
"Um...Hawkeye, you're gonna want to let go of her."
Clint reluctantly pulled his hand from her face and sat back on his heels.
What happened next was nothing short of a miracle.
Natasha felt waves of hot and cold wash over her, her mouth twisting open and a sharp scream leaving her lips at the agonising pain of bone being pressed together.
It was over quickly and feeling came slamming into her body, tingling in all her extremities.
Daisy sank back, breathing hard like she'd just ran a race, the bruises on her arms extending up to her shoulders and across her collarbones.
The girl pressed herself to the wall, startlingly pale, her eyes hooded.
"I did...what I could. I can't heal muscle or nerve damage but..." She said quietly, voice slurred.
Clint had just helped Natasha to a sitting position when the girl slumped, eyes closed.
The pain in Natasha's neck was still agonising but she moved forward on her hands and knees.
The girl was breathing comfortably, seemingly just unconscious. She put a hand on her cheek and then her and Clint heard a voice they'd been convinced they'd never hear again.
"Daisy?" Not Clint, not Natasha, Daisy.
Natasha forced herself to look up at the figure, her chest constricting and her vision blurred with tears.
"N...Natasha?" The voice whispered. "Clint?"
The assassins moved close to each other, holding their breath and in seconds there were two other arms wrapping around them.
They whispered his name together.
"Phil."