"38- year-old female, GSW to the right side of chest cavity, Dr Banner provided oscillating bandaging and CPR was needed at the scene, suspected pneumothorax. Theatre slot needed urgently, internal damage unknown. Neck and spine clear."

Natasha heard them speaking, her eyes were open but all she saw was blinding white orbs from the strip lighting above. She had been shot. Dammit, rookie mistake.

The ketamine was clearing the pain, she couldn't feel the piercing wound of the projectile but her chest barely rose with each breath. There was an oxygen mask glued with sweat to her face, the smell was horrible. She could feel the bandage covering the hole in her chest, it crinkled each time she took a breath. There was a draft above her hip from where banner had lifted her top to get at the wound. Although Natasha knew she could move she didn't have the energy, a mix of shock, pain meds and lack of oxygen took all her desire to move straight from her.

She was woozy, her head felt fuzzy. Every bump the wheeled hospital trolley went over resulted in a deep stab in her side after a few of these she began to feel sick. After a few more she threw up.

There wasn't much time, a nurse suctioned the vomit from her mouth as they moved. She could hear medic babble going on around her, people discussing anaesthesia and blade size. They asked if it was a known weapon as if she had somehow shot herself?

It was becoming harder to care, she was both hot and cold. She felt damp but couldn't tell if that was sweat or rain. She wasn't even sure it had been raining. The fog was working deeper into her head, like worms wriggling through her veins to the centre. She shut her eyes, didn't want to throw up again. The bumping continued for a few moments, double doors were banged open and slammed behind her and her medical entourage.

The light of the theatre had her eyes opening once more.

"Natasha Romanoff: left lateral chest anterior bullet wound to the eleventh intercostal space. The patient had an episode of emesis, we're unaware of any head trauma but a concussion is possible. Dr Gregorovich on his way."

A nurse said more to a guy in green standing by her head but she heard nothing more until another guy in green scrubs- possibly a girl, she couldn't tell- spoke directly to her for the first time since she had left the care of Bruce and Clint.

"Natasha, I'm just administering the anaesthetic now."

She closed her eyes again. This was when it got gory. She listened out for any form of sound, a beeping or a clicking, anything she could focus on to try and deal with the pain she knew was coming next.

Anaesthetics and Natasha had never been a good mix. She didn't know if it was because those in the Red Room had meddled with her genetics, or whether she had always been like this. The drugs made her unable to move, unable to speak, but left her totally aware.

She could feel it at first, feel the gloved fingers and cold steel instruments being shoved into the bullet hole in her side. She listened to her own heart rate, the steady beeping that usually gave away if a person was feeling any pain but in the Red Room Natasha had learned how to steady herself. If they knew you felt pain they could use it against you. She had a brand mark from the first time she had let her breathing get out of hand – it was a simple line on her shoulder blade, no one else would know what it was – she had learned after the first time, had not been burned again.

The beeping, beep, beep, beep, was calming. She felt sick again but knew she had to keep it down. Beep, beep, beep.

"Scalpel."

The surgeon asked, she tried her best to concentrate on the beeping, on the red lights dancing about behind her closed eyes. The cut was made, she screamed on the inside. She was nine years old again, she was being branded with an iron poker except this time the poker was stabbing deep into her skin, ripping through her flesh and muscle as it went deeper. She gagged, it wouldn't be long and she would faint, sub come to a mix of the anaesthesia and pain, and loss of blood.

She was awake before they were aware, as was always the case. She awoke in the theatre itself, the extreme theatre lights blinding her. The oxygen was back on, but this time it was coming through prongs shoved in her nose and tightened around the back of her head. She felt nothing, nothing of her body as though it wasn't even connected. She wiggled her fingers ever so slightly, making sure she was still in her body and this wasn't some sort of post-death experience.

They had lifted the bedsides, covered her with a thin blanket and lifted her arms over the top of it. Looking down at her arms, which felt unusually heavy, she could see an IV plugged into each arm at the inside of the elbow. One was pulsing blood into her pale arms, the other was pushing through saline.

She closed her eyes once more, letting herself breathe the cold feeling oxygen. Her head flopped slightly to the side but she had no energy to move it back.

The third time she awoke was in a state of panic, she couldn't breathe. Her breathing was laboured and shallow, she couldn't get a breath in before another was needed. She held a buzzing noise beside her head, a voice

"Come on Nat, don't do this to an old man." She knew the voice but couldn't place it. Then there was a team at her side. Nurses, doctors, consultants – they swarmed around her. She heard words but before they could even register in her brain she had forgotten what they were.

The Oxygen was turned up, her bed was flattened. Natasha felt heavy, she couldn't lift her head, she couldn't open her eyes even more than the slits she was seeing through. Her vision was going fuzzy, as if she was piloting on a bad day. She couldn't feel her chest rising or falling, it seemed to be in a state of flux, a state of confusion just like her brain.

The fog was getting deeper, thicker and harder to peer through. Poor visibility. If in the Quinjet this would be an emergency landing, in the hospital, when you aren't able to breathe, it was time to relax, to give in and let the Doc's work for a living.

The fourth time was it. She was awake this time and had no intentions of letting herself go under again. She felt odd, groggy and full of drugs. Her chest hurt, but it was dull and heavy, not sharp and piercing.

This time she was in a room, not the theatre or ER. She was still being pumped full of liquids, breathing in the cool oxygen and still she didn't have the energy to lift her head. She had to, she had to get up, get on and pretend there was no pain. She was an expert at that, she could get through most things in order to make her way to her apartment and dump her butt on her own sofa.

"Romanoff?"

This time she knew the voice, Fury.

She glanced to her left to find her old Boss sitting right at her head. He wore sunglasses rather than his usual eyepatch. He carried a walking cane as a prop and wore a lumberjack shirt that she swore she had seen on Barton.

"Girl, you don't go down often but when you do," He finished with a high whistle.

"Shattered a few ribs on impact, pierced a lung, chest drain, lost six pints, the whole damn works."

She smirked, unlike some agents she didn't take a day for a few flesh wounds, this, this was just beyond a scratch in her books.

"Sir, excuse my inappropriate language but, did they catch the bastard?"

He sighed, stood - leaving his prop walking stick on the arm of the chair – and paced to the end of the room. He turned, his leather trench coat billowing.

"No, no they didn't. The Team's on it now, Faye Kowalski has been contacted, she and the asset are safe. We'll get the guy Natasha – always do."

She felt herself nod slightly.

It had seemed so run of the mill, such an easy takedown and evac but the guy – Hagerman – he knew the plan, inside intel had been breached and now, one member down, a code green disaster and the evac of the innocents, it was a bloody mess in more ways than one.

Natasha groaned, leaning back on her pillows. She went to lift the flimsy blanket off her body but Nick slapped his hand to the bed rail.

"No way, Romanoff. We need you, preferably in one piece, you move one toe off that bed and I'll make sure you're tied to it next time."

Natasha groaned, of course, the team would make sure she was well and truly babysat, they also knew she owed her life to Nick and as much as she was a spy, she honoured her word to those it mattered to. Nick was the reason she was alive, Nick gave her a second chance – a job – when both the USA and USSR were baying for her blood and her shrunken head on a stick.

"So, I just sit here? Wasting valuable time, we could be looking for this guy?"

Nick smirked,

"You know Romanoff? There's a reason we see eye to eye, you don't like sitting on your ass. You're my kind of girl and that is why this hospital visit is going to become,"

He paused to remove a small seven-inch tablet from his inside pocket.

"A working holiday."

She smiled despite her weakness, reaching out for the tablet.

"Anytime Boss, anytime."