Hey everyone. Welcome to day five. Today I bring you...
EXPLOSION
Translations: (I don't know Russian, it may be wrong)
Zvezda Moya- My Star
Lyubov moya, ya ustal, ya ne mogu ... derzhat' glaza otkrytymi - My love, I'm tired, I cannot ... keep my eyes open
lyubov moya- my love
Izvinite, lyubov –sorry love
Izvinite –sorry
moye solnyshko –my small sun
Kotenok -kitten
On their first official mission together, Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton got themselves caught up in an explosion.
Things had been going well, too well, the cynical voice inside Natasha was saying. They'd got the drop on the guards, had easily managed to subdue or kill them all and were on their way to retrieve the package in the basement.
They chatted between themselves, nothing too dark, mainly banter. They enjoyed each other's company and it went a long way to ease the tension creeping up Natasha's spine.
"I keep telling myself that it's okay to win." The redhead groaned, shaking her head. "That it's okay that we best the bad guys and have nearly completed the mission." She carried on, her astute eyes still darting around every shadow and crevice.
"But?" Clint prompted, "I feel one hell of a but coming on." He grinned, at which Natasha rolled her eyes.
"Ever since you told me that but has too meanings in America, I can't take you seriously when you say it." Natasha smiled, her gaze teasing.
"Well, you do have one hell of a great butt." Clint snarked, his eyes twinkling as he caught her gaze. A rare, true smile was spread across her face. Her eyelids crinkled and her nose scrunched up in a way that made Clint's heart stand still. And she was smiling that way at him.
Clint opened his mouth to stammer out something about what Natasha had been meaning to say before he'd gotten side tracked.
He saw Natasha's eyes widen in shock and almost fear. He reached out to ask what was wrong when the room exploded in front of their very eyes.
Natasha was ripped away from Clint and the archer had the sense of being airborne before his back and head hit something solid and his vision faded to black.
When Clint came to, he almost wished he hadn't. The room they'd been in was in ruins, a massive hole in the ceiling and the walls caving in around him.
His ears rang sickeningly and he felt off balance before he'd even attempted to stand. His head pounded with each beat of his heart, he could taste blood at the back of his throat as he fought his eyelids back open from where they'd closed.
Grunting and pushing off a piece of brick from his shoulder, Clint grabbed onto what was left of the wall to heave himself up to his feet. Once standing, he nearly collapsed back, the room spinning around him. His hearing felt off, like he was underwater and it took everything he had not to crumple to the floor and wait for help.
Someone would surely be coming to extract him and Natasha soon, he just had to-
"Natasha." He breathed, his heart hammering against his ribs. "Shit, Tasha."
Clint pushed away from the wall, scanning the debris for any sign of his friend. "Nat? Natasha?!" He shouted, head spinning as he was met with nothing but silence.
He climbed over to where he last remembered seeing Natasha, his stomach twisted as he imagined that last moment. Her beautiful, bright smile, just before she was ripped away. And the last thing he'd said to her was a crude remark about her ass.
"Barton, you fucking idiot." He muttered, tiredly leaning against a chunk of wall for a moment. He caught his breath and steadied himself before heading to the largest pile.
"Need to find her. I have to find her. That can't be the last thing I said to her." He mumbled, only a little aware that he was saying all of that out loud.
His ear crackled and Clint could've smacked himself for being so dim. His comms device!
He pressed it closer into his ear, amazed it had survived the blast. "Coulson? Coulson, Hill? Does anybody copy?"
Static met him and he cursed, shouting now.
"This is Agent Barton, does anybody copy? Coulson, please." He pleaded, closing his eyes.
"Barton-" the crackled voice came into his ear and he nearly fainted with relief.
"Phil, there was an explosion, I can't find Nat. The whole place is a wreck, I need evac and...and medics-" his voice was slurred even to his own ears and he took a deep breath, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
"Evac is twenty minutes out, Barton. What's your status?" Phil demanded, concern in his voice.
"I...I blacked out for a while, I'm not sure how long." He carefully tried to take stock of his injuries.
"I can barely keep my eyes open, so concussion. There's blood in my throat, make some broken ribs, some cuts and bruises. Nothing serious." He said off handedly.
"A concussion is serious, Barton, honestly." Phil sighed. "If you can, stay awake, stay alert. You're going to have to try and find Natasha, okay?"
Clint swallowed hard and nodded, though Phil obviously couldn't see. "Yeah...yeah, Nat." He mumbled, starting back in his digging through the pile of rubble.
He called out her name, begged her to say something. When one pile proved fruitless, he turned to another and another, digging his hands bruised and bloody.
But finally, after what felt like hours but had really only been and three minutes, Clint caught a sight of her brilliant red hair.
"Nat-" he breathed, digging with renewed vigour until only her legs were covered with debris.
His eyes roved her body as he mentally wrote down everything he saw.
Natasha was frighteningly pale. Blood ran down her temples and into her closed eyes, more at her lips, indicating she'd coughed it up at some stage. Her suit was bloody and torn and he could see a tell-tale darker patch just below her ribs.
He shakily reached out, with baited breath, two fingers pressing against her neck. Silently, he prayed to a god he'd never believed in, begging for her to be alive.
A weak thrumming met his fingers and he exhaled shakily.
Clint started to try and rouse her, not wanting to shake her for fear of injuring her spine or neck.
"Tasha?" He called, pinching her cheek, the other flat against her shoulder. "Nat, can you hear me? Please, sweetheart, I need you to open those beautiful eyes for me."
A soft groaning answered him, the redhead's eyelids fluttering weakly.
Clint stroked a finger down her cheek, his fingers coming away wet with her blood. "That's it, Nat, open your eyes. There you go-" he whispered, dizzily pushing himself back.
He kept talking to her whilst he removed the bricks and what had been the ceiling off her legs. She'd been hit the worst, actually flying through the wall and under a good portion of the debris.
He cursed as he lifted a piece of her thigh, his eyes widening as blood immediately began spurting over his hands.
Idiot, Barton, fucking idiot.
He clamped down on her leg, grimacing as Natasha struggled weakly from the pressure.
"Stay still, Tash, you're gonna be okay." He whispered.
"Coulson? Coulson, I need the med team about five minutes ago." He rushed out, his grip never faltering on her thigh.
"Status?" Phil asked in a clipped tone. "Eta is eleven minutes."
"She's barely awake, she coughing blood when she has the energy. Concussion, wound below her ribs but Phil, something's nicked her femoral artery, the bleeding isn't slowing-" he whispered, the sound of his own gasping vaguely settling in the back of his head.
"I...I can try and apply pressure but she's gonna bleed out, I can't...I can't fix it, I don't-"
"Clint?!" Phil's anxious tone told him it wasn't the first time he'd tried getting his attention.
"Breathe, just breathe, they're going as fast as they can." His voice was soothing.
"Stay awake and keep pressure on her leg. Look around you; do you have anything to make a tourniquet out of?"
Clint blinked and hastily looked around before settling on Natasha. "Her belt-" he breathed, reaching with one hand to unclick it from her waist.
Still gripping her thigh, he used his other hand and his teeth to tighten it right above the injury, pulling it as tight as he could.
"Tash?" Clint swallowed, startled to find her eyes open and just about focused on him. "Hey, hey you." He breathed, his entire being trembling.
Natasha blinked rapidly, her pupils blown wide as she opened and closed her mouth a few times.
"C'int-" She finally managed, her brows furrowed as she tried to find out what had happened.
"You're okay, Nat, I've got you. Just stay with me-" he didn't care that he was begging now, he was desperate.
"If you...Stay with me." She whispered, her teeth gritted against the pain she had to be feeling. But she didn't complain or moan, just lay there and bared it.
"I'm always staying with you." He said softly. "You're not getting rid of me so easily, Zvezda Moya." Clint watched as she openly struggled for words. It killed him to see like that.
"My star." She breathed, eyes soft as they rested on his face. "You've never called me that before." She whispered, a slight wetness to her tone. She grimaced, coughing harshly at the exertion, bright red blood splattering her lips and because of how close he was, Clint's face.
"Well you are my star, Nat." He whispered.
"Lyubov moya, ya ustal, ya ne mogu ... derzhat' glaza otkrytymi." She mumbled and Clint took it as a bad sign that she had lapsed into Russian. Luckily, he had picked up Russian shortly after he'd spared her life. It came in handy when calming her, and it came in handy now.
"I know, lyubov moya, I know you're tired. Just keep looking at me moye solnyshko, Please." The word slipped out but Natasha paid no notice.
"Izvinite, lyubov." She whispered. "Izvinite."
"Shh, don't apologise. I've got you. Please, Nat, don't leave me." He shook his head, looking down at his hand on her thigh. The blood pulsed beneath his fingers, dripping down into the dust.
When Clint looked back up, Natasha's eyes were closed.
"Natasha?" Clint blinked, his heart racing. "Tasha? Please-" he whispered, shaking his head. He reached for her neck, his chest tight. He felt like he couldn't breathe.
"Phil, Phil where are they?" Clint's breathless, panicked voice shouted in the quiet.
"I'm losing her, I can't, she won't wake up-" he gasped, barely able to hear over the roaring in his ears.
"I can't feel her pulse-" he whispered, darkness encroaching his vision.
"I...I can't-"
The last thing he heard was Phil screaming in his ear as he slumped forward over Natasha, darkness taking him.
The next time Clint became fully aware, there was a weight on his chest and a bright light in his eyes. He reacted, hitting out. Thankfully the lights disappeared but now something was holding his shoulders down, faceless voices shouting at him.
Slowly, he managed to filter through the noise as his vision began to clear.
"-calm down, Agent, you're safe-"
Finally Clint was able to see properly and he took stock of the room. Two men, obviously agents, were holding him down, their grip strong. The only reason Clint didn't break the hands holding him was because he saw Phil. Phil was the one speaking, her realised, the one telling him to calm down.
So he did, he relaxed his muscles and allowed himself to be pushed back.
"You can let go of him." Phil snapped. "He was disorientated and hurt; he's no threat to you."
Clint simply blinked as the doctor on the floor glowered up at him. "Tell that to my bleeding nose-" he hissed.
"It's in his file that he doesn't wake up well, imbecile, you startled him. Now get out!" Coulson demanded, pointing at the door. "You two step back, outside the door. I need to speak with my agent alone."
Phil's tone demanded obedience and the two nodded before stepping out.
"Do you know where you are, Clint?" Phil turned to him, the harshness gone from his voice.
"Uh...Shield medical?" He winced, rubbing his forehead at the throbbing he felt there. "I feel like I've been hit by a truck, and trust me that happened once, so I know how it feels-" he muttered, wincing at the harshness of the hospital lights.
"Do you remember what happened?" Phil prodded, tutting and pulling his hand away from his head.
Clint rolled his eyes but let him. "There was an explosion. Me and Nat were securing the package and-" he immediately jerked upright, throwing his legs off the side of the bed. "Natasha-" he gasped, his face draining of whatever little colour he'd managed to gain back.
"Her thigh, the blood..." he whispered. "She wouldn't wake up, I couldn't feel her pulse-" he swallowed hard, hardly daring to look his superior in the eyes.
"Phil, is she...?" He stammered, his eyes wide.
"No, no." Phil shook his head, hand on his shoulder. "She's alive, Clint, I swear."
Clint scarcely dared believe it. "But... I felt her neck. I...I didn't feel anything-" he frowned, unsure if he could believe she wasn't dead.
"We got there shortly after you passed out." Phil said quietly. "When you didn't respond, I thought the worst." He swallowed hard, his face grave.
"Natasha wasn't breathing when they reached you. They started giving her CPR immediately, but they knew without blood she wouldn't survive. Luckily, she's a universal donor, so they had some on hand."
Clint nodded, grateful for the details. It all helped him piece it all together in his head.
"They started giving her the blood and she began breathing on her own." Phil murmured. "They'd been so busy with her, I turned to check on you and you..." he stammered. "You were on the floor, your eyes rolled back into your head, having a goddamn seizure in my quinjet." He closed his eyes for a moment.
"I thought then that I'd lost you. Your concussion was...is severe, once they'd controlled the first seizure, they just kept coming." Phil shook his head. "You've been unconscious for over a week, they weren't sure if you were going to wake up." He murmured. "You went in for surgery, your skull was cracked and you were bleeding on your brain. I mean, Jesus Christ, Barton, you know how to scare a man."
Clint frowned, just blinking. "Wow, shit. Sorry about going full exorcist on you." He chuckled, trying to get Phil to at least crack a smile.
"And Nat?"
"She had surgery too, repairing the damage in her thigh. You were right about her ribs, a piece of debris had gone right through and out her back." He shook his head.
"I...shit. I didn't even notice that, no wonder she bled out so quickly." He breathed.
"You saved her life, even with a life threatening concussion. I swear, Clint, I nearly lost my voice trying to get you to answer me."
"Sorry." He mumbled, faintly recalling Natasha telling him the same word before she'd passed out. "She's okay now? I can see her?"
"If you sit in the wheelchair. No complaining, no getting out of it. Your balance is gonna be shot and we don't know if there's any permanent damage. You may have more seizures and if you hit your head again any time soon, god knows what'll happen."
Clint was so desperate to see Natasha that he didn't care about the wheelchair. He even let the doctor check him over first, shining that annoying ass light in his eyes again.
But finally they were on their way to Natasha.
Once there, Phil wheeled him right to the bed and squeezed his shoulder. "Yell when you want me." He said quietly and Clint looked up at him. "Thank you for saving us, Phil."
"Of course, Barton." He nodded and then they were left alone.
The faint beeping of the machines, usually annoying to him, we're soothing this time around. He recognised them as Natasha's life, and he would never find them annoying again, he was sure of it.
He reached over and took her hand in his, turning it palm side up so he could trace patterns into it. He got lost in the feeling of her skin, of the gentle beeps of the machines, the reassuring sight of her chest rising and falling.
"Zvezda Moya." He murmured. "I am never letting anything like that happen again." He murmured tiredly, rubbing at the pain I'm his temples.
"I am in no rush for that to happen again." Came Natasha's soft, scratchy voice. Music to Clint's ears.
"Hey you." He breathed, wincing as she clumsily rubbed at the oxygen supplement up her nose. "How are you feeling?"
"Mm...these drugs are...impressive." Natasha slurred, a goofy grin on her face.
Clint couldn't help but burst out laughing. "I'm glad to hear it. Go back to sleep, zvezda moya. I will be here when you wake up."
"Hmm, okay kotenok." Her voice tapered off and in seconds she was asleep again.
"Did she really just call me kitten?" He asked to no one in particular. "That had better not stick." He grumbled but he couldn't help but smile.