"Little Red down. Long-term sleep. We need you. Bird."
Dr Banner had listened to the message twice already in twenty-four hours. Now he had sat down with the burner phone he was using. He was in two minds. Natasha was sick, in a coma from the encrypted and coded message could tell him, and it was serious, very serious. He also knew he was done with it all, with SHIELD, with avenging and with lying, reformed femme fatale's. A part of him didn't want to care, she had used him the way every organisation had. They wanted the monster. Maybe all she had told him, all she had taught him in both battlefield and bedroom, had been to create false security.
All he could think of was her lying there, flat out with a machine breathing clunky breaths for her. She had been badly hurt and that was not a common occurrence for Natasha Romanoff. She always walked away, like a cat she was sleek and calculating; and always landed on her feet.
He didn't know how he could even get back to New York -presuming that's where she was. He might not even have the time to get there. She was a fighter, but a coma was more than an average fight.
It was because of Clint that he was sitting there, contemplating making the phone call he had put off for months. He had sounded strained, sounded worried about his friend in the message he left, even threw the voice scrambling software. Bruce knew the spies were close, as close as two people could be in such a high-security job. He had to phone, even just to know for sure. To know the severity of her condition, to make sure she was safe and stable.
He dialled the number he had for Clint, then the security code, the same one which Clint would enter to answer in order to keep the call secure, pausing; hesitating. He breathed out long and deep and then allowed himself to press the green call button before he changed his mind again.
The call was answered after only two rings.
"Bruce."
"Barton, I got you're-."
Clint cut him off instantly, knowing already what the doctor would want to know.
"She had a fall, eight storeys, none of us knows what happened. Stark has an emergency track system in her bites, she was hazy when he got to her. They induced Coma at the hospital, they think it will help her heal herself or something."
Bruce nodded at each sentence, treating it like a handover between Paramedics and the ER. Clint stopped and Bruce could almost hear him thinking. He felt his stomach drop. There was something else.
"Look, Bruce, I dunno if you knew or whatever, but there's something else. None of us had a clue, ugh, Natasha's pregnant."