Natasha didn't feel the shot that killed her.

She saw the blood spray out in front of her, heard her own reflexive gasp, spun to keep from falling. But she didn't feel it.

"Natasha!" Sam had realized she was no longer right on his heels and turned back for her. Clint, slung over Sam's shoulders, stirred enough to lift his head.

They all stared at the hole in her stomach. She had trained for years to tune out pain, but this was different. This was her body trying to pretend it wasn't dead.

But the brutal desert sunlight hid nothing; they all knew what this kind of wound meant. She had five minutes. Ten if she dragged herself into the shade of one of the abandoned buildings, laid still, and waited to die.

As if.

Another bullet hit the ground, inches from her feet. The shot that had killed her was lucky, but they were closing in. She gave them a small, flirtatious smile, blood flecking her lips. "Looks like you boys are going on without me."

Sam hesitated. The same old hero's debate Natasha had seen play out time and again: save the lives he could? Or stay behind, show honor, and die with her?

Honor had died with Steve Rogers. Natasha would be damned if Sam and Clint went the same way. She drew her gun and aimed at Clint's dangling, bleeding legs.

"What the hell?!"

Natasha held the gun steady. "You're ten minutes away. If you don't move now, I give him another bullet in the leg, and you'll have to run to save him. Your options are to go with a bullet in Clint or without. Find the signal. Find Stark."

There was a buzz like an angry bee, and then another bullet slammed into her, this time lodging in the thick muscles on her lower back. Natasha still felt nothing. She twirled on the momentum like a dancer and ran towards the enemy, weaving just enough to keep their half-rate sniper from getting a bead on her. "Go!"

"Nat…"

Something inside of her hurt at Clint's moan, and no numbness or training could stop it. Natasha ran from it instead. A glance over her shoulder told her that Sam had taken her orders and run, so she tossed the gun away—she'd run out of bullets ages ago, but Sam didn't know that.

Sam could face down any pursuers who got close to him, but there were two long range threats that would kill them: the sniper who had killed her and the helicopter that was still a tiny dot in the sky.

Four minutes.

Natasha was out of weapons, so she threw herself between two crumbling buildings, pressed so close together that she could put a hand and foot on each and spider up between them. Something tore where the second bullet had lodged—her right leg gave out, and she slid several feet before catching herself. Two soldiers chose that moment to walk in looking for her.

Natasha let herself drop, falling atop one instead of her usual graceful straddle around the neck. She threw an elbow into his windpipe, breaking the cartilage, seized his knife as he collapsed, and threw it into his companion's eye. It was over before she hit the ground.

Three minutes.

She rolled free, then worked the still-choking man's rifle off him. It wasn't easy—her hands were slippery with blood, and he was clawing at his throat, tangling the strap. Natasha would curse herself for throwing away the knife if she had the breath, but instead she yanked the gun loose, fired three rounds into the soldier's back, grabbed his grenades off of him, and dragged herself to the top of the building.

Two minutes.

SHIELD standard issue rifle, nothing specialty or fancy, but workable. Natasha was no Hawkeye, but she was good enough to take out some two-bit sniper, especially when she could see the sparkle of his scope. Her piece wasn't meant for very long distances, and her eyes were screwing up, her diaphragm hitching, but she made herself breathe as deeply as she still could, judge the wind, the minute tilts and angles of her gun. It took three shots, but she brought him down. Another two killed his spotter.

One minute.

Natasha collapsed, gun underneath her. Her vision was dark around the edges, and she knew that she was forgetting something, but all she could think about was the sound of her pulse throbbing in her ears.

No, not her pulse; helicopter blades. She picked herself up enough to see it coming in, a black blob in the bleached-white sky. HYDRA was still after her team, and Sam and Clint would die minutes after she did unless she could find a way to stop it.

She couldn't shoot it down, not with a rifle like this. And if she stayed on the roof, they'd pick her off before she got close enough to do any damage. Natasha started to climb back down to the alley, and then her fingers gave out halfway down. She somehow managed to land on her one good leg, but her ankle twisted as she did. She lay in the dust in a crumpled, bloody heap—an choreographer would have named her pose Defeat. And yet, despite being out of time, despite the fact that she should already be dead, she struggled up again.

Her vision had tunneled to pinpricks, but she kept herself focused, feeling nothing as she patted herself down. She knew she'd had them.

Grenades. In her pocket. She took one in each hand and pulled out the pins with her teeth, the spoons clenched tight. It would work if she could just… if they'd get close before she…

She was on her knees. Lungs and mouth filled with blood. Everything black. She couldn't even feel her hands, still pressed on the grenades to keep them contained. But that old wives' tale about sound being the last to go must be true, because she could still hear. Hear the helicopter getting closer, angling down to find her between the buildings and aim at her.

Natasha drew on resources she had thought were long gone. A split second before she heard their guns go off, she launched herself to her feet and threw.

A row of bullets ripped through her stomach and chest, and before she could even fall, the explosion sent burning shards of shrapnel through her. Hot metal lanced through one eye in a painless flash of sensation and heat, but the orange of the blast was so bright that her other saw again. A brief view of the helicopter going down, a flash of red and gold soaring above her, then, as she collapsed, a stretch of shining sand with two tiny figures racing across it, one carrying the other. Sam raced towards the space where desert met sky and formed an odd ripple, like a heat wave.

She felt no pain. But for the first time since Rogers had died, since HYDRA had won and the world ended, Natasha felt something else.

Hope.