A/N: Hello people! This is my first try at fanfiction and with help from kaylainthetardis when we were on Omegle, I bring you my first piece of fanfiction ever. I hope you like it. Do drop a review after you read so I know how to improve thank you:)
In the vague, murky distance she could hear wails. Shrieks of a heartbroken bird-of-prey, torn apart and bleeding out. His soul was ripped from him bit by bit as he clamored for her, tears that were so sparingly shed falling steadfastly, in sheets. Natasha, yes, that was her name... Natasha Romanoff. It had been the name she had accepted to put her past behind her, to leave behind Natalya Alianovna Romanova. This had been the last mission, the final one that would wipe all the red she could off her once-soaked ledger. In all her twenty-seven years, her first ten had been spent training, killing other little girls just to live. The next seven had been spent killing for the Red Room, in cold blood, ending so many innocent lives. She had broken so many families, she had torn apart so many loves. Did she deserve to live? To survive past the years of the Russian cold? But the for the past ten years, she had done all she could, she had fought alongside Clint Barton to clean the red off their ledgers. That red was seeping out of her now. Her ledger was being cleansed, purged as her lifeblood flooded the ground around her, heedless of the pressure that was being applied. It took a lot to scare the Black Widow, more than just dying because of a well-aimed gunshot. But this, dying before she could ever have a shot at a future with Clint, this chilled her to the bone.
"Please, 'Tasha, I'm begging you, keep your eyes open for me."
"Stay with me, 'Tash!"
"I- I lov-" And then, nothing but black and the ghosts of the innocents whose blood was on her hands.
She knew what would happen as she lay there on the table. The silhouette of a frantically pacing Clint, bow and arrow still in hand, drenched in whatever blood the both of them had shed, immediately came to mind. He would tread tracks into the linoleum floors at S.H.E.I.L.D Medical until some brave soul, usually Coulson or his wife Maria would finally force him to put down his weapon and change into clean clothes. Once she was out of surgery, dead or alive, he would be by her side in an instant. Until then, he would worry every step of the way.
Clint started when he was suddenly pulled away by strong hands, "Clint, you need to change, get some rest..." Coulson told him gently. This was breaking his heart, these two agents were like his children, he'd been their handler for a decade and they'd grown on him.
Seeing her half dead and bleeding, seeing Clint looking like half of his soul had been ripped from him. Clint shook his head, "I have to stay with her..."
Natasha wanted nothing more than to break into one of her stern killer glares, to send him to change and rest. Clint was too caring sometimes and that part of him gave Coulson quite some trouble, especially when it came to Natasha. She tried to get past the anesthesia to muster up the strength to utter a single "go", but this was too difficult, even for the Black Widow. She tried to calm herself inwardly, to keep the monitor steady so Clint would feel a little more at ease.
She heard Phil promise to stay here and inform him if anything happened, and say that Maria was outside with clothes and hot food. The spy-light steps of Clint's boots resounded in her head now and she tried to wake up and get back to reality. Clint needed her there.
Clint hesitated for a moment, considering it. He opened his mouth to say no, but Phil silenced him with a look, and Clint sighed. He nodded and walked out of the room. He was slightly injured himself, but he didn't care. He was worrying too much about her well-being to worry about himself.
Phil started what sounded like muttering to himself, but soon it became clear that he was talking to her. "Natasha you had better wake up soon. I WILL ask Fury to assign Clint another partner if that is what it takes to bring you back. That poor boy loves you so much, Natasha, so much that he spared your life. Give him a break and wake up, please. We all need you back to control Stark again, even Pepper is having a hard time. You look so pale and your hair splayed out on the pillow resembles blood. We need you back soon, Tasha. He needs you back." Phil pleaded and her heart ached. He was like a father to her and he was hurting too. She had to wake up.
Clint, in the hallway immediately started pacing again, not planning to actually leave. He only left the room to make Phil feel a bit better, but he couldn't bring himself to be further away then he was. Maria came up to him and tried to coax him into at least changing into clean clothes, "Natasha would hate to wake up to you looking like this, you know how she is. Go get yourself cleaned up, Phil will make sure to keep you updated on her, and you can come back as soon as you've showered and changed.." She told him. Clint shook his head, "I...I can't leave, what if she needs me?"
Hill was right, she would hate it. She could almost feel the anesthesia lightening up on her system. It was times like this she wished she was more like the Captain, with the super-fast healing because of his super serum. She could hear Clint arguing his case with Hill, but she knew he would lose. There was a reason why they managed to get along once Maria married Phil - they were evenly matched but the boys never could get a word in edgewise.
Eventually Clint had gone to change and she heard Maria step inside and presumably into Phil's arms. "How is she?" she desperately asked. Phil had no definite answers, but Maria laid a hand on her left one, squeezing it lightly and whispering in her ear, "wake up, Natasha, and we'll kick the boys' asses again."
When Maria finally got him to go, his shoulders slumped and he walked away, feeling childish. He didn't want to leave. But just as Phil was like his father, Hill was like his mother and he could never really argue with her. He showers quickly taking only two minutes and changed into a fresh set of clothes, making sure to pick out Natasha's favorite shirt. It'd put her in a good mood when she woke up, and anything could help. He made his way immediately back to medical and walked back into the room, "Anything?"
"Nothing yet, we think she was waiting for you." Coulson joked, half serious. As Clint sat down beside her, he grasped her hand.
The hand, calloused and worn, yet warm and comforting. It cocooned her own and it just -fit- so well. So she was no longer under the knife. She had lived to see another day.
"Natasha, I know the doctor said you're comatose, that you may not even be able to hear me. Regardless, I need to tell you some things, just in case you never do wake up." He cleared his throat, once, twice, then brushed the stray scarlet strands hair away from my face. His fingers lingered, just so, on my left cheek.
"I don't really know how to go about saying this. I guess, I love you Tasha. I've always loved you. Ever since I met you on that roof, when I made a different call, I knew there was something there. I love you, and if that means anything to you, after the past ten years of defending each others' lives, please wake up."
All I wanted was to break into one of my rare sincere smiles, the ones you say light up the room and my face as well. I wanted to leap out of that stiff-sheeted starched hospital bed and jump into your sculpted arms and tell you I feel the same way. But I can't even lift the lids on my own eyes. All I could manage was a weak twitch upward on my lips.
You caught it.
That minuscule movement, the slightest change. You smoothed out the wrinkles on my forehead and you held on to the belief that I had heard you. You fended off an overenthusiastic but well-meaning Thor, an obnoxious and annoying Tony Stark, gentlemanly but overly fretful Steve Rogers, Banner and Pepper. You only let Coulson and Maria sit by me as well, knowing what it meant to them to stay there, and knowing how much I feared waking up alone in the Medical Centre.
Clint stayed with her as long as it would take, only leaving her side occasionally to go to the bathroom, the others took turns bringing food, but even that he barely ate. Anything he ate was because Phil and Maria practically shoved it down his throat. At one point they almost did. When they were alone, he talked to her, that one twitch of her lips told him everything he needed to know. She could hear him, he knew that much. He kept her updated on everyone else, on the team who he wouldn't let in to see her. She didn't need commotion right now, and that was the only thing they could possibly bring with them. He smoothed her hair, fixing it around her face because he knew just how much she hated it when it got messy, and he made sure to have fresh calla lilies by her bed everyday, the only flower she could actually stand.
I remember, when they got married, with you as the best man and me as Maria's maid of honor, how I had envied them. It had been the first moment, after Budapest, that I had allowed myself to entertain the thought that there was even the slightest chance we would get to have a future together. I knew I loved you. I still know I love you.
That's right. Natasha Romanoff, the infamously cold and heartless Black Widow, loved someone.
Most people would never even think it possible, but you showed me what love is.
We have been through more than we'd care to admit, more than most have had to deal with in a lifetime. Our combined fifty-six years have held more danger than World War II. Russia was never the land of whims and snow that people dream of, and the circus was never the carnival that many thought it was.
Through my reverie, I found you back next to my bed. Coulson had made you go back to the Avengers' Tower for an hour to take a shower and eat some dinner. Then I heard a name I had not heard since before I could remember.
"Natashen'ka"
He called me that. My папа used to call me that. An affectionate form of the diminutive of my name. Natalya was a big-girl name, he said, and I was always going to be Daddy's little girl. I thought I would never hear that name again.
No. That name and my father's love, they all were burnt into nothingness in that fire.
But was this a new kind of love?
It was.
My eyelids fluttered of their own volition, like the few times I had ever put on eyeshadow. Clint always teased me when we went undercover and I had to put on thick makeup. He never understood why Fury had me cover my naturally pronounced features.
The clasp on my hand turned into something more like a vice-grip, and all I could feel was the intense burn all over my body from the sensory overload as I came to.
Clint watched as she seemed to be waking up and tried not to get his hopes up, he could be imagining things. But he was suddenly sure he wasn't as her heart rate returned to it's normal and her eyes seemed to flutter as if she was trying to open them but couldn't. He squeezed her hand gently, "Tasha, I'm here.." He said softly, caressing her face and trying to coax her awake.
Before I could grind out a word, he was tipping a Dixie cup of water into her chapped lips. Her throat felt like she had been swallowing sandpaper and glass shards. She brought a shaking arm up to caress his face, but not before she noticed the displacement of light in the corridor. "ANTHONY EDWARD STARK WHAT ARE YOU DOING SPYING ON US?" She was going to murder Tony Stark the moment she was physically able to do so. That infuriating bastard had ruined an amazing rare moment.
Tony's eyes popped open wide, and didn't even bother to greet her or welcome her back from her coma before running for his life.
Clint chuckled and smiled at her, "Same old Natasha I see?"
"Don't you know it." I jibed back. Then, seriously, I looked into Clint's silver eyes and stated, plain and simple, "I love you, Clint, and I'm so sorry I never told you."
He smoothed out my curls as he helped me sit up, as the doctors knew full well that the Black Widow would NEVER stay down for any longer than she had to. They poked and prodded, ran tests and scans, and finally they told him that he could take me home, but on one condition and one condition only.
He would have to take care of me. I would have to LET him take care of me. From all those years in the Red Room, those years in the orphanage before that, those years of being a lone assassin terrorizing the icy streets of Russia had made me become the lone wolf I am. Sure, we patch each other up after every mission, but to trust him so helplessly as I healed? I could not even phantom what that would be like.
"Natashen'ka, мой Таша. Не вы когда-нибудь сделать это для меня снова."
He had been run ragged, evidently. What did I ever do in this bloodbath of a life to deserve someone who loved me so much?
"Я тебя люблю, Clint. I love you so much." That confession was like a weight off my chest, such a relief it was.
Gently he placed a chaste kiss on my forehead, then he muttered "hvíld, Tasha."
"Icelandic, Clint? Really?"
The rhythmic stroking of his bowstring-marked fingertips on my hairline lulled me into the safest sleep yet.
"THEY ARE LOVEBIRDS SEE I TOLD YOU SO!"
The rest of the Avengers peeked around the door with Stark, predictably, at the head of the pack. Coulson and Maria evidently had been trying to stop them, as they dashed up from the back.
"ANTHONY EDWARD STARK I DON'T CARE THAT YOU ARE IRON MAN I WILL TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB AND KILL YOU IN THE THOUSANDS OF WAYS I CAN STRING TOGETHER."
Cower, Stark. You jolly well should.