She was small for seven years old, but this was a good thing. It meant that she could crawl through smaller vents, that her nimble little fingers could reach through smaller bars and pick more intricate locks. She was faster and more agile but no less tougher for her size. Katerina sneered at her from across the room. "ребенок," the bigger girl scoffed. Baby. Natalia's bright green eyes hardened to agate. Baby wanted her barrel back.

Clotting agents. Endorphins. Fibroblasts. Antibiotics. Catalase. TGF beta proteins. The cocktail known colloquially as "the serum" by the agents of the Red Room was barely half identified and not even close to understood by SHIELD's scientists. The infusion process that had permanently altered Natasha's physiology had been long, painful and irreversible. However, the changes wrought by the potent elixir had kicked in the second Vanalman's bullets had pierced her chest. With wounds that were clearly lethal, her body quickly went to work.

It hurt to breathe. More than that... it burned a white-hot fire every time she tried to pull in a gasp of air. She swam around the edge of consciousness, unable to get enough oxygen, her brain screaming with the need for it. After an eternity, somehow her lungs began to fill, and the blackness ebbed. Up and down, they moved like crackling bellows. Breath in, up. Breath out, down. The fire continued to burn, but she was able to grapple with it as she came closer to the surface of wakefulness.

Her heart, was it beating? She wasn't sure. There was blood in her lungs, pooling, unmoving. Was she dying, the blood in her lungs laying stagnant? As she became aware of it, it began to choke her. The heavy, unmoving blood was burning her lungs and suffocating her. "Fight!" her brain shrieked, and she lashed out with every ounce of strength she could conjure, kicking and flailing, pushing against the darkness and the fire and the smothering blood in her lungs.

She hit something, hard, felt an impact that tore the return of the air completely from her. She coughed, so painfully without any breath behind it, feeling the vacuum of her empty lungs as they spasmed. Her eyes flew open and now she was paralyzed by the light, blinded and choking and fighting with her entire being. Something pressed against her, tried to stop her as she convulsed. She struggled against it, coughing and wheezing frantically, until thick, strangling chunks of blood began to move up her throat. She fought as her body spat them out, she cried as they made wet, tearing sounds as she heaved the clots onto the bedspread. The pressure pushing against her shifted, it began to pull at her and she allowed it to, she was out of strength. She shuddered and coughed and sobbed at the burning pain while she was moved, first on to her side then her knees pushed up slightly. A second eternity passed this way before the shuddering and choking slowed, and her painful gasps seemed to be bringing in air on their own. Alive. She was still alive.

"Ahzzaahaa."

She heard... something. It was faint and echoing, as though it was at the end of a long tunnel. She tilted her jaw against the wet sheets and tried to move closer to the sound. She whimpered softly, unable to stop from crying. Something warm and rough settled itself on her back. Without knowing why, it calmed her, and she tried to focus on it. It was hot where she was cold, it moved slowly over her back where she was paralyzed, it was firm and solid where she was certain she was nothing more than broken, floating pieces.

"Natasha."

She cried anew. She tried to answer, but her throat closed in pain. Instead, she raised an arm, she wasn't even sure which one. The warm and rough pressure closed around it gently, and with great care it turned her over. It was so bright that she winced, but something eventually came into focus. Someone. Clint. His face, hovering over her, framed in the bright light of a thousand haloes.

"Oh my God, Natasha," his lips moved, the sound came to her oddly disconnected. "Oh God, thank you. You're alive. It's okay, firecracker, you're going to be okay. You're alive."

Was she? She tried to smile, blood dribbling slowly out of the corners of her mouth. "Are you... sure?" she croaked, feeling mildly proud to have made audible sounds this time.

He released a deep breath culminating in a short, nervous laugh. He said nothing but smiled at her and brushed errant strands of red hair from her face. She smiled back, weakly raising her hand to his arm and gazing at his face and...

"What happened to you?" she murmured faintly, realizing that his face and arms were covered in blood.

"You did," he replied softly. "Tash, do you remember what happened? Timo's gone rogue, he shot you. You... I thought you were dead," his voice wavered.

"I was dead," she repeated. "I was. Yes."

He bit his lower lip, and that was when she noticed the tears on his cheeks, tracking down through the blood. She slowly touched his face. "Blood," she mumbled.

"It's yours," he said. "CPR, artificial respiration... I... I.. couldn't lose you," he stammered. "I didn't stop until you began choking up blood on me."

"You brought me back," she whispered, tracing the trail of tears down his face. "Thank you."

He softly grasped her hand and pulled it away from his face. She closed her eyes as he grasped her hand in both of his. "No, you did it. You're supernatural, Tasha."

She smiled in response, until she noticed he was wounded. "Your wrists?" she asked slowly.

Clint's face hardened. "Timo. He subdued and handcuffed me before he took off. You were on the bed and I couldn't get to you..." he faltered. "I just had to get out of the cuffs." His voice was dry and he cleared his throat. "Okay, well. Obviously we have a situation here. You need an evac and the shit has hit the fan for Dodona's arrival."

"What time is it?" Natasha asked, slowly pulling herself to a sitting position, wincing at the pain.

"17:20."

"Less than three hours until the counsellor arrives, then?"

"Yes," Clint shook his head. "But Timo is calling the shots. Dodona's retinue is coming in at full-force and they think we are insurgents. I don't know what he is planning but Timo will have a small army after us... and Dodona is at risk."

"Barton," his partner murmured. "You can't take on an entire conciliar retinue by yourself. We've got to get out of here before then."

"They are sure to have upped the schedule," he replied. "I'm getting you somewhere safe and then I'll figure the rest out. Timo destroyed the computer and radio so I'll have to come up with Plan B."

"Call Coulson's cell collect?"

"Something like that, yeah," Clint nodded. "But you are the priority."

Natasha looked down at her shirt, soaked dark red with blood, and slowly raised her head back to her partner. "Barton... I don't think that's a goo..."

"Shut up," he said sharply, startling her. He stood up from the bed quickly and rubbed the tear stains from his face with the back of his bloody hand. "I am the senior agent present and I have designated you as the mission priority, is that clear, Agent Romanoff?"

"Barton," she responded reluctantly. "Clint. Listen to yourself. You're... you're compromised, Clint."

His face went stormy. "Yes," he replied through gritted teeth. "Yes, you're right. I am. One of my oldest friends betrayed me and shot my partner. You'd better believe I'm compromised. I'm on the fucking warpath now. Timo will die for this."

Natasha said nothing, her lips in a tight line. She gazed motionlessly at him, her eyes asking a dozen questions.

"He killed you, Tash," Clint accused. He dropped to his knees beside the bed and wrapped his arms around her. He gently pulled her close to him, and buried his face in her tousled hair. She cautiously wound her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his chest. "There is nothing else that anyone could ever do to hurt me more, firecracker," he whispered.

She blinked back tears and tightened her embrace around him to the very edge of the pain she could stand. "I know," she whispered back. "I know... because you are the same to me. I understand. Timo dies."