I planned on ending this a little later, but I cut it off early so I could post it before I left. I'll be sans internet until the 23rd, so check back for another update around the 25th, most likely.
Anyways, it would be super awesome if you guys left me some new reviews to read for when I got back!
"Ma'am, I need you to back up behind the barricade." A uniformed man instructed her in bengali. Natasha flashed her SHIELD badge and he reluctantly walked away.
Concrete rubble crunched beneath her feet as she stepped through to find someone in charge of something. She had always loved explosions before, when she lived and thrived off confusion and chaos, when they were simply distractions or diversions or statements. She never saw them for what they were until this moment.
They were devastating.
It was all smoke and ash, firefighters still working to quench the last of the flames amongst the concrete rubble. Everywhere there was shouting. Men and women for help, for their mothers, for their gods, sounds of anguish and agony, of pain beyond words and beyond help. First responders barking orders and coordinating movements as a hurricane of people worked to salvage who and what was left of the building. Sirens wailed from all directions as emergency vehicles piled up and more and more people were added to the already swirling storm. The smell of singed metal and flesh was revolting, especially when mixed the stench of death that hung in the air like a thick fog, unescapable.
"Agent Romanoff!" And unfamiliar voice called. She turned to see a pair of SHIELD agents approaching her, both flashing their badges at the local authorities like she did.
"I'm Agent Pritish and this is Agent Sullivan, from the local office. We understand that you were on an op when this occurred." The woman was a few inches taller than her and dressed in what seemed to be a standard issue SHIELD suit. She was all business.
"My parter was inside the building when it went, I think. I'm not sure. Our comms cut out. I have to find him." Natasha could feel her heart racing and she couldn't slow it down. In this mess, he could be anywhere, or nowhere.
"We've got all the local hospitals on alert for Agent Barton, they'll notify us if he comes into any of them." The woman tried to sound reassuring, but Natasha wasn't buying it.
"We are going to find him now, not wait for some damn report to come in. I'll check triage stations one and two. You two take three through five." Neither of them showed any indication of moving. "Find my parter, find him now, or I swear I will do everything in my power to make your life a living hell. And trust me when I say that my power is very extensive." She lowered her voice to a threatening growl, and both agents took a step back from her.
"Yes ma'am." Sullivan managed to get out. Turning to leave, he tugged what Natasha presumed to be his partner along with him off to the triage stations.
Natasha walked off as well, diving deep into a mass of the dead and dying in the worst of the worst triage stations. The movement around her was a blur as people were being constantly moved around, from bed to bed, loaded onto stretchers being carted to and fro, people being rushed into ambulances. She saw people with missing limbs, people impaled by metal spikes, people with faces burned so badly you could hardly tell they were human, and all of them wailing and whimpering and sobbing. Natasha felt sick.
She stopped her walking for a moment to catch her breath and to take a long look at the ambulances being loaded and her heart nearly stopped when she spotted a shock a bright blond hair attached to a stretcher. Natasha broke out into a run, a dead sprint, to reach the ambulance before they carted him off. She climbed into the front of the ambulance and briefly argued with the driver in bengali. When she flashed her badge, he let her stay.
Natasha was so wound up she wanted to rip her fucking skin off. Clint was four feet from her and dying and she could see him, then at the hospital the wheeled him away without telling her a damn thing, simply shuffling her off into a private waiting room with, she guessed, her SHIELD status afforded her. After about and hour of her anxious pacing, the two local-office agents showed up. With her car too, no less. For that, at least, she was grateful since she at lease kept a book in the glove compartment to pass the time as she waited. They didn't speak.
It was five hours until a doctor came to talk to her. It seemed the worst of his injuries was his shattered left forearm. Besides that, both of his lungs had collapsed in the explosion, and one had detaches itself completely, and nearly every rib has been broken or cracked. He had several deep lacerations on his left side that had to be stitched, but cause a significant amount of blood loss, he had several brain contusions, and some internal bleeding to boot.
"You might want to contact his family." The doctor advised, and Natasha knew what that meant. They thought he was going to die.
"He doesn't..." Natasha tried to talk, but she couldn't quite catch her breath, like the air was being squeezed out of her and she couldn't breath back in. She ran her hands through her hair to try and calm down, but it didn't seem to help any. "He's got...there's...no one." She managed to finish. Only me, she thought.
They told her that he was still in critical condition, that she couldn't see him. That she had to stay stuck in this tiny room where she couldn't breathe and couldn't move, she'd never felt more useless in her entire life.
She sent the local agents away, told them she didn't want them there, so they went to go pick up Dr. Rai from where he was still tied up in the apartment to get him boxed up and ready to ship back to the states.
She was alone again and alone was good, alone she could deal with. There was no pressure to please or perform or conform when she was alone. She had been alone her whole life until she met Clint and now, it seemed, she would have to go back. The thought didn't help to calm her down any.
She'd exhausted herself pacing hours ago, couldn't focus enough to read, didn't want to think about much of anything, so she sat in completely, deathly stillness, mentally checking out. Natasha learned how to just sort of turn off her brain when she wanted, it was her way of coping with her training back in the Red Room, finding a way not to think or to feel, just simply to exist, even if only for a short while, with nothing. It was a slice of serenity. No past, no future.
She didn't know how much time had passed when another visitor entered the room. The vaguely registered the door opening and closing, vaguely heard two voices talking quietly together, they were familiar to her, but she didn't bother to focus enough to place them until she felt a hand on her shoulder. Her immediate reaction was to attack, and she did. She stood up abruptly, twisting the arms sharply and pushed him away before drawing her gun, only lowering it when she realized the had her weapon leveled at Director Fury.
"Shit, fuck, I'm sorry." She quickly apologized, tucking the gun back into the waist of her pants. "Old habits."
"Agent Romanoff, always a pleasure." He responded dryly, unfazed by the attack.
"Don't take this the wrong way, sir, but what are you doing here?" Natasha asked, sitting back down.
"You know, contrary to popular belief, I do actually care about the well-being of my agents." Fury sat down in the chair opposite her, Coulson sat next to him.
"All your agents, or just the good ones?" Fury narrowed his eyes at her and she smirked. "You don't have to answer that." Natasha always did get a special kind of joy out of getting her boss worked up, Clint did too. Though, they both suspected that he enjoyed the break in monotony they gave him.
"How is he?" Coulson cut through their conversation to bring it back to something a little more relevant.
"Not good. It's still a toss up." She regaled the information the doctor had reported to her, trying to read Fury's reaction, and ultimately failing to do so. They sat in silence until, and hour later, a different doctor came in to talk to them. They were taking Clint for another surgery to repair his detached lung, after that, they'd have a better idea on his condition. Natasha tried to feel at least a little relieved knowing that they'd soon have an answer the the question she didn't want to ask soon.
They all sat in silence, but now Natasha felt uneasy. She'd never been in a room this long with either of them, and she knew they had a thousand questions they were waiting to spring on her. When she couldn't take it anymore she got up, muttering that she needed some fresh air and made a quick exit. It felt good to escape, even for a little while, and the air felt good, even if it was hot.
She found the car and climbed into the driver's seat and, after rolling down the windows, lit a cigarette, trying to go back into her blanked out state pre-interruption. She was almost there when she heard the passenger door open and Coulson slid into the seat beside her.
"I didn't know you smoked." He commented, it was evident that he was uncomfortable.
"I'm willing to be there's a lot you don't know about me." She shot him a small smile and he seemed to relax. He rarely spoke to Natasha outside of an official capacity, she seemed to prefer it that way. It was no secret that he was much closer to Clint than to her.
"You'd win that bet." He admitted, then said no more. And uncomfortable silence settled between them, unasked questions hanging in the air.
"So why're you here?" Natasha asked eventually, growing tired of waiting.
"I have a question for you."
"Fire away." She finished the cigarette she was on and lit another.
"What are you going to do if Clint dies?" No beating around the bush, she liked that about Coulson, though maybe not in this particular moment. Natasha froze, the newly lit cigarette smoldering between her fingers only inches from her mouth.
"Would you stay?" Coulson prompted, knowing she would need it.
"Probably not." She replied, her features and voice blank of any emotion. "Would you still hunt me down if I left?"
"Probably not." Coulson smiled at her, thinking about how different she was from when they'd first met. "I think you've earned a retirement, should you choose one."
"I think we both know me leaving SHIELD wouldn't exactly be a retirement."
"Yeah well, nobody else has to, now do they?" It was Natasha's turn to smile. She'd grown very fond of Coulson during his time as their handler, he seemed to enjoy breaking the rules as much as they did. He always had their backs, was always in their side, she like him.
Silence fell again, though this one considerably less tense.
"You know I ask all my agents that question when the time comes?" Coulson asked.
"When what time comes?"
"When the life of the person they trust most hangs in the balance. When they have to face how they really feel and what they really want. Death, even the threat of death, has a way of making our priorities very clear to us." Coulson explained, his voice drifting off near the end.
"Did you ask Clint?" She wanted to know how he'd answered.
"Of course, you've been in a bad spot more than once. I've asked him twice, and gotten a different answer both times." Coulson smiled at the thought. Clint was always a tricky one too, no wonder he and Natasha were perfect for each other.
"The first time was when you got back from that reverse interrogation that went horribly sideways and worked out really well all at the same time. Still not sure how you did that, but hey, that's your business. When you were still in your coma I asked."
"And?" Natasha pressed him when he didn't continue.
"He said he'd regret that he couldn't and didn't do more for you. When I asked what he'd do at SHIELD, he'd said he'd carry on as normal, that solo missions did always suit him better." Natasha dropped her gaze to her lap, feeling, for the first time in forever, ashamed.
"I asked him again after we got you back from Russia." Natasha visibly tensed, but Coulson continued. "He said he didn't know if he'd stay. He didn't know if he could just continue on without you, if he could go back to doing solo missions after working with you. And I know Clint, I've known him for a long time, so I know it's the truth when he said that losing you would probably result in some sort of relapse. At least he's self-aware." Coulson chuckled, trying to lighten the mood, but it didn't help.
Natasha felt like she'd been punched in the gut.
"Would you go back to Russia?" Coulson asked, the question seemed to be born more out personal curiosity than professional.
"Given the right circumstances, maybe." She shrugged.
"Even after everything they did to you?"
"Because of everything they did to me." Coulson was very confused.
"Why?"
"I was born there, raised there. And, as much as I hate to say, there will always be a place for me there. It's were I'm supposed to belong, not here. It was them that trained me, taught me how to fight, to survive. So, it wasn't all bad. I think they know that I if ever voluntarily went back to them, I'd have to be working on my own terms. And, I think they'd accept that."
"You'd go back and work for the people who want you dead?" Coulson could believe a lot of things about Natasha, and that was not one of them.
"On the contrary, they want me very much alive. They were never going to let me die back in Russia. I'm much to valuable alive. But, like I said, the circumstances would have to be right."
"What would the 'right' circumstances be then?" Natasha didn't answer, only smiled, and Coulson knew she wasn't going to say anymore.
"What are you going to do if Clint dies, Coulson?" Her handler opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
"You know, I've never been asked that question." He scratched his head. "I don't know."
"Well, you might want to find out." On that note, Natasha left, going back inside to wait in that tiny room some more.