Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
She wasn't sure whether the annoying noise woke her up or kept her asleep, but either way it was the first thing Natasha was aware of when she regained consciousness.
The second was that her throat was really, really dry.
And then came the pain, which slammed into her like a brick wall and blocked out everything else – except for that annoying beeping sound."Hrrrgg…" Her head felt like it had split apart and her body hurt all over. She opened her eyes a slit – the light was too bright and it made her headache worse – and promptly squeezed them shut again, giving another groan.
"Hey." Her lover's voice sounded muted, like it came from far away. The side of the bed dipped with his weight. She became aware that her hand was in his. She cracked her eyes open; his image was distorted with the bright lights and her fuzzy head. She tried to say his name but it came out warbled. "Shh, it's okay, I'm here," he said gently, rubbing circles on the back of her hand. "It's okay, Tash. You're safe now, you're safe."
"Where'm I?" she managed to croak, struggling to open her eyes through the disorientation and the pain. She was reclined somewhere, and from the haze of pain she managed to discern the horribly familiar feeling of tubes sticking out of her.
"SHIELD base in Austria," Tony answered. His free hand brushed a few strands of hair from her face and his fingers trailed down the exposed skin of her cheek. "You were out for three days, Tasha. How're you feeling?"
"Hurts," she muttered. She could swallow most pain without complaint, if only simply out of pride and needing to be strong, but right now her entire body stung like she had been raked across broken glass. Both inside and out.
Even though her vision was blurry, she could see how Tony's form tightened with concern and guilt. "Hold on." He spun one of the dials next to the bed. "There, morphine should kick in any moment now." She nodded, her eyes closed. Warmth replaced the pain in her veins, and the familiar fuzzy feeling kicked in. She let out a long sigh. "Better?" he asked and she nodded. "Is there anything else you want?" he pressed and she shook her head. Then she thought better of it and said, tugging his hand, "stay."
"Okay," Tony said softly. She looked so tiny on the bed, so fragile with her eyes closed and her body limp against the pillow, her red hair the only flash of color on her. With her commanding presence and her toughness, it was easy to forget about her small stature and how humanly breakable she was. Her head was wrapped in a bandage, as was her arm where she'd been shot. The left side of her face and neck were swathed in gauze from temple to collar, which hid burns from the blast. Bruises spotted her body in a motley of blue and purple and black. Tubes stuck out of her nose, courtesy of the messed up lungs from the pressure of the explosion, and an IV drip was attached to her upturned arm, where the morphine dripping into her was the only thing that could dull her pain. He knew how stubborn she was, how much she needed to appear strong so as not to seem the weak woman in a team of men; it made his heart constrict to think of how much pain she must be in, to willingly ask for more painkillers.
"Wha 'appened?" she said without opening her eyes.
He frowned and tightened the grip on her hand, before realizing that he could be hurting her and relaxing his hold to as a light contact. "There was another receiver in one of the bombs, a backup in case the first was intercepted. Hydra activated it and it blew up when you went to get it. You were lucky you'd thought of cutting the wires between the bombs – otherwise they'd all have exploded."
"Hmm," she murmured, trying to fit the pieces together in her mind. Her brain didn't seem to want to work; it was sluggish and she couldn't find the pieces she needed to create the picture. She remembered the tunnels under the embassy. Hydra had planned to blow up the embassy, yes, she was starting to recall. The thumb drive they'd gotten, that was how they knew about Hydra's plan. The picture became clear. Hydra turned up in the tunnels, then the fight, and then the bomb that Clint defused… The thought struck her and she grabbed at Tony's hand, wide green eyes looking up at him in panic. "Clint?"
"He's okay, don't worry," he reassured her, pressing her back down to the bed gently. "You're in worse shape than he is." She breathed a sigh of relief. "Your suit protected most of you from flesh wounds," – there was a hint of pride in his voice – "but your lungs got screwed up so you gotta be on oxygen or a while. And your hands were exposed so they're burnt pretty badly," Tony said. Natasha inspected her hands and saw that they were still covered with bandages, with her fingers bared. She wasn't sure if it was because of her pounding head and her still blurry vision, but they looked swollen. "You were thrown against something so your right side's all bruised up" – hence the bandage around her head and the pain down the right side of her body – "and there are a couple of burns down the left side of your face and neck." That would explain the pain that seemed to intensify every time her blood throbbed through her jugular. "The bomb must have been to your left, and you landed on your right."
Her eyebrows pulled down in the middle and she nodded. He could see the anger in her eyes, directed inwards at herself. "Hey," he said firmly. "It's not your fault, Tash." She looked up at him in shock that he knew her thoughts. "This doesn't in any way make you weak. Not to me and not to anyone else."
"It does to me," she said, her voice thick with self-loathing. "I should've been more careful." She had been trained to equate failure with death, and she had to constantly remind herself that Tony and her teammates wouldn't judge her in that way.
He sighed, carding his fingers through her hair, the only part of her he could touch that he was sure wouldn't cause her pain. "You're too hard on yourself."
She smile wryly and then stopped, because it hurt too much. "That's why I keep you around. You make me feel good about myself."
"I hope I do more than that," he said. Under the playful gleam in his eyes was something serious.
Natasha laid her hand against his cheek. "You do," she said fervently. Then she scooted over, with some difficulty due to her injuries, and patted the empty spot on the bed next to her. Tony accepted the offer, toeing off his shoes and sitting next to her. He put an arm around her shoulders, but thought better of it at the sight of the bandages that covered her shoulder.
She laid her hand against his cheek to examine his face. The bags under his eyes, the overgrown goatee, the lines of worry around his mouth all spoke of his sleepless nights. "You look like shit," she said.
"Thanks." He rolled his eyes. "You don't look so great yourself."
She laughed; it hurt her lungs and her ribs so it was a short one. "I was almost blown up, so that might have something to do with it."
His brow creased. "Yeah."
"Hey." She ran her fingers down his jaw to his chin, tilting his head to face her. "I'm here now, i'm alive."
A ghost of a smile wavered over his lips. "Yeah. That's all that matters." He sounded like he was convincing himself as much as her.
"I might not be an agent of SHIELD anymore, but i'm still an Avenger," she said. "And I will be caught in danger. Sometimes pretty life threatening. But given that i've survived literally everything thrown at me so far – and that's a hefty list, you'll know from my file – chances are I'll survive whatever's coming, too. And your worrying or blaming yourself isn't going to change anything about that."
He cupped her face, gently so as not to aggravate her burns, and said, "that's why I love you."
"You utter sap," Natasha said, dropping her hand from his face to hold him around the waist. Even though she leaned her head against his shoulder and faced down at their laps, Tony could hear her smile. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and she yawned. The speech had tired her out, as had all the talking and the disorientation of waking up after three days.
"Sleep," he told her, stroking her hair and she closed her eyes. "If you need anything I'll be right here."
"More morphine," she mumbled without opening her eyes and she felt him reach for the dial. In moments the drug kicked into her system and she gave herself over to the sweet dreamless sleep, knowing that Tony was next to her and that meant, more than anything else, that she was safe.
Note:
Thank you for all those reviews last time! Here's a quick update for being awesome :)
I really do like this chapter. I really like any chapter that has Natasha badly injured and Tony spewing angst.