NO. 10 - THEY LOOK SO PRETTY WHEN THEY BLEED

Internal Bleeding, Blood Loss, Trail of Blood

Agent: Romanoff, Natasha

S/O: Coulson, Philip J.

Assignment: Escort nuclear engineer from Iran

Rendezvous: Odessa, Ukraine (w/ Agents Barton and Coulson)

Date: 2009 (estimated time to be determined later by route)

Status: Active

The engineer sat in the backseat, bouncing up and down with unease. Natasha rolled her eyes. Yes, she was extremely paranoid, but that just came with the lifestyle of being a S.H.I.E.L.D agent.

Mountains and evergreen pine trees passed by outside the car windows. Orange soil lined the roadways and climbed into the mountains and rows of rolling hills on the Odessa countryside. Somewhere distant, navy blue waters crashed along the shoreline and sent the flying salty air up into the nearby seaport. The fresh breeze filtered into the car and teased Natasha. But alas, the agent was stuck inside the vehicle as an escort for an engineer from Iran to Odessa, Ukraine.

He looked out the window and spoke in very broken english, "Almost there?"

"Almost," Natasha replied, glancing at him in the car mirror.

That's when a glint of metal caught her eye. She looked again and realized it was the metal of a very large gun standing at a higher part of the cliff. The loud bang of a gun reached her ears and one of the car's front wheels suddenly popped. Natasha swerved and tried to keep the vehicle from falling off the edge of the cliff.

The road in front of their vehicle split into two directions: left and right. The left was the way Natasha was supposed to turn, continuing closer towards the rendezvous point at Odessa. Unfortunately, the shot out tire didn't allow for the car to turn that direction. She went right, which meant they'd be closer to the cliff and sepperated from town by a thick patch of forest. Off the edge sat sandy shores and blue waters.

The engineer looked like he wanted to scream, cry, wet himself, or do all three.

Natasha yelled, "Hang on!"

The car shakily made its way down the road, going in a zigzag line in order to hopefully avoid getting shot again. Another bullet whizzed by, followed quickly by another that cracked the window over the backseat. Natasha saw a man leisurely walking down the road. He had long dark hair and wore a pair of goggles. A bulletproof mask covered the entire lower portion of his face, not giving away a single detail about his identity. The most alarming part about the man was his metal arm, which Natasha had previously mistaken for a gun.

Natasha froze. Was that Soldat? The very same assassin known as the Winter Soldier, a ghost in the intelligence committee and one of her former trainers? Their situation just went from bad to worse — a lot worse. In her hesitation, the other back tire went out and flattened to nothing. The car spun out of control and went right off the side of the cliff, engineer screaming all the way.

Metal screeched in contact with the sandy clay soil. The waves crashed along the rocks about a hundred meters from Natasha and the now wrecked S.H.I.E.L.D issued car. Glass from the windows was littered across the car and the beach. Natasha mentally calculated how long it would take for Soldat to discover they weren't dead and to finish them. She unbuckled her seatbelt and fell onto shards of glass.

Twisting upside down, Natasha crawled out the door from the passenger side of the car. She quickly found the engineer and checked his pulse, letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Natasha finally remembered her emergency comms and activated them along with sending over her coordinates. She knew Clint would instantly yell for Coulson, and together they'd set off from the motel they were currently at in Odessa. She also realized, with a colorful string of Russian, that it would take them at least ten minutes to get to her location.

"This is Romanoff, requesting immediate backup." Natasha hoped that her voice didn't show her fear. "I repeat, immediate backup and extraction."

Clint responded instantly, but she turned off the comms and ignored him. The former Red Room student wanted to confirm that it was Soldat, as if the metal arm wasn't already a telltale sign.

The engineer woke with a groan, and Natasha put a finger to her lips to prevent him from talking and alerting Soldat to their very much alive presence. She dragged him over to a large boulder and stood on her knees to look around the corner, gun drawn. The engineer was crouched behind her. His eyes darted around nervously.

In less than a second, Natasha felt her lower left abdomen explode in pain. She gasped and collapsed, leaning all her weight on the boulder. The engineer fell to the side lifelessly next to the comm. It barely took her a second to know he was dead. Natasha put her hand to her stomach and immediately felt wet blood gushing out at a fast rate. She shakily looked up and realized Soldat was gone, just like the ghost he was advertised as.

Based on the warm blood now coating the back of Natasha's (Clint's) hoodie, she assumed the bullet had gone all the way through and killed the engineer. So much for covering him. Natasha struggled to breath. She lifted a bloody hand and picked up the comms, unsure if she actually pushed the correct button with her heart racing a million miles an hour.

"—Phil, I swear to fucking god if you don't skip that red light!" Clint was shouting. She heard their handler somewhere in the background, but was too tired to comprehend his words.

"C-Clint..." Natasha gasped out.

"Nat? Nat, please stay with me. What happened?" Clint said quickly. "We're on our way and almost there."

Her vision started clouding with black and red spots. She couldn't feel anything now, which both relieved and terrified her to the core.

"I-I... I'm s-sorry, Clin'..."

"No! Stay awake, Tasha, please, please. Coulson, help!"

And with that, Natasha finally fell into unconsciousness and let the comm drop next to the dead engineer.

When his partner first activated the comms, Clint was instantly on high alert. Natasha never required an extraction or any help before, so something was definitely wrong.

He was stationed at the rendezvous point at an Odessa motel with Coulson, who had just returned from picking up some food for the pair of them. Clint had kept the radio comms channel open the whole time, but never once received an update except for once several hours ago when Natasha had first crossed the Ukrainian border. Her mission of escorting some bloke from Iran to here was scheduled to last over a day's worth of driving.

"This is Romanoff, requesting immediate backup." Clint could pick out the shakiness in her voice. "I repeat, immediate backup and extraction."

He paled. "Tasha, what's happened?" A clicking sound made Clint curse as he realized Natasha had already disabled her comms. "Copy that..."

He grabbed his comms and flung open the door. Coulson, holding their car keys, hurried after him. They reached the car and started it quickly, pulling out of the parking lot and speeding off towards Natasha's coordinates. Clint already vowed to kill whoever hurt his partner and best friend. He clenched his fists so hard, they turned white under the strain.

"Go faster, Phil, I swear to fucking god if you don't skip that red light!" Clint yelled.

Coulson actually sped up the car. "We don't know what to expect, so weapons out. Be prepared for anything, Clint."

"C-Clint..." Natasha gasped out.

"Nat? Nat, please stay with me. What happened?" Clint said quickly. "We're on our way and almost there." Natasha was silent for a second longer than he would've liked.

"I-I... I'm s-sorry, Clin'..."

"No! Stay awake, Tasha, please, please. Coulson, help!" Clint begged.

There were only two more sounds: Natasha slumping onto the ground, and the comm falling with her. The engine revved as Coulson sped up once again. They neared a patch of forest and pulled a u-turn, edging closer to the cliff's edge. At the bottom, a smoking S.H.I.E.L.D car sat alone. Clint jumped out and skimmed down the cliff wall, not being that steep — all before Coulson had even stopped the car. He noticed a trail of blood droplets from the shattered window, following it to a boulder.

The body of the engineer was bleeding through his head, but Clint didn't even bother to do anything. The man was already gone. Natasha, on the other hand, was scooped into Clint's arms. More blood spilled sluggishly from her stomach and onto Clint's t-shirt. He choked back a sob after successfully locating a weak pulse.

Coulson honked. "I'm coming, Phil! Where's the nearest hospital?"

"Further in town, so c'mon!"

Clint set Natasha down in the seat and moved next to her. He monitored her pulse and elevated the assassin's legs. Her skin was too pale for Natasha to not be in shock, and Clint feared he might've been too late. Natasha groaned but didn't wake up. He continued to hold pressure on both the entry and exit wounds, feeling nothing but more and more blood. She went into a coughing fit. Blood dribbled from her mouth. Noticing the navy hoodie she wore, Clint loosened the collar and placed his own jacket over her to keep Natasha warm.

They'd just reached the hospital's emergency entrance when he heard her breathing shudder into nothing but gasps. Clint immediately removed his hands from her abdomen and performed CPR, counting silently in his head at how many compressions he'd done and pushing against her chest (probably breaking a rib with the pressure). After several seconds of this, he clenched her nostrils shut and titled Natasha's head back in order to breathe for her.

Clint didn't even register the hospital employees wheeling Natasha away and delivering urgent medical care until tears ran down his cheeks. Coulson parked the car and made his way to the agent, embracing him.