She comes to stretched out in the back seat of an unfamiliar car, pain tearing through her chest while Clint fights to pin her beneath his body. Panic rears up and she throws herself from side to side, body burning, nerves screaming. She struggles in his grip, too far gone with the pain to tell whether he is trying to help or harm her.
"Natasha it's me," he tells her, voice tight with the exertion of trying to hold her still. "I have to slow this bleeding so I need you to try not to move. You need to trust me here."
Desperately, she reaches for her memories, hazy and indistinct, and finds only a partial idea of what led to this point. She remembers blood. She remembers pain. She remembers Clint Barton saving her ass. She remembers a stolen car and barely clinging to consciousness while he got them clear of the attack, his voice talking to her throughout.
She tries to breathe but her lungs won't let her and it's nothing to do with his weight on top of her. "Hurts," she manages to grind out. Her entire left side is on fire and she can feel the stickiness of blood between the fabric of her shirt and her skin.
Barton's eyes soften and he places a palm against the side of her face, willing calmness into her with his gaze. "Shh I know," he reassures her. "Hold still, let me help you."
Though her brain can make perfect sense of the request, her body refuses to comply. She writhes around the pain and the hand he is pressing into the wound in her side slips out of position. His fingers slick with blood come into view and she grimaces, mewling with pain.
It isn't in her nature to show how badly things hurt but with Clint she has no barriers. She won't hide from him, even if it goes against her nature. Faced with pain like this, she can't find the energy to lock her masks in place. Breathless, she tries to speak, cold sweat breaking out over her skin at the agony a simple inhalation causes. "G...bullet out."
He nods and that's all she needs to know that he's going to try and help her in any way he can. "I'm going to try and get them out," he tells her. "I need you to work with me here Nat," he says gently.
Natasha stops fighting, squeezing his fingers to show that she understands. Concentrating on taking shallow breaths, she tries to find a mental zone that will help her manage the pain.
He pulls off the leather jacket that covers his upper body and places it under her head to make her as comfortable as possible. With quick, economical motions he adjusts her clothing so that he can see the wound that is causing her so much pain. Briefly she finds herself thankful that she is wearing civilian clothing rather than her suit; they both know just how difficult it can be to strip a one piece outfit like hers away from damaged flesh. "Ready?" he asks. At her nod, he counts. "One, two …"
He acts before the count of three and though she's half expecting it the pain steals what breath she can muster. Natasha bites her lip as he digs out the bullets, trying to ignore the way in which the dull edges of the pain sharpen under his ministrations.
He talks to her the whole time, though if she's being honest she has no idea what he says. Her body trembles with the effort of remaining still, nerves jumping in response to the stimulus. When biting her lip is no longer enough to offset the agony, she turns her head and bites down on the sleeve of his jacket to hold in the screams that try to force their way out of her throat.
By the time he pulls out the second round, she is wavering between nausea and unconsciousness. The pain is so sharp that she feels sick as her body tries to absorb it.
She swallows, concentrates on breathing and lets him guide her hands to where she needs to apply pressure, trying to hold the remnants of the shirt that he has removed and torn into strips to her stomach with rapidly numbing fingers. Pain surges over her, tinting the world violet and making shadows dance on the edges of her vision.
Reassurances fall from his lips but his focus is exactly where it needs to be. The bullets have to come out, it's only practical. Once he has her condition stabilised he can get back behind the wheel and get them to a safe house where she can rest up and heal properly. All she has to do is hold on long enough to get there.
Distantly she hears his jubilant exclamation of, "Got it," as he pulls free the round that was buried somewhere beneath her bottom rib. The press of his hands on the site, and the resulting explosion of pain, brings her surging up from the seat, a cry forcing its way past her clenched teeth. Fireworks detonate like grenades behind her eyelids, bursts of red and white and silver.
Darkness rushes in like the end of the world and she slumps back down, hearing nothing but the rushing of her own blood in her ears, slipping away from him but powerless to stop the fall. Clint's eyes come into view, concern showing in their depths. His mouth moves but she can't make out the words. Lifting a hand to touch his face, smearing her own blood across his cheek like war paint, she tries to convey her thanks. She twitches her lips into a ghost of a smile.
Another wave of pain breaks over her and the world fades to black.