"Jesus, Nat, what did you do?" He says, bursting into the bathroom and putting pressure on the deep marks down her abdomen.
"I'm sorry," she sobs into his chest. "I fucked up."
"This looks like a lot more than one fuck up, Nat. But we can deal with that later. Right now, we need to get you to Bruce because you need stitches."
"NO!" She yells, though it comes as more of a whisper while she is actively losing energy from the blood loss. "He can't… They can't…"
"It's him, or SHIELD." Tony picks her up, astonished at how light she is. She's even lighter than went he put her on his counter a few weeks ago, and she had not been able to afford any weight loss at that point. The cuts continued to bleed as he ran out of the store, ignoring the questioning eyes of the CVS employees and the few patrons mulling around the store. He only stopped once to take a phone out of a woman's hand when she attempted to snap a photo of Natasha's now unconscious body draped over his shoulder.
"BRUCE!" Tony yells as soon as he enters the Tower. "Meet me in the lab, please!" The rest of the team would likely ignore this call as he often called Bruce down for slight discoveries that may interest his other Science Bro. He hopped in the elevator and mentally urged it to move quicker, growing impatient and increasingly concerned every minute. When the elevator dinged, signaling his arrival in the lab, he ran to the nearest table and slid everything unceremoniously onto the floor to make room. Bruce was already waiting for him, wearing a shocked expression when he saw Natasha covered in blood.
"What happened?"
"No time, Bruce. She needs stitches and she passed out a few minutes ago, so I'm assuming she needs blood too." He was panicking now, as they did not necessarily have the facilities to treat her here. Bruce kept a well-stocked first aid kit with supplies for stitches and they had enough tools in the lab for a blood transfusion, but this was no blood bank.
"Stark," Bruce said, making quick, clean work of stitching up her injuries. "Have you seen all of these?"
"Yes," he said slowly. "It's not my place, but this has been happening for at least a month. I thought… Fuck, I thought she had stopped."
"Tony, you can't blame yourself for this. That won't help anyone. We need to focus on getting her better. Can you build something that can function as an IV? I can get the medical tubing and needle from my emergency kit upstairs, but I need a pole and… something to track her vitals. Quickly, I've finished the stitches, but she'll need a few days to heal completely without the blood transfusion she needs. Are you sure we can't take her to SHIELD?"
"Absolutely not."
Bruce gave a sad nod and took the elevator to his floor of the tower to get the medical supplies he needed. He was about to get back in it and head downstairs when there was a knock at the door of his room.
"Bruce, I need to talk through some stuff. Are you free or does Tony still need you?" Clint called through the thick wood. Bruce hastily opened the door and let him in, finishing gathering his supplies.
"Listen, Clint, can this wait? Tony and I have a bit of a situation to deal with…"
"I… Natasha kissed me,"
"Oh shit." Bruce nearly dropped the tubing and needle from his arms. This must have triggered whatever happened this morning to make her do this to herself. "Clint, we really need to talk about this later."
Clint's eyes caught sight of the supplies in his arms, "What happened?"
"Uh…" Bruce hesitated, unsure of how much he was supposed to tell, but unable to come up with a convincing lie quickly enough.
"I'm coming with you." Clint demanded, following him into the elevator.
"I really don't think that's a good idea," Bruce said unsteadily. "She's pretty badly hurt. She's unconscious and we need her to stay that way for a few days while she regains her strength."
"Banner, what happened?"
"That's not his to tell you," Tony interjected as the two men walked into the lab. He had covered Natasha with a warm blanket and set up a few provisional instruments for Bruce to work with while helping her recover. "She'll be fine, she just needs to rest."
"Is there something going on between you two?" Clint asked Tony bluntly. "You've spent a lot of time alone together lately and now somehow you get to know why she's hurt and I don't, despite the fact that I am her partner." He was getting visibly angry at Tony by this point, his jealousy seething through his voice, especially after the events of this morning. Bruce was hooking her up to all sorts of machines and he was growing more impatient with the lack of information he had been given. "She's my best friend and I know the most about what she's been through. I really don't appreciate you acting like I don't need to know what's happening with her."
"She asked me not to tell you, okay? If it were up to me, I'd let you handle it, but she specifically asked that you not know."
"Wha-" he responded, taken aback. "Why would she do that?"
"You can ask her when she wakes up, but right now, she needs to rest and you need to calm down."