"Miss Romanoff's heart rate has dropped below an acceptable normal range for her regular vital statistics. I suggest you attend to this matter quickly." JARVIS's voice rang throughout the tower, alerting those present in the tower to her current conditions.
Clint immediately snapped out of his trance and noticed that he was perched dangerously close to the edge of the roof, a matter he would deal with later. He ran down the several flights of stairs to her floor in the tower and say Tony and Bruce running toward her room from the elevator with the same sense of urgency.
"Where are Thor and Cap?"
"Here, Stark," Steve replied from behind him. "Thor went back to Asgard this morning, something to do with his brother's punishment."
"The med bay we're building isn't done yet if her heart is already affected by the malnourishment…" Dr. Banner said hesitantly.
"JARVIS, what happened? Scan the last hour of video footage." Tony instructed as they entered the room.
"She's breathing, but it's unsteady. We need to get her down there and figure out what's going on…"
"She looks peaceful, like she's sleeping. It doesn't look like she's bleeding," Steve adds.
"If the anorexia is impacting her heart," Bruce began to argue. "It wouldn't be evident from the out-"
"She tried to kill herself."
Everyone whipped around to see Clint, tears already streaming down his face, holding a handwritten note with shaky lettering.
"Let me see that!"
"We can read later, Tony! We need to SAVE her first!"
"JARVIS, update?"
"Miss Romanoff ingested 40 painkillers approximately two hours ago. Suggested medical steps are: pump the stomach with activated charcoal, force removal of the pills through induced vomiting, and perform life-saving measures such as CPR as necessary if she ceases breathing."
"Oh my god, if she…"
"Get out of the way, Steve take her to the medical floor. Subfloor 3. It's a bit messy, but take her. I'll meet you there."
"Maybe it's time to involve SHIELD." Tony admitted.
"After everything we planned this morning? She would try again. And their useless medics don't know as much as we do about her tendencies. She'd probably succeed there. It's not an option, Tony. Let's go save her."
"Again." Tony adds faintly.
—
It's hours of frantic care, with brief moments of stability before she crashes again, but finally around 6 PM, she appears to be in stable condition and sleeping. Bruce excuses himself to the Hulk Out room to let out his pent up aggression and Tony stays by her side with Clint, who hasn't stopped a steady stream of tears in the hours since her attempt. He has the letter she's written clutched to his chest and he's already located Megan, who has been going to college at USC and staying under the radar as an animal science major with a minor in pathology of infectious diseases in horses. Tony had tried to take the note from him a few times, but his grip remained and never wavered.
"It didn't seem very well thought-out." He says carefully. "The letter was short. It didn't say much. She's wordier when she thinks about things for a long time."
"Yeah, you two seem to have the impulsivity in common, that's for sure."
Her eyes were flittering open and Clint quickly glared at him before rushing closer to her side.
"Nat," he says quietly.
"Bruce said she'd be groggy for awhile, don't expect much."
"I'm…" she stutters. "Why am I not dead?"
"We saved you," Tony says carefully. "Again."
"Why?"
"Because you deserve all the love in this world, too."
"No, you don't understand." She coughs loudly, almost choking on her words as she spoke them. "You don't" cough. "Know what I've done." More violent coughing.
When the cough subsides and she pushes herself up in the hospital bed, she briefly looks around the room, noticing all the wires attached to her arms, chest, and the tube in her nose passing food to her. "I don't deserve food. I don't deserve to LIVE, Clint. Please. Please let me die. You can move on without me being hurt by what happened."
"I don't want to move on," he cries softly. "Not without you. I want to get past it with you. I want to make it better."
"I'm tired," she sighs, slumping against the back of the bed and closing her eyes. She keeps them shut tightly as the tears slip out. "I'm tired of always fighting this by myself. I'm tired of fighting. I'm so tired. Just let me sleep and not wake up. I'm so tired. I can't do it anymore."
"You don't have too, Red. You don't have to."
"You don't have to carry this all by yourself, Nat. And neither do I. We can get through this together, but I need you here for that."
"I can't do it. I've tried and I can't, nothing works."
"But you've only tried alone."
"I'm always alone, Stark." She says sarcastically, opening her eyes to glare at him. "You don't know what it's like and you never will."
"But I can. If you tell me. We can all help you, if you let us."
"You weren't there, you didn't know what it was like. You could never know."
"If that's what it will take to help you, we'll experience it all. You don't have to bear it alone," Steve tells her as he walks into room.
"You can't scare us off now, Nat," Bruce walks in behind Steve, no sign of the other guy apparent. "We're ready for anything."
"It's not pretty," she says slowly after a few minutes of heavy silence.
"Neither was Afghanistan."
"Or World War II."
"Or Loki's mind control."
"Or Gamma radiation."
"We got through all of that with help. From each other. And I'd be willing to bet it's not going to be as hard to hear as almost losing you every few days has been."
"It still might not work. Nothing ever has before."
"Frankly, I don't give a shit." Clint says. "We are going to keep saving you because you are worth saving, Natasha Romanoff. You deserve to be in this world. You did not deserve the things that have happened to you and nothing will ever change that. I desperately wish we could go back and fix it all for you, but we can't. So this is the next best thing. I think I speak for the rest of the team when I say I'd rather be uncomfortable than pump your stomach or stitch up your arms every few days. I would go to the ends of the Earth to save you and, if I can't, I'll follow you down. Do you understand me? I am NOT losing you."
She takes a deep breath. "Okay, we'll have to start from the beginning."