Katya let herself drop from the top of the bus- or more, she fell off- and Peter stumbled forward just in time to catch her. The entire side of her dress was scarlet, a wide slash in the cloth doing a poor job at hiding what was underneath. He lowered her to the ground slowly, trying to quiet his inner panic as best he could, which the adrenaline helped, but when he brought his hand away from the back of her head that he cradled in his lap, it was scarlet as well. "Shit, Katya, I-"

"Where were you?" Her voice sounded like it wanted to be angry, but pain was all he heard.

"I was getting the stuff, I ran as fast as I can-"

Katya shook her head, and tried to sit up, which Peter stopped with a hand to her chest. "Don't move, you're hurt."

"I should've brought the tracker," Katya rambled to herself, "I should've kept the serum on me, I should've known-"

"Shh, shh," Peter hushed, trying to calm her down. All he could focus on was the massive slash to her middle, though her bicep was bleeding badly, too. No no no no no- "You're hurt."

" I know-" she craned her head up just enough to look down at herself. Her voice shrunk,"Oh, my dress…"

Peter almost laughed. Of all the things to focus on. "How did she find us?"

Katya's face darkened. "I don't know, but she recognized me. I don't know how she connected the drone to us, or to me specifically, but she remembers me from the Academy even though I was years behind her." Something in her voice suggested she knew exactly why Aneszka remembered her, but she didn't elaborate. Instead, she winced in pain, which sent pang through Peter's chest. He'd never seen her so much as admit pain before.

She tried to roll over, but Peter kept her down with a hand to her chest. "Pauchok, let me up, I have to find bandages."

"No, myshka, you're just going to make it worse." He knew he didn't have any in his space under the locker and was pretty positive she didn't have any in hers. He slid his cellphone out of his pocket. "I"m calling Happy."

He put the phone on speaker between them so he could get to work on webbing what bandages he could. He managed to get one neatly around her bicep and was working on onback of her head when Happy picked up.

"Go for Happy," his voice was clipped, as if he already knew why they were calling.

"Happy, we need you down here as soon as possible, Katya's hurt, badly, and I think she needs to go to the hospital-" Peter's tone was as quick as his heartbeat, despite how calm he was trying to stay.

"-I don't need to go to a hospital- Katya protested, grimacing.

"She needs medical attention," Peter plowed through, "She's got a huge gash on her side, and I've stemmed the bleeding for now, but-"

"-Kid, we sent you to a school dance, what the hell happened?!"

"I"ll explain when you get here, but hurry!" Was that anger he heard in his own tone? He hadn't meant to sound that way, but it was urgent.

"All right, I'm on my way. Are you guys at least still at the school?"

Peter sprayed a wad of webbing between his hands and began to wrap around Katya's middle, continuing to spray as he went along so he could get the majority of the cut under control. He could barely tell the delicate fabric of her dress from the hacked, ragged edges of flesh, so he just webbed it all together as best he could. "Yes, Hurry!"

"I'll be there in ten. Can you move her to the rooftop of the nearest tall building?"

Peter glanced across the street at the apartment complex that sat across from the parking lot, the tallest on the block. "Yeah."

"Okay, be there. Keep her awake." The line went dead.

Katya was still struggling to sit up, which caused a gush of red each time she moved that Peter could see through the semi-translucent webbing. He pushed her back down. "You need to sit still." He was astonished his voice was coming out as calm as it was, because his brain was running a million miles a minute. He couldn't have run any faster, but maybe they should've been more prepped just in case- he should have worn his suit under his clothes, so he'd have webbers at his disposal- but it made no sense, how did she find them? As far as Peter had understood they were going to leave it alone for a while, and there'd been no suspicious movement from the tracker the past couple of days that would've suggested anything like this-

Katya was still trying to finagle her way into a sitting position, but he pushed her down again. "Myshka, stop fighting me!"

"We have to- " her voice was loose, weak, spilling like marbles on the asphalt. "She could still be close-"

"Katya, no. " It hurt him to have to be so firm with her, but she was clearly delirious. The crack on the back of her skull wasn't too deep, but she still must have hit her head pretty hard. "We're gonna go across the street and wait for Happy, okay?" He tried again, softening his voice.

Katya nodded blearily, but was still trying to sit up. Sighing, Peter picked her up, cradling one hand beneath her neck and the other under her knees, trying to keep her from moving her abdomen as much as possible. Grasping as tightly as he could to the adrenaline coursing through his veins to keep his eyes dry and his head clear, he walked them across the street and shot a web up to the top of the building's scaffolding, raising them up, slowly, lest he jostle her too much. Once they'd reached the top, he loosed the web, and laid her out at the corner of the rooftop, situating her across his lap. If Happy wanted them on the roof that meant he was probably bringing the helicopter, so they needed to give him room to land.

Katya was muttering something in Russian, none of which he could understand, and her eyes were wavering between opened and closed. Peter patted her face softly. "No, no, you've got to stay awake, myshka. We have to stay awake until Happy gets here."

"Mhm." She nodded blearily, and Peter could feel warmth beginning to spread to his dress pants. He looked down- she was still somehow bleeding through the webbing. Shit shit shit shit shit-

He laid her out, flat on her back as carefully as he could, and made more wads of webbing to patch up where the red continued to spread. "Hey," He asked her, in as casual a tone as he could muster. "Hey myshka, can you teach me something in Russian really quick?"

That seemed to get her attention because she stopped mumbling and nodded. "Blyat." she replied.

"What?"

"It means shit, or fuck, as in 'oh, fuck!"

Peter smiled to himself. At least she was still herself. "Thanks. But no, I was wondering- how do you say "I love you" in Russian?" He quickly smoothed down a patch of webbing before beginning to make another. Anything to keep her talking,and awake.

"'I love you'? Ya tebya lyublyu. 'Love' is 'lyubov, but when you conjugate it-"

"Ya Tebya Lyublyu." Peter tried, but even he could hear the butchering in his pronunciation.

"Ya Tebya Lyublyu." she repeated.

"Ya Tebya Lyublyu."

"Yeah," she smiled blearily, "You've almost got it. Just need to work on…the accent a bit…"

He reached forward to pat her cheek lightly. "Katya, stay awake please. We're on our way home and we're going to eat all the Angry Children you want."

Katya smiled, and opened her mouth to say something, but her voice was drowned out by the sound of an approaching helicopter. Peter stooped to collect her in his arms as the wind picked up, displaced by the propellers, and stood, just as Happy landed. He practically sprinted around from the pilot's side to help.

"What the hell happened? What'd you do to her, kid?"

Peter felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. "I didn't do anything! We were-"

Happy shook his head. "I know, I'm sorry, that was a poorly timed joke." He took Katya from Peter's arms so they could load her into the helicopter.

Anger flared in Peter's gut but he said nothing, knowing Happy was just trying to keep the mood light. "We were ambushed." He climbed in before them to help Happy transfer her into a seat in the back, as reclined as possible.

"By what, a sabertooth tiger?"

Peter's nerves were fraying. "No, by the Black Widow we've been following."

Making sure Katya was secured in her seat, Happy nodded. "That makes more sense." He jogged around the helicopter to hop back in the pilot's seat, handing Peter two pairs of military grade noise canceling headphones that served as both comms and ear protection for the flight. He put his own on, and then slipped the others around Katya's head, careful to avoid the bandages.

As the propellers powered up, Peter yelled, "Which hospital are we going to?" He saw both Happy and Katya wince and realized that he didn't have to yell over the sound with these on. "Sorry."

"We're going back to Tony's Medlab, they'll take care of her from there."

Peter sighed heavily and nestled as close as he could to Katya, wrapping an arm around her reclined form just to keep her close. As Happy began to take off, Peter couldn't bite back the heat from his eyes any longer, though he still tried to stave them off as best he could for Katya's sake. He stroked her hair with his free hand, occasionally patting her cheek to keep her conscious. Not caring that Happy could probably hear them, he started talking, anything, to keep her up.

"We're going back to the Avenger's compound now, okay? We're gonna go see your plants- you can show me where you want to put that new one I got you," he tried to keep his tone casual, but his voice was breaking. "And we can pick out places to put more. I'll buy you all the plants you want. We can make your whole room a garden."

Katya smiled, which hopefully meant she was absorbing at least some of what he was saying. "A whole greenhouse, full of sunflowers and vines."

Peter nodded. "Yep, full of them. I'm sure Mr. Stark would build you a greenhouse if you'd like. We could design it ourselves, and make it out of solar-powered panels, that'd be fun, wouldn't it?"

"It could power a hydroponic watering system so it's self-sustaining."

Peter grinned. "Exactly! We can do exactly that. And we can hang out there all the time, and eat Angry Children, and watch movies-"

"Maybe we could plant food and stuff, so we can just eat tomatoes and stay in there forever." Katya was still smiling. Peter checked the back of her head for new crimson, but thankfully the bandages there were seeming to hold.

"Sounds great. I'd love that."

"Me too."

"Katya-myshka-" he wasn't so sure about the grammar of it, so he just repeated what she'd said, because he didn't want to fuck it up. "Ya tebya lyublyu."

"Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu, pauchok."