Natasha lay still and unresponsive in the hospital bed, three days into an induced coma. 'She'll be lucky to keep her fingers and toes' they'd said. Steve looked down at her heavily bandaged extremities. 'It wasn't that cold' she'd retort, completely serious. Cold was naked in Russia, held in the snow until the lesson had been learnt. 'It' she would have said 'was an inconvenience'. If she remembered the incident, that is. He had tried to hold her hand once or twice, to let her know he was here but only made it as far as brushing the edge of the bedsheet before he would pull back in shame, currently feeling too guilty or cowardly to touch the results of his negligence. He was however secretly glad she was immobilised – if she knew he was blaming himself she would have given him a good smack upside the head. He winced unconsciously. He had seen her put Tony in time out once.
They'd been messing around in training. He had walked in on her and Clint hurling themselves around, seeing how high up they could fling one another. As one, without communication, they had converged on Steve and thrust his shield into his hand. They had to be telepathic.
"Reckon you can boost me Rogers?" Natasha had asked.
They tried it for real in the field not long after. He watched as she ran up, boots pounding towards him and then jump forwards. He braced as both feet hit the centre of his shield and then he pushed. At his motion she uncoiled and exploded into a lift, fluidly balletic and utterly confident in her trajectory. Grinning, he stood back to watch her flight. Distracted, he missed the weapon, was that a javelin? sailing in from the side. The metal collided with her mid-air and spun her wildly off course. He had to watch on as she tried to adjust herself into a controlled fall, only to then be tackled as she hurtled to the ground. The second hit knocked her sideways and she thudded to the floor, head smashing on to the concrete bridge edge. With too much momentum the strike took her tumbling further and she bounced off and spiralled over, landing in the icy water dozens of feet below with a violent thump.
Retrieving her unconscious form and dragging her to the nearest bank had taken too much time. They had gone as quickly as they could but by the time Clint and Steve heaved her bodily up the slippery edge she was splotchy and blue, bleeding profusely from the side of her head.
They were by her bedside when she was first awoken – Steve, Clint, Maria and Phil. Following a quick delirious thrashing and threatening of medical staff she was released to go home, under the supervision of the latter two. She was currently propped up by an abundance of pillows, her monitors reduced, leaving just a single IV line and an oxygen tube in her nose. Her bandages too were thinner and more streamlined – more of a glove than a catcher's mitt. They'd had to shave part of her hair to stitch her head wound (later she would laugh about it and call it 'quirky' in her pretending-to-be-Russian-pretending-to-be-American voice, though when she was tired Steve would notice her flattening the short curls down in agitated self-consciousness). Her bouts of lucidity were short and exhausting for all, and they hadn't yet been able to gauge her memory – presently hoping her enhancements would kick in and give her a helping hand.
Since returning home Steve had kept up his near-constant bedside vigil, his attention eventually rewarded with a hoarse 'hey' croaked out from the redhead in the early hours of the morning.
"Hi." He eventually whispered back, eyes widening on realising the voice hadn't been in his head. "Sleepyhead." He teased, in a poorly executed attempt at disguising his relief.
She responded with a noise in her throat no native English speaker could have made.
"Oh. Here." Steve bustled into action, bringing a straw to her lips and generally fussing about like a mother hen.
Spent, she leant back into the pillows when he finally stilled. "Steve?" She asked.
"Yeah?"
She nodded. "Thought so."
Oh.
He didn't have time to dwell on the slip as the door was opened to quietly admit Maria and Phil, not so subtly bunched together, hiding something behind their backs.
"Hi sweetheart." Greeted Maria softly.
"Hi." Natasha replied, faltering a little and failing to come up with a name, or even a title, and uncharacteristically lowered her eyes.
"It's okay." Steve reassured, understanding, and reached for her hand in support. "Just be gentle with yourself okay?" Without her noticing he glanced over to Phil and Maria and gave them a look. They each gave the tiniest nod and then returned to their bright and welcoming selves, though the hidden birthday gifts behind their backs suddenly seemed deeply ill-timed. Unfortunately, there was little they do could do as, whilst Natasha was staring suspiciously at them, a helium balloon with a colourful '80' on it slowly and embarrassingly bobbed its way out.
The awkward intruder was met with a blank stare, gradually dissolving to a hard frown as Natasha's brain did the maths.
Natasha tried to point at herself. "Me?" She added redundantly.
"Yeah Natasha. You took a bit of a whack back there. Do you remember?"
She felt fuzzy, and numb. She felt like she did when they…when she was…
"Probes." Her brain offered up, the word bursting forth without her knowing what she meant. "Serum. Probes. No probes. I don't want. Please."
"Hey, hey, it's okay." A hand on a shoulder tried to shush her.
"Nat…Ali. Nyet. Two. Nata…Rom…Nyet. Nyet. Three. Alia. Nyet. Please make him stop!"
"Romanoff." Slightly more frantic this time, Steve wasn't sure who spoke. It might have even been himself.
"Romanoff. Ova. Romanova. Natalia Romanova. My name is Natalia Romanova." The three winced at her mechanical recitation and braced for more as she took another breath.
"Pozhaluysta." Natasha stiffened awkwardly, seizing as her brain tried to make sense of the words spitting out unbidden.
Steve reached to place pillows to either side of her head, hands out ready to catch in case her jerking threw her from the bed. He tried to push down the wave of guilt that was already sloshing in his stomach.
"Roman. Rushman. Romanova. Romanoff. Natasha Romanoff." The affirmation appeared to click correctly and she heaved in great lungfuls of air, grasping at the sheets as lips changed from bluish back to pink and hands unclenched.
"Yeah honey." Confirmed Maria gently. "Natasha Romanoff. SHIELD Agent."
"You're at home. With me, and Phil, and Maria. Clint is on his way up too." Steve added, his voice unsteady.
Something flickered in her eyes and she brought a hand up to her chest. "Home." It hurt. The memory of it. The probes. The pain. Her brain stuttered out more words, trying to make sense of it all. "Fight..Fi…Fire…F..Fa…Family." Something inside of her felt warm and right. She gave a weary smile.
"Family." She whispered again through slowly pinking lips.
Steve felt his chest loosen and he breathed properly for the first time in days. She would be fine.
"Family."