A/N: I've just seen Age of Ultron and ... OH GOD I'M GONNA STOP. As expected, AoU butchers Romanogers but, hey, that's what fanfiction is for, right? *ugly crying*
So here goes my frustration. I'm sorry for the late upload. I had to see the movie three more times before finally coming to terms (well, not so) that Romanogers went down like Pietro. But this is the Marvel Cinematic Universe so ….
This chapter is for MariShal because of reasons. I love your idea. :)
They see her in the small and cramped room, curled in a fetal position.
There were streaks of dried blood on her grayish pale skin, and her distended stomach was covered in fading yellowish bruises. Her leg was in an odd angle, and her back was crisscrossed with whip marks. Eyes that were open yet were unseeing flitted here and there. Shivering, she kept on muttering, "Nobody, nobody, nobody."
This was Black Widow as Captain America made her. Broken.
Steve squeezed inside the tiny space. He knelt down, shield clanging against the dirty floor, and with shaking hands gently touched her bloody shoulder. She flinched at that, and Steve felt his heart burn.
"Nat, I'm here. You're safe," safe? You are the reason for this, Rogers. Steve ignored that thought and instead tried to see how he could carry Natasha out of there without jostling her and their child too much. "Tony. I found her. We're at the eastern side, down the old barracks. I'm getting her out of here. The quinjet ready, Clint?"
"Roger that Steve. The med kit is also ready for her. How does she look? Any major wounds?" Lots of it. Not only on the outside. Steve thought. "We need to get to the Tower immediately. No first aid can help her at this point," Steve said to Clint. An expletive was uttered by Clint. "Yeah, that pretty sums it up."
"Is she okay? Tell me, Cap!" The sounds of battle permeated his headset and he realized that was Tony. "Get her immediately to the quinjet. We're covering the eastern side and I'm gonna get Bruce in a minute after you guys get to the jet."
"Copy that. Over" Steve said.
"Nobody, nobody, nobody," her words haunted him. "Baby, I'm here. I promise you, everything's gonna be fine. Please Nat," he didn't know who he was kidding, himself or Natasha. Everything for damn sure is not fine.
"I'm going to lift you, okay? I won't jostle you too much," Steve slipped one of his arms under Natasha's neck and the other at the back of her knees. He made sure that her broken leg wasn't touching anything before he quickly and steadily got out of the cell. She was lighter than he remembered and that alarmed him because she was lighter and pregnant. Her face looked gaunt, but she was still so beautiful it made Steve's heart ache. There was a fragile air around her now, like a flower crusted with ice crystal.
Any minute she could break.
That thought was enough to make Steve's footsteps faster. "Tony, we're going out. Cover us."
"Copy that, Cap. Hang on." A beat later, Tony yelled "Go!" and Steve went out of the eastern exit. The sounds of battle and guns and Hulk's roar filled the air, but Steve kept on running. He was holding his future in his arms and he wasn't ever letting go.
After three minutes of running, he finally reached the quinjet. Clint opened the hatch and immediately helped Steve. "Set her on the table." Clint ordered in a terse voice. Steve instantly complied. "Tony, we secured Nat. Get Bruce now, we need him."
"Affirmative. Rage monster en route to you. Whoa! Easy, Bruce!" A roar could be heard over the earpiece but Steve disregarded it. It was uncharacteristic for him to ignore a teammate but he supposed this time he could justify it. Natasha needed him and there is no force in heaven or in hell that could separate him from her now.
"We need to stop this bleeding," Steve said while gathering what he needed from the med kit. Gauzes, bandages, wipes, antiseptic creams and a plethora of other medical instruments were laid out in another table. "We'll have to start an IV drip for her. Clint, you have to set her leg first. Damn it, where's Bruce? Tony!"
"Incoming Cap. Fifteen second, tops," the inventor said.
There was a flurry of movement as Clint and Steve tried to save and stabilize the woman they both love, albeit differently. Steve attached two sticky pads to her chest with wires connecting to a screen to monitor Natasha's vitals. The moment they touched her skin, Natasha recoiled, her weak arms coming up to swat the pads away. "No more. Please, no more," Natasha hazily pleaded. "Oh, fuck," the obscenity coming from Clint shouldn't have attracted Steve's attention but it was uttered with pure horror that he couldn't help but look at the archer.
Clint, sensing that Steve was looking at him, gently took Natasha's trembling hands. "Look at her fingertips."
Steve, who was previously looking for any major wounds on Natasha, overlooked the seemingly minor ones but infinitely more painful. He looked at her fingers, bloody stumps where the nails should have been. A vise gripped Steve's stomach and he felt rage, unquenchable rage, for Natasha. If it's the last thing he would do, he would make that man pay for him.
This is your fault too. The annoying voice reminded him. Steve swallowed then looked up to see that Bruce and Tony were getting inside the jet.
"Clint, get us out of here. Banner, Tony. Natasha, she's…" Steve trailed off, the lump in his throat making it hard for him to speak further. Bruce, God bless him, noted Steve's distress. "Get me my bag," the doctor told Steve.
"Is that little Red?" Tony asked, aghast to see their former teammate like this. "I'd be happy to go back there and fire a few more repulsor beams through their black hearts, Cap. Just say the word."
"Don't go anywhere Tony, I need you here," Bruce said. "Try to set up a sterile tent around her. She has a version of Steve's serum but we aren't taking any chances with the child." Silence covered them for a few seconds, all of them staring at Natasha's stomach.
Tony moved first, and quickly assembled the tent. Bruce worked feverishly over Natasha, cleaning her wounds and putting creams to the infected ones. Steve however, for a minute was glued to where he was.
He raised his hands, wanting to touch Natasha's belly. The one that housed her child. Their child, Most of her stomach was painted with fading yellow and brown bruises but he managed to find a relatively bruise-free area. Hesitatingly, he gently touched her front.
Their child kicked.
Natasha's left leg shot out and caught Steve straight in the chest. Rolling and falling from the table, she wasted no time in trying to stand up. Her face was violent like an animal cornered. Alarms went blaring and beeping. Natasha's eyes for a moment become furious and so focused that Steve almost believed that Black Widow had returned.
"Don't touch my child," she said menacingly.
Bruce and Tony looked in on amazement. Here was a wounded, pregnant woman with a broken leg, lacerations and incisions covering her body standing alone and ready to kick anyone's ass. If the situation wasn't actually really grave, Tony might've cracked a joke or two about it. As it was, the inventor approached Natasha carefully.
"Red, we need you to lie down," Tony said point-blank. "You're wounded beyond recognition and standing on one leg isn't doing any good for the tiny arachnid inside you."
Natasha's wild eyes went to him, "Nobody's taking him away. Nobody. I'd die first."
"Nobody's taking anybody from anyone, Natasha, because they'll have to go through me first," Steve's deep voice rang out, "Please, Natasha. We need to take care of you. You and our child."
Natasha's eyes glazed over the moment she heard Steve. It was like watching a fierce tiger be subdued by fire. She slid down the floor and curled in on herself. "He's not coming. He's not coming. Nobody's coming. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody." Tears were coursing down her face but it didn't seem to register with her.
Steve gingerly knelt in front of her and scooped her up. He set her on the table while Bruce reattached the wires to her. "I'm here, Nat. I'm here. I'm never letting you go. I can't," Steve said in a low voice while patting her head and simultaneously trying to be out of Bruce's way. "Nobody. Nobody. Nobody's coming for me. For us," Natasha cried softly, eyes shut in pain.
"Autopilot engaged," JARVIS voice announced over the P.A.
A moment later, Clint was at the other side of Natasha. "Hey, Nat. You look terrible," the archer tried to say with a light note but miserably failing. He couldn't keep the worry out of his tone.
At his voice, Natasha's eyes opened and immediately focused on Clint. "Clint? You're here," the pain in her voice was evident and Steve almost felt the same deep inside him.
"Clint, please. Help me," that one word resounded deep with each of the men inside the quinjet. Natasha, never, ever, ever, asked for help. "Help," her voice, hoarse though it was, conveyed enough misery for all of them. Especially for Steve.
Her fiancée, calling for help at another man.
Not him.
Him who should have been the one to protect her, to believe in her. In the end, it was him who betrayed her. It was him who cut their ties with each other.
Clint inched closer to Natasha, hands wavering and trying to find a harmless place to touch her. He settled for her hair. "We're patching you up, Nat. Hang on, okay? You and your baby. I swear after all we've done, if you don't make me and the rest godparents for this child, I'll kick your ass again," the tears in the eyes of the archer threatened to spill over. "Or maybe you could kick my ass. I don't care as long as you let us fix you, alright?"
Bruce looked at Steve, "Cap, we need to sedate her. The additional emotional stress isn't conducive for her mental state and we have no idea how deep this goes." Steve looked at Natasha's wet and vacant eyes and nodded. The doctor motioned for Tony to get the sedatives and he injected it to her IV.
"I'll be here, Nat. You won't ever be alone again." Steve promised her and kissed her cheek. Clint did the same, then went back to the cockpit. Natasha's struggles faded with the sedatives in her bloodstream. With a final squeeze of her hand, Steve left the transparent tent to make room for Tony and Bruce who were still working frantically. He sat down on a stool in front of the tent, watching as the two left inside try to save the woman he loved.
She was lost.
The lines of reality and fantasy were so blurred she couldn't distinguish which is which.
Memories assaulted her. The Red Room, Petrovich, Alexi, Yelena, Clint, Fury, Tony, Bruce, Thor. And… Steve. Pain engulfed her being.
She had a hallucination (or was it a memory? She honestly couldn't tell) of being carried across the snow. An inhuman roar, sounding suspiciously like the Hulk, the whir of Iron Man's repulsor beams and gunfire.
The hallucination then faded into the Battle of New York, taking down the numerous Chitauri soldiers and protecting civilians.
Jumping off a round, red, blue and white shield.
A graveyard, a folder, a kiss.
The images continued to churn, and it absolutely made no sense. There was no order to it, all random things that she had filed away for years but she couldn't shake the niggling feeling that somehow, something was important.
Then she felt her baby kick.
That was when she became lucid, or at least, as lucid as she could be with blood loss. She tried to be as fierce as she could and someone who looks suspiciously like Tony approached her. She felt dread because Alexei has made another way to break her in. Using her ex-teammates against her would eventually break her, not that she would tell anyone.
Pain was coursing up and down her body and she felt that at least one bone in her body was broken. Then and there, she slipped again to another hallucination because he was there. He came closer, promising to never leave her. Bullshit. Everyone left her.
The minutes went by alone in her own head, filled with confusion and anger and worry. Another lucid moment came when she heard Clint's voice. It felt and sounded so real that she asked for help. She begged for Clint to help her because she knows that she's approached her limit. A moment or two, later, she was being dragged down by lethargy and sleepiness. No! I have to get to Clint! Have… to …
It was the last thought she had before oblivion claimed her.
After stabilizing her, there wasn't anything more to be done than to wait for them to get to the Avengers Tower where they could do surgery. Bruce checked the vitals and motioned for Tony to come closer.
"How long has he been staring at nothing?" the doctor quietly asked. "Long enough. He's been there ever since we started working on Natasha," Tony said with a soft tone. "Do you want to call Dr. Cho? She could be at the Tower two, three hours after we get Natasha there."
"Might as well. The damage is so extensive that maybe we need Dr. Cho's technology," he agreed. "In the meantime, we should tell Steve what we discovered."
They looked at the supersoldier who was currently doing the universal what-do-I-do pose with his hands cradling his head. Steve looked utterly defeated. Not a word that Tony would normally associate with Captain America.
"I don't think now's a good time. He already has enough to process as it is. It could wait," Tony said gently. "Let him regroup."
Bruce nodded, then sat down for a long night.
There it is, folks. Sorry it's kinda sort. :(
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