hey guys :D
so, I've been busy *cough*tumblr*cough*
Hehe. important things, obviously.
so this is an all-out group fic :) the photoset i was working on was being a douche so I'm just going to finish this up
so, basically, this is right after the first mission that Natasha and Clint go on after the event of the movie. They live in the tower at this point.
this came out as a bit more natasha-centric than I'd previously meant for it to be. I'm sorry, guys, I love them all, but Natasha is just about my favorite. also it came out a bit more oneshot-y but whatever haha
I don't own Avengers :'(
Enjoy!
"Oh, no, just stay there. The doctors said he'll be fine."
She'd said that to Tony over the pone about seven hours ago, and that had been right after Dr. Newman had said Clint should wake up in about five or ten minutes. He was still lying there, pale, motionless, and now, possibly comatose.
"It's just that we're having a little trouble picking up brain wave activity..."
She hadn't let the others know yet. Why worry them? There probably wasn't even anything to worry about.
Natasha just kind of wished he'd wake up.
"We're working as hard as we can, but we're...we're just not completely sure what's wrong. Is there...maybe someone you'd like to call?"
But still...it would have been nice to have someone's hand to hold. She'd rather swallow a vat of acid than admit it, but she was scared.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she glanced out the door to make sure no one was coming before she answered.
"This is Romanoff."
"Hey, Natasha, this is Bruce... We were just getting a little worried, it's been a while. Are you having trouble getting checked out, or..."
"Oh, it's fine, just checking him over a bit." She cursed the way her voice cracked. "Uh...yeah, I gotta go. Tell the others I said hi."
She hung up before he could reply and turned her phone off, shoving it in her purse.
Natasha rested her elbows on the bed, plunking her chin down in her palms.
He'd taken a gunshot in the thigh, which was only really dangerous from the blood loss, and then a heavy hit to the head. It had been hardly two month since they'd taken Loki down back in New York, and Natasha was still sore from the effects. Clint was distracted and slightly stiff. Fury had called them out too soon, and Clint was now paying the price, thanks to a low-life follower of a dangerously important Japanese drug dealer.
A burst of anger flashed through her. The sound of the thug's neck breaking as she'd snapped his head to the side echoed in her ears, and she slowly calmed. But then it started to sound like the gunshot and she glanced at her unconscious partner's ashen face.
Natasha cautiously reached out and gripped his calloused hand. Her fingers looked so dainty, creamy white and petite, but she knew the horrors they'd inflicted. For a moment, they flashed dripping and bloody before her, and she squeezed her eyes shut for just a moment and they returned to normal.
But there was just a bit of blood still under her fingernails. She squeezed Clint's hand in a way that, had he been awake, would have been painfully tight.
Her voice came out as a raspy whisper. "Why won't you just wake up already, Barton?"
Now, had this been a movie, Clint's eyes would've opened right then and there, and she was ashamed to admit that she held her breath for half a second and waited, just waited, but this was real life, as she knew all too well.
That didn't mean she didn't feel a little bit worse when he still stayed like that, lying there as lively as death.
Like a statue.
"Na...Natasha?"
She almost jumped. Perhaps she would've, but she hadn't been truly startled in years, and she wasn't about to start now.
"Oh...", she tried to sound light-hearted but she mostly just seemed tired. Like she'd been drained over and over without fully recharging in between. "You guys came..."
Thor had to duck just a little bit to get through the door.
"This is a crappy hospital," Tony muttered. Bruce glared at him.
"Not now, Tony."
"Well, I'm just sayi-"
"Tony."
He quieted after a moment.
"So...", Steve asked quietly, "Is he going to be alright?"
She glanced at him. "Well, his doctor originally said he'd be awake...," she checked her watch, "...about eight hours ago, and they asked me to call his family. Not that he has any, but I'm pretty sure that's not a good sign," she replied cynically.
Steve glanced at the ground. "Sorry."
There was a long moment of silence in which no one moved, no one hardly breathed, but then Tony pulled a chair up next to her with a screech of metal on tile, and he gripped her hand. In that moment, differences could be pushed aside and disregarded. They just didn't measure up.
Following his example, the others all took seats around Clint's bed.
And she had to admit, although it wasn't perfect, not by a long shot...she did feel a little bit better.