Thank you so much for all the reviews, follows and favs for the story!

Thought I should post this before you all kill me for leaving you like that. Plus Giants won the World Series! I hope you guys like this chapter, because I had fun writing it and beta-ing it. Ah. Ok, onward with the reading.

Mistakes on this are all mine. See Chapter 1 for disclaimer.

Happy reading!

Chapter 10

Clint Barton could count with one hand how many times he's had something good happen to him. One of them was learning how to shoot. One was joining SHIELD. Another was learning how to fly and the most important one was making a different call and saving Natasha.

So when one Clinton Barton closed his eyes, bracing himself for the end and thanking the deities for those small, yet amazing good things that happened in his life, he was amazed to find his eyes opening.

He wasn't dead.

That left him with on question; why. He couldn't imagine that the infamous Winter Solider couldn't take aim at point blank range. Couldn't imagine the shot was wide enough that he missed and if it was, why it wasn't corrected.

His questions were answered by a gun in his hand and a bleeding redhead at his foot.

Natasha had taken the bullet for him.

Steve Rogers had gone through a lot in his lifetime – his long yet, short lifetime – but sometimes it seemed like all he did was fight.

He fought in the streets of Brooklyn as he was bullied into giving up the lunch that his aunt had packed for him, the small amount of money that he had saved up in order to buy Terry, the girl who sat next to him a Valentine's Day present. He fought as he tried to defend the war to people in alley ways and movie theaters who didn't support the war.

Then he fought for the war. Against the Germans, Hydra and the Red Skull.

He fought for Peggy whose intentions he could not tell because he was just a kid from Brooklyn and he didn't know how to talk to women. Beautiful, smart, strong women at that.

Then he fought to stay alive. His body shut down but kept the fight going as he was frozen in the ice. Always healing, always creating new cells in order to keep him alive.

He fought the memories. Those of the past that haunted him to the day.

He fought the Chitauri and Loki, and even Stark who got on his last nerves.

He fought for Bucky, and his new chance at life that people had been skeptical about.

And then he was fighting again, and this time it felt like he was drowning in air.

And then the fighting stopped, he grasped for air, sitting up at the SHIELD infirmary.

"You're ok, Cap," Bruce told him standing by a beeping machine with a clipboard in his hand. Steve looked up at Bruce with a confused look. "You've been out of it for almost a day. Somehow you were induced with a serum that contracted with the Super Soldier Serum and it made you weak – mortal."

Steve's eyes narrowed at him. "I'm not immortal."

"You almost are," Bruce noted placing the clipboard down. "Tony's working on tracing the chemicals that we found from your body. Each chemical has an imprint of where its origin lies… Tony is trying to figure it out for sure… even though we have our suspicions."

"Bucky. Bucky would know!"

"Winter Solider is nowhere to be found," Bruce stated carefully not wanting to step on the fragile emotions of the Captain who had just woken up from the dead.

"Is he in danger?" Rogers asked taking the wires in his arms out and standing up ready for action. Ready for another fight.

"We uh," Bruce paused trying to formulate how to break it to the Captain that they think Bucky had been behind this whole thing. That the man who he thought had come back as his best friend was actually the cause of his almost death and was out on the run. That the man had managed to fool all of them into thinking that he had changed, defected into a better person when he had not at all.

"Spit It out Bruce."

"There is sufficient evidence that makes us believe he's the reason why you're here and the reason why Barton was poisoned," Bruce started.

"No!" Steve shook his head in protests. "Bucky would never!"

"I'm sorry, Steve."

"He would never! He's a good man!"

Steve thrashed around his bed in distress for his old friend, to the verge of breaking the machines around him.

"I'm sorry."

Bruce came up to the IV that was still placed in Steve's arm and placed in a heavy sedative. Steve needed his rest. They needed time to figure out what was going on.

He looked up at Bucky who looked down at Natasha, then back up at Clint. It was obvious to Clint that the man who stood before him who perfectly calculated his every move had no idea what to do. He had not anticipated Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, jumping in front of a bullet meant for Hawkeye.

He never anticipated that Natasha Romanoff would take a bullet for anyone, but then again, he was thinking of Natalia Romanova. Bucky was sure that the woman who jumped in front of a bullet to save this man wasn't his Natalia. It was Clint's Natasha.

Clint did not need to think twice. Bucky had lowered his guard and it was Clint's time to put his up. Clint, with his dislocated shoulders slowly raised the gun and fired.

One shot between the eyes of the man out of time.

For Natasha.

A shot in the heart.

For Steve.

Another bullet through the heart.

For Me.

He looked at the dead body of the Winter Soldier, cherishing the kill for a split second; a feeling that he has not let himself have since his contracting days.

He knew that the man who was before him used to be one of the good guys. He helped take down Hydra with Steve, was even the man's best friend. But the man before him was no longer the man that Steve had told him stories about. He was reprogrammed and used by the Soviets for their bidding. Murder and killing changes a man, obviously it changed James Barnes.

A groan from the floor shook Clint out of his thoughts and onto the redhead who had jumped in front of a bullet to save his life.

"Natasha," Clint whispered raising her up to check for any other injuries besides the bullet that went through her rib cage. There were no exits on her back and he could hear a punctured lung hiss every slow breathe that she took. He was no doctor; he couldn't go in her punctured lung and take the bullet out that was dodged in there no matter how much he wanted to knowing that it was affecting her breathing.

Natasha's eyes were fluttering close. "Hey! C'mon Natasha. Open those eyes for me."

Clint reached for his radio that had fallen out of his cargo pocket during the ordeal with Bucky and called for an evacuation. He ran his hand through Natasha's hair recalling that it was something that soothed her when she was injured in times before and hoped that it would work then.

"ETA five minutes, Nat. They just have to land and get into the tunnel," He said putting pressure to her wound. He reached for the inside pocket of his vest and started to perform whatever first aid he could. "Stay with me, alright?"

Natasha closed her eyes and squeezed his hand.

"L-U-N-G-S"

She spelled out on his palm.

"I know, Tasha. I don't – they didn't cover this… I'll make sure they cover this at the next buddy care…" Clint sighed nodding his head. The bullet punctured her lungs and it was getting harder for her to breathe. "Breathe with me, Natasha."

Natasha made a motion to nod her head and tried to follow Clint's deep, timed breathes. He was breathing as if he was behind a scope, aimed and ready to kill.

Natasha looked at him as he tried to nurse her to health. He propped her up against him, the com device beside him always at reach in case he needed to call for help.

She took his palm to get his attention and started spelling out words.

"I-M-S-O-R-R-Y"

Clint shook his head. "There's nothing to be sorry for. Come on, don't' worry about that stuff now. Just try to keep breathing."

She fought with her eyes to keep open knowing that Clint would be more disappointed in her. With his hand still in hers, she slowly started to spell to him again.

"R-E-P-R-O-G-T-R-I-G-D-D-D-N-T-N-O"

Clint shook his head mentally calculating the ETA of the medical team that was supposed to come to their rescue. They had two more minutes.

"Don't' worry about it, Natasha." Clint said shaking his head. It wasn't her fault. None of it was. She was reprogrammed by the Winter Soldier, who at his command was able to bring the Black Widow out of her that she's worked so hard to repress. That was over and the important part was that she, Natasha Romanoff, was able to suppress the reprogramming. Enough to save his life.

He looked down at her and noticed her eyes slipping shut for longer amounts of time as she tried to fight away the fatigue.

"Natasha, stay with me here," Clint pleaded with her, brushing the hair away from her face so he could look at her in the eye.

She shook her head at him as best he could, flipping his palm out again.

"N-A-T"

Clint looked at her confused. He saw the tears form in her eyes, clouding her vision. She shut her eyes for a moment and opened them again, shaking her head a little.

"T-A-S-H-A"

"Okay, Tasha," Clint said staying silent and listening for her breathing. There was a his every time she breathed, a sign that air was leaking out of her lungs but if she's held on for five minutes, she would hold on for longer.

"Agent Barton?" a medic stepped in with SHEILD uniform on. "Confirm please."

"0-6-2-7-Alpha- India- Hotel-1-9-3"

The rest of the medical crew came in with a stretcher and carefully extracted Natasha away from his grasp. She twitched in protest as they placed an oxygen mask on her and did as much as they can in as little time while taking her out of the tunnel and into the SHIELD aircraft.

"We have about twenty minutes before that place is flooded with enemy operatives," Clint stated to the agent-in-charge next to him. "We need to get the backup team in there to apprehend whoever the hell is in charge. We need answers."

"Roger."

The agents turned away and started talking on his phone much like Coulson had. Clint shook his head at the memory and let himself be ushered by the medical team to the seat next to where Natasha was laying down.

"Sir, your shoulders seem to be dislocated," the young medic noted as Clint flinched under his touch. He shot the medic a 'you think?' look and turned his attention back at Natasha.

"We have to perform the surgery as soon as we're stable and airborne. If we jostle her, we might decrease her chances of being able to go back into the field and getting a full recovery."

Clint nodded his head. He took Natasha's hand and gave it a squeeze, prompting her to open her eyes.

"They're going to take you to surgery. I promise I'll be here when you wake up."

Natasha nodded her head at him taking her mask off.

"I love you," she whispered, her voice hoarse. It was barely audible, and if Clint hadn't known how to read lips, he would've dismissed her mumbling. But he couldn't. With her pupils dilated and out of focus, she had professed her love.

The doctor rolled his eyes at the agent and snapped her oxygen mask back on activating the anesthesia for her operation.

Clint watched Natasha's eyes roll back as she fell into a medically induced sleep.

"He loved you too," Clint muttered squeezing her hand one last time before letting himself get treated by the medical staff.

So now that everything has pretty much calmed down, and you all have answers to your questions of Natasha etc.

Let me know what you guys think! (Pretty please!)

Comments and Criticisms, welcome!