She's Mine) Romanogers

Part 28) Mission Saftey

Okay, so this is a big jumble of old and new parts, so again, continuity errors galore. I had re-written several of the sections in this one, and then went back to add fillers to string them together.  

Several agents and myself were sitting around the round table as Fury stood at the front of the room going over the details for our mission. Natasha was sitting to my left and I couldn't draw my attention away from her hand that was absentmindedly drawing something on the table. I kept trying to figure out what it was, but between trying to look like I was paying attention to Fury and my own thoughts beating loudly in my head, I couldn't.

"Once the main extraction of the hostages is done, Romanoff and Rogers will stay behind for a few days and make sure everything is settled before returning on the second jet," Fury kept explaining, I knew that what was really going on was the other agents in the room would do the heavy lifting, and after that Nat and I would stay to keep things safe was just code for the two of us would get to spend some time away from the tower. Fury continued byt I kept half listening. Natasha was looking through the table, her eyes far off and her head clearly somewhere else, odd behavior for her. I noticed a few familiar faces of agents also staring at her, making side chatter about how off and unusual her behavior was, if I heard it I shot daggers at them till they shut up.

"Questions?" Fury asked, and several hands went up, and he started to answer them. I could tell he kept watching Natasha out of the corner of his eye, keeping tabs on the spy to make sure she was okay. She very clearly wasn't.

I myself had a quick question and was about to raise my hand when I felt a familiar pressure on my left shoulder, and looked down to see Natasha's head there. I would have known exactly what it was without looking, but I was in such a state of disbelief that I did need my eyes to confirm it. She would never be so public with a display of affection like this, especially with how Bruce had been lately. I was panicking, this wasn't normal. I dropped my head close to her and held my own breath while I listened to make sure she was breathing... thank goodness, she was. I took a sigh of relief while also being careful not to move too much to disturb her.

"Meeting adjourned," I heard Fury snap mid sentence and cut someone off. I watched the wave of shock go through the room as all the agents got caught off guard by the sudden change in the room, and then watched as they all noticed Natasha passed out on my shoulder. I all but growled at them all, a warning to keep their mouths shut, a few of them immediately found the ground very interesting to look at. The rest of them were already scrambling out of the room.

Once the door closed, I wrapped my arm around her carefully. "Mhh," she gave an agitated groan at that and a bit of a fight. I felt her muscles tense in a panic, but she didn't move any more than that.

"Easy, it's just me Nat," I assured her, and she seemed to relax at that. Within seconds, her breathing was completely evened out again and I knew she was close to a deep sleep.

"She's exhausted," Fury observed, eye slightly wide in fear and shock, the most I had seen from him in a long time.

"I know," I mumbled, keeping my voice quiet since I was so close to her, I didn't want anything to wake her up or disturb her right now... but I was also pretty sure it would take a bomb going off to wake her up. It was so unusual, she was usually such a light sleeper.

We were both silent for a while, just the sounds of her light breathing to fill the room, the severity of the situation was hitting us. She would never do something like this unless she was completely, utterly exhausted. Her body had nothing left to give, she couldn't stay awake through a damned meeting.

"Are you sure sending her on a mission is the right move?" I couldn't help but question it, I knew that she needed a damned break from Banner, but sitting here was too much for her body. How would she make it through an infiltration on a multi-acre base? I knew she was strong, but even the strongest people need fuel to make it through the simplest of tasks.