Natasha couldn't believe what she had just done. She grabbed the flash drive quickly out of the port, then put it in her belt. Natasha than rushed over to Steve. "Rogers? Can you hear me?" She stood over him for a second, then got down on her knees to face him. "Steve baby. Don't go, okay? I swear I'll get you out of this." She grabbed his face to test his pulse. Nothing. Not even a slight beat. Her hands were covered with blood from the bullet wound. She tried her best to cover up, but her efforts didn't even matter. She had shot him in the heart and that was it.
Natasha could feel her eyes watering. She wanted to stop the tears, but they wouldn't stop coming. "Blin. ne stav' na mne krest, Rogers." She spoke quietly in Russian as she kept her hands over the wound.
Strike team showed up a couple minutes later. Everything was a blur to Natasha. She couldn't remember, but somehow she was on the quinjet.
Natasha stood there. Her hands covered with Steve's blood. Some of the aids approached her, thinking she was injured, but she shook them off. Everyone was rushing around Steve, and all she did was stand there. Tears burned her. She wanted him back the way he had been. She wanted to go back to that one night where she'd let him inside, to all those nights and days before it where she'd flirted with him because it had been fun to see him blush so innocently, where he'd laughed at her jokes and smiled at her knowingly and led her with a firm hand and an impenetrable heart filled with valor. She wanted him back. She wanted him more than she'd ever wanted anything before. This was crushing. She shot her partner and that was it.
Her lips moved in a ragged whisper, "is there any chance?" Clint was there now. Comforting Natasha, he had been air support for the mission
That he'll recover?" Then Clint stepped beside her. His face was weary and worried again as he stared at the destroyed form of Captain America. Then he released a slow, long breath and swallowed uncomfortably. "Not much. They got the bullet out of his chest." Natasha flinched, her eyes flicking to the long bandage that ran down the length of Steve's sternum. She could imagine the horrors under it. A ragged, red scar. Staples and stitches. Blood and cut skin and bones broken on purpose so that hands could reach inside his chest and try to repair his wounded heart. The dark room closed in about her, shadows and suffocation, and she grabbed the foot of his bed to steady herself. "But there's a lot of damage."
"He's been touch and go. He's in a coma. The doctors aren't hopeful that he'll come out of it." Clint's quiet words seemed thunderous in the vacuous quiet. Natasha couldn't stand to tear her eyes from Steve's bruised, unconscious body. It hurt to look at him, to commit every injury to memory. But she did. This was all she could do. At the very least, she owed him this measure of bravery and honor. She wouldn't hide from the brutality. "But he's tough. He made it this far. And he's Captain America. That's gotta mean something."
Clint's taut expression loosened as her shoulders quivered with the strain of holding herself together. He watched her as she struggled, and a heavy moment of emptiness crawled away. In its wake he set his hand to her shoulder and pulled her around and tugged her to his chest. She couldn't relax, not even surrounded by the familiar comfort of his embrace. "You remember what you told me after Loki took me? After he turned me into his weapon." Of course she remembered. It was bullshit, and she didn't want to hear it because this was different. "You told me not to do this to myself."
"Stop," she hoarsely begged. "Just... Please don't try to make it better." He kissed her forehead roughly. "Please don't." She felt every bit of his worry, of his fear that he'd lost her if not in body then in soul. His muscles were tight with pain. She didn't think she could bear his grief in addition to her own. She was raw and brittle and torn. The contact of his skin to hers was repulsive. The thought of solace, of forgiveness, was repulsive. She didn't deserve absolution. Not from him. Not from anyone. Clint let go of her for a second. "Now what happened Natasha? How did Steve get shot."
