Chapter 4
Natasha hates it here.
She hates that they’re going to know just how fucked she is. She can’t hide it now.
She’s going to have to tell them about Irina, and Sana.
They’ve got her blood.
They’re going to do scans.
They’re going to know.
She wishes she could disappear.
Her attention wavers and she sees Bruce standing at the door talking to the doctor that was in before.
Tony joins them and there seems to be an argument.
She’s too tired to read their lips, instead she closes her eyes and sighs internally.
Clint, Tony and Bruce are the only ones that have read her whole file.
Tony because he’s a nosy prick with all the technology and no boundaries, Bruce because of the mission in Bolivia and Clint, well that was a gift; and he knew it was too.
The three men know the workings of her body, the simple changes that make her different and now, the stranger of a doctor will too.
There’s a reason she doesn’t get sick, why she churns through medication quickly, why little cuts; not matter how deep, will heal without scars.
There’s nanites in her blood.
There’s still Red Room poison in her, but up until this point it’s saved her, kept her alive.
Like all her memories, it’s not something she could ever get rid of. It’s part of her.
The doctor looks over to where she sits, then back to Bruce, anger on her face as she says something.
It’s got Clint on alert, and clearly it’s nothing good. He squeezes her hand in reassurance.
She’s not above killing the doctor, Natasha thinks, fists clenching unconsciously, if it would eliminate another person knowing all of her.
Clint might even agree.
Her teeth bite hard into her cheeks.
She’s not running because she knows what this might be.
Death.
The beginning of the end.
She feels it, the dread that washes over her.
Pain spikes as she shivers to cover the flinch.
The headache is dulled comparatively to the morning but the day of tests has been exhausting. More emotionally than anything else.
She can feel her mind slipping.
Clint hasn’t left her side and keeps his hand in hers; even when she tries to pull away. Maybe because he thinks she’ll pull out her IV.
She won’t.
If anyone can fix her, the three people arguing outside her room can.
.
Tony paces.
Bruce is steady.
The doctor frowns.
“What do you mean?”
Tony feels anger, restlessness and thoroughly inept; but he pushes it down, trying to get his head around what her blood work and scans have revealed.
He read her file, but seeing the way it works, the way it’s affecting her makes it real.
Her past is a horror story, to him maybe, to her, it’s real life, and now the horrors are back.
Like they ever really left her alone.
Natasha looks up from her chair in the room and they make eye contact through the door.
Tony tries to hold it but she closes her eyes instead.
His anger boils at the unfairness of what he knows.
“Her nanites are failing, they’re dying,” Bruce explains in layman’s terms; trying to make sure they’re all on the same wavelength.
The doctor refers to her pages and nods.
“Why now?” Tony understands most things but he’s not a doctor, this is all so far out of his comfort level of knowledge.
“They’re old,” the doctor says bluntly.
“She wasn’t supposed to live this long.”
They’re all silent in that realisation that the upgrades that came with being a Black Widow meant that they didn’t expect them to live past a certain age.
Bruce crosses his arms, face gaunt with a twinge of green around the ears.
Ignoring it, Tony continues.
“So they’re in her blood?”
He doesn’t understand. If the nanites make up everything, in her blood for repair, healing, he’s sure there can be a simple fix.
“Give her a blood transfusion,” he rationalises.
The doctor shakes her head.
“It doesn’t work that way.”
Bruce is the one to explain further.
“It doesn’t treat the cause,” he says, slowly.
“They’re in her, everywhere, even if we gave her a blood transfusion, they’d still be with her, and if we try and get rid of them, her body will shut down, she’s lived to long with it, to not live without it.”
The doctor hands Tony her scans to further the point. There’s grey and blacked parts, and she points to all the places the nanites are.
Everywhere.
Infecting every part of her.
The doctor looks to Natasha.
“Do you know anyone from her past? Anyone that could have programmed the nanites? That could essentially preform a system upgrade?”
Tony understands that, like a computer.
He appreciates the analogy.
“We can do it then?” he asks hopefully. He preforms system upgrades all the time. How different can this be?
“What, you’re experts on nanorobotics and molecular homeostasis?” the doctor shakes her head.
“Not yet,” he says fiercely. For her he will. How hard can it be?
The doctor sighs, a loud heaving of breath.
“I don’t doubt you’d both, but it’s a specialised field, specialised fields…”
Tony scoffs and gestures to the tower. He can do it, he knows he can.
“I’m not saying you can’t..”
But that’s what he’s hearing.
“To save her, we will,” he says defensively.
“I understand, you might, but it just won’t be in time,” the doctor tells him.
“You might kill her.”
Sighing, the doctor rubs her face, tucks all the paperwork under her arms and looks to Bruce.
“Find someone who was there, find someone who understands now and they might be able to reverse it.”
Appealing to Tony, she tries to tell him as it is. He can’t save her.
Not this time.
“She’s going to die before you figure it out, tailor it to her, and figure out what works for her.”
“I’ll figure it out,” Tony says fiercely, anger on his face.
“Tony…”
But he pushes past her, entering Natasha’s room, welcome or not, unwilling to hear more.
Bruce wears a face of acceptance and the doctor appreciates his calm. It’s ironic given his reputation.
“Do you want me to tell her?” he asks.
Someone has to.
Maybe Natasha can tell them who they can contact.
The doctor looks to Bruce and then Tony who’s sitting on his computer, that’s appeared from nowhere.
“I think we should,” she decides, “I want to run a few more tests.”
Bruce nods.
“What other tests?”
“Maybe a PET scan. It might tell us where the nanites are attacking, what’s been damaged, if anything, find a way to slow it down.”
She starts to walk away, and appeals to him one last time.
“Bruce; find someone who can help, anyone, this isn’t going away, and we don’t have the current technology. Convince Tony. We’ll do what we can, and I suspect that Natasha will trust you more, ask her, she might know more than she’s letting on.”
.
Natasha feels it coming, she doesn’t have time to alert Clint.
She’s gone and back and none the wiser of time that’s passed, except wide eyes looking at her saying her name.
“Mmok,” she tells him, wishing she could take the worry away.
“Do you want some water?” he asks, holding up a straw.
The disorientation on waking has her vision blurred, but as it’s cleared she sees Tony on his laptop in the corner.
“Hey,” he acknowledges, and although he covers it, she can see she scared him.
“You had another one, but this time we caught it.”
He points to the EEG that Natasha is still attached too.
“They’re going to do a PET scan, which isn’t as fun as what it sounds,” he continues.
“Your body is trying to kill you,” he says bluntly.
Overwhelmed, Natasha falls silent.
Her head hurts, it’s thumping and she’s so tired.
“Go’way”
Clint glares.
“They want me to find someone from Russia to fix you,” he starts, “they think I can’t.”
It’s like it’s a personal assault on his intelligence.
“But I don’t know everything,” he turns his screen around, and Natasha is assaulted with an image of her own body.
From what she can see, the nanites are everywhere, but not integrating like they usually are.
They’re stationary, moving slow.
“Tell me the story of Irina,” he asks.
She doesn’t know where he’s got the name from.
“It’s this, or Russians,” he threatens.
Clint frowns.
Her head hurts so much.
“Wrong,” she bites out, sitting up a little straighter, taking a deep breath, pushing all pain down.
“Sana,” she sighs.
“Sana is the one you want to look up.”
This all costs. Spilling her secrets, talking, knowing that he won’t find anything, that she’ll have to say it.
“Sana, got sick. Seized. We tried to hide her. Hide when it happened. But they knew. Punished us. Took her. We thought. We thought they’d kill her. Like Irina. Defective, they said. But. They didn’t. They fixed her. She came back. Not sick.”
Clint squeezes her hand.
“So it can be done,” concludes Tony.
“That was then,” Natasha replies.
She closes her eyes.
“Go away Tony,” but it’s not unkind.
He leaves, with Clint following behind.
Natasha trusts that he’ll fill her in on everything they’ve found, or not found.
She closes her eyes and forces herself to sleep.
.