The Aftermath
Every bump in the back of the ambulance led to Ellie’s eyes going wide, panic and pain etched into the features she tried so hard to keep expressionless. Natasha kept her hand wrapped around the little girls, trying not to think about who she had just left and where they were now headed.
“First name?” a paramedic asked, her eyes flickering between Ellie and Natasha.
“Elizaveta,” the latter responded.
“Very pretty name,” the woman smiled. “Any allergies?”
“No,” the Russian shook her head, the room had made sure in one way or another, that none of the widows were allergic to anything.
“Has she taken any prescribed or recreational medication in the last 48 hours?” The woman continued writing on the clipboard in front of her.
“No,” she recalled the celebration on the last day the girl had to take metabolism stabilizers months ago.
“Any chronic conditions or concerns we should know about?”
It was an open question, one that Natasha knew she should answer honestly. And yet, there was a part of her that knew not to say anything about the teleporting, about the ability the girl possessed.
“She has a hyperactive metabolism.” The redhead settled on saying.
“Great, that’s all I need for history,” the paramedic finally looked up, and toward Ellie, “can you tell me where you hurt the most?”
The hand in Natasha’s clenched and went clammy.
“You can tell her ,” she murmured.
“My arm… and also,” big green eyes fell on Natasha who nodded, “my belly.”
“Okay, thank you for telling me,” the ambulance came to a stop as the paramedic smiled, “You were so brave, would you like a sticker?”
The collar around the girl restricted her moments but still, she looked at Natasha for approval, and the Russian nodded.
“Please.” Ellie held out her hand and marveled at the sicker as the back doors opened up, nurses and doctors greeting them.
The team spoke quickly to each other and the paramedics before they all seemed to turn their attention to the little girl on the stretcher who looked impossibly small. They rolled into the emergency room, not stopping as they went straight to the imaging center, Natasha at a near jog to keep up with the fast pace.
“Hi there Elizaveta, I’m sorry to hear that you’re a little banged up,” a doctor looked at the girl, “but my team here is going to take great care of you. We’re going to make sure your arm and tummy are looking okay on the inside.”
Clearly, the information from the ambulance had already gotten to them, the whole team it seemed was ready for anything. As much as she hated the location, she was acutely aware that they were in the best place for the curly-haired girl.
“We’re going to do a contrast MRI so just a quick stick-” a nurse added the IV as soon as they came to a stop, Ellie thrashed as Natasha used her grip on the girl's hand to settle her, “and all done.”
“She’s going to get a mild sedative just to keep her comfortable while she’s in the machine,” another person explained to the redhead who nodded, trying to figure out what Maria would have done in the situation, “And until that runs through her system we’ll get her ready for the scan.”
“Okay,” was all she could seem to get out as they entered a small room next to the machine and handed Natasha a child-size gown.
With the IV and the girl's winter clothes, she fumbled to get the new material on the child who winced every time her arm or stomach was touched. Ellie shivered slightly in the thin fabric signing one word: Mommy.
“I don’t know,” the Russian was honest, “but as soon as I find out, I’ll tell you.”
“Promise?” green eyes met hers as the child stuck out her pinky finger.
“Promise,” Natasha interlaced hers with the good hand of the girl and shook it once.
They waited a while longer until a nurse came in, added the sedative to Ellie’s IV, and brought her into the MRI suite, explaining everything as they moved. Natasha sat in the room off to the side, listening to every movement, every question they had for the girl who responded with a quiet, slightly slurred response.
“That’d be the sedative,” the tech to her left informed her, “it will wear off in the next few hours.”
She nodded once, watching as they carefully moved the girl onto the table of the large machine. If Ellie looked small on the stretcher, she looked absolutely tiny on the table.
The nurses and other technicians left the room and entered the one Natasha was standing in.
“It will be about an hour, we have a little screen for her to watch a show while the time passes,” a tall nurse explained to Natasha as he took in her face, “she said space was her favorite so we found one about the stars.”
The redhead nodded and looked back into the room where Ellie seemed calm even as the machine started the whirl around her.
“While we wait, can I take a look at some of those deeper cuts?” the same nurse asked, once again scanning Natasha’s face.
She was aware that there was some pain, bruises, and maybe a few cuts, on her face but she had pushed the pain away to focus on Ellie. Natasha glanced again at the little girl.
“She’ll be okay, it will only take a few minutes,” he tried to reassure her.
“Okay,” it seemed like the only word she could find.
The two exited the room and walked back to the main section of the hospital where the man sat her down on a free bed next to the nurses station. He talked to one of the other staff members and came back with a suture kit in hand, it seemed her cuts were deeper than she knew.
“I’m going to take it this isn’t your first rodeo?” He filled one syringe with saline to wash the cut and another with lidocaine to numb the area.
“Not by a long shot,” she sat statue still as he rinsed the first cut, placing a plastic basin under it to catch the water. She almost dumped the whole thing as she moved to get a better view of the stretcher that whirled by them.
It was Maria’s boots that caught her attention first, still laced up as they moved her, too fast for it to not have been an emergency. A medical team of her own yelled to each other as they moved her deep into the hospital.
“Your…” the nurse in front of Natasha asked.
“Girlfriend,” she responded without a second thought.
He hummed in understanding as he placed a hand on her shoulder to guide her back to the bed she hadn’t realized she had left.
“As soon as I get word on how she’s doing, I’ll make sure to let you know,” the man slowly injected the area around her cut with lidocaine, she didn’t as much as a wince.
The final snip of the nurse's scissors had just rung out when the curtain was ripped back Tony tried to display nonchalance, but she could see it. A layer of panic in his eyes as he looked her over and glanced around the small space.
“She’s getting an MRI, said her arm and her stomach hurt, a few small cuts on her face,” Natasha watched as a small amount of relief hit him.
“You?” he did a once over of her body.
Natasha pointed to the stitches in her forehead, “Fine.”
They looked at each other for another moment, she knew he wanted to ask and yet he kept the question to himself. At least for another 20 seconds before he blurted out “Hill?”
She took a steadying breath, “I don’t know.”
“The little one will probably be done soon,” the nurse cleared his throat and the two found themselves following him back towards the imaging center.
It was only after Tony glanced at her again that she took in the sight of her clothes. She had little rips and tears in her jacket from where she had crawled through the totaled car, some of them deep enough to have reached the skin in little red spots that had crusted over in blood. Her hair still had little pieces of glass embedded in it, as for her hands she didn’t know whose blood was under her nails and ebbed between her fingers.
Later , she told herself, it would all have to be dealt with later .
“It looks like they’re just finishing up prepping the other… um let’s see… ah Hill for surgery,” the nurse looked up from his tablet after scrolling through the data.
Ellie was still on the table as Natasha nodded, “What kind?”
“She’s under general surgery's care but the head of our neuro department is scrubbing in so it looks like they are going to be working on a few areas,” he looked between Natasha and Tony.
The former had to lock her knees to keep from falling over. Neurosurgery, there was something wrong with Maria’s brain. General surgery, there was something wrong with her body too.
“Alright, she’s all done here,” one of the techs cut the tense air as another entered the room and helped Ellie into a wheelchair.
“How you feeling, kid?” Tony was the first by the girl's side as she exited the room.
“Um,” hazy green eyes blinked slowly, “ I feel kinda funny like I am going to just float .”
“Translation?” the man looked to Natasha who felt compelled to run a hand down the girl's head.
“She’s not feeling bad, I’ll tell you that much.”
They rolled Ellie back up a different way than they had come, entering elevators and walking down long corridors. Corridors that became more and more empty until they entered a massive suit that was fancier than most hotels.
“The suite?” Natasha asked the man next to her who no doubt had purchased the lavish room.
He shrugged, “the wing.”
“Tony,” she started, knowing that it must have cost a fortune but then she watched as Ellie settled down into the massive hospital bed and smiled, “Thank you.”
“Yeah well,” he still looked worried as he surveyed the space, “I owe Hill.”
It wasn’t the reason he did it, not really, but Natasha nodded all the same. The curly-haired girl’s head lulled to the side as she tried to fight off the sedative.
The two adults both took seats, Tony at a spot by a bay window and Natasha right next to the child who blinked a few times before her eyes closed. It was quiet for a few more minutes before a knock at the door had both of them looking in the direction.
“Hi there,” a new doctor walked in, “I’m Dr. Palmer, I’m one of the surgeons here. If you have a minute I’d like to go over the medical plan for both Hills.”
Natasha looked at Ellie who had fully fallen asleep before she looked at the blonde across from her, nodding.
“Well start with Elizaveta,” the woman looked at the same type of tablet that the nurse had looked at earlier, “she has a fractured radius in her left arm, that’s going to need a cast. She also bruised her kidney and suffered two hairline fractures in her fifth and sixth rib on her left side.”
“Will she need surgery?” Natasha tried to take in all of the information.
“No, luckily it’s just the cast and some bed rest of her,” Dr. Palmer shook her head, “we’ll want to monitor her for another 24 hours to make sure nothing else pops up. But no surgery.”
Both Tony and Natasha nodded.
“The other Hill, however,” she squared her shoulders, “she’s currently with my colleague Dr. Strange undergoing surgery to stop an intracerebral hemorrhage.”
A brain bleed, Natasha was thankful that she was already sitting, unsure of the dependability of her legs currently.
“She has some other internal bleeding as well in her abdomen but we have a team working on that as well,” the blond tried to reassure even as the words she was saying were anything but reassuring.
“The brain bleed-” Natasha found herself asking, “Is it bad?”
“I have personally seen worse,” the neurosurgeon let out a breath, “I have also seen better.”
It did little to help the redhead’s racing heart.
“But Steven,” Dr. Palmer smiled and shook her head, “he’s… he’s truly the best. She is in the best hands possible.”
The blonde waited for a minute longer to answer any further questions, leaving only so that she could scrub in with her colleague. Natasha sagged against the seat and pulled out her phone, texting three numbers to the man she saw more as a brother than anyone else.
Nat: 811
Clint: Where?
Nat: Metro-gen, Ria.
Clint: on the next flight
They had come up with the system long enough ago that the story changed depending on who told it. Natasha remembered it one way, Clint another, but either way, the system held: 911 for death or near death, 111 for when they were bored and wanted to talk, the first number changing depending on how bad the situation was, the higher the worse.
She looked across the room at Tony as he too was engrossed in the phone in his hand, panic still in his features, only smoothing once the phone was back in his pocket.
“You sure you're okay?” He raised an eyebrow and tucked his glasses into the collar of his neck.
The redhead nodded, her body hurt, her head hurt, but it was all pain that she had experienced before, and knew that there wasn’t anything to fix it. At least not enough to make it worth it, she wanted to be as alert as possible. They both sat quietly as time passed, neither making an effort to hold a conversation.
Minutes, maybe hours later, the door opened. Pepper was through the door first followed by Steve and then Bucky, the last having a backpack strapped to him as his cool eyes scanned the room.
“Oh- are you- oh-” the blonde looked at Natasha and her stitches before her focus shifted to Ellie in the bed, tears filled her eyes, “Are you two okay? Really?”
“We’re okay,” Natasha nodded and accepted hugs from both Pepper and Steve.
She had taken a step back before a metal arm grabbed hers and brought her in for a crushing embrace. Bucky let out a breath and released her, following Pepper over to where the woman stood by Ellie. The blonde placed a kiss on the girl's forehead and walked over to where Tony still sat by the windows, she sat in his lap and placed a kiss on his forehead as well.
Bucky softly brushed a piece of hair out of Ellie’s face and then stood guard by her bed, the little girl’s eyes fluttered open.
“Soldat,” she smiled and winced, “ I get a cast .”
“ What color will it be ?” his face was softer than Natasha had ever seen it.
“ I can choose ?” Ellie squinted.
“ I think you can, and also have people who you like sign it. That’s what Steve would do when he had them ,” Bucky's eyes drifted to the blonde by Natasha who had only picked up his own name.
“He said people used to sign your cast when you were a kid,” Natasha filled in.
“That’s true,” he scratched the back of his neck, “felt like I was always carrying a pen around.”
“You had lots?” Ellie yawned, her words still slightly slurred.
“Oh geez, I had- what, at least 5 right Buck?”
“More,” was all the brunette said.
“Which is why he knew exactly what to pack you for your time in the hospital,” Steve pointed to the backpack, “he was always bringing me stuff when I was admitted.”
Bucky unzipped the bag and dumped its contents out onto the bed, Natasha got closer to see everything he had crammed in it. A few changes of clothes and Pajamas for Ellie, Natasha, and Maria, all soft, all elastic, or containing buttons and zippers to accommodate any new medical equipment.
“Hey, I helped pick out the clothes,” Pepper pipped up from where she leaned into Tony.
The next were games of all types and sizes, some Ellie clearly knew, some she didn’t. At the bottom of the bag, a small mountain of candy and snacks fell out. Ellie reached for a pouch and tried to open it, howling in pain before she could remember one of her arms was injured.
Bucky’s eyebrows furrowed as a deep frown crossed his face, Steve was at his side in an instant, “It’s okay you just have to be a little more careful.”
“Soldat?” Ellie’s eyes still shone in pain as she held up a pack of fruit snacks.
Barnes tried to open the package but being upset with himself for not thinking about that, he put too much force into it and soon the gummy snacks rained down on them all, much to Ellie’s delight.
Pepper stood up, pulling Tony behind her “We’ll go get a nurse and let them know she’s awake.”
“Another!” Ellie handed the man a package, this one he opened up softly.
“Here,” Natasha reached out to take the package, sorting through the snacks until she realized Steve and Bucky both stared at her, “she doesn’t like the grape ones.”
Ellie gladly took the remaining snacks, shoving a handful into her mouth as another knock sounded at the door. A small team of people walked in with various items that Natasha took a minute to put together.
“Here for a special little girls cast,” one of the nurses smiled and looked at Ellie who quickly shoved another handful of snacks into her mouth.
They all sat and watched Ellie wiggle uncomfortably as layer after layer of plaster was applied to the sleeve covering her arm. She had gone with a dark blue after learning that they could paint it to look like the night sky. Steve had volunteered to paint each planet and constellation himself if not only to keep the girl occupied with ideas. He was still talking to Ellie as Dr. Palmer appeared back in the doorway, softly motioning for Natasha to join her.
You’re a widow, you’re made of marble, you do not falter, she reminded herself with every step of the seemingly never-ending walk to hear Maria’s fate.
“It went well,” another Doctor spoke to her as soon as she reached the hallway, his brow slightly damp, his brown hair perfectly in place, “I’m Dr. Strange, I performed the surgery.”
“Thank you,” she swallowed, relief washing over her.
“She’s in the room next door in a private ICU,” the man looked at the room next to them which bustled with activity, “she will be unconscious for another 10 hours at least. In the meantime make sure the child knows to give her mother room to heal, not to touch her incisions, no loud noises, no jumping on her and whatever else children do-”
Dr. Palmer elbowed the man in the ribs, Natasha was thankful, she wanted to do it herself, Ellie wasn’t a dog, she knew what hurt people could handle.
“What he means is, she will need time to heal both her surgical sites, and as for now, that will be best done with gentleness and the lowest amount of stimuli,” Dr. Palmer gave a small smile.
“Thank you,” Natasha nodded and looked at the door once more.
“We’ll be back later but we just wanted to let you know that she did well, we don’t anticipate any complications,” the blonde smiled and lowered her head as she walked away with the other surgeon.
The Russian took a deep breath and dared to look into the room, Maria had an oxygen mask over her face, her hair had been shaved slightly on the left side where a long incision trailed her hairline, her arms were full of IVs and a team of nurses placed a bandage over a row of stitches on her stomach. She took another breath and walked back into the other room, explaining to everyone what the surgeons had just said.
Pepper sunk into Tony with relief, Steve smiled at Ellie from where he had sketched out a design over her cast, and Bucky gave one solid nod. Natasha looked at the little girl who blinked a few times, not fully grasping how close Maria had come to- no she couldn’t think about that, the redhead swallowed and smiled at the girl who flashed a gap tooth grin back at her.
It was late by the time everyone left, all promising to be back by the morning with breakfast and anything else they could need. Tony had trailed back the longest, double-checking whatever he found necessary before he too exited the room.
It took some time for Ellie to figure out how to get into her pajamas with a cast, Natasha switched between trying not to laugh and wincing at the pain on the girl's face every time she moved her arm at an odd angle. The child’s curly hair was wild as she looked up at Natasha who sighed and picked her up by the armpits and placed her back down on the bed.
“Let me fix your hair,” she knew it would relax not only Ellie but her as well.
Immediately the girl sank into her touch, not pulling back even as Natasha threaded her fingers over knots.
“Do you understand what happened with your Mommy today?” she figured now would be as good a time as any to explain it.
“She got more hurt than us when the car hit,” Ellie continued to sit still.
“Right, you got hurt in your arm and your ribs, she got hurt in her stomach and her…” she swallowed, “and her brain.”
The girl went rigid as she spoke, “but she is okay?”
“She is okay, but we won't know more until she wakes up,” it was something one of the nurses had explained to her along with the possible side effects of the surgery a few hours prior.
“When will she wake up?” Ellie’s voice was little as she asked.
“They think in the morning she will wake up, but- we- we don't know about that either. Surgery on brain is very complicated,” she finished one braid and started on the other, “so we will just hope that everything went okay and we get to go back home soon.”
“Home,” the girl echoed.
They continued the last braid in silence, Natasha squeezing the girl's shoulder twice as she turned around. She took in the girl's face as she asked her the last question of the night.
“Do you want to go see her?” green eyes met her own as the child gave a tentative nod, “Okay but you need to know a few things.”
Ellie listened carefully as Natasha explained how she would need to be quiet and gentle with Maria, how she had different hair now, and that they would need to be careful with her for a while. The 7-year-old soaked it all in and led them both to the door after the explanation was over, she was desperate to see her mother.
They crossed the hall and opened the door, a few nurses stood quietly in the room, taking vitals and typing away at a computer in the room. Ellie took two big steps before finally her gaze landed on Maria, she halted abruptly. Natasha walked up behind the girl who leaned into her leg, worries etched into her features.
“She’s okay, you see that monitor over there? The one that beeps?” The Russian pointed out the steady heart rate monitor close to the wall, Ellie nodded, “That means that she is okay, it’s showing us exactly how many times her heart is beating.”
The child didn’t move and Natasha knelt down next to her, taking Ellie’s good hand in her own and placing it over her heart.
“You feel my heart? That thumping?” She breathed in deeply, and the girl nodded, “That’s my heart, that means that I’m still okay.”
She flipped the girl's hand over to her own heart, “you feel yours?”
“Yes,” Ellie whispered.
“That means you're okay too,” she pointed to the heart rate monitor again, “and those beeps, they mean that Mommy's heart is working just like ours.”
She stood to her full height and placed her hands on Ellie’s shoulders as the girl continued to stare at Maria, eyes flashing to the monitor over and over. The woman looked identical to the way she had a few hours earlier and Natasha hoped that she would wake up soon.
They stayed for a few more minutes, Ellie pressed into Natasha’s legs before they decided to leave for the evening. The rest of the night was somber as they got ready for bed, the sedative still in the girl’s system as she began to drift off. The last thing she did before sleep swallowed her completely was place her good hand over her heart and took a deep breath.