Budapest
“Hawkeye in position.”
“Widow in position.”
“Your codename is still really stupid. Widow…” Natasha heard Clint mock in her comm.
“You are literally named after a bird, Clint. I have yet to see you fly,” she retorted, hearing a snorty laugh.
“Snarky, spidergirl.”
Shaking her head, she followed Clint inside the building on their first partnered mission; elimination and acquiring of information, in Budapest, Hungary. Not extremely far away of Russia, and just as damn cold at this time of year, Natasha reflected. She had never been a big fan of the winters in Russia.
Difficulty-wise, the mission proved to be a 3/10. The security personnel were no match for Natasha and their target, for someone having the reputation of a dangerous crime boss, was a complete dumbass that told the duo everything they wanted to know.
“In and out, no problem,” Clint summed up contently, securing a rope for them to climb down to the streets.
Natasha grinned, sliding down the rope elegantly and landing softly like a cat.
“You’re slow,” he heard her in his comm as he followed in a more controlled manner.
“Easy, kid, I’m an old man.”
She chuckled.
Feet touching the ground, he offered her a hand to high-five. She did before he realized he should probably not have coerced her into touch like that. She was always being professional on missions, never faltering.
“Good job, partner. Let’s get home.”
“Can we go eat something first?” Natasha asked, then shrugged at his surprised face. “What? I’m hungry.”
“Sounds great,” Clint replied easily, chest warming up at seeing her want to eat. Mostly, she had an air of duty around her when she supplied her body with its necessities, though at least she was eating, set-backs being less regular and more short-lived. “You familiar with the Hungarian cuisine?”
She shrugged. “Lots of peppers, as far as the cliché goes. No, I don’t really know much about it.”
“Then we’ll let ourselves be surprised.”
She nodded, turning around in the direction of a more lively part of town.
“Uhm, Natasha?” Clint’s tone made her turn around sharply. “Do you think those guys are here for the food?”
Natasha followed his eye, just in time to dive behind a car from a rain of bullets. Clint cursed next to her.
“Extraction!” he hissed into his comm. “We’re being ambushed, get extraction ready.”
“15 minutes,” Coulson replied. The two agents exchanged a glance.
“Not going well,” Natasha remarked dryly. Clint didn’t reply, he just fired an arrow, and then another, and another. Natasha ducked next to the shattered window and started firing as well.
“Who are those guys?” he panted, eyes widened.
Natasha changed her magazine in a second and fired with hardly any delay.
“Red Tigers,” she replied and he turned for a second. It had been a rhetorical question.
“Why do you know that?”
“The gloves. One stripe on the left, three on the right. East European organization of guns for hire.”
“And why do they want our heads?” he asked agitatedly, killing two more in the same breath.
"Am I a fortune-teller? How would I know?" She ducked behind the car again. “I was just good at paying attention in my class on crime organizations.”
Clint groaned, shooting again. This was brilliant. Just a regular Tuesday.
“Did you also have a practical course on how to get out of shitty situations?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I was in that one New York office building once,” she replied. “Does that count?”
“Those were less,” he objected.
“We just have to hold our ground for as long as the others take. We’ll manage.” She sounded more confident than he felt.
“You think?” He shot another fighter dead. Countless people dressed in black flooded the small alleyway like ants in an anthill, cornering the assassins.
“Cover me real quick?” Natasha asked.
“Yup,” Clint said simply and his partner left their cover and dove behind a car on the other side of the street, a bit closer to the attackers. Clint wasn’t sure what her plan was, but he had to concentrate on shooting and couldn’t watch her more than out of his periphery.
He could hear grunting, though, and flesh hitting flesh and deduced that Natasha was doing what she did best, fighting hand-to-hand.
“Out of bullets?” he teased.
“Wouldn’t want to waste them,” she replied, not even out of breath.
“Show-off.”
“Said Robin Hood.”
“Fair.”
They were aware that their banter was surface level, distracting them from the danger they were in.
Clint hit one of the hostiles with his bow, uncomfortable at seeing them get closer.
“Nat, we’re being surrounded!”
“You don’t say.” She snapped a guy’s neck.
“I’m sorry for ruining your perfect mission history,” he snickered. Fury was outright thrilled with Natasha as an investment, she had already gained a reputation for maximum precision, speed, and efficiency.
She scoffed. “I’ll think of something to repay me with when we are out of here.”
Clint was about to reply when another guy swung straight at him, using his momentum to push Clint against the wall brutally. The archer gasped in shock, fighting back after the first second, but the guy was very skilled for a normal mercenary. He had a sort of wooden cane -which was much harder than Clint would have liked- and he used it extremely professionally, forcing Clint to use his bow as a stick to counter the other’s blows.
Robin Hood Vs. Little John, only he was sure this fight wouldn’t end with a life-long friendship. Shit, had the guy just pulled a knife, too?
Just as he noticed the flashing of the blade, the mercenary’s cane hit his shoulder with so much force Clint was almost stunned not to hear the crack of a bone shattering.
His arm went numb from the perfectly executed hit, falling to his side uselessly. Clint gasped in shock as a knife was pushed into his shoulder. He groaned, blood running out of the wound, but managed to kick the attacker away from him, gaining a few seconds.
“Clint!” Natasha exclaimed, and the hostile fell like a tree, blood pooling around his head. She jumped over the car and landed next to him.
“Thanks,” he panted, holding his limp arm to his chest.
“Shit!” Natasha exclaimed. “Shit, you’re bleeding!”
“The main problem is I can’t shoot my bow this way.”
She pressed a gun into his good hand. “Not a problem. Bleeding out is a problem.”
She hastily slung a piece of fabric around his shoulder, fastening it firmly. Clint groaned with pain but kept the gun in his hand firmly.
“You stay here,” she commanded, taking a pair of knives from her boots. Without waiting for a reply, she was back in battle. Clint did his best to cover her up, careful not to hit her by mistake since she stayed close by, always between him and the swarm. She was protecting him with her life.
“Dangit, kid,” he mumbled.
Gunshots echoed through the street, the air greasy with the smell of them. Clint felt the life coming back into his arm slowly, but the wound made it impossible to shoot his bow. Thinking quickly, he stabbed a hostile with an arrow, glad his left arm was trained and had enough strength to do so.
He heard Natasha gasp and spun around, thinking she was injured, but she was on her feet fighting just like before.
“Coulson?”
“One more minute,” Coulson replied. “Are you holding up?”
“Clint needs medical!” Natasha’s breathless voice sounded through the comm, agitated, anxious.
“Relax, it’s not serious,” Clint replied.
Natasha scoffed. “You’d say that with your insides spilled on the streets!”
“Please don’t be that gory, Natasha.”
Clint shook his head, briefly amused with himself. What a dad-thing to say.
“Get here as fast as you can,” Natasha demanded, perfectly serious. She was really worried about him, wasn’t she?
Natasha felt her heart racing in her chest, palms feeling sweaty. There was more than one reason for that, but the main one was Clint. Clint who always took care of her, Clint who hadn’t given up on her when even she had. Clint couldn’t be hurt, he had to live, he had to be okay. What was her point if she let her partner, her friend die? And Laura, how could she ever live knowing she hadn’t saved Laura’s husband, allowing that he didn’t come home to his wife and his son who loved him so much?
She slew their enemies mercilessly, determined not to let them get close, breaths hasty, more exhausted than they should be.
“You won’t get him,” she pressed out in a whisper, eyes blurred with unprofessional tears. “You won’t get him.”
“Natasha!” The voice was loud and familiar in her ear. “Natasha!”
Panting, Natasha snapped out of the moment. She had noticed the transporter approach, the strike units emerging and starting to gun down the Red Tigers alongside her but only now she comprehended what that meant. Extraction was here.
“It’s okay,” Coulson said seriously. “You can stand down, Natasha.”
She straightened herself, clearing her throat. “Yes, Sir.”
Briefly, she held “eye contact” with the drone hovering above her, then, shaking her head briefly, she hurried over to Clint, steps still silent though she wasn’t treading as lightly as usual. He was holding a bandage in place over his shoulder, fingers stained red. He looked paler than he should. She felt her heart beating painfully fast when she got down next to him, ignoring the pain it caused.
“Clint.” Her voice was breathy, almost reminiscent of the night in the Red Room where she had hardly been able to speak with shock. He had to be okay, she had to do something… “Let me.”
Carefully, she moved her hand on top of the bandage, pressing down. Clint groaned with pain.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, concentrating on her hands. “They’ll be right there, it’ll be fine.”
“Hey,” he said rather softly. “It’s fine, Nat, I’m not that bad.”
“Shhh,” she commanded quietly, looking up to see the medical team arrive. She had to fight down the urge of fighting them off, she knew she could trust them but she would much rather have taken care of him herself.
“Look at Barton in trouble again,” one of the medics exclaimed cheerfully. “And we thought having you paired with Romanov would make things better.”
Natasha tensed up slightly. That was her job, taking care of her partner. And she hadn’t managed.
“A bit of respect!” Clint protested. “Without her, I’d be pretty dead right now.” He nudged her a little. “You don’t have to protect me from them, kid,” he said quietly, only for her to hear. She only moved to the side a smidge, letting the medics reach him.
“Do we have to get the stretcher for you?” the one that had just spoken asked.
Clint shook his head. “No, no, I’m fine, no need. I can walk alright.”
Reluctantly, Natasha let go of the bandage and let him get up. She followed a little clumsily, but nobody noticed and she was glad of that because he had to be taken care of, they had to focus on him now, not on her.
True, he walked pretty steadily and chatted with the medics as if he wasn’t injured at all.
"You're not having a good start to the new year, Barton," the paramedic snickered. "and I thought your two injuries last year were a negative record… If you start the year like that, you might break it by Easter.”
Two injuries. Natasha swallowed hard, understanding. Clint had never had as many injuries before he met her.
“And you got out unscathed?” the paramedic asked her with a smile. Reproachful, Natasha thought, as if it wasn’t right that she wasn’t injured if Clint was.
“You just take care of Clint,” she replied rather stiffly.
The medic smiled and saluted playfully. “That’s our job.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Nat,” Clint said gently.
“If you mind that, you shouldn’t have become my partner,” she retorted way more harshly than necessary.
He chuckled a bit, then groaned. “I hate when people go for my shoulder.”
She frowned, worried. “I hope it’s not serious.”
“It doesn’t look like it.” the paramedic replied in Clint’s place. “The wound isn’t as deep as it looks, should be coming back together, from what I see at least.”
They reached the waiting transporter and she left a smear of blood on it when she climbed in behind Clint. Wrapping her arms around herself, she watched how they started treating Clint.
“Not a big deal,” one of the paramedics said. “A few weeks of letting that arm rest and it’ll be as good as new.”
“Great,” Clint replied way too cheerfully for the occasion. “You hear that, Nat? Takes more than that to keep me down.”
“Good to hear,” she said quietly before taking an unused medical kit from the wall. The adrenaline was fading and she knew she had to take care of herself now, now that she knew Clint would be alright.
Jamming herself in the niche that held equipment, she zipped her suit open and pulled it down to reach her leg. Shit. She breathed in sharply, seeing way more blood than she had estimated from the pain. Damned adrenaline. If the level in her brain hadn’t been so high, she might have been smart enough that a gunshot wound was more serious than it felt. On the other hand, she had only been able to keep fighting with its assistance without even as much as a cry.
Carefully, she felt for the bullet, hoping nobody would be too particular about the drops of blood on the floor. Heavily, her breaths accompanied her work. She had to arch her back as she pulled the piece of metal out of her wound.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she prepared for sewing. This wasn’t going well.
Clint was glad when his wound was sewn up properly. He had, of course, been given a painkiller, but that didn’t make it make feel good or anything. Now left alone, arm in a sling, he noticed Natasha’s absence. She had been closely around him for the first few minutes, eyes haunted-looking in her pale face, and now she had disappeared just like that?
“Natasha?” he asked aloud, looking around in the truck.
No reply. Jeff, the paramedic, looked up in surprise.
“Natasha!” Clint repeated. “Where are you?”
“She was literally standing right here,” Jeff said with a frown.
“Natasha!” Clint repeated more loudly, anxiety creeping through him. Where could she be?
“Gimme a minute.” He breathed out as he heard her voice, though it sounded rather quiet. He couldn’t localize her still.
“Nat, what are you doing? Where the hell are you?”
“I’ll be there in a sec,” she replied.
Jeff pointed at the equipment compartment and Clint nodded. For whatever reason, that had to be Natasha’s hiding place. Well, it was small and narrow, after all, right up her alley.
Clint got up.
“I’m coming over now.”
“No, don’t get up, I only need a minute,” she protested. He made out a slight tremor in her voice.
“Nat, now I’m worried about you. I’m coming over now.”
He took the few steps towards the compartment, intending to look for her briefly, but sucked in his breath when he saw drops of blood on the floor.
She was sitting on the floor, good leg pulled to her chest, and sewed rather crudely, trails of blood running down her leg. Goosebumps covered her bare arms.
“Natasha!” he exclaimed, getting to his knees beside her. His injured arm complained at the hasty movement.
“Almost done,” she murmured, fingers shaking as she tried to make the next stitch.
“Is this a fucking bullet wound?” he exclaimed in shock.
She shrugged and he saw a shiver running through her body.
“There were too many of them,” she whispered, gasping a little when the needle penetrated her skin at the wrong place.
“Hey, stop that!”
She flinched a little and looked up.
He lifted up his good hand.
“Listen, I know you don’t like medical, but this is going too far!”
Natasha lifted up her chin stubbornly, but her lips were pressed together firmly with pain.
“You’re not stitching yourself up in a truck with literally five experts on that.”
“I patched you up rather well back then, didn’t I?” she protested stubbornly.
“Yes, and now you’re losing blood and you can hardly hold the needle! Dammit, kid, where’s your survival instinct? Why didn’t you just say something?”
Her eyes sparkled. “I needed them to take care of you!” she fired at him.
Clint was about to fall into an argument, but then he reminded himself that she was still bleeding.
“We’ll discuss that when you’re properly patched up. Can you get up?”
She sighed, accepting her defeat.
“What do you think?”
He offered her his hand, but she ignored it, scrambling to her feet herself. Naturally, she limped way less than one would think with her leg injured. He realized she had pulled off her suit and was only in her underwear, regretting his decision of sending her into the middle of the truck for everyone to ogle at.
Jeff stepped up to them, holding his hand out to the needle.
“I know you kinda hate us,” he said with a smile. “But I swear I’ll be nice.”
“I don’t hate you,” Natasha murmured, embarrassed.
When she refused to lie down, Clint settled next to her on the examination table. She didn’t flinch when Jeff continued sewing without giving her a painkiller first.
“Jeff, how dangerous is that?” Clint asked, worried.
The paramedic sighed. “A bit more blood than you, not critical, but she’ll probably need to stay at the infirmary overnight.”
Clint nodded, relaxing slightly. “I think we can deal with that.”
He looked at Natasha carefully, she was looking too pale and shaky for his liking, but naturally, she didn't make a fuss.
“You’d make me a lot more comfortable if you would just lie down for a bit before you faint on me, Nat.”
She scoffed. “I don’t faint that easily.”
“Good, then you can give me a very good explanation why you pulled this bullshit,” he demanded, raising his eyebrows.
“I already told you, I wanted you to be taken care of, so I got out of the way.”
“When you’re ten times as hurt as I am?” He shook his head. “Really, risk calculation ain’t your thing, is it?”
Jeff finished the suture and bandaged up the wound. “She’s not bad at stitching, though, gotta give her that.”
Clint threw him an "I am literally taking an educational measure right now”-look.
“I never want to see you do this again!” he scolded.
Natasha hunched her shoulders a bit. “I’m sorry. Coulson said our partner’s life was the most important thing on the mission, I just acted accordingly.”
“As in compared to the mission directive, the target, not to your own life,” Clint corrected, feeling this was a weak excuse of hers. She had known exactly what she was doing, had chosen to keep him safe instead of her. He sighed.
“Kid, my life isn’t worth more than yours.”
She didn’t refute him, not verbally, but she looked at him in a way that said all too clearly ‘maybe not to you’.
“I’m sorry that you’re not happy with the choice I made,” she said, a defiant peace-offering, and certainly not a promise not to act like this again.
“I just want you to understand that I want you to be cared for. I want you to be okay, too, and if there’s a medical team and you are hurt, you have to tell them, they can properly take care of the both of us at the same time, trust me.”
She pulled her uniform back on, grimacing a bit.
“Okay.”
“And tell me,” he added. “because I please never want to be in that situation where I see you collapse out of nowhere and I don’t know what’s wrong, okay? Can you promise me that?”
She hesitated for a second before she nodded.
“Promise.”
“Thank you!”
For a few minutes, they sat next to each other silently.
“Why are you smirking?” Natasha asked finally.
Clint turned to her, eyes alight.
“Ah, you know, I know someone who’s definitely coming home with me for a delayed New Year!”
For a moment, Natasha looked surprised, then she rolled her eyes in a very theatrical fashion, but he swore he saw a tiny smile playing around her mouth.