Better Days

NATASHA POV:

Wanda had fallen asleep while we were watching the movie so I just sat there as I let her rest. I sat with her for about half an hour before Steve ran into the living room. 

"Natasha!" he shouted and I quickly motioned for him to be quiet when Wanda moved slightly. "Sorry," he dropped his volume. "There's a mission, a shipment of weapons is getting ready to be sent out. We've got to go stop it, let's go." 

I nodded and quickly but carefully shifted Wanda onto the couch instead of my shoulder. I wrapped her in a blanket and ran to my room to suit up. While I got changed, I called Pepper. 

"Hello?" she answered on the second ring. 

"Pepper, can you get to the compound in the next five minutes?"

"Um, yeah. Why?" I heard heavy breathing on the other end which meant that Pepper was running. She usually stayed at the compound with Tony but she had been working on stuff for SI so she wasn't currently there. Luckily, she was close by though. 

"We got called on a mission but I need someone to watch Wanda."

"Why aren't you taking her with you?"

"She's too young, besides, she's sleeping right now and she fractured her ankle. She needs to stay off of it." I got a text with the mission details as I finished getting dressed. "It's a quick mission. I should be home in a few hours, 2 o'clock this afternoon at the latest. I'll let you know if it will go over that time. Make sure Wanda stays off her ankle and have her ice it if it is still swollen please."

"Okay, I'll be there in three minutes."

"Good, thank you Pep," I told her as I kissed Wanda on the head before running to the jet. 

"No problem, be safe, bye." I said goodbye and hung up as I climbed into the jet. Steve was flying the jet while Vision, Tony and Rhodey were sitting in the back. I finished reading all of the details and deemed it a quick and easy mission. I didn't want to leave Wanda but it should be fast and we needed to get there as soon as possible to stop the shipment. 

We came to what looked like an empty warehouse. 

"Okay, Tony and Rhodey, you guys secure the perimeter and make sure that no one leaves the warehouse," Steve started handing out assignments as we started landing. "Vision, you find the control room and try to shut down their power so that they will not be able to leave throughout the electrical doors. Nat, you're with me, we take out as many men as we can, there should only be 3 dozen based on the report, and then we get to the shipment and lock it into one of the rooms until SHIELD can get here for confirmation. Everyone got it?" We all nodded as we tested our comms. "Any problems, let me know. Alright team, let's get to work." 

The jet landed and we all climbed out, making our way to the entrances of the warehouse. It looked abandoned but I knew that there would be a few men inside. It wasn't that many though so Steve and I should easily be able to take all of them out quickly. 

Steve and I snuck into the back of the warehouse, we wanted to go unnoticed for as long as possible. I rounded the corner of the wall and was immediately met with about 7 men standing there with weapons. I took them all out and continued my journey into the building. 

We quickly got to the main part of the building. It was a large room with high ceilings. There were platforms with railings that surrounded the walls of the building. It was empty until we got to one of the many separate rooms on the side. The room was filled with about a dozen men, all studying some kind of report. Steve and I were able to take them out and then an alarm sounded. 

We ran back into the main room and saw dozens of men filing in through the platforms, running down the staircases which led them down to the bottom where Steve and I were standing. 

Our comms lit up with responses from Rhodey and Tony, saying that there were hundreds of men who just arrived in tanks and were now entering the building. 

"I thought you said there were supposed to be 3 dozen!" I yelled into the comms as I fought off three men at once. 

"That's what we thought! Three dozen max!" I heard Steve yell. We had separated in order to fight off more of the men but they kept filing in. "Vision, get to the main room now!" Steve started barking orders to everyone while we quickly got overrun by all the men. There were hundreds of them filling the large room. 

"Tony, can you blow up the tanks?" I heard Steve question as I continued fighting. 

"Working on it!" I heard Tony respond. 

"If you and Rhodey can't stop them from coming on the outside, get in here and help us, it's getting pretty crazy in here!" Steve told Tony and Rhodey as Vision arrived and started blasting the men. 

I was holding my own pretty good but there were a lot of men that were surrounding me from all sides and it was getting a little tiring. Tony and Rhodey soon joined us in the main room but the men just kept coming. I had no idea where they were all coming from but it seemed that some of them weren't just men. A lot of them had metal limbs and faces that looked robotic. 

It looked almost like Ultron but with a more human feel. We knew that there was going to be some alien tech in the weapons but it was supposed to just be all humans who were dealing with it. Now we had no idea what was going on. 

I was distracted for a split second by Tony yelling into the comms. I turned to look at him and quickly tried to get back to fighting once I saw that he was okay but that split second was too long. I felt a pain blossom through the back of my head along with a pinch in my neck and then my vision went black. I tried to say something into the comms but I lost consciousness before I managed to get anything out. 

o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o

I woke up to a dark, empty room. I was confused until I remembered everything that had happened. How long had I been unconscious? I looked around and saw the door. I got up and started to run out, getting ready to jump back into the fight. Unfortunately, there were men right behind the door who caught me off guard and pulled me back into the room. 

I felt clumsy and didn't know why until I spotted the IV in my hand. I quickly ripped it out but not before I started getting beat up by the five men in the room. They had metal poles that they slammed into my stomach and back over and over again. 

I remembered the comms and tried to speak into it when I realized that it had been taken out of my ear at some point. The men didn't talk as they continued to hit me with the pole. I tried to fight back but whatever they put in my system made me weak and disoriented. 

I managed to kick one of them so they stepped on my leg, causing it to snap and me to scream. They moved the poles up to my head and started hitting as hard as they could. I heard a ringing and then soon it went silent as they continued beating my head and the rest of my body. 

The pain started to disappear and I was faintly aware of all of the men leaving the room as I fell to the floor, slipping back into unconsciousness. 

o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o

The next time I woke up, I felt a heavy weight on my shoulder and a warmth on my side. I blearily opened my eyes and turned my head slightly to see a mess of reddish-brown hair next to me, resting on my shoulder. Wanda. Where was I? 

The last thing I remembered, I had been in the warehouse. Was the mission a success? I shifted a bit and saw Pepper and Clint on the couch. Why was Clint here? He was supposed to be with his family. 

"Hey," I said quietly and both of their heads shot up. I also heard a noise on the other side of me and turned to see Tony sitting there, now looking at me. 

Clint was the first one to me. "How are you feeling Nat?" he asked. 

I hurt but I wasn't about to admit it, "Fine. What happened?"

"Well, we don't really know," Tony started. "I found you in the warehouse that we were in, unconscious, during the mission. We have no idea what happened in there but we took you to the compound and flew Helen here." I knew exactly what had happened in that warehouse. Tony continued, "You had to go into surgery. You had internal bleeding, several broken bones, a punctured lung, and a concussion."

"How's Wanda?" I asked, completely unfazed by all of my injuries.

"She's right next to you Tasha," Clint told me gently. 

"I know that," I scoffed. "I meant, how did she take the news?"

"Oh, she's okay. She took it hard but she was glad when she got to see you," Pepper told me. I nodded. 

"How long have I been out?" I asked as my hand came up to gently pat Wanda's head. 

"Just a few hours. It's currently 6:30 in the morning," Tony told me. 

"When did you find me?" 

"We got back to the compound at around 7 which meant that we found you around 6ish?" Tony guessed. I nodded. 

"How long was I in surgery?"

"It took them awhile to fix everything..." I motioned for Tony to continue. "Almost 7 hours," he told me and I sucked in a small breath. So I was a little more damaged than I thought. 

I turned to Clint, "And why are you here and not with your family?"

He looked at me in disbelief, "Um, you needed me so I'm here." 

"I didn't say I needed you," I teased. 

"Tasha, you could've died. We didn't know what had happened to you. I also needed to be here not just for you but for Wanda. If something worse had happened to you, she would've been absolutely broken. We didn't know if you were going to wake up with brain damage or another problem that was going to cause complications and I needed to be here for you and Wanda if that happened." I nodded in understanding. I would never have forgiven myself if I died. I couldn't do that to Wanda. 

I already felt bad enough that I caused Wanda worry for getting beat up. I should've been stronger and fought harder. The atmosphere of the room had gotten heavier since Clint told me that so I tried to lighten the mood by saying, "Does this mean you guys have to wait on me hand and foot?" No one else laughed but I tried. "Wanda needs to go to her room and get some proper sleep," I told them.

"I tried," Pepper told me. "She refused."

"Who's the adult here?" I joked.

"Nat, she cried on Steve and me for hours when she saw you come off of the jet." I just looked at Pepper. 

"Thank you for taking care of her when I was gone. I really thought it was supposed to be quick, I didn't plan for this to happen," I said, gesturing to the hospital room. The pain was starting to pick up a bit and Wanda laying on my side was causing some pain. I tried to shift out from under her but she started whining so I quickly laid still to keep her asleep. I would gladly be in pain if it meant that Wanda could rest easily. 

"Are you okay?" Tony asked me. "I can get Helen in here for some more meds if you're in pain," he looked at me worriedly as he told me this. 

"I'm fine, just needed to shift a little bit. How'd the mission go? Was it successful?" I tried to switch the subject away from my pain, I didn't want to admit to the stabbing pain in my abdomen. 

"Well more and more men came but we were able to get most of them down. Some of them escaped with some of the weapons so they will probably go try to set up camp somewhere else but for now, they aren't our concern. We were able to get a hold of most of the weapons and stop them from shipping out so it was mostly a success, other than you almost dying." I rolled my eyes but was glad to hear that the mission was mostly successful. 

Wanda shifted which sent a shooting pain through my ribs and I sucked in a breath, signaling to everyone in the room that I was in pain. "What's wrong?" Clint asked concerned. 

"Nothing," I snapped. "I'm fine. Did anyone else get hurt during the mission?" I asked, turning back to face Tony. 

"Nothing serious, some of us got a little bruised but other than that, we're fine."

"Good. Now, when can I get out of here?" 

"Nat, you just had major surgery. Give it at least a few days," Pepper told me. 

"I don't have a few days, Wanda can't be cooped up in here for even longer. I need to look into getting her into a school and out of the compound a little bit, once her ankle heals of course. That reminds me, Pepper, did she stay off of her ankle?"

"She mostly used her crutches," Pepper started, "and don't worry about Wanda. She'll be fine, you both need to heal before anything more happens. I can help you look into schools, is there a specific one that she wants to go to?" 

"No, in fact, she doesn't know that I'm planning on sending her to school. She thinks that she is going to train and become an Avenger but that isn't going to happen, she's way too young. I have to get her tested first to see where she is education wise, she hasn't been to school since she was little."

"I want to be around when you tell the little witch that she's going to school and isn't going to become an Avenger," Tony said excitedly. If Wanda wasn't sleeping on me, I would have slapped him.

Instead, I settled on, "Shut up Tony. She'll take it just fine."

"Oh yeah, of course, my apologies," Tony said sarcastically and I just rolled my eyes. 

"Did she get any sleep when I was gone?" I asked Pepper.

"A little bit, we managed to get her to sleep for a few hours while you were in surgery but she fought against it. Then she fell asleep pretty soon after we saw you so she's been sleeping for another few hours."

I looked at Wanda and felt immense love for her. She was so sweet and I loved that she was finally able to be able to get some sleep, even if it was causing me extra pain. 

There was a knock on the door and I looked up to see Helen walking in. 

"How are you feeling?" she asked me.

"Pretty good given the circumstances," I smiled. She smiled as she started checking my vitals. 

"Can I check the incision site?" Helen asked me and I nodded, I kind of wanted to see what they did to me. Helen pulled my gown up slightly to reveal my abdomen, wrapped in gauze. She carefully peeled the gauze back and I saw several long incisions scattering around my abdomen. They would probably all scar but that was fine. "Sorry, we tried to just use one incision but there was too much damage in too many areas so we had to make a few," Helen told me apologetically. 

"No problem," I told her. Wanda started to stir from being moved around. She quickly sat up when she saw that I was awake. She got off of the bed and looked at me. 

"Nat! You're awake!" 

"Yup," I said, smiling warmly at her. She was smiling right back which filled me with happiness. 

"Are you feeling okay? What happened? Are you in pain? When did you wake up? Wh-"

"Slow down Wands," I told her, laughing slightly. "I'm fine, I got a little hurt during the mission, I'm not in pain," I lied, "and I woke up a few minutes ago." 

"Why didn't you wake me up for the mission?"

"I thought it would be quick and I wanted you to get your sleep, I also didn't want you to hurt your ankle." I left out the part about her not getting to be an Avenger at 16. 

"What happened?"

"There were more men than we expected and I got caught off guard for a split second which allowed them to knock me out. Then they brought me to a room and beat me to make sure that I stayed down." I turned to Helen who was putting my vitals into the computer and asked, "Did you check my blood? They drugged me I think because everything was fuzzy."

"No, we were so worried trying to get blood into you that we didn't worry about testing it. I can take a sample this morning but it might not give me the correct results since we had to give you a blood transfusion. You could've been drugged or it could've just been a concussion."

"There was an IV in my hand and it didn't feel like a concussion. My response time was slow," I explained. 

"So then it was probably a drug of some kind. It may still be in your system so I'll try to test your blood but I'm not sure." Helen pulled out a needle and drew some blood while Wanda kept trying to figure out more details about the mission. 

Her eyes were still red, presumably from crying earlier, and she looked tired, even though she had just slept. 

Helen left as Steve walked in. 

"Hey," I said. 

"How are you feeling?"

"Oh my gosh! Does everyone have to ask me that? I'm fine," I joked.

"Good, do you remember what happened during the mission? We're going to need a statement from you for the mission report."

"Yeah, can we do it later?" I asked. I didn't want to say anything with Wanda in the room and give her brain more things to create nightmares on. He nodded. 

"Are you hungry?" Clint asked. 

"I could eat," I shrugged. "Wanda, you need to eat something." She nodded at me from her place right next to the bed. 

"I'll eat if someone brings me something but I'm not leaving," she told me and I raised an eyebrow. I didn't really mind but she said it so boldly that I was surprised. 

I decided not to comment on Wanda's statement and instead asked, "So, who's getting us food?"

Tony ordered shawarma as we all talked. The shawarma got there and Rhodey and Vision joined us in the room. Everyone was scattered around the hospital room and Wanda was sitting right next to the bed. Her arm rested right next to mine on the bed, touching it.   

WANDA POV:

I woke up and heard Nat's voice. I turned my head and jumped up when I saw that she was awake. "Nat! You're awake!" I smiled widely at her. 

"Yup," she responded with another huge smile. 

I started to ask her a million questions about everything that had gone through my head when I found out that she was hurt. Helen continued to check her over while we talked and then Clint asked about food. Tony ordered the same stuff that I had attempted to eat when I was in the hospital and I informed Nat that I would not leave the hospital room to eat. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow but luckily, she didn't comment. 

The entire team ate the food as we sat in the room. I felt like a baby but I needed to make sure that I was touching Nat, even if it was just our arms. I was so scared I was going to lose her and my brain couldn't get the image of her body on the gurney being brought in so I needed to touch her warm skin to assure myself that she was fine. 

The day went by with most of us just sitting in the room and talking or watching TV. I stayed by Nat's side the entire time and I could feel her growing tense as the time went on. I finally whispered to her, "Are you okay?"

She looked at me and responded with, "I'm just in a little bit of pain, I'm fine." She smiled at me but it seemed forced. 

"We can get you some medication," I pushed. 

"I don't need any, I'm fine, it's just a little uncomfortable." The rest of the team was busy setting up a game that they didn't hear us. 

"Okay, let me know if you need meds," I told her.

"Okay honey, I will," she smiled as we turned our attention back to the team. 

We played a few board games and then Steve spoke up. "Alright, I need to talk to her about the mission so everyone out." He was using his captain voice but I wasn't about to leave Nat. 

I stayed by her side as the rest of the team filed out of the room. "Wanda," Steve warned. "Natasha and I need to talk privately for a few minutes. You can come back as soon as the mission report is done."

"I'm not leaving Nat," I boldly responded, grabbing onto Nat's arm.

"Sweetie, I'll be okay. I just have to give a statement about what happened and then you can come back," Nat told me gently. I didn't understand why everything had to stay so secret. 

"I'll be quiet," I told her.

"I need to talk to her alone. You weren't on the mission so we can't have you listening to details until the mission becomes public knowledge," Steve informed me. I never remembered hearing that rule before. 

"Please," I looked at Nat, tears forming. 

"Just for a few minutes baby." She must've been able to tell that I wasn't going to leave because she signaled Steve to come grab me. "I love you so much honey, I'll see you in a few minutes." Steve grabbed my arm gently and tried to lead me out of the room but I grabbed onto Nat to try to stay. I threw my arms around her shoulders and started crying. I couldn't leave her.

Steve seemed to think that I was fine because he grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me up into his arms, walking me out of the room and to the med-bay lounge where the rest of the team was waiting. I was crying and squirming, trying to get out of Steve's arms and get back to Nat. 

I felt myself getting set down and I tried to run back to Nat's room but someone grabbed me from behind. 

"Nat!" I cried, starting to panic as Steve walked back down the hallway, on his way to Nat's room. The hands turned me and I was met with Clint. "Clint, why won't they let me be with Nat?" I cried and he pulled me into a hug. 

I was starting to panic, thinking of all of the things that could happen to Nat without me. Clint led me over to the couch and sat down, still holding me in a hug as I cried and tried not to have a full-blown panic attack. 

"Shh, Wanda, it's okay. They should be done in a few minutes," Clint told me as he rocked me gently. I felt a desperate need to be by Nat but no one was letting me go be by her right now. 

I cried into Clint for a few minutes until FRIDAY let us know that we could go back to the room. Clint kept a hold of my arm as we walked into the room so that I didn't hurt Nat. 

Once we got to the room, I crawled into the bed and sobbed into Nat's shoulder, gripping onto her gown. "Don't make me leave Nat!" I cried. 

"It's okay baby, I'm sorry we made you leave. You're okay, I've got you." I had no idea that the rest of the team was making worried glances as me but even if I did, I wouldn't have cared as I cried into Nat. 

I didn't know why I panicked so much when I had to leave her but I did and I felt a massive relief now that I was with Nat. I calmed down and slowly pulled away from her, not letting go of her gown but also not sobbing into her. 

"Sorry," I mumbled.

"It's okay baby," she told me as she wiped away some of the tears on my face. I blushed when I realized that the rest of the team had witnessed my meltdown but they didn't say anything as they turned on the TV and got out some uno cards. 

I laid next to Nat as everyone else played uno and then it was time for dinner. We had some leftover shawarma and then popcorn while we watched a movie. 

"Are you gonna make me go to my room to sleep?" I asked Nat after worrying about it for several hours. I don't think I'll be able to sleep if they make me leave. 

"No, you can go if you want or you can sleep in here. Whatever makes you most comfortable," Nat told me and I immediately told her that I wanted to stay. 

I fell asleep next to her with the entire team surrounding us, watching some romantic comedy. I had a family and for now, that was all I could ask for.