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“…Tasha, I thought I told you to wait for back-up.”
“Where’s the fun in that, Steve? You know how I get bored easy.” Natasha slowly made her way down the dimly lit hallways of the abandoned HYDRA facility, examining the map on her HUD.
Video feed popped up in the corner of her field of vision, a very disgruntled Steve taking up its space. “I said ‘stay put.’ You are not staying put!”
“Don’t get your grandpa panties in a twist, yeesh.” She couldn’t help but roll her eyes, scanning the empty rooms as she passed by them. “I’ve been waiting on your asses to get here for over an hour, Cap.”
“Quinjet’s ETA is two minutes. I’d feel a lot better if you’d just… quit moving. We don’t know what kind of—”
“I’m perfectly capable of handling myself, thanks.”
“That’s not what I—”
“I’m tellin’ you, there’s been no activity. Some light recon is the least I could—”
The explosion had taken her by surprise. Of course it did, that’s what they do. Explode. Bring buildings coming down. Disorient the poor souls that got caught in them. Unfortunately for Natasha, she just happened to be the one who tripped some kind of automated mechanism that set off a hidden mine.
For the longest time, it was just… pain. And then darkness. And then searing pain again, whenever she’d regain consciousness. The suit should have taken the brunt of the blast — if it did its job right, which it almost always does because Natasha was the one who made it, thank you very much — but her whole, entire being hurt.
Natasha recalled bits and pieces of when the rest of the team had managed to find her under the rubble of the half-collapsed structure, all but bleeding out into the ground. The thought of I should probably rework the suit defenses when I get out of this came and went, flittering across her mind for a moment before it was lost. She vaguely remembered being carried onto the Quinjet, complaining about being cold when someone — Steve, it was Steve — had pulled the emergency release to the Iron Woman armor.
Things got fuzzy somewhere between Bruce’s scrambling for the first-aid kit and the searing agony that came when they tried to staunch her bleeding.
Bleeding? She was bleeding? There’s absolutely no way that was happening, the suit could withstand—
Someone was screaming. Someone was barking orders about taking off and heading to medical. Someone else was cursing under their breath, panicked. “God, Steve, I don’t — we can’t help her here without — there’s too much blood, she’ll slip into hemorrhagic shock if we don’t resupply her with…”
Time seemed to slip away from Natasha. In one moment, Bruce was pulling out some weird tubing from the kit, and in the next, Steve was taking off the top half of his uniform. When she opened her eyes again — were they closed for a second, or an hour? — she wasn’t laying down in a pool of her own blood anymore.
“Natasha? Hey, you with me? Don’t fall back asleep, alright, keep your eyes open for me.” Steve’s voice was less than calm but even enough to sound like it. Natasha leaned into his touch as he started carding a comforting hand through her matted hair.
She blinked her eyes open, fighting against their heaviness, and found herself face to face with him. “Steve…”
“I’m here, hey, I’m here. Stay awake for me, sweetheart. Dr. Cho is waiting for us back at the tower.”
“Wha’s… where did…” She made an attempt to push herself up into a sitting position, only to shout sharply as her body told her exactly why that was a bad idea.
“Don’t… don’t strain yourself. You lost a lot of blood.”
Natasha opened her mouth to shoot back a defensive quip before her eyes zeroed in on the red line coming from her arm and into Steve’s. The ache in her side was diluted by the pain pulsing at her front, but confusion had hit her more than anything. Steve followed her gaze, explaining that Bruce had jerry-rigged something for him to give her a direct blood transfusion.
That didn’t necessarily explain to Natasha why Steve was naked from the waist up. She felt her mouth turn up at the corners, teasing, “And the shirtless thing? Was that Bruce’s idea too?”
Steve turned cherry-red, flushing from the tips of his ears and down his neck. Before he could muster up a response, Bruce strode in from the front cockpit. With awe in his voice, he observed, “Sounds like you’re feeling a lot better.”
Natasha hummed in response, resting her head back on the makeshift cot. “Well. I’m not dead, thanks to you, that’s for sure.” She peeked an eye open as Bruce approached, the expression on his face giving away the act of contemplation in his head. “Oh, hell, I know that look. That’s your ‘eureka’ face.”
“He has a ‘eureka’ face?” Steve inquired, raising a brow.
“It’s fascinating,” Bruce muttered, ignoring their exchange. “I half expected you to be fully unconscious until we got you to medical.”
Natasha shared a look with Steve, who returned her glance with a wide-eyed stare. To Bruce, she asked, “Is… is that a good or a bad thing? It’s good, right?”
“I’ll have to run tests to make sure, but… perhaps the part of the serum that remains in Steve’s bloodstream has strengthened your healing just from — oh, I’ll be right back! I need to grab my…” Bruce wandered off to the back-storage area of the Quinjet, muttering to himself about blood compatibilities and potential fixes to medical issues down the road.
Natasha adjusted herself slightly, moving into a more comfortable position on the cot. She stole a look at Steve before averting her eyes, staring down at the thin tubing that connected them together. “Uh… I guess this is the wrong moment to mention that I absolutely hate how you’re right all the time?”
Steve scoffed slightly, shaking his head. “I’d also normally say ‘I told you so’, but I think a near-death experience deserves a pass.” He sent her a grin, and she’d definitely be lying if she said that it hadn’t made her cheeks burn hot.
Natasha didn’t miss a beat as she retorted, “I see how it is. If you wanted to get inside me for one reason or another, you could’ve just asked me out to dinner first.”
“What?” he squawked in surprise. “No, I wouldn’t — this isn’t—”
“Steve, chill out, it was joke. I’m kidding.” Natasha huffed a laugh through her nose, biting back a grin of her own. “Mostly.”
