Chapter Text
“Agent Hill has collapsed and appears unresponsive, Medical are on their way.” The monotonous voice that belonged to Jarvis echoed around the lab. Although Jarvis lacked the ability to feel emotion there was a hint of something, concern perhaps, in his voice.
“Wait, what? Jarvis, what is Hill’s Location?” Tony sounded confused, understandable of course. Hill hadn’t been on any strenuous missions in weeks, there were no immediate explanations for this.
“Floor 107, Ms Hill’s private quarters, I believe she is in the bathroom. The bathroom door has been locked from the inside using a manual override. Sir, I cannot open the door for you.”
“What the hell Hill?” Romanoff muttered under her breathe as she rushed out from the lab heading for the lift. She and Tony had been sifting through some documents the team had picked up from a Hydra raid when Jarvis had interrupted them. Considering they had told Jarvis no-one was to disturb them unless it was deemed an emergency, this was clearly not going to end well.
“Jarvis, send medical to meet me by the bathroom. I can get through the door but I’m no doctor.” Romanoff ordered whilst punching the lift button numerous times before realising no matter how many times she hit that damned button, she wasn’t going to get there any quicker. Jarvis acknowledged her request and, after what felt like far too long, the lift arrived.
The lift had taken what seemed like a lifetime to reach floor 107, by the time Natasha had got there medical were bumbling about just outside the entrance to Hill’s private quarters. As Natasha rushed past them she concluded that “unresponsive” meant she was not going to have time to get all fancy with picking the bathroom lock. Jarvis had already overridden the main door lock which, whilst convenient, put an uneasy feeling in Natasha’s stomach.
“What are you up to Maria?” Natasha voiced to no-one in particular, not bothering to hide her concern. The bathroom door wasn’t just locked, it had also been jammed. Shit, this is not good. In Natasha’s experience, no one ever locks a door and jams it just for the hell of it.
"Jarvis, tell Tony there may be some interior damage involved in this situation.” Natasha assessed the door, the best place to kick was just under the handle. As long as whatever was jamming the door wasn’t exceptionally well placed, or ridiculously heavy, a good old-fashioned front kick should do the job. Indeed the front kick did just that, for a petite woman, it was an impressive display of power. Medical took over as soon as the door swung open. It suddenly occurred to Natasha how bizarre it was that everything could happen in a blur yet still feel like it was all happening in slow motion at the same time.
“No immediate response to stimuli, pulse at 40 and dropping.” The medic sounded surprisingly calm, as if Maria was going to be okay and she wasn’t just lying on the floor appearing a little too dead to the world for Natasha’s liking.
“Shit, shit. She’s fitting, I need 10mg of diazepam and get a damn line in, will you?! Turn her on her side, we don’t need her choking on her vomit.” So much for sounding calm, now the medic sounded confused. Maria Hill had no outstanding medical conditions, this should not be happening. Natasha couldn’t watch, she turned to leave the bathroom and give the team more space. As she did so, something caught her eye.
“Diazepam? Isn’t that Valium?” Natasha picked a box out of the bin and looked at a nurse with such fierceness in her eyes, she hadn’t meant to look so fearsome, and emotions always had been a weak point with the Red Room so it was second nature to put up her walls. “Umm, yeah bu- ahem,” Natasha softened her posture and encouraged the nurse to go on.
“Diazepam is a muscle relaxant; it wouldn’t cause her to fit. Whilst it could explain her pulse, that’s all it would really explain.” Natasha frowned, Maria wasn’t the sort to take a bunch of pills anyway, none of it added up.
“I suppose if Agent Hill combined these tablets with something else, it could explain her symptoms. Are there any other packets in the bin?” The nurse gave Natasha an odd look, sympathy perhaps, it was comforting though. Without thinking twice Natasha had emptied the bins entire contents on the floor just outside the bathroom.
“Right, what’ve we got here; cotton swabs, bloody gauze and some medication boxes. Okay something’s up, Maria definitely doesn’t take these.” Natasha was putting the pieces together in her head and wasn’t liking the bigger picture at all.
“Caffeine, morphine sulphate and paracetamol. Recommending a blood toxicity test, liver function test and ECG. Wait for results then assess appropriate treatment. All agreed?” The doctor had taken the boxes and was already leaving the room with Maria on a gurney. This was all happening so quickly and none of it made sense. It looked like an overdose, it was impossible for it to be anything else. Yet Natasha knew Maria (or at least, she thought she did), they had sparred many times, they had almost died together on several occasions. This wasn’t Maria, this wasn’t how Maria dealt with her problems, was it?
Tony met Natasha down at medical within minutes of Maria being wheeled in. Tony looked to be in a bit of a state.
“They said it looks to be self-inflicted. Did we miss something?” Tony’s voice caught at the end of the sentence and he had turned away before Natasha could find a way to respond. “I’d, umm, I’ll let the guys know Maria is here. I am sure Cap would love a new excuse to buy some flowers. Thor is on Asgard at the moment and seeing as I’m yet to invent an intergalactic email system I guess that one’s out of the question. Hawkeye is over at the Triskelion with Fury and Coulson is with Banner in some lab over in London but I’ll let them know none the less.” Was it just Natasha or did Tony seem worried, actually worried. Not sarcastic or false, he seemed genuinely concerned.
Natasha waited and waited in the reception area of the medical floor, honestly it was like a miniature hospital down here, until an important looking man in scrubs came out to speak to her.
“Maria has suffered some liver damage due to the paracetamol consumed but we’ve pumped her stomach so no more damage can be inflicted. We’ve also got her on fluids to help flush out the morphine and caffeine. The Valium won’t have lasting damage but Maria will be asleep for around 48 hours and may suffer some short term memory loss after waking up, it’s safe to say she’ll be fairly zombified for the next week or so. Also, I’d like to make you aware that from the result of her blood test this isn’t an immediate overdose, whilst we can’t rule out the possibility of a staggered overdose, it looks more as if Maria was taking these pills for quite some time and the physical effects have only now caught up with her. Some of these pills could have been in her system for weeks, if not months.”