Archive of Our Own

Natasha stirred her latte, swirling the emerald green pool of syrup at the bottom into the layers of milk and coffee, ice rattling against the sides of the plastic cup. The nutty aroma mingled with the scent of the saltwater of the nearby bay was more suited to a tropical paradise getaway between two lovers rather than a S.H.I.E.L.D. mission. She observed her surroundings through sunglasses that hid her eyes, almost able to smell the money of Madripoor's affluent Hightown as well from her seat in the rooftop café of the six floor galleria. A beautiful day had the café's retractable roof open to the cloudless, cerulean sky.

Down through the atrium, people went in and out of shops carrying the likes of Louis Vuitton, Cartier, and Fendi among other luxury brands too numerous to count. Natasha herself was carrying a Dior purse worth close to five-thousand dollars, and she didn't ask how much S.H.I.E.L.D. spent on the ensembles she and Clint now wore, looking effortlessly trendy and cool - just two Western tourist lovebirds with a large disposable income on vacation. The better to fit in and not draw unwanted attention.

The café was crowded but not stiflingly so; Madripoor's own elite and well-to-do tourists sat scattered amongst low tables and cushioned benches and wrought iron chairs with ornate designs woven into them, chattering and laughing over drinks and pastries. Music rose clearly throughout, piped from speakers hidden amongst plants and shrubbery with none of the tinny quality of an average American mall. Natasha took a sip of her coffee; she hummed with content.

"What flavor is that again?" Clint asked, eyeing the verdant color of the flavoring syrup. "It looks like it would taste like you licked the bottom of a lawn mower."

She took another pull on the straw before answering. "Pandan. It's like coconut and vanilla and, yeah, maybe a little grassy, but it's delicious. Sip?" She offered, holding the cup out to him.

"No, thanks," he said. "I'll stick with my normal black." Clint nursed his own coffee, looking at her over the rim. "You've been getting quite… experimental with your tastes lately."

"I wouldn't call ordering a pandan iced latte at a local café in Madripoor 'experimental.' More like 'when in Rome…'"

"What was up with that pickled herring, honey, and banana sandwich last week? What country were you representing then? Because that recipe seems confused with itself." Natasha gave him a small smirk. "Or those little pickled onions I caught you snarfing over the sink? Or just, y'know, what's up with all the pickled things in general you've been downing lately?"

Natasha shrugged. "I grew up in Russia. We do like our pickled things, and sometimes I get a craving. Besides, I've seen you put hot sauce on cereal."

"The combination of buffalo sauce coupled with the dusting of cinnamon sugar on the cereal lent itself to a sublime marriage of moreish delicacy."

Natasha rolled her eyes with a small, affectionate smile. "Okay, Gordon Ramsay," she said before looking around the café surreptitiously. They had been in Madripoor for a week now, surveilling a shipping magnate who also dealt in financing interdimensional terrorist groups. The man was due to meet up at the café with a pair of middle men, but he had yet to show up. She muttered, "Our mark is late."

Clint followed her glances, equally covert. "Ten minutes," he murmured. "We can give it some more time. I'd hate to miss the exchange simply because he got stuck in traffic or something."

Natasha tapped her latte cup with short fingernails, condensation wetting the pads of her fingers and flicking onto the table's surface. "I don't know… something feels off."

She caught the gaze Clint threw her. Her instincts were hardly ever off, and unease turned the beat of her pulse louder until it almost drowned out the surrounding chatter in her ears. "Maybe we abort then," he said.

Natasha finished her drink and stood from the table to throw her empty cup away when a roar erupted and the ground shuddered beneath her feet, and she stumbled, nearly falling. A blast from deep within the galleria below detonated, igniting a hungry spiral of flames up through the atrium, devouring anything within its reach. Glass windows shrieked as they splintered. For a few seconds, her ears rang so loudly, it sounded like silence. Then a cacophony of voices, rising in a crescendo like the chorus of cicadas in summer.

Plates and glasses shattered as they fell from tables being overturned in a mad scramble. The heated air from the rush of the fire whipped nearby parasols from their posts. Natasha was, again, nearly knocked off her feet; this time by a hard knock to her shoulder as somebody rushed past her towards a stairwell rapidly becoming clogged with people trying to escape. Smoke billowed its way upward, bitter and acrid and clawing at her throat and catching as though it had talons.

The floor quaked beneath her feet as if the earth's plates were shifting, grinding, against each other, and for a fleeting moment, she felt the vertigo of instability, a wave of dizziness sweeping over her. Steel beams and girders below screeched as they began to fold upon one another like dominoes.

She briefly saw Clint in her periphery stumbling towards her, hands outstretched. The rooftop café gave way with a sound like the earth was being ripped open. The weight of desperate fingers latched onto her arm, and then Natasha was falling, her world tilting on its axis.

The ground gave way beneath her before her brain could catch up to what was happening. A deep and thundering rumble followed by sharp, echoing cracks, and then Natasha was weightless, tethered to nothing. Her vision canted, and she thought she heard Clint's voice, faint, calling her name. She reached out, grasping for anything to anchor her, but her fingers found nothing of purchase.

The transient feeling of zero gravity was swift, and all too soon, her breath was stolen from her as she landed hard on her back. Jagged pain lanced through her ribs as a large slab of a wall slammed into her side.

Something heavy yet malleable draped itself over her. A body. Clint? It was too dark to see anything; the debris cut off any route for light to break through. Natasha choked, her tongue and throat coated with the dust and grit filling the air. With each cough she expelled, the right side of her chest protested with malice. It was difficult to draw in oxygen, feeling as though she could never quite fill her lungs to capacity.

The thing on top of her cradled her head beneath itself as though to shield her from as much of the remaining detritus falling around them until everything came to a stop — an eerie and disquieting silence settling over them like a heavy duvet.

Natasha waited a moment before croaking, "Clint?" The melange of abrasive dreck swirling amongst the air burned her throat, and she coughed again. Pain lit up along her side like strokes of fire.

"Yeah." Clint's naturally gruff voice was further roughened by the particles of dry filth floating around, and he coughed as well. "It's me. I think there's a large table over top of us.

The table kept the concrete and steel from completely burying them, leaving them in a small void of the rubble, which blessedly gave them space and air to breathe but felt no less like being in a coffin. Natasha wished she had a bell to ring to let someone know they were alive down here.

"Where are you hurt?" Clint gently slid off to the side of her.

Natasha took inventory of the aches and pain she felt. "I know the right side of my ribs took a hard hit from a large chunk of something." She could only take relatively shallow breaths, so she took a moment before continuing. "And I think I feel blood trickling down the side of my head. What about you? Are you okay?"

"Don't you worry about me. I think I got out of that shitshow relatively unscathed."

Natasha couldn't see his face well enough in the dimness to determine if Clint was actually mostly all right, or if he was just saying that to put her at ease.

"Do you think you have a concussion?" he asked. "Nausea? Dizzy? Suddenly sleepy?"

"No, I really don't feel like the head injury is that serious." She paused to gather her breath again. "It's my ribs. It feels like I can't get as much - as much air as I want."

Like a fish out of the ocean, beached on a sandbar, Natasha felt like she was slowly drowning on dry land. "Right side," she clarified.

She felt Clint's hands, hesitant, as he carefully felt along her torso. When his fingers hit a particularly tender spot, Natasha gasped and jerked. "Sorry, sorry." Clint's apologies were quick. "Probably a couple of broken ribs."

A heavy moment of silence fell over them; they both knew there was something Clint wasn't saying, refused to say. So Natasha said it for him.

"And probably," Pause. Gather breath, "a collapsed lung."

She knew Clint wouldn't argue with her; people know their own bodies better than anyone. Stay calm and conserve your energy. Panic and deep breaths led to pain and exhaustion.

One of Clint's hands now cradled the back of her head, the other coming to rest around her on her back. "I'm gonna try and prop you up a bit as best I can, so you can hopefully breathe a little easier. Easy now, easy."

Natasha clenched her jaw against the desire to yell out at the rip of pain that shot through her as she was moved to prop up against the rubble behind her. Thankfully, she found a pocket to settle into that didn't leave sharp, jagged pieces of concrete or tile or any rebar jabbing into her back. Sounding like a dog who'd been in the heat too long, her shallow pants seemed to be unnaturally loud in the gloom, highlighting the confines of their small space. She tried to slow her heart and her breathing down. In, hold, out, hold.

She heard shuffling sounds next to her, and then Clint muttered, "Fuck."

"What?"

"Phone's gone. Got smashed into two pieces. What about yours?"

Natasha huffed out a puff of air in an attempt at a bitter laugh. "It was - it was in my purse." Who the hell knows where that is now. Bye bye, five thousand dollar handbag.

More shuffling, a click of something unhooking, and then a small beam of light cut through the murky atmosphere. The little travel flashlight Clint always made sure was hooked onto a belt loop and tucked into his pocket before he went anywhere. At least it had survived the collapse.

Clint had scrapes and bruises blooming along his face and a gash was oozing along his arm, and like everything else, he was covered in dust, but otherwise, she was pleased he didn't look too worse for wear.

"Well, we've got some ambience," he said. Clint's humor was armor, Natasha knew, but she also heard the strain in his voice. "Close your eyes, so I can shine the light and get a look at you"

The inside of Natasha's eyes turned red as he shone the light over her face. "Yeah, you got a gash near your temple, but it doesn't look too bad. You sure your head feels all right? Save your breath, you don't need to talk much, just give me a little nod or something."

Natasha nodded her head to tell him, yes, her head was fine. He didn't ask about her ribs or her chest. She knew he could hear the slight and labored breaths she took. She didn't think she was bleeding internally (Could one tell with a slow bleed?); she just couldn't take in enough air with those broken ribs to fully inflate her lung.

"Hey, eyes open now."

What? Were her eyes still closed? Her lids peeled themselves open. Clint had laid the flashlight down, and she could see him in the faint glow. His face was shadowed, but the light made his eyes shine as they searched hers, and she saw the worry in them.

"'m here," she assured him.

She'd murmured to Clint shortly after not to waste the flashlight's battery, and he'd clicked it off. They were once again plunged into relative blackness. As the space grew increasingly warm and then downright stifling, she tried not to think about how much, or even worse, how little, time had passed.

"What - what time?" Natasha managed to gasp softly.

"Huh?" Clint asked, momentarily confused. "Oh, what time is it? Like, how long we've been down here? I don't - I don't know. My watch was taken out during the collapse. Still on my wrist, but the hands ain't moving."

Without a way to keep track of time, hours bled without measure for her. Clint would let her doze but never for long. She always woke to a gentle squeeze of her hand, fingers in her hair, or an ear to her mouth, listening to make sure she was still with him.

"Fuck." It was her turn to curse.

"What?" Clint asked into the dark, his voice edged with alarm. Natasha knew him intimately; the fact she could hear the unease in his voice revealed the vast effort with which he was pushing down any rising panic that was threatening to punch its way to the surface. Panic would serve no purpose, but it was hard not to contend with it in situations as helpless as this. She was sure she'd feel it to a greater extent too if she wasn't so lethargic with breathing difficulties.

"Nothing; it's nothing." She kept her answers short to not use so much of the little energy and oxygen she had.

"Tasha, tell me. Is something hurting worse?"

"No."

Clint left it alone. At one time, Natasha would have kept her pain to herself; she did when she'd first started at S.H.I.E.L.D. But after a mission where she'd taken a hit so hard, her liver received a hairline laceration, and she hadn't told anybody how bad she felt until Maria had caught a glimpse of her torso in the women's locker room, Clint had laid into her sitting in the med bay with her while she was seen to by a physician. "If you're hurt, you say something!" He'd shouted to punctuate the end of his lecture.

From then on, she was always honest about injuries with him.

In the small, humid space, it didn't take long before she could smell the stench of her shame. Her body had told her it had been too long since she'd last used a restroom, and she'd held it as long as she was able. But if she could now smell the stale urine, then so could Clint.

He didn't say a word about it.

Instead, he squeezed her hand and said, "You know about the bet going around S.H.I.E.L.D.? Yeah. On when we're getting together." Natasha heard the smirk in his voice. "Coulson's got money on the summer. May is holding out until Christmas. Hill's got her hand on several dates. But, basically, the entirety of the organization is in, and I heard Fury is the bookie running the whole deal."

He let out a little chuckle. "Joke's on them. We've been in it for almost a whole ass year. I say we should get the money for fooling everyone."

They'd reveal it when they were ready, but until then, they'd continue to enjoy their secret, their joy and love in each other so precious they were selfish with it.

Natasha's slight laugh cracked and fingers of pain clenched around her side. "Don't make me laugh," she wheezed, squeezing his hand back.

But despite their current situation, there was a tiny smile on her face.

Agent Phil Coulson arrived in Madripoor during the dead of night, some time in the very early morning hours Madripoor Island Standard Time. He stopped off at the hotel S.H.I.E.L.D. booked him for all of a minute, just long enough to thrust his suitcase into the room, before he headed to the wreckage site.

Floodlights lit up the sky, guiding his way like homing beacons. Opening the car door, he was assaulted by a wall of humid heat and the scent of sea brine and the smoke of different meats grilling at various food stalls. It seemed that the purveyors were cooking free food for the search and rescue teams; there were other stalls were one could grab water or a local fruit refresher. The smoke from the woks and barbecues mingled with the residual dust of the collapsed building nearby creating a smoggy haze that made Coulson's eyes sting. He paused to blink and breathe through it before heading to the site.

A third of the galleria was destroyed, collapsed in on itself in a mess of steel and glass as though it were a gash on a corpse left in the degrading heat of the sun too long, edges worn away with decay. The jagged and exposed girders resembled compound fractures breaking the surface of skin. Like layers of a disgusting cake with its innards spilling out, strata of the different floors pancaked on one another. The flashing lights of the multiple first responder vehicles painted the ruin with a strobe of red and blue.

A crowd gathered, restless and clamoring — family members of the missing wailed on their knees before the scraps of the building as if it were already a memorial, different languages melding together into a chorale of tragedy. At another location near the site, Coulson saw police officers handcuffing a few individuals who were hanging their heads, trying to avoid the cameras of both news agencies and bystanders. Looters. Ghouls exploiting the catastrophe for a quick grab at random pieces of haute couture.

Fire crews in clusters combed through the rubble by hand, guided by USAR dogs employed to sniff out trapped victims — dead or alive. Coulson watched as a black Labrador in little booties navigated the uneven terrain, nose twitching to discern and follow a human scent. Barton would've found him to be a "very good boy" and would undoubtedly remind him of Lucky, his own Golden Retriever.

The dog stopped and indicated, sitting on his haunches and barking as if to say, "Here! I've found something!" Its handler called out to anybody who may be beneath the rubble. "If anybody can hear this, let us know! Make some noise!" He said it in several different languages.

The sirens had long since stopped, but the din continued. Generators sustaining the large search lights hummed; radios chattered with voices in multiple languages all seeming to speak over one another. The bent and broken steel groaned, like even it was in mourning at a bomb ripping through what had been a peaceful day for many people.

Coulson watched a German Shepherd that had been tracking lie down, place its head on its paws and look up at its handler with a forlorn expression.

Nobody bothered to call out for this one.

He quickly made his way to where several volunteers were manning a station to report and gather information about buried loved ones.

"I'm here on behalf of two missing US citizens," he told the woman sitting at the foldout card table beneath a large, white tent and handed her a photo to place on one of the large cork boards nearby with other photos of missing people. There were so many of them, all fighting for space and attention. Faces of men, women, children, photos of entire families smiling at him; nobody the wiser to what would eventually happen.

The photo he'd given the volunteer was one of Clint and Natasha sitting together at one of Stark's parties, a casual gathering by the looks of their outfits. They're both holding bottles of beer; Clint's wearing a hoodie Coulson is pretty sure he's seen Natasha wear as well. Natasha is leaning into Clint, her newest accessory, a small arrow necklace, glinting where it's peeking out near the collar of her cropped motorcycle jacket. He's beaming, and she's bearing a coquettish smirk.

The shared hoodie, and that arrow necklace, which Natasha explained when asked that it reminded her to "follow my own path, my own way." Coulson wasn't stupid. His two agents may convince others they've become "best friends" over their years as Strike Team Delta, but he knew they were that and so much more. Sure, he's placed a wager in Fury's pool, but he knew Romanov and Barton were already a couple. It hadn't proven to affect their work thus far. Let them have their "secret" romance; they'll drop the news to everyone all in good time. Coulson hoped the big announcement comes somewhere near the beginning of summertime because, if so, he'll earn some serious spending cash.

"They're independent consultants, husband and wife." This is one cover story the trio has agreed upon to keep everyone's identity under wraps and the missions intact should the need arise. And "independent consultant" was vague enough; it could mean anything from "market strategist" to "secret agent." Not really a lie.

He quickly scribbled some cursory physical information about his two assets under the fake names they'd been using to be pinned up along side their picture. The volunteer's brows knitted with sympathy as she took the photo and slip of paper from him and promptly pinned them to a board. "I hope for a miracle for your countrymen, sir," she said, her voice somber, briefly clasping one of Coulson's hands between both of hers.

While picking through the mountain of ruin, those searching found pieces of car doors with handles still attached, colorless fragments of headlights and red bits of brake lights, and errant steering wheels among the remains, which led investigators to believe the blast originated in the galleria's ground level parking garage.

A crime scene engineer in dirt-streaked coveralls approached the Madripoor Chief of Police with a tablet. She spoke in a language Coulson didn't understand, gesturing towards the screen as she showed it to the Chief. Coulson raised an eyebrow, silently demanding to be clued in.

"We've determined three distinct blast areas," the engineer explained. Coulson looked at the tablet displaying a blueprint of the parking garage level. The engineer tapped a couple of times with a stylus, and three areas lit up in red. "They appear clustered near the freight entrance, northwest corner. Detonation signatures are simultaneous — less than half a second between detonations."

Coulson studied the the simulation on the screen. "But not a sequential chain reaction. One didn't trigger another."

"Correct," the engineer confirmed. "These were ignition sources all independent of one another. If static charges had been wired along support beams, a domino effect would be apparent. The time between them would be longer. What we have here is three separate detonations going off together. This corresponds with witness statements of hearing only one large explosion."

A few more taps to the tablet brought up a few photos, yellow evidence placards next to a few items for scale.

"Dual axles. Far too wide for personal vehicles. These look like they came from commercial box trucks, maybe fifteen to twenty feet long. Probably small haulers."

"Do we know the type of explosive?" Coulson asked. He glanced at the Chief, who appeared to be growing annoyed at what he saw as Coulson commandeering his investigation. Coulson's expression only read as, "I'm here for information, and I better get it quickly." His team was under there; two people he was responsible for. Two people he'd readily admit he thought of as family, whether that was for better or for worse.

"Preliminarily tests show ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel — classic ANFO."

"Pull all surveillance feed of the parking garage and surrounding streets for the last twenty four hours." Coulson caught the Chief's stink eye with a placid smile. "I trust that's the next step you would take, Captain?"

Clint's head felt like it was tumbling over itself as he closed his eyes against a roil of dizziness; a parched and cracked tongue passed over desiccated lips, his mouth a torrid desert with dehydration.

They needed to get out of here. They needed someone to find them. They needed water.

Three days. Three days they'd been down here. Clint knew from his watch. Broken, he lied to Natasha. At the beginning of their nightmare, she'd asked him how long they'd been buried. Clint didn't want to tell her it had only been five hours then, when, to the both of them, it might as well have been eons. When you're entombed alive under God only knows how many feet of rocks and ruin, a few minutes spent in dread seemed like hours and mere hours felt like days.

The concrete shifted above them with a low grinding scrape, as though a note of broken lament. More dust drifted like dry snow.

Clint tensed and moved to hover over Natasha, shielding her. Every muscle drew tight, and he waited for the blows from falling rubble to come. Instead, the groaning settled and their surroundings calmed. A breath he'd held rushed from his chest in relief that faded as quickly as it had come upon him when a harsh wheeze fell from Natasha's lips.

He flicked on his small flashlight to get a look at her. Her chest moved quick and shallow, and a pale pallor painted her face beneath the gray coating of dust giving her the look of a statue, far too still.

"Tasha? You with me?" He received a small grunt in reply. She needed help, and she needed it quickly.

A series of quiet patters against the still silence immediately caught his attention. He turned, shining the light quickly over broken slabs and remnants of café chairs, scattered sugar and creamer packets, anywhere to quickly discover the source of the sound.

The sound of salvation. Water!

Three days of dry air and grit and swallowing nothing, mouth growing sticky with thickened saliva, and now—this. The need slammed into him so hard he had to close his eyes for a second.

He scraped his palms on broken stone and glass in a frantic crawl towards it, his ears locked in on the steady rhythm. The flashlight threw shaky beams from where he held it in his mouth before he spit it into a bleeding hand.

He swept the light over the area where he thought the sound was emanating from. There, among rebar twisted as though it had been through a tornado, the rearrangement of rubble had allowed a split pipe to peek into their little void. At the breach, a single bright bead formed before falling to join others in a small wet spot below.

For a moment, he just knelt there, the slow drip of water a thin, impossible succor. This was at least something. This could buy them time. Time he needed to keep Natasha conscious and breathing.

Tasha.

Clint looked back to where she was lying. Moving her was no option. It would be asking for death. She had at least a couple of broken ribs, and each of her breaths were jagged and shallow against the pain. Even the slightest tilt in a wrong way could downright puncture her lung, causing internal bleeding.

A cup, a pastry container, anything from the café they had fallen from. Forcing himself back into motion, he shown the light around while digging through debris. His hand closed around a plastic cup, crushed but intact enough. He inspected it, the beam alighting on a crack along the bottom edge.

Of course. He was going to have to go all fucking MacGyver on this.

His fingers dug into one of his pockets where he kept a packet of gum buried. He fished out a piece, slightly melted from the heat and squished from the ride through the rubble, but it would work. He hoped. He chewed fast, the scent of frosty peppermint floating into the void space.

"You…planning for…a makeout session?" A ragged voice broken by gasps cut through the darkness.

A small smile flitted across Clint's face, and he wanted to cry. Natasha was trying to keep her humor while she struggled to breathe and remain present. That's my girl.

"Hey, no talking," he quietly admonished. "Save all that precious breath you still have in you. When we get out of here, there is going to be an epic makeout session; you'll be breathless because of me and not a fucking collapsed lung."

He jammed the tacky wad of gum into the crack, smoothing it flat with his thumb. He hoped it was good enough as he held the cup under the pipe.

The first drops dripped into the cup with little taps, slow as the ticking of a clock passing time they didn't really have as he willed the gum to hold. The two or so minutes he waited to get enough of a swallow of water seemed an eternity. Clint turned, holding the cup like it was treasure he'd dug for, which he kind of guessed it and the water were.

"Vintage edition Madripoor tap," he told her, trying to keep his voice much lighter than he felt. "You'll love it. Trust me."

Sliding a careful arm behind her shoulder to sit her up just the slightest amount, he tipped the cup against her cracked lips. The water trickled into her mouth, and her eyes lightly fluttered and a flick of something almost like a smile graced her face.

An area of the wreckage shifted, and Coulson's heart lodged in his throat as he hoped it wouldn't further bury any survivors beneath. The search and rescue teams were careful and vigilant about not disrupting the precarious stability of the collapse too much, but the remnants sometimes displaced themselves. He didn't have much time to dwell on it as the police chief approached him.

"CSI has pulled the footage you requested," he said before turning to walk them to the command tent.

When they ducked in, a young tech, different from the previous, came over, a laptop clutched to his chest. Coulson pegged him as a someone working in Digital Forensics, as he was not wearing filthy coveralls like those of the scene technicians. He was in khakis and a tucked in polo shirt with the logo of the Madripoor Police Department.

"We pulled security footage from the galleria's lower level cameras. Took some work — the blast corrupted half of the drives — but we've managed to reconstruct enough."

Coulson straightened. "Show me."

The technician set the laptop on the foldout table and clicked a few links via the trackpad. Grainy black and while CCTV footage blinked alive: the garage, three days ago. All seemed quiet, cars parked in neat rows save the few errant drivers who parked slightly crooked over the lines defining their spaces. There appeared nothing out of place.

"Timestamp is two hours before detonation," the tech explained. "Camera six, covering the freight entrance."

Three box trucks, like suspected, rolled into the frame, one after another, all the same make and color. Each pulled into a different bay, brake lights briefly flaring, just long enough to shift them into park and allowing them to idle. Coulson leaned in and squinted.

"What's that logo on the side?"

"It's the logo of a local seafood distributor," the Chief answered.

"They've made deliveries to the café before," the tech picked up the explanation. "However, I spoke with Trace Evidence regarding the partial VINs they've managed to pull from the axles CSI found at the scene: they don't match any trucks of the distributor's fleet."

"So, the trucks were merely painted to look like trucks from the distributors," Coulson concluded.

The Chief leaned into the video then. "Drivers?"

"Obscured. They knew the blind spots. Cameras catch a glimpse when they exit."

The tech clicked another area of the program, slowing down the video and zooming in. A figure stepped down from the first cab — tall and lean with a baseball cap pulled low and a surgical mask. Sturdy gloves made to handle boxes and containers. Never once looked in the direction of the camera.

"Dressed just like a distributor employee," the Chief murmured.

"People don't really pay attention to people that appear to look and act like they fit in," the tech said.

A second driver followed, different in physical shape but dressed similarly. A third driver got out; he wasn't wearing a surgical mask. The three observers watched, hoping for a full face shot, but the driver seemed aware of where the camera was. He turned just enough to show a cheekbone and the curve of a mouth. No eyes; just a partial profile.

The Chief hissed softly. "They knew exactly what they were doing."

A cold and clean focus settled into Coulson. He didn't know if Barton and Romanov were the targets or just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but either way, he was damn sure going to find out. "Pull every frame from cameras at other angles. Cross-reference height and build against port-entry records, traffic cams, any travel manifests — start with the last two weeks."

The tech nodded, already moving to settle into his makeshift desk among the other investigators beneath the tent.

"Have your techs in Trace work on identifying the remaining portions of the VINs and determine where the trucks came from," Coulson told the Chief. "Get everything: names, routes, suppliers. We're not letting these ghosts stay ghosts for long."

Clint roused suddenly, unsure of what broke him out of his fatigued stupor. A noise? Dull and distant. He quickly turned his attention to Natasha, flicking on his flashlight. He was only using it very sparingly now as it had started to flicker with low battery life. Five days. According to Clint's watch, five days they'd been entombed. It surprised him the watch was still going.

"Hey," he said quietly. "I think I heard something."

Her eyes were closed, her breathing labored and loud with stridor. But she breathed. That was all that mattered to Clint. His trips to the broken pipe since its discovery had been innumerable. The gum on the bottom of the cup had started to yield, but he'd hold it in place as he reached for patience for it to slowly fill to have a tablespoon's worth of water to bring Natasha.

Then he heard it again. The noise was closer now. Only it wasn't just any noise; it was a voice, tinny through a megaphone speaker, piercing their concrete cocoon. It was speaking a series of foreign languages, then it switched to English.

"— hello? Anyone down there? Say something! Make some noise; anything!"

Clint's heart lurched, and for a second, he was unable to breathe before a flood of adrenaline shot into him like a live wire. He groped around for something to bang against the slabs of rubble until his hand closed around a length of loose rebar. It made a loud CLANG as he beat it against the wall of wreckage. He banged it again and again, ignoring the sting in his hand it created. "Down here!"

He turned to Natasha. "Tasha," he whispered, shaking her shoulder gently. Her eyes fluttered but did not open. He spoke a little louder, firmer. "Tasha. A rescue team. They're here."

"Hold on!" the voice called, clearer now. "We hear you!"

Clint chest ached with relief, the tension leaving him like air after being punched in the stomach. They were found; they were going to make it. "Two survivors; one critical!"

He heard the faint crackle of radio static as teams coordinated with each other, and then the voice again. "Stay calm! We're coming to you. Do not move."

Dust rained down as the rescuers worked, tools clanging and scraping against concrete. Welders worked with torches to slice away broken bones of rebar. Light finally pierced through the darkness, a narrow curtain threaded through a serrated seam above them.

Squeezing Natasha's hand, he said, "You see that? We made it. We made it."

Clint received no response from her. He whipped his head around to look at her in the fluorescence of the floodlights now spilling through. She looked deathly pale, and her chest barely moved. Clint held two fingers to her neck. Weak, thready, quick. Barely there.

She was going into shock.

And then he began to plead.

"Stay with me! Natasha, Search and Rescue are working on getting us out; you just have to hang on, all right? Hang on!"

Dry muck from the air had moistened in her throat and coated it, heavy like tar, and her chest felt as though a stubborn elephant sat upon it, refusing to budge. The water Clint found had helped — for a while. It just wasn't enough to sustain her longer. Natasha kept trying to force her eyes open, dragging her focus to the frantic and familiar voice somewhere in the shadows above her. She just couldn't get them to comply.

"I need you to stay alive… please… I don't know how to live without you." Even unable to really see him, Natasha clearly heard the tears in the thick, fervent pleading, Clint's voice raw and frayed as worn rope. He never begged like this, in fear. "Please."

She felt Clint shake her once gently, and his voice broke with her name. Clinging to the sound of his voice, she made it her ballast to the pull of oblivion; if she held onto that, she could hold onto the waking world.

How she wanted to fight and stay awake for him, to rip herself from the barbs of unconsciousness latching themselves into her. She wanted to reach beyond the pain, beyond the weight of an iron anvil crushing the breath from her lungs, to tell him her life had no blueprint without him.

Natasha's lips parted to speak, but only air escaped.

I couldn't live without you either, she desperately wanted to say. When I picture the future, my only certainty is you're growing old right there beside me.

Instead, tendrils of darkness crept in from the edges of her vision and pulled her into an embrace of unwilling slumber.

The ambulance doors opened with a forceful thwack, and the harsh white light of the ER flooded in, illuminating Natasha and the bright red of her hair against the alabaster pale of her skin. Clint leapt down after the gurney, almost slipping in an oil stain left behind from a previous emergency vehicle. He righted himself to stay alongside Natasha, strapped in tight.

The oxygen mask over her face periodically clouded and cleared with every one of her slight breaths, and Clint clung to that like a lifeline thrown down to him while in a deep chasm. A paramedic quickly rattled off vital signs and her condition status, but Clint barely heard anything past "low pressure" and "blood loss", his focus completely on the woman who'd become his life fighting for her life.

As the team rushed inside, a nurse attempted to steer him back from the gurney, but he brushed her off, keeping pace as they wheeled Natasha down a hallway that felt far too long. Why is the hallway so goddamn long in an ER where every second counts? Who was the idiot architect who designed this hospital?

Natasha coughed and drops of red flecked the mask's inner plastic. A series of rapid beeps preceded the continuous shriek of an alarm. The ground fell out from beneath Clint's feet, and his knees quaked, almost bringing him to the ground. A tsunami wave of panic overwhelmed him, and his stomach pitched. No. No no no, not this. Not this.

A doctor's voice, sharp. "Pressure's dropping! Prep an OR for a likely hemothorax!"

"What does that mean?" Clint wanted to grab the doctor's coat by the lapels to force him to look at him. "What does that mean?"

"It means she's bleeding into her chest, and she needs surgery now."

Clint caught her hand, limp and cold beneath his warmth. "Natasha, hey, hey, I'm right here. You gotta stay with me, you hear?"

Their connection was broken, and her fingers slipped from his as a nurse tugged him back from the gurney as the trauma team began to wheel her away to the OR. He fought, weakly, but allowed the nurse to steer him from the room.

"You can't go with her, sir."

"I know that!" He snapped, though he knew he wasn't really angry with the nurse.

Clint watched as the gurney, as Natasha, was swallowed into a realm awash with glaring light, the double doors swinging shut behind. What lied beyond was more monitors and scalpels carving into her flesh, bags of blood fed into her veins in the hopes of sustaining her until the lung could be repaired.

What lied beyond was uncertainty.

Clint pressed a hand to the cold wall, resisting the overpowering urge to punch a fist straight through it. Five days. Five days she'd spent in pain, working to breathe, toiling to hang on only to be met with drowning in her own blood.

He staggered to a chair, allowing his wobbling legs to give out, and dropped his head into his hands. Clint was not a praying man, but at that moment, he beseeched any deity that might hear him to listen: Please. Please let her live. I can't go on without her.

"Barton."

Clint, hunched over with elbows on his knees, dragged his head from his hands to look up with red-rimmed eyes. Coulson, in his suit with dust still on his dress shoes, crouched in front of him at eye-level.

"She - she, uh, was bleeding into - into her chest," Clint said, his voice hoarse. "They said, uh, a hemothorax. I don't really - I don't -"

He couldn't finish and slumped forward to put his head in his hands again. Coulson offered no empty words, no "she's tough; she'll pull through." Coulson wouldn't say things he didn't know were true in a situation like this. Instead, Clint felt a solid and steady weight on his shoulder; Coulson's hand gave him a small squeeze.

Clint held his tears at bay until that simple touch absolutely ruptured him open. His breath hitched with the beginning of a sob, and soon, he was clutching at Coulson's coat, holding on tight.

Coulson stood and pulled him in with no hesitation, one arm firm around him and one hand on the back of his head. Clint pressed his face into the collar of Coulson's shirt and cried, hot and choking and uncontrollable, releasing all of the worry and anxiety and fear gripping his soul. He hated himself for it, hated he was wetting and snotting up Coulson's clothes, hated he lost his composure, but he couldn't stop. Coulson was the closest he had to a father figure, and he needed him; he needed the comfort and steadfastness of a dad.

"She - she couldn't breathe right," he rasped, "for days. I tried - I tried to keep her still, to keep her - her comfortable as I could. Where she could - could breathe the easiest." He took a deep, stuttering breath. "But what if - what if I missed something? What if I closed my eyes too long? What if - "

Coulson cut him off with a quiet assuredness. "You didn't miss anything. You kept her alive to get her to the hospital. To give her the best chance at survival."

Clint wondered how Coulson could always be so confident in him. Coulson didn't always agree with Clint's actions; he often pointed out better ways Clint could approach things to ultimately end up with the same results, but he always defended Clint's decisions to Fury or the Council when needed.

He asked Coulson, at one point early on in their relationship as agent and handler, what exactly he saw in him that made him bring him on board into S.H.I.E.L.D. Clint was just a punk kid at the time who'd found himself in a shit load of trouble with hardened criminals.

"Because I'd like to think I'm an excellent judge of character," Coulson told him. "And I saw you had a good heart in you."

"I'm - I'm sorry," he murmured into Coulson's neck.

Coulson was quick to shush him. "Hey, now. None of that," he said, running a steady hand over Clint's back.

"I can't - I can't lose her." His voice fractured in a broken appeal.

Clint shut his eyes, staying anchored to Coulson's shoulder, shallow and uneven breaths against the man's collar. And Coulson continued to hold him, silent and unyielding, until a surgeon finally came through the doors to deliver them news.

"Tasha? Tasha?" The voice held a quiet urgency. "How are you feeling?"

Natasha, just beginning to stir, turned toward the soft voice coming off to her left, blinking sluggishly, trying to clear away the fog in her head. She recognized the hangover of opiate pain medication and persisting surgical sedation when she felt it. Clint sat in a chair next to where she lay; his face was a bit scraped and bruised and a bandage wrapped around his forearm. She was willing to wager he had some aches and pains elsewhere too.

"Never been better. I could go a round or two with you right now," she said with a slight slur, still needing to gather her breath. She would need time, do breathing exercises, to regain the strength in her lungs again.

Clint gave her a small, lopsided smile. He knew she was deflecting in an attempt to lighten a heaviness lingering from their past week ordeal that culminated with her being rushed to emergency after being treated for a collapsed lung. He knew all of her tells, but he didn't call her on it. Yet.

"What about you?"

"No, no, see, there you go again. Tryin' to worry about me," he told her. His face sobered. "I'm not the one who almost bled out. Don't ever scare me like that again, you hear?"

Natasha took a moment to stare into his eyes, taking in his face. His beautiful face. "I can't promise anything, but I'll try not to."

They were both quiet for a moment, just taking in the fact they were both still alive, still here together.

"Coulson ever find out what exactly happened?"

"Yeah," Clint said. "Our mark was the target, but he got hip to what had been planned. That's why he never showed when we were supposed to surveil him. The guys who rigged the explosives didn't even know about us." Clint let out a humorless chuckle. "We were just in the perfect place, I guess."

A soft tap then came on the door before a middle-aged woman entered, long, white coat swishing around her calves, and soon Natasha was being asked again how she was feeling.

"I'm all right," she said with a wan smile.

"Mr Barton, could you give Ms Romanov and I a moment?" the doctor then requested.

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure."

Clint stood up from his seat, ready to comply, when Natasha stopped him, putting a hand on his forearm. He slowly sat back down.

"It's alright, doctor. He can stay."

The doctor looked at Clint, hesitating, before turning to Natasha. "Ms Romanov, you're aware that when a patient is brought in during a trauma, we draw blood to screen for anything that can affect diagnoses and treatment."

"Yeah," Natasha replied with an air of uncertainty where this conversation was going. She was unconscious when they brought her in after the collapse, but she'd been to medical more than enough to know basic routine procedure.

"One of the tests we do is a standard blood pregnancy test," the doctor's voice was slow, as if to allow Natasha to brace for the news she was about to receive, "and yours was positive. Were you aware you're pregnant, Ms Romanov?"

Natasha blinked. And then she blinked again, harder this time. Clint scrubbed a hand down his face, but still didn't manage to wipe the look of shock off of it. His wide eyes stared off out the hospital room window, mouth agape, in a daze.

"I, uh, no, that's - that's not possible."

She fumbled over her words and her head shook back and forth, her brain unable to both receive information and process it in order to form any coherent verbal output. She'd believed she couldn't conceive, unable to after the graduation ceremony. She was raised to believe she shouldn't carry a child. A child would be an unnecessary liability, a stumbling block, with regards to completing mission requirements. Motherhood would be the single greatest impediment to an agent fulfilling their greatness and servitude to the cause.

Or that is what the Red Room had wanted her to believe. Natasha had made her peace with it long ago; she'd had no choice in the matter, so mourning for something that could never be would not have served her.

But then her path crossed with an archer who cornered her, an arrow aimed at her, during a time when she was disillusioned with the direction her life was traversing. Browbeaten by the tasks and expectations placed upon her, her soul grieving her role in so many lives ended or destroyed. Tears for the collateral damage; tears for the red ink of her ledger.

It certainly wasn't the first time she'd found herself with her back against the wall, literally, appearing down for the count. Her gun, wrested from her and kicked beyond her reach, was no longer an option, but she still had her Widow's Bites and batons. She still had her muscles and agility.

But no. Natasha decided then to stop fighting. If this man was going to sling an arrow at her, then let it pierce her heart; let it relieve her of her wretchedness.

His arms shook as he held the bowstring, pulled taut with potential energy, and his jaw was clenched tight. Harsh breaths brought on by pursuit emitted spittle at the corners of his mouth. Natasha saw the agony of deliberation in his eyes. To kill or not to kill?

He didn't take the shot.

And her life shifted course.

"Ms Romanov?"

Natasha came back to herself, raising her eyes to the doctor, who, it was clear, had been trying to gently get her attention.

"Ms Romanov, would you like me to perform an ultrasound?"

"You didn't before?"

"We did several ultrasounds as part of diagnostics and the course of your care," the doctor explained, "but, now that you're conscious, would you like to see the baby?"

The doctor's question was neither coaxing nor judgemental but understanding of the weight of the news she'd delivered. Natasha looked over towards Clint who'd somehow managed to close his mouth and was looking back at her. She swallowed.

"Yeah, yeah, I - I would."

"I'll get the equipment." The doctor gently excused herself, leaving Clint and Natasha alone for the moment.

"Holy shit." Clint once again scrubbed his hands down his face.

"Yeah," Natasha agreed.

"What's our game plan gonna be?" Clint asked, taking Natasha's hand, threading his fingers with hers. "I mean, what're - what're your thoughts on us being… parents?"

Parents. Natasha knew that, just as she never really saw herself becoming a mother, Clint never really entertained the thought of being a dad. The life they lived, the job they performed, where would a kid fit into it?

"We'll need more space," Natasha pointed out. "Our apartment is nice and spacious for us, but once we start filling it with everything a baby needs, it's going get cramped."

Clint nodded slowly. "Might be the push to finally find that perfect house we've been talking about. We'd have a backyard, and I can put up one of those swing sets with an attached slide. You know, one of those wooden ones that have, like, a crow's nest and a helm the kid can spin?"

A smile began to stretch across Natasha's features. "And a castle playhouse. Oh, the house has to have a room I can dedicate as a dance space."

"Yeah, the living room doesn't really work, does it? I've lost count of how many of the same lamp I've ordered after you pirouetted the latest off the end table of the couch. Customer service has starting asking me if I just want to subscribe to getting a discount if I commit to buying a new lamp monthly."

Natasha's cheeks flushed, and a small laugh escaped her. "Those weren't pirouettes. They were jeté's."

"Ah, I stand corrected," Clint grinned. "Well, if there's going to be a dance studio, then we need an archery range."

"An archery range? Where are we going to be living? A farm?" Natasha asked, still wearing the broad smile that didn't want to leave her face.

A moment of quiet settled over them.

Then Clint said softly, swinging Natasha's hand gently, "Yeah. Why not? Tons of land and nature, the nearest neighbors are a good few miles away. Just me, you, and… baby."

Falling into this mutual fantasy family life was all too easy, allowing it to blissfully sweep her along like a lazy river. But so many of the very real logistics of their lives still remained. Natasha sobered up.

"What about our jobs?" She searched his face. "Clint, we have to be honest about this. We're gone for lengthy periods of time; our work isn't often exactly 'scheduled'. Plans are fluid and ever changing. Or they're rigid and immovable." She paused. "And then there's the times we have weapons pointed at our heads or a bomb ticking down the seconds to explosion or-"

Or building collapses. They lived their lives perpetually on an edge; every mission a high wire balancing act with so many possibilities to lose footing. One wrong move on either of their parts could instantly leave their child an orphan. She knew both she and Clint were two of the best and most successful agents S.H.I.E.L.D. offered, but they were human, and all humans were mortal.

"Yeah, and?" Clint interrupted, though not unkindly. "Tasha, police officers face danger, and they still choose to have families. Firefighters, military." He sighed. "And anything can happen to anyone at anytime, regardless of their career. It's just a fact of life. But it's not a reason to not live, to not carve out and sculpt the best life you can for yourself."

Natasha swallowed thickly, vision beginning to blur.

Clint's voice was a breath. "I think we both know what we want." He gave Natasha's hand a squeeze. Natasha gave him a tremulous but joyful smile.

"We'd be in for one hell of a ride, Barton."

A soft tap on the hospital room door, and Natasha quickly wiped her eyes and schooled herself into pleasant neutrality. The doctor entered, wheeling an ultrasound cart with her.

"All right, just lie back," the doctor guided, pulling the hospital bedding over Natasha's lower half as she carefully lifted the hospital gown to expose her still flat stomach, no hint of anything yet growing within. "Little bit of coldness here."

A dollop of blue gel squelched onto her belly, and the doctor began searching for the sight and sound of the little life blooming within her, gliding the wand along. The doctor stopped at a particular spot, and Natasha's breath was stolen away by the sound of the rapid whoosh, whoosh, whoosh filling the quiet room. She reached across the bed railing for Clint, never taking her eyes off of the screen, and felt him grab her hand again, squeezing her fingers with his.

"And there," the doctor said delicately, pointing at a small spot on the monitor, "is your baby."

Natasha wouldn't have known where to look if the doctor hadn't pointed out the minute smudge. She stared at it unblinkingly; her heart clenched in the best possible way, and she imagined a tiny fist squeezing it. How could something the size of a pea, something that looked like a pea, seize her heart in a grip so fierce she knew it'd never let go?

Her vision tunneled until that single mote was all that she focused on.

"Wow." It was watery and fragile, and it was all she managed to say around the shock in her throat, but that single word held all of her immeasurable joy. Turning to look at Clint, she saw tears of amazement lit in his eyes, as though they were glimmering pools in which synchronized swimmers danced. Their eyes met, speaking of the same thing. We're doing this. We're really doing this.

"Ever - everything looks okay?" Clint managed to ask, though his voice cracked, looking to the doctor.

"Thus far," the doctor assured them both. "It's still very early; I estimate you're about six weeks along. But I don't see anything that would tell me the fetus doesn't have the opportunity for healthy growth.

However, given the trauma you've experienced, it's imperative that you take it slow and easy during the pregnancy. I'd recommend no high-risk activities for the time being."

The doctor wiped the gel from Natasha's stomach, promising that when it came time for Natasha to be discharged, she would be sent home with ultrasound pictures and a video copy on disc to preserve the moment.

"Congratulations to you both," the doctor said softly, able to read the emotion between the two new parents, before leaving them together once more.

Clint brought her hand to his lips, and Natasha felt soft kisses peppered along her knuckles.

"Tasha, I don't - I can't-" Clint couldn't get any words out.

"I know," she laughed, voice trembling. "I don't and can't either."

Laugh lines flared from the corners of Clint's eyes as they crinkled beneath the weight of his beaming smile. Natasha met his with an equally bright grin herself that seemed like it wanted to permanently affix itself to her face, finally allowing happy tears to spill over the edge of her lashes. Years of quiet, grudging acceptance, years of perpetually shoving down the errant feeling of longing that sometimes threatened to creep into the very depths of her, dashed in a single, beautiful moment.

"You heard what the doc said: no high-risk or strenuous activities. You can just sit back, relax, and rest. Just let me take care of you. I would never do you wrong."

"It doesn't mean I'm going to be bed bound, Barton. I can still go into the office; I probably still have to proofread your part of our reports."

"I didn't say 'bed bound', though you can edit my reports from the comfort of home," he pointed out. "But we gotta give that little seed the best possible chance to grow into a big, beautiful, bouncing watermelon."

Natasha stared at him for a long moment before saying, "Now all I can think about is having to push out a giant watermelon."

Clint chuckled and lowered the railing on the bed and moved to sit on the edge to be nearer, gathering her in his arms. She leaned in, eager to be nestled into his chest. "You're going to be just fine, Tasha. You're a tough mama." He brushed a few strands of hair back to tuck them behind her ear.

She leaned back to look up at him, tenderly taking his face in her hands. "'Mama'," she murmured, testing out the name. "I really like the sound of that."

Natasha leaned in to softly press her lips to his in a tender kiss before looking at him again.

"I can't think of any other person I'd rather take this unexpected and undoubtedly outrageous journey with, " she whispered, nudging her nose against his before bringing her lips to his again. "'Dad'."