Chapter Text
S.H.I.E.L.D: February 2013 (1 Year since the battle of New york)
One year had passed since the battle of New York. The team had gone back to their ‘normal lives’. Tony and Bruce in their labs, Steve, Clint and Natasha at SHIELD. After the success of the Avengers Initiative, the team were regularly paired up.
After only a few missions together, Fury had quickly discovered that the Black Widow and Captain America made one hell of a team.
From that point on, they were sent out together more often than not — the soldier and the spy.
However, they didn’t always see eye to eye and spent a decent amount of time arguing, though it didn’t seem to hinder their ability to get a job done. Nothing did.
Natasha was brutally efficient, quick ruthless and willing to walk into fire. Steve, on the other hand, was more cautious, more by-the-book. As fury had put it once “Your not comfortable with it - Natasha is comfortable with everything”.
At first, he’d tried to keep his distance from her - as most people did - as most people told him to. But after the Avengers Initiative had started, he found himself spending more and more time around her. Despite their differences, Steve found himself more comfortable around her than anyone else at SHIELD.
He told himself it was her quick wit and relentless teasing, always cutting in with a dry remark or a well-aimed jab at his outdated references - a playful banter that put him at ease. He found himself trying to get closer to her, and she didn’t make it easy.
Every time he thought he was making progress, that he was earning her trust, she would pull back behind those walls of hers – the ones he was beginning to realise had been built long before she ever set foot in SHIELD.
She could be sitting right beside him, shoulder to shoulder in a Quinjet or in some nondescript safehouse, and yet feel completely unreachable.
He could read her movements in a fight. He knew her tactics, her skillset, how
she thought under pressure. But he didn’t really know her. Not the way he wanted to.
That’s what bothered him most — the realisation that for all their hours in the field, for all the blood and grit and shared silences, he didn’t know her.
He’d come to care for her quietly, fiercely, with a steadiness he couldn’t explain. He didn’t know what to call it, didn’t think she would want him to call it anything. But he knew he would walk through fire for her.
MISSION: OPERATION LANCET
Lemurian Star, Gulf of Aden
Location: 16°N, 52°E – Gulf of Aden, off the Horn of Africa
Objective: Rescue SHIELD hostages from pirate control
Date: February 2013
Team: Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Brock Rumlow, STRIKE Unit
On a SHIELD rig off the East Coast, an unknown group of pirates had taken hostage the entire ship. Natasha had gone radio silent halfway through the mission.
Despite knowing how capable she was, Steve continued to speak her name into the comms.
He eventually found her in one of the control rooms, as he fell through the door with one of the guards. When he looked up, she was tapping away on a computer, unfazed.
“Well this is awkward”, she said, continuing whatever she was doing.
“Hey”, he called out.
She looked up for a moment.
“Hey, soldier”, she said in that voice of hers.
“What are you doing?” he said, confused, sporting a serious look.
“Backing up the hard drive,” she told him, watching as he came closer and realised what was happening.
“It's a good habit to get into”
“You're saving SHIELD intel” his face was hard now.
“Whatever I can get my hands on”
"Our mission was to rescue hostages”, he said angrily.
“No, that was your mission, and you've done it beautifully” she said, emphasising the word your as she walked past him.
He grabbed her arm firmly and she stopped in her tracks, looking up at him.
His face was stern though his blue eyes remained soft.
Betraying the part of him that was still just relieved she was ok.
“You’ve just jeopardised this whole operation” his voice harsh.
“I think that's overstating things” she said raising an eyebrow.
He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by movement from Braroc.
A grenade flew towards then steve knocked it a few feet away with his shield.
He then grabbed hold of Natasha, leaping across the room, his arm around her waist.
She shot out the window glass exploded as flames filled the room. They were thrown through the air, through the now shattered window. The blast rattled the entire compound. Smoke choked the air, and the heat from the fire filled their lungs. They hit the ground hard—Steve landing on his side, Natasha flung a few feet away, skidding across the glass and debris-strewn floor before hitting the wall.
Steve groaned as he pushed himself up, ears ringing, the room spinning, his first thought was Natasha. He couldn’t see her, although he couldn't see much through the smoke.
“Natasha?” Steve’s voice cut through the haze as he squinted through the smoke his heart racing.
“That ones on me,” came her voice, slightly out of breath.
He sighs in relief. She is ok.
“Dam right it is” he said back with a breathe of relief as he sees her pushing herself off the ground. He reaches his hand out, helping her up. As he goes to speak she pulls away.
She was already moving—on her feet, gun drawn, smoke curling around her silhouette.
There is a searing pain radiating from her side and she blinks away stars for a moments as she grits her teeth and continues to the exit not even looking down.
By the time they reached the evac point a few minutes later– a heli pad at the rear of the ship, lit only by the chop-chop-chop of rotors overhead.
The chopper hovered down, back ramp lowering. Steve stepped aside, hand raised to help her up. He saw her wince as she stepped up.
She’d taken the seat across from him, head back against the wall, eyes closed for a beat too long. He may still have a hard time reading her but he knew enough to know she didn’t close her eyes after missions.
Infact, she normally paced or constantly shifted in her seat - unable to rest. But now she was still.
“You good?” Steve asks, frowning with concern.
She nodded. He didn’t believe her. He couldn’t get a read on her.
That was the problem though, he’d never been able to get a read on her.
His eyes dropped, scanning over her, and that's when he saw the dark patch and slash that had appeared on her catsuit; he hadn’t noticed it in the ship's dim lighting. But now in the harsh lighting of the chopper he could see.
His stomach twisted.
Shit.
She had been hurt. How hadn't he noticed? Why hadn’t she said anything?
The one thing he was sure of was that it was a concerning amount of blood.
“Shit, you're bleeding” he said urgently.
“Language”, she replied, though her voice didn’t have its normal sharpness.
He shook his head. “What happened?” he demanded, his voice full of concern as he moved toward her from his seat.
“Oh, this? Just a scratch,” she replied, going to cover it with her hand, a small hiss escaping her lips as she touched it.
Steve was immediately crouching in front of her, one hand on her leg the other moving her hand away so he could see.
Now that he was closer to her, he noticed her shallow breathing and pale skin. This was bad, he knew before he had even seen the wound. He had seen natasha walk off stab wounds and bullet wounds.
“Natasha, let me see”, he said, his voice alarmed but softer now.
‘Seariously, Steve, it's fine”, she insists, giving him the most convincing look she can manage.
She doesn’t want to get benched or get in trouble for her recklessness. The grenade was her fault after all.
He shakes his head, still holding her hand without realizing.
“Its not fine, you're hurt”, he says, his voice pulling at something inside her.
Seeing she is not getting out of this, she sighs, moving her arm away, and unzips the front of the suit, moving to pull it over her shoulder, as another hiss escaped through her teeth.
Steve grabs her hand, stopping her from pulling it any further off.
“Let me” he insists, and for once she doesn’t argue, which tells him she is in a lot of pain. She always argues back.
He carefully pulls the fabric back over her shoulder, revealing the black tank she wore below.
Once it was over her shoulder, she pushed him away and pulled the rest down herself, in one go as she inhales sharply. Like she was ripping of a band aid.
She then slightly, more slowly, pulls her tank up, her breath catching, revealing her ribs.
Steve cringed at the wound, it was deep, far deeper than she’d let on—shrapnel, maybe—jagged and raw, high along her ribs, the sight of it twisted something in his chest.
Even Natasha frowned slightly; it was uglier than she imagined.
“Natasha, you should have told me earlier, we could have got an evac”
“Didn’t need one”, she replied shortly, her voice clipped and breathy.
He didn’t argue. There was no point. He just needed to make sure she would be ok.
Internally he was replaying their exit, baffled by how she had managed to run like that with the wound she was sporting, but he didn’t bring that up, he could see she was in pain, her eyebrows furrowed and a thin layer of sweat clung to her face so he kept talking to her. Tried to distract her from the pain.
“This look like a scratch to you” he said jokingly, trying to hide the concern he felt , for her sake. He knew what she was like, the more concern he showed, the more prying he did, the more she would pull away. And he couldn’t afford for her to pull away now. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she needed help.
Natasha rolled her eyes and scoffed, as she grimaced slightly.
“Just grab me the med kit would you” she muttered, her voice tight.
He returns a moment later with it placing it on the seat beside her. She opens it taking out the disinfectant.
“Natasha I can-” he reaches out.
“I’ve got it” she says voice surprisingly firm.
She pours the liquid onto a cloth, and he sees her inhale before she brings it to the wound.
Her eyes squeezed shut for a second as she gritted her teeth. He runs his hand through his hair.
“So guess I can’t be mad at you for your secret mission anymore” he says trying to distract her from the pain again.
He doesn’t miss the smirk that pulls at the corners of her mouth as she rests her head on the wall.
“Guess not” she replies looking down at her hands, her voice clipped.
He watches her for a few moments before speaking.
“I’m going to call medical, make sure they are ready when we land”
“No” she says quickly, her voice suddenly firm, though he doesn’t miss the rasp.
“What?” steve is confused now, he looks to her with a frown.
“No, you can’t call medical” she repeats, her head resting against the wall, as if he didn’t listen properly the first time.
“You need to see a doctor as soon as we land”
She shifts slightly and continues to dab the disinfectant on the wound.
She doesn’t flinch, but she is pale—too pale—and her breathing has gone shallow.
“No doctors” she says something in her tone he can’t recognise, he can see her struggling to hold her side. Is she mad? he thinks to himself. He knew she was fiercely independent but this was ludicrous.
“Don’t be ridiculous, this needs stitches, you probably need blood”
“I don’t” she says her voice is weaker now.
He reaches out and she moves away as best she can.
“Its not that bad” she insists between ragged breaths.
“You need help”
She shakes her head, her eyes closed now as she weakly holds the disinfectant-covered rag to the wound.
“Nat-” Steve started again, but the tone in her next words cut him off.
“I said no.” he recognises it now; fear.
His face fallsl.
He’s seen her hide injuries from SHIELD before; he knows that is what she is trying to do now. He is about to insist again that she needs immediate medical attention but then she looks at him.
Her eyes open now, meeting his and what he saw makes him swallow his words.
He could see that she was not going to back down from this and arguing about it was just making her condition worse. He figures he can wait till they land, fury won’t let her leave before she's been checked, and this was going to be impossible to hide - though she had really tried and was clearly still trying. He can call medical over as soon as they touch down - atleast then she won’t spend all her energy arguing with him for the next half an hour.
“Alright, I won’t call SHIELD,” he says gently with a nod.
She blinked—surprised, maybe—but didn’t say anything. He could see how much effort it took her to stay upright and she had started to blink more heavily. Though he was keeping a close eye on the blood loss and he was confident she hadn’t loss more than a pint yet so she should be alright till they got to SHIELD.
She closes her eyes again, and he sees her face pale another shade as she shifts her position slightly.
“Nat you good?” he says as he moves her hand from her side, she nods. Despite her attempts to stop him he takes the rag in his own hand and holds it firmly against her side, trying to keep the blood loss in check.
She squirms slightly away, and he uses his other arm to brace her.
After a few minutes, she takes the rag back and shoos him away. He takes the spot beside her, watching her intently for any signs of deterioration as she leans her head back against the wall.
Though he can’t see it, she is fighting to stay awake, her vision is swimming and she knows the damage isn’t just external. Though her current thoughts are how she is going to get home without a stop at medical.
The pain is flaring more sharply now, and deeper. She can feel it in her chest with every breath, a hot, burning throb that spreads out in sickening waves from her ribs. She knows what it is. She’s felt it before. There’s damage inside. She can feel it, something wrong, bleeding where she can’t press a rag to stop it.
But Steve doesn’t know that. He sees the wound on her ribs and thinks that’s the worst of it. That it’s painful, yes, but fixable. Stitches would do the trick. She is using every ounce of strength to keep it that way. He doesn’t see the faint pink froth that bubbled at the corner of her mouth earlier, before she wiped it away when he wasn’t looking. He doesn’t hear the crackle in her chest beneath her ragged breaths.
The taste of blood fills her mouth again, metallic and sharp, but she swallows it down quickly. Her vision keeps tunnelling despite every ounce of focus she’s pouring into staying conscious.
She can feel the blood pooling inside, heavy and hot and wrong. Every breath is harder to draw in, and her arms feel heavy, her fingers tingling faintly with pins and needles.
She forces a slow inhale—quiet, controlled. She can’t let on that its any worse then he already thinks.
She knows the signs - She doesn’t need a scan to know that the explosion did some serious damage.
It is only the drone of the heli engine that stops steve from hearing her ragged breaths.