agent carter season 3 i mourn you every day i will forever hate on abc for cancelling s3 oh what you could’ve been💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
warnings: blood & some gore (stab wound) & swearing !!
words: 3k
summary: you're assinged on a mission with Natasha Romanoff - who you're pretty sure you have feelings for.
. . .
Warm droplets of water hit your skin, washing off the long day that’s now coming to an end. Your mind was fatigued, heavy and clouded with the long files of the mission from earlier. Taking a deep breath in, you rub your face with your hands, making sure to pay attention to your temples.
You had spent the previous hours analyzing footage of your teammate, hacking security systems and making sure you uploaded important information back to S.H.I.E.L.D. If that wasn't mentally exhausting enough, you still had to file a very lengthy mission report.
You were halfway done with it, deciding to continue the rest when your partner got back to the hotel.
A cheap one, at that.
You feel the cold tile of the floor as you step out of the shower, wrapping yourself in a towel before quickly changing into more comfortable clothing.
You were impatient to finish your dreaded mission report and slip into the sheets of your hotel bed. Your eyelids felt weighted now, staring at your paperwork with sleep on your mind.
Thankfully, this mission was designed to be fast, you and Natasha Romanoff were assigned only one night out of state. You were her eyes and ears as she infiltrated a lightly guarded facility, searching for information and taking down the necessary soldiers along the way.
She could’ve done it herself, was the first thing you thought when you read over the mission file. She was perfectly capable, but S.H.I.E.L.D required that you assist her with disarming alarms and security camera footage, ensuring that the mission went smoothly, leaving no physical trace of evidence behind.
Dragging your feet, you slowly make your way to the sofa, trying not to think of how long the rest of this was going to take you. You’re fixed on the pages in front of you for a few minutes before you feel the stare of another.
Natasha Romanoff is standing near an unopened window in your hotel living room, merely a few feet away from you.
She hadn’t made a single sound.
“Do you know what you're doing?” Natasha whispers so quietly, it takes a moment for you to register what she'd said.
Before you can show any form of reaction, Natasha tightly presses her finger up to her lips, maintaining an intense eye contact. The tan colored envelope in your hand falls to the floor when you notice her torso.
Her white tank top clung to her skin, soaked in blood from a gaping wound. Without another moment of hesitation, you rip a t-shirt from your backpack and make your way to her.
Natasha’s back was tightly pressed up against the wall, her right hand trembling from how hard it was pressed into the side of her waist.
“Yes,” you reply before even thinking. Natsha’s eyes shut instantly, as if she granted you permission to do whatever you needed.
“Take this off,” You whisper, signaling to her green button down jacket. She slides it off as best as she can, biting her lip from the pain of moving. Her eyes connect back to yours when you place your hand over hers, silently signaling her to move. The second she does, you lift her tank top up as deep red blood immediately surges from the wound.
Besides, the obvious scar next to her new wound told you that she had dealt with a lot worse.
You can instantly tell it’s a stab wound, and that it definitely hadn’t pierced any of her vital organs. Whoever had done this to her obviously meant it to be deeper, and not so far off to the side.
This was the best case scenario, in your not so professional opinion. Your specialty was computers and coding, S.H.I.E.L.D certainly didn’t hire you to be a part of the medical team. Thankfully, you enjoyed a good read.
Quickly, you begin packing your shirt into the area. Natasha’s legs sink further to the floor as soon as you apply pressure with both hands, her mouth falling open from the pain. You spot her when she slides to the ground, copying her movement while never loosening the amount of pressure against her wound.
“They’ve got the place next to us surrounded,” Natasha whispers slowly, her eyes shut. “I think- just bought us another day here.”
“Try and exhale longer than you inhale,” you say as calmly as you can. You hadn’t even noticed how hard your heart was pounding until now. The sounds of Natasha breathing were suddenly drowned out by the pulsing in your ears. You pick up Natasha’s blood stained hands that lay near her side and put them over yours again. The t-shirt packed into the wound had soaked up a significant amount of blood, but so had her own.
You nod, though she couldn’t see it. Beads of sweat collect on her forehead as she struggles to calm her breathing, inhaling several times before being able to breathe out. Her red hair clung to the sides of her face as quiet gasps slipped from her mouth, and you examined her face to see it draining with color.
Fuck. You needed to act fast, and now.
You were acting purely based on information you’d read online, or in a medical history book. And of course, your basic life saving training for S.H.I.E.L.D is required in order for you to even work where you do, but you hadn’t ever handled something like this before. You had worked with S.H.I.E.L.D for years now, but attending missions with the Avengers was still relatively new.
Natasha whispers your name through her gritted teeth, and you stumble back over to her as soon as you hear it.
“Match my pressure,” you order her. She grimaces slightly, obeying. You know the wound wouldn’t have been so bad if she had gotten back to you sooner, and Natasha surely wouldn't be on the verge of going to shock right now.
How did she even manage this?
Questions later, when your teammate wasn’t nearly bleeding to death. Natasha watches you run around your small hotel room with her eyes half open, frantically looking for the right things. Pain was being sent through waves, travelling up her body and though she knew she had been through worse, everything fucking hurt.
“I need you awake,” you touch her face gently, tucking her short hair behind her ear. You retract your hand quickly, like it didn’t happen. You weren’t thinking. Your face burns when Natasha opens her eyes fully, instantly meeting yours.
“Lay down.” You instruct, spotting her and carefully helping lay on her back. If you were correct, and she was on the verge of being in shock, her body needed much more blood flow than it was getting.
You carefully slide pillows underneath her legs to elevate them. “How’s that?” You ask cautiously, receiving a nod for an answer. You drape blankets over her to keep her warm, hoping to keep her temperature normal and restore the color drained from her face.
You replaced her hands over the wound with your own again, allowing her to relax. You monitor her closely. After a few minutes you notice her head begin to tilt to the side, and without thinking, you take her face in your hand.
“Then you’d better start talking,” Natasha says lowly, the slightest hint of a smirk tugs at her lips. You exhale a laugh, relief washing over you. “Does it have to take a stab wound for you to want to talk to me?”
“I…talk to you,” you say, earning a small eye roll. You direct the conversation back to the topic at hand. “What happened out there? I know this wasn't from inside the facility.”
Natasha sighed, her green eyes staring up at the ceiling. “Didn’t watch my steps behind me as well as I should’ve when I left. I came out too overconfident that I wasn’t being followed.” She looks back to you and smiles. “Lead them right to us.”
“Some spy you are,” you whisper, copying her smile. Your eyes travel all over her face. You notice things you haven't ever before, not having been this close to her. A small beauty mark on the right side of her face. The light pink welt on the top of her eyebrow. Surely, that would turn into a bruise.
Time passes, and much to your relief, Natasha’s vitals remained stable through the rest of the night. You knew she would need to have a form of stitching or staples so the wound would properly heal, but she was breathing normally, and color had returned to her face. You kept her wrapped in a blanket while you tried to remove her blood soaked clothing.
Natasha can't remember the last time she had been so close to someone like this. For a second, the pain in her lower hip is gone.
“Yeah,” she whispers, forgetting you had said something to her.
“We really need to get this closed, Nat,” You say while searching through various supplies that were sent along for the mission.
“No hospitals,” Natasha reminded you. Her hands kept applying pressure to her wound, but not as much since the bleeding had lessened significantly. “Work with what we’ve got. I’ll be fine until we get back to the compound.”
You nod, returning to her side to clean the area around the wound. You take a damp towel to the area, removing the dried blood from her skin. Natasha watches you delicately wash her skin, being careful enough to not bother the affected region. You’re so gentle that Natasha doesn’t even notice you began cleaning her actual wound, trying to get as much dried blood as possible.
“Looks good,” you murmur, beginning to wrap gauze around the outside. You make sure to dry off the skin near the wound before applying medical tape, securing the new wrap for her wound. You take a deep breath, the first one since you noticed Natasha by the window. You had glanced at the alarm clock while gathering supplies, not surprised to see that it was well past 3 am.
“I don’t know why they haven’t put you on the line with us more. You’re good. We need that. I’ll give you a recommendation if you’d like, Nick would listen to me.”
Your face heats up slightly at her compliment, and you look away while packing up the first aid kit.
Natasha notices your uneasy response. “We could at least use you in medical care then, you clearly know what you’re doing.”
“I enjoy learning, but this is way out of my experience, I-”
Natasha rolls her eyes, letting out a small laugh. “Stick with your computers and boring shit if it makes you happy. Just let me flatter you, it’s the least I can do.”
With green eyes and red hair on your mind, you accepted the job of being on the line with the team without hesitation. On your very first mission with the Avengers, you worked up the courage to ask about who Natasha might be seeing, only to be met with muscled shrugs from Sam and Steve.
You look back at her, slowing your movements. This was why you didn’t talk to her as much as she liked, at conferences or parties. You’d noticed it over the past year, how she would always seek you out in a crowd, offer to buy you a drink, be extra chatty after meetings.
For a second you thought you were going insane, having the attention of an Avenger on you when most of the work you did was behind the scenes. You hated blushing furiously whenever she smiled at you, or zoning out when trying to finish your work.
Your thoughts focused solely on her, it was physically impossible not to. You needed more.
“Bruce, for sure,” Wanda nodded. You were able to find her after a mission briefing, figuring she would know out of everyone on the team. You didn’t know Natasha too well yet, but you knew she’d never go out of her way to tell anyone anything personal.
You tried not to let your face react too much. “What?”
“Last I heard,” Wanda said simply.
You tried not to dwell on it, so you buried yourself in work, taking on extra files. It took a toll on your time and your social life, which is what you’d hoped for anyway. You hadn’t seen Natasha in a few weeks and you finally were starting to feel okay with everything until she passed you in the compound.
“Hey, wait up!”
“Hey Nat,” you say, hugging the files you had in your hands to your chest. She’d caught you on your way delivering information that you had been collecting throughout your extra work. Natasha analyzes you quickly, noting the dark circles around your eyes and the way your hands anxiously start twitching.
“What makes you think you can avoid me so easily?”
Her voice sounds like pure silk when she talks to you this way, you feel yourself wanting to lean closer into her. Thoughts of what Wanda told you flash into your mind instantly.
“Work has been keeping me so busy- I just can’t keep up.” You fake laugh, but it stops suddenly when Natasha laughs with you.
“You’re kind of a bad liar.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean to overstep…” Natasha’s voice snaps you out of the memory, and you shake your head.
“We should sleep soon if we’re getting you back early tomorrow. I don’t think we’ll need to spend more time here.”
Natasha scoffs, tilting her head. “Fine.”
Whatever anger had built up in Natasha quickly vanished when she saw you curled up, underneath the sheets of the queen bed. Your hair fanned out across the pillows, eyes shut and face peaceful. She knew there must be another reason, something else that was bothering you.
You look away guiltily as she gathers her strength and lifts herself off of the hotel bed, closing the bathroom door. With everything that happened tonight, how could you be so selfish?
Time passes and the only thing you can hear is the faucet running.
Without Natasha to focus on, you start feeling the exhaustion of the last couple of hours slowly begin to hit you, and your plans of wanting to sleep from hours ago have you gravitating towards the pillows. You’d deal with your guilt and stupidity of possibly messing things up even more tomorrow morning.
You don’t sleep, but you don’t feel fully awake. Somewhere in between, where your thoughts finally silenced and your heavy eyes finally closed. You can’t tell how much time has passed when you feel soft fingers gently comb through your hair. It feels like you sink further into the mattress, melting underneath her touch.
You turn towards Natasha, instantly noticing she’d taken your spare clothes.
“I’ll give them back, I swear.”
Natasha’s eyes scan your whole face. She watches your hand reach out to her slowly, tracing the cut above her eyebrow. Your fingers ghost over the bruise on her cheek, then the slight split on her bottom lip. You can still feel the softness of her skin on your hand that now rests on the sheets.
Even in the dimly lit room you can see her smiling down at you as she climbs into the bed. You feel incredibly small under her gaze, but something feels different than all the other times before.
You don’t feel like any possible actions have any consequences now, when it’s just the two of you. Close. Besides the moment from earlier, this was the closest you had ever been to her.
“You should keep them,” you say back, earning yourself an eyebrow raise.
“Might just have to,” Natasha whispers, a small smirk making its way to her lips again.
“What?” You smile, confused.
“I- uh, heard you ask about me.” Natasha looks proud of herself watching your reaction. You break your eye contact, hating the way your face began to heat up. Everytime. “Find what you were looking for?”
Natasha laughs when you shake your head slowly, biting the inside of your cheek to stop from smiling too hard.
“Heard you might be with Bruce, so no….”
“Right,” Natasha nods, laying her head on the pillow next to yours. “Whatever Bruce and I might've had, never went anywhere.”
You feel all the air leave your lungs as you wait for her response. You’d finally dropped what had been weighing on your mind, and your heart begins to pound when you’re met with silence for too long. You might’ve felt insane before, but you’d seriously snap if she confirmed what you had been dreading.
Not after whatever this night had turned into.
You feel yourself relax instantly, relief clouding your eyes. “Sorry about that.” Your best attempt at sincerity makes Natasha giggle.
“Sure you are. And anyways…I owe you now.”
“Owe me?”
“For today. I know I can handle my own but I didn’t need to this time.”
Natasha pulls away for a moment, unable to contain her smile.
“Anytime,” you whisper. Your eyes are fixed on her lips and you can feel yourself naturally gravitating closer to her. Natasha lifts herself on one arm, helping close the already minimal distance.
She kisses you softly, and your eyes flutter shut against the skin of her face. Your hand falls on her neck, pressing her further into you. The sweetness of her kiss has you craving more, as your lips meet over and over again.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.”
You cover your face with one hand, smiling uncontrollably in it. If only she knew, every fleeting moment throughout the past year. Every party, meeting, conference- you’d only ever wished to be closer.
“Me too,” you whisper. “And I’m so sorry, for earlier. I didn’t mean…” you trail off, shaking your head.
