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The engines on the Quinjet whirred louder than usual as Natasha eased the craft down onto the landing pad. Her fingers were slick with sweat as they tapped the buttons and pulled the levers to assist the autopilot. The sun glared into her eyes, giving her more of a headache than she already had. It was magic hour, and the city was lighting up after a bright, clear day. It hadn’t been bright where they had come from, though. The Hydra base they had taken out happened to be under a foot of snow. So the exposed skin around the bloody, messy place on Natasha’s thigh where a bullet grazed her had been nearly frozen as well. The fight hadn’t been pretty.
Indeed the soft whir of arc engine Quinjet was all they could hear for the entire trip home. Every Avenger was either sleeping or being respectfully quiet for the others that were resting. Or they were piloting, of course. Natasha took a trained breath to steady the shaking in her hand as she parked the jet on the landing pad at Avengers tower. The back of the jet opened and she walked off.
“Come on, boys, we’re home,” she announced to rouse everyone. They all slowly stood up and made their way inside the tower as the doors opened for them automatically.
Natasha tried not to acknowledge the fact that she was the only one hiding a severe limp, or any injuries for that matter, as she headed towards the elevator.
“Medical room one, please,” she said as the doors closed.
“Yes, Agent Romanoff,” Jarvis answered politely as Natasha watched the doors slide closer and closer. The minute they touched, Natasha let out a breath and leaned against the side of the elevator, clutching the bar with her damp hands. She could feel the blood drying all over herself and tried not to think about it. She bit back a curse word as she looked right up at the ceiling, eyes stinging.
It doesn’t matter how much spy training you’ve had, bullet wounds still hurt. And no matter how many times she had gotten shot, the pain didn’t change. She shook her head, trying to keep her vision from blurring. Some called her the strongest agent in the world. Weakened by a gunshot. She shook her head again, in disappointment this time.
“This is your floor, Agent Romanoff,” said Jarvis calmly.
“Thanks, J,” she said as she stepped off into the medical center. She headed towards bathroom three. She had to take care of the wound aside from the unsteady patch job she had been given on the scene to stop the bleeding, but first…
She closed the door of the bathroom tight and reached for the cabinet. Behind two tiny travel shampoos was a little bottle. She grabbed it and squeezed it open, giving it a shake and letting a tablet fall out onto her hand. She glared at the little pill in disdain. She had never questioned her tactical use of painkillers until she had been put on a team with literal gods. But who could blame her? She was probably the only superhero on the whole team who had take Advil after a…
“DAMNIT!” came a yell from the medical room outside the door, followed by a clattering of supplies. “Oh, come on, Jarvis, don’t we have any- ugh,” the familiar voice continued.
Nat opened the door and peeked around it. Tony’s arm was covered in blood. Which she hadn’t noticed, nobody did, under the suit and black undersuit. He was covered in scrapes around the area and was daubing up the blood with standard medical alcohol. He shook his head.
“Just like a six-year-old who fell off of his bike,” he mumbled under his breath as he took a bottle very similar to Natasha’s out from the medical drawer, removed the little orange pill from it, and gulped it down as he continued cleaning his scrapes. Nat smiled slightly to herself and stepped out from behind the doorway.
“Guess we’re both not everything we pretend to be,” she said softly. Tony gave a little jump and his head spun around to see her. He sighed in relief of the sudden shock as he shook his head and looked at the ground.
“Gosh, does an international super-spy ever not super-spy all the time?” he said in a very Tony-esque way. He noticed the bottle in her hand that matched his. He opened his mouth to speak, and then just sighed out the air with a small smile. He started again, looking right at her this time. “So. You too, huh?”
Natasha shrugged. “Gods. Monsters. Super-soldiers. It doesn’t matter how many bases we bust, at the end of the day, we’re just…” She trailed off, letting Tony pick it up for her.
“A man in a can,” said Tony, remembering what he had tried to communicate to Pepper a few years ago. In less than a split second he pulled himself out of that time and remembered Natasha was there, too. “Woman in a suit. Person. We’re just people. You don’t even have a proper suit, really- Where’s Barton?” Tony asked, jumping from one thought to another faster than his mouth could keep up with.
“Agent Barton on his floor, sir,” said Jarvis.
“Thanks, J,” said Tony. “It’s probably best just to leave him alone. Still-”
Natasha watched as he finished wrapping up all the scrapes and cuts on his arms, probably left there by his armor getting torn open, and then looked up at her, worriedly eyeing her bloody leg. He jerked his head towards the medical table, giving just the slightest gesture for her to come over. How could she refuse it? She slowly made her way over. She let out a sigh, as not having to hide her limp felt so much better. She clunked down on the chair next to him in a very un-graceful manner, leg up on the table, face scrunched up in the pain she was for once unafraid to show. Tony was still turned towards the medical supplies. He looked down at her leg again.
“That,” he said, “Is going to be more than unpleasant to wrap up by yourself.”
Natasha smiled a little bit, ripping the fabric away from her leg. “I shoulda revealed myself earlier, then I could have helped you with yours,” she said. “How did you get those?” Tony rolled his eyes.
“The mark 45 is a bit rough around the joints. Especially when it gets cracked open on a falling pile of rubble.” Yup. She had been right.
They were silent for a while as Tony helped Nat clean her wound and dress it a little better. She winced a bit as the sterile alcohol touched it. Instead of acknowledging it directly, Tony decided to start up the conversation again.
“So. Do you think the rest of the team likes it here? I mean, I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job. But you never know with them. Especially Katniss and He-Man. It’s pretty hard to get a read.” Tony spoke in his usual casual tone and choppy tempo with humor thrown around, but Tasha could tell by looking at him that this was something very important to him, something he had been thinking about for a long time but was probably too afraid to mention.
“Well, I can’t speak for Thor, but I know for a fact that Clint likes it here. Whether he says it or not. It’s a huge improvement from those places SHIELD used to put us up in, and that’s an understatement,” Natasha said, thinking about how the luxurious quarters and personalized living spaces and endless training areas compared to the undercover shacks she used to use on missions. Talking did help to keep her mind off the pain. She felt her grip with her other hand on the table loosen as Tony assisted her with the dressings of her wound. Stepping back to let Nat apply the last bandage, he looked up at her again.
“And what about you? What do you think of the Tower?” he asked. Natasha gave a sigh of relief as she stuck the last bandage in place, and then looked around to prepare herself for her answer. She looked back at Tony.
“I love it here. It’s the best I’ve lived since… well, for a long time.”
Tony breathed out a bit. His lip twitched upwards. Then he nodded.
“Well, looks like you’re all good to go. Our secret is safe with me. Just don’t tell Cap, alright?” Tony asked, sitting back. Natasha smirked and nodded.
“Not a problem.”
Tony suddenly looked down at the fabric they had ripped from her suit to get at the wound. He stretched it with his hands.
“What is your suit even made of? Cotton and polyester? This might as well be spandex,” he said incredulously. This drew a laugh from Nat as she cleaned up some of the supplies and put her chair back.
“It’s what shield gave me,” she said.
“Remind me to give Director Fury a hard time about this the next time we talk. Who sends their agents out wearing this nonsense? I mean come on. Is Clint in the same situation?” Tony continued ranting. He pulled up a holoscreen from midair and began typing on it. Natasha limped towards the elevator.
“Hey,” she said, using the same head flick gesture he had used on her, “We have to get to debriefing, speaking of Clint. He hates it when we’re not all there to give the info.”
“Noted,” said Tony, flicking the holoscreen away and making his way towards the stairs. “I’ll see you at the family meeting room, human person,” he said to Nat as the elevator doors opened. She leaned against the side of the elevator as the doors closed in front of her again. She considered the fact that Tony took pain relievers after fights as well. After all, he was a non-superpower, just like her. She suddenly wondered if Clint did as well. He must.
It was hard for Natasha to remember sometimes that she wasn’t the only one. When she watched Iron Man fly around in his big metal suit, blasting enemies with repulsor fire, or fought next to Hawkeye as he stuck every hit with a deadly accuracy, it was easy to forget that they were just like she was, feeling as much pain as she did when they took falls. This was something they shared. They were all only human, armed with only their skills against the whole universe.
Two short weeks later, another mission came up. It was at 4am, of course, all important missions come when it’s the least convenient. Everyone gots their alerts on their floors. Natasha had been lying in bed, staring at the darkness unable to sleep. So when the alarm went off, she sprung out of bed as fast as possible, the second it came on her holoscreen. She dashed to her super-suit closet, and opened it up to find a little sticky note stuck on the inside of it with a note scrawled in blue ballpoint. Stopping her momentum entirely, she paused to read it.
IF YOU EVER WEAR SPANDEX AGAIN, I’M KICKING YOU OFF THE TEAM.
-TS
A small smile sprung up on Natasha’s face and began to grow. She looked up at her suit. It was completely re-made, same basic form but double-layered in some places, more support on the chestpiece, and… was that fabric bulletproof? Natasha felt the mesh between her fingers. Light, supple, and definitely able to stop more than a bullet. Nat’s smile grew even wider. Bulletproof suit. Sometimes in order to keep up with the rest you need a little extra help. And that’s okay.
Within minutes she was suited up and ready to fight. The outfit was light, and comfortable. It didn’t pinch up anywhere, and was just as easy to walk around in as it was to fight in. She made her way to the quinjet, noticing all these things as she hopped up the stairs.
Everyone gathered on the loading bay where Tony consumed inhuman amounts of coffee as Steve attempted to get everyone under control so they could get out on time. The back of the jet opened and they all stepped on. Natasha looked over and noticed that Clint was outfitted similarly to her. Like her, his setup and gadgets remained the same, but his suit was much more padded and protected than it was before.
“Did you get a note too?” he asked her as they climbed into their seats. (They had reserved seats on the quinjet, but Nat and Clint rotated each others’ every mission because Clint seemed to believe that the right seat had a better view).
“Yeah,” said Nat. “What did yours say?”
“‘You’re welcome’.”
“Of course he said that.”
They both giggled to themselves and looked up at Tony, who was looking more smug than usual as he strapped into the pilot seat and began directing JARVIS to bring them to their battle destination.
The fight wasn’t quite as bloody as the previous one, possibly because they had planned it out better beforehand, possibly because Natasha didn’t quite feel everything as much as the last time. She didn’t realize until after the fight when she was inspecting the damage, and noticed that the locations on herself that usually sported painful cuts after battle were unscathed. She was still covered with bruises, though.
When they returned and everyone limped off of the jet, Natasha went to her room and changed out of her suit, able to do that since she wasn’t actively bleeding out onto it. Then she made her way down to the medical center bathroom three, of course. But when she opened the cabinet, expecting to find the tiny, half-full bottle of Advil hidden behind the assorted bathroom supplies, a completely different sight met her eyes.
The cabinet was stocked with brand new medical supplies. Not the heavy duty gunshot wound dressings of the medical center, but more casual things. Band-aids. Hydrogen peroxide. Antibacterials. Gauze and gauze tape. And of course, plenty of ibuprofen.
As Natasha reached for the pills, she heard the sound of two people talking. She stepped out of the bathroom to see that there was nobody in the medical center. The source of the sound was coming from somewhere else. All the way towards the back of the room, there was a door to what used to be a storage closet. Of course, it was Avengers Tower, so the storage closet was huge. Nat assumed that Tony had repurposed it. Opening the door, she saw that she was right.
“Okay, but the Hulk jokes that he could have taken out all of those baddies by himself, but had I not shot out that rigged bomb trap, he would not have gotten as far as he did,” Clint said. Tony nodded as he leaned towards him on the table.
Natasha leaned against the doorframe and inspected the place. The room wasn’t too big, but it was big enough to fit a little coffee table, three chairs, and a water dispenser in the corner with plenty of breathing room.
“Hey, Nat, we were wondering when you were going to show up!” said Clint, gesturing to her to come over. Tony pointed at the water jug.
“Grab a cup. Only one per person, we’re running low. Clint used them to make a cup pyramid earlier and let's just say it didn’t end too well,” he said. Nat did so and sat down at her assigned chair, tossing the pill into her mouth and taking it down with the water.
“Tony and I took two,” Clint said, “But then again, you do have a higher tolerance for pain than us. You always have.”
“Now, don’t go saying that, or she’s getting kicked out of the cool club going back up to the common area with the gods and half-monsters and hot supersoldiers,” said Tony. Clint laughed. “We were just about to share humorous childhood traumas,” he continued, drawing another chuckle from Clint. “Got anything good?”
Nat looked at him, and then Clint. She wanted to say thank you. She wanted to tell them how much this meant to her. She wanted to say something fitting and appropriate that would summarize the situation and uplift them as well as bring them closer. But she couldn’t find anything at all to say that would even come close to any of that. And besides, speeches were Cap’s deal. She scooched her chair forward and tossed her short red hair out of her eyes.
“You guys wanna hear about the time my little sister dared me to eat a cicada?”