Chapter 15

A/N: This story hit OVER 5k views earlier in the month, so be sure to participate in my dedication spree!!!! Comment "💙❤️" on THIS chapter and the first 5 people (in honor of 5K) to do so will have the entire next chapter dedicated to them!!! Thank you so much for reading... enjoy the chapter :)

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     Natasha felt her heart sink a little as the jet touched the soil of Belfast. The closest hospital on the upper west side, as Maria had found out, was near the coast of Maine. With the jet soaring at full speed, they had made it to Belfast within less than forty minutes.

     Nobody had moved during the flight. Then again, nobody had a reason to move. Steve still lay across the row of seats with his head propped up in Natasha's lap – who still had her fingers tapping against his pulse. His breathing was still soft but steady, as was his pulse, but even with the gauze wrapped tightly around his lower abdomen, he had lost so much blood – which, of course, caused him to lose most of the color to his skin and he was pale...er than normal.

     Now, Sam was using all his strength to carry Steve quickly into the hospital. He was lighter due to the loss of fluid in his body; however, he was still quite heavy for Sam to carry all by himself – but he would manage.

     Natasha and Bucky followed close behind them with expressions of worry plastered across their faces. Natasha would've gladly helped Sam in getting Steve into the hospital, but he turned her down. Truth was he didn't want to risk her having an emotional breakdown in the middle of the parking lot.

     Clint was behind the two of them walking quickly while still keeping an arm wrapped around Wanda – who hadn't said a word since he carried her onto the jet. Though she would never verbally admit it, there were only a select two people who she felt completely protected with; Steve and Clint. And Steve had a hole in his body. So of course, she stuck around Clint and refused to leave his side probably until Steve woke up. If he woke up.

     Lastly, Scott and Maria tried to keep up with the pace of the others as they walked through the doors and the nurses, who knew they were coming (because Maria had called, of course), rushed towards them with a mobile hospital bed. Sam, as if he were saying goodbye to Steve forever, handed him off to crowd of nurses and doctors and they placed him carefully onto the bed. Then, in a heartbeat, they were gone around the corner into the nearest room. Natasha tried to follow their path with her eyes, but her sight of the mobile bed was blocked by a nurse stopping in front of her.

     She was an African American woman, who looked to be about in her late fifties, and her hair was a mess of black tiny curls thrown into a high bun. What took Natasha by surprise were her big eyes – her light blue eyes which were outlined in soft black eyeliner. "Ma'am," the nurse addressed, "Could you please give a brief explanation as to what happened?"

     Natasha stared at the woman blankly until she was forced to clarify, "For his file, of course."

      "Yeah, um..." Natasha began, slightly embarrassed, "It's complicated – I don't know exactly how to phrase it without it sounding, uh..."

     "Like a crime?" the nurse finished with her eyebrow raised. Natasha gave her a confused look. The nurse exhaled and sank into her hip. "I don't mean to alarm you, but you are the Avengers – and you're fugitives. I doubt anything you say will surprise me. So spare yourself the tongue-twisters and lay it down the way it happened." Her voice was calm, but her words were firm.

     Just say it, Romanov, Natasha thought until she began to force the truth out. "Okay. Um, well – he was shot about an hour ago in his lower abdomen, and... uh..."

     Natasha was distracted by the conversation between another two nurses around the corner and down the hall. The hospital itself was eerily quiet; quieter than most hospitals Natasha had visited, but she was surprised as to how she was able to hear their conversation. She looked over her shoulder to see them and she listened carefully as they spoke.

     "He's lost too much blood." One of them spoke – she was a white woman with her dirty blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, and she wore blue scrubs. "I don't know how much longer he'll last before his pulse starts going nuts..."

     The other nurse, who was a white man in the same blue scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck, shook his head in disappointment, "Can you give me an estimation?"

     The woman pursed her lips and continued, "If I had to guess, I'd say it may only be a few hours at most before his circulatory system calls it quits."

     Natasha's heart dropped at the words and she turned to the nurse in front of her, "Excuse me." She said and she began walking down the hallway. No way is what I'm hearing true. It can't be.

     She plopped herself in front of the other two nurses, who were in mid conversation. She cleared her throat, in attempts to let them know she was standing right there. "What room did they just take Steve Rogers into?"

     The female nurse raised her eyebrows and tilted her head slightly, "Pardon?"

     "Steve Rogers. What operating room is he in?"

     The male nurse waved his hand off to the other one, as if telling her to leave, and stepped forward, "Ma'am, I'm afraid unless you're staff or part of the medical team, you're not permitted to enter the operating rooms. We have a waiting room past the front desk–"

     "I don't want to sit in the waiting room, I want to know if my friend is okay!" Natasha yelled, causing the surrounding faces to turn and look at them.

     "Miss, I'm very sorry," the female nurse hadn't left as requested, and she gently grabbed hold of Natasha's arm, "But I'm going to need you to–"

     She was cut off by Natasha ripping her arm out of her reach, "Don't touch me!"

     "Miss!"

     "Just tell me where he is!"

     The man tried to grab hold of her as he frantically explained, "Letting friends and family members enter the operating room is strictly prohibited–"

     "Let her go." A voice came from behind.

     All three of them turned to see the African-American nurse Natasha had originally talked to standing only feet away from them.

     The other female raised her eyebrows in question, "Excuse me?"

     "Let the poor lady see her friend. She can watch from behind the glass."

     "I can?" Natasha asked, lowering her voice.

     "Sure – if you want to so bad," The woman offered with a slight teasing smile, "Look, I'll even take you down there myself. Okay?" She placed her hand gently on Natasha's back, "Come on."

     As they began to walk off, the woman turned to face the other two nurses. "Would you do me a favor and please escort the group of people at the end of the hall to the waiting room? Kindly, I might add."

     The second female nurse relaxed her face, swallowing her pride in confusion, and nodded, "Of course."

     The two of them walked slowly down the hallways of the hospital. Only now was Natasha observing the details in the environment. The walls were painted white, along with the glazy tile beneath them. The doors to the hospital rooms were a light natural wood color and had soft grey frames. Florescent lights hung from the ceiling, as did small triangular banners with different signatures on them.

     On the walls, there were pictures. Some of them were small and framed and of different staff members with bronzy labels that read titles like "February's Doctor of the Month" or "2015's Nurse of the Year!"

     Then there were other, not so happy framed pictures. These were big, and hung underneath a big silver title that read "In Loving Memory of..." Most of them were of little boys and girls in their hospital beds with their bare heads and had their names engraved underneath the photograph along with "...Who Lost [His/Her] Battle to Cancer". One of the pictures was taken of a little girl, who looked to be about eleven or twelve, who looked almost identical to one of Natasha's sisters from The Red Room – only her eyes were brown instead of green. Suddenly, Natasha felt uneasy and picked up her pace.

     The nurse, who hadn't taken her hand off of Natasha's back, opened the metal door to the operating room and extended her hand as a gesture. "There you are."

     Natasha followed inside the dark room with slight hesitance. She was about to close the door, but she quickly peered her head around the it from the inside and looked the kind nurse in her big blue eyes. "Thank you." She said genuinely.

     The nurse nodded with a friendly, half smile and closed the door. Natasha stayed facing the metal door for a short moment before turning her head slowly to look out through the glass separating her from the actual room where the operating went on. She wrapped her arms around herself and raised her shoulders slightly, as one does when they're uncomfortable, and she began to walk closer; looking out at the sight beyond the glass.

     Steve was shirtless on the operating table with a traditional white and blue patterned hospital gown covering his lower body. The white cotton gauze wrapped around his abdomen was a dark red from his blood. The surrounding surgeons and nurses scrambled around him trying to prep him for surgery and Natasha's breathing wobbled.

      The glass separating them had to be one-way, a.k.a – she could see them, but they couldn't see her, because nobody on the other side stopped to acknowledge her presence or even seemed to notice that she was watching. Her breathing hitched softly as she exhaled, taking in the sight and preparing herself for what she was about to see.

     She looked down at her feet, pursed her lips, and spoke softly as if talking to Steve. "How about that... started with the accords and now we're here..." She looked through the glass, "Lucky us."

     She watched as they brought out the tools on a silver tray that they would use on him during the operation, and began to wonder if this was something she really wanted to see. She thought about it, sighed, and continued to talk as she decided that 'yes' was her answer.

     "I guess you are kind of helpless without your shield," she gave a hopeless laugh, trying to hide her sadness with sarcasm. "I've only told you that a couple hundred times, but it's all good... this weeks' life lesson? Natasha is always right."

     One of the surgeons picked up a tiny pair of medical scissors from the tray and began to cut off the bloody gauze wrapped around his figure, revealing the bullet wound as everything it was – big, bad, and bulging.

     Natasha let her eyes wander around the room, trying to distract herself from the scene, and she lowered her voice. Time to be sincere, Romanov, she thought and swallowed hard.

     "I uh... I know you can't actually hear anything I'm saying right now, and that I'm literally talking to myself, but... I'm okay with that – I'd prefer it that way, actually. Because most of what I'm about to say is stuff I'd never say out loud to you." She paused, unsure of whether or not she was willing to verbalize what she was thinking. You have to, she thought, you'll regret it for the rest of your life if you don't.

     "Um... okay, so where do I start? Well, I guess you're kind of important to me... really important to me." Her voice trembled softly. "Nothing lasts forever. But I think that if there's anything that could potentially last forever, it's that. Actually, if there's anything that will last forever, it's that. But don't quote me, because then I'll have to deny it." She chuckled before sniffling through her stuffy nose. "And then I'd have to make fun of you – which, that's what our relationship is, right? I tease you and call you names for the fun of it and you let me? I piss you off and say smart-ass things that I never apologize for, you tolerate it... dare I say, enjoy it? And that's all we are. That's all we've ever been; friends who irritate the actual living hell out of each other... and occasionally save the world."

     She watched the surgeons whip out the other operating tools, and she could've sworn that she heard one of them say the words "Prep him" on the other side of the glass.

     She gulped and pressed onward with her speech. "But put all of that aside – and you will, because... you're you – and you'll never find another person who cares about you more than I do. That's the truth. That's the truth... and it scares me. Because that's not the way it's supposed to work. I'm not supposed to be willing to sacrifice everything for you and you're not supposed to want to protect me or make me feel important. Because love is for children, right? But here we are." She smiled lightheartedly, shaking her head, "And for the first time in what I remember as being forever... I don't think love is child's-play. It's so fantasized, it might as well be – but it's not. Because something's different now. Actually, a lot of things are different now..."

     She wanted to stop. She wanted to shove all her feelings back into the box they came from and leave the room – leave everything. But she couldn't. She couldn't bring herself to do that because she would never be able to forgive herself if she did. You have to say this...

     "They're different because I made a promise to myself and to you in D.C. a couple years ago. I promised that I would do everything in my power to protect you and keep you alive just as you had done for me..."

     She laughed, "I wish you could see yourself now." Suddenly, she crashed and felt warm tears flooding down her cheeks, "God, you're a mess. But you're the Avengers' mess – you're my mess... and I really, really need you to not quit on us. Because that would mean that I broke my promise to you... and I don't know if I could live with myself if that were the case. I'm sorry this happened to you – and I'm sorry that it's mostly my fault. But I need you to promise me something, because unlike me, you always keep your promises. I know you do."

     Then she heard the continuous ringing noise from the monitor, and when she looked at it, the faint jagged green line was straightening out into a flat line... He was flat lining.

     "I need you to promise me that you won't die today." She forced out, admitting to herself that he could actually lose his life in a matter of seconds from right then.

     The doctors must've known that this was going to happen, because they had the defibrillators on stand-by. The main surgeon turned the AED on, applied the pads to his chest area, and gave it a second to analyze Steve's pulse.

     "Clear!" one of the doctors shouted, and Natasha watched Steve's upper body arch upwards in a tiny jump from the shock of the machine.

     The pattern on the monitor didn't change.

     Natasha's lips trembled as she tried to keep from crying, "I guess it's because I maybe, kind of love you. I don't know in what way, yet – which is another reason you can't die – but I do love you. I know I do."

     "Clear!"

     They pumped a shock into his heart a second time and waited... waited... waited...

     "So I need you to promise me that you'll live long enough for me to tell you that." She closed her eyes and another single tear streamed all the way down her left cheek and trickled down her neck onto her shirt. "Please..."

     There was silence.

     There was fear.

     And then there was a spike in the line on the monitor.