Love is for children

I don't need you, I want you

Darkness. Nothingness.

And then pain. It feels as if I'm being shot all over again. A whimper leaves my lips and distant voices are all around me. "Wanda, let them take her." Is that... Steve? "No!" Wanda. "If you touch her I swear I'll kill you!" "Wanda, look at me." Clint. "They're going to put her on a stretcher so that they can bring her to the OR. They need to do this to save her life Wands. We did what we could, we gave her the blood transfusion and you kept her stable all the way to this base. But now you need to let the medics take over, there's nothing more we can do." A sob leaves her lips and it breaks my heart. I try to open my eyes but I can't see. "W-Wan..." Immediately a warm hand takes a hold of mine. "I'm here moya dorogoya..." Then to someone I can't see. "Why isn't she sedated? You said she would be out of pain!" "Fuck." It's Steve's voice again, and while I want to say language it simply hurts too much. "We didn't take into account the fact that she also has a kind of super soldier serum in her system, it breaks the sedation down much faster. We need to give her a higher dose!" A frustrated groan leaves Wanda's lips. "Idioty!" Purely through my willpower I succeed to move my hand to the pocket where I have put the USB, but trying to open the zipper is a step too far. Wanda must be seeing my movement because with her soft fingers she opens it for me. "USB..." I whisper and clearly they understand the message because her hand goes in my pocket and takes out the item that I had to keep safe. "Here Steve." I can hear a bit of shuffling but darkness is still all around me. A soft kiss on my forehead together with the smell of Wanda's perfume lets me know she's still here. Stay with me. The thought fills my head and a reassuring feeling radiates through me. "I'm staying with you Natalia."

Darkness fills me once more.

The first thing I notice is pain. Not the same amount as I had felt before, but it still caused me to gasp for air. Only for a second though, it was clearly less than before. I was back to myself and this also caused the things the Red Room had taught me to fall back into place. Don't show any weakness. So I took the pain and compartmentalized it. Put it somewhere in the back of my mind so that it wouldn't bother me. I had no use for it so it was better to ignore it excised as much as possible. Next I open my eyes and for a moment I'm blinded because of the light. I blink a few times and my surroundings slowly become clearer. I'm obviously in a SHIELD facility, the logo on the wall kind of gives it away. I'm lying in a hospital bed with tubes and cables linked to a IV and a nasal cannula in my nose. I've been in this situation more than once, I know that jumping up and ripping out all of the cables is not a smart option. If I want to get out of here as soon as possible, which I do, I have to let them stay for now. Hating how vulnerable this makes me feel, I try my best to relax my body into the comfortable mattress. I'm never capable of relaxing, my body is always tense, always waiting for the next fight. But I have perfected the art of making it look as if I was laid-back and chill. My eyes screen the rest of the room. It has a white color and there are no decorations on the walls, the same way all of the SHIELD hospital rooms have always been. The bed I'm in is standing in the middle of the room and on the right side there is a very large window with a view of the green forest that apparently surrounds the compound. In front of the window there are 2 comfortable looking armchairs. And in one of them... Wanda.

My heart makes a little jump but I push it back. She looks absolutely broken. She's still wearing the same clothes she wore during the fight, which are obviously covered in dirt and blood. The same goes for her hair. The brown locks that she normally takes such good care of are all tangled together, covered with grease. Her boots have been kicked off and lie somewhere in a corner, obviously thrown there without any care. Dark circles are visible under her eyes and I can see a deep cut on her forehead. She obviously hadn't allowed the medics to take care of her. She is watching something on her phone, obviously trying to distract herself from the worry she must be feeling... for me. Something I still have a hard time accepting. Her fingers, adorned with the rings she cares so much about, are tapping her tight. It's something she does when she's nervous, I have observed her more than enough to know this. "You know, worry isn't a good look on you Maximoff." My voice is horse and pretty quiet, speaking still hurts but not as much as before, but immediately her head goes up. "Nat!"