emmylou | natasha romanoff

thirty-one.

2016
Vienna, Austria

"Nat?" Kennedy calls.

She sat up and looked down to see that her arm had been cut with a few shards of glass. She groans at the impact of her head making contact with the ground and the headache that seemed to be forming, but other than that she was fine.

"I'm good," Natasha tells her and Kennedy nods softly. She looks around to see the people near them seemed fine with only minor cuts. She stands and looks toward the window where the explosion had taken place to see T'Challa holding his father in his lap, tears streaming down his face.

As though hitting a new gear, Kennedy's headache disappears, and she runs over toward the prince.

"He's gone," T'Challa tells her.

"May I?" Kennedy asks and T'Challa nods his head. She reaches out and checks the king's pulse, only to confirm what T'Challa had already told her. Kennedy exhales a shaky breath as she retracts her hand. Just moments earlier he had been alive and smiling and now Wakanda had a new king.

"We need a medic!"

"Kennedy!"

She looks over her shoulder to see that there was a woman who appeared to be seizing.

"Go," T'Challa tells her, "No one else should die today."

"I'm so sorry," Kennedy says as she rises to her feet. She walks over to the woman's side. She looks at her head to see that she was bleeding. Kennedy suspected that she'd hit her head when the explosion happened.

"Get her on her side," Kennedy orders and the people surrounding the woman do as instructed.

Kennedy gets a better look at the back of her head and winces slightly, "Okay she needs to ride out this seizure. Tell the medics that she has a scalp laceration and that she needs stitches."

The men at her side nod their heads and Kennedy nods her head before making her way over to Natasha who was sitting with an older man.

"What's wrong?" Kennedy asks as she kneels down beside Natasha.

"He's having trouble breathing," Natasha says, and Kennedy can hear his labored breath. She looks at him but doesn't see any wounds. There was a possibility that the injury was internal and that was causing shortness of breath.

"Sir?" Kennedy says, "Can you tell me if you're experiencing chest pains?"

He doesn't answer but instead gives Kennedy a nod.

"Okay, I think that you have a traumatic pneumothorax. In simpler terms, I think you may have broken your rib from the impact of the explosion, and it punctured your lung. The good news is that there is a medical team on the way, and they'll be able to fix that."

The man nods his head and Kennedy smiles at him, "Everything is going to be fine. I just need you to focus on your breathing, okay?"

He nods his head again.

"Help," a girl says as she comes over to Kennedy, "My boss, there's a piece of glass in her abdomen."

Kennedy looks over at Natasha, "Stay with him. If his breathing gets worse, I want you to find a straw and stab it into his pleural cavity."

"Got it," Natasha tells her and Kennedy nods as she follows the aid over to a woman who had been in the front row near the blast. The shard of glass in her stomach was large. The aid looks up at her with wide frantic eyes.

"What do I do? Am I supposed to pull it out?"

"No," Kennedy orders, as she kneels by the woman's side. Her eyes were closed, but she was still breathing, "Is she conscious?"