~Avengers Imagines~

Natasha Romanoff #2

Natasha stormed down the halls of the hospital she was currently in. No matter how much dread weighed down on her shoulders, she always strutted her way down to the same room, every single day since it happened. She never wavered, never flinched. She didn't want anyone to know. Nobody would have the pleasure of seeing her break down. She was Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow, an Avenger and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. As far as anyone was concerned, she was a woman of steel, with a heart of ice and her head held high. She had no weakness.

Except for her.

She creaked the door open, her face softening as she stepped into the small room. Natasha examined the white walls, the clean sheets, the tubes and monitors, everything to stall the time until she had to let her eyes fall on the frail body laying stiffly on the too-white sheets. [Y/N].

Natasha felt her heart drop as she drank in the details of the [H/C] hair sprawled over the pillows. It hadn't been cut for a year now, Natasha had made sure nobody touched it since [Y/N] was first written into the hospital. She remembered how the injured girl had told her how she wished to let her hair grow out as Natasha had rand her fingers over the girl's bare back one night.

It all seemed too long ago, the two agents being together at their shared apartment, all alone. Happy.
The redhead inhaled shakily and ran a hand over her pale face. It was too painful to think about.

She closed the door behind her and strode over to the chair she always sat in. The nurses had even brought some extra pillows to rest in the chair for Natasha, seeing as she only left the hospital to go to one of the Avengers briefings or to change clothes at the apartment. She couldn't bare to be away from her girlfriend for too long. Not when she needed her the most.

"Hello, dear. Hope you didn't miss me for too long, I was just getting a change of clothes and some other things to decorate your room. I know you hate when it's too blank." She laughed humorlessly, eyes turning bloodshot from the tears she couldn't bare to shed. Natasha dropped the bag she was holding on the side of the bed, pulling out some picture frames.

"Remember when we went to the beach with the others? I got a couple copies of that picture you took, handed it out to the others. Here's the original at least." She placed the framed picture on the nightstand beside her lover's bed, along with some other pictures of the two, some with other friends of their's.

"Your mother called again, they yet have to visit though." Romanoff shook her head and brought out a hammer and nails, standing on the chair she had pushed against the wall with some more pictures and knick knacks under her arm.

"The others miss you, y'know? It's about time you woke up already." She began hammering a nail into the wall, only stopping to scowl at the nurse that came into the room 'trying' to stop her.

"Where was I? Oh, yeah, Wanda finally confessed to Vision. They're going steady. Steve got Barnes back as well." She ran a hand through her hair after she hung the last picture on the wall, smirking at her handiwork.

Natasha turned to the 'sleeping' girl.

"I... I miss you, darling." She sighed and dragged the chair back over to the bed, sitting down and holding the girl's hand. "I'm so so sorry, I should have never let you come with me on that mission, then this would have never happened. I should've argued back. You would've been mad, yeah, but at least you would've been..." The redhead trailed off, swallowing down a sob.

"I shouldn't have let you take that bullet for me." She ran her fingertips over the scar on [Y/N]'s forehead, the area still looking just as bad as the day it happened to Natasha. It hurt her to see her lover like this. Yet, she smiled sadly, fondly.

"The others know we're a thing now, they're all cool with it. Your mother knows as well, she eventually accepted it. We have nothing to fear, darling. We can be together, maybe get married somewhere out of town, all you have to do is..." Natasha was sobbing by the end of her sentence. Her hands shook as she clasped the slightly smaller hand between her own, tears dropping onto their intertwined fingers.

"All you have to do, for me, is wake up."

~

A/N: Some angst for those who enjoy it as much as I do q V q

~Anja