Clint x Natasha FanFic's

Precaution by TashaBlackWidow

Precaution 

TashaBlackWidow

Summary:

The S.H.I.E.L.D medical unit was a place that he was more than familiar with, considering all his minor incidents on missions, but the Serious Injuries Unit was somewhere he hadn't been for a long time. He'd been here once when he took a shot to the chest that punctured his lung and they'd wanted to make sure that he kept breathing overnight. He was so full of medication that night that he didn't really remember being there. He hated the idea of the place, that there was a specific set of connected rooms that you went when the usual medics weren't able to patch you up properly, that S.H.I.E.L.D had already prepared for the fact that they weren't invincible. 

Work Text:

The S.H.I.E.L.D medical unit was a place that he was more than familiar with, considering all his minor incidents on missions, but the Serious Injuries Unit was somewhere he hadn't been for a long time. He'd been here once when he took a shot to the chest that punctured his lung and they'd wanted to make sure that he kept breathing overnight. He was so full of medication that night that he didn't really remember being there. He hated the idea of the place, that there was a specific set of connected rooms that you went when the usual medics weren't able to patch you up properly, that S.H.I.E.L.D had already prepared for the fact that they weren't invincible.

He'd been hovering outside for hours now, so long that he'd lost count and he'd certainly lost sleep. There weren't any chairs outside the area, it was hardly a place for visiting relatives and besides, the team had no one but each other, so he had been curled around himself on the ground the entire time, ignoring the cold feel of the metal beneath his mission attire. When he'd stood he'd been trembling, though he wasn't sure if that was from relief, from lack of food and drink through the most part of the day, or the fear of what he would discover in that room.

Now, he stood outside of that room, the Serious Injuries Unit, with a medic standing before him and Coulson speaking to the white coat in question. He was confused for a moment when they'd stopped walking, but the familiar, increased thumping within his chest bought him back into the moment. The medic stepped back and indicated to the closed door for him to open it himself, but he hesitated.

"Barton," Coulson said simply.

He shook himself but did nothing but stare at the door, so it was Coulson himself who opened it to prompt him inside. He stepped up to the doorway, but he didn't make it inside the door.

The room was small, considering how much machinery it was filled with. There was no many monitors and tubes in the unit that it should have frightened him, but it wasn't the daunting medical equipment that instilled the familiar fear inside of him. Instead, it was the figure in the bed that made his heart pound.

"Oh, Tasha," he whispered breathlessly.

She was lying still, her arms draped over the blankets that covered the bandages from the surgery she'd recently returned from. She was deathly pale despite a blood transfusion he'd been informed she had - their blood types hadn't matched and in a moment of desperation where someone had needed to help, Agent Hill had stepped up with a matching blood type. Her red curls were spread around the thin pillow beneath her, the only bright colour in the room, but they'd covered her hair during the surgery and now the curls were duller and no longer as springy as he was used to. It was unnerving to see the tubes coming out of her arms, some draining fluid and others inserting it. There was an oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth making sure that she didn't stop breathing during her coma.

"Don't be alarmed," the medic told him. "It's mostly for precaution. The surgery went well."

But the appearance of 'precaution' didn't give him the impression that she was as okay as they kept telling him she was. Precaution was in place because there was a risk, and the risk was what alarmed him. From what experience told him, he knew that people only told others not to be alarmed when there was a valid reason to be alarmed in the first place. Even though they assured him that she was going to survive and that she'd be fine once she woke up, he realised that there was still a risk until she was awake - and he wasn't even entirely sure he wanted to know what the risks were - a risk that her stitches would tear? That she'd need another surgery? More complications? Fever? Infection?