Romanogers Oneshots

And Time is Frozen

Summary: Natasha got her hot self shot causing the not daughter but totally daughter Wanda to have a panic attack. Oh, and Steve got scared. 

She's damn good at what she does.

She had better be, honestly, considering this is what her whole life has centered around. Maybe that hadn't been her choice in the beginning, but there's no changing that now and trying to feel sorry about it is a waste of energy. Every time she thinks she might want an out, she'll picture a little girl with a pretty face – young, easy to mold, to manipulate – and Natasha knows she'd go through it all over again if that means one less child becomes a weapon. There are few people trained the way she was and she wants it to stay that way.

The thing is – the one thing that she still finds herself wanting to change sometimes – is that she's human.

It's not that she wants supernatural abilities. It's not even that it makes her feel inferior, not even now, when she works so exclusively with everything supernatural. She holds her own pretty damn well against monsters and magic and yeah, that's something to be proud of.

But there are just some hits that she can't walk off.

"Steve?" Wanda cries over the earpiece, slamming the iron door shut behind them. The top room of a tower is probably one of the worst places for them to be in when they've got Hydra agents closing in, but it was either up or down, and trying to get out of the dungeons would've been suicide. At least there are windows here to jump out of.

Natasha lets out a breath, slumping back against the stone wall for support, and Wanda's at her side in seconds.

This was supposed to be a simple sweep of an abandoned Hydra base in Australia. That's how Nick had phrased it during briefing, anyway, but she knew better. They all did. If he wasn't expecting trouble, he wouldn't have sent both her and Wanda, and he definitely wouldn't have made Steve and Sam their back up. And Maria was assigned as their pilot. She wouldn't have been put in the field if Nick wasn't expecting things to go south pretty quickly, which, of course they did. Natasha has a bullet through her side, just barely missing her ribcage.

"Sam? Maria?" Wanda tries – pleads. Natasha watches as the girl rubs a hand over her face and through her hair. Totally something she picked up from Steve, too, because he does that same thing whenever he's overwhelmed.

"The connection's down?" Natasha asks, though it's not a question.

She has an earpiece. She already knows.

Wanda doesn't answer, but when she turns to meet Natasha's eyes, she's crying. It makes Natasha pause.

It's not as if this is the first assignment that Wanda's been on that's gone wrong. No plan ever survives first contact and Wanda, above everything else, is really good at adjusting, of not letting her emotions shake her confidence. It's one of the things Natasha likes most about her.

But shit, Natasha would be shaken up, too, if the roles were reversed. They're running out of time before those agents are at the door, and Natasha being wounded means that they have to be careful about escape routes, if they even have any of those in place right now. It's a lot to handle, and even though the girl's hands are shaking as she fusses over Natasha and there're tears rolling down her cheeks, she still looks pretty damn strong, pretty damn determined to make her own miracle happen, and Natasha feels incredibly proud of her.

"We – we need to put pressure on it," she says, more to herself than to Natasha, like she's trying to force herself to keep moving. "We need to try and stop the bleeding."