Opening Day

Part One

By Carol M.

Summary: Steve saves Natasha's life and suffers devastating consequences. Now it's up to Natasha and the other Avengers to put him back together again. Hurt!Steve, Caring!Natasha, Steve/Natasha Friendship, Romanogers

Disclaimer: Don't own them, only love them

Notes: Takes place sometime after TWS assuming that S.H.I.E.L.D. gets repurposed. Hope you enjoy!

Natasha's first thought upon regaining consciousness was that she couldn't take a deep breath. Why was it so hard to breathe? Why did the air seem so thick and stifling? She rolled to her side and opened her eyes, not knowing much of anything besides that her head was throbbing and that something wet was trickling down her cheek. When her eyes began to focus and the rest of her senses played catch up, the reason for her breathing issue became very apparent.

She was in a warehouse that was engulfed in flames. She lay to the side of a few hundred metal canisters, filled to the gills with bullets and explosives, one of which had a stain of blood on the lid. That explained the headache. She blinked against the smoke, trying to clear her head, trying to remember. She peered out across the large room, where the flames were twice as high and the smoke was thick and black. There had been an explosion. A bomb.

It was coming back to her. The warehouse had been hiding bomb material commissioned by a mad scientist hell bent on destroying the world. They had gone in and quickly found themselves surrounded by guards. A fire fight had ensued and something had gotten triggered. They had just ten seconds to spare. Someone had thrown her out of the line of fire. Literally thrown her.

Steve.

"Oh my god!" She stood up, ignoring the slight dizziness the movement triggered, desperate to spot Steve amongst the smoke and flame.

"Steve! Steve! What's your twenty, over?" She said into her comm, but all that answered was static. She stepped away from her area, noticing the bodies of two guards who no longer had heads. A second later, she was assaulted by a flying canister that nearly took her own head off. She ducked and rolled, avoiding the same fate as the guards. The entire place was going to go up and soon. It had enough explosives in it to blow up an entire city block. They had to get the hell out of there.

"Rogers!" she screamed, her lungs burning, barely able to make any noise over the sound of the fire. "Steve! Answer me now!" The only reply was the thick flurry of flames that was getting higher and higher with every passing second.

"Steve! Where are you?" she screamed, her voice shrill against the smoke her vocal cords were fighting against. A canister nearby popped it's top, sending sparks everywhere, a chunk catching her arm, melting away a piece of her suit. She yelped and quickly pawed it away, but an angry red welt had already formed and part of the material stuck to the burn. She grimaced, but continued her search. "Steve! Steve! Cap! Damn it, Steve, where are you?" She was growing desperate and terrified.

Suddenly, a canister about thirty feet to her right toppled over on it's side. She looked over eagerly and finally spotted Steve. He was hunched over on all fours, struggling to right himself, but he wasn't having much luck. He was conscious and alive though and that was all that mattered at the moment. She could deal with the rest. She dashed up and over a canister and cartwheeled over another before pulling a running high jump over a bomb casing that landed her at Steve's feet. Her lungs were immediately assaulted by the thicker, blacker smoke and she began to cough something fierce.

Steve was still hunched over, one arm wrapped around his abdomen, his other arm limply hanging off an obviously dislocated shoulder. He peered up at her, his face black with soot. "You okay?" he asked, ending the question with a cough followed by a wince as he curled up into himself.

"Five by five, Rogers. You saved my ass. Yet again," she said, kneeling down to examine his injuries. "What's your damage?"

Steve tried to take a deep breath and couldn't, his eyes squeezing tight with pain. "Shoulder's out. Couple bumps, bruises. Ribs are the worst." He punctuated the words with a groan and then went into a coughing fit that left him hyperventilating between the smoke and his broken chest. By the time he could breathe again, he was pale-faced and shaking. "We gotta get out. You seen my shield anywhere?"

Natasha scanned the area, her eyes laser focused. When she didn't see anything, she stood up on a canister for another vantage point. All she saw was flames, smoke and more canisters."I don't see it. It could be anywhere," she said as she hopped down and settled next to Steve again.

Steve took as deep a breath as he could muster as she saw him mentally assess the situation. "You try calling out?"

"Yeah. Comms are down. Must've been the bomb or smoke causing interference. Doesn't really matter. There's no good way for them to get in here."

"No good way to get out either," murmured Steve as he checked out the perimeter of the room. After several long seconds, he locked in on an exit about fifty yards away. An exit blocked by a wall of flames.

Steve gingerly untucked himself from his hunched over position and straightened up as much as he could, looking like the motion was as pleasant as Chinese water torture. "You gotta put my shoulder back in, Nat. I need both my arms if we're gonna get out of here."

"Wait, what are you thinking?"

"Just trust me."

"Yeah, but without your shield…"

Steve grabbed her arm and angled her so she was looking directly into his eyes. She saw pain and exhaustion and desperation. And determination. "I need you to put my shoulder back in. That's an order."

"Fine," she responded, scooting over to his injured side. She did a cursory exam of the mangled limb, shifting it slightly in the process, causing Steve to yelp. "Steve, this looks really bad. Like needs surgery bad. I might not get it lined up exactly where it needs to go."

"Just do it," urged Steve, nearly breathless. "The longer we wait, the more it heals in that position anyway. You're doing me a favor."

Natasha shook her head, not liking the idea one bit. "You have a pretty messed up sense of what a favor consists of, Rogers," said Natasha. She grasped his arm and straightened it towards her, experimentally pulling on various joints to figure out where she needed to apply the pressure to get the joint realigned. When Steve cried out, she knew she'd found the right spot. "You ready?"

Steve inhaled deeply and nodded, gritting his teeth and scrunching his eyes shut.

"Sorry about this," said Natasha as she put as much pressure as she could on the joint and then pushed with every ounce of strength she had.

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

It wasn't enough. She needed more power to push it all the way back in. "Sorry, sorry," she said as she switched tactics and brought her leg out in front of her.

"Hurry Nat," panted Steve, his face pasty and damp with sweat.

"I got this." She placed her foot against the joint and then kicked off of it as hard as she could, throwing her full weight against the shoulder. There was a loud pop and she felt the joint shift back onto place under her foot.

Steve wailed and then began to dry heave, his stomach long empty but the pain not knowing the difference. His body jackknifed violently as the retching continued and he whimpered as he collapsed in on his battered ribcage.

He would've fallen over if Natasha hadn't grabbed him and leaned his head against her chest for support. "Easy. Easy. Breathe. Breathe," she coached, running her hand up and down his quivering back, trying to ignore the nauseous spasms that continued to plague him. "Take control, Steve. You can handle this." She felt terrible for pushing him but she was growing more and more worried as the flames surrounding them got bigger and the smoke thicker. She could hardly breathe. Hell, hardly see, her eyes stinging from the smoke.

Steve brought up some bile and spit it out, reaching his good arm up to her to grasp her arm, his head resting against her other arm as the retching finally stopped and he tried to catch his breath.

Natasha could hear his pained moans and she placed a supportive hand on his shoulder, trying to be his center so he could gain some strength. "You gonna make it?"

Steve moaned, finally sitting up. He gingerly moved the shoulder that had been dislocated, grunting as the shoulder loosened out. He sighed and met her eyes, his blues pained but still sharp as hell. "Let's get out of here."

"We've gotta find your shield first."

"There's no time, Natasha. If we're gonna get out of here, we gotta go now. I'll just tuck you under me and run like hell. We'll be out in twenty seconds. All of this will be over."

Natasha glanced at the exit Steve had in mind. The flames seems to be even higher now. A pure wall of fire. "Steve…"

"I'll run fast," said Steve, hacking up some soot and spitting it out.

"This is…"

"The only choice we have."

"You're gonna burn."

Steve flashed his patent wide-eyed grin that was just as deadly a tool as any she had in her own arsenal. "It's okay, I'll heal anyway. I cut myself shaving this morning. Big old hack of skin, blood dripping into the sink. Ten minutes later and it was good as new. See?" he said, pointing to an unmarred section of his jaw.

She reached over and ran her fingers over it, feeling not so much as a bump. She sighed and let her hand fall down. "That's a paper cut, Steve. Second, third degree burns are an entirely different animal."

Steve shrugged. "It doesn't matter. This is what we're doing."

A nearby canister exploded, raining sparks all over them. Natasha screamed as the molten ash landed on her forehead, charring it. Steve wiped the offending spark off of her.

"Tuck under me," he said, opening his body up as best he could.

"Your ribs…"

"Already hurt like hell. Might as well hurt for a reason."

She gazed up into Steve's dazzling blue eyes, suddenly regretting every conversation she'd never had with him, every question she'd never asked, every way she didn't really know him. This couldn't be it. She suddenly felt like crying. "My favorite color's blue," she said randomly. "Everybody think's it's red, but it's really blue. I always wanted blue roses. I think they can do that nowadays. Cross breeding or cross pollination or something…" She trailed off, a few tears slipping from her eyes before she could help it.

"Natasha," Steve said in that gentle way of his that would've sounded false coming from anyone else, but from him always seemed so genuine and earnest. Hopeful. Like everything would always be okay. "We're gonna make it. I promise."

Natasha sniffled, feeling silly but nonetheless comforted. If Steve said it, then it was true. He would never lie. "Yeah?"

"Look, let's make a date. Yankees. Opening day. Two weeks from now. Hotdogs, peanuts, home runs. I'll catch you a foul ball and buy you enough beer to get you drunk and tell me all your secrets."

Natasha chuckled through her tears. "I hate baseball."

Steve smiled crookedly. "Not with me, you won't."

Natasha raised an eyebrow, her tears dying out. "That's pretty cocky, Rogers."

"It's not cocky if it's the truth. Now let's get the hell out of here."

Natasha nodded and then paused, kissing him on the cheek, letting her lips linger just a little longer than she should've. She heard him gasp ever so lightly as she pulled away. Then she curled herself into a tight ball and octopussed herself around Steve's chest and legs. He moaned as her head pressed against shifty ribs. His abdomen rose and fell against her cheek as he took several deep, empowering breaths, like a bull getting ready to charge.

"Don't let go, Natasha. No matter what happens, just keep hanging on. I'll get you outside."

"I know you will," she said, pressing her forehead against his heart.

His arms wrapped around her and he gave her a reassuring squeeze. "Here we go."

And they were off.

He was fast. Faster than she'd ever seen him, or maybe it just felt different from the inside. She was on a bucking bronco, clinging for dear life, her body knocking against his damaged one, wincing for him every time she bashed against one of his injuries. But still he continued on. She could feel the heat pass them by, the smoke choking her, flames reaching out for her. And she could hear Steve. His pants. His groans of pain. She could feel the way his chest heaved as he tried to suck in breath. Then she felt the throb of wicked, burning heat on her hands, hands which were wrapped around Steve's back. Then she could hear Steve's screams of agony that seemed to go on forever and forever and get louder and louder as the screams turned to outright sobs of tortuous pain that would be etched in her brain for the rest of her life. Still they continued on. She felt something solid hit her back and give against the momentum and all of sudden there was no more fire, but fresh air. And then she found herself splayed out on the pavement, bits of gravel scrapping her raw hands and knees as she somersaulted once, twice, three times before she unceremoniously crashed in a heap on her face.

It took her a minute before she could register anything. She shook her head, wincing at various aches and pains, her chest still tight as a cough burst its way out of her lungs. Once she was able to breathe, she peeked her head up, trying to orient herself.

Then she saw Steve and it was all the orientation she needed. He was on his side facing her, his body shaking, his eyes open but not seeing. His face and chest were unmarred save for a few burns here and there. But his back and right side were smoking like they'd just come off the grill. She could actually smell his flesh burning.

She would've thrown up if he didn't need her so badly.

"Steve!" She jumped up, bridging the gap to him in seconds, gazing in horror as she turned him over, exposing the entire breadth of his injury. His back was a raw, charred mess of burns that snaked around his torso to his belly button. She could see bits of red, white and blue tangled up in the scorched flesh. His uniform had melted into the burns.

Steve only shook, tears streaming down his face, gasps whistling out of his lips that were no louder than whispers.

Natasha's comm suddenly sounded with static and then she heard a voice on the other end. "Repeat, Romanoff, Rogers, come in over."

Natasha shakily brought the comm on her wrist to her mouth. "Rogers is down. Repeat, Ste…Steve's down," was all she managed before she gathered Steve in her arms and burst into tears.

TBC