This is the third uniform Natasha has ruined in two months. "Spandex doesn't grow on fucking trees," she rants.

"Shut the fuck up," Clint pants, "Jesus." He leans harder on her side, red liquid bubbling up between his fingers and dripping down to the ground. "Stark! Where the hell are you?"

Tony's voice filters through their comms, sounding more panicked than he usually does. "We're twenty minutes out."

"Does she have twenty minutes?" Steve asks. He's crouched by her side, his hood shoved down and his hair sticking in all directions. When she first got shot he attempted to hold her hand but it was so terribly awkward for the both of them he stopped almost immediately.

"No," Clint bites out.

Natasha glares at the world in general. "If I have to wait twenty minutes I'll wait twenty minutes."

Clint touches his earpiece. "She doesn't have twenty minutes."

"Gotcha. Stand by for improvising."

"Bring booze," Natasha says, and Tony snorts.

"How's our wannabe terrorist?"

"Dealt with," Steve says, and out of the corner of her eye Natasha can see Richard Augensite lying prone on the ground less than fifteen feet from her, Steve's shield sticking out of his chest.

"That's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me," Natasha says to him, and smiles.

"She's smiling," Steve says in an aside to Clint.

"I know," he mutters, "help me put pressure on this. Stark!" Steve shuffles over and leans his hands on top of Clint's. Natasha gasps despite herself, a hard inhale she immediately smothers. Steve looks punched.

"Sorry," he mumbles.

"She's fine," Clint snaps, "push harder." Natasha curls her fingers around Clint's hand, brushes her thumb over the inside of his wrist. Her blood is warm against her skin, sticking thick and tacky to her palms.

There's something that sounds suspiciously like a miniature sonic boom in the distance, and they all look up to see the blue-white arc come closer and closer. Tony lands next to them with a thump, and Bruce tumbles out of his hands. They both take off towards Natasha at a run, skidding to a stop to avoid tripping over her.

"GSW," Clint reports, "through and through, significant blood loss. She's shocky."

"Fuck you," Natasha says automatically. "Stark where's my booze?"

"She smiled at me," Steve says.

"Med evac is still a ways out," Tony says. "I can't move her if she's bleeding this much."

Bruce catches Natasha's eye, his fingers carefully rifling through a large first aid kit. "Hi," he says.

"I'm not scared of you," Natasha says. Bruce pulls out a suture needle and a plastic wrapped square of packing gauze.

"Liar," he says. "it's okay. I don't take it personally."

"I don't want stitches," she says. "pack it and have Tony fly me to the helicopter."

"You're bleeding too bad," Clint says. He and Steve pull their hands back and Bruce peels her uniform back.

"I'm going to do emergency sutures," Bruce says calmly, "and then Tony is going to take you to the medical helicopter and you're going to go to the hospital."

"I have a sedative," Tony offers, hovering a little uncertainty.

"No," Natasha says flatly.

"I have scotch," Tony offers.

"Yes," Natasha says.

"You carry alcohol around with you in the suit," Steve says, flatly.

"You don't know me," Tony snarks, and crouches, offering Natasha a thin strawlike spout coming out of his wrist. "Only a little," he says, apologetic.

"Better not be transmission fluid," Natasha warns.

"I prefer my victims to be possessing of all their pints of blood," Tony says. Clint grabs his arm.

"Gunshot wounds are among the most likely to become infected," he says. "this isn't the cleanest of forest clearings."

"Fuck," Natasha says, and then all her muscles seize up as pain lances through her entire body. She swallows a choking noise. Steve twitches. "Do not hold my hand," she orders.

"Thank you," he says, looking relieved.

"I'm starting now," Bruce says calmly. "I've actually done this before, so just lie still and we'll get you out of here."

"Think of Russia," Tony offers. Steve punches him hard enough to dent his armor.

Clint grabs her leg, holds on hard enough for her to know she'll have bruises there in a few hours. "I'm not going to die," Natasha says.

"No," Clint says, "you are not."

She doesn't.