Eleanor and Clint had been keeping themselves occupied during Nat's departure by digging themselves into a big case that they had been added to, it wouldn't require them to go out into the field unless something got royally screwed up. It was more of a desk duty job, scouring through bank statements and CCTV, that kind of thing. The original people on the case had found that there was a lot more to go through than initially anticipated when building the team to deal with it, so they needed some reinforcements. Even if that was just a few extra pairs of hands clicking away on laptops.

Clint could immediately see the improvement in Eleanor's mood the day after she and Nat had a small chat, the issue wasn't resolved, but she knew that Nat didn't hate her anymore, which was good enough for now. It meant that she could carry on with her everyday life without trying to think of what went wrong and why, her productivity was up again, which also boosted her mood.

---

Halfway around the world, Natasha was not having a good time. The job was supposed to be easy enough, with a low chance of casualties. That was not the case. She was currently in hospital recovering from a gruesome gunshot wound.

Once she was semi-back on her feet again, SHIELD would be able to transport her back to the States, but that would be a few days yet, meaning she would be back later than expected.

When Eleanor found out that Natasha was being held up alone in a hospital in Odessa, she flipped a lid; she was filled with anxiety and anger. Clint had never seen her so distressed in the few years that she knew the young woman.

They had found out about Nat when they were finishing their workday, and Eleanor had been causing quite the scene in the middle of one of the offices, so Clint had dragged her back to her room so that she could worry to her heart's content without disturbing the entire building.

"Hughes, you gotta calm down, she lived, she's going to be okay".

"Calm down? You want me to calm down?! She was shot, Clint", she responded pacing around her room, running her hands through her hair. How could she stay calm after hearing this news she thought, how did they expect her to react?

"Yes, but she is okay, she will be back in a few days", he reported as calmly as possible, even though he too had been worried about the state Natasha was in.

She stared at him for a few seconds, her face void of emotion as the cogs started turning in her head, she needed to see Nat. "I'm going", she simply stated before turning on her heels and heading to Fury's office. Clint jumped up, following her, having to jog to reach her.

"Going? Going where?".

"Odessa", she responded with a shrug, she thought it was pretty obvious, forgetting that she had given little to no information to Clint about the plan in her head.

He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, "What?".

"I'm going to Odessa?", she replied, almost confused with Clint's own confusion in her agitated state.

"Yeah but... what?".

She simply scoffed before resuming her journey, Clint on her heels. She didn't have time to explain to Clint and then explain to Fury as well, she just needed to go.

Once they had reached Fury's office, she almost barged in, but then she remembered that she would have to be alive to have a chance of reaching Odessa, so she knocked. This was met with an authoritative, "Come in".

She rushed in and tried to close the door on Clint, but he put his foot in the door and followed after her, "Come on man, can't you leave me alone?", she whined.

Before Clint could respond Fury let out an annoyed cough at the two Agents who had childishly entered his office.

Eleanor spun around so fast she almost fell, "Oh yeah, can I go to Odessa?".

"You have 2 seconds to elaborate or so help me God-", Fury responded, pinching the bridge of his nose, it had been a long day.

"I want to see Romanoff", she interrupted.

Fury slowly lowered his hand, and put both on his desk, leaning forward slightly, "She's going to be home in a few days, can you not wait, fuel is expensive".

She scoffed, "This is SHIELD! Are you telling me we can't afford a small trip?".

Fury went to respond but was once again interrupted, "I'm not taking no for an answer, please", her voice cracked slightly at the end.

Fury stared into her soul for a few seconds, "She will be home in a few days, Agent, I can't risk sending another out to the place where one of my people was shot".

"I need to see her, she's all alone over there, it's already been days, I just...", she briefly paused trying to choose the correct words, "I need to make sure she's okay, please let me go".

Fury sighed in annoyance and looked over to Barton with his eyebrows raised, Clint just shrugged in response. "There's a jet going over that region soon, they can take a quick aerial detour but they cannot land, they need to remain unseen, but... if you're willing to parachute down at night during their detour, then be my guest", he expected her to turn it down, knowing she did not like heights, which is the only reason he made this insane suggestion.

"I'll do it", she responded without hesitation, making both men in the room squint their eyes at her. She also thought the idea was absolutely crazy, parachuting down? What kind of plan is that? But if Fury can't send any more jets over, then she would gladly take that crazy idea.

She was met with silence as the others in the room were trying to process the fact that this was now a plan that was going ahead and not a silly suggestion to try and shut her up. "Okay, so can I go? When does the jet leave?".

"Uh... half an hour, I'll add you to the flight list, don't get cold feet Hughes because they can't land at their destination if you're still on board, I will give them full permission to kick your ass off of that jet even if you are 40 thousand feet above the ground".

This made the young woman gulp slightly, "Yes Sir". 'Is that even legal?' she thought, but she shook it off when she saw Clint take a step forward.

"Are you sure you want to be doing this?", Barton interjected.

Eleanor turned to face him, "I gotta Barton", she smiled slightly and patted him on the shoulder before running out of the room to pack a bag.

Fury turned to face him, "Romanoff is going to be the death of her". Barton just slowly nodded in response before seeing himself out.

---

Eleanor was now 30,000 feet in the air, rethinking all of her life choices. Maybe she should have just become a barista? That way she would not be launching herself out of a moving tin can, relying on a piece of cloth to make sure that she didn't plummet to her death.

She was quickly snapped out of her thoughts by a fellow Agent passing her a parachute to put on, mumbling a small "Good luck", before opening the door she would be leaping out of. She was having to aim for a field on the edge of the city so that the jet could remain somewhat hidden, and then make her way to the hospital afterwards.

She stood by the door, praying to every God there might be, before taking the leap of death.

It took a great amount of willpower to not cry like a baby as she was plummeting to Earth. A string of profanities was leaving her mouth non-stop during her free-fall, and eventually, the time came to deploy the chute. She had never felt such relief when it did deploy, she was half expecting to have received a dud one that killed her. However, she was now making a slow descent to her destination, only the occasional profanity slipping out.

She landed, well... crash-landed into some trees on the edge of the field. "Are you kidding me!", she yelled into the open air, whilst grabbing a pocketknife to cut the strings attached to her, whilst using the back of her knees to dangle off of a branch, like a child on monkey bars.

Once she had cut all of the strings she hopped down onto the floor and used her GPS to sprint to the hospital, which took a while, she didn't really think through how much physical work she'd need to put into this, but she still had the adrenaline from her plane diving activity and so a bit of sprinting wasn't going to slow her down now.

This was hard work, she kept almost running in the wrong direction due to forgetting to look at her GPS when she had gotten into a zone whilst running, which caused a lot of awkward turning around after going down the wrong street, but she eventually got to a point where it was just a straight line and so she didn't have to keep looking anymore.

After a while of running, with a few pitstops of collapsing to her knees and wheezing, she had arrived at the hospital, cursing Fury for being able to make a jet take a detour, but not being able to organise a car to drive her.

She made multiple heads turn when she walked through the hospital, she had leaves and twigs in her hair, she was bright red from running, and a few cuts on her face from slamming into a tree. When she reached the receptionist's desk, the lady at the desk was expecting Eleanor to be checking herself in, but her thoughts were proved wrong when a very out of breath voice asked "Which room is Natasha Romanoff in?". Luckily the lady spoke English because Eleanor in her disoriented state had forgotten that she needed to switch languages.

The receptionist was about to tell her that visiting hours were over, but then spotted the SHIELD logo on Eleanor's uniform, and after having some Agents bring Nat in, she knew that this organisation had some power, and so just told her the room number, not wanting the hassle that would come with declining her access.

Eleanor gave a polite nod before speed-walking down the halls to reach the right room, very nearly walking in on some random person's room. That would have been an awkward apology to have to give.

---

Meanwhile, Natasha felt like she was going crazy, she hated sitting around in a hospital, especially when she was in pain, the wound was pretty bad. She just wanted to go home, watch a movie, and wake up the next morning ready for work. But no, she had been told that she needed to relax. Although, that's kind of hard to do when you're all alone in an unfamiliar place with nothing to do and pain radiating in your lower abdomen. She almost threw a metal bedpan at the doctor who told her to 'just relax' but decided that might not be the best course of action to take at the people who are trying to save your life.

She was about to sleep the boredom and frustration away when a certain sweaty Agent burst into her room. Her head whipped around to see Eleanor standing at the door to her room, this had to be the most confused Natasha had ever been in her life.

"What are you doing here, El?", she asked with pure confusion written on her face, "And why do you look like shit?".

Eleanor walked forward and stood at the bottom of the bed, she had just leapt out of a plane, she was not going to put up with being insulted, although if she had a mirror she probably would have insulted herself too. "Don't start with me", she breathed out, "You got shot".

"Correct... that doesn't explain why you're here looking like you got dragged through a hedge?".

Eleanor flung her arms in the air, "That's because I did!".

"Wait... what?", Nat responded, scrunching her face up, she wasn't quite sure if she was dreaming, she had been on a lot of drugs over the last few days.

"Fury is an asshole, I said I wanted to come and see you, so he made me JUMP OUT OF A PLANE, to get here, and then I misjudged my descent and BODY SLAMMED A TREE, a tree Nat!!".

"You skydived to get here?", Nat half scoffed, not really believing her.

"Yeah", Eleanor said in a smaller voice this time.

Nat didn't know what to say, she knew Eleanor was deathly afraid of heights, she had tried to take the younger Agent on activities like that many times. "You did that to see me?", she said as her eyes softened, taking in the sight of the woman in front of her, she really did look like she had had a rough night. "Why?".

"I needed to see you, I needed to see for myself that you were okay". Nat was left not knowing what to say, no one had ever done anything half as big as this insane gesture for her before.

Eleanor slowly walked and took a seat on the bed next to Nat's legs, "So... are you okay?".

"I am, now that you're here". Eleanor felt herself blush but that couldn't be seen because she was still like a tomato from all of the running.

"I forgot to bring my cards", Eleanor said with a smirk, earning a laugh from Nat, but she winced in pain after. Eleanor frowned and reached her hand towards Nat's stomach, "May I?". Nat hesitated, but nodded yes, and lifted part of her shirt up, immediately Eleanor shook her head, "They've done a shit job".

"Huh?".

"The dressing, I'll be back in a second I'm gonna steal some supplies".

Before Nat could respond, Eleanor was out of the room on her quest to find some supplies to dress the wound herself. She was mumbling things to herself in annoyance when raiding a storage cupboard, if they are looking after her, they should look after her properly, not do a half-assed job. In reality, the dressing was up to standard, Eleanor was just being a perfectionist about it.

It only took a few minutes, and so she soon found herself walking back into Nat's room taking her place on the bed again, and when Nat lifted her shirt back up, she began carefully undoing the current dressing. "I didn't know you were a Doctor", Nat said, sarcasm lacing her words.

"I like to be prepared in case you know... people I care about decide to get shot", she half-smiled in response.

Nat went silent as she watched Eleanor carefully redress her wound, she had never seen someone be so delicate before. She pursed her lips before looking back up at Eleanor, who had her tongue sticking out slightly in concentration, "You really do care... don't you?".

Eleanor furrowed her brows, and finished the dressing before looking up at Nat, "Of course I do".

Nat stayed quiet in thought, still staring at the woman in front of her, which made Eleanor think that she didn't believe her. "Nat, you have to listen to me, I care so much, you're not alone in this, I wish you could see that, I wish you could-", her rambles were soon cut off.

"Just shut up a second, I need to see something".

"Wh-", the younger woman was once again cut off by Nat pulling her in for a short kiss by the back of her neck. Eleanor froze for a second before melting into it, placing a hand on Nat's waist.

It sounds cliche, but it felt like fireworks had been released and everything else was blocked out, they were on the exact same wavelength that no one else would be able to access. Nat soon pulled away, trying to gauge a reaction from the woman sitting in front of her, placing her forehead on Eleanor's she whispered, "Was that okay?".

"It was more than okay". Nat pulled them back in, this time lasted longer and was more passion-filled, the two expressing everything that they felt in this short moment. They both suddenly felt complete, like everything on Earth made sense, it was just those two, nothing else mattered.

Eleanor pulled away this time, and looked Nat in the eyes, grabbing her hand. After a few seconds of the two communicating via their eyes, Eleanor smirked, "The skydiving was worth it".

Nat scoffed, "So will you go to the skydiving place with me now?".

"Oh hell no, it may have been worth it, but there's no way I'm doing that again".

"Mmm, okay, do you at least want me to take the leaves out of your hair from your recent fall?", Nat gave a cheeky grin.

"There are leaves in my hair?! Yes please, get them out, can't believe our first kiss was me literally looking like I've been living in the wilderness". She was rather embarrassed but luckily Nat made her feel okay about it.

"Well, I liked it, was a reminder that you literally jumped from the sky to be here, which you're crazy for by the way", Nat absentmindedly replied whilst picking out the leaves. Eleanor just hummed in response.

Once Nat was done the two sat in comfortable silence taking in everything that had just happened, before Eleanor spoke up, "So before anything else happens, you wanted to talk?".

Nat sharply inhaled, "Yes".

It took a few seconds to compose herself, she didn't want to screw this up, especially after what they had just done a few minutes ago, "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry, you're probably the first person to genuinely look out for me, and the second things got a bit confusing I shut you out as if it was the easiest thing to do, which believe me, it wasn't. But I still hurt you, and for that, I'm truly sorry. It was how I learnt to cope with everything that happened when I was... there, and I should have figured that it wouldn't work in the real world when dealing with these situations. So again, I'm so sorry".

Eleanor took her hand again and gave a small squeeze, "It's okay, I'm sorry too, I should have thought about how you felt about the whole thing. It's understandable, but next time you feel like that just know that you can come to me, I would never judge you for these kinds of things".

"Thank you, but you really don't have to-".

"Nope, I'm saying sorry too, end of story".

"You're so stubborn", Nat mumbled, causing a scoff from the other.

"Says you". Nat just slowly nodded, she did not have a rebuttal to that comment.

"So what is this?", Eleanor asked in almost a whisper, she didn't want to make assumptions and scare Nat off again.

"This", Nat gestured between the two, "Is two people who... like each other a lot?", she looked Eleanor deeper in the eyes searching for confirmation, causing a small smile and a nod from her, so Nat continued, "And wants to see where it goes?".

"That sounds nice", Eleanor gave a big smile at Nat, triggering her to place her hand on the back of Eleanor's neck and bring her forehead down to meet hers, Nat's love language.

"Thank you for being authentically you".

"Hm?", the younger replied in confusion.

Nat pulled her head away, "It's a very you thing to do, jump out of a literal plane to go and see someone you care about, mainly because it's a very stupid thing to do", she added at the end with a smirk.

"Yeah, let's just say I'm glad no one was on comms with me at the time, it would have been highly embarrassing".

Nat threw her head back slightly with a laugh, before moving over slightly and patting the empty part of the bed.

She gestured towards the space with her head, "Hop in".