And breathing is all Natasha can do. Even that is a struggle through the pain, unlike anything Natasha has ever experienced. She's been shot before, electrocuted, choked. She's been stabbed, broken bones. She's pulled teeth and toenails as part of her training, to prepare her for torture she was likely to face.

In Hell, she lost a hand.

None of that prepared Natasha for this. The pain shoots up her leg and spreads out in radials that make no sense. She struggles to process the fact that her foot hurts when it's no longer attached—and something else hurts when it hasn't completely grown in yet. And with a sickening certainty she knows that it's coming. She can feel it, pupating inside her skin.

Just breathing takes all her composure. "Shit," she groans between waves of pain. "The pants are going to have to come off."

Blood already soaks through the lower leg, and it's spreading up past her knee.