Chapter Text
Natasha Romanova came back into Steve Rogers' life like a whirlwind exactly six months after the HYDRA incident. They were living in a small dingy apartment in DC, with Sam Wilson occasionally bringing them food so they remembered to eat. It seemed like they were so caught up in the past these days that all regular routines seemed unnecessary, especially, with Natasha, food.
He couldn't recall the last time he'd seen her eat, and that scared him. She'd been here for a week, and she'd mostly stayed in her room, only emerging to watch TV with him in the evenings and drink vodka.
Something had happened to her in those six months that she wasn't telling him, but he knew that she'd changed. She'd gone out to find herself and instead Steve reckoned that the opposite had happened, and now Natasha Romanova was more lost than ever.
That was why she'd come back. Steve, in a way, was her anchor to her past life as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and she was gripping on to him like a leech. He had known she was not going to stay away for long when she'd left. Whatever happened, Natasha always came back, mainly because she knew all too well the pain of abandonment.
He pointed this out to her one evening at dinner. He had a plate of curry in front of him - modern times allowed for such amazing new flavours - and she a glass of vodka and an apple.
"I knew you couldn't stay away for long," he said, raising his fork and smiling at her. She simply gave him a look, a tired stare filled with an emptiness that shocked him to the core.
"Don't," she said. "Not tonight, Steve."
He dropped the subject, knowing when to step back. When she wanted to talk, she'd talk.
He pointed at her apple, which she had been holding lifelessly for the past ten minutes.
"Are you going to eat that?" he asked.
"Please stop," she said, and Steve recoiled when he heard her voice crack; her lips were dry and her eyes were staring past the TV at something he couldn't focus on.
"Natasha - "
"Goodnight Steve," she said abruptly and stood up, the apple rolling away from her as she walked swiftly to her room.
"Natasha!" He followed her and almost caught her, but she slammed the door in his face.
He tried the door handle. It was locked.
He sighed. Natasha was naturally scary, but this was a different kind, and it saddened him that she didn't feel she could talk to him.
She would though. When she was ready.
She always would.
In the meantime though, Steve just had to wait. He picked up the apple from the floor.
She had came in like a whirlwind and had settled like falling snow, and now ...
Now Natasha Romanova had began to melt.
Natasha sighed, resting her back against the closed door, trying to calm her breathing. She rubbed her hands across her forehead and for one minute her mask escaped, she lost control, and a tear escaped, trailing down her cheek. She wiped it away almost angrily, the tremor in her hands shocking her. She'd been avoiding facing the truth for days, but there was no denying it: her anxiety attacks had come back. She cursed. She'd had a good hold on them for the past few years, only one tiny slip up since then (and that was a special occasion, Clint had been compromised and the Hulk was a beast that still haunted her nightmares sometimes). When they'd returned six months after HYDRA, in a fit of sweat slicked skin, uncontrollable crying and shivering, she'd rushed back to Steve, rushed back to her old life, hoping some stability would make them go away.
Surprise surprise, it hadn't worked out quite the way she'd imagined. Steve meant well but she just wanted to be left alone if she couldn't stop the aching in her. She felt like a Matryoshka doll sometimes. All her layers had been taken away and now she was tiny, broken, useless without her mask of perfection. Now she was empty.
When she was a little girl she had a collection of Matryoshka dolls, before the Red Room. She'd line them up before she went to bed and make sure they were all safe.
Another tear trickled down her cheek.
Her stomach rumbled, and briefly she thought about going back outside to find some food, but she shook the notion away as soon as it arrived. She just couldn't face Steve again. He meant well and wanted to help, and she knew he could, and she knew she should just tell him all her troubles. She wanted to. But when she tried to tell him how she felt vast and gigantic, like she'd spread herself too thin, how she didn't feel like a person anymore, how she had no place in this world and she didn't know what to do with herself, how food turned to ash in her mouth and tasted of blood, and that was why she never ate and why her skin was drying up and her face was sunken ...
She just couldn't explain it all to him without sounding crazy. Then again, maybe she was finally going insane. It all seemed to add up.
Whenever she tried to talk to Steve she felt her chest clench up like she was having a heart attack, except this was different. She couldn't talk to anyone about the monster eating her from the inside out, so she might as well just stay away from everyone. She hadn't been outside in days. She was starting to get pale. Or paler. Mother Russia didn't do much for your dream tan.
Thinking of Steve made her realise she'd left him out there all alone. She didn't mean to act like this, she really didn't. She probably wasn't the best person to be around right now. She doesn't know why she even bothers sometimes. It would be much easier just to stay locked in her room for the rest of her life.
She took a deep breath and relaxed, noticing that her hands had stopped shaking. She still felt different though, like she wasn't entirely herself. And she wasn't, these days. She didn't know who she was.
She opened the blinds of the tiny window and stared out at the city, looking at the stars above and trying to figure out where she'd gone wrong. Except there wasn't a starting line she could pinpoint. Her life had been one whole series of fucked-up events, and she was just fucked, and she just had to accept that.
She sighed. The sky was pretty tonight. There were thousands of aliens up there in space looking at the same sky as her, but still. Pretty. If you liked to call things such a superficial word.
Steve had probably gone to bed now. Maybe she could sneak out and grab a bottle of water to dry her cracked lips and throat.
She walked over to the door and unlocked it, opening it slightly and peering out. The TV was off and there was silence in the apartment. She noticed something was off and looked down.
Lying at her feet was a full water bottle and a pack of sleeping pills with only what was necessary inside. No way for her to overdose. How thoughtful. She smirked and grabbed the water, taking a long sip and leaning on the door frame, before heading back inside. She still locked the door though. There was no way she was dumb enough to take chances.
She sighed and laid down on the bed, fully clothed and on top of the covers, popping the sleeping pills and swallowing them, complete with another sip of water. It would be a while before they had any effect on her though, so she had about half an hour to be alone with her thoughts. She hated this time the most, the time when she could only sit here and think, listening to the traffic, about everything she'd done.
She had no illusions that she was a good person. She was a murderer who manipulated and lied for a living, as well as for fun, who had a long history of breaking hearts (and necks.)
She was never going to be a good person. She guessed that's just how things were. There was no part of her that wanted to be good, only to atone. Maybe it was silly, but there was a part of her that almost felt sad at the thought of never being good. The rest of her just felt empty, as per the norm.
She wanted to wipe out the red in her ledger, and she felt like she'd done a pretty good job so far. But now there were voice sin her head telling her that what she'd done could never be fixed, telling her not to eat and to be in a permanent state of panic, and she rolled over and tried to think of nice things before she fell asleep. Nothing came to mind.
She had Steve, of course. And Clint and Maria. Her friends, the only good thing in her life. Except Clint was off grid and she hadn't seen Maria in months. She only knew the woman was working at Stark Industries, and probably didn't even know Natasha was back. She'd have to call her sometime then, but she had no idea what she'd say.
She scoffed quietly to herself. Three friends and only one of them knew she was alive. What an achievement. And even now Steve was slipping away from her, as much as she scrabbled to hold on pathetically. She couldn't even talk to him.
She was well and truly alone. But no matter. She was used to it.
Besides, Steve didn't really need her. He had his own friends. Sam, who looked like he wanted to be her friend too. Making nice was never really her area. She was better at making bloodshed. Still, he counted as a friend because he brought her food, even if she never ate it.
She could feel sleep starting to grip at her, her thoughts becoming wild and tangled like a jungle. She curled her body in on herself and fell sound asleep, always, however, aware of the gun underneath her pillow and the knives underneath the mattress.
Her sleep was uneasy, and when she woke in the morning it was to the smell of frying bacon. Sam must be in then.
She heaved, stomach convulsing and ran to the bathroom, genuinely thinking she was going to throw up. She knelt over the toilet for a moment, breathing heavily and shuddering, before crawling back into bed and pulling the blankets over her body. She didn't plan on going back to sleep, but figured she might as well hide out until both the boys left. She clutched the gun under her pillow almost by reflex and sighed. She was well and truly fucked.
And she had no idea how to fix it.