Chapter 6
"Sometimes it feels like you only left the Red Room physically." That sentence had stopped her in her tracks. The lady aross from her sat calmly. The redhead felt anything but calm. A murderer. A fraud. She was going to be called out on it. Finally. Her therapist continued, "Because of the trauma you went through your body and mind are stuck in those cycles. You know you've left but you need to start recognising that this isn't the same as the Red Room. That you are in a different place, and running into everything with the expectations they taught you isn't healthy."
Not what Natasha had expected, but maybe what she needed to hear.
Ever since she had heard it the paragraph had played over and over in her head. It was what inspired the redheads current google rabbit hole. She perched at the kitchen table, illuminated by the blue light of her laptop screen. PTSD. C-PTSD. Healing from trauma. Feeling stuck. Why do I always feel like I'm drowning. Impostor syndrome. The twisted knot of her stomach only grew tighter with each article she read. The sky slowly blinked awake, colours blurring from blacks to blues as she drank another cup of coffee. The table around her was littered with evidence of her late night snacks and coffee addiction. She only closed her laptop when she heard Steve's footsteps approaching.
"Late night?" He asked, his voice groggy with sleep still.
"Early morning." The lie came easily, easily explained. "I thought soldiers woke up early huh?"
He'd already began preparing his tea, now, with an amused smile. "Superheroes play by slightly different rules. And that means an extra half hour of sleep on Sundays."
Natasha rolled her eyes as she began dealing with the mess on the table. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"
Eventually a socially acceptable moment to escape in arose, and with it Natasha retreated to her room. The static hummed in her body and the familiar thoughts taunted her. On top of it all new questions. New feelings to decipher. New opinions to make.
Since her defection she had attended mandated therapy. It was a requirement of Fury's. First weekly, now monthly. Most sessions were spent with shallow conversation, if Natasha had any say in it. Her therapist, a woman named Joan, had never said something that stopped her so completely. That stuck to her like this. The google articles and people's stories reflecting hers. This explanation for half her behaviour. The chance at changing it. Healing. The expression made her cringe slightly still.
It took a month of late night Google searches and a few half hearted attempts at journalling before Natasha even considered discussing it again. It took five months of patient conversations that made Natasha feel sick before she had any grasp at something resembling coping. Something other than the static of dissociation or the familiar quietness of compartmentalization. In between it all was the constant rush of missions. Of group activities that made Natasha feel so alien. Of training feverishly.
Slowly the half empty bottles of wine that littered her room disappeared. The sleeping pills were a necessary crutch but now no longer came with the fear of her sudden death. The great divide between her and who she was around others reduced. Back to its normal place, at least for her. She found herself laughing in conversations again. Relaxing around the avengers. No longer a distant observer. No longer watching herself from afar. Intentionally trying to feel that sense of safety, or at least diminish the sense of dread that haunted her.
Her recklessness that bordered on being suicidal was there still. But slowly she was giving herself reasons to be careful. To avoid ending up in front of a gun. It happened mainly unnoticed. It wasn't until a mission in Vancouver that went wary had her anxious instead of numb that she saw the change. When a man pointed his gun at her she didn't feel any relief. Any electric jolt that reminded her she was alive. All she felt was the surge of adrenaline, her body and mind searching for a way out. A way she found.
The months kept passing. Natasha began talking to Joan. And to the other Avengers. Movie nights with Clint expanded, occasionally including Bruce. Her conversations with Tony made her laugh and roll her eyes but sometimes she felt like he could see her. Read her a little more than before. Her one sided competition with Steve slowed, eventually stopping. He wasn't a threat, or a standard to hold herself too. He was a teammate. Thor mirrored her more than she liked sometimes. "Midgardian things" were so out of his grasp sometimes. The redhead never said it but she felt his confusion, his alienation when talks turned to childhood, to school or university.
It was a late Thursday night. It was the middle of December which is what had inspired Tony to introduce Steve and Thor to soem Christmas traditions. Natasha knew most of them but knowing them wasn't the same as celebrating them. For her it was knowledge from movies and cartoons and lessons in American holidays. She wouldn't admit it but being curled up on the couch and sipping a hot chocolate with the other Avengers was a moment she would treasure.
"He knows how to wrap a gift Tony." Came Clints exasperated voice.
"He also can talk for himself." Replied Steve, his attempt to be stern ruined by the Christmas sweater he had donned and the grin stretching across his face.
"Okay but Thor probably doesn't!" Tony rebutted. The mess at Thor's feet helped prove his point. Thor had a lot of enthusiasm but not a lot of patience for fiddly thin paper.
"Is this really the most important part of Christmas?" Bruce asked. Bruce had commandeered the kitchen and was baking something. He'd refused to tell them what do far but it smelt good.
"He's got a point. You just outed yourself as only caring about gifts Tony. Rich kid behaviour."
"Natasha! Betrayal!" Said Tony, flopping to lay on the floor dramatically.
The cheery mood continued as they packed away the failed attempt at wrapping and instead began planning out how to decorate their areas within the tower. Eventually Clint stole the remote to play a 'Christmas Classic'. The choice of Die Hard probably didn't help Thor understand Christmas but it was one of her favourite Christmas movies so she couldn't complain.
They spent the evening lazing around the lounge room, talking and planning for future Christmas activities. None of her thoughts rose up to overwhelm her. There was no guilt about not working, or need to prove her place in the team. For an evening there she was secure in it. She was surrounded by friends, by people she considered family. Regardless of her abilities or how well she performed in her missions. She was here, and she was loved by them. She wasn't out of her depth. In admittedly new territory with them but she could handle it. In fact the redhead enjoyed it.