Nightmares
The next time Natasha woke up, she felt physically awful, but mentally and emotionally clearer than she had before her breakdown. She had a vague recollection of breaking down into tears, frustrated and hurt and exhausted, unable to continue holding it all in anymore now that she was safe with Clint. She remembered him moving closer, wrapping his arms around her so gently, as if he was holding glass instead of a person. Given her injuries, he might as well have been, and she had not felt ashamed about it either. She had simply buried her face into his chest, sobbing and coughing and struggling with something as basic as breathing until she fell asleep.
It wouldn’t be the first time she had done that. She wished it would be the last, but she had no idea what the future would hold. Struggling to full wakefulness, she took a breath, relieved when she didn’t immediately cough it out. Her chest was still on fire, and her throat ached, and she still felt the overwhelming need to cough – but it was all slightly better.
Eyes drifting open, she had the instinctive feeling that she was not alone. She turned her head to the side, seeing Wanda in the chair that Clint had been in the last time she was awake. She blinked tiredly at the woman, who was mostly looking down at her own hands, clearly looking uncomfortable and upset. It was jarring to both be back at the compound, and also seeing her old team mates again. It had been many months at least since she had seen any of them.
Her heart jolted, remembering seeing nothing but darkness, wishing she could see the faces of her team. Just to be with them one last time before she was killed.
Wanda flinched, as if struck, and Natasha knew her brief flash of panic had definitely made it out to the woman. Normally she was more in control of her emotions, able to keep them at bay and keep the walls up, if only so a certain woman with telepathic abilities wouldn’t pick up on them. But after what she had been through, the walls had all come down, and she had been left with nothing but pain and emotion for so long. It would take time for her to pull those walls back up, to be able to keep her feelings at bay and protect those around her that were sensitive to them.
“Hey,” was all Wanda said, with a clearly forced smile that did not reach her eyes. Eyes that were clearly filled with sorrow and stress, and Natasha felt guilty for being the cause of that. If she had only fought harder, she would never have been captured in the first place.
“I..” trying to speak had been a mistake. Her throat felt torn with pain. Her chest throbbed. She broke into a fit of coughing that nearly sent her back into unconsciousness. She wheezed, trying to get her breathing back under control, her broken arm wrapped around her aching chest as she brought her other up to try to, unsuccessfully, massage at her burning throat.
Ow.
Wanda had nearly jumped to her feet, looking over her with a combination of concern and panic. She could feel the gentle probing at her mind, attempting to help her, and she flinched.
You don’t want to see what’s in my mind, she thought loudly, knowing Wanda would hear it. She couldn’t sign to Wanda, as she didn’t know sign language like Clint did. Her only means of effective communication was to think, loudly enough that her thoughts would be easily heard by the woman.
“I can help you,” Wanda responded softly, looking sad.
Natasha grimaced, automatically curling in on herself. No one could help her. She was a lost cause, a spy too injured to help herself.
I don’t want you to get hurt, she thought.
Wanda’s eyes flashed, and there was a hint of anger in the woman’s eyes. “The only one that’s going to be hurt now are those bastards that work with Ross… and Ross himself,” the witch snarled. Natasha almost smiled, seeing that protective anger. It warmed some of the cold fear and anguish that was settled deep inside her chest. She hadn’t known how much she had needed and missed that kind of protectiveness until now.
She shuddered as she took a deep breath. How long has it been? She had had no way of keeping track of time. Occasionally she had been given food or water. She was beaten frequently, but had no way of knowing if the beatings were hours or days apart. There had been no clock, even if she could have seen one. No schedule of guards changing. Just randomness, designed to keep her from tracking the time herself, to keep her uncomfortable and uncertain for the entirety of her captivity.
“Two months since they had you,” Wanda whispered.
Two months. She closed her eyes, realizing it had been longer than she had hoped, but shorter than it had felt. It had felt like years. But captivity would do that. It would warp your concept of time, make you think each minute was hours. Pain made everything last longer.
Her eyes were watering. She forced them to stop. She didn’t want to cry in front of another person. Crying in front of Clint, who she had cried in front of before, was one thing. Crying in front of Wanda, or anyone else on the team? That was too much. She couldn’t handle it. She was weak enough. Compromised enough. She couldn’t stand to be around herself while she was so weak. How could they stand to be around her?
She was tired. Tired of holding her feelings back, while also being tired in general from months of sleep deprivation and torture. No amount of sleep seemed to be enough.
She still shuddered, desperate and panicked and weak, as she tried to breath.
“It’s okay, it’s safe,” Wanda whispered sadly.
Her eyes slipped shut. She slept again. Her nightmares and flashbacks chased her.
Wanda was nervous as the red-haired spy fell back into unconsciousness. She had felt so many thoughts racing through the woman’s mind, unhindered, and it had been jarring. Natasha had always been very in control of her thoughts and emotion, keeping Wanda from being able to accidentally hear or notice things going through her head. But now it was almost as if all her protective walls had been demolished. As if her mind had been unmade, and she had lost her ability to keep control over it. Even drunk Tony was able to keep more thoughts under control, and that was saying something. She had never quite been able to be around a drunk Tony, because his thoughts were insane and confusing and loud.
Wanda wasn’t sure why she had come here. She had been too horrified and angry and upset by everything she had seen on both video and the medical reports to risk coming here and causing issues with her mind. But after seeing the recording, she had needed to convince herself that her friend was okay.
Maybe not physically.. and definitely not emotionally. But she was alive.
The woman was sick, covered in bruises and cuts, and had more broken bones at the same time than Wanda had ever had spread out over her entire life. She was entirely helpless, which was not something she had ever considered the assassin. All of it made Wanda feel extremely protective, wanting nothing more than to storm into the capitol, find Ross, and destroy him slowly and painfully from the inside out. A sentiment that was shared by every member of the regrouped Avengers.
It was no surprise when the unconscious woman began to squirm and mutter and cry out softly in her sleep. No doubt, she was being overwhelmed by all kinds of nightmares and flashbacks, struggling to recover from the previous two months. They had only watched a handful of recordings. Basically, the first week of her time on the Raft. It had been horrific and brutal, watching a massive, muscular man using his full strength to beat the small, bound spy to the point that she didn’t wake up for almost 16 hours. Natasha was lucky to be alive, even if in her thoughts she almost seemed like she would be happier to be dead.
Wanda wanted to reach out to her, to gently pry the nightmares from her mind so the woman could fall into a deep and restful sleep, undisturbed. What she wasn’t prepared for was getting swallowed up in the nightmare, seeing it as if it was her own, and getting too overwhelmed by it to react quickly enough to stop it.
She couldn’t see. Cold metal was in her mouth. Her jaw ached. Her chest was on fire. Muscles aching with a need to move. Loud noise. She flinched as heavy boots stomped toward her. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t escape. Cruel laughter, followed by a heavy stomp directly on her abdomen, knocking the breath right out of her and making her empty stomach cramp painfully.
“Shame we can’t see your pretty face,” a voice said, laughing. “It’s more fun that way.”
A heavy weight dropped down on her. She flinched, but couldn’t stop it. Hands groped at her breasts, rough and painful. She jerks at that, trying to shove them away with her bound hands. A fist slams into her cheek, and lights explode behind her eyes.
She goes limp, dazed and struggling to think through the pounding headache.
“You’re so beautiful all covered in bruises,” the man tells her, then laughs again at his own, pathetic joke. Her stomach churns with nausea.
Doesn’t want it.
Part of her wonders if it was better than getting beaten senseless.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
More squeezing. She winces uncomfortably, trying to recoil mentally from the touch. Better this than something worse, something more physical.
The thought doesn’t ease her fear. She’s drowning in it. Breaths coming in and out fast, but she barely has any air. She wants him off. Wants him away from her. She hates how he tenderly brushes at her skin in between squeezing her breasts, as if in some mock sensation of love. This wasn’t love.
Tears pricked her eyes.
Who could love a broken thing like her?
Wanda recoils from the painful thoughts and memory so hard, she nearly gives herself whiplash, slamming back into her chair and falling right out of it.
Gasping for air, she shudders as she struggles to separate Natasha’s memory from her own mind. Then she’s up, using her powers as carefully as possible to send the spy into a deep, dreamless sleep, before fleeing the medical room, before they tears could start falling.