Chapter Text
There was blood everywhere, on every surface in the room. It congealed on her body, drying in every small wrinkle of her hands, every little dip in her skin, it found it’s way there. It stuck in her hair, matting the strands until she couldn’t tell where the red hair began and the red blood ended. She left sticky, smeared footprints in her wake, fresh blood dripping from her body, only adding to the pools of it already staining the floor.
It was everywhere, touching everything, spilling down her throat, choking her lungs, covering her eyes and ears and-
“Natasha?”
A voice filtered in through the dark, familiar, like honey, warm and comforting.
“Nat?”
The voice asked again, more insistent, louder, softer.
Natasha opened her eyes.
The room was bright, her eyes hurt at the intensity of it. Everything around her was shrouded in light, too intense and too blurry, too strong, too weak, too much and too little.
Wincing, Natasha pressed a hand to her eyes for a moment, exhaling a shaky breath that she’d clearly been holding in for far longer than she’d thought. A soft touch ghosted over her shoulder and down her back, tucking a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear.
The redhead shivered lightly, teeth biting into the soft flesh of her lower lip, threatening to draw blood if she pressed any harder. She slowly lowered her hand from over her eyes, casting a cautious glance around at her surroundings.
Debrief office 3, Agent’s Coulson and Hill on site, as well as herself. One door in and out, one bullet proof window overlooking the city, five cameras dotted around the room. Blood on the floor and-
Blood on the floor.
“Natasha, baby, hey-“ The soft honeyed voice had gone from beside her to in front of her. Natasha hadn’t even realized she’d stood up until Maria was in her eye line, one hand held up in surrender, a show of passiveness, the other held out towards the redhead’s left hand, but not touching.
“Maria?” Natasha asked roughly, brows pulling together in confusion, eyes straying again to the spot of blood on the carpet.
She vaguely remembered sitting down in her seat at the table, brushing a hand over her nose and watching as she wiped blood from her face onto her hand, where it then found purchase embedded in the blue carpet beneath her feet. But anything else after that until that moment, and probably not even then, was hazy or full on blank and not in her mind at all.
Coulson had probably been talking, he was debriefing them after their mission after all, but she recalled none of what had been said or if she had said anything back.
Professional, Romanoff, way to go.
If she even was Romanoff, the lines in her head were fuzzy and trying to figure out the pieces felt like treading through cement.
“It’s me.” Maria nodded, offering a careful smile. “You’re okay, we’re just in the office. Phil was going through our mission but I think we’ll get you back to our room, huh?”
Natasha forced her eyes away from the blood spot, looking at her superior, still in his seat. She could tell he had been sitting and not helping only so he didn’t make anything worse and not through not giving a shit.
“You’re dismissed, Natasha, it’s okay. We’ll pick up when you feel better.” Coulson nodded at the women.
Feel better from what? What was even happening? Sure, she’d been bleeding but if it had been bad then she would be in medical, and she wasn’t, so that meant she wasn’t really hurt at all.
“I am…better.” The woman’s frown grew and her gaze moved to Maria, her eyes cloudy and lost.
“I know.” The black haired agent took a small step forward. “But we’re dismissed, so let’s go.” She hadn’t once dropped her hand back to her side, it was still held out to Natasha.
Out of more confusion than comfort, Natasha slipped her hand into Maria’s. She let herself be led out of the room, her steps stumbling and stuttering in a way that usually indicated severe injury or overdrinking. Come to think of it, she did feel kind of drunk. Was she drunk? Surely not, they’d been on mission.
They were back in their room when Natasha next came to awareness.
Maria was still holding onto her and seemed even more like Natasha was being pulled along more than she was willing her body to actually move. The agent kicked her shoes off the moment the door shut behind them and Natasha found that her body was finding that movement far too much to even attempt it.
Natasha numbly stepped more into their room, sunlight glinting off something to her right capturing her attention. The redhead stepped in front of the full length mirror, peering at a reflection that she only vaguely recognised as her own.
She felt like she was another plane of existence, another planet even, with everything a little off and disorientating. The figure in the mirror looked exhausted. There were dark bruises under her eyes and her eyelashes fluttered against pale skin. The figure had been bleeding, a line of now dry blood making the distance from her nose to her top lip. There were flecks of blood in the woman’s hair, on her knuckles, smeared behind her ear. The blood was clearly not her own and had clearly been scrubbed at quickly and dismissively, leaving multiple traces of it everywhere.
The figure was shaking. Finely, almost unperceptively, but the vibrating energy could be seen nonetheless. She was dressed haphazardly, in clothes that didn’t belong to the woman. The shirt too big, the logo faded from use. The pants she had on were also too big and a little too long and the dipped a little too low on her hips. Even the shoes seemed too big and clunky for the woman’s size.
“Babe-“ The hand from earlier rested on the redhead’s shoulder and Natasha slowly pulled her eyes from the mirror.
“Hmm?” She replied dazedly, blinking spots away from her vision.
“Let’s lay down.” Maria said softly, already turning the other woman away from the mirror and towards the bed, covers already pulled back and ready for Natasha to climb in.
The redhead had already begun to lay down when Maria realised she still had Phil’s shoes on her feet. It wasn’t like Natasha to keep missing details like that and the brunette desperately hoped that a nap would help.
Maria quickly unlaced the shoes and threw them towards the hallway, pulling the covers up over her love. Before they left for missions, the pair always made sure to change the bed covers and stock up the fridge in their room with snacks and drinks. There was nothing worse than coming home after a long mission to a dirty bed and no food to eat.
Pulling the soft white covers up to Natasha’s chin, Maria sat on the side of the bed, stroking a hand over the woman’s hair and brushing fingers over her forehead, running a finger up and down from her hairline to the bridge of her nose. “Sleep, love.” The agent said softly, watching as Natasha’s eyelids fluttered shut. “I’ve got you.”
It took no time at all for Natasha to fall asleep, which didn’t surprise Maria in the slightest. The woman had barely been hanging onto consciousness the entire ride home, through medical and a hasty clean up and then through the parts of debrief they’d half managed to get through.
Maria had tried to get the redhead to sleep as they headed home but she had stubbornly refused, citing a whole bunch of reasons that didn’t entirely make sense, so she didn’t have to admit that the only reason she wouldn’t sleep was the fear settled deep in her bones. The panic, the pain of everything that had happened, the idea that if she closed her eyes the horrors would never stop.
But during debrief Natasha tipped over the line of exhausted to whatever the hell came next. She suffered with dissociation at the best of times but it had been so bad that Natasha had just stopped talking, stopped reacting, stopped moving. She hadn’t seemed to see them, hear them, feel when Maria touched her.
She had been gazing at the corner of the room for ten minutes, slack and completely gone, before Maria had told Phil, in no uncertain terms, that they were done and leaving. To his credit, Phil had looked ready to pull the plug the minute Natasha stilled completely.
Watching Natasha sleep, Maria began to feel the panic and horror settling in around her. She’d fought to push it back, look after her girlfriend, deal with physical wounds, just get through debrief. Now that she was completely alone with her thoughts, the images wouldn’t stop assaulting her brain.
They’d only been separated for an hour at most, and Maria had literally no fucking idea what the hell had happened to Natasha from the moment Maria had been knocked out, to finding her girlfriend. Of course, she’d seen the room the redhead had been in, had seen the carnage and chaos around her, had seen the people, the instruments, the beds, the bodies, but Natasha hadn’t been able to even give her a hint about what had happened since she’d been gone.
Teeth gritting, body covered in goosebumps, Maria slid from the bed to sit on the floor, knees coming up to her chest, hands covering her eyes. “Fuck.” She whispered, feeling the telltale signs of tears well up behind her eyes. Was Natasha ever going to get over what had happened to her, what had happened to everyone around her?
“Fuck.” Maria whispered again, pressing her hands so hard to her eyes she saw stars. Despite her best efforts, tears began to drop steadily down her cheeks until the agent was sobbing, cursing with each breath.
Now what?