A/N: This chapter contains suicidal thoughts and mentions. Please skip past if you are sensitive to that. Not much, only a couple of sentences, but I know how triggering some things can be to people, so please don't read this chapter if that applies to you. Also, for those of you who have watched Agent Carter, you'll remember the part about Dottie Underwood in the Red Room, and there are big references to that in here.
*Natasha's POV*
Me and Steve walk back to the hotel without a word, as neither of us really know what to say; we never fight, and if we do it is normally easily resolved. I want to say something, but I know he's in the Captain America mood, which means inspirational rants and really deep conversations about justice and honesty that I am not ready for. I try to keep the smile on my face but it fades after a few minutes and so I go back to my 'resting bitch face,' as Tony so wonderfully likes to put it.
When we get to our room, Steve lies down on the bed, clearly deep in thought, so I huddle down in the armchair under a blanket in silence, also lost in my thoughts. Those girls, in the school, they were so young, almost as young as I was, and yet they seemed so happy. Little Natalya, for instance, so small with her cracked glasses and freckly face, yet so skilled with a gun. When I was that age I hadn't smiles for months, not knowing when my next meal would be; or if I'd get one at all, that is. I regret not telling her my name - my old name - Natalia. The look she had in her eyes when I was cutting her hair was one of... admiration. Yet I don't deserve to be admired. Everything I did, everything I've done, I'm not the type of person a young girl like Natalya would look up to.
"Who wants to watch some good old Disney?!" Adah suddenly exclaims, bursting into the room holdingup handfuls of dvds.
"You're a Disney nerd too?" Steve says, his whole face lighting up.
"Obviously! Who isn't?" Adah says, jumping onto the bed and then figuring out how to playthe DVD on the television. She gets it playing and I emerge from under my blanket.
"You wanna watch with us?" Steve says.
"Okay," I reply, perching on the end of the bed. The film starts playing and when it beginssomething in my brain recalls memories.
I know this film.
And every line in it.
Suddenly, I'm back in the red room, sitting up as straight as a pin at my desk, feet tied together, hands folded on the old wood, staring at the old projector. On the wall plays the exact same film, and the whole group of tortured girls and I recite every line in it, not stumbling over a single word.
"Again!" Madame B shouts, cracking her whip.
"I'm sorry, I - I can't - do this," I say to Adah and Steve, and then quickly rush from the room, down the corridor, and outside. I find a large tree and climb up it until I'm sat high up on a branch, surrounded by leaves and leaning on the trunk. I close my eyes and do the breathing exercises I saw online.
They don't work.
My heart starts beating faster and I'm losing control of my thoughts, the memories are coming back without any kind of permission. Without meaning to I start to recite one of the lines from the film, out loud; the one Madame B made us repeat the very most.
"If you let me stay, I'll keep house for you. I'll wash and sew and sweep and cook." Whilst I say it under my breath, all I can hear in my head is the monotone voices of young girls tied to desks in a cold institution in Russia. I can't deal with this. These memories and flashbacks are getting too severe. Maybe it would be easier if I just....No. I can't leave the others. But would they be alright without me? Probably. Would they get over it? Probably. I swing my legs over the side of the branch and look down at the ground many metres below me. Could I bring myself to?
No. No no no no no. I can't let Steve down. He's the only person I can truly trust, and... I can't deal with the guilt of letting him go.
"Natasha? Natasha are you out here?" I hear a faint voice call. Steve. I open my mouth to reply but I realise that my voice is croaky from silently crying; I didn't even notice that I was.
"Natasha! Please, are you out here?" Steve continues to shout.
"I'm up here," I say once, for my sore throat won't let me repeat it. There is no need to though, because somehow he heard me, and before I know it he's up on the branch next to me, and I shuffle up to make room. He doesn't say anything, just sits there, with his arm protectively around my shoulders. After a while I break the silence.
"I was - I was gonna do it," I say quietly. To my surprise he doesn't shout at me or get mad, he gets what I'm talking about.
"What stopped you?" he says instead.
"You."
"Why me?"
"Because...look, I like you, Steve. And I'm pretty sure you like me too, and I just - I couldn't leave you on your own. And Adah needs someone too," I say.
"You've known her two days, Nat."
"Can't you see through her facade, Steve? She's just a girl. Think about it: no parents, no siblings, and the only place she's ever called home destroyed. And yeah she's a strong girl, but that doesn't mean shit when you go through things like that."
"Yeah, you're right," he says. He pauses, but then continues, "I don't mean to be intrusive, and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but...why did that film trigger flashbacks?"
For once I decide I don't want to open up to Steve. I've told him too much as it is and although I like him, I liked Bruce too and look where that got me. So I stay quiet and he does too. I try to organise my feelings for him, I know for a fact that I like him in a different way to how I liked Bruce, that was more of a short-term-but-felt-long-term-touch-deprived-relationship for the both of us, and now that it's over I feel more free than I did before. But this...what I'm feeling for Steve, is more of a slow-burn-hunger-that's-been-building-up-for-a-while-we-don't-know-what-it-really-is-relationship. My eyes find his, and before I quite know what I'm doing I lean forward and kiss him. It's short but it's sweet, and then I get down from this tree, his taste still lingering in my mouth and on my lips.
(Hunger Games fans: for the kiss, think of the Katniss-and-Gale kiss in the catching fire film in the field, but with very different context. Everlark all the way!)
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Forbidden Feelings
Fanfiction|Part 1| When Agent Hill is kidnapped and taken somewhere unknown, Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff are recruited by Fury to locate and rescue him. How? By going undercover at a hotel. As who? A couple on their honeymoon. As they keep up the act t...
