Dread Your Demons (Natasha Romanoff x OC)

~4~ Hibernation

~ Call me friend but keep me closer ~

Nat's POV:

NYC, United  States  11/17/2014

Her straight red hair bounced on her shoulder as she walked around the corner of the medical station's hallway. Most doors were open, the rooms empty. A few were closed, names of recovering agents written on the doors. Natasha stopped in front of a glass wall, designed after the heallicarrier's prison. She scanned her hand on the panel beside it and after the door opened, she stepped into the otherwise completely normal, hospital-like room, where Steve was sitting, notepad and pencil in hand. The pulse rate had come up to forty beats per minute and her blood pressure looked promising, but she knew it would take longer until the food that flooded into her stomach through a tube would strengthen her enough.

"What are you doing here?", she asked Steve, while her eyes wandered from Kate's sunken-in face to his tired eyes.

"Waiting. She shouldn't be alone when she wakes up." He gave her a kind smile, then continued to speak when she just looked at him confused as to why he would care. "I know what it's like to wake up alone. It's very scary. And if she is, like you said, just someone who has been used by Hydra, then it might be good to explain why we keep her in cuffs and in a cell."

"What, it's easier to take from a nice face like yours?", Natasha growled jokingly, and Steve shook his head smiling to himself.

"She's not Bucky. I know that there's nothing you want more than to help him, but you can't take her on as a replacement project. She is her own human being.", she warned him.

"It's not just that. We don't know how long she has been like this. I wish I had someone who was with me when I woke up.", he admitted and looked at the slim body before him.

Nat put an understanding hand on his shoulder, while they both let their thoughts guide them away from their conversation. But her wandering mind quickly returned to the present, when she felt his blue eyes looking up to her.

"What?", she asked, already defensive.

"You know her, don't you?" His words surprised her, but only because they came from him. She had expected other parts of the team to come to that conclusion before him. Her silence was an answer loud enough for him to understand. "Who was she?", Steve asked empathetically.

"Agent Kathrine Davis. I lost her on a mission after she saved my life.", she murmured staring at the scars on her lover's wrist underneath the cuffs.

"You recognized her from Zola, right?", he asked her, and she turned her head back to him, frowning. She forgot that he saw those pictures as well. Or maybe she just didn't expect him to make that connection.

"Yeah.I-" She broke her sentence off when she came face to face with the picture of Kate that had haunted her most nights since she had seen it. Steve had flipped over several pages of his notepad revealing a drawing of young Kate. She reached out and took it. The lump in her throat didn't go away when she cleared it.

"How long did they have her?", he asked looking between her and Natasha, more questions forming in his head.

"Five years, but this...", she gave him the sketch back, "This is from before that. This is from about ten years ago." Tears wanted to fill her eyes, but she didn't allow them to until he asked that dammed question.

"Ten years ago? How old is she?" He feared for his math to be right, but it was.

"At that point? Fifteen." It hurt for her to say a number so small with the immense pain Kathrine had to endure on her mind.