𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{3¹⁰} {PEPPERMINT AND ROSES}

∆ {3¹⁰} {PEPPERMINT AND ROSES} ∆

AND THEN IT all stopped. It wasn't a fade, a gradual release back into reality, as she would've liked. It simply slammed to a stop, everything, the smell, the feel of the blood, the white light and the heat of the flame, the flicking of her mind, slamming from one image, one scene to another, it crashed to a halt, leaving her shocked and shaking, reeling in its wake.

She was back in reality, whole body trembling and mind still running a million miles an hour. She could just make out the floor of the quinjet through her blurry, swirled vision, and everything came back at once. The pain in her side, the pounding ache in her head, the metal beneath her body, the loud thrum of the quinjet engine, the soft talking voices of her team, it was all amplified by what felt like ten times. She couldn't focus, but a figure arrived in her blurred vision, crouching down so they could be in her line of sight, which was steadily focused on the floor. Someone was speaking to her, but she couldn't make out what they were saying, it was as if their words were being spoken underwater, garbled and tangled, in an unintelligible mess.

She let her face seep into a frown as she tried to make out their words and focus on their face, but she found it impossible. It made her head ache so incredibly painfully that it made her let out a gasp of pain, and she simply couldn't. It was as if her body wouldn't let her, determined to keep her enveloped in the darkest depths of her mind. They wouldn't stop, the harrowing voices, whispering from a miles away, shouting an inch from her face. The flashes of images she hadn't seen in years because she'd buries them so deep in her mind she'd quite literally forgotten them. And then there were the words the voices whispered. They weren't ever soft, nearly always the excruciating anger and brazen words of the houses she'd grown up in. And her name; they kept whispering it, over, and over, and over, as if determined to remind her who she'd once been, cowering in the shadows of her carer's kitchen, terrified to even be seen, and she didn't like being that person. She didn't like hiding away. She didn't like being afraid of people. And yet, here she sat, unable to focus on the world directly in front of her, if anything, more afraid of herself than anyone else. Afraid of what she could do, and what it might bring. She felt someone touch her shoulder, and instinctively flinched away. It could've been anyone, even Natasha, but through the din and the incandescent swirling, it was impossible to tell. At least she knew she was safe, by the sound of the quinjet engine that vibrated through her body. Or at least, with people she knew.

{~}

CLINT HAD NEVER seen anyone in a state like the woman in front of him was in now. It'd taken them a while to get passed her auto-pilot fighting, but eventually, she had stilled, letting out a gasp, and they had been able to take her back to the quinjet. He couldn't imagine what she'd been through in her past and what Wanda might've showed her, but it had clearly affected her. Since the dark-haired woman had been sat down by Clint's careful hands, she'd been completely still, her breathing perfectly regular, almost calm. Except for her eyes - behind the ice was such terror, fear, and guilt that he'd never seen in a person before - it made him want to shrivel up in a corner and contemplate everything that'd ever happened to him, and he wasn't the one experience him first hand. Natasha was almost completely blank too, staring at the floor, a hint of crimson still dancing in her forest green pupils, determined to retain its grip as long as possible. Clint glanced back at Ryder, as it occurred to him to wonder if he'd seen any crimson in her eyes, and was surprised to see the icy blue flash a violent scarlet, and undertone of darker red haunting behind it; one more like blood.

Natasha had started to recover first, vaguely acknowledging her surroundings with misty, wide eyes, gripping the edge of the metal bench she sat on so hard that her fingers were stark white, and in the silence, you could almost hear her bones creaking. And then half an hour later, the black-haired woman jolted backwards in her seat, her back hitting the wall of the quinjet, her breath immediately spiking so fast that her whole body was shaking with the force of it, hyperventilating. Her pupils dilated, most likely with pain, adrenaline and possibly terror. They'd had to take her quarterstaff off of her, because of her fighting back, but that was probably going to make the situation worse. With one glance at Natasha, who was still in such a fugue state that she hadn't caught up with what was happening, and took the duty upon himself, crouching down in front of Ryder, speaking gentle words to try and get her attention.