DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING. ALL CHARACTERS AND ORGANIZATIONS BELONG TO MARVEL COMICS/STUDIOS.
The first time he saw her fall apart scared Steve more than any of those horror movies Stark kept mailing to him.
It was 1:37 in the morning. He and Natasha, partners on a world council protection detail, had turned in after their shift ended about two hours before. Their hotel rooms were right next to each other, with a door in the adjoining wall for easy communication.
Steve was only dozing; he'd had trouble sleeping ever since he came out of the ice. Especially now, after New York, when his nightmares were rife with fresh horror.
A scream sliced through the silence, chilling his blood. Steve had heard a lot of screams in his life, between the war and his (albeit short) career with SHIELD. Screams of the dying, of the anguished, of the victorious. This wasn't anything like that.
He scrambled out of bed and towards the adjoining door behind which the scream was coming from. It was a sound so full of terror and agony that he couldn't imagine—didn't want to imagine—what was being done to extract it.
"Natasha!" he shouted, pounding on the door. The damn thing was locked—god dammit, he'd told her not to lock it. His calls were met with silence, which was somehow worse than the screaming.
Desperate, he stepped back and delivered a sharp kick to the door just below the lock. The door swung open and Steve burst into the room, fists up, ready to attack. But there was no enemy. Just Natasha, on her feet and stumbling towards the bathroom.
"Get out of here," she rasped, her voice hoarse. There was something in her eyes that scared Steve, a wildness that he'd never seen before.
"What happened? Are you—Natasha." He followed her to the bathroom and watched disbelievingly as she collapsed in front of the toilet and started to retch into it.
Steve went to kneel beside her, but Natasha waved him away.
"Go away. Please. I—you don't need to see this."
Steve stared at her, helpless and appalled. She must have had a nightmare—that was the only explanation he could think of. But what, he wondered, could she have possibly seen to be shattered like this?
Natasha wasn't throwing up anymore, but she didn't seem in any hurry to get off the floor. Steve filled a cup of cold water from the sink and offered it to her. She took it from him silently; her hand shaky and bleeding from deep fingernail marks gouged into her palms.
"C'mon," Steve whispered. "You can't stay here."
He bent and gently gathered Natasha in his arms. They were both trembling. Steve carried her into his own room, noting with a prick of annoyance that he'd left his shield lying beside the nightstand—not the best decision, when he'd thought he would be facing a room full of vicious attackers.
He laid Natasha down onto his bed and went to the bathroom to get a wet towel for her bloodied hands. When he got back she was sitting up, cross-legged with her elbows on her knees.
"Damn you," Natasha murmured when Steve handed her the towel.
"Sorry?"
"I told you to leave."
Steve sat down on the bed beside her. "I wasn't going to leave you like that," he said gently.
Natasha's face flashed with irritation for a moment, but then she softened. "Thank you."
Steve tried to smile but couldn't. "I get nightmares too."
"Not like these you don't...sorry, that sounded self-pitying." Natasha finished wiping the blood off her hands and made to get up.
Steve watched her walk away, a strange tugging in his chest. Impulsively he said, "You can stay. You don't have to be alone."
Natasha turned, and there was something very breakable in her face. "Yes," she said, and her voice was as cold and fragile as a piece of ice. "I do."
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