Right. Left. Right. Right. Left. Right. Left.
Two small, wrapped fists were connecting repeatedly with a punching bag, sending it flying before it swung back into position, ready for another hit.
Right. Right. Left. Left. Right. Left. Right. Kick.
Suddenly a thin, powerful leg struck out, catching the side of the bag in a roundhouse kick. The move had enough force backing it to knock the chain clear from the hook and send the punching bag flying across the room. That, at least, seemed enough to slow her down for the moment... So with an exhausted huff, Natasha turned her back to the fallen punching bag and began to unwrap her hands, bringing an arm up simultaneously to wipe the sweat from her brow.
This was what she knew... Working alone. Training. Enhancing her body and skills. This was what she could handle, both physically and emotionally.
Because that bull shit about a team?
It was exactly that. Bull shit.
No one in that initiative knew what it meant. No one. Teams were supposed to be trusting... transparent... dependable... And no one around here had any of that. Not a single one of them. Steve and Tony apparently loved to keep information, important information about a teammates well being, to themselves... Bruce could lose his cool any moment and destroy them all... Barton was never around anymore and Thor... Well, Thor was probably the only one who could be counted on, provided he wasn't visiting Jane or attending to business on Asgard.
This could hardly be called a team.
A ticking time bomb was more like it. And, unfortunately, it had already imploded. How the hell could he have done something like that? Yes, relationship problems suck... withdrawals are the worst... and sometimes life is just shitty. But to warrant that extreme of a measure?
To warrant a gun pointed directly at Tony Stark's head by none other than himself?
Natasha turned around then and moved over towards the punching bag that she'd felled, picking it up in one hand, her other finding the bottom so that she could hoist it up and hang it in the air once more. As soon as the chain clinked and fell slack, she let it go, green eyes watching as it dangled back and forth in the air.
Left. Right. Right. Left. Left.
That was such an incredibly stupid and selfish move. And to think that Steve had just met her eyes, fully knowing what was going on, and hadn't told her. He'd just simply shooed her from the house as if she were some child who was misbehaving.
Right. Right. Left. Kick. Right. Left.
Steve had said he'd done it to get away. Because he couldn't stand the thought of what he was doing to Pepper. How he'd hurt her... Did neither of them realize just how little sense that made? If he was unhappy with it, all he had to do was apologize. Say he was sorry, avoid the fucking booze, and go find her. But no... Alcohol. It was always alcohol with Tony.
Kick. Left. Right. Kick. Right. Right.
What about the team? What about those who actually cared about him? It wasn't just Pepper. Thor, Steve, Bruce, Clint... Hell, even Natasha had come to care for him.
Perhaps that was why it was getting to her so harshly. The fact that she'd let these people in, let them close to her, trust them with her life... And she'd found out that they couldn't even be trusted with their own. That Tony, when things got rough, would rather turn to whiskey and bullets instead of the people who were supposed to be there for him.
That wasn't a team.
Right. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left.
As she punched the bag now, small dots of red blood could be seen in her wake... but she hardly took note. Perhaps it hadn't been the best idea to unwrap her hands, but she wasn't about to take the time to do it now. No pain... no gain.
Right.. Left. Right. Right. Jump. Kick. Land.
Her side had landed hard on the matted ground, a quiet grunt escaping her as the bag once more flew from its holdings, this time leaving the chain behind as it skittered across the room.
Did he not realize? Natasha had been there. So many times before... Where life just didn't seem worth it. Where everything would be easier if it just... ended. Hell, she even had the perfect excuse. All she had to do was botch a job... Get caught gathering intelligence from a mob... Fuck up an assassination. People would do it for her. But she'd never actually gotten that far... And she'd been beaten, tortured, experimented on, brainwashed... Her entire life. Not just for a week or so out in the middle of Afghanistan. And that wasn't even why he'd tried!
It had all supposedly been because of Pepper. Something he could have handled. Something he could have fixed.
But instead, he'd gone looking for a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
And Steve hadn't even had the gall to tell her! She'd looked him right in the eye. She'd asked him what had happened.. And all he did was talk down to her like a child before swiftly showing her to the door. How the hell could she trust people like that?
With a groan she carefully pushed herself up from the floor. Both hands found the front of her clothing and began brushing it off, freeing it of the dust and debris that littered SHIELDs training room floor.
No... She hadn't left like she told Steve she was going to. Honestly, going back to the KGB terrified her. More so then she'd ever let on. Instead she'd allowed him to believe that, watching him walk off in the distance after their meeting the night prior before she'd grabbed up her bag and made her way back to her apartment. As far as she was concerned, the lot of them could think she'd left. Hell, she'd be willing to bet none of them would even notice her absence... Not with the drama that was sure to erupt around Tony shortly... Because you don't walk away from something like that, coming that close to ending your own life, and resume things like nothing had happened.
Natasha was confident that she could slowly phase out.
Because this? This was not a team... She couldn't even bring herself to call them friends anymore.