Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel comics or characters or movies, and am making no money off of this fic.
AN: Written for the October 8th Whumptober prompt: fever.
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The Sickness Inside by luvsanime02
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When Natasha Romanoff wakes up, her throat feels dry. She doesn't really think anything of it, only gets a glass of water and takes a long drink. The dryness stays with her, though. She starts jogging, but for some reason, can't seem to concentrate. It's annoying, but she decides to stop after only half a mile.
When she gets back home, Natasha takes a shower, and then she almost passes out from the steam. That's when she knows that something's really wrong with her. Contrary to popular belief, Natasha's only human. She gets sick sometimes. She knows what that normally feels like. Nothing before has ever prepared her for this, though.
Natasha's gripping the shower curtain, and thinks of that scene from Psycho, and curses Clint for making her watch that movie, no matter how good it actually turned out to be. She manages to step out of the tub without falling over, but then she can't seem to catch her breath afterwards.
The shower water didn't even feel that hot to her, really. It must have been, though, because the mirror's fogged over completely already. Natasha grabs a towel and mostly dries off, slowly, with one hand on the counter for balance the whole time. She feels like a newborn fawn just learning to walk.
Her thoughts are all over the place. Her throat is so dry. Natasha fumbles with her heavy, cotton bathrobe, and eventually manages to get it down from the hook on the door and wraps herself up in it tightly. Does her skin feel hot right now? Cold? Natasha doesn't know. She can't tell. Her body feels off in a way that she can't explain.
She drinks another glass of water, because that can't hurt, and digs through her medicine cabinet, but although it's stocked well in medical supplies and weapons, all that she has for sickness is an ordinary fever reducer. She takes a few pills anyway, in case they help her become lucid enough to plan her next move, and then Natasha is stumbling out of the bathroom and down the hallway, and then into her bedroom.
The mirror she passes along the way shows glazed-over eyes and a pale face with flushed cheeks, and yeah, Natasha definitely has a high fever. She doesn't even need to actually take her temperature in order to realize that she's sick. Natasha doesn't bother to take off the bathrobe, just pulls on sweatpants underneath it and a large sweatshirt over top, and calls it good enough, even though she must look ridiculous. She doesn't care. Natasha crawls back under her covers, and admits to herself that she should have tried to find some juice or something, but she can't be bothered to move again.
She falls asleep. Sometime later, Natasha wakes up again. She doesn't feel any better. Her mind is still wandering and foggy. She wakes up thinking of Clint, and how he would tease her about her fashion choices if he saw her right now, even though he has no room to talk, and then, somehow, she ends up thinking about what the Red Room would do to her if Natasha had ever gotten this sick as a child.
She curls up into a ball and pretends that she doesn't still feel the sting of a whip, and meanwhile, Natasha (or is it Natalia right now? She can't tell anymore.) waits for this fever to pass. It has to eventually, right?
She hopes so.