May 1, 2013
Clint-
Last year I was in Russia.
I was in the middle of an interrogation of a target I had been tracking for months. I had two days of the mission left, and you had one week of "muscle duty" at the tesseract facility before you were sent back to SHIELD. We would have a few days before you went back, but a few days would have been enough.
There was a phone call. Coulson, talking to the Russians.
I remember panic. Complete panic, because a mission was only interrupted on such an account in a case of extreme emergency.
"Natasha, Barton's been compromised."
Fear. I will never forget the fear that threatened to rip my body in half. I had to stop my hands from shaking and decided to be angry instead. The only way to help you was to get out of Russia as soon as possible, and for that I needed to be angry. So I was.
But I didn't get to go find you. I had to go to Calcutta and get Banner. I, a spy, had to get the man who turns into an uncontrollable rage monster to come peacefully to SHIELD and I had a feeling I couldn't just say please. Please would have worked on Rogers. Please would have worked on Tony if I'd held a gun to his head at the same time. But I got the Hulk. He only threatened to kill me once.
Even then I didn't get to come look for you. I could have found you faster than any machine, but they weren't looking for you. They were looking for Loki. So we went to Germany and I didn't trust anyone. It was all too easy.
I was so sure I'd lost you forever. That I hadn't even been able to say goodbye and you were gone.
I would have killed every last goddamn alien for you.
-Nat
May 6, 2013
Clint-
Happy anniversary of us saving the world.
Apparently it's Avengers Day now.
There was an award ceremony this morning. Tony and Pepper flew back from Malibu so he and Rogers could stand and smile for the cameras.
Me? I stood in the back. I wore your jacket and my sunglasses and put my hair up and pretended very easily that I wasn't actually there. Banner joined me and about halfway through we had the pleasure of Spiderman appearing from the shadows. He gave his two cents and left, seeing as no one seems to like him much, but I appreciated his two cents. Rogers isn't talking to me anyway, or maybe I'm not talking to him. I don't really know the difference.
They only say what they want to- that they kept an alien species from invading earth.
Again with the cowards. Because they did nothing. They let us do the dirty work, the killing, the humanity stripping actions. Looking at their faces, it's like I'm 16 and being handed a fistful of cash to kill a man. Don't worry, they would say. Just do your job.
These people here, each one of their faces ready to celebrate the fact we are all still here, ever the optimists. They don't think about what they lost. They don't think about the pain we were caused because of their selfish need to survive.
-Nat
May 7, 2013
Clint-
I suppose I'm being hypocritical, seeing as I'm being selfish in myself. All I'm thinking about is what we lost, and we lost Phil; and what I lost- and I lost you. Sure you may be alive out there somewhere, but the point is you're not here and even when you come back you won't be the same.
You'll never be Pre-New Mexico Clint ever again- you know that was the last time I saw you before the intergalactic space creep decided to come screw with our lives? And I'll never be Pre-Russia Natasha, because that's just the goddam fucking way our lives always seem to work.
Do you know how long it took me to become a goddamn whole person? To wake up in the mornings and not feel like I should just hang the rope and kill myself right there? To actually be proud of what I was doing, to feel like I was helping people instead of just causing more destruction?
Of course you do. You were there the whole time.
That's what I am. Aren't I? The kind of person who takes one step and the whole world comes crashing down on everyone else and there I remain, forced to live with the guilt of the chaos I create.
-Nat
May 12, 2013
Clint-
May is just an awful month now.
If I ever think of a time I was so sure I was going to die, it was on the helicarrier. I was stuck under a pipe and there was fire and Banner was changing into the Hulk and all I could think was that I was going to die. I wasn't going to be able to get out and the Hulk was going to tear me limb from limb and I was going to die.
But I got out. And he threw me into a wall and I thought I was going to die again when Thor came out of nowhere and added more red to my ledger.
Then you were there and I was hurt and tired and freaking out but I got you back.
I got you back and that was all that mattered really.
-Nat
May 23, 2013
Clint-
Have you ever been helpless watch your control slowly slip away? It's the same feeling that comes with waking up by a needle being shoved in your arm.
May twentieth, two thousand thirteen. I was eating a bowl of cereal in the kitchen of Star Tower at 6 a.m. Every noise made me jump. Steve walked through without even looking at me and disappeared upstairs.
That's the last thing I remember.
I lost three days. A lot can happen in three days, most of which would be helpful in explaining why I'm here.
In the cell at SHIELD. The same one as before, I'm pretty sure. How many asylum rooms does SHIELD have? With the white ceiling and white walls and white bed in the corner and the camera I know Fury is on the other side of.
He's watching me because something happened. The doctor was taking blood because something happened. Something happened because I'm here, and I don't know what.
-Nat
May 23, 2013
Clint-
There are healing cuts down the inside of my left arm.
Dr. What's-His-Face felt obliged to point them out, I guess as a memory trigger.
I can't breathe, Clint. Because more scars on top of scars means…
That's why I'm here.
The panic attack. The relapse. That happened, and you weren't here to take care of it. They probably panicked, dammit. They panicked and brought me here.
Now I'm screwed.
-Nat
May 24, 2013
Clint-
Of all people, Banner is the one they let me talk to. Though I suppose I'm not talking to Steve and Tony is back in California, so Banner is the only one left.
He says I scared the shit out of them. I was just sitting on the couch and not responding to anyone and then I started screaming at nothing and they couldn't get me to stop. There was shattered glass and blood and Banner says I beat Steve up pretty bad when he tried to "snap you out of it."
They didn't know what to do, which I suppose is my fault. I didn't tell them about things like that, but I never told anyone. You found out by accident. Banner says he told him not to, but Steve brought me here. To SHIELD. So now everyone knows.
At least he had the decency to apologize for ruining my job.
Neither of them really understand what this means. Banner's insane part is his weapon, why he's here in the first place. Steve doesn't have relapses to a brainwashed past where he had absolutely no control over anything.
But now they all know. The council is going to order decommission and blank my memory even more and ship me off to the middle of nowhere, because even if Fury doesn't tell them I'm sure someone else will.
I'm a liability now. I'm no longer useful, this screwed up and dangerous.
I guess this is the end of the Black Widow.
-Nat
May 25, 2013
Clint-
I've officially lost my mind. I'm stuck here in this waiting game and they won't let me out of medical until they're sure I'm not going to like explode or something.
Fury hasn't come by yet.
He's probably looking for the right time to break the news that I'm fired.
It takes a lot of self-control to sit here and let these doctors take their blood and run their tests without killing any of them. Killing doctors would not look good on my profile at the moment, not after Maria Hill has carefully added 'unstable' and 'risk of clear insanity.'
-Nat
May 28, 2013
Clint-
What if they send me off before you get back?
Would you come find me?
I won't remember, but please promise you will.
You have to promise.
-Nat
May 29, 2013
Clint-
Fury finally came by this morning. He looked so out of place in this hell hole, all serious and not injured. I just feel out of place, but I'm sure I look like shit enough that it seems I'm being detained for my own good.
He threw a folder at me. A mission briefing, some stint in Austria that left two days ago.
I was supposed to be with them, he said. He needed me with them so he could be sure the job was done, but now he can't even let me leave to compound.
"I don't want to fire you, Romanoff. So get your shit together real fast. Do whatever it takes; just get yourself out of here."
Give them what they want, right? Just do what you're told to help yourself.
Sometimes it doesn't seem like there's any truth left in my life. It's just layer upon layer of deception and lies.
-Nat
A/N: If you are entirely and totally confused as to what I'm talking about in regards to the panic attacks and what happened and all...it's really hard to write that from first person after it happens when she doesn't remember it. My other story INSANITY deals with that subject, if you are looking for a better explanation as to what exactly a Natasha Romanoff panic attack/relapse entails.
If you still have questions, feel free to message me and I will do my best to answer.
Thanks for reading!