A/N: The last chapter was a MONSTER chapter because the two before it were on the shorter side. I hope that makes up for it!
"I swear to god, if you don't let me hit something, I'm gonna blow up," Natasha says as she storms through the front door of the tower, throwing it open and moving toward the stairs at an alarming rate.
"She needs a release," Clint says, putting his arm up in the way of Dr. Banner, who was already protesting to her burning off the few calories she had managed to eat for lunch.
"She could pass out again or hurt herself."
"JARVIS, are you tracking Natasha's vitals? Can you tell us if she attempts any actions other than hitting the punching bags?"
"Yes sir," the AI responds promptly.
"See? It's not that big of a problem, Banner." Clint leaves him in the lobby, following Natasha down to the training room, where she is already in full swing beating on the punching bag.
"Nat, slow down," she is more aggressive and quicker than he has seen her before, even in the first few weeks he had known her.
"He knows." It isn't a question and there is no hesitation in the statement, she has fully convinced herself of it.
"Nat…" he sighs, approaching cautiously. "Nat, look at me."
"Barton, I need to get this out of my system." Her eyes do not leave the bag in front of her and the tone in her voice is dangerous.
"You won't like what I have to say, either," Bruce says as he enters the room. "But you can't do that if you want us to keep your secrets from SHIELD."
"What's the point?' She yells, throwing her arms above her head and pacing across the room and fiddling with the ends of her sleeves. "He already knows. I know he does."
"Do you think he would have let you come back here if he knew everything?"
"Banner is here. He would trust him. I have to go… I can't stay if he knows."
"Nat, calm down."
"I can't…" She says, still pacing and now openly heaving, chest puffed out and threatening to topple her small frame. "I can't do this, Clint. I know I said… I can't. I need to…"
"No, Nat. You can make it through this, you're strong," he walks over to meet her mid-pace and draws her head up, moving her gaze from the floor to his eyes. Her eyes are dark, lost to the spiraling thoughts in her head. "Come back to me, Nat. You can do this."
"I need…"
"No, Tasha. You don't need to hurt yourself. You are allowed to be upset, you can ride this out without causing pain."
She moves to rake her fingernails across her skin under her sleeves, but he stops her before she can.
"Bruce, we might need to sedate her," he says over his shoulder and he nods his understanding.
"No!" She screams loudly. "They'll come back. I don't… I already slept today, don't make me do it again!"
"Then we have got to calm down, Tasha. Can you breathe with me?"
"Clint, please," she exhales desperately and searches his eyes for any sign of hope.
"It's okay, beautiful. He pulls her into his lap on the ground of the training room and gently strokes her hair. They had been in this position so many times and he finally felt like there was something he could do to help. "Alright Tash, you're gonna breathe with me. Ready? Breathe in." He counts to eight in his head silently and she takes two shallow breaths as he pulls in one. "Hold." He counts to four. "And let's breathe out, give me a big puff out."
By the time Bruce returns, she is quietly breathing against his chest, even with his own breaths.
"Okay, do you want to talk about it Tasha?"
"No," she says in a small voice.
"Do you want to give me the knife you brought in?" Tony says, following Bruce through the door.
"No." Her head doesn't leave Clint's chest, but she visibly tenses.
"JARVIS, can you tell me where it is?"
"Scans show that the metal object is in her shoe, Sir."
"Nat, I'm gonna take off your shoes now, okay?" Clint says quietly, careful not to move yet.
"You can't," she cries softly.
"Why is that, beautiful?" He wipes the tears from under her eyes and runs his fingers through her thinning hair delicately.
"I need it. I don't have anything else."
"You don't need anything else, Nat."
"I do."
"Give us one good reason, Red. You knew we would find it, you knew JARVIS would tell us the second you used it."
"I didn't want it to h-hurt myself," she admits quietly.
"Then why?" Bruce asks, perplexed and she simply buries her face into Clint's shoulder in response.
"Nat, come on, tell us. Maybe we can let you keep it if we know why you have it." Bruce gives him a wide-eyed look as Clint tells the girl on his lap this. Despite the serious tone of the conversation, he can't help but take notice of how cute she is curled up in his lap, hanging onto his shirt. The burns under his shirt were stinging under the slight pressure of her body against his, but that was not important to him at the moment. He had successfully managed to calm her down once, so maybe he could be helpful to her after all.
"I can't," she says so quietly that he is the only one who hears it.
"Is it because you want to hurt yourself with it or because you are afraid to tell us the real reason? Or you're afraid to tell us because you want to hurt yourself?" Bruce asks, his doctor voice taking over once again.
"I need to protect myself." She says it so plainly that you would not tell she had struggled to get that out in the minutes prior.
"We are here to protect you and JARVIS will alert us in seconds if there is a threat entering the tower."
"Unless…" Tony muses. "Are you afraid of something that's already in the tower? Or someone?"
She swallows hard and makes eye contact with Tony, refusing to break the stare and silently wishing he was less observant. His natural talent for picking up on small details was starting to piss her off.
"Shut up, Stark," she finally spits.
"It's okay, Nat," he says from behind her, dejectedly. "I didn't think you would get over it this quickly and that… That makes a lot of sense. I understand."
"It's not…" she begins breathing heavily again as she turns to face him. "I don't… It's…"
"I thought we had made some progress and were going to try this, though."
"I am! I want… I want to. It's just…" he holds her hand to his heartbeat and exaggerates his breathing to remind her to do the same. "It's a bit… much, right now."
"Why now, Nat?"
"You can't be that stupid, Legolas," Tony chastises. "She just had a very close contact encounter with her assaulter and had to recall her assault."
She glares daggers at Tony again before flinching away from Clint as he begins to ask if that is the reason.
"That's okay, Nat. You don't have to be comfortable with me right now, I understand." His tone was still conveying that he seemed crushed, but he knew that her well-being was much more important than his desire to start a relationship with her right now.
"I suppose you can keep it for now," Tony says. "But if you hurt yourself even a tiny bit with it, we take it. Do you understand?"
She nods softly at his harsh words and collapses against Clint once more. Her mind was screaming at her not to be this close to him, but a small part of her felt comforted by him and was filled with an odd feeling she didn't fully recognize at the time. Later she realized that what she had found during all of these moments of her holding her at her lowest and worst points, despite the fear and anger she misplaced and took out on him, she finally felt at home.