A/N: Yikes, the last chapter was my shortest ever (less than 1,000 words). It was a bit of a filler chapter, but now we'll get back to diving into Natasha's recovery, Bucky's healing, and that good, good team bonding :)
After nearly 12 hours of work, with Nat and Steve refusing to leave his side, Bruce and Tony, with the help of a few medics and several shots of Five Hour Energy, managed to find a dosage that would begin to wean Bucky off of the injections without making him crash. He was decreasing by one milligram every 4 hours, which was how often they needed to administer the drug without causing his systems to crash and cause near-fatal responses, which meant that they would need three days to get to zero milligrams and begin questioning him about what he remembered from the drug-induced actions.
"You guys need to go home and get some rest. Nat needs to eat, too. Nothing interesting is going to happen," Bruce reprimands them.
"You need to rest as well, the SHIELD medics can alert you if there is some kind of issue," Steve retorts. Tony tried to wave them off while still staring into the light of his tablet, so they asked for his help to get Natasha to the car.
"This is a trap," he says wittily. "It's a good trap, but it's a trap."
"Tony, we need rest to keep researching tomorrow. Come on."
"It's the morning! I am not going to sleep."
"If you don't sleep, your card access to this area of the facility will be locked and all team members will be guarding it to keep you out," Maria Hill says, entering the room.
"I could take that down in minutes."
"But you won't. Go."
"Fine. But I'm going because I want to see Pepper, not because you told me to go."
"Sure, Tony."
When they got back to the tower, Natasha was unsurprised to find that Clint had been back the day before and was now heading out of the building. He gave her a brief glance in passing, but did not acknowledge her or even speak to the rest of the team. She was surprised, however, to see the rest of the team head their separate ways in the tower without so much as an argument about how she needed to eat or sleep or whatever else they decided was "a necessity." She assumed it had been about 20 hours since she decided to stop harming herself directly and just slowly die of thirst instead. The need for water had begun to subside as she continued to lack intake, but she could no longer resist the urge to fall into her pillow of a bed and let sleep take over. As soon as she crawled under the covers, still shivering in their warmth, her eyes drooped shut and a dreamless sleep overtook her body, her mind apparently too exhausted to even conjure her memories to torture her.
She woke nearly 12 hours later and smiled as she realized she had now hit 32 hours; only 40 to go. If she could just sleep this much twice more, it would go by even more quickly, but all of the sleeping pills had been removed from her room, as well as all pills except a single ibuprofen tablet in a ziplock bag, in case she was in pain.
"Nat?" Steve's voice rang out after a few short taps on her door.
"Yeah?" She responds groggily, pushing herself up gently to a sitting position.
"Can I come in?"
"Sure." He walks in and sits in the desk chair, pulling it to the side of the bed and glancing between her and his hands between his knees. "How are you doing, Cap?"
"Only about 60 more hours until we should know a lot more," he sighs. "I hope he's doing okay."
She hadn't considered the fact that she would not live to see Bucky's return, but she didn't mind as long as Steve got his best friend back and she didn't have to face him and hear if he remembered what he had done to her.
"I'm sorry it won't be sooner," she tells him.
"It's alright. I just…" he runs his fingers through his hair. "I want a distraction. So time will go faster, you know?"
"Um," she says cautiously. "Alright." She had heard this kind of comment before, form people trying to approach her from a "nice guy" angle. Just a nice guy who needs a little distraction. She takes a deep breath to steady herself before reaching to pull her shirt off over her head.
Steve interrupts before it makes it above her stomach, turning his head so as not to see her indecently. "Woah! What are you doing?"
"I was giving you a distraction?" She questions, slowly sliding the fabric back into its place on her skin.
"Nat, I meant like a movie or a walk. Not sex."
"Oh," she says lightly. Her thoughts feel a bit fuzzy in her mind, but she ignores it and briefly thinks about how incredible it is that none of her teammates have pressured her into eating yet.
"Would you like to watch a movie? Or play a game?"
"Maybe we could play a game?"
"Sure, I'll see if the rest of the team would like to play while you get into some new clothes?" He says, glancing at her days-old outfit, clearly wrinkled from sleep.
"Alright," she replies softly and changes into a loose-fitting pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt from SHIELD. The drawstring of the pants is pulled as tight as it can go and she still needs to roll the waistband to bunch up the fabric and make it so that they do not fall off her hips; the shirt nearly swallows her whole, but it covers all of her scars and hides how ill-fitting the pants are on her. When she walks into the living room, everyone is set up around the kitchen table with Cards Against Humanity in the middle and plates full of sandwiches, chips, and carrots, which makes her groan internally.
"Would you like a nausea pill before we start?" Bruce asks from his seat next to her. Clint is placed as far away from her as possible without being at the other end where she would have to look at him directly, his head partially obscured by Tony's in the seat next to her.
"No," she replies simply and takes her seat without argument. They explain the game briefly and she catches on quickly, but does not touch her food or the fruit smoothie they've put in front of her.
"Nat," Bruce whispers after about 45 minutes when everyone else at the table has completely finished their meal. "You need to at least try to eat some of it."
Clint loudly scoffs from down the table.
"What's your problem, Barton?"
"I don't have a problem, Natasha. I've just given up on coddling your little issues."
"Coddling?" She says angrily. "You've given up caring at all and now you just make jokes and rude comments instead."
"Why should I care when you're not even trying?"
"Are you kidding me?" She nearly yells at him.
"I'm gonna have to side with Nat, here," Tony pipes in.
"Of course you do." He smirks, knowingly.
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
"I think you know what that means, Stark. Does Pepper?"
"What is going on?" She asks from beside her husband.
"Nothing is going on. Clint thinks I'm sleeping with Nat."
Pepper nearly spits out her wine. "What, because he's trying to help her and being compassionate you immediately think they're having sex? Because he's giving her the support you can't or won't?"
"I tried to help her!"
"By doing what? You have constantly shamed her and, aside from hugs and crying with her and hating yourself, you have done nothing to actually support her!" Steve adds.
"I…" he mumbles, feeling cornered. "It's too much."
"And what does that mean?" She asks carefully.
"You are fucked up. You're fucked up and a whore and I can't help you."
"Shut. Up."
"No, you need a reality check. You have done absolutely nothing to fix these issues and you just keep doing stupid shit. I'm sick of it and I'm sick of everyone coddling your panic attacks and stupid habits. You are a whore and you're fucked up. And until you realize that, nothing will change."
She doesn't hesitate and suddenly the glass plate full of food is flying across the room at him, her seat now vacant and a small set of footsteps running upstairs with labored breaths following.