A/N: If you struggle with anorexia, this may be a tough chapter to read. Natasha is going to hear from that inner voice and it will not be pleasant, so proceed with caution.
About halfway up the first flight of the stairs, she pauses to steady herself against the railing and notices the hot tears streaking down her cheeks. There's a small voice in her head telling her that if she runs up and down the stairs a few times, she could reduce the time it will take to die by about an hour from the sheer output in her state, but the black spots dancing in front of her eyes caution her against this action.
"Goddammit!" She screams and hits the wall next to her. "Why am I not good enough?"
"You're too fat. He was scoffing and say you weren't trying because he means that you're not trying to be a good team member." She quickly looks all around her stairwell, but she is still alone. "I'm in your head, stupid fat ass. God, you never learn, do you?"
"I really am going crazy…"
"Going?" She voiced laughed, echoing loudly in both of her ears and filling the stairwell with the noise. "Face it, Natalia. You've gotten lazy, fat, and stupid. What did you think would happen when you've gone this long without even punishing yourself?"
"I haven't eaten in days!"
"Not good enough," the voice scolded her. "You need to run up these stairs at least five times or else you're going to be as big as an elephant." In her mind, she saw the terrifying image of her skin expanding and stretching, her face swelling to create three chins where her neck had been, calves that could swallow the entire team in size. When the new image of her body moved, every inch of her skin sagged and jiggled with each step. Her new feet were bloated and she could barely move more than a few inches in any single step. The image was terrifying and gave her a rush of adrenaline to run up the 10 flights of stairs in the tower without passing out. When she reached the top, the dark spots threatened her vision once more, but she did not stop for fear that she would see the terrifying image again. Going down the stairs was much easier, but she had to focus on not getting so dizzy that she fell.
As she ran, the team was continuing to chastise Clint's actions in the dining room.
"She's doing her best!" Steve exclaimed in her defense.
"No, she isn't," he sounded absolutely exhausted.
"Why don't you tell us what the fuck you're thinking before I punch you in the face, Katniss."
"I didn't and haven't done the best job in explaining or trying to show it, but she's capable of so much more than this." He sighed again. "I didn't know she was cutting when you did, Stark, but I know she was doing a hell of a lot better than this before I did what I did. But she doesn't think she's doing anything bad and until she realizes that and makes the decision to get better for herself, instead of us forcing it on her, she's not going to get any better. So what's the point in pretending she's getting better or acting like it's so impressive that she's doing marginally better than cutting herself to shreds, never eating, and working herself to exhaustion? I'm tired of acting like it's an accomplishment to deal with her issues the way the rest of us do for a few days."
"You also did stupid shit to deal with not even a fraction of what she's been through, dumb ass."
Clint had no response. He had been so angry for the past few weeks because he couldn't understand why he couldn't just be with her and why he wasn't enough for her to want to get better.
"But she was enough for me to want to stop. Why am I not enough for her?"
"All you had to deal with was what you did to her," Banner piped in. "Natasha is dealing with a lifetime of trauma that none of us can make better. Natasha made what you did better - she was your victim and she forgave you. She doesn't get that luxury. She doesn't get to face the people she hurt and try to make things better because they're dead. And she is never going to get apologies, or even closure, from most of the people who hurt her."
"But it wasn't her fault, even the things she did to others were under duress."
"But that's not how she feels," Tony says. "She feels like it's all her fault and there's nothing she can do to fix it, so she just needs to punish herself to make things right within herself."
"Oh," he replies plainly.
"Yeah. Oh." Tony says snarkily. "Has anyone gone to check on her?"
"No, I was going to give her some time to process it. I figured JARVIS would tell us anything crucial." Steve stated calmly but shot worried glances toward where she had hurled her plate just a bit earlier.
"JARVIS? Natasha's status, please."
"Miss Romanoff is running up the stairs and has been doing so for 17 minutes and 26 seconds. Her heart rate is within the normal range, but higher than typical given her slow heart rate as of late."
"She's exercising," Clint says in a hushed tone. "She used to do this on missions when we couldn't find some kind of gym for her to use."
"JARVIS? What is her caloric intake/output like?"
"It appears that Miss Romanoff has not eaten in… approximately 33 and a half hours. Of greater concern, she has not had anything to drink and appears to be extremely dehydrated. She has expended 4,025 calories at this time. I would estimate that she is, at most, 12 hours from fatal dehydration and malnutrition given her metabolism and state."
"Shit," the entire team seems to share Clint's sentiment as he rushes toward the stairwell to catch Natasha when she passes out after pausing for a few seconds when she sees them.