A/N: 60k words, woohoo! We are beginning to see the start of Natasha's journey forward, but it will not be a smooth road as anyone in recovery from similar issues knows. Also, I will be starting to include other characters from the MCU, but not randomly/needlessly. I have kind of written Thor out just because I don't think he would be super helpful with her issues, but he may make an appearance every now and then. Currently, he is dealing with Loki since we are in the post-New York time, but I'm not *super* strictly following any timeline.
It was nearly a week later when Natasha finally woke up and was able to sustain enough energy to keep her eyes open and speak for more than a few minutes. In the time she was asleep, they had used an NG tube to provide as many calories as her body would allow without a negative reaction and occasionally used the finger-tapping system to make sure she felt safe and at least understood any decisions they were making. The doctors quickly determined that she has damaged her heart moderately, but not irreparably and the beats were already stronger and faster than they had been in months.
The kid from what she had seen while she was asleep was among those in the room when she woke up and he was the first to notice her eyes flitting open.
"Miss Romanoff, oh my gosh, you're awake. I'm Peter. I am working with Mr. Stark for a while and I am…" He was quickly silenced by Tony next to him.
"Red, Peter has been checked and is safe to be here. We have a lot to tell you about what has happened."
"I kn-" she struggled to speak with the tube obstructing her airways partially. Readjusting to the tubes was never pleasant and it was additionally confusing as she noticed that her wrists were restrained to the bed's rails. "I know he's safe. I… Saw it. Why am I tied down?"
"Saw it?" Peter says, obviously confused.
"We can talk about that later," Bruce eyes her cautiously. "We need to talk about a few things."
"Can you let me loose?" The panic was beginning to edge its way into her voice as she wriggled her tiny wrists around to try to get them loose.
"We need to talk first and then we can consider having the restraints removed. Please stop struggling before you hurt yourself."
She took in a deep breath at Bruce's words, trying to steady herself and understand her surroundings fully. Peter, Bruce, Tony, and Clint were in the room, though Clint had yet to even acknowledge that she was awake. There was some kind of orderly SHIELD agent coming in and out, putting different things on the counter and waiting for a nod from Bruce, presumably approving the things she was dropping off.
"Where is Steve?"
"He's working on an assignment," Bruce says calmly.
"An assignment that didn't require the rest of the team?" She asks incredulously.
"Yes," Tony replies simply as Bruce busies himself sorting the items on the counter. "Now we need to talk about some serious things, Red."
"Clint?" She says quietly, the nerves edging into her voice once more.
"I'm here," he moves toward her and she feels grateful for his light touch on her arm at her side as Tony continues.
"When you were brought in this time, you were severely underweight, malnourished, dehydrated, and on the brink of death." He gave her a stern look when she tried to interject about how dramatic he seemed. "Your heart rate had become dangerously slow and you were hours away from dying on us. There was some damage to your heart, which will heal, but you cannot afford any more damage, which is why we had to bring you here. You won't like this, but we have been able to supplement you in the past two weeks that you have been here so that your body is no longer dehydrated or as severely malnourished, but they will not release you until you are eating at least 2,000 calories on your own and supplementing more through drinks or IV bag fluids."
"I haven't eaten that much in-"
"It doesn't matter anymore," Bruce said from beside her. "You won't be doing anything but laying in this exact room until you can eat that amount to account for your basal metabolic rate and the enhancements of your metabolism."
"Okay," she sighed.
"They also know about the cuts," Tony said quietly. "You'll be meeting with a therapist daily while you are here and then twice a week when you move back into the Tower. You are also going to have a psychiatrist evaluate you and you will meet with a nutritionist daily here, then weekly at home."
"Anything else?" She scoffed, tears coming to her eyes as she thought about just how impossible it would be to keep up with all of these restrictions.
"You are off the team, Nat," Clint said from beside her. "It's temporary, but you can't go on any missions until you are released from the hospital." Her eyes searched both Clint's and the rest of the men in the room, who remained fixed in their positions. The tears started to fall as she blinked and laid her head down in defeat.
"I know this isn't easy, Natasha," Bruce replies.
"Isn't easy? You want me to do all of these things AND take away the one thing that made me even want to try?" She could feel her face getting hot and turned her head to stare at the wall on the other side of the bed, avoiding all of their eyes.
"We will be with you every step of the way," Tony says reassuringly.
"If I can't help the team, then why would I care about getting better? If my career is dead, why shouldn't I just go back to the Red Room? At least I was useful there!"
"Nat," Clint soothes from beside her.
"You will be helping the team by getting better."
"That's crap and you know it, Stark."
"What if it would help us, though?" Clint asks her cautiously. "What if there is something you could do in your therapy here that would be directly beneficial to helping us take down the Red Room?"
"How can I do that by laying in this bed, Barton?" He exchanged a glance with Tony, who glared back at him.
"You can't put that pressure on her. She needs time to heal first and get her strength back before we even think about that," Bruce responds.
"Before what? Come on, I should at least get to know the one thing I could possibly do other than lay here and be pathetic!"
"How much do you remember from before we brought you here, Nat?"
"I remember I was starving myself so I would just hurry up and die without you guys interfering."
"Okay," Clint says from beside her, wincing at her words. "Other than that?"
"Um… We had gotten Bucky here? And Sasha…" she whispers her name, remembering the flashes of her best friend living her life here and the moments they had stolen in the Red Room.
"Okay, good," Clint says quietly.
"What if we brought Bucky into a few of your sessions and you two worked together to help us get some information form your memories?"
"You mean you would let him…" she stammered quickly. "You want me to…"
"No, Nat. We would never ask you to do that," Tony replied, glaring at Clint again. He was harnessing a lot of anger toward the archer and was not trying to make it subtle. In his eyes, if Clint hadn't been such a dick, Natasha may have been still recovering quietly in the Tower under their watchful eyes.
"No, Nat," Clint confirmed. "We would all be here for those sessions to protect you and you would work with a SHIELD therapist. But you would work together to find out anything you guys can remember that could help us take them down. We could even work with Viktori-"
"Stop, Clint," Bruce says cautiously. "She still needs to rest and this is a lot to throw at her."
"I want to do it," she says firmly. "If you will all be there to make sure nothing happens, I want to do it. It's all I can do, right?"
"We haven't decided if you can-"
"Tony, please! I need something to do, some reason to even try all of this. What's the point of getting better f I can't even help anyone?"
He sighs at the end of her bed and glances at Peter. When he had confronted the boy and offered him the "internship," and then when his aunt died a few days later, he knew that this would be good for Natasha too, to have someone around to mentor and someone who looked up to her. But she wasn't ready to be fully introduced to him, yet. He was broken, too and Tony needed to help them separately before merging the two to help each other heal.
"Alright," he gives in. "For now, let Bruce play doctor and we can start with the specifics tomorrow."