She doesn't sleep that night. There are too many things running through her head, questions and languages and flashes that don't seem to add up. She searches the room, but it almost seems like a hotel room, with only a few carefully folded pairs of clothing and a couple basic necessities. What kind of person lives like this? She wonders. When she goes to change into a pair of pajamas, she discovers guns and knives hidden up and down the suit she was wearing. She throws them across the room and carefully positions herself across the room from them. She takes off the necklace, too, staring at it for a moment before carefully placing it on the nightstand. Natasha didn't seem like a person for sentimentality, yet the necklace seems to hold some deeper meaning. Whatever it is, she can't wear it. Can't pretend to be that person anymore.
She falls asleep curled on top of the covers, still in the jeans and t-shirt she'd found in the sparsely stocked closet, and when she wakes hours later she has crease lines on her skin and sleep in her eyes but she still doesn't feel like she belongs. Not here, in this giant building with all of these people looking at her and seeing someone else.
She avoids the mirror while she's brushing her teeth, and heads down the halls in her bare feet. She doesn't do it on purpose, just doesn't realize until it was too late and she's worried about too many other things to care. She barges in on two men - the one with the eyepatch from the day before, and another middle-aged man with a kind look on his face.
"Romanoff." The first man says, not sounding surprised. She flinches.
"I'd prefer -" Her voice is too loud, too harsh and demanding, so she starts again, quieter - "I'd prefer if you didn't call me that."
"Alright." He's unfazed. "I didn't formally introduce myself yesterday. My name is Nick Fury, I'm the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. This here is Phil Coulson."
He keeps talking but her vision is narrowed and there are a million films running inside her head, blood and bruises and briefcases, all stamped with an eagle and the bold block letters of S.H.I.E.L.D. She doesn't realize she's fallen to the ground until she feels the cold floor against her cheek. A hand brushes her shoulder, and before she can think she's on her feet and has the hand bent back as far as the wrist will go without breaking. She registers that it belongs to the man with the kind face, and she drops it like a hot coal.
"I'm - I'm sorry." She says, but she's not sure what language she says it in. She takes a step back. I'm a monster, she thinks, but that's not entirely true. She isn't anyone. She's an imposter, a consciousness taking over someone else's body. So when she runs out of the room and past door after door after door, feet slapping along cold linoleum, faces staring after her, she doesn't feel terrible.
She doesn't feel anything.
(that's a lie. she feels everything. she feels too much. she wishes she didn't.)
Weeks pass - weeks of hiding, of not-knowing, of hearing whispers behind doors that were always about her - but nothing much changes. Nothing that she knows of, at least. She hears theory after theory of how they're going to throw her out into the abyss to get Natasha back. They don't phrase it like that, of course. But she still resents Natasha a little. Why should she get this life? This life of terror, and heartbreak, and not knowing anything past the beating of her heart but at least she is alive. She can't look at Clint, not at all, because when she looks into his eyes she sees the person he wants her to be, and she can't stand the pain she's causing him just by existing. There's too much pain, and she's responsible for more than her fair share of it.
So when she ends up on the roof, she knows this was inevitable. She wasn't meant for this, wasn't meant to handle all these languages and talents and so many sets of memories that she isn't sure what's real. Maybe none of this is. Maybe she'll just step off the ledge and wake up, from some terrible nightmare. Maybe.
She doesn't believe that, not really. Or maybe she does. She doesn't even believe herself right now.
She feels the cool breeze rush through her hair, hears the sound of the streets, far below. And then one, distinct sound. Footsteps.
She turns around and sees him, and she isn't surprised because isn't it always him? Isn't it always him, who shows up to save the day even when she desperately wishes he wouldn't.
"Please." His voice is breaking, and so is she. She's shattering, bits of her glittering in the sunlight like a million tiny stars.
"I know you want her back." She says. She still doesn't know what language she's speaking in, but she knows he understands. "But I can't find her. No one can. She's gone, and I -" and I. And I can't do this. Not anymore.
The last part isn't in any language, but she knows he understands that, too. He always understands.
"I'm sorry."
She takes that one, tiny step. And then the world is spinning and she can feel the wind whipping at her skin with it's icy fingers and everything is upside down and sideways and for one blissful moment everything makes sense.
And then she hits the ground.
When she comes back she doesn't know what she thinks first, just that it's a combination of where am I and I should be dead and ow. And then she realizes that it's all there, every memory right back in her head, stacked neatly where it should be. Except it's not neat, it's messy and painful and feels like everything just happened yesterday. She listens closer and hears a beeping noise that tells her she's in a hospital, and the sound of light breathing that tells her she isn't alone. That's the one thing that makes her force open her eyes to face the glaring lights - the thought that he's been here, waiting, since she stepped off the roof.
"Clint." She says, because even though he looks exhausted she knows he would want her to wake him. And he does, quickly, pulling himself up and reaching instinctively for his quiver before realizing where he is.
"Natasha?" He asks, and when she nods a smile breaks over his face and he swoops down to kiss her. She kisses him back for a second, but only that because every bone in her body hurts like hell. "I knew you'd come back." He says fiercely, and for some reason that's the only possible thing in the world that could make her smile.
"How?" She asks, and there's so many questions. How did they get her back, how did she survive the fall?
"You know, the whole cognitive recalibration technique you used on me?" Clint smirks at her. "Well, we tried that. As I'm sure you remember." There are flashes, of nervousness and anticipation and then a quick pain before unconsciousness. "Turns out you dying for 6 seconds did the trick."
"And the fall?"
"When I saw you go up to the roof, I told Phil. He got some nets set up along the ground. It almost wasn't enough. But it was."
And now there's nothing left to do but put her life together again.
"I'll help."
She hadn't realized she'd spoken aloud. Or maybe he really can read her mind.
She doesn't answer because she's falling asleep again and the last thing she hears are I'll be here and then a faint chuckle and you've been speaking german, dummkopf.
She feels a small smile touch her face. It's not a bad way to fall asleep.