35 Bloodloss
Natasha had awoken the previous night, driven out of sleep by the excessive amounts of trembling coming from James, curled up next to her under the sheets. In the moonlight from the window, Natasha could see him shaking under the covers and he was hidden there under the sheets, his face tucked into his chest, so the only part of him she could see was the way he wrapped his arms around his head tensely, gripping fistfuls of his own hair until the knuckles on his right hand were pale. Natasha leaned over to him and pressed her body up against his and for a moment, he resisted her, but as she gently pried his hands away from his scalp and smoothed his hair down lovingly, he began to let her touch him again and he hummed something in his sleep nervously. Natasha pulled the blankets away from his face and saw his cheeks streaked with tears and his eyelids were beginning to flutter, just barely awake, and Natasha sat up and tugged James close to her, his head in her lap so she could wipe the tears off his face and kiss his forehead and stroke his hair.
She knew exactly what to do. Natasha had been living with James for several months now. She had grown accustomed to his night terrors.
When James grew awake enough to realize where he was, he looked up at Natasha and let out a shaking breath, covering his face with one hand.
"So sorry," he mumbled.
"Shh," Natasha said. "I know. You don't have to be."
They laid there for some time until James spoke again.
"I hate this," he said. "I have to… Remind myself that Hydra's gone."
"I understand," Natasha said.
"But… That's only half of it," he continued. "The other part…" Natasha pursed her lips and blinked away wetness blurring her vision of James in the black and white moonlight.
James' nightmares had recently taken a different angle, because as he had explained to Natasha through stammers and half-Russian, he was beginning to see Steve. Steve fallen off a building, Steve with a bullet in his head, Steve at the bottom of a river underneath some bridge so far away, James couldn't save him. James saw Hydra, as he always did, as he probably would for the rest of his life, but now, in addition to that, he saw suicide, and Natasha was just beginning to try to learn what to do about it.
After all, it wasn't like she could tell James that Steve was entirely safe. Steve was becoming, had been, his own worst enemy, and to tell the truth, Natasha was scared, too.
"It wasn't real," Natasha said. "He's okay." But James was already climbing, shaky, out of bed, and reaching for his cell phone on the desk against the far wall and Natasha didn't know how to stop him. She watched James pace, one hand pressing the phone to his cheek and the other on the back of his neck. He went up and down, waiting, until Steve answered and Natasha could visibly see James let out a breath.
"Hey," James said. "You're okay?" There was a pause and a mumbling as Steve responded.
"No, yeah, I'm fine, I just wanted to check on you," James replied. More mumbling.
"Okay," James said. "Okay. Sorry. Okay. I'll see you in the morning." James snapped his phone closed and set it back down onto the desk and collapsed back into bed next to Natasha. "He's fine," James breathed and Natasha laid back down and scooted closer to him and wrapped her arms around him comfortingly.
"See, what'd I tell you," Natasha said. "Not real."
"It was bloodloss," James replied in a whisper Natasha could barely hear. "Slit wrists."
"He's fine," Natasha said.
"I know, but what if…," James replied wearily. "One day…"
"Then we'll both be there to stop him," Natasha said and James looked over at her and shadows fell across his face and he tried to nod quietly, the light illuminating a glow around the edges of him.
"I won't let him do that to himself," James said and Natasha looked at James and reached around him and took his hands and nodded to him and James tried again to close his eyes.
And it occurred to Natasha then, just a sudden thought, that James was in danger too, probably more in danger of blood loss, because Steve definitely had a problem, but Natasha had seen James split his own skin open and turn away as it healed again and again and again.
As James began to fall back to sleep, his breathing beginning to slow, Natasha leaned over him and pressed a kiss to his forehead and dried her tears with her hands because James was a treasure, her treasure, and Steve was her best friend besides Clint Barton, and both Steve and James felt so much pain and were in so much danger that Natasha didn't know to keep them. She just wanted to see them okay, wanted to keep them with her. She knew she couldn't save them herself, and saving people wasn't the Black Widow's expertise, but she would do all she could because she was watching them both fall to pieces.
"You're doing so much better," Natasha whispered to James, asleep, as she laid back down and touched her forehead to his. "So much better. But there's always more to go, I know. I know."