The Younger Agent - Natasha Romanoff x OC

Chapter 34 - Road To Recovery

The first week after the battle had been rough for the pair. They hadn't left their room, not wanting to leave the safety that they felt in there. It was easy to ignore the world, and so they holed themselves away to feel protected. 

The time was mostly spent distracting themselves and each other by reading, binge-watching TV shows, and listening to music. It felt nice and simple.

One night they had played some slower music and ended up slow dancing together for hours, although to an outsider it would look more like awkward shuffling due to Eleanor's sprain. But, they revelled in the moment. It was slow, intimate, soft, and allowed them to just live in the present with each other. Them vs the world. 

When the nighttime came it was the hardest, the nightmares were still frequent and strong, but they had learnt which techniques helped each other to be free from their mind's horrors. Eleanor had found that the method she used on the first night, of repeating where they were and that they were safe over and over helped bring Natasha back to the present. Natasha found that if she lifted Eleanor up off of the bed and held her koala style whilst rocking side to side helped her.

They were getting by.

There were daily phone calls from Aunt Sarah wondering how they were doing. When she found out that Eleanor and Nat had been involved in the Battle of New York she immediately panicked and assumed the worst, until she got a rushed message from Eleanor telling them that they were safe in the hospital, pretty banged up but doing okay. 

Maria also kept up to date on how they were doing over text over the week until she was finally able to pay them a proper visit. Work had been very busy and stressful for her and the other two Agents understood that. During the visit, Maria could clearly see that they were not fine, but she knew better than to pressure them into talking. If it was just Eleanor she might have pushed a bit harder, but with the two of them, she was just more than happy to provide herself as a distraction.

She ordered in pizza for the two Avengers, and they had a games night for the first time in months. They gossiped about work with information that Maria had found out, laughed at anything and everything, and there were a few times when one of them was launched onto the floor if they were being accused of cheating.

It was nice. It felt normal, and normalcy was something that was desperately needed. That night with Maria reminded both Eleanor and Natasha that this wasn't going to be forever, their normal lives could and would continue, and that was a big breakthrough for them.

That night they weren't as scared to fall asleep, the both of them still work up in a panic at least once, but they weren't as far gone as they usually were, where it could take hours to get back to normal. This continued over the next week again, and they were both immensely proud of each other for the progress they were making, and they made sure that the other knew this. 

The occasional bad nightmare would sneak its way in, but they were fully prepared for these now. Most of the time when they were woken up they whispered words of reassurance to each other, and whilst being held would be able to fall back asleep again after a while.

Everything seemed to be falling back into place, they did it. They knew that it was likely that these nightmares were here to stay for a while, but they knew that they would be able to cope with them together, as a team. 

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It had officially been two weeks since the Battle, and Eleanor was scheduled for a check-up at the hospital to see if she could go back to walking normally. Both were hoping that they would be able to as it would mean that they could start booking viewings for apartments that they had seen and liked online.