Natasha Romanoff One Shots

Prove It ~ A/F

Words: 2.7k
Relation: Platonic
Genre: Angst/Fluff
Triggers: Brief mention of addiction, continuous themes of living in foster care, lack of acceptance surrounding neurodivergency. 

You were a hard worker, everyone who knew you knew that. It's the reason why Fury had promoted you from being a regular ol' SHIELD Agent to being an Avenger. 

You were beyond excited. Your hard work had paid off, and you had proved everyone who didn't believe in you wrong. You spent nearly all of your life in the system, your father had never been present in your life, and your mother was an unsuitable guardian. Addiction clouded her mind and unfortunately clouded her love for you. The substances gave her more than you ever could.

When you were three you were taken away by child services and promptly placed into the system. You burned through foster homes like there was no tomorrow, your endless amounts of energy was off-putting for them, which didn't make sense to you. You were a kid, surely they should expect energy? 

You felt as though your liveliness was a big part of you, but it was also the reason that you were unwanted, so you learned to loathe that part of you, and tried to hide it. The suppression only made you angrier, prone to outbursts. 

This was another off-putting feature. So, you remained unwanted, stuck in group homes. 

You learned to live with it. It didn't hurt less, but you could deal with the pain. 

When you were sixteen you joined your school's coding club. As you grew older you began to get seriously fed up with sharing a room, especially as your roommate was six years younger than you. You were becoming a young adult, you needed your space, but instead, you shared that space with a ten-year-old whose life goal was to annoy you. 

So, you started spending more time outside than in, starting with coding club.

You loved it, this was your space. You felt competent for the first time, and this allowed you to let go slightly, to not waste brain power on suppressing yourself. 

Your teacher watched you in awe as your skills progressed, you were like a young prodigy. When she started talking to you about joining competitions you immediately began to feel a closeness to her, and she made a point to tell you that she loved your energy, she knew that some of the teachers in the school were harsh to you, so she wanted to reassure you. This caused you to let out the biggest grin you had ever given anyone. This woman was the first person to give you a genuine compliment and made you feel good about yourself.

She easily became your favourite teacher. 

After a few more weeks of observing you in her classroom, she approached you and explained the possibility of you having ADHD. She explained the ins and outs of it, how for some people it can display as an internal battle of lack of focus, and for some, it can make them mini balls of high energy, not that that was a bad thing. She explained that she thought you might be someone who mainly displayed it as hyperactivity. 

She suggested that you talk to the school's counsellor to try and get you on track for testing. This teacher was the first person to ever look out for you, so even though you weren't happy with the idea of having it, you would do as she said.

Your teacher was right. You'd been living with ADHD. You didn't go on medication, but you sought the help of counsellors for a few months to learn methods to keep your focus. 

After this, you were unstoppable. You were excelling in your schoolwork, winning in coding competitions, and not having as many outbursts back at home. Not that this was an easy feat, it took all of your willpower to achieve this, but you were achieving nonetheless.