Don't You Worry Child

Mad World

Chapter Summary: Audrey's death and Steve's amnesia make Samantha panic more than she ever has before and nobody seems to know what to do.

Soundtrack: Mad World by Gary Jules

Samantha paced the floor of S.H.I.E.L.D's Hospital Wing. The events of the day kept running through her mind: She'd shot Audrey, Steve didn't remember her at all, S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to bury her mother, her childhood home – her childhood bedroom – was the scene of a murder, a murder she had committed.

She'd had to be debriefed in Coulson's office and she'd had to explain it to the best of her abilities. Coulson had said that he could postpone the debrief until she was more stable but she wanted it out and in the open as soon as possible, while it was still fresh in her mind. He'd eventually told her that there was no fault in her actions but still the words "I shot my mother," kept running through her mind over and over.

Natasha had called her father and Pepper, they'd be arriving soon. She hated the idea that they would try and comfort her without questions, they'd forgive her and yet she couldn't forgive herself. She'd killed someone, worse still, she'd killed her biological mother. She knew she could be defended in court with two defences: Self-defence and psychological trauma. She knew S.H.I.E.L.D. would never let it get that far, they'd cover it up and, somehow, that made her feel even worse. Guilt and fear consumed her.

"Careful, you might end up walking a hole into the floor," Natasha said and Samantha looked her in the eye.

"Who was your first kill? D-do you remember it?" she asked and the assassin stared at her for a second.

"I've spent a long time trying to forget that. It's a difficult thing to do. He was my handler. When you do undercover work, and at some point you will do undercover work, you get a handler. Your handler is supposed to be like a liaison between yourself and the agency you work for. The Red Room was a sector of KGB, that bit you know, at this point I was sent undercover in another sector, they thought there was a mole. My handler was taken by HYDRA and, once I got there with the extraction team, we discovered that my handler was under the influence of a mind control method. There was no way around it, he was trying to kill me, so I had to kill him," Natasha explained with a frown on her face.

"Does it ever get easier?" Samantha asked.

"It'll haunt you for a while but eventually, yes, it will get easier," her answer was as blunt, honest and emotionless as any other answer Samantha had ever received from the woman known as Black Widow.

Samantha couldn't forget about Steve, he had amnesia – retrograde amnesia at that and in the most extreme form she'd ever heard of. Fitz had basically explained it all to her. Steve thought it was World War Two again, hence the reason he'd mistaken her for Peggy. She didn't know the true extent of his injuries. She didn't really know how to deal with all of it. What she did know was that she was to blame. If she hadn't been so distracted; if she had figured out where he was earlier then maybe he wouldn't be as badly hurt, maybe she wouldn't feel so damn guilty and maybe her would actually remember her.

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She didn't remember when she'd finally stopped pacing and she'd fallen asleep but when she woke up, Samantha was covered by a white hospital grade blanket. The damn thing was itchy as all hell but she was thankful to whoever had made the gesture.

For a moment, she thought that it had all been a dream. She thought that she was still at James Madison waiting for news on the President, the secret service agent was somewhere around being debriefed by his superior and she hadn't been on the receiving end of that phone call. But alas, the reality quickly dawned upon her: she had shot and killed Audrey, Steve had been tortured, Steve had no clue who she was and Ward was still at large. So, the pacing began again.