Idiosyncratic || Peter Parker ||

||56||

Gasping to consciousness, Isabelle sits up in a panic. The room she had spent the most part of a week in was dark, and she was alone once again after waking up from a nightmare. Sweat dripping from her forehead and tears rolling down her cheek she hauls herself off the bed shakily in a disorientated state. Sleep was scarce for Isabelle since she woke up from the initial catatonic state she was in, often plaguing her thoughts were dreams of falling and dying. 

She would often wake mildly disorientated but never to this extent. Currently, she was manic, not thinking straight and irrationally. Ripping the numerous chords connecting her to machines that updated Tony on her vitals, chords that connected her to essential vitamins she was missing whilst bedridden. 

In this severe state of distress, not once did it cross her mind that she was thinking irrationally, all she was thinking was to get herself away from the bed and all the contraptions that were suffocating her. Dragging her feet to the bathroom, she held onto numerous things to stop her from falling over due to the lack of leg usage. 

The images in her mind seemed to repeat over and over again which only made her panic more, her brain trying to find something to help ease her body down to a calmer rational state. Her breathing was irregular choke like breaths that only added to her panic, if she didn't find a solution soon then she was sure to pass out from hyperventilation. 

Gripping onto the walls of the bathroom she moved along until she securely positioned herself in the shower and turned on the cold water. The cool liquid instantly bringing her temperature down, washing away the sweat she had built up and easing her tensed muscles. Focusing on her breathing she tried to level that down as the water from the shower dripped from her clothed body. 

She remembered once, a conversation Tony shared with her before -when she wasn't attending midtown or apart of the Avengers- he would tell her about his experience dealing with the PTSD caused by the near alien invasion in New York. He told her how he coped with it, often times removing himself from the area his panic attack began in, and cold cool things often did the trick when calming him down. 

Just for a few moments, leaning up against the wall of the shower and focusing on nothing but her breathing, Isabelle began to cry. She was stuck in an emotional limbo, having no idea why exactly she was crying, but having a fairly general enough idea to what caused the sudden breakdown. The betrayal of the group of people she had come to call Family, the betrayal of her own boyfriend, the fighting, the falling and in amongst all that there was just a flicker of self-blame. 

Why didn't I do this? Why didn't I do that? So many questions she asked herself but little to none had a reasonable answer. A lot of the answers she did come up with were revolving around herself, her given nature to nurture and to find a happy compromise with everything. 

It was like she was suffering from the five stages of grief as if she had lost something or someone. In this reality, it felt as though she lost everyone, all the people who immediately were around her were gone or reluctant to stand too close. And in this stage, all the self-loathing she had built up over her time recovering had turned into a vast anger. A Dangerous Emotion. 

She switched off the shower, stepping out, still holding onto what she could reach to stop her from teetering. The tears had only just stopped, her eyes were red and the only noise to fill her ears was that of the dripping water from her soaked clothing and hair. Her fists seemed to clench tighter on the basin upon seeing her own reflection, an almost unrecognisable Isabelle was what greeted her. 

A broken, scared and fragile Isabelle was what looked right back in her eyes. 

"No." Her hoarse voice whispered to no one in particular. A scowl twitched on her lips, she slammed one of her fists on the countertop, making all the utensils on it jiggle from the force. One of these making a noticeable clinging noise which caught her attention.