The Game That Started it All

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Steve's POV:

I woke up to lots of commotion around me. I was being wheeled in on my table into Stark towers medical bay. The blinding light of the medical facility made it hard to open my eyes fully but when I did I saw Natasha and Clint being treated next to me.

"Hey how are you feeling?" Natasha asks me shooing away multiple nurses.

"I don't know." I reply plainly.

I knew I wasn't being my normal self. But my mind kept going back to those hallucinations Hydra made me have. I'm not the hero everyone thinks I am, I was the reason all my friends were dead. I didn't fight hard enough I didn't do my best, I would have sacrificed myself in a heartbeat to just save one of them and I didn't even have the chance to. And the only people I have close to me all blamed me for it.

I was trapped in my conscious and I couldn't get out.

"Steve are you there?" Nat says while Clint waved a hand in my face.

My eyes dart to them and they look relieved.

"Steve their going to have a psychologist come and talk to you, you aren't yourself." Nat says sympathy straining her voice.

"I'm fine." I reply.

"Clint can I talk to him privately for a moment?" Natasha asks.

"Of course." Clint says giving a weak smile and limping away.

"Steve I need you to pay full attention for the next few minutes can you do that?"

I give a slight nod and I focus on her words.

"Steve I know exactly what your going through, and I-" She starts but I cut her off.

"How?" I simply ask.

"How would you know?" I repeat sadness filling my eyes showing her I was weak and beaten from what they had done.

"In the Red Room they brainwashed me, continuously. Same scenario with Bucky and you know how bad he was. Anyways, whenever I wouldn't comply or I would fight against them because I was in so much pain, they would torture me physically and mentally. Like they did to you." She says pain evident in her broken voice.

"That was all my childhood, teen years and early adult hood was Steve. I know pain. The things they made me do, the missions they sent me on, were plain evil. I have a very specific skill set. They made me the assassin I am today. I was worse back then for sure, but Clint saved my life. That's how I started at SHIELD. I got red in my ledger, i'd like to wipe it out." She says with a deep breath, trying to keep herself together.

I look at her with saddened eyes. I can't believe she shared that much with me. At the same time though I felt so terrible for her. I knew she had a horrible past I just didn't know the extent and I knew there was so much more to it as well. She never shares and I knew that was a lot for her. She's so damn strong I don't know how she does it.

I sit up from my table painfully with my wounds screaming for me to stop but I don't. She comes and sits next to me and I wrap her in the most caring hug I can give her.

"I'm so sorry Nat.." I say a tear spilling down my cheek.

"It's not your fault Steve." she says in a whisper.