She thought she was getting better.

She thought she had left her past mostly behind her.

She was heart wrenchingly wrong.

The Avengers, old and new, were being hunted by a team of rouge HYDRA agents. None of this would have been a problem for them, had the HYDRA team not consisted of brainwashed Inhumans.

The nine heroes needed a place to lay low, to regroup and figure out a working strategy. So Natasha took them to the nearest safe house of hers.

Everyone had been injured gravely from their first encounter with the rouge Inhumans, limping like babies with broken legs. The Avengers sat on couches, finally able to relax after such a gruelling experience.

Natasha walked over to a closet and opened it to pull out one of the many First Aid kits she had stashed in there. She turned around and walked back to the group of misfits surrounding her coffee table, "Here, patch yourselves up and take a shower. I'll find some blankets for you guys to use."

She handed the person closest to her, Steve, the First Aid kit, then spun around and, with a limp, stalked over to the door for the basement of the safe house. She then took fifteen minutes to find clean blankets, a few sleeping bags, extra toothbrushes, and some old clothes that Clint had left over the years, before climbing painfully up the stairs to dump the stuff on the coffee table.

No one was there anymore, so Natasha assumed everyone was either showering or waiting outside one of the three bathrooms with showers in them for their turn.

She decided everything was in order and limped to her room to attend to her wounds and shower.

Ten minutes later everyone was bandaged, showered, and ready to fight. After sitting in silence for a few minutes, Natasha spoke up, "So what's the plan?"

It seemed as though that was the icebreaker as everyone suddenly voiced their opinions on the matter.

Natasha stayed silent, content, watching the people she trusts the most argue on methods. She sits back in her seat and allows herself to think about recent events.

It wasn't anything too out of the ordinary, people were always hunting them, trying to be the ones mighty enough to kill the Avengers. No, it wasn't the mission that was the problem, it was the Inhuman's themselves.

Specifically one Inhuman. Susana Cole. AKA FIRESNAKE.

It wasn't her powers that were problematic, though they were annoying, it was her face.

She looked exactly like one of the old Red Room agents. Specifically, the one who locked and unlocked the handcuffs that chained her to her bed every night.

She had a sudden flashback to her time back in the Red Room...

She was only six years old when they first started using handcuffs. Before they weren't worried about the small children escaping, but now, with more training and more fear, children were trying to run away left and right.

Her and the other Red Room students had just finished a lesson on torture. They were all scared and mentally scarred from what they had witnessed, but they followed their superiors obediently.

When they got to their beds, they laid down and closed their eyes. Only to hear something snap shut on their wrists.

Natalia's eyes widened as she looked up to see her wrist chained to the bed post. She glanced at the women who chained her. The one who would continue to do so until she one day escapes. Natalia yanked and wriggled her wrist as best as she could, but only succeeded in hurting herself.

Then one of her superiors shouted at them to shut up. They explained that they were the property of the Red Room, that they belonged to Russia, that they did not deserve anything until they earned it. They told Natalia and the others that they will continue to stay chained to their beds for the rest of their lives, because that's what they deserved.

By the end of the Red Room official's speech, many of the young girls were crying, sobbing so loudly that Natalia wondered if the Unites States of America could hear them.

Natalia, though, she didn't cry. She felt the tears stinging at the corners of her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. She couldn't let them fall. She didn't deserve to feel anything, she couldn't afford weakness, she would earn everything she could possibly earn, and she would survive, for the glory of the Soviet Union. For Russia.

She opened her eyes with a soundless gasp. It was then that she noticed that the eyes of all her teammates were on her.

She took a few deep breaths to calm her rattling lungs and thumping heart, before she arched a brow, "What?"

Steve looked slightly worried as he replied, "Are you okay? I asked you on your opinion on an ambush but you didn't reply."

Natasha was ashamed at the fact that she had gotten so lost in her thoughts. She thought she was getting too soft, too weak. And she was angry about that.

Natasha growled, "I'm fine. An ambush could be a good idea if handled properly. Planned well, we can take them down easily."

The whole room looked unconvinced at her claim to be fine but quickly realized that it was the only answer they were going to get.

Steve and Tony tried to continue planning but it was soon apparent that everyone was exhausted. They were all yawning, and Wanda's head continually kept lolling to the side.

Steve sighed, "Let's wrap it up for today. Get a good night's sleep, and we will finish planning tomorrow morning."

Those of them who weren't almost asleep already nodded, and the group of eight grabbed a sleeping bag or some blankets and split to sleep in the three guest rooms. Natasha got to sleep alone in her own bed. Apparently, being the owner of the house let's you get away with almost anything.

She's glad, though, that they didn't pester her into sleeping in the guest rooms with them, or that any of them decided to sleep on the floor of her room. She needed to be alone. Her past was creeping up in her thoughts and if it became too much for her, she didn't want anyone seeing her in that state. Broken and haunted.

She laid in bed for a moment, thinking about the Red Room. Thinking about the horrors she had to endure. But she quickly shut down those thoughts, it would only do her harm to think about them.

She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep. She rolled around in her bed restless, feeling as though something was missing. Something that she just couldn't sleep without.

Natasha realized what it was when she suddenly, subconsciously, gripped her wrist. She needed the handcuffs.

She thought she had broken this particular habit. She had needed to cuff herself to her bed for years after escaping the Red Room. She had made sure that no one knew about the handcuffing problem. Fury, Coulson, Hill, not even Clint knew about it.

But, Natasha had known she had to stop, so she didn't cuff herself one night. She couldn't fall asleep for days, though. So she went a full two weeks without sleeping, before she finally passed out.

After that, though, she realized that the cuffs didn't give her the safety she thought it did, it only hindered her. So she continued to stop wearing them, usually just passing out, but after shorter and shorter periods of time.

Eventually, she was able to fall asleep every night without them, but it was a difficult journey. She thought it was worth it, or at least, she thought so until now.

Natasha realizes that she never truly got rid of the habit, she just suppressed it. Threw it into the deepest recesses of her mind and did her best to forget about it.

But it was always there, waiting to be unleashed by some thought, some experience. Something, like seeing her face again.

Natasha took a few deep breaths, before pulling open her bedside table's drawer with shaking hands. She fumbled around for a pair of handcuffs, breathing a sigh of relief when her hands found purchase on them.

She picked the cuffs out of the drawer and closed it, hands shaking just as bad as before. Slowly, Natasha clamped one cuff on her left wrist, and then used her right hand to snap shut the other one around her left bed post.

She laid back against her pillow one more time. This time, though, she could relax. She closed her eyes and let herself drift off into the realm of Hypnos, praying that the nightmares that plague her every night would grant her a reprieve just this once.

—

Of course, the nightmares didn't stop for her tonight. No, they just increased in intensity, because why not, right?

In the real world Natasha was simply rolling around in bed, a look of unadulterated fear on her face, in the safety of her room, surrounded by people who care for her. In her mind, though, she was in hell. A hell that she had lived in one too many times already.

Natalia Romanova was nine and sleeping in her bed, when she was suddenly awoken by her. She was unlocking a select few handcuffs, including Natalia's. It took a few moments to understand what was happening, but when Natalia understood, she screamed for her to help the others too.

There was a fire. And the fire was making it's way towards the room full of little girls. Natalia knew the flames would be upon them soon, she could see the smoke getting thicker and thicker. She could feel it in her lungs even worse.

When Natalia's wrist was unchained, she fled the room, leaving the twenty-eight unchained girls to find a way out themselves.

Only Natalia didn't run out the door like the other girls. No, she ran to the closest bed filled with a little girl still cuffed to her bed. Natalia tried to help her out of her handcuffs, but to no avail. She just wasn't strong enough.

She stepped back, choking through the smoke. Her chest constricting as she heard the pleas for her help, the cries for long dead parents, the sobs of soon to be lifeless girls.

"Natalia! Natalia please, help! NATALIA!"

"Mother! Father! Help! Help! Please! Please…"

"Oh god, oh god, please, oh god, help, please…"

Natalia glanced around and screamed, frustrated. She couldn't help them, she couldn't do anything. The building was crumbling, she had to leave now if she wanted to live. But did she? Did she really want to live in a place like this?

She looks at the girls that were left for dead. She had to live she realized. No matter what the Red Room did to her, she would always despise them for doing this to these little girls. And to get her revenge, she had to live. She had to live for these little girls.

"I-I'm sorry!" Natalia sobs, "I can't help! I'm sorry!"

That doesn't mean leaving them was easy.

She runs out of the building with the cries of little girls, filled with dread, following her.

"This is all your fault!"

"You could have saved us!"

"You killed us!"

"Killer!"

"Murderer!"

"MONSTER!"

She screams.

Natasha bolts straight up in bed, her throat raw from screaming in her sleep. Her wrists tug at the bed post, while she closes her eyes. Taking deep breaths, Natasha manages to calm herself down a little bit.

Only for her heartbeat to elevate once again when she hears the thundering footsteps of nine other people. It takes her a moment to realize that those footsteps must mean the Avengers are on their way to her room. Once she realizes that though, she scrambles for the key to the handcuffs, desperate to hide her humiliating secret from her teammates. From her friends.

She's too slow though, as the moment she finds the key, the doors are slammed open. The Avengers all barge through the door, filling the room in five-seconds flat. She would marvel at their speed and laugh at the fact that they were carrying their weapons, half asleep and dressed in their pyjamas, if only they weren't staring at her in her current state.

Natasha realized that she must look horrible. Pale and sweaty, clutching a key while cuffed to her bed, scrambling to sit up and hide the handcuffs from everyones view.

There's a long pause, where everyone is staring at her handcuffed hand, before Tony whispers, "What the fuck?"

Natasha closes her eyes for a moment, gathering her thoughts, before opening them. She stares at Tony, with eyes as cold as ice, before glancing around at the others.

"I'm fine. Nothing's wrong, so you might as well all go back to sleep," she says.

Everyone continues to stare, while she raises a perfect eyebrow. She turns and frees her wrist with the key, before bringing both her hands to rest on her lap. She's still pretty shaken from the—nightmare? Memory?—but she knows she can't show it. They would only worry more and then she'd have to actually talk about her problem.

After a few moments, Clint speaks up, "Nat? Why are you handcuffed to the bed?"

Natasha groans silently in her head.

Straight to the point, she thinks, great…

She contemplates her answer for a while. She decides on telling the truth, just not all of it.

"It helps me sleep, sometimes," Natasha reveals.

Clint looks confused before asking, "How?"

Natasha shrugs, "I don't know. It just does."

Now it's Steve's turn to look confused, "How does cuffing yourself to a bed help you sleep when you don't even know why?"

Natasha replies without thinking, "It's a habit."

The Avengers look horrified at this. She doesn't know why, but she does know she regrets the moment those words escaped her mouth. She shouldn't have revealed so much. She just hopes no one tries to find the cause of this particular habit.

It only takes five-seconds for her hopes to be crushed.

"How did you gain a habit like this?" Wanda exclaims, her Sokovian accent barely any less thicker then when Natasha first met her.

Natasha was ready to dismiss the question, to divert the attention off of her and her past. She was ready to argue that none of it was important.

She opens her mouth to do all of that but closes it when she sees the look of determination on everyones faces.

It takes a moment for her to realize just why they all look so determined, but when she understands, the reason makes her feel like a freight train has slammed straight into her.

She realizes that they want to help. She knows that they know she can take care of herself, but they want to help her through her past. They want to be there for her now that they can be. They want to help, just because they can. Because they care for her.

And this realization is why she decides to tell them about the handcuffs. She won't tell them everything about them. She won't tell them about the horrors associated with handcuffs, but she will tell them where the habit came from. Enough to make her feel better, but not enough for them to learn the full extent of her…issues.

"I gained this…habit…in the Red Room," Natasha says, slowly.

Bruce mumbles, looking at the ground, "Did they…?"

Natasha nods. She's tired and all she wants is to go to sleep and defeat those Inhuman bastards in the morning.

But, she knows that she needs to get this off her chest. No one can really help her with her problem, but maybe she can help herself. Maybe leaning on this group of wonderful people might help her heal just a bit.

So she opens her mouth and let's some of it out, "In the Red Room, they used to cuff all of us to our beds. During the first two years, no one had tried to escape, but that third year was when we grew stronger. Some girls tried to escape. So they handcuffed us to our beds. I was six when they started, the youngest out of all of us. Most were eight, maybe nine. One day they just cuffed us, and they continued to do so for the rest of my time there. I could never really shake the habit until I physically stopped myself when S.H.I.E.L.D. got me. I haven't done it for a long while, but I guess some memories were too hard to suppress tonight."

Natasha shrugs, like suppressing memories was a normal everyday thing that every human does. By the end of her speech, though everyone looked sick to their stomachs. Horrified at what Natasha had to go through at the tender age of six.

They thought of what else she must have endured as a child, before shutting down those thoughts. They realized that their imaginations probably weren't as bad as the real thing. And that just made them feel even worse.

Bruce opens his mouth, "Natasha, I-I'm sor—"

But Natasha cuts him off before he can continue, "There's nothing to be sorry for. And there's nothing any of you can do. I just have to get through this."

They all nod, but, surprisingly, it's Thor that says, "Do not forget, you have us for help. If you ever need anything, do not hesitate to ask us."

"Yeah," Tony says, "we're here for you."

Everyone nods their assent, looking like they are agreeing to a promise that they will not break, even in death.

Natasha looks around at the people gathered in her room, people who are ready to help if I want it. And she feels a deep sense of gratitude for this group of crazy people.

She gives a tired nod, before telling everyone, "Thanks, now get out of my room. I want to sleep and you all need to sleep, too."

She hopes they didn't think she'd ask for them to stay with her or something silly like that. Natasha can take care of herself, thank you very much, and she doesn't really want their help quite yet.

The Avengers nod, before heading to their rooms after a slight hesitation. When the door to her room closes, and she hears footsteps retreating, Natasha lets out a deep sigh.

She lays back in bed and shuts her eyes. A few moments later she realizes that she feels like she can actually fall asleep without the handcuffs. Natasha looks at the cuffs for a brief moment, before throwing them somewhere to her left.

She burrows deep into her bed, and realizes that while it will take some time before she completely accepts help from her team, that maybe it's okay to want help once in a while. Natasha knows she doesn't quite need it, but she has a group of friends, a family, that is willing to help if she wants.

So she decides, that sometime in the future, when they ask if she wants help, Natasha will say yes.