Free Soul | Natasha Romanoff

Chapter 18: cue the bittersweet revelations!

"What do you know about the Mandarin?"

Hyunjae grimaced while pulling her phone away from her awaking ear. It had ringed at least ten times, and she had to mentally slap herself to pick it up. She was still caught in heavy mists of her deep sleep and his voice was far too loud for her senses which hissed at the noise. She sat up on her bed with a hand rubbing her traits.

She brought the device back to her ear.
"What?" She sighed, glancing at the clock on the nightstand. Four in the morning.

"I need you to give me infos on that bastard." He spat with harshness fueled by resentment. His tone alarmed Hyunjae so much so it seemed that consciousness completely regained her body; she snapped on her feet as if she got plunged right into action.

"Hey, focus." She urged him whilst her eyes were aimlessly looking around her room. He stilled before releasing a loud breath to relax. She froze at the detail lying in front of her. "Natasha's sleeping on my couch." She told him, quieter. He raised his brow; "I can't really talk right now unless you want me to risk waking her up.

– What, you both had a fight? 'Cause this is usually how someone ends up on the couch. Been there with Pepper."

It was half-hearted, the younger could notice, and yet it was enough humor to make her roll her eyes and huff a scoff. She brought an arm on her chest as her abyssal irises fell on the redhead's serene features. Hyunjae's gaze softened. Natasha looked so peaceful, without bad dreams, without nightmares. But the crease between the Korean's brows was present.

She neither could remember how they had possibly ended up in her room, nor what had happened for it to be set in such a way. It was neither one of their movie nights nor late night talks. It was right after the grand party. Oh. SHIELD's birthday party. Right. Hyunjae froze once more, her eyes stuck somewhere in space in between disbelief and an odd adoring air.

She had to push the thoughts, feelings and sensations aside for a moment. She shook her head and turned around, her stiff back facing the gorgeous sleeping redhead.
"What's the problem?" She asked in a murmur, the slight frown strongly pulling on her blankness.

There was a certain moment of silence. Tony kept spinning back and forth in his stool, mindlessly playing with a manhandled pen; he was silently fighting himself as to whether to tell her or not. Hyunjae patiently waited; she took some silent steps left and right to stay alert and awake and conscious through the long night awaiting her. Because she wasn't about to fall back.

There was always this fear and dread and that bête noire of being trapped in her demons' claws. Hyunjae could never rejoin the dreamless lands whenever her turmoiled mind would wake up at night. It was in those most auspicious moments for the devilish sniggers to echo all around her, where her being was still stuck between illusions and reality.

Natasha was about the same, even Tony, and Steve, and Bruce. Although all their reasons were different, all of them were a sleeping catastrophe. It wasn't hard to figure out what was causing the monsters of their night to clamp them to their bed and rip their mind into shattered pieces. They certainly were extraordinary people, and yet they were just like us.

Just like us, they have their flaws, their doubts, terrors. They have their struggles. Heroes aren't the epitome of utopia: they are in touch with the broken, the desolation, the loss, at each fucking time of their damned day. Good soldiers, good doctors, all of them who help us in their own ways, are so difficult to heal. Because the suffering of their empathy is constant.

The Avengers aren't any exception to the untold rule of the mountain: the higher we climb the harder it gets to breathe, and the closer we reach the loneliness. They were near the highest point of the mountain with nobody to understand their pain caused by compassion. Tony Stark just had his empathy being tested. Hyunjae Shin would have her empathy tested.