Bruce Sees A Therapist (to be changed later)

26| A Different Therapy With A Different Therapist

It was April, a month since Natasha had come back.

She and Lia had spent most of that month together, reading things in the living room of the giant penthouse of Avengers Tower.

Lia usually read up on physics while Natasha caught up with regular math until she could understand Lia's physics textbook.

Since Nat was a quick learner and already knew most of it, she had quickly surpassed Lia and had gone on quantum physics and biology as well, since she had no day job and a ridiculous amount of free time besides that.

Lia, Bruce, and Tony had also been working on actual hearing aids for her so that she could hear more than just thoughts, and within a few weeks, they had done it. Now she could listen in on conversations a city block away.

Natasha and Bruce had grown back to sleeping next to each other, even though they're taking everything extra slow since that day in the bedroom.

They had made good on their 4:35 appointments nearly every day, unless they had just come back on a mission (in which case they would just fall asleep next to each other), or had other things to do that included people they'd rather not disappoint.

But still, after so long, something just didn't sit right with Nat.

Since she came back, she knew she had been a little more reclusive, quieter, more easily prone to tears. Natasha had also been having more frequent nightmares that mimicked the one she had in her coma, waking up in the middle of the night, always checking on Bruce's pulse if he was a little colder than usual.

Bruce had asked her about this, and Natasha had shrugged it off.

"Look," Bruce had said that day, "I didn't stay with you because you batted your lashes at me, and I'm not going to leave because you suddenly get a little jumpy. You can tell me if something is going on." His gaze had searched her eyes, perhaps looking for answers in their pools of green.

But she had kept silent, and drew away. So she spent more time with Lia studying.

A week into April, Lia had caught on to Nat's new personality.

"What is going on with you lately, Natasha?" She confronted the agent. "You are sometimes moody, and look tired and sad whenever you think I am not looking."

Natasha offered her a weak smile. "It's nothing, Lia." When the girl stared at her in disbelief, she sighed. "Adult problems, Li'. I don't think you want to hear about it."

Lia kept staring at her. "Why would I ask if I did not want to hear about it?" She asked slowly. "Speak."

Natasha sighed again. "It's just— ever since December—" she had told Lia about her coma and the ensuing events— "I felt like a different person. I'm jumpier. More afraid." She shook her head. "I don't expect you to understand. In fact, I'd be kinda scared if you did."

Lia ducked her head. "Then prepare to be terrified." She glanced up. "Trauma can often pretend to go away and resurface later as new emotions or as a different personality. You seem to be facing that."

Natasha snorted. "I don't have trauma."

Lia looked skeptical. "Really? You met your biological parents for the first time, after being in a month-long coma where you experienced a super long nightmare, after starting to fall in love and running away from it."

Natasha sighed. "Not when you say it like that." She flopped onto her back on the sofa. "I wasn't running away from the falling-in-love thing per se, it was more like I was running to the guy that wrecked my childhood and my life to kill him and stop other girls ending up like me or worse." She glanced at Lia. "I should probably not be telling you this."

Lia frowned and, after a second of thought, stuck her phone on her face with it displaying a photo of Aurelia. "Go on," she said, a little muffled.

Natasha tried not to smile at the nine-year-old with a phone taped over her face. "Um, okay, doctor." She adjusted her seat. "It's weird, how I'm like this now. I used to never be like this. I was never rattled, never emotional. I never used to stumble or drag my feet. Never thought of someone else's safety other than the person I was assigned to protect." Natasha smiled a little. "In some ways, it's nice to know I can do that, but in others, I just want to go back to the way I was before. When no one could read me and I had no one to run away from."

Lia beamed triumphantly, phone falling off her face. "Ha! You said it. You ran away from Dr. Bruce." She got up and jumped onto the couch by Nat's feet. "But still, Natasha."

"I know." The agent sighed. "I know. But I just want to be the way I was before. Why can't I be the way I was before?" She complained softly. "Things would be so much easier that way."

"Do you want it?" Lia probed. "Easier? Or do you want—" here she gestured in the general direction of the labs— "Dr. Banner? To be with him?"

Natasha nodded. "I hate feelings."

"But they make people money," Lia grinned. "Namely me when I grow up."

"Why?" Nat asked curiously, propping herself up on her arm.

Lia shrugged. "I can read their minds. Why not put it to good use?"

There was a silence.

Lia broke it. "But, Natasha, honestly. What do you think you're running from?"

"Bruce." That was the obvious answer, so Natasha tried to dig deeper. "Feeling love from him. I think..." she hesitated a little. "I think I'm afraid of doing it wrong. That he might hate me still. That... that despite what he says, there's always going to be a part of him that hates me, because there is so much to hate." She glanced up at the girl. "The blood on my hands. The jealousy. The way I run away every time things start to look up for us."

Lia grimaced. "I cannot give you a quick fix for this, Natasha. This is an insecurity that only constant reassurance can help rectify. It's not..." she sighed, seemingly annoyed with herself. "Look. I know about the people you've hurt. The ones you've killed, the ones you've saved. I know the tables don't balance out."

Natasha looked down at her hands.

Lia reached out for them and held them in her small ones. "But I like you. You care for me. So I care for you. It does not matter to me that you've killed people because it was on orders. I still like you the same." She paused for a second, and continued, "So if I can feel that in three months of knowing you, what would someone who has known you for three years feel? When he loves you like Dr. Banner does?"

Natasha studied the girl's eyes critically, green meeting blue. She read them easily, saw the sincerity, but already she was finding ways that had Lia lie or act or bluff her way into Natasha's heart. Unwilling tears welled in the corners of her eyes and spilled over.

"This is the truth." Lia whispered. "Love is difficult, but it is like a string. It binds as easily as it is severed, and if knotted many times it can't ever be unravelled. But if you bind it well, to the right post, then there is little chance that it will break unless you're taking a knife to it. And that is what your mind is attempting to do. Know that you are loved, Natasha Romanoff, and remember it well. You are loved."