How to Heal A Broken Heart? (October 2000)

Natalya was still not feeling great the next day though she no longer needed the biobed. Isabella and Kate, with Logan, Tony and Steve watching, helped her to the original apartments where 'Colleen' had stayed. Natalya spent the morning dry heaving do to her empty stomach as her body fought to equalize itself. The bed had been her saving grace. It was large, comfortable and safe. Though was there anywhere safe with Logan? He was very angry with her and he had a right to be. So far, the Avengers had several chances between them to kill her and they didn't. Phil had protected her, befriended her, even showed respect toward her when he didn't have to. It spoke about what kind of people these were. Natalya could either turn a corner, live up to that or try to escape. Escaping though would most likely lead her right back to either the SSB or to SHIELD. Staying meant that she'd have to make amends with Logan somehow. With all of them and that might be even worse than the dangers of her leaving.

----------

Logan watched Natalya's room like a hawk watched a field mouse in an open field. He didn't eat breakfast with them only coffee and he had a persistent angry expression on his face. Logan wanted to rip Natalya apart. That and to make love to her roughly. Very roughly. He wanted to hurt her and make her orgasm at the same time. His feelings were a blend of complete disdain and complete rapture that she was just a few yards away from him. Steve just shook his head and looked at Kate.

----------

At Phil's behest, Tony made the call to Nick. He told him that Logan nearly killed her when she inadvertently crossed paths with her. A fight ensued and she was nearly killed. They had found an odd virus in her system and purged it out. Nick Fury demanded her return but Tony relayed the delicate information involving Dr. Morrell. The very 'married' to the congressman Dr. Morrell. Nick got the gist of what Tony was ensuing and he relented. Relented and separated himself from the situation if anything should go afoul with Natalya. Now Tony ate breakfast with everyone else and said nothing about the phone call. Plausible deniability was key with this and so he and he only would know exactly what happened.

Isabella knew that Logan was dealing with a lot of emotions surrounding Natalya. He had never gotten over her. He had only buried his emotions and covered them up. He had tried to get over her with Ava, but Isabella could see through all of that. She knew that Logan needed to heal, just as Natalya needed to heal.

Isabella had prepared breakfast and she knew Natalya needed to eat. She decided to take a chance and suggest that Logan take it to her.

“Logan, could you please take this tray to Natalya?” she asked him as she added a glass of orange juice.

Logan was just sitting there watching her door when he heard Isabella's request. Steve tilted his head toward Logan as he assumed Logan was just snap back at Isabella. Logan, at first was about to go off on Isabella. Did he 'look' like a servant? a servant to a murdering succubus?! But the side that considered her request, his reasonable side reasoned that someone had to bring it to her. He'd be the jailer...today. "Alright." He said and he took up the tray without another word then turned and walked toward her room. Logan did not knock he just opened the door and went inside.

He walked all the way to her bedroom and saw that she was still there. But he smelled her too and her unclean body stank! He cringed and set the tray down on the table next to her bed. "Isabella made you something to eat. I'd eat if I were you, it might be the last time you do eat," Logan said tauntingly. "Or don't, I don't care," he said in an angry rasp. He paused to look at her though. To see if she were even alive.

Natalya was laying on her bed and hadn’t yet moved. She could feel her strength returning, but her stomach ached horribly. She knew she needed to eat something and when Logan walked in with the tray her stomach started to growl. She looked over at Logan and sensed the tension rise. She slowly sat up and her mouth began to water as she looked at the food. She began to eat and had to force herself not to eat too quickly. She glanced at Logan. “I’m not going to hurt anyone.”

Logan just crossed his arms over his chest. He was wearing a black tank top and blue jeans. "Not yet, you're still weak. The moment you aren't though...I'll be waiting," Logan said with a vicious look on his face. "Enjoy your meal," He said in a very sarcastic tone as he left her alone. He closed her door behind him then paused as all eyes were on him. "What? She's still alive," He said and moved toward his room.

Tony had more to get done in the lab and Isabella had some shopping to do with Kate. She brought Serena with them though Sarah came along to help. That left the boys and Natalya. Natalya had access to all sorts of beverages, ice cubes for the beverages, alcohol, beer, wine and all kinds of food. Most of it was processed food though. Stuff that could be microwaved or cooked in the oven. Last time she had been there Isabella asked her what she liked and had stocked her fridge and freezer with all of those items. There were 480 channels of television and movie channels. Sports, news, anything she wanted. She had a few sets of clothes and surprisingly they fit for the most part.

Logan was playing cards on the kitchen table while Steve watched a baseball game. Tony had not left his lab all morning and now it was afternoon.

After Natalya ate, she showered and washed her hair. She still felt a little weak, but was able to stand on her own. She was in the same room that had been “Colleen’s” when she was here and as she looked around she found some clothes that were still there. They still fit when she put them on. She let her hair air dry and turned on the tv. She flipped through the channels aimlessly and then finally just turned it off. She glanced at the empty tray and knew she needed to return it. She picked it up and cautiously stepped out of her room and into the kitchen. As soon as she did, Logan and Steve both looked at her. She saw Logan tense up.

“I was just returning the tray. Where should I put it?”

"Up your ass," Logan murmured as he turned back to his cards. Steve had gotten up and moved fairly quickly to her as she approached the kitchen area. 'on the counter's fine Natalya. Do you need more? If you're still hungry there is fruit, Ice Cream, Isabella made brownies. Whatever you can find," Steve said cordially. He spared a frown for Logan though. "The ladies should be back soonish," Steve said.

Natalya heard what Logan said. She had never felt more alone and unhappy than she did in that moment. She suddenly wished that they had just let her die. She wanted to die...to be free of the mental pain she was in.

“No...no thank you,” she said to Steve. She looked at him and summoned up the courage to say what she was going to say. “I....I’m sorry for attacking you.” She then turned and quickly left and went back to her room.

"No she's not!" Logan said to her back as she closed the door. Steve looked over at Logan. "Logan, you're so butt-hurt at being manipulated by her that you can't see anything else. "Oh, what? That she was tortured? Abused? So was I and you don't see me trying to get sympathy," Logan said. "That's not what she is doing. She's never just been allowed to live. Always there's been someone pulling her strings. Manipulating and controlling her. She doesn't know what to do or to think. I bet if I gave her an order just then, she'd have done it," Steve said. "Weren't you the one that said that part of her was into you? Or is doubting that why you're so angry?" Steve said and went back to watching the game. Logan grumbled under his breath but thought about what Steve said.

-------------

Eventually the girls were back. Still no Tony, he was still in the lab. Isabella pointed toward the lab and Logan shook his head. She sighed. Which means he hasn't eaten. Which means he'll be hangry. "Ok, cheeseburgers it is," she said and began to make dinner.

Once again she asked Logan to bring Natalya her tray of food. Logan blinked in irritation then did as she asked though with a scowl. Once again he just came into her room and shut the door behind him.

"You know, I bet you don't know how to cook or do your own laundry. I bet you've never cleaned anything but a weapon," Logan said in an angry tone. He held her tray. A perfectly cooked cheeseburger with the fixings on the side. Tater tots and a small side salad with ranch dressing and a home made strawberry shake.

Isabella prepared a tray of food for Tony and herself and walked down to the lab. She managed to get his attention with the cheeseburgers and he finally stopped whatever it was he was working on. There was one clean table in the lab and she put the tray there and pulled up two chairs so they could sit down. Once he had begun to eat she looked at him.

"So, what is it you're working on?"

----------------------------------------------

Natalya just laid on her bed for the rest of the afternoon. She felt utterly lost and useless and didn't know who she was anymore. The SSB clearly didn't want her anymore and neither did the Avengers. So, why was she being held here? She looked over at Logan as he walked in with a tray of food. His words wounded her already wounded heart and made her feel even more useless. She stood up and looked Logan in the eye.

"Do it. Just kill me. I know you want to and I want you to as well. So do it."

Logan's eyes seethed. "Death is too easy for the likes of you. You can't apologize or make amends for the things you've done!" He said angrily as he set her tray down It literally dripped with fat and carbs and deliciousness. "The world just has to accept you! And you can only 'try' to earn that acceptance of your existence," Logan said and half turned to go. When he was this close to her he often felt like he was a twisted mess.

"I was really into you...the part of you that was real," Logan admitted. "After you left it didn't end for me...I dreamed of you...I missed you, you made me feel...not so alone," Logan said. "I wanted Colleen back for a long time. Seeing you again is like...having her resurrected imperfectly. Like, 'Oh my god, the woman I care about is alive...oh, wait...no, she's really not!" Logan said in his particular brand of sarcasm. "You made me believe...for a moment, that I could be happy. And I hate you for that!" He said but his voice had cracked when he said it.

Natalya had never felt the way she did in that moment as she listened to Logan. She was completely wrecked with guilt. These emotions were all new to her. Tatiana had beaten emotions out of her...or at least so she had thought. Instead, they had been buried deep inside of her, but now she was so broken that they all came gushing out. That guilt was the worst feeling she had ever felt in her life. 

Actual tears came to her eyes as she looked at Logan. "I know you won't believe me when I tell you this, but I truly am sorry for what I did to you."

She then turned and walked into the bathroom and shut and locked the door. She didn't eat her dinner that night...nor did she eat anything the next two days. She had sunk into a deep pit of depression and wasn't sleeping. At night, when she thought everyone was asleep she would just cry for hours. Isabella was worried about her and she called Dr. Lauren Weston to the Tower to evaluate her. Dr. Weston was in with her for a long time before she emerged from her room. She met with Tony, Isabella, Steve, Kate, and Logan in the conference room. "Natalya is suffering from severe depression and is suicidal. I don't know if anyone hear has heard of "Battered Wife" syndrome, but basically even though she was tortured, raped, and created cruelly with the SSB she didn't ever try to leave because they clothed and fed her. However, now that she is free of them she is beginning to experience emotions that she's never truly felt before...such as guilt...and she's feeling a lot of that right now. She feels lost and useless and alone."

"By will or not, her actions warrant such. For us to feel sorry for her is for us to sympathize for those that made her. To forgive them as well. They made a monster in their own image of perfection. How should she see herself? How should we see her?" Logan said.

"Now you just hold on a minute Logan. Lets talk about justice. How do we bring Natalya Justice here? The woman. A human being with flaws and feelings and the whole bit. I'm not going to use Natalya Sokolova. I am not going to hurt her nor let anyone else hurt her. I am going to do whatever I can to help her come to terms with what she's done. Because I believe if, from the very beginning, if she was given a choice, she would not have wanted this for herself," Tony said. "We can't save her, we can only help her save herself," Tony said as he looked at Logan.

Logan frowned as he thought about what Tony had said.

"So, Dr. Weston, what can we do?" Steve asked.

Dr. Weston let Logan and Tony speak. She knew that Natalya had deceived them in the past and clearly Logan was still hurting from that. "What Mr. Stark has said is true. Natalya is a woman of action and routine. Her entire life was structured for her by the SSB and then by SHIELD. She doesn't know what to do with herself or even who she is right now. Let her train with the team...even if you do nothing else that will give her some semblance of normalcy. I'm also going to prescribe an anti-depressant and sleep aid for her."

She paused a moment and then looked at Logan. "Natalya understands that what she was doing with the SSB was wrong. She murdered people and did a lot of terrible things, but the mere fact that she is feeling guilt about that proves that she is not a cold, heartless killer. She was a child who was created like something out of Frankenstein to be a monster. The life she lived was not by choice. Help her figure out who she truly is. I think she'll surprise you...all of you."

Logan said nothing more and before anyone said anything more he got up from the table and walked quickly to his room and slammed the door. Both Steve and Tony watched him go. Tony looked at Isabella and raised his eyebrows concernedly.

Isabella winced when she heard him slam his door closed. She waited there a few moments before she excused herself and got up and walked to his room. She didn't even knock. She just walked in and re-closed the door behind her. "What do you want us to do Logan? Send her back to the SSB or to SHIELD?"

Logan was unsettled and angry. And he didn't know how to convey his feelings. Isabella was like a sister to him and he never had trouble talking to her but this was his feelings. He paced around the room.

"I don't know...But the way we talk about her. 'Should we send her here or there'. She's not a child. And once her strength comes back, no one knows, including that quack of a doctor you've got in there," He gestured. "How much damage she could do," Logan said. "How much damage she's done already," Logan said as he rubbed his temple. "What's happening Isabella. What the hell is happening?" Logan said.

Isabella approached Logan and sighed softly as she looked at him. "What's happening Logan is that you're being forced to deal with unresolved feelings for this woman and you're afraid that she's going to break your heart again. I know what I'm going to ask of you is difficult, but you need to somehow forgive her and wipe the slate clean in your mind and heart. She had no intention of hurting you Logan. She was doing her job. Blame the SSB for that. But she needs you Logan. She needs someone like you who's been through something similar to what she's been through. She's a broken woman right now in desperate need of a friend. This is not the same woman we faced in the Arctic. We cannot fix the past, but we can help to shape her future and the kind of woman she could become."

Logan looked at Isabella. "And what would you know about loss or 'unresolved feelings? What have you ever lost Isabella? I know you had a tough time in Kazakhstan. I know you can't have any more children. But you are still you. And bullshit...her 'job'," Logan rebutted and turned away from Isabella. He was upset that everyone was willing to forgive her for sucking him in. He watched secret agent shows on the tv where men and women like James Bond seduced people. But to 'be' one of the people troubled Logan. He didn't know how to handle being a victim. He was a fighter. Throw him in a pit with 10 others just like himself and he was at home. Drop him into a pit and have him face being played a fool and falling for a woman? And he would try to claw his away out and flee from that. But, what could he do? Leave? he did not want to leave. He had a good thing here with the Starks. Avenger pay was significant and he almost never even used his own money for anything.

"I will try," Logan said at last in a rasp. He would not meet her eye though so that meant his 'trying' was going to be on a very short tether. If Natalya pushed him, she would likely regret it.

Isabella sighed and nodded. "That's all I ask." 

Over the next few days the anti-depressants and sleep aids began to help Natalya and one day she made a decision that she wasn't going to let the SSB or Tatiana continue to effect her. The Starks were giving her a second chance that she didn't deserve, but she was going to take it. She could either sit and wallow in self-pity for all that had been done to her, or she could get up and take control of her life and do something to change it. 

She felt she needed to try to make things right between Logan and herself. She had never intended to hurt him like she clearly had. She knew he was in his room and she knew that he liked beer. She had been given access to most of the living area level, but she was monitored by Jarvis at all times. She got a couple of beers out of the fridge and walked down to his room. She was about to just open the door, but she hesitated and then knocked. When he told her to come in, she opened the door and stepped in. From the look on his face she could tell he had not been expecting to see her, but she forced herself to approach him. 

"I thought maybe you would like something to drink."

Logan had been avoiding Natalya over the past few days. Whenever he saw her in the gym he went back up the stairs and waited until she was done with her workout. She had not been introduced into their training sessions yet but he knew that was coming. They all did. It took time for her body to be completely functional with her sleeping aids and anti-depressant aids. That and what the virus and antibodies had done to her as well so light exercise was the order of the day and Steve and Kate had been monitoring that.

Logan didn't expect the person at his door to be Natalya though if he had thought of it, he would have smelled her. Natalya had a particular scent. Especially when she became sexually aroused. Having the ability to smell people like an animal might made it all worse for him when he attached emotions to those scents. Natalya had a sweet, floral scent with just a hint of headiness that was likely do to her being Russian. It drove him crazy sometimes, especially when she began to sweat...like she was now. She was nervous he decided. And he could either lash out at her...again. Or try to be civil. Isabella rarely asked much of him and so he decided not to throw her out bodily like the scene that played out in his mind right then.

Logan unreclined from his recliner and stood up at Natalya's approach. He accepted the beer wordlessly and took a long drink from it to stall himself. He was tempted to lash out at her, anger was usually his first emotion that came to his head when he dealt with Natalya and he avoided looking at her breasts like he always did when he looked at her. Her breasts, her sexy ass...'Stop it!' He told himself and forced himself to look her in the eyes.

"I'm being civil because Isabella asked me to," he said with a forced grin that did not touch his eyes. His eyes were dark fire when he looked into hers. Anger, desire, hurt, it was all there in them. It always was when they were this close. "So you don't need to be nervous," Logan said.

There was a thick tension between them and Natalya didn't open up the beer she had grabbed for herself. She remembered them sitting together in that very recliner with her in his lap as they drank beer and watched tv. Even though she had been using Logan, it was a pleasant memory for her. All of her memories with Logan were...except for those in the Arctic. 

"I'm sorry Logan," she told him genuinely. "My intention was never to hurt you, but I obviously have and for that I'm sorry. I don't know how to make things right between us besides apologizing to you. I know you don't want me here, but I'm honestly not the same woman I was and I don't want to be that woman ever again. Can we be friends?"

Logan’s jaw would have dropped if he was someone that did that when he heard something that floored him. She had truly surprised and outraged him. ‘No outbursts!’ He reminded himself. “Aren’t you gunna open your beer?” He asked. “Friends…” he said as he tasted the word as he spoke it.

“I don’t think we were ever friends. We went straight to lovers,” he said. “I’m tolerated here and besides Isabella, I’m not much of a friend to anyone,” Logan said. “When I look at you I either want to fuck you or hurt you. My dreams are a combination of the two. I don’t know ‘how’ to be a friend,” Logan said then shifted to sit back onto his bed. “We fucked in that recliner, on this bed, on the floor, against the door...standing with your hands on the desk. How do we go from there to friends?” He asked her.

Natalya sighed and finally opened her beer and took a big sip. Logan was...frustrating to talk to. She was trying her best here, but he was making everything completely complicated. "We take it one day at a time. However, this isn't going to work if you can't find a way to get past everything. I need to know now if you think that is even possible, because if it's not then I should just leave and go back to SHIELD."

Logan laughed. A loud, real laugh. "You can't stop, can you? Manipulation is in your DNA. If I don't 'cooperate' you're going to leave? Go back to SHIELD? How does that translate into you being a better person? So either I need to feel good about you being here or I need to feel guilt for making you leave? Get...the hell out of my room while you can," Logan said in a dangerous tone. Tony and Isabella thought they knew her. Boy were they wrong! And he doubted they considered her asking to go back. But he knew they wouldn't let her. It was a mistake for them to make it seem as if she had a real choice. When she just looked at him a moment he moved off the bed. He tossed his beer bottle to the floor and was on her in a moment. They slammed against the door together with his hand at her throat.

"You don't get to make decisions for yourself!" He said in a low, dark rumble. "You think you can 'guilt' me? Try again. We don't have to be friends. We don't 'have' to be anything for you to work here. You have abilities that Tony needs. That's why your alive. And because I loved you and couldn't bring myself to kill you," Logan said. "Choke on that!" He said as he let go of her throat but he didn't let go of her. He had hold of her shoulders, a hard, strong grip as he looked into her eyes.