Chapter Text
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Four times. Four times your mother walked in on you before anything truly changed.
The first time your mother caught you, 'disgusting' was the word she’d used, followed by a threat to tell your father – more out of spite than worry. Like most of her threats, it went nowhere.
The second time was her fault for coming home early. Your open bedroom door seemed like an invitation to her. She'd stopped, stared, then backed out slowly, the door clicking shut on an awkward silence. The third time went about the same as the second.
Right now was the fourth, and this time she was accompanied by your father.
The position you were in was unbelievably compromising. You hadn’t even realized you blacked out until you were startled back into consciousness by your father barging into the bathroom. A gasp came from behind him, your mother peeking her head over his shoulder.
"Oh my god." Her hand flew to her mouth, a gesture so theatrical you’d have rolled your eyes if it weren’t for your already pounding headache.
Crouched on the floor in your underwear, vomit covered tissues surrounded you, the stench of bile seeping from the toilet. “No, it’s,” You push yourself off the floor, sluggishly attempting to wipe the vomit off the toilet seat. “Not what it looks like.”
Your mother pushes past your father, touching a sore spot on your forehead. When she pulls back, you tilt your head at the red coating the tips of her fingers. That's when you notice the little pool on the floor. You must’ve hit your head when you fell. "Please, just leave," you mumble.
The worry in your mother’s eyes is nauseating. She had never shown this much care the other times. This uncharacteristic display, you suspect, is less about your well-being and more about the blood, and the presence of your father.
“Clean up, we’ll talk about this tomorrow.” Your father gently places his hands on your mother’s shoulders, and you watch as he ushers her out, neither sparing you another glance.
You sigh, picking up the rest of the tissues you placed around the toilet to make cleaning up easier. The stench clings to your nostrils even as you scrub the remnants from the porcelain and then the saliva from your forearms and hands.
It’s been 3 years since you started. In all honesty, you had no idea why you ended up here. You had been losing weight fine, there was no reason to. It was after you got food poisoning that you realized how easy it was to reverse everything. Every girl you knew had some kind of disorder. It was a bond you and all of them shared. You couldn’t talk to the pretty girl about how she lines her lips, but you could relate with her on how much you hated this one specific area of your body.
The smart ones’ conversations went over your head, but you could connect with them on the fact that all your mothers had called you fat. You couldn’t offer any help to the artist when she complained about not finding the right brush to bring her idea to life, but you could offer each other weight loss advice. You couldn’t relate to the girls’ boy obsessed conversations, but you could relate to how you could never be with someone that weighs less than you. You couldn’t stand sitting with the very obviously anorexic girls, but you could relate to wanting to get worse.
Vanity was a shared characteristic of every girl you knew. You’ve seen the fit soccer girl pull at her love handles, the smart girl pull at her shirt and adjust her posture, the pretty girls sucking in when a mediocre boy passed by, and the skinny girl tearing up after getting weighed at the nurses office, and every girl that got weighed after her. Regardless of whatever niche they fit into, you could all relate to this one thing.
Sure, they’d probably find your bulimia strange. Gross, even. But they’d accept it as a ‘do what you gotta do’ kind of thing.
You and best friend had developed bulimia independently, which was crazy to you, but also encouraging. She would never report you and vice versa. You were each others fucked up kind of support system.
Right now, though, she wasn’t here to say it would be okay.
You're not too skinny, your mom won't notice, your knuckles aren't that bad
Right now it was all out in the open.
You were so fucked.
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On the other side of town, Wanda Maximoff was being made to throw up by her best friend. Her hand trembles as she shoves two fingers down Wanda’s throat. She had walked in on her half-conscious on the floor of her bathroom, an empty pill bottle held loosely in her hand. Natasha gags, the slick ridges under her fingers making her own stomach churn, almost losing it when she grazes Wanda’s uvula. With one hand still firmly lodged down her friend’s throat, Natasha fumbles for her phone with the other and dials 911.
Wanda mumbles something wet and incoherent as Natasha ends the call and tosses her phone to the side, sighing in relief when Wanda finally expels the contents of her stomach. Natasha had known how hard her brother’s death was for her, but she had never expected it to get this bad.
Pietro’s death was devastating for all of them, but they had to move forward. Natasha and Wanda threw themselves into their work, just like the rest of their team. Everybody was so preoccupied by their own missions, their own guilt and their own healing. A year had passed and everybody except Wanda seemed to have moved on.
A wave of self-loathing crashes over Natasha for not seeing this coming. She’d seen the empty liquor bottles, the discarded razor blades.
Wanda walked in on her cleaning up, face paling before she turned and left.
After that, the blatant evidence had vanished, and it was enough for her to think Wanda was doing better. That she got her wake-up call. Natasha never brought it up, she never offered her any more help, she never asked. The widow figured Wanda closing herself off even more afterwards was out of embarrassment.
Natasha had become something akin to an older sister to Wanda. She cared deeply for her and it scared her. After losing the closest thing she had to a little sister, the thought of losing another was terrifying. So, she didn’t get too close, she didn’t ask why Wanda never ate with the team anymore, she didn’t want to care.
Wanda throws up a little more before the paramedics arrive. Natasha looks back and forth between Wanda and the door, rushing to open it when the knocking becomes more insistent. “She’s back there,” Natasha says, pointing towards the bathroom and guiding the paramedics to the girl. Natasha finally gets a good look at her best friend as they carry her away.
She notices how thin she’s gotten in the way her gangly legs swing back and forth as the paramedic carrying her rushes out. She notices how her nails had been chewed down to the nub as they placed her on the stretcher. Natasha notices how pale Wanda's become as they climb into the ambulance. She can’t stand it.
She reaches out, her thumb tracing the blue veins on Wanda's wrist, counting the pulse.
With her free hand, she takes out her phone, texting the rest of the team and getting them up to speed. Everyone except Wanda and Natasha had been on a mission. Wanda must’ve thought she was alone. Natasha's bottom lip trembles at the thought of not being there, but she shakes it away. A napkin appears in her peripheral vision, offered by one of the paramedics. Natasha accepts it with a strained smile, wiping the lingering stickiness from her fingers.
As the ambulance weaves through traffic, and all the street lights morph into a never-ending, glowing stream, Natasha watches Wanda’s chest, rhythmically moving up and down, timing each breath. She’s watched hundreds of people die, seen the light fade from their eyes as their breathing slows. But, God. She can’t handle one more.
Not this one.
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