She masked her emotions like her life depended upon it. Sometimes emotions are her weakness. People would get hurt if she let a little vulnerability show. Lives lost from her uncontrollable anger and misjudgment. Every decision she made was her call; her fault. Everything she was involved in, got messy. It suddenly began to dawn on her at how much she put others at risk from her own mistakes. That was the past. That was when she let people inside. Revealing the real Natasha Romanoff. Not anymore. Trusting people was a difficult process for her. Now she would distant herself from others. Act like they was nothing when they meant the most to her. 

When she was alone that's when everything turned sour. Crumbled before her, the demons in her head swirling around ready to catch her when she least expected it. Even the sticky sense of liquor that burnt her throat and numbed her mind didn't help her issues anymore. When the liquid touches her lips a few times throughout the night, her mind starts to forget. Cherishing them mere hours that her hallucinations vanished. Her lips, her mind and even her finger tapping away on the iPhone screen needs to be halted for a few hours, because Natasha was unaware of her motives once the whiskey stained her lips with its sticky taste. She didn't feel in control, her mind did and that was a tragedy, that could never happen. Her mind was ruthless, it wasn't something she always relied on whenever she drank.

She relied on her instinct, it was the only way she could cope especially when she was surrounded by people. Each night would be the same, another empty bottle of liquor adding to the pile of bottles within her quarters of the avengers facility. The smell of a stale sharp wood aroma filled the room and had soaked into the assassins clothes and persona. The voices in her mind still taunting and playing within her nightmares. She would wake in a sweat, screaming and gasping for breath. Calling out for help, although the ache of loneliness returned. Natasha never let anyone in, the closer she got the more she would feel. She often used her words as barriers and walls to protect herself, guard her from being hurt and in pain once more. She would usually damage the people she cared about by cutting them away with her words. The 'I hate you's was a cover for the complete opposite meaning. She couldn't say how she felt or show them in small gestures, however when it came to the important stuff; she was there.