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Getting sick was not something that happened to Natasha often. Even when others in the compound were sick, she usually managed to avoid picking the illness up. She credited this to her great immune system, and was not shy about sharing this with her friends and teammates. They all knew about her phenomenal immune system.
So while most everyone was dealing with the flu, no one batted an eye over the fact that she wasn’t amongst the group of sick super heroes. And because of her track record, she didn’t think twice about being around the others to help nurse them back to health. Catching it herself was never a possibility that crossed her mind.
So when she wakes up with a scratchy feeling in her throat a few days after the rest of the team is better, she brushes it off as a fluke. People wake up with sore throats sometimes, right? There’s no need to worry about it or let it disrupt her day. It’ll go away in a little while.
Except it doesn’t. By lunch time, the scratchiness has only increased, and is now accompanied by an awful headache. She also feels exhausted, despite not doing any strenuous activity. Maybe she didn’t get enough sleep? Yeah, that’s it. She just needs a nap. But that can wait until after lunch. Because if she skips it, the others might think that something is wrong, which would result in them worrying about her. And that’s the last thing she wants.
So she pushes through lunch, acting normal enough that nobody is any wiser to how she’s actually feeling.
When she is finally able to retreat to her room, she doesn’t waste a minute before collapsing into her bed and drifting back to sleep. Everything will feel better after this nap.
Unfortunately for her, the exact opposite is true. She wakes up feeling like she’s been hit by a bus. Her muscles ache and she’s still exhausted. She’s drenched in sweat, yet is shivering. And that stupid headache and throat pain are still there. The nap didn’t help at all; if anything, it made it worse.
As she is debating on whether she should get up or just go back to sleep, the decision is made for her as F.R.I.D.A.Y. says, “Ms Romanoff, your presence is requested in the training room.”
Shit. She had forgotten about training today. And while she would love nothing more than to skip it, doing so would indicate that she doesn’t feel well, and she’s not having that. It’s bad enough that she wasn’t there on time and F.R.I.D.A.Y. had to remind her.
“Tell them I’ll be down in five minutes,” she tells the AI as she slowly pushes her legs off the side of the bed. A wave of dizziness washes over her as she stands, but she ignores it and makes her way to the bathroom.
When she gets to the mirror, she frowns at her reflection. Her face is flushed and she is visibly sweaty, with pieces of her hair stuck to her face and neck. She looks almost as crappy as she feels. Trying to freshen herself up a bit, she turns on the faucet and cups her hands underneath. As she brings her hands up to splash the water on her face, her fingers brush against her skin that is much too hot.
The warmth of her skin forces her to acknowledge what she’s been trying to avoid; she’s sick. With a fever. Which means she somehow managed to catch the stupid flu that everyone else had.
Despite this realization, she doesn’t plan on letting anyone else know about it. Having trained and grown up in the Red Room, she was taught to work through any pain, injury, or sickness without letting it slow her down. There was no room for sick days. And even though she has let go of many of the toxic things they had taught her, letting people know when she wasn’t at her best was still something she struggled with. She would much rather suffer in silence than share her ailments with the others and make herself look weak.
So she continues making herself look presentable, pulling her hair into a ponytail and throwing on some workout clothes. Then she tosses two Tylenol in her mouth and swallows them dry, hoping they will calm the fever that is brewing in her.
Taking a deep breath, she forces herself to ignore her symptoms and makes her way to the training room. When she gets there, she silently joins the warm-up and hopes that nobody will mention the fact that she is late.
But alas, nothing is going her way, and Tony is quick to ask, “Why the holdup today, Tasha?”
Any other day, she’d yell at him over the use of that nickname, but she just doesn’t have it in her. “Mind your own business, Stark,” she snaps, giving him a threatening glare.
Thankfully this shuts him up, and he holds his hands up placatingly. Nobody else dares to question her after this, but she does receive a few questioning stares. She ignores most of them until Clint gets her attention, looking at her with concern and mouthing, are you okay?
Of course he would be the first one to realize that something was up. Being late and snapping for no reason? That wasn’t like her. But committed to her act, she gives him a reassuring smile and nods.
Clint isn’t convinced by this, but he knows that nothing good ever comes out of pushing her. So he leaves it alone - for now.
After they finish their warm-up, the team splits up into pairs to do some sparring. Things go smoothly for Natasha at first; she holds up to her usual standard while she spars with her first partner, Steve. She manages to keep it up with her next partner, Sam. But by the time they switch for the third time, she starts to lose her stamina. The headache from earlier is now pounding with a vengeance, her body feels heavy and achy all over, and now she’s feeling a bit nauseous. She wants nothing more than to excuse herself and sleep for the rest of the day.
But she’s pushed through this far, so she can withstand a couple more rounds. And the sooner she gets it over with, the sooner she can go lay down. So she takes her spot on the mat in front of Peter and readies herself for this round.
Despite what feel like major effort on her part, Peter dodges all of her blows like they’re nothing. She still manages to avoid most of his as well, but it takes her much more effort than usual. She is doing okay until she goes to dodge a hit and is once again overwhelmed with dizziness. This throws her off balance, and she feels herself start to topple over.
Thankfully, Peter’s spider-sense has him steadying her before she even knows that she’s falling. “Oh my gosh, Ms Nat! Are you okay? Did I do something wrong? I’m so sorry,” he says as he helps her to sit on the mat.
“I’m fine,” she says quickly, looking around to make sure nobody noticed her little incident. When she sees that everyone is still engaged with their partners, she relaxes a little and turns back to Peter. “I’m fine, really,” she says again, softening her voice. “You didn’t do anything wrong, I just...”
Peter waits for her to continue, but she doesn’t. In the silence, he realizes just how warm she is with the hand he still has on her shoulder. This realization has him ready to reach out and feel her forehead like May used to do to him, but he decides that the Black Widow might not be comfortable with that. Instead, he drops his hand and asks, “Are you sure? You feel really warm.”
“Physical activity can increase your body temperature,” Natasha says, avoiding his question.
Peter gives her a doubtful look. “I guess so, but not enough to make you feel this warm.” He then hesitates before asking, “Are you sure you’re not sick?”
It’s then that everyone seems to notice that Natasha is now sitting on the ground, and they all seem to have heard Peter’s question.
“You’re sick?” Clint asks as he makes his way over.
Natasha makes a noise of frustration before saying, “No. I’m perfectly fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” he says as he kneels next to his friend and places the back of his hand against her forehead.
She tries to dodge it, but is unsuccessful. By the time she manages to shake his hand off, he’s already felt the heat radiating off of her.
“If you’re not sick then why does it feel like you have a fever?” Clint asks before directing his attention to F.R.I.D.A.Y. “Fri, what’s Nat’s temperature?”
“Ms Romanoff has a temperature of 101.3 degrees,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. responds instantly.
Clint turns back to Natasha and gives her a sympathetic look. “That sounds like sick to me.”
“It’s really not a big deal,” Natasha says, refusing to admit how crummy she feels.
“It’s a big deal if you push yourself instead of resting. You should have said something instead of coming to training today. Nobody would have been upset,” Clint says gently.
Peter pipes up to say, “You should be resting if you’re sick, just like we all did last week.”
Natasha doesn’t have a response to this, so she looks down and stays quiet.
Clint sighs before getting back to his feet. “Come on, you’re going back to bed. And I don’t want to hear any complaining.”
Seeing as everybody already knows what she was trying to hide, Natasha doesn’t see any reason to fight or resist as he helps her up and starts to guide her out of the training room. She could try to continue pushing on, but what’s the point now? Besides, even if she tried, Clint wouldn’t let her.
Before they can make it out the door, Tony starts to speak. “Hold up... is anyone going to talk about the fact that she’s sick? What happened to that fabulous immune system of yours?”
“Just because I’m sick doesn’t mean I can’t still kill a man,” Natasha says, a threat hiding behind her sweet tone of voice.
And knowing that it’s true, Tony doesn’t speak another word.