MEMO TO ALL PERSONNEL AT SITE [][][]: SCP-3120 has shown some symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder following the incident of [][]/[][]/[][]13. It is recommended that they be monitored carefully to determine the extent of the effects on 3120's psychological well-being.

"I give up. I'm never going to understand anything."

I said it casually, as though it wasn't as significant as it was. But everything was so strange, it hardly seemed to matter how I said it.

"It's called 'the morning after', Rogers." Agent Romanov - Natasha - replied somewhat offhandedly from her position sprawled on my chest. Her words were indistinct with fatigue, excusable considering the hour, only just falling under the label of morning.

She had an arm flung across my chest, and her grip pulled tight when she readjusted herself against me, ankles interlocking with mine as she tangled our legs together.

Natasha hummed a soft, contented noise as I settled my arm around her waist after a moment of hesitation.

She inhaled deeply, before letting it out, quick and heavy, the warm air playing across my neck.

"Go back to sleep, Steve."

Despite the guilt weighing heavy on my mind, it was a lot easier than I expected to do as she said with her comforting warmth nestled against me.

I woke again to find her pushing herself up, and already I missed the feel of her skin against mine.

"You have to leave."

It wasn't even a question.

"Mhmm," She was quick and businesslike in her movements as she pulled her uniform on once more before sitting on the edge of the bed.

And there it was, the acknowledgement that the feeling of hopeful intimacy that I had felt when we had lain together had been something out of consolation, nothing more.

"Doesn't mean I won't be back, though."

Or maybe not.

"In case you're wondering," Leaning on one hand, Natasha looked over her shoulder to give me a sly smile as she continued,

"Nobody's going to ask questions. I had surveillance duty for your room last night. And," she heaved a dramatic sigh and gave my chest two brisk pats.

"I'm pretty sure you didn't leave."

She smirked at the blush that made an almost immediate appearance in response to that as I cleared my throat nervously.

"You're cute."

I was almost completely certain I didn't imagine the fondness in her voice, or in the quick kiss she pressed to my lips as she stood.

"Wait."

She stopped with her hand on the door, just about to leave to look back at me expectantly.

I had pushed myself up on my elbows and I could see the way her eyes flicked appreciatively across the line of my shoulders.

"Agent Ro- Natasha... This wasn't...I mean, you weren't-?"

I wasn't quite sure how to ask what I was thinking.

She raised an eyebrow at me.

"If you're asking if that was pity sex, the answer is no."

And with that candid clarification, she closed the door behind her to leave me alone in my room with my thoughts.

Which there certainly were a lot of.

Later that day, after finally deciding that people probably wouldn't be able to tell how I had spent the night just by looking at me, I left my room attempting to appear casual. I was trying to decide how one imitated casual when it hit me in some distant space of my mind how similar all the halls looked. Which wasn't exactly news, but that idea bled, spilled into the forefront of my thoughts.

They were exactly the same.

This could have been the hall from yesterday, where I had watched a man I had come to consider a friend torn apart by something that shouldn't even have existed and it wasn't even the first time that had happened because I had failed Bucky due to Hydra's strange weapons, and the team I had handpicked to help me was left without a leader. There were all the young boys who had lied about their age on their enlistment forms and now their mothers may never even had their bodies to bury, not to mention Peggy, waiting on the dance floor for a partner who would never arrive.

I left them all behind.

I tried to fix it, but I just abandoned everyone.

I left them all to the war and if I had to wake up at all why did it have to be now, when I was too late to do anything that mattered?

Erskine had me promise to be a good man, but I couldn't do it. Serum or not, I still wasn't strong enough and people were still dying.

"Steve? Steve!"

I didn't remember sinking to the floor, but Clint was crouched down to be level with me so it must have happened at some point. He seemed so far away, so far from everything I had done that was so sharp and bright and terrible. I wanted to tell him to give up, that I wouldn't be able to save him when he needed it, but the effort of speaking seemed absolutely beyond me.

And then Natasha was next to him, Natasha, who had been so kind to me in her own roundabout way and I didn't deserve it.

"Steve, you have to breathe," she was saying, placing a hand on my shoulder and leaning in close. "Breathe, Steve. You're going to pass out."

That sounded quite appealing, honestly. Maybe I wouldn't wake up for a long, long time...

"Hey!"

I was jolted out of my thoughts by the sharp pain across my jaw.

I stared at Natasha in disbelief, focusing on her more strongly than before.

"..You slapped me..."

Which she already knew, but I wasn't exactly capable of saying much else at that point.

"Glad you noticed," was her blithe remark as she stood. "Come on, back to your room."

Clint gave me a hand up, and put a steadying hand on my back when being on my feet brought on a rush of lightheaded dizziness. I sat heavily on my bed, not really noticing much else aside from the fact that Natasha had sat down next to me with her back against the wall, drawing her knees up close.

"I got him, Clint. Go on."

He murmured something to her that I didn't quite catch, and she replied with a soft "I know what I'm doing."

She said nothing, merely drew the fingers of one hand across my back where they rested lightly.

When I spoke, it was almost under my breath with the weight of guilt and shame.

"I never had problems with shell shock before."

"There's a first time for everything."

For some reason that's funny – in a sour, off-kilter kind of way – and I snorted out a laugh.

Natasha continued in that smooth, level voice.

"Steve, you have every right to be bothered by what happened. But you have to forgive yourself."

"No, I don't," I muttered and wondered if it counted as accessory to murder if you should have been able to help them.

She sighed heavily.

"Fine. Take the blame. It doesn't make it any more your fault."

I turned to look at her, and after a moment she used two slender fingers to brush a few strands of hair back along my part, regarding me with that blank expression that she wore at almost all times. I felt the affection in her touch regardless.

"I wish I could believe that," I said honestly, ashamed of my selfishness, of my desire to not be at fault and let go of the responsibility that felt so impossibly cumbersome.

She breathed something that sounded like "Poor boy," with a wistful smile, and pulled me into her arms.

After a while, she had stretched out on my bed, propped up on several of the overstuffed pillows with me lying flat on my side next to her.

She was running her hands through my hair – wonderfully distracting by way of keeping my mind off of the things it was so desperate to remind me of – when she spoke.

"I know what it's like. To wish you could be better."

I didn't mean for my reply to come out as spiteful as it did.

"You've had friends die on your watch?"

"Yes."

I shouldn't have been surprised, considering the Foundation. But the regret in her voice did, and I shifted to look up at her. To my surprise, Natasha didn't meet my eyes.

"I work here because the Foundation got me out of a lot of trouble once," She said, eyes fixed to some point across the room. "I can't leave. And I shouldn't want to, because I made a lot of enemies and this is more than I deserve given what I've done. How many people I hurt."

She took a deep breath, and I had the feeling this wasn't something she shared often – if ever.

"But I do. I want to do something other than bringing monsters back to their cages."

"That's not exactly a bad thing to be doing," I commented. She had probably redeemed herself several times over for whatever she had done that had gotten her on the Foundation's radar by preventing the mass slaughter she had referred to that first day they were allowed to tell me where I was.

She looked down at me with an amused smile.

"Steve, I work for an organization that routinely memory wipes its employees, and punishes them by assigning them to the dangerous things in containment – because once you start working, you don't leave. Not alive."

She heaved out a long sigh, as if hoping to get out all of the frustration that was evident in her tone.

"That keeps people behind bars because they don't understand them."

I had the feeling that comment was directed at least partially at me, judging by how her eyes flicked back down to mine.

As I had nothing to add to that, I said the next thing on my mind.

"Will you stay? I...I don't want to be alone."

She brushed her hand through my hair once more.

"Yeah."

She was with me near every night, to mumble sleepy reassurance when the nightmares shocked me back into wakefulness.

I still couldn't go out of my room.

Clint told me not to push it, that it was okay.

But I was sick of it.

Sick of not being able to stand under the weight of my guilt, of not being able to walk outside of places that were safe.

I got up that morning determined to go out, to at least step outside my room.

Despite that, I stood in front of the door for a long time, steeling myself before I reached for the knob.

The door was locked.

[]/[][]/[]

MEMO TO ALL PERSONNEL AT SITE [][][]:

SCP-3120 has been discovered to possess memory-altering qualities based on face-to-face interaction.

SCP-3120 has been put in isolation until there is a full understanding of the psychological effect.