Chapter 3
Tony read the letter, and then read it again, torn between suspicion and disbelief and surprise and happiness.
Tony-
I don’t presume to think that I have the right to your forgiveness, but I’m writing this anyways. I went into that fight in Berlin wanting to protect my family, to make sure that if we couldn’t stay together we’d at least all stay alive, and I walked out successful. I’m sorry that I couldn’t bring myself to stop Rogers and Barnes. And I’m sorry that I betrayed you in not stopping them. You deserve better than that. You deserve a family and teammates you can trust, like Rhodes, and Pepper.
I suppose you were right when you said that being an imposter sticks in the DNA, even if that wasn’t why I did what I did in Berlin. I’ve lived my life lying and betraying. Doing anything else still feels new to me, and it’s something I’m still working on, though that’s not an excuse for hurting you.
I heard about Siberia. Doubt it makes you feel any better, but I told Rogers to fuck off when he called me for help.
Regretted it, but regret isn’t anything new to me.
The government will give him and the others amnesty eventually, I think we both know that.
He’ll try to apologize. Might seem a bit hypocritical for me to say this, but…I wouldn’t accept it if I were you, not if it seems like he doesn’t mean it, like it isn’t genuine. The Avengers took advantage of you, they-well, we-used you for your tech and your skills, and a lot of us didn’t bother to actually get close to you outside of missions. I think you’re more than smart enough to stop that from happening again.
I don’t expect for us to immediately be close again, hell, I don’t really expect a reply, but if it’s at all possible I would like for us to start talking to each other again. You were family to me, though I didn’t always show it. Though I didn’t ever show it.
I don’t regret not stopping Rogers and Barnes. I think T’Challa would have killed Barnes if he’d been given the chance in Berlin, and despite his past in the Room with Hydra, I don’t believe he deserves to die.
I do regret hurting you, though.
-NR
The letter was so open, so honest, when Natalie or Natasha or Natalia or whichever name she used had never been, that Tony could physically feel how hard this had been for her, what it had been like for her to push aside her walls for a moment and write like that.
And she’d done it for him.
And now, now that he wasn’t as angry as he’d been, wasn’t as caught up in the pain and the sadness and the rage, he could understand what she had been trying to do.
He could understand why she hadn’t stopped Rogers and Barnes.
Tony wanted to let her in again. He really did.
But there was something that stopped him from calling her up and asking her to move back into the Compound again, though he wasn’t quite sure whether it was common sense speaking out from underneath the happiness or the new layer of ice he had picked up after Siberia, the one only Pepper and Rhodey and Peter and Happy had managed to crack.
Natasha was the triple imposter, after all. She lived and breathed lies, she had been raised in them, they were her weapons and her god. She’d admit it herself, probably.
How was he supposed to know that this wasn’t another lie?
There was no way he could, he realized. Not now. Not yet. Bringing her back into the fold would have required trust, and Tony might have still loved her but he did not trust her, he never fully had before.
Tony would still call her, though.
He would let her talk.
Get to know her again.
Maybe see if they could move on, but not start over, they could never start over.
And then maybe, just maybe, they’d eventually learn to trust each other again.
Because he was certain that she didn’t quite trust him, either.