Work Text:
He was sparring with his bodyguard/driver/head of security when it happened. The one person he truly thought he would never see again in his life. That red mane of hers was unforgettable, he could spot her in the thickest of crowds. Natasha Romanov, the one woman who managed to break his heart of steel. She clicked in the room, clipboard in hand, looking so much hotter than in high school, as if the past 30 years had simply been a weekend. Of course, in front of Pepper and Happy, he couldn’t just snap at her, but seeing her again made his mind swirl.
Thirty years. It had been a grand total of three decades of radio silence. Not a single word. Nada. One day she was here, the other her locker was void of any personal things, and no one spoke about her mysterious disappearance. Tony bitterly looked at the metal door every morning, hoping to see a certain redhead struggling to open it like the first time they met. She was like a ghost: a whisper here, a picture there. She left behind the biggest item she owned; The broken heart of a certain Tony Stark. After her departure, he was an empty shell for months. Rhodey had tried, and failed, to get his best friend back. Multiple times. It never worked. It took him quite some time to go relatively back to normal, and even then he was strange, on edge, moping constantly. He eventually got over her, moved on, found a new girl, but she never quite left him. He then drowned himself in cheap booze, drugs and girls, hoping to never set eyes on the treacherous red head.
FLAHSBACK
“Hey there beautiful, need some help with that?” Anthony Stark was a charmer, for sure. He had wicked good looks, a smile to swoon over and gorgeous doe eyes. Natasha Romanoff was surprised he’d come see her of all people, but definitely not complaining.
“Ugh, yes please. It’s jammed again!” For the entire two days she had been to this school, it was always a struggle to open her locker. She took a step back and watched as he niftily forced the metal door open, his biceps bulging with the small effort. Little did she know, that was the start of a beautiful relationship.
END FLASHBACK
As soon as his session ended, he invented some half assed excuse to push him and Natasha in a random empty room.
“Natalie rushman huh? Here I was thinking Natasha Romanoff was your name. must have gotten it confused for a second. After all, it has been 30 odd years since you abandoned me, hasn’t it?”
If he could, he would be shooting daggers straight at her stupidly pretty face only with his intense glaring. Natasha’s years of manipulating and spying were the only thing that enabled her to detect the pain behind the bitterness in Tony’s eyes.
-.-
“So let me get this straight… you were a government agent spying on me for two years straight and pretending to be my girlfriend?”
“No, tony, the girlfriend part was just an added perk”
“So all those times you said I couldn’t come to your place because of your parents…”
“I lived at the Miami HQ of SHIELD”
“Huh. And when you came to my house and left for 20 minutes to ‘telephone your parents…’ you were spying on my dad, weren’t you?”
“…Yes.”
“And you left because your mission was completed.”
“…Yes.”
“Left me behind and broke me so badly that I was catatonic for months and ended up on a downward spiral that kept putting me in hospitals and rehab until I couldn’t take It anymore and tried killing myself? And I would have succeeded if Rhodey hadn’t been there, you know. I was so close. So damn close. Liar. I trusted you with everything. You betrayed me. I gave you all I had, and more, and what did I get in return? An empty locker, whispers left and right, a single picture in a rusty locket like it’s the 40s.”
“… Tony…” She reached for his hand, only for him to flinch back as if she burned him.
“Don’t touch me.”
She pulled her hand away, a hurt look fleeting across her green irises.
“I needed you, Romanoff. I needed you so damn bad. I thought… for years I tried to convince myself you were dead, or your parents abducted you, so that I wouldn’t have to ask myself ‘why would she leave me like that’. But I knew deep down that wasn’t it.”
“I just-“ He was on a roll now, and she kept herself from interrupting him in fear of making him angrier.
“I imagined us meeting again millions of times. I had nightmares, dreams, visions. Everywhere I went, you were there, lurking at the back of my mind. And now you show up out of the blue, for another mission? Congratulations, agent Romanoff, really.” He slow clapped sarcastically, a bitter look stuck on his face like glue.
She was frozen, her eyes glazing over slightly.
“I’ll talk to Pepper but know that you’re fired. I don’t want see your face again, Romanoff.”
“Listen, Tony, I’m sorry-“
“Oh! Ladies and gentlemen, you hear that?” He was sarcastically talking to the empty room as if he were on a stage, “She’s sorry! Well that certainly makes it all better! What are you sorry for, Romanoff? For doing it, or getting caught?”
She looked down in shame, and somehow, he knew it was the latter. He scoffed and turned.
“I loved you Tony. I loved you so damn much. It hurt me to leave you. It broke me. I started being reckless after I left, endangering myself on purpose so I wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of what I did. They wouldn’t allow me to go back, Tones, and deep down you know that. I loved you with every inch of my being. I yearned to be with you for years….”
He turned to look deep in her glossy eyes “And now?”
She steeled herself and replied
“… I still do”
He stood there for a second, just staring, before walking away, closing the door behind him. That was her breaking point. She crouched there, alone in the dark, crying as hard as she did 30 years prior, all hopes of a rekindling romance gone. Her heart ached, and it was all her fault.