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Broken pieces of glass lay scattered across the floor, the sunlight reflecting off it in a cascade of rainbows. It would be almost beautiful if it weren’t for the destruction. Dozens of frames lay broken on the ground, a singular photo torn in half. Happier times, the day the pair of you had said “I do”, a promise of forever from your lips, only to be broken by the end of that first year. She stepped over the broken glass, walking toward the bed where two rings lay upon a note.
She hadn’t planned on it coming to this, to push it so far you broke. Her heart broke as she read the letter, shattered like the glass on the floor. It was a mess of her own creation. The first tear fell, and then another, before sobs wracked her body.
You had packed your things and left while Natasha was on a mission, one with him. It hadn’t escaped your notice. It was always the two of them. Alone. For days, weeks, sometimes months. Recon, extraction, you name it, they were on it. At first it hadn’t bothered you. You trusted her, you trusted him. Aside from that, they were a formidable duo. Perhaps that should have been your first warning sign.
The first time you truly caught on to it was in Winnipeg. A dreary mission that ended with nothing to show. You had seen him kiss her. They had thought you were already on the jet, but you had forgotten something. You felt your heart shatter in that moment. You brushed it off though. Refusing to believe what was in front of you. Instead, you texted her, asking her to grab what you had forgotten. A few minutes later, she and Clint had joined you and she pressed a kiss to your lips. Where you once tasted the strawberry flavor of her chapstick, all you could taste was the bitterness of betrayal.
“Ready to head home, baby?” she had asked, trailing a hand down your arm. You had forced a smile on your face. When she looked at you like that, it was hard to remember you were angry.
“Yeah, yeah I am,” you had said. You caught the smirk on Clint’s face out of the corner of your eye. You chose to ignore it. At least at the end of the day, it was your bed Natasha came home to.
You noticed the little things after that mission. A lingering touch, a heated gaze, things you had ignored before. It took you three months to confront her. And she had told you that you were seeing things, that she would never betray you like that. Then, she took you to bed, making promises under the covers that you were her one and only, a vow that she would never leave, that she would never betray you. She made you come undone over and over, until the only thing either of you could do was rest.
Things came to a boil after the last mission. Bucky had caught them. He hadn’t told anyone, until he found you. You were out with injury, recovering slower than you’d like. He had found you by your favorite window, looking out over the expanse of land where you could see deer running.
“Natasha is cheating on you,” he said. Your shoulders slumped forward. You took a breath, looking up at him, eyes shining with tears desperate to fall, but you had none left to cry, not over this, not over her.
“I know,” you said, your voice flat.
“How long?” he asked, sitting across from you. He took one of your hands in his, concern etched across his face.
“I’ve known since the end of the first year we were married. So...two, at the least,” you told him.
“And you stay with her,” he said. You nodded.
“She’d tell me I was seeing things. After a while, I gave up, Buck. I know I’m not the only one. Maybe she loves me, maybe she loves him. Maybe she loves us both. But. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t turn the other way and pretend it isn’t happening,” you told him.
And so your mind was made up. You weren’t sure where you were going to go, not at first. But he had a place, tucked away in Brooklyn. A getaway. A place only Steve knew about. It would give you the space you needed. It didn’t take you long to pack up what you wanted to take with you. You wrote her a letter, finding the tears that had long since dried. You didn’t remember throwing the first frame, both Bucky and Steve holding you tight as you broke down, feeling as if they were the only thing keeping you from falling completely to pieces.
When you calmed down, they helped you with your bags. You took one last look at the room you had shared with her, the pictures laying in broken glass, your dreams of a life with her shattered on the floor. You flipped the lights off and walked out, not looking back as the door shut. Stepping out of the compound minutes later, you let the sun wrap you in its warm embrace, beckoning you forward to an uncertain future, without her, without the lies.