[A/N] "If I spend anymore time on the title, I'm never going to post this." Me to myself late last night.
This is for the lovely, patient anon who requested this on Tumblr. I'm sorry it took so long, and I hope it's alright!
The last chapter of MOSAICS will be out this Friday! (That's wild to say)
The mirror is betraying her. Clint called her radiant, Steve said she looked transformed. Yet, she stares at her reflection and simply sees herself in a red dress with one ringlet of hair that won't behave.
The knock at the door is a welcome distraction. She leaves the sink to let her visitor inside.
Bruce slips through the gap, looking from one side of the bathroom to the other. "I came to make sure you weren't jumping out the window."
"Please." The smile comes without her trying. He feels like the one person who's the same today, herself included. His authenticity helps extract the part of her that's been neglected. "I climb out windows. I have a helicopter waiting for me."
His hands dig into his tuxedo's pockets and releases a feigned groan. "What am I gonna do with the getaway motorcycle the guys got you?"
"Use it as part of your distraction."
"That's what the green guy's for." The instant it's out of his mouth, regret flashes across his face. In the years she's known him now, that self-loathing has resisted change. She still doesn't know what it'll take for him to believe he's not the monster he makes himself out to be.
With a hip propped against the porcelain, she brainstorms. Part of the thinking is the recollection of their times together—the conversations that stretched into night, then dawn, the missions before they both retired their SHIELD badges, their tradition of casual hangouts that she initiated. Even Tom, the man to be her husband by the end of this day, had tried to assist her efforts since they started dating—that was one of the factors in her decision to enter into a serious relationship with him.
None of it seemed to eradicate the self-deprecation and harsh criticism from Bruce. Not completely.
"Listen…" He says, jocundity evaporated from his voice. Apprehension clings to him like a cloak. Something about the trepidation wrinkling his features makes him unreadable to her for the first time. Her only option is to stand in wait for what next emerges from his mouth.
"You look incredible." He tells her. A nervous hand slides from his pocket up to his neck. "You're gonna knock him off his feet."
This time, thanks to an unsatisfied curiosity, she can only conjure half a grin. "You're just trying to make me blush." More earnestly, she says, "Thanks."
His gaze goes to his shoes. There, it recovers from whatever it was that overcame him. When he returns to her, he asks, "Can I give you a hug?"
The arms she opens to him serve as her response.
Hugging him has become part of her normal. It's familiar, a small type of home. When he draws her in, she discovers the elevated racing of her heart. Feeling his breath against her calms the beating as quickly as she notices it.
He pulls away too soon for her liking, but is forgiven when he tells her, "I love you, Nat."
It's not often she hears that from him. He compliments her often, but those expressions of his love are what she cherishes more than any material item or praise.
It's only fair that she returns the truth. "I love you too."
The smile that grows is a bashful but joyous thing. He brings a hand to rest on her bare arm and uses his head to gesture to the door. "Let's get you out there."
No migration is required for the reception, since both that and the ceremony are held in Clint's backyard. She and Tom share vows, a kiss, then their first dance as a married pair. As they rotate, their arms interlocked with each other, she tries to let the onlooking gazes melt off her. She tries, but a spy's old habits persist.
When the song ends and applause swells then fades into chatter and dancing, she swivels her gaze around, taking account of her bridesmen. Steve and Rhodey shoot her individual smiles as she finds them. Clint's back walks away from her as he dips into his kitchen to help Laura bring out food. The last member of her party doesn't show himself in the throngs of guests. He must be assisting inside.
At Tony's insistence, she and Tom attempt a livelier dance to The Black Eyed Peas—a band she'd never heard of until she and Tom went through and approved Tony's "wedding DJ setlist." It didn't take much to make her and Tom question the decision the position they bestowed unto their friend, but they had to throw him a bone somewhere.
She makes it to the second round of the chorus before bowing out. Tom's got his best friend and her wife to dance with while she watches, takes a few minutes to digest this day. A note on her chair determines there's to be a shift in that plan.
It takes one look to identify the scrawl at Bruce's. Between slowed heartbeats and a light churn in her gut, she makes a decision. A moment later, the envelope is pressed between her palm and dress, and she's heading inside for the bathroom. Not only for more privacy, but also to perform a cursory inspection of the inside, she dodges Laura and a strange look in her trek upstairs.
Somehow, this bathroom doesn't feel like the same one that saw her prepare for the ceremony. Her back settles against the door once it closes, and she's transported to yesterday, to three years ago—just before she and Tom met. Hell, once the door seals shut and she clicks the lock into place, she might as well be in some alternate version of her life. Surreality numbs the urgent fingers that pull a single sheet of paper from its sheath. Only one side contains Bruce's handwriting. It's more intimidating than infiltrating any enemy's spiderweb.
A deep breath in, a longer exhale out. She reads.
Natasha,
You have every right to be angry with me, even though you don't know why yet. Or maybe you do know, and thought that was very clear. I'm not great with hints. Unsurprisingly, I'm not great at a lot of things. I could've written this letter sooner. I could've had the courage to tell you in person. I could've acted years ago. I did none of those things. I thought of countless detours and escapes—alternate ways to say this, show this, classify it; countless other ways to do anything but tell you what this/it is. For that, I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry for my dishonesty. When you told me that talking to me felt like talking to a mirror, that I was someone you trusted, I thought of how I hadn't earned that. I'm not your mirror because I haven't given you the full image. It was never your fault—I wanted to and I didn't let myself. I convinced myself I had dug myself in too deep. In every other way, I was truthful with you. I've been truthful with you in a way I never have been with anyone else.
Today, I realized that it was never too late until you said your vows to someone else. For all of this, I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry if this feels like betrayal—I never meant for it to be that way.
I'm still finding different methods of avoidance. What I've wanted to tell you for so long seems so simple, but I have no idea how to build up to it in a letter (I think the past 8 years have been the build up). The best way to go about this is to just say it.
I love you. I love you in a way I shouldn't. I love you in a way where I want all of you all of the time. I want to wake up to you and fall asleep beside you. I've loved you for years. I'm sorry.
That's the full image of me. It's the first and the last time anyone will ever see it. I don't think anyone else can see me in the complete way you do. Which is why (part of the reason why) I left.
I understand if you're angry, or if you even despise me now. I'm so, so sorry for any hurt I caused you. I want you to have the happiness you deserve, which is why I can't be a presence in your life.
Have the best life, Nat.
The pillars and turrets of stone inside her crumble. They crumble to dust and ruin, and she can't even physically collapse with them. She can't move anything except her eyes. Debris from the destruction emerge, but they're in the form of tears, not ash, soot, and screams. The sobbing starts with silence. It's her wedding day and she's crying.
It's her wedding day and it shouldn't be.
Then, as her eyes and nose shed droplets, hatred seeps in. It's a searing abhorrence for no one but herself. She does love Tom, she truly does—she wouldn't have married him if she didn't. Unfortunately, she also didn't realize until now that there were very different types of love. Despite all the suppression over the past few years, her I love you to Bruce was true and altogether something more honest and close to herself than her I do to someone else. She loved him in the same way and he didn't even know when she told him.
She's made a mistake. So has he. After all, he is her mirror, and she's his. She always will be. Even if he's erased himself from her future.
She doesn't know how to leave this room with all that it knows, with the pieces of her scattered everywhere and nowhere all at once.