This was supposed to be a part of a longer fic, but I very much doubt I will ever write it. I, however, couldn't make myself scrap this scene, so, here it is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Midnight Blue
It was an assassination attempt.
The public knew where Tony was going to be, they had been planning this presentation for months, been advertising it for weeks.
God, what a stupid, reckless thing to do.
To broadcast where Tony Stark -a man with an endless list of enemies- was going to be to the entirety of New York, and then invite a crowd of innocent civilians into the line of fire.
Hindsight is usually painful.
Seven hospitalized, twenty-eight with minor injuries, one dead.
The Press is saying that it would have been worse if Tony Stark wasn't there, that without his help more people would have been wounded, more would have died.
That isn't true, this wouldn't have happened in the first place if it weren't for Tony.
There's blood all over his hands.
Figuratively as well as literally.
It's under Tony's nails and stained his skin, and Tony can't get it off, no matter how many times he washes, how hot he turns the water, he can't seem to rid his hands of her blood.
Aliya Tahan; age 24, she was studying robotics and engineering. She was about to graduate, already had an internship with Stark Industries. She was the middle child of five, grew up in New Jersey. Her life hadn't even started yet, and it was over, gone.
Because of Tony.
He takes a swig of vodka, straight from the bottle. Tony holds it in his mouth for a moment, makes sure it sears his throat. It's the cheap stuff, Tony wants it to burn, he doesn't particularly like vodka in the first place, it's why he's drinking it.
He takes another mouthful and stares down at his shaking hands, red from his scrubbing, red from boiling water, red from a dead girl's blood.
Tony feels like he's going to be sick, his stomach rolls with grief, fiery alcohol, and guilt, and suddenly he can't sit idly anymore. He heads back over to the sink, stumbling as he gets up, tripping as he rushes to wash uselessly at his hands again.
But his nails are stained with it, and the more Tony scrubs the redder and angrier his hands look.
Tony can't- he will never be able to get the blood off, he will always, always have blood on his hands- and Tony can't breathe, can't stop picturing a young girl gasping under his hands, he can't-
"Tony?" the unexpected voice makes Tony jolt out of his thoughts, his knee banging against the counter as he curses.
Tony turns around to find Natasha standing in the entrance to his kitchen. She's in soft sweats, her hair pulled back into a bun- and Tony knows that must have been calculated, that she made an effort to make herself seem approachable- and god, even with knowing that, Tony can feel his guard going down anyway, and he hates himself for it.
"Restricted access to the Penthouse," Tony says with numb lips, his voice sounds far away, like it's coming from outside of his own body.
Natasha shrugs, coming into the kitchen and setting down a tin-box on the counter with a soft 'tnk'. "Jarvis let me in," she tells him.
Tony forces himself not to ask why she's up here at all, because he's not sure he could handle the answer to that question.
"What's with the lunch box?" he asks instead, feigning nonchalance, knowing Natasha will see right through it but unable to find it in himself to care.
It's better to pretend sometimes, to lie to yourself as well as the others around you. Tony is good at living in denial, he's been crafted into a fine actor, made himself enough masks that sometimes he can't even tell which one is his true face.
That's not a healthy coping-mechanisms, but take away the guises and what are you left with? Just pieces, so many broken, jagged pieces.
Natasha hums at him, her eyes are scanning Tony, taking him in for all that he's worth- Tony doesn't want to know what Natasha is seeing, how she must find him lacking, doesn't want to know what she's thinking of him in this moment.
Tony turns away, wishing for the vodka bottle he left on the floor, at least then he'd have an excuse for the way he's burning on the inside.
Natasha is silent as she walks up to Tony, she leans into him, presses against him, and Tony's body and mind can't seem to agree with one another- he pivots uncertainly, not leaning back into Natasha, but not pulling away either.
Natasha reaches out behind Tony, turns off the running water Tony hadn't realized was still on, and then she's slowly reaching down for Tony's hand. Stopping to circle her fingers around his wrist, her eyes never leaving his.
"I'll have you know," Tony starts, because he's never learned how to deal with meaningful silences, and he has never known what to do with Natasha. "That I am in a happily committed relationship."
Natasha gently tugs him away from the sink, hand still delicately wrapped around his wrist, grip loose enough that Tony could easily pull away if he wanted to.
He doesn't.
"I won't tell Pepper if you won't," she says, and Tony's steps falter against the kitchen tile. "Joking, Stark," Nat says in the next breath, giving Tony an assessing look.
"Right," he agrees, trying for a smirk. He knows it comes out wrong, he can feel the way it pulls at his face, slanted and ugly.
Tony drops the expression before it can fully form.
Natasha grabs her tin-box and leads Tony into his livingroom, and Tony doesn't think about how odd this is- to have Natasha up here in the Penthouse, to have her fingers wrapped around his arm, to have her depositing him on the couch.
Her foot knocks into the vodka bottle on the floor and Natasha stoops down and takes a swallow, making a soft noise when the cheap alcohol hits her throat.
Tony watches her in silence, feeling both far too numb and nowhere near numb enough. "What are you doing here?" he finally asks, needing to know, not wanting to know.
Natasha looks up at Tony from where she's crouched on the floor, and Tony wonders if this is calculated too, if she put herself lower on purpose, to give him a sense of control where he has none.
What is real in this moment, with a spy made up of lies and an actor made up of masks?
Natasha glances down to where Tony's hands have bunched up the fabric of his suit pants, raw and trembling, giving far too much of Tony away.
"Bloodstains," she says, and Tony fights not to let his breath hitch. "Even when you wash it from your skin, it sticks to the nailbeds, leaves red behind." She twists around, sliding the tin-box from the coffee table and placing it on her bent knees. She pops the lid open, there's a clutter of creams and nail polishes on the inside, other things Tony doesn't recognize.
"I used to paint my nails red to cover it over. Once I joined SHIELD there was less of a reason to paint my nails at all." She takes out a dark purple, letting it shine in the light of the arc-reactor peeking out from under Tony's dress shirt. "There are still occasions that I need to cover them over, but now, I don't own any reds."
Tony watches as she replaces the purple polish, picking up a bottle and popping the cap open. She gently pries Tony's fingers away from his knee and squeezes some cream onto his raw left-hand. It smells of coconut and honey, and it doesn't burn the way Tony was expecting (hoping) it would, it soothes his chapped skin, leaving his hand cold and tingling.
Tony doesn't say anything until Natasha has moved on to his right-hand, his chest aches as he forces the words out. "This isn't. . .You can't wash this away, there is no covering it over."
Natasha nods calmly, doesn't take her eyes off of Tony's hand as she rubs the cream in. It's odd to have her be so gentle with him, Tony doesn't think she's been this close to him since she stopped playing the part of Natalie.
Maybe it's because he's verging on drunk, but Tony has the realization that he likes Natasha much more than he ever liked Natalie.
"No, there isn't," she agrees. "Both our hands have blood on them, we can't change that, nothing will ever change that."
Tony's on fire, he's burning alive, so he closes his eyes against the feeling and focuses on Natasha's touch, the sensation of cold cream and deadly fingers against his own.
Maybe this is why she came, out of all of them, because just like Tony, she has blood on her hands, she has done things she isn't proud of, done things that no amount of atoning can make up for.
Her hands are just as dirty as Tony's, he can't soil her with his touch, he can't ruin her skin with his own. They've both been stained, neither of them can taint the other any more than they already are.
Tony swallows against the lump in his throat and takes a large gulp of vodka to force the emotion the rest of the way down. "I ruined a family today," he whispers, he'll blame the alcohol for the slip later, he shouldn't be laying himself bear to someone like Natasha.
But if not her, then who else?
"You failed to save her," Natasha says, squeezing his fingers. "That doesn't mean you killed her, Tony."
Tony scoffs, tries to make it sound like a laugh, but it comes out too pained for that. "Is there any difference?"
"I don't look at it that way."
"How else could you look at it?"
Natasha pulls away, rummages through the box, glass bottles 'click-clacking' together. "If we look at it that way, then none of the lives we save matter. People died during the Chitauri attack, but not as many as we saved."
Tony feels anger rise, and he doesn't know who it's directed at, the Chitauri, Natasha, himself, maybe the Universe as a whole. "That doesn't make it okay, that doesn't absolve-"
"No," Natasha interrupts, "it doesn't make it okay, but it makes it bearable."
"Is that what we're trying to achieve now?" Tony asks, feeling bitter, adrift, alone- always, always alone. "A semblance of tolerable?"
Natasha's voice is soft when she speaks, "what were you trying to achieve?"
Tony doesn't say anything for a long moment, blinking down at Natasha, illuminated in the blue light of the reactor slotted between his ribs. Something hot and desperate pushes at his eyes, making his ears ring, leaves his chest aching.
"I don't know," he admits, and he hates the way those words sound in his voice, leaving a horrible aftertaste in his mouth.
Natasha doesn't say anything, she steals the bottle of booze from Tony and takes a gulp before she drags the coffee table forward, sitting on it in front of Tony.
Their knees knock together as she situates herself, and Tony knows that must have been deliberate, Natasha's in too much control for it to have been anything else.
"Dark blue," she says once the silence has stretched long enough that it's become its own noise.
"What?" Tony asks.
"I'm going to paint your nails blue," Natasha repeats, like Tony is the clueless one here.
"You're going to paint my nails?"
"Yes," Natasha nods, pulling out a blue so dark it's almost black. "And then you're going to paint mine."
Tony takes that in a bit sluggishly, glancing at the Black Widow as she takes his hand in her own. The chemical smell of nail polish fills the air, mixing with the scent of soft coconut and sharp vodka.
Tony decides he's too drunk for this, or maybe he isn't drunk enough.
"Okay," he says, feeling off-balance and lost in unfamiliar territory.
"You act as if you ever had a choice," Natasha quips, winking at him with pretty green eyes, taking any of the bite out of her words.
Tony feels light-headed with the effects of too much alcohol and Natasha's unexpected kindness, they're both dizzying in equal measure, just in different ways.
Tony watches transfixed as the dull red of his nails is painted over with a dark glimmering blue. It doesn't change anything, Tony knows what rests underneath, what the polish is hiding.
But that's the point isn't it? It will always be there- their mistakes, their sins, their failures, -they'll always be right below the surface, hiding under their skin, lodged behind their teeth.
The paint doesn't get rid of that, it just shields it away, it keeps it closed in, where no one else can see. Tony will carry it with him, and no one else will know the weight of it, not unless he bears that to them.
It's a mask, a protection, an armor.
"Thank you," Tony whispers, meaning it.
Natasha doesn't look up from her work, but she does squeeze Tony's wrist in acknowledgment. "No problem."
Comments are always cherished! :)
Fernandidilly-yo out.