"Without question. Stane didn't even send someone important to check it out, it was just some random underling," Natasha said, still evenly. "And I'm sure it'd deeply wound Steve's firmly ingrained sense of morality, but when he showed up at my place, that was the kicker, that really sold it. Looked like James had sent him over to check up on me. The money was all there, the living room looked right - me, I looked right. I got let off with a warning about being more careful the next time I double-booked appointments." Her mouth twitched, a little, the way it did when she thought something was funny, although this wasn't, not very. "And it was suggested that I ask him for more money in the future."
She shook her head, once. Clint was the only person she could tell, really, the only one she trusted enough to give the real story to, and it wasn't as though James would have told anyone anything but the lie, because he'd promised her up and down that he wouldn't. So it was only the three of them who knew, now, and that was what James had done for her.
"I said it over and over again, that it was consensual," she told him, as though this was some sort of confession. As though it would alleviate it even a little, as though it was something where she deserved even a degree of absolution. "As though he sat me down and clearly and explicitly outlined what he wanted, and I agreed to it, and so there's nothing for him to be ashamed of. Like that makes it better, somehow. Like I had somehow done this - kind, selfless thing for some poor broken man who can't fuck unless he's made somebody bleed first. Consensual. I said it fifty fucking thousand times and they all just - believed it. Like it made sense."
They lived with regrets, all of them. There was no way to avoid it, if you were a Victor, but Natasha thought she had mostly learned to live with hers by now. She'd learned to be pragmatic. This, though, this was something new and she hadn't figured out, yet, how to put it down. "He doesn't deserve this. And I can't take it back. I can't fix it. People hear about everything and he's just - his friends, even, they'll hear it eventually, and what's he supposed to say to them?"