Unmasked Part 1 is over in Book One, so you might need to pop over there to get caught up before this part (Y/N was previously taken by Hydra and programmed).  It was a requested part two, but I went a little overboard on the angst.  I WENT SUPER HEAVY GUYS, SO READ WITH CAUTION. This has an active shooter situation and character death, so if that might be a trigger or painful to read, maybe consider passing by. I WENT "Because of You" DARK, sorry about that.

5 Years Later

"Did you hear that?" you leaned in closer to Steve, feeling a sense of relief when his arm tightened around your waist in response. "I swear I heard someone behind me."

"Hmm?" Steve hummed absentmindedly in reply, giving you only a part of his attentions while the majority had been given to whatever it was that Sam was talking to him about. It was likely the story of another girl who rejected him in line at the bank, or how it should be unethical somehow to give an Avenger a parking ticket.

"Nothing, sorry. I must be hearing things," you shook your curiosity away, but the nagging feeling of uncertainty was left behind, and it wasn't a feeling that you particularly enjoyed. Your mind was drawn from the moment, urging you to look around the room to find Tony; to connect with your dad as your grounding point. Not that being next to Steve wasn't the safest place that you could be, but ever since Tony had been the one to find you years ago, your connection to him had become stronger than ever.

"Maybe it's time to cut you off," Sam smiled, reaching for your drink, but you pulled back and away.

"Maybe you should keep your hands to yourself."

"Yeah, man, hands off my girl," Steve joined in, turning you farther from his friend's focus. When your weight shifted, his arm wrapped tighter around your waist when he felt a change in your posture and the tremor building in your body under his grip. Your stomach was tied into knots and your heart was racing, but you had no idea why; you were on the verge of panic and you had no idea what was precipitating it. "Hey, what's going on? You're shaking."

"I don't know, my heart just started racing. Have you seen Dad?"

Steve turned and gave Sam a curt nod towards the crowd, his expression now clear of the joviality that filled it only a few seconds before. "Sam, go." He set his drink down, slowly taking yours from your hand and setting it on the bar top without his eyes ever leaving you; his proximity and towering stance over you should have been enough to keep you protected from whatever or whoever was doing this to you, but it could never have been enough. Your mind jarred when you barely caught the sound of a voice in your mind again, only this time, they broke through.

"(Y/N)? (Y/N), what's going on?" Steve asked urgently, his free hand reaching up to lift your chin so that he could see your eyes. He was putting too much of his focus on this, however, leaving himself open and not watching the room around him. Since the day that the two of you decided to pursue this relationship, he committed himself as your protector, not only for his own comfort but also because Tony wouldn't allow him near you any other way. His most noble characteristic could become his downfall, but he never expected it to be by your hand.

Your movements were so subtle and so methodical that he didn't see that you had reached out to the bar to secure your weapon of choice; he didn't see you pull back and prepare for the attack, but if he had, he still may have been too late.

"(Y/N)..." he hissed through clenched teeth, the pain of your knife impaling into his side taking his breath away. You were cruel in your action, so unlike the real you, pushing the blade in slowly and calmly as if it were the most common thing for you to do as you watched him begin to falter. The choice of site wasn't hastily made, and would cause the most damage as quickly as possible. His arm was still around you as his pain blinded him and his blood began to soak your clothing; when he looked at you now, his eyes were not only filled with pain, but with confusion and regret that he hadn't protected you. "(Y/N)...I'm...I'm sorry..."

"I'm not," you answered coldly, releasing him when his arm fell away limply. He crumpled to the ground in an unconscious heap, a streak of bright red blood down your arm from where you had held him.

The screaming began almost immediately, before his body had even come to rest at your feet. You didn't know if it was the sounds of terror around you or if it was the voice still playing in your mind, but something set you into fast action as you ducked down and rolled under the bar, grabbing the gun that Natasha had hidden beneath it before finding your way back onto your feet.

"(Y/N)! Stop!" Sam was sprinting now, diving between partygoers and pushing them aside as they tried to run from you, but he couldn't get to you fast enough. When his gaze trailed to the floor where his friend was bleeding out pools around him, he stopped cold and couldn't bring himself to take another step. "Oh my god," he gasped, "(Y/N), what did you do?"

"Holy shit," Clint ran up next to him, equally shocked into paralysis. His trained eye had caught your intent before you had barely shifted your arm, slamming is body into Sam's to get him out of the way of the bullet that would have ended him. Instead, the archer faced the prospect of his own mortality, lying face down on the hard floor and unable to move.

"Clint, no, man, come on! Hang on, okay? I'm getting you outta here!"

"No, Sam, just go...get everyone out..."

He vowed to never leave a teammate behind, but when the next shot left your weapon, he had no choice but to take Clint's order and run. It took a lot to make him feel true fear anymore, after so many years of service and experiencing the terrors of war, but this rivaled every one of those moments; he was completely frightened to his core, and he was just barely hanging on without crumbling to the ground in a cold, sweaty panic. "Stark!" he called out over the chaos, his eyes frantically searching the room. "Stark, where the hell are you?"

A new wave of screams came from the far side of the room, where he turned to see Maria take a hit that dropped her violently to the ground; Nick swept her up into his arms as he ran, barely escaping his own fate and dodging the explosion of glass around him when you missed your mark. The moment had come when Sam knew that he had to make a choice; he quickly resolved himself to the idea of his own death, but it would be worth it so long as he could stop you first. He would kill you to stop this, because there was no other way, and he would die with the knowledge that he had failed Steve just as much as he was about to fail you. He closed his eyes for the flash of a second and said a silent prayer one last time, taking a long breath before breaking into a sprint towards you. Another shot rang out but he couldn't bring himself to look at which of his friends...his family...that you had chosen as your next target, instead keeping his eyes forward on his own goal.

It would ultimately be his worst mistake.

Rather than barreling forward to take you down, he halted when you staggered back and jolted as the shot that was fired struck you, sending you crashing into the wall of crystal glasses and expensive liquor bottles to pour a rain of piercing shards over you. Sam watched in a tearful shock as your unconscious body slid down to the ground, wanting to run to you to help, but feeling too broken to move.

"W-wilson...did...did she stop?"

Sam turned towards Tony's meek voice, a new wave of pain in his heart at the sight of a man shattered; if Sam had felt broken just at watching this play out around him, then he couldn't begin to imagine what your father was feeling. He had no idea what it must be like, looking past his own shaking hand to the end of a gun that had shot his only child.

~~~

Sam had wanted to approach Tony for the longest time, watching him from the farthest reach away in the cramped surgery waiting room that had been their prison for nearly twelve hours now. He wanted to reassure him that it was all going to be okay, and that they would find a way to move forward, but as it stood, Sam could barely convince himself of those things and would never be able to sell it to Tony. With the countless cups of cheap and bitter hospital coffee swirling around in his gut, he reassured himself that it was just indigestion setting his nausea into a rage, but each time he looked at his friend, the feeling only worsened, and he knew that it was so much more than a simple stomach ache.

"Here," Nick stepped up to Sam's side, holding out a bottle of pink liquid with a nudge for him to take it, "this should cure that gut of yours."

"How did you know?"

"Safe guess. I just finished off an entire bottle of that nasty stuff," Fury groaned. "If I've got it this bad then I can only imagine what you've got churning up in there."

Sam gave him a weak grin, nodding in agreement reluctantly while giving the cap a slow twist until it finally gave way to let him pass the concoction under his nose as a test. It was a disgusting mix of chalk and medicine that immediately scrunched his face up into a grimace, seeming to make his nausea only worse and not better at all.

"You have to drink it for it to help."

"Does it really help, or are you fostering a new torture habit?"

"If we're being honest here, kid," Nick sighed heavily, "I don't think there's anything that's gonna help right now." He thrust his hands into his pockets and allowed his body to tip back and into the wall, relying on it to hold his weight and to not let his exhausted form fall to the ground. When his eyes drifted up and brought Tony into his sights, it was all he could do to not look away. "How's he holding up?"

"He's not," Sam scoffed. "He hasn't moved from that spot since we got here. And I don't just mean the chair, Nick. He hasn't moved at all." He gave one last look down the neck of the bottle in his hand before closing his eyes and bringing it to his lips; as a last-ditch effort, he plugged his nose and tipped it back, drinking it down as quickly as he could before his taste buds realized what was happening. "Aw, fuck, this is nasty," he choked out, doing his best to keep it down. "I'd rather just puke."

"Give me that," Tony interrupted, suddenly standing directly in front of him with his hand out. Sam didn't hesitate for a second, pressing the bottle into his palm and watching in complete awe as the man downed over half of the bottle in one swallow. "See? Don't be such a pussy about it." Tony tossed the empty container into the garbage and spun on his heel, returning to his chair and unmoving position as if nothing had happened.

"Tony, talk to me," Sam urged, crossing the room quickly despite Stark's cold glare on him as he got closer. "You can't hold this in, it's not good."

Tony sat eerily still as he considered if the thoughts attacking his mind were appropriate to be given the sound of his voice, and what it would do to the two men with him if they knew was he was really thinking. The genius mind that he possessed was now a hardened and black place, cold and unyielding in the constant flow of pain that made his eyes feel as if they could explode from his head. All he could think of was that moment and the look on your face; it wasn't you, not really, but the betrayal was still in your eyes until the second before they closed for the last time.

"You were going to be next."

"So then I was going to be next," Sam huffed in a sad whisper, "I was ready for that. You didn't have to, Tony."

"I made a promise."

"What do you mean?"

"I promised her that if something like this ever happened," he started softly, with a hesitant sniffle, "that if she lost control and was a danger to us...then I would...I would be the one...goddammit," he groaned, slamming his head back and into the wall in frustration, cursing quietly under his breath when his tears began again and wouldn't slow. "Steve's never going to forgive me, is he?"

It was the question that Sam knew was coming, but had no idea how to answer. He didn't even know yet if Steve would make it out of his surgery, after losing Maria and when Clint had just barely survived. Everything was too heavy and uncertain, and he had no way to know what to say to Tony in the moment; he could only hope that Steve would see this as a choice made in a moment without choices and that Tony would be the one to suffer for it more than any of them combined. "I don't know, Tony."

"This would have been too much, ya know? To see what she had done to them...and Steve," Tony continued. "There's no way that she would ever have forgiven herself, so I'll carry this burden for her. I'll understand if he can't see it, and that's okay. It's what parents do, right? Everything's always our fault anyway, so I might as well play the part."

"You're an amazing dad," Sam reassured him. He wanted to reach out and support his friend, but he wondered if it would be too much; Tony looked like he could shatter at the slightest pressure, and even a hand to connect to another person would weigh tons against his fragile state.

"I was, Sam," Tony clarified, shutting his eyes and abruptly shutting down the conversation that he could no longer handle. "I was."