“Thank you for this, Tony.”

“No problem, (Y/N).” Tony shrugs and pushes himself up and out of his seat. “You needed to escape, who better to understand that than me?”

“Steve’s gonna be pissed that I left them like this.” I comment, slinging my pack over my shoulder. “What’ll Pietro think? Bucky? They’re going to think I abandoned them.”

“No, they won’t.” Tony places a hand on my shoulder, trying to reassure me. “You’re doing this because it’s important for your mental health. If they have a problem with it, they can go through me.” I lift my eyebrows at him questioningly. “Okay, me and about fifteen other suits, but what’s the real difference?”

I snort out a laugh and smack the button to lower the ramp of the quinjet. “There’s a big difference, Tony.”

Tony pouts in mock sadness. “You could at least be supportive, (Y/N). I did just fly you out to a field in the middle of one of the most run down neighborhoods I have ever seen.”

“Hey!” I protest. “It’s not that bad! The bad part of town is like three miles away!”

Tony laughs loudly. “Yeah, whatever you say.” He takes my hand a presses a rectangular object into it. I glance down to find one of Tony’s seethru cell phones.

“Tony-”

“Don’t worry, the only person who can trace it is me and even I won’t do that. I know you need time. I just need you to promise me that you’ll check in every now and again while you straighten out that head of yours.” He gently knocks on the top of my head with his knuckles. “Also, I signed you up for Spotify, so you should really be thanking me.”

I laugh quietly, wiping away tears I hadn’t even realized had fallen. “Thank you, Tony.”

“All in a day’s work, (Y/N).” He says pulling me into a hug. “All in a day’s work.” He tightens his arms around me once more before releasing me and looking out across the field. “So where are we anyway?”

“My old neighborhood.”

“Where you burned down the house?”

“The very one.”

–

As soon as Tony steps off the quinjet Steve has the collar of his shirt balled up in his fists, pinning him to the wall.

“Where is she, Stark?” He hisses, his face mere inches away from Tony’s.

“Calm down, spangles.” Tony says, his voice even and calm. “I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve demands, pulling Tony away from the wall and pushing him back against it, narrowly avoiding cracking Tony’s head against the wall.

“It means that I don’t know where she is, Rogers.” Tony glares at the taller man, trying to shove his hands away. “I dropped her off in a field where she told me to touch down and then she walked off. I don’t know where she is.”

Steve drops Tony and glares at him momentarily before walking away. “We’ll just have to find her then.”

“Don’t you dare go looking for her, Steve.” Natasha seems to appear out of thin air in the doorway.

“What?”

“This isn’t something you can fix with your incredibly strong sense of justice and can-do attitude.” She folds her arms across her chest and leans on the doorframe. “(Y/N) isn’t something you can fix because she’s not broken. She just needs time.”

“Nat-”

“Little red’s right.” Tony scowls at the tall blond, rubbing at his neck where Steve’s knuckles had pressed into his throat. “She asked me to take her somewhere because she knew she wouldn’t be able to get what she needed here.”

“But we’re supposed to be her family.” Steve says, his voice filled with anguish.

“We might be a family, but we’re not her family. We’re a patchwork quilt of damaged goods just barely managing to keep it together and even then it’s only because we’re all so fucked up that we as a group are the only people who can help each other. Hell, are we even helping each other at this point?” Tony questions. “We’re barely keeping it together as is.”

“Then what should we do?” Steve asks.

“I left her with a phone,” Steve perks up at this information and Tony hates to disappoint him, but does so anyways. “Don’t get the wrong idea, Rogers, I’m the only one who can track it and there’s no way in hell I’m going to do that. She’s a big girl and she can take care of herself.”

“Then what are you saying, Tony?”

“What I’m saying is that I’ll make sure that we’re all there when she checks in. I made her promise to call or whatever at some point and she doesn’t go back on her promises.”

Steve hangs his head and cards a hand through his hair before nodding in resignation. “Alright.” He looks between Tony and Natasha. “How am I supposed to explain this to Bucky without making him think she left because of him?”

“That’s for you to figure out,” Tony claps him on the shoulder and heads for the door. “I’ll take speed racer.”

–

After Tony left I started wandering, letting my feet take me where they would. As it turns out, my feet took me back to my old house. Or, rather, what would be my old house had anyone bothered to rebuild.

Before me sits a vacant lot covered in grass and small trees. Underneath it all is a cracked cement foundation. Dandelions and blackberry vines have shoved their way through and taken over, choking out any memory of what happened all those years ago.

“Shame what happened here, really.” A voice sounds beside me, startling me.

I place my hand over my chest, trying to calm down before facing the speaker. I look to my right only to find someone familiar standing beside me. “Ms. Crawford?”

“Have we met, dear?” She asks, looking at me and tilting her head to the side quizzically.

“I… you probably don’t remember me.”

She studies my face for a moment before turning back to the green lot in front of us. “As I was saying before, shame what happened here. Lovely family. Absolutely lovely.” She shakes her head, a small sigh escaping through her lips. “Well behaved children, kind parents. I was there when the fire department showed up you know.”

“Yeah,” I sigh and shove my hands in my pockets. “I know.”

“How would you know?” She asks, her brow creasing in confusion. “I think I’d remember an amputee living in the neighborhood.”

I snort. “I had both arms when I lived here, Ms. Crawford. I lost it almost a year ago now.” I fold my arms across my chest and turn my body towards her. “I was the kid who made it out of that fire.”

“What-”

“I’m also the cause of the fire so, if you’d like me to leave, I can definitely do that.”

“You’re (Y/N)?”

“In the flesh, ma’am.”

“Oh my.” A scowl settles on her face.

“I can just go,” I turn to leave. “It’s not a problem, really.”

“No, dear, it’s fine.” She says, resting her hand on my metal arm without so much as a flinch. “I just can’t imagine how hard it must be for you to come back after all these years.”

The corners of my mouth twitch in the beginning of a smile. “It is, kind of.” I turn back to the lot. “It mostly just hurts knowing that everything that’s happened from that point onwards is entirely my fault.”

We stand, quietly gazing at the wild greenery that used to be my home before Ms. Crawford breaks the silence. “Would you like to come over for some tea?”

–

Bucky rounds the corner to the sitting room. “Steve?” Bucky’s voice comes out in little more than a croak.

Steve cringes at the sound, his heart breaking for the man. “Yeah, Buck?”

“I saw that Stark is back. Is there any news?”

Steve nods and sits on the couch and pats the seat beside him. Bucky doesn’t make a move to sit and Steve sighs quietly. “Yeah, he’s back.”

“And (Y/N)?”

“I’m sorry, Bucky, she’s not with him. I-”

“Well we have to go get her,” Bucky says. He starts pacing, not paying attention to Steve. “I need to talk to her. I have to figure out what happened and I can’t do it without her.”

“Bucky…”

“She had to have seen the same things I did, otherwise she wouldn’t have left. Maybe she thinks that I think there’s something wrong with her now. If I could just talk to her, maybe I could… I could get her to understand-”

“Bucky!” Bucky stops his pacing and stares at Steve. “We can’t go to her. We don’t know where she is and Stark refuses to track her. She’s on her own and we’re in the dark until she checks in.”

“I…”

“Buck-”

“I have to go,” Bucky says quickly, turning on his heel and practically sprinting down the hallway.

Steve allows himself to fall back against the couch and sighs loudly. “That went well.”

–

Bucky can’t bring himself to believe that (Y/N) is gone. After everything that happened when she was abducted and Stark won’t keep tabs on her. It’s irresponsible and stupid. Everything about this is stupid.

Bucky throws open the door to his room and storms inside, throwing things around, trying to release the pent up frustration and stress. Luckily, he doesn’t have many fragile possessions. Sadly, many of his shirts suffer and a couple of his drawers are shattered against the wall.

He pauses over the leather jacket that (Y/N) gave him his second day at the tower. The haze that had clouded his vision clears and he’s hit with a sudden wave of grief. Picking up the jacket, he moves to the room next door.

He pauses briefly in the doorway of her room, contemplating whether or not he should go inside. He shakes his head and presses forward, moving steadily towards her bed. He curls up on (Y/N)’s mattress, his jacket clutched to his chest, and tries to rein in his emotions.

(Y/N) has been there for him from the very first day. Now he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do without her.