I Thought You Were Different: Part 2

Internment

I don't know what happened. I guess my brain wanted two updates today.

Each time that you tried to dial your phone, you knew that the result would be the same and that the line would be dead, but you continued to try anyway, feeling desperate to get a hold of Steve. Tony was only doing what he thought was right, but you couldn't see that now; he was holding you hostage to his own agenda. He believed that he was protecting you, when all he was doing was pushing you farther away.

"Nothing?"

"No," you groaned, tossing the phone aside in a building rage, "he's locked me out completely. He's lost his damn mind."

Wanda sat down next to you at the long conference table, wanting to put her hand over yours in support, but you were wringing them together furiously and she didn't know what to do. "I can get you out. I will if you want me to, (Y/N), you only have to ask."

"No, Wanda, I'm not going to let you get yourself into trouble for me. I'll figure this out." You leaned forward and rested your head on the table over your folded arms, running options through your mind as to how you could get control of FRIDAY to help you. Since the day that you had disabled every one of Tony's suits and hijacked the quinjets to save Steve, he put your access behind safeguards that you had yet to work around.

"What will Steve do?"

"Tony's on his way there," you sighed, raising up to look at her, "he's going to find out. When I don't show up and when he can't get ahold of me, it's gonna hit the fan like never before."

~~~

"This is what making things worse looks like," Natasha huffed, leading Steve into a small conference room at the middle of the command center. "You just can't listen to anyone other than yourself, can you?"

"He's being set up, Nat."

"Then you let the system work how it's supposed to, Steve. I can see the gears turning in your head with all of the ways you can jail break him. Tell me I'm wrong."

Steve sat silently and tapped his fingertips quietly against the glass tabletop as he looked around at the monitors the encircled the room. There were guards stationed at every door, clear outlines of weapons beneath the shirts of anyone sitting at a computer, and cameras every few feet, leaving no room for unsupervised areas.

"Jesus, Rogers, seriously?" she hissed, actually taken aback that she was right. "You can just stop right now. You need to think about what your actions could do to you beyond the next minute. You have something at home that is far more important than you, or have you forgotten that already?"

"I haven't forgotten," he replied angrily now, his eyes darkening as he looked at her, "and don't you dare insinuate that I could." Steve turned his chair fully and looked around the room once more, suddenly realizing that he should have seen or heard from you by now. "Actually, have you talked to (Y/N) recently?"

"No, should I have?"

Steve didn't answer, his senses heightening along with his nerves, with only the worst possible outcomes playing out in his mind. If he asked you to come here to help him with Bucky, and something had happened to you along the way, he would never forgive himself. He would never forgive Tony either.

"Steve? What?" she asked, more cautiously and quietly now. "You're scaring me."

"She should have been here by now." He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed frantically, holding it to his ear only to pull it back in complete confusion. "It won't connect."

Nat took her own phone in hand and tried to call you, only to have the same result. "That's weird."

Steve's attention was drawn to Tony as he entered the room, a look of what could only be called guilt crossing his features; he looked as if he had aged ten years since he had seen him only two days before. "Any idea why (Y/N)'s phone might not be working, Tony?"