When You Were Never Mine

Team Bonding

Tony lifted himself up from the floor, his body feeling weak, and the nausea of his first experience with connection barely beginning to subside. He immediately felt empathy for you now, but also a glimmer of hope that it wouldn't happen every time; you seemed to become more tolerant with each episode that he had been there to witness. Beyond the physical recovery, his mind was nowhere near as readily coming back together.

No one had answered him when he asked for the name of his sudden soulmate, and the only face he ever saw was yours. He had heard other voices but they were muffled and unclear; he was left in a mystery that he had no way to know how to solve. His first instinct was to call you, but you were clearly busy and he couldn't risk your being caught on the Raft during a breakout. He didn't agree with it, but he deliberately had to look away to protect you.

That didn't mean that he would give you a pass on this, however. You would have explaining to do when you got home, for both your actions, and who it was that you were talking to when his world got twisted upside down. But even with his jumbled mind, Tony was fully aware that you were likely talking to the one person he knew you were there with. The one person that he couldn't accept as being tied to him this way, not after everything that had just happened to tear his team apart.

"FRIDAY," he sighed, dropping into his chair, "cancel what I said. I'm not in the mood for company anymore."

~~~

"Hey, whoa, are you okay?"

"Yeah...I just got really dizzy and I...I couldn't see for a second, but I think it's stopping."

"Steve," you called out to him in an urgent whisper, "hold back a minute. Something's going on with Nat."

Steve jogged back towards the two of you, his own concern now taking over his determination to keep moving once he saw her face and the loss of color in it. "Nat, if you need to sit this out, it's okay. (Y/N) and I can get the team out on our own if we have to."

"No," she argued, taking a long, deep breath to steady herself, "I think I'm okay. It was the weirdest thing. It just hit me out of nowhere, and then it was gone. I swore I heard someone talking to me, but it was all muffled." She gave her head a little shake, and sat straighter to square her shoulders in determination to keep moving. Natasha wasn't one to ever give up on a mission, and no matter what it was that had just happened, it wasn't enough to be the first time. It would just have to wait.

~~~

Tony couldn't wait any longer. He had tried to play your mission out in his head; how long it would take you to disable the Raft's surveillance, how long you usually took to knock a man out, then he stopped to smile at the fact that he knew that so well, and it only made him miss you again. The clock ticked the minutes by as he imagined Steve charging through the facility, tearing the doors of his team's cells open, and ushering them to the getaway jet or chopper or boat, or floating the ocean on his back, for all he knew.

When he convinced himself that enough time had passed, he pulled out his phone, took a breath, and hoped for the best. You had told him that you weren't allowed to communicate with him, but this was important enough to try anyway. His fingers danced across the screen, a little frantically, but he got it right on the first try. He held the phone to his ear and closed his eyes, begging the universe around him for just one small favor.

Of course, there was no answer.

"Hey, sweetheart, it's me," he spoke into your voicemail, when he had no other options. "I just wanted to say...that um...I'm thinking about you. I miss you. I hope that you're safe and that you're getting the answers you need. Speaking of answers, I have a really big question that I need to ask you, so call me as soon as you're allowed to, okay? Yeah...okay...so, um...love you. Stay safe."