WARNINGS: death, self-harm, depression, thoughts of suicide, dissociation

"I can almost...reach you..." you grunted, stretching yourself to your limits, trying desperately to connect with a young girl who had fallen from the safety of your arms, the tips of your leather-clad fingers grazing just over her skin. "Come on, sweetie, just a little farther." Another explosion shook the ground beneath you, nearly toppling you into the cavernous opening below and shaking her even farther from your grasp.

"(Y/N)! (Y/N), report, where are you? We need to get outta here now!"

You ripped the comm from your ear and threw it aside, refusing to believe that you would leave without finishing this rescue mission and without the girl staring helplessly at you from beyond your limits. A second blast succeeded in throwing you from your already unstable precipice, but you just barely grabbed the edge and hung on as best as you could, still trying unsuccessfully to reach her. "I'll get to you, I promise! Just hold on, okay?" you called out to her, but she was barely able to stay in place on the slippery rock that held her above a certain death. When another blast hit, you knew it was finally over.

Your hand slipped and you felt your body drifting down, watching the girl fall beneath you and no way for you to save either of you. Her eyes locked on you and your heart broke, knowing that you had failed her, and your inability to save her had robbed her from the future that she should have had. You took some small solace in knowing that you would be gone with her and the pain you were both feeling would soon be gone.

"I've got you!" Tony yelled out, grabbing you from the air as he flew by. You struggled to free yourself, looking down to find the girl but not seeing her anywhere.

"Tony, we have to go back! I dropped her! I have to go back!"

"She's gone, (Y/N). I had time to save only one of you. I'm sorry."

"You chose wrong!" You reluctantly held on to him and forced yourself to look away from where she had fallen, squeezing your eyes shut and trying to will her image from your mind. This moment was going to stay with you, and you told yourself that the sooner you began working on forgetting, the less it would hurt. You were good at lying to yourself like that.

"Tony, you chose wrong."

~~~

The first problem of quinjets was the lack of privacy. Sure, their only primary function was to take you back and forth from mission to mission, but when one ends so terribly and with so much pain, all you wanted was to be as far away from people as possible. Any other day, any other mission, you would welcome the closeness of the team and the relationships you had built, but today would not be that day.

You sat in the farthest corner of the jet that you could squeeze into and did your best to avoid the watchful eyes of your team, closing your eyes and retreating into your own mind. You had almost succeeded when you were rudely interrupted.

"I would never not choose you, (Y/N). If I had to do it again, over and over, I would always choose you. You need to know that and never doubt it."

"Go away, Tony."

"Now that's one thing that I can't do," he sighed, sitting himself down next to you. He struggled a bit with the cramped area, but he managed to fold his legs in tightly enough to just fit. "You must be smaller than I thought to fit in here," he said with a hint of levity, trying to pull you out of your mood.

"Please. Please go away."

"You're blaming yourself, and that's not okay, (Y/N)," he pressed. "You know what happens when we start doing that." His voice had quieted and he watched his hands wringing together at the reminiscence of all he had done to bring himself to feel as you were now. "I have quite the first-hand experience in self-hatred."

"I'm sure I can beat that," you snapped, your eyes finally opening and filled with fire as you looked back at him.

"Wanna try me?"

You huffed loudly and began to pull your outer uniform away as he watched, unsure of what you were doing. "You know what, Tony? You might think that you know everything, and that you've suffered so much more than the rest of us, but please allow me to prove you wrong once again." Pulling your undershirt away and leaving only a tank top remaining, you thrust your arms forward to him and waited patiently until he was ready to say something. "Take your time. Unless, of course, you think you know everything about this too."

Almost instinctively, his hand reached up to touch the scars that covered your arms, trailing his hovering fingers from your wrist and up the length without making actual contact. He stopped and his gaze shifted to the telltale linear scars on your wrists when he finally chose to touch you, grabbing them firmly and rolling them to take a closer look.

"I was fourteen. Thankful now that I didn't make that work." It was awkward to see Tony so speechless, but you didn't really care what he thought. "The rest were an attempt to feel something, I suppose. A few were to punish myself for one thing or another, most of them unfounded or unnecessary, but it's hard to see that when your mind is so clouded." You pulled your arms away and began putting your uniform back on. "Depression is a real bitch that screws with your mind in ways that I never knew possible."

"(Y/N), don't let this mission get to you like that," he replied, his voice now full of concern and a hint of fear of what this was going to do to you. "It wasn't your fault. You have to believe that."

"I don't have to do anything," you huffed, crossing your covered arms over your chest and leaning back against the wall with your eyes closed once again. "Now go away, Tony."

~~~

Steve pulled his phone from his uniform as Clint prepared to land, quickly sending a message to Bucky that they had returned, but more importantly, he had overheard your conversation with Tony and wanted him to meet you as soon has they landed. Bucky had been your best friend since the day you joined the Avengers and Steve had assigned him as your trainer; he knew that if anyone would be able to get through to you now, it would be him.

"Hey," Steve approached you quietly, shaking you gently awake from a small nap, "we're home. Bucky wants to see you."

You opened your eyes and looked up at him, but he wasn't familiar to you in the right way. Of course, you knew he was Steve, and you knew who he was to you, but it didn't feel like it was him. He seemed flat and the world around you felt muted. With a quick nod you stood and grabbed your pack to make your way to the solace of your room as fast as you could. You didn't pause to acknowledge your friend waiting in the hangar bay, even as he called out after you. His voice didn't even register in your mind as anything to take your attention.

"Hey, man, what the hell happened out there?" Bucky asked Steve as the two men watched you retreat. "I've never seen her like that."

"Come with me," he replied, signaling to Tony to join them, "there are a few things that you should know before you follow her."

~~~

As soon as you reached your room, you took a shower to wash the mission away, as you always did, though this time the water was ice cold and did nothing to jolt you from the trance you were in. Your mind was taking over to try to protect you from the grief and pain that you were feeling, but all that was doing was disconnecting you from the world around you and leaving you only barely able to care for yourself. Your body was in auto-pilot, but your mind was trapped in the moment that the girl fell and her face was the only thing you could see. It wasn't painful anymore, but it was relentless.

Stepping from the shower and into your room, you left wet footsteps behind you, not stopping to dry yourself, and having no realization that you were still fully clothed in your uniform. Your soaking wet hair hung around your face and dripped down your back, making your body shake from the added chill to your already saturated clothing. You sat on the edge of your bed for a moment, looking at your hands; they were the hands that were supposed to bring safety to those you were protecting. They were the hands that were trained to both kill and save, but in this moment, they were neither. They were the hands that failed you; that failed her, and would likely fail again.

With a long, pained breath you stood and made your way to the balcony, trying to feel the wind against your skin but feeling nothing more than the inconvenience of it pushing against you. The city streets below were a constant flurry of activity; taxis every direction, horns blaring, pedestrians struggling to walk amongst their large masses, and the night lights creating a steady glow that emanated into the sky as far as your eyes could see. The people living their lives below had no idea of what you had done, or rather, what you had failed to do. They had no idea that you were so inept, and that they shouldn't rely on you to save them either.

"(Y/N)? (Y/N) can I come in?"

Sitting yourself on the balcony railing, your feet dangled precariously over the edge. With your eyes closed you could almost feel like flying with the wind swaying you back and forth. It was almost peaceful, though you didn't deserve that feeling and your mind refused to allow it. It only reminded you of how you hung on to the edge of that precipice, trying desperately to reach the girl you were about to see die.

It should have been you.

Your mind was your own worst enemy, and it knew how to hurt you more than anyone else ever could. You released the rail and allowed yourself to waver, but a crushing grab of metal around your waist pulled you back and into your room before you could react.

"What do you think you're doing?! Tell me!" Bucky growled at you, throwing you harshly onto your bed and standing over you with a look in his eyes that would have frightened even Steve. "(Y/N), snap out of it!"

"Go away," you mumbled, rolling away from him.

"Not an option. Do better." He sat on the edge of the bed next to you, waiting for a reply that never came. He even walked around to the other side to face you again, but you only stared at him blankly and with barely any recognition. "(Y/N)," he asked much more calmly, kneeling down and finally realizing that his initial reaction wasn't helping at all, "tell me what to do. How do I help you?"

"I dropped her."

"I know."

"Tony chose wrong."

"Did you choose wrong when you saved me?"

The ridiculousness of his question struck a nerve in you somehow, and it shifted your thinking back to the mission a few weeks before when you stepped into the line of fire to pull Bucky to safety, risking yourself to save him. It was never a second thought to do so, and you were ready to die trying. "That's different."

"How is that different?"

"You were worth it."

"Is that what you think? Is that what's going on here? You weren't worth saving? Do you know how much that hurts to hear you say that? Sweetheart, if there's anyone you should think twice about saving around here, it's me."

If it were any other day, you would have argued vehemently with him about the millions of ways that he was wrong, but you didn't. Instead, you watched him select dry clothes for you and interacted wordlessly as he helped change you into them. He pushed himself up and onto the bed next to you, sitting back against the headboard and pulling you next to him to gently comb your hair as it finally began to dry.

"I may never understand what those scars are from," he began, "and I may never understand what your mind is doing to you right now, but I do understand how it feels to feel like a death is your fault. I remember every one of them, you know? Steve has told me so many times that they weren't my fault, and that it wasn't my choice, but I did it. I remember them all, and I don't think that I'll ever forget them. I'm not even sure if I want to."

"Why not?" you whispered, beginning to feel a sharp pain in your chest as you thought of how he must feel when he allows himself to remember. You could hear the girls voice in your head now and it began to pound.

"Because now I can be a better person, and I can save others when I couldn't save them."

"Doesn't it hurt? To remember and see the look in their eyes?"

"Like I'm dying right along with them. But I'm feeling it. It's the only way I have left to honor them, I guess. To feel it when they can't, because it was my doing." He set the comb on the table beside your bed and lifted the blankets up and over you both, wrapping his arm around you to hold you tightly against him. "I'm not leaving you, okay? I'm staying here as long as you need me."

Feeling his strength and his skin against yours, you were suddenly awash in the pain that your mind had been keeping from you, and your breaths began to hitch under the force of your tears. The flood of emotions was relentless and severe, but he kept his hold on you as he had promised, allowing you to release them and offer his safety when you felt none. "I don't know if I can do this, Buck."

"Hey, there you are," he murmured into your hair, "I didn't know where you had gone, but you sure weren't here."

"I'm sorry that you have to see this," you continued to sob, "I don't want you to."

"Don't worry about me, doll. I'm not letting you go. FRIDAY, lights please," he said quietly. The room darkened and he brought his other arm around you, resolved to stay the night at your side, knowing that nightmares would begin and that you would need him there to help you through them, just as you had done for him so many times before. As your tears subsided and your mind allowed you to sleep, he began to drift as well, still holding you against him. "Tony chose right, (Y/N)," he whispered into your hair with a press of his lips, "you're always the right choice."