Ok, so I guess I need one more chapter after this to finish...

"Buck?"

"Bucky, please...come on..."

"I'm sorry...just, please...talk to me."

You had been trying for hours to get him to hear you, when your calls and texts were left unanswered, and your sanity was on the brink of crumbling around you. You decided that you couldn't blame him, because this was what you had wanted and he was merely giving it to you, but it wasn't until you actually felt the loss that you realized how wrong you were. The darkness in the room was nothing; your soul felt so much darker, so much colder than the winds that were howling and pushing into the windows of your room.

Once you had gathered yourself after the disconnect during your date with Tony, he brought you home thinking that the familiarity was what you needed, but this was a nightmare to you, a prison that you saw no way of escaping from. He had left you alone just as you had asked him to, but you knew the man too well; the silence allowed you to hear him just outside of your bedroom door, likely sitting on the floor and waiting for you to call him back in.

If only you had the strength to tell him that the call would never come. Not when you were like this, anyway. You had put Tony through enough, and you refused to add to the torture he had already endured by your hand. You wanted him with you, to be the support that you had always relied on, and had always felt from him, but you had yet to realize it. You were blinded by the emptiness that just wouldn't stop.

"Bucky, please, don't do this. I...I was wrong. Okay? Just please, come back."

~~~

"Nat? Um...Natasha? Can you hear me? I'm not really sure how all of this works..."

Tony was sitting on the other side of the door, as you had predicted he would be, and he was in much of the same dilemma as you were. He hadn't gone through the excruciating loss of his soulmate as you had, but he certainly wasn't having any luck in connecting to her. He had tried to call and text too, but had the same result, leaving him feeling abandoned by both of you.

"Red?"

With a frustrated, heavy sigh, he took his phone in hand again and found her name, closing his eyes to pray to whichever deity would listen that she would answer him. He rested it to his ear and waited, each unanswered ring echoing in his mind like the drill at the dentist, painful and shrill until he could barely stand it for even one more.

"Tony?" she answered, her voice filled with concern. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not okay," he snapped, "and thank you for finally answering your damn phone!"

"I was asleep, Stark. There's a time difference between us, you know?"

"Oh, shit, right...I'm sorry."

"It's okay, it's almost time to wake up anyway. You sound terrible. What's going on?"

Tony pushed himself back against the wall, finding that he needed the support for what he was about to ask. He knew his goal with every time that he had tried to call her, but now that he finally had her attention, he was feeling a lack of confidence that shook him to his core. "Nat, have you talked to Barnes lately?"

"Not for a few days, no. He's kept to himself other than when he's with Steve. Why?"

"He's pushed her out," he answered in barely a whisper. "Out of nowhere, it looked like she was getting her heart ripped out of her chest. She couldn't breathe, and she could barely put words together. She said he was gone, and I've been listening to her try to connect with him for the past three hours now. Don't get me wrong, Nat, I still can't stand the guy, but I hope that nothing bad happened to him. More for her sake than his."

Natasha waited a moment before answering, running the past few days through her mind to try her best to remember anything strange. She wanted an answer to give him, an explanation that would make his concern valid, but she came up empty. "Do you want me to ask him? I will if that's what you want."

"I just want her to be okay, Nat. That's all I ever want...even if that means I have to lose her."

~~~

Bucky had been ignoring your calls for hours now, not that it was easy for him to do so, but to protect himself from a pain that he didn't want for either of you. There was nothing easy about this, which he felt more acutely as each hour passed since he had made the final decision that affected you both; he had been the one to make the cut, to push you away even though it was your idea to do it. He knew that it would hurt you just in the fact that he had actually done it, but he had to believe that this was the right thing to do. He had to believe that the separation would eventually stop hurting, and the two of you could go on with your own lives if there was never a chance of living them together. You had told him over and over that you were committed to Tony; he knew that and yet he still allowed himself to feel things that he had no right to and no ownership of.

He had always been a fool, to which Steve would attest in a heartbeat, but now as his phone rang again incessantly in his hand, he decided that maybe it was time to play things a bit smarter. Bucky had no desire to answer the call, but with Tony's name flashing across the screen he had to; this wasn't about Stark, this was about you. Taking a steadying breath, he opened the line and held the phone cautiously to his ear.

"Stark."

"Barnes," came the cold, yet amazingly calm reply, "do you have a minute?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Great, listen," Tony began, in a tone that left Bucky leaning into his chair for support of what would likely be an endless, torturous event, "I'm not calling about missing the meeting, okay? I understand why you didn't want to show up. I get it."

"Okay?"

"But what I don't get...is how you could push (Y/N) away so easily. I thought you cared about her...and believe me, that tears at my guts to even say that out loud."

Bucky sighed, trying his best to not take offense, and trying to keep the inner rage from building at the insinuation. "I do care about (Y/N). You have no idea-"

"I have some."

"No, you don't," he snapped. "You have no goddamn idea about what I feel. Yeah, I love her, and I don't give a shit if you don't want to hear it. But let me make something very clear. I don't want to take her from you, Stark. From the very first day that we connected, I knew that she was with you, and that it wasn't going to change. I'm not that kind of guy now, and I'm learning that I never was. I pushed her away because it hurt too damn much to watch her live her life with you."

Tony groaned in his own painful hell, hearing that another man, that this particular man, was confessing that he loved you left him feeling conflicted; he was drowning in a sea of anger, hurt, jealousy, and even a wave of conceit knowing that he could call you his, at least for now. Yes, Bucky was the one man in the world that he hated the most, and yeah, the likelihood of forgiveness was still very far off, but Tony knew that he could be a good man when he needed to be. He could dig up a little empathy for the poor guy, even if it came off as placating. "She...she cares about you too," he finally mumbled. "I'm pretty sure she probably loves you."

"Look, I'm sorry. I really am...Tony."

"So, okay...yeah," Tony sighed, "then what do we do about this? I'm getting it pretty clear that you two need to connect again somehow. There's some universal bullshit about things happening for a reason, so there's a reason out there for you two to drive me insane."

"Pfft, wow," Bucky actually laughed, "you really do have a high opinion of yourself, dontcha?"

"I'm sure that Rogers has gotten you up to speed."

"You could say that."

This time, it was Tony's turn to laugh, and he had to admit that it felt good for even just a few seconds of reprieve; even if it did mean that this bastard was the one to bring it out in him. "Alright, let me make a few calls. Keep your phone close, because I'm only doing this once."

"Okay...doing what?"

"Believing in fate. I'm going to let fate decide once and for all."

"Just spit it out, Stark. Decide what once and for all?"

"If she chooses me...or you."

~~~

Sometimes Tony listened too well, which is something that you never thought you'd think of him in all of your years together. You had asked him for time alone, for what, you didn't even know, but you just wanted it. You wanted it until you had been alone for a full night and into the next day without so much as a knock on your door. It was his room too, and he had every right to be there no matter what you had asked of him, but he was giving you exactly that; isolation.

You weren't sure if you had slept at all over the night, barely remembering if you had even shut your eyes. You had called out for Bucky until your voice faltered and you called and texted until the battery of your phone died. Even then, you couldn't bring yourself to move to find the charger to bring it back to life when you felt as if your own body had none. The disconnect drained you in a way that you never could have expected; it was likely that Bucky hadn't either, and now all you wanted from him was to know that he was okay. Even if he never came back to you, that was all you wanted for him; he had been through enough for many lifetimes over.

"Sweetheart?"

"Tony," you exhaled heavily, your body feeling a wash of relief at the sound of his voice. "Come in, please."

The door pushed open slowly, almost hesitantly before he peeked his head in. He was acting strangely for a man who had been invited into his own room, and you had no idea as to why. "How are you?" he asked, still holding his place.

"I'm better...but what's going on with you? You're acting weird."

"More than usual?"

"Yeah, I didn't think that was possible. Honey," you began, cautiously in both your tone and your movements to stand, "what's going on?"

He jutted out a hand in a quick response to bring you to a halt, glancing back over his shoulder before turning back to you. His eyes seemed to carry a fear in them, but also a heavy sadness that you couldn't stand to see. Tony knew you well enough to realize that you were on to him, so he hurried to put his plan into play before you could stop it. "I, uh...I brought you something...someone...for you..." he stammered, finally pushing the door open to allow his guest to pass through with a quick wave of his hand.

"Buck?"

"Hey, (Y/N)."