Part 31: lost

The days blurred into nights.And for Emery, they all bled together - a smear of silence, repetition, and numb movement.She was a shell of herself.

She still wore her oversized hoodie like armor, still tied her hair back with mechanical disinterest, and still avoided her reflection in the glass. Her shifts in the med bay grew longer. Twelve hours bled into sixteen. Some nights, she didn't leave at all.

If someone brought her food, she'd take a few bites. Enough to keep the body going.But not enough to make her feel alive again.

The Tower itself seemed to move around her - alive and bustling with missions, debriefs, sarcasm-laced dinners in the common room - all of it felt like another world. One she no longer belonged to.

Until Natasha walked in.

It was close to midnight.

The med bay lights had dimmed to their overnight hue - soft and sterile. Emery was still in her scrubs, hunched over the edge of the supply table, reorganizing trauma packs for the third time just to keep her hands busy.

She didn't hear the door at first.

But she felt the shift in the air.

Natasha said nothing at first. She just sat down in the rolling chair beside Emery and pulled something out of her jacket - a small, familiar box wrapped in brown paper and tied with the red string from the Tower's pantry.

Emery glanced sideways, confused.

"I raided the vending machines on the east level before Tony restocks them," Natasha said casually, her voice soft. "Figured you'd want your favorites before the weird protein bars show up again."

Emery blinked.

Inside the package was a mix of salted caramels and dark chocolate-covered espresso beans - the same combination she used to sneak into morning meetings when she thought no one was looking.

Emery stared at the small offering, unmoving.

Then - with a kind of slowness that came from too many days spent surviving - she took it.

"Thank you," she whispered, the words dry and hesitant on her tongue.

Natasha nodded like it was nothing.

But it wasn't.

It was everything.

Wanda was quieter about it. Her touches were gentler, her magic subtle - tiny flickers of calm energy woven into Emery's blankets, a soft glow in her room at night when the silence got too loud.She didn't try to talk to Emery directly about what happened. She just sent small text messages - always worded carefully, never demanding a reply:

Hey, the lab's getting loud. Want to steal a tea break later?Made soup. Left some in the fridge with your name on it.You don't have to talk. You just have to let yourself breathe.

Emery never answered right away.

But Wanda kept sending them anyway.

Over the next few weeks, those two women were the only constant.The team noticed. How Emery only spoke when spoken to. How she skipped meals. How she lingered in stairwells just to avoid sharing elevators.

They didn't say it out loud.

But they felt it - the hole she left behind. The way her laughter used to fill the space that now felt... quieter.

Even Steve - tactful and careful - stopped trying to draw her into group dinners. He just left an extra plate in the fridge, labeled in black Sharpie with a quiet "E."

Clint tried once - a casual joke, a hopeful grin - but when her eyes didn't lift from the tablet in her hands, he nodded, backed off, and didn't try again.

And Bucky...

He stayed silent.

From a distance, he watched her.Not in a possessive way - never again. But like someone who had seen something fragile break and didn't know how to pick up the shards without slicing open his hands.

She didn't look at him. Didn't speak. Didn't pass by the same halls at the same time anymore.

And yet, she was everywhere.

In the empty seat beside him in the briefing room.In the quiet hum of the med bay floor when he passed by late at night, hearing the click of keys and knowing she hadn't gone home yet.In the necklace he saw glinting beneath her collar sometimes when she bent over a patient - the one he gave her. The one he had no right to think about anymore.

Then one day, everything shifted just slightly.It wasn't dramatic. No yelling. No tears. Just a room with too much silence, and two people breathing the same air for the first time in weeks.

It was the common room. Mid-afternoon. Sunlight pooled through the high windows, streaking gold across the rug.

Emery sat curled into the corner of the couch - not reading, not watching anything. Just sitting. One leg tucked under her, the hoodie swallowing her frame.

Her fingers traced the edge of the chain at her throat, mind elsewhere.

Bucky hadn't meant to walk in.

But when he did - and saw her - he froze.

She didn't flinch. Didn't run. Didn't even move.

So he took that as permission.

He approached slowly. His heart felt like it might crack through his ribs.

"Emery," he said, barely above a whisper.

Still, she didn't look at him. Just kept her eyes forward, steady on nothing.

"I'm sorry."

Two words. Broken. True.

Her lashes fluttered, and after a long, heavy pause, she turned her head just enough to meet his eyes.

"I don't know if I can trust you," she said, her voice calm - but hollow.

He nodded once, swallowing hard. "Then I'll wait."

She didn't answer.

Didn't say yes.

Didn't say no.

But she didn't leave, either.

And somehow, that felt like the start of something.

She wasn't ready to forgive him.He didn't deserve it yet.

But in that pause - that shared breath - the war between them no longer felt unwinnable. It simply felt paused. Like a ceasefire in a long, messy battle neither of them had expected to fight.

That night, she sat on her bed with Wanda curled up at the foot, flipping through tarot cards, and Natasha propped against the headboard with her arms crossed like she owned the place.There was laughter. Not full - not whole - but real.

Emery even smiled. For the first time in weeks.

When she excused herself to shower, the two women exchanged looks.

"She's coming back," Natasha said softly, like it was a secret too sacred to say aloud.

Wanda nodded, eyes flickering faintly. "Piece by piece."

The pain hadn't gone.The necklace still felt heavy. The memory still burned.

But for the first time in weeks...

She didn't feel completely alone in it.

And that, for now, was enough.