Life in the Multiverse

If Y/N Needed Steve

Steve Rogers P.O.V
Earth 003

I sighed lightly as I opened my eyes to the warm sun coming through the window. I turned my head and looked next to me where Y/N lay. He was laying close next to me on his side, facing towards me. He was still fast asleep, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath. I looked at him meaningfully, thinking about everything that had been going on. I reached out and brushed some stray hair off his forehead, then eased my weight off the bed.
I walked over and slid on some casual clothes, making my way down to the kitchen. I began to prepare a simple breakfast when Deha spoke up.
"Good morning, Mr. Rogers," she said as her hologram appeared. "I have some troubling news."
"What's that?" I said as I continued making the breakfast.
"There are a number of people crowding outside the house. They seem to be protesting."
"What?" I said as I quickly walked over to the front windows.
Outside there were many people forming a crowd on the circle of the driveway and down to the street. Most of them were holding signs or holding their fists in the air. Their signs read things like 'Prosecute Stark,' 'Not A Hero,' and 'Murderer.'
My eyes widened in response as I thought about what to do. I gasped and jumped a little as Y/N's voice spoke up from behind me.
"Morning, Steve," he said tiredly.
I threw on a smile and met his eyes. He was wearing a plaid robe and holding a coffee mug, his hair still bedraggled.
"Hey," I said. "Morning."
His eyes narrowed immediately and he walked over to me. Our eyes never breaking contact. I gulped a little, knowing he saw right through me.
"What are you hiding?" He said blatantly.
"Nothing," I lied.
"You can either move from the window and let me see or I'll move you."
I sighed and stepped to the side, allowing him to look out the window. He stepped up to the glass and examined the crowd. His eyes slid into a grey color for a moment, before flickering back to their normal E/C. He stepped over to the door and opened it before I could say anything. He stepped out onto the small cement porch and looked at the crowd, who grew in volume as they saw him.
He stood there, his weight to one side as he took a sip from his coffee cup. He looked out over the crowd analytically, almost as if he was sizing them up.
"Enough!" He screamed, gaining most of their attention's. "Get off my property. Now. Or you'll be moved."
"That reads for a great headline!" A haggler shouted. "Y/N Stark forcibly moves protestors!"
"Smoak," Y/N said. "Activate Iron Blockade and remove from premises."
"Right away, sir," he replied.
A moment later several robots landed in a row and held their arms to the side, not letting people past. They began to walk towards the crowd, forcing them back down the driveway. Once they reached the end the gates slid shut. The robots remained to stand guard.
"Well, that fixes that," Y/N said, turning on his heel and walking back inside.
I looked down to the protestors nervously before turning and following after him. We walked into the kitchen and I plated the breakfast I had been making. I gave a plate to him and he sat down at the island. I sat down next to him and we began to eat in silence. I looked over to him and saw his eyes turn a dark grey.
"Everything's gonna be fine," I said. "You know that, right?"
He met my eyes. The grey never went away. He nodded a little halfheartedly, but never responded. I pulled him closer to me by the shoulders and kissed his temple, then returned to my food.
When we were done we sat down on the couch and began to watch a movie. I held him in my arms, keeping him close as we stared at the tv. After a while he sighed, then pushed himself to his feet abruptly.
"I'm going to train," he said.
"I'll come with you," I replied.
"No," he said as he started to walk for the stairs. "I wanna go alone."
I didn't respond as I watched him disappear down the hallway to go downstairs. I returned to watching the movie for a few minutes, but my curiosity got the best of me and I stood up. I sighed and walked down the stairs into the hallway. The walls were glass, on one side was Y/N's lab, on the other side was the training room.
Through the glass to the training room I could see Y/N with his shirt off as he threw energy around at stationary targets. He controlled the energy and moved with it as if both his powers and he were like water. I could tell that he used his training with Natasha to influence how he fights with his powers. It was like a dance, between he and the energy. There was loud classic rock coming from inside the room on the speakers. The Rolling Stones, I noted.
I heard the doorbell echo from the stairwell and Deha's hologram appeared at the bottom of the steps.
"Captain Rogers," she said. "We have an issue. It's the police. And it looks like they mean business. They have SWAT and other specially equipped forces for backup."
Panic settled over me as I jogged for the door to the training room. It slid open and I stepped inside, using the control panel on the inside of the glass to turn down the music. He turned to me and furrowed his eyebrows.
"Y/N, the cops are here," I said seriously.
He gasped a little as he took the words in. He held a hand out to the side, causing his shirt to fly over to him. He slid it over his chest again and walked past me into the hallway.
"Y/N, slow down," I said.
"We can't ignore them," he said. "Maybe it's good news? Smoak, activate AIRS."
"Activating, sir."
"AIRS?"
"Automatic Immediate Relocation System. It ensures that the police won't be able to use Smoak as evidence or attempt to break into his systems in order to gain information on me. He'll be leaving any and all public systems and staying solely in a private system. It may be unnecessary, though. It's like I said, maybe it's good news?"
"Deha said they have SWAT and special agents."
"Okay, well, maybe it's not. But that still means we need to answer the door."
I sighed and hung back a little as he opened the door.
"Mr. Stark?" One of the policemen said as a formality, they definitely already knew who they were talking to.
Y/N nodded.
"You are under arrest for the suspected murder of Anna Campbell. You'll be brought into custody, no bail, until your trial," the cops said methodically and quickly as they began to cuff him with special, high-tech devices. They began to put a shock collar around his neck.
"Wait, wait, wait," I said as I walked closer. "What the hell is this about? He just got bailed out of jail earlier this week. Why are you taking him in again?"
"He was brought into custody for the murder of Emily Hartford. Another girl's body has been found in the same area, around the same time of day. The state has issued that we bring him in. Sorry, Captain. Unless you have concrete evidence against the probability of it being him?"
    I took a breath, wanting to protest, but I had nothing.
    "We didn't think so," the other cop said, then went to read off Y/N's rights.
"Y/N-" I said fruitlessly.
"I'll be fine, Steve," he said as the cops used a key to power on his collar. "Don't worry about me too much, okay? This part of the law? It's all just smoke and mirrors. I wouldn't stress about it."
He winked after he finished speaking and got pulled away from me, towards the police cars. I huffed lightly as they loaded him into the back of an armored vehicle. He met my eyes once more before he was out of my sight and the doors were closed. Some other officers began to approach the door.
"Captain, anything and everything inside these premises is now considered evidence and will be treated as a crime scene. Since we're assuming you don't legally live here, we're going to have to ask you to leave."
    I took another breath to speak, but came up short. I nodded slowly and subtly.
    "Yeah, let me just...grab some things..."
    "I'm sorry, Captain," the officer continued. "But we can't allow you to remove anything from the house. You can grab your keys and your shoes, then you need to leave."
    I nodded politely and grabbed my keys off the entryway table as officers, detectives, and forensics entered the house to search for evidence. I pulled my shoes on, tying them quickly, then moving out the door. I cast one long glance over my shoulder into the open front door as officers shuffled back and forth throughout the house.
    They wouldn't find anything to support Y/N's prosecution, I knew that. He was innocent, there was nothing to find. There was, however, evidence of all the nights I had spent there. Clothes, shoes, an extra toothbrush, clean underwear. And they were all in Y/N's room.
    "Shit," I mumbled as I turned away and got onto my bike.

    I sat inside the small coffee shop, looking out the window, keeping my eyes across the street as I watched for anything suspicious. The coffee shop was just across the street from where the first body was found. I had spent the next week and a half after Y/N was arrested watching these places, hoping to find anything that would help prove him innocent.
    Nothing seemed to add up. The lawyers were grasping at straws to incriminate Y/N because they know they have no other leads. On the other hand, I wasn't finding anything either.
    I was shaken out of my thoughts as someone sat down next to me. I looked over to see Natasha. She slid another cup of coffee across the counter to me, then went to holding her own.
    "Find anything?" She asked slowly.
    I sighed and shook my head as I took a sip of the coffee she got me. She frowned a little and looked to the side, searching the streets out the window as well.
    "I know we don't have much to go on," she said cautiously. "But...this isn't going to get us anywhere. We need an actual lead and we won't find any by staring out the window. We only have a little over a week before the trial and we have nothing, Steve."
    "I know, Natasha," I said. "I do. I just...don't know what else to do."
    She sighed slowly as she thought.
    "I did most of Y/N's training," she said. "Outside of his suits and before he got powers, that is. I trained him the same way they trained me. He knew how to fight, seduce, spy, hack, dance, sabotage. He was the perfect secret agent. And on top of that, he's a genius. He's got his father's mind. Y/N had to have been prepared for a situation like this, there's no way he wasn't."
    I nodded in agreement as she spoke. It all checked out. Y/N was always looking ahead and preparing for the worst.
    "Is there anything he said to you before they took him that could help us? Anything at all?"
    I looked back to the day they took him and tried to remember what he had said.
    "He...he was very casual. Nonchalant. Chill," I recalled.
    "Nothing out of the usual," she said with a small smile. "What else?"
    "He kept reassuring me. Telling me not to worry. He probably knew I would blame myself somehow. He activated some...program...that made Smoak leave the house so the police couldn't get to him or talk to him. Then we opened the door. He went back to reassuring me."
    She nodded, signaling for me to keep going.
    "And...and then he said 'This part of the law is all just smoke and mirrors.' I didn't know what he meant by that."
    "Smoke and mirrors," she said quietly, turning this over in her mind. "Smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors."
    She looked up to me analytically as something seemed to come to her.
    "Smoak," she said, her words still not registering with me at first. "He sent Smoak away so he couldn't tell the cops anything. Then he slipped his name into your hands. Smoak must be the key. He must be able to help us. We need to figure out where he went."
    "You're right," I said. "You have to be. That makes perfect sense. We just don't know where he sent him. Smoak has connections all over the world. The server he's being kept in could be anywhere."
    "You know that necklace Y/N wears? The one Charlie gave him before...before."
    I nodded in understanding.
    "Y/N was the brain. Charlie was the heart. Both organs, the brain and the heart, have connections all over the body. Arteries and nerves. Y/N, the brain, severed his connection with Smoak."
    I nodded slowly as I tried to take in what she was saying.
    "So if Smoak himself is connections all over the world, and he can't connect to Y/N. Then there's only one other place where all his connections can reconvene. The heart."
    "Charlie," I confirmed.
    She nodded.
    "Then I know where we have to go," I said. "Chicago."