I Thought You Were Different: Part 6

Internment

You never enjoyed seeing your husband angry, no matter what or who was his intended target, and you knew that he enjoyed it about as much. Steve wasn't one to hold grudges for too long, and his temper had mellowed greatly over the years, but when you were the one to betray a trust or even if he perceived it as such, all of that progress faded away as quickly as his mood shifted and his skin flushed with the telltale red of rage. You weren't scared of him by any means, but you still feared his anger because it made everything unbearable; when you were the one to make him mad, you took the brunt of it and for longer than anyone else. What the worst of it was, beyond his anger, was the hurt in his eyes when he looked at you, and the betrayal that he never would have expected from you. Anyone but you.

"So, how long were you going to keep this from me, (Y/N)? After ten years...would you ever tell me if I hadn't have found out on my own?

"I didn't see any reason to tell you, no."

"Are you kidding me?!" Steve gasped in complete shock. He threw his hands up in frustration, and you took a step back in misjudgment of the action. You knew better than to think he would strike out, but he hadn't been himself lately with everything changing within him, and you no longer trusted that old guarantee. "How could you not see a reason? (Y/N), you're carrying a power that could be dangerous, and we need to understand it."

"Why? Why do we have to if I never use it and nothing has happened in all of this time? All we're doing is bringing attention to it when I didn't want any-"

"Then you shouldn't have used it on Buck!"

"It wasn't on purpose!" you yelled back. Within a mere few sentences, your argument was quickly growing so loud that you could count the seconds before any one of your teammates would show up to stop it. "Steve, it just felt like what I had to do. I can't explain it any other way."

"And that doesn't scare you? That you're acting without your own intent? (Y/N)," he paused, hands on his hips as the Cap persona took over Steve's, "if you're not in control of this, you know that I have to quarantine you to the compound until we know more."

"You're joking."

"Not at all."

"What about Becca? She'll be home tomorrow. What about her connection to the stone?"

"She has that because of you, (Y/N). You're the catalyst that we need to halt before this goes any further."

~~~

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

If tears fell now, they would be filled with rage and not pain; you told yourself that as you tried to keep them at bay so that it was easier to do. You understood what Steve was doing, and that he was keeping the team safe, but it still hurt that he didn't see that you were doing the exact same thing by keeping this from everyone. You had never lost control of it before, and the episode with Bucky was helping him. All that you were doing was your best to not scare everyone, especially the kids. You were certain that they would immediately associate you with Thanos if they knew, and there was no way that anything good would come of that. There was too much trauma still left over from that day, even so many years later. How could he not understand that you were doing what you thought was right, and that you didn't want this? If you could get rid of it, you would do so in a second.

"Hey, Dad, you got a minute?" you asked, peeking your head into the kitchen with your best attempt at a smile. He would never buy it as real, so you weren't sure why you even bothered.

Tony lowered his tablet with a returned smile that quickly dropped, his expression changing to concern. "For you, I've got all the minutes you want. What's up?"