Peter watched the taxi drive away in what felt like slow-motion. Things had gone south faster than his brain could even think. Just moments ago they had been smiling and laughing, getting ready for their graduation party. Now his best friend was in a cab to who knows where, and he wasn't sure if or when he'd ever see her again.

What had he done? He had been so sure (Y/n) had no idea he had been following her around. He couldn't believe she had known this whole time and hadn't said anything to him. Their friendship had seemingly grown so strong so quickly but now he realized that this whole time these invasive seeds had been growing at the back of her mind. To this day she doubted the integrity of Peter's offer of friendship and then when she gave him the chance to come clean and prove himself, he lied. He didn't want to lie, it had just come out so quickly, the instinct to protect her from further harm taking over. In the end he had only hurt her more.

What a mess. None of it felt real, and yet the image of (Y/n) moments before she left was burned into his brain. She looked so broken and so hurt. And nothing he said could fix it. In fact everything he said just made it worse because it was all his fault. He had made his best friend cry. He had made his best friend feel like their friendship meant nothing more to him than a way to keep his identity a secret. He had sworn to himself he would be different from all of the people that had let her down but he had been even worse. He was the reason she was falling apart. He was the reason she was breaking.

Well... part of the reason. He couldn't shoulder all that blame himself. No... that belonged to the man upstairs, who was too busy screaming at his psycho ex-girlfriend to even realize his current girlfriend was leaving. Spinning on his heel he marched back into the tower, storming his way into the nearest open elevator. He tapped his foot impatiently as the elevator climbed to the penthouse, his anger with the man he was looking for rising with every floor the elevator passed. By the time the elevator came to a stop he was downright furious, racing back over to the office.

"I fucking told you this was going to happen!" he shouted, slamming the office door open so fast that little cracks started to appear in the glass.

Steve, who had been hunched over the table with his head buried in his hands, jumped in surprise.

"Where's (Y/n)?" he asked, seeing that Peter had returned to the office alone.

"I told you to tell her! I told you to tell her so many times and you wouldn't fucking listen to me! What the hell are we supposed to do now?" Peter continued to yell, pacing back and forth in the small space, his arms waving in the air.

"Where is she Peter?" Steve repeated, ignoring Peter's yelling, fear trickling in.

"She's gone. She packed her bag, got in a cab and left."

"Well why didn't you stop her!" Steve shouted back, jumping up from his seat.

"Don't you think I tried? She wouldn't listen to me! Where were you this whole time? Why didn't you go after her? Maybe if you hadn't been so caught up screaming at Sharon and focused on the person who actually does matter she'd still be here right now!"

Peter was breathing heavily by the time he had finished yelling and after a few moments he seemed to lose any ounce of anger that was left. He sat in the chair across from Steve's dejectedly, his own eyes beginning to water slightly.

Steve stared at the boy across from him in shock. Gone? She couldn't be gone...

Everything had happened so quickly. He didn't think (Y/n) would actually leave, and he had been too caught up with being angry at Sharon for what she had done. It was easier to be mad at her than to think about the aftermath of the destruction she had left her in wake.

"Did she tell you where she was going? Give you any clues as to where she might be headed?" Steve prompted, already knowing the answer but needing to ask anyway.

Peter shook his head, running his fingers through his hair and Steve got his answer. A momentary quiet set over the two as the reality of the situation began to sink in.

"You should have seen her... " Peter began, looking at Steve with doleful eyes, glistening with unshed tears.

"She looked so lost, so hopeless. Like her world was crashing down around her. And God the tears. I tried so hard to get her to stop crying but nothing was working."

Steve's heart seemed to clench at Peter's words. Had she really cried? Even in her worst moments, (Y/n) had never shed so much as a single tear. It only took one look at Peter's guilty face and the tear-stained sleeves of his sweatshirt to realize it was true. Of all the things that could have made her cry, he had never expected it to be his own fault. But it was. He had kept secrets. He had driven her away. Now he'd lost her trust, maybe even lost her.

Images of (Y/n) running from the tower and rushing into a taxi flooded his mind. He could even picture her in the taxi, tears streaming down her face, alone, hurt, and probably scared, driving away from a future that they had once planned together. It pained him that he couldn't be there for her. He wanted to be the one to comfort her. To wipe her tears away, and tell her that everything was going to be okay. But he couldn't. She probably didn't even want that person to be him anymore. God, how had he screwed things up so badly?

"I can't believe she's gone," Peter sniffled. "I should never have let her get in that taxi."

Steve gazed down at the broken boy across from him. His eyes were glossed over, seemingly devoid of their usual youthful twinkle. It was then he realized it wasn't two but three hearts that had broken that day. His own heart, the heart of the girl he loved, and the heart of her best friend, maybe even her platonic soulmate. He hadn't just destroyed his own relationship with (Y/n), he had managed to screw up her friendship with Peter as well.

"None of this is your fault. Besides, it's not like you could have physically stopped her from leaving on the street in front of everyone without causing a scene. I'm sure you did the best you could."

Peter shrugged, using his hand to wipe his nose.

"It's not just your fault, it's mine too. When she was about to get in the taxi she confronted me about how I had been tailing her on Tony's order all those weeks ago. She knew and I lied about it. Maybe if I had been honest with her she would have stayed."

Steve appreciated Peter's words of comfort but they didn't do much in terms of making him feel better. He guessed that Peter, like himself, didn't feel like he deserved to be comforted at the moment. They were the first people that (Y/n) had let herself trust after everything and they had betrayed that. A painful quiet fell over the room. It was a quiet that was so silent, it could only have been caused by the feeling of losing someone you love. As if all the noise and color they had brought into your life had vanished, leaving everything muted in black and white like an old movie.

Steve wasn't sure how long they had sat there in silence. Eventually, the door swung open and someone walked in, pulling them both from their own thoughts.

"Woah, who died in here, I thought this was supposed to be a party?"

Tony glanced back and forth between Steve and Peter, appraisingly but neither of them even looked in his direction.

"Where's your partner in crime?" he asked, nudging Peter's chair a little. "The guests should be arriving any minute now, shouldn't she be here?"

"You can cancel the party, (Y/n)'s not coming," he glared at Tony, shooting up from his chair and leaving the office.

Everyone handled fighting with the people they cared about differently. It was obvious to Steve that Peter was one of those people that couldn't rest knowing that someone was upset with him. He needed a resolution, and Steve didn't blame him.

"What was that about?" Tony asked, staring at Peter as he walked away then turning to look back at Steve.

"(Y/n) left. Sharon confronted her about the contract before I could tell her. Peter said she just got into a taxi and drove off," he said, shortly.

Tony sighed, taking a seat in the chair that Peter had just left.

"How did Sharon even find out about it in the first place?" he asked, rolling up the sleeves of his button down.

"She walked in on me while I was looking it over. Didn't take her long to figure out what it was. Then (Y/n) came home from her final and Sharon made sure she found out about it."

Steve didn't want to go into any more detail. The whole thing was painful enough to live through the first time, but he knew Tony wasn't going to stop until he had all of his questions answered. Nobody could ever get Tony to stop once he put his mind to something. Steve admired that but it also drove him crazy in times like these.

"Well maybe this is a good thing. The contract's out in the open now... once she has a little time to process she'll come around, sign it, and everything can go back to normal," Tony shrugged, seemingly unfazed by any of the information he was receiving. Steve had just told Tony (Y/n) had left, he had know idea where she was going, and still all Tony could think about was getting (Y/n) to sign that stupid piece of paper.

"She already signed," Steve said, flipping through the pages of the contract. Each page had her signature scribbled on it and each time he saw it he felt another piece of his heart break. He stopped when he reached the page where she had written in the number zero and crossed out the old number, passing it over to him.

"Are you satisfied, now? Did you get the proof that you needed?" he asked, as Tony looked at the contract, seeing the changes (Y/n) had made. He was long regretting not ripping it to shreds when he still had the chance.

"Well technically now the contract is invalid because she scribbled all over it," Tony noted sarcastically, earning him a hostile glare from Steve. "Okay maybe I deserve that," he added, rolling his eyes.

"I can't believe I let you convince me to sign this. I never wanted this, I never needed this, and now I've lost what matters most. I've lost her, Tony."

Tony put the contract back on the table, reaching in his back pocket and taking out his phone.

"You haven't lost her. I can track her phone, she can't have gone that far if she just left."

"Tony that's a huge invasion of privacy," Steve pointed out, folding his arms against his chest.

"It looks like she's in Brooklyn," he replied, ignoring Steve's comments and using his fingers to zoom in on his phone. "Somewhere on Henry Street. Does she know someone from Cobble Hill?"

Steve's heart sank, immediately knowing where she must have gone. There was only one person she knew who lived there, and it was someone he wasn't looking forward to crossing paths with a second time given the circumstances. But what choice did he have? He had to go after her, didn't he? He had to get her to come back. He had to make things right.

He was half way out of his chair when he froze, stopping himself mid step and sitting back down. No good would come out of him showing up at her mother's house. Everything was still too fresh. Besides, (Y/n) wouldn't be able to stay away from him forever. Whether she hated him or not they were having a baby together, and that wasn't something she could run away from indefinitely. (Y/n) was too caring and far too selfless to not let the father of her child be a part of her child's life.

Steve knew she would want space right now. And that was one thing he could give to her. At least for today. He would let her hate him for today because that was what she needed, but tomorrow he would be there. Tomorrow he would go to her and make her understand how much she means to him and he wouldn't stop until she was back in his arms where she belonged.