Christmas was right around the corner. Really just days away and the tower was abuzz with excitement. The Avengers Christmas party was the highlight of the year for many of them and the closer it got to Christmas Eve the more excited everyone seemed to get.

The tower was decked out from top to bottom in decorations for the season. Red, green, blue, silver and gold dripped from every available spot they could find. A tree occupied every room and it felt like the most wonderful time of the year, truly. Mistletoe hung from the ceiling in plain sight and Y/N had been actively avoiding it. She had had her fill of kissing. Or that's what she told herself.

She spent more time in her lab than ever, finding things to do away from the team and away from Pietro. When she wasn't in the lab she was in her bedroom playing Piano and trying to keep herself in the Christmas spirit. With the Christmas party only 3 days away there had been a lot of people in and out of the tower to help with decorations and she just wanted to keep out of their way. Her fingers danced over the cold ivory keys as she played 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas'. She played song after song until her fingers were stiff. She noticed how dark it was outside and decided to get some dinner and head up to her lab for a few hours before bed.

She held a plate with a sandwich in one hand and her notebook and flash drive in the other as she made her way to the elevator. When the doors opened she noticed Pietro standing inside she stood looking at him for a moment before walking inside the elevator.

"Hello Pietro." She had a sad smile that was breaking his heart.

"Hello Y/N. How are you?"

"I'm okay. How are you? Excited for the Christmas party?"

"I suppose, it is hard to be excited when you are busy missing your best friend."

It was quiet for a moment as Y/N looked down in guilt.

"I'm sorry." They spoke at the same time, making themselves giggle.

"I am sorry Y/N. I did not mean to hurt you. I care about you so much and that is the last thing I would want to do."

"I'm sorry too Piet, I didn't mean to come off as harsh as I did. I care about you too and I like being your friend and that is the most important thing to me. Your friendship. Hey, why don't you come with me to the lab, I have some prototypes for you to check out."

"I would like that very much."

They smiled at each other as the door opened to the floor with Y/N's lab. They stepped out and made their way down the hall and around the corner to her lab's entrance. Though once they rounded the corner they came upon something unimaginable. The contents fell from Y/N's hands as she bolted for the doors. The plate shattered when it hit the floor and the notebook strew papers across the floor but she couldn't care less. Pietro had been shocked into stillness, he was so still he didn't even know if he was breathing.

Through the glass doors and walls you could see the inside of the lab. It had been all but destroyed, every last inch of it. Once the doors were pushed open and she stepped foot inside it was worse than she ever could have imagined. Computers were smashed apart, tables were tipped over, papers were ripped apart and thrown haphazardly across the room. The sight of her corner ripped her heart to shreds. Every book looked as if it had been taken apart meticulously and the pages crumpled up and thrown about like balls.

She hesitated to look across the room, she knew what she would find, and she was right. When she glanced towards her years of work she saw nothing but a pile of scrap metal. Project S.W.A.T. had been destroyed beyond recognition. At first she felt nothing. Then she felt everything.

It crashed over her like a wave and she screamed out in horror and pain. Her body crumbled in on itself as she started to fall to the floor, Pietro had finally moved from his position in the hall and ran to catch her sobbing form. She wailed out, devastated for her work, for everything she had lost in that moment. Pietro sat on the floor, holding her in his arms as he rocked them back and forth in a futile attempt to calm her.

It didn't take long for Tony to come racing towards her lab. He had always said he could hear his daughter's cry from any corner of the earth, Father's instinct, and he whenever she cried he always seemed to come running. Her cries were few and far between, even as a baby, and so when she cried he knew it was serious. Tony ran down 6 flights of stairs to get to her and once he made it to her his soul focus was on the pain his daughter was in and how he could sooth her. He was so distracted that he had yet to even notice the destruction surrounding them.

He sat down next to his daughter and Pietro, taking her from his arms and pulled her into his lap as if she were a small child again. He ran his hands over her hair and whispered soothing words to her. Pietro stood to walk around the lab and inspect the damage, running his fingers over the cold metal of the machine that had saved his life. He couldn't imagine who would do such a thing to this wonderful women.

Tony's focus was still solely on his daughter. Like tunnel vision, all he could see or focus on was her.

"Sweetheart. My little Light. What's causing you to hurt like this?"

"D-don't you s-see Daddy? E-e-everything is GONE!" She wailed out again and buried herself into her father's chest. It was only then that he finally looked up and saw what was causing his Light's pain.

Tony prided himself on the tower being on of the most secure places in New York if not the World so to see the destruction that had been caused, he know that security had to have been compromised.

"Oh my sweet Light. I am so sorry. Here let me take you downstairs. We have to tell the team."

He picked up his daughter as she continued to sob quietly onto his shoulder. Pietro opened the door and followed them to the elevator and then to the living room. Tony placed Y/N into a chair, draping a blanket over her shoulders. Her cries and stopped and now she just looked numb. Staring across the room like it was a void. Tony turned and spoke quietly to Pietro.

"Hey kid, can you go make her a cup of tea? Use the mug with the octopus inside. It always makes her smile. I'm gonna go collect the team." Tony walked away as Pietro slowly stepped towards the kitchen. He didn't want to disturb her and risk her crying again. Though the more he thought about it the more he preferred to violent sobs to this quiet. Though the sobs practically tore his heart in half, this silence was deafening. At least when she was crying he knew she was feeling something. Now it looked like she didn't feel anything and that scared him terribly. He had never seen her look like this and it made him hurt for her.

When he finally walked back with her tea Tony had the team gathered up and sitting around the room. Y/N was still staring off into space as if nothing was going on around her. Pietro walked up to her and held out the tea to her, she took it and looked up at him with pain in her eyes. "Thanks Piet." She tried to smile but it was hopeless. He just nodded to her and sat on the arm of her chair and rubbed circles on her back. Once everyone was situated and looking at Tony he began to speak.

"Security to the tower was compromised today."

"Well Stark, you did let about 100 people in here to decorate." Nat pointed out looking over at Y/N who now had her head resting on Pietro's thigh.

"I know but I hand picked and did background checks on every one of them. It couldn't have been someone I hired."

"Well what happened? If you don't mind me asking." Bruce spoke up directing the last part to Y/N.

She lifted her head from Pietro's leg and spoke up. "My lab has been destroyed. Everything in it is useless. They took apart S.W.A.T. and even ripped apart my books. This wasn't an attack on the Avengers. It was an attack on me. A few weeks back I had a date with an old Summer fling who happened to be in town. Before we left I caught him snooping through my purse, looking for the flash drive I carry with me, the one with S.W.A.T. information on it. I said that I would pretend it never happened and that would be the end of it. I wouldn't tell you, he would live to see another day. I figured he didn't get it so there was no harm done. A few days later, I noticed someone had tried hacking into my system. Obviously it didn't work, I have a set up so hack proof that Ultron wasn't even able to get into it. If you so much as poke my firewall it wipes and crashes every computer on your server so I wasn't worried. I figured they were too busy trying to fix their stuff and they learned their lesson. I was never prepared for a break in. If it is who I think it is, then I know exactly what they were looking for and they destroyed everything as a warning, not to deny them again." Everyone stared at her, awestruck, unsure of what to say. Finally Wanda asked the question that was on the tip of everyone's tongue.

"Who is it?"

"The people I worked for the Summer I was abroad, the Summer Vince and I spent together."

"And who is that?" Tony spoke up, unaware of his daughter's activities that Summer.

"HYDRA."