It had now been four days since she had seen anyone in the tower. They hadn't come back from their mission and Tony was no longer leaving messages for her. This was the second day she hadn't heard from Tony, every morning when she got into work she would have a message waiting from Tony asking Emily to check certain things.

She couldn't believe how quiet the tower was without anyone here. She was about to take herself down to the lab when she could hear footsteps making their way down the corridor. She recognized the foot steps easily, Emily didn't even look up to greet Pepper when she made her way into the common room.

"How did you know it was me?" Pepper asked, taking a seat next to Emily.

Emily looked up at Pepper, "unless Natasha is now wearing heels on her mission, then there's only one other person that it could be."

"So Emily, I need your help. There's a gala happening on Saturday and I was hoping you could help me with the preparation. Tony will be back later tonight, so I know I don't need to cancel anything."

"What can I do?" Emily asked, smiling at pepper.

Later that day

Emily instantly regretted asking pepper what she needed help with, she had been out with Pepper for hours now. Chasing up the venue and caterers. Her feet were killing her, and she was instantly regretting the choice of wearing heels.

Emily watched as Pepper was talking to the event team, she was in a slight awe on how much she was able to fit everything in. Her conversation was cut short when her phone started going off and she excuses herself,

"Tony?" She asked on the phone, there were a few pauses where he was obviously chatting to her, "yeah Emily is with me now" another pause. "Emily do you have plans tonight?" Emily shook her head, "no she's free." Pepper was now nodding, "okay " pepper hung up the phone. Pepper now turned her attention back to Emily, "Tony has asked if you wanted to join us all for food. It's kind of a thing we all do when they get back from missions."

Emily nodded, "yeah okay. Sounds fun." She said as she followed pepper into the car to go to their next destination.

It had been three more hours before they started heading back to the tower and Emily was exhausted.

"So I just want to check you're still coming to the gala on Saturday?" Pepper asked, putting her folder away into her bag.

"What do you mean still coming? I was never invited?" Emily said sounding confused and her facial expression must have show it as Pepper was now groaning.

"I could kill Tony, he was meant to ask you last week." Pepper told her, "we like to get all the employees involved and with what's going on with you, Steve and Bucky I thought it might be a nice date."

Pepper and Emily chatted a bit more on the way back to the tower and soon enough they found themselves in the common room and everyone was there. Emily really didn't want to admit it but she was relieved when she saw Bucky and Steve chatting to each other at the other end of the room.

"There you two are! We've been waiting for you." Tony said as they made their way further into the common room. "Come on let's eat."

Emily found herself sat in between Steve and Bucky. They hadn't yet had a chance to really talk to each other, but they had exchanged a few awkward smiles between them. She instantly regretted coming to this thing. Emily listened to the conversations and she almost jumped out of her skins when she felt a hand resting on her knee. She looked over towards Bucky who was giving her a encouraging smile. Emily returned it and squeezed his hand.

After dinner, Steve and Bucky pulled Emily aside from everyone else. "Hey" Steve said to her smiling, she looked at him and she couldn't help but smile back.

"You guys must be glad to be back?" Emily asked, looking at the both of them.

"To be fair I probably sleep better when I'm on missions" Bucky mused and Emily gave him a confused look which causes Steve and Bucky to chuckle slightly at her facial expression.

"Our beds are too soft. We haven't yet been able to find firm enough beds." Steve added to Bucky's previous statement.

Emily, Steve and Bucky had a quick catch up on the week and so joined the others. Emily felt s bit more relaxed and able to join in with the conversations. She noticed that Bucky and Steve stayed close by, especially Bucky. She knew he had sensed her nervousness and she was relieved that her soldiers were back.

Emily wasn't sure how long she has managed to stay awake talking to everyone but the last thing she sort of remembered was Steve picking her up and carrying her to bed.

The next going she knew, she was waking up to someone screaming and shouting. Emily bolted right up in bed, she was not at home. She slowly crept out of the room to see Steve standing by a door where the shouting was coming from.

"Steve?" Emily asked, "what's going on?"