Tether

Part 7

'Hey, Mr Stark, you get any sleep?' Peter chirped as soon as he entered the bridge room, leaving the holograms of data he'd been going through behind as he jogged up to meet him.

'Some, I'm good. How's the hand?' Tony asked, reaching out to clasp Peter's forearm, moving so he could examine it in the light, probing for any residual scars. There was nothing, Stephen had done exactly what he said he would, fixing Peter without any residual nerve damage.

'Oh, it's completely fine. I'm sorry again, for scaring you. I should've left the suit covering my hand, it was stupid of me to use my bare hand to-'

'As long as you're fine, we're okay kid. You got anything?'

Peter clammed up, offering a handful of the alien berries he'd been munching on, his teeth stained black as he grimaced.

'You've got nothing,' Tony sighed, accepting a handful and throwing them in his mouth. 'Yeah, I thought as much, me neither. That only leaves two choices. Try and get back to Earth and meet up with the others, or a sneak attack to Thanos at the original rendezvous point.'

Neither of those appealed.

'I've been thinking about what you said, about attacking Thanos on Earth,' Peter began, hands on his hips as he paced in a circle. 'Oh, Doctor Strange, good timing we've just...wait, is that blood on you? Crap, do you need a bandage? Do we even have a first aid kit?' Peter rushed over.

'It's not his blood,' Tony answered, struggling to swallow at the thunderous scowl on Stephen's face.

He'd known this was coming, knew it would be the pivotal change in how Stephen saw him.

'We can't reroute the power from the ship to make it go faster-'

'Shut up.'

Stephen's tone silenced Tony. Peter and the Cloak stilled, looking between the two of them.

'What happened?'

Tony couldn't find the words to explain. When too much time passed, Stephen stalked over, his rage palpable, a thick miasma hanging in the air, eroding all of the trust they'd built up between them.

'I know, I know alright, Doc.' Tony held his hands up, stumbling back a little to put more space between them. 'This is no excuse, but I was running on no sleep, and Rhodey...' he paused, trying to swallow again. 'We had the fight at the airport, and I know none of us agreed over the Accords, but I was trying to do the right thing!' The words echoed around them, taunting Tony.

Stephen didn't stop, shrugging off the Cloak with an enraged snap of his arm. Tony danced a few more steps out of reach, hand reaching up on instinct to protect his arc reactor.

That made Stephen pause, reaching out to one of the steering arms, his hand flexing over the metal as he squeezed.

'There was an accident and Rhodey...his spine he...his legs are paralyzed, Doc. I know that's not an excuse for what I did in Siberia, but we were already all fighting, I didn't know who to trust after Nat turned on me, and I went to Siberia to try and help even though I knew I was breaking the Accords.'

He was rambling, trying to press his advantage while Stephen was stunned still at the news of Rhodey.

'I knew Barnes had been brainwashed by HYDRA, but I didn't think about that in the heat of the moment and-'

'Why do you hate magic?'

That wasn't the question Tony was expecting.

'Wanda she...'

His nails dug into his palm as he answered without thinking. She couldn't be blamed, it was his fault.

It was all my fault.