Doesn't belong to you
Previously:
Tony wiped his mouth and looked up, a tear running down his eye. “Did you know?” He says quietly to Steve.
Steve keeps Tony’s gaze for several moments. “I didn’t know it was him.”
“Don’t bullshit me Rogers,” Tony snarls. “Did you know?”
Steve sighs. “Yes.”
Tony lets out a breath, closing his eyes. Nothing is heard for several seconds except for Bucky’s gasping breaths.
Suddenly, Tony picks up a nearby gauntlet and aims for Steve.
Now:
Steve ducks, running towards Tony. Tony panics and shoots again, this time pushing Steve back.
In the few seconds he gets while Steve is stunned, he looks around for his crutches. If he could just make it to a suit…
Steve jumps at him, causing them both to fall backwards from Tony’s unsteady sitting position. He’s just happy they avoided the vomit on the ground.
Steve wrestles him, trying to pull off the gauntlet. Just as the super soldier gets the upper hand, the gauntlet shoots blindly. Tony can’t see what it hit since he is pressed to the ground, but he knew it wasn’t just a table when the suffocating weight leaves from his chest.
“Bucky!” Tony hears.
As Tony struggles to get up, he sees from the corner of his eye Steve standing next to a one-armed James, and a broken metal arm laying a few feet from them.
Tony curses to himself, but he sees the growing anger in Steve’s eye as he takes in his best friend, and he uses the distraction to get into a suit.
Steve, noticing Tony get suited up, gets even angrier. He uses his watch to call the shield to him.
The watch was a part of the series which Tony created for the Avengers. They all wore them for emergencies and had different functions. Tony’s would turn into a gauntlet, Natasha’s would produce spider bites, and Clint’s would convert into a gun until he could gather his bow. Steve’s though, had a chip in it that had the ability to call his shield to him from any distance. He wasn’t able to use it in Wakanda though as the watch’s function was being intercepted by the mass amount of vibranium surrounding them.
In less than five seconds, crashing was heard as the shield came from the training room, where Steve had last used it, and clicked to Steve’s forearm.
He wasted no time and launched himself at Tony, who he knew would try to kill Bucky.
Tony, whose anger had fled and was replaced by guilt for hurting James, was genuinely frightened as Steve came toward him.
Having not worn the suit in about a year, Tony was having trouble controlling the movements, his weak legs not helping at all and required a bit of assistance from Friday. He was just able to dodge Steve and had to catch himself on the table.
As Steve moved to get up, Tony aimed a gauntlet at him, in the intent to subdue, but was stopped by James, who used his other hand to push against the suit’s arm. Tony froze, looking at James in the eye.
“You don’t want to do this,” James said softly.
Before Tony could back down, Steve used the shield to smash into Tony, throwing him across the room. Tony immediately flew towards him, shooting rings out of the suit to capture Steve’s legs. Steve grabbed Tony around the neck and smashed him to the ground head-first.
While Tony was dazed, Steve then shot at one of the cars that were sitting on a rig for Tony to repair, causing it to fall from it’s height and land on Tony.
Tony ignored the red warnings that were highlighting themselves on the HUD and used the gauntlet to move the car off of him.
Seeing Steve still bound, Tony turned and noticed James on the far end of the lab trying to pull the remaining prosthesis from his shoulder and wincing from the pain. The engineer in him was screaming about the damage James could do to his shoulder if he kept trying to pull it off with his bare hands. Before he could fly over, Steve used the shield to break the binding around his legs and had Tony’s suited leg in his hands. Steve used the shield to repeatedly beat Tony’s foot, destroying the left boot jet.
Tony turned and shot at Steve, but he brought the shield up to reflect it, sending the beam right back into Tony- hitting his head and smashing him into the wall. He landed with a grunt and struggled to get up.
“He’s trying to kill you,” he hears Steve say to James.
“I don’t think-” James starts to say.
“Go!” Steve says, shoving James towards the exit.
James stumbles towards the doors, casting one last glance at a crumpled Tony, and runs out. Despite Steve’s orders, he runs to find Sam who he knows could help calm Steve down.
Tony stands just in time to be smacked across the face with Steve’s shield. In twenty seconds, Steve dishes hit after hit into Tony’s chest and head.
“Analyze his fight pattern,” Tony slurs to Friday, dizzy from the continuous punches.
“Counter-measures ready,” Friday responds after a few seconds.
“Defensive with intent to subdue,” Tony instructs.
Friday does just that, taking control of the limbs. She catches the shield, pushing it back. She shoots out another bind, but Steve dodges and launches himself at Tony, dragging him to the ground. Once on the ground, Steve continuously pounds Tony on the head, breaking the helmet. Tony’s eyes widen as Steve lifts the shield above his head, smashing it into his chest.
Immediately, Tony feels his bones bend with the shield, tearing through the muscles and breaking his ribs. His eyes blur and his vision tunnels, he can taste blood in his mouth. When Steve pulls the shield back out of his chest, the air gets thinner and he fights to get a last few words out.
“That shield doesn’t belong to you,” he coughs, hearing Steve’s retreating footsteps. “My father made that shield. You don’t deserve it.”
As his eyes close against his will and the suit gets heavier as the arc reactor loses its juice, he vaguely hears a clatter as the door shuts. After that, he knew no more.
---------------------------------------
Upstairs, Steve burst into the common room, bloody with a black eye.
Natasha, Clint, Wanda, and Scott jump up. “What happened?” Scott asks in shock.
“Tony happened. He’s gone crazy! Let’s go,” Steve commands, grabbing his stray belongings from the couch and cabinets.
“Wait, slow down, what happened?” Natasha asks, skeptical.
“He was trying to kill Bucky and I had to stop him,” Steve grunts.
“Why was he trying to kill James?” Scott asks, confused.
Steve pauses, struggling. “I don’t know, but we have to get out of here. He’s crazy and is going to try to hurt us.” Steve turns when James walks into the room. “See, he blasted Bucky’s arm off!”
“That son of a bitch,” Clint mutters.
“I knew it,” Wanda snarls with her heavy accent. Her hands start to grow red, and Clint moves away slightly.
“Yes, so let's go, pack up your stuff!” Steve commands, the team rush to follow his orders.
“He didn’t blast my arm off on purpose,” James says to Steve when the team leaves the room.
“Yes he did. I know it. You don’t know Tony like I do. He did this on purpose. We have to go,” Steve says, walking swiftly to his room.
James stands in the common room, conflicted. He couldn’t find Sam and he doesn’t have access to Rhodey and Vision’s floor.
“Friday,” James suddenly remembers, “Where are Sam, Rhodey, and Vision?”
“Mr.Wilson accompanied Colonial Rhodes on an emergency trip to UN headquarters to discuss a new amendment to the accords, and Vision is currently at SHIELD headquarters on his bi-monthly examination with Dr. Helen Cho. All parties have been alerted and are on their way back,” she responds.
“Why would they leave him alone?” James wonders.
“Boss is a grown man, Sergeant Barnes,” Friday responds firmly. “He has the ability to care for himself and should not have to have a baby sitter with him 24/7 just because his team members are violent and can be prone to angry fits. In other words, Boss’s team trusted you all and allowed Boss to be alone for a few hours.”
James frowned. “Did Steve hurt em real bad?”
Friday doesn’t respond.
James starts walking towards the elevator with the intent to check on his friend, but Steve appears, grabbing his arm.
“Come on Buck, you need to finish packing. The quinjet is almost ready,” Steve says, guiding James towards the bedrooms.
-------------------------------------------------
Even though it only took minutes for the team to return, it felt like hours Friday was watching her boss struggle to survive. It was times like these she wished she could have a body like Vision. The suit was down so she could not track his vitals, but from the pooling blood and his loud hitching breaths, she knew he was in a bad way.
For Rhodey, every step felt like slow-motion, walking towards his best friend’s still figure. The flashing red of the lab reflected Rhodey’s frightened insides. He watched as Sam ran in front of him, dropping down next to Tony. He still could not bring himself to move any faster- fear had trapped his body.
“Fuck, he can’t breath,” Sam yelled, and suddenly Rhodey’s world was back on pace.
“Ambulance is en route, eta five minutes,” Friday said, turning the lights back to normal now that help had arrived.
Rhodey kneeled next to his friend and hovered.
Tony was in his suit, a heap on the floor. The suit was dented and parts were broken, wires sticking out. The lack of a helmet gave them a good view of Tony’s still face with blood leaking from his nose and ears. His lips were pale, quickly turning blue.
“Tony, Tony,” Sam called.
Tony’s eyes moved to slits and he let out a low groan. “Rho,” Tony whispered.
“I’m here, buddy,” Rhodey found himself saying.
Suddenly, Vision appeared from the ceiling, holding an oxygen mask. Sam quickly placed it over Tony’s mouth.
“Tony, i’m going to move you okay?” Sam said.
“Rho’ey,” Tony whispered again, eyes falling closed lazily. “Don’t let em’ hurt you.”
Rhodey’s heart dropped when he saw the bloody and scratched shield on the floor. He had wondered why Friday had refused to give him details on the phone, but now he knew why.
When Sam started moving Tony’s body into recovery position, Tony immediately cried out in pain and started coughing.
“Please stop,” Tony cried.
“You’re okay, Tones,” Rhodey shushed, placing a gentle hand on his friend’s cheek.
Vision moved towards Tony’s legs and pulled the suit’s releases so that the bottom of the suit opened up. Tony’s left foot was bloody and looked damaged, so he left on the boot to keep it splinted. Vision looked for the release latches for the upper part.
“Leave it on,” Friday interrupts. “Boss received significant damage to his chest and sternum region and the chestplate of the suit is the only thing keeping his bones together.”
Tony, who had been whimpering softly, suddenly went quiet and his eyes drifted closed.
“Ton-” Sam started.
He was interrupted by Tony’s limbs which started seizing violently. His legs pulled up to his chest before kicking out repeatedly. His arms, still trapped in the iron man suit, dragged lazily across the floor. As the seizure started, Tony’s head repeatedly banged against the floor, but Rhodey quickly swooped under him so that his friend’s head was in his lap.
“Hold his head still, we don’t know if he caused any damage to his spinal cord again,” Sam instructed. Rhodey nodded and placed his hands on either side of Tony’s head, trying to fight his friend’s twitching.
Vision, who was moving all the sharp objects out of the way, frowned when he noticed something in the window. Moving closer, he was able to identify it as the quinjet- Tony’s quinjet. And it was flying fast away from the compound. Vision let out a large sigh before returning back to the group.
Rhodey was wiping the white foam from Tony’s mouth as the man let out choking sounds. When he finished, Sam forced the oxygen mask around Tony’s head again and tried to hold it on against the convulsions. Rhodey was barely keeping it together as he watched his friend lose control of his body.
It felt like hours, but finally Tony’s limbs started slowing down. Just as his head stopped its bobbing, the paramedics burst in, being guided by Friday.
As they left, Friday smirked to herself, downloading the last hour of security footage and combining it with a feed from the iron man helmet. This was something the world needed to see.