On the Highway to Hell
Day 243.5
By the time they arrive at SHIELD’s ER, Steve has regained enough of his senses to ask Darcy to take Peter to the cafeteria for dinner while Steve tries to figure out what the hell is happening without interrupting the busy staff. Peter protests because he wants to know what’s happened to his father, but Steve promises that he’ll make sure Peter’s father is in the best hands, that Peter will know as soon as Steve knows.
Your father, the words are foreign to Steve’s tongue, and a day ago they would have tasted bitter. Now, they’re desperate.
None of the nurses in the ER have any clue about Tony except that he was wheeled away as soon as he arrived, but the fully booked OR schedule has no hint of Tony’s name. Nobody is answering Steve’s calls either, and Steve is nearing full blown panic when he crashes into Sam as he rounds a corner.
“Steve!” Sam says in relief. It’s a relief Steve feels deeply, too, to have finally found somebody who isn’t too busy to answer his questions.
“Tony. The news said they brought him here. Is he alive, Sam, is he?”
Sam holds out a placating hand. “Woah, Steve, calm down. He has Helen with him. They’re using the Cradle on him and last I heard, he’s stopped flatlining.”
“Flatlining? What happened?” Steve demands as Sam pulls him aside to let some people pass.
“The woman – she’s in the ER right now, mostly fine – was stuck in her seatbelt, he got her out, realised there was no time, and shoved her away. The explosion threw him. Third, fourth degree burns on his back and right side, fractured ribs, cranial bruising, neck brace for whiplash.”
“God,” Steve breathes out, grateful for Sam’s steadying hand. “Where is he?”
“He’s in the experimental theatre,” Sam tells him, “but there’s Nat and Peggy there. They might not let you in.”
Steve nods. “Thank you, Sam.”
“You’re my friend, but before you do anything, make sure you get your head screwed on straight, Steve.”
It’s only after Steve nods again that Sam lets him go.
After two hours of waiting without any more news, Steve sends Peter home with Darcy, who willingly offers to call Phil to help take care of Peter. Steve hadn’t told Peter that Tony’s heart had stopped once more as Steve watched Helen, Thor, and Danvers piece Tony’s charred, unmoving body together. The urgent beep, beep, beep of the EKG still rings in Steve’s ears.
Natasha had looked coldly at Steve as Peggy clutched at the railing of the observation deck, her knuckles white. They stood in silence, the three of them, as others flitted in and out of the observation deck. He watched as they shot adrenaline into the veins of Tony’s left wrist, as the EKG fell flat, and Steve continued praying even after a pulse came back.
Helen’s Cradle worked slowly on Tony’s blackened skin while Thor and Carol dealt with the haemorrhaging in his chest and cranium. Steve has seen into the bodies of soldiers, of children, but nothing could have prepared him for the disconnect and panic that seeing Tony’s chest cut open and Tony’s closed eyes and almost peaceful face sends through Steve.
From the distance, Steve can barely see the movements of Tony’s breathing, and Steve longs to be down there, to wipe the dried blood on Tony’s fingertips away, but Steve has no right. He lost any right to touch Tony the moment he had let his anger take over.
Steve had forcefully wrenched himself away from the room to get back to Peter, and when Peter had been told that Tony was still in surgery, Peter had turned away from Steve, evidently cross with his dad. Truthfully, Steve was angry at himself too, and he wouldn’t scold Peter for not wanting to talk to Steve for the moment.
Left to his own devices, Steve goes back and watches silently for another three hours until Helen finally declares the procedure over. With every stitch that they put in Steve, it hits home again and again that this is entirely Steve’s fault, and Steve hates himself.
The breathing tube stays in as Thor puts Tony in a medically induced coma and wheels him out to the ICU. Peggy leaves, and when Steve tries to follow, Natasha stops him with a firm hand on his wrist.
“You don’t get to be there, Rogers,” Natasha says, standing fiercely between Steve and the door. “I have been your friend for over half a decade, but what you did to Tony? I don’t trust you to be near him.”
“I know,” Steve tells her, voice low and pleading. “I just need – I’m sorry, God, I’m sorry, I was so wrong, Tash, I need to tell him I’m sorry, I need to – ”
Natasha’s grip on his wrist tightens, the strength that she so easily hides coming out in full force. “What you need,” she commands, dangerously cold, “is to go home. And when Tony is ready to see you, when Tony wants to see you, only then will you get to see him.”
Steve ends up next to Bucky in one of the empty waiting rooms. It’s in the dead of night. He can’t bear to go home, to the silence and to Peter’s angry glare. When Steve had looked up from where he’d bowed his head on the altar of the hospital’s chapel, Bucky had been standing behind him, metal hand warm against Steve’s shoulder.
Bucky has been there since before the beginning, and it feels safe, familiar to be with him, as if Steve can rest under the shelter that Bucky has always given him.
“You messed up real bad, Stevie,” Bucky quietly murmurs. “I know I haven’t pushed, but what made you do it?”
In the stillness of the room, Steve confesses. “I was scared. I didn’t want to lose Peter. You know how all Peter can talk about is Tony? I saw the picture of Tony and his, his fiancée, and Tony wasn’t answering his phone and I just – I’ve always tried my damn hardest to make Peter happy, to keep him safe – and what are the chances, Bucky? This extraordinary man who deserves far, far better than me swoops into my life, and it turns out my adopted kid is his? I was scared. I didn’t want to lose Peter. And jealous, too. And I know that’s no excuse.”
The look that Bucky gives Steve isn’t pitying, it borders on acceptance and exasperation. “There’s never a boring day with you, is there, Rogers?”
Steve huffs. “He sent me a voicemail. Buck, even after everything he still left me a goodbye, and I gave him nothing. His heart stopped four times, because I pushed him away. He was on that highway because he wanted to get away from him and he died four times because of me.”
His voice breaks at the last word, Bucky’s hand instinctively coming up to rub soothing circles into Steve’s back as Steve bows his head.
“Steve…”
Steve shakes his head, rubbing angrily at his eyes before he takes out his phone. Scrolling down, he presses the play button.
‘Please listen. For Peter. If not for me, then please listen for Peter,’ Tony’s recorded voice fills the silence. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know Peter was my biological son until he showed me his bear. And then I panicked and ignored you. I don’t know how you found out, but I should have told you, shouldn’t have kept it a secret for so long. I knew I would lose you – I let go of Peter years ago, but you. I didn’t want to let you go.’
‘This is more for me than you, I guess, for some closure before I go to try to find a new life. I’m sorry, I wish things could have gone any other way. I hope you keep giving Peter all the happiness in the world. I hope you get to find your right partner. And because I know you’ll one day be sorry for your words, and because I need to move on: one day, I’ll forgive you. I’m not there yet, everything is too much of a mess and a pain, but yeah. You’ll be forgiven. So, I guess that’s that, Dorito. Oh, yeah, sorry for getting JARVIS to hack your phone, and if Peter starts freaking out about the watch, tell him ITSY’s got a training wheels protocol.’
For a long while, Steve lets Bucky hold him. Sam had told Steve to get his head screwed on straight, Natasha had told him to go home. He thinks back to how mad with grief he was when he thought he lost Bucky in the unforgiving desert, how he had torn himself apart when his mother had finally succumbed to her cancer. The first time, he had had his mother, Peggy, and Natasha and Sam, the second time, there was Peter to ground Steve.
This time, Steve has everyone and no one. He knows that no matter how much they love Steve, they’ve had time to learn Tony’s side of the story, and they blame Steve. Steve accepts the blame, he deserves it, but it feels so heavy that he feels like he can’t breathe, like he’s choking on sand dust again.
Get your head screwed on straight, Steve repeat bitterly to himself as he slowly lets out a breath. Bucky casts a worried glance at Steve, and suddenly, it hits him like a freight train.
The clarity is astounding after hours of feeling adrift.
“Buck,” his throat works around the words, “I think I need therapy.”
It’s hard to admit. Steve has always been a proud man, but he realises that if he wants to move forward, if he wants what’s best for Peter, if he wants to have even a shadow of what he had with Tony, Steve needs to do this. He needs to stop bottling his fears, his insecurities, and he needs to talk to someone about the memories that keep flashing in his mind, the ones that scare him and make him hold on to the wrong things.
Something bright shines in Bucky’s eyes. Maybe it’s just the white lights overhead reflected in his gaze, maybe it’s not. “I’m proud of you, punk.”
They share the silence for another moment before –
“Hey, Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“What did Tony mean by ITSY and training wheels?”