Tony groaned as his phone buzzed on the bedside locker. He picked it up and blearily looked at it, he didn't recognise the number and considered cutting them off for a moment before grunting and hitting the call button.
"Hello?"
"Is this Anthony Stark?"
Tony lay back down in bed and closed his eyes. "Yes? Who's asking?" he said tiredly.
"I'm Dr. Nic West at-
"Nic?" asked Tony. He vaguely recognised the man’s voice but he couldn’t place him. "I know you, don't I?"
The doctor on the other end of the line paused. "Ummm yeah, you do," he said finally. "Stephen Strange introduced us at the Metro General Christmas party a few years ago."
Tony smiled. His ex-boyfriend had hated the other doctor and they'd spent most of the party joking about him. He remembered they had played a game where they took a shot every time Nic mentioned his paper that had been published the previous month. He and Stephen had both woken up with the worst hangovers they had ever had the following morning. "Yeah, I remember. What's up, man?" Tony sunk further into his bed and was starting to drift off again.
Nic paused again. "Look Tony," he said. "We still have you down as the emergency contact for Stephen."
Tony shot up in the bed. He was awake now. "What happened?"
Nic sighed on the other end of the line. "Stephen was in a car accident earlier this evening. He-
Tony jumped out of the bed. "Is he okay?"
"He was in surgery for eleven hours," continued Nic. "He's in recovery now."
"Shit."
"He's out of danger but his injuries are severe. It took us a while to find him and well..." Nic trailed off.
"Nic?"
"Could you come down to the hospital?"
Tony nodded dumbly and then realising Nic couldn't see him he just said he'd be right there and hung up and threw the phone back down on the bed.
He thought the worst. Eleven hours in surgery? Shit... Tony threw on the first clothes he could find and picked up his phone and grabbed his keys and made his way to his car.
He couldn't help but think of the worst. What if he'd really hurt his head? What if he had brain damage? What if he wasn't the same when he woke up? What if he never woke up?
It took him three attempts to get the keys into the ignition his hands were shaking so much. It had been almost three years since they'd broken up but he'd never stopped caring about Stephen, Hell. He'd never stopped loving Stephen and the thoughts of Stephen in any sort of pain or danger made Tony feel physically sick.
Tony took a moment to try and calm himself down before he sped off into the New York city night. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this scared. What if Stephen died before he made it to the hospital? He thought of Stephen’s lifeless body lying prone on a metal table in a morgue… He just… he couldn’t cope with that thought. He couldn’t cope with rushing into the hospital and hearing the words:
“I’m very sorry Mr. Stark but we did everything we could.”
Tony gripped the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles white and his palms sweating. As he drove, he couldn’t seem to quite remember why he and Stephen had broken up… Why had they broken up? He knew they’d argued a lot in the last few weeks… But hell, all couples argue. It had always been over petty things like not emptying the dishwasher or working late or forgetting about dinner plans.
None of these things seemed important to Tony now.
Their last fight had been a big one. Tony remembered that. He couldn’t remember what it had been about but he remembered Stephen had packed a bag and left.
He had done that a few times. He was always a drama queen.
But he had always come back.
Only this time he hadn’t.
He knew when they used to fight like that before he’d always ring Stephen or Stephen would ring him.
But this time neither of them rang.
They just… stopped being a couple just like that.
About a month later Tony had to go to California for a company project and he ended up spending over a year there. He’d heard through a mutual friend that Stephen had got a promotion at the hospital and was seeing someone else.
So, Tony dated again too.
Life just went on.
Now as he drove though street after street on this rainy night, he thought he would give every single penny he owned to go back to that first night Stephen left and take him by the hand and tell him he loved him and hold him and never let him go.
Why had he ever let him go?
"Please be okay," he said out loud to himself. "Please, just be okay."
The rest of the journey to the hospital was a blur to Tony. One minute he was driving and the next he was aimlessly walking down the corridors of the hospital.
He spotted Nic and called out to him.
"Tony," said Nic walking over to him and awkwardly shaking his hand. "He's down the hall, I'll bring you to him."
"What happened?" asked Tony his voce was croaky as if he hadn’t used it in years.
"He was on his way to a neurological talk outside of the city and went off the road. He hasn't woken up yet since we found him but from the looks of the crash site, his car tumbled down the side of a cliff, hit a shed and landed in the Hudson River.
"Fuck."
"He was out there for a while, it took us a few hours to find him."
Nic continued to talk but by now they'd reached Stephen's room and Tony could see his ex through the glass and his world tumbled down.
Stephen looked like shit. He was white as a sheet and his face and upper body was covered in cuts and bruises. Tony could barely make out Stephen's face because of the bruising but what really caught his attention was Stephen's hands. Oh, God... His hands.
Stephen's hands were propped up in front of him and bandages went from his wrists up to just before his elbow but Tony felt sick when he saw Stephen's hands. He could see the fixators from where he stood and he unconsciously began rubbing his own hands just looking at them. This wasn't just a scratch or a fractured bone that would heal in a few weeks. Stephen's hands were absolutely destroyed.
"His hands," said Tony softly.
Nic grimaced. "The nerve damage is the worst I've ever seen."
"He'll never perform surgery again," said Tony his voice broke.
Nic sighed. "Tony, he'll be lucky if he can ever even write his own name again."
Tony leant against the wall, he suddenly felt very weak and his knees began to buckle and threatened to no longer support his weight. He knew he should say more to Nic, but what was there to say? Instead the two of them just stood looking in at Stephen in silence until Nic's beeper went off and he excused himself and ran down the corridor.
Tony waited until Nic had rounded the corner before turning his attention back to Stephen. He couldn't take his eyes off of him, yet he couldn't bring himself to go into his room. He was scared to go in, as if going in and being in the room with him confirmed that this was all real. This didn’t feel real; it was like a horrible dream. He found himself wishing that he would wake up at home confused as to why he’d dreamt such a thing and swear off watching medical dramas before bed but… No such luck.
This was real.
Tony dug his nails into his hand leaving crescent shaped marks in his palm as he took a deep breath and reached to open the door to Stephen’s room. There was something unnerving about the stench of disinfectant in a hospital. It had always made Tony feel uneasy. It felt like a pathetic attempt at a cover up to him, like spilling coffee on a sofa cushion and flipping it over so nobody would know, as if the chemical fragrance of the cleaners would make people forget just how full of pain and illness a hospital was. The smell hit him as soon as he entered the room and his stomach lurched.
The steady beat of the heart monitor that Stephen was connected to only made Tony realise how quickly his own heart was thumping in his chest. Tony's legs threatened to give out on him again and he just about managed to make it to the chair at Stephen's bedside and sit down before he fell down.
Stephen looked so much worse up close. He was so pale he was practically translucent. The sickly whiteness of his skin only made the deep blue and purple bruises that blossomed over his right eye appear darker. He reminded Tony of a colour tester sheet of every shade between blue to violet that Tony could imagine.
Tony's eyes drifted towards Stephen's mouth. His once plump and full lips were now dry and chapped, a deep cut running from his cupid's bow to the bottom of his lower lip. Tony remembered kissing those lips and the soft humming noise Stephen used to make when Tony used to press his mouth to his. He had missed kissing him, he’d been with plenty of people since Stephen but none of them could kiss quite like he had. Stephen was strong yet soft, he would take control but always knew when to pull back and he always tasted of coffee and sugar. Bittersweet. Stephen to a tee.
Tony made a move to take Stephen’s hand in his own but he froze. He couldn’t touch him, not his hands. He couldn’t even hold the man’s hand. Tony’s hand hovered over Stephen’s frame, he wanted to touch him, let him know he was here for him even if the man wasn’t conscious. He didn’t want him to be alone but he was covered in scratches and contusions and there didn’t seem to be anywhere he could touch the man without potentially hurting him.
Tony took a shaky breath and rested his elbows on his knees and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Breathe, Tony,” he told himself. “You’re okay… Just breathe… Not here… You can’t have a panic attack here.”
Tony took another shaky breath and lifted his head taking his hands away from his eyes. He was still at the hospital and Stephen was still hooked up to machines beside him and his hands were still broken and bloody in front of him.
He'd been there for Stephen for years, he'd watched him get his PhD and his MD, he'd pined after him when he had gone to Germany to study further, he'd watched him gain respect from senior doctors... Tony sighed. He remembered the night he'd come home from the hospital after performing his first major surgery, he remembered how excited he'd been. How he'd kept kissing him and telling him about his day. He remembered when he'd first been asked to speak at a Neurological Society event and how they'd gone together, holding each other's hands as they entered the hall...
Stephen's job was his entire life and now?
Tony didn't realise he was crying until he touched his own face.
"Pull yourself together, Stark," he said to himself. "For him."
Tony reached up and ran a hand through Stephen’s hair being mindful of the cuts on the man’s forehead. “I’m so so sorry Ste,” he said softly. “You don’t deserve this. I’m so sorry.” Tony paused. He half expected Stephen to wake up and say something but of course he didn’t, the only response was the steady beat of the heart monitor.
“You can come back and live with me,” said Tony. “We can give it another go… if…. If you’d like… I’ll stand by you for all of this because we will talk to some doctors… surgeons…. We can try some new treatments… We… we will find a way that you will be able to perform surgery again, babe. I promise. I’ll help you… I’ll be there for you. And until then I-I could try and make something? A pair of gloves or something that will help… Nic said you’ll never even be able to sign your name again so how about if I design gloves or something so you can write him a big ‘you were wrong’ note in your best cursive script?
Tony made a move to lean over and kiss Stephen’s forehead but at that moment the door to Stephen’s room opened.
Tony jumped and looked up to see a petite woman at the door. She was dressed in jeans, a plain t-shirt and a hoodie and her hair was loosely tied in a messy bun. Her eyes were puffy and red and Tony could tell she had been crying continuously for quite a while. Her face was stained with mascara and she made no move to clean the inky black marks away. She didn’t care how she looked because she was distraught and Tony felt his heart skip a beat…
When he came back from Malibu, he heard Stephen was in a relationship. He was still in a relationship. Of course, he was, here he was sitting here planning out his whole life with Stephen as he lay in a hospital bed when the man’s girlfriend had been crying her eyes out because her boyfriend had nearly died.
He felt like an asshole.
“I’m-I’m sorry,” stuttered the woman. “I-I didn’t know someone else was here with him.”
“It’s okay,” said Tony trying to keep his voice level as he stood up. “I was just leaving… I ummmm I heard he had been in an accident and I just wanted to see him.”
The woman didn’t seem to register what he had said she was too focused on looking at Stephen’s prone form in the bed. “Thank you,” she said finally. “Thank you for… for being with him… It’s-it’s good to kn-know he wasn’t alone.” She rubbed at her eyes smearing mascara further across her face.
The woman walked around him and took the seat beside Stephen’s bed and began to run her hand through his hair. She was the person who was entitled to do that. She was his girlfriend, his partner. Stephen needed her. He didn’t need him.
Tony wasn't that person to Stephen anymore. He wasn't his boyfriend anymore. He was only here at the hospital because Stephen had forgotten to take him off as an emergency contact. He wasn't part of Stephen's life anymore... He was an ex. Not a boyfriend.
“Who will I tell him was here to visit when he wakes up?” asked the woman.
“Oh,” said Tony. He wasn’t expecting her to say that. He looked at Stephen. He knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to say tell him that the man who knew he and Stephen still had something that they could still be something special had been here. The man who wanted to be there for Stephen today and tomorrow and every day after that had been here. The man who wanted to buy a house with Stephen, get a dog with Stephen and have children with Stephen had been here. He wanted to tell her that the man who loved Stephen had been here.
But he said none of that.
Instead he said “there’s no need to mention me,” and he smiled ruefully.
The woman didn’t question him. She simply nodded and turned her attention back to Stephen.
Tony grimaced. He had no place here. He took one last look at Stephen and left the room. He walked down the hall and left the hospital. He kept telling himself that Stephen would be okay. He would seek treatment and maybe his hands would get better. After it all he still mightn't be able to perform surgery but... maybe he could be a medical consultant... Tony imagined Stephen being exactly like Hugh Laurie in House always knowing the right answers and rolling his eyes whenever anyone was wrong. He'd be fine. Besides, he'd.... he'd a girlfriend to get him through it.
Tony was only gone a few minutes when Nic came back. He saw Christine in the room with Stephen and no sign of Tony. “Man, Strange,” he thought before entering the room. “I wish my exs cared as much about me as Tony and Christine care about you.”