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Tony grit his teeth as he cast another trinket aside. There wasn’t room for it, not when the small pack he was taking with him back to Earth was already full with souvenirs for the few friends he had left there. He’d picked up the souvenirs in different port towns, here seeing a necklace that he thought Pepper would like, there seeing a trinket that Rhodey would love. Then seeing things for Happy, Vision, Bruce, Stephen, the kid. Things to let them know he had thought of them while he was gone.
He wasn’t going to throw away those items just to bring something along for him. Something to remind him of the good times that he’d had with this team. (With this amazing, fun, incredible team.) The important thing was letting the people that had put up with him for years know that he cared about them.
His own happiness was secondary.
(Besides, he probably wouldn’t be alive very long to enjoy the reminders, anyway.)
He closed the pack laying open on his bed, resigned now to the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to bring anything else with him, before casting his eyes around his room for one last look. It was arranged in a neatly-cluttered type of away, various items from their trips around the galaxy placed in whatever area would fit them. Tony never could resist picking up new gadgets to poke at, and he had a secret weakness to souvenirs aimed at tourists. It didn’t help that space was so interesting, with new things to discover in even the simplest of items. Rhodey had always teased that the only reason that the world didn’t know that Tony Stark was a hoarder was because his properties were big enough to hide it. Now that Tony had a much smaller living space, Rhodey had been proven right; and it was showing. Tony had maybe (almost definitely) gone a bit overboard in purchasing things for himself and the Guardians whenever he had the units to.
Or maybe he had just gotten too comfortable with thinking that he wouldn’t have to leave.
Should’ve known that that wouldn’t have lasted long.
Should’ve known that Tony, being Tony, would eventually screw up enough that the team would realize the mistake they had made in bringing him along.
Tony was yesterday’s trash. With a few exceptions, the only reason that people didn’t tie him up and throw him away was because they still had some form of use for him. With those few exceptions, people generally acted like they didn’t want him around them otherwise.
Tony cursed and slammed a fist sideways against the wall beside his bed before bowing his head to rest against his arm. The Guardians were some of those exceptions. Yeah, they snarked, and they bickered, and they said occasionally cruel things to one another, but… Tony never had reason to truly believe that they didn’t want him around. He had actually felt accepted here. Liked here. And, like always, it was his own fuck ups that had made it end.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck it ALL TO FUCKING HELL!
Tony should have never punched that Sovereign higher up after the guy had managed to corner him alone in the corridor. He knew how fragile the peace between his team and the Sovereign was; Peter had made a point to warn him before the team got there how angry the Sovereign got when disrespected. How the team had just gotten said people to stop trying to kill them. Tony should never have raised his hand to a guy that was apparently even higher up then the woman they had pissed off the first time around.
He should’ve just let the guy fuck him.
Yeah, Tony had promised himself that he would never allow something like that happen to him ever again. And yeah, he knew he would feel filthy and sick and like he wanted to die afterward.
But at least he would’ve gotten to keep his team.
Keep Peter, and whatever they had been building between them for the past eight months that Tony had been with the team.
He knew he couldn’t tell the Guardians about what had happened. They were protective enough that they would have tried to kill the man then and there, still would probably try to kill the man, and that would really cause a shit storm.
Better that they not know the truth and hate him, then know and get themselves killed.
Tony took a deep breath and turned towards the entrance of his room only to freeze at seeing Peter staring back at him.
Peter was the first one to speak, eyes fixed on the pack laying on Tony’s bed, “What the hell are you doing, man?”
“Packing,” Tony smiled with forced cheer, “Figured I’d get ready so that you guys don’t have to wait for me.” He grabbed his pack from the bed and shouldered it, “I just have one request, if it’s not too much: Don’t leave me on Earth. Yeah, I’d really, really like to visit Rhodey and the other’s before the Sovereign cart me off to kill me or whatever, but I don’t want them getting hurt trying to keep me safe. Just, if you wouldn’t mind giving me an hour or so with them and acting like it’s a quick visit before dropping me off on some moon somewhere, I’d really appreciate it.”
As Tony had been speaking, Peter’s body language had closed in on itself more and more, frustration and anger growing openly, some other complex emotions hidden beneath. Tony winced as he saw it and opened his mouth again, not being above begging for the chance to see his friends on Earth one last time. He figured there might be a chance it would work, since frustration seemed to be the prevailing emotion, and not anger.
But Peter cut him off.
“Tony, what the fuck?” Peter nearly shouted as he entered the room to start pacing and gesturing agitatedly, “Drop you off on some moon? To what, face the Sovereign alone and die alone?” Peter turned to face him and searched his face for… something, before turning away to resume pacing at what he found, cursing before demanding, “Are you fucking out of your mind, man? Jesus, Tony, we’re not gonna abandon you just because you made a mistake, especially when we don’t even know why you made it. We’re your team. Even though you’ve apparently got too many fucking issues to see it, we care about you. A lot. We are not going to let you die alone; that is not even a remote possibility. We’re facing this together… or you know, running from the Sovereign until they give up together, whichever comes first.” Peter finished, flopping down on Tony’s bed with an exhausted huff.
Tony blinked, shell-shocked and silent during Peter’s speech, until, “You’re not going to ask me to leave the team?” He didn’t even recognize his own voice, it was so vulnerable and soft. More so then he’d ever allowed it to be in some time.
Peter looked up at him at that, before shaking his head and running a hand through his hair, “Man, the more I manage to figure out about your old team, the less I like it. No, I’m not going to ask you to leave the team. None of us were going to ask you to leave the team. In fact, as of now, until this Sovereign thing is taken care of you’re not allowed to leave the team. Knowing you, you’ll try to fucking martyr yourself and- Nope. Until we know you’ll be safe without us, you’re stuck with us. Deal with it.”
Deal with it?
Tony didn’t know if he knew how to deal with it.
But looking into Peter’s eyes and feeling happier than he’d ever felt on Earth, a happiness that the Guardians had inspired in him more than once…
Tony thought that he wouldn’t mind learning.
***
Of course, the rest of the team didn’t react much better to Tony trying to leave than Peter had. Gamora pinned him to the wall and threatened to kill him herself if he ever tried something like that again, which was somehow sweet and terrifying all at once. Drax said that he would merely pin down Tony’s weak self with his superior bulk until such thoughts left his head, which was also sweet but slightly weird. Rocket just snorted at him before saying, “Damn Stark, I knew that your tech was only a little better than what you’d find in the Stone Age, but I never thought that you were stupid before.” which was practically a declaration of love and devotion in Rocket speech. Groot wrapped a vine around his hand before saying, “I am Groot.” which Tony somehow knew meant that Groot wasn’t letting go until the Sovereign weren’t a threat to Tony any longer. …That was probably going to make Tony’s daily routine interesting if Groot meant it literally like Rocket’s smirk seemed to imply he did.
Kraglin, though, had had one of the most interesting reactions of all, jumping up like Tony’d threatened to skin him alive, before bursting out with, “Are you kidding?! You know how unbearable the Captain’d be if you left considering the feelings he-” He paused while looking at Peter who was off to the side and making cease and desist gestures at him frantically before finishing firmly with, “Not to mention I’m not looking to loose anymore friends anytime soon.” Mantis just looked at him like he had killed an entire litter of puppies in front of her, which left him feeling like he had done a great wrong to the universe, before giving Tony a hug that left him feeling warm and loved.
(Luckily for Tony’s cocky bad-boy image, which was already flustered and nearly torn apart by all the support from his team, Nebula was off the ship while the discovery of Tony’s plan had happened. Unluckily, she came back in time to hear Tony finally break down and tell the team what the Sovereign leader had tried to do. Watching his team react exactly like he’d imagined they would, Tony thanked whatever higher power was nearby that they weren’t anywhere near the Sovereign at the time. His team, who Tony secretly thought of as badass cinnamon rolls most of the time, could be really fucking scary when they were that pissed off. As it was, the transmission that Rocket sent the Sovereign was apparently frightening and scathing enough to shame them into calling off the attack. Which was even luckier, because Tony hadn’t known just how much longer he was going to be able to hold them back from taking the attack straight to the Sovereign’s doorstep.
(But the luckiest part of all of it is that Tony is never made to feel like yesterday’s trash again. His team, and Peter especially, makes sure of it.))