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It was Civil War in the Gryffindor home room.
Steve wasn't sure how it had escalated so quickly to all-out war, but he supposed he should have expected it: Tony didn't know how to do anything by halves, and that was true for bitter vengeance too. He supposed he should tell Tony the truth of what actually happened – that he and Sharon weren't doing anything in the Potions classroom, it had all been entirely innocent – but it wouldn't do any good.
Besides, Tony's misunderstanding had caused the desired outcome, even if Steve regretted the cost.
The other Gryffindors had taken sides, of course – it had been years since Tony's less-than-graceful introduction to Hogwarts. Most people had forgotten Tony’s weird crazy outbursts, or had taken them in stride. Tony had friends now, a far cry from their first year, when Steve had been Tony's only friend.
Steve's heart hurt. Tony had been his best friend. He hadn't meant to hurt him like this. But it was the right thing to do. Love was dangerous. Love ripped you apart from the inside out. It was best to nip whatever-it-was brewing between him and Tony in the bud now, before it killed them both. If it hurt Tony this much now, when all they'd shared were a few admittedly-beautiful kisses, how much would it have hurt later?
Steve had seen what losing his father had done to his mother. He didn’t want to go through that himself. And the idea of Tony having to go through it too – it was unbearable. So when Tony had wandered into the potions lab, and seen Steve on the table, robes hiked up to his waist, Sharon kneeling between them… Steve let Tony think the worst.
In reality, Sharon had gotten a little over-exuberant trying to slice her caterpillars for a Shrinking Solution, and Steve had gotten a tiny bit stabbed, and it made more sense for her to patch him up rather than go to Madame Temple and probably get ten points knocked off Gryffindor for the privilege.
Steve wondered whether he would ever forget the pinched expression on Tony's face, when he saw the two of them in the lab and assumed that Sharon and Steve were being intimate.
Based on the yelling that was going on, Steve was pretty sure Tony would never forgive him.
The inter-house war spilled out on Hogwarts' corridors. Textbooks were stuffed with charms designed to explode when the target opened them to a particular page. Howlers were sent during dinner, shrieking embarrassing gossip and secrets at a volume impossible to ignore. Someone turned Sam Wilson's hair blue for a week while he slept.
Steve's supporters were equally and creatively vicious. It was innocent at first – a few hexes and jinxes here and there. Scott managed to hit Tony with an excellent Illegal Growth Hex, making Tony's head grow to three times its size. Sam was the one who got them all caught – he tried to hit Tony with a nicely timed Ebublio, and instead, he ended up sending Professor Eitri floating in a giant bubble to the rafters of the dining room. Eitri had a hatred of heights; he promptly quit, as soon as he landed back on the ground.
Professor Hill made all the Gryffindors stay behind after dinner so she could yell at them for their behavior, her pretty face turning bright crimson as she paced furiously, pointing her finger accusingly at each one of them. "I've never seen such underhanded behavior from any of Hogwarts students, in all my years here." She crossed her hands over her chest, her robes swishing angrily around her ankles as she came to a full stop. "The whole lot of you should have been in Slytherin."
"Tony definitely should," Steve muttered, aggrieved that Tony was smirking at them all being in this much trouble, even though he was being yelled at too. "The Sorting Hat certainly thought so."
"Mr. Rogers," Hill said, appalled.
It turned out there was another expression of Tony's that Steve would never forget: the look on his face right then and there. Pale. Horrified. Eyes wide and wet. His lips were trembling.
Steve's gut ached and he regretted saying it immediately, but it was too late. It was another thing he could never, ever take back.
"How could you?" Tony whispered. Even those that had been Team Tony during the incessant prank war were looking at Tony askance, almost fearfully. "That was a secret. How dare you. How dare you!"
Steve's eyes felt hot. He'd just been angry, that was all, that Tony had dragged them all into this war. It didn't have to be that way. Tony should have just—
No. Steve should have just—talked to Tony. Told him what he was feeling. Except, how could Steve put it all into words? When he tried to justify it to himself, he just felt sick and stupid. This had all gone terribly wrong somewhere. Maybe the new Deputy Headmaster would let Steve borrow the Time Turner he wore around his neck, so Steve could turn back time. Retract everything. Even the kisses. If he was thinking about time travel, Steve should probably choose a time before he'd ever kissed Tony Stark to go back to. But the thought of never remembering those amazing moments felt like a stab to the gut. Kissing Tony had been such a bad idea, but oh, it felt like coming home, all at the same time.
Why did everything have to hurt all the time, now? Steve ground his teeth together. It wasn't fair. He just wanted Tony to be happy. Romance might make you feel gleeful for a while, but it always ended badly, so Steve had been right to end it. Hadn't he?
Tony would see that, in time. He'd understand: loving Steve Rogers was a death sentence.
They were better off as friends, but Tony didn't even seem to want that much.
After Hill's lecture, and Hill's three weeks of detentions, Steve had vowed to himself to try and cool down on antagonizing anyone in Team Tony. Most of the other Gryffindors seemed to agree.
Most didn't extend to Tony himself. Tony seemed intent on dragging Steve into as many fights as possible. An incident in History led to Professor Wang having to accio every textbook in the room to the desk, because Tony was surreptitiously charming all of them to try and smack Steve in the face. In Arithmancy, Professor Cho had to physically stand between them when a debate about whether Bridget Wenlock could be credited as fundamental to the popularity of Quidditch got too heated (Steve thought Tony was being stupid, which just seemed to make Tony's assertions louder and increasingly polysyllabic. Tony was stupid: there were seven players on each team, ergo, Wenlock had to be at least partly credited!)
It all went finally and very wrong during a Charms lesson. Steve was on edge, mostly because he'd spent all day avoiding the sneaky little attacks Tony had perpetually taken to launching at him in-between lessons, designed to knock him off course, or into abandoned classrooms; Steve had managed to fight each one off, and, even worse, Tony denied being the perpetrator, which was ridiculous – since Steve had yelled about the Sorting Hat trying to place Tony in Slytherin, Tony had started to be a loner again, like he had for the first few days of First Year; skulking around on the outskirts, everyone eyeballing him distrustfully. Tony didn't have any allies left; he had to be the one trying to send those annoying curses at him. Besides, everyone knew the Starks didn't just break curses, but they made them too. It had to be Tony.
Steve was riled up with it. Everyone was tense; the Dark Lord Thanos was gearing up to declare war, they said. Tony should be focused on that, not making snide comments or shooting sly curses in Steve's direction at every opportune moment. He was stewing over it throughout Charms, and Tony was making it worse; everyone knew Charms was Steve's best subject. His shield charm, everyone said, was nearly as good as Nomad's.
But today, Steve could barely manage a whisper of flame. They were supposed to be revising Incendio. Charms had been irritating him this year in general, and he tried and failed not to think about the teaching student that was their current Professor – Janet van Dyne. She was a prodigy, apparently. She was pretty much every Hogwart student's current crush, and somehow, she seemed to have an especially soft spot for Tony Stark. Steve inevitably spent most of Charms grinding his teeth and glaring at Professor Van Dyne for the friendly way she chatted to Tony, as compared to the brisk and professional way she talked to everyone else.
It wasn't fair for Steve to think of Tony so possessively, not when Steve was the one to wreck their burgeoning…whatever their once die-hard friendship had been evolving into.
To make Steve's failure worse, the flirting he hated was even worse than usual. Van Dyne was smiling at Tony, clapping her hands delightedly when Tony's Incendio formed into a pretty phoenix that flew around the ceiling before dispersing into a dramatic shower of sparks. Steve knew the wand gesture off by heart, he knew how to cast Incendio forward and backward, but today…. It just wasn't happening. He could barely summon a tiny curl of fire from his wand tip.
He kept going, trying uselessly, his frustration growing sharply with each attempt. He'd have kept going until the end of class, except a blur of movement caught his eyes. When Steve looked up to see what it was, he saw Tony. Tony was leaning casually against the wall nearest Steve's desk, his gaze coolly averted to the corner of the classroom where Sam was successfully lighting a candle for Van Dyne. Van Dyne smiled politely at the achievement. Steve's stomach jumbled uncomfortably.
"You're wussing out on the downstroke," Tony said.
"Excuse me?" Steve's voice was harsher than he meant it to be. Steve was aware that he was the villain of this piece, and yet, he couldn't help himself. Tony had been his best friend for the last five and a half years; being apart from him all the time hurt. Steve took a shaky breath. This had been his decision. A little hurt now was worth a lifetime of heartache, wasn't it?
"Your downstroke is too slow," Tony said. "That's why you're underperforming."
"I don't need your help." Steve could feel every muscle in his body tense. Merlin, why was this so difficult? Why couldn't Tony just be his damned friend still? Maybe… maybe Steve had broken Tony's heart, but… surely that didn't mean Tony had to hate him like this? Did it?
"I'm just trying to help," Tony said, finally looking at Steve.
"Why don't you just leave me alone?" Steve snapped, his wrist jerking in Tony's direction, and he was just so angry, and frustrated, because he knew Incendio, he knew the incantation, he knew how to summon the fire, he knew it to the core of his being. But he was tired, and Van Dyne had been flirting with Tony, and Tony had been flirting back, and this whisper of condescending kindness from Tony was too much to bear—
"Steve," Tony said, and Steve hated the way he said it, because Tony used to say Steve's name like it was special, and Steve hadn't known there were so many ways to hear his name where he would hate the sound of it, but Tony was figuring out all sorts of ways to do that—
"Aguamenti!" someone was yelling, near Steve, and Steve didn't understand, until he looked down at his hand – the wrist he'd jerked at Tony had been his wand-holding hand, and Tony – Tony was on fire. Steve had done that?
His heart racing, Steve realized he must have cast it wandlessly, his anger at Tony unconsciously overriding control of his magic. Tony's robes were alight, and someone was hauling Steve backwards as Van Dyne cast aguamenti over and over, her face pinched and panicked.
Tony was gasping in pain. Steve stared in horror. He was a monster. A monster.
Van Dyne had put out the flames; Tony sank against the wall, breathing hard, obviously injured.
"You, get out," Van Dyne spat at Steve. "Go stand outside. I'll deal with you when I'm sure Tony's okay."
Steve found himself nodding numbly, shocked by the magic that he'd unleashed, that his anger could have done this, manifested into something that hurt Tony. Even as Van Dyne started to use healing charms on Tony, enough to keep his body intact until they could safely move him to the infirmary, Tony was conscious enough to be looking at Steve.
Steve would never forget Tony's expression as he stared at Steve, in shock and dismay and open pain.
"Do you really hate me this much?" Tony whispered.
No, Steve didn't hate him. Steve loved him too much. That was the problem.
That question would be the last thing Steve would hear from Tony for a very long time, but Steve didn't know that as he stumbled out of the classroom and away from his appalled classmates. They were right to look at him like that. How could he lose control of his magic like that?
There was movement at the door as Steve stood in the Charms corridor, hating himself: he looked up eagerly, hoping to see Tony being helped towards the Infirmary, but instead, it was Sharon.
Van Dyne probably sent her to make sure he wasn't trying to run away. It figured.
Steve looked at her tentatively. Sharon wasn't shy when it came to lecturing Steve, especially when it came to Tony. He deserved whatever condemnation she was preparing in her head.
Her next words weren't what Steve expected at all.
"We've been trying to get you alone," Sharon said. Her voice seemed odd, stilted; her eyes seemed a little glassy. She tilted her head sharply. "You're trouble, Steven Rogers."
"Sharon?" Steve stared at her, nonplussed. She wasn’t acting or looking like herself.
"I'm sorry," she said, lifting up her wand. "We can't have you in the way. His plans – oh, the Dark Lord's plans – they're going to be so good."
Steve couldn't react in time. He wanted to. They really weren't Sharon's words at all. We've been trying to get you alone. He thought about all the charms and curses he'd been dodging all week, designed to push him into weird parts of the school. Steve had blamed Tony. Tony had protested his innocence. Tony had been right all along.
Sharon's eyes blazed silver and something hit Steve hard in the chest. Pain washed over him, blooming hot and hard behind his eyes. He fell backwards. He thought he'd feel something hard impacting his head; Hogwarts was made of hard stone, as far as the eye could see.
He did fall, and land hard, but it wasn't on stone. Steve was a wash of pain; he felt at his chest, awkwardly realizing he did at least still have his wand. Why hadn't he used Expelliarmus? Sharon had clearly not been herself. Imperiused, he thought, trying the term out in his head. That fit.
Steve rubbed his head, coughing painfully; when he opened his eyes, it was bright. Too bright. He opened his mouth to gasp and had to cough some more when sand got in his mouth.
Sand? What?
"Careful, boy," a deep voice said; there was something friendly in the man's voice, but Steve still scrambled quickly to his feet, even though the movement made his head swim. "You took a big tumble there."
Steve blinked furiously, trying to get his vision to clear up. He wasn't in Hogwarts anymore, that was for sure. He was standing in… some sort of a desert? He could see a lot of sand, stretching away into the distance, and some mountains. And in front of him was an older man, his mustache grey, long, and twitching above a friendly smile.
Cowboy, Steve thought idly, squinting at the man.
"Uh," Steve said. "Where am I?"
"Real big tumble," the man laughed. "Must have hit your head there. Must have been a mighty big spell to do that to you."
Steve squinted. "How did you—?"
The man laughed. "You've got a wand, boy, and you literally appeared out of thin air. I wasn't born yesterday."
"Oh." Steve flushed. His head was pounding; wherever he was, it was hot. He clenched his wand more tightly. "I was… at school."
"Explains the dress you're wearing."
Steve glanced down at his robes. "I—yes, I suppose." Steve blinked several times. "Where is here?"
"Timely," the man said, and at Steve's obvious confusion, he said it again. "This town here is called Timely." The man pointed behind Steve.
Steve turned on his heel and stared. There was a whole town behind him. It looked like a movie set. Steve was already half-expecting Clint Eastwood to stride out of one of the wooden buildings, a gun on his hip, a golden star glinting on his chest.
"I think I asked the wrong question," Steve said, staring uncertainly at the town. "When is here?"
The man ambled up alongside him. "Boy, you must have hit your head. It's May."
"What year?"
"1872, of course," the man said. He smiled at Steve and held out a broad hand, seemingly missing the shock on Steve's face. "I'm Isaac Stark."
Steve inhaled at the name.
"You've heard of me?" Isaac sounded pleased.
"No," Steve said. "Sorry. Just—you look familiar, I guess."
Isaac did. He had Tony's bright blue eyes, and now Steve had Stark as a clue. What the hell kind of spell had Sharon hit him with?
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Isaac continued, glancing down at his still-extended hand.
Oh. Steve was being rude.
"Steve," Steve said, holding out his non-wand hand. "Steve Rogers." His gaze dropped to the buildings. "And I think… I think I'm a really long way from home, Mr. Stark."