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“Do you think there is still a chance for us?”
Stephen closed his eyes against the pain, against the sound of his breathing stuttering with disbelief. The truth, where it sat on the tip of his tongue, burned like a flame as images flickered behind the lids of his eyes, brutal, honest, telling. The answer fought to be free, wanted with the yearning of childish naivety to promise the world and everything else if it meant bringing a smile to those hopeful lips.
“I don’t know.”
Lies. The poison of the words tingled on the edge of his lips. A sharp intake of breath heralded in the shattering of Stephen’s heart as he tried not to be swayed, tried not to look at the man on his knees, digging into a flattened old rug, a place he never belonged. Subservient, desperate, wanting, needing from a man who could give nothing in return.
“Please.”
The stinging behind Stephen’s eyes was not unexpected. He finally peeled them open only to glare into the dim light of the lamp on the bedside table, willing it to hold back the tears, to let him be strong enough, just one more time to grant himself peace, to send this man on his way. Begging. There was no worse sound in the world, that voice, that usually warm, vibrant voice trying and trying and trying.
“Let me help you. I love you.”
So fucking earnest. Stephen’s skin ached with phantom memories, with a constant dull pain so different the one in his hands. He wondered, briefly, just for a millisecond of a moment about the glass shattered to pieces on the floor by the door, if the sting of it on the delicate skin would distract from the numb, achy feeling reverberating throughout his body since he woke up that morning, since everything fell apart so spectacularly.
Now. To have someone in front of him like this, hands gripping expensive dress pants in a bid not to touch, not to reach out after the explosion of anger and panic and magic and metal from moments before…it was…too much. Everything these days seemed like just a little too much.
The nightmares. His, theirs. The panic attacks. The fear. The helplessness. Well, what kind of a relationship was that? Stephen had known from the very beginning there was no space for them, no world in which they could build a stable, happy, normal future together. It turned out; all Stephen was capable of causing was pain. He supposed that was something he and Dormammu had in common.
That…that made something audibly snap, deep in his soul. He crumpled further, slouching over his lap and trembling fingers coming up to cover his eyes as he did all he could to hold back the sob slowly working its way up his throat. Stephen spared a thought for the presence that hadn’t moved, hadn’t made sound, hadn’t left even after the confirmation that there was no longer anything here for them.
Stephen wondered why. Why peace remained beyond his grasp, why they were both so willing to punish themselves over and over again. His breath whistled between his teeth with a harsh exhale, followed immediately by a slower inhale, he had…sadly mastered the art of limiting the onset of hyperventilation.
“Stephen…I want to help. I love you.”
Shuffling as he moves closer, almost unbearably so and Stephen nearly flinched away but he doesn’t dare let his body commit such an indignity, not to him, not to the man he still loved so fiercely. Even after everything. After the way they both had torn each other apart, spitting and screaming, damning and dismissing.
Really, Stephen realized, he might just be too afraid of his loneliness to let him go.
Finally lifting his head, Stephen took in the heartbreaking sight in front of him and did his best not to react, to really consider the mess that was this day…their worst day since this tentative relationship began only four months earlier.
Tony sat on his heels, usually warm brown eyes swimming with dark depths of agony as he stared back almost defiantly. Fingers dug deep into firm thighs and if it wasn’t for the thickness of his pants, Stephen didn’t doubt blood would have been drawn already. Tony’s entire body leaned forwards, clearly wanting to touch, to comfort, to offer something amidst the tumbling wreckage of their relationship but the fear of making thing worse, stayed his hand.
They shouldn’t feel this much. Not yet. Stephen had seen Tony in the Timestone in every variation and form and yet…this still felt like too much. The emotions brewing in his chest, the way his heartbeat painfully at the sight of unshed tears, made it feel like the end of the world. It was as though he were a teenager in the throes of first love, yet somehow this felt more dire…more final.
It was impossible not to think about the danger of where the intensity of their passion might lead.
It was impossible to think about sending him away.
Slowly, with the dreaded crawl of the morning sun, Stephen stretched his arm out toward Tony’s unmoving form, until finally, after excruciatingly long minutes, his palm fit itself around Tony’s cheek, cradling oh so gently.
No words were said. Stephen pretended the sensation of touch against his still shuddering body didn’t hurt. Tony pretended that the simple feeling of Stephen’s hand against his cheek wasn’t akin to salvation. They both pretended that the fire that simmered and blazed in their souls at their surrender didn’t terrify them.
Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Stephen forced out the words that seemed to be the answer to everything these days, seemed to be the cure to every nightmare and the balm of every panic attack…
“I love you. I’m sorry.”
Tony turned his head into Stephen’s palm, eyes falling closed and a heavy breath escaping his lips. Stephen didn’t think about all the last breaths that played out similarly in the Timestone. Tony didn’t think about how Stephen looked like a man on the executioner’s block.
They were together. They didn’t know how not to be. Not since Titan. Not since that fateful day when the sun was shining, and the park bustled with people oblivious to the shifting of the earth beneath their feet and the way things would never be the same again.