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Tony Stark was hiding. Or avoiding them. Steve wasn’t sure which word fit better, only that the end result felt the same.
At first, none of them had minded. Not really. There had been too much wreckage in the immediate aftermath of everything — of Siberia — to expect anything different. Steve had understood that. He had even defended it, when Sam made a comment and Clint rolled his eyes. If anyone had earned space, it was Tony.
Steve had felt the guilt immediately. Not in the heat of the fight — that had been survival and fury and something dangerously close to desperation — but after. After he’d left him there. After he’d walked away from a man who had been bleeding and furious and betrayed, and still his teammate.
The guilt had only deepened when Tony, of all people, had helped broker their pardon. When the same man Steve had abandoned had worked the phones and the committees and whatever backdoor channels existed to keep them from rotting in a cell.
That irony sat wrong in Steve’s chest.
Tony Stark on the side of the government. That had always been Steve’s lane. But the truth was more complicated than that. After the reworked Accords, after the amendments Tony and Rhodey had pushed through, it was clear he hadn’t signed on as anyone’s soldier. He had made the system bend, just enough, to keep the Avengers from becoming weapons in someone else’s hands.
Steve had been willing to sign the revised version. That part proved, at least to him, that this had never been about refusing oversight. It had been about autonomy. About not handing the world’s safety to politicians who would weigh optics before lives.
Still, that didn’t change Siberia.
It had been months since they were officially pardoned. Months since Steve moved back into a room at the Tower and told himself this was the first step toward rebuilding what they’d broken. The Avengers were supposed to be a united front again. That had been the point.
But it’s hard to rebuild something when one of the beams refuses to stand in the same room.
Tony avoided him. Not everyone — Natasha, apparently, was in good enough standing to speak on Tony’s behalf and tell Steve to keep giving him space. That silence bothered him more than anger would have.
He tells himself it’s because leadership requires unity. Because the team cannot fracture again. He knows that isn’t the whole truth.
If he had paused. If he had told Tony the truth sooner. If he hadn’t tried to carry Bucky’s burden alone — maybe Siberia would have ended differently. He had wanted to protect his friend. His brother. He had also wanted to protect Tony from a truth that would have gutted him.
Instead, he had gutted them both.
Sweat beads along Steve’s forehead as he slumps against the padded wall of the training room. He shouldn’t be replaying all of this while working out, but the body has a way of loosening thoughts the mind tries to keep contained.
The punching bag lies on the floor, the chain snapped clean from the ceiling mount. His hands are red and raw. His right wrist hangs at a slight angle that would concern most people. He flexes it once. Dull pressure. Nothing sharp.
He’s felt worse.
He exhales slowly, surveying the damage. He could call it in. Put in a work order. FRIDAY would dispatch someone within the hour.
He doesn’t.
He’d promised Natasha — and, strangely, Clint — that he would give Tony space. Not look for reasons to cross paths. Not force conversations that weren’t ready to happen. Filing a repair request would bring Stark’s systems into it. Maybe him.
Steve can fix it himself tomorrow. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d knocked it loose.
For now, he pushes off the wall and heads for the medbay. If the wrist is broken — and he’s fairly certain it is — it needs to be set. He’s not reckless enough to let pride cost him recovery time.
The medbay sat on the floor that separated Stark Industries from the Avengers’ quarters — a strange in–between space that felt deliberate. Not quite corporate. Not fully heroic. A reminder, maybe, that the line between innovation and aftermath was thin.
Stark employees only come up here a handful of times though. Usually when something in a lab had gone wrong and one of Stark’s engineers needed stitches or a cast. Otherwise, this floor belonged to the Avengers by default.
Lately, it had been quiet. Too quiet.
No world–ending threats. No alien invasions. No rogue A.I.s. On paper, that was a blessing. In reality, Steve wasn’t sure the team was stable enough to handle one if it came.
The elevator doors slide open, and he steps out expecting one of Dr. Helen Cho’s assistants. Instead, he walks into chaos.
He stops short just past the threshold, the scene in front of him almost disorienting in its urgency. The medbay hasn’t felt this alive in years. For a split second, he feels unmoored — like he’s waking up from the ice all over again, trying to piece together what he’s missed.
Four nurses hover around an empty gurney, hands poised, eyes locked on the doors that lead to the landing pad. Happy Hogan stands wedged in the automatic doors, physically keeping them from sliding shut as he stares outside, jaw tight. Helen Cho moves through the room issuing clipped instructions that overlap into something Steve can’t parse.
His first thought is Tony.
That’s the only reason Happy would be here. The only reason the medbay would be on edge like this.
The elevator doors close behind him and reopen almost immediately as a blur of red hair rushes past his shoulder.
“Natasha?” he calls, finally forcing his body into motion as he follows her toward the landing doors.
“How far out are they?” she asks Happy, not breaking stride.
Steve doesn’t know if she’s ignoring him or if she simply hasn’t heard. Everyone’s focus is fixed outward. On whatever is coming in.
“Should be touching down any second,” Happy replies, still not looking at Steve. His foot taps against the floor in a way that betrays nerves he rarely shows.
“Have you spoken to him?” Natasha asks.
There’s something in her voice — tight, contained, but unmistakably worried.
“Yeah, he’s—” Happy finally glances at Steve, words catching in his throat. Steve shifts, the silence suddenly heavy. “—he’s in bad shape.”
Natasha turns then, registering Steve’s presence fully for the first time. Something flickers across her face — calculation, hesitation, maybe warning — but before she can speak, the distinct roar of repulsors cuts through the room.
Every head lifts.
If Tony’s flying in under his own power, Steve tells himself, it can’t be that bad.
The medical team surges forward as one, blocking Steve’s view. Metal boots hit the landing pad with a heavy clang. The suit disengages with a series of mechanical clicks.
Then Tony’s voice.
Steve has heard Tony angry. Sarcastic. Cold. Devastated. He has heard him furious enough to try to kill.
He has never heard him like this.
There’s pain there — yes — but threaded through it is something rawer. Fear. Urgency. The kind that strips a man down to nothing but instinct.
Natasha and Happy shift aside to make room for the gurney. Steve does the same automatically, stepping back without thinking.
For a brief second, the crowd parts just enough.
He sees blood first.
Dark and soaked into red and blue fabric. Mattered curls plastered to a forehead far too young. A boy — barely more than that — unconscious and pale against the white of the sheets. He doesn't like the uneasy feeling this gives him.
The gurney rushes past him toward the OR, doors swinging shut before Steve can process more than that single, searing image.
Tony stumbles in a few seconds later.
He doesn’t look injured. No visible blood. No torn fabric. Just… unsteady. Like someone pulled the floor out from under him and he hasn’t quite found it again.
“Boss?” Happy asks carefully.
Tony shakes his head, blinking hard, dragging himself back into focus until his eyes lock onto Natasha.
“Find who did this,” he says. The words are sharp. Steel wrapped in jagged glass.
“Clint’s already heading to the scene. I’ll go too — I just wanted to make sure…” She trails off.
Steve catches it then. She was here for Tony. To see him. To check on him.
“Pepper’s getting May. Rhodey’s inbound,” Tony continues, voice moving faster than his thoughts. “Go. Both of you. Happy, I need you downstairs. Lock everything down. I need to— I’ve gotta—”
The sentence fractures.
Happy hesitates, but there’s no arguing with Tony when he sounds like that. He and Natasha move quickly, urgency overriding questions.
Clint is already involved. Natasha is in the loop. Pepper is calling someone named May. Rhodey on his way.
How much had happened without him knowing?
The doors close behind them. Only then does Tony seem to register Steve.
“I—” Tony’s gaze flickers, unfocused for a second. “What’re you doing here?”
The words land somewhere between suspicion and confusion.
“Training injury,” Steve answers automatically. His wrist throbs in quiet protest now, but it feels irrelevant given the current situation. “Are you — maybe we should sit down. Your heart’s racing.”
He can hear it. Fast. Too fast. Even through the noise of the room.
“Sit — sitting sounds good,” Tony mutters. “Is it hot in here? Are you hot?”
The frantic energy rolling off him is almost palpable. Steve has seen Tony angry. Devastated. Vengeful.
This is none of those.
This is fear.
“You’re worked up,” Steve says carefully. “Let’s get the jacket off.”
Tony nods once, distracted, letting Steve help him shrug out of the suit coat. He collapses into one of the waiting room chairs like his legs have given up completely.
Steve lowers himself into the seat beside him, painfully aware of how thin the air feels between them. Months of silence. Months of avoidance. And now this. He’s painfully aware of the fact that if Tony wasn’t mid spiral, they’d likely be having a much different conversation. He doesn’t know where to put his hands. Or his guilt.
“Tell me… tell me one of those war stories you’re always—” Tony gestures vaguely in his direction. “You know. Heroic propaganda hour.”
It’s such a Tony thing to say that Steve almost smiles. Instead he complies.
He picks a story at random. One that doesn’t involve Bucky. Or Howard. He keeps it light — or as light as a war story can be. The time their rations froze and how one of his inferiors nearly blew up a supply truck because he couldn’t follow simple instructions and was hangry.
He talks steadily. Measured. Grounded. Gradually, Tony’s breathing evens out. The pounding in his chest slows from frantic to merely fast. Steve keeps talking.
“Peter would love these,” Tony interrupts softly.
The name hangs in the space between them. Steve lets the story taper off.
“Is Peter…” He doesn’t finish. His eyes shift toward the closed OR doors.
Tony swallows. Nods once. “Yeah.”
The word is barely there. Silence stretches. Then—
“He’s Spider-Man,” Tony adds, glancing sideways at him. “Figure I may as well get that out of the way since I'm sure you saw the mask.”
Steve blinks. The red and blue fabric now clicks into place.
The boy on the gurney overlays with the masked hero on the tarmac in Germany. The one who had bounced around him like this was all a game. The one who had looked barely old enough to shave. The kid Tony had recruited. The kid Steve had nearly killed.
He feels something twist low in his chest. He doesn’t want to be angry. Not now. Not with Tony in a state like this. It feels too close to Siberia. But the lecture rises anyway, instinct and principle colliding inside him.
Before the words can leave his lips, the door swings open and Pepper Potts rushes in with a woman Steve doesn’t recognize. May, he figures. Tony is on his feet in seconds, moving toward them like something magnetic has pulled him upright.
Steve expects him to go to Pepper first. That would make sense. Instead, Tony reaches the other woman and gathers her into his arms without hesitation. Pepper lets him, hands pressed tight against her own chest, watching with a kind of restrained steadiness that tells Steve this isn’t unusual. Not exactly.
“Tony,” the woman cries the second he wraps his arms around her. “I can’t lose him. He’s all I have left.”
So she’s related to the boy. Spider-Man. Peter.
She seems too young to be his mother, but Steve has never trusted himself with ages. What he does recognize is grief. Fear. The kind that rattles your body even when you’re standing still.
He feels like he’s intruding on something sacred. Not just the woman’s panic, but Tony’s response to it. The way he holds her close, one hand firm at her back, the other braced at her shoulder like he’s physically anchoring her to the ground.
And then he hears it.
“He’s going to be okay.”
“We’re not gonna lose him.”
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”
Tony’s voice is low, rough around the edges. Not performative. Not defensive. Just raw.
Steve shouldn’t be listening this closely. He knows that. But he wants to understand. Wants to reconcile this version of Tony with the one he’s been arguing with in his head for months. With the one he left for dead in Siberia.
He’s so focused on the quiet exchange that he doesn’t notice Pepper step up beside him until she speaks.
“What’s going on?” he asks, tearing his attention away from Tony and the woman. “Tony says this kid is Spider-Man? He recruited a child and no one’s acting like this is an issue?”
Pepper turns to him slowly. The look she gives him is sharp enough he thinks it could cut through vibranium.
“Yes, Peter is Spider-Man,” she says evenly. “But you’ve got it all wrong if you think Tony has done anything wrong by that boy.”
“But Germany—”
“Steve.” His name lands firm and controlled. “You’re going to look at him right now and tell me he’s acting selfishly in this boy’s interest?”
Steve does look.
Tony is seated now, the woman beside him. Her head rests against his shoulder, their fingers laced together. There’s no arrogance there. No thrill of mentorship. Just fear.
“Who is she?” Steve asks quietly.
“Peter’s aunt. May Parker. She’s his last living relative.”
Something shifts in Steve’s chest at that. He knows what it is to be the last of something. Knows what it means to wake up in a world where everyone who made you who you are is gone.
“And Tony?”
Pepper exhales softly. “He started out just making Peter a suit. The kid was swinging around in pajamas. Then it became an internship. Then… more.” She glances toward them. “They’re good for each other, Steve. You should reserve judgment before you criticize Tony too harshly.”
“He’s just a kid,” Steve says, and it comes out quieter than he intends.
He hears her. He does. But children fighting battles — children being pulled into war — there’s something in him that will never sit easy with that.
“If you can hold your tongue, you should come meet May. She just might give you some more perspective,” Pepper says, already stepping forward and leaving him in her wake.
Steve follows, a half-step behind.
He instinctively goes to slide his hands into his pockets and a sharp hiss escapes him when he remembers why he came to the medbay in the first place. He looks down. His wrist hangs at an angle that’s… wrong.
“That doesn’t look good at all,” the woman — May Parker —says, immediately zeroing in on it.
“Oh. Yeah.” He clears his throat. “I came to have them set it before it heals wrong, but…” His words trail off. There isn’t a way to finish that sentence without pointing at the obvious.
Your nephew is the one who needs them more.
“Can I see it?” May asks.
Steve blinks. For a moment, the question doesn’t register. Then Tony gestures faintly toward his hand.
“They might be in there with the kid for a while,” Tony says. His voice is steadier now, but only slightly. “She’s a nurse. She can probably help.”
Steve hesitates only a second before stepping forward and holding out his injured wrist.
He lowers himself into the empty chair beside her and offers up his wrist carefully. “Can you tell me a little bit about your nephew?”
May smiles —soft, tired, but immediate. She rises and crosses to the nurses’ station, already scanning drawers with practiced efficiency. She gathers gauze, a brace, something rigid enough to splint. “Of course I can,” she says lightly. “He’s my favorite thing to talk about.”
“Tony’s too,” Rhodey adds as he steps fully into the room, having caught the tail end of it. Steve remembers Tony saying he was on his way. It isn’t surprising that Rhodey knows everything. It shouldn’t sting the way it does. And yet.
“For starters,” May continues as she kneels back in front of Steve, hands warm and steady around his wrist, “you’re his third favorite superhero. Used to be second, but training sessions with Nat dethroned you. Tony’s first. Obviously.”
She grins as she says it, adjusting his hand with careful pressure. Steve wonders — briefly, uncharitably — if there’s another reason he dropped in the rankings. Something shaped like Germany. Like a shield raised against Iron Man.
“I’ve got at least a hundred drawings of the Avengers in the closet at home,” May goes on, focusing on the alignment of the bone. “I shouldn’t have been surprised that getting powers meant the first thing he thought about was being like you.”
Steve studies her face instead of his wrist. “You’re okay with him doing this?” he asks, unable to stop himself.
May tweaks his hand just enough to draw a sharp breath from him. He wonders if it was necessary or a way of warning him he’s towing a thin line. “I didn’t know at first,” she says evenly. “He kept it from me. And when I found out? I wasn’t happy. But he was going to do it regardless.” She glances toward Tony. “With Tony’s help, we figured out a compromise. Something that lets him be Spider-Man but keeps him as safe as possible.”
Safe as possible.
The words hang between them. Heavy and incomplete considering the current circumstance.
“I should’ve gotten there quicker,” Tony mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face.
Steve hears the guilt in it. Recognizes it. It sounds a lot like his own.
“Tony,” May says firmly as she secures the brace around Steve’s wrist, “we can’t be there for everything. Not only is it impossible, Peter wouldn’t survive us hovering constantly. You got the alert and you went. You brought him here in time. Please don’t beat yourself up over this.”
Steve flexes his fingers experimentally. The setting is clean. He nods his thanks, but before he can say anything more, the OR doors swing open.
Dr. Cho steps out, mask lowered, expression composed but softened at the edges. Every person in the room straightens instinctively.
“He’s going to be okay.”
The collective breath that leaves the room is almost audible.
“It was touch and go for a little while,” she continues, “but I was able to remove all four bullets before they hit any major organs. The super meds will keep him under for a few hours. I expect him to wake before tonight. I’d like to keep him here for monitoring for the next two days.”
Relief ripples outward. Steve can feel it, like tension physically draining from the air.
They follow Dr. Cho toward the recovery room. Tony and May move first, Rhodey and Pepper not far behind. Steve lingers half a second before falling in step with them. He wasn’t invited but his curiosity keeps his feet moving, and no one was telling him otherwise. Truthfully, they probably weren’t even thinking about him right now.
Peter lies small in the hospital bed, wires and monitors tracing the rhythm of a life that almost slipped away. His face is pale beneath the bruising, curls damp and pushed back from his forehead.
Steve stands in the door frame, watching the rise and fall of Peter’s chest. He thinks about Germany. About the airport. About a teenager thrown into a fight between grown men. He thinks about Tony’s panic. About May’s steadiness. About the way Peter apparently used to draw him in crayon.
The lecture that’s been sitting in his chest since Tony told him goes quiet as he takes his leave to go get himself checked over by the medbay doctors.
It’s only after a clean bill of health and fixing the punching bag that he’d broken, that he returns to medbay. Perhaps he should leave them alone, but he’s never really been good at that.
Tony and Pepper sit on one side of Peter’s bed. May on the other with Happy sitting near her. Rhodey, Natasha, and Clint have dragged the large sofa from beneath the window to the foot of the bed. They’re not exactly piled on top of each other, but they’re close — knees touching, shoulders bumping. Familiar. Worn-in.
Like family.
Steve feels the edge of it. Wonders if he’s intruding.
Tony spots him first. His gaze flicks to him, then back to Peter, still asleep, and something tight passes over his face before he stands.
“Come on, Rogers” Tony says, voice low so he doesn’t disturb the room.
They slip back out into the medbay corridor. The fluorescent lights hum overhead. It feels strange to be alone with him fit the second time today. Strange to be talking to him at all.
“I can leave,” Steve offers once they’re out of earshot. “If you’d like.”
Tony stops short. Stares at him. Hands shove deep into his pockets, jaw tight.
“Even after you wandered all the way back,” he says flatly. “That would be cruel.”
“I would understand,” Steve replies, because he would. This was nothing but nosiness — a deep desire to understand.
Tony exhales sharply through his nose. “Of course you would. You’re sickeningly nice and forgiving.”
Steve swallows. “I think I’m the one who should be asking for forgiveness after Sib—”
“Don’t.” Tony lifts a hand, cutting him off clean. “I’m not ready to talk about that while my kid in there still hasn’t woken up.”
My kid.
The words land differently now.
There was a time Steve looked at Tony Stark and saw a man who wouldn’t make the sacrifice play. A man who wouldn’t lay it all down for something bigger than himself. Standing here, watching him unravel over a teenager in a hospital bed, Steve feels the shape of that judgment crack.
“I’ll drop it,” Steve says quietly. “But I need to say this first. I misjudged you. Somewhere along the way I decided who you were and stopped looking for anything else. That wasn’t fair. To you. Or to the team.” He nods once, deliberate. “I’m sorry.”
Tony rolls his eyes. It’s reflexive. But there’s a flicker there — something softer tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m not the same guy I was a year ago,” Tony says. “Or five years ago. So your first impression was still wrong – but I had a laundry list of character defects that I’m still working on. You werent… you weren’t too far off on some things.”
Steve huffs a breath that almost qualifies as a laugh. He doesn’t argue. He also doesn’t agree.
This version of Tony — the one who panics, who built a suit meant to protect while still supporting the passion , who whispers reassurances into a nurse’s shoulder — is someone Steve is only just meeting.
The door cracks open and Rhodey leans his head out. “Peter’s awake. He’s asking for you.”
Tony freezes for half a second. Then his composure shatters in the smallest way — shoulders sagging with relief, breath hitching. He looks at Steve, uncertain for just a beat.
Steve gestures toward the room. “Go. Don’t let me take up your time.”
Tony doesn’t argue. He moves. And as Steve watches him disappear back inside, he thinks that maybe the world isn’t as neatly divided into right and wrong as he once believed.