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Nobody says anything as the red and blue blur slams into the asphalt ten yards back from where it had been crouching.
By the time they’ve managed to direct an ambulance through the wreckage of the still active battle ground, Tony’s got the faceplate of his suit up. The glove portion of the suit is off too, one of his hands is clutched in a white-knuckled, iron grip around a limp hand, and the other is pressing an emergency blood clotting spray against the side of Peter’s head.
Head wounds always bleed quite a bit. It looks worse than it is. Steve wants to say, but he somehow doubts the very preoccupied teammate of his will care how bad it looks. It is still an injury.
Steve has seen Tony furious; he’s seen him heartbroken; he’s seen him cocky and high on self-confidence, but he’d never seen the grim, black depth in his eyes as he watched the kid’s form on a stretcher being carried into the ambulance.
“Tony,” he says stiffly. There’s gunfire in the background of their conversation. Steve probably needs all the help he can get, especially considering Peter was on civilian duty. Instead, his lips form the word “go.” He can manage without. “Go with him,” Steve repeats, louder this time.
With a wordless thank you, Tony does.
——
When all is said and done, and the last of the threat was cleared from New York streets, Steve looked wearily to the skyline. He winces as the last of the sun for the day bounces back off the sleek glass structure comprising SI.
The kid was there, and Tony probably was too. Regardless of protocol, Steve figures for once in his life he could bypass the mission report and check in on the two instead.
In the ride back, Natasha seems to keep her steady, calculating gaze plastered on Steve’s face. Analysing, or perhaps considering his demeanour.
Steve petulantly keeps his eyes on Bucky, who’s tinkering with his gun mindlessly.
“You don’t know much about him.” Natasha’s voice cuts through the brief silence broken only by clicks of the gun in Bucky’s lap. It’s a statement, not a question.
“Who?” Steve peeked his eyes away from his left and planted them on Natasha, daring her to call him out for playing the pronoun game. He wasn’t stupid, he knew exactly where this conversation was going.
After the Accords, there had been what one could accurately describe as an unfathomable drift between the two sides. Luckily the majority of the team was able to reconnect, overlook wrongdoings. But Tony?
Tony and Steve were an entirely different entity of their own.
To be fair, Tony Stark was possibly the most unfalteringly stubborn man in the natural world.
So, yeah, Steve knew nothing about Tony’s personal - non-press life past the battle at the airport.
“Peter.” Natasha said coolly.
“Who?” Steve repeated, not even feigning ignorance this time.
“The spider,” she answered. Steve blinked, was that what the suit was supposed to mimic? He hadn’t been paying attention. “He was in Germany with us, at the airport.”
Vaguely, Steve pictured it.
“I - “
“You dropped a shipping container on him.” She said, smirking at the look on Steve’s face which said he had recalled the boy.
And yeah, he could picture the kid now. Hard to miss the bright red and blue streaking across the bland grey of the airport tarmac.
“What about him?” Natasha arched an eyebrow at him. “Peter - I mean,” Steve corrected.
“Things have changed, Cap.” Her tone implied he was missing piece of the bigger picture. “Tony isn’t the same, he’s starting to settle.”
“O - okay?” He said incredulously.
“The kid interns for him, and Tony’s been helping him train.” Steve is beginning to cotton onto what Natasha was implying.
One of the biggest issues Steve had dealt with throughout the Accords was the fact that he began to see Tony’s point of view as incredibly self-driven. Almost bordering on selfish. Natasha was implying the opposite of which.
“The Accords…” Steve began, trailing off as the car pulled into the tower. “They were a poor reflection on all of us,” he finished. The doors slammed shut and Natasha stayed by his side through to the elevator. “I don’t hold anything against him.”
Natasha nodded stiffly. Bucky stayed silent at their sides, not willing to comment even as the doors opened on the medical floor. “I’ll check on the two of them now, fill them in on the clean-up situation and such.”
——
Of all the things that could’ve gone wrong, Tony thought, it just happened to be harmful the kid.
A major concussion and a fractured wrist. Tony sighed audibly from his seat beside the kid’s med bay bed. To be fair, with his healing speed, the concussion would fade from major to minor in a matter of hours, and he wouldn’t even require a cast for his wrist.
“You jealous or something, sir?”
Tony jerked his head up, his eyes swivelling to the slightly glazed looking teen tucked into the bed beside him.
“What, that you get a lovely couple hours bed rest? Please,” Tony scoffed. Peter exhaled through his nose in an amused little huff, and there was a lull in the room. The tension Tony carried in his shoulders evidently resided when he was able to confirm that the kid wouldn’t have any bleeding in his head.
“Is everyone else okay?” Peter asked, suddenly. Tony gave a nod, placating the boy. “Sorry you had to see that. I got kinda distracted, too focused on the civilians.” Tony rolled his eyes. He’d spoken to the kid about this nonstop apologetic front he seemed to put on.
“It’s fine, there shouldn’t have been any action down in your area anyway.” Tony put his hand on the lump beneath the covers that was Peter’s shin. “You did good though, on civilian duty.”
“Thanks, Mr. Stark.” Peter hid a grin, rubbing at his wrist awkwardly.
“Uh, yeah you should be thanking me,” Tony humoured. “I’m about to keep you company for about three hours so you don’t get bored and violate the terms of bed resting.”
——
When Steve slipped his way through the sliding doors into the medical wing, his attention was immediately directed to the bed on the far end. There was a comfy looking chair that Tony was sprawled across, one leg splayed over the other.
Directly beside the chair was a large single bed, elevated and angled so the kid in it was sat upright. There was a bandage over his left temple and a temporary wrist brace over his arm.
Between the two of them was a tray attached to the side of the bed. There were two tubs of jelly on either side, and between those were a collection of playing cards.
The boy was grinning widely, tilting his hand to keep them away from Tony’s line of vision.
To Steve’s surprise, Tony had an easy going smile across his face to join the boy’s.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Tony look so human, without his metaphorical wall of defences. Without the tension radiating from his being.
Despite where Steve stood, thanks to the premium quality hearing, he could make out the boy proudly declaring his cards. He laid them across the tray and his grin only grew wider as Tony’s hand was laid out beside it.
“Sometimes I forget you’ve got a brain, kid.” Tony jabbed amusingly, reaching over and ruffling the unbandaged side of the boy’s head.
“Maybe it’s because you don’t have one of your own either,” the boy quipped right back. Tony laughed heartily. The sound of which Steve could hear even as he backed through the entry doors and walked down the hallway to the elevator.
Steve felt something settle within him. He was entirely lost and couldn’t comprehend how someone he knew so well - and then didn’t, - could have such a personality shift. He couldn’t fathom how special the kid sitting across from his old friend could be, but he knew he had to have been extraordinary in some way. Because who else could barrel through Tony Stark’s wall of indifference and emotive barriers?
For about two years now, Steve has been misguided, all caught up in the Tony he remembered throughout the duration of the Accords situation. He’d entirely overlooked the fact that the Tony he knew prior was capable of caring, loving, of course they were few and far between to those who weren’t particularly close to him.
Steve found the scene in the medical wing mildly debilitating for a moment. It had jarred his image of Tony.
He wasn’t lost in his mental picture of the man after the encounter. He knew who Tony was, what kind of a person he was to a younger vigilante.
But this particular revelation put something entirely different into question. What was this newly settled version of Tony’s stance on forgiveness?