Chapter Text
The light catches on the edge of the shield as Tony’s hands fly up to protect his face. For a moment, he thinks Steve’s going to do it ( oh god i’m going to die ), bring the shield down on his unprotected neck. His senses go into overdrive; he hears Barnes panting harshly through the pain, the creak of Cap’s suit as he moves, the whistle of the shield moving through the air. He’s hyperaware of the cold, hard ground underneath him, the chill seeping through the armour. The shield hits the chestplate with enough force to vibrate through his whole body; the arc reactor goes dark, and Tony’s world whites out.
He wishes Steve had aimed for his neck, after all.
Their bond has always been this strong, bright thing between them; a glowing cord in Tony’s mind he can follow home when his senses threaten to overwhelm him. Pre-Steve, Tony had been one of the most dysfunctional Sentinels around ( to the surprise of no one ), constantly on the edge of a fugue and barely keeping himself together. Pepper was at her wit’s end, unable to pull him out of that dark hole once he’d fallen in, and barely able to keep him toeing the line. He was balanced on a knife edge, had been for his entire life, and then he’d been in the workshop and light had bounced off one of the Iron Man suits just right and he was gone.
He’d come back hours later curled up in Captain America’s lap, the taste of mint and safety on his tongue and a half formed bond a little ball of warmth behind the reactor.
Now, with the strike of the shield, Tony thinks he might be screaming as the bond twists and warps. It’s not something to hold onto now, it’s something
clawing
at him,
strangling
him. The world pounds at his senses and Tony loses time for a moment, surfaces as Steve scoops Barnes from the ground and begins staggering away. Their bond stretches between them, a fragile string that spools thinner and thinner as the distance grows.
“My father made that shield,” Tony slurs out, not even sure where the thought comes from. It seems a silly point to fixate on. Steve pauses, but he doesn’t turn around, and Tony hears the creak of his glove before his fingers loose their grip on the disc. Light catches on the metal, and Tony watches in helpless fascination as it seems to fall in slow motion.
He doesn’t hear the shield hit the ground, but he feels the last thread snap and Tony almost welcomes the fall when it comes.
He loses track of time, surfaces every now and then, but the fugue is the strongest he’s ever experienced. In his brief moments of lucidity, he wonders if it’s a side effect of the bond breaking. He thinks for a moment he’s got a handle on it, when he comes to lying in the same place, and stays present for a good half an hour. But then he thinks about the chill of the armour, and he can hear one of the torn internal wires sparking.
Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt, bzzt.
And Tony’s lost, counting the rhythm between each spark and the sound seems to echo in his ears, loud loud so loud.
“-Ony!
Tony!
” There’s a bellowing in his ear and it
hurts
and he thinks his ears might start bleeding, and why is his heart beat so loud? He’s boiling alive, his skin is raw and surely it must be bleeding from the scrape of the undersuit. He feels like a live wire, and everything hurts and he just wants it to
stop.
“Tony, listen to me, c’mon, come back to me genius.” The voice thunders again, rattling in his skull and Tony whimpers and even that is too loud.
Hands, warm, too warm, cup his ears and his skin burns and it doesn’t really help but it’s something new to focus on and he can hear their pulse pounding in their wrists.
And he’s gone again.
“I can’t bring him around, we’re gonna have to sedate him for the move.”
He hears the uncapping of a needle, loud like a gunshot, and then they’re oh god no they’re stabbing him. He’s being impaled, burning hot and sharp and everything in him narrows down to that agony. He knows he’s screaming, can feel his vocal chords vibrating and even that hurts and he thinks he might be dying again and he wishes it would just hurry up.
And then, finally,
peace.