Dealing with it

Chapter 13: Guilt

   Steve couldn't help but just stand there and watch as Peter ran away from them. His son was Spider-man. He couldn't believe it. In Berlin he had fought Peter and he had hit Peter with no restraint because he was just another masked opponent that was standing in between him and Bucky. He had hurt his son. He had abandoned him. Tony was right. God Tony was right, Steve had just left and he had beaten Peter up in order to do so.

  Not only that but Peter was getting hurt himself swinging around the city in a mask. Peter was meant to be a teenager, a normal, good teenager. But he wasn't. Of course he wasn't with him and Tony as parents. Now he was out getting stabbed, he had a scar that looked nasty. He didn't understand Peter's powers, all he knew was that he had super strength and with very flexible. 

  Now all he could hear was his son's words echoing in his head You weren't there for months.  They weren't. It was true. Steve had abandoned Peter and when he came back he was never around and they had only come back properly to divorce. Peter had been acting like he was fine but he hadn't had he? He'd been hiding in his room or he'd been at his girlfriend's house for days. Now he had just run off crying.

  Steve looked over at Tony to see that his husband had slid down the counter and was sitting on the floor with his face in his hands. He was shaking and Steve knew that he was crying even though he wasn't making a sound.

  "Tony..." Steve said softly.

  "Fuck off Steve," Tony said and it was so broken. He had never heard Tony sound so broken before, not once in all their years.

  It was then that Steve found he was crying too, tears running hot down his cheeks. God this was all his fault. Things had been good before he had left with Bucky. Sure he loved his oldest friend and he had broken his wedding vows sleeping with the other man as well as breaking Tony's heart. 

  Thing was Steve loved Tony too. He just felt like he was being pulled in so many different directions. Or rather he had. That was why things hadn't sorted out when they had decided to start over. Now though... now after seeing his superhero son rush out in tears and his husband broken on the kitchen floor he knew that he needed to stay. He loved Tony and he loved Peter and he loved them much more than he loved Bucky. He'd just thought in that moment that Bucky had needed him more. He saw in that moment that he had been wrong and that he had destroyed the two people he loved the most.

  God it was all just his fault.

  "Tony please just-" Steve started, crouching down and laying a hand on his husband's shoulder.

  "I said fuck off Steve," Tony growled after violently flinching away from the touch.

  The billionaire's face was red and blotchy, tears still leaking from his eyes. Even as he pushed himself up his breathing was hitched as he tried to suppress his sobs.

  Then he was gone and Steve was left all alone crouched in the kitchen and at a loss for what to do. 

***

  Tony could remember his fight with Steve and Bucky so clearly. At the time he was already guilt ridden after having sent Peter in to help them at Berlin. He knew that his son was suffering and fighting his pa had only made it a thousand times worse.

  When he saw Bucky and Steve though... well he felt a hundred times worse. It was different to Berlin, it was just the two of them and Tony. It was the lingering touches and looks as Tony watched on the monitor as Bucky killed his parents. Logically he knew that Barnes hadn't really been himself when he had done it but he was himself now after he had taken his husband.

  He still didn't know if he would or wouldn't have tried to kill the man if it wasn't for the video but the video was there, he had seen it so it was what it was. 

  It was when Steve rushed to Bucky's aid and brushed the hair behind his ear, looking over him so tenderly before he turned and punched Tony full in the face. It was when Steve left Tony there in the broken suit, battered and bruised to go to the other man. When he hauled the super soldier to his feet and pressed a kiss to the side of Barnes' head and Barnes leaned into the touch with familiarity.

  That fight was when Tony's heart truly broke as he lay there and struggled to get to his feet once more long after his husband and his husband's lover had disappeared off. He had then decided that he would focus on Peter, make sure Peter and Spider-man kept safe and good.

  Now, sitting there on that kitchen floor, he knew that he had failed because he hadn't been there for Peter. He had tried to get his marriage back together- at first he had told himself that it was for Peter but really he knew it was for himself. After that, when it became clear that him and Steve were screwed, he had buried himself in his work to distract himself.

  Tony had abandoned Peter and now he came home with Peter thinking that he wasn't important. He had come home to Peter with scars. Peter who had hidden away from his own home so that he didn't inconvenience his own parents after he had been stabbed. 

  "Tony..." he heard his name and then realised that it was Steve.

  "Fuck off Steve," he hissed and it came out a lot, lot weaker than he had hoped. He couldn't deal with the man right now.

  "Tony please just-" Steve started before Tony cut him off with a "I said fuck off Steve".

  The man had had the audacity to touch him and he couldn't help but flinch away because hell if it didn't feel like that touch had burned him. He pushed himself up then and glared at the other man, he knew that he must look a state but he couldn't bring himself to care as he stormed out.

  He entered his room- his new room, neither of them slept in the room that they had for the rest of their marriage. There was a private bathroom off of it and he washed his face in the sink before studying his own face in the mirror. He looked okay. Not like he had been crying.

  Good enough.

  Tony made his way back down the hall to Peter's room. He really needed to talk to his son so even though there was no answer after he knocked he walked in. He walked into an empty room and an open window. Stupid cliche.

  "Shit. God why," Tony swore as he felt his chest tighten up again. He had screwed the pooch well and truly with this one.