“I said I was sorry for everything, even running and you can’t just pick and choose what apologies to listen to.” Scooping Tony up like he did, Steve didn’t notice when his stitched tore or the blood started to seep through the bandages, all he focused on was getting Tony back to the bed. “You don’t know me, not well enough to have– you shouldn’t have feelings for me Tony because you’ll only end up getting hurt, hell you’re already hurt. And you haven’t even asked me any damn questions. You just yell and stamp your feet and throw insults regardless!”
He was gentle in setting Tony back on the bed, only lingering for a moment before he was pushed aside by a medic clearly frantic at having missed how bad a state Tony was truly in. Steve swallowed hard an took another wobbling step back, sinking down onto his own bed and trying to push away the hands that came near to tend to his bandages. He could wait.
The movement itself had exhausted him and Steve’s head fell forward, eyes closing to stop the world spinning.
“I asked–!” He yelled back once his back hit the bed, but was cut off by the medics surrounding him. For Steve to think over the years that they were together that he didn’t know him, that hurt. They used to go for lunches together, they used to talk on the phone all the time especially when they were younger - especially when Steve had assumed Tony and Iron Man were separate people. They spent so much time confiding in one another and suddenly none of that mattered. It felt like Tony’s life was a lie.
The other medics despite Steve’s protest helped him back on the bed again, slipping the IV’s back where they belonged. Same went for Tony. He was injected with something to calm him down to stop him from kicking about and forced to lay down again, laying there on his bed while they changed the bandages along his body and re-did all of their work.
Tony was left laying there, staring up at the ceiling with a burning glare, going through what he could remember of his past. Wondering if he really knew nothing, if everyone he cared about was just a figment of his imagination. All he could think about was how much he had loved Steve, and how much now he was being pushed further and further away. He hated it, but if Steve wanted to push him away then he would have to allow it. Everything in his life was always a lie, that’s just how he lived. In a bubble thinking he knew everything when in fact he knew nothing.