"So they haven't found anything?"

Even the small tablet in Steve's hand felt too heavy. His exhaustion seemed to be tripling with every photograph he flipped through, weighing down on him as he sat, sprawled up against the hallway wall. What had once been the Raft – his friend's prison – was nothing short of gutted.

"Not yet." Rhodey said, his eyes never leaving the opaque glass that was currently separating the team from Tony. "The damn thing was too big to dredge up so they're sending divers down instead."

The genius was still in his chair, eyes fixed on the mirage of screens around the lab. He hadn't moved in hours. Hadn't spoken. Hadn't done anything but breathe and watch those screens. Rhodey hadn't taken his eyes off of him though since returning from the wreckage of the Raft – as if he were afraid the man might disappear between one minute and the next.

Steve buried the crippling thought that he may have already – and there was nothing any of them could do about it.

"And?" Steve prompted.

"Nothing concrete yet." Rhodey went on. "They're only bringing up the bodies now, and it will take some time to-" his voice faded – just for a minute – but his eyes never left the man on the other side of the glass. "Identify them."

Across from them both – sprawled across the bottom of the staircase that lead up to the lift – was Clint. He kicked out at the concrete wall. Hard.

"How hard can it be to spot the corpse of a teenager – you'd think it would stand out-"

Bruce stood near Rhodey – leant up against the glass. Clint's words seemed to hit him physically. His chest caving in and eyes scrunching shut as a wave of green passed over them.

"Clint." Steve cut him off. The word wasn't wasn't harsh – just as Clint's hadn't been intended to be. Steve could see that much. Could see between the sarcasm and rage to the father who was coming apart at the seams as he watched another parent loose his son.

No. Clint wasn't coping.

Tony was barely surviving.

And the rest of them were not far behind.

"How's May?" Steve asked, turning to Sam who was leant up against the wall by the stairs, only a foot or so from Clint.

Sam gave a small, tense, shrug from behind his folded arms.

"She's not blind – she knows something's up – but she's hanging in there." He said. "I think having the other kid around is helping."

Bruce's pulled his eyes from Tony's forlorn form and glanced at Sam.

"Other kid?"

"Yeah – Ned. Peter's friend." Sam added. "He's practically living at the apartment now." He attempted to curve his lips into something of a grin, but the movement looked painful and fell far short. "Kid's a little Stark in the making – keeps hacking into satellite feeds and facial recognition data-bases when he thinks I'm not looking."

Clint's foot collided with the concrete wall again, harder this time. Steve was starting to worry he might break the foot – and then worried even more that that might be exactly what Clint intended to do.

"You should tell him not to bother – we got it covered."

All eyes fell on Tony and the variable sea of screens that were each broadcasting a different set of information – a different trail. A different glimmer of hope that was fading with every passing hour.

Looking at them for too long left even Steve – with his serum advanced eyes – feeling queasy.

"And Ross?"

"In Geneva." Natasha murmured from her place, seated on the steps just above Clint. Her eyes were on Tony as well. "Story is that it's something to do with the Accords, but he's checked into a private medical suite there."

"Probably trying to fix what Tony left of his nose before the press gets wind." Sam ground out – the loathing dripping from the words would probably have been enough to kill Ross on the spot if he'd been present.

"It also sports some of the best security services money can buy." Natasha continued, her eyes flicking across the screens in the lab with just as much speed as Tony's. Perhaps more. Steve was starting to worry about her as well. As far as he was aware it was down to himself, her and Tony who hadn't slept since the school had been attacked. Tony looked wrecked. Steve doubted very much that he would be able to even move from the chair if he tried. Even Steve was feeling it. The tablet in his hands still felt like it weighed a goddamn tonne, and it was getting to the point where he, too, was finding it difficult to stay standing for too long. He hadn't felt this weak for a long time. Not since he was a scrawny child, forced into his bed with pneumonia and practically sat on by Bucky to ensure that he stayed there until he was somewhat able to breathe again.

Natasha, though, looked...fine. There was dark circles beneath her eyes that looked painful – but other than that Steve was having a hard time picking out any signs of exhaustion, and it was more than a little concerning.

Even after Clint had come back from the Raft – practically dragged back by Rhodey who could see the man's imminent meltdown fast approaching – Natasha had stayed behind. She had only appeared at the Compound little more than an hour ago, seeming to materialize on the steps where the others were monitoring Tony.

The sight of her had nearly had Steve demanding that she head upstairs to get some sleep – he was even tempted to pull her up there himself, and stay with her to ensure she got some sleep, despite his almost painful need to stick close to Tony – because, despite her almost seamless appearance, her eyes were just wrong.

The mirror behind them, so perfect that almost no one ever saw what was behind it, was shattered, and Steve could see. And god he wished he couldn't. God he wished he could wash away darkness in those eyes – the empty, gnawing hole at their centre that seemed far too deep, and far too much for anyone to bare.

He had always had the vague awareness that while the rest of them had been dragged into this mess one way or another – through circumstance or choice – Natasha had been born into it. Moulded by it. She hadn't seen light until she was already a woman, and Steve imagined it had been nothing short of blinding.

One look into those eyes as she had descended the stairs had put her right below Tony when it came to the quickly growing list of people he was terrified to let out of his sight.

Steve wasn't afraid of what she'd do to herself – unlike Tony, who looked seconds away from self-destruction – no, he was afraid of what she'd do to others.

It was no secret that the team had killed – sometimes they just had to, no matter how much it hurt – but Natasha was a killer. Cold-blooded. And it terrifying.

Steve didn't want to think about how high the body count might just get on this – and especially didn't want to think that hers might join it.

He felt like everything was seconds away from spiralling so far out of control that they might never be able to fix it. Fix themselves.

"Why would he need private security?" Sam asked. His arms were folded so tightly across his chest that it had to be hard to even draw in a breath. "He has an entire army at his fingertips."

"Perhaps it has finally dawned on him just who he has ruined." Bruce murmured from his place at the window. He, too, looked exhausted. Like every minute this went on was draining more and more from him. "And the kind of reach that he might have." All eyes fell of Tony again.

Another thud echoed through the hall as Clint's foot collided with the wall. The concrete cracked – just a little – and Steve suspected Clint's foot did as well if the grimace of pain that stretched across the man's face was anything to go off.

"He shouldn't bother either – if Pete's dead, Ross will be joining him."

The fear that had been steadily building in his chest – fear of loosing each and every one of them if this ended badly – bubbled over.

"Clint-"

"You can spew whatever platitudes you want, Cap. That is not up for debate." Clint shot across the room – his voice so hard that Steve was almost surprised it didn't leave a dent in the concrete wall beside him, just as his foot had. "If he has murdered a child – Tony's child – there is nothing on this goddamn planet that will save him."

Steve closed his eyes.

"We cannot kill the Secretary of Defence."

The words were barely a whisper. They were true. Killing Ross would end them. End all that they were trying to build – but it barely mattered, and Steve knew it.

Knew that his hands would be the first around the man's neck if they found a body.

"We won't." Clint argued. "Nobody will." He added smoothly, rising to a sitting position on the step, his eyes deepening. The knowledge that Natasha was not the only one among them to kill in cold-blood hit Steve like a slap. "Not technically."

"What-" Steve started – but there was no fight in his voice. Not really. He was cut off before he could even really pretend to argue against the idea.

Natasha voice was almost lulling – a murmur that spread across the room and settled in the chest of everyone who heard it.

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

The weight of the words – and their meaning – was almost unbearable.

"Or, more accurately," Clint added, "if a body is dissolved so perfectly – with an assorted cocktail of hydrofluoric and sulphuric acids - in a titanium bathtub, was there even a murder?"

Steve knew he should argue. Should be the voice of reason – but reason had abandoned him when it had abandoned a child to drown. So Steve abandoned it.

Steve's eyes fell back down to the tablet.

"This is all that's left?" He asked, flipping through the picture again.

Rhodey, whose forehead had tilted forward to rest against the glass that separated him from Tony, answered without looking over.

"Yeah – the whole thing's split open like a 'banana-split' in a gun barrel."

"Jesus." Steve breathed as he swiped from one photo to the next. "What could do this?"

Vision – who had been silent and still in the very corner of the room for so long that Steve had almost forgotten he was there – answered.

"Wanda."

That was enough to drag even Rhodey's eyes away from the lab. Six pairs of eyes swivelled to met Vision's.

"What?" Clint breathed.

"The Raft was a bonded Titanium-alloy. The hull doors almost a hundred tonnes each. It would not break under any conditions it would naturally come across in that area of the Atlantic." Vision answered without emphasis – without anything at all. His eyes, like the other's had been focused in on the lab – but unlike the other's he seemed to be watching the screens, like Tony, taking in every line that crossed them. "The wearing on the rotary on the hull doors – but lack thereof on the doors themselves – shows that they were forced open under great duress but no physical damage was inflicted." He went on. "The pressure gauges also recorded that that pressure shifted as the Raft sunk – as if it had risen before falling – inexplicably."

"She lifted that thing!?" The pure astonishment in Sam's voice was mirrored in the stunned expressions all around him.

"Perhaps." Vision nodded, his eyes finally falling from the screens inside the lab. They dropped to the floor, and his shoulders followed. "It is the only possible explanation I can think of that fits the damage."

"This thing is thousands of tonnes of metal – she could barely lift a car in Sokovia." Bruce said, disbelief clouding every word.

"She managed to throw a few in Germany." Sam countered.

"Indeed." Vision said. His eyes remained fix on the floor. "And her power has grown since then." He suddenly seemed just as tired as the rest of them. "Exponentially."

There was a brief silence as tried – and likely failed – to process that.

"How do you know that?" Steve finally asked – his brain spinning with enough questions to make him feel slightly nauseous again.

Vision's hesitation was brief, but unmistakable.

"I feel it." He breathed. One hand twitched upwards, a shaking finger trailing along the stone in his dipped forehead. "I feel her."

"And what do you feel now?" Steve asked, his breath catching in his chest, because he knew the answer that was coming. Could see it in every line of Vision's exhausted frame.

"Nothing." Vision murmured. "I have felt nothing since the Raft was reported lost."

The words were followed by another silence.

Rhodey broke it. "You knew she was there." The words were not a question, but Vision answered none the less.

"I did." He said. "I did not believe it would assist the situation to fear for two over one. There was nothing more that we could do-" Those eyes, which had been so firmly fixed on the floor that Steve was shocked he hadn't burned a hole through it yet, slid closed. "And I was hesitant to reveal her part in fear of repercussions." The hand that had risen to run a finger over the stone in his forehead did so again – lingering there. "It is no secret that the Accords were crafted in fear of her." The hand slid down from his hand to rest against his chest – closing into a fist above where his heart would be, if he had one. And Steve, in that moment, was sure that even without the organ Vision was drowning that pain that emanated there, threatening to swallow him. Just like the rest of them. "I did not want to loose her again."

The next silence was longer. Harder.

"Is she dead?"

Steve didn't know who asked – it might have been him for all the awareness he had at the moment – but it didn't really matter. The answer was all that mattered. And it was crippling.
"I do not know."

Sam's arms tightened around his chest – so tight now that they had to be serving a serious risk to his very real need to keep breathing.

"If she lifted it, maybe they got out?" He argued.

Rhodey's eyes had drifted back to Tony – his forehead pressed up painfully hard against the glass.

"It never hit the surface again." The words seemed to slip out of his lips without his awareness. "Pressure readings show that it stopped sinking for a short time, but never re-surfaced."

"Holding that much weight would have exhausted her quickly." Vision murmured, his head tipping even lower as he pressed his fist harder against his chest. "If she did lift it, she would have lost consciousness quickly."

Sam was nodding quickly, but Steve suspected it was an attempt to keep himself from shaking.

"If they were together Peter might have been able to pull them out?" Sam argued, again.

The silence that followed was hollow.

"Perhaps." Vision murmured.

The tablet slipped out of Steve's hands and hit the concrete floor with an echoing crack. Steve's hands – both too heavy, and too light to keep from shaking – curled inwards and over his head as he buried it in his chest, curling tighter against the wall. A silent sob rocked him and it was everything he could do to keep from splintering.

Had they lost them both?

Lost the kid with too much still to do – too much still to live for and experience – and the girl who had lost too much already. Who had been beaten and broken and gotten back up every single time.

They were so young. They were so young.

Steve felt like he was about to vomit.

A sudden movement across from Steve had his head snapping back up.

Clint had risen from his step and crossed the hallway before any of them could move – but even his speed could not hide how his every limb seemed to be quivering.

He didn't leave the hallway – and Steve wasn't sure what he would have done if he'd tried – coming to a stop at the other end.

Standing still the quivering made him look as if he were slitting apart.

"Fuck."

With more force than Steve thought he could conjure Clint struck out at the corner of the wall. His foot connected with a sharp crack and the concrete splintered at the sides, debris raining down onto the floor. Clint followed it – due to having finally succeeded in breaking his leg or because the idea that they had lost both children was just too much, Steve didn't know. He curled in on himself on the floor. Holding himself together with pure will.

Everything in Steve was telling him to go over to the man – but he couldn't move. The nausea, and crushing weight in every limb, was paralysing. He didn't think he'd make it a foot before he passed out.

The others seemed to be experiencing something similar because for too long no one moved. No one even twitched – as if they could hold themselves in this moment, before they knew anything for sure.

Before the truth broke them.

"Have you told Tony this?" Rhodey's words sounded painful, and jarring – as he if were forcing them out of a throat that just refused to co-operate.

"No." Vision's voice didn't break – Steve wondered it if could – but he didn't straighten from his position by the far windows, curled in on himself.

Rhodey nodded, slowly. His forehead trailing up and down the glass that separated them from the lab – and the man beyond.

"Don't – not until we know more." Rhodey murmured. "He doesn't need another life weighing on him."

Peter barely felt the hands that clasped around his upper arms, hauling him up from the metal debris. He barely felt his arms at all – just the vague sensation of something warm settling around his waist as he was lifted into the air. He slipped in and out of awareness – some jarring movements bringing him halfway to consciousness before he slipped away again.

Being hauled into the air. More sets of arms grasping onto him as he was pulled over something solid and lowered back down. More hands again – hands pressing against his chest, lingering at the side of his throat and at his wrist.

Voices. Voices all around him. Calling out – to him, to each other, Peter wasn't sure. It didn't matter. He could barely hear them. Barely feel as he was hauled off the ground again by several pairs of hands and moved. By the time he was set back down he was already drifting again. Even the hands all around him – tearing at his clothes, lingering on his chest and pressing something cold, and plastic feeling, over his lips and nose that forced air down into his sluggish lungs – weren't enough to ward off the exhaustion setting over him.

He was too cold.

He wanted to go home – wanted to wrap himself in every blanket in the apartment and watch The Empire Strikes Back for the millionth time. He wanted to see May. And Ned. And Tony.

Something warm and wet slid its way down Peter's cheek from his closed eyes.

He was too cold. Too tired.

I'm sorry.

He wasn't sure if he said the words out loud – or if anyone heard them. He wasn't sure if anyone was meant to, or whom they were for.

He was sorry for a lot of things.

Sorry for not being better – for not being able to get himself out of Ross's clutches. Sorry that he'd let things spiral out of control. Sorry that he'd caused Tony more trouble than he was probably worth. Sorry that he'd thrown Todd Newton's ball over the school fence in second grade – though not really. The kid a dick, even at eight.

Sorry that he was leaving them – he didn't want to. God. He didn't want to.

He wanted to force his way through another one of May's culinary experiments. He wanted to sit in line for hours out the front of the closest cinema to him and Ned waiting for premier of whatever movie was coming out next. Wanted to be with down in the lab with Tony – wanted to see the way the man's whole face seemed to light up when he worked. Wanted to feel the joy of sparking that smile. Peter still remembered the first time he saw it. When the two of them had been messing around with the holographic systems when Peter had used it to play a video Ned had linked him too. If Peter had known that watching rap remixes of Steve's PSA's would make Tony laugh as hard as he did Peter would have made his own months ago. The man had seemed so free – so light – and Peter had felt light with him.

Loved, even.

He'd felt loved when Tony looked across the lab bench at him with the ghost of a smile still etched in the lines of his face. And he'd felt love in return.

He loved the man. Just like he loved May. Loved Ned.

He wanted them back. He wanted them all back.

Wanted Peter Parker back.

Between that thought and the next all of those wants faded away, and Peter with them.

It was Rhodey who caught the movement first. With his forehead still pressed up against the glass separating them from the lab it would have been impossible for him to miss it.

Steve only caught Rhodey's sudden shift.

The whole group had been silent and unmoving for so long that any shift was enough to grab Steve's attention – and Rhodey's almost painfully looking shift from leaning heavily against the glass to ramrod straight with his hands pressed up against it was enough to set him on edge.

The guttural, "Tony-" that slid through his lips had Steve on his feet in seconds.

The first thing that registered was Tony's empty chair – and Steve's world ground to a halt. No.

He was gone. He was gone – Steve had looked away for a single second and lost him. Lost another –

His feet thundered into the lab right behind Rhodey, his mind barely aware. Tony was gone – jesus, Tony was gone – they had to find him – had to – had –

And then he found him.

Tony was on his knees in front of the chair, looking like he might buckle to the floor at any second, and gripping the closest monitor on the desk with white fingers.

No.

They'd found a body. They must have. They had found a body and Tony had found out through whatever mainframe he had hacked.

Oh god. No. They weren't going to get through this. They weren't going to get Tony through this-

But Tony wasn't catatonic – wasn't screaming or crying or tearing apart the lab in a murderous rage like Steve had spent hours dreading.

No.

He was typing.

He was typing faster than Steve had ever seen him type in his life, fingers almost blurring as they slammed down on the keys with enough force to damage them. "Tony?" Rhodey had dropped to his knees beside the shacking mess of his friend. "Tony!?" He croaked, desperation seeping into his voice. He reached out and grasped onto Tony's shoulders as Steve fell to his knees at the man's other side. The others were crowded around them – barely daring to breathe. "Tony, what's happening-" Rhodey called again, doing his best to pull Tony away from the monitor for one second to find out what the hell had happened. "-STOP! Tony what's going on-"

Tony hadn't said a word since he and Steve had spoken – almost a day ago now. He hadn't responded to anyone. Not a single question or request had sparked any kind of life in him, so when his voiced roared out so loudly that it was a wonder the very foundations of the Compound didn't shake, it left them all in various states of shock.

"SHUT UP!"

They did.

The vicious typing continued, and slowly – and barely audibly – Tony began to murmur. To himself or to them Steve wasn't sure – but it was something.

"-a Polish deep fishing crater is reporting a that it's picked up people in the water just outside our hundred mile radius-" the words tumbled out of Tony's lips as he typed, and Steve caught barely half of them, "-they said something about a boy – something about-"

That he caught. And so did Rhodey.

Rhodey – with more force than Steve had ever seen him use with his friend – yanked Tony away from the keyboard by his shoulders until he was facing him square on.

"Tony, stop. Breathe." Rhodes ordered. And Tony did. Just. When he had taken at least a solid attempt at a decent inhale Rhodey pushed a little further. "What. Is. Happening?"

Tony was shaking – full body spasms that seemed to be threatening his ability to stay upright on his knees – but his voice, for the first time in days, was steady.

"A Polish fishing ship has picked people out of the water, but I can't get more – it's all coming second hand through the Coast Guard – the ship's too old to have digital, they're reporting all through analogue radios so I can't-"

Something lit up behind Tony's eyes – and Steve could have cried. He never thought he'd see that look again.

Before Steve could take a breath of his own – let alone even try to sort through the information being thrown down at them – Tony was up and moving. Rhodey let him, moving away as well and digging forcefully into his pocket for his phone. Dialling wildly.

Tony was across the lab in seconds, and throwing himself head first into the 1930's Ford Roadster that Steve had admired more than once in his times in the lab. There was a crunch a thud and then Tony was tearing out the entire dashboard.

Steve – still on his knees – gaped as Tony tore out the speakers and then the goddamn steering wheel for good measure.

What the hell was –

Steve's brain finally seemed to catch up with his body, and he realised – just as Rhodey started roaring into his phone – what was going on.

The radio. Tony was building a radio the reach the ship. The ship that had picked up people stranded at sea.

Oh god. Oh god.

Please.

"-this is Colonel Rhodes," Rhodey's voice was booming into the phone, fighting over the sound of Tony still tearing apart the vintage car. "I need a radio channel for a Polish fishing crater located roughly 41 degrees, twenty-four minutes by -61 degrees-"

Bruce seemed to have caught up as well because he was flinging himself over to Tony, seizing up the cords and wires the man had torn out of the car and beginning to reorder them. Tony – once he had finally clawed the entire speaker system from the car – joined him on the ground. They were silent, so in tune with one another that they had no need to speak as the moved around each other, attaching and detaching wires left and right.

Steve stood frozen with the rest of the group – Sam, Clint and himself clearly out of their depth when it came to technology, and Natasha and Vision with nothing else to add. The desperate need to move, to help, was overwhelming, but Steve had nothing. He couldn't help with this. This was Tony's world – and he was thriving. Fingers moving like dancers across the machine as it came to life.

Clint was still shaking beside him – his full body quivers from before having, thankfully passed – but enough to notice. Steve moved closer, grasping at the hem of the man's shirt and pulling, just lightly. Straining the fabric across the man's chest.

Bucky used to do this. When Steve was panicking or wild he'd reach out and pull at his shirt. The sudden pressure against his chest had worked wonders – it has brought his heaving chest and aching lungs to the forefront of his attention.

It had tethered him to something real. To Bucky. Even when Bucky was gone – enlisted, or truly gone, Steve had started to pull his own shirt tight around his chest when it was all too much. When the ghosts wouldn't leave him alone.

Clint's eyes shot towards him, but he didn't say anything. Didn't pull away. Slowly the shaking eased, and the breaths he was dragging through his lips actually seemed to make it to his lungs.

No. Steve couldn't build a radio on the fly – or a goddamn toaster – but he could keep them tethered. He would keep them tethered. And when they found Peter and Wanda – because god, please, let it be them, spare them, please – he'd keep them tethered too. Get them through whatever had happened on the Raft – and before in Wanda's case.

No more running. No more fighting. No more just coping on their own. They were a team and jesus-fucking-Christ Steve was going to knock it into their skulls if he had to.

He'd broken this – he knew that – and goddamn it he was going to fix it.

Rhodey – once he had received a response from whomever he was talking to – abandoned his phone and threw himself down beside Bruce and Tony, programming the quickly forming radio with the precision of someone who had been doing so for their entire life. Within only a few minutes the thing was crackling to life. Rhodey seized up the makeshift push-to-talk microphone.

"This is Colonel Rhodes of the United States Air force – does anyone copy?"

Nobody moved. Nobody even breathed.

After the tensest minute of Steve's life the radio crackled and a voice replied.

The words were indistinguishable – another language, European going by the sound of it, but not one that Steve could comprehend –

"-F.R.I.D.A.Y translate!" Tony snapped sliding so close to Rhodey as he spoke again that their chests nearly collided with every breath.

"This is Colonel Rhodes of the United States Air force, with whom am I speaking?"

A response crackled from the radio and F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice echoed over it.

"This is Captain Nowak of The Podróż, how can I assist?"

Tony withered against Rhodey, his eyes so wide and bursting with hope that Steve found himself on his knees with him, having dragged Clint down by the hem of his shirt as well.

"You reported that you have taken aboard souls stranded in the water – can you confirm this?" Rhodey replied, eyes drifting to Tony's.

Please.

Steve wasn't sure which god he was begging to – or all of them. Any that was listening.

A crackling reply came, and F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice rang out over it.

"Yes – we discovered two people atop debris in the late evening. A boy and girl."

Tony's eyes darted up and met Steve's.

"Wanda and Peter..." Steve breathed – and truly breathed. Not the suffocating half breaths that he'd been struggling to draw in since he saw Tony's empty chair.

It had to be them. It had to be-

Fear was encroaching on Tony's face again.

"Wanda-" He breathed, confusion crinkling around his eyes. Steve reached out and clasped onto Tony's shoulder with the hand that wasn't still clutching at the hem of Clint's shirt.

"Boy and girl-" Rhodey was already replying, the microphone gripped in both hands. "Are they young?"

The question seemed to dwell in the air for too long.

The reply made the pain-staking weight worth it. A thousand times over.

"Yes."

Tony clasped his hands around both of Rhodey's and pulled the push-to-talk to him.

"Names-" He croaked, eyes so wide and alight that is was a wonder they hadn't come loose from his skull yet. "What are their names!?"

Another crackled response floated across the wire.

"We have not been able to determine their names – both are in quite critical condition due to prolonged exposure, and have not regained consciousness since we took them aboard."

The hope – and pure joy – that had swelled in Steve's chest tightened and ebbed. They were hurt. They were hurt badly.

Tony's hands whitened as they clenched more forcefully around Rhodey's.

"The boy – Caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes about five-foot-eight, maybe 150 pounds?" Tony breathed, his hands – and Rhodey's by extension – trembling. "And the girl – Caucasian, light brown hair, green eyes and about-"

Tony's eyes flicked to Vision who had sunk down to the floor with them only a few feet away.

"Five-foot, six inches. 126 pounds."

"Five-foot, six inches. 126 pounds." Tony repeated.

Crackle.

"Yes. That seems accurate."

It was them. It was them. They were alive. Barely – but alive.

Tony seemed to be on the same wavelength. He pulled away from the microphone.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y find that ship."

Rhodey pulled the microphone back up to his lips.

"What is their condition?"

Crackle.

"The boy is in and out of hypothermic shock – and not warming despite our efforts-" FRIDAY's voice floated across the lab.

"That's definitely Peter-" Tony was nodding so quickly that it had to be making him dizzy. "He can't thermo-regulate anymore – once his body temp. drops or rises he can't regulate it." Tony's fingers curled up against his chest, tapping rapidly where the arc reactor used to rest. "F.R.I.D.A.Y make sure the thermo-equipment is all prepped on the jet-" Tony moved and pulled both the microphone and Rhodey's hands back to him. "And the girl?"

Crackl-

"We are-" F.R.I.D.A.Y's voice responded. "-not sure."

Tony's hands fell. Clint's replaced them.

"What the fuck does that mean?" He breathed into the microphone.

Crack-

"She is also suffering from mildly serious hypothermia – though she is responding to warming efforts – but she is unresponsive to stimuli. More so than the boy." F.R.I.D.A.Y translated. "Her pupils are unevenly dilated. A head injury perhaps. We do not have the medical resources aboard to know – or help."

"Over-extension can often appear to have the symptoms of a stroke or aneurism." Vision said as the crackling radio fell silent. "And lifting the Raft – even for a moment – would have been a rather extreme over-extension."

Tony was on his feet faster than Steve had ever seen him move.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y-"

"Co-ordinates are locked, Boss." F.R.I.D.A.Y responded without even needing to hear the question. "The jet is prepped – engine running already running at full capacity – on the heli-deck above."

Tony's bloodshot eyes fell to the rest of them – still huddled together on the floor.

"Anyone not on that jet in the next thirty seconds is being left behind."

Every single one of them was out of the lab within five.

Please. Please.

Please.

PleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePlease.

God. Please let him be alive. Just let him be alive – Tony would fix anything else. Everything else. Just let him be alive.

Let them both be alive.

Tony would give everything. Anything.

God. He felt like he was right back on that lake – only this time he couldn't leave. He felt been stuck there trying, to force the kid to live, for days. Searching. Praying. Begging.

The flight – in retrospect – should have been nothing. A couple of hours compared to the days of waiting. Nothing. But it was everything. Every minute was another minute where the kid might have slipped away. Where Wanda might have slipped away. No.

No.

Please.

"-ony."
God, please. Don't take him – don't take him –

"Tony!"

Tony's eyes snapped open. Steve was eye to eye with him – blue irises boring down at him.

"What?" Tony croaked, and jesus it hurt. His voice seemed to have resigned itself to never working again. "What's happened?"

"Nothing," Steve shook his head softly. "Nothing – everything's fine. We're on track, the ship hasn't called again, so all must be fine on their end to. We're okay."

Steve wasn't close enough to be touching him. Maybe he knew that Tony couldn't handle that right now – couldn't handle another single piece of stimuli in his life if he wanted to remain sane – but he was close enough that if Tony fell he'd be there to catch him. He had been since they boarded the jet. Since Rhodey planted himself in the pilot seat, and Clint the co-pilot, before Tony could say a word. He hadn't. He couldn't have flown a Frisbee straight right now. Maybe that was why Steve had remained close.

Or his legs were shaking as obviously as he feared they were.

"They're not okay." Tony breathed. Steve's head dipped a little closer. "They're not okay – their hurt. Badly. They-"

"They will be." The finality in Steve's tone left no room for argument.

That had never stopped Tony though.

"But, they-"

"They are alive," Steve breathed. "We can fix anything else. They will be okay. We will be okay."

Tony fell silent again, his hand moving to rest against the scars on his chest. Covering his weak spots – just like he always had. Just like his father had taught him. But the motion offered little comfort – and he didn't have to think to hard to know why.

He knew his real weak spot wasn't the hole the arc had left.

It was the hole the kid had left – and that he couldn't fill.

Clint's voice bombed from the cockpit – and Tony was on the move before he'd finished.

"I see it."

The suit was forming around him within seconds, and the plane's loading doors sliding open above the writhing blue water.

"Tony-"

Steve's voice cut above the screaming wind. Tony turned, half expecting to see reaching out to him, to hold him in place.

He wasn't.

He was right where Tony had left him.

"Go." He nodded, and Tony's brain tripped over the word in shock. "Just-just breathe. Whatever you find, whatever condition they're in, just breathe. We'll get them through it." Steve nodded towards the open bay doors again. "Go – we'll be right behind you."

Tony leapt from the plane.

He barely engaged the thrusters at all as he fell through the open sky to the large fishing ship beneath – he was so close now that the idea of being delayed for even another second was painful. He crashed into the deck with a little too much force – the wood splintering at his feet – and his knees protesting, but he was upright and stepping out of the suit in the next second. All about the deck sailors stared at him in shock.

"I'm here-" He croaked, and then cut off. Jesus could they even understand him – how was he supposed to –

Before his brain could catch up enough to enable F.R.I.D.A.Y through the suit one of the sailors had stepped forward. An older looking man – definitely early sixties, but with a beard to rival the younger men surrounding him.

"The children?" He asked, his accent thick and English broken – but it was enough. More than enough. Tony stepped forward.

"Yes, yes the children," He breathed. "They're here – they're okay?"

The sailor waved him forward and Tony followed without hesitation. The sailor led him across the deck and into the small enclosure at the opposite end, and then down into the ship's hull.

Every step had Tony's heart beating a little harder. A little faster.

It had sounded like them. The Captain had confirmed whoever was here looked like them – but they still had no real confirmation.

They could still be wrong –

No. No.

They couldn't be wrong.

He had to be here.

He had to be.

A few more steps, another long hallway – the ship was swaying but Tony barely noticed as he stumbled along blindly after the older man – a final door.

The man shoved it open with no small amount of effort, the salt water having rusted the joints years ago, and nodded for Tony to step inside.

He did.

It must have usually been the dining room – or whatever the hell a dining room on a ship was called – because it was the only room that they had walked passed big enough to fit the two average sized tables that currently took up almost every inch of space. Only there was no food on them – only two small bodies.

One, covered so fully from head to toe in blankets that only a peak of messy brown hair could be seen peaking over the top, drew Tony's eyes like a beacon. And once they settled, they didn't leave – Tony doubted they ever would again.

"Peter."

Tony was across the room in a single stride, yanking back the blankets and chocking at the sight of the kid – pale, cold and unresponsive. But it was his kid.

It was his kid.

"Peter."

Tony buckled, throwing his entire body across the table – his arms curling beneath the kid to cradle him to his chest where no one could take him away. Not ever. Not ever again. God. Oh. God.

Thick – wrecked – sobs filled the small room, and it took Tony longer than it should have to realize that they were his. That he was sobbing, and rocking, with the kid crushed against his chest – his head pressed in the kid's salt-crusted hair as his knees protested at being perched on the hard wooden table.

Peter was cold. He was definitely too cold – Tony drew him a little closer, though god-knows-how as the kid was already pressed against his chest as hard as Tony dared to hold him, his head cushioned in the cape of Tony's neck – but breathing. His pulse slow, but undeniably there when Tony brought shaking fingers up to rest on the kid's neck.

For a moment Tony just held him. Held him and rocked slowly back and forth as he thanked everything – anything – that might be listening. That might have heard him. That might have listened to him beg and plead in dark of the lab when the others had left. Because the kid was here – he was in Tony's arms, and he was breathing. Everything that Tony had begged for, and for the first time in days Tony felt as if he were breathing too. Finally. Finally the air he had been dragging down his protesting throat was making it all the way to his chest. To his brain.

He felt awake – truly awake for the first time since he'd looked down at his phone in that courtroom almost a week ago.

"Thank-you," Tony breathed into the kid's hair, chocking on another sob as he lifted his head and rested his cheek on the top of the kid's mass of curls. "Jesus – god – I don't – j-just, thank-you-"

Tony squeezed his eyes closed – letting several tears streak along his cheeks – and then opened them again, fighting to force into some semblance of control. And failing.

Across from them Wanda lay on the second table – which had been pushed up alongside Peter's – somehow looking even worse than Peter. She was deathly pale, too, but almost her entire face below her nose was streaked with blood. It pooled in the hollow of her throat, and in the hair by her ears.

Keeping Peter firmly pressed against his chest – his head cradled in the hollow of Tony's neck – Tony pressed further across the table, scraping for Wanda's wrist with shaking hands.

No. God. No.

Don't let her be dead. Don't let her be dead. Don't make him responsible for the death of every single Maximoff –

There. That was a pulse. It was definitely a pulse. Thready – and skipping far too many beats to be considered comforting – but it was there. Tony's shaking hand moved upwards to cup her face. The blood was crusted there, and it rubbed against Tony's hands like sandpaper as he shook her gently.

"Wanda?" He called. She didn't move. "Wanda?"

Nothing.

Tony's hand fell back to her wrist – clutching it almost desperately. Counting the beats. Just as he was counting Peter's – had been since he'd pulled the kid to his chest where he could feel each beat pressing into his own skin.

His head fell forward, cheek resting against Peter's curls again, and he pulled the kid a little closer and clasped at Wanda's wrist like a lifeline.

It felt like a lifetime – like hours alone in that room counting each individual beat – but it could only have been minutes. Maybe less.

Tony didn't even realize someone else had entered the room. Didn't notice anything until Wanda's wrist was being pulled away from him.

Tony's head snapped up. His fingers clenched around the wrist he was gripping.

Vision stood across from him – his eyes so focused on Wanda that Tony doubted he saw him at all.

Vision's hands were cradling Wanda's blood stained face with such tenderness – such care – that Tony almost felt the need to look away. As it was he let the wrist he was holding fall as Vision pressed the stone in his forehead to Wanda's.

Her response was instant. Whether it was a conscious one or not, Tony couldn't say, but her fingers curled in where they lay limp by her sides, and the slow breaths that she had been fighting to draw in became long, gasps.

Vision pulled back – just an inch – and Wanda's eyes opened.

Tony looked away then, but not because he felt he should, no, because it burned his eyes to watch. The colours whirling in her eyes left him, shaking, breathless and fighting the urge to hurl.

A moment later they were gone. Her eyes were closed again. Her fingers limp at her sides – but her breathing was less laboured. A little colour had returned to her blood-streaked face.

Vision pulled back, rising to his full height with Wanda clasped in his arms, just as Steve bound into the room.

His eyes fell on Tony first – blue irises locking onto Tony for only a second before they moved down to Peter, clutched to his chest, and Wanda cradled in Vision's arms.

"They're alive," Tony croaked. He could feel Peter's heart beating against his own chest. "They're alive."

"Get her to the jet," Steve breathed as he locked eyes with Vision. The man didn't need to be told twice. He was out of the door before Steve had even finished the order. And then Steve was at Tony's side, pressing a hand against the back of Peter's head as he dug the other into the kid's neck – the tension in his shoulders slacking, just slightly, at the pulse Tony knew was beating against his fingers.

"He's cold." Tony said, still fighting to burry the sobs that were breaking free of his chest ever few minutes. He curled a little tighter around the kid's small frame. "He's too cold-"

"-We can fix that," Steve was nodding, to himself or Tony, Tony wasn't sure. "We'll get him to the jet and warmed up in no time – you said the jet was prepped for this, we were ready for this-"

Tony was nodding with Steve's every word, trying to force himself to do what he knew he had to do now. What he thought might just kill him – but what he had to do.

Steve was warmer. Steve was warmer than he was – and definitely warmer than the armour.

Steve had to take him. Steve had to take him to the jet. Tony had to let go.

"Take him." And god the words almost killed him, but he ground them out through his teeth. "Take him, get him to the jet."

"Tony-" Steve started, but he didn't pull away as Tony released Peter into his grip, he merely gripped the kid as Tony had. Pulling him tight against his chest.

"Go," Tony heaved out. "Go, I'll be right behind you."

Steve lingered for only a second, eyes searching Tony's for something. Whatever it was he must have found it because the next second he was up and disappearing through the open door, Peter still cradled against his chest.

Tony pushed himself up onto shaking legs and moved to follow. Just outside the room the old man from earlier was lingering, having clearly shown Steve to the same room.

Tony paused at the sight of him.

"Thank-you." He breathed. The release of saying it to another person – to someone who had actually had a hand in bringing the kid back to him – was almost dizzying. "Anything," he managed to croak. "Anything you need – want – it's yours. Just-just tell me."

The man stared at him for a moment, so long that Tony started to wonder if he had understood him at all, before he answered.

"You just get those kids home." He said, his accent thick, but words soft. His eyes softened as well. "Though, it looks like home has found them."

When Tony was back on the jet, the kid – wrapped almost head-to-toe in specially designed thermal blankets – cradled against his chest once more, he finally let himself process the words. With a hand cradling the base of Peter's head, fingers wrapped in the kid's thick, dark, curls, and the other pressed against his steadily moving chest, Tony final let himself breathe.

Home. The kid was home.

And Tony felt like he finally was as well.