Tony had been reprimanded about taking too many risks in the field before, but that was nothing to the scolding he got now that Steve and Bucky were his boyfriends.

Since Tony now felt like he had even more to protect, his actions had become really dangerous, but he couldn't bear the thought of losing either one of them and while they claimed they had the serum, there was so much that could kill them. And they were too young for that, had still too much to do in this century.

So whenever he got the chance, Tony took a hit that was meant for Bucky or Steve, and so far he had come away with nothing but bruises and scratches. But his luck had to run out eventually.

The villain of the week was a bit too focused on causing as much collateral damage as he could and the Avengers were desperately trying to take him out but so far they hadn't managed that.

When the villain focused entirely on Steve and Bucky, Tony thought his heart would stop right in his chest. There was no way the two of them could take more than one direct hit from his strangely dangerous weapon and so Tony was on his way to them before they even realized what happened.

"Tony," Clint yelled warningly because of course he would see it, but by the time Steve and Bucky understood what was happening it was already too late.

The villain aimed at them and Tony landed right in front of his lovers.

"Tony, what are you doing? Get out of here!" Steve yelled at him and actually tried to push him away. As if that would ever work.

Tony felt more than he saw that he villain aimed for Bucky and when he fired his weapon he pushed Bucky out of the way. When the blast hit Tony every warning signal in his suit flared up at once before it all went dead.

He didn't fall down, thanks to the emergency locks, but he was pretty sure he lost consciousness for a short time.

When everything around him made sense again, Bucky and Steve were still fighting the man, desperately trying to keep him away from Tony.

Tony rebooted the suit, carefully reading the damage report and then dismissing it entirely. He had more important things to do.

"Tony?" Steve frantically called while he narrowly avoided a hit himself.

"I'm good, fine, everything is in its place," Tony managed to say and was surprised how steady his voice sounded. He didn't feel steady at all.

Blood was running down his side, where the suit dented a bit and he was pretty sure most of his organs were bruised and the arc reactor was stuttering a bit. But he was fine. Nothing life endangering yet and so he concentrated back on the fight.

The villain was still putting up a mean fight but when Tony joined the fray, it turned into their favour.

Bucky and Steve were still trying to protect him from any more hits, but they could only do so much during a fight and right before they managed to wrangle the guy down he managed one more blast, which hit Tony right in the chest.

He had a second to think 'Well, fuck' before the suit practically exploded around him.

The already damaged chest piece shattered under the impact, several larger pieces embedding themselves into his chest, and he could feel a few rips and his collarbone crack.

The arc reactor obviously stopped working as well, because his heart missed more than a few beats and when the force of the blast send him flying backwards Tony's only thought was that the back piece wouldn't hold up at all without the chest piece to stabilize it.

Thankfully he blacked out when he made contact with a wall.

When he woke up he took a few seconds to take stock of his body without alerting anyone that he was conscious yet, but he couldn't feel much beyond the dull throb everywhere. Must be the good stuff then.

He slowly opened his eyes, and was met with some stern glances.

"You absolute idiot!" Bucky immediately hissed and Steve shot him a glance.

"Bucky," he scolded him lowly and then looked back at Tony. "How are you feeling?" he asked Tony who had to clear his voice several times before he could speak.

"Numb," was the only thing he managed and Steve nodded.

"That's good, actually."

"Damage?" Tony asked and Bucky's hands unconsciously clenched and even Steve's face got pinched.

"Nearly fatal. We lost you two times in the last three weeks."

That actually made Tony worry a bit about his condition, three weeks was a lot of time to be unconscious, but then he shrugged the best he could.

"Well, better me than you," he said nonchalantly and Bucky put his fist through the wall.

Tony regarded that with raised eyebrows and then looked back at Steve. "I'm guessing you disagree."

"Damn right we disagree," Bucky snarled at him and Steve looked like he wanted to cry.

"Why do you keep doing this, Tony? You're important to us, we love you, the team loves you, and yet you throw yourself in front of us every time, like you don't matter."

"It's just that I'm old," Tony began and made the painkillers responsible for his honesty. "You are young and the world needs you and you have still so much to do."

Both soldiers stared at him with wide eyes and then Steve actually started to cry while Bucky said with a hoarse voice "But we don't want to do it without you."

Tony blinked at that because he hadn't really considered that at all.

"You can do it without me."

"We can," Steve sniffled and carefully took his hand. "But we don't want to. Don't make us do this alone."

Tony wanted to point out that they still had each other but when he looked back to Bucky and saw that he was holding back tears as well, he swallowed the words.

"I'll be more careful," Tony said and Bucky laughed.

"You promise that every time."

While that was true, none of the other times had hurt Steve and Bucky quite as bad as this.

"I just want to keep you safe. And happy," he told them, but he was beginning to understand that he was a part of that as well.

"Then you have to keep yourself safe," Bucky told him. "It won't mean anything to us if you're not there to be happy with us," he continued and Tony nodded. He was beginning to see that.