No Other Way

There is a Russian translation of this fic that can be found here. Credit for the translation goes to Ginny_Rey.

Summary: After Infinity War, one person isn’t taken by the snap…and Tony demands answers
Warning(s): Spanking; spoilers for the MCU, up to and including Avengers: Infinity War; AU; references to violence; some mentions of a wound
Author’s Note: Written for the ‘out of your comfort zone’ October challenge on Spanking_World over on LiveJournal. These are the prompts:

2) Lying down
5) Multiple implements
3) In front of witnesses

###

Almost all of them were gone.

Tony looked around at the empty spaces. At the dust left behind as his allies disappeared. Gone. Even the kid. Peter Parker. Spider-Man. Despite his best efforts, despite everything he’d done to protect the kid, it had failed. Peter had become dust in his hands.

“You will bleed out if you leave that wound untreated.”

Tony found his attention drawn to Nebula, who’d spoken with no inflection in her voice. She just stared at him, face expressionless, as if it made no difference to her one way or another. And maybe it didn’t.

“I’ve been hurt worse.” Tony’s eyes shifted to the only other person left from the battle. Doctor Stephen Strange. The man looked about as exhausted as Tony felt…but that didn’t stop him from being prepared to demand answers. “Are you going to explain what that was all about?”

“I can’t,” Stephen replied.

“You can’t? Or you won’t?” Tony demanded.

Stephen narrowed his eyes, but didn’t respond to the question. Instead, he walked slowly over to Tony’s side and motioned him to the ground. “Sit down. I’ll see what I can do about that wound before we figure out how to get back to Earth.”

Tony frowned at Stephen, tempted to refuse his help. But he wasn’t that stupid and he slowly lowered himself to the ground, wincing as the movement pulled on his wound. “We’re going to return to an Earth devastated by Thanos.”

“Half of all life,” Nebula murmured. “That is what he has taken. Many of your friends and family will be gone.”

“What about your friends and family?” Tony did his best to hold still as Stephen carefully began to clean his wound, taking a small piece of clean cloth from who knew where. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the man’s fingers were shaking. The scars on them weren’t really conducive to delicate work like picking dirt and grit out of a wound, but right now, he was better than nothing.

Nebula stared at Tony for a long moment before she turned away. “My sister is dead. I have turned against Thanos. I have no family. And I have no friends.”

“Well.” Tony stared at the back of the blue head. “That sucks.”

“Would you like me to cauterize the wound?” Nebula turned back to look at Stephen, her face still expressionless.

Stephen opened his mouth, but Tony quickly said, “No. You don’t get to make that decision for me. If I want my wound to be cauterized, I’ll ask for it to be done.”

“And if you don’t have it cauterized, then you will die,” Nebula stated.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. You don’t have to explain it to me.” Tony jerked his head. “Come on. Zap me closed.”

Nebula walked over and crouched down next to Tony, cocking her head to one side. “Do you need something to bite down on?”

“Just get on with it.” Tony took a deep breath and braced himself.

A few moments later, the sound of flesh being sizzled filled the air. The stench of burned meat assaulted Tony’s nostrils. In comparison to those dual sensations, the pain itself was more of a minor inconvenience. It hurt, of course it did, but he’d been through far worse pain. And this was to help him, not just for the sake of causing pain.

Even so, Tony’s breathing was sharp and ragged by the time she’d finished cauterizing his wound. And it was only when she stopped that he realised he’d pressed his hands so hard against the ground, there were bits of stone and dirt embedded in his skin.

Wincing, Tony lifted his hands and brushed the debris free. Then, he looked at Stephen, who was still crouched next to him. “You gave up the stone.”

“Yes.” Stephen’s response was given in a calm, unflinching tone.

“Are you going to tell me why?”

“I can’t give you that information.”

“Yeah, I get it.” Tony shook his head. “You tell me the only path where we might win and it won’t happen. Well guess what? That’s not acceptable. You told me you’d sacrifice me, that you’d sacrifice the kid, to keep the stone out of Thanos’ hands. And then you just handed it over. And now, half of life is gone. For all I know, Pepper’s gone. Maybe all that’s left of the Avengers is us. And hell, you two aren’t even part of the Avengers.”

“Getting angry isn’t going to solve any of our problems, either immediate or in the future,” Stephen stated.

“You’re right. Getting angry won’t.” Tony reached out and grasped Stephen’s arm. He pulled the other man down onto the ground next to him, rolling him over onto his stomach.

“Do you think this course of action will change anything?” Stephen asked, his voice sounding only faintly curious.

“No. But I think it’s going to make me feel better.” Tony lifted his hand and brought it down firmly on the seat of Stephen’s pants.

Stephen let out a grunt that he repeated when Tony delivered a second and third smack, moving his hand round so that none of the smacks landed on top of each other; at least on the first full circuit. He swatted down to Stephen’s thighs and then began to smack again from the top, covering skin he’d already smacked.

Stephen didn’t try to fight or struggle against the spanking and only shifted, grunting or wincing every so often. From that lack of reaction, Tony assumed that the other man had seen this outcome when he’d been looking at all of the potential futures.

“Why are you hitting him?” Nebula moved closer, her head tilted to one side.

“I’m spanking him,” Tony corrected. “It’s a punishment.”

“But you are not doing anything that would cause permanent or lasting harm,” Nebula observed. “He will heal from this punishment.”

“Physically? Sure.” Tony shrugged. “But emotionally, he’ll remember it. That I spanked him because he hid things and didn’t tell me the whole truth.”

“Tony, you must know that I can easily get out of this position you’ve put me in,” Stephen stated. “I wouldn’t need to risk opening your wound to do that, either.”

“I know.” Tony tugged Stephen’s pants down, but left his white briefs in place as he resumed spanking; a bit harder and a bit firmer now. “Which begs the question of just why you’re letting me do this.”

“Because.” Stephen paused and took a deep breath. “I can’t tell you why I had no choice, but I know this has hurt you. And you need to feel some kind of control. And in your own mind, this is how lying and keeping secrets is handled.”

Tony paused the spanking. “You can read minds now?”

“No. Just see the future.”

Tony’s stomach clenched. If Stephen was saying that…it meant…. He shook his head, unwilling to examine how he felt about his own potential future. Unwilling to examine just why he actually felt relieved at what would come when they finally got to Earth. “You’re right,” he said instead. “Even if you’d told me no other information, only that you had to give up the stone to Thanos, I could have been prepared. Maybe all of the others wouldn’t have disappeared. Maybe they could have been saved.” He swallowed, hard and reached under Stephen’s stomach, below the cloak, undoing the other man’s belt and pulling it free of the loops.

Stephen said nothing, but his body tensed up as Tony doubled the belt in one hand…and then let out his breath in a sharp gasp as the belt landed across his backside.

“My father would never have punished me in such a way.” Nebula sat cross-legged next to Tony, watching with open curiosity as the belt landed again and again, each stripe drawing a sharper gasp from Stephen’s lips.

“It sounds to me like your father never cared about correcting your behaviour, only about exerting his control,” Tony replied. He kept his gaze focused on Stephen, bringing the belt down firmly, enough for the red stripes to show through Stephen’s briefs and show up vividly on the bare skin of his thighs.

“Perhaps you are right,” Nebula agreed.

Stephen drew in a deep breath before asking, in a shaky voice, “You’re trying to correct my behaviour?”

“You don’t hide things from your teammates, Stephen. Even if you are an all-knowing, all-seeing sorcerer.” Tony delivered another row of stripes with the belt and then paused, pulling the briefs down to reveal Stephen’s red backside. He dropped the belt and then looked around.

“What are you searching for?” Nebula asked.

“A switch,” Tony answered.

Nebula stood and walked a short distance away.

Stephen drew in his breath slowly and said, sounding like tears weren’t far off, “Tony. This isn’t necessary.”

“You’re wrong,” Tony replied. “I don’t know what we’ll face when we get back to Earth, but I know we won’t be able to deal with any of it if there are secrets between us. If we don’t work together. On our trip back to Earth, I want you thinking about just what will happen the next time you decide to just give in to the enemy without so much as a heads-up. We need to trust each other. I need to be able to trust you.” He couldn’t help but wince, hearing Steve’s words in his own head. How many times had Cap said words to that effect to him?

Nebula returned to Tony’s side, holding out a thin stick. “This will do?”

“Thanks.” Tony took the implement from the blue woman, deciding not to ask where she’d got it from. Or how she knew what it was, given she’d made it clear she’d never experienced a punishment like this. He rested the switch against Stephen’s backside and said, quietly, “I’m going to give you six stripes. Not expecting you to count or anything, but after that six, it’ll be over. We’ll be working together and it’ll never be brought up again.”

“So you’ll forgive me?” Stephen asked hoarsely.

“Yeah,” Tony replied.

Stephen drew in a deep breath and stretched his hands out to Nebula. When she took them, with a confused look, Tony caught a pained smile as he said, “I don’t particularly want to get hit across the hands. And my body might react to the pain without me thinking about it.”

The blue woman nodded and held Stephen’s hands without speaking.

Deciding not to drag it out any further, Tony lightly flicked the switch down at the crest of Stephen’s backside. As light as the stripe was, it still wrested a pained cry from the other man and a thin white line showed up that quickly shaded to a darker red.

The second and third stripes brought similar reactions from Stephen and he began to squirm in place, struggling to pull his hands free of Nebula’s grip. She held on tightly, still showing no expression or obvious reaction to what was going on.

By the time Tony delivered the penultimate strike, Stephen was crying quietly and the five stripes showed up vividly on his red backside. Tony rested his hand on Stephen’s lower back and brought the switch down for the final time.

For a few moments, the silence was only broken by Stephen’s soft crying. His body slumped and Nebula let go of his hands, straightening up and walking away from the two of them.

Figuring the tears made Nebula feel uncomfortable, Tony didn’t try to call her back. Instead, he rubbed Stephen’s back, listening as the tears slowed down and then died away completely. Then, he said softly, “We’ll deal with the fallout when we get back to Earth. We’ll meet up with everyone back there and make a plan. Maybe we can get the glove back. Maybe we can snap everyone back again.”

Stephen sighed. “I can’t tell you anything about what will happen.”

“I’m not asking you to do that. But I’m telling you that we’ll be working together. And I expect you to be honest with me next time, instead of blindsiding me with something like giving up the one thing that could have stopped Thanos.” Tony carefully pulled Stephen’s briefs back into place, covering up the scarlet backside.

Stephen pushed himself up slowly, reaching back and pulling his pants back into place. “You’re right about one thing,” he said ruefully. “This is going to be something I’ll be feeling all the way back to Earth.”

“Good.” Tony clasped his shoulder. “I hope that means you’ll think twice before repeating something like this.”

“I can promise I’ll be thinking a third and maybe even a fourth time about it,” Stephen replied wryly. He glanced at Nebula, then back at Tony. “Ready to see it the ship will make it back to Earth for us?”

“Yeah.” Tony caught Nebula’s eye. “Are you ready too?”

The blue woman nodded and the three of them headed into the wrecked ship.

The End