Wrist to elbow to shoulder, Tony climbs his way up Steve Rogers until he’s got a good enough grasp to get his knees locked under him. It’s been a long time since he drank this much, this fast. Things with Pepper had been good. He’d been more of a mentor to Peter. Rhodey needed him, and his genius, to be able to properly walk again. Things had been falling so neatly into stability, minus his sometimes regresses back to missing the Steve sized hole in his life, that Tony hadn't needed to resort to slowing down his brain to function.

It’s amazing what lack of stress will do to a person and what the sudden loss of everyone in his life might make him do instead. Tony is more than hurting. He’s heavily compensating with someone he had been unwilling to meet halfway for two years.

Steve’s right, though. They can’t form relationships here. They can’t risk it. And no one will ever understand what their lives are like save for each other.

And isn’t that weird? You can’t even count on yourself?

Tony’s about to dismiss it all, body turning more towards Steve’s chest in an attempt to actually turn even more towards his arm so he can have support when he bends over for a quick snatch of food, but Steve has to let his natural honesty sneak up at the worst time.

The shift in tone tells Tony to fixate on the word ‘anymore.’

“What have you been doing the last few years? Sex tourism? T’Challa was a bad influence on you!”