“Someone told me that it’s healthy to hate someone a little,” Tony says, which might be the truth or maybe just the truth he wants to hold onto. He says a lot of stuff, only some of which are true. It’s not that he’s a pathological liar, but god forbid he ever let anyone in. Not telling the full truth is as rigid a mask as the one in his armor. He feels strange without having it close, really. For so long, he and the arc reactor had become one. He is Iron Man, Iron Man is him. But it’s different now. The machine is still technically inside of him. He never removed the implants, though he did have his heart fixed. He needs to feel connection to the suit. Maybe that’s why he put the nanotech armor in a reactor to be worn around the chest instead of as a belt buckle or a wrist watch. He needs it to be close to his heart.

There’s not much he needs to be there. His tech had trumped even the need for love at one point, but Pepper came back. Where Harley had needed a mentor, and taught him a bit about kids in general, Peter really made it hit home how good it felt to be a parental figure.

Husband. Father. That’s what’s important in life. Having a family and being someone else’s family too.

Tony huffs warm air against Steve’s hairline. “So I guess our relationship has always been pretty healthy,” he concludes after a moment. “You made me need you. That’s annoying. Especially now that everyone else that made me need them is dead.”

Pepper. Peter. Jesus. Is the last that small? Bruce proved that he could get up and go whenever. Rhodey’s always had his own life. And everyone else is just everyone else.

This is a little too much pillow talk for the inventor.

“Pretty sure you gave up being Cap anyway. Is what it is. At least you’re in luck about always having some sort of job. Evil doesn’t disappear, yanno. But you’ve got to work on doing stuff just for you sometimes. Oh my god, I’m a life coach. I just became a life coach. We’re doomed.”