Things had been good for awhile, with Tony, with Steve. But even then, with the two of them getting along, they'd always sort of been somewhat at odds with each other, just two very strong personalities in a room. He respects Tony as he does any of the others, and he loves Tony as he does any of the others, and he supposes that maybe that's why it hurts so much to think that friendship might be lost, to see another Tony and think that, given their dynamic, maybe this sort of thing was inevitable.

Things were always just so dramatic between them, weren't they?

"I've never met your Steve," he says, easily, his hands reaching up to cup Tony's cheeks. Those weren't the words he would've thought Tony would say, especially not up close like this, not when the gesture seems so aggressive. He expected to be told to go away. To leave Tony alone. "But I do know he doesn't just give out platitudes. If he forgave you, then you deserved it. Or never did anything worth having to forgive in the first place."