The argument didn't really fit together, but while Donnie made it, Tony had to politely find somewhere else to look until Donnie could hide the dampness in his eyes, his own mouth set in a tight smile against an apology he didn't deserve and the vivid feeling of panic in his chest when he lurched out of his own stasis. Donnie, of course, wasn't equipped to see those missing pieces, where he wasn't the common denominator. It was Tony that couldn't hold a conversation without someone seeing that he must have been some kind of predator, selfish and stupid, and it wasn't everyone else that was wrong. He wasn't willing to take that risk, at least, with these kids' safety.

"He is your champion," Tony had to agree with Leo, finding some softness at the edges of his expression, and didn't see how either designation was lame. "He doesn't make you feel that way, does he? That you're the problem. I'm, genuinely--I can't figure it out, what it is that I do that convinces you that you should feel these awful ways about yourself. It is so hard for me to imagine that anyone else could treat you that way, that they don't act like you hung the moon."