"No, it's not much of a choice because either way someone is coming down on you about when and where you operate; you keep this up, and you're always watching your back for me or whatever superhero hunting SWAT squad you know they're gearing up now, that they are just waiting for the excuse to unleash on the world. The only choice is to give up the gig entirely. You ready to retire, old man? I'm not. This team--..." Iron Man's frustration was immediately clear, even through the mask as he snapped back, both fists balled and pacing a tight step back and forth at the end of Steve's bed. He stopped when he hit whatever emotional leakage had cut him off, taking a deep breath to depressurize and focus. "If you hadn't lost a screw, we could have made this something that worked for us. Maybe we still can. And if we can't--I prefer it to letting them run us scared. Maybe we have to make a lot of apologies-- but isn't that why this is happening? Because we have a lot of--because people are hurt by what we do. They don't want to be scared of us as much as we don't want them scared of us." It didn't really work. Steve had put too many very lonely nights between them for Tony to fill with endless loops of these frustrations and arguments, until the sun came up and he was left squinting and no closer to anything resembling even keel, never mind a resolution.