His first instinct - knee-jerk reaction, really - was to protest that he wasn't pretending. Because he really, really couldn't be - it had to be all right. He had to find a way to make it okay. It wasn't a choice; he had to have a solution. But nothing, of course, was presenting itself, and the result was that he was in danger of moving right past blind groping for an answer into foundering pointlessly in his own panic - and he might have, too, if that nudge, that physical reminder that they were both here, hadn't brought him back into the moment. It stopped the circular not-quite-thinking that wasn't helping anyone, least of all him. It was what he usually wanted, in times like these (not that there had been all that many times like these). Contact, comfort, something real. Something in his immediate control. He dropped his hand onto Jarvis' shoulder and gripped, perhaps too tight, too desperate, straddling the line between supporting himself and trying to steady the man beside him.
And he looked down at his face, which was a fucking mistake, because - well, it would have been heartbreaking even without the whisper of guilt starting in the back of his mind. Did I do this? The plotting, the slapdash approach to recruiting - was that why this was happening now? No - no, the more likely answer was that what had prompted this had gotten started well before he'd jumped on board, and in a distant, half-conscious way he could feel his anger welling up just over the horizon, at Rogers, at the Maximoffs (late and otherwise), at all those idiots on the ground in District Eight. But it was still nascent, still far away. Probably it would hit him like a wall of wind tomorrow, but for now: there were more immediate concerns. Jarvis looked ... miserable. Fix it. Make it okay.
He really couldn't.
"Please don't be scared," he said instead, weak, more of a plea than a palliative. He sat on the adjacent arm of the couch, bent toward him; his grip shifted, his palm pressed against the flat beneath Jarvis' collar bone. "I'll fix it. All right? Just - please don't be scared."