Crying women were not a favorite of Tony Stark. He didn't quite know what to do with them. Sometime in his past he would have offered her a drink and a shoulder to cry on, a warm lap to sit on to work her issues out with along with a few good orgasms to remind her she was the one still alive. He wouldn't have thought about the aftermath when she went home alone, possibly feeling even more alone since she was going home with the memory of another's flesh against hers.
He would have been utterly selfish in the past.
Tony was glad he could say he was that person in the past.
He wanted to be a better person right now because he was tired of being the man straight out of the tabloids. They didn't even have to try hard to paint him in a bad life. Tony knew he made himself look like Hell all on his own with no help from others. It was hard to look at his past with the blinders off, but Tony did it all the same. Pepper needed him to do it. He needed to do it. Their company needed him to do it.
Rachel deserved more than a casual brush-off.
"My parents are both dead. I've never cried for them. Never. I used to think that made me callous. Broken. I thought there was something wrong with me because I couldn't cry for my own parents, but now? I look at myself and realize I am exactly what I was raised to be. I'm a businessman who takes life seriously. Death is a part of life. I expect to die some day. I know it'll happen to me, too. I'm not that special. I think you're lucky you can do that. Cry. Mourn the guy you loved the way he deserves."
He tried to imagine how it felt to cry. To weep for someone's loss every day. Tony couldn't think about that. All he could think was how he wanted to be able to mourn his mother the way she deserved.
"I don't need your apologies though. I need to know what I can do to help make it to where you laugh a little. Even if it's only once. I'm always good for at least one laugh. Want me to show you how I can make the suit do yoga with me while you tell me about your dads? That was plural, right? Dads? Were they together or do you mean you've got a dad and a stepdad? Tell me all about it. I'll show you Downward Facing Dog."
Tony moved to stick his ass in the air, arching his back while willing the suit to mimic the reaction.
"Fun, right? Bet you didn't think it was this flexible."