Now that he'd managed eye contact, it was much harder for Tony to break it, but his eyes darted like he might find some safe middle distance to Wanda's finely arched eyebrow to settle. It was a challenge. Her impossibly earnest, powder-blue-with-chrome-accessories-check-the-brochure eyes were so big they had their own demanding orbit. Nightmare. Why couldn't she tell him how she felt when he had his helmet?
He couldn't even say anything, afraid to breathe in case it prolonged this experience, because it was becoming clear that Wanda wasn't about to be railroaded out of it. He wanted to say, Who do you blame?, because if it wasn't his fault it had to be somebody else's. Nobody was blaming the guy who sold him the parts for the suit, nobody was blaming HYDRA for failing to install the right overrides, nobody was blaming all of those people for being there that day. And maybe there was nothing he could ever do to make it right, but someone had to take responsibility for all of those wives and sons and best friends that shouldn't have died because he built the bomb. All anyone else had said to him was, It's okay. You don't have to do it alone.
What Wanda was saying didn't really make sense, but how could she say it with that kind of commitment if it didn't make a little bit of sense to her? She had already forgiven him so much for his failures; this one should have been the last chance, this one brutalized her and pushed Pietro out the door and at times when they needed Iron Man the most, Tony had climbed into a bottle. But there she was and-- Tony's lips finally parted as she touched them, and his eyelids drooped to break that steady contact, but he still didn't have anything to say when he was finally allowed to drop his head. What was he supposed to say to that?
Anthony's eyes were closed, too, and on some half-dreamed impulse he was holding the bottle away from his lips, tiny hands on the rim without the strength to get a proper grip but his desires clearly indicated. Tony could sniff and busy himself with the very important task of pushing the bottle onto the table and soothing Anthony's sleepy murmurs as the infant snuggled into a well-fed nap. He finally had to acknowledge Wanda again, though, and when he did he looked exhausted, but he did smile and he leaned carefully to bump his shoulder against hers.