Even Steve thought that was love, that cloying, manipulative suffocation, saw it from here when Tony thought Pietro was looking for a way to hurt him, and thought it was a worthy defense. As though that wasn't the worst goddamn part of it. Tony didn't want anything to do with love anymore, and didn't know why he thought he might finally be happy when he had it because every single person who had ever said those words to him left him with the same sick, crawling personal resentment eventually, and he knew he had done the same to enough. Whatever his factory flaw was had to be deep. Steve didn't deserve that, why wasn't he listening?
"So, what, I should thank him?" Tony asked, sarcastically enlightened and strung tight, daring Steve to stop him as he gestured after Pietro again. Steve might have had his misgivings, but they all knew Pietro wouldn't turn down a sloppy blowjob from Tony. "Good talk," he continued before Steve could dole out further wisdom, "we should do it again," and started back toward his cell to check if Pietro was still hanging around and still wanted some kind of display of redemption and, oh, love. Obviously, it wasn't his place to refuse that kind of confession. Once someone gave you a broken fucking robot, you owed them. Captain America couldn't be wrong about that.