This was different. For all their flirtation the last month or two, it had never gotten anywhere like here, where there was physicality involved, and it only figured that it'd be at a time like this, when anything they did would be highlighted by words that had the potential to be cruel.
Still, he wouldn't lie and say he didn't enjoy it, the steady light stroke of Steve's thumb was calming and comforting and something else underneath all of that. Something better. He loosened his grip on Steve's hand in order to offer up a better range of movement. For it Steve felt inclined, anyway. Tony was in no state go go around making demands.
He exhaled, slow but not particularly steady. Tony couldn't say he hadn't tried imagining how it might have gone with Steve there, of course he had. "I don't know it would have made any difference," he admitted. "it was a shit show." But that wasn't new information.