<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ffffff">Tony just stood there for a long moment looking at Steve. Outwardly, he was just staring, inwardly he was trying to push the words through the haze and static noise in his brain. He blinked. He blinked again, but that time is was a double, so really it was a grand total of three blinks.<br/>
<br/>
"Communicate???" his mind finally spat out a response. "Communicate with what? With who??? Steve...." <br/>
<br/>
Tony stepped forward, quickly and resolutely, moving to grasp Steve's broad shoulders with a hard shake. "...they're <i>dead. Gone. </i>Thor's just cracked because he lost his brother, be-be-because he lost his friend, the guy with the ..." he stopped trying to explain. Steve already knew everything he was trying to explain and his brain was beginning to tie his words in knots again. Every time he thought about that day, he couldn't think. Who was the one who was really cracking? <br/>
<br/>
He stopped shaking Steve's shoulders, they didn't really move much anyway and what effect could that possibly have? Instead, he gave them both a pat; his eyes following the movement of his hands as he tried to straighten out the rumples he'd caused in the thick sweatshirt material. There was more on his mind, he almost even wanted to say it, but it hitched up in his throat before he could form words. His eyes drifted up and locked on his former friend's. Was it really that simple? Was it you do you, and I'll do me, and since those two things don't match we'll just...have a little conflict, beat the stuffins out of each other, and call it a day on friendship?<br/>
<br/>
His eyes evaded contact but after the last rumple had been smoothed, twice, he blinked up to look Steve square in the face. His eyes narrowed just a bit as he looked more closely at the man. In that proximity he could see some of the fresh had faded, the sharp clarity of his eyes had been replaced by shadows and sleeplessness, the consummate defender of what was good and right looked a little rough around the edges. Tony knew in his mind that he couldn't be the only one hurting, but seeing Steve so close, so humanly, brought it home to him with that one look.<br/>
<br/>
He cast his glance downward, ashamed for expressing himself so bluntly. "H-Hey look, I'm sorry. Bucky, the others...I..I know." Tony always had more than just a little trouble expressing his deepest feelings, but he was trying even though he couldn't fully form his sentiments into words. He blinked back up, looking Steve in the eye, giving his estranged friend free access to everything that haunted his heart behind his rich brown soulful eyes. "He knew, Steve...he knew. Everyone around us was fading, disappearing before they really knew it was happening. But Peter..." Tony started to choke up on his words, bit his lip to push it back down, but soon he was pacing, animated, reliving the moment in painful detail in his mind. "...all those heightened senses. He knew, even before it happened to him, he know...and...and you know what he said to me? What he did? He-He-He just came to me...came right to me..." Tony clamp his watering eyes closed and made the motion of holding someone close. "He wouldn't let go. He just said over and over he didn't want to go. And I didn't want to let him go. But I couldn't stop it, Steve, I couldn't stop it..He-He-He..." his voice dropped to a near whisper, hollow and inward. "...turned to ash in my arms.<br/>
<br/>
He stood quiet, mournful, paralyzed by the memory that played clearly in his mind and tore at his heart.<br/>
<br/>
"Steve..."<br/>
<br/>
He looked at his friend.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm...not ok."<br/>
<br/>
He needed his friend.<br/>
<br/>
He took the three paces to close the physical distance between himself and Steve and wrapped his arms around him to close the emotional distance between them. "Steve..." he whispered. "I don't want to go either. Don't let me disappear..." <i>Into my own insanity.</i> "I'm in, Steve, I'm in, but I'm not ok."<br/>
__________________________________________________________________________________<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor narrowed his eyes at the younger Peter, warding him off from any sort of ostentatious displays of affection the lad might be entertaining while Quill took a headlong dive to save the sticky buns.<br/>
<br/>
"Ow! See, if I had my boots, that wouldn't have happened that way!" he complained, though the look Strange then shot at him made him realize that, hey, maybe now wasn't the time for making a case for getting his rocket boots back. "Doesn't matter, buns saved." he sidled back up into his chair and helped himself to another. Six months ago he may have been one sandwich shy of fat, but now, after all that had happened, and not being able to just take out his stress, distress, and landslide of every emotion known to man and Celestial, he'd gone straight to food for comfort. Now he was many sandwiches into fat, soft around the middle, and rounder in the face. If his friends had been there to see him, he was sure they'd relentlessly tease him. Oh well, he had a bag of sticky buns and magical clothes. What was another inch around the waistline? Who did he have to impress now? Before he went too far on that train of thought he started into another bun and watched as the Doc carefully guarded himself from a physical attack of adoration from his name buddy.<br/>
<br/>
Quills behavior was just pathetic, a seemingly constant display of argumentative, passive aggressive man-child tantrums. He simply cocked a brown to the older Peter then turned his attention back to the younger. "I'd explain, but you wouldn't understand. Who am I kidding, I'm wouldn't explain if you could." <br/>
<br/>
He pushed off the door frame and turned to go back inside. "No disturbances, do you understand? I need utter and complete silence and concentrations."</span></span>