Tony was unraveling. Unraveled. Steve could hear the desperation in his voice, layered with all the things Tony usually tried to hide. Guilt. Exhaustion.<i>Pain</i>. He was screaming as it ate him alive. Tony always took things to heart, even if he tried to pretend otherwise. It hadn't taken a genius to see what Ultron had done to him. Maybe that's why the fissure between them had hurt so much. Steve<i>knew</i>guilt was eroding Tony from the inside out, but back then, he'd had to choose. And he'd chosen Bucky.<br/><br/>He didn't regret it, but that didn't mean his heart didn't grieve for the man he'd called friend for so long.<br/><br/>He sighed a soft, "Tony..." Into the phone, closing his eyes to the rant as he listened. He'd made a mistake getting lost in his own mourning. Steve knew loss, he'd grieved Bucky over and over again by now, he<i>knew</i>this pain. But Tony? He'd never gotten used to being rubbed so raw.<br/><br/>Sucking in another breath, his eyes opened and he nodded towards Wong. Tony was holed up in his room, Steve would bet money on it (if he was a gambler that is).  He nodded towards Wong as he stood, keeping the phone to his ear as he let Tony ramble.  Even as Wong began the handwork for the spell to open a portal between this space and the next, Steve stayed on the line.<br/><br/>Tugging down the hem of his worn grey sweatshirt, Steve walked into the portal before Tony had a chance to notice the sudden breach into his closed-off world.<br/><br/>Steve knew he wasn't the only one not to look like himself. Once he'd prided himself on being clean shaven and clear-eyed, but like old fashion American ideals, he'd left that behind as well. His baby blues carried shadows that spoke more of an inner exhaustion than an outer, and his face sported a beard that surpassed even Thor's.  He hadn't bothered to 'suit up' for the meeting, but he'd tugged on jeans at least with his sweatshirt. The weight of the Wakandan shields strapped and tucked to his forearms was reassuring, but he rarely took those off anymore.<br/><br/>You never knew,<br/><br/>The first thing to hit him was the sheer neglect. He'd seen Tony near the end of his rope before, but the billionaire generally kept up appearances for vanity's sake. This was...startling. He was sure if it wasn't for Tony's robots that the man would be nested in his own filth for how unstrung he looked.<br/><br/>"Tony..."<br/><br/>----------------<br/><br/>PeterP huffed a laughed, "Oh man. I went to a corner store, Delmar's- Before a gang blew it up, but he's okay! And his dog..Anyway they had the best sandwiches, and slushies in the summer.  He was real nice, had a thing for Aunt May though." His nose scrunched lightly, a note of wistfulness within his rich brown eyes. His Aunt hadn't liked him stuffing his face with quick food all the time, but his metabolism burned through it fast enough it wasn't like she could threaten him with getting out of shape. If he bribed her with a pack of Snowballs he could get off scotfree, snickering quietly as she got marshmallow all over her face. As try as she might, the woman had a kid's heart.<br/><br/>He worried about her all alone.<br/><br/>A light seemed to return to the younger's eyes when PeterQ began to talk more about himself than before, and PeterP sat forward, soaking it up with a hunger born of an isolation he'd never known the likes of before. He'd grown up always having someone to turn to when it counted, even if it was just Aunt May and Ned most the time.<br/><br/>PeterP broke in a laugh, rocking a little in his chair as he cast a glance back towards the house where the Doc was no doubt hard at work. "What are you going to do with rocket boots here? Take a spin around the dirt?" He snorted, "Get shot by a pea-shooter?" Least that's what he thought they were called. He'd seen some of the local lawmen with clunky looking wood handguns before, but that's about as far as his knowledge went. Doc would probably know.<br/><br/>"Should probably take one to Doc anyway though...Has he been out today?" He could probably count on one hand the number of full-length conversations he had with Dr Strange lately, but he got the feeling the man wasn't used to dealing with anyone under thirty with any regularity.