Still combing his fingers through, he sighs. “I know it’s stupid-”
“Fuck ‘stupid,’ you just saw yourself commit suicide in an alternate universe,” Tony says, and his hands join Steve’s, brushing his hair to the right with the flat of his palm. “You’re allowed to get freaked out over it.”
He fluffs it up around the back, and Steve’s smile turns soft as he starts spiking it upwards in small tufts.
“There. Now you look sufficiently moronic. Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
And Tony’s hands are still in his hair, and Steve’s leaning in before Tony can focus on anything else.
He doesn’t kiss him- instead, he presses their foreheads together, and Tony can feel the wiry down of his hairline at the same time that Steve squeezes their hands together, the knots on their pinkies brushing.
“I’m glad it’s you. Even in… in the bad universes,” Steve says, and his fingers are still over the scars around the arc reactor, mapping their hearts in the only way he knows how, “I’m glad it’s you.”
It’s times like these that Tony gets it, sort of- how people can give so many pieces of themselves to one person, even without meaning to.
