He'd forgotten how well they fit. It wasn't like Pepper, a lithe lines and soft curves, tucking around him like she could lift the weight he carried. Not like the solid bulk of Rhodey wrapped against his spine or his side, holding him up or hanging on for the ride. Bruce? Fit right under or over his shoulder. Had a dense weight to him Tony always chalked up to the Other Guy, a warmth he figured was a side effect of being full of Gamma radiation. A big, sciency teddybear that he thought nothing at all of sidling up to in the past, patting, listing, leaning, reaching out for him because- in all the time he'd been on the run, hunched in on himself, trying to keep his head down- who would he let close enough to do that?

No one- or not many.

It'd been a privilege. One Tony missed.

"Fourteen million futures- that one? The one where we lose? Apparently it was the only way for us to win." Time stone in play, him alive. Why was his life worth the stone- it wasn't. It couldn't be, and yet- Tony sighs, rubbing at his left side. "Enough that I was bleeding out when I woke up. Barnes saved me. Got me to town before I died."