Tony had a dissonance in his head now: the years he had spent here, and the few months he had suddenly spent back home technically in the past interjected between then and now. Feeling like and being the man Tony Stark had been in his world and then reverting to the Tony Stark here as the memories cluttered his head and tore him back down. So when Steve said that, it echoed a memory fresher than it should be: Yinsen's voice answering, "Someone has to," when Tony had asked him, both of them huddled over a flickering fire in the cave, why he'd cared.

He dipped his head low; his brain was still sorting out all the connections and information and putting things back into order after the initial surge. Slowly, he shut his eyes. At least he could be grateful that here he wasn't still dying of palladium poisoning. That had not been fun to live through. Again.

"I'd ... rather not be alone today," he said, haltingly even just speaking inside of his brain, because that wasn't the normal Tony Stark of Stark Industries and Iron Man fame back on Earth and in 2008 or '09 or whatever. It was the Tony Stark here who had been beaten and raped and whittled down, who had lost so many friends and lovers that he of all people had lost count, till it was just Steve Rogers left.