"If you want me to be there, I'll be there," Gene says simply. Tony's troubled demeanor isn't unexpected, but it is causing him a bit of anxiety of his own. It's the uncertainty, the chaos, that he's never been able to live with. And even more infuriating, he knows that pushing Tony about it one way or the other will make him come down, hard, on the verdict he doesn't want.

He is, briefly, annoyed with himself for caring so much about what Stark, of all people, thinks, but that pattern of thought is unsustainable and collapses in on itself. He's not who he was two years ago or ten months ago or even the same person he was in July. Too much had happened with him and Kalliel and Tony and Malicant in the interval.

He just has to trust that Tony knows he's not who he used to be.

"I can speak to Anton and get moved into one of the dormitories for a day or two," he says. "If you need the space." If you decide you don't want to see me again after all.