It wasn’t perfect.
It wasn’t horrible.
It wasn’t anything anyone would ever call it.
Tony stood in front of him, shoulders slumped in either defeat or exhaustion, eyes so drowned in everything that they wouldn’t even lift from the floor. His fists were clenched tightly enough that, even though the light of the arc reactor was muted under his shirt, the whites of his knuckles were impossible to miss. Without looking away from him, Bruce reached for the opened velvet box on the nightstand, carefully extracting one of the gleaming silver razors as he shifted back on the pillows, making enough room to be joined on the bed.
"It’s okay, Tony," he called out, voice low and soft as it always was on nights these, where the slightly hint of force would send the genius fleeing into himself and from the room. "You can take your shirt off, it’s okay. Come here."
On the mattress this night, as with every night, they slotted together as if they had been engineered to fit, Tony’s hot back to Bruce’s carefully calm chest, legs twisted together, arms carefully joined.
Anyone with standards would say that that, just holding him, should be enough.
But this was the only way it could be enough.
Without grandeur, Bruce slipped the razor into Tony’s hand. “You’re okay,” he whispered soothingly, watching as the other man slowly moved the instrument toward his wrist, pausing in uneasy hesitation. “This is okay, Tony.” Bruce pressed a kiss to his tense shoulder, trailed a few more across and up his neck. “I’m here. I’m watching you. It’s okay, baby. You can do it.”
"Bruce-." Tony’s dry voice dropped off, unsure, nervous, desperate. He kissed the other shoulder.
"Tony," he responded, tracing his hand up the man’s ribs. "You’re okay. I’m right here."
He was silent when Tony made the first cut against his own arm, continued rubbing his chest, whispering his lips against slowly relaxing muscles, where tension was seeping out with the blood in release, one man melting into the hold of the other.
It wasn’t something good.
It wasn’t something bad.
Bruce watched as Tony made another cut. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
It wasn’t anything at all.