Steve is still leaning against his back and, in a way, it makes it easier because he doesn't have to look into fierce blue eyes while he's being berated. It's not like anything Steve is saying is false, he knows with a certainty that he knows water is wet that Steve would be there for him. Becca would too, and she'd marshal the two younger ones as well so there was an army of idiots for him to lean on.

He doesn't say anything for a few long moments.

It's hard to find the words for any of this stuff a lot of the time, he struggles even with voicing it to himself. But he's never been able to lie to damn Steve Rogers, and he's not about to start now. Even if it's going to get him his ass kicked.

"Both. I didn't want you to see what happened, and-- I'm ashamed, I'm kind of a mess and it ain't pretty being around me a lot of the time."

He privately thinks that it would have been better for all involved if he'd been shipped home in a box draped with a flag. At least that would have been clean for all involved, not this drawn out process of crap that his life was now.

"I haven't been in the apartment long. Five weeks, maybe. Just-- come on, can we get off the stoop? I'll answer your damn questions inside and you can yell at me after."

Because God knows it's too late to save face now.