If Steve knew how to be gentle, why was Loren in such pain? Tony was momentarily angry before he realized how little good that anger would do either of them right now. He knew that he was afraid and that this situation was stressful. That was not important right now. He needed to be calm. Like he was trying to diagnose a difficult motor or figure out why the electronics in a luxury car shorted out.

Pulling two gloves from the box on the wall, he cradled the jar I his arms ubtil Loren was protected from whatever he might have lurking under his nails. He sat on the bed in the warm spot left by Loren's body and unscrewed the cap on the jar. "This is honey," he said, as if the entire thing was ridiculous. "You want me to pour honey on-- All right, all right," he groaned. Sometimes he needed to take things on a little more faith.

Working the sticky fluid into the wound was horrifying. Steve kept telling him to go as deep as possible and that required actually sticking his fingers into the wound. He had to keep from vomiting. He'd been fine in the triage situation with Banner, but it had been dark and he hadn't had his fingers this close to Loki's actual spine.

"Okay... Oh fuck... Please Loren... I'm sorry if I do something wrong," he murmured the entire time, tipping more honey onto his fiancé.