"You always try." Matt can't resist the rebuttal, it's a pattern they always fall easily into. Laughter and teasing when times are good, comforting arms and a sympathetic ear when they're not. Or fierce loyalty and a pair of fists, when that's what's needed instead.

It feels, as always, completely right to wrap one arm over Steve's shoulders. The body may have drastically altered, but Matt's sense of the man has never wavered. It took next to no time for him to adjust, probably less time even than Steve himself, because what has always been most important about his closest friend has never changed. And Matt's sense of attachment to him has only grown through the years.

The quick stutter in his breath doesn't escape notice, and Matt's heart does a double-step in answer. Oddly enough, it's that involuntary response that clues him in to a thought that's been slipping around the edges of his mind. He has the strongest urge to press his face to the other man's shoulder and inhale, knowing exactly what he'll smell and realizing that it's a scent he'll always associate with being safe and happy. With feeling loved.

God, it's amazing to Matt how often he has no idea what's actually going on inside his own head until it's almost too late.

"Don't go away like that again." He can't exactly come out and say his heart would break, in so many words. But it would. Probably will, someday.