It doesn't set him off, nor does it prompt a collapse. Tony isn't wrong about one thing though, the only touches Barnes ever got during his time as the Asset weren't positive. They were slaps across the face, they were the fists of his enemies, the claws of fingernails as people scrambled against him for breath or for purchase. When he was cleaned, hosed down, stripped, washed, repurposed, tuned up, the people in charge did it with rubber gloves or the tips of their fingers like he was a disgusting and diseased thing that they were afraid might contaminate them.

Or, more aptly, like he was a utensil left in a freezer, so cold it burned them and they had to drop it at once. Tony's hand is a spreading warmth that melts ice, or at least brings him back to room temperature. It pulls his eyes from the grainy pattern of the hardwood, and he can - for the moment - meet that gaze again.

There is no clouding or disguising his soft appreciation for the gesture. Even if he wanted to, he doesn't have the mental energy now to thrust the wall up again so quickly. Unguarded.

He raises his glass. Pauses before he clinks them to murmur a rusty, crisp sounding, "Made the worst god damn sniper rifle I ever used."

He knocks their edges together.
Brings the glass to his lips.