It takes Ianto a moment to realize just what exactly it is that the other man means, because it's a different direction to what he'd been saying himself. A different meaning to the word than what he'd been implying. Impossible. Ianto had meant as a level of success, but then he supposes it all depends on what it means for a person to succeed. Survival is a rather final measure of it, after all.

He wonders whether it would be a breech of the other man's privacy to remove his sunglasses, for how much he wishes he could look him in the eyes just now. He supposes he might stop talking to him if he did. John seems to know how little he can hide from him after all.

"We're going to find a way to make this right," he says, with a certainty he isn't sure whether he feels, but he knows that John needs to hear it. God knows he'll repeat himself as many times as he has to until something sticks. Until that wretched note clears from the other man's voice and he stops looking like he might try and face down the dragon bare-handed if it came to that. "You and me together, yeah? That was the deal."