Steve leans back; feels the glass panel press against his spine. Tony's a few feet away, flat on his back. He's not sleeping, but his eyes are closed. A deep breath pulls through Steve, the night air spreads across his tongue. The two of them have made a habit of this. Lying out on the tower's walkway, exposed to the elements. Just them; the other Avengers have all retired to their rooms. Steve enjoys their company, but part of him enjoys this more. It's nice to be able to think. Having them all in a room together brings a lot of noise, and somehow a lot of laughter too. The volume jumps from twenty to three hundred the second Thor is introduced to a room.

This is nice. This is quiet. It's the thirty-second night they've spent out here. For the first time in thirty two nights, Tony Stark looks over at him and asks, "What was he like?"

Steve doesn't respond at first. He knows exactly who Tony is talking about, without even asking. Howard Stark. They don't talk about it, ever. He's seen more than once the way Tony's face turns to stone when his father is introduced to a conversation. There's anger there, Steve knows it, and sadness. There's so much he can say. Eight months of working with Howard to defeat HYDRA saw him spending a lot of time with the man. Still, though, they weren't ever really friends. Just coworkers. He thinks of the others from his life before. Peggy, the one he never got to dance with, or Erskine, the man who died so that Captain America may live. Bucky was, perhaps, the only true friend he had ever known. Certainly the only one he had as Steve Rogers from Brooklyn.

"You still with me, capsicle?" Tony asks, and Steve is forced back to the unforgiving present. He presses his eyes shut, forcing the tears back.

"I'm still here," he replies quietly. "I don't know what you think about your father, Tony, but when I knew him he was a good man."

"Until me."

It doesn't quite sink in, until he looks over, that Tony truly believes that. The realisation slams him back, presses down on his chest until it aches. "Tony. It wasn't you. You have to know that. This wasn't ever about you."

"I thought everything was about me," the billionaire says dryly.

"Not this time," Steve murmurs, only loud enough to be heard. The air holds still, as though waiting for him to speak. "Your father was a good man. A brilliant man. I, uh, I wasn't like this the first time I saw him. Still just that little guy from Brooklyn, standing in the crowd at a Stark Expo."

They stay like that. Out in the cool night breeze, under the moonlight, talking about Howard Stark. Tony listens intently to every word, never opening his mouth. Hours pass. Steve runs out of stories, but he doesn't stop talking. There's a lot the Avengers don't know about his life. A lot of things that didn't make it into the books or to SHIELD's references.

It's perhaps the longest silence Steve has ever witnessed Tony Stark maintain, and it feels strange to see it now. A wave of nostalgia washes over him as he remembers the day Howard Stark handed him a shield and told him it was made of vibranium. "I wish you'd been standing in my place back then. You would've liked him. You aren't as different as you think."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Tony snaps, abruptly on his feet, back turned. Steve watches him walk to the glass and lean against it. They fall into silence, and something a lot like sadness rattles around in the soldier's chest. He rises to his feet and walks to Tony's side.

"When we first met, I thought a lot of things about you. I was wrong. About all of it. You proved us wrong, Tony. Maybe you don't see that, but we're going to keep telling you until you finally get it through your head that we believe in you. That trick you pull in front of the rest of the world, it won't work on us. We're your family."

A long, dry laugh escapes Tony's lips. "Is that what we are? A family?"

"You think any of us had families, Stark? Look around you. Barton only started living the day his parents stopped. Natasha was a spy before she was a person. Bruce cut himself off from the world just to protect it. And Thor...well, we saw firsthand what his family can do. Yes, we are all messed up. We all have problems, and we all make mistakes, but this? This is the family we never got to have."

Tony glances up. The walls built up around him fracture, slowly but steadily. Little hints of humanity flicker through the cracks. He shakes his head, sadness in his eyes. "I don't believe in family."

"Well," Steve says, "now might be a good time to start, because we believe in you. I see the way you get when people talk about your father. That mask you wear is good, but it doesn't fool us. I know that people change, I've seen them do it right before my eyes."

The unsaid words, the 'I've seen you change' hangs in the air. Tony doesn't acknowledge any of it. He just stands there, breaking apart and trying desperately to hold the pieces together.

"Howard Stark is not you," Cap continues, "and you're not him. But there is so much of him in you. It would be an awful thing to go through your life thinking that there was nothing good about him."

Steve catches him as he tries to escape, gripping tightly at the arm beneath his hand. The muscles tense under his palm, and Steve murmurs, "It would be worse to go through your life thinking there is nothing good in you."

"The only good thing in me is this!" Tony shouts. He jabs a finger at the arc reactor, still humming and still glowing beneath his t-shirt. "If it weren't for this thing, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be an Avenger, and I wouldn't be a part of this family. Call it whatever you want, Rogers, we're only here because of what we can do. There's nothing good about me but this thing."

"And everything special about me came out of a bottle. Isn't that right?" The grip tightens. There's going to be a bruise there, they both know it, but Steve doesn't release him. "Isn't that right!"

"What the hell do you want me to say? That I was wrong about you? Fine! I was wrong, Rogers! You are more than the serum, more than some experiment! You're a superhero!"

"And you're more than a vessel for the glowing machine in your chest," Steve tells him in a level tone. "You are more than Howard Stark's son. You're Iron Man, you're Tony Stark. Without you, there would be a nuke sized hole in New York, millions of lives would be lost. That wasn't the arc reactor that flew through that portal, Tony, it was you. Your choice. To lay down on the wire."

Tony looks at him, brown eyes wavering and glassy, and barely able to keep a hold on the war tearing his insides apart. He deflates. Right there in front of Steve's eyes, he turns to nothing. Just stands, limp, like all the heart in him is gone. "Well, I guess we were both wrong about each other."

Moonlight dances on their faces. The arc reactor hums, glows like starlight. Steve rests his hand on Tony's shoulders, and they almost manage to smile at each other.

"So," Tony quips, "what does that make us? One big, mad family? Cause I don't know about you, but I don't think Fury would like to be called mum. And I'm definitely not playing older brother when Natasha brings her first boyfriend home. Don't families bicker, anyway? What good will we be in a fight against the rest of the universe if we're too busy pulling each other's pigtails?"

Steve laughs. It's nice to be happy. To have friends like he's made here, that aren't going to get left behind. To have a family that will stand alongside him and fight with him.

"I'm sure we'll think of something," he tells Tony. "That's what families do."

It's amazing how quickly these two devolve into shouting at each other when I'm writing them. But...this was carthatic.