A/N: This is not good. I'm not gonna lie and say it is. It's what could loosely be called stream of consciousness and the ugly truth is that I just started typing with no point. It's going here because as much as it sucks, it was the first thing I wrote in the Avengers fandom and I'm proud of it if only for that. So . . . yeah. The back button should be your best friend about now. And please, please don't take this as being the best I can do.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Stark Tower? You mean that big ugly building in New York City?"

And just . . . no. Nobody was allowed to make fun of Stark Tower. That was his baby. His creation. His pride and joy. Well, it and the Iron Man armor and Jarvis and Dummy and You and Butterfingers.

They were all little bits of himself that he'd actually been proud of. And one of them was being insulted. Insulted by a Capsicle that wouldn't know good tech if he saw it.

And he had seen it. Clearly, he'd seen it and deemed it big and ugly. And that really shouldn't hurt. Anthony Stark was not the type of person to care what some 90 year old superhero with a bad costume thought about his work. It wasn't his problem that the man didn't get it. Didn't get the endless hours of labor done to make something like that. To design a building that was totally off the grid. Self-sustaining and without need of anything or anybody but itself to survive. Sort of like its creator. Big and flashy and sticking out like a sore thumb by choice, his choice. Stark Tower was the architectural equivalent of Tony Stark himself. The steel version of the man. And apparently it was big. And ugly. An eyesore for those with substance instead of flash.

That was the part that hurt. Captain goddamned America was known for being everything that was fucking good in the world. He inspired bravery and selflessness and the desire to stand up and sing the national anthem. Tony Stark inspired debauchery, excess and well, the pursuit of happiness. He was very much interested in the pursuit of happiness. He'd been pursuing it ever since he'd figured out that Howard didn't have time to pursue anything except one Steve Rogers. That pursuit hadn't worked out too well for dear old dad. He'd ignored everything living for the sake of searching for a dead man. The irony of the fact that the dead man had ended up outliving him and being dumped into the lap of his ignored son? Well, that was just fucking hilarious. Bend over double, laugh until you cried and pissed your pants hilarious. Tony had been feeling the urge to do just that ever since the man had been pulled from the ice. However, it served his purpose not to give SHIELD any reason to bench him from this and that meant that uncontrolled, hysterical laughter was probably something to be avoided.

So he kept swallowing it down, keeping his attention firmly on Dr. Bruce Banner – and wasn't he just a repressed individual? - and doing his best not to crack every time the Boy Scout entered his line of vision. Not to entertain any thoughts about how this was the man who had every single piece of attention that he'd tried to drag from his father since birth. He wasn't going to admit that he could actually understand his father's devotion. Could imagine that if one thing was hereditary it was the Stark habit of wanting to take everything that they didn't understand apart and put it under a microscope and this specimen of all things good and patriotic would have been a foreign concept for Howard as much as it was for Tony. He'd been doing nothing but observing and fuck if it didn't seem to be genuine.

It was genuine and no doubt Howard had been gripped with this same hysterical compulsion to tear it apart, piece by piece. To strip it down to its innermost components and see what made it tick. And no doubt destroy it in the process. Oh yes, Howard would have wanted to dirty up this little piece of golden goodness he'd helped to form. No, no, no, NO. Abort that thought process immediately. Focus on Banner and the green rage monster living within. On Fury and the way he fed them lies every time he opened his mouth. On making sure that Natasha was never behind him because damn if he didn't think that woman would grind him into dust if she had the chance. But under no circumstance was he going to continue thinking about the fact that Captain America was the living, breathing embodiment of of a fucked-in-the-head, poor little rich boy's wet dream. Because he wasn't.

He was an annoying soldier. He was everything that was wrong with every little toy that SHIELD had on their payroll. Probably didn't question a single order he was given as long as somebody told him it was for the good of his country. And if there was one thing Tony couldn't stand, it was a lack of questions. People who didn't ask questions lacked both intelligence and imagination. He considered himself blessed with an overabundance of both. Cap apparently was not. And really, that was just a fucking pity. It would have been so nice to learn that his childhood hero lived up to all the expectations. That he was as smart as Tony had imagined him to be. As strong-willed as the files of what Steve Rogers, both before and after the serum, had seemed to be. Would've been nice if he'd seen Tony as something other than the scum he appeared to.

But hey, no point crying over spilled milk. Or thawed out Capsicles. Boy Scout would just have to stay out of the way. Let Tony Stark do what he did best and figure out what was really going on. Which he would. Because the flash? That was just the front for every single bit of substance that he knew was in his own head. Every bit of intelligence that had been both present at birth and the knowledge that he'd shed his own blood, sweat, and when nobody was around to see them, tears to possess.

And another piece of irony to feed the crazed amusement in his own brain – he owed some of that to the Captain himself. That first engine he'd taken chubby hands to when he was six? All for the sake of getting daddy dearest to notice his existence. He hadn't, because there was a man named Steve Rogers that had to be found. And little Tony had realized that things would have to be a lot more spectacular than a few nuts and bolts to drag Howard's attention to him. So he'd kept trying. And the projects had gotten more advanced. He'd sneaked looks at every design Howard had drawn up, brain grasping at every detail that could make it better. Every detail that could give him the edge over Howard and make him notice. And somehow, Captain America had become the driving force in his life as much as his father's. He'd become the guiding force and the fucking ghost in the machines. And a part of Tony had shot to attention at the idea of meeting this man who had both made his life and ruined it, had been drawn to Germany for him as much as any desire to help take out Loki. Had wanted to be looked at with the same admiration that he had no doubt heaped on Howard at one point in his life.

Hadn't really worked out that way. Instead, he was once again being viewed as the fuck-up son who would never quite be all the things that his father was, didn't stand a chance in hell of being all the things that precious Steve Rogers was.

He was just the guy with the tower that fucked up the pretty New York City skyline.