AN: You know for someone who was only in the start of one MCU movie and a brief flashback in another, Ho Yinsen's impact in that universe is a huge one. I truly believe that he was one of the biggest reasons Tony turned from the path he was on pre-Afghanistan and became who he is throughout the other movies we see him in.

For this reason, Yinsen is one of my favorite characters in the MCU.

After one final, unneeded adjustment to his tie, Tony opened the hospital door and slipped into the room. His eyes immediately fell onto the hospital bed where a girl about ten years old laid with far too many wires attached to her. If he thought having his arm in a sling was a troublesome thing, then he had only to look at the scars covering the girl's arms. Further if he felt the need to complain about the arc reactor that was implanted in his chest, Tony only had to remind himself that she was in a comatose state, and the doctors didn't have a clue as to when she would wake up, if she ever did.

A woman's voice speaking harshly in a language Tony didn't understand brought him out of his ruminations, and his eyes went from the girl to the owner of the voice. The woman made it clear that she was talking about him to the man she was seated beside, her resentful eyes never leaving Tony's, and he definitely didn't need a translator to understand she wasn't happy with his presence in the room.

Her resentful eyes never left him, Tony knew that woman was clearly speaking about him to the man she sat beside, and he didn't need a translation to know what she was saying. The man looked at him, and smiled apologetically as though he believe Tony could understand what she was saying.

The woman finally addressed him in broken English, "You are not welcome here, Mr. Stark!"

"Marwa!" Her name was followed with a series of words that once again Tony could not understand.

Her eyes turned at last from glaring at the billionaire to the man beside her, "Do not ask me to apologize to him! It's because of him everyone we love is either dead or lying hurt in a bed!"

"That is not true, Marwa! You know that it is not!"

"But it true!" she retorted. "Where do you think those-" she spat out a word in her language, likely a profane word if Tony was any judge of the other man's reaction, "got the weapons from?" She looked in back at the billionaire adding, "The weapons they used when they butchered your wife, and sons, and daughter? Or have you forgotten that, brother?"

Tony dropped his head, unable to take the pain and the anger in the woman's eyes any longer. "I shouldn't be here. I'm sorry," he said quietly, and quickly left the room. He stopped just outside the door, berating himself, wondering what he had been thinking as he listened to Yinsen clearly argue with his sister.

When the voice abruptly ceased, Tony continued down the hallway, hoping to avoid either one of them should they choose to exit the room. Sure enough, a moment later the door opened, and a split second later he heard footsteps behind him.

"Mr. Stark!"

He didn't wait for Yinsen to catch up, but instead kept on walking towards the elevator, and that is where the other man caught up with him.

"Mr. Stark-"

"Please don't call me that!" Tony said, mashing the down button hard.

"Then what should I call you?"

"Tony is fine."

"But I cannot possibly call you by your given name."

He looked at Yinsen, "Not even after everything we went through together in that cave?"

The elevator door opened before Yinsen could answer, and several people poured out onto the floor, delaying his answer further. When the last person had cleared out, Tony stepped inside, and began pressing the button for the ground floor. But the other man wasn't about to let him get away that easily and got into the elevator too.

The ride down would not be a long one, but the Afghani doctor was determined to say his piece, "I am sorry for what my sister said to you."

Tony shrugged, "Why? It was nothing but the truth."

"But you did not kill our family, Stark," Yinsen said quietly. "It was the Ten Rings who murdered them, not you."

Suppressing a sigh of annoyance at the man's refusal to call him by anything but his family's name, he said instead said, "But whose weapons did they use when they came to your village? You can't tell me that they were not from my company! I saw the crates, Yinsen! Stark Industries was written on almost everything in their weapons cache!"

"Yes, the weapons they used were made at your company by your people, and yes the weapons had your name written all over them. But, Stark, in order for those weapons to be able to kill anyone, they needed men to aim them and then pull the trigger. You were not one of the men who did this to my family, nor to my sister's."

"You really don't blame me for what happened to your family?"

"No, I do not."

"Why?"

"Because I refuse to be like those men who murdered my family. If I blamed you for what they did, Stark, then I would become filled with hatred. I will not be like them. I will not dishonor the memories of my loved ones in that way."

Tony could only stare at him for the mere seconds it took for the elevator's doors to open and a few more people joined them. He took the opportunity to exit, not caring whether or not he was actually on his intended floor. With the entrance of the other people onto the elevator, he had hoped that Yinsen wouldn't be able to see him exit off of the elevator, but soon realized that it was a hope that he had made in vain.

"Stark!"

Tony kept walking, hoping that his lack of response would give the other man a hint.

"Stark!"

When he noticed all of the eyes turned in their direction, he was grateful that they were in a military hospital. Still with a roll of his eyes, Tony stopped, and waited for the scientist catch up to him.

"You're way more forgiving than I could ever be. I know if I were you, I would never be able to forgive me."

"Then perhaps it is fortunate for the both of us that you are not me and I am not you, hmm?"

"Uh yeah, I guess it is. So, why did you uh follow me anyway?"

"Why did you come to my daughter's room?"