Every man had a history and every hero had a story but when the hero and man were one in the same, suddenly everything became private. In the case of most, history was irrelevant; nobody cared about the past, it didn't matter how they got there or what they had done. It was all about the now so it was easy to keep those locked up. But the present, the story, was always on everyone's tongue.

Everyone wanted to know who the face under the mask was. Sometimes it was obvious, because sometimes they just gave themselves away. Tony was one of those men who just gave himself away. He was also one of those men who had a history that was relevant to his future, to his now, to the very fact that he was a hero.

Without his history, Tony Stark would still be an ordinary man, extraordinary but ordinary. He accepted that fact long ago, he knew that he would have tongues wagging for years. Iron Man's history was out in the open, it was followed, he had been a hero that was born from the ashes and followed as he was raised and created.

And honestly, Tony didn't care.

He had very few regrets in his life and each step forward he made as Iron Man he looked to as a small step of redemption; every fail was two steps backwards.

When he agreed to be part of S.H.I.E.L.D he accepted it as a leap of faith and a giant step forward, one that could possibly redeem half a dozen years of destruction caused by Stark Industries. It seemed that the Avengers Initiative, though, was a loss cause.

The battle against Loki was unbeatable. Every man down called five more into play, every city put out of harm's way shot three more up in flames. He countless thought back to his originally argument with Pepper and Fury; he did not play well with others. To top it off, it didn't seem like the rest of their so called team were much of team players either.

Tony wanted redemption but most days, it felt like he would never get it.