Author's Note: Apologies to any readers who wanted Gene dead, but Tony's saving him… whether Gene likes it or not. Hopefully this won't come across as a tremendously unsubtle forgiveness Aesop. That's not what I'm aiming at. What I am aiming for is a more mature Tony. You know what they say – trauma builds character.

Also, for those wondering why Luksa was in the boy's bathroom and thus glimpsed Rhodey: When you gotta go, you gotta go. The girls bathroom was full and she couldn't wait for it to empty, so she did what many people do in desperate moments like that: she ducked into the boys room and prayed there was a stall open.

Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend. - Hercule Poirot

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.- Gandhi

It was just after noon when the foreigner came knocking on the monastery's door.

He was young, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, but his gray blue eyes were heavy like an old man's. They contained the weight of the pains of his life and the light of wisdom and enlightenment gained through experience and suffering. He was dressed in clothes that, while not that of a businessman, were clean and pressed. He bowed respectfully to the monks, his voice low as was polite inside the monastery, and he asked if it was true that Enkh Khan resided here. His voice was tired and determined. There was sweat on him that indicated he had been on this quest for the better part of the day. Though normally a foreigner would not be allowed any further into the building than was absolutely necessary, in this case an exception was made.

"I must speak with Enkh Khan. His grandson, Temugin, is not dead as he was led to believe so many years ago," the white man told the head of the monastery solemnly. "I am no tourist here to ignorantly gawk at your people's culture. I am Temguin's best friend, and I will wait here all day until Enkh can talk to me if that is what you wish. I don't want to cause trouble or disrupt your day."

The old man laughed softly. "Young master, there is no need for such fear. You are welcome to come inside these hallowed halls. We will see to it that Enkh speaks to you shortly; Temugin has always been in his heart."

Left in the presence of several other monks, he allowed himself to be led to a room. In it, the walls were covered with pictures of people. Some were old and black and white, some were painfully new, but there was a candle in the center of the room for each of them on a high raised altar. The brunette made his way to the walls, eyes scanning the faces he saw before him. Finally, when he found Temugin's picture, he took it tenderly into his hands. Enkh's only surviving picture of his grandson has been taken when Temugin was only five days old, his black hair just faint wisps and his golden eyes rounder. Still, there could be no mistaking it was the same person. The way the foreigner's face softened at the sight of him was proof positive of that.

"Gene… different photo, same stupid hair, huh buddy?" he muttered to himself, forgetting for a moment that other people were still in the room. "Guess some things never change." He scanned the wall suddenly, as if a thought had just occurred to him. "Now, where are your parents…?"

"They are not there," a new voice said behind him. "I have no photos of my dear Sarantuyaa or her husband."

The brunette smiled sadly. It was a smile that said he, too, had lost someone dear to him. "Then you should have this," he said, reaching into his pocket and producing a picture of her. "Courtesy of Temugin."

In spite of himself, Enkh found his eyes filling with tears. "Thank you, child. It means more than you can ever understand." He sniffed, then straightened. "I do not believe I know your name."

"Anthony Stark," he replied quickly. "I am a classmate of your grandson's, and one of his best friends. Even if Gene wouldn't admit that publicly," he added under his breath, causing the older man to smile. "He's a stubborn guy, sometimes. He likes to act tough."

"Ah, then he is truly his mother's child. Come, we will go to my room. We have much to discuss."

"More than you know," Anthony said softly, sadly, and his eyes were that of an old man's. He met Enkh's dark black eyes steadily. "It is very complicated. Things were very hard for Gene – excuse me, Temugin – growing up after his mother was murdered by Zhang."

Enkh gasped, then winced as if he had been struck. "I knew it. I knew that man was behind it, but no one listens to the elderly in these times. They said I was just an angry old man, and perhaps I was, but that didn't mean I was wrong."

Anthony placed a hand on the old man's shoulder for a moment, and then let it fall. There were no words that could've been spoken that would have mended this wound. He knew better than to try. Instead the white man followed silently behind him. Though physically the younger man was in good shape, his eyes were tired. Enkh had the sudden thought that perhaps this visit would not be as happy as he had thought when he first heard the news. For a brief moment his heart had soared with hope and joy that his grandson was alive. For a few fleeting seconds he had even dared to hope his daughter might still live. But Anthony had not come all this way to tell him lies. He came speaking only the truth, unpleasant and heart wrenching though it was. With the awkwardness that came with the newness of the gesture the boy bowed to several monks who passed, respectfully stepping aside for his elders. His concentrated effort at politeness was making Enkh nervous. Some terrible had happened, hadn't it?

"Where is Temugin now?" Enkh asked, his silver hair catching the light as they stepped into his room. His eyes were zeroed in on the foreigner's face. "Where did you come from? Why are you here? What of Zhang? Why isn't Temugin here himself? How is it a foreigner knows such good Mongolian? What does my grandson look like now? Why-"

"One question at a time. In no particular order, the answers are that I am from the United States, Zhang is missing and presumed dead, Gene doesn't know you're alive – probably thanks to Zhang, come to think of it – I don't know where Gene is now, and this device on my ears is translating what I say into Mongolian and what you say into English so that I can understand it. There wasn't nearly enough time to learn Mongolian. I had to find you as soon as possible." Anthony fiddled with his pocket computer for a moment before handing it to Enkh. "This is what Gene looks like now."

Silence fell. Stunned, emotional silence. Then, like a burst of water breaking through a damn, sixteen years of repressed grief, pain and loss came to the surface, and Enkh Khan found himself shaking with the sheer force of it.

"Gene… Temugin, my Temugin, that's him. You weren't lying, you really found him…" Tears began to slide down the old man's cheeks as he cautiously took the device into his hands. "He has his father's eyes," he whispered softly. "Aung was a good man. Poor, true, very poor, but there was never a man more noble than he was, so strong and brave. He cared so much for the people of the world, all of them, even choosing to work in China in the badlands where we then lived purely out of compassion. He… he never got to see his son grow up. He would have been so proud, his son in America, in their schools – he could never have afforded such an education for him, though he tried his hardest. My lord, look at Temugin, he's practically a man now…"

"I don't go on illegal cross-continental journeys to tug at your heart strings or mess with your head. I'm here because Temugin needs your help." Anthony placed his hands on the older man's shoulders, eyes serious and sincere. "I know about the Makluan Rings. I know the Khan family has passed down the power of the Mandarin for centuries. I know that Zhang stole that power and Gene stole it back. What I don't know is how to stop Gene now that he's one on an obsessive quest for their power. It's like there are two of him sometimes. There's the kind hearted jerk that saved his best friend from the Maggia and came to visit me in the hospital, the guy who laughs with me when we do stupid things. Then there's the mad man, the cold hearted murderer who wants the Rings at the cost of everything else in his life. If he doesn't stop on this path, there are people out there who will kill him to keep him from destroying more lives in the process. But I don't think the madman is the real Gene, or the real Mandarin. I won't let him be struck down like a dog. Please, Mr. Khan…"

"Enkh, call me Enkh," Gene's grandfather replied, staring down at the picture of Gene, Tony, Pepper and Rhodey. "You are like his brother, so you are like my son. You did the right thing, coming here. I had feared this years ago at Temugin's birth, that he might inherit the family's curse…"

"Curse?" Anthony asked, eyes narrowing slightly. "Please, tell me why things are turning out this way. I need to know."

He sighed heavily. "It is not something we had a name for, not back then. My mother, before that, her uncle, before him his mother, going back as far as our family has records, a curse that no one understood properly before. Medical science is a foreign concept to Mongolia, you see. We only knew that there were two minds in one body, two people fighting for control. It is the affliction of the Khan family. It goes back to the days of Genghis Khan himself, though it is an extremely well kept secret."

"Gene…"

"Is not only Temugin," the old man confirmed gravely. "Somewhere inside him there is another. That man is the one seeking the Rings, committing murder, and he does it with good intentions. The second soul, as it is known to the Khans, is there to protect the first. In Zhang's care the only way to survive would have been to let Temugin hide behind him. I don't know what that monster did to him, but the results are plain to see. Oh, my poor son, my only grandchild…"

"How can I help him?" Stark pleaded, sounding desperate. "I don't know what to do. Ever since he took the Rings I earned he's been on a rampage."

Enkh Khan stared at him as if stunned into silence. "You passed the Rings tests?"

"Some of them," Tony confirmed. "Three, actually. My father passed one other. Why?"

"Only an exceptionally good man may pass any one test, let alone three. You must be clever, brave, and tremendously noble." He reached into his robe and pulled off his necklace. He placed it, complete with one Ring, into Tony's palm. "Take this, young Anthony. This is the Ring of the Mind. With it you will be able to control anyone, even the Mandarin himself, and perhaps you can talk some sense into my poor afflicted grandson."

"But the Rings don't work for foreigners." Anthony frowned. "And this is a lot of power to be giving over to someone you barely know. It could be misused so many ways-"

"You are the rightful bearer of three Rings; but this is not the only reason why I trust you. Young master, you came across the world to find a way to save Temugin. To kill him would be the easiest option and to declare him a monster a perfect rationalization, but you did not do that. You came here. You sought me out, that you may solve this conflict without the loss of life. You are much of what the original Mandarin was – a peacekeeper in a society then ruled by warlords, a beacon of hope in the dark. I have told the Ring to obey you despite your foreign blood, and it will."

"But I thought about killing Gene," he protested, looking ashamed. "I thought about it, to protect my family. I don't deserve this power if that's the first place my mind goes." He held out the Ring to Enkh. "I can't take this. I'm too scared of hurting someone with it. Everyone who gets handed this kind of power goes mad and I couldn't life with myself if I made everything worse."

Enkh reached out, curled Tony's fingers around the Ring into a fist, and placed his hands on top of the boy's. "Anthony, we all think horrible things. What matters is what we do in this world. You respect power. I trust you with this."

Anthony looked at him then, his storm colored eyes vulnerable and open. "But I don't trust myself with this. Not anymore."

Perhaps it was the result of being a father, perhaps it was because Enkh had spent his life dedicated to finding inner peace and easing the suffering of others, but it occurred to him then that Tony Stark was closer to a child than a man. He looked at him compassionately, and gestured for him to sit down. The boy did, looking confused and lost. It was in his eyes. He was good at keeping up appearances, at being polite and formal, yet deep within there was still something wrong. Enkh sat down beside him on the simple wooden bench and began to see the balance in things. Anthony Stark had come here bearing the gift of good news and a chance at bringing the shattered remnants of the Khan family back together. In return, the universe asked that Enkh do his part by healing the wounds of the young man's soul, something he would gladly do.

"I'm Iron Man!" the white boy confessed suddenly. "The super hero, the metal swoosh flying around New York, the guy all the papers speculate on, and you know what? I'm not that great!" He glared at a newspaper on Enkh's table bearing his image. "I'm not some noble soul trying to make the world better, I'm not a savior, I'm not a hero. I never have been! I'm just a kid, a little boy who lost his dad and who's just trying to do damage control. That's what I'm doing, trying to keep people from dying or getting hurt, and I can't even do that correctly – look at all the mistakes I've made, all the times I failed. I've lost my father, one of my best friends, her father, I nearly lost everyone closest to me, and do you know why? It's because of me. I get so caught up in myself and my own problems that I can't help anyone around me! I get so angry all logic and reason goes straight out the window! The greatest threat to Anthony Stark is Anthony Stark, and the only consistent factor in all my dysfunctional relationships is me. I'm the problem!"

Enkh let the boy vent. There was a lot of regret still lingering inside him, like a parasite he couldn't shake. He watched the emotions play out across the boy's face. He was disappointed in himself, he was angry with who he used to be, and yet he couldn't see that he had changed. He was not the same man, that much was evident even to someone who had just met him. Enkh had known Iron Man for little more than half an hour, and he could still see it. The monk could see the good intentions, the desperate desire to save the world, the regret and pain the hero carried inside himself to this day. He was uncannily self aware. He knew all too well what his faults were; his shortcomings were ever present in his mind's eye and he could not tolerate them. This was a far cry from the way the world's press had depicted the man of iron, but Enkh was not surprised. Underneath the suit there was still a human being, after all.

"It's like that song," Tony continued, suddenly sounding tired. "How can I trust anyone else when I can't even trust myself, and how can I love anyone else when I can't even love myself? That's me. That's always been me."

"Listen to me. Listen to me very clearly, Anthony Stark. You are not perfect. You have faults. You may indeed have made grave mistakes in the past. But these things are in the past and they cannot be changed. You have experienced many setbacks, many moments of sadness, hatred and rage. And you have grown from them." Enkh placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You have brought me hope when I had long abandoned it and you are refusing to simply let Temugin destroy himself even when the situation is dire. You are forgiving of him, you are conscious of your power, you are remarkably aware of your own failings. You are Iron Man, a hero to your people, Anthony Stark, a true friend, and the rightful owner of the Makluan Rings. You are not a problem. You are a solution. I'm blessed to have met you."

Tony rubbed at his eyes, looking exhausted. His life was flashing before his eyes, and what he saw wasn't pretty. He looked at Temugin's grandfather thoughtfully. "Do you really trust me with this? Even knowing that if I stop Gene, I'll end up having access to six of the Rings?"

"I do. It is the men who have wielded great power and thought they were perfect candidates for the job who have always done the most harm." Enkh smiled warmly. "To doubt your worthiness is to prove it."

Anthony sighed heavily and rose to his feet. "Let's hope you're right. Temugin's running out of time before his enemies try to gun him down. I may not be the best candidate for this, but I'll have to do." He paused. "It's illegal, but I could get him into Mongolia. He could live with you if you want. He has no place left to stay in the United States and if I – when I snap him out of this, he'll need support. Family."

The Mongolian man frowned and shook his head as Stark lingered in the doorway. "I can't take him in. I'm too old, too sickly and the city is not what he needs to recover." Anthony's face fell, but he nodded as if this made sense and turned to go. "His other grandparents live in the countryside, in the province of Zavhan. They have learned Mongolian and left China forever. Their old home reminds them too much of their past tragedy, but they have carved out a niche in Zavhan for themselves. I am sure that if you talked to them they would take their grandson in with open arms."

Tony's relief was so powerful he nearly shook. "I'll go there right away. Thank you for everything, Enkh Khan. Thank you so much."

"No, it is I who should be thanking you. For the first time in many years, I will sleep peacefully tonight knowing my grandson's fate and that of the Rings is in your hands. Thank you, Tomorbaatar."

The foreigner crinkled his nose in confusion. "Tomorbaatar?" he asked.

"It means iron hero. It is your name in this land. And should you need an alias to use with the authorities, feel free to take the name Khan as well with my blessing."

The magnitude of this statement was not lost on Tony. He could think of no words to describe his gratitude, so instead he simply bowed and left, the Ring glowing warmly against his hand. He could feel its power in his fingers. Feeling the familiar weight of responsibility settle around his shoulders, he found a place to change into his armor and focused his thoughts on Temugin. Everything was coming to a climax, a conclusion, for better or worse. He wasn't sure if he was up to this task, but he would die trying if he had to, if it meant he could save Temugin.

After all, they were brothers now.