Authors' Note: Hey guys! Sorry it's taken me so long to write this but I hope to make up for it by posting this extra long chapter. So long in fact that I'll probably have to split it into two parts. You might want to grab a snack for this.

Thanks for reading!

Chapter ThreePart One

The erstwhile Captain America looked deep into the younger hero's storm blue eyes. They were alight with hopeful enthusiasm that filled Steve with painful nostalgia. Would there ever be a time when he could see Tony and not be reminded of Bucky? That trusting optimism was nearly his undoing and he felt his resolve teeter on the edge of capitulation. He paused for a moment, watching the way Tony's eyes pleaded with him, before sighing heavily.

"I can't."

Tony's face fell, sending the sun behind the clouds. "You can't? You have to! We need you! You're CAPTAIN AMERICA!" The boy struggled with his words, a sure sign he was in shock. "You're-you're like Uncle Sam himself! My father use to read me stories about all the missions you went on, the people you helped. When my dad wrote the Stark International code of honor he based it on you. You're the reason I came up with the armor! Azerbaijan – it's a country, only it wasn't a country in your day, but without you they'd never have been a country – they literally have 'courageous as Captain America' as an everyday phrase in their language! FDR himself said it was an honor just to have met you! The history books say-"

"History books are whitewashed, Tony," Steve interrupted gently. He no more wanted to break the boy's heart than he wanted to kick a puppy but he couldn't just stand there and let this youngster compare him to people like Uncle Sam and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And Steve didn't know enough about Azerbaijan to refute the claim, but he knew he didn't deserve that kind of praise and his face burned with the knowledge that he was being made into a modern day Hercules. He glanced at the storefront window, out into the mall where miraculous technology was now commonplace, and he mentally corrected himself. Not modern. He was to Tony Stark what the Wild West had been to Steve as a child. And Lord only knew how many of those tales had been outright lies.

"They try to wash away the blood and grit with cold facts and figures but just because it's hidden doesn't erase the fact the war was filled with suffering, barbarism and death. Death, Tony." Rogers smiled sadly. "Boys younger than you who lied about their age to enlist died crying for their mothers. To say nothing about what happened to poor gals in occupied countries. There was no glory and heroism, just survival and a fight for what's right. I'm not a great hero, just a soldier. There were better men than me who should be standing here and aren't. Lots of horrors happened during that war, things you won't see in your primer.

"Now, don't get riled," Steve headed Tony off before the boy inventor could protest. "I'm flattered you have such a high opinion of me and I think you're the bee's knees," Tony looked somewhat confused at that. "But I'm not ready to take up my shield again. Maybe never. This is history to you. Heck, maybe even ancient history. To me, the war was just last week." Steve's throat clenched and he blinked rapidly for a few seconds. His hurt and loss was too raw and he hoped the boy would understand.

Fortunately Tony comprehended what his house guest was trying to say and mentally chastised himself for trying to rush Steve to a decision on something so monumental when he knew firsthand what the man was going through. Yet Tony had been lucky. Rhodey, Roberta, and Pepper were there to support him whereas Steve had nobody. Not to mention Captain America's huge leap forward in time and the young inventor admired Roger for making an effort to acclimate as quickly as possible. He tried not to feel betrayed or hurt even when, deep down, he felt as if he'd just been slapped upside the head by reality. After the revelation that his father had been a maker of weapons and a liar, Tony had tried to cling to Captain America as a true hero. He'd tried not to hate his father when he had the increasing sense that he had never really known him, tried to keep his head above water in this strange life he found himself leading by thinking about his own hero. And his hero didn't want to help his effort to keep the country from crumbling all around him. Tony tried not to get angry. Steve had been through a lot. Of course he didn't want to run back into battle right away. Especially not with someone Tony's age; hadn't heroes all been adults back in Steve's day, in their twenties and thirties at the start? They really were from different worlds.

Feeling Steve was still watching him he nodded his understanding and smiled in a superficial attempt to hide his disappointment. Something akin to total betrayal was in his eyes, however. Steve felt the urge to wince.

"Yeah, I get it. Come on. I think it's time you met the Speedo." Tony paused, clearly battling with himself. "But, for the record? I know about 'barbarism and death'. I grew up in the Dark Age of Superheroes." At Steve's blank look, he sighed. "Oh, this is going to be a fun conversation…"

Steve cautiously poked his takoyaki with a spoon. "What did you say was in this, son? They look like doughnut holes."

"Octopus. These are huge in Japan. We'll try sushi next. We'll have barbequed eel and raw squid." Seemingly oblivious to the look of dawning horror on his companion's face, Tony continued; "Or if you prefer there's sea urchin too."

Rogers' first thought was to tell the boy he didn't eat bait but considered such a response too rude and close-minded. The yakisoba noodles looked safe enough and he'd tried tempura before. "Let's take turns picking restaurants, all right?"

"This is New York, people here are always coming up with weird foods. Not that the rest of the country's any better – oh, I have got to get you a deep fried Twinkie from the South sometime. They're better than drugs!"

The blonde's first thought was how does he know that? His second was that he had no idea what a Twinkie even was. He compared the food before him to the boiled cabbage and potatoes he'd eaten as a kid. Things had been very different back then. There had been no upper class boy buying him everything he wanted, no heroes in high tech armor going into battle at the tender age of sixteen. There'd been a few heroes in his day, men and women he felt humbled to be put in the same category with, but they'd been older, tougher, depending more on powers than on gadgets like Tony's armor. He wondered about the heroes of today. Who were they? Were they routinely this young, or was Tony an exception? Were super powers still around? Was the android known as Human Torch, for that matter?

"Keep staring, and I might do a trick," Tony quipped dryly, snapping Steve out of his reprieve. He gave the older man a knowing look. "If you're wondering about something, just ask. It'll help with the whole future shock thing, I think. Or at least, it should in theory; there haven't been any opportunities to figure out the right approach to this kind of thing, you know."

Steve smiled, briefly. "I know you're trying, son, and I appreciate everything you're doing. Going out for a bit was probably a good idea. It's nice to see the world again. But…" his fingers drummed on his Vault cup, uneasily. "What did you mean by, 'the dark age of superheroes'?"

Tony looked away. Then he looked into his cup, blue-gray eyes intense and expression unreadable. "I guess this is my fault," he said softly. "I told Rhodey not to let you read any of the books about heroes, because I didn't know how you'd react. But you need to know if you're gonna be living in this time. So…" he inhaled deeply. "It all began with you, Captain Marvel, The Human Torch, and some masked vigilantes whose names got lost in history even if their deeds weren't. Your day was different. Racism dictated that nobody ever really noticed black heroes, for one thing – don't get defensive, I know you weren't behind that one. Still, there were only about a dozen of you on the whole East Coast. You were all good people doing good things out of pure altruism and for a while, things were good. That time from before the war to just after it is called the Golden Age, back when heroes were new and foreign concepts to everybody.

Then – Rhodey would know the dates, I wouldn't – then there was the Second Wave, somewhere in the 50's. There was a huge boom in the super hero population. Every country started to have their own as the USA made movies and comics about ours and exported them. You became a mythological figure, the first heroes suddenly had fan clubs, and all over the world more and more people started saying hey, why can't I do this? Japan's Kamen Riders and Sentai Rangers started up, and they've still got teams going. Russia's heroes had it tough, since their government hated them, but they basically had the necessary guts to say 'screw it' and get to work anyway. France and England produced some people who were so good at being good that the rest of Europe followed suit and by the late 60's every country had heroes. The Second Wave was a great time to be alive, or so my dad said. Not that he saw a whole lot of it, though. He was more a tech guy, like me, and he really did more in the science of treating and saving meta-humans than any crime fighting. Plus there was the whole diplomat thing."

"That's important work, Tony," Steve chided, noting the defensive way Tony spoke of his father. "A man doesn't have to be in the field to help win the battle."

If that phrase was too military for Tony, he didn't show it. He just smiled grimly and kept talking. "I think you would've liked the Second Wave, Steve. There were a lot of real heroes back then, people who could really be trusted and counted on. Things aren't like that anymore. We're in the Dark Age, and I don't think there's any light at the end of the tunnel this time. Things… things are a lot worse than I've let you see. You don't even know what the last decade's been like, especially. Not that you could, since most books that really describe the level of the crisis are banned by the government."

His stomach twisted. "I fought for years to keep people who banned books out of America, Tony."

Tony's expression was blank, but there was quiet fury behind his eyes and in his voice. "Well, get used to it. Ever since Dexter Morgan case, everything has changed. Now, there are precisely two kinds of versions of Dexter's life: the idealized, heroic version that leaves out all the blood, slaughter and horrific gory details in favor making him out to be a real hero, and the demonized, overblown version that ignores all the good he did and all the lives he probably saved. I'm a techno-nerd, so I'm giving you the third option, a quick summary: Dexter Morgan killed serial killers, rapists and human traffickers that the police force refused to touch or punish."

Azure eyes narrowed. "But was he a superhero?"

"Not even remotely," the teenager replied. "What he was, though, was the catalyst that sparked nationwide discussions and debates. Generally, people either wanted to give him a medal or shoot him. He had taken down some of the most evil men and women in America on his own with nothing but wits and a well stocked cupboard of Hefty bags. He also did things so violent and awful to those people that some of the bodies still haven't been identified even with the best tech in the world. So you can imagine that when the press was having their field day with the story, and mind you, they were, they asked celebrities for their opinions."

"And heroes are the ultimate celebrities," Steve finished for him, looking both interested and increasingly sick.

"Again, got it in one. And according to my dad, Rhodey's mom, and everybody who was there to witness it, it was awful. The country's heroes divided, bickered, got into fights on camera, went on the Jerry Springer show, badmouthed each other, and then we started seeing the prototypes for what everybody my age calls the Nineties Anti Hero. That's code for 'hero unafraid to kill'. After the Dexter Morgan trial, more and more heroes decided that they weren't going to play nice anymore. Arms were broken, fingers ripped off, people were thrown off buildings to get the information to get the bad guys off the street – whether that meant they ended up in jail or in a body bag was now entirely dependent on who found them. For a while in the nineties things were really going great, the crime rates were down and criminals were turning themselves in because they knew what would happen if they didn't, but… It couldn't go on forever.

Pretty soon there were heroes who stepped up and made citizen's arrests of other heroes who'd gone too far, and then there were the trials. Every channel when I was a kid would always have them; it was very good viewer bait. Who didn't like to gossip about the latest victim's fall from grace? I saw a lot of people I thought were real heroes who all my friends talked about turn out to be drug using, two faced monsters." Tony sighed heavily, draining his Vault before continuing. The action was not unlike that of an alcoholic downing a beer, such was the heaviness. "And now the government's got the National Security Agency, whose sole job is to hunt down and capture dangerous people with superpowers. Or, you know, anyone who has a super power at all, really. Not like you can fight it if someone gets taken. That's life, I suppose." He shrugged, looking into the empty cup. "That's the life I know, anyway. Heroes like you are myths. Every modern hero has blood on their hands."

"Even you?" Steve asked softly.

Tony didn't meet his eyes. "No. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about crossing that line. I don't want to be another dark hero in the Dark Age of Heroes, I just… How am I supposed to tell when enough's enough, when it's the right thing to do? How do I know I'm not going to let more people get killed if I let them go?" He idly fiddled with a piece of chicken. "I grew up with the Dexter Morgan case as a household phrase and I still can't see whether he was a hero or evil. That oughta tell you where I am morally."

Icicles slid down Steve's spine and settled into his stomach as he looked at the boy, shock giving way to a horrible revelation. Tony's soul was being eaten alive by an inner darkness few people guessed at. Most saw only the charmingly absentminded exterior and didn't bother looking further but Cap did and what he saw disturbed him almost as much as wartime atrocities. He realized with a sobering clarity that as much as he may wish otherwise, Tony was not Bucky and never could be. He was in fact a deeply troubled youth who was held together by sheer will; his own and his friends. What might happen if that control slipped for even a second terrified him in a way he could not put into words.

The younger man read the look on his face and smiled bitterly, aware that he'd displayed a bit too much of his darker self. "You probably have enough to tide you over for now. Let's go."

Steve stood and easily swung the shopping bags over his shoulders, shaking his head politely when Tony offered to help. The teen fell into sullen silence at the refusal and all the things left unspoken between them made the tension nearly palpable on the ride home. Cap realized the boy had been trying to turn him into the ideal mascot of his little hero movement. That, and mold Steven into a replacement for the boy's lost father. He stifled a sigh of frustrated sadness, feeling his new friend slip away from him. The realization made him feel old and sad.

Upon returning to the Rhodes' house the two politely avoided each other, lost in thought and ignored Rhodey's tactful attempts to inquire about the breech between them. Giving up, the tall boy mumbled something about dinner in the fridge and retreated to his room for homework followed by a long conversation with his girlfriend. It was the first time Tony could recall his best friend gracefully dropping the subject when the brunette refused to talk about something. Perhaps he'd decided to give his best friend space until the inventor was ready to talk about it. Or maybe Rhodey had just stopped caring now that Whitney was widening his social network. Tony tried to convince himself it didn't hurt, even though he didn't want to discuss the matter and decided to recalibrate the security cameras in the lab, pretending not to see the confused, sad look in Cap's eyes whenever their eyes met. He was relieved when the older man excused himself to field strip and clean the rust out of his revolver.

Midway through Tony's diagnostic he noticed the system had a small blind spot on the northwest corner of the compound.

"Computer," he spoke aloud, "increase pan and zoom function on Camera Delta. Switch to wide screen mode."

Acknowledged.

The camera screen whirred and began to scan the previously obscured area. A tiny flicker of movement caught and held his attention. " Increase resolution in top left quadrant fifty percent."

Calculating. Resolution increasing to fifty percent.

A very familiar uniform sharpened into view. Tony's storm eyes narrowed in anger.

Cap decided he'd had enough of avoiding his host and decided the boy need a little chow in his gut if he was going to fiddle with his gizmos all night. Finding what he needed in the icebox, he prepared a few Dagwood Sandwiches, pleased that he could handle cold cut technology at least.

"Tony? Listen, about earlier..." he broke off and stared, watching the boy all but growl at his fancy monitor.

"Gene," Tony snarled and ran towards his armor before Steve could call him back. Carefully putting down the meal he'd prepared, he sprinted to his own costume and hoped he could head the boy off at the pass.

Tony was in his armor and out of the launch chute in record time. He decided to use the updated stealth armor to catch the intruder unaware, smiling with grim humor inside his helmet. The little spy would never see him coming.

The black clad figure quietly made his way up the side of the building. According to the floor plan the Tong were able to obtain, the young Stark's laboratory was underground, the entrance obscured and no doubt monitored but a small maintenance vent nearby made it possible to bypass any motion sensors and enter undetected.

This thought process was abruptly aborted when he felt a strong breeze push against him, as if the wind suddenly roared to life and flew past. Unease gnawed at him and his skin prickled as his trained mind sensed danger.

"Sorry, pal, but the villain entrance is on the other side of the building."

The Tong initiate looked around and saw no one. A blue spark arced toward him and then blackness.

Captain America made his way to the spot he thought Iron Man had gone to. Jogging around the building he quickly came to the conclusion that the boy and whoever he'd captured were already back in the compound. Cursing his ineptitude, he returned inside.

Tony wasted no time securing the prisoner to a chair with sturdy restraints. He activated a force field around his vicinity. No well-meaning friends or potential allies were going to disturb him tonight.

"You won't need this anymore," Iron Man told his unconscious captive and roughly pulled off the full face mask the sleeping figure was wearing. The eyes behind the metal mask widened in surprise as he saw the person skulking around his lab, his home was a kid no older than himself. Younger, perhaps. He felt the first stirrings of sympathy which he ruthlessly squelched. Gene had been a kid too. Look how easily he'd duped them all. Tony refused to be anyone's fool anymore and that determination steeled him to the unsavory task he would now perform. The kid was Tong. He no doubt knew to expect this sort of thing to happen after becoming involved with a criminal organization like that.

The world shifted from blurred to sharp focus at the speed of thought. A quick glance at his surroundings told him immediately how badly he had failed his mission. Could he but move he would have hung his head in shame.

"Hey, you're awake! You know...you caught me on a very bad day in a rather foul mood. Say...did the Tong train you on how to resist more...creative interrogations? Because if not...this could be over rather quickly." Tony arranged instruments on a steel tray with the calm detachment of a dentist. Selecting one, he glanced down at his horrified prisoner, pleased to see his words were having the desired affect. "Let me show you my favorite. It's a laser burner. In another life it'll be a replacement for conventional scalpels. But for now, allow me to educated you on its finer points."

"Two thousand degrees," Tony said stoically, holding up the laser burner without even glancing at it.

His eyes were glued to his prisoner. "Hot enough to turn steel into butter. It won't hurt, though. It'll sear off your nerve endings completely, and all you'll feel is cold. Isn't science grand?"

With that said, he turned it on, and Steve would have jumped him had there not been an invisible force field in the way; his fist crashed helplessly against the energy field, powerless to break it open. To his shock, however, Tony picked an ice cube out his drink and, from behind the prisoner, where he couldn't be seen or even felt but for the faint sound of his breathing, he pressed the ice cube onto the boy's neck. Steve watched, sickened, as all the color drained out of the boy's face. His ash gray eyes went wide and his body became totally still. Only the shaking of his hands and arms as he took a deep breath betrayed how terrified he was. Unable to watch the clinical, detached way Tony was looking at the boy, Steve slammed his shield into the force field's generator, disrupting it. It still burned to push through, but he did so and the next thing Tony knew he was sprawled out on the floor, laser cutter rolling on the ground, and he was looking into the angry eyes of Captain America. All those stories about him were true. He really was able to freeze people with a single look.

Tony looked away. Somehow, 'it would've made him talk' didn't seem like a good enough excuse anymore.

"What," Steve managed to grind out through his teeth, fists still clenched, "Were you thinking? Anthony Edward Stark-"

There was a clang, and Steve whirled around to see the prisoner, still bound and tied, throwing himself against the force field. It buzzed and sparks of energy seared the boy's skin, but after two tries at the weakened point where Steve had slipped through, he made it, and began rolling and struggling on his knees to get to the door. His blue-black hair had slipped out of its ponytail and hung around his tear stained face like a curtain; when Steve stepped forward, his eyes widened in terror. The ropes around his wrists were drawing blood. The blond man found himself unable to even look at Tony, such was his fury. Slamming the off button on the control panel, he stepped through the deactivated laser grid and slowly approached the boy on the floor. He was young, maybe a bit younger than Tony, but with wide, innocent eyes. Strongly reminded of Bucky in ways he didn't want to be, he knelt down to undo the ropes.

"What are you-"

"Not one word, Tony," Steve snapped, and the brunette fell silent. He turned to the now astonished looking boy. "What's your name, son?"

"Yunru," he replied hesitantly. He offered no last name and Steve didn't press him for one, ripping apart the bindings with raw strength.

"Well, Yunru, I can't say I approve of someone your age being in the Tong, and I've never been one to condone breaking and entering, let alone spy work, but I have some standards I like to uphold." Behind him, Tony winced at that. "Now, why don't we try this again? Who sent you, and why are you here?"

Yunru's voice shook faintly. "If I don't answer, do I get put back in the chair and…" he gestured with his head to the laser cutter, "until I answer?"

Steve's eyes were like hardened sapphires. "No. Detaining someone against their will is against the law. We just need to know, then you're free to go, I promise."

"Steve," Tony interjected, "I have this truth serum I've been working on-"

The look he got could have frozen fire and burned Pluto with its intensity. Tony fell silent again. Yunru was shaky as he rose to his feet, eyes darting around rapidly in fear and confusion as he tried to get his bearings. It was hopeless; he'd never make it upstairs and out of the house before he was caught again, but every time he looked back at the lasers and ice cubes Steve could see the almost tangible panic right beneath the surface grow. He froze when Steve reached out to touch him, every muscle tensing as if in preparation for an attack. All Steve did was fix the young boy's ponytail back into neatness before ruffling the top of his head reassuringly. Yunru looked the blond over, trying to gauge what was happening. Then, like lightning, he bolted, taking the stairs to the lab three at a time and stumbling on his weakened legs.

"Computer, force field three!" Tony yelled almost instinctively.

In a flash of light, sparks and pain, the Chinese boy found himself on his back and sprawled out on the stairs. The blow was enough to knock him out, or maybe he was faking, but no matter what the cause, Steve simply moved him onto a work bench before slowly turning towards Tony. All traces of Bucky like wonder and idealism were ripped from the brunette's features. His eyes were dim and dark and angry. He looked stern, angry, and empty, like Dexter Morgan in the history book Rhodey had showed Steve when he'd asked. Suddenly Steve was seeing Tony through whole new eyes, and he wasn't sure he liked what he saw. There was something more to this, something Tony wasn't telling him. He was sure he heard Tony say someone's name when he saw the Chinese boy. Studying the boy's face for any trace of emotion, he saw only something cold instead.

"Back in my day," Steve said softly, slowly, "Someone who did what you just did would be a villain."

Before Tony could answer, Rhodey opened the door, looking grim. "Uh, Tony, we have a situation here."

Tony looked behind him, and sighed, rubbing his temples. A Chinese woman with rounded, Mongolian eyes stood just behind Rhodey, wringing her hands. Her bistre eyes were begging for forgiveness before she said anything, and when he disabled the force field she all but threw herself down in front of him, kneeling on the floor with her head just inches above the tile. Her faintly accented voice was strained, and Steve could see from the bags under her eyes she had not been sleeping well lately.

"Please, Iron Man, your nobility, you must not kill Yunru," she started, and rushed on before Tony could object that that wasn't his intention. "It was not by his will that he is here, it is by mine. He is only a child, my brother is only a boy, and he does as he's told. The Tong were so angry when the Mandarin disappeared, and as the one who was with Master Temugin so often I am expected to somehow find him – and the only friend of his I knew was you. It was I who sent Yunru to watch you, that we might find our master. Please, sir, he would never hurt anyone, and if anyone deserves punishment, it is I. I am the head of our family of two. You must punish me instead, for Yunru's actions and Master Temugin's betrayal of your trust both." She stayed low to the ground, neck exposed and vulnerable to attack, as Tony gaped at her, trying to find words.

"How much do you know about the Tong?" Tony asked thoughtfully. Steve gave him a dirty look and grabbed him by the arm, leaning in to half whisper, half hiss at him.

"Tony Stark, if you want me to ever even consider joining your ragtag group, you will let that poor woman and her brother go this instant. Haven't you done enough damage already?" he asked pointedly, glancing meaningfully at Yunru's unconscious form.

"I would never have really hurt him," the boy protested, looking cornered and increasingly guilty. "It was just a scare tactic, Steve, I'm not like that, I swear." He was getting desperate as the weight of his actions dawned on him. Disapproval was one thing, disapproval from Captain America was quite another.

"Then prove it," Steve shot back. "Let them go."

A heavy sigh. Then, "Alright. Fine. Miss…?"

"Zhen Linhua, sir."

"Miss Zhen, feel free to take your brother and go. Just…" he hesitated, clearly losing more and more of his nerve with each second. "Just don't tell anyone about the lab, or the suit, agreed?"

"Agreed," she said solemnly, rising slowly to her feet. Her eyes were like obsidian and Steve couldn't break away from her gaze when she smiled gratefully at him. "Thank you. Steve, was it? You are truly my hero."