A/N: People with story alerts scare me, like, what if I don't live up to your standards as far as chapters go? What if I fail you and break all your hopes and dreams with my kind of out of character Captain America? These are the things that make me lose sleep. BTW: This is totally all friendship Tony and Cap. I'm not knocking slash, but I love Pepperony far too much to ship Stark Spangled...

The clean up had started, destroyed cars towed away, Chitauri corpses incinerated. The streets of New York City were, for once, practically empty. Survivors spent their nights in the arms of loved ones, or in churches, falling prey to the wild-eyed protesters, claiming the invasion was an act of God.

The few street lights that lie unbroken couldn't glow the city enough to blot out the innumerable stars. For that, Tony Stark was glad.

He watched the sky above him, moonlight catching the shards of the shattered whiskey bottle lying in the puddle of its contents.

He normally would have mourned the loss of such a fine drink, but today, he had bigger things to think about. He pondered the skies above him as he leaned against the ledge of the roof of Stark Towers.

"I didn't think Pepper would have let you out of her sight."

He whipped around at the voice, to find himself staring at Captain Steve Rogers, better known to the people of New York as Captain America

"You need something, Cap?"

Steve shrugged, "Not really, I just needed to talk to you."

Tony arched an eyebrow, "Needing something is needing something, Apple Pie."

Brushing off the new nickname, Steve set down a beer onto the ledge next to the Man of Iron and opened one for himself, "I can't get drunk, but, going through the motions still feels right." Tony opened his own, "I can, and trust me, this feels more than right, so what did you want?"

Steve brought the bottle to his lips, an almost obvious stall to the question and, averting his eyes, he replied, "I'm sorry for what I said on the helicarrier, I was beyond wrong in assuming you would never give the ultimate sacrifice."

Tony took a long, deep, swig of his own beer, preparing an apology for himself, "You were, actually, you were really wrong, but so was I, we were supposed to be working together, but I was antagonizing you,I didn't mean what I said either. I just needed a reason to hate you."

"Why?"

Tony drank again, long gulps at a time, until the bottle was empty. He needed to say this, once and for all.

"Because he loved you, because he never shut up about you, because he was proud of you."

It was Steve's turn to raise an eyebrow, "What are you talking about, Tony?"

The young Stark glared at the street below them, "My father, Howard Stark."

Steve stared at the same spot Tony did, "Oh," he acknowledged, "I'm sure he was proud of you, too, you -"

"Were just a fuck up in his eyes," Tony interrupted, "the man never once said he was proud of me, he never said he loved me, the only time he treated me like a son was when he was telling me stories about you."

He punctuated the sentence by tossing the bottle onto the concrete rooftop, leaving a resounding crash. Steve assumed a similar fate had befallen the whiskey bottle, Tony pushed himself away from the ledge, and growled, "You were the son he wanted, not me."

The Super Soldier watched the billionaires retreating back, "So what if you think Howard didn't love you?" He called, "You've got plenty of people who do now."

That stopped Tony, he turned and watched Steve, who took the rare silence as a chance to say the rest of his thoughts, "I hated you because I thought you didn't know what it was like to lose, but I was wrong, Tony, you've lost some of the most important things, I read your file, I know I don't know everything about you, but I know enough to know that you never needed Howards approval. You've got a city full of people who owe you their lives, you've got Miss Potts who will love you no matter what, and I bet if you asked her, she's more proud of you than you think."

The young Stark opened his mouth to speak, only to be cut off by tight arms wrapping around his neck from behind, "Tony! There you are, I've been looking for you for nearly half an hour, first you almost kill yourself with a nuke and then you disappear and tell JARVIS not to tell anyone where you went."

"Pep...can't...breathe..." He choked out, trying to detach his secretary-turned-girlfriend. She let go, nodding a greeting to the laughing Captain and burying her head into Tonys neck, "If you ever do that again, I will make JARVIS replace all your ACDC and Black Sabbath with Beethoven."

Steve silently retreated as Tony mimed hurt and embraced her again.

Tony looked up at Steve as he wrapped his arms around Pepper, he smiled and mouthed 'Thank you', before once again bartering for the return of his music.

Later that Night

He was stretched across his bed, eyes closed, muscles aching from battle. Even the change from his old clothes to sweatpants had hurt. Although It wasn't that he minded anymore, it didn't matter that the limb groaned in protest as he used his arm to pull Pepper Potts closer to him. She traced the outline of his Arc Reactor and laid her head on his chest.

"Tony." She started, "I should really change out of these clothes."

She had only intended to force him into bed and make him sleep, but he dragged her down with him, so there she was still in what she was wearing the day before, curled against her injured boyfriend.

"I'll let you go if you answer one question, Miss Potts."

"Anything, Mr. Stark."

He opened a single brown eye to focus onto hers, "Are you proud of me?"

She sat up, pulling herself above him, causing him to open his other eye, "Am I proud that you almost killed yourself today? I want to slap you for it, but I'm proud that you could be so giving, that you save the world so many times." She leaned closer, looking him directly in the eyes, "I'm also, so very, very proud of the idea that, if it exists, my Tony Stark can build it in a cave with a box of scraps."

She kissed him lightly before finishing with his line, "You complete me." She got up and walked to the door, itching to get out of the clothes she had been wearing for so long, but the tired voice of the inventor stopped her, "I love you, Virginia Potts.'"

"I love you to, Anthony Stark."

A/N: Ok, NOW I'm done, I promise, anything more would really be milking it.