Two weeks later Violet sat numbly in a S.H.I.E.L.D. prison made to contain people like her. Any agent who had ever gone rouge had been successfully contained in this facility including those vastly more skilled than Violet had been kept under lock and key for years. Something made very easily when there were no visitors allowed inside the concrete walls. Which is what made it odd when Violet had been informed she had one.

She didn't have to be told who it was visiting her. Nor did she have to look up when the sound of business shoes clicked on the laminate floors of the meeting room. Just the way it sounded as his shoes hit the ground swelled with confidence that came from years of having an ego that was well fed. Tony Stark took the chair in front of her.

"Hows the food?" He asked a tremor almost audible in his voice.

Violet snickered. "I beat you, electrocute you, shoot you, and drug you and the first thing you ask after what I presume was a battle against a nasty infection is how the food is?" She looked up to him taking note of his dull silver suit and purple tie. "What's the suit for?"

"Nothing much," he replied to casually, "you know just sending off an alien and his crazy brother. After dropping a friend off at the airport I jumped on helicarrier and came right here."

"Miss me that much?" She leaned back in the metal chair ignoring how the handcuffs resisted her moving to far away as she was chained to the table. The irony of him being free while she sat shackled in a metal chair was not lost on her. "Honestly though. Why are you here?"

The smirk was gone from his face. "You know why, and I know that you don't want to hear what I have to say but that has never stopped me before."

"Please don't." Violet held a hand up trying to stop the billionaire before he got on his high horse.

"No, because saying that I'm sorry why half out of my mind isn't enough. I don't remember much of what I said on the quinjet but something I do remember saying was about how I am the reason for hundreds of deaths and that was true. Your son isn't the first and I doubt he'll be the last and honestly he's the only one I know the name of."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" She asked visibly disgusted. "Like how my son is the flickering light in the darkness of you conscious?"

Tony shook his head dismissing everything she said. "You know what you shut up until I'm done okay?" He asked but didn't let her answer. "Before I took up residence in a cave I was taking a drive through the desert with a few soldiers. There was one who was probably barely old enough to drink who asked to take a picture with me. Shortly before the picture was taken our humvee was attacked, and I watched him get killed with the weapons I made to protect him. I never knew what his name was and I still don't. When I was rescued my friend Rhodey was about to tell me but I stopped him. I thought to myself about all the people who lost their lives at the barrel of my guns there is no way for me to know them all and I didn't want to make one more important than the others.

He took a deep breath before continuing. "That soldier is the reason I am who I am today. He opened my eyes to the destruction I had caused, some of it he had probably seen first hand. But do you know what he did in the picture? He through a peace sign up. It was something I will never forget, seeing a sign for peace from a man who died from war just a few seconds later. Every press meeting or senate hearing I've had after that I've put up a peace sign." He demonstrated by holding up his middle and pointer finger. "Most people think it's just a pose for the press or an ironic joke for everyone else. But it's for the victims, it's for Daniel and Coulson and the hundreds, thousands more out there."

He was silent for a while so Violet took it as an opportunity for her to speak. "I'm not going to apologize for what I did to you. I won't even say sorry. No part of me cares if you went on some existential journey and came out of this enlightened. In fact you finding peace with all of this just makes it worse. You get to live on after this. But what happens to me? Where is my peace?"

They studied each other for a long time each other before Tony spoke again. "You need to forgive yourself first of all. I watched the security footage there was nothing you could have done to save him."

"Forgive myself." She seemed to test the words to see if they tasted right in her mouth. "That worked for you?"

Tony shrugged. "Wouldn't know. I haven't tried." One of the guards in the room went over to Tony and whispered something in his ear. Tony pushed himself out of his chair and smoothing out his suit. "My time is up." He walked over to the door of the meeting room and grabbed the handle but did not open it. "At least try forgiving yourself though you deserve it."

Like that he was gone. With a quick flare the billionaire Tony Stark left the meeting room both of them knew they would never see the other again, and both were glad.

Violet's gaze turned back to the handcuffs around her wrists. There was nothing particularly interesting about them but they were something to look at until she finally lost herself. For the first time since Daniel had died she truly let herself grieve. Not seek revenge, but just let her anger slide into something more.

Tony exited the meeting room and rested against the closed door. Achieving still from all of his collective injuries. He probably should have listened to the doctor who had suggested bed rest for another week, but the thought of it made him crazy. When he gained enough strength to open his eyes and head back to the helicopter ready to take him home. Seeing Nick Fury watching him from across the hall was almost as terrifying as having a private sit down with the woman who tried to kill him.

"Do all S.H.I.E.L.D. agent have to learn how to scare the crap out of people or do you and Barton just enjoy it especially?" He asked heading down the hall with the director in tow.

"Believe it or not but I used to be a better spy than Agent Barton." Said Nick casually as they strode down the hall. "But my past isn't the issue here. Yours is."

Tony sighed dramatically. "Do we have to do this now, cause I'm actually kinda busy. You know how work get's seems to get piled up when you're hospitalized for two weeks."

"Stark, out of all of the Avengers you are the biggest target." Fury explained. "You've made more enemies than most people have friends, and your live in a tower with your name on the side like you're some kind of rich cartoon character."

"Actually most of the letters fell off so it's just a huge 'A' now." Tony didn't waver when Fury gave him a death glare, somehow having half as many yes made it twice as threatening. "Look if anything bad comes up I'll handle it."

"Like you handled this one?" Fury crossed his arms like a teacher questioning a child who fell asleep during the lesson.

"Admittedly not my shining hour, but honestly how many more S.H.I.E.l.D. spies do you have that want to kill me? Besides Agent Romanoff." Tony went to walk away again but Fury grabbed his arm.

"The Avengers might have saved you this time Stark, but I'm not sure about the next. After a few weeks of a well earned vacation Barton is off on a solo mission he could be back in a month or in two years. Agents Romanoff and Rogers will be on call for whatever mission we need them for. Thor is up in Asgard and might not return, and if he does then he will most likely have some earth shattering dilemma to deal with. Meanwhile has made it clear to only bother him if the world is in crisis."

"I don't need the Avengers to keep myself safe." Tony pulled his arm out of Fury's grasp that was restricting to say the least.

"Is that any way to talk about your team?" Nick asked raising an eyebrow.

Tony mirrored the expression but his had a glint of confusion in it. "What do you mean my time? I'm just a consultant. I don't play well with others right?"

When Nick spoke there was annoyance in his voice. "Do you seriously think that just because you're a narcissistic ass that I'm going to keep you off the team after what you did?"

Tony could feel himself smiling like an idiot. "I'm truly touched. I didn't know that you were capable of admitting you were wrong about me."

"I didn't."

Tony pulled the man in for a hug mainly for the reason that he knew that Fury would hate it. "Shut up, I love you too." He pulled away and headed down the hall again this time he wasn't stopped. "Well call me the next time you have a rogue alien, but not for a while I got a date."

"Are you sure you're alright?" Pepper asked Tony as he pulled a more casual shirt over his new arc reactor chest piece.

He was finally healed enough to put the reactor in and he never thought he would actually miss the weight of it in his chest. "Please, I'm fine. Besides we have a lot to do."

Tony went into the kitchen and grabbed the drink that Jarvis had prepared for him. It was some kind of immune system thing that Bruce had told him about. Apparently it was something he had found in his time as the local doctor in Calcutta. When Tony took a sip it just tasted like he had pureed a forest.

Pepper laughed at the disgusted look on his face as she looked over the blueprints in front of her. Placing a palm on one of the images and lifting it up a small to scale image of the new tower appeared in front of her. Tony walked around her, took another drink trying to decide if he liked the drink or not before setting it down and deciding he did not, and spun the image around with the flick of the wrist.

"Our new home." She smiled down at the hologram that emitted a blue glow.

"Twelve percent your home." Tony joked earning a small punch from his girlfriend before they both broke into laughter.

Pepper swiped the image cutting it in half. "Fifty percent."

Tony put an arm around her and inspected the building before pushing the image completely off of the table. "One hundred actually. Where do you want to start?"

She gently pushed his head away from the table so he was looking right in her eyes. They lingered there for a minute both of them just happy to see the other. "How about right here?"

He nodded before pulling her in for a kiss. So many moments over the past few weeks he felt like he would never reach this. Being home and safe with the only person who ever mattered. The one he would protect to the end of the world. Finally everything was alright.

So as time passed and more age long vendetta's came to light Tony kept fighting them off one by one. He helped those who asked, and those who threatened him or anyone he loved he dealt with. And though Manhattan was not the sleepy city it had been two weeks before where a pin drop could be heard across the city there was something else. Something in the comforting noise of honking horns and mindless chatter that lifted all the way up to the helipad of Stark Tower where Tony watched the town moving. There was a sense of safety that was doubted to ever return.

Because the Battle of New York and the weeks to come after where the hardest that the world had ever seen. Most believed it meant the end of the world had come. And though there was a constant fear that clung to the air there was also something more. The promise the Avengers had made to protect the world at whatever cost necessary no matter what happened to them. A promise Tony was part of and he would fight to protect until the end.

And though he might not have the Clint's eye, or Natasha's agility. He didn't even come close to having the heart of Steve who would jump on a grenade to save the life of a man who could have been bullying him all of his life just because Steve believed in second chances. Also he was nowhere near the strength of Thor and Bruce. But Tony Stark was one thing. Something he sometimes forgot the meaning to but always found in the end. Tony Stark is Iron Man.