Chapter 1
“I don’t do weapons anymore,” he tells the irritating blue eyed man who had been practically stalking him for the last week. He even had Pepper shoo him out a few times and people didn’t just ignore Pepper Potts, not even he did and he ignored everyone unless he saw fit not to.
“Oh you’ll be interested in this one, trust me,” he says, following him along despite his very clear disinterest.
He spins around to face the irritating agent, “and why would I be interested in whatever it is you’ve got?” he asks, annoyed and at his wits end with, well, everything. He’s had a very crappy three months and he had no desire to get back in the weapons game because something was interesting.
“It’s biological for starts,” the agent says, smiling like he’s actually managed to hook Tony when he hasn’t.
“I didn’t do biological weapons even when I did do weapons,” he points out, he’d be fucking useless and this guy had spent the last week following him basically everywhere? Well that was a waste of everyone’s time.
“Oh you’ll do this one,” he guys says and at the time Tony had no idea how true that was.
*
“Brain waves indicate that he’ll be waking up soon, we don’t really want him to know that… you know, he’s been asleep for seventy years,” Coulson says, looking through the two way glass that separated him from Captain fucking America. He gave Coulson points for being right about being interested, he was definitely interested.
“I’d like to advise against that,” he says, “I can tell that most of that stuff isn’t actually from the forties and if I can tell he’ll be able to tell,” he says. Frankly for a government agency with supposedly endless pockets they were shit at making things look authentic.
“Your advice?” Coulson asks, smiling at him again, which irritates him because Coulson thinks he’s got him hooked when he doesn’t, he’s just curious.
“I advise you let me in,” he says, “besides, I’m supposed to analyze the weapon, right?” he says, raising an eyebrow at Coulson. They, surprisingly, let him in.
He had JARVIS run tests, he did his own measurements, he went over medical records from before and after the serum, including his brain waves. Other than the change in brain waves in the last two weeks there was nothing there that he didn’t already know which annoyed him because he was running scans on Captain America and not learning anything, what a travesty.
He’s in the room when Cap wakes up, fiddling with the I.V and thinking of what else he could do; maybe have JARVIS run another scan? There had to be something new he could learn.
“Wha- Howard? What’re you doing here?” Steve asks and Tony nearly jumps. Instead he takes a deep breath and ignores that Steve had mistaken him for his father.
“Ugh, no, not Howard. His son, actually, Tony,” he says, examining the confused look on Steve’s face. Steve looks around after that and seems to come to the realization that Tony assumed he would, that this wasn’t the forties and something was up. The only reason he didn’t freak out was because Tony was supposedly the son of someone he trusted.
“What the hell is going on?” Steve asks.
“To be honest we have no clue, just that we found you in the ice about six months ago and in the last couple weeks your brain waves changed, indicating that you were coming out of your comatose state and here we are, seventy years after you crashed into the ice,” he says, giving Steve all the required information at once. Coulson had advised against that but Tony had said they should want to build rapport and that lying to him was a shit way to do that. They had pointed out he was no expert on this sort of thing, which he agreed with, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t right.
“Okay,” Steve says, pulling himself into a sitting position, “so um, Howard has a kid? Didn’t see that coming, how is he anyways?” Steve asks, perhaps forgetting how long it has been or maybe asking out of instinct.
“Dead,” Tony says bluntly. Steve looks instantly sad and Tony regrets being so blunt, “it’s been fifteen years, car accident when I was seventeen,” he says softly, “it’s been a long time for me, for everyone, so sorry if I was… harsh,” he says. He didn’t have the energy to keep up his unapologetic, uncaring image right now and even if he did he was talking to Captain America, the least he could do was be nice.
He asks about the rest of his friends and Tony tells him that most of them are dead, dying, or in a deteriorating mental status in the case of Peggy Carter. Steve reacts surprisingly well or he’s surprisingly good at hiding his feelings, probably a bit of both. “Sorry,” Tony says, squeezing his shoulder and ignoring that it was firmly padded with muscle, but just for now.
It doesn’t take long for Steve to see through S.H.I.E.L.D’s bullshit and go to Tony, who tells him he has no faith at all in S.H.I.E.L.D and had only chose to work with them because Captain America and he was so not passing up an opportunity to look at his ass. Steve, oddly, blushes at that when Tony expected him to be offended. It wasn’t as if people in the forties were all that open minded about, well, anything.
Despite this Steve steadily worked to prove him wrong on everything. Other than using outdated terminology that he promptly corrected when someone (Tony or Rhodey) pointed it out he had no problem with any of the groups that Tony would have thought he would. Actually he was outraged that black boys were treated basically the same as they were in his time, he enjoyed the idea of Pride even if he was confused on all the new letter additions, and he wasn’t sexist at all, at least not intentionally. Pepper was enthused with this and the two quickly became friends, sharing an interest in sports that Tony didn’t understand. He found sports basically like fetch, but with more rules, and they bored him half to death. It had driven Howard nuts, he loved sports and when Tony didn’t share that love he acted like it was a personal attack on him or something.
Steve is released from S.H.I.E.L.D roughly a month after waking up and Tony offers to let him move into the tower to try and smooth his transition. He was still lost on a lot of things, like money, and throwing him into his own apartment seemed like a bad idea. Steve had refused at first, not wanting to impose, but Tony had laughed, “I’m a billionaire Steve, I have tons of space and your diet sure as hell won’t strain by budget,” he tells him. It takes another hour of pestering but Steve finally relents and agrees to move in with Tony.
Rhodey shows up to help; casually slipping that he was a colonel into conversation because he and Tony wanted to see what Steve did. He immediately snapped to attention and Rhodey and Tony exchange a look that Steve probably couldn’t interpret, half the time Pep was lost on their non-verbal communication and they’ve all known each other for almost ten years. Rhodey proceeds to take advantage of his higher rank for most of the day just to fuck with Steve, who didn’t catch on until the end of the day.
Rhodey drags Tony into the bathroom and the two jump around yelling excitedly, clutching at each other. It was not lost on either of them that they were acting like fifteen year old girls at some stupid boy band concert but he had no problem with fifteen year old girls being excited about a band so obviously he was not acting like a fool. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” they yelled, squealing and jumping around in each other’s arms, “this is the greatest day of my life!” they yells in sync.
The door opens and reveals Steve grinning at them and leaning against the door jam, “even if I didn’t have enchanted hearing I would have heard you guys across the apartment,” he tells them. They stand there staring for a second before Tony leans out of Rhodey’s arms and shuts they door and starts screaming again, Rhodey quickly following, pulling Tony in for a kiss.
He pulls away a second later in horror, “it’s like that one time in college!” Tony jokes, grinning at Rhodey.
Rhodey looks unimpressed, “you ruined it now, you ruined the greatest day of my life,” he says, deadpan.
Tony snorts, “You kissed me, thanks, and I know damn well that I am a good kisser and you agreed in college. Plus my kissing skills totally got you a girlfriend so I think you should thank me for teaching you my ways,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows. Rhodey give him the bitch face and he laughs, opening the door to find Steve still there. Rhodey was embarrassed but Tony was shameless, he gave up on caring what people thought a long time ago.
Six months ago
Howard picks up the morning paper as per usual, examining the front page for a second before he realizes what he was seeing. “Hey, hey Selene, they found Tony!” he says, rushing into the house.
Selene looks up from her phone, “did they now? That’s nice, dear,” she says, disinterested in Tony’s welfare. He didn’t blame her really; it wasn’t like they actually knew the guy but Howard felt inexplicably attached anyways. He loved Stark tech, it always worked better than everything else and it looked cool. He reads the article excitedly; finding out about James Rhodes bravely rescued Tony Stark, who somehow managed to escape captivity with the terrorists that had kidnapped him. He felt strangely relieved that Tony was safe and back in his own country and oddly grateful to Rhodes for finding him.
“Oh hey, dad’s favourite celebrity is alive, joy!” Grant says, dropping into his seat at the table.
Howard throws a strawberry chunk at him, “don’t be a shit. Eat your breakfast, I slaved over a hot stove to make it,” he says, grinning at his kid. Selene snorts at him because she was the one who made breakfast; he just talked to her while she did. He counted that as cooking.
Grant sticks his tongue out at Howard, “yeah, yeah. So Stark isn’t dead, huh?” he asks. Howard nods and happily fills Grant in on the information he got from the article and making a few inferences of his own. Stocks would rise, that was for sure, and he got a strange pleasure out of knowing Stark Industries would be successful.
Maria comes down shortly after that, whining about a chemistry experiment she had at school that day. “I thought you liked science?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
She rolls her eyes, “I did until I got stuck with a fuckboy partner in that class and he seems to think guys are automatically smarter than girls because they have bigger brains or some stupid shit,” she says.
Selene tells her to watch her language and Howard frowns, “brain size is relative to body size, that has nothing to do with a person’s sex. And wait, your science partner is that Brain Smith kid, right?” he asks, Maria nods, “aren’t you like five inches taller than him? By his own shit logic he’d be dumber than you,” Howard points out.
“Oh I pointed that out,” Maria says, “he was not impressed, so he threw a cow eye at Stacy and told the teacher it was me. I mean I no problem throwing a half dissected cow eye at Stacy because she’s a bitch and I would have told the truth if I did, I’d want her to know, but I didn’t and now I’m stuck on the sidelines because Brian is an asshole,” she laments, making a face.
“Language!” Selene scolds again.
“Oh come on, Stacy is a bitch, and she dresses like shit, and Brain is an asshole, let a kid live!” Howard says, grinning at Maria, who nodded vigorously, “and I’ll talk to your teacher,” he tells her.
“Awesome!” she says excitedly.
“Don’t encourage your children to swear, Howard,” Selene scolds him, “it’s impolite,” she says.
“And since when have I ever been polite?” he says, gently tugging on a strand of Selene’s hair.
“Oh it’s like I have three kids instead of two,” she says, throwing a piece of banana at him. He deftly blocks it, sending back her way.
“Don’t throw food, Selene,” he says, throwing a strawberry chunk at her and sticking out his tongue. His children quickly join in, tossing fruit Selene’s way, she gives as good as she gets though, laughing and tossing bananas at Grant.
“Stop throwing fruit at my hair; it took like an hour to do it this morning!” Maria protests, trying to protect her long black hair.
“Okay, no one throw food at Maria’s hair,” Howard says, “aim for the white shirt instead!” he says and sends a strawberry her way, everyone else quickly following suit.
“Oh my god, you people are savages!” she yells, running out of the room with fruit following her.
“Love you, too honey!” Howard calls after her jokingly.
“Oh my god, I hope you get run over again!” she yells back.
“Maria!” Selene scolds but Howard just laughs, they had an understanding, she didn’t actually want him to get run over again, she just had a dark sense of humour. He could appreciate that, he had a pretty dark sense of humour too.
Present day
He had been some worried when Tony had announced he wasn’t making weapons anymore, that was bound to ruin his company, but he had made a huge comeback, making technological breakthroughs in several different areas and brining the company back from the brink. “Damn, the guy has some incredible business sense,” he says, well aware that Grey didn’t care about Tony Stark.
Grey pulls himself out of the car he was working on, “I don’t see why you care about the guy so much, he’s a pompous ass who only cares about himself,” Grey says, annoyed with Howard babbling on about Tony.
“Oh come on, that’s not true, he cares about other people, he loves Pepper Potts, and Rhodey,” Howard says, compelled to defend Tony, “besides, he probably has a media image to keep up, he’s probably not that selfish in real life,” he says.
Grey rolls his eyes, “as my teenaged kid would say, your fav is problematic,” he says, shaking his head.
Howard frowns, “what does that even mean?” he asks.
“The fuck if I know,” he says, “I don’t understand my girls, heaven knows I try but they make no sense,” Grey says, sighing.
“I don’t know what your problem is, Maria and I have an understanding, it’s Grant I don’t get. Like yesterday he went to school wearing that hideous poncho Selene made him and wondered why the other kids were picking on him. Like come on, the thing has what looks like lima beans knitted into the bottom, what did you expect?” he says, confused on his kid’s logic.
Grey laughs, “Did you tell him that?” he asks.
“Hell no, Selene would have kicked my ass, I told him if he liked it he should ignore the other kids, besides, Maria told him exactly what I was thinking so I didn’t have to crush the poor kid’s spirits,” he says. He was planning on burning that thing though, no one should be seen in public wearing that and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be seen with Grant wearing that thing.
“Yeah, fair enough. So did ya figure out where you were going on vacation this year?” he asks, frowning at the car in front of him.
“Yeah, I finally managed to talk Selene into New York. Get out of the way, you’re probably fucking that poor car up royally,” he says, nudging Grey out of the way. How the hell the guy got a job as a mechanic he’d never know.
“I thought Selene hated New York?” he says, wiping his hands off on a rag. Grey had done a number on the poor car but Howard knew what he was doing, the car would be fine.
“She does, but after I almost got stung by five separate scorpions last year she relented and let me pick this year. She knew I was going to pick New York, I’ve always wanted to go,” he says and makes a face at the mess of wires Grey and been fucking around with. This was going to take forever. Grey probably kept talking to him and he probably responded but he didn’t really remember any of it, he was too focused on the car in front of him. He didn’t realize what time it was until Grey pulled him out of the car and told him to go home, practically chasing him out with a broom. He hated leaving projects unfinished but he went home anyways.
Two months after Steve’s release
Tony doesn’t bother to knock on Rhodey’s; he just enters and runs through the house screaming. In hindsight that was probably a dumb idea because Rhodey came downstairs with a gun and nearly shot him, “oh my god this is the greatest day of my life!” he shrieks, flailing around.
Rhodey looks unimpressed, “calm your shit, Stark, what is going on?” he asks, lowering his weapon and setting it on his kitchen counter.
“I had actual sex with actual Captain America!” he yells excitedly.
Rhodey takes a deep breath, “if you’re lying, Stark, I will pick this weapon back up and shoot you,” he threatens.
He grabs Rhodey’s shoulders and pulls him close, “actual sex with actual Captain America,” he whispers. Rhodey is calm for about a second before he starts screaming and jumping around with him, sharing in his fanguy excitement.
“You have to tell me everything! Was he great, he was great!” Rhodey decides, “oh my god all the cool things happen to you, minus that one time you got kidnapped by those terrorists and your business partner tried to kill you but other than that,” Rhodey yells and starts squealing and flailing around again.
“Oh my god I feel so patriotic!” Tony yells, waving his hands in front of his face.
Rhodey stops suddenly, “wait, you didn’t run out right after, did you?” he asks.
Tony stops, frowning at Rhodey’s sudden downer, “um, yes?” he says, sensing that something was wrong with that but he wasn’t sure what.
Rhodey smacks him, “oh my god you idiot, he thinks you hate him, go find him and have makeup sex then tell me everything, you do not leave a detail out, you hear me Stark? Leave no details out!” he yells and shoves Tony out the door