Chapter 12
Tony invited Rhodey out along with him and Grant but didn’t tell him what was going on until he was already there that way he couldn’t back out. Rhodey had been some unimpressed about the shopping trip because he loathed Tony stuffing him into clothes he thought would look good and having to deal with Tony buying it all. Rhodey never had been very good at accepting Tony’s help with anything, at least not financially, not that Tony didn’t do it anyways because he totally did. Rhodey was, however, glad that Grant was today’s focus and the two had fun making the kid suffer. Grant was irritated after about five minutes in the first store and steadily grew grouchier throughout the day.
To be fair he had a lot of patience and only made a few snappy comments that Tony chose to ignore in favour of taking pleasure in torturing Grant. Rhodey, it seemed, thoroughly enjoyed shopping trips when he wasn’t the lost cause Tony was trying to fix. By the time they got back to the Tower Grant was freely speaking his mind, which Tony got the impression was an odd occurrence, so he decided that was a good sign. “Finally you’ve grown a little back bone,” he says after Grant insults his taste in shoes and Grant glares at him. Rhodey decides to attempt cheering the kid up with all the stories he had of Tony dragging him around, which only served to irritate Grant more.
“So how was the shopping trip?” Maria asks when they get back, Grant answers by giving her the dirtiest look Tony has ever seen on a thirteen year olds face. “You look less like a Star Wars alien!” she yells after him after he takes off to the room he was currently staying in. He was fairly certain Grant told her to fuck off but his assessment was mostly based off Steve’s shocked expression. Howard had left the room, on the phone, having fled when he saw Tony. That was nice, Tony thought; of course Howard would run off as soon as he could. God forbid he spend three seconds in the same room as him, that would just be too damn difficult now wouldn’t it?
Tony ended up unintentionally spending the rest of the night with Maria, arguing about who was better, Charmander of Squirtle, when Bucky tried to end the argument by suggesting Gastly was the best and then Steve went with fucking Jigglypuff. “Oh my god, your dating that loser?” Maria asks, looking horrified.
“Not for long,” Tony protests, “Jigglypuff?” he asks, “really?”
“Beedrill,” Grant says, making a not-so-grand reappearance.
“What?” they all ask in sync.
“Beedrill is the best, literally no one is going to look at you and think to themselves ‘yeah, see that guy with the bee almost as big as him? Let’s go mess with that guy’. Like it wouldn’t even matter how nice the Beedrill is, that thing looks like a hater and people would recognize that,” he says.
“Beedrill looks like a hater?” Steve asks, “and Jigglypuff is cute!” he says in a lame attempt to defend himself.
Bucky looks confused, “Gastly is a ghost. I want a ghost, therefore Gastly wins,” he says.
“Okay but Squirtle-” Maria starts but Tony cuts her off.
“Squirtle is what you save a guy’s number in your phone as if he cums in two seconds or less, Gastly sounds like a description of a dying grandmother, Jigglypuff is what Rhodey named his fat hamster, and although I can’t argue against Grant’s Beedrill argument I can assure you I’d light that thing on fire with my awesome Charmander,” he says, “I obviously win.”
“Just because you make weird associations with names doesn’t mean you win, Tony,” Steve says, looking hilariously upset at being dismissed.
“No he’s right, your favourite Pokémon can’t be what a ten year old named his hamster,” Bucky says.
“Actually Rhodey currently has Jigglypuff the fat hamster, he got it last year,” Tony says and Rhodey sighs from the couch.
“You couldn’t just leave me out of it, could you Stark?” he says, looking unimpressed with being dragged into Tony’s debate.
“You know what, Rhodey named his fat hamster Jigglypuff so he obviously agrees with me,” Steve says.
“Guys, my Beedrill argument is solid, no one will mess with the giant bee,” Grant says, raising one eyebrow and only one because now he had two thanks to Tony.
“I actually think Jigglypuff is stupid, that’s why I named my hamster after it, I like Geodude,” Rhodey says, looking apologetic for having to disagree with Captain America.
“Maria, shut your mouth, you are all wrong, the psychic Pokémon are obviously the best and most useful because the fucking things are psychic,” Howard says, “also Grant’s Beedrill argument is solid, no one will fuck with the giant bee. Now go do something else so I don’t have to listen to you all bicker about useless shit,” Howard makes a shooing motion at them, which, absolutely not, this was Tony’s house thank you very much. He will not be shooed.
“Geodude sucks,” Maria mumbles.
“Oh my god I know!” Tony says back, “it’s a rock with arms, that’s just dumb!”
“You know what, you like Charmander, and that is-”
“Stop arguing about Pokémon,” Howard hisses, rubbing his temples.
“Shove your psychic Pokémon up your ass,” Tony snaps.
*
“Oh my god, I can’t believe that worked, people are so shallow,” Maria says, rolling her eyes. Obviously it worked; it was Tony’s idea, his ideas always worked. Well, mostly, he’s had a flop or two but Grant wasn’t one of them.
“See, that’s what two eyebrows get you,” Tony says, wiggling his own eyebrows.
“People don’t care about my eyebrows, people care that I’m wearing expensive clothes,” Grant mumbles, upset that Tony had been proven right.
“No, people care about your eyebrows, I heard all about your eyebrows all week. I, for one, am deeply offended because I have always had great eyebrows and no one gives me any credit but Grant finds his and he’s the talk of the town,” Maria sighs, making faces at Grant, who was now well dressed.
“I liked all my old clothes and my unibrow,” he mumbles, crossing his arms.
“Well, the good news is you can grow your unibrow back and go back to wearing your questionable wardrobe and no one will know the difference because you guys are moving to New York,” Tony says, and Grant wrinkles his nose, “aww, you guys didn’t know. Well now you do!” he says cheerily and flees before Howard finds him and gives him those surprisingly guilt inducing looks for accidentally telling his kind of siblings that they were moving out of state.
“I think this is great!” Maria yells after him. That made half of them, Grant, from what Tony understood, was not fond of the large crowds.
He goes outside and finds Steve and Bucky hovering over Steve’s phone looking confused and disturbed, “I told you,” Steve says, “you can look up literally anything plus porn and there is a pornographic version of it.” Tony quickly ducks behind a plant because this was bound to be pure gold and he wasn’t going to ruin it by interrupting.
“Why would someone make porn from little yellow pill things?” Bucky asks, frowning.
“They’re called minions, I don’t really understand them and Tony says Facebook needs to stop but I don’t get the connection between the two,” he says, shrugging.
“Then why don’t you look up Facebook and minions to see what he’s talking about?” Bucky asks.
Steve looks pinched, “I looked up Captain America on Facebook once and got so much crap about anti-immigrant propaganda, and all this other crazy neo-Nazi stuff. It’s like people don’t realize that racism, anti-Semitism, and Nazis were the problem in World War Two and now think that immigrants, for whatever reason, have less of a right to be in America? I don’t know, but I decided Facebook was a lost cause after that,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. Tony smiles, Steve was such a sweetie, it was a shame people associated him with awful things.
“Do they know?” Bucky asks.
“Know what?” Steve frowns, eyebrows drawing together.
“That you and your mom are Irish immigrants that is kind of important if they’re going to use you as anti-immigrant propaganda. Also are they aware that America is built on immigration? Well, genocide and slavery, but white people aren’t native to this section of the world,” Bucky says, looking confused.
Steve sighs, “Apparently not, you’d think something like this would have stayed in the forties, its unbelievable how little some things have changed,” he says, shaking his head. Tony frowns, well that went from hilarious to fucking depressing super-fast.
Time to make an appearance, he decided, “hey guys,” he says and steps out from behind the plant.
Steve and Bucky look up and smile, or kind of move his lips upward in Bucky’s case, he was still working on the human emotions thing. “Hey,” Steve says, “have you seen Howard around? Don’t give me that sour face, he’s not as horrible as you think.” Tony was really tempted to turn around and walk away but Steve would either follow or corner him later.
“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say, you didn’t have the shit childhood with him for a father,” he says, harsher than intended. But it was true, whoever Steve knew wasn’t the same man Tony did, Steve would have never considered Howard-the-child-abuser a friend. He knew him well enough to know that Steve would never ever condone that behaviour for any reason.
“Neither did you siblings,” Steve points out, “whoever you knew doesn’t exist anymore,” he says logically.
Tony clenches his jaw, he knew Steve was right, he did, but why should that mean he had to forgive Howard? Not being the same person didn’t erase the wrongs he did and it certainly didn’t mean he was somehow deserving of forgiveness. “No offence Steve, but I don’t see how that does anything for me, I mean great that Grant and Maria had a decent father but I didn’t. Being a relatively good person now doesn’t mean he gets forgiven for what he did then, and frankly being a decent human being doesn’t give a person brownie points,” he snaps.
“Maybe not, but don’t you think that at the very least you should forgive him for you? It can’t be healthy to carry all that anger around,” he says softly, reaching out to Tony but he steps away.
“No, I don’t need to forgive him for me, for him, or for anyone else. I am happy and healthy all on my own and it didn’t require forgiving my father, it, apparently, required making a human connection to someone other than Rhodey and Pepper,” he says. That was only partially true; his theory on his own happiness was that, for the first time in his life, he felt loved. It was for selfish reasons he knew, Steve’s life revolved completely around him for the most part, and he liked that. But if Steve gained a new hobby or something he probably wouldn’t feel like he was unimportant either, not like he did with Rhodey and Pepper, at least before Steve. Bucky proved that, he had only been minor threatened at first and now he didn’t care how much time the two spent together, he knew that both of them still cared. Something in the last few months had changed that had prompted the realization that love for one thing didn’t cancel out love for another, and he felt more secure than he ever had and that had nothing to do with Howard or forgiveness. His life did not revolve around Howard Stark and forgiveness was not necessary, nor was it an option.
“Tony,” Steve starts but he waves him off.
“I don’t need to forgive Howard, and it won’t take anything away from me if I don’t. I am not less of a person because I hate his guts, and fuck you for suggesting that.” He walks away before he says something he’ll regret later, headed towards the lab. Howard had a few things right when he was alive, and working to drown out the problems of your everyday life was always a viable solution. And it didn’t end with Pepper dragging him out of a bar by his ear or throwing up on Bucky.
*
Tony was fixing Dummy, the dumb bot broke down again, and he was threatening to strip him for parts though they both knew they were empty threats. He may get irritated with the bots and insult them on a semi regular basis but he loved them all the same, JARVIS was still his favourite though. The bots were just projects he was fucking around with, JARVIS was practically his baby. Howard had made an appearance some twenty minutes before but Tony purposefully ignored him in the hopes he would go away. Instead the fuck started tinkering with his things, ohhing and ahhing when he found something new and interesting to play with. He kind of wanted to kick Howard out of the lab but that defeated the purpose of ignoring him.
Finally Howard gets annoyed with being ignored and Tony figures he’ll leave but no, instead he comes over and settles in front of Tony. “You have every right to be mad at me-” he starts.
“Fucking right I do, get out,” he snaps back, cutting Howard off.
Howard laughs softly and Tony glares at him, “you never were very fond of silence, I’m surprised you held it in this long” he says and Tony raises an eyebrow, “if that’s your way of asking if I remember you than the answer is yes,” he says and looks away.
Tony waits patiently for him to continue, curious as to what he had to say for himself but unwilling to help him out of the situation. “I… I remember every awful thing I ever said or did to you. No wonder you hate me,” he says quietly. Tony remains silent because there wasn’t much to say to him, he wasn’t going to forgive him, and he wasn’t going to feel sorry for him either. They both had to live with his actions but Tony got the shittier end of that stick. “I used to think that by being so hard on you I was preparing you for the real world, the media is mean and I had this ridiculous notion that if you were used to it it wouldn’t bother you later. I guess I was half right, except I also taught you that being close to people gets you hurt, and because of that you alienate everyone around you in an attempt to save yourself the same pain I caused you, I am so sorry,” he says.
He sounded sincere and Tony fucking hated him for that. He didn’t want sincere, he wanted a fucking villain, and he knew damn well he wasn’t going to get one. It was easier to hate the man Howard used to be, not so much the person he was. “You ruined my life,” he says, glaring hard at Howard.
Howard shakes his head, “no Tony, I ruined your childhood, you made your life great. You have been to hell and back, you more than filled my position in the company, you basically scrapped my original business plan and completely remade the company in a much better image, and you’ve revolutionized several industries. Your life isn’t ruined because of me, don’t let my shitty parenting overshadow your success, I assure you I am not worth that much and I never have been.”
Tony doesn’t know what to say to that. “My whole life he wanted to hear that or some variation of that and now that I have it… it fell flat. I know that you genuinely mean that, but that didn’t come from the guy who thought it was appropriate to tell his thirteen year old son that he would never live up to the legacy he set, it came from the guy who told his child that his unibrow was perfectly fine if he liked it. It get that you, Howard Stone, are sorry, but Howard Stark? Howard Stark? The only thing he was ever sorry for was having me as a child,” he spits, pulling himself to his feet, leaving Dummy half finished.
“That isn’t true,” Howard calls after him and Tony stops, half turning so Howard knew he had his attention, “I was always proud of you, I just didn’t know how to show it. I still don’t truth be told, you’re so closed off I have no idea how Steve and Bucky made it past your defences.”
Tony turns to walk away and turns back, “they were vulnerable when we met, the three of us. Both of them were so much more fucked up than me; I guess I felt like neither of them would judge my past because they had one too. Besides, it was kind of nice having someone other than Rhodey to talk to, made me feel like less of a burden on the poor guy,” he says and with that he leaves.
*
Steve shuffles his papers around on the bed, “I’m sorry about earlier. Sometimes I forget what it’s like to be really angry with someone, so angry you’ll never forget. You know I love you right?” he says, looking apologetic.
Tony smiles and drops a folder on Steve’s face, “I love you too,” he says, laughing. He wished he knew he’d be here a year ago, even with the Howard drama he was happy, finally content with himself and his place in life.
Bucky appears in the doorway, stripping off his shirt and throwing himself on Tony’s bed, completely ignoring the papers he landed on. “I love you too, but not Steve because he scarred me for life with minion porn,” he says, face half buried in the pillow he landed on.
Steve looks so offended Tony starts laughing again, “that’s what you get for showing him the dark side of the twenty first century, now he’ll love me more for life,” Tony says, grinning.
“Oh my god I will not, you didn’t tell me or Steve about bananas and for that you will never be forgiven. And you also didn’t tell us about bacon wrapped everything, bacon is my love now, you two come second,” Bucky says.
Steve’s face was priceless, “I come second to bacon,” he asks, looking scandalized.
“Hey, you left me for a guy with a weird light thing in his chest, I think you can suffer with bacon being the new love of my life, and don’t think I don’t know about Peggy either. I remember her, I was kind of scared of her actually, she was a one woman force to be reckoned with. I remember being upset that she was the only person I had ever met who would be good enough for you,” he says, propping himself up, smiling slightly.
“Hey!” Tony says, offended.
“What? You’re kind of an ass. A lovable ass though, with a lovable ass. What I’m trying to say is that you make no sense,” he says, eyebrows drawing together.
Steve snickers, “wow, this is so not what I imagined my life would be. I like it though, including Tony the ass with the lovable ass,” he says, grinning.
“Well, at least I know you appreciate the finer things in life, if my ass is not on the list of finer things than I don’t know what it,” he says and pulls a file out from under Bucky.
“Please,” Bucky says, rolling his eyes, “there are better things than your ass. Also I feel obligated to tell you that Coulson called with an update on Selene, apparently she’s this thing called an inhuman? I don’t know, he made no sense,” he says, wrinkling his nose.
“Coulson called? What did you say to him?” Tony asks.
“I listened to his update on Selene and told him that if he was an animal he would be a mouse because he is a pest,” he says.
Tony rubs his face, “good lord that is almost a worse insult than those swear words Rhodey made up in fifth grade,” he says, shaking his head.
“Rhodey made up swear words?” Steve asks.
Tony sighs, “unfortunately, ‘pumpkin head’ was at the top of his list as far as usage. To this day he gets offended when you call him that even though no logical human would consider that insulting.” He shakes his head, fifth grade Rhodey was hilarious but he had some weird ways to deal with assholes.