Guilt For Dreaming

Chapter 10: Time, In Quaaludes and Red Wine

Nothing. The wee small hours of the morning had long since ceded to the harsh glaring sunlight of the next day, and still Howard, and SHIELD had found nothing. There was no trace of Tony to be found anywhere in New York.

Peggy was still out leading her squad somewhere in Brooklyn, the last Edwin had heard, her team had been heading toward Dumbo and suspected Maggia involvement. In the meantime, his darling Ana’s group were …questioning some members of the Irish Mob they’d encountered. Edwin wouldn’t fathom saying so to either woman, but he personally thought that it sounded like busywork, rather than anything liable to find their missing boy. Not with two tiny teams of agents, attempting to search the entirety of New York – never mind the ever-present fear that in the chaos of the city, the evil men who’d snatched their dear boy could easily have gotten out of the Five Boroughs and be well on their way by now.

Edwin sighed, and resisted the urge to glare daggers at the agent who was passing on the news. Whilst he was no Souza, he had an air of kind competence, and besides he could probably snap Edwin like a twig - a dry one at that. Edwin’s time in the army notwithstanding, he was not a particularly physical man, the turtle of fury his main (and if he had to admit it to himself) only speciality.

Edwin’s eyes felt dry with exhaustion, the harsh brightness only adding to the headache he could feel creeping up. Edwin blinked trying to force moisture to his aching eyeballs. Edwin could feel the despair creeping up on him alongside the tiredness, dragged along on a tide of energetic irrationality, as he felt the need to sleep flip around into a startling inability to sleep. Lord – Edwin was useless to anyone like this, not for the first time he felt a huge surge of respect for his darling wife and the inimitable Agent Carter. The pair regularly forced themselves to work through situations like this, operating on next to no sleep for days at a time.

Edwin forced a long slow blink as he tried the phone line again, to his relief and surprise there was a dial tone. Things were starting to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Well, apart from the elephant in the room. Edwin couldn’t believe how little help he’d been to anyone, he felt so grossly atavistic, useless in the face of this looming loss they were all staring in the face. It wasn’t even the first time he’d been in this situation, sitting with his thumb up his arse whilst everyone else got on with the real work.

Even through the fog of exhaustion Edwin felt the usual self-directed rage, he’d been down this route before, and failed miserably. Christ, he was being a useless bloody lump again, unable to protect those he loved, reliant on the help of the people surrounding him and not even able to stand up and be counted when it really mattered. No, he was so wrapped up in propriety and maintaining order and he couldn’t even he couldn’t- Wiping his eyes hurriedly erasing the evidence of the minor breakdown he’d just weathered, Edwin plastered on his best butlery expression and strode out to meet the guests who only now in the late mid-morning were beginning to trickle out. No, this was the least he could do, put on a front of sanity for Howard and Maria’s sake.

~~~~~~~~~~

The sun burned bright and hot, the pre-noon haze hinting at worse to come. The heatwave was as stifling as ever. Tony longed for the refreshment of central air, and he’d chosen to move to Malibu for the warmth. There was still no power, though fortunately Mr Williams’ establishment had a gas stove, so there were crispy fried eggs (fried in so much oil they’d essentially been deep fried) and extremely dark brown fried toast for breakfast. Little Riri was happily throwing his scrambled eggs all over the kitchen as he ate them, but from the achingly fond look on his dad’s face Tony didn’t think the man would mind the toddler’s antics for quite some time to come.

The burnt crunchy bits and seeping grease combined with the brittle fattiness of the fried bread had Tony privately waxing nostalgic in about the days of the Avengers hunting for Hydra, and the frequently-terrible food at the numerous diners and road-side cafes they’d ended up relying on all too often. Tony still found it hilarious that Nat’s guilty pleasure had been Curry-Wursts, sliced sausage covered in dubious sauce, that they’d all tried and found disgusting in Berlin. From then on, whenever that particular fast-food had appeared on the menu Nat would order it.

Nat’s unabashed love of the, frankly nasty, combination of processed hotdog-like sausage (the cyberman of food) and ‘curry’ sauce had been one of the first things that she and Bruce had bonded over. The shy scientist teasing the usually aloof spy about how the cloying sweet yellow-brown gravy sludge would have her thrown out of any household in India, from the varied styles of Guwahati to Chennai if she dared try to claim it was curry. Nat had calmly cited Japan’s tradition of curry making, startling Bruce into an actual cackle of surprised laughter as he’d pointed out that Japan’s ‘tradition’ of curry making had been imported wholesale from the British when ‘curried’ (aka yellow eggs and dubious vegetables) food had become a fashion amongst the Victorian middle-class. Tony still remembered Steve’s look of confused “what the hell is going on” innocence with a grin on his face. Despite what came afterwards, the greasy food managed to stir up fond memories for Tony.

After a largely silent, but comfortable morning in Mr Williams’ company, Ayleen strolled back in looking incredibly pleased with herself. She smugly kissed her dad on the cheek, before giving Tony hug of his own, which again had him blinking back moisture. After spending some time unstringing the guitar, and locating and removing the strange device attached to the truss rod with the tools available at the nightclub, Tony worked up the energy to continue his journey northwards. Thanking the owner of the strange ‘juice bar’ profusely for his hospitality, Tony finally got on with his long trek with the sun already higher in the sky than he’d have liked. Tony had decided that since it had served him relatively well the night before, despite his exhausted misgivings, that he would continue with the slightly eccentric plan to use the many confusing paths through Central Park to evade his pursuers rather than use the more direct route. For lack of anywhere else to put them, Tony’s outfit distinctly lacking in useable pockets, Tony was wearing the hideous white and purple goggles around his neck like a particularly ugly necklace.

Tony got to Times Square, already drenched in sweat despite the fact that he was healthy at the moment, and was appalled by his own lack of recognition. The famous site was a terrifying jolt of unfamiliarity in the already unnerving vision of 1970s New York. Gone were the multi-storey advertising hoardings and high-end chain shops. Gone were the famous billboards and neon signs, replaced instead by a series of seedy signs declaring “Lovely Hostesses”. No, not gone. Not there yet. The only hint of familiarity was a currently unlit neon Coca-Cola sign at the familiar crossroads. This was Times Square pre-gentrification, post-white-flight, and a blatant show of some of the seedier sides of city living. In short, the world-famous square was filled with brothels and bordellos. Signs declaring “Girls Girls Girls!”, “Adult Films!”, and… Well, street walkers blatantly flaunting their wares.

 He was beginning to understand what the Capsicle had been going through, Tony stared around in horror – it wasn’t the seedy atmosphere that had him reeling, but the unexpected distance from the New York that he knew so well. Ironically Tony was beginning to get fed up of understanding Steve’s predicament. He found himself re-evaluating some of Steve’s actions as he skirted his way around the hawkers of sex and porn, trying his best not to look vulnerable. Perhaps Cap’s rigid need to be right all the time, in control, to not take advice - even when more than half of the independent nation states on the planet were crying out for oversight…

Maybe it was Steve’s way of coping with the strange new world he found himself in? Tony breathed out a surprised gush of air at that surprising thought, could it really have been that simple? Nah. Shoulders slumping Tony remembered Steve’s nearly pathological need to hold Tony accountable for every little thing that happened, regardless of if it were true or not. That wasn’t it, or it wasn’t all of it, even if it was part of it.

(((TRIGGER WARNING scene starts here))) Jesus that was a convoluted mess. Shaking himself out of his thoughts Tony realised that he’d made it halfway across the square without paying any attention, oops. Newly aware of his surroundings Tony covertly glanced around and felt hostile stares on his back. Guard up again, stance rigid, Tony hurried his way through the unexpected den of vice. He did not want to find out what happened to children who caught the eyes of paedophiles on this side of the tracks. Pushing down the awful memories of Dr Constantine’s unwanted touches Tony did his damndest to keep his steps sure and his glares icy. He was very nearly at his destination.

Tony had almost made it to the far side of the square when his fears were confirmed – it wasn’t an alley – a hand suddenly shot out of a shadowy side-street, one that would have been dark and gloomy even at midday from the looks of it, and grabbed him firmly by the upper arm.

Tony felt himself being pulled into the darkness. The person who’d grabbed him was already breathing heavily despite the lack of struggle Tony had put up in his surprise, breath rank with a rotting calcium stench. One meaty paw was still firmly clutching Tony, pawing at Tony’s pants, as the other fumbled at the man’s own flies. Seeing all the confirmation he needed, Tony used his free hand to grab hold of the already well-used blade at the small of his back. Remembering that he owned it this time. Using the element of surprise that had been so effective against himself, Tony lunged forward and pressed the blade to the man’s throat.

Piggy eyes widened in terror. A thin line of blood appeared where the razor edge was pressed against the already sweaty skin at the man’s throat. An animal stink of fear rose up, joining the already pungent body odour.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Tony’s voice was ice. The only hint that there was a question was in his word choice, not his intonation, which had dropped to a monotone that was made all the more chilling by his cherubic looks.

“I-I-I-I.”

“What?”

“I-I-I-“

Taking his cue from yet another infamous pop-culture psychopath Tony spat out,

“Say ‘I’ one more time…”

“I-“

Tony was loathe to deal out vigilante justice, but the man had quite literally been caught red-handed. He hissed out his indecision between his teeth. Tony knew from bitter experience that children were not believed about these types of incident in the 70s, they just weren’t. In this horrible era children were there to be seen and not heard. They still used corporal punishment in schools for gods’ sake! It was only a stroke of sheer uncharacteristic good luck that the private school Tony had been shipped off to for the year happened to be a relatively decent one.

Tony narrowed his eyes at his would-be assaulter. The heady lethargic feeling of the drugs still coursing through his system all these hours later washed away by the surge of pure rage that flowed through his veins.

 The blade flashed in the perpetual gloom of the dark street.

~~~~((TRIGGER WARNING SCENE ENDS HERE))~~~~

Edwin felt nothing but exhausted relief when the last of the guests finally allowed themselves to be ushered out of the penthouse. He quietly closed the huge double doors behind him and leant against the dark wood in a defeated slump.

If he hadn’t known any better, Edwin would have accused Janet van Dyne of purposefully drawing each and every one of the spoilt nouveau-rich idiots into prolonged conversation purely to spite him. Edwin didn’t know what had actually gotten into the woman, but the usually astute and waspish van Dyne had suddenly bloomed into a social butterfly, plying her fellow enthralled guests around her that morning with champagne as her partner, the surly Doctor Pym, formed his own little social gathering with the men in the opposite corner of the room.

Urgh.

American socialites were just as bad as the aristocratic snobs and the class system that he’d thought he’d escaped from when he’d accepted this exile to the colonies. Edwin prided himself on doing his best for Howard and his family. However, it still rankled that as a member of the upper-middle classes who’d been sent to a prestigious grammar school he’d ended up where he had. Alright, it wasn’t a public school – but he’d gone to a decent enough red brick university, and ended up in the officer corps of the army near automatically when he’d been conscripted. Assigned as a junior officer to one of the special forces regiments. From there he’d ended up in Budapest as a general’s batman, and met his darling Ana… Edwin had ended up as someone else’s butler of all things. It wasn’t the career path he’d envisioned for himself as a young man, but if he could stay by her side it would all be worth it.

Along the way he’d eventually begun to see his employer, and the man he owed a great debt to, as a dear friend. Gradually that bond strengthened, became family. Having stood with the man through so many intimate moments, both tragic and joyful, Edwin wouldn’t contemplate leaving his side. So of course, when the man’s son had finally come along – after many painful failed attempts by the couple, Edwin had been overjoyed.

Shortly after that moment of pure contentment the undercurrents that had been brewing for quite some time made themselves known. Maria came down with a crippling case of post-natal depression, made even more heart-breaking in the face of the fact that the incredibly intelligent woman had stood so steadfast through all of the losses she’d borne in her quest to have a child with the man she loved. Howard proved unable to cope with his wife’s belated mourning, and descended into drink and the guilt-fuelled rage that had been teetering on the horizon for decades.

Edwin allowed himself a long blink and tried to focus, the dark coffee he’d brewed using the stovetop kettle doing nothing for the exhaustion. He was wool-gathering, making himself even more useless than usual in this world of spies and monsters. As he tidied the chaos left behind by the guests Edwin could only hope that his darling wife was getting somewhere, in contrast to the trapped helplessness that was flowing through his blood alongside the piss and vinegar that was fuelling him. It rankled that even now, after all these damned years by their sides, watching helplessly from the damnable bloody side-lines that Edwin couldn’t keep the ones he loved safe. Relegated instead to the role of servant whilst everyone else was out searching and fighting for those they cared about.

Edwin had thought that he’d resolved this conflict within himself decades prior, when he’d concluded that as fantastic as the adventures he shared with dear Peggy were, that they demanded too fantastic a cost. But no, the bitter churning in his gut, a feeling all too familiar these past few months as he’d watched helplessly as his darling wife struggled with an illness that medics couldn’t comprehend… The feeling turned sour as, looking out over the smouldering New York skyline, huge plumes of thick black smoke rising to the heavens, Edwin realised that once again he was trapped on the side-lines watching the ones he loved fight and bleed, fighting a battle that he could have no part in. 

~~~~~~~

Tony had made the mistake of attempting to cross Central Park; his adult memories showed the place to be a green leafy and above all safe space. To Tony’s shame he hadn’t much noticed the difference to his expectations when they’d been there the previous summer, but he was certainly noticing the disparity now.

The well-tended paths of Tony’s memories were nowhere to be seen, he couldn’t have been that blind surely? This kind of neglect didn’t just happen overnight, even after a night that caused the smoke-haze that hung over everything like a pall. Tony walked northward, appalled by what he was seeing. The park was a desolate wasteland, the huge pond in what Tony had known as the nature reserve end of the park, a putrid puddle of brown stinking fetid water in the bottom of a concrete basin.

Every surface that could be covered in graffiti had been. Whether said surface was flat, or even one of the famous cliffy rocks that made up much of the ground underlying the landscaping, if it was possible to paint it, it had been.

Tony discovered that the usually abundant and leafy undergrowth of the nature walk was a complete no-go area; needles and other drug-related ephemera littered the space, speaking clearly of the alternative uses that the park had obviously been put to. Tony blinked. Just how oblivious had he been last year, to have missed all of this?

Tony marched his way through the slightly miserable looking trees towards the comforting familiarity of Bethesda Fountain; if he could only get to that wide-open space he’d be fine. The zoo was shut, obviously. And besides Tony was trying to get to the small mansion in Upper East Side, the site of which might as well have been on the opposite end of Manhattan from the damned bridge he’d trekked across, given how exhausted he felt. Tony resolved to thank Ben for all that long-distance training, without it he’d have given up, or even have been caught before he made it to this side of the river. Tony was uncomfortably aware that if it hadn’t been for Ben’s intense (and insane) training regime, with its daily, incrementally longer, long-distance runs around the school grounds, well. Tony was struggling as it was. Tony owed Ben a thank you gesture when he next saw the guy.

His mind wandered as Tony marched on, picking over all of the changes he’d seen getting to this point. The skyline was so woefully unfamiliar on so many levels, and yet the city was still unmistakeably his city. Grand Central Terminal, and the only slightly twisted surroundings just one example of the strange not-quite-rightness that still had Tony sympathising with Cap a whole hour after he’d resolved to put it out of his mind.

Instead, Tony focussed on the differences between the area surrounding the Pan-Am tower and the semi-rundown site that Tony had acquired in the noughties. Tony dearly wished that he still owned that damned land. Tony wouldn’t have had to go on this insane dash across most of Manhattan, unsure if the unfriendly stares he felt on his back every moment were his kidnappers finally catching up with him, or just some random creep.

It would have been a gentle stroll up past Chinatown, and he’d be there. Hom- no. No, that place had never been a home. Pepper had never moved in as they’d originally planned, instead they’d spent their time in the old Malibu house both of them too caught up in the aftermath of the chitauri incident to entertain the idea of sleeping only metres away from the site of the portal that was the source of so many of Tony’s nightmares. Not that it had helped, Tony had lost Pepper to the aftermath of that shitstorm, promising irrationally to give up being Iron Man at the height of it all, too buzzed on the high that came after the long low to realise that he was lying to her.

Tony had thought the rechristened Avengers Tower was home, for months it became his base of operations as they scrambled to clean up Steve and Nat’s mess, chasing Hydra and the sceptre across the globe. That house of cards had collapsed, leaving only bitterness and regret in its wake.

No. That tower had never been a home. There was a reason he’d sold the broken thing at the first opportunity. Given the chance again Tony wasn’t sure he’d bother to reacquire the land. Tony didn’t want to contemplate what would happen if he gave Cap the same opportunities to lord it over him as he had last time, the earlier revelation that he now knew almost exactly what Cap had been going through a harsh one, as Tony began to realise that he’d never begin to contemplate enacting the level of ill-advised international fuckery that had become Steve’s speciality.

SHIELD infiltrated with enemy agents? No problem! I’ll just expose every agent, good and bad to the entire world. Tony shut his eyes, the list of the dead, the people he hadn’t been able to reach in time, still burnt into his memory. The failures seared there indelibly. Perky Hydra assassin creates an evil killing machine? No problem! Let her join the team, she’s shown that she cares now, right? 137 nations want to hold us to account for our actions? Calling for a system to be put in place rather than the ad hoc aid arrangements and last-minute permissions, Tony and SI had hastily patched the gaps with? No problem! I’ll just tell the world to go screw itself! Literally as it turned out – since they were utterly screwed when Thanos arrived. All the derision that they’d heaped on Tony’s back finally coming around to bite them in the collective ass, when the dire warnings he’d been throwing on deaf ears finally made themselves known.

If only the Ultron project had been completed - not the twisted mangled monstrosity that the hostile AI in the mind gem had forced into existence, but the actual project – maybe, just maybe, they’d have been able to prevent the hoard of Outriders and the Black Order from decimating the population - and razing the world - slowly whittling away at the pockets of resis- Tony hastily shoved the angry rhetoric in a box and slammed the lid. Motherfucking shit - would he be able to stop himself from punching the self-righteous ass in his perfect teeth if he ever saw him again? Tony doubted it.

~~~~~~~

Peggy and her team of SHIELD agents burst into the abandoned warehouse in DUMBO and cursed. It was abandoned. Despite the efficiency of her teamwork with Ana, they simply hadn’t been fast enough. And with the junior Pyms both subtly plying their trade on the guests to try and discover who, if any of them, had betrayed them. Well. Peggy wasn’t working with a full-deck as Howard would have oh-so-charmingly phrased it. That infuriating, charming, idiot.

Peggy crouched down, cursing her aching joints as she did so, at the edge of the nearest, strangely faded, blood puddle and inspected it closely. Dammit. If only Daniel were here, and not stuck over in San Francisco digging into whatever Pym was up to. For all of Peggy’s abilities, there were some things that her husband was just better at than she was – getting on with the local cops was one of them. Her gender still an insurmountable barrier to traverse even in the dying decades of the 20^th Century.

The local cops would know who to frisk for information, and would probably have been able to tell her within moments which gang to ask questions of, and even what questions needed asking. As it was, the police were once again nowhere to be seen – and Peggy, international Agent of SHIELD though she was, didn’t know enough about the local gangs in New York to hazard a guess as to who controlled this neighbourhood.

Dammit.

Peggy eyed up the havoc with a practiced glance, not needing more than that to draw her conclusions. The place had obviously been cleaned up. It smelt strongly of bleach, and tellingly for all that there were pockmarks and bloodstains everywhere there were no bullets and no bodies.

Only 20 years ago she’d have confidently knocked on the door of the local Irish gang and had her answers within half an hour, at most. But these days, Peggy couldn’t tell you if it was the local Maggia or their rivals, the better-established Mafia that owned this turf or even if it was another group entirely. Even so, she had Ana chasing down that possibility. Seventies New York was rife with gangs, each fighting over their tiny patch of turf. Peggy, no longer a local, didn’t have the means to keep up. Infuriatingly for all that she could plainly see the fingerprints of a gang related clean-up all over the warehouse she was no nearer to finding out anything about the people behind the situation. Or even if the gang was cleaning up their own mess, or cleaning out a den of vipers in their own backyard.

Using skills honed decades ago Peggy made her cautious way deeper into the warehouse, the suspicious power that had drawn her here still making the overhead bulbs blaze fiercely where the rest of New York only blazed with flames. Disturbingly there really were signs of a struggle all over the place, a blood trail and deep gouges in the wall. The carnage extended well beyond the huge empty space, the deep gouges in the wall effectively marking a path for her to follow.

There was a particularly alarming puddle of blood and other less pleasant substances pooled slickly at a junction – signs of a struggle, and the stench of bleach failing to cover up the scent of a painful and messy death. Again, no body, and no clues left behind for her to gain more than a vague idea of what might have transpired. The expert clean-up job frustrating even Peggy’s practiced eye.

Making a note to get a proper team in her as soon as humanly possible, Peggy followed the trail of destruction all the way back to its origin, a bloody broom cupboard. Not literally thank god, however the obvious use the tiny room had been put to was both alarming and infuriating.

The cupboard itself was hanging open, door brokenly flapping, since the lock and a significant section of the doorjamb were both on the floor. There was a nest of filthy blankets on the floor, and a foul-smelling bucket in one corner spoke of the cupboard’s previous occupation. The walls were deeply scarred with the scratchings of its previous occupants.

But no sign of Tony.

This did not bode well at all.

Peggy backed up and investigated the obvious guard post outside the door again, poking at the small chair until a plastic baggy fell out of the stuffing onto the floor. It was filled with pills marked 714, and a cloth, that upon cautious inspection reeked of ether. God, no. Peggy allowed herself a moment of horror before straightening her spine and marching back to the main room to rejoin her team and hopefully bark enough orders that they’d be able to find something useful in this mess.

~~~~~~~~

Sheep Meadow wasn’t really a meadow any more, the lush turf that Tony was used to a dry yellow dust bowl. In his distraction Tony didn’t notice the person coming the other way, until with a solid crash Tony found himself sprawled on the path. The other person involved in the collision was still standing, Tony looked up and up and up at the silver clad figure.

The person clearly liked silver. A lot. A hell of a lot.

As well as a worn looking silver leather jacket, silver converses and silver hair the boy was wearing silver-grey skinny jeans with a pair of goggles and headphones perched prominently on his head.

He reminded Tony of, no it couldn’t be.

“You OK down there?”

“Huh?”

“Oh man.”

The looming kid ruffled the back of his hair in a nervous gesture,

“Shit. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Um. No?”

Tony’s voice squeaked on the question. He hated it.

Tony pushed himself to his feet, glad for the new coating of mud. It hid the blood that he hadn’t been able to scrub off in the cold water at the club.

At breakneck speed the kid, and it was a kid changed the subject.

“Nice goggles. Hey is that a cassette player???”

The teenager reached out as if to take the proto-Walkman, making Tony jump backwards in alarm before seeming to remember himself. The hair ruffle came again.

“Sorry man.”

The kid twisted sideways and started fiddling with something on his belt, Tony backed up another step,

“It’s just I’ve got a Stereobelt.”

The name was spat out with a strange mixture of distaste and mischievous glee. Tony let out a relieved breath he hadn’t been aware that he was holding when the teen held up his own cassette player in demonstration. The thing was integrated into the teen’s belt – which when Tony looked closer, he realised was actually a complicated rig holding multiple boxes of bulky electronics.

Jesus – Tony didn’t think anyone had ever manufactured one of those things. Oh, he’d seen the patent files but he’d honestly never believed they’d ever existe- Tony flushed and looked away, Peter had definitely seen the awed look on his face, if the boy’s preening expression was anything to go by. Face red, Tony marched onwards hoping that he’d be able to reach the building – and the relative safety of his dad’s penthouse sat pretty on the street East of Central Park that afternoon.

“What music have you got? And what are you doing in Central Park?”

The hyperactive change of subject was becoming familiar. Tony’s response was near automatic, a defensive rush of too much information,

“Uh… Bowie mostly. Some hard rock and heavy metal. You know Deep Purple, Meatloaf, Black Sabbath…”

The cassette was actually a bizarre combination of the more relaxed Philadelphia Soul tracks on Young Americans, with a b-side of an eclectic selection of the loud heavy rock that he’d always favoured, mostly scrounged from Justin’s collection.

“Ah cool! I’ve got… The Ramones on this one, and Animals on this one, an-”

“Animals?”

Tony found himself asking before he could help himself, puzzled. Somehow, he didn’t think Not-Pietro meant the 60s-era band, did he?

“You know with the pig and the, um, power station, and uh London?”

Tony stared blankly.

“Pink Floyd?”

“Oh.”

Tony was surprised. He knew, from experience, that in this era music taste tended towards obsessive almost tribe-like love of one particular genre at the expense of all others. Huh. The kid liked punk and prog. Not a combination he’d expected to encounter in this era of pre and post-punk.

“Wanna trade?”

“Huh?”

Tony wasn’t normally this stupid he swore, but something about the whole situation had him gawping,

“My copy of Animals for your… Bowie and Black Sabbath?”

“Uh, sure?”

Tony hesitantly ejected his cassette from the proto-Walkman and mutely passed it over to the fidgety boy, with great ceremony and to Tony’s surprise the silver bedecked boy in front of him pulled out a legitimate store-bought cassette of Animals.

“Here.”

“Are you sure? I mean mine’s only a mixtape.”

“A what-tape?”

Damn. Tony had used anachronistic slang again.

“Home-made?”

Peter sidestepped the issue,

“Pshaw! I can easily get another.”

There was a sudden breeze. The tape that Peter shoved over with little to no ceremony was suspiciously new compared to the battered thing he’d been passing over moments earlier, the thing still encased in its shrink-wrap with a small yellow price-tag proclaiming, ‘$2.99 |Tower Records|’. Tony hesitantly accepted the brand-new tape and avoided his suspicion by voicing another,  

“Why are you even carrying that? Don’t Stereobelts take reels?”

The boy infuriatingly merely grinned at him. And stuck his hand out,

“I’m Peter, Peter Maximoff nee Rasputin.” A proud emphasis was in place on the Rasputin, “What’s your name?”

Shit. It really was Quicksilver. Only it really really wasn’t.

The surly Sokovian wasn’t in the building, instead, impossibly, this overly cheery American brat (Tony as a fellow wearer of that particular mask recognised it as the brand of false cheer that masks the hurt that comes from an indifferent world) with a Missouri drawl was in front of him.

“Uh- T-Tony.”

“This baby takes both.”

Not-Pietro patted the bulky equipment on his belt fondly,

“Isn’t that a prototype?”

Not-Pietro winked. He winked.

The mismatched pair started walking northwards, Tony recognising that Peter was suddenly walking Tony’s way rather than the direction in which he’d originally been heading.

They reached Bethesda Fountain. Well, if it could be called a fountain given that there was no water. Jesus. The great bowl was completely dry. There were plenty of people around, including a man frying and selling what smelt like Jerk Chicken. It was heartening to see that people clearly still cared in the face of this obvious neglect, but it was horrible that the park had been allowed to fall into such a state.

Tony glanced over at Peter, only to realise that not-Pietro was conversing animatedly with a guy that, if Tony was the type to go by stereotypes, looked like a weed-seller. Oh wait. Not-Pietro was buying weed, in broad daylight. Christ.

~~~~~~~

Ana pushed through the exhaustion; she couldn’t afford to pull all-nighters like this, not any more. The aching lethargy weighed heavy around her neck like a ball and chain, the sinking feeling so heavy. The welcoming arms of Morpheus giving the perfect illusion that if she only shut her eyes everything would feel better when she woke up. Ana had thought that the chemotherapy was supposed to make her feel better not worse. But the drugs coursing through her system made her feel utterly terrible.

She’d managed to pry the information out of her rat, the informant within the gang happily telling Ana everything she wanted to know in exchange for weed money. Unfortunately, the information was utterly useless, it had come hours too late, even Ana’s more direct methods struggling to keep up in the chaos of the power outage. Peggy had already been at the site when Ana got her useless confirmation.

The warehouse he’d so proudly told her about, the only warehouse in Dumbo with power? Had been a complete bust. She’d gotten there a solid hour after Peggy’s anticlimactic storming of the place, and her practiced eye could see Mafia fingerprints all over the scene.

Ana’s particular situation had meant that she was a US-bound member of SHIELD. Unable to safely leave the country due to the threat of extradition on her darling Edwin’s head, and the lingering threat to her person from certain at-large members of the Nazi regime. A threat which loomed large, even now, decades after the official ending of hostilities in the truly awful war that had claimed first her community, then her family, and very nearly her life.

Ana was an old hand at reading the gang situation in New York. It wasn’t much different to successfully keeping ahead of the Nazis in Budapest, by organising the completely disparate little pockets of resistance into something approaching a guerrilla force. If Ana’s focus had actually been the numerous gangs in the city they likely wouldn’t know what hit them.

No, in the aftermath of the genocide that Hitler’s Third Reich had wrought Ana had no ties or loyalties or links to any group of people, outside of the tiny family she’d built for herself. Instead of helping her people with situations on both sides of the law, Ana’s energy went towards protecting SHIELD these days, the work vital. Keeping the secret organisation that was so central to the continued safety of her people was deathly important. Ana guarded SHIELD fiercely; saw off attempts to place constraints such as oversight and transparency on the secretive group, like the oversight that had crippled the FBI, the CIA and even the shadowy NSA – because if SHIELD fell, then the efforts to stop atrocities such as those committed in the name of Hitler, Goebbels and the likes of von Strucker would be allowed to rise again.

No, never again.

Now the organisation that she’d protected so fiercely was turning its focus towards protecting her family, what little there was of it. To Ana’s sorrow, for all of her years of dedicated service she could see that she had failed. The organisation that she’d fought tooth and nail to keep in the shadows unable to pierce them itself. Incapable of shifting the veil of darkness that cloaked their darling Tony from them.

It was long past time to bring out a few of the techniques she’d relied upon back home, the very ruthlessness that made her progression through SHIELD’s ranks a too slow game. Ana eyed up her fellow agent carefully. For all that Ana could see Peggy’s formidable temper slowly rising to a boil, could see all of the signs of it, from the tightening of her fellow agent’s jaw, to the haughty tilt of her chin and most tellingly of all the fire burning in her dark eyes, she could also see straight through Peggy’s carefully constructed façade to the panicking godmother underneath it all. Could see how close Peggy was to doing something career ruining, not out of frustration but out of the kind of fear that had dominated Ana’s life those final few months in Budapest.

Ana was grateful that the police hadn’t shown, whilst she was perfectly capable of handling the results of Peggy’s likely explosion, she’d much prefer not to have to cover up that too familiar kind of mess at all. It meant fewer steps were needed to evade attention. And a lower possibility that she’d have to do some clean-up of her own once this was all over. 

Still keeping a careful eye on Peggy, Ana ran her own inspection of the scene. It bore all of the hallmarks of the Martinelli branch of the Brooklyn Mafia – or at least the handling of the clean-up did. The bare minimum of removal of evidence had taken place here, there were no bodies, no weaponry and everything had been wiped down with bleach to remove fingerprints. Ana could clearly see that there’d been no effort taken to cover up what had happened here, the bullet-scars in the walls, floor and ceiling were fresh, the dusting of cracked plaster and concrete not the only signs that the events here were recent. Whilst the blood pools had been treated with bleach so that they wouldn’t coagulate and start stinking, no effort had been taken to remove them. The bleach merely thrown down in an attempt at good hygiene, or manners.

Ana took it all in and smiled grimly to herself. She could tell that Maria’s boys had been here. Oh, she gamely feigned obliviousness, acting like the completely ignorant Howard, her darling Edwin, and even fierce clever Peggy aping their all too real lack of knowledge. But Ana could tell, had already suspected, Maria’s boys were looking. After all they both hailed from similar worlds, albeit at very different levels. Ana could recognise a fellow player when she saw one.  

Ana eyed the insulting cupboard her darling boy had been kept in, feeling a fresh sense of hope awakening in her, and even a smidgen of pride at the speed with which they’d managed to track down the problem - from the state of the scene they’d gotten damned close too.

But no – if Tony had been recovered he’d already be clutched tightly in Maria’s arms by now. This had played out before, and Maria had often been the one to recover the boy, through means that Ana politely didn’t enquire about, her sense of professional courtesy not the only reason she stayed her hand.

 No Maria likely knew who’d taken Tony by now, but recovery hadn’t been an option.

Ana’s blue eyes glinted with cold fury as she eyed the appalling little broom closet her darling boy had been stuffed into. She hoped whoever Maria’s boys had come across had suffered, knowing full-well that the ever efficient Martinelli clan would catch their men.

~~~~~~~

Whilst he still had no idea what in the everlasting fuck was going on. Not-Pietro seemed like a, well, not a good kid. But his heart was in the right place. They’d continued northwards, Tony still discomforted by the horribly familiar signs of destruction hanging over New York. It reminded him strongly of those long months in the aftermath of Thanos’ invasion, and the catastrophe that the Black Order had wrought. There were differences though, obvious signs that the state the park was in was man made, rather than caused by something truly awful. Belvedere Castle was a graffiti covered mess, every surface that could be painted had been. The important site of meteorological observatory was boarded up, even from ground level Tony could tell that the equipment on the roof was damaged. Urgh. Tony was beginning to understand the older generation’s disdain for punks if this was the sort of crap they got up to. The Great Lawn was even more of a dust bowl than Sheep Meadow had been, but at least the lake still had water in it, unlike The Pond or Bethesda Fountain. Tony was dreading the sight of the huge Reservoir further north.

Still they were in the centre of the park now, Tony turned and prepared himself,

“Listen, kid…”

The pair had reached the great lawn. Sure enough, up close the turf was yellow and dead. Though Tony conceded that in this weather that wasn’t actually all that surprising.

“Kid! Hark at thee young bratling, hark at thee.” Not-Pietro chuckled to himself, and ruffled Tony’s hair with horrible inexorability, before muttering to himself, “Kid, good one. I’m 19, turning twenty in November. How old are you?”

Tony’s response was sullen.

“Seven.”

Fuck. Ben would have Tony’s hide if he found out that it only took a tiny bit of stress to send him tumbling back into his old speaking patterns. Especially to someone so… so potentially important.

“So… Pete?”

“Peter.”

“Peter. Um… What do you do for fun around here?”

“Well…”

The unholy fire that lit up his eyes should have clued Tony in, it really should have. In a blur of motion that would have made even Pietro jealous Not-Piet- Peter vanished and reappeared before Tony could begin to panic about the fact that he was all alone, in New York, in the midst of a prolonged city-wide blackout, having just run for his life from a botched kidnapping that had gone horribly wrong, for the kidnappers at least. Not-Pietro reappeared in a gush of air with a triumphant grin stretched across his too young face.

With great ceremony, the great overgrown boy-child leant down and affixed something to Tony’s shirt. Tony bent his head over and read, upside down,

“I am not Paul Avery.”

Tony shot Wrong-Peter a puzzled glance, even though he’d been a kid at the time, even Tony knew this little bit of recent-history,

“You do know that Son of Sam has nothing to do with that Zodiac guy, right?”

“Sure he doesn’t… That’s just what they want you to think.”

Not-Pietro gave Tony what he clearly thought was a sly knowledgeable look, in reality it made him look constipated,

“Anyway, better safe than sorry.”

Tony gave Not-Pietro a scathing glance in response, but the expression seemed to sail right over the boy’s head. No, not sail over. Tony recognised that too careful water off a duck’s back expression, and consciously dialled down the distrust. Tony hated that he recognised that practiced devil-may-care attitude, it mirrored his own behaviour to a tee.

Tony tried to gently shake off the kid,

“Well, thanks for walking with me. I know my way from here.”

“No. No way. No chance. If my mom knew I’d left Wandy all alone when she was your age she’d have killed me! Nope I’m not leaving you alone kiddo.”

“Look do you want to be there when I get back to my rents?”

Wrong-Pietro’s face was genuinely confused,

“Rents?”

Shit. Not again. Godammit!

“Pa-rents.”

Tony enunciated the word exaggeratedly. Carefully acting as if he thought Peter was stupid for not getting the slang, whilst he was internally berating himself for yet another slip-up.

“Hah! I knew it! What did you run away in the blackout?”

Peter sounded far too gleeful.

“Yeah. Something like that…”  Tony grumbled, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Peter stared down at Tony, something in his expression telling Tony that he didn’t buy that the situation was that simple for an instant. After a long uncomfortable moment Peter’s face lit-up.

“I know!” the kid beamed.

“…What?” Tony’s tone was reluctant.

“I’ll stick with you until the lights come back on. How’s about that?”

“What?” This time Tony was the one who was confused, how would that make a difference?

“That way I’ll stick with you until you get a cab back home, right?” Peter was clearly warming to his own plan as he said it out loud, tone of his voice and the speed of his ramble picking up. “Yeah. So, I’ll keep you out of trouble. And then make sure you’re in safely on the way home, but I won’t have to, you know, meet your …rents.”

The intonation on the last word made it quite just clear why Peter thought Tony was out here. Though Tony supposed that the bulky bandages wrapped around his palm, and the ugly brown bruising from his sparring sessions had only added to the 2+2= 5 conclusion.

Tony stared up at Not-Pietro in bafflement, he genuinely wasn’t sure how that ‘plan’ of his passed as logic in the teen’s head. But it would buy him time to try and work out just who the hell Peter was. Tony didn’t think he was a Hydra goon, the kid seemed too… Normal for that. Oh he was fragile in ways that Tony recognised all too well, Tony could see that clear as day, but it was the usual teenaged fucked-upness, not the assassin special that Tony had somehow gotten far too familiar with in his years hanging out with the Avengers.

All Tony wanted to do was get back to the penthouse and run into Javis’s or Ana’s or Peggy or hell even Maria’s arms. And yet…

“Yeah, sure. What the hell, why not?”

~~~~~~~

Maria glared at Howard as he carelessly dismissed not just her own, but Peggy’s and Ana’s talents too. It was one thing to be wilfully ignorant of the fact that Maria was technically a Martinelli and therefore not to be trifled with (she kept her links to Italy relatively quiet despite the fact that she conversed with Tony in the language), but quite another to dismiss two seasoned Agents of SHIELD the organisation that he’d help found from the ashes of the SSR.

Maria shared an exasperated look with Ana, their temperaments similar in more ways than either of them cared to acknowledge. Maria was fuming to herself that the SHIELD agents had caught up to Giro’s boys so quickly, cutting off several of their routes of earning revenge on the pelacanyes who’d taken her bambino. Quickly as she was able Maria warned Giro to pull his men out of Dumbo, internally cursing all the while.

However, whilst the SHIELD agents’ efficiency had frustrated and infuriated her, Howard’s all too casual condescension was worse. Maria hated this side of her husband, how it turned the gentle man she loved into an obstructionist bore with all the finesse of a cul d’olla, saw the damage that shone in his eyes as a painful mirror of her own.

Maria bit her tongue until the idiocy was over, and tried to work out just where her son could be, if, as they all suspected, he’d gotten away of his own volition. She’d have Martinellis combing the streets of Manhattan, her bambino was a clever boy – he’d likely be trying to make his way back to the penthouse. From the look on her face Ana was sharing the same thoughts she was, the other woman always had been too astute for comfort. 

~~~~~~~

Tony glared at the great expanse of the reservoir, to Tony’s relief the great expanse of water was still there, but the area surrounding the water was noticeably covered in litter. The mismatched pair of seven-year-old boy and young-adult had slowly made their way around the great lake, still meandering vaguely north as they argued about just what they were going to do next. Tony completely unwilling to reveal just who he was to this strange version of a person he’d never learnt to trust.

“I know! Let’s go to Coney! I want a corn dog and I promised Wanda some cotton candy if she didn’t tell Mom I’d gone out...”

“Pi-Peter, how are we going to get to Coney? It’s a blackout. Nothings running. The subway is dead.”

Not-Pietro grinned down at him with an all too familiar shit-eating-grin. It was a look Tony was intimately familiar with, he’d often worn it himself. Stepping forward, that nervous jittery energy still overtly thrumming through him Not-Pietro, Peter, slowly held out his arms.

“What? You want us to hug our way there?”

“No I need to brace you, so you don’t get whiplash.”

Tony shot Not-Pietro a look, surely not, this really wasn’t a coincidence, was it?

“And why would I be at risk at getting whiplash. No. Don’t tell me, you can run really really fast. And not taking into account the tolerances of the average human when it comes to g-forces, you think it’ll be easy to -”

In hindsight Tony should have realised that he was lucky that Peter had let him rant at him for as long as he had. One moment Tony had been mid-sentence. The next the all too familiar sensation of a high-g manoeuvre kicked in, and Tony reflexively started clenching numerous large muscle groups, the response long-since ingrained after years of high-g piloting manoeuvres, instinctive.

A blink later – and with running eyes that were trying to overcompensate for their sudden dryness Tony and Peter were stood outside the main gates to Coney’s famous, and quaintly named, Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park. The Wonder Wheel loomed large over them, still and silent in the continuing power outage. Coney’s genteel run-down charm reassuringly familiar in this strange 70s-era New York.

Somehow Coney felt solid and real when the graffiti, lack of familiar signage and street furniture everywhere else had turned his hometown into an alien landscape worse than the post-Chitauri destruction, and Thanos’ later more catastrophic invasion had ever been. Tony turned around and shot Not-Pietro a look to cover up the sudden hot nostalgia blooming in his chest, threatening tears that had nothing to do with the dryness Tony was still blinking out of his eyes.

“A little warning next time? I mean I get it, really, I do. You’re the fastest guy in the room – everyone else is slow. Literally in your case. But still. At least let me actually pull on these horrible goggles next time, use them like the pair you’ve got to protect your eyes.”  

In a flash, Peter was proffering the most hideous, spangly pink swimming goggles Tony had ever seen.

“Um. No. Those are even worse. How did you even find anything that awful? Never mind. Look let’s just go to Nathan’s and get those corn dogs you’ve been talking about, okay?”

Peter shot Tony another shit-eating grin. It was really weird being on the receiving end of those.

Fortunately, a handful of the people running Coney did have their own generators. Whilst there wasn’t enough fuel to keep any of the big rides open, the famous Nathan’s was one of the handful of eating establishments still doing trade – as were the non-powered, low-tech attractions in the horribly dilapidated remains of Steeplechase Park. Otherwise the area was eerily still and quiet. The majority of tourists staying away due to the lingering chaos of New York that day. For all that Coney was down on the coast Tony could swear that he was getting the occasional whiff of smoke on the wind.

Still, Peter was right. Coney had been a wonderful idea. Ignoring the lingering guilt that the Jarvises still didn’t have a clue where he was Tony settled in to observe his unexpected companion. Munching on a Coney Island Dog – the dense meaty chili topping making the process less than dignified, Tony watched with amusement as Peter swindled prizes out of the numerous little stalls that made up the tiny little subsection of Astroland that was still open.

Tony could tell that Peter was using his powers to cheat on the ring toss, and on the duck catch, and the shooting, and even the tiny mechanical ‘horse race’ but somehow given that the boy only chose the very worst of the available prizes – the practice somehow a point of perverse pride to the boy. Well, Tony found it amusing, and he could tell that the stall’s owners felt similarly if the familiar air with which they all greeted the silver bedecked teen with was anything to go by.

Peter reminded Tony of, well, he hated to admit this, but a younger version of himself. It wasn’t anything to do with the setting. More Peter’s familiar ease in a world that was usually reserved for adults, and the condescending tolerance of his presence in areas that ordinarily no outsider would have been permitted to see. To use yet another anachronism, though admittedly one that at least wouldn’t have people wondering quite literally what the hell he meant – Tony thought that the kid had moxie. (Damn Cap and his stupid 40s slang.)

The duo spent hours that hot summer’s day meandering around the sites to be seen in Coney, Tony completely oblivious to Peter’s attempts to talk, caught in a haze of sad fond nostalgia. Tony had been surprised that Astroland was still apparently operating, too used to the old resignation that the place was long gone in his era, though of course most of the site was temporarily shut due to the power outage. Tony had fond memories of some of the rides there, Jarvis’ patient visage watching from the safety of the ground as Tony obsessively rode on the Cyclone, Astroland’s space-aged theme too much to resist for a kid growing up in the era that had birthed the numerous Apollo missions.

The pair meandered through Deno’s Wonder Wheel park next, the large red letters of the eponymous wheel still reassuringly familiar. Tony stared sadly at the dead bumper-cars, the stillness of this section of Coney falsely giving the impression that the place was permanently shut – despite knowing that the closure was temporary. Tony smiled sadly at the memory of squealing as he, Ana and Jarvis engaged in an all-out three-way war in the little cars had him wishing that the couple were with him.

As they passed it Tony realised that Steeplechase Park was in a sorry state, remembering Trump’s hand in Coney’s fortunes Tony stared around at the decay with a jaded eye. The old wooden Thunderbolt ride was still standing proudly, though Bobs – or the Tornado had clearly seen better days. The wooden structure was blackened and crumbling. 

Eventually Peter got bored of the aimless sightseeing, and guided them back towards the small selection of Steeplechase stalls advertising their own games of skill. As the mismatched pair wandered down the boardwalk back towards the smaller pop-up stalls that were still open Tony had to admit to himself that Peter had had a decent plan, though perhaps his own had been less than well thought through. Tony had attempted to subtly enquire about government experiments, but if there was a way to naturally bring up the topic of, ‘Hey, by the way? Did you volunteer to be part of some evil science experiment?’ Tony had yet to think of it. Tony’s attempts to skirt around the issue had only earned him a truly confused look from the young man, and Tony just couldn’t see the borderline kleptomaniac going for that kind of deal.

Tony surprised both of them with his marksmanship when he half-heartedly had a go on the duck shooting game. Tony scored a flawless run, giving him the right to any prize from the mechanical stall. Tony stared around in alarm at the selection of oversized plushy animals and plastic tourist tat, he hadn’t been expecting a prize at all. However, both Peter and the flat-capped stall owner were staring at him in awe, Tony grudgingly supposed that all of that arms training that automatically came as a side-effect of being a weapons designer had some uses after all. Eventually, after several long minutes staring awkwardly around at the selection in the stall, Tony spotted a pair of goggles that, whilst they were technically in the prize section – probably weren’t intended as a prize.

Tony pointed with a finger,

“Those.”

“Those?”

The stall-owner’s Brooklyn accent was puzzled as he turned to try and work out what Tony had been gesturing at, he turned back towards Tony,

“The pink bear?”

“Wha –No! The cap gun!”

“Huh? Oh! That thing. Uh…”

The reluctance was clear on every line of the guy’s face, but Peter’s expectant grin made it obvious that no was not an acceptable answer. Tony accepted the already loaded toy with no little glee, suddenly nostalgic for a childhood he barely remembered – his training in real firearms becoming a necessity all too early.

Tony shot a few of the red plastic caps out of the mock-revolver, and grinned stupidly as Not-Pietr- no, no he was Peter. Peter staggered back, feigning injury. Tony immediately lost his taste for the toy, and hastily underarm threw the thing in N-Peter’s direction. Peter caught it with a grin, that quickly fell as the boy realised something had happened, but apart from quietly pocketing the toy in one of his many pockets the teenager did nothing to acknowledge it. Tony found himself resentfully grateful for that.

In the end, it was Tony’s painfully intrusive Second Sight that had made him trust the teen enough to keep following him, all the way to his home in another state. Under the strange light of this unearthly vision of his, Tony saw clear as anything a flash of a peacock’s colourful tail and the shadow of an elephant. The animal symbolism surprised Tony, but he figured it was linked to whatever drug was still coursing through his system. Everything had gone animal kingdom on him since then. For all that Tony had read extensively about symbolic animals in his hunt for clarity regarding his flashes of whatever this was, Tony hadn’t actually encountered any animals – well until now. The peacock was an obvious fit for arrogance, the elephant, trustworthiness – but it was the third less obvious, to anyone else, symbol that sold Tony. Blazing from the centre of Peter’s forehead was the familiar blue-white upside-down triangle of the arc reactor, the atomic structure of Starkium floating in the air around the boy.

The mismatched pair eventually returned back to the end of Coney that held Nathan’s and the promise of food as the sun began to set. Tony had been mistaken earlier, the tiny area surrounding Nathan’s was a small oasis of power – the eateries a tiny pocket of business-as-usual in this bizarre New York that was still suffering from the blackout.

Peter again stuffed his face full of an inordinate number of corn dogs, Tony opting for a cheeseburger this time in a vague attempt to not turn into a hot dog. Though he also had a huge portion of chilli cheese fries – the smell of the slightly clovey chilli too tempting to resist.

Once they’d stuffed down their meals Peter casually bought the largest stick of cotton candy Tony had seen in quite some time and gestured casually. The sun was going down, the power still wasn’t back on – it was time to go. Maybe he’d be able to dig out more about Not-Pietro at his place, wherever that turned out to be.

Tony hesitantly pulled on the thick-lensed goggles and adjusted the bezel at the bridge of the nose until the lenses at least sort-of rested over the correct areas, Tony’s child-sized head making the adult-sized things awkward – at least they were sturdy enough, and started clenching muscles in preparation (Tony hadn’t been mocking Hawkass when he’d asked him to do so all those years ago, despite what the archer must have thought)

This time Tony was aware of the rush of high speed travel, the world was an incomprehensible blur. Tony could feel the skin on his face shifting, and the heavy leaden weight of his limbs, even his genitals felt as though they weighed several kilos under the punishing acceleration. But the discomfort was secondary, Tony could feel blackness creeping up on his vision, as the high velocity acceleration started pushing the blood out of his brain into his extremities despite his efforts to use his muscles to keep it flowing.

It felt as though an age had passed, the torturous seconds seeming to stretch to eternity. Then as soon as the sensation of an elephant dancing on his chest had begun it ended, Tony staggered with the sudden lack of support and extreme deceleration. Trying desperately not to be sick he clutched at his knees and peered up at the suburban house that had suddenly appeared in front of him.

“Uh…. You okay there, little Tones?”

“Wha-?”

A paper towel was thrust at his face – Tony automatically grabbed it,

“What’s this for?”

“You’ve got a nosebleed.”

“Oh.” Tony sniffed the blood up as he wiped his face clean, pulling up the suddenly clammy goggles in the process. “Yeah it’s fine, nothing unexpected – I mean us vanilla humans aren’t meant for prolonged high-g you know?”

Peter shot Tony a look, as if he hadn’t thought of that before.

“Uh… Yeah. Right. Well, welcome to mi casa. Mom’s out so it’s just me and Wanda at home.”

Tony felt all of the blood rush out of his face, and it wasn’t due to the lingering effects of acceleration.

“W-Wanda?”

Damn. Wrong-Pietro had mentioned her before, but he’d stupidly thought she’d be out, taking the opportunity like Peter had. Tony gulped down the sudden nervousness and hoped it hadn’t shown on his face, Peter seemed oblivious as he replied,

“Yeah my Lil’sis. She’s only 12 but… Hey what am I going on about, how old even are you? Like four?”

Not-Pietro casually walked up to the little dark brown wooden door and pulling out a house key unlocked it. Tony found the juxtaposition utterly surreal. Quicksilver, Hydra assassin living a boring life in suburban America. Only he wasn’t, was he? This version of the kid was, well, apart from the speed thing (and the kleptomania), disturbingly normal.

“Hey Wandy I’m home – Mom’s not back yet is she?”

A small blur of pink barrelled into No-Peter’s legs briefly hugging the teen at the knees, if Tony didn’t know better he’d have guessed she had super speed too.

“Hey Peter. Did you bring back the cotton candy?”

“Yuhuh.” Producing an impossibly large stick of the sugary confection Peter passed over the pink cloud of sugar. Wanda, and it had to be Wanda, immediately grabbed it, and took a huge bite, before turning her attention to Tony.

“Who’s this Petey?”

The girl’s gaze was curious, but there was no malice there. Nevertheless, Tony felt himself take a step back, already tensed for any sign of red.

 “Why’s his head all surrounded by that cloud?”

“Wha-?”

Tony properly panicked in that moment, backing towards the door.

“Wanda? What cloud?”

“There! Can’t you see it? It’s so thick.”

With that the young girl casually reached out a hand and made a grabbing gesture. Tony felt a horrible sucking sensation, but he couldn’t have told you where it was coming from – just that it existed, it was horrible, and that he wanted it to stop.

Tony pressed himself against the front door as the feeling of something being pulled out that didn’t want to leave continued, and kept on continuing, the sickening sensation drawn out, oily and cloying as if even the residue of this thing was pure unadulterated slime. Tony felt himself slowly sliding to the floor with a groan as finally, finally the flow of whatever that absolute horror was slowed to a trickle. With it, it had taken all of his already waning strength.

“Wanda! Wanda what did you do???”

Peter’s voice was high and panicked,

“I told you no powers!”

Wanda’s tone was completely guileless, her explanation simple,

“But look I fixed him – it was making him sick.”

Wanda held up her hands as if for inspection, hovering inside a bright pinkish neon-red glow was a cloud of horribly familiar blood red. The cloud was swirling around, almost angrily in its violence, clearly seeking an escape from the cage in which it found itself.

“No…”

Tony tried to interrupt, but his mouth was dry as the deserts in Afghanistan – he swallowed and tried to build up some moisture.

“See! Wanda that is not ok. You don’t get to do that to people. You know that using your Probabilities on people isn’t fair. Wand-”

Tony interrupted, and was surprised with himself when, “No! It’s – it’s okay,” popped out instead of the biting reproach he’d been intending.

Tony’s voice was still damnably quiet, if Wa- no if The Witch had seen him like this, she wouldn’t have hesitated to go in for the kill. Her irrational, if all too understandable, hatred of him not allowing her to leave a situation like this well enough alone. This kid though? Okay sure she’d immediately gone rummaging, but… Well Tony could see what she’d done. She wasn’t trying to hide it. And she’d done it to help him. Tony could feel it already.

As if triggered by the sudden lack of spiritual weight Tony’s third eye triggered for the second time that day. Wanda downright glowed, at her forehead the upside down blue triangle that Tony inexorably associated with safety beamed out brighter than the ethereal glow that surrounded the vision of the goddess Venus before him. The tree of life sheltered her, and despite the initial jolt of panic when he spotted the glowing image, Tony eventually recognised that the symbol scrawled across her belly as the Buddhist Swastika associated with well-being, as opposed to the Nazi Hakenkreuz with it’s awful links to genocide and hate. Stretching out behind her was a black shadow, a circle of eight arrows. Tony had no idea why, didn’t recognise the image, but that above all else reassured him.

Peter was staring down at Tony worriedly, all the while shooting his little sister a quelling look. Tony shook himself back into reality when he realised that the other two people in the room had noticed him staring and bulldozed onwards,

“I – I mean look at it Peter, does that mess look like it was supposed to be inside my head?”

“Er… No. No, it looks horrible. What is it?”

Wanda shot Tony a grateful look, it was clear that for all of Peter’s casual approach to other people’s property that the siblings had had this argument before. And frankly, ordinarily Tony would be firmly on Peter’s side here – having witnessed first-hand the sort of mess that was left behind when people tried to ‘help’ others in a ham-fisted manner without asking first. But… Well the red Lovecraftian lightshow still playing out in the middle of the room in surreal fashion really put any of the usual arguments he’d have made to bed.

“Er… Are you okay kid?”

Wanda was peering down at him worriedly, and wasn’t that a kicker she was twelve and she was calling him kid. And she was towering over him. Oh wait…

“Do you have any idea what it is? It feels… Nasty.”

“Um…”

Tony’s eyes flickered around the little overly brown living room as he tried to buy himself some time to think. Tony tried to avoid looking at the cloying wisp of red that was still thrashing about inside the clean bright glow of Wanda’s power, but found that it was inexorably drawing his gaze. The cloud somehow insinuated tentacles and dimensions that couldn’t possibly be there. As if reading his mind (and that thought made him shudder) Wanda broke the silence with an awkward,

“Erm… What do you want me to do with it?”

“Huh?”

The idea that he’d have a choice in the matter was so alien that Tony was stunned into silence.

Peter was still shooting his little sister death glares, which Tony found both adorable and comforting. Much as the kid’s own moral compass wasn’t anything to write home about, the very fact that he was trying to keep his sister on the right track was a balm in this moment. Licking still dry lips in a vain attempt to make his voice louder Tony dared voice the question,

“Wha- What do you mean?”

“Well? I can’t let it go, can I? It’ll get straight back into trying to twist your head up in a knot.”

“What?! What was it doing?”

“Couldn’t you feel it?”

“Uh…”

Tony shot her an incredulous look, just as Peter butted in,

“No Wanda – most of us can’t see those glows you’re always going on about. We don’t all have magical ‘probability powers’ like you do.”

Peter’s mocking emphasis on the phrase was another source of reassuring normality, the two siblings silently bickering in gestures and facial expressions, as Tony watched in amusement. In a reassuringly adolescent move Wanda rolled her clear blue eyes, like Peter’s so different to the icy grey-blue pair that Tony knew so well.

“They’re auras Petey. Auras.”

Wanda pointedly ignored Peter’s not-so-quiet mutter about tarot bullshit and continued gamely,

“And… Well. Uh Tony’s is all white like this really bright white, but kinda blue? With these blotchy orange and blue bits – and there’s these pretty green flashes… It’s like the… the… Oh you know we saw that documentary about the North Pole last week! The Aura Bore-alice?”

Tony quietly corrected her mangling of the name,

“Aurora Borealis.”

“Uh Wanda. You sound crazy. Now don’t get me wrong I believe you. But we can’t see it. And you should ask first. You know better than that. What made you grab it, that cloud thing?”

Peter gestured at the writhing blood-red mist still held suspended in the middle of the room. As if aware of the inspection the cloud stilled for a moment, before with a sense of dripping slime, suddenly redoubling its efforts to break free of the forces holding it in place. Peter seemed to remember the other reason for the confrontation, and gently helped Tony to his feet shooing him towards the sofa as he did so.

“It was... It’s just it was wrapped all around his head. Like those cartoons where the cloud is following you? Only it wasn’t above him, it was like it was choking him. I used a probability hex to convince it that it really should be in the middle of the room not all up in his head like that.”

Wanda’s hand gestures were getting more and more expansive as she tried to explain herself to an obviously blank-faced audience. Peter handed Tony a glass of water, surprising Tony into completely forgetting his ‘thing’ about being handed stuff in the sheer casualness of the brotherly gesture. Tony automatically took a large gulp, the welcome wetness finally allowing him to gather his bearings.

“Uh thanks. Both of you.”

Wanda shot Tony a look of pleased surprise,

“You’re welcome.”

“Like big bro there I question your bedside manner Doc Banzai, but well I already feel so much better.”

“See!”

Wanda’s triumphant exclamation was so little-kid that Tony cracked up laughing. The moment of hilarity passed, but Tony found he couldn’t stop giggling, the sheer relief as the fact that yet another weight he hadn’t even known he’d been carrying around was gone made itself known. Well excuse him for feeling a bit happy.

Peter was shooting his little sister another look,

“Are you sure that red thing wasn’t supposed to be there? I mean I know I know – it looks evil, but look at him.” Peter gestured expansively towards Tony helplessly giggling on the couch, “That ain’t normal.”

The gesture didn’t help, the sheer normality of it after the past 24 hours filled with running for his life and fire and kidnapping setting him off again.

“Wanda… What did you do?”

“No!” Tony managed to gasp out between giggles, “Hee! I’m – hee- okay!”

Wanda’s amused look turned panicked as Tony continued laughing, sliding helplessly onto the floor, dubiously she asked,

“I can give it back if you want?”

Wanda’s tone of voice betrayed just how she felt about that course of action.

“No! Are you joking!?”

Peter answered before Tony had a chance to open his mouth, incredulity clear in every line of his vibrating body.

“Well I can’t just let it loose!”

Tony cut off the argument at the pass by asking matter-of-factly,

“Why not?”

“Well… Just look at it!”

Again, the preteen was reassuringly acting her age, eye-roll and huff making it clear that she thought Tony was an idiot for even contemplating, “It’s… It’s mal-mali-malickou-malev-evil.”

To be fair Tony knew exactly where she was coming from, the dark roiling red cloud was viciously battering against the somehow cleaner scarlet glow of Wanda’s power.

“It won’t just dissipate. I can’t destroy it.”

“Huh? Wh-”

“What do you think I’ve been doing all this time?” Another eye roll, and then in a muttered undertone, “When I could be eating my candyfloss…” before in a normal tone of voice, “I’ve been trying! But even with my probability hexes I can’t get the percentages down so that it doesn’t exist. Every time I think I’ve got it the stupid thing springs back again, and it’s getting stronger.”

The last, alarming fact was said as an afterthought. The typical teenaged sense of priority almost startling another laugh out of him. Instead Tony settled for,

“Oh.”

Tony didn’t know what to say to that rant.

“And if I let it go it’ll just go straight for someone else.” A pause, “Probably back to you actually.”

Alarmingly the scarlet glow faded slightly, and the dark red cloud of malevolence shot straight towards Tony, before slamming into the renewed barrier.

“See!”

“Wanda!”

Peter’s shocked voice reflected how Tony felt about the matter, though Tony suspected from the sensation of the blood rushing out of his face that his own face spoke for him.

“Sorry.”

To her credit Wanda genuinely looked contrite, the apology on her face more genuine than anything he’d seen from the Scarlet Witch back home.

“I know I’ll try and clean it and then give it back!”

“Wandy…”

“It’ll be easy!”

“Wanda…”

“Alright alright. It should be easy. I’ll just use my probability powers, you know Madam Harkness has been teaching me how Pietro.” 

“Tony?”

“Huh?”

Tony was still reeling at the very idea of Peter of all people being a semi-responsible big brother. Nothing about the cheeky teen had given him the impression that he could be serious, and then Tony’d sat there in the peanut gallery gawping as he watched it happen.

“Oh. Well it’s worth a shot, isn’t it? If you think you can do it Wanda? I mean it won’t be too much, will it?”

Wanda huffed at him,

“You sound just like Petey, of course it won’t!”

With that Wanda reached out a hand, the most Wanda-esque gesture he’d seen from the teen, making Tony instinctively take a step-back. However, even then Tony noticed that her movements were more confident, more controlled, assertive-even where Wanda’s had always been sinuous and covert with always a dash of being one step away from an explosion.

The clean red glow around the roiling blood red mist intensified for a moment, the sheer brightness making the colour look neon pink rather than red as the light slowly edged closer to white. Tony slitted his eyes against the harsh brightness, determined to watch this however it played out. Tony could feel Peter vibrating nervously beside him, the usually affable boy – young man, Tony couldn’t believe that the kid was nearly 20 – tense and stiff.

Beyond the writhing mass of conflicting power Wanda stood determinedly, her stance reminding Tony more of Gandalf, or Stephen than the assassiny Wanda of old. Sweat beaded on Wanda’s forehead, her huge reddish-brown hair beginning to poof out with the power she was emitting, the air going staticky and hot – a taste of tin strong in the haze.

Slowly, and with the blood red cloud roiling angrily against the now bright pink glow that surrounded it, the darkness began to leach out of the mass. The red faded like ink leaching from a badly dyed shirt, dark red fading to the bright scarlet of Wanda’s power, then fading again to a dusky pink that highlighted how very pure the colour of Wanda’s powers were, before finally shimmering into the familiar yellow glow of the mind stone. Above it the concentrated little cloud of nearly black malevolent red seemed to dissolve away, as if without the golden-yellow glow to sustain it, it couldn’t exist.

Huh.

It wasn’t the mind stone. The familiar golden gleam in the air not resolving into anything solid. But it was definitely the same pure golden colour that Vision had been able to summon up.

“Shall I give it back?”

Wanda’s voice was breathy. The glow wasn’t visibly struggling anymore, but now that Tony understood without any doubt just where the power had come from, Tony had to admit he was impressed. Infinity Stones were not objects to take lightly, even when it was only the merest fraction of their power, they were nigh-on uncontrollable.

“I mean I could let it go. But I still don’t know what’d happen if I did.”

The reassuringly unfamiliar glow of this Wanda’s power brightened again around the glowing golden ball of light,

“Oh right. Um…” Tony caught himself looking up at Peter for reassurance, but the kid looked just as lost as he did, “Okay?”

Tony’s voice rose unwillingly at the end of his response, the hated squeak making itself known again.

“Cool. Um. I mean go for it.”

Wanda was clearly exerting far less control now, her powers back to the muted pure scarlet glow. With an almost casual gesture Wanda pushed the yellow-white glow towards Tony, watching with almost proud accomplishment as the glow made its way back ‘home’. As soon as Wanda’s powers let the ball of light out of their tight grasp the glow turned, as if scenting the air, before rushing towards him.

Just as it looked like the energy was going to leap back into him it seemed to pause. Tony got the distinct impression that it was asking permission. Huh. He looked around, wondering what the other’s thought of all of this, and realised with a start that time had gone still and strange, the weird blue tinge in the air that spoke of time dilation twisting his surroundings. Damn.

Tony gulped and eyed the… hesitant looking ball of energy, the sense of questioning came again. Ben’s decree that Tony should never agree to anything even vaguely magical without understanding all of the angles rose out of his mind. The memory looming guiltily out of Tony’s subconscious like an iceberg. Damn damn damn. Tony glanced again toward the frozen Wanda and Wrong-Pietro, there was no help to be had from them. The traitors.

Gulping, Tony came to his decision. Under Wanda’s influence he’d been living with this thing for years, and it hadn’t been benign. Now – well, unless it was all a trick, and it could be, but Tony couldn’t feel any malice off the glowing ball of energy. If anything with the way it was bouncing around, it reminded Tony of an enthusiastic puppy. Hesitantly, and with a certain amount of screwing up his face in preparation of pain – Tony tried to convey that he accepted the thing. Disturbing as the notion was.

The light seemed to envelop Tony’s whole world for a long moment, a warm suffusion of energy, not unlike the long-missed glow of Extremis’ tempered power, filling Tony’s perception for a long wonderful eternity.

The blue leached out of the world, sound and colour returned.

Tony found it disturbing how he suddenly felt ‘normal’ again – the near constant roiling of his darker thoughts hadn’t returned, thank gods, but the near hysterical lightness was gone. The sense of weight settling comfortably before vanishing. For all that Tony couldn’t really say where that weight had gone, since it wasn’t a physical sensation.

“Hah! I saw that!”

“Whu-?”

Tony turned to Peter in stunned questioning, still a little out of it.

“You glowed for a moment there Tones. All rainbows like the Aurora, just like Wanda said.”

“Oh.”

~~~~~~~~

After the incident in the living room the trio settled in for the night – Wanda huffing that Peter had only gotten her cotton candy, and no dinner. Wanda ended up cooking up a batch of box-made mac and cheese, sharing it around when, unexpectedly in Tony’s case, both boys discovered that they too were hungry.

Tony was surprised when Peter flicked on the news on the boxy TV, and it revealed that the house was in St Louis. Tony couldn’t quite believe that they’d travelled that far that quickly. Despite having experienced the extended period of high-g for himself. The lights were finally back on in New York, but after the evening’s shenanigans they were all too tired to contemplate doing anything about getting back there.

With the ice so thoroughly shattered Tony managed to bring up the question of just where their powers had come from, the response hadn’t been expected, but it probably should have been in light of the information about the Stadium on the White House and the ‘mutant problem’ that he’d found in those textbooks all those months ago.

As far as the siblings were aware they’d both been born that way. They were mutants. As far as they knew they’d always been like this, just as Tony had always been a genius. Huh. And just like Tony they’d spent much of their childhood awkwardly learning how not to make their differences obvious.

Wanda tiredly wished Tony and Peter a “goodnight” before vanishing up into her room.

“Soo… Tony. Mind telling me what you’re on?”

“Huh?”

Tony was puzzled for a long moment before realisation struck,

“I dunno what the hell they gave me.” There was a pause as Tony dredged the unfamiliar word out of the chaotic memory, “They called them Ludes?”

Tony hated how his voice went high(er) and squeaky(ier) as the sentence unintentionally became a question.

To Tony’s surprise Peter’s face lit up in pleased recognition,

“Oh! Disco Biscuits! Sure! My Mom’s got a whole bottle full in the medicine cabinet.”

Looking around as if to make sure Wanda wasn’t there to overhear, Peter leant down and stage whispered dramatically,

“I like smoking them.”

Peter strolled into the bathroom and started rummaging around in the mirrored cupboard above the sink. Grabbing an absolutely huge prescription bottle and opening it, Peter poured what looked like half the bottle out into his palm and shoved it under Tony’s nose. Tony was simultaneously disturbed by and grateful for the show of unreserved trust that Peter was showing him. The fact that the trust was centred around illicit narcotics, and Peter’s assumption that Tony had willingly taken them was another matter. Tony let his mood show in his voice,

“Are you sure about this?”

“Sure they’re harmless, I take them all the time. They’re only sleeping pills. And ‘sides the docs around here give them out like candy, Mom won’t miss them if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Tony carefully pocketed the pills stamped Rorer 714 and grinned nervously up at Peter, he could still feel the drugs coursing around his system, the buzz and laidback lethargy a pleasant break from the usual spin of his thoughts now that Tony had the time to actually pay attention to the unfamiliar relaxed feeling.

~~~~~~~

The next morning Tony re-donned the hated purple goggles, after a shared breakfast of toast and butter – the trio of children all too tired after their late evening to bother attempting anything more difficult. (And even then – there was a distinct waft of charcoal in the air.)

Preparing himself again for the high stress of prolonged high-g manoeuvres, Tony accepted Peter’s offered piggy-back with amused grace - Wanda didn’t bother to hide her amusement, snorting loudly at the image the pair made.

“If only I had one of those new Arc Film cameras…”

She’d sighed wistfully, as Peter suddenly vanished. 

With a gush of displaced air Peter deposited Tony just out of sight of the doorman to the tower. With the newfound knowledge that Tony was Tony Stark – heir apparent of Stark industries, and as the news had oh-so-helpfully informed them all that morning, missing kidnapped son of Howard, they’d had a slight change of plans. They’d already checked at the Westchester mansion; the place had been eerily deserted. That had left the New York Penthouse – the high-rise itself soon to become Stark Mansion a pompous monstrosity that would be acquired in the 80s when SI business had suddenly boomed. Tony had pretty much abandoned that place in his haste to flee New York in the aftermath of the murde- car – Winte- crash. Though he’d still owned the deeds, even when the time came to acquire more modern office space in New York, Tony hadn’t had the heart to do anything to it.

Stark Tower, later Avenger’s Tower had been built on an old bit of SI office-space on what used to be- or rather still was the site of the MetLife Building (currently the Pan Am building), just south of Central Park opposite of Grand Central Station. Tony wearily found himself missing those days, dark as they had been with the Avengers as apparently unhappy roommates – if only for the fact that his current journey would already be over. Tony still wasn’t entirely convinced that he hadn’t made a mistake when he’d sold the high-rise but the place had had far too many bad memories tied to it, and like Tony, Pepper had never been the sentimental type. She’d actively encouraged him to get rid of the place and recoup his losses – especially given that SI’s NY headquarters had expanded to both upstate Rochester, and the acquisition of a new ‘floating’ block on Hudson Yards, West Side. New York hadn’t lasted long enough to see that ambitious engineering marvel through to its completion.

Tony caught his breath, the repeated high-g exposure in a body that was not yet used to such abuse dizzying, and knowing that Peter was watching him from the feeling of eyes on his back marched up to the doorman.

Thankfully a familiar face was there to greet him.

Maria rushed out of the building and wrapped Tony in a rib-squeezing hug.

“My bambino!”

“Hey Mom.”

“Don’t hey Mom me young man!”

The rest of the day passed in a blur of questions and evasive answers as Tony struggled to remember that it was easier to obfuscate without being an overt dick about it. Tony was too used to Fury’s, or rather, SHIELDRA’s, Ross’s, and The World Security Council’s power struggles when it came to these things, so it was difficult to fall back on charm and disarm when he’d gotten so damned used to offense being the best defence.  

~~~~~~~

At the first opportunity Tony delved into his own Mother’s medicine cabinet, and rifled around through the numerous large bottles of pills that were stored away inside. Sure enough, there was a huge jar marked ‘Methaqualone’, in fact there were several tubs worth of the drug.

Rapidly looking for the bottle with the longest expiration date Tony pinched one of the prescription bottles, topping it up with the handful Peter had given to him, and squirreling the whole thing away amongst the electronics ephemera in his already hidden ‘workshop’ in the old disused squash court.

For the next few days the Stark household slipped into an uneasy facsimile of the atmosphere that had prevailed before the kidnapping. Tony could tell that it wouldn’t last, the adults were planning something, their schemes made all the more obvious by the sudden lack of face time.

~~~~~~

Maria slipped into Italian, partially in a bid to infuriate Howard, whilst Howard himself was from an immigrant family, Italian was not a part of the man’s repertoire. A fact that Maria took great pleasure in not so subtly rubbing into his face given that both his brother and cousin had been fluent. Maria directly addressed Tony, her Sicilian accent as strong as it had ever been,

“First opportunity I’m teaching you Spanish.”

“Wha-? Why?”

“I want you to meet the family.”

“I thought they were in Italy?”

“All of the family. You’ve met my mother’s side, but not my father’s. Surely, you must know that Carbonell is Hispanic in origin?”

Tony bit back the automatic, ‘Don’t call me Shirley’ response, knowing that the joke wasn’t yet famous and that his mother wouldn’t appreciate the humour.

Honestly, he hadn’t really thought about it.

“Huh.”

“We’ll be visiting your Grandmama in Sicily, and your Uncle in Venice before we move on to the family residence in Catalonia.”

Under the watchful eye of both the Jarvises and Peggy all Howard could do was fume in the background as his wife and son made plans that he couldn’t understand.

~~~~~~~

Maria found the SHIELD agents’ attempts to learn precisely what had happened during the 25 Hour Blackout (the city-wide event had already earnt the capitals in the press) amusing. Or rather, she would if she didn’t find their profound incompetence so disturbing. They were supposed to be an international intelligence agency for god’s sake!

From the discussions, that Margaret and Ana had at least had the grace to try and carry out discreetly – though Howard had rather bulldozed their attempts – SHIELD wasn’t at all sure whether the DUMBO scene was actually related to what had happened to her darling bambino. Oh the fools in Howard’s little group suspected, the remains of a bloody crime scene popping up on the same evening as the kidnapping, and the Blackout, was far too much of a coincidence even for even these idiota. Thankfully, the lone (known) murder of the evening had taken place in a Little Italy that bordered the industrial neighbourhood the foolish kidnappers had sought their refuge in - Maria accepted the darkness of her thoughts as purely her own.

Maria would have snorted her scathing opinion on the situation (she’d come across Ana and the presumptuous Margaret discussing it in the kitchen once too often), if such behaviour wouldn’t have rendered her carefully built façade of blindness moot. Only Ana suspected, or if Maria were being honest, knew, that Maria was more than the face that she presented in the Land of the Free. 

Despite the debate still raging over whether or not the Dumbo scene was in any way related to Tony, Maria knew that Ana and Margaret both suspected a darker resolution to the commonly held scenario that the rest of the SHIELD fools, and by extension, Howard seemed to believe. Maria could tell that the pair suspected Tony’s hands-on involvement. With her eyes newly opened Maria could see why. Her darling bambino was a changed boy, however the change predated the kidnapping, rather than followed it. In hindsight Maria should have realised that her own darkness would be passed onto her son. 

Maria could only hope that whatever her bambino had gone through wouldn’t taint him permanently, oh she’d gently ease him into the fold if need be, but she’d much rather he remain the beaming innocent who focussed all of his time on pleasing his father than be dragged into her world.

~~~~~~~~

Tony still couldn’t quite believe that he’d managed to get back to the penthouse quite as quickly as he had, without anything more permanent than the unexpected present Wanda of all people had gifted him with. But he supposed that was Quicksilver’s ability for you, the boy was literally superhuman.

The weekend following Tony’s ‘miraculous’ return to the penthouse and Maria’s unexpected pronouncement, was spent in a veritable whirlwind of activity. Whilst Tony mourned the missed opportunity to spend time with the Jarvises, he had to concede to himself that perhaps it was for the best. Now with the distance of 12 months behind him, Tony found himself wondering just why they hadn’t broached the subject of his behaviour. Tony was painfully aware that there was no way in hell that he’d been acting like his child-self, not a snowflake’s chance, if the sarcasm Ben often deployed with biting accuracy was anything to go by. It was only an unexpected bout of good luck, and perhaps Jarvis’s British reticence that had stopped him from being sent straight to a child psychologist and labelled as crazy for the rest of his days.

Tony had fallen to the temptation a grand total of five days and twelve hours after the kidnapping. Just after Maria had announced her intention to drag Tony to Italy – with both Peggy’s and the Jarvises’ approval if the smug looks on their faces had been anything to go by. The decision on his mother’s part had reawakened the all too familiar jittery overclocking of Tony’s thoughts, that Tony had just about convinced himself was only a side effect of the Witch’s meddling, despite knowing deep down that he’d always been wired towards neurosis and anxiety. The Quaaludes were a glorious source of forced relaxation, allowing Tony to recapture that impression of innocent carefree lackadaisical childishness that he’d lost decades hence. Tony knew that he wouldn’t have been able to keep up the charade for very long, and if the hesitant looks both Jarvis, and considering how infrequently she was around, Ana – with surprising frequency, were shooting him Tony knew that the gig was nearly up.

Fortunately, Maria’s newfound motherly tenderness kept his interactions with the couple down to a minimum, the aftermath of the very successful kidnapping attempt kept Aunty Peggy busy in the city most days, and Maria had already missed enough of his childhood that she really didn’t have a framework for comparison.

Despite the adult’s doting – and frustrating as it was, even Tony had to admit the coddling was preferable to Howard’s harsh rulings -  Tony spent quite a lot of the week before he was due to leave for Europe huddled up in the makeshift workshop. Tony found himself spending a lot of time listening to the slightly strange album that Peter had all but shoved into his hands, the proto-Walkman the only source of music available in the jury-rigged space, despite the stack of nearly-new LPs all but calling his name from his trunk.

The dark, vaguely Orwellian, Pink Floyd album somehow put Tony in mind of many of the worst traits of SHIELDRA, and trying and failing to work alongside the chemical mixture that was the Avengers. The grim soundscapes were reminiscent of disturbing walls of sound that Bowie often used so effectively, however the band’s work, dark as it was, was shot through with a palpable vein of cynical hopefulness. Paradoxical as it was, Tony found himself appreciating the cold bubbling anger, so far removed from Bowie’s often utterly detached approach. Listening to the rage fuelled prog-rock, a genre Tony would forever deny he was developing a taste for, was somehow cathartic. Tony could almost feel the poison from the festering wound that was The Avengers draining away with each successive replay of the tape. Tony felt a justified anger as he realised that the rot was finally receding, now that that damnable red mist was no longer fuelling it every time his thoughts strayed into darker territory. Tony hadn’t realised how artificial and unhealthy the miasma of his mind was, until it had a chance to recover. The PTSD he’d been struggling with for years, which pre-dated Afghanistan if Tony was being brutally honest, still threatened his composure far more often than he’d like. However, at least now, it was wholly his own. Not some artificial sense of dread obscuring the very real doomsday scenario that had been looming over all of their heads. Though Tony doubted the ability to more coherently argue his point would have made much difference to Rogers’ head in the sand approach to anything Tony tried to bring to his attention.

Tony found it frustrating that he was still no closer to recreating the repulsor tech that had become his trademark, the degree of electronics miniaturisation required for some of the simpler components still nowhere near being a twinkle in their inventor’s eyes. The situation was stymying – the repulsor tech being deceptively simple, merely an infinitely higher-output form of an EL-panel, veritable child’s-play to someone with Tony’s knowledge even in this era. To make matters worse Tony had proved to himself that the tech was more than possible in this backwards year, after all Tony had managed to manufacture the panels required to produce the repulsors before the blackout. However, he was still no closer to being able to connect them to either a power source or the regulator required to modulate the output to anything less than violently explosive. At best the repulsors could be either on or off at the moment.

Despite this issue Tony managed to reproduce both the Widow’s Sting based watch and a bulky, but discrete version of the repulsor gauntlet that he’d wielded in the future. Whilst Tony didn’t dare attempt to up the power output to anything resembling the maximum that the original watch had been capable of producing, not least because Tony wasn’t convinced that the slightly subpar quality repulsor panel was actually capable of handling the power, let alone the fact that the blasts would automatically be fatal to anyone he used it against at the power level he was used to.

It was with no little hesitation that Tony packed up all of his belongings for the long trip to Europe. For all that Tony would have to live with the regret of missing out on spending a whole summer with the Jarvises and Peggy, it was a relief to be away from their too perceptive stares, knowing looks, and the shared glances between them that they clearly thought he was oblivious to.  

~~~~~~~

In all of the chaos of Maria’s last-minute preparations to temporarily abscond to Europe, somehow the small fleet of cars at Howard’s disposal became temporarily unavailable to Edwin. With the switch back to the skeleton crew that was signalled by both Howard’s late, and Maria’s unexpectedly early departure, the house shut down for the summer months. Edwin had decided that he needed to do a last-minute shopping run with Ana and Tony, given his persona non-grata status in his home country, and the numerous extradition treaties the Allied European nations had agreed to, well, Edwin couldn’t exactly leave the USA unless he was directly under Howard’s protection.

The trio made their way into New York proper via a yellow cab, Edwin privately thought that they weren’t a patch on the London Black Cabs – but he was aware that as a homesick Englishman he was more than a little biased. Edwin was self-aware enough to acknowledge that the wave of sudden nationalistic pride had everything to do with the fact that very soon his young charge would be fending for himself all alone in his mother country. Well, Ben would be there. And the university had made it very clear in their communications that all sorts of careful arrangements were being made in anticipation of Tony’s arrival. Since technically somehow under UK-law, children under 16 weren’t accounted for in St. Cedd’s college’s residential license – a fact that was being rapidly rectified that summer.

The college had made it very clear that they were doing everything they could to provide Tony with an experience as close to that of the other students as possible – bending over backwards to allow the boy to feel ‘normal’ amongst his peers. Ben would have a room just down the corridor from Tony, a necessary move to meet the guardianship requirements to allow the boy to stay in college, but otherwise the dear child would be treated as if he were any other student. Edwin approved, especially when, as he’d read the correspondence aloud to Ana – he’d noticed his darling wife’s face ease from the frown that Edwin hadn’t realised he’d gotten accustomed to.

In any case – Edwin, and Ana, if the face she’d pulled when she’d first seen the boy had been any indication, felt that Tony needed more variety in his wardrobe. The haphazard collection of tailored suits, and jeans & t-shirts the dear boy had bought for himself during the school year, when Edwin had been so very caught up in Ana’s plight just wouldn’t do now that Tony was moving into the world of universities and academia.

The trio spent a fun, if exhausting day making their way through all of the best department stores that New York had to offer; Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Barney’s to name but a few. Edwin covertly bought his darling a selection of silk scarves when Ana slipped to the washroom. Tony noticed the move, and likely understood Edwin’s motive if the look of pained understanding on his too-young face was anything to go by.

Towards the afternoon Ana was flagging – her obvious enthusiasm at being able to spoil her charge notwithstanding she was clearly in no condition to be running around Manhattan all day. They stopped for lunch at the Budapest Café – Ana choosing the Korozott, Tony enthusiastically tucking into Hortobagyi whilst Edwin chose the Chef’s Special. Ana’s energy levels had recovered once they’d shared their repaste, but Edwin could tell that Tony himself was less than enthusiastic about their assigned task for the day – if the longing glances towards the numerous bookshops they’d passed was anything to go by.

After making sure that Tony had enough sets of clothes that would do for formal occasions, the lectures and the ‘supervisions’ as the letters the college had sent had described the teaching time, Edwin relaxed his grip on their small group – finally revealing the surprise motive for bringing them to Manhattan. They were going to see The Importance of Being Earnest on Broadway, Jarvis had bemoaned that if only Tony was leaving on schedule in late October, rather than for this hasty trip to Europe than they’d have been able to catch the revival of Jesus Christ Superstar.

~~~~~~~

Tony had no desire to see any musical that Jarvis thought was appropriate for his age-range and was thanking his lucky stars that the timings for Cambridge were awkward. Tony had been quietly relieved by that little fact, he’d never been able to stand Andrew Lloyd Weber’s particular brand of …pop. And somehow Tony just knew that if he expressed a preference to go and see Hair instead that he’d be treated to more than Ben’s amused raised eyebrow in response. Urgh - If the quiet mutterings Tony had overheard between Ana and Jarvis held true, Tony was already dreading the spring-break in March – they were making plans to see the Hello,Dolly! run that was apparently due in 1978…

They continued down the street and abruptly the evidence of the blackout was there for all to see. Tony figured that the looting, caused by the sheer depth of inequality that had built up in the city in this strange dark decade hadn’t reached this part of Manhattan. However, they’d turned a corner and there it was – a burnt out shell of a mom & pop shop in the centre of a neighbourhood that, now that Tony was paying attention, was a far cry from the wealth sat on proud display literally around the corner. To add insult to injury, the blackened shell of a site was emblazoned with a scrawled gang tag, the grammatically incorrect, “Morlocks Turf” declared that the shop belonged to whoever they were.

Christ – Tony had thought he’d seen the contrast clear as anything when he’d realised that Dumbo, the entirety of Dumbo, was an abandoned wasteland of old warehouses and factories rather than the trendy café centre that he was so familiar with in his era. But in the warm summer light, the deprivation and destruction in clear view made a stark contrast to the wealth that Tony knew flooded Manhattan even now, in the slow lingering depression of the 70s.

Despite his misgivings the play turned out to be an enjoyable experience, Tony watched the whole comedy of errors through jaundiced eyes. However seeing Ana’s and Jarvis’s joy at being able to sit and watch the genteel tale of privilege and wealth together, with him, well it made Tony’s chest hum with a warmth that he’d have attributed to the arc reactor if it was still there. 

The return trip on the subway home was eventful for all of the wrong reasons. It was a late night – and the graffitied and vandalised subway cars looked eerie in the flickering fluorescents. They’d had to get a subway car going north – this one was headed to Washington Heights. Tony would have preferred to spend the night in his own bed, but he wasn’t blind, Ana had gotten tired hours ago, and was gamely trying to put a brave face on it for his sake. Whilst she wasn’t yet wearing those scarfs Jarvis had bought, well, Tony could see the effects of the chemo already. The sooner they got back to Howard’s penthouse the better. They’d make the rest of the journey back up to Westchester via Grand Central Station in the morning.

The subway car was empty, their tired trio the only people in the carriage. There had been other people on the platform but it was late – and as Tony was now painfully aware, rich people tended to avoid New York at night in this decade.

Fortunately, apart from Tony himself, Jarvis and Ana looked like any other middle class American couple in New York. Jarvis’s suit, whilst obviously well cared for, was clearly old and wearing thin at the seams, unlike the penguin suit the man usually wore when he was on duty. Similarly, Ana’s floral dress was old-fashioned enough that she’d obviously owned it for years, perhaps she’d even had the thing since she’d lived in Budapest.

Despite Tony’s nerves, the few other passengers paid them no heed, and Tony found himself settling down. Just as Tony had begun to relax his guard and doze off, a commotion in the car next to theirs had him jerking awake again.

There were two people fighting.

From the looks of it they’d run down the length of the train.

Through the grimy windows, and the death threatening gap between the cars, Tony could just about make-out what was going on. Jarvis’s punishingly tight grip on Tony’s upper arm made it clear that the older man had spotted it too. A petite black woman with a discotastic Afro and a fabulous leather duster was going toe to toe with a Billy Idol-alike punk covered in ripped clothing and safety pins. The two were really reaming into each other.

The woman somehow had the strength to smash the bleach-blonde’s head through the reinforced glass of the train car. Christ. The casual display of superhuman strength was painfully familiar. From repeated experience with enhanced individuals, Tony knew he would be so much red smear if he managed to get between the pair. So much Tony pâté.

Tony watched wide-eyed as the fight ended.

One moment the woman had been winning, the next, in a flash of darkness as the train momentarily lost electrical contact with the tracks, the punk was on top and with an all too familiar movement, and a far too familiar ease (the human neck was a surprisingly tough thing) he casually snapped her neck, stole her coat, pulled the emergency stop cord and leapt out of the train onto the tracks.

After giving their statements to the police Ana and Jarvis looked even more bone-tired than they had already. Thankfully they hadn’t bothered interrogating Tony, just rather patronisingly left him sitting in the corridor with a notepad and a carton of orange juice whilst the adults talked.

Tony had asked the officer who’d clearly been drawn the short straw, and been given babysitting duty for a diet coke – however the puzzled judgemental look on the guy’s face had told him everything he needed to know. Tony’d inadvertently dropped yet another anachronistic reference. It was a damned good thing that Ben wasn’t around to give him a superior look, and add it to his mental tally of ‘reasons why today’s training session needs to be nastily exhausting’ list.

In all the session with the cops lasted all of half an hour, but after their long day the time felt ten times as long. The rather dour end to their day was made worse by the fact that Tony, Iron Man, Avenger, capable hand to hand fighter and all around unkillable arsehole, hadn’t even thought to get off his ass and save her. Tony had never felt the weight of his ‘not a hero’ label more keenly than in the moment he registered that fact.

~~~~~~~

The next morning saw Tony bidding a tearful farewell to his small family unit, their spoilt daytrip, and the fact that Peggy was still dealing with the aftermath of the blackout doing nothing to dampen their tearful, yet joyful goodbyes. The situation couldn’t be more different to the gloomy farewells of the previous year, Tony was as close to free from Howard as he’d get until he hit 18. From the nervous, yet hopeful looks on his small family’s faces they were just as aware of that fact as he was.

Tony hugged Ana and Jarvis tightly, his large trunk already packed and loaded into the trunk of the car. Tony desperately wanted to spend more time with the couple, now that it was highly likely that he wouldn’t be spending more time with them- and of course the malicious thought that refused not to be thought of, whether Ana would still be there when he got back.

Ana had given in to the inevitable, she sported a rather fetching silk scarf, tied artfully around her head. Tony thought it made her look like a glamourous starlet, and told her so, she’d only given him a sad smile in return. Tony hugged her again, something in Ana’s expression firmed into a fierce gladness.

If anything, Jarvis was the most forlorn of the three of them, Tony peered up at the man trying to convey the wealth of emotion that he’d never be able to verbalise with his eyes alone – Tony wasn’t convinced that he managed it.

Just as Tony was about to fondly peel himself away from the heartfelt hugging – all of those emotions were giving him hives, Peggy showed up. Looking glamorous as ever, if a little flustered.

“Tony! I’m so glad I didn’t miss you.”

Aunty Peggy reached out for a hug that Tony was only too happy to return, he still hadn’t managed to get over the fact that she was here – solid and whole in a way that, from Tony’s point of view at least, she hadn’t been for decades.

“Here.”

In a moment of cognitive dissonance Tony peered up at Aunty Peggy blankly – completely unable to comprehend why she was shoving a long thin box in his direction.

“Well, take it.”

“Oh! Uh- thanks Aunt-“

“None of that now, I’m only returning the item you lost on the thirteenth.”

Peggy’s reply was a faux-haughty sniff. Tony, now even more puzzled, slowly pried the lid off the small case. Nestled inside the rather posh velvet lining was Tony’s adamantium stiletto – complete with a brand-new handle that likely meant it wouldn’t fit in the sole of his shoes anymore.

Tony peered up at Aunty Peggy stunned,

“You didn’t think I’d let you wander around Europe completely defanged now, did you?” Peggy’s tone turned approving, “I saw what you did to those thugs at the flat.”

Jarvis started to weakly protest,

“I-I say this is-“

“Oh hush Edwin, whilst I can’t say I approve of our boy here being exposed to such things so early. We can all see that it’s a fact of his life now. If young Tony hadn’t had-”at this Peggy ruffled Tony’s hair, “his little blade I dread to think what would have happened.”

Tony stared stunned, glancing between the three adult faces before him, Jarvis looked worried, skin around his eyes tight with whatever emotion the older man was trying to suppress, but both Ana and Peggy’s eyes shone with fierce approval, protectiveness and pride warring for dominance in their expressions.

“Oh, come here young Tony – I’m not going to let you vanish for a year without at least saying goodbye first.”

At that slightly terse statement, Jarvis squatted down to Tony’s level and extended his arms. Without hesitation Tony ran into the obvious invitation, hugging tightly for all he was worth. The sudden warmth at his back had Tony reflexively reaching for a dagger, until he realised that both Ana and Aunty Peggy had joined in – making the hug a four-way affair. The little family unit stayed like that for a long moment, until the box still nestled in Tony’s grasp started poking uncomfortably and they were forced to separate.

Giving Aunty Peggy a quick kiss and a grateful look Tony quickly muttered a “Thank you!” before he hugged all three members of his chosen family unit once again, and hurriedly strapped himself into the large estate car before they could see the tears that he refused to let fall.

~~~~~~~

The remainder of the summer was spent in a whirl of travel. At Maria’s insistence, barely a week after the power came back, on she’d whisked Tony away to Europe. First to Italy, then, to Tony’s surprise and consternation to the still-recovering-from-it’s-fascist-government Spain, given that Franco’s party had only really ceded power two years ago.

It was a whirlwind tour of the numerous branches of the Carbonell and Martinelli families, and an eye-opening glimpse of the less than legal activities they were engaged in. For all that Maria, and to their credit, the rest of the extended Martinelli family did their best to shield Tony from the worst of it Tony was sure that the Italian half of the clan had ties to the Mafia. Not that the aristocratic Carbonells were any better, whilst everything they indulged in was perfectly legal – it was legal under the Franco Government.

Tony enjoyed the fast-paced weeklong visit to the Venetian branch of the family, and the opportunity to try genuine Venetian cicchetti. The literally palatial Palazzo building the Venetian family was living in surprised Tony, until he realised that the medieval name literally carved into the stonework of the building did not match the family surname. Tony wondered where they’d gotten the money from. However, dubious monetary source aside, Tony could understand the family’s obvious pride in living in the heart of such a city. He had to admit that Venice, even with its perpetual smell and maze-like canals was a charming place, although anyone who wasn’t a local would be lost. Not unlike certain areas of New York.

Maria had made a point of taking Tony to visit the Schola Grande Tedesca, a tiny hidden synagogue at the heart of what used to be Venice’s Jewish ghetto. Tony hadn’t been sure why she’d done so, but he’d appreciated spending the day with her, when his time in Venice had otherwise been taken up with meeting a different member of the extended Martinelli clan each day.  

Outside of the quiet of their visit to the holy space, Tony saw a new side to his mother on that trip, one he’d only just started catching glimpses of in his teens. Maria was sharp, and kind, and pointedly gregarious in the exact same way that Tony himself was. Tony had always thought that that cutting side of himself had been inherited from his father. He’d always overcompensated for it when it inevitably got out, babbling to fill the awkward spaces he’d created. Perhaps Tony had taken the wrong tack, here in Italy, Maria seemed to flower. Tony finally able to reconcile the woman who poured her life, and money, into foundations to help the poor, house the homeless, research cancer and a multitude of other worthy causes that Tony had been pleased to continue to build upon.

On one of their trips out into the confusing maze of a city, Maria, upon catching a would-be pickpocketer, let the waif-like child both keep the money that he’d had his hands on, and taken the boy aside. Speaking in rushed Italian that only Tony could hear, Maria pointed out that she both ran a charity and had space to help a boy get out of or further into a life of crime should he so wish it. Maria made it clear that she’d prefer he’d get out of the business before it was too late to turn back, but also made it obvious that if he felt he had no other choice then the protection of the Martinellis was also on the table.

Tony wondered which way the boy would go.   

Tony’s suspicions were amply reconfirmed when after a brief stopover in Naples. They took the opportunity to again indulge in genuine Naples pizza magherita under the shadow of Vesuvius, Tony finally met the main Sicilian branch of the family.

Just as the Jarvises did their best to misguidedly keep Ana’s cancer diagnosis from him, the adults in Sicily liked to talk business in euphemisms that they mistakenly believed sailed right over Tony’s head. It was true that he wasn’t a local, didn’t understand all of the references, but Tony picked things up very quickly. 

During the three weeks in Sicily Maria fully showed the kindness and respect for humanity that Tony had always known was there, but never known was there. His mother didn’t even realise that she was putting on a demonstration that evening, mistakenly under the belief that Tony was asleep in his room when the incident occurred.

Maria caught a would-be thief rifling through her jewellery box. Apparently, the young man had climbed across from the neighbouring ‘house’ and jimmied the sturdy sunlight-protecting shutters open from the fourth floor. Tony had blanched at the casual disregard for his own safety the young idiot had. Again, instead of having the fool arrested, or worse siccing the family on him, Maria more or less adopted the boy.

Maria also began to introduce Tony to the languages Spanish (language of Madrid and the fascists – ptoui!), and Catalan. Tony could tell which side of the family debate Maria was on from her near violent distaste whenever the Civil War was jokingly brought up by the Italian side of the family. However, Tony eventually got the impression that Maria had been proud of her father for choosing exile over siding with his fellow aristocrats.

Again, Tony indulged in the opportunity to eat genuine Sicilian pasta in Sicily, instead of the make-do versions they’d been cobbling together in their New York kitchen. Even with the money that came from being a Stark, there was just no getting some ingredients on the other side of the Atlantic. Tony gorged himself on Pasta alla Norma, Manicotti and usually turned secondi into thirdsies and fourthsies. Tony even found that the sweets were to his taste, a rare occasion, enjoying the subtlety of granita siciliana far more than the more famous gelato.

Much to Maria’s glee Tony already had a taste for the street food on offer, pani ca meusa and arancini both favoured treats that Tony came back to whenever he was feeling particularly miserable about the fact that the Jarvises were both stuck back in New York, when he just knew that they’d love this. Love the sun, and the food, and most of all the relatively easy company that the Martinelli branch of Maria’s family were providing so readily.

~~~~~

It was late August when the long-awaited letter finally arrived, the innocuous looking envelope containing news of Tony’s future for the next several years one way or the other. Maria and Tony were enjoying their final week in Sicily, eating a relaxed breakfast with the matriarch of the family and cheerfully bickering about whether or not Calabrian cuisine, with its careful use of sparse ingredients, or the Venetian cicchetti were superior. Tony could tell that Maria was enjoying playing devil’s advocate in this heated but playful debate – he knew his mother secretly preferred Catalan cuisine, though she’d never admit to it amongst her family. As Tony joined the pair Maria wordlessly passed the bulky white item of post over, puzzling Tony at first as he struggled to work out why on earth he would be receiving post – before the penny dropped.

With shaking fingers, Tony ripped open the envelope, surprised with himself by how nervous the results were making him.

The first sheet congratulated him on graduating from the school as Valedictorian of the graduating class, and informing him that the high school graduation ceremony was to be held at the school in September. Tony had the highest Grade Point Average. Huh. He shouldn’t have been surprised, it had happened last time after all, but somehow Tony was shocked. The dreamy haze with which he’d confronted the academia this past year, treating everything as if it were some complex puzzle rather than his life, Tony gulped. It didn’t seem fair, he didn’t deserve this.

Tony robotically passed the top sheet over to his mother before reading onwards, Tony had achieved A+ grades in all of the STEM subjects, physics, chemistry, mathematics – even biology, which surprised Tony. Tony had even managed to get A+ in most of the artistic subjects, even the English Lit paper with the mini panic he’d had in the middle of the exam hitting the top grade. The only paper that hadn’t earnt him an A+ was History – which perhaps shouldn’t have surprised him given Tony’s 21^st Century perspective on events, still an A- was a decent grade. The numerous language examinations Tony had sat through had all earnt him A+ grades as well, with a little annotation scribbled in the side about how surprised the school had been when he’d chosen to sit the exams. Tony supposed they had a point, given that he’d hadn’t actually attended a single language class in his year at the school. Fortunately, since the school was in the State of New York the Regents Exams themselves were considered enough, and Tony wasn’t required to actually attend the graduation ceremony that was due to take place in a month’s time, in another country.

Tony hurriedly flicked to the next sheet passing the previous one over for Maria to coo over, it held the table of CSE results – perhaps as expected Tony got straight 1 grades (roughly equivalent to the wide range of A to C grades in O-levels) across the board. Tony nervously flicked to the O-levels, straight As (As being the highest grade available in the scoring system used by the British examination boards), though his History paper score had been dangerously close to a B-grade. As his heartrate slowed, Tony realised that he’d probably done it, the A-level sheet slowly revealed itself as Tony nervously turned the page – revealing five A grades (A again being the highest available score) in the five STEM subjects. Tony let out a long breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. Tony had met the requirements to go to Cambridge.

Tony found he was much less worried about the International Baccalaureate results, the run of straight A’s almost an afterthought in the face of the relief, the draining of tense emotion that Tony hadn’t even realised he’d been carrying.

There was a loud whoop from next to him, Tony turned just in time to get a face-full of his mother’s bosom as she pulled him into an enthusiastic and warm hug.

“Congratulations my bambino!”

Tony’s mother lapsed into Sicilian, explaining to… Tony blinked, his great… Aunt? Precisely what the letter meant.

From the huge toothless grin and slobbery kiss, Tony supposed that she was pleased with the news. In a surprisingly strong voice the wrinkly old lady hollered the news around the house in a tone that conveyed a huge amount despite the language barrier. Tony resolved to make more of an effort to learn Sicilian no matter how useless it seemed.

The rest of the day was spent in a whirl of Italian and laughter, as numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, and more distant members of the Martinelli clan gathered in the ancient stone villa to celebrate the news. Men Tony had pegged in the privacy of his own head as street-smart toughs with decades of hardened criminality between them revealed a soft side, as the Martinelli clan threw a party loud enough to wake the dead.

~~~~~~~

In the first week of September the acceptance letter from St. Cedd’s college showed up. Tony had no idea how the ancient college knew that he was in Barcelona, since he’d been barely aware that he was going to be himself – but Tony decided to run with it.

Despite being printed on thick paper stock with the college’s crest both printed on the letterhead and embossed into the paper, the letter itself was fairly matter-of-fact about everything. After the socially expected congratulatory paragraph, the letter merely told Tony that he was expected to report to the Porter’s Lodge at the college between October the 14^th and 15^th. He was to collect his keys, and the itinerary, given out to all new students, so that they could go about collecting their timetables from the relevant university departments before term proper got started. On another sheet, the recommended reading list was included, Tony eyed the books with a jaundiced eye, noting that he’d read most of them years ago, and that they were all woefully out of date by his standards. The name Mike Ashby on the author-list did light up a small frisson of fanboy glee however. Tony was reminded that, in all likelihood the giant in his field was actually working on some of his famous research at the university he was due to attend in that moment.

The missive rather snootily informed Tony that cooking utensils were not amongst the list of common-sense necessities that the college recommended all students bring. Since the college facilities were built quite literally in the medieval era, when, if one had to cook for oneself, one could not afford to go to university. Apparently the familiar ‘gyp’ rooms were available on each corridor, so perhaps Tony would like to bring a saucepan/plates if he simply had to forego the convenience of the facilities provided in hall. However, the aforementioned rooms did not contain ovens, only small hobs, so Tony shouldn’t expect to be able to or have to cook substantial meals. The letter also informed him that St. Cedd’s was one of the colleges at the university that still employed bedders, and seemed to be proud of that fact that Tony wouldn’t have to tidy his own room. 

The other papers in the official looking packet were surprising, two handwritten notes fell out – both from current students at the college. Crap, Tony had managed to completely forego this slightly strange aspect of Cambridge University Undergraduate life the first time, by dint of only attending the place as a Postgraduate. Tony had College Parents. Two of them, a College Mum and a College Dad. Both letters were charming and enthusiastic full of oh-so-jolly trivia about the names of the numerous buildings that St. Cedd’s was comprised of, when the best times to go to Hall for meals was, and compelled him to come to them should he need any help whatsoever with anything, be it academic or more personal. Tony groaned. Maria was going to see this, and insist, he just knew it.

Still between Maria dragging him off to Europe, and the kidnapping Tony had earnt tacit permission from Howard to actually go to the university of his choice – and he’d see Ben again. It wasn’t all bad.

Tony matter-of-factly passed his mother the letter in front of the rest of the Carbonell family, well aware of curious, and not-altogether neutral eyes on him as he did so. Tony was welcomed as a long-lost grandchild by the family, but Maria’s socialite status in America was beginning to make a horrible sort of sense. Reading between the lines about what was and wasn’t said, Tony had soon gained the impression that the Catalonian side of the family had only really agreed to this stay because Tony was family, and more importantly Tony was a Stark. A disgusting nouveau-riche family sure, but an important one.

Maria as the half-Sicilian daughter of the disgraced, exiled, and deceased youngest son of the Carbonell black sheep was tolerated, but he could tell that the weeks spent in the huge Barcelonan ‘house’ (the ‘house’ was the size of a mansion) were awkward ones for all of the adults – much as the children (apart from Tony) didn’t really pay attention.

The Cambridge letter was in its own way, a key to unlocking the approval of the family – a sort of proof that, even if Maria was from the side of the family they didn’t much like, that at least she’d chosen her husband well, and borne a worthwhile child. Tony hated that the letter earnt them some degree of respect, but understood the need for this sort of currency all too well.

~~~~~~

During the long month and a half spent in Barcelona Tony picked up not only the Spanish that Maria had wished for, but Catalan too. As well as a taste for pa amb tomaquet, a dish that he privately preferred to Barcelona-bruschetta, and to the expensive black label jamon iberico de bellota that the family kept attempting to feed him by the truckload. In the aftermath of the letter’s arrival, family relations had warmed from cautious neutrality to outright companionship as long-severed ties gradually repaired themselves.

To the family’s consternation Tony much preferred the mojama, seitons and escalivada when given the option. It was probably all that time that he’d spent travelling, but Tony couldn’t help it if he preferred the food that his snobbish extended family deemed ‘peasant food’.    

The Catalan branch of the family were welcoming enough, but Tony couldn’t help but stare at the people whom he knew had sided with Franco and wonder about them. Especially given the still extant black sheep status of his grandfather.

Tony could spot an elephant in the room when he saw one, and this particular elephant was thirty years old, and stank accordingly. Still, in all, Tony enjoyed the time spent in Barcelona. There was something hopeful about the city with the fall of Franco and the new freedoms that the locals were hesitantly enjoying. The Catalan flags proudly displayed in nearly every window proof of that.

Tony even took the opportunity to join in when an impromptu Castell competition got underway in the side thoroughfare outside the house. Due to his size, and well-advertised status as a foreign Catalan who’d come back home, he was allowed to be the enxaneta. Fortunately for Tony’s continued freedom, Maria had been tied up with some Martinelli business down in the business end of the city – a situation that Tony was sure was by design rather than by coincidence, so his newly protective mother hadn’t been there to witness Tony’s precarious ascent to the top of the human tower.  

It was with a surprising amount of fondness that had Tony bidding his farewells to the Carbonells – half of him looking forward to whatever challenges awaited him in the cloistered academia that Cambridge afforded, the other half already missing the Mediterranean sun and relaxed atmosphere that seemed to drench Catalonia.