Howard sits down in front of the computer with some popcorn to watch some video that had gone viral of Steve tearing apart the show he had recently been fired from, finally. Probably because the one show Steve wrote and directed was better than the whole series and the show runners were pissed. Either way Howard was excited to see what mean things Steve had to say or if he had heard it all before. Granted Steve’s rants about the awful spy show were always amusing regardless of how many times Howard had heard them.
The video starts with Steve sighing deeply and pinching his nose and that was how Howard knew it was going to be good. He leans forward with interest and Steve starts what was about to be a very long rant.
“Alright you guys, you all know I’ve been canned because I’m a better story teller but whatever. So lets start with the plot, or should I say the lack thereof. There has been three seasons of this steaming pile of shit show and we have yet to figure out what the fucking aliens want. Why are they attacking if they have no goal? Its been established that they’re basically better than us in every way but they can’t figure out how to plan a fucking invasion? Fine, okay, outer space is confused and has no purpose except to do weird shit to some quirky inventor that matters why? I love you Howard but what the fuck even makes your character so special, he’s an idiot. Honestly, someone please explain to me why the fuck aliens would care about some meaningless skinny white guy with inexplicable steam punk goggles on his head. Please,” Steve says, rolling his eyes hard.
Howard snickers and eats some of his popcorn because Steve was nowhere done with that line of thought.
“And while we’re on that subject why is everyone white? I get that this is in the forties and segregation was a thing then but there are aliens on the show and a good portion of Tony’s parts are him playing on his Gameboy. Are you seriously telling me that aliens and Gameboy’s are more likely to exist than people of color? Come on. So lets take a look at our very white cast and see who’s useful. Howard is out, Falseworth spends more time being kidnapped and inexplicably experimented on by aliens for no reason than actually doing spy things, Dum Dum dies more than Sam and Dean from Supernatural, and Natalie is everything that’s currently wrong with female characters. That covers the main cast minus me, and I’ll get there don’t worry, and they’re all useless. They serve no point, they have no clue how to do their jobs, and Natalie is in an inexplicable relationship with an alien that she doesn’t know is an alien. She’s a trained spy and she doesn’t even know what a human is. Unbelievable.”
He can’t help but snicker because even Tony picked up on that and he was more invested in ruining everyone’s day than bad writing. Steve lets out another sigh and he rubs his temples.
“Fine, so everyone’s useless but lets get to me. I know, I’ve been spending too much time with Howard and Tony, but listen. What the fuck was the point of my character? I was the most interesting character on the show, I was also the most competent, and I made that steaming ostrich turd of a show seem interesting or about five minutes but what was the point? Fucking none guys, I had even less point to the plot than the inexplicable aliens and the rest of the useless cast combined. My purpose was literally to flirt with Howard so much that he got an Obligatory Love Interest to remind the audience his character is Completely Heterosexual. That brings the female character count to a grand total of two and one of them serves as a visual no homo,” he rolls his eyes hard and Howard outright laughs.
He could see why this had gained so much traction; it wasn’t like Steve was doing much more than pointing out the obvious and in a hilarious way. Even if the video was garbage people would probably watch it though, Steve had a very drawing personality and it had a tendency to turn heads. God knows how he managed to fly so under the radar until Howard showed up in his life, not that he was complaining. He’s a selfish man and he didn’t mind whatsoever that Steve was all his, minus some sharing with Barnes but that was only because Steve refused to get rid of his old friend. The guy irritated the hell out of Howard but Tony was enthused, he guessed, and Steve liked Bucky more than him some days. That didn’t make him jealous at all.
“So we’ve established that this show is shit but wait, there’s more! What’s Tony’s point other than being very cute and helping me with the only purposeful comic relief in the show? Lets back up in the plot a bit to remember that Howard’s character is Very Heterosexual. But without his wife, who died in an inexplicable alien growth hormone incident that has yet to be explained, his character and mine look super gay again. They decide to kill off Howard’s wife because, surprise, no one likes a useless character. Anyways so she dies, but who will serve as the visual no homo? You guessed it guys, they needed to make sure that no one forgot that Howard’s character is Not Gay so they added in a useless plotline to kill his wife but not before they produced a child to remind everyone that they fucked at least once. You see that kid? He was once a sperm and an egg and at some point Howard stuck his dick in his fake wife to produce his real child. Now we all know for sure that Howard’s character can’t possibly be the ‘b’ word and what do I mean by that? I mean he isn’t a bicycle. Oh, wait, bisexual, close enough, he probably doesn’t want to use labels anyway.”
Steve heaves out another sigh and Howard cackles. It wasn’t like Steve was wrong about the label thing in real life though he didn’t know it. Howard’s father had been considerably homophobic so he had denied any interest in men ever unless drunk. God help sixteen year old him, it was almost hilarious to think about his agreement with himself that he’d only be bisexual when drunk. To be fair it worked until he ended up an alcoholic and dealt with gay panic and divorce and his own kid hating his guts. He didn’t really blame Tony; he was terrible at the father thing even if it hurt to see how generally displeased Tony always seemed to be in his presence.
Thankfully Steve decides to move on in his rant about how shitty his previous job was so he distracts Howard from unhappy thoughts. “So fine, all the characters are useless to the plot, no one knows what the aliens are doing, aliens included, and they desecrated my sweet, beautiful child by making him a visual no homo because alien-grown children are more likely to happen than bisexuals. What a waste of a surprising amount of talent, Tony is adorable and too good for that stupid, three-day-old crusty dog vomit coated show. How dare you? My poor baby he has to grow up and realize this shit was his first crack at show business and weep. He is going to be so embarrassed and I can’t even tell him to leave because he loves it because he’s a sweet summer child who had no clue that he’s playing a role in a shit-stained boxer brief of a show. That poor child,” Steve says with meaning, clearly offended on Tony’s behalf.
Howard smiles wide, surprisingly touched that Steve cared so much about his son. They got along well so it shouldn’t be a surprise but people, in his experience, weren’t nearly interested in being in Tony’s life as they were his. It made dating difficult, especially if they actually did meet Tony because that kid had one hell of a talent for being a giant asshole. Bucky might have had a point when he said Tony came by it honestly but Tony was far better at it than Howard. The kid could deduce a person’s deepest weakness in seconds and then exploit it. Steve, thankfully, passed Tony’s bizarre tests and he had stopped insulting him. That would be much better news if he hadn’t decided that Steve needed to be with Maria and that Howard was his new target. To be fair Tony did manage to tap into a fear of Steve leaving him for Maria and he hadn’t even known that was a thing until Tony decided to loudly declare that Steve should marry Maria instead of Howard at their wedding.
Steve was far more patient in explaining that ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ actually meant shut up and agree than Howard had been. Probably because he was livid that his kid ruined his wedding. He swore Maria had left the building just to laugh her ass off outside but both she and Steve denied it and he had no proof. Only Steve and Maria knew for sure given that they were basically best friends and if that wasn’t weird he didn’t know what was. It only seemed to fuel Tony’s delusions that Maria and Steve were going to get married and leave Howard in the dust.
The sound of Steve rustling around on screen draws his attention back and he snorts. He hadn’t been able to find those damn goggles and of course Steve and stolen them from the set. “So you guys remember these inexplicable steam punk goggles that Howard’s character wears for no reason? Do you guys also remember that weird scene in season one where the goggles fell from space or some shit, which was how Howard’s character got these things to begin with? No? The good news is that the writers forgot too so now all they do is make Howard look ‘quirky’ and give me weird sexual feelings. You guys don’t even know, I have a weird Howard-in-goggles kink now and every time I see them on his stupid head I want to ravish him, which really sucks when you’re trying to do your job and your dick decides to make a guest appearance. Okay, you know what, be real with me guys, am I the only one who has a Howard-in-goggles kink or do you guys get it? I would feel so much less weird if I wasn’t the only one,” he says, waving the goggles around.
Howard scrolls down to the comment section out of curiosity even though he tended to avoid comment sections like the plague. According to the top few comments the general consensus was yes, everyone else had a Howard-in-goggles kink now too. He makes plans for those goggles because he had no idea and he was absolutely exploiting that now. The best part about the rumors of Steve’s supposed virginity when he met Howard was that he felt extra accomplished when Steve gasped out his name in bed. It was a confidence booster and for no real reason, with no sexual history Steve had no clue what was up, at least in theory, but that didn’t stop Howard from feeling like he’d won an Oscar or something.
“Also what is with the Nazis? I’m going to be honest here and just say it, there is such thing as too many Nazis. I get that this is the forties and World War Two was a thing and Nazis and all that but a lot of people didn’t actually know about this stuff at the time so why are there so many fucking Nazis? I feel like I should not have to tell people that Nazis in the center of the earth are a really stupid idea because how did they even get there? But you know what, you know what, I can deal with the human Nazis because I know that they were a thing and they sucked so they make natural villains. Fine, there are too many, and they make no sense because the aliens are supposed to be the villains but fine. What really gets my goat though is that there are Nazi aliens. It has been established that aliens come in a number of colors, none of them white or any other normal human color, so why the hell are they white supremacists? Is this some weird crack at alien self-hate? Because if it is its been established that the aliens spent about five minutes on earth and decided humans needed to be exterminated so that doesn’t sound right. And you know what, if aliens ever find this flaming shit noodle of a production I will not blame them for trying to exterminate the human race because me too guys, enough is enough,” he says earnestly.
Howard throws his head back and laughs. When Steve had brought this up the first time Howard pointed out that HYDRA productions did have a weird Nazi obsession. Steve hadn’t believed him at first but after finding a shocking number of terrible films starring the aforementioned hate group Steve gave up hope on humanity. Howard didn’t blame him, most of HYDRA’s films were trash but he needed a job so he’d be the best damn quirky inventor ever for pay. He was fairly certain his character was next on the ‘kill of’ list considering he started this weird war with Steve and HYDRA but he’d deal. He was rich; it wasn’t like he was going to waste away or anything.
Steve decides to wrap up the video with a sharp huff, clearly done with this long rant about alien Nazis and useless characters. “So all in all that show is a lost cause and the characters are less interesting that wet cardboard on the side of the road. I’m glad my character got killed off, and I wouldn’t even recommend this show to my dead mother, god rest her soul, let alone a live human. Watch at your own risk, or while drunk with friends so you can take a shot every time Howard and I get gay. Actually no, you’ll probably die if you do that but I can’t recommend a replacement because the show uses the same three tropes and story lines over and over again like the audience will somehow be fooled into thinking its new the sixtieth time around. But do watch the episodes with Tony, he’s adorable and he deserves some love. Oh! And Zola can suck my ass because I totally have a new job despite him telling me no one would ever hire me. Haha,” Steve says spitefully.
Howard forwards the video to all of his friends because it was too funny not to watch. He’s even nice and sends it to Maria so she can get a laugh too.
*
“So, those goggles,” Howard says, grinning. Steve looks like he just got caught red-handed stealing from the cookie jar and he looks ready to deny it too. “I watched your rant and I am sorely disappointed that I didn’t know about this sooner. I have plans for those goggles now,” he says, sliding closer to Steve in a way that was probably smoother in his head.
It gets the desired effect anyways because Steve turns bright red, something that was hard to do these days so that was an accomplishment. He doesn’t really expect Steve to look over and past him only to widen his eyes in horror. “Oh my god,” he whispers, slapping his hand to his face, “this is the worst day of my life.” Howard looks over to see what had Steve so upset to find his damn child wearing those stupid goggles on his head. He looked just like Howard too, minus the facial hair. He sighs because once again Tony had managed to find a way to exploit a weakness and this time he did it by accident.
“Where did you find those?” Howard asks. They didn’t even look right on his small little head and now he was mad that his child ruined his sex plans for later by associating the damn goggles with him instead of Howard. He was going to have to ask Maria how the hell she managed to keep Tony from doing these things because she didn’t seem to have these problems.
“Your closet,” Tony says.
“Why were you in my closet?” Howard asks, rubbing his temples.
“I went to Narnia. Can I have juice?” Tony asks, moving on from Narnia far more quickly than Howard would have liked.
“No, you have piano lessons. Now give me the goggles and go practice,” he says, holding out his hand for said goggles. Thankfully Tony doesn’t decide to push his luck and hands the goggles over mumbling about how much better Steve was because he would have let him wear the goggles. There was no evidence of that but Howard lets Tony walk off grumbling to himself anyways.
He slips the goggles onto his head and adjusts them, giving Steve a smirk. “I thought your child ruined my sexual fantasies but I was wrong,” Steve says and that was what Howard wanted to hear.
*
How the hell Steve and Maria figured out that the best way to keep Tony calm and quiet was to give him complex math problems Howard had no idea but his kid was a literal genius. They had all noticed that Tony was smart of course, but it wasn’t until Steve had been visiting an old friend of his that happened to be a math professor that they all realized how smart he was. Tony had, apparently, solved all of Erskine’s problems with ease and Erskine had been working on them for years. Howard felt sorry for the poor bastard for getting shown up by a six year old but it meant his research could continue so there was that at least.
It didn’t really matter how they figured out that math kept Tony from being loud and annoying in general because he was bent over a notepad with his tongue stuck out of his mouth attempting to solve some math problem Steve said was impossible. Howard had his doubts because Tony had an awful lot of notes written down for an impossible equation but he left it for now. They were in the middle of an award show that Tony had insisted he wanted to go to and Howard was curious to see how this would work out.
He was only a little jealous that Steve had been nominated for an Oscar before him but he got stuck in a crappy contract with a show that had an abnormally large number of plot holes so. Granted they killed his character off almost a year ago so he was free to do what he wanted now but Steve had like fifty golden horseshoes shoved up his ass or something because he went straight from a crap chute show straight to an Oscar nominee. He was currently working on some horror movie that Tony had talked him into because he has, apparently, always wanted to be a creepy child. Props to him for succeeding after taking up method acting and becoming the stuff of nightmares. Even Maria had agreed after Howard had given her a call to ask if Tony was testing out his creepy child thing on her too. He was and she was not impressed.
Steve sits nervously beside him and he’d like to offer some sort of comfort but that was useless. Eventually they get to the past all the other shit to the damn Oscars, which was two hours past Tony’s bedtime though the kid wasn’t even dropping. Howard wondered if Tony was used to staying up this late but Maria had him on a strict schedule that she was going to be pissed Howard broke. Again. Steve would probably make it up to her with like green onions or whatever it was they talked about when they were on about gardening again.
The damn announcer, some Luis-something, drones on and on and before he finally gets to the damn point and Steve starts shifting nervously again. Howard gently squeezes his knee because that was about as comforting as he could get. Steve wasn’t the type to want much comfort anyways, it was too close to pity and god help the person that pities Steve Rogers. Howard is ready to walk on stage and Kanye the fucking envelope away from the damn announcer but he finally stops drawing shit out of the speech and everyone leans forward a little, eager to hear who won.
“And the Oscar goes to…” Steve looks over at someone else, Sam Wilson Howard thinks, who is also up for the Oscar, “Steve Rogers!” the announcer says. The camera that is on the crowd pans over to Steve, showing his face bright and large on the massive screen behind the announcer in all its glory. Steve was going to be very embarrassed later when he realizes he looks much like a frightened bird when startled but for right now Howard nudges him to go on stage to accept the damn award.
He eventually catches a clue and gets moving, earning a laugh from the crowd. Tony seems to catch up at this point, looking up in time to see Steve take the Oscar. That was so sleeping in the bed with them tonight. Steve’s speech is pretty generic with his thank yous, some bit about social justice though to be fair he actually knew stuff about mental illness with Barnes hanging around post-soldier and PTSD ridden so. It isn’t until the end that he gets interesting and Howard watches him consider it, almost turn away, and turn back. “And a special shout out to HYDRA productions for telling me I’d never be able to find a job after they fired me. I mean I only got an Oscar, how successful could I be?” he asks sarcastically and snorts loudly into the microphone before walking off stage.
The announcer takes the stage again looking enthused, “ohhhh he just Nicki Manaj’d HYDRA productions, a round of applause for Steve Rogers!” he says and everyone claps as Steve sits back down looking pleased with himself.
*
Howard and Tony are thankfully eating their breakfast in peace rather than bickering like normal. He was thankful for that because as much as he loved his son the kid could be exhausting sometimes. Steve eventually joins them with his own food looking tired. New roles did that to a guy. “Can you guys get me three ounces of uranium?” Tony asks out of the blue.
Steve gets that startled bird look that was now famous, “why the hell would you need uranium?” he asks. Howard remains silent to see how this goes, grinning at Steve’s confusion. Tony no doubt thought he could take advantage of it too if the excited look on his face was any indication.
“A project,” he says vaguely.
“No, you cannot get… uranium. Your six,” Steve says as if that was the first thing wrong with that statement. Howard would have started with the uranium bit but that was just him.
“I’m almost seven so I think that makes me old enough for uranium,” Tony says firmly, like he actually believed that argument. He probably did the kid was so damn stubborn.
“What kind of logic is that? You’re a literal child, children don’t need uranium,” Steve nods as he says it, like he was reaffirming to himself that children having access to uranium is, in fact, very strange.
“But I’m a genius, that makes me special,” Tony says proudly. Howard smiles because yeah, his kid was something else and he was damn happy that Tony let everyone know it too.
Steve blinks slowly and Tony leans forward, clearly thinking he had this in the bag. “Seven year olds have no use for uranium,” Steve says slowly, nodding to himself again.
“Okay, but-” Tony starts but Howard cuts him off.
“You’re not getting uranium, Tony. Drop it,” Howard says firmly. Tony does, thankfully, but he pouts about it.
“I’ll make plans with Bucky,” Tony mumbles and Steve gets that startled bird look again.
“Please talk to Barnes,” Howard says.
“Yeah… yeah I’ll call him… I’ll call him after I nap,” Steve says, gently pushing his plate of food away and wandering off to the nearest flat surface to pass out on.