Howard Stark was thirty six when his son died.

His nightmares weren't any worse than the waking world. He dreamed of Maria, of Tony, of gray-blue eyes and smiles so awkward they were adorable, and he woke with tears in his eyes. Every day his head spun with the knowledge everything was gone. They were gone. He wasn't sure how to remain without them. Even Obadiah's gone, because he...

No, no no no. Please God, no. Howard didn't cry when the FBI asked him questions, about his friend, his best friend since high school, because this couldn't be happening. This wasn't real life. This was something out of a bad tragedy play written by someone overdosed on mysteries. Soon he'd wake up, right? This wasn't his life. His mansion was empty and Roberta was the only other person who ever visited, who asked him if he was okay with any sincerity. And he didn't know the answer. He hadn't processed this yet. He couldn't comprehend any of this as reality, so he sat in his stupidly big house on that same sentimental couch he'd had in his first apartment and he tried to think. But he couldn't shake the knowledge that Stane was the only one who knew where he was that day with Tony. No one else could have given him away. He drowned that knowledge in vodka and woke up the next day feeling lower than he had since Maria's death.

All he could do was wait for the horror to come, the anger, revulsion, hatred, and revenge he'd been anticipating as a standard response to all this. Instead, as days bled into weeks and he was healthy enough to get back to his routine, he found himself feeling empty. He smiled, but it was an empty gesture. The light had gone out of his dark brown eyes. His hugs were briefer, handshakes tighter, hair streaked with the smallest touches of gray, and there was always a pang of horrible pain when he passed Tony's room. He couldn't manage breakfast anymore when Tony wasn't there to burn the bacon and demand chocolate pancakes, so he began to skip his morning meal. And he waited for his emotions to be normal, go through the stages of grieving, so he could get back to normal.

He didn't go into denial. He didn't blame anyone. He just existed, vaguely, in that way rocks or clouds did. Obadiah should've been fired, but Howard just reassigned him away. Whenever the bald man called Howard ignored the phone, pretending to be busy. He wasn't fooling anyone, not even himself. As the entire business world fell at his feet to suck up to him in his time of need he drew farther away from everyone. Even Roberta had a hard time getting through to him. She wanted him to go to therapy. People went to therapy to talk about their feelings. Howard had none left, so the whole point was moot. Tricia left him cupcakes he ate without tasting, and Stark Industries opened up a new branch of factories in Mongolia.

Mongolia was home to the Mandarin.

The Mandarin had killed Tony. His involvement wasn't debatable like Obadiah's. Howard had seen him there in person. He had ruined everything. He was trying to get more Rings, more power, to hurt more people. Howard stared at the red armor Tony had made and thought that maybe somewhere some cosmic force was mocking him. The solution to the problem, the ability to fight this foe on near equal ground, had been given to him by his own child. The child he failed to protect. Tony had wanted to use the suit to save people. Howard swore off weapons a long time ago. He reached out and pressed his hand to the metal, seeing the reflection of a tired old man in the golden bits. His research into the Mandarin told him this was going to be a terribly one sided fight, but he couldn't sit back and let evil be done. That wasn't how he'd helped Wakanda establish its independance or how he'd helped shoot done anti-mutant laws in court.

I won't kill the Mandarin when I find him, Howard promised himself. But if I beat him up, there's not a court in the world that would fault me.

Pepper Potts was sixteen when her mother died.

Routine SHIELD stuff. Busting up a ring of terrorists in Azerbaijan, she'd thrown herself onto a grenade. Her team survived because of it. The mission succeeded because of it. There was a nation safe because Cillian Potts didn't know what fear was. Pepper cried until she slept and woke up crying. Her father tried to pack up everything her mother owned, put it all in the attic of their little brownstone house, but Pepper saved her mother's wedding dress. It was dandelion yellow, with speckles of darker orange-gold, and had an orange trim on the high neckline. There were two layers to it and when Pepper buried her face in it she could smell her mother's scents, sandalwood incense she liked to burn, lime scented perfume, and something else that was just Cillian. Pepper could see her there, dark gray eyes, crew cut auburn hair, tanned skin from so many missions in warmer climates.

It didn't help the pain, but it didn't hurt either.

She cut her hair short, not as short as her mother, because she wasn't as brave as her mother, and she got lectured by her father for it. Then she started crying and it set him off. They sniffled, held each other and tried to pull it together for work and school respectively. The funeral was the same day as Tony Stark's. And she didn't care about cases or classified information. All she knew was that Howard Stark looked how she felt. The sunshine didn't help them, it hurt them, too perfect and glorious for the worst day of their lives, and she couldn't stomach the people from SHIELD talking about her mom. It was too accurate, bringing up too many memories she couldn't relive right now. So she slipped out the back of the crowd, the world focused on Nick Fury's speech. There was a time when the thought of SHIELD's head being so close would've made her squeal with joy. Today she didn't care.

Howard Stark was having the opposite problem. He wasn't surrounded with friends, he was surrounded by people making him tear up. He was surrounded by suck ups with voices so fake she wanted to tear them apart. Her rage at the world taking her mother from her too young was suddenly transformed into raw anger at all this celebrity obssessed freaks. Howard reminded her of her own dad's eyes the way he'd looked when he got the call, and these people were circling like vultures and - she meant to tap that jerk on the shoulder, but it came across more like a slap.

"Do I know you?" the refined woman asked, and if looks could have killed she'd have burned under that clay colored gaze.

"I know you. Rianna Zodallo, CEO of some crappy knockoff company everyone hates." The woman's jaw dropped and people turned to stare. "You've been in Portugal for the last three months, so stop pretending you were Tony's best friend. Do you even know what color his eyes were, you third world abusing hypocrite?"

Rianna's fists clenched, but Howard cut her off. "That's a good question. Do you know Tony's eyes, Zodallo?"

She didn't. Her face flushed, and she turned away hastily. "I don't have to answer that."

"Glacuous, like the cloud formation, dumbass," Pepper shot back after her. Then she turned to Howard Stark, who had more money than God and who she'd never, ever seen before in her life, and began talking to him like he was her oldest friend. "Oh my God, can you believe the nerve of some people? I swear, they're not even trying anymore. Way to fail at failing and it's not a double negative. How do you keep from punching these people in the face?"

"Years of practice, miss...?"

"Pepper Potts," she said offhandedly, too mad to be nervous. She held up her hand. "Here. Take this, it'll cheer you up."

"I didn't know roses came in rainbow colored," he said quietly, taking it. "It's gorgeous."

"They make them by injecting dye into the stems. The artificial coloring stays with them as they mature," she explained, and then added, "Um, I know your family's big on technology, so... it made sense in my head."

He smiled at her, a sad, appreciative smile that made her feel like they were the only people in the world. Everything else was temporarily blocked out as she inhaled, taking in every detail of Howard's face, his black suit, the way the sunlight made his hair look light brown, so she could form a perfect memory. He was striking the way a wall struck a car, abrupt and intricately made and so solid against a sea of unreal people. The rainbow colored flower was the only color Howard had on him. He smiled down at her, benevolently.

"Yellow's an odd choice for a funeral, Miss Potts," he observed, though not unkindly.

"It was Mama's favorite color," she explained, jerking her head towards the other funeral across the cemetary. "Next to orange, but I didn't have any orange on hand."

"I know a place that could fix that." Howard smiled faintly, briefly. "Tony used to get ridiculously colorful clothes, even though they all ended up dirty and ruined eventually. I never understood that."

"It made him happy. What more explanation do you want?"

He looked into her eyes, and she felt like she was really connecting to someone, for what seemed like the first time in forever. The crowd had parted around them, the clingers and social parasites not knowing what to do now that their target was otherwise engaged. Some of them were sucking up to other people, some of them were showing some actual respect, and some were quietly leaving now that the service was over. The only thing that registered with Pepper was that Howard's eyes were so open and vulnerable she could drown in them if she let herself. She wondered if she could ever look away.

Howard handed her his cellphone number, saying solemnly, "I think I need you in my life, Miss Potts."

And all she could think to say was, "It's Pepper. Just Pepper."