Title: of what ice and time has taken away
Disclaimer: me no own, you no sue.
Warning: Slash (Howard/Steve), language; angry!Steve
Note: FF is being lame and not letting me use a bunch of words and making them one big word. So I had to separate them using a dash... please read as one word. Though I think the effect has kinda diminished...
-z-
You had come to the quick realization that you would never like Tony Stark. The reasons were all wrong, but you couldn't find it in you to care.
"Why do you hate me so much?" Tony finally asks you, he's cornered you in the kitchen and Clint and Natasha freeze by the coffee maker.
You don't say anything; just stare down at the smaller man before trying to move by him. And then Tony, the genius that he is, grabs your arm. He realizes his mistake almost before your hand is completely wrapped around his throat and you have him pressed against the counter.
The anger and fear and what-the-hell-has-happened-to-the-world-where-am-I-where-is-everyone that's been building ever since you had been pulled from the ice flares up and is coursing through you, making your muscles tighten and flex and, damn it all, you want to hurt someone. And Tony – the arrogant and foolish womanizer who definitely doesn't remind you of Howard (because Howard was beautiful and perfect) – is there, bent half-backwards over the counter with fear dancing in his eyes.
Then suddenly it's not Tony's face you're seeing, it's Howard's.
Howard is the one who has your fingers at his throat, eyes rolled back into his head as your hips grind and dance together.
Without a sound, you slowly release Tony and begin to leave.
You hear Natasha let out a quiet curse along with Clint's sigh of relief; you don't spare either of them a glance.
"You didn't answer the question," just like Tony to not know when to leave well enough alone.
You paused half-way out of the kitchen and, with your back to the man, say:
"You are your father's son."
"You knew him?" Tony asks.
"Of course I knew him," you snap as you turn to glare at Tony. "The two of you are exactly alike. I hate you because you remind me of just one more person that I'll never see again."
"'Like me'? Are you crazy?" Tony's voice rose as he stepped closer to you. "We're nothing alike! He never once smiled or joked! He was cold and calculating and –."
Tony paused, his eyes going distant as if watching pieces of a puzzle starting to fit together.
" – and he blamed himself for never being able to find you," Nick Fury suddenly entered the room.
A bitter smile crosses your face as you hear what Fury's words really meant.
He blamed himself because he loved you and he couldn't find you; so he lost himself in his work and he forced himself to have a family.
You were the only one who understood that underlying message and it made you want to cry. All because men like you and Howard Stark, no matter how seemingly untouchable, had to have a family or they disappeared – their bodies found months later beaten and broken and bloody.
You jerk yourself from your musings as you bring a hand and scrub it over your face. You glance over at Tony, happy with the slight ring of bruises that had started to form around his neck.
You leave the kitchen then, a smile on your lips as you remembered seeing Howard with a very similar ring around his own neck.
No, you'll never really like Tony Stark – he was the spitting image of his father and all he did was remind you of what ice and time had taken away.
-z-