/Sohey! Me and Biscuit (vital_root on AO3) put this together about a month ago. Now, finally, we have results! tbh the delay is mostly my fault. Ah, well! Here we are now! Lots of warnings for kidnapping, brainwashing, child abuse, alcohol abuse, neglect, and violence. If you want for us to add to this list as we go, let us know! Anyways, we truly hope you enjoy the fic. Please tell us what you think!/

**8**

A week-old newspaper drops onto the polished hardwood table. The resulting puff of air sends stacks of files and documents toppling to the floor, shifting decorative trinkets and knocking the plastic lamp shade loose. There's a small noise of protest, but Howard Stark ignores it.

"How is this," he demands, slow and furious, "how I found out about my son?"

Obadiah Stane looks up from his work, pen pausing on the paper. He manages a glimpse of the words, Stark Junior dies in tragic accident! before Stark's hand slams onto the desk, covering the news headline with scarred fingers. "Tell me!"

Stane sighs, placing his pen neatly to the side and folding his hands. "You were gone, Howard," he says heavily, "out of range. When I couldn't call, I sent a letter."

"A letter?" Howard hisses, eyes narrowed. "I never received a letter."

"You were in the Arctic, Howard!" Stane says sharply. "Looking for a dead man at Christmas, instead of being here with your wife and son. It was all I could do just to ensure the letter would be sent, not that I had a damn clue what address to put -" He breaks off, expression pinched, and sighs again. Howard's mouth hangs open unattractively.

It's silent for a long time.

"W-what about Maria?" he asks finally, quietly, hoarsely. "And Jarvis?"

"Maria drank herself into a coma on Christmas Eve," answers Stane, brows furrowed. "She hasn't woken up yet. Jarvis was with Tony when the truck hit them."

There's nothing about the Stark family butler in the article.

Howard collapses into the plush chair across from him, visually at odds with the expensive room in his ratty shirt and stained slacks. His face is ghostly pale. "My wife is in a center?" he whispers into his hands. "And my son is dead?"

Stane shakes his head sorrowfully. "I'm so sorry, Howard," he murmurs. "It's my fault. When Maria went under I let Jarvis take Tony out if the house. If I had known someone was after him -"

"It wasn't an accident?" Howard interrupts, voice rising. He leans forward, tugging the newspaper off the table and into his lap. Several more pages drift to the floor. "The article doesn't say anything -"

"Because there's no proof," Stane snaps. He presses his palms on the desk. "But the way it happened, how the collision was set up to kill everyone in the car... it wasn't an accident. Hell," he barks a bitter laugh, "the bodies are so badly mangled we couldn't tell who they were, in both cars."

"Christ," Howard breathes. Stane deflates.

"The police are looking into it," he finishes. "Hopefully they'll have news on the attackers soon."

Another painful silence. Stane's hand inches toward his pen.

"Do you know what I was going to tell Tony this evening?"

"...no."

"I was going to tell him," says Howard, in an impossibly soft tone, "that we found the ship Rogers went down in. My team pulled it out of the ice. I was going -" he swallows, takes a deep breath, "going to ask if he wanted to check it out with me.

"He would've loved it."

"He would have," agrees Stane. "I'm so -"

"Don't." The other man slowly gets to his feet. His back creaks with the motion; he looks aged far beyond his years. Stane carefully averts his gaze as Howard snatches up a few tissues and wipes at his face. "I'm going to visit my wife," he says, "and then I'm going to call Peggy."

"Peggy?" Stane echoes. "Peggy Carter? You haven't spoken to her since the sixties."

Stark's mouth quirks up in a humorless smile. He reaches the door. "She offered me her resources and time to make a decision. It's time to take her up on that offer."

"You can't be serious," Stane says, incredulous. "That SSR bullshit?"

"Obie, please. Don't question me on this."

"Howard," Stane begins, but his friend is already gone.

**8**

This man isn't the masked man.

He smiles down at the boy, the one who doesn't know his own name, from high up. It's because the boy is on the floor, he realizes, and the bearded man is standing up.

He's very tall.

"Hello, Tony," says the bearded man.

"Who are you?" asks the boy, who must be Tony. He's not sure how much he likes that name, but it seems to fit. The man's smile widens.

"You may call me Obie, or Sir," he replies, and Tony wonders why he gets two names.

"Hello, Obie," he says, testing. The man's - Obie's - smile flickers, and he decides he made the wrong choice. "Sir."

"Good boy," says Obie approvingly. "Now, get up." When Tony doesn't immediately stand, he waves a hand. "Up. Now."

As Tony finds his feet and stands, he wonders what happened to the masked man.

**8**

"Wait," asks Tony, and there's fire everywhere, smoke in the air and burns on his skin. The man with the mask reaches towards him.

"We must hurry," he says in a monotone. "Come here."

"But what about -?" says Tony. A shadow passes over the stranger's face that has nothing to do with the cloudy sky.

"It's too late," he replies, with a modicum of gentleness. "Please come."

"Too late?" Tony repeats, and he feels the burn of the fire and the chill of the metal biting into his skin but really he feels nothing at all. "But he's in the front seat -"

"Don't look," snaps the man, and Tony stills. He comes closer, long hair brushing by the flames yet not catching. "Just - the car's about to blow. Let's go."

"Help - instead."

"I can't."

"Why not!"

A gloved hand clamps onto his injured arm. "I was ordered to save you."

Tony tugs away. "By who?"

The terrible blankness in the man's eyes fades away, replaced by a dark look full of horrors Tony has to look away from. "You really don't want to know."