RED HOOK, BROOKLYN, NYC - JULY 31, 1991 12:25PM

Tony's question hung in the air, tense and unanswered. Howard, however, much like his son was an expert at diffusing tension with an easy charm.

"Well, hello there," he said, avoiding the question. "Howard Stark, I'm an old friend of Steve's." He held out his hand over Steve's shoulder, expecting a handshake. Tony just sighed and crossed his arms.

"I know exactly who you are. Answer the goddamn question," he said, annoyed.

Steve decided this would be a good time to step in. "Howard!" he said. "It's good to see you. You look..."

"Like an old man," Howard said, stepping back from his hug finally. "And you haven't aged a day." He looked in awe as he stared at his old friend. "You look just like I remember you. I can't believe it."

Steve allowed himself a small smile, but had a bad feeling about Howard's presence. His old friend was nothing if not a genius, but much like his son it often got him into trouble. At the very least, he would be difficult to lie to.

"Who's your friend?" Howard asked.

Tony's eyes went wide at the question and Steve knew that he needed to come up with something quickly. "This is Mr... umm..."

"... Hammer," Tony filled in, pulling the name randomly from his mind. "Justin Hammer. Now what exactly did you do? Because you don't seem that surprised to see your old friend, looking exactly as you left him almost 50 years ago, in a random alleyway."

"Well, Mr. Hammer, if that is your real name, why don't you tell me where you came from and how Steve got here first? Because I have a feeling the two are related, but I'd hate to risk giving out important state secrets to a complete stranger. Could get me into trouble, you see."

"Where do you think we came from?" Tony asked. When you don't have an answer to a question, answer it with another question. Tony had been dodging questions from reporters since learning to talk, so he wasn't worried about his father getting anything out of him that he didn't want him to.

"We, as in you and Steve. You came from the same place? I didn't think anyone else was on that plane when it went down." Howard replied. Tony realized that maybe he and his father were evenly matched when it came to avoiding conversations they didn't want to have.

"The plane?" Steve asked. "You think I was on the plane before I ended up here? Howard, what do you think happened to bring me here? Please, it's important. You can trust... Justin. We won't tell anyone. But if you had anything to do with this, we need to know."

"I'll tell you, Steve, I will. But first, you have to tell me something. Where were you before you ended up in this alley? What do you know about how you got here?" Howard replied.
Tony sighed. They weren't getting anywhere.

"You know what," Howard said. "We shouldn't do this here. There's a coffee shop around the corner. You two want something to drink? Maybe some food? I'm supposed to meet someone, but they can definitely wait. We obviously need to talk. What do you say?"

"Sounds good. T... Justin? Is that alright with you?" asked Steve, almost forgetting that he couldn't use Tony's real name. The name was a lie, but the concern in his voice was genuine.

Tony was conflicted. He was trying not to stare at his father in front of him, his silver hair and sly grin looking exactly as they had the last time he had seen him, more than 20 years earlier. He was surprised that he didn't feel at all as though he might have thought in this situation. On the one hand, it was all he could do not to simply turn around and run. However, there was a surprising, overwhelming part of him that he hated that wanted nothing more than to cling onto the man for dear life like a small child and never let him go. It terrified him.

"Sure. Why not?" he replied, trying to betray as little of the churning emotions happening inside his mind as possible. The moment the words left his mouth, he knew that he would regret them. But he followed the pair as they left the alley anyway.

MORNING JOE COFFEE SHOP, BROOKLYN, NYC - JULY 31, 1991 12:35PM

It was awkward, the three of them crammed around a table built for two, with an extra chair pulled over from a neighboring table. Howard could not help but stare at Steve in amazement, and Tony could not help but stare at Howard even though he was trying not to.

Howard stared down at his coffee as though it bored him. "You guys don't mind if I make this coffee a little more interesting, do you? Not that coffee's not one of Earth's greatest miracles on its own, but I really need something to take the edge off right now." And with that, he discretely pulled a flask from his jacket pocket and emptied some of its contents into his cup. He shook the flask a little to indicate he was willing to share. Tony pushed his cup over and Howard topped it up.

"I can't get drunk, remember?" Steve said.

"Right, yeah," Howard said. "I forgot about that. Sucks to be you." He took a drink from his coffee and immediately seemed to relax.

"What are we doing here?" Tony asked.

"I don't know," said Howard. "What are you doing here? I have a good idea of what Steve is doing here. I've been working on a little project, one that I honestly didn't expect to work."

"What do you mean?" asked Steve.

"You tried to pull Steve off of that plane and into the future using the energy of the Tesseract. Is that it?" Tony said, having put the pieces together almost from the moment his father had hugged Steve in the alley.

"Tried?" said Howard. "He's sitting right here in front of me isn't he? That's pretty good evidence that it did work! It's you I'm not sure about. Where did you come from?"

"Not 1945. Your aim was a little off. There's a reason you don't go messing with strange technologies from alien planets that you don't understand. Or time travel. Even I'm not that reckless."

"Wait, I don't understand. Steve, you're here. I pulled you off of that plane, you're here!" Howard said, struggling to understand what Tony was trying to tell him.

"You're right, Howard. But my friend is also right. Neither of us was in 1945 when we ended up here." Steve answered.

"How could you not have been in 1945?" Howard asked. "I don't understand."

"What exactly have you been working on?" asked Tony.

Howard was hesitant. "It's alright, Howard. Like I said, you can trust him," Steve reassured.

"I've been working on experiments with the Tesseract related to tapping into its unique energy," Howard explained. "I realized that the type of radiation being emitted from the Tesseract left a trace, an imprint of sorts on whatever it touched while active. I tried to tap into the Tesseract's energy to pull you here from the moment that its power last surged, the moments right before your plane went down. There's no other point at which pulling you from the timeline would have been possible. Not without there being some pretty clear evidence that something went wrong."

"Yeah, evidence as in the potential destruction of the universe. As in the creation of an impossible paradox that could potentially rip apart the whole of space-time. You wanted to see your old pal again so much that you'd risk that?" Tony asked, upset at his father's recklessness.

"Howard," Steve said, looking horrified at the thought. "He has a point. What were you thinking?"

"It was a calculated risk. I'm not insane. I had controls in place." Howard defended himself. "We've been looking for the Valkyrie for almost fifty years! Do you have any idea how many expeditions I've sent out to the Arctic? Do you know how disappointing it's been, every time one of them came back with nothing except the odd piece of the Valkyrie. Steve, I don't know if you know this or not, but the serum has some very particular side effects when it comes to certain things, and if you'd gone down in that ice, there was a chance that you were still alive down there, frozen. How could I live with that? So, after the most recent expedition came back with no news, I started to think about why. And I started to explore the possibility that maybe you hadn't actually gone down with the Valkyrie at all. And the time travel theory fit. I mean, if I pulled you off of that plane at the last minute and you ended up here, then of course we would have never found your body! There'd be no paradox, because we've gone this entire time thinking you were still down there! It made sense! And it worked! You're here in front of me, after all these years. It's just surreal, isn't it? You have no idea what it's like to be staring at someone who you haven't seen for so many years and have them look just as you remember them. I did that! I saved you!"

"Yeah, you saved him alright," Tony said, "saved him from a comfortable life in the year 2014 after he was found and unfrozen. Saved him from a life that you didn't get to be a part of, and risked the whole universe in the process, you selfish asshole!"

The minute Tony said the words he knew that he'd said too much. But it was too late. Steve stared at him, disappointed. Howard just sat back in his chair, shocked.

"2014?" he asked. "You were in the year 2014? Both of you?"

"And a few other friends of ours," Tony said. "Like I said, you've got some aim."

"Jesus," Howard said, and took another gulp of his coffee.

"Speaking of our friends..." said Steve, realizing the time. Natasha and the others should have returned to the alley by now and could be looking for them. Through the coffee shop window, Steve could see additional cars and security pulling up to the munitions factory.

"Shit," said Tony.