Title: Timelines
Author: Quietshade
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Eventual Steve/Tony, Tony/Pepper, past Steve/Peggy, Howard/Maria, Clint/Natasha, Thor/Jane.
Universe: Movieverse (Earth-199999)
Beta: Doomsymphony (Saixkosmos)
Warning: Slash, M/M, Strong Language, mention of suicide attemp, alcohol mention, abortion mention, World War II topics.
Disclaimer: All Marvel characters and reference belong to them not to me.
Summary: Tony is a man of the future who can't manage to accept his past and Steve is a man of the past who have a hard time accepting his future because of this they understand each other and help one another come in terms with their times.
Timelines
Chapter four
Tony hadn't been too pleased when he heard that they were going to North Carolina, Steve had seen it on his face, but the man didn't complain and Steve was grateful to him for that. They stopped at the mansion to pick some more clothes for the trip, and unsurprisingly, the short trip to the mansion turned into a three hours stop when Jarvis had insisted on feeding them before leaving.
He was a little worried about Tony, he hadn't rested at all since they arrived from the meeting, going directly to his workshop despise Steve's insistence on the fact that he needed to rest and then going back to S.H.I..'s H.Q. He had seen him wince a few times since they arrived from talking with Sharon and the man was looking more tired as the hours passed. Steve wished for Thor to be home because then he would be able to leave Tony at the mansion, he even considered asking Clint to look after Tony while he was gone but he suspected that Tony would prefer to go with him instead of having Clint take care of him.
He dismissed his train of thought as he opened the door to the car to allow Tony to enter first, then he followed the man inside and humored himself when Tony let go of his elbow crutches in order to take his hat off. Steve didn't understood the man's resolve on hating the cap, it looked good on him and it was obvious that he needed it, given how red his cheeks had turned as soon as they were out of the mansion.
"Take this." Steve got a blanket from his bag and handed it to Tony, who looked at him with a frown.
"I'm not cold." Steve rolled his eyes at the man, Tony was impossible, he was sure that if he were to touch the man's cheek they would be ice cold.
"Sure, you aren't." There was sarcasm in his voice and he ignore Tony's glare, putting the blanket around the man's shoulders. Despise his earlier protest the blanket was well received by Tony, who after a while got himself a pillow, and was beginning to fall asleep, looking sleepier as the seconds passed by, until he was completely asleep. Steve smiled at this and looked out to the city letting his self be distracted by the passing lights of the skyscraper.
The city was so different from the one he remembered, so bright and lively even at nights. No matter what time it was, the city was always full of people rushing from one place to another, back at his time there was always time to stop and take a breath, time to let time slip, but here it was as if every second counted and the feeling of not having enough time sometimes suffocated him.
Not only the city had changed, the people were different too. They walked differently, they talked in strange manners, they treated each other with indifference, they spend more time inside with their gadgets than outside enjoying the day, and even what they ate had changed. All of it made Steve feels out of place, no matter where he was or with whom he was.
While Steve was a piece of the past put in the present, Tony was the vivid example of the modern man and that made them rub on each other, many times on the wrong way, but that same thing draw Steve to Tony, he was so different from what Steve was used to that he couldn't help but want to be there watching the man's every step, like one of those books that you couldn't stop reading until the end. His eyes darted to Tony, just in time to see a pained expression cross his face.
He cursed under his breath, he knew the man had been in pain and he really wished that Tony wasn't so good at hiding things. Gently he grabbed the man's legs bringing them to rest on his thigh and Tony shifted on his sleep readjusting his position so that he was facing Steve, his legs straight, he sighed in content after doing so and a smile tugged at the corner of Steve lips. He looked down to the man's legs and grabbed the hems of his pant bringing them up, one at a time, to reveal his swollen and red knees.
"You are such a twit." He was mad at Tony for not saying anything, he must have been in lot of pain the whole day and yet he followed Steve around, but more than anything he was mad at himself for not noticing. He had been so engrossed on finding Peggy that he hadn't thought about Tony's health, he should have waited for Thor to return and leave Tony to rest.
He sighed, there was no use bashing his self about it now, and leaned to grab Tony's bag, looking for the pain medicine that Jarvis had packed, after a few moments of search he came across a medium sized metal tube and frowned at it, it did seem like medicine but he wasn't sure if it was the right one.
"Hey Happy is this Tony's pain medicine?" The man gave him a quick glance through the rearview mirror and nodded.
"That's the one." He thanked Happy and opened the tube, taking some gel in his hand he ran it across one of Tony's knees massaging it slowly. Tony winced and his eyes fluttered open, looking panicked, if Steve hadn't been mad with him at the moment he would have felt sorry for him.
"Go back to sleep." It came out as an order, the tone a little bit too harsh for Steve's like, even so Tony didn't budge an inch, and Steve could feel his gaze burning on him.
"Wha cha doing Steve?" Tony asked after a moment, his voice was clouded with sleep and he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Steve resisted the urge to look closely at him to check if the man looked as tired as he sounded.
"Isn't it obvious?" Tony shifted a little but kept his legs on Steve's thigh.
"They're ok, don't hurt much." Steve frowned at the man's blunt lie and made a little more pressure than necessary on Tony's knee, making him wince with pain. He looked at him with a small frown, noticing that he did look tired, and Tony looked away. "Ok that might be a lie, but I'm fine, if you leave them alone you barely feel anything." Steve glared at Tony, last time he said he was fine he had to drag the half unconscious man out of the kidnappers base, he could still see the state in which they had found him every time he closed his eyes.
"Go back to sleep Stark." Some kind of strong emotion passed through Tony's eyes when he said that, but just as all the emotion Tony displayed it only lasted a second and Steve resisted the urge to groan at that.
He couldn't get why the man was so determined on hiding what he felt, that frustrated him to no end, it was as if Tony thought that he wasn't allowed to feel. It happened when they were watching the film about his young self. At the end of the film Tony had looked plainly miserable for a moment and then he had been blank as if nothing had happened, that hit Steve so bad that he had wanted to cry on Tony's place.
"I'll do that." Tony said after a moment and disappeared even more under the blanket, to the point only half of his face was visible and It wasn't long before the man was back to sleep. Steve stopped massaging Tony's knee in order to leave the man on his much needed rest and soon enough he was falling sleep too.
He barely registered the fact that he was on a moving vehicle, his mind concentrated on the fact that there was someone to his side, speaking in German a little too loud. He didn't think about whom it might be or how he had ended up there. He was instantly awake holding whoever was to his side by the neck and it was after he blinked the sleep of his eyes that he noticed that the one who he was strangling was no other than Tony stark. He released the man with a jolt, horror crawling through him as he saw Tony go into a fit of cough as he reached down to pick his phone from the floor.
"Ich bin hier." Tony's voice was hoarse and he was rubbing his neck, a bruise already forming there. "Es tut mir leid, ja, Ich ruf dich später an." Tony ended the call and looked at him with widened eyes and Steve looked away fixing his gaze on his hands, he could have killed Tony.
"I apologize." He knew that apologizing would not erase what he had done, but he couldn't think of anything else to say to the man at the moment. He hadn't intended to hurt him but he had forgotten for a moment where he was, that this wasn't the battlefield and that the war had ended a long time ago.
"Is ok, I'll make a note for myself, no more German around you." Tony tried to make it sound as a joke, but it only made Steve feel guiltier.
"I am truly sorry." It came out more weak than he had intended, just the fact that he could have killed his comrade made his knees shake.
"It's ok." Tony smiled at him, but the red bruise on his neck told Steve that things were not right even if the other man smiled it off.
They felt silent after that, Steve couldn't bring himself to look at Tony and said man went back to talking on his phone, this time in French though. Steve grabbed his bag looking for Peggy's journal, he hadn't had the time to look at it before and the journal would provide a distraction. He turned on the light above him and opened the journal, the first entry dated from many months after his disappearance.
"December, 10, 1945.
It has been almost four month since the war ended. The troops are still retiring and things are upside down everywhere. The many crimes of the war are coming out to light and the anti-Nazi sentiment is letting itself be felt. I for my part decided to retire of the militia as I fear another war might come. The world is silently being divided in two, and two great powers are to conflict with each other soon or later for that I fear a war far more lethal than this will come to existence.
This Time though there will be no hero for us.
It has been almost eight month since he died and we are yet to find his body. I have lost all hopes of finding him, even if I would like to think otherwise, we must carry on with our lives as that's what he would have wanted.
Stark spend most of his days in the open sea nowadays, even when General Phillips dropped the search he contracted his own float to search for the body. I have been trying to convince him of resigning but since they dropped the bombs on Japan Howard has been hard to talk to, drinking a little too much and drowning himself in unhealthy working patterns, for that I truly fear for him.
I hope for things to get better in the coming month, these are hard times but we should honor the ones that couldn't make it out alive of the war and remain strong for the sake of the future generations. No matter how hard it's to look past the tragedies, or how much we miss the ones that had left us we must keep on walking."
Steve closed the diary, staring at its cover for a while. He knew he had been doing the right thing when he so stubbornly tried to sing himself into the militia, he had wanted to help his country and stop those who threated the peace, but now reading Peggy's journal he had to face another reality of the war, how bad it breaks the persons involved in it.
The last paragraph was as if Peggy was trying really hard to reassure herself that thing were worth it, that it would be fine one day and as hard as it was for him to adjust to this time and read about what have happened, he just could phantom what everyone had passed through all those year and taking Sharon's words Peggy hadn't really get over it, over him.
Another thing that bothered him was Howard, within the information S.H.I.E.L.D. have provided him during his stay at the H.Q. there had been some things about the Manhattan project and Howard's involvement in it. At first he hadn't been able to believe that Howard had participated in such a thing, but now he knew that he had and that it took a toll on him. Knowing the man he probably had worked on it believing that it was the right thing to do but at the end what awaited him was nothing more than the bitter remorse of having helped create a weapon for mass murder. Those things made him wonder how much the war has scarred this future. He glanced to his side at Tony who was still talking on the phone.
Had he been affected by the war too? Was the Howard he knew and seemingly hated the result of those events? He wondered if he would have turned out to be like Howard if he hadn't been frozen, a man who had seen far too much and enjoy far too little… War changed them and Steve knew that war have changed him too. Just like them he had been scarred, the marks on Tony's neck and his many sleepless nights enough prove of it and Steve, who was just a part of that war in this blemished future time, feared that he too would one day become one of the many people who couldn't look back without feeling remorse and disgust of themselves.
"You ok Cap?" Tony was looking at him with a frown, looking uncertain but not quite worried. Steve realized that he probably looked strange to the man, staring at the journal's cover, gaze lost somewhere else.
"I'm all right." He ran a hand through the journal's cover, promising that he would read it through fully another time. Peggy's thoughts and the reality of the war were written on it, it was the only way for him to truly know what had happened to the people he had cared about after he disappeared and it was his best chance of understanding how this new world worked.
They made a two hour stop on a restaurant, letting Happy sleep while they ate. It was a small 24 hours dinner, Steve ordered a light plate as it wasn't even past four in the morning and Steve didn't like the idea of eating something heavy at those hours. Tony on the other hand, ordered a cheeseburger and a big cup of coffee, Steve had tried to convince the man of dropping the coffee as he still needed some sleep but unsurprisingly he had rejected Steve every attempt and drank his coffee happily. When they left the dinner they picked something for Happy, the rest of the trip was silent and eventless a few hours later they arrived at North Carolina and it wasn't long before they were in front of the clinic.
Steve looked ahead to the clinic which was home to Peggy, a mixture of excitement and nervousness invaded him. Would she recognize him? Would she be happy to see him? There were so many things he wanted to ask her but the solemnly thought of knowing she might not recognize him was almost unbearable enough to made him want to go back, but coward was one thing he had never been and he inhaled deeply conjuring his courage as he made his way to the other side of the car to open the door for Tony. Tony came out, surprisingly with his hat on, that almost made Steve smile but the barely visible bruise under the man's coat refrained him from doing so. He averted his gaze from Tony's neck and hurried to the clinic entrance, only stopping to wait for Tony went he was already in front of the door.
"So, this is it?" he heard Tony said and he was almost cut mid-way by a sneeze, Steve looked at him with a frown, noticing that Tony's nose was red and his face was a little flushed.
"You all right?" Tony nodded suppressing another sneeze. He didn't believe the man but didn't press the subject. He pushed the ring button and a voice answered from behind the door. After a few moments a gentle blonde woman opened the door.
"Can I help you?" she smiled at them and Steve returned the smile out of politeness.
"Yes, we are here to see Ms. Carter." Realization dawned on the woman's face and Steve realized that Sharon must have called to inform them of the visit.
"Oh, yes, yes come in please." She stepped aside in order to let them pass, Steve looked at the staircase in front on him and then at Tony, he stepped aside and Tony got the message, walking ahead of Steve to allowing the blond to help him climb the stairs. Tony's hips were hot even above his cloth and when Steve released them he stared at his hand feeling the warm sip through them. "I didn't expect you to arrive so soon."
"We drove through the night." The woman nodded and started walking through the clinic, Steve followed her, Tony a few steps behind him.
"She was very lucid yesterday but today she seems not to be doing that well." Steve looked around to some patients, all of them were old people and most of them looked normal, but one in particular caught his attention, it was and old man around his mid-seventies, he was putting a tantrum and one of the ladies was trying without success to calm him. "That's Mr. Robinson, he has the Parkinson disease, don't mind him." The blonde woman said when she noticed Steve staring.
He saw the woman resume her pace but he didn't follow her immediately, his gaze remained fixed on the old man, a new set of feeling awakening inside him. He swallowed dry, a lump in his throat, he could almost see Peggy instead of the old man and he wasn't sure of being able to sustain that sigh, the idea alone was almost enough to destroy his resolve. Suddenly there was shy hand on his shoulder, the touch so light that it tingled, and he looked over his shoulder to see Tony leaning heavily on one elbow crutch, the other leaning lazily against his hip. Steve could tell just from looking at the man that the position wasn't confortable at all, even so the worried expression on Tony's face, as lightly as it was, was heartwarming and it was probably the first and only true expression that Tony had ever gave him. He resisted the sudden urge to touch the man and instead smiled at him, finally moving to follow the lady.
They stopped in front of a door and the lady knocked twice before opening, she stepped inside and Steve followed suit. His breath got caught on his throat the moment he took a look of what was inside, there was an old dame sitting on a small bed, she was looking outside through the window and despise the white hair and wrinkles she still looked so much like the Peggy he remembered and Steve felt his knees grow weak.
"Ms. Carter you got visitors." The moment Peggy looked at them Steve heart stopped, those eyes he had dreamed of them every day since he woke up, they were just as he remembered: fierce, indomitable, but there were also many other things in those eyes that he didn't remember.
"Peggy." The woman looked at him, there was no change in her eyes, any sudden recognition or surprise, she just looked at him with a blank gaze.
"Do I know you dear?" Steve closed his eyes, feeling tears starting to fill them, he breathed finding anything else too painful to do at the moment, he could even feel his hands shaking. "Is he a friend of yours Cindy?"
"No Ms. Carter, they are here to see you." The nurse pated Steve shoulder lightly. "I'll leave you two with her, call me if anything happens." She whispered and made her way to the door, passing by Tony who hadn't entered the room just yet. Tony stepped inside and closed the door behind him, still he didn't came any closer.
"I'm Steve… Steven Rogers… Ms. Carter" Peggy frowned as if she was trying to remember but didn't showed any apprehension apart from that.
"That name sounds surprisingly familiar." In his life there had been few times in which he had desperately wanted to run away, these was one of those few moments. Peggy was there just in front of him but still she was so far away from him and he didn't know what to do to make it better.
He heard Tony move closer to him and there was a hand on his shoulder again, he knew the moment must be awkward for him but he was grateful to the man, it was oddly calming to know that even if he was there in a place where he knew no one and everyone he knew had died, or forgotten about him in Peggy's case, there was still someone he could somehow lean into.
A gasp filled the room and Steve looked up from the floor to Peggy, she was looking at them with wide eyes and there was something new in her eyes, some kind of light as if a cloud had been lifted from her.
"Howard… Steve?" She looked from Tony to him in confusion and Steve got the idea of what was happening. "How?" Her voice was full of disbelief.
"I'm not Howard ma'am." There was a hint of annoyance on Tony's voice but that alone made Peggy came out of some sort of spell.
"Anthony." She said in realization and she looked at Steve with a frown and confusion. "How?" she repeated and Steve moved forward to her in excitement, somehow Tony's resemblance to Howard have saved him.
"That's a long story Peggy, S.H.I.E.L.D and Fury they-" There was rage in her eyes the moment he mentioned Fury and she looked at Tony with a gaze full of hatred.
"You cloned him didn't you?" She grabbed something from her nightstand and to both men surprise threw it at Tony which in his current state couldn't do anything to dodge it. Steve had enough time to push Tony or to throw himself between the object and Tony, but the raw surprise of Peggy's rage had stopped him from doing so and the object hit Tony right across the forehead, sending him falling to the floor.
"Shit! What the hell is wrong with you?" He heard Tony says as he clutched his forehead in pain. He rushed to Tony's side taking the man's hands away from his forehead, there was blood not a lot but enough to make Steve worry. Behind them Peggy was still shouting, tears flowing from her eyes, she looked heartbroken as if something she couldn't live with had just happened and truly Steve didn't know what was happening and why Peggy was so mad.
"Calm down Peggy!" He shouted and she stopped shouting looking at him in surprise, he walked to the door and opened it calling for help, he then helped Tony to his feet.
"I didn't clone the fucking man! What do you think I am some crazy geneticist?" Tony looked outraged, Steve still didn't know what they were talking about but the topic seemed to be serious enough to have them both upset. "They found him in the ice, the serum stopped his cells from being destroyed and instead put him into suspended animation for almost seventy years." The nurse entered the room and looked at them, she was shocked when she noticed the blood in Tony's forehead.
"Could you take care of him?" She nodded and took Tony away, who was still frowning in annoyance and muttering something under his breath. Peggy on the other hand was looking at him with disbelieve.
"Is it really you Steve?" he nodded, she looked calmer now but he had to admit that he was still shaken by what just happened.
"I'm sorry. I never arrived at our date." He offered, hoping that it would help reassure her that it was indeed him. There were more tears running down her cheeks and she covered her mouth sobbing deeply. He sat beside her timidly and passed an arm around her shoulders bringing her head to rest on his chest.
"You were gone. You died and we never found you." She sobbed, sounding incredibly broken, he hated the fact that he had caused her pain.
"I'm sorry." He breathed, he sounded broken too and he buried his face on her hair. "I didn't mean to." They stayed like that for a long while, just hearing each other's breath, letting the pain and the many emotions that both have repressed wash pass them.
"How did you find me?" she asked after a while, her voice more firm and a lot less broken.
"Tony helped me. He found out about Sharon and brought me here." She stiffened a little when he mentioned Sharon and nodded slightly when he finished.
"I must apologize to him and thanks him for this." She smiled at him, he was glad that he had found her but it was hard for him to accept that their time had passed, life was really unjust when he had finally found the one person for him it has took that away from him and ultimately shoved it on his face. She was there, she loved him and he loved her but their time had passed long ago, even if he hadn't been there. "You know, it seems that he turned out to be better than I expected."
"Who? Tony?" He frowned at her when she nodded. "You expected him to turn out badly?"
"He is a complicate case, we knew that he would have it hard, but they were sure that he would overcome things and become a good man… I was never that sure about it, though I'm glad they were right." His frown deepened who were they and why did they and Peggy thing that Tony could have been a bad person? "I know what you are thinking, Steve. You still wear your emotions on your sleeve, you hadn't changed one bit."
"Well for me it had been just a few months since the last time we spoke." She nodded and hugged him, resting her forehead on his chest. He moved her closer to him, feeling her sorrow. she was probably remembering the last time they talked.
"I'm talking about Maria and Howard. You know, Anthony's not your everyday kid and I'm not talking just about him being a genius and millionaire, I'm talking about his conception and his upbringing." He let go of her, putting both hands on her shoulder, she was looking away as if she didn't want some kind of secret to be slip by them. "I suppose I should update you to all that happened to both me and Howard after all this time."
"I would appreciate that." She took a deep breath, somehow he had the feeling that he wouldn't like most of what was about to come.
"How much do you know about what happened after you die- disappeared?" He silently thanked her for choosing not to finish the word died, that still made him felt uneasy.
"Few things in comparison to everything that happened, I know how the Nazi fell and how the war ended. I know that you left the militia and that Howard was involved in the Manhattan project. I know about the cold war and few others things but that is all I know." She nodded and looked outside, her gaze lost in past memories.
"After the war we tried for a long time to find you, I lost hopes and accepted that you were gone after a few months. Howard on the other hand had it worse than me, he was practically forced to work on that project and when they dropped the bomb, when he saw the devastation it caused, he had felt so ashamed of himself that he almost drowned himself in alcohol at the time, he devoted himself to find you after that, I don't know if as some kind of retribution to what he had done or just because that would make him feel better." He felt uneasy about the idea of Howard bashing himself over something he didn't quite have control over.
"He didn't have to." He said with sorrow and Peggy smiled sadly at him.
"I know and I tried many times to stop him but he wouldn't stop, and as much as I wanted to help him we needed to move forward eventually thus I returned to England a few years later, I lost communication with Howard at that time and it was in 1950 that he appeared in front of my house looking for me." She paused and frowned. "He was different by then more mature and sober, yet he was still the same Howard I remembered, he talked to me for a long time about his news projects, he was researching about some artifact the Nazi used, he told me some stuff about the U.S government too, things I shouldn't have heard at the time, he told me of the NSC-68."
"Did he continue to work for the government even after the Manhattan project?" Steve didn't know if would have been able to continue working for them, he even has his doubts now, yet he hoped that they had changed after all this years.
She stood walking to her drawer, looking for something in one of its drawers "He did but he didn't thrust the government or its decisions after that, yet he felt that he was needed there in order to stop them from repeating something like the Manhattan project, he knew that if he gave them weapons they would not always use them for good deeds, that's why he wanted to create an organization that could counter act this, of course with the cold war going on the government wasn't going to allow him just to stop his military contracts and create an organization that could turn on them at any time."
She walked to Steve with her arm full of notes, books and albums. She sat beside him again opening one of the albums, the first photo was one of Peggy and Howard smiling in to the camera they were working on some kind of plane scheme that looked a lot like the S.H.I.E.L.D. Hellicarrier.
"He came up with the idea of creating inside the government an agency he could thrust and work for, he wanted me in it and asked me to move to America with my whole family, saying he already had everything covered, a life secured for us and I agreed to it because it was Howard who was asking me."
"I assume this agency he wanted to create was S.H.I.E.L.D." It wasn't a question, it was more a realization.
"S.H.I.E.L.D you said, it was Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division in my days. Is it that what they call themselves these days?" He nodded and she shook her head in disapproval.
"Yes we founded S.H.I.. on 1953 thanks to Howard's influence, it was founded as an agency dedicated to protect the nation and the earth from threats like Hydra, which was perfect for Howard who was appointed as director, it allowed him to work on advanced technological weapon without having to hand them to the militia, it was indeed a brilliant idea. After that things were pretty much us working for the government doing damage control and Howard working himself to exhaustion." She turned the page and there was a photo of Howard looking at a cube Steve recognized, it was the cube that had ended Schmidt's life.
"I have seen that cube before, Schmidt had it and when he touched it, it disintegrated him." She looked at him surprised, horror filling her face for a moment, he too though it was scaring to think that Howard had been close to such a dangerous object.
"We never knew it was so dangerous… well I didn't, I don't know if Howard realized it at some point, he had a habit of hiding things." Steve knew a lot about that, as he was having a hard time with Tony because of that same fact.
"Something his son had apparently inherited." He said sounding annoyed and she smiled at him.
"They are hard to deal with, the Stark I mean." He nodded while looking at the photo as he ran a finger across Howard's figure. "He was really engrossed with that cube, it wasn't once or twice the times that I had to pull him out of his workshop in order for him to sleep, although despite his self-devotion his work was advancing at a slow pace. He once told me that he was lacking on physic base, that while he knew a lot about it he was just an engineer and that's when Anton Vanko came to play." That name sounded awfully familiar, he remembered reading it on Tony's file. "He was a soviet physicist who escaped the USSR on 1963 and was interested in energy development, he helped Howard develop the physic base for a new way of energy based on the artifact the Nazi used, but Howard had him deported on 1967 when he saw the man's true intention, although thanks to him Howard was able to pass the wall that had him trapped and continued to develop his idea."
"So this Anton Vanko was a bad guy?"
"More or less, he was ambitious and wanted Howard technology to get rich. Actually it was on that same year that we met Tony's mother, it was a great coincidence I must say. The government had wanted Howard to develop a new weapon for them to use on the Vietnam's war, they wanted him to create something similar to what the Nazi used on the war, Howard refused telling them that they didn't have the technology needed for that and of course that hadn't made the government happy and in the end Howard had to develop some other weapons with the help of a team assembled by the government, Maria Collins Carbonell was part of it."
She turned some pages stopping at one with a photo of Maria, Howard and Peggy. "She was brilliant, not like Howard of course, but she was really charismatic and she captivated Howard's heart really fast"
"She was a beautiful dame." Peggy nagged him at the ribs, smiling lightly.
"Of course she was, you wouldn't expect anything less from Howard." She turned the page to a photo of Howard blushing with Maria smiling at him. "To my surprise he was really bad when it came to a lady he really liked, actually he didn't do any move on her. When I confronted him about it he told me that he didn't have time for a family, luckily Maria was as much in love with him as he was in love with her and she persuaded him to dates."
"I didn't see that coming, I mean Howard was always so good with the dames, to think his wife was the one to woo him is actually hilarious." He chuckled slightly, he couldn't stop thinking of a Howard who wouldn't know what to say to a lady.
"It was hilarious indeed, he acted like a teenager around her but somehow he managed, yet in 1968 Howard became really depressed after he got news of the My lai massacre, he told me that he felt disgusted for having helped develop weapons that were used for such ends." It seems life hadn't treat Howard gratefully after all and Steve wondered if things would have been like that if he had been there to help the man.
"It took Maria and me a lot of work to pull him out of that depression and finally in 1969, despise Howard's protests and the fact that Maria was twenty years younger than Howard, they got married. A year after that Nick Fury entered our division and became Howard's right hand." She turned the page to a photo of a Young Fury, which still had his two eyes, and Howard. The look on Peggy's face told him that she wasn't fond of Fury, and thinking back she went into her fit of rage after hearing his name.
"One thing that Howard made clear to us was the fact that he didn't want children and despite the fact that Maria obviously wanted one she agreed to that, many things happened after that. Everything was going great, I had never seen Howard being as happy as he was then and yet I don't know why or how he fell in the worse depression he ever had on 1973. One day he visited me with all his researches about the Nazi artifact and gave them to me asking me to protect them with my life and then he left without saying anything else. That night Maria called me in a hysteric state to tell me that Howard was about to commit suicide." Steve felt his heart race at that, he knew he hadn't committed it as Tony hadn't even been born at the time but it almost freeze him to know that Howard had thought of something like that.
"He didn't of course, but it was after Maria and I convinced him of stopping, still it pains me to remember how close to doing it he had been. I left after I knew he would be fine and I'm not sure if I want to know what happened after that, but two months later Howard paid me a visit, being at the verge of having a nervous breakdown when he told me that Maria was pregnant." She smiled bitterly.
"He was lost Steve, didn't know what to do, he confessed to me that he even though of abortion but had rejected the idea almost immediately, even he had been alarmed by that thought." Steve frowned at this, Howard must have been desperate in order to think something like that and Steve was glad that he hadn't made such a stupid move. "He knew that a child being raised by them wouldn't end up well because of their life style, so he thought of giving the child in adoption but Maria was so happy about it that Howard wasn't even able to propose her the idea and in the end he accepted it out of love for her."
"Tony had it hard even before being born, didn't he?" Peggy sighed, nodding slightly, for all he had heard about the other man's childhood he was yet to hear the first good thing about it, he wouldn't even believe he had good moments was it not for the film about his young self.
"He did and it broke me to see such an amazing person struggling with things no one his age should have to." She turned the page to a photo of a pregnant Maria. "Don't misunderstand me, the moment Howard saw the child he fell in love with him, he probably was even before that. He really loved Anthony, he loved him so much that it ended up hurting both of them."
"You know it's really hard for me to pin the Howard I knew and the Howard Tony seemingly hate. I saw a film with them and a young Tony and they looked happy but everyone says Howard was cold to him and I know Tony isn't faking his disgust for the man, so I'm not sure of what to think about all that."
"He wasn't always cold to Anthony It was after the baby's second birthday that it all begun, Howard feared something, he tried to get Maria to divorce him and take the child with her to her mother's family, of course she refused and stayed at Howard's side, but he started neglecting the child fearing that if he got involved with him the child would suffer. Years later he put Nick in charge of the government's agency and once again devoted himself to work. He secluded himself from others, I only saw him at work and the only one he kept close was Maria and finally on December 1991 Howard and Maria died, they say it was a car accident, that he had been drinking and crashed, but I know better than that. Howard never drank if he was with Maria, and Maria wouldn't let him drive if he was drunk. He was being chased, he knew it, Nick knew it and did nothing, they let him be killed and covered it as an accident, because they feared the public opinion. I left the division that year because I couldn't bear to be at such a place and to my demise Sharon my dear nephew entered it even when I told her not to." And that was the reason she was mad at Sharon, Steve reasoned.
"So you also think that he was killed." She looked at him with mild surprise and nodded.
"You thought about that too?" It made more sense now that he heard what had happened but there were still missing pieces of the puzzle.
"I told that to Tony yesterday when we saw some films of Howard, he seemed strange to me, and when Tony told me how he died I realized that there was something else going on there." She rested her head on her shoulder and sighed.
"There was something bad going around Howard, something he and Maria wouldn't share with me. I know Nick knows what really happened, why Howard had turned away from everyone, who killed Howard and why they killed him but he is keeping it for himself for some reason." She sounded tired, reminding Steve of the many years that had passed. "I tried for a long time to uncover the truth, yet whatever happened is something S.H.I. E.L. D. is deeply involved into and no matter what I did they always were one step ahead." She sounded defeated and Steve knew at the moment that if he wanted to work for Fury he needed to know what had happened to Howard.
"I promise that we will find what really happened to Howard." He hugged her with tenderness, reassuring her that things wouldn't stay like that and she hugged him back in a manner that told him that she appreciated the gesture. She then proceed to show him some more pictures and tell him the story behind them, it was after a long while that they heard a knock in the door followed by a sneeze. "You can come in Tony." The man opened the door and peeked inside. He got a plaster on his forehead and looked more calmed than before.
"You sure that I won't be assaulted by a really mean old lady?" Steve frowned at him and shock his head, on the other hand Peggy laughed.
"I apologize for my earlier behavior Anthony." He looked at her in doubt but entered the room nonetheless, sitting on a chair in the corner.
"So you are good with me? You know you had a mean swing there, should have seen it coming from an ex English officer, though I would prefer if you didn't use me as a practice target." Peggy chuckled at him and smiled.
"I see that you inherited Maria's rambling." Tony frowned, he looked close to pouting and Steve smiled all the tension he felt before was gone.
"I don't ramble, I formulate things but I do not ramble." Once again she chuckled at Tony and stood from her spot walking to him.
"Of course you don't dear." She handed him the notes and books she took from her drawers. "Steve explained to me what is going around. These are notes Howard gave to me before you were born and asked me to protect them with my life. " Tony looked at them with a curious gaze and Steve knew that the man was probably itching to open them. "I don't understand even half of what is written there but if you have any question about Howard and his work you are always welcome to ask me."
"I… Thanks ma'am, this mean a lot to me." He smiled honestly to her, his face showing how much he appreciated the act. They were both surprised when Peggy hugged Tony and kissed him on the top of his head.
"You are a precious person to us, always remember that." Tony looked up at her, surprise painted all across his face, he then looked away something like sorrow crossing his face. Steve understood Tony a little better now and knew that the man wasn't used to things as simple as small caring gesture. It made Steve ache, to know the fact that something had made Howard break his son to the point he wasn't used to people being gentle with him.
"You are all strange people and here I'm called the odd one." He frowned and sneezed twice, Steve was convinced that the man had caught a cold but he had the feeling that he would have a hard time convincing Tony of accepting that.
"Here." Peggy passed him a handkerchief and he took it as he muttered a thanks. She then walked back to Steve and sat beside him, resting her head against his chest once again. "Sit here Anthony." She patted the other side of the bed and Tony looked unsure for a moment before doing so.
She showed then more photos and told them many stories and that's how they spent the following hours until the lady, Cindy, came to tell them that visiting hour had ended.
"I'll come back to visit you as often as I'm allowed." He said taking Peggy's hand on his own and she smiled.
"I'll be waiting for you, I… I won't run away from myself anymore, I promise and I'll be waiting, so don't you dare leave me waiting Steve." He nodded, knowing that it was still hard for her to accept that he was here alive. She turned to Tony who was leaning against the door frame. "I expect you to visit too Anthony."
"Oh I don't know, I'm a busy man you know but I might just do space in my busy agenda for a lovely lady like you." Tony gave her one of his lady's man smiles and Peggy laughed.
"You inherited Howards charm too! You must be a ladies' killer." Steve patted her on the shoulder and moved to leave.
"Actually he has a dame already." He said without much though and Tony smirked, trying to hide a small blush that covered his cheeks which was barely noticeable because the man's face was already flushed from sneezing.
"Really? You must bring her too sometime." Tony nodded, muttering something that Steve didn't understand and exited the room walking to leave the clinic.
"I'll be seeing you soon Peggy." He said and smiled at her, she nodded and he followed Tony, leaving behind the woman he had been so madly in love with and many others things he couldn't place at the moment. All he knew was that he had lost and gained many things from that visit.
I apologize for the delay but finals got the best of me, but finally I have vacations and will concentrate on finishing this fic before they run out.
This chapter was tricky and really hard to write to much history stuff and moral stuff but I think all that was important to understand the characters a little better, yet this chapter doesn't even encompass the deep of the situation and I still feel it's lacking on how all those years marked Peggy and Howard, and how all that stuff affected the present, hopefully that would be covered on the followings chapters.