Chapter summary: Grant comes by to see Tony's work, and he and Tony talk about how tough it's been since the breaking of the Avengers.

3. Sides

They were right, of course. Rogers did have it bad, worse than Tony could have imagined. It wasn't enough that he woke up three quarters of a century past the world he knew; he was thrust straight from the guts of SHIELD to the heights of Stark Tower, where the future was built into practically every surface. He already had no perspective on how anything in the ordinary world worked; his early exposure to JARVIS left him expecting touchscreens to talk, and all the touchscreens had him pawing at the walls and windows. Beyond even that, he had no peers of his own generation or experience, no sense of scale when it came to money, and seventy years of culture and history and context beyond his reference.

And then there was Peggy. She was the one living soul that he still knew, and she'd lived a whole life, built a whole agency, and raised a whole family in the time it had taken him to blink. And if what Tony had heard was true— if Rogers had been in love with Peggy —well, that was a hell of a way to come home from the war and find out your girl had moved on without you.

When he finally screwed up his courage to reach out to her, Tony called her afterward to ask her how it went. He was shocked to hear her voice break— stalwart Aunt Peggy, who it had always seemed nothing could shake. "Oh, Tony. That poor boy… I could hardly bear it."

"Jesus," Tony gaped. "What happened? What did he do?"

But Peggy could not explain further; only repeated, "That poor boy. That poor boy."

Admittedly, by that point Tony had softened a little on the guy. Maybe it was that the after-effects of the battle had given him some perspective, or maybe taking down a few dozen Chitauri side by side had a way of breaking down barriers. But Aunt Peggy's tears drove the point home— Rogers was lost and alone to a degree that was unfathomable.

With time their relationship improved. Steve wasn't half bad when he climbed down off his high horse and watched a baseball game with you, or tossed that damned shield at something coming at your six. In those moments, he wondered if maybe he was starting to see a little of what his old man saw.

They even managed to become friends, or something resembling it. It surprised him how much it meant to him. That Captain friggin' America thought he was a good dude. Of course when it came down to it, the golden boy decided he wasn't righteous enough after all. Tony should have known that no good would come of caring what that man thought of him. There was no way he was ever really going to measure up.

He tried to put it out of his head as he got down to business. No easy feat, considering, but at the moment he had a different old man to worry about.

Tony started by going on a dig through his father's old files. Organization hadn't been Howard's strong suit, and he'd left behind an idiosyncratic collection of handwritten notes on his technical projects that even now had never been fully digitized. The plans Tony was looking for, however, had been deemed of particular historical importance, so these had been neatly sliced out in clear and conveniently accessible form. Not to mention the fact that, due to recent twists of fate, he had the original to examine. Hell, he briefly considered just giving that one to Grant, but he got enough shit from the US government over where his technology ended up.

Of course, being him, he couldn't resist making a few improvements. Dad's design was certainly elegant, and given the nature of it, too many bells and whistles would only get in the way. But he never could resist a chance to show off. No way Uncle Grant would know the thing well enough to be able to appreciate the subtleties, but he found himself wanting to impress the old guy if he could.

It was not a quick process. Acquiring the supplies he could order, synthesizing the one he couldn't, prototyping the new design, casting the final product once he'd worked out all the kinks. He went through quite a few test versions, for something so deceptively simple. But even with the cost of materials, and Dum-E putting a few new holes in his walls, it was a small price to pay, considering. Now that he was committed to doing the thing, he was damn well going to do it right.

Six weeks and a medically inadvisable quantity of Red Bull for a guy with a heart condition later, he called up Uncle Grant. "Is the old man still driving these days? 'Cause your order's ready for pickup."

The next day Tony greeted him at the front door of his house. He looked very much the same as he had for the last ten, even twenty years— tall, broad, gray and weathered but still remarkably spry for it, hands in the pockets of one of those windbreakers he often wore. "Hey, kid."

"It's good to see you, Uncle Grant. Sorry it's been so long, I… I should have reached out."

"You've had a lot on your plate. I didn't want to bug you."

Tony shifted at the sudden pangs of guilt. "How you been holding up? Really?"

He drew and released a long breath. "Oh, you know. We were lucky— to have each other as long as we did. And I'm glad she's not suffering any more. But it's not easy, that's for sure. I never was quite right without her." He smiled at Tony then, only just a little sadly. "So. I understand you've got something to show me."

Tony gestured Grant into the house. "After all this work I put in, you going to tell me what you need it for? You better not just be going to a costume party or something."

"It's a gift, if you must know. For somebody who really ought to have it."

"Geez, when did you become such a hell of a gift giver? As I recall, you gave me a copy of Midnight's Children last Christmas. You sure your friend wouldn't like some of those nice steaks you send in the mail instead?"

"Yep. Hey, did you ever read that book?"

"I was going to get around to it. But then somebody dropped a commission in my lap that ate up all my free time. My birthday's in May, for future reference. Just in case you got an in with Ferrari to build you something special."

He led Grant down the steps into his workshop. "Gotta say, really never thought you'd be asking me for something like this."

"I guess you never know where life is going to lead you."

"That's for damn sure," Tony grumbled. "I never thought I'd have to lead the charge to make Captain America a war criminal. But here we are."

Grant sighed. "I am sorry about all that."

"Not your fault."

"Seems I've brought it up for you."

Tony blew out gustily through his teeth. "Yeah, that's not hard these days. When you're tearing down a historical icon." Not to mention someone his dad thought was the best man he'd ever met.

Tony paused, weighing the words of his next question. "You had to have met him at some point, right?"

Grant nodded. "A few times. He came to the funeral, remember."

Tony did remember; it was the last time he'd been in the same room with the man before it all went to hell. He pulled a face. "Jesus, what was that like?"

"About like you'd expect. Worse for him than it was for me. But he had respects he wanted to pay." Tony could picture the moments, Uncle Grant in the front pew, serene within his barricade of grandchildren, Steve sitting there gutted, alone in the crowd three rows back. The odd man out of the family members who stepped up to be her pallbearers, Peggy's son, her grandsons, and Rogers, those bright blue eyes damp and dead as they carried her out for the last time. "We'd met before, though. Peggy felt like it was the right thing to do."

Tony guessed it must have been hard to avoid, given their connection. "She felt sorry for him, huh?"

"I felt sorry for him, truth be told. But it was… too strange for me. Thought keeping it to a minimum would be easier on the both of us."

"She let you get away with that?"

"Mostly." His lip quirked. "She kept trying to invite him to Thanksgiving."

He'd spent most of his Thanksgivings at Tony's, so he knew Steve hadn't really taken them up on it. "So, uh… what did you think of him? Really?"

Grant grinned. "Hoping I'll take sides, huh?"

Tony shifted uncomfortably. "Well, you agree with me, don't you? Registry is a public good. Do you really think anyone with that much power, and with the consequences that serious—"

"I know you did what you thought was right. I could never fault you for that. But you're not asking about my opinion of your politics, are you?"

Christ, the old guy could be perceptive every once in a while. Suddenly exposed, Tony could feel himself drawing in, drawing away. "So you do think I'm an asshole. Like everybody else does."

"No, Tony. I don't think you're an asshole." Grant chuckled. "For that, at anyway."

Tony growled out a sigh. "Is that too much to ask? From maybe the one guy who doesn't jizz himself over Captain America?" And Grant was practically family, after all, something he didn't have much of anymore; wasn't like he could ask forgiveness from Howard for going after his golden boy.

For a moment Grant's expression grew stern. "Hey. Language." Quickly, however, he softened. "But I've told you before, kid. You never have to worry what I think of you."

Tony had heard it plenty of times before, over the course of his occasionally misspent youth. But to hear it repeated now eased something in him, enough that his whole body began to unclench.

He couldn't help but ruin it. "You just say that 'cause I'll make shit for you."

But Uncle Grant did not miss a beat. "Yep. Ain't about to mess that up. So…" He smiled easily. "Can I see it?"