I do not own Iron Man or the Avengers.
Biela helped Tony carry the box down to the lab. "Please don't die, Dad," she said softly. "I don't want to take SI." "Well, dying is looking less likely," Tony replied. "And it feels good when you call me Dad." "Aw, Tony Stark actually has emotions," she mocked. They shared a smile. They set the box down on the floor and Tony opened it. The first thing Tony pulled out was a blueprint for the arc reactor. Under 'Project Designer' it read, "Anton Vanko and Howard Stark." Tony opened it up. "It seems less complicated than the little one," Biela remarked. "The little one has more compacted energy," Tony replied.
Biela pulled out a newspaper article that read, "Soviet Scientist Vanko Defects." "Hmm," she said. She read the article quickly while Tony continued to pull papers out of the box. "Look at this," he said, pulling out some film reels. "Jarvis, set up the projector," Biela ordered. She grabbed the stack of film reels and quickly uploaded them into Jarvis' systems while Tony moved a pair of chairs so they could watch.
Biela kept an eye on the films, all of Howard's takes of the Stark Expo commercial, while Tony flipped through his journal. She glanced at Tony as he paused. "What's that?" she asked, pointing at the cube-like structure. "It's an octachoron, a cubic prism," Tony read from the notes. "Howard said that it once belonged to HYDRA." "HYDRA? The organization that Captain America fought against in World War II?" Biela questioned. "That's the one. According to these notes, the device, called the Tesseract by Howard, was an energy source used to power all of HYDRA's advanced weaponry. Howard found it in the Arctic Ocean while he was looking for Captain America. He did tons of experiments on it, according to these notes, but never truly figured out how to harness its power the way HYDRA did." "Where is it now?" Biela asked. "SHIELD probably has it," Tony shrugged. "It's certainly not in that box."
She turned back to the screen, and noticed a young boy on the screen. Howard had just noticed as well. "Tony, what are you doing back there?" Howard asked. "What is that? Put that back. Put it back where you got it from!" Howard ordered as Tony continued to stand there, smirking. "You were really, really cute as a four year old," she remarked. "Where's your mother?" Howard asked. "Maria! Go on, go, go," he told Tony as an assistant walked in and picked the boy up, carrying him off.
She continued to watch the films as Tony flipped through the journal. He finally gave up and threw it on the table, burying his face in his hands. Then Howard said, "Tony." Both stared at the screen. "You're too young to understand this right now, so I thought I'd put it on film for you." He gestured towards the Stark Expo. "I built this for you. And some day, you'll realize it represents a whole lot more than people's inventions. It represents my life's work. This is the key to the future. I'm limited to the technology of my time. But one day, you'll figure this out, and when you do, you will change the world. I hope someday you'll understand why I did what I did, why I pushed you away. I did it to protect you. Maybe you'll have a child someday, and I'm sure that you'll have to do things to protect him or her as well. Hopefully you can find a better way than I did. I love you, Tony. What is, and always will be, my greatest creation, is you." The screen went blank as the film ended.
"That was touching," Biela remarked. "I need that board," he muttered. "Where is it?" Biela asked. "My office, well, Pepper's office now. CEO office of Stark." "Well, you can't go get it," Biela objected. "You can't break perimeter." Tony stood up and walked over to the table and started fiddling with things. "What are you working on?" she asked. He looked back at her, a miserable grimace on his face. "I'm really, really sorry about this, Bee," he said, walking over and laying a hand on her shoulder. She felt a sharp prick in her neck, and everything faded to black.