Written to: Hoppipolla - Sigur Ros, crosspost from AO3

Howard wondered where he'd gone wrong. He could see the flinches behind Maria's rigidly held shoulders and perfect posture every time he reached out for her to stroke her cheek, to smooth back errant strands of hair that were falling over her forehead. He knew it was wrong, what he was doing, that the bruises and the angry fingerprints left all over her wrists and hips weren't accidental.

It wasn't him, though, he swore it wasn't, couldn't have been him. He loved Maria more than anything in the world, but he needed the liquor, he needed it to deal with his anxiety and paranoia and he thought if she could just accept that, they wouldn't have anything to worry about. He didn't recognise the person he was when he was drowning in an open bottle, but he was pretty damn sure that it wasn't him. Maria didn't seem able to tell the difference, and slowly, but surely, she was growing away from him. He despised it.

And so Howard threw himself into his work, into Stark Industries, watched its stock rise to exponential levels. Watched the numbers tick into his bank account in first a trickle, then a gush, then a positively massive deluge of dollars that as a young child he never would have thought possible, never would have thought that anybody in the world could have so much money, never would have thought that he would own even a fraction of what he did. His workers complimented him on his brilliance, his customers and clients told him how innovative he was, how he would surely make it onto Time Magazine as Person of the Year before too long.

And that was all fine and good, Howard thought to himself as he sat in his favourite armchair by the library fire and stared moodily into a snifter of brandy, but unfortunately the only person that really mattered to him didn't seem to see this. But he needed this, he thought to himself as he mulled the brandy around in his mouth, wincing at the burn as it slipped down his throat. He couldn't imagine not having this, and he couldn't imagine not having Maria.

He loved her, really he did, but she would lie underneath him at nights when he was making love to her, would stare up at some point on the ceiling just over his left shoulder, and more often than not he would just roll off her and lie on his side. Sometimes he heard her crying quietly to herself when she thought he was already asleep, and he wished he still knew how to comfort her.

Tony seemed to be the only one who could do that these days.

And that was another thing: his son. Howard could see himself in Tony's dark eyes, in the curve of his smile, in the dark curls that flew every which way as Tony ran about the nursery, examining all Howard's old and/or broken inventions or pretending to be Captain America.

"You can't be Captain America," Howard had pointed out one day, and he'd felt so incredibly bad and sorry and regretful as Tony's eyes had filled up with tears and his lower lip had started to quiver. "It's just that you're not blonde and tall yet," Howard quickly tried to amend, but it was already too late, the damage had been done, and Tony screwed up his face and began to wail.

Maria quickly ran into the nursery, got down on her knees to hug Tony to her and whisper soothing words into his ears. Howard sighed, rubbed his temples; Tony's crying wasn't doing any wonders for his hangover, and he quickly left.

He wasn't quite sure how to communicate with his son, this young human creature who looked so much like him. Often when Jarvis picked Tony up from school, walking with him the few blocks from his kindergarten, Tony's Captain America backpack slung over his shoulder and Tony's tiny hand clasped in his own, Tony would get into the apartment, kick off his shoes by the door, and would run upstairs to find his mama. Sometimes he would glance over at Howard in his study and say "Hi," with the sweet burbling cheerfulness only a child of four can have, but Howard rarely replied, lost already in a tumbler of whiskey, and Tony's tiny introductions came less and less and finally began to stop altogether.

For the most part, Howard acknowledged Tony, gave him little harrumphs and nods whenever he saw him running around in the halls of the apartment, and for the most part, Tony would try to avoid Howard in a constant, childish game of hide and seek. He didn't particularly understand this man he was supposed to call Daddy, but his mama had told him that that man really was his Daddy and he was supposed to call him that, and his mama was usually right about these sorts of things.

"But Mama," he asked her one evening, when she and Jarvis had come to see his kindergarten open house - Howard was conspicuously absent, though Maria was sure she had left no less than twenty reminders about the open house stuck on Post-It notes around the apartment. "Daddies are supposed to come to open houses. So Jarvis must be my daddy!"

Jarvis tutted as Maria turned her head slightly, trying not to let the sudden flood of tears that pressed against her eyelids to fall. "Young Master Stark," Jarvis said, politely not looking at Maria while she composed herself, "let me tell you, if I were your father, surely you wouldn't have that unruly haircut and you would already have mastered the noble game of chess by now."

Tony giggled brightly as Jarvis tickled him fiercely under the chin, his face crinkling in an agreeable smile as Jarvis picked him up and suggested they have a spot of ice cream to celebrate the young master's academic achievements. Maria blotted her eyes with a handkerchief, sniffed a bit as she scooped up Tony's drawing of a flower, and followed the two out the door.

She wondered what Howard was doing, why he hadn't come, and then decided that it was better not to know.

"Put my picture up there," Tony commanded, pointing to a blank spot on the nursery wall next to the giant black and green TV monitor. Since he'd grown up, they had moved the crib into storage and had replaced it with a small bed with Captain America sheets per Tony's incessant requests.

Maria smiled at her son, reached out and ruffled his hair; it really was rather wild, she mused. Perhaps Jarvis was right; she ought to go and get him a haircut sometime soon.

"I didn't hear a please," she teased him, and Tony gasped in indignance before squealing in laughter as she tickled him.

"Please, please, Mama," he said, breathless with laughter. "I want the picture to go there, please."

"Much better," she said with a small smile, before leaning over, peeling off a few pieces of tape from a roll, and sticking the flower to the wall. "Why do you want it here?" she asked, as she smoothed the lines of tape with her thumbnail. "You won't be able to see it very well, because the light comes in from the window here."

"I want the whisper man to see it," Tony explained, already lying on the floor and poring over a Captain America comic.

"The whisper man?" Maria asked, not really paying attention. "Who is the whisper man? Your imaginary friend?"

"He's not imaginary, Mama," Tony said, looking at her, affronted. "He whispers at night, shhh, shhh, shh, that's what he says."

"Mm. Is that right?" Maria said, smiling at her son and wondering if the window shutters weren't closing properly. "He just whispers at you?"

"Yeah," Tony said, nodding vigorously. "He says that all the time."

Maria smiled, reached out to ruffle Tony's hair, and thanked whatever gods there were that her son still had the capacity to imagine.

The Whisper Man. That's what the little boy calls me. I guess it's a kind of cool name, but it makes me feel like a rapist or a child molester. Or something like that.

He talks a lot, this kid. His name is Tony Stark, and his mum's name is Maria, and his dad's name is Howard. He says his daddy makes lots of electronic things, that he's super smart, but he doesn't come to his open houses and doesn't like flowers and that sometimes he makes his mum cry. That doesn't sound like a very good father to me, in my opinion, but what can I say? My dad was an alcoholic and died when I was still a kid. I don't really remember him.

Tony says he has a butler. Or a butter. But that wouldn't make sense, so I'm assuming he has a butler named Jarvis, instead of a dairy product by the same name. I wonder what it's like to be rich enough to have a butler.

This Tony kid sometimes reads to me, or at least I think he's reading to me. He reads me comics, from what it sounds like, and he does all the sound effects too. He's a big fan of this Captain America fellow, and never forgets to tell me that his daddy told him he worked with Captain America.

Today he told me, long after his mum tucked him in, that he put up a picture for me to see. I couldn't see it, of course, but I made a shhh sound that I think sounded curious, and reassuring. I hope that one day this Stark kid can make something so that my thoughts can get transferred into words, that would be really convenient since he seems the only person I can communicate with. And he seems rather bright, so it surely can't be too much to hope for.

Why does the name Howard Stark sound so familiar? I'll have to remember to ask that.