Note: The term 'Holocaust' was used in regards to Nazis in 1933 after a major book burning. It was used after World War II to refer to the genocide. In the timeframe of this story, Steve is still mentally 'stuck' in ~1940 or thereabouts; as such, Steve has no idea as of yet what exactly happened in WWII after his crash, nor of any other major events in US/World History since then.
Tony had just freshly turned seven and finished his first quarter of third grade when his report card came in. It was a brisk October evening, and the brilliant, bright lights of New York shone into his bedroom window while he hummed to himself and read The Whisper Man a Captain America comic. Once in a while, the Whisper Man would whisper back, "shh shh shh" at a particularly interesting part, like when the Captain punched Hitler right in the nose and sent him running, with his silly square mustache all in disarray. Tony giggled at that part too, but he didn't know who Hitler was. Some bad man, he thought, though he had the same mustache as Charlie Chaplin in those black and white films that Tony liked to watch with his mama.
But this Hitler fellow looked rather mean, Tony thought, and not like Charlie Chaplin at all. The words the artists had given him had a lot of -tsch endings, and it was very hard to pronounce, but Tony tried his best to replicate him so that the Whisper Man could hear also.
His parents were out for the evening, on something called an 'anna-versry.' Tony had no idea who Anna was, and wasn't really sure that he cared. His parents were probably at some fancy restaurant drinking that disgusting red stuff that came in the green bottles (Tony had snuck a taste once, just a little sip, and had afterwards desperately begged Jarvis for a cup of milk, and then another one after that) and eating disgusting grown-up food that didn't even come in interesting shapes.
Jarvis had tried to explain to him that anna-versries were things that adults did after they got married, and that they did it every year. Tony was horrified by this; how could adults stand eating boring, non-shaped food and drinking disgusting red stuff that looked kind of like Kool-Aid but wasn't? He firmly told Jarvis that if that were the case, he would never get married.
"Is that right, young master?" Jarvis asked, his eyes twinkling as he stirred a pot of macaroni and cheese - with superhero themed macaroni noodles - for Tony. "You don't ever want to get married? Not ever?"
Tony frowned down at his steamed broccoli, shoving a little tree in his mouth and demolishing the florets. Jarvis tutted at him in disapproval, even as Tony smiled up at him with green between his teeth.
"Not ever," he said with a mouth full of broccoli. "I don't wanna get married and have anna-versries. Can't I just stay here with you and eat macaroni and cheese all the time?"
"What if you find a strapping young lass - or lad - that you want to get married to?" Jarvis asked, bringing over a bowl of macaroni and cheese. "Then you'll want to have things besides macaroni and cheese on your anniversaries with them." Jarvis sighed and brushed a fatherly hand over Tony's unruly hair as the little boy dug eagerly into his bowl of noodles. "Although I am flattered that the young master would like to spend the rest of his life with me eating cheap noodles from a box."
"I don't wanna marry anyone," Tony said firmly, reaching for his glass of milk and taking a sip. "Never ever."
Jarvis smiled at Tony's childishness, and didn't even say anything when Tony put his elbows on the table and continued to eat.
Howard was in a rather good mood as he pulled into the apartment building's garage. He had easily gone through a whole bottle of wine by himself, and he was feeling rather nice. Maria hadn't flinched away from his touch even once, and she'd oohed and aahed properly, like a good wife should, at the expensive diamond necklace he'd bought for her.
It was really a beautiful thing, he thought to himself as he watched her get out of the car, admired the sparkle of seven expertly laid diamonds glittering across the lines of her collarbones. The seven diamonds were arrayed, three small ones on the edges, growing increasingly bigger towards the centre, until the biggest diamond laid directly in the hollow of Maria's throat.
But it wasn't nearly as beautiful as her gentle smile, and Howard hoped, prayed, believed that he could make it work again.
"I'll just get the mail quickly, and then I'll be up," Howard told her, and Maria smiled, nodded, and pressed the button for the lift that would take her up to their penthouse apartment.
Howard hummed to himself as he slotted his mail key into the box, missing on the first try - but that was expected, he had, after all, gone through a whole bottle of wine by himself - and laughed at his clumsiness. He got it on the second try, pulled out some assorted bills, some junk mail, and a sealed envelope from Tony's elementary school.
Howard turned it over in his hands, slitting it open with the edge of his key. He tugged the paper out of the envelope, shook out the folds with one hand, and read it to himself as he stepped into the lift.
His expression grew stonier and stonier as the floors ticked by.
"'Talks a lot in class, is somewhat mischievous in a cunning, amusing way,'" Howard read to Maria, and his dead tone of voice was sobering in that Maria had no idea how to read it at all.
"'His grades are good: Outstanding in History, Outstanding in Language Arts, he can type 78 words a minute.'"
Maria still had no idea what the issue was here, but she felt her good humour quickly evaporating. The diamond necklace suddenly felt extremely cold and sharp against her throat.
"Guess what mark he got in maths. Guess."
When she remained silent, Howard upended a table next to her. She gasped as the glass front of the table smashed into a million tiny shards with the force of his rage.
"Damn it, woman, I told you to guess!" he shouted at her.
"...Satisfactory?" she asked, her voice no louder than a whimper.
Howard slammed the paper down on the glass coffee table in front of her, and for a moment Maria envisioned the glass of the table shattering, pushing their diamond-sharp ways into Howard's hand, making deadly paths through his veins and straight to his heart...
"Passing!" Howard roared, his finger jabbing at the 'P' on the card. "He's just passing! You tell me, Maria, how such a brilliant little boy can be so damn stupid! Is he even my son?"
Cowed by the force of his anger, Maria hugged her elbows and didn't say anything. That was when Howard turned his anger on her.
"Is he even my son?" he screamed, and this was getting outrageous, really, couldn't he see that Tony was the spitting image of him? "No son of mine could be so horrid at simple, basic arithmetic! I'm going to get a paternity test, see if I don't!"
Maria trembled and wondered how she could possibly placate her husband, wondered how she could save Tony from his father's fury as the diamonds pressed cold and unforgiving into her skin.
Tony had been reading to the Whisper Man when his parents had come home. He had gotten to a particularly exciting part with Captain America's loyal sidekick, Bucky Barnes, when he heard his father begin to yell.
"Hold on," he said, apologetically; it was rather rude to stop at an exciting part of the comic, and he was sure the Whisper Man was a bit irked by that, but he wanted to hear what his father was shouting about this time.
His heart froze in his chest as he heard his father shouting his name. Something about passing, and tests, and grades. A huge smash and crashing as something fell over.
Tony listened, straining his ears in the sudden silence that followed, before a door slammed and footsteps began to stomp up the stairs. Fear made his heart leap into his throat, and he hurriedly turned out the desk light, shoved the comic haphazardly back into its shelf, and told the Whisper Man to be quiet.
The footsteps were beating rapidly down the corridor as Tony flung himself into bed, drawing the blue comforter up over his head and trembling as he squeezed his eyes tight shut, hoping his father wouldn't come in.
The heavy footsteps stopped outside his bedroom door, and Tony thought that perhaps his father wouldn't. His hopes were quickly dashed as the door slowly creaked open.
Tony held his breath, trying not to shiver under his covers, and strained his ears trying to listen for his father's footsteps across his bedroom carpet. Where could he be? Tony wondered.
A few very, too-long minutes passed, in which Tony prayed to any higher being in the universe that his father would go away, when he heard the door begin to creak closed again and then shut with a soft click. He waited a few moments before letting out a deep sigh of relief before tossing off the covers and making to go back to his desk.
Howard's glare met him the instant he flung off the comforter, and he couldn't help but scream.
The little boy really loves to read comics to me. Always Captain America, never anyone else.
Captain America fights Hitler. Bonks him straight in the nose. Can you imagine that? I would laugh if I could, but I can't. I can only make this shh, shhing noise that stutters kind of like laughing.
But really, what a straight up guy. Fighting Hitler. I remember him, broadcast all over televisions with his rousing German speeches and his talks about deportation of non-Aryan races and that funny little square mustache. He wanted to build a bigger, better Germany after their horrid defeat in World War I, I guess, and that Treaty of Versailles that really kind of screwed Germany over.
Tony read to me about the Holocaust, and he said it was a really, really bad thing that not even his mama would tell him about. I don't think it's a really, super horrible thing, book burning; I mean, yeah, it is pretty bad, but I can't imagine it being so bad that his mum didn't want to tell him about it.
Then he went off to eat dinner - superhero mac and cheese, he told me when he got back - and continued to read to me.
Then all of a sudden, he told me to be very quiet, and so I obliged him, even though he had stopped at a really cliffhanger-ish part of the comic.
I can't hear anything.
...
A scream.
"No, Daddy, no, stop, stop, stop!"
Or that's what it sounded like, anyway. He was crying too hard, and there was a great deal of yelling and smacking and heavy things falling over. I wanted to say something, tried to say something, anything, but I could only make those stupid little shh shh sounds that I'm sure no one heard anyway over all that noise.
He's only just left, Tony's dad, slamming the door behind him. Tony sounds like he's crying, but it's sort of far away like he's not at his desk, which he says is where he is when he reads to me.
"Shhhh, shhhh," I try to tell him, and he just tells me to "Go away, Whisper Man, I don't want to talk to you right now," and that is that.