When he shut his eyes at night, he could still see it, could still see the plane moving as if in slow motion, a sudden hush over the boardroom as they all collectively watched - this can't be happening this is a nightmare and you will wake up any time now I swear it because nothing this bad can ever happen in real life - as the plane smashed into the building just some distance away, fire, smoke, glass cracking and sprinkling down onto the sidewalk below. Tony swore he could taste it: ashes, paper, ink, toner, something that tasted coppery sweet and horrible, in the back of his throat whenever he woke up in the middle of the night, sweating through his sheets and shivering like he had forgotten what warmth was.
He moved through his days listlessly, signing off on forms that really meant nothing to him anymore. He woke up in the mornings and drank his coffee, tasting smoke with every sip, and the caffeine reminded him all too much of the horror palpitating through his heart every time he thought of that plane - those planes - and he hated waking up with the taste of fear hidden in the corners of his mouth, slowly seeping onto his tongue throughout the day so that every time he looked out the window at the gashing hole in the skyline he could feel it slipping down his throat cold and congealing.
And, though he had not thought of his father in days, months, years, Tony found himself waking up with a scream on his lips and memories of Howard Stark searing the forefront of his mind.
"It's time to grow up, Anthony. Membranous organs, sustainable agriculture, that's all very well and good, but not if you aren't safe enough to do them. Which you're not. Grow up, boy! Now is not the time to be scared!"
Tony found himself shaking the words out of his head every morning before he went to work, and tried to ignore the fact that, as he looked in the mirror, past the shaving cream and glassy smudges, he was beginning to resemble his father more and more every day.
The newspapers were filled with news about Tony Stark and his new sustainable agriculture concepts, but nobody bothered to actually check up on Stark Industries real objective. People were too scared to go out in the evenings, and gathered their children indoors before dusk even started to streak the horizon with purple. Milk soured before the expiration dates printed on the carton, and eggs cracked in their cardboard boxes even though they had been checked diligently at the grocery store, and mothers sat down in the middle of the afternoon and cried for no reason at all.
And, because Tony wasn't a superhero, not by any means, he found himself swept up in a haze of terror that always seemed to be lurking just around the corner, sitting just in the next room, a great heaving beast that pressed down into his rib cage the very instant he let out a breath and thought that they might be safe.
Nobody deserved to be this scared, Tony was sure of it, and in the spring of 2002 Stark Industries once again began to manufacture weapons technology.
"How have things been with your company?" Steve asked him one lazy spring afternoon, when there were no more meetings to be had and Tony had already loosened his necktie - a noose, more like - for the day. "I know you only started recently, but I take it things are going pretty successfully? You don't seem to be complaining as much as...before."
Before? Tony wanted to laugh. It was funny how tragedies worked that way, so you could easily divide your life into the before and the after.
"They've been decent," Tony replied, for lack of a better word. "We've just been developing some new things that'll help keep us all safer."
It was the truth, but Steve had probably been talking about security systems: burglar alarms and carbon monoxide detectors and little things you attached to your keys, your wallet, that would alert you to where those things were if you happened to misplace them.
Tony wondered vaguely how you were supposed to protect something that had been taken from you.
He muttered something he couldn't quite recall, and switched the subject.
He was 21, and it was the night before his first overseas journey, before he finally visited his father's grave.
There were technicalities associated with that, of course; he'd visited Maria's grave on multiple occasions, lying down on the warm earth where a soft bed of grass was now growing. He put his head by her headstone, looking up at the blue grey black - whatever colour it happened to be that time - sky and quietly talking to his mother about his day, about his feelings, about his hopes and dreams. His father's grave was only a few inches away, but Tony often bypassed it directly, his bundle of flowers held tightly in his fist, petals falling through his fingers as he bent down and pressed them into the little hole by Maria's headstone.
But he didn't feel that this particular occasion would have made a suitable conversation for his mother.
Like usual, he put the requisite bunch of roses beside Maria's headstone, took a few moments to brush away any dust and dead leaves that coated the surface of her grave. His father's mound, in contrast, hadn't been looked after in quite some time, and Tony would be willing to bet it was someone from the company, some reluctant well-wisher who did it more out of a sense of obligation. His father hadn't had very many friends, just business associates.
"So, Dad," he said, almost mocking, reaching out to brush away some cobwebs that had grown in the crevices of his father's headstone. "How've you been?"
Silence. Which wasn't too much different from how it used to be, Tony thought.
"I know it's been ages since we've talked. Or, I guess it's been ages since I've talked to you. You liked hearing the sound of your own voice, and sometimes I couldn't help but listen. I guess you had that effect on a lot of people, didn't you?"
A soft breeze blew through the graveyard and ruffled Tony's dark hair.
"It's like they say, the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree," Tony muttered, opening a briefcase that he had brought with him. The gentle breeze shifted the papers inside a little bit, and Tony just pushed them to one side to pull out a small amber bottle.
"It looks like I'm growing up, Dad, after all this time," he said, a bitter little smile quirking up the corners of his mouth as he unscrewed the whiskey cap and took his first swallow of alcohol.
He ended up coughing most of it out onto the ground beside his father's headstone, and whatever little he'd actually managed to swallow ended up burning his throat and his stomach for the rest of the day.
That particular patch of ground, where a bouquet of flowers might have gone beside Howard Stark's grave, would end up blossoming into a patch of thorns.
"Steve," Tony announced as he walked into his bedroom after furiously scrubbing at his teeth, trying to get the taste of whiskey out of his mouth, "I'm going to be gone for a few days."
"Oh? What for?" Steve asked.
"A business trip, to oversee some factories we've established internationally. Boring stuff."
"Your security things, right?"
Tony hesitated for a second before shrugging it off and throwing more dress shirts into a suitcase. "Right. More security stuff."
"Okay," Steve said, complacent and agreeable. "Well, stay safe, won't you?"
"Right. I will."
As he said this, Tony looked at the screen, a little bubble of happiness expanding in his throat as he smiled at the knowledge that Steve was, in his own little way, concerned for him.
Tony is probably boarding his plane now. He said good-bye again this morning before he left, but I might have been half-asleep and imagining the whole thing. It's a bit odd, now that I can tell the difference between being awake and asleep. Tony told me it might have been something like lucid dreaming, which is where I can apparently control the content of my dreams. I think that's a pretty cool concept, but I sincerely hope that these past years (has it really been years?) haven't been a dream. Tony feels too real to me now to let go.
He was telling me about his security measures that he's developing at Stark Industries.
I know all about them.
Tanks, antiaircraft turrets, heat-seeking missiles. It's all there, in the spaces between Tony's words, in his hesitations when I ask him about them, in the little pauses I hear in his enthusiasm.
The pauses that tell me that he's grown up, long before he should be. But I guess that was always true.
I've been shivering non-stop, but I can't ever seem to get warm. The light above me and the bubbles and cracks and whatnot seem to be getting brighter, and for the first time it feels like I can hear voices other than Tony's.
Maybe I really am going crazy.
I've remembered it. Or at least, most of it.
Me being friends with Tony's dad, kissing Peggy Carter and promising her I would definitely go dancing with her that Saturday, even though I knew it was a promise that would be broken before it was made; I remember saving Bucky and losing him in the space between heartbeats; I remember Dr. Erskine and his super-serum that changed me completely.
Captain America.
"Mama! I think Captain America is better than Superman!"
Oh, Tony. Do you know? You have to know, by now. My only regret is that I didn't understand sooner, is that Captain America wasn't there for you when you needed him the most.
Come back soon.
Two days after Tony left the United States for his tour of international Stark Industries factories, a team of scientists based in the Arctic pierced through the thick floes of ice, scraped away the white shavings, and found a curious circular object, red, white, and blue, emblazoned with a star in the centre.