3. Sins Of The Father 2

Steve had been profoundly unimpressed with Howard Stark’s heir, and that was just from reading his file. Deputy Director Hill suggested that Tony Stark was even less appealing in person, and so Steve was not anxious to meet him. He was only twelve days out of the ice and his whole world view had already taken a beating; he did not need Howard’s son swanning in reminding Steve of everyone he had lost.

Unfortunately, Director Fury disagreed.

“He’s requested to meet you, and while I’m not interested in humoring Stark I think it’s in everyone’s best interest,” Fury lectured on the drive over.

Steve refrained from rolling his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“I get that you’re not too fucking excited about this, and I don’t blame you. But given the situation, you will have to meet him sooner or later.”

Steve pointedly did not ask about what “the situation” might entail, instead staring at the back of the SUV driver’s head.

They were deposited in front of a huge high-rise building, sleek and dangerous looking and possibly the ugliest thing that Steve had ever seen in his life. At least the Chrysler Building had style…although Steve realized with a pang that the deco style he was familiar with and considered “modern” was, 70 or so years later, an anachronism that most architects would probably avoid. He tried not to sigh visibly as a security guard ushered them into a private elevator.

It was not that Steve didn't respect Tony Stark's accomplishments. He had read the details of his kidnapping in Afghanistan and his creation of both the arc reactor and the Iron Man armor as a result. It was impressive, something that Steve doubted even Howard could have pulled off. Anthony Stark was, though, clearly a brat, and Steve smiled remembering what Howard had said about that being a Stark family trait. However it did not mean he had to like it. Anthony Stark was brilliant and charismatic but he was also a man of loose morals and questionable ethics, and Steve didn't approve of the way he had pulled the rug out from the U.S. military by canceling all of Stark Industries' weapons contracts. It was one thing to be idealistic, it was another to put the country in danger because of it.

Steve carried these thoughts into the building and right up to one of the most impressive red-heads he had ever met. Pretty and slim with a hint of hips, she wore a (very) short skirt and what passed for a modern business jacket. Her shoes looked both lethal and cruel. Even the most dolled up drag queens Steve had known didn't wear platform stilettos as a matter of course, but this lady walked in them as comfortably as Steve wore boots. She met Steve and Fury in the lobby, and she looked royally displeased.

"Director Fury."

"Not my idea, Ms. Potts."

"Believe me, I know. This isn't going to go well, you are aware of that?"

"I wouldn't expect any different." Fury crossed his arms over his chest.

Ms. Potts sighed and only then turned to Steve, looking him over top to bottom in a way that was scarily familiar. She reminded him of Peggy, even if they didn't look alike. It was more her carriage and her critical eye, and the fact that Steve suspected she would deck a guy flat out with no problem or second thoughts. He held out his hand. "Captain Steve Rogers, ma'am. Pleasure to meet you."

She gave him a weary smile and shook his hand, her fingers thin but strong his grip. "Captain Rogers. Despite appearances, some of us truly are honored to meet an American icon in person. I'm Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries."

Steve tried to stall his surprise, but failed. "You run Stark's company?"

She let go of his hand and her eyes narrowed. Fury visibly stepped away from them, smirking.

"I just mean, that's wonderful, ma'am, that a lady is allowed…I mean, is able, or that is to say, can run such a large business—"

"Please be quiet, this is painful to listen to." Ms. Potts said, but she was laughing, her eyes bright. "Not quite the world you left behind, is it, Captain?"

Steve nodded a lot, cringing at the thought of what Peggy would have said about him right then. "Personally I admire strong, independent women but things were different in my day…and honestly, I'm getting tired of saying that." He had no idea why he was so comfortable around her, but it felt safe to just tell her what he was thinking. She looked trustworthy.

"You really are everything they've ever said about you, Steve Rogers." Her smiled turned soft, and part of Steve's stomach clenched. He pulled himself back mentally, remembering the kiss Peggy gave him only a couple of weeks ago. His heart was still taken, even if Peggy and Bucky were long gone to him. Ms. Potts noticed his withdrawal and turned back to Fury. "He's in his office."

"That's new," Fury said, snorting, and Steve picked up on the fact that Tony did not visit his office too much. Another strike against him, and it was easy for Steve to conjure up an image of an irresponsible playboy, raised to privilege and wealth and drunk it. He wasn't even in charge of his own company, which Steve could imagine Howard howling over.

Ms. Potts led the way to an elevator, pressing her thumb against a pad to make the door open. They rode up in silence for a few seconds, and then a disembodied voice clicked on.

"Ms. Potts, Sir has moved to the al fresco patio."

Ms. Potts rolled her eyes. "Thank you, Jarvis."

"My pleasure."

Steve glanced over at Ms. Potts. "You have pretty good security here. Eyes everywhere?"

She gave him a look out of the corner of her eye. "You could say that."

"Understandable. Mr. Stark — and you — are very important people." Steve aimed for diplomacy.

"Mmmm. It's less security and more baby sitting." Ms. Potts stopped talking when the door slid open again, and they walked out into a spartan but elegant hallway. "Jarvis, allow me to introduce you to Captain Rogers," she announced to absolutely no one.

Steve looked around for the camera, but didn't see one. "Hello?"

"Hello, Captain Rogers. It's an honor to have you here at Stark Tower."

"Uh. Thanks. So…" he looked over at Ms. Potts and Fury, who were both tight lipped and amused. It was disconcerting. "So, you located off site, Mr. Jarvis?"

"Just 'Jarvis', please. No, I'm Mr. Stark's personal AI."

"Ay Eye?"

"Artificial Intelligence. Jarvis is just one souped-up computer." Fury chuckled.

"Hardly, Director Fury. I'm a sophisticated amalgamation of several high-density clusters—"

"Enough, Jarvis. Captain Rogers has no idea what any of that is." Ms. Potts sighed.

"You're a…robot?" Steve grasped mentally at some of the Amazing Stories of his youth, trying to place the disembodied voice into a context that made sense.

"No, as I do not possess a physical body. I exist in the electronic systems incorporated into the building."

"So…you're the building itself?" Steve's brain hurt.

"In a manner of speaking, I suppose I am." Jarvis actually sounded amused.

Ms. Potts shook her head, looking fond again, but this time for a voice in the walls. Steve was pretty sure the future couldn't get weirder than that.

"Thank you, Jarvis. We'll head out to the patio now." She started walking with a snap of her heels, and Steve scrambled after her.

Anthony Edward Stark was dressed in an impeccably tailored suit, lounging in a chair on a 'balcony' that looked open to the world below; the glass was there, though, arching up and over the room, giving it the appearance of a bright, airy patio. It was full of plants and art that was the new world's definition of 'modern' (or post-modern…Steve had kind of given up when his instructors reached Andy Warhol). He had on sunglasses and held a drink in his hand that, if Steve's senses were on the mark, was expensive scotch from the smell of it.

Howard had preferred gin.

Stark looked like a streamlined version of his father: sleeker, meaner, and sharper. If Howard had been the captain of the seas of industry, his son was the shark. He had the same natural beauty that truly dangerous creatures possessed, bright and alert and deadly, but also mesmerizing. The differences were noticeable, and Stark was not simply more refined than his father, but handsomer and far more vast. He filled the fake patio with an innate charm that radiated out from his good looks and disciplined posture. He naturally possessed the power that Howard had strove so hard to grab, and the thought flashed through Steve's mind that no matter the character of the man, this was indeed Howard's greatest creation.

However, Steve thought that the silly goatee made him look a little bit like Ming the Merciless, and that at least had Steve holding back a smile.

"Tony, Captain America is here to meet you," Ms. Potts said, her voice just shy of antagonistic. Steve liked her even more, in that moment. She had not used his name on purpose, he knew that, and suspected that Tony did too.

Tony stood up with an easy grace that suggested he worked out a lot, even if his muscles were hidden by high-end fabric. He did not put down his drink or take off his sunglasses before holding out his hand. "Captain Rogers."

Steve took his hand and shook it once, firmly. He could crush Tony's hand and they both knew it, so there was no point in posturing. He pulled his hand back. "Mr. Stark."

"Oh, call me Tony. Please." His voice lacked the twang that had marked Howard's delivery. In contrast Tony's diction was polished and neutral. "Glad you could make it."

"Fury insisted," Steve said, and was surprised when Tony gave a fast, almost imperceptible flinch.

Ms. Potts and Director Fury had stepped away and were standing near the door, talking in friendly tones and pretending to ignore them.

Tony swirled his drink, took a sip, then looked back at Steve. "Look, no offense, but I'm doing this as a favor to Dad."

"Excuse me?"

Tony pursed his lips, took another sip of his drink, then shrugged. "He looked for you."

"I know that," Steve countered, feeling unbalanced by the direction the conversation had taken. "I have been informed of what happened after I went in the ice."

Tony sighed again. "Dad admired you. Almost named me after you, but that would have given me really unfortunate initials since Mother wasn't budging on my first name. So. Anyway…I kind of outgrew the whole Captain America fetish when I was about seven."

Steve had absolutely nothing to say to that inappropriate comment, so settled for staring at Tony blankly.

"My point is, Dad cared. If he were alive today he'd put everything Stark Industries has at your disposal. Whatever you need, whenever you need it. Just say the word." Tony pursed his lips and looked out the windows.

"You don't sound very pleased about that yourself," Steve said, feeling like he had to poke the nest to see what would come out. It was a bad habit, but knowing that had never stopped him before.

"I don't want to talk about my father with you, okay? You need to accept that, because we're not friends, and it's not going to happen. I don't know you, and I'm not a Captain America fan. I'm doing what my Dad would have wanted me to do, because I owe him that."

Steve's temper flared at the tone of Tony's voice, talking about Steve as some obligation to his dead father. "I think if you really felt that way, you would not have gone against his express wishes and dropped all your military contracts with no warning for a misplaced attack of conscience."

Tony's head turned slowly towards him. Steve waited for him to speak, but Tony took his time, his sunglasses throwing off anything Steve might have seen in his eyes. "Self-righteous, condescending asshole. Somehow I'm just not surprised."

"Yes, I agree, but then how would you describe me?" Steve shot back, too used to childish sparring with Bucky and the Commandos to play nice with Howard's obnoxious son.

Tony's jaw dropped in shock and he shifted backwards, putting distance between them, although Steve suspected he wasn't even aware he was doing it. He recovered quickly, though, and saluted Steve with his glass, his smile brutally cold.

"Ms. Potts, please show the good Captain out." Tony turned his back on Steve and sat down in a chair facing out over the city, crossing his legs and pointedly ignoring them as Ms. Potts led Steve and Fury back the way they came.

Fury didn't ask him what they had said, either because he overheard or he didn't care. Steve didn't bring it up and was glad to spill out of the car and retreat to his apartment.

Steve spent the next couple of days wandering around the changed city, sitting under the shadow of Stark’s monument to overcompensation and beating innocent boxing bags into oblivion. His apartment was in the right neighborhood but the wrong era, which reflected Steve's whole life. He knew Fury would call him into work eventually, although what that might actually mean for Steve, he did not know. It wasn’t as if they needed him prancing around in a ridiculous costume with a star on his chest.

War had changed along with politics and fashion and music to the point that Steve barely recognized any of it as something he knew. There only remained hints of the world he had stepped out of when he went into the ice, such as a few buildings that still stood and the military itself. People looked different, and it was hard for Steve to pin point exactly how outside of hair styles and fashion, but the differences were there. He tried to draw what he was seeing, but he failed, over and over, until he gave up and returned to drawing the concrete landscape around him. Modern people, it seemed, were a step too far for him to understand.

Steve had “caught up” with everyone from his past, thanks to reports that Agent Hill dropped off at his temporary apartment. Peggy was still alive, code-named “M” and working as a consultant at the highest levels of British intelligence despite being nearly 93 years old, but Steve could not work up the courage to call her. But then, neither had she tried to contact him. She knew where he was, but she had not reached out to him. He respected her decision because he understood that for her, Steve was a lifetime ago.

He curled up at night in the small bed, his apartment larger than the one he had left behind by joining the Army in 1943 but no less empty. This time, Bucky was not coming home on leave. Steve didn't even want to see the new version of Greenwich Village, whether it was still bohemian and gay or not, so he stayed in at night. He also stayed hopelessly awake, staring at the ceiling, reliving Bucky's fall and the way Howard had comforted him and the kiss Peggy gave him before he (for all intents and purposes) died in the ice.

He and his entire world had been erased and replaced in the blink of an eye. Howard, Col. Phillips, and all of the Howling Commandos were long since dead. Their children and grandchildren lived on, oblivious to the story of Steve Rogers outside of the mythology of Captain America. It did not feel like there was much of Steve Rogers left at all.

When Fury eventually, predictably showed up with an “impossible mission” for him, it was too easy to fall back into old (recent) habits in lieu of sitting around mourning for days on end. Steve became Captain America with the ease of practice and a private sense of desperation because it was the only familiar thing he had left in a world changed beyond recognition.

All that was missing was a red, white, and blue suit; eventually, he got that too.