Chapter Text
Howard was still inspecting the workshop when a voice spoke up from behind him.
"JARVIS, why did you bring me down here for a cosplayer of my father? Could you just not get one of the suits to remove him?"
Howard whirled around to see a smartly dressed man leaning against the doorframe. He looked like..., "Tony?"
"That is assuredly my name. Who are you, trespasser, and what do you want?"
"I... this will be hard to believe, but I think I've time-travelled. The machine wasn't supposed to go off, but I know it works now."
The man at the doorway, Tony, reached under his suit jacket and held up what was undoubtedly a gun, even if it looked a little different to what Howard was used to. He cocked it, pointing it at Howard, "I asked who you were."
"I- uh- when I last saw you, Maria was playing piano- oh God, can I see Maria? I need to know if she's okay."
"My mother is dead, and everyone in this country has probably seen that memory at least twice. Try again."
"If I may make a suggestion, Sir," a very, very familiar voice spoke from thin air.
"Go ahead-"
"Edwin? You're alive? How?"
Tony glared, "If I don't speak to you, assume you don't need to speak. Go ahead, JARVIS."
Howard sucked in a breath to ask what had happened to make Tony like this, but thought better of it.
"Project EFF."
Tony's eyes lit up, and he nodded, "JARVIS, what a brilliant idea."
A light appeared on front of Howard, who jumped. As words flickered across it, he realised it must be some type of flat screen. How it was made entirely from light, he didn't know. "What's this?"
"JARVIS, bring up project E-F-F for me. Image of the case and note side by side, please."
The strange screen lit up, displaying a high-tech image of a small wooden chest with a combination lock embedded into the side. Beside that, another image popped up, showing a page of a notebook written in a slanting handwriting that tickled something at back of Howard's mind.
"Technology has come quite a way in the past 70 years." Tony said from behind him, "I assume you recognise the chest. It's yours, after all."
Howard acknowledged this with an offhanded wave, "Yeah yeah, whose writing is this?"
"You will show respect when I'm talking to you." Tony's voice was as cold as the workshop suddenly seemed. "I don't care who you are, but you will do what I tell you to."
Howard was almost afraid of this man. Where was the snarky seventeen year-old he'd last seen? The one who didn't listen to his parents but still cared about them? Who was a genius but still hadn't learned the meaning of love?
"That is the writing from one of Peggy Carter's diaries. In it, she describes a small wooden chest of important research you left behind with SHIELD that was rigged to blow if opened using anything but the combination lock shown. Tell me the code."
Howard knew exactly the chest Tony was referring to. "Why do you want it? And this goes two ways - how do I kno-" He was interrupted by a loud smashing sound from the doorway.
He turned to find a familiar man staring at him, face as white as a sheet and no older than the last time Howard had seen him. Shards of ceramic sat in the spreading pool of coffee at the man's feet.
"Bucky-baby," Tony murmured as the other man stepped over the mess and all but ran to him, plastering himself to Tony's back. "It's okay. He's... I don't think he's here to hurt us."
"Does he know?"
"I don't think so, but even if he did, he can't change it."
"Sergeant Barnes? How are you alive?"
Sergeant Barnes turned to face Howard, the action drawing Howard's attention to his left arm as it reflected the lights of the Workshop. "Don't you already know? Didn't you work with HYDRA?"
"What are you talking about? HYDRA is destroyed... isn't it? And I would never work for such-"
"SHIELD was HYDRA." Tony interrupted, "A fact that everyone with a computer knows."
"It might be destroyed now, but it wasn't when I fell off the train. The SSR did their best to get rid of it but they couldn't get to every single base, and as soon as Zola was brought in, it was too late." Sergeant Barnes added.
Howard felt his face whiten, "You're telling me that- that HYDRA took over SHIELD?"
"Worse," Tony's expression was almost gleeful, "HYDRA blossomed inside SHIELD, manipulating the world with their help and the Director - Nicholas Fury, I believe you've met him - knew."
"Nick wouldn't-" Howard stopped. "Would he?"
"He knew HYDRA was within SHIELD and didn't eradicate them, if that’s what you're asking. He wasn't working with them, but whether he was or wasn't secretly somewhat of a sympathiser or what his motivations were remain known only to him."
"For now," added Sergeant Barnes darkly.
"What happened after the year I've come from?" Howard asked quietly.
"The case first."
"Prove to me you're my son."
"I know what you did to Vanko. His son tried to kill me for it."
"Anyone could have figured that out."
"Not anyone, but fine. What do you expect me to say? Am I supposed to recount the misery that Christmases were? Tell you about the time you were going to hit me and Jarvis stepped in the way so you beat him black and blue in front of me and then moved on to me? Am I to explain how my mother hurt me just as much by locking herself away with her drugs?"
Howard frowned. "What do you mean? I don't recall...."
"Of course not, even a small amount of alcohol leaves you with no memories the day after," Howard noticed Sergeant Barnes stiffen ever so slightly as Tony spoke, "and you drank all the time. I'm sure you don't recall the one time you were actually nice when drunk and told me your workshop door code and then when you came down a few hours later, slapped me because I shouldn't be in there?"
Howard actually did remember. He'd been working with particularly volatile chemicals at the time and finding Tony welding only a few metres away when he shouldn't have even known the code... well, of course he'd reacted badly. Tony wasn't safe there. "You weren't safe down there," he voiced the last thought aloud.
"And yet, hours before, you'd told me you thought I was smart and old enough to be trusted to be safe."
Howard sighed softly, wondering what had happened to Tony in the years he'd been gone. "161157. Tell me why you seem so bitter."
"JARVIS, test the code. Ensure the correct ventilation is in place as we don't want any nasty little security traps to be triggered."
A beat of tense silence.
Then...
"The code is correct, Sir. I am running scans now, estimated time of completion of which is in three hours and twenty-two minutes. The ventilation system is filtering the air currently of trace amounts of a gas that was released with the opening of the case. It will be contained and scanned as well."
"Thankyou, JARVIS."
"Tony, what happened? Please tell me, maybe I can fix it."
"You can't."
"I can try."
Sergeant Barnes stepped forward a half-step. "You cannot. We have no idea what any changes you make might bring and no way to control it."
It was then that a very familiar voice called through some kind of microphone on the desk beside Howard, in a decidedly unfamiliar sultry tone, "Tony, honey, I'm home and I've got a little problem for you to help with."