Chapter Text
It was dark when he woke up. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust enough to be able to see. He didn’t recognize his location, which seemed odd.
There was a pained groan from somewhere behind him. “Howard?” It was a woman’s voice. His wife. Maria.
Feeling shaky, Howard got up and walked over to his wife and helped her sit up. Her clothes, like his, were dirty and rumpled. There was dried blood on her face, but he couldn’t see a cut. When he felt up his own head he found the same, which was very disconcerting. Where were they? How had they gotten here? What had happened to them? He couldn’t remember.
“Howard, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I…” She frowned, trying to think. “We were… going somewhere?” She sounded unsure.
Howard tried to think. Had they been going somewhere? Where? No matter how hard he tried, nothing came to him.
“Tony?” Maria asked. “Where’s Tony?
“He’s home, he’s fine,” Howard answered automatically, then paused. Was that right? Had they left Tony at home? He thought so, but… had something happened? Perhaps they’d argued – he and Tony were always arguing…
A little wobbly, Howard and Maria got up and did their best to sort themselves out.
“I can’t find my purse.”
Howard checked his pockets and found his wallet was gone too. Wonderful. Had they been robbed? Knocked on the head? It might explain why they couldn’t remember, but… hadn’t they been in the car? Where was the car? That it been stolen too?
Well, there was no use worrying about it now. They should get home. “Come on.” He took Maria’s hand and they walked to the street. It looked like New York, but how they had ended up in an alley was still a mystery.
“Look,” Maria pointed. A street sign. Definitely New York. Manhattan. A few blocks from the mansion.
“We should go check on Tony,” Howard said. If they’d been robbed, and been recognized, the criminals might have taken his keys to try to get into the house. Not that they’d get through his security measures, but it was best to be sure.
As they started walking Howard began to remember something. They had been going somewhere. He’d had something to do… something he needed to take somewhere. But they’d been going out of the city. How had they gotten here? It made no sense for robbers to dump them back in the city rather than in the middle of the road somewhere. He was sure they’d left New York.
It seemed to be late because there were few people on the street. He checked his watch and found it broken at 7:37, which didn’t help much. Huddling together, he and Maria tried not to attract attention to themselves in their disheveled state.
Still wrecking his brain to remember anything useful, Howard wasn’t paying much attention to his surroundings until Maria tugged on his arm to point at something on the other side of the street. A billboard with flashing neon lights and the Stark Industries logo on it. It seemed to be an ad for something called a Starkpad. The device looked sleek and modern, but Howard had never seen anything like it before and he knew everything SI produced. What the hell was going on?
He and Maria exchanged confused looks, but, not knowing what else to do, they kept going, Howard now scrutinizing everything in sight. There was something wrong. They were in New York, yes, but… it looked different. He started to get a very bad feeling about this.
He spotted a newspaper on the floor and picked it up, hoping to learn something.
It was a bit more than he was expecting, though.
The date was wrong. It couldn’t be. Beside him, Maria gasped. No. There was no way… it couldn’t be 2017, that was impossible.
“Howard…” Maria indicated an article on the left side of the page. The headline read Ross trial starts tomorrow.
Former Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross’ trial is set to begin tomorrow. Ross is accused of several counts of human rights violations as well as acting against the Sokovia Accords in what is being called an abuse of power. The most expected testimony, that of Tony Stark, is scheduled for later this week.
Tony. His son. Testifying against a former Secretary of State? And what the hell were the Sokovia Accords?
“Howard, what is this? What is happening? Where are we?”
“I think the question is when are we. We appeared to have travelled in time. To the future.” It was supposed to be impossible, of course, but… how else to explain it? At least it meant Tony was all right. Alive. 2017, he’d be 47 now. Howard would be a hundred years old, so he was probably dead already in this time. Maria as well, perhaps. Most of the people he knew were probably dead too.
“Travelled in time?” His wife’s voice bought him back from his speculations.
“Well, I don’t have a better explanation at the moment.” Should they even go to the mansion? Would Tony be there? Or did he live somewhere else? How would they find him?
“What are we going to do?”
Howard’s mind was going a mile a minute now. If they were in the future, they had to have gotten here somehow. But how? And, most importantly, why? Who could have done this? Howard had invented a lot of crazy things in his life but a time machine was, sadly, not one of them. No one he knew could do that. Well, no one in 1987. Maybe in 2017 someone had figured it out. Maybe even Tony, the boy was smart. Maybe the two of them together could figure it out. They should find him. The problem was where. The paper said he would testify this week, but he might not even be in New York now.
“Howard!”
Maria had that irritated look on her face, like she’d been trying and failing to get his attention. Right. Yes. They needed a plan.
“We’ll go to the mansion.” Even if Tony wasn’t there, the mansion itself should still exist. They could rest a bit, get cleaned up. There might be something there to help them find Tony.
“Let’s go then.”
The rest of the walk was uneventful. Howard was mostly distracted trying to come up with an explanation for time travel. There were theories that it might be possible, but the energy requirement would be enormous, not to mention the issue of ensuring the integrity of the time traveler. Would it even be possible for them to go back?
Again it took Maria poking him to make him notice they had arrived. The gate outside the grounds looked the same, if not as well cared for. It was also, obviously, locked.
Maria pressed the intercom, but even after several minutes there was no answer. She tried her code next and again nothing happened. Howard’s code also had no effect. “How are we going to get in?” she asked. It was certainly a good question.
With a bit of effort, Howard pried open the intercom box and started fiddling with it. It was a bit different from the system he had installed, but eventually he managed to get the gate to open. They slipped inside and the gate closed again. Howard hoped his tinkering hadn’t triggered an alarm, because they certainly didn’t need the police knocking on the door to arrest them for trespassing. Without identification there was no way to prove it was their house. Assuming, of course, that the house was still theirs. Or Tony’s, at least.
The front door was also locked, of course, and again Howard messed with the security system to get them in.
“It’s so dark and silent,” Maria observed once they were inside.
Fortunately, the electricity was working. With the lights on, they could see that the place was empty, the furniture covered by white sheets and a thin layer of dust everywhere. In silence they walked through the house together, taking everything in. The kitchen was empty, no food anywhere. The piano was still in its room, covered. Howard’s study was also empty, even the safe. It looked as if no one had been there for quite some time.
“What do we do now?”
Howard shook his head in response. He had no idea. And he was tired. Maria too. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do tonight. Let’s just get some rest, we can figure it out tomorrow.”
There was water in the bathroom, at least, so they were able to clean themselves up. In spite of the blood on both of them, there was no sign of any cuts or injuries, which was strange. Howard felt tired and weary, but not hurt.
Their bedrooms were as empty as the rest of the house, but they found clothes in some of the guest rooms. Not theirs, but it would do for now. After changing they went to Howard’s bedroom and laid down together. It had been several years since they’d shared a bedroom, Howard’s odd hours and restlessness having made Maria seek her own space.
“Do you think we’ll be able to find Tony? He’ll be a grown man now.” Maria asked after a while.
“It shouldn’t be that hard. Stark Industries is still going, the office might still be there.”
“But how would we get in? We can’t just say we’re from the past. If that’s even what is happening.”
She had a point, Howard thought. Still, he was much too tired to think about it now. It’d been like this for a while, him getting tired easily, feeling sluggish when before he could go for days with little sleep and still be sharp and productive. God, getting old was a pain.
“We’ll figure something out.”
Before he knew it, Howard was asleep.
*****
Maria shook him awake the next morning. Howard groaned and tried to go back to sleep, but his wife was having none of it and practically dragged him out of bed. He got to the bathroom on shaky feet, though once he’d splashed some water on his face Howard felt a bit more together. He was dying for a cup of coffee.
Maria had laid out clothes for him, which she hadn’t done since the beginning of their marriage. Howard didn’t know why she was being so solicitous now, but shrugged and got dressed. Though the clothes weren’t his they fit well enough, so he couldn’t complain. He idly wondered whose they were.
He found Maria in the kitchen, dressed in her own borrowed clothes and apparently ready to face the day.
“I looked everywhere and this is all I could find.” There were a couple of cans of soup on the table, a bag of dried fruit and a jar of strawberry jam. Not exactly breakfast of champions, but they dug in anyway.
“How long have you been awake?”
“An hour, I guess. I’ve had a better look around and it’s clear that no one has lived here for years. So what now?” she asked once their meager breakfast was finished.
“Did you happen to find any money?”
“No, but some of my jewels are still in my dresser, though not the very expensive ones.”
It had been a long time since Howard had had to worry about money. Even when he didn’t have cash on him he had his credit cards, as well as his own fame. Now he had none of that. Maria’s jewels would certainly come in handy.
“Right. Well, I guess we should find a pawnshop, get some cash, get some decent food and find Tony.” Howard was still hungry.
“And tell him what?”
Howard sighed. He was used to just dealing with things as they happened, trusting that he would figure things out in any given situation, or that his money and name would be enough to sort out any problems. Maria had always liked to plan ahead, to have everything organized and laid out in front of her before she did anything. It had caused them no end of trouble in the beginning, before they learned to work around each other’s different styles. Still, Maria had a point. This was not a typical situation that they could just wing it. No doubt Tony had security at the office and they wouldn’t let just anybody in. Telling people who they were would probably be a bad idea, if they were even believed. They needed more information about this time.
“Let’s find out where to find him first. We might get more information in the papers.”
Neither he nor Maria fancied walking all over New York, so they checked the garage. Howard had a lot of cars, and, luckily, two of them were still there. The keys were nowhere in sight, but Howard didn’t need them anyway. He’d customized all his cars and knew them like the back of his hand. Getting them started was no problem at all.
He chose the least fancy one, though it would probably stand out anyway by virtue of being old, and they drove up to the gate. Again Howard rigged the security system to open the gate and close it once they were out.
In the light of day it was pretty obvious that this wasn’t the New York they knew. As they drove they noticed the differences: buildings, cars and even the way people were dressed, as well as the little devices everyone seemed to have on their hands. Portable telephones, Howard thought. Some of them had the Stark logo on them, Maria told him. It was odd that most people weren’t using it to talk, but looked to be reading something on them. Howard definitely wanted to take a closer look.
Finding a place to park proved impossible, so Maria went into the pawnshop alone while he waited in the car. After they’d gotten some money they found a diner to eat and, hopefully, get some more information.
“We should get a paper. I think I saw a newsstand down the block.”
Howard nodded, digging into his burger.
A group of teenagers entered the diner and sat on the table next to them. One of the boys had a phone in his hand and was showing something on it to the others.
“Spider-Man is really cool,” the kid with the phone said.
“But no one beats Iron Man,” another replied.
“No way, Cap is the best,” a third said.
“No, no, don’t start that again, please,” the last one said. Howard had no idea what they were talking about, but they were loud enough that it was impossible not to listen.
“Cap is boring, and he’s not even an Avenger anymore, he’s a criminal.” That was the second boy, a black kid.
“Because he was set up! Cap isn’t a criminal!” The third looked like the typical all-American kid, blond and fair skinned. He was wearing a T-shirt with the American flag on it. Howard rolled his eyes.
“Guys, come on…” The last one was a skinny guy with glasses and dark hair.
“He destroyed an airport, that’s a crime. Besides, he isn’t that great. He’s just strong, big deal. The Hulk is a lot stronger.”
“Just strong?”
“Guys!”
“Iron Man is the best because he’s smart. He made the suit himself. In a cave. While being held by terrorists. Now that’s a hero. Also, he helps people.”
“So he’s smart, Cap is still the best.”
Howard wondered who they were talking about.
The black kid snorted. “I’m going to apply to an internship at Stark Industries in the summer. I hear Mr Stark shows up to talk the interns sometimes. I might get an autograph.”
Hearing his name, Howard leaned forward.
The kid continued. “That would be super cool, getting to meet Iron Man.”
Wait, what? Howard played the conversation in his head again. Were they talking about Tony? Maria gave him an alarmed look; she’d been listening to the conversation too. Unfortunately, the waitress showed up to take the kids’ orders and they changed the subject. Howard wanted to ask the boys about Tony but he didn’t want to draw attention.
Still, it stayed on his mind, especially the part about being held by terrorists. What had happened to Tony?
Howard had never had the best relationship with his son. He was aware that he wasn’t a good father – hell, he was aware that he wasn’t that great a person; too much blood on his hands. He was too hard on Tony, he knew (and didn’t need Maria to keep reminding him, thank you very much), but the world was a hard place and it was even harder to those on top. He wanted Tony to be prepared, to be able to stand his ground no matter what. Coddling wouldn’t help, because nobody else would; people would in fact take advantage if he ever showed the slightest weakness. A tough skin was a necessity in business. Plus, Howard had never been good with kids, even when he’d been one himself – too smart, too ambitious, too different. There was too much of himself in Tony, too much of the things Howard didn’t like about himself. He could see Tony’s potential, for good and bad. Sometimes it felt like looking into a mirror. He didn’t want his son to end up like him, a bitter old man, frustrated with his life but unable to change it.
Had Tony made the same mistakes Howard had? Did he feel trapped and overwhelmed? Did he have children he didn’t know how to relate to?
Like himself, Tony hated being told what to do. He was confrontational and that was a bad combination for them. It seemed that whenever Howard and Tony were in the same room they argued about something and ended up shouting at each other. Every fucking time Howard told himself he’d keep his head since he was the adult, but every time he lost his temper, felt exasperated, angry and lost. He knew he was fucking it up, he could see it plain as day, but he didn’t know how to fix it. He’d never been good with people beyond the superficial level and the more he fucked up the angrier he got, and then he fucked it up even more. It’d gotten so bad that he sometimes purposefully avoided Tony so there wouldn’t be a fight. Then, of course, he’d feel like a piece of shit for being such a coward and for not being there for his son when he needed him because it was easier to let Maria or Jarvis handle things. It was fucking exhausting and it had only gotten worse as Tony got older. Howard had been hoping fervently for the day he’d be able to have an actual fucking conversation with his son without needing a drink afterwards.
Would that time be now? He knew nothing about the man Tony had become. Thirty years had passed. Tony wasn’t a kid anymore. What was he like now?
While he’d been lost in his musing, the teens had gotten their food and two of them had left, All-American and the one with the phone. The black kid and the one with glasses remained. Howard figured it wouldn’t hurt to try and get some information from them.
“Hey,” he said, getting the boys’ attention. They looked at him wearily. “Can you tell me where I can find the headquarters for Stark Industries?” If the boy was planning an internship there he would probably know that.
They did not look impressed. “Stark Tower,” the black kid said, sounding as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and Howard was an idiot for not knowing.
He managed to rein in his temper. “And where is that?”
“Dude, have you been living under a rock?” the one with glasses asked.
“It’s our first time in the city,” Maria said, probably hoping to make them sound less moronic.
“Well, it’s this huge building with Stark written at the top a few blocks that way,” the black kid pointed. “Can’t miss it.”
“Thank you,” Maria said with a smile. The boys nodded and turned away.
Howard and Maria exchanged a look. “Right, let’s go.” Howard paid for their meal and they walked out. Now that they knew where to look, he could indeed see the building in the distance, and it did say ‘Stark’ at the top.
“Plan?” Maria asked, looking longingly at the building as they walked to the car. Howard was trying to come up with something when Maria grabbed his arm. “Look!”
They’d come to a newsstand and in one of the magazines there was a picture of Tony and a ginger woman on the cover, both dressed in sharp suits. The headline said “Stark and Potts: making the world better.” Tony looked older, obviously, but it was still unmistakably him; their boy had grown up. In the picture, Tony was smiling charmingly, leaning slightly into the woman. Who was she?
Maria got the magazine while Howard asked for today’s paper. After paying, they hurried to the car to read.
“It says this woman, Pepper Potts, is CEO of Stark Industries,” Maria told him, magazine opened in her hands.
“What? What about Tony?”
“He’s involved, I think. They’re talking about a September Foundation, which has something to do with research grants. And there’s something else called the Avengers’ Relief Fund, ‘a non-profit organization set up to help people and places affected by Avengers battles as well as natural disasters’.”
Avengers? The boys at the diner had mentioned that. Howard didn’t like it. The word battle had not gone unnoticed. What had Tony gotten involved in?
“It talks about the Sokovia Accords here too.” She turned the page and gasped.
Howard took the magazine from her to see it. There was a picture of Tony in some sort of suit of armor (“he built the suit himself,” the boy in the diner had said), only his face visible. Beside it, another picture of the suit flying over New York. Below, there was another picture with the caption The New Avengers.
There was Tony on the left in a red and gold suit. Next to him another person in a suit, this one bulkier and mostly grey. Then a weird bald guy with pink skin and a cape. Next a woman in a suit with silvery wings – which resembled Janet Pym’s old suit – and on the far right a gigantic green-skinned guy in purple pants. The caption read Left to right: Iron Man – Tony Stark, War Machine – James Rhodes, Vision, Wasp – Hope van Dyne and Hulk – Bruce Banner.
“James Rhodes, isn’t that Tony’s friend from MIT?” Maria asked, pointing at his name. The man’s face wasn’t visible in the picture though.
“Yeah.” Tony had brought his friend over for a few days last summer. The boy was older than Tony, like all his classmates. He had seemed mature and level-headed.
“Hope van Dyne, that’s the Pyms’ girl, isn’t it?”
Howard nodded. He and Hank Pym had never been friends though they frequented the same circles. After his wife’s death, however, the man had gone completely off the rails and turned into a paranoid ass. Frankly, Howard had always liked Janet better (she was always charming and pleasant, unlike her husband), her death had been a terrible tragedy. The Pyms had a daughter, younger than Tony. They had only seen her a handful of times. This was probably her, grown up too and wearing a new version of her mother’s suit.
“She looks like Janet,” Maria commented. Howard wondered if Hank was still alive. He was younger than Howard, he’d be in his 70s now.
They read the whole article and the paper and, while they learned a lot of things, others were still unclear as they didn’t have the necessary background knowledge about the people and events mentioned.
Tony was indeed this Iron Man, and was part of a group of superheroes known as The Avengers. They’d saved the world from an alien invasion, which Howard was having trouble believing. The Sokovia Accords seemed to be an international oversight committee to supervise the Avengers and was apparently a new thing. Tony was no longer CEO of SI, but was still head of R&D and was still creating cutting-edge technology for the company, which was doing very well under its new CEO.
What really interested Howard though was the Iron Man suit. It looked absolutely incredible in the pictures, and Howard was itching to put his hands on it and figure out how it worked. His son had created something amazing, surpassing Howard’s wildest expectations, and was using it to protect the people of the world as a hero. To say Howard was proud would be an understatement.
“Guess our boy did all right for himself, huh?”
Maria nodded, proud as well. “It sounds dangerous, though. How are we going to get to see him?”
That was going to be a big problem. Considering all they’d learned, it was highly unlikely that they’d be able to walk in off the street and talk to him. There was probably all kinds of security at Stark Tower.
“What if we get him to come to us? Send him a message somehow?” Maria said after a few minutes of silence.
The suggestion had merit, Howard thought, as an idea came to him. “We can use the mansion’s security system. Tony must have some way to check it, so if I rig something he’d probably come investigate.” It was an assumption, but a fair one. The fact that the house was still there, even if empty, meant Tony still owned it – why would he sell it anyway? He’d grown up in that house – so a security breach would get his attention. And even if he didn’t come himself, whoever he sent would likely contact him and they’d be able to send a message anyway. Yeah, it might work.
“Great, let’s go.”
During the drive back Howard and Maria discussed what to tell Tony or whoever showed up. They would probably be able to prove who they were through blood tests and fingerprints – Howard and Maria’s prints were in the SHIELD database, he knew – and if aliens really had invaded Earth (he was still having trouble with that idea) a certain amount of weirdness wouldn’t be completely unexpected. Maria worried about how Tony would react given that they had likely been dead for a while.
They also wondered if it would be possible for them to go back to their own time, which might mean worrying about changing history given what they now knew about the future. There was also, of course, the matter of figuring out how they’d traveled in time in the first place, not to mention what they’d been doing before finding themselves in the future, which they still couldn’t remember.
It was Maria’s idea to stop by a store to get some food for later, as there was still nothing at the house and they didn’t know how long it would take for Tony to show up.
Once back, Maria announced she was going to make a more thorough check of the house while Howard set to work on the security system. It was basically the one he’d installed with some upgrades. Back in his day, he’d had a link with SHIELD’s headquarters in case of a break-in, but that didn’t seem to be working anymore. The house was linked to another system, though, possibly the one at the Tower (which, according to the magazine article, housed SI offices and labs as well as Tony and the Avengers themselves).
It took him a while to rewrite the security system and include in it a code he hoped Tony would find familiar enough to want to investigate. It was something he knew Tony had seen 30 years ago (for him), but, like Howard, Tony had a better memory for mechanical things than personal ones, so he hoped his son would still remember it.
He’d just about finished it when Maria showed up, showered and dressed, with sandwiches for them. Back in the beginning of their marriage she had done that often, shown up in the workshop or office with food to get him to take a break. After a while, however, Howard had started getting irritated with her interruptions, especially when he was stumped and frustrated. He’d ended up being a right bastard to her often enough that she left him to his own devices. Well, she’d left him to Jarvis, who never reacted to being yelled at (he knew better than Maria that Howard didn’t mean it, and was, frankly, more than used to him and his shit at that point to be fazed by anything). Jarvis was probably dead now too, Howard realized sadly. It was a terrible thought; Jarvis was his oldest friend except for Peggy, but obviously he saw Jarvis a lot more often than Peggy. Shit, Peggy was likely dead as well.
“How did it go?” his wife asked, bringing him back to the moment.
“It’s done, now we just have to wait for someone to show up. Did you find anything?”
“Personal things are mostly gone but the furniture and decorations are still here, except for some of the more expensive paintings. It looks like Tony just packed up his and our things and left. It’s hard to tell how long it’s been, though. There isn’t a lot of dust, which means someone probably comes by every now and then to clean up a bit.”
“The security system has been updated and it’s working fine, so there’s maintenance for that as well.”
After the food was gone, Howard took a shower and they settled in to wait. It was not something he was very fond of, but there was nothing else he could do in an empty house (the workshop was locked with a much more sophisticated security system that he couldn’t disable, he’d discovered). He tried to get a drink to settle his nerves but Maria shot him a look of such displeasure that Howard gave it up. It wouldn’t do to be tipsy when Tony arrived anyway; they had enough problems talking when he was sober.
Despite his anxiety, however, Howard found himself struggling to stay awake. Even though he hadn’t actually done much today, he still felt tired. Might be an aftereffect of the time travel, he thought, right before drifting to sleep in the armchair in the piano room, music drifting into his ear.
When he woke up, Iron Man was standing above him, glowing hand pointed right at his head.