Work Text:
Clink. Clink. Clink.
“I figured I’d find you sulking here.”
Howard lets the final ice cube fall into the glass –clink- and resists the urge to close his eyes and swear. His shoulders, threaded tight with tension, slouch further, and he doesn’t do the person interrupting his……his quiet time, the courtesy of even turning around a little on the bar stool he’s appropriated.
Silence. Then distinctive heels click their way across the creaky floorboards and Howard stifles another swear between his teeth. Fuck, he doesn’t have the patience for this.
“You know,” His voice comes out several tones hoarser than the caramel smooth, low cadence he usually rolls out. He finds himself unable to care. “What with what’s happened, you’d think I’d be entitled to some sulking.”
Peggy Carter’s smooth, bright, uncreased mouth shimmers in the reflection of his amber-hued glass. He fastens his hand around the tumbler, condensation cool on his welding calluses, and downs the entire thing. When he looks back up, Peggy’s mouth is primed into something unreadable, and determination -so much like Steve- flashes in her dark eyes.
Howard huffs a little, shoulders moving up and then down minutely. Peggy might as well have locked the door on her way in. He knows that look on his best friend’s face rather too well, from times spent glaring at Agents-who-can’t-see-past-breasts across the SSR’s interrogation table when she was trying to prove his innocence, to her rather bullheaded stand about the Manhattan project. He isn’t walking out of here, drunk or otherwise, until she’s well and truly done with him.
Sometimes it catches him offguard, how much leeway he grants Peggy Carter with his pride. To her credit, she treats it much better than his arrogance.
“Steve would have appreciated it.” She says, calm and firm and……..gentle, in the way no one knows Peggy Carter can be, apart from Howard and maybe Jarvis. So yes, she grants him quite a bit of leeway too. Doesn’t stop Howard from wondering how long Peggy had to practice in the mirror to say Steve’s name with such composure. She’s never stuttered over it once, not even immediately afterward, while reporting how the radio had been cut off by static.
(It took Howard three months.)
“Well, too bad he’s dead then.” Howard cocks his chin and glances up, in that utterly infuriating manner he knows he has.
Peggy doesn’t lose an inch of that composure, except for a minute tightening at the corners of her eyes. He’s asking for a broken nose. He knows it. She knows it. She still gives him bloody compassion, because apparently that’s how people like Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers work. “You know you don’t believe that. You never have.”
The unspoken words remain hanging in the air. Not even when I did.
“Yeah, well.” Howard turns back to his bottle. Maybe she’ll be nicer to him. “Apparently rapidly soaring hopes, followed by their unceremonious shattering, serve as extenuating circumstances.”
Peggy remains undeterred. “You still saved a Howling Commando.”
The curve of Howard’s lips against his glass is a bitter one. “Not the right one.”
Peggy’s lips twist. Maybe he’ll finally get that broken nose after all. “Look I……understand that it was difficult. Hearing that the Hydra facility in Poland had got hold of a supersoldier and had been keeping him all these years……you started hoping. We all did.” She exhales, keeping absolute control over her breath, then proceeds. “Regardless of who we didn’t find at the facility……..we did find someone. And that wouldn’t have been possible if not for your intelligence feelers and constant search parties. You saved Sergeant Barnes, Captain America’s best friend, from a very, very horrible fate. This is not a cause to mourn.”
“You know.” Howard swings around on his stool, the legs teetering precariously, and looks straight up at Peggy, in what he doesn’t pretend is anything but insolence. “If you want me to start believing you actually mean it, Peg, you should probably stop calling him Captain America.”
Noses, Howard learns, approximately three seconds and a solid right hook later, bleed a lot.
When he gains the wherewithal to look up at her again, Peggy is delicately dabbing at the blood on her knuckles with a hand-embroidered handkerchief. Probably Anna Jarvis’ work, via her husband. “I simply do not have the patience for this childishness. Pack your bags, you need a change of scenery.”
“The war-“
“-ended six months ago, thanks to you and your demonic creations Howard, so you will behave like the incorrigible millionaire that you are and go for a vacation. Somewhere far, far away.” Peggy efficiently tucks the handkerchief back into the waistline of her skirt, pivots on her heels and proceeds to walk away.
She’s left the room already, doors swinging shut behind her, when Howard manages to yell through a broken nose, “You know, if I’d wanted to be ordered around, I’d have joined the military!”
Her reply floats back distantly. “You’re welcome!”
~
When Howard had pulled his lips up into a leer outside the airport hangar and asked, “Do I atleast get decent company?” Peggy’s answering smirk had almost given him hope.
Hope liked to piss on his face and run away, wiggling its ass all the while. He should have known.
This was how he came to be seated in a plane with Sergeant James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes, cruising at an altitude of ten thousand feet above sea level, bemoaning the general lack of high-kicking USO girls. The man, best friend of Captain America or not, is a poor replacement. He looks like the recently resurrected dead (irony, ha), and has an expression to match, glowering at the darkness outside the window for the past two hours.
Howard is fine with being treated like pond scum. Pond scum, his high school biology classes remind him, are in fact responsible for fifty percent of the oxygen currently circulating in the earth’s atmosphere. Pond scum are useful. What he does have an issue with, however, is being treated like he’s invisible. And all those wearied light technicians in charge of operating the spotlight to move around on Howard on stage are live witnesses to that fact. Howard has a very visible issue to being treated like he’s invisible.
“So…” He drawls out, with just the littlest smidgen of caution, because best civilian pilot and weapons contractor or not, his knowledge of firearms would probably not come in so handy in practical fighting against a semi-supersoldier. “Did she break your nose too?”
Bucky Barnes gives the impression of hearing nothing. Just when Howard is about to give up and resort to getting his attention from the plane fuselage instead, he hears a deep, slightly raspy voice. “No.”
Howard doesn’t want to pry. Okay, incorrect, he wants to pry but he will not, because Midnight Oil and massive weapons of destruction or not, he still sometimes likes to believe he’s a fundamentally decent man. And Bucky Barnes has spent close to three years in Hydra captivity. He didn’t break, Colonel Phillips has informed Howard rather proudly, or rather broke and broke again but not the way Hydra wanted him to; but somehow Howard came out of that conversation thinking that not-breaking the way Hydra wanted was perhaps not a triumph.
Regardless, Bucky Barnes’ grey, more than slightly haunted eyes are staring back at him, and Howard ditches the unimportant thoughts and just comes out with it bluntly. “Why’d you agree to come then?”
“I thought,” Bucky begins, slowly, a little languorously, that ever-present rasp to his words. Howard has the frightfully dangerous thought of easing it with the sacrifice of his entire stock of Glenfidditch. “…that being with a man who’s killed ten times the people I have would maybe ease up the guilt a bit.”
Howard blinks, and his first thought is fuck you, because no one apart from Peggy had ever dared to talk about Manhattan like anything less than his greatest triumph. His second thought is, so we have two assholes on this plane, huh, and honours it by saying, “Well, I’ve retired from military contracts, and you’re a recently recovered super-soldier in indentured labour.” Howard toasts the man opposite him with an imaginary glass. “May you live to kill many more.”
Something rapid flashes across Bucky Barnes’ face, and he leans back without a word, tilting his head sideways to look out of the window again. Howard feels strange because………well. He hasn’t passed a test conducted by a good man in a long, long time.
~
Three days into their vacation, Howard Stark and Bucky Barnes are sitting at a bar.
Well, Howard supposes he’s sitting with Bucky Barnes. The man scratching patterns into the condensation at the counter hasn’t been doing much to prove that he’s Bucky Barnes at all.
Howard, because he’s had enough of brooding silences for a lifetime, thank you very much, inflects a mixture of boredom and disdain and general impudence into his words with rare skill. “This is so not how I imagined my post-war vacation to be like.”
It was a spiritless echo of an attempt really- in the few hours of ‘vacation time’ Howard’s actually spent in the other man’s company, the erstwhile Howling Commando hasn’t been very open to conversation. Which is why it comes as a bit of a surprise when the man actually replies, keeping that thousand-yard stare intact.
“I thought I’d spend my post-war vacation being Arnim Zola’s lab rat. This is…..” Bucky almost sounds musing. “A step up.”
“A vacation with America’s only millionaire is….a step up from Hydra.” Howard doesn’t quite possess the wherewithal to feel insulted. He’s too busy coping with befuddlement. “You’re right, I should probably put that on the brochures.”
Bucky lets out a sound, that in some other universe might have resembled amusement. Its gruff and hoarse and, quite frankly, sounds painful. “S’not like you’ve been dyin’ with enthusiasm ‘bout spending a vacation with me, pal.”
Both their natural accents come out when they’ve let down their guards, in a fashion, Howard registers almost absently. “I could’ve had Marcie with me on this trip. Hair like spun gold and skin supple as butter, that one. Or Perdita. Damn, but her legs are even better than Peggy’s. Or Edith Fenworth. Do you even know what its like to have an actual actress play out your fantasies for you?
Bucky’s lip twitches, and for an instant, the brooding expression on those features almost turns into something roguish. “You’re making them up. You don’t even remember their names, do ya?”
“Edith Fenworth absolutely exists, thank you very much.” Something almost like indignation colours Howard’s tone for a moment, because yes he brags, but never about something that isn’t true. But he relents a second later. “But I’m still a bit foggy on whether she’s the actress or the gal in the telephone company.”
Bucky continues to give off distinctly amused vibes, which does his features much better credit than the walking dead impression he was pulling off until then. Howard makes a play at narrowing his eyes, “How did you know I didn’t remember their names anyway?”
“Because I never do.” Bucky returns, and follows it up with a sip of scotch.
Howard halts there for a second because huh, he’d almost forgot. Steve had never been very free with his confidences, and when the time came for the boys to crowd around the fire so as to speak and share their exploits, he’d always offered one of his friend Bucky’s instead. Howard remembers the stories, takes a look around the crowded bar, then pours the remnants of the swill populating his glass down his throat and sets it down with an emphatic clink. Bucky raises an eyebrow.
Howard’s always been good at blowing things up. He has blowing things up down to a fine art, one that he probably holds all the degrees in. He’s never been very good at putting them back together. He isn’t quite sure whether he’s trying for the latter or the former when he leans forward, gives the bar around them populated with dames drunk on alcohol and peace a significant look, and then says- “You’re on, pal.”
Bucky’s other eyebrow joins his first at his hairline, and somehow Howard is reminded of that moment on the plane. Teetering in that moment of truth wherein Howard’s either about to get punched or deserted at the watering hole, Bucky sets his glass down too, then pivots on his stool in a smooth moment to survey the room. “You start on the left, I’ll do the right?”
Howard can’t quite stop the grin from breaking across his face. “I should warn you. I’m very good at this.”
Bucky Barnes drops the Midnight Oil impersonation completely and winks at him. “I’m better.”
~
“You,” Bucky slurs, smelling like he’s gone skinny dipping in a lake full of moonshine. “Are a complete ass.”
Howard is not stumbling along the alley, leaning on Bucky Barnes for support. He’s not. Starks have a constitution of iron. Starks just never had to duke it out with semi-supersoldiers with ridiculous metabolisms before. “’M not.” slurs Howard in return, then gives himself a shake because hanging around with all those hoity-toity Britons has made him all conscious about his pronunciation. “I am not.” He enunciates carefully again, and then punches the air in victory. They almost fall over.
“I had it in the bag.” Bucky says with particular emphasis. “I was winning. Then you had to strut over and say-“
“I am Howard Stark!” Howard throws out both hands in victory this time. Bucky almost hits the alley wall, then grumbles something under his breath and slings one of Howard’s flying arms around his neck again. Howard’s too busy gloating to notice. “It works. It always works.”
“Not on any decent gal who doesn’t give a shithole about money, it doesn’t.” Bucky mutters.
Howard wags a finger under his nose, because yes, he is a complete ass. “Use…..use all the methods available at your disposal. Never been to war, Sergeant?”
Bucky’s face tightens under the moonlight. They stagger along in relative silence for several minutes after that. Howard almost feels sorry.
“I know you wish I hadn’t come back.” Floats into Howard’s ear a couple of minutes later. With immense effort, Howard twists his head sideways to see Bucky’s darkened features cast in silver light. There has to be something almost poetic about that, Howard reckons, except he’s always believed that poetry is an utter scam. “I know you wish St….Steve had. I do too.”
Huh. Howard’s brain goes again, twisting into unnecessary circles. So apparently even three years hasn’t been enough for Bucky Barnes to get rid of the stutter.
“I…. usually don’t make wishes that tend to get me killed, Sergeant.” Howard kicks at a stone that comes across their path. It rolls away with an unsatisfying clatter. “I suggest you try the same.”
“It just…….it doesn’t seem fair.” Bucky’s face twists into an amalgamation of frustration and hurt that seems too private, even in the dimly lit streets. “That we…..we’re…..”
That jerks like us are here while he’s gone? No, it doesn’t. Howard doesn’t complete the sentence out loud though. He doesn’t need to.
They stagger along the cobblestoned street, stinking of drink, a tramp in Brooklyn turned lab experiment and living weapon, a genius American inventor turned warmonger and mass murderer. They hobble along, till they pass under the shadow of the hotel they’re living at on vacation while Steve Rogers freezes somewhere under the ice of the Arctic, and pause, not quite willing to let go yet.
Bucky does though, withdraws Howard’s arm almost gently from around his neck, freeing his collar of the death grasp that Howard’s fingers had apparently twisted it into, while contemplating the fate of Captain America. Howard lurches back a little, trying to get his body balance to function again without support, throwing off Bucky’s steadying grasp with perhaps less grace than he deserved.
Bucky’s metal arm gleams in the dim light, and that is a phenomenal proof of Howard’s apparently non-existent tact right there, the fact that he hasn’t peeled the story behind that little beauty yet. Bucky probably doesn’t consider it a beauty though. He almost fidgets while standing there, a ridiculously normal motion for someone who’s gone through such extraordinary things, then apparently gulps his apprehension back and asks almost brusquely, “I hear you’re sending expeditions trying to get him home?”
Howard, who’s been a little shamefully preoccupied in trying to figure out how exactly Hydra managed to create something as marvellous as that arm, blinks a little stupidly. “Um. Yeah?”
“Can…….can you let me come with?”
Howard blinks again. Because you see, Peggy Carter loved Steve Rogers. And she was also an unfailingly pragmatic woman, who believed love entitled someone to something as ridiculous as ‘dignity of choice’. Ever since that conversation over the radio during the time that Howard had almost released a poisonous gas over half of Time Square, they had had the same conversation in various iterations, in numerous ways, over his apparently fruitless expeditions. He’s gone, Howard. You can’t bring him back. I understand….but you can’t bring him back.
Howard isn’t stupid enough to think that there weren’t people in the world who loved Captain America just as much, or even more than he did. Steve left an impression on your life, whoever you are. That was just the way he was. But Bucky Barnes had spent half the night not spent in chasing skirts, regaling Howard about all the accounts of Steve before the serum. The fights, the obstinacy, the idealism. It was strange, because Howard had never really contemplated the man before the serum, before. Sure, he’d seen the skinny runt who’d later go on to be Captain America, but Steve Rogers had only solidified into being for him when Cap had popped into existence. His creation. When Howard came to know over the course of the night that apparently he’d only created the vessel for the man to flourish in, that he had had no hand in what actually made the man the Captain……well, Howard was selfish. The let down wasn’t gentle, and he’d almost thought of giving the continuous searches up.
But now Bucky Barnes looked at him, as if in cautious hope for an anchor that would drag him to safety and shore, and Howard knew he was an idiot for ever believing that he could let Steve Rogers go, if even for a second. The world may be satisfied by immortalising the man in statue and radio plays and comics, but Howard Stark didn’t believe in settling for anything. And neither, it seemed, did the man standing before him right now.
Howard stared, at who was going to be his partner in mischief and obsession for years after this moment, and let his lips curve up. “Sure. Anytime.”
“….thank you.” Bucky said, probably not just in reference to the expeditions, and Howard grinned in response.
“Well….yes. About bloody time.”
~
On the final day of their vacation, when Bucky throws out almost casually, “So you still wish he was here instead?” , Howard doesn’t bother restraining the smirk. Frankly, he hasn’t stopped smirking since the day Bucky admitted that what with the Stark Expo and everything, he’s always thought Howard to be a greater deal than Buck Rogers.
“Well, as a substitute for Captain America, you’re a massive disappointment, mate.” Ice tinkles in the last glass of Glenfidditch that Howard pours out; would you look at that, they managed to finish the stock after all. “But as Bucky Barnes…..I suppose you aren’t doing half bad a job.”
~
An interminable number of years later, Howard stares down at the only organic, squishy thing he has ever had a hand in creating. Maria’s gone to the other bedroom to rest, thank God, because she always takes personal offence to the way he looks at their son as if he were a particularly well disguised grenade. Howard probably shouldn’t tell her that atom bomb comes a little closer to the mark. Which is particularly ironic too, since he also created the atom bomb and everything.
Bucky’s head pops over his shoulder, staring at the crib much in the same way Howard is, though with considerably less terror. “So what’s it gonna be? Steve or Bucky?”
Howard grimaces because, ugh. There’s no way in hell anything with his genes in it can stand up to Steve’s name. And being obsessed with Captain America isn’t half the same thing as being patriotic enough to name your child after an obscure President. “Maria’s insisting on Anthony.”
“Tony, huh?” Bucky runs a finger over those dark curls, the baby in the crib grins toothlessly and tries to clasp on with both hands. “I thought you would have been insisting on Howard the Second.”
Howard grimaces again, because he has class, thanks. But then Bucky asks, “So I’m the godfather right?” and Howard replies, “Yeah sure.” before his brain can parse all the data and think about Stane and business-oriented decisions about his son taking over the Stark empire and making provisions…..just in case. But he supposes he could do a lot worse than Steve’s best friend.
Speaking of which….. “We missed the last expedition ‘cause of Maria’s ill health. The next one’s kitting out in two days- ”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Bucky says immediately. “The expedition can do just fine without us. You just got a kid.”
Don’t be ridiculous. Howard stares at him for several seconds, trying to comprehend. This was the only man who ever really understood. Who matched Howard’s obstinacy in holding on. Who was probably even more invested in this hope that got dashed to the ground again and again, and yet again. Akin to Howard inspite of being Brooklyn-born, more than anyone else had ever been. He, Bucky Barnes, was staring right back at Howard now, as if quite incapable of understanding Howard’s confusion. Don’t be ridiculous.
“Yeah.” Something using Howard’s voice said, as he turned back to the crib. Ran a thumb over his…..son’s (his son. his son. his son) little fists. Tony gurgled.
“Yeah. Okay.”
-fin-