Chương 1504: 3
Chapter 3Summary:
Time passes and Tony's been busy.
The Winter Soldier meets Iron Man. Or does he?
Howard meet Iron Man.
Chapter Text
Two weeks later, Tony watched as the first excavators started work on the Bergen Point property. It was going to take time to get IT up and running, but that was something he now had plenty of.
Time to plan. Time prepare. He wasn't going to waste what he'd been given.
Every day he missed Pepper, Morgan and Peter. Every day he reminded himself that one day, he'd see them again. Until then, he had to be patient.
Not something he was especially good at.
~~~
January – November 1991
Months flew by and Tony used them well. IT grew, and it grew fast. The first protypes were displayed to the military and were rigorously tested. Of course, they came through with flying colours, he was Tony Stark, after all. He didn't make failures.
The US Army Ranger company, based out of Fort Benning, that was testing his gear, provided rave reviews. The Kevlar/polymer bi-weave was more expensive than the traditional fatigues but it also meant that the soldiers didn't need to wear heavy bullet proof vests, the lighter vests made from his secondary material combined with the fatigues, had as much if not more stopping power as the standard issue Kevlar vests.
The only thing that surprised Tony were the requests for boots in a comparable material. He took a pile of notes and a sample of the boots currently worn and promised to work on it. It hadn't occurred to him that a soldier could be completed decked out in his gear, but still be vulnerable because their boots wouldn't provide the same level of protection. He would have to work on that.
~~~
November 1991
By the time December loomed in front of him, he'd been the target of six kidnapping attempts. Attempts that he found more amusing than anything else. While, he had the arc-reactor with the Bleeding Edge suit with him at all times, so far, he'd been able to 'rescue' himself without resorting to the armour. Something that caused Howard to request that Tony undertake some self-defence training.
It came as a hell of a shock to Howard, that Tony didn't actually need the training. That everything that the instructor suggested, Tony was already capable of doing. Guns? He was easily able to hit what he aimed at. Knives? No difference there. Hand-to-hand? The instructor was more than a little surprised that Tony was able to put any of the instructor's people on the ground in a very acceptable timeframe. Boxing? Tony was good enough to go professional.
Then Tony added things. Pick a lock? He always had a hairpin or two on his belt. Hotwire a car? Please, he was an electrical and mechanical genius. Climb a building? It wasn't exactly mountaineering, now was it? Escape and evade? Does anyone ever look up?
Tony enjoyed the challenges the instructors presented, but only for a short time, after that he became frustrated that they weren't taking him seriously. So, he offered up a challenge of his own. Drop him in So-Cal, with only a $100 in cash, no access to credit and a phone only for emergencies. He wagered that he could be back in New York, untraced, inside 48hrs.
If he wins, the instructors and the 'training' go away. If he loses, he continues training until the instructors decide he's as good as he's going to get. Without complaint.
36hrs and 29 minutes after being dropped off at UCLA's main campus, he walked in the mansion's door, a few minutes early for dinner. Without having to resort to using JARVIS' assistance, either, one might add. Howard sighed and cancelled the instructors and Tony got on with the business of running IT.
And on the surface, that was all he was doing. But in the hours when he was alone, he and JARVIS were preparing a welcoming party for the Winter Soldier. Most obviously, BARF and a holding area for him to live in, until he was more Barnes than Soldier.
~~~
The investigation into Obie's actions had stalled, Tony wasn't sure why, but he kind of felt that Howard was taking the easy way out. Better the 'devil you know than the one you don't', kind of thing. Tony was prepared to let it ride, as long as it didn't bleed over into IT.
For now.
He'd broach the subject with Howard, after Christmas, taking with him any new documentation that JARVIS found between now and then. Christmas was always a busy time for Obie's little scam, according to the records JARVIS and Pepper had found after the man's death.
~~~
He'd seen Pepper once. God, she'd looked so young… Tony had opened his mouth to call out to her, before closing it and walking away. What could he say? 'Hi, I'm you husband from thirty years from now?'
Yeah, that would work really well… Not…
After that, he kept away from the university area, there was nothing for him there. Not yet. Not until Pepper finished her BA.
~~~
December 1991
But now it was December. And December meant the Winter Soldier. He'd set up a corner of the bunker to hold the Soldier in, with a bathroom and bedroom, to give a little privacy. He wasn't a voyeur, it wasn't his thing and never had been.
He'd managed to get his hands on a copy of every version on the Captain America propaganda films and had JARVIS digitise them for him. He intended to play them at random intervals and hopefully Steve's face would be enough to begin the breakdown of the Soldier's programming.
Now Tony just had to catch the man.
~~~
December 16th 1991
Tony watched as his parents left for Camp Lehigh, before eating dinner with Mr Jarvis and Miss Ana. After that he let Mr Jarvis know that he was going to be working on a very delicate project and to not call him unless it was a life-threatening situation. This project going to change lives for many people.
And if Tony had his way, it was.
Instead of descending into his workshop bunker, he ducked into a black-spot in the mansion's security coverage and left the property. Once he was across the road and into central park, he activated the suit and had JARVIS engage the prototype cloaking system, knowing that it was only good for a few minutes. But a few minutes was all he needed to get out of the city, it was that time of day where overhead lights didn't show up all that clearly against the semi-bright sky, which really helped.
Getting back was going to be more of a challenge. Was it bad to say he was kinda looking forward to it?
He reached Wheaton, New Jersey, and located the base just in time to see Howard assist Maria into the big Buick and round the hood to the driver's door. He knew which road he needed to be on and roughly where. Seeing the site, in the flesh, made his heart race and his skin crawl.
Was he really going to do this?
He sighed and his shoulders slumped.
Yes… He was. Dammit. No-one deserved to be tortured like Barnes had been. No-one.
He saw the right stretch of road and sighed. "Here we go…"
"The tree you selected won't quite cover the entire width of the road, Sir." JARVIS warned.
"I know, J, I didn't want it to. It's enough to slow dad down and change the dynamics of the 'accident'. The car will be slow enough that dad can still control it after Barnes blows out the tires."
"Ah. I am corrected, that hadn't occurred to me." JARVIS replied.
"Why would it, J? The vehicles that you control have the ability to react instantly, dad's Buick doesn't, it handles like a tank. And your reaction time is so much better than his." Tony reminded his… what was JARVIS, if he wasn't just an AI?
Tony watched the tree fall and nodded, it was pretty much exactly where he wanted it. The sound of a motorcycle engine caught JARVIS' delicately tuned mics.
"Incoming, Sir." The voice issued from the speakers inside the suit's helmet.
"Let's get this done, J." Tony moved himself to where he would be clearly seen by both vehicles and waited, hovering three foot above the road's surface.
The Buick slowed to a stop and Howard opened the door as the motorcycle pulled up beside him. Tony eased off the thrusters and let the suit touch down.
The Winter Soldier got off the bike and stood up straight. His hand fell too close to the gun at his waist for Tony's liking.
"Uh-uh, Soldier, not tonight." Tony said, letting the suit's speaker project his voice just loud enough to be heard by super-soldier hearing but not by his father.
"Iron Man?" The Soldier asked, his body going rigid in shock.
"Uh… yeah…?" Tony spoke at normal levels. How did Barnes knew who he was?
"Oh, thank fuckin' God." The Soldier's tense body slumped. "Get ya ass over here. I've got a tracker and a kill-switch in this bloody thing and I want 'em gone." He lifted his arm and waved it slightly.
"Tracker? Kill-switch?" Tony walked forward, ignoring his father. "Really?" What the hell? Does Barnes actually know who I am? Tony thought to himself.
"Yeah, and less than ten minutes before my handler sets 'em off." He nodded towards Howard. "He's running late, this was supposed to happen an hour ago."
Yep, he knows. Tony winced. "Ah, shit, that was my fault." He shrugged and let the suit retract into the arc-reactor's housing.
"Tony?!" Howard squawked.
"Hey, dad. Got a tool kit on you?" He headed for the Buick's trunk.
"No!" Howard darted towards the rear of the car.
"Relax, dad, I know about the serum and I'm not interested in it, right now. I'm all about disabling that tracker and kill-switch." Tony popped the trunk and ignored the briefcase, while grabbing the roll of tools, tucked into the spare wheel. He then slammed the trunk closed and called to Barnes. "Get that arm over here, murderbot." He patted the trunk's lid and laid out the toolkit.
Thunk.
Barnes dropped his metal arm onto the trunk, igoring the sparks it caused and faced Tony and Howard. For the first time his face was visible and it came as a surprise to one Stark.
"Sergeant Barnes?!" Howard exclaimed, rendered nearly silent by surprise.
"Give us a minute, Stark." Barnes grunted barely glancing in Howard's direction. "The plates open from there, this way." He pointed at a particular plate on the forearm and ran his finger towards his elbow. "I can't touch it without setting off a short-circuit that sets off the kill-switch."
"Yeah, figured that." Tony grabbed flat-head screwdriver, and pried it under the plate, lifting it and the others around it into a vertical position. "Got a knife, Barnes?" Barnes didn't answer but a knife appeared above Tony's hand. "Great, just let me…" He took the knife and used it to hold the plates open while he pushed the screwdriver into the depths of Barnes' arm there was a small flash, a click and a piece of wiring came loose, Tony dropped to the ground and watched sparks crackle as Barnes crushed it under foot. "That's the tracker. How long before they set off the kill-switch?"
"It's automatic if the tacker is disabled. Three minutes." Barnes answered.
"Right." Tony huffed. "Typical. Never give me a decent bloody challenge, do they?" He dug the screw driver into the arm again, and another click was heard. "Right, it's loose, but I need…" He lifted his head. "Hey, mom! Got a pair of tweezers in your purse?"
"Not in my purse, dear, but there should be a pair in the first aid kit." Nothing surprised Maria Carbonell Stark, nothing, she'd lived with Howard for too many years. She calmly climbed from the passenger door and retrieved the first aid kit from under her seat. "Here you are." The tweezers appeared and Tony grabbed them, throwing his mother a smile and dug back into Barnes' arm.
Finally, the tiny vial emerged.
"Huh, that's enough to knock you down?" He asked Barnes.
"Specifically designed to, yeah." Barnes nodded. "Get rid of it."
"Oh, no, we need this to made you a decent bloody painkiller, Barnes." Tony objected.
"Painkiller?" Barnes asked.
"Yeah, Shuri's design called for a new shoulder implant and there's no way in hell, I'm doing that, without you having some type of painkiller in your system." Tony worked on closing up the arm's mechanics and realigning the plates.
"Oh…" Barnes blinked. "Shuri? You remem… you know Shuri?"
"I worked with her on the replacement, murderbot." Tony assured the man. "She was great with integrating my mechanics into your system. But mechanics alone, weren't her thing." He handed the knife back to Barnes.
"Huh…" Barnes grunted before standing up and rotating the metal wrist. "We've only got a few minutes before they come to check I did what they wanted."
"Which was, what?" Howard asked.
"Kill you and steal the serum." Barnes said.
"What?!" Howard exclaimed
"I didn't and I'm not going to." Barnes assured the older man. "Tony's already disabled their tracking device, so can we have this discussion elsewhere? Please?"
"I have to deliver the serum to SHIELD." Howard said.
"No!" Both Barnes and Tony yelled.
"Bloody hell, no." Tony went on.
"SHIELD's compromised." Barnes added.
"Of course, they're bloody compromised, they employed Arnim fucking Zola." Tony swore.
"Zola?!" Barnes jerked in shock. "He was the one that tortured us at Azzano." He shuddered. "He smiled as he experimented on us, said we were his to do with as he wanted." His breathing went rapid and he started to tremble.
"Easy, Barnes." Tony stepped in front of the other man. "We're in New Jersey, it's December 16, 1991. The night is clear and cold but it's not expected to snow tonight." Tony's voice was low and calm.
"What?" Howard asked.
"Panic attack, dad, let me deal with it." Tony spoke in the same soothing voice. "It's 11.47pm and we really need to make a move, here, murderbot."
"Yeah…" Barnes shuddered and pulled himself back into the here and now. "Zola's HYDRA. He'll always be HYDRA. He'll be recruiting people from inside SHIELD."
"Oh, God…" Howard gasped. "Peggy…"
"She'll be fine." Tony said. "Anyone stupid enough to take on Aunt Peggy, deserves what they get."
"Ain't that the truth?" Barnes snorted. "But seriously? Can we get out of here?"
"The mansion?" Maria asked.
"No." Tony corrected. "My factory. It's empty at this hour and my office and main workshop are there."
"Where'm I going?" Barnes asked.
Tony blinked and grinned. "Feel like a passenger, murderbot?" He asked looking at the bike. "Dad can follow us."
"What about the suit?"
"Nanotech, same type of thing as the panther suit."
"Oh, right." Barnes nodded. "Sure, if you're prepared to trust me."
"Barnes, with the triggers gone and the programming not being active, you're no more likely to try and kill me than Hawk-ass was." Tony snorted.
"If there was coffee involved, that was very likely." Barnes snarked back.
"True." Tony nodded. "But there's no coffee until we get to the factory. So…?"
"We're good." Barnes nodded.
"Alright, then." Tony agreed. "Mom, dad? Back in the car and follow us."
"The tree, dear?" Maria asked looking further up the road.
"Ah, right. Give me a sec." Tony jogged towards the tree and the suit covered him as he moved. He leant down and grasped the trunk and lifted, the suit's thrusters kicked in and Tony and the tree rose into the air. A pair of thrusters at back of his shoulders and a second pair at his heels hissed into life and within a minute the tree was no longer on the road.
Tony settled back onto the road and the suit retracted, just as Barnes reached him, the big Buick following behind him.
"Want a lift, doll?" Barnes smirked.
"Barnes!" Tony squawked but climbed onto the bike. "I'll have you know, I am a happily married man."
"I know, I know." Barnes laughed. "Just teasin', don't get ya panties in a twist."
"Ooh… you…" Tony mock snarled and smacked at the metal shoulder, knowing he couldn't hurt it. "Behave, I don't want to give dad a heart attack just yet." He wasn't worried about talking over the wind and the sound of the bike's engine, he knew that Barnes' super-soldier hearing and JARVIS would enable them to communicate easily.
"So, where we going?"
"Bergen Point."
"Bergen Point?"
"Yeah, I'll point you when we get closer."
The bike gained speed and the Buick behind them kept pace.
"So…?" Barnes drawled. "What happened?"
"I snapped my fingers, Barnes." Tony huffed. "What do you think happened?"
"That was…" Barnes sighed. "Stark, that was over a year ago."
"A year? How do you mean, a year?" Tony asked.
"I mean, Thanos and your 'I am Iron Man' thing… that was over a year ago, nearly two." Barnes replied. "Shit's happened since then."
"Like what?" Tony wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"We put the stones back." Barnes started. "Or Steve did, anyway. But he didn't come back. Apparently, he decided to 'get some of that life that Tony was telling me about', or so he told Sam."
"Oh, shit, Steve…" Tony groaned.
"Yeah, he turned up as an old man and gave Sam the shield... still haven't figured out where he got it from, think some timeline's missing one. We had a few issues with re-integrating the returned people back into the world. Not all of them came back." Barnes paused. "Well, they came back but they came back into the exact same place they'd been in, when they'd been dusted."
"And that's a problem?" Tony asked, he knew he was missing something, but what?
"Yeah, it was a problem." Barnes nodded. "People disappeared from everywhere. Not just their homes or work but on transport, too. Planes, buses, cars, trains, boats. And they reappeared in the same place, not in the same vehicle but the same place. In some cases, that was the middle of the ocean and in others, 30,000 feet in the air."
"Oh, God…" Tony whispered. "What about Strange, Quill and… Peter?" He hadn't given a thought to where they'd been, when Bruce had done the snap.
"Strange said later, he just portalled them to Wakanda before we all came back to the compound." Barnes yelled over his shoulder. "We lost… probably about a ¼ of the total population, to deaths caused by the loss of drivers or pilots or people returning without vehicles. We've been working our asses off to fix things and get everyone back where they should be but five years is a long time and some people had just got on with the business of living."
"Like I did…"
"Yeah, and no-one begrudges that." Barnes said. "Or most of us that were snapped don't, there's a few that were very against it. We haven't figured out how but they got their hands on the serum and gave it to kids, teenagers. Sam and I spent the last few months putting a stop to the Flag Smashers, as they called themselves."
"You do seem pretty well adjusted." Tony commented.
"Sam's a good friend, he has no problem in dishing out tough love." Barnes winced at the memory. "He kinda put me in my place and pointed out that what I was doing was more for myself, than the people the Winter Soldier had harmed. He made me rethink a lot of things and… well, it took some work but I got there. Oh and hey? Sam's the new Captain America."
"Sam? Wilson? With the wings?"
"Yep, Captain America can fly now." Barnes frowned. "Or… can fly then? Or will fly?" He huffed. "How does that work with time travel?"
"No too sure we've just time travelled, Barnes." Tony sighed. "I think we're in a new timeline."
"What makes you say that?"
"Steve ever tell you about JARVIS?"
"The computer that ran the suit?"
"J did… and still does… so much more than just run my suit." Tony huffed. "But yeah, him. I didn't start writing his code until late '95. The Ultron thing killed him in 2015. And the suit? I didn't start working with nanotech until after Siberia."
"Siberia…" Barnes gasped. "I owe you-"
"Stop. Tonight's made up for it, murderbot." Tony smacked the metal arm, again. "I don't want to hear it. We've stopped that from happening."
"So, a new timeline? What does that mean for us now?"
"With Thanos still coming?"
"Yeah."
"JARVIS and I have been thinking about this and…" Tony dropped his head to thump it against Barnes' shoulder. "I think we have to leave the Stones alone, at least until Thanos sends Loki to earth with the sceptre, which holds the mind stone."
"But that's…
"2012. Twenty years from now." Tony huffed. "I know. If you can come up with a better working plan, I'm all ears."
"Dammit." Barnes grunted.
"Yeah…" thumped his head against Barnes' shoulder again.
"What're we going to tell Stark?"
"I have no idea." Tony replied. "I didn't think there'd ever be a need to."
~~~
Closing the factory's gate behind the Buick, Tony leapt up to sit on the car's hood, giving a wave to the security guards in their little guard-post.
"Round to the left, Barnes." He called out loud enough for both Howard and Barnes to hear. "Then left again. The door will be open, or opening. There's enough room for the car and the bike."
Barnes and Howard followed Tony's directions and soon the four were standing in a rather basic garage.
"This is a bit… bare…" Howard commented.
"This is only the tip of the iceberg, dad." Tony grinned and gestured for them to follow him into the small office. Once inside the office, he smirked. "Take us down, J."
"Certainly, Sir." A voice issued from speakers, causing Howard to startle, Barnes to snort and Maria to blink.
The entire office descended for a few seconds, before coming to a stop. Tony lead the way out and was quite pleased to hear all three visitors gasp. Tony grinned, getting a reaction out of Maria was nigh on impossible.
"Wow…" Barnes' eyes wandered from place to place, eyeing off the various projects in progress.
"Tony…" Maria breathed.
"My word…" Howard muttered. "How the hell did I miss this?"
"Come and sit down and I'll explain. Barnes, you can put your penny's-worth in, wherever you feel like it." Tony lead them around the work benches holding who-knew-what and over to a sofa and a pair of armchairs. "Have a seat." He waved and watched as Howard and Maria sat on the sofa and Barnes took one armchair.
"Right. This is going to sound… impossible, but I have the means to prove it, so hear me out." Tony took a deep breath. "Let's start with Zola. Okay?" He was looking at Barnes when he spoke and the other man tensed but nodded. "In 1944 the 107th infantry were sent to Azzano…"
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