Chapter Text
Fall 2016
“But Pep, I really need to check on…” Tony’s half-hearted protest was cut off by Pepper’s sharp sigh that could be heard through the phone
“Tony,” she started calmly, “you promised you would finish going through your Dad’s things months ago. I’ve cleared your schedule, you are already there, there is no reason you can’t just finish this now.”
Tony could tell by the tone of her voice that she was pinching her nose, eyes closed and looking up, as if asking some higher power to help deal with his childlike refusal to do chores.
“You’re right. You’re right” Tony lamented. She was always right.
Tony could hear her expel the breath she had been holding. “Great, thank you,” she said softly. “I’ll let you get to it then.” With that she was gone.
Tony didn’t blame her, he had been promising to finish going through his parents’ things for awhile now. And with the Avengers officially broken up and Pepper taking the lead at Stark Industries, Tony was finding that he had more time on his hands than he wanted to admit. Something Pepper was intimately aware of.
Tony heaved another sigh and pushed open the door to his Father’s office. It looked almost frozen in time. Tony had hardly set foot in here since the accident. The housekeeper had clearly been keeping up with it all these years as the layer of dust he expected to find was conspicuously absent.
After the accident his Father’s lab and everything related to Stark tech had been secured and transported to the main Stark facilities. This was his family office, full of boring paperwork, tax returns, personal letters. Nothing special. Which is why Tony had reasoned it was fine he’d put it off for so long.
Still as Tony strode up to the lavish antique desk that sat back against the floor to ceiling windows he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was walking on sacred ground. He had never been allowed in here growing up, and once he was older and found that his father didn’t store any of the good scotch in here, he had quickly lost interest in trying to infiltrate his father’s self-imposed sanctuary.
He sat in the high backed leather chair and surveyed the desk. It was tidy. A few plaques and fancy pens adorned the top. A photo of his father with Captain America and Agent Carter. Tony rolled his eyes and flipped the frame down on the desk. The last thing he needed was Steve’s gaze scrutinizing him.
It was strange, always a man of the future, the antique style of the desk didn’t fit his Father. Tony leaned back in the chair and considered this. As he sized up the desk he realized something about the dimensions were off, there appeared to be a drawer missing on the lower left. He opened the lowest drawer, based on how deep it was there should have been another underneath. He took out the manila folders neatly arranged in the drawer, copies of titles to different real estate holdings. He knocked on the bottom of the drawer, hollow.
“Maybe this is where he hid the good scotch” Tony muttered to himself as he went about trying to pop the false bottom.
He couldn’t find the release and getting frustrated pulled out his mirco-laser, slicing away the corners and pulling the false bottom out. Sitting there was a small locked box. Tony pulled it out and set it on the desk, puzzled.
He had found all of his Father’s top-secret designs years ago, locked in an intricate safe in the lab. This was different. Hidden in a desk sure, but the security in this office was nothing close to the lab, his Father would never have been foolish enough to leave potentially dangerous plans so exposed. What could it be? He sliced through the lock with the laser and opened the top.
At first glance it didn’t seem like anything special. He reached in and started sifting through the contents. Paperwork about an anonymous donation for an exhibit at the Smithsonian, a contract for a private excavation crew in the Austria, some files about a gravestone in the family plot. Tony's confusion continued to grow as he leafed through the seemingly random assortment of papers. "Why would he hide this?" He thought to himself.
At the bottom of the box there was a weathered letter, worn around the edges it seemed to have been folded and unfolded multiple times. Tony opened it reading the messy scrawl.
January 15, 1944
H-
Sorry for the delay, we got hung up in [REDACTED]. Steve says we should be back in about two weeks. The new [REDACTED] you made is working out great. Might give the Star Spangled Man a run for his money. Remember my words.
Yours,
B
Before Tony could put too much thought into who the letter was from he reached down and pulled out the last thing in the box, a photograph that was face down. In the corner, in his Father’s handwriting was “B, Europe 1943.” He flipped it over and immediately dropped the photo, flinching back as if the image had burned him. There, with a cocky smirk on his face looking up at him, was the Winter Soldier.