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“What’s in the vial?”
“You know. We both know.”
She worries.
Of course she does, he’s her godson. Howard’s son, who he doesn’t love as much as he should, and she tries not to show how Howard much she hates him for it.
“No, I don’t. Tell me.”
Peggy tries, she really does, but there’s only so much she can do.
“Don’t coddle him, Maria,” Howard says at dinner, when Tony has a headache and asks to be excused, “You’ll sit here and be quiet until we’re done.”
She should say something. A long time ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated to speak her mind, but if she says something now she risks it coming back to hurt Tony. So she does what she can, squeezing his hand beneath the table in comfort as Howard drunkenly drones on.
“Steve Rogers’ blood.”
There’s an affair, another one, a third, followed by an argument and broken glass and Maria leaves him again.
She doesn't take Tony with her.
“You’re just going to leave him there?”
Maria won’t answer. Peggy spits in her face, walks away, and regrets her actions seconds later.
“You used me, you lied to me.“
There are bruises on Tony’s arms, and it takes all of Peggy’s self control to not put a bullet in Howard’s head while he sleeps upstairs.
“I think it’ll be good for him to go on this trip,” She says to Howard later that day, her hands clenched behind her back, a fake smile on her face, “Especially since he graduates this spring, might help him iron out details of what he wants to do after.”
He nods, “It’s a wonderful idea, Peg, take as much time as you need.”
“You hit me!”
Tony loves London, and she’s happy to be back.
He seems more alive here, away from Howard’s oppressive and overwhelming presence that fills that too-big house.
It's good to see him smile.
Maria calls, she doesn't answer. Tony does, though, and the light that the trip has brought to his eyes fades away at his mother’s words. His shoulders slump as the call continues and Peggy can’t help but hate Maria more in that moment.
She’s just as bad as Howard is.
“You don’t get to use my reaction to your lies as a reason for your lies.”
She tells Tony stories and never erases the flaws in people.
Steve was a good leader, but he wasn't perfect. He was stubborn and sometimes kept things to himself that he should have shared. Howard was a good inventor and a dear friend, but the man was a snake and never learned to let go of the past.
“I punched him once you know,” She says, and Tony’s eyes brighten, “A long time ago now, but it happened.”
“Really?”
“He hid something from me, lied to me about it, and when I found out he tried to say that he did it to protect my feelings. So I punched him. Tony, no one should get to use your reaction to their lies as a reason for them. If they do, they don’t deserve you. Do you understand?”
He nods, and she spends the rest of the evening teaching him how to punch.
“I was protecting you!”
Edwin and Ana Jarvis both die in the same week while Tony is at college. He’s devastated.
Howard calls to tell him that he can tell he’s been crying in the paparazzi pictures and that he needs to pull himself together.
It’s not good for Stark men to cry. It’s worse for people to know about it.
It’s Peggy who leaves work for a day and sits on Rhodey’s chair while Tony sits on his own bed, head in his hands as he weeps. It’s Peggy who slides a pair of sunglasses on his face afterwards and teaches him that it’s harder to read someone’s expression when you can’t see their eyes.
He walks her out to her car and she rarely sees him in public without them after that.
“Don’t pretend this is about me and my emotions. You were out to protect you!”
She shows up at the house in the middle of the night years later, her eyes red behind her sunglasses and voice shaking, to tell him the news in person before he finds out from anyone else.
“There was an accident,” She takes his hands, not just to comfort him but also herself, “There weren't any survivors.”
It’s easier to say that than admit that they're dead and she left far too many things unsaid. The funeral is extravagant, public, and people who never knew what Howard was like at home give long speeches about what a great person he was.
Tony hates every second of it.
“I didn’t want to see this turmoil you’re in, look at you!”
Years pass, and she gets sick.
Even when her memory fades away, he comes to visit her, and she always remembers that evening in London when she taught him to punch.
Steve Rogers comes back from the dead, aliens fall out of the sky above his home, she gets worse, SHIELD falls, she gets worse, Ultron happens, Tony visits, she tells him the same story every time without fail.
“I punched him once you know? He deserved it.” Her eyes turn serious then, every time, “Tony, never let anyone use your reaction to their lies as a reason for them. No matter who it is. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“I trusted you!”
She’s gone she’s gone she’s gone she’s gone
He can barely breathe, can’t even speak during the funeral, he sits there in the pew with his sunglasses on like she taught him. After that, it’s chaos, and then he’s being put into the suit and shot across the sky to Siberia.
The video plays, the air is knocked out of his lungs again, and he wishes he hadn’t left his sunglasses behind.
“Did you know?” He asks for the second time, because Steve Rogers isn’t good at lying to his face, but he wants him to admit it.
“Yes.”
Time stops, he’s fourteen again in London in Peggy’s office learning how to punch and all he hears is her.
“He hid something from me, lied to me about it, and when I found out he tried to say that he did it to protect my feelings. So I punched him. Tony, no one should get to use your reaction to their lies as a reason for them. If they do, they don’t deserve you. Do you understand?”
Tony understands.
She lightly taps at his knuckles, making sure his thumb stays outside his fist so it won’t break.
“No matter who it is, Tony. Remember?”
Time starts, he’s forty-five again in Siberia being betrayed by one of his closest friends, and he doesn’t hesitate.