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The only real difference between Steve and Howard is that it takes Howard fifty years to become another man: a long, slow rotting at the core so that when Peggy Carter steps out of the hire car and into the funeral, she wonders why she has come at all. The face that stares out of the pictures is not the man she used to know- he's different in a way that has nothing to do with age. It has been twenty years since Peggy's last visit to America.
Peggy is too old for nostalgia, and had never been well disposed toward sentiment. Debts, though, she understands. And she owes the man Howard used to be a final farewell.
She is used to the funerals of spies. Quiet affairs, conducted briefly, with few attendants. This is more like a circus, a crowded carnival of grief. Howard would have loved it. Maria would have found it unbearably tacky. She had always had a laugh with Peggy over her husband's flashy taste, preferring to maker her point in subtler ways, changing the world with charity instead of flying cars. It had always been a small, sweet pleasure to sit with Maria after consulting with Howard, listening to the latest goings-on related in her lively, expressive voice, every detail exact. Maria could have organised an army in half an hour. She had a gift for remembering information.
Nothing of her remains. At twenty-one, Anthony looks so much like his father that Peggy is startled by it, as if a ghost has walked out of a picture to see the fuss at his own funeral. She studies him with a professional eye during the service. Yes, he has Howard's build, and colouring- and his quick, keen eye. In a few years, he'll probably even hold himself the same way, once he's been behind that Stark Industries desk for a while.
How very like a Stark to dominate the gene pool so.
After the service, she introduces herself. She can't resist.
"Margaret Carter. I knew your father in the war, and your mother after."
He takes her hand when it's offered, but looks at her blankly as she talks. Grief has eroded what little social niceties he had.
"Dad knew a lot of women in the war."
Peggy smiles so that she doesn't slap him. "I'm sure." Anthony's eyes, she notes, are dry, and his hands fidget incessantly. "I never had that dubious pleasure myself."
He snorts, a wild, inappropriate blast of laughter that startles some of the nearby mourners, making them snap their heads around in a way that reminds Peggy inescapably of crows.
"You must have been the only one."
A memory, unbidden, rises to the forefront: the roar of the plane almost drowning Howard out as he turns and grins at her.
"You know, another fella might think he was owed something for this."
Peggy follows the disappearing speck of Steve's parachute until it's swallowed by the clouds.
"Well then," she shouts, her voice hoarse but strong, "I'm lucky you're a gentleman and above insinuating such things."
Howard laughs and flicks some switches, guiding the plane through the night. "Guess so."
He'd always understood after that, or at least he'd understood more than Steve had. Peggy owed him for that understanding. It had brought her here, to this sunlit cemetery and the ghost of Howard in Anthony's eyes.
She collects herself, takes a breath. Marshals the old caustic wit.
"It wasn't for lack of trying on his part, I assure you."
And Anthony smiles, actually smiles, and it's like the old Howard is standing in front of her again- and it turns out that Peggy Carter does have room for sentiment after all, as her breath catches, twenty, fifty years too late.
"You knew him at his best." He looks around, a quick glance back at the twin graves, so neat and awful in their plainness. "Wish I could say the same."
"If you ever wish to talk-" Peggy starts, but it seems that her allotted time is up. A man that can only be the (in)famous Obadiah Stane looms up behind Anthony, hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Tony, we need to move on."
He nods to Peggy, a cold and formal politeness. Peggy nods back, and looks over to Anthony.
"It was nice to meet you, Anthony."
"Anything for a friend of mom's."
His voice chokes on the last word in a way that breaks her heart. She watches him walk away, and feels the years settle like a weight- on her, and on him. Yes, nothing of Maria remains, and, if Peggy is any judge, far, far too much of Howard.