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Chapter Text

Tony blinks and wipes dust from his eyes as he swipes his hands across the photo frame in his hands. Confusion and disgust fill his heart as he stares down at the blond haired figure who has an arm wrapped around the young version of his father. He wants to look away but his curiosity and anger get the best of him.

Swiftly he removes the picture from its frame and places it in his pocket before returning to cleaning out his father’s old belongings that Happy had discovered over a week ago in SHIELD’s classified items.

Displeasure flows through his chest as several other photographs pour into his hands as he opens another box. He can’t bear to begin looking through all the photographs that he lays his eyes on. He can’t understand it. Steve hardly ever mentioned his time during the war. Tony assumed that it was because of the death of his friend. Tony knows now that it was much more than that. He’s seen too much on the last hour than he’s ever wanted to see from the Captain and his father.

He finishes cleaning a few more boxes before he decides to call it quits for a moment. Images burn in his mind that would probably haunt his dreams later that evening as he lay in bed with Pepper. He struggles with the need to talk to someone about his struggle. But whom could he talk to? The Captain himself? Pepper maybe? Or no one at all?

Days pass by in a blur and it remains quiet in the compound. Natasha and Clint spend most days with the Barton family. Scott, Quill, Gamora and Parker spend most days with the Guardians. Tony’s mostly by himself and he can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. He struggles with the knowledge that Captain America and his own father hooked up back in the day.

Another week blows by and Tony had just finished training with Sam. He wipes sweat off his face before the gym doors open and Sam hollers out Cap’s name. Tony freezes on the spot, towel midway down his face before he feels the blond approach the pair of them.

“Sweaty session, huh?” Steve laughs out as Sam stretches a hand out in greeting. “What’s up, Stark?” Steve nods to him as Tony finally looks at him. “Sam get the best of ya today?”

Tony mutely shakes his head before rushing out of the boxing ring and scurries out of the gym, leaving Sam and Steve to stare at his absence in suspense. “What’s up with Stark? I don’t think he’s ever been this quiet”

Sam shrugs with a head shake. “Couldn’t tell you.”

Steve shrugs it off and playfully smacks Sam’s arm. “Wanna have a go?” The joyous tone in Steve’s words prompt a loud chuckle out of Sam’s mouth.

“You’re on, old man.”

A week later and Tony wakes up earlier than normal one sunny morning. He’s eating a bowl of oatmeal when Steve drudges out of his room and into the kitchen. Tony stiffens at the sight, wondering momentarily if he could sneak away before he could be seen. But it’s too late, Steve glances up and locks eyes with the man.

“Good morning, Cap.” Tony manages to mumble around a mouthful of oatmeal.

“Okay, I had enough.” Steve states firmly as he reaches over the counter for the box of oatmeal that Tony held hostage. “What is wrong with you, Stark? You’ve been dodging me for weeks. If I’m doing something wrong or if I upset you in anyway, please let me know.”

“W-what? Nothing.” Steve merely raises a brow before Tony’s shoulders slump in defeat. Sighing, he wipes a heavy hand down his face.“What happened during the war, Steve?” Steve blinks in confusion, clearly not understanding what Tony is asking him. “I mean, what happened between you and my father?”

Steve’s face is unreadable as Tony awaits an answer. “What- what do you mean?” It’s Steve’s turn to stutter. “He was my mentor. He helped me heal from the loss of Bucky. He was a great man- smartest man I ever knew.."

It takes Tony great will to not vomit on the kitchen table as unnecessary images pop into his head of Steve and his own father. "I was cleaning out dad’s old war trunks a few weeks ago."

"Yeah?” Steve clearly isn’t following where this conversation was going and Tony knew it. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Silently Tony stands up from the stool and beckons Steve to follow him. A few minutes later, the pair stand in one of Tony’s many closets. “Tony, what is the meaning of this?” Steve asks as Tony starts taking boxes out of their respected corners and flipping the lids off of them.

“Recognize any of these?” Tony points to a few photographs and Steve breaks out in a lopsided grin. It honestly pains Tony to see the giddiness all over Steve’s face.

“The Howling Commandos. I thought these pictures were lost forever. Tony, where-?” He glances up from a picture and locks eyes with a very familiar picture of two shirtless men in a lock lipped grip that Tony holds in his hand.

“By the look on your face, I would assume you do."

Taking the photo out of Tony’s hand, he lets his shoulders drop, forcing the memories out of the forefront of his mind. "After the serum changed my body, it changed my feelings towards a lot of people around me as well. The feelings I had for Bucky and-”

“-My father?” Tony interrupted.

“Tony, it wasn’t like that.” Steve swallowed, memories pouring into his brain at a rapid rate. “Your father was obsessed with me. And after Bucky fell off the train, I had no one else to talk to. He was away from Maria and I had just lost Buck. Peggy was there as well, but not as often due to her war efforts with the Commandos. We spent a lot of time together, Tony.”

“There’s plenty of other pictures, Cap.” Tony pulls out another box and kicks it open, causing it to fall on its side, the contents flooding the floor. “And you seem quite happy in them."

"Tony, your father-"

"Stop!” Tony raises his hands in alarm and shakes his head, eyes wide in horror. “Rogers, just stop, holy shit. You’re lying and I know it.” Tony blinks, eyes wild. “I always knew growing up my dad had this sick obsession over you and I could never understand why until this moment.” He blinks again, his face turn in agony. “He was in love with you.”

Steve stood unmoving and tight lipped.

“And you were in love with him too.” Tony blinks again and again as waves of realization hit him. “That’s why you never speak of the war. You didn’t just lose one lover, you lost three. Jesus Christ, Rogers.” A hand wipes down his face in defeat.

“I’m sorry Tony. I never wanted anyone to find out about this.” Steve swallows the hole in his throat. “Howard didn’t want you to know. He wanted this secret to die with me and him. I lost Peggy because i was stupidly brave. I lost bucky for my own selfish reasons. Your father was the one to hold me together until i woke up out of the ice.”

Tony doesn’t respond at first, thoughts flowing through his mind. He wants to be angry. He wants to feel utterly sickened by the thought of Cap’s mouth being all over his father’s skin. He wants to be upset. But as he stares at his teammate, he doesn’t feel any of those things. Steve looks at him with the resemblance of a small child and Tony melts.

“This secret will remain between us.” His shoulders slump in defeat and Steve visibly relaxes. “Cap, as haunted I am about this image of you and Howard, I can’t be mad about it now.”

Steve blinks once and nds, subtly wiping the tears stinging his eyelids as he walks over to the boxes and starts pulling pictures out of them. “Can- can I-?”

“Take them all, please.” Tony obliges, moving away so Steve could have room to sort through the boxes for himself. A few moments pass by and Tony begins to feel as though he’s intruding on a secret- something he knows he shouldn’t be apart of as he watches emotions flash on Steve’s face. Quietly, he backs out of the closet and leaves the blond man to his peace.

Chapter Text

Howard’s private room, London, 1944

Howard’s lab smells like smoke and oil, the constant hum of machinery echoing under the radio playing faint jazz in the background. Steve sits awkwardly on a stool, rolling his shoulders like the super-soldier serum still hasn’t settled in his bones.

Howard tosses a wrench across the table. “You keep doing that, you’ll wear your joints out before the Nazis get to you.”

Steve cracks a grin, a bright one as Howard meets his eyes. “Still getting used to it.”

Howard looks up from a tangle of wires and lets his gaze linger—just a second too long. “Used to think science had limits. Then you walked in here with a body that makes Greek statues look like stick figures.”

Steve laughs uncomfortably and glances away. “It’s not about how it looks.”

Howard doesn’t blink. “I didn’t say it was.”

Silence stretches between them, heavy but not tense.

“Peggy’s worried about you,” Howard finally says, voice lower now. “You’re quieter lately.”

Steve nods, gaze fixed on the floor, rubbing behind his ear in his nervous little tick. “It’s different without Bucky.”

Howard doesn’t say anything right away. He just sets down the tool in his hand and moves closer, leaning on the workbench beside him.

“You know, I lost my brother in the last war,” Howard says quietly. “Didn’t even get a body back. Just a letter. Sometimes I still expect him to walk into a room.”

Their eyes meet.

“I know what it’s like to feel like your insides are held together by string and duct tape,” Howard says. “But you’re not broken, Rogers. You’re still here. You’re still alive after everything that’s happened to you.”

Steve swallows hard. “Yeah.”

The moment lingers. Close. Unspoken.

A barracks bunker in France, 1945 – days after Bucky’s fall

Steve’s drunk. Not just buzzed— staggering, angry drunk. He slams the door of the temporary barracks and sinks into a chair, burying his face in his hands. His knuckles are bloody from punching a wall somewhere between the front lines and here. He couldn’t even remember which brick nearly broke his knuckles.

Howard follows a few minutes later, more sober, but glassy-eyed.

“I told you not to go alone,” Howard mutters, slamming a bottle of whiskey on the table. “Rogers, are you mad?”

“I had to try,” Steve croaks. “I had to see. ”

“Bucky’s gone, Steve.”

“I know !” Steve roars, standing suddenly, chest heaving. “You think I don’t know? You think I don’t feel it in every breath I take without him? For fuck’s sake, I still feel his breath on my neck when I’m trying to sleep, Howard!”

Howard flinches. Steve collapses again, head bowed.

Silence hangs until Howard moves forward, slow, cautious, and places a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“He saved my life,” Steve whispers. “More than once.”

Howard nods. “You saved mine once, too.”

Their eyes lock.

It happens without decision—Steve rises, and their mouths meet, rough, desperate, full of pain and the need to forget. He just needs to forget for a moment. He just needs to feel something other than this damned hurt.

Later, in the cold silence after, Steve turns away and stares at the cracked ceiling, ashamed and hollow.

Howard speaks from the cot behind him. “I’m not asking you to be okay.”

Steve closes his eyes. “Good. Because I’m not.”

Brooklyn, 1946 – Howard’s townhouse

Steve stares at the old piano in Howard’s den. It's out of tune, but the keys still work. He plinks a note, then another, half-lost in thought.

“You play?” Howard asks, appearing behind him with two glasses of scotch.

“Not really.” Steve accepts the drink. “My ma did.”

Howard sits beside him, too close. The room’s dim. Outside, New York hums alive weith music and pedestrian life.

“She’d hate all this,” Steve murmurs. “The attention. The politics. I was supposed to die a good man, not live long enough to be turned into a statue.”

“You are a good man,” Howard says. “Even now.”

Steve downs the scotch in one swig. “You don’t know me.”

Howard studies him for a moment. “You think I haven’t watched you? You think I haven’t seen the way you carry the weight of three people’s deaths on your back every single day? You walk like the world owes you penance, Rogers. But you didn’t sin. You survived. You endured. You never gave up hope.”

Steve leans forward, jaw tight. “Then why do I feel like a ghost in my own skin?”

Howard doesn’t answer. Instead, he lifts a hand and brushes a lock of hair from Steve’s face. “Because the world changed, and you’re still grieving the one you belonged to.”

Their lips meet again, slower this time. Less desperation, more resignation.

Later, Steve lies in bed beside him, the moonlight painting his scars silver. “This isn’t love,” he says softly.

Howard turns toward him. “I know.”

“But it’s… something.”

Howard exhales. “Yeah. It’s something.”

1947 – Howard’s private office, weeks before Steve’s plane goes down

Howard stands by the window, staring out over a storm-drenched New York skyline. Steve paces behind him, restless.

“You’re going, then?” Howard asks, voice tight.

Steve nods. “Hydra’s moving. I can’t sit this one out.”

Howard doesn’t turn around. “You’ll die.”

“Maybe. But if I don’t go, someone else will.”

Finally, Howard turns. There’s too much unsaid between them—too much they’ve pretended wasn’t real.

Steve smiles, soft and sad. “You were the only one who saw me after Bucky. Who didn’t expect me to be a symbol.”

“You were never just a symbol to me,” Howard says.

“I know.”

They don’t embrace. Don’t kiss. They just look.

“If I don’t come back…” Steve begins.

“You will .” Howard’s voice breaks. “Because you always do. You have to.”

Steve nods once. Then he leaves, the door clicking shut behind him.

Howard doesn’t follow.

He never sees Steve again.

Howard’s private room, London, 1944

Steve’s shoulders are still trembling when Howard closes the door behind him. He hasn’t spoken since the Commandos returned from the failed ambush. One of their own—Jacobs—didn’t make it back. The blood on Steve’s hands isn't his, but it still won’t wash off.

Howard doesn’t speak. He just walks over, slow and calm, and sits beside him on the cot.

Steve looks at the wall like it’s safer than looking at Howard.

“You don’t have to do the soldier act with me,” Howard murmurs. “Not in here.”

“I’m fine.”

“Wanna try that again with me, Rogers?.”

Steve swallows. His throat works, but no sound comes out.

Howard reaches for his hand. At first, Steve flinches. But then he lets it happen. Their fingers lock. Strong, calloused, scarred.

“I hate that I can’t protect them,” Steve finally says.

Howard nods. “You protect all of them. Every time you walk out that door.”

“It’s not enough.”

Howard shifts until he can wrap an arm around Steve’s shoulders, tugging him against his side. “Then don’t be brave tonight. Just… stay here. Let me take care of you.”

Steve sinks into him, breathing shakily.

And for one night, he lets someone else carry the weight.

Somewhere in occupied France, 1945 – post-mission

Howard’s tending to a graze on Steve’s ribcage. Steve is shirtless, skin slick with blood, dust, and sweat.

“You act like you can’t feel pain,” Howard mutters, gently wiping away the grime.

Steve flinches when the alcohol touches his skin. “I can. Just… not the same way anymore.”

Howard doesn’t respond. He just moves in closer, fingers warm on Steve’s side. There’s a moment where the rag slips and Howard’s hand lingers. Flat palm on bare skin. Breath held.

“You’re too close,” Steve murmurs.

Howard smirks. “You’re the one bleeding in my lap, Rogers.”

Steve finally looks up at him. The flicker in his eyes isn’t teasing—it’s raw and too honest. “You’re always close. That’s the problem.”

Howard swallows.

But he doesn’t pull away.

Instead, he leans in and brushes his lips against Steve’s temple. “Then maybe stop pushing me away.”

Steve exhales, defeated. “I’m scared of needing you.”

Howard presses their foreheads together. “You already do.”

A farmhouse during a rare quiet week, 1945

They’re alone. The rest of the team is gone for the night, and it’s just them—Steve barefoot in the kitchen, Howard lazily spinning a screwdriver on the table.

“Do you ever think about what happens after the war?” Steve asks, slicing apples like it’s the most ordinary thing in the world.

Howard shrugs. “Thought I’d die before I’d need to.”

Steve watches him. “You won’t. I won’t let that happen.”

Howard quirks a brow. “You gonna keep carrying the whole damn war on your back, soldier?”

“Only the parts I care about.”

That makes Howard freeze. He meets Steve’s eyes.

“You care about me?”

Steve sets the knife down. Walks over. Places a hand against Howard’s cheek like it’s sacred. “I don’t want to be just another name in your file, Howard. I want… this. Whatever this is. When the war ends, I want it to still matter.”

Howard covers Steve’s hand with his own. “It already does.”

They kiss slowly, and this time there’s no desperation—only warmth, only promise.

Train ride through Italy, 1945

They’re crammed into a narrow train compartment on their way to intercept a Hydra convoy. Steve’s knees knock into Howard’s. Howard’s typing notes, muttering to himself.

“Are you always thinking?” Steve asks, chin resting on his hand.

Howard glances up. “Is that a complaint or a compliment?”

“Both.”

Howard sets the notes aside and turns to face him. “You’re different when we’re alone.”

Steve shifts. “I don’t get to be a person in front of anyone else.”

Howard reaches forward and—very gently—cups the side of his face. His thumb runs along Steve’s cheekbone, his jaw, the edge of his mouth.

Steve leans into the touch like it hurts to lose it.

“I like you this way,” Howard whispers. “Quiet. Real. You don’t have to impress me.”

“I don’t want to be Captain America with you.”

“Then just be Steve.”

Howard kisses the corner of his mouth, soft and lingering.

And Steve lets himself be held the entire ride.

Two days before the Valkyrie crash

They’re back in New York for a debriefing. The tension is high—Hydra is on its last legs. Everyone knows the end is coming.

Steve knows he might not make it.

They sit on the balcony of Howard’s hotel room, above the lights of the city.

“You ever think,” Steve says slowly, “if we’d met before the war, before the serum, you’d have walked past me on the street without a second thought?”

Howard doesn't answer right away. He stands and walks over, placing his hand over Steve’s where it rests on the railing.

“I would’ve noticed you,” he says softly. “Even if you were five-foot-nothing with asthma.”

Steve smiles, sad and knowing. “I don’t believe you.”

Howard grips his hand tighter. “Then believe this—I love you, Rogers.”

Steve’s breath catches.

“I don’t know what kind of man I’ll be when this war is over,” Howard continues. “But I know I want to be the kind who remembers how it felt to love you.”

Steve swallows hard. “You’ll have to remember it for both of us.”

Howard shakes his head. “Don’t talk like that.”

Steve presses a kiss to Howard’s forehead.

“Whatever happens… thank you,” Steve whispers. “For seeing me. For loving me.”

Then he walks inside and leaves Howard alone on the balcony, hands shaking.

It’s the last night they ever share.

[CLASSIFIED ARCHIVE — SHIELD VAULT 17-B]
Recovered: Personal file — STARK, H.
Encryption level: Level 10
Label: "For Rogers (Burn after reading)"

Steve—

If you're reading this, then I’ve either grown a conscience… or I’m long dead and some nosy bastard in SHIELD went poking where they shouldn’t have.

Either way—there are things I’ve never said. Things I never had the nerve to say while you were still standing in front of me with those damn eyes, still looking at me like I was something worth believing in.

It’s been years, Steve. A lifetime. A wife. A child. A thousand projects I used to fill the hole you left behind. But you were the one thing I could never build again.

I loved you. And I never said it the way you deserved to hear it.

Maybe I thought if I kept it unspoken, it couldn’t die. Or maybe I was too much of a coward to look you in the eye and admit that you weren’t just a ghost I clung to in the dark.

You were real. You were my real. And you left.

I know, I know—you were doing your duty. You were saving the world, being a hero, dying for something bigger than both of us. That’s what you always did. But goddammit, Rogers, I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t ready for the silence you left behind.

I never told Maria. She asked once—about the war, about who I lost besides Bucky and Peggy. I gave her a name, but not yours . She already shared you with history. I didn’t want to share the rest.

And then there was Tony.

I see pieces of you in him sometimes. Not your morality—you always knew where your compass pointed. But the loneliness? The guilt? The fire in his eyes when he’s trying to save everyone but himself —that’s all you. It guts me, knowing the boy might’ve understood you better than I ever did. Or maybe he just carries the parts of me I left broken after you vanished.

I’ve lived in a world where you were frozen in ice and I was left to burn. All I could do was build—machines, weapons, shields. Things to keep people like you alive longer next time.

But I couldn’t bring you back.

So I kept you with me the only way I knew how.

In steel.

In silence.

In every little “what if” I buried in the blueprints no one ever saw.

You don’t owe me anything. Not even forgiveness for all the ways I failed you. But I needed you to know—I did love you.

Not as a symbol. Not as Captain America.

But as Steve.

Yours always,
Howard

Classified File: EYES ONLY – STARK PERSONAL

Filed under Project: REQUIEM

Date: July 4th, 1949

To S.R. – In the event I don’t get to say it again:

Steve,
If you’re reading this, I’m either braver than I thought… or long gone. Knowing my luck, probably the latter.

This file wasn’t meant to be found. It isn’t in your dossier, and it isn’t part of any war record. I tucked it away where no analyst would think to look. God knows, they wouldn’t understand anyway.

But you would.

I should’ve said this to your face. A dozen times, a hundred nights, when the world was quiet and your head was heavy against my chest. I should’ve said it before your last mission. Before the Valkyrie. Before I had to pretend I’d never memorised the sound of your heartbeat.

But I didn’t.

Because I was a coward in the moments that counted.

And you were always so brave.

You loved like you fought—with everything. You never made anything small. Not your grief. Not your loyalty. Not your hands on me in the dark when the weight of Bucky’s name got too heavy for either of us to carry alone.

You never called it love. Neither did I. But we knew.

I should’ve fought for you, Steve. Fought for a world where men like us didn’t have to hide behind war and whiskey and names scratched into the margins of history.

But you… you were the best thing I never deserved.

You saved my life. More than once. And not just with a shield or a plan. You saved me when I thought my heart had calcified into something mechanical. When I thought I’d buried every good part of me with my brother in the last war.

And still, somehow, you looked at me like I was more than a machine with a big mouth and a whiskey habit. You saw the man. Even when I didn’t.

That’s the part that scared me most. Not the bombs. Not the blood.

You.

How good it felt to be yours, even for a moment.

If anyone ever asks—if the history books try to pretend you were just my subject, just a prototype, just a footnote in the weapons division—let them. But you and I will always know the truth.

You weren’t my experiment.

You were the one thing I got right.

And if there’s a world where we meet again—no wars, no secrets, no serum—I hope I’ll be brave enough to love you in the open.

Until then,
All my engines, all my genius, and all of what was ever left of my heart—
Yours.
H.S.

February 1944

Unsent. Found folded in the back of a field notebook.

Steve,

You touched my hand for too long today. You didn’t mean to. I know that. You were looking at the map, pointing at something. No one else would’ve noticed. But I did.

Your thumb grazed mine. Three seconds longer than it needed to. And I haven’t been able to focus since.

There’s a part of me—the part that’s still a scared kid from Brooklyn—that wanted to pull away. Make a joke. Drown the moment in sarcasm and machinery and everything I’m supposed to care about.

But I didn’t.

I let it happen. Because for three seconds, I felt something real. Not strategy. Not war. 

Just you.

I can’t say this to you. You’re the golden boy. You don’t deserve the burden of my longing. But if this war ends, and if I’m not too much of a coward by then…

I hope I can look at you without the ache in my throat.

Until then, I’ll keep building the machines. And watching you from behind blueprints.

God help me, I’d build a second shield just for the chance to see you smile.

—H

April 1945 (after Bucky's fall)

Written the night Steve returned, silent and broken.

Steve,

You’re asleep on my cot right now. Or pretending to be.

I’ve never seen you like this. You haven’t spoken since you got back. Your hands won’t stop shaking. You flinched when I touched your shoulder.

I want to fix it. But I don’t know how.

You lose things and keep going. That’s what you do. But tonight I think you finally lost something you can’t replace. And I don’t know how to be enough to hold you together.

I sat beside you for an hour before I started writing this. I wanted to reach for you. I didn’t. I don’t know if it would’ve helped, or made it worse.

But if I could give you anything—anything at all—it wouldn’t be weapons. It wouldn’t be victory. It would be peace.

Real peace. In your mind. In your body. In the way you look at your own reflection.

I want you to come back to me. Not just from this mission. From the edge. From wherever you are right now.

If you ever read this, it means you did.
And I’m proud of you for it.

Always,
Howard

November 1946

Filed in Howard’s safe, post-war, never shown to Steve.

Steve,

I kissed someone tonight.

I don’t even remember her name. It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t you.

Everyone thinks I’ve moved on. They think I buried the war, just like we buried your body. But I still dream of you. Of your hands in mine. Of the night you let me trace the scar over your ribs and said, “Don’t look away from me, Howard.”

I haven’t. Not once.

I’m building a future, because it’s what I promised you. Flying cars, clean energy, smarter weapons. But every night I go home alone, and every night I sit in front of your photo and pretend I believe in progress.

The truth is: I only ever wanted to build a world that deserved you.

It never did.

If this file survives the next hundred years, and some poor bastard finds it—tell them I loved you.

And I never stopped.

Yours in every way,

Howard

December 1951 (post-marriage, sealed behind a false wall in his lab)

Steve,

I married her.

I hope wherever you are, you’re not angry. Maria is good. Kind. She understands the parts of me I never thought could be soft.

She doesn’t ask about the way I still look at your photograph. She doesn’t ask why I disappear into the lab when the anniversary of your fall comes around. She doesn’t ask who I dream about when I wake up shouting your name.

She lets me keep your shield in the case. She calls it history.

But I don’t.

It’s a tombstone.

I try to be the man you believed in, Steve. Even now. Even when I can’t feel anything but guilt.

I think you would’ve liked her. I think you would’ve laughed at how messy I am now—at how much your absence has unraveled me.

There are parts of me that are still yours. Even now. Even after.

I hope you forgave me a long time ago.
I hope you knew how much I wanted to hold on.

I hope, if they ever find you—
You’ll forgive the world for forgetting.

With all I have left,
—H.

Letter 5 — June 1943 (before the serum, before Captain America)

Tucked in a journal, unsent, written late in the lab.

Steve,

You’re still small. Still stubborn. Still showing up to every alley brawl like you’re invincible. God, you’re persistent.

I know Erskine sees greatness in you. He’s right. But I see something else.

You look at the world like it owes you kindness, and you’re going to punch it until it gives in.

I wish I had that kind of hope.

I watch you sometimes when you think I’m not looking. The way your hands twitch when someone’s cruel. The way you flinch when someone calls you "runt." The way you carry yourself like you’ve already failed.

You haven’t.

You’re going to be something else. Something bigger.

And part of me is terrified I’m going to lose you the second you become what we’re building.

I want to say don’t change. But I know the world won’t let you stay soft.

So instead I’ll say this:

If you survive the fire, come find me. I’ll be waiting.

—Howard

March 1945 (the night before the Valkyrie mission)

Never mailed. Found in a hidden envelope marked "personal – not Stark Industries."

Steve,

If you're reading this, then I guess you didn't come back.

I wanted to be on the tarmac to see you off, but I couldn’t. Not because I didn’t care—because I cared too damn much.

I couldn’t look you in the eye knowing I hadn’t said what I needed to.

You are the best man I’ve ever known. That’s not flattery. That’s fact.

I’ve spent my whole life surrounded by men who want power. But you… You wanted goodness. You didn’t chase glory. You became it.

If I could’ve stopped you from going, I would have. If I could’ve told you how I felt without risking what we had—I would’ve.

And if there’s an afterlife, I hope you know that every rocket I built afterward wasn’t about war.

It was about reaching you.

I’ll spend the rest of my life trying.

—Howard

October 1954 (after Tony is born)

Handwritten and locked in a vault behind a false wall in the Stark estate.

Steve,

I have a son.

He’s brilliant already—tiny fists, loud lungs, dark eyes that see right through me. Maria says he’ll be kinder than I am. God, I hope so.

I held him tonight and thought: if you were here, you’d be better at this. You’d kneel beside the crib and whisper stories about Brooklyn. You’d teach him how to throw a punch and make it mean something.

Instead, I told him about you.

I told him about Captain America—the real one, not the one in the newsreels. The one who bled for his friends. The one who kissed a girl once but looked at me like I was the moon.

I think he’ll love you. If he ever gets to meet you.

But if not, he’ll know you.

I swear it.

Yours, always,
Howard

December 1967 (written drunk in his lab, after a violent fight with Tony)

Never sent. Crumpled, burned edges, but preserved.

Steve,

I think I’ve ruined him.

I screamed at him tonight. Called him weak. Called him selfish. Just like my father did to me.

But that boy—he’s not like me. He looks at me like I’m a monster. And the worst part is, he’s right.

I don’t know how to love without hurting. I don’t know how to carry the weight you left without dropping it on everyone else.

I see you in him sometimes. In the way he clenches his jaw when he’s scared. In the way he tries to do the right thing, even when it hurts.

I wish you had raised him instead.

I wish I had died on that Valkyrie, and you’d been the one who made it back.

Maybe then he wouldn’t flinch when I walk into a room.

Maybe he’d know what love felt like.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I’m not you.

—H.

October 1964

Steve,

I saw him.

I thought I was hallucinating. I wanted to be hallucinating. A glitch in the file. A resemblance.

But no.

It’s him. Bucky Barnes. Your Bucky.

He’s alive, Steve. But you wouldn’t recognize what they’ve made of him.

I found him in a HYDRA vault while overseeing a raid for SHIELD. He was frozen, sealed like a weapon on standby. His file called him Asset Zero-One. No name. Just kill counts. No rank. Just conditioning protocols.

God, Steve, they wiped him clean.

He’s got metal where his arm used to be. Soviet tech, laced with Stark schematics I never released. His eyes… they were open when the ice cracked.

He looked through me.

And I have never been so afraid in my life.

Not just for myself. But for what this will do to you, if you ever find out.

I don't know how much of James Buchanan Barnes is still in there. I don’t know if he remembers you. But the way he moved—calculated, brutal, empty —they’ve turned him into a ghost in his own skin.

I’m trying to bury the information. Nobody needs to know. I’m buying time to think.

Because if you ever came back—

If you ever saw what they did to the man you loved like another lover—

It would break you.

And if he saw you …

I don’t know if he'd recognize you before pulling the trigger.

Or worse—what if he did , and still obeyed the command?

I thought I knew horror.

But seeing his file… the mission logs… the names …

There’s blood on Bucky’s hands that would drown both of us.

And none of it is his fault.

Steve, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t find him sooner. I’m sorry I ever helped build the technology they used on him.

If there's anything left of him, I promise you—I’ll try to bring him home.

But if I fail…

Don’t hate him.

Hate me.

—Howard

Undated, Found in a Locked Safe Beneath Stark’s Long Island Estate

The ink is faded. The paper is scorched along the edges, as though someone tried to destroy it—and couldn’t follow through.

Steve,

If you’re reading this… then I’m gone.

And I think I know how.

There’s been a shadow following me. Not just paranoia—something colder. Mechanical. I feel it every time I close my eyes. Every time I hold my boy’s hand.

I know who it is.

I think I’ve known for years.

It’s Bucky.

Not the man you knew. Not the boy who used to steal your cigarettes and grin when you caught him.

But the thing they made him into. The gun. The ghost.

And I can’t stop seeing his face.

I’ve run the data a thousand times. Facial recognition. Biometrics. Surveillance loops. I could lie to myself, pretend I’m wrong—but I built the systems. They don’t lie.

The Soldier is real. And it’s him.

And someday—soon—I think he’ll come for me.

Because HYDRA never lets go of its monsters.

And I—well. I made myself a threat. Too many files hidden. Too many projects shelved and sealed. I tried to protect what was left of you. Of him. Of what we were.

I even tried to warn Peggy. But she already knew.

Steve, I don’t hate him.

That’s the worst part.

When he comes for me—if he does—I won’t be angry.

I’ll just be sorry.

Sorry, I didn’t get to him first.
Sorry, I couldn’t undo what they did.
Sorry, I let my son grow up in a world where men like Bucky are used and broken and discarded like nothing.

If he kills me—

Don’t hate him for it.

That bullet was fired by men in shadows long before he pulled the trigger.

And Steve…

If there’s any part of you left in this world—

Please find him.

Please bring him back.

You’re the only one who ever could.

—Howard

(Tell Tony I love him. Even if I didn’t always show it.)

--

After the War, After the Wounds

The safe house is quiet.

Steve sits at the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, the worn leather case creaking in protest under his hands. The SHIELD vault had been a grave—just steel and silence and the dust of things long buried. And this case? He hadn’t known what he was looking for when he pried it from the corner.

But now he knows.

The letter is yellowed. Torn at the edges. His name is on the front in Howard Stark’s tidy script.

His throat tightens.

Bucky is asleep in the other room, fitfully, as always. Wrapped in blankets he doesn’t believe he deserves. One hand twitching in his sleep, like it still remembers the weight of a rifle. Steve watches the paper for a long time before he unfolds it.

And reads.

The room stills around him. Time slows. The words settle into his chest like lead.

It’s Bucky.
Not the man you knew... but the thing they made him into.

Steve swallows.

When he comes for me—if he does—I won’t be angry. I’ll just be sorry. 

The page trembles in his hands. No—his hands are trembling.

Don’t hate him for it. That bullet was fired by men in shadows long before he pulled the trigger.

He presses a fist to his mouth. Closes his eyes. He feels fifteen again. Twenty. Eighty. All at once. And it hurts. It hurts in places he didn’t know were still alive.

Howard had known. Howard had forgiven.  And all this time—Steve had carried it like a scar across his chest, thinking he’d betrayed them both.

Thinking Bucky’s sins had made them monsters. That maybe love couldn’t survive that much blood.

But here it was. Proof that it could. That it had.

Please bring him back.
You’re the only one who ever could.

Steve lowers the letter. His breath is ragged.

He looks toward the closed bedroom door where Bucky sleeps. The man he’s followed through fire. The one he broke the world for.

And suddenly—for the first time in a long, long time—he doesn’t feel ashamed of that.

He folds the letter, slow and careful, like it’s sacred. And when he opens the door to check on Bucky, he doesn’t say anything. He just sits beside him, warm hand hovering near a shaking shoulder, and whispers, “I’ve got you.” Because someone once asked him to bring Bucky home. And he’s finally starting to believe he did.