Archive of Our Own ^beta

The pen slid across the paper, leaving smooth lines in its wake. It briefly moved back to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, putting the final touches on the signature before taking its place to the right of the computer mouse.

Maria Stark placed the pen down and smiled at her one o’clock appointment.

“Gentlemen,” she said, motioning to the seats in front of her. “We may begin.”

***

When she met Howard Stark, there was no romance—no kisses in alcoves, no serenades at midnight, no flowers on her doorstep. They weren’t those types of people. He wasn’t one for romancing and she wasn’t one to be romanced. They were too old for that kind of nonsense, at any rate, or at least Howard was. Her parents said he was far too old, but she didn’t care; he was cold and precise and blunt and sharp, like metal and science rolled into one man.

He told her, when she grabbed him and pulled him down into a kiss at midnight on New Year’s, that she shouldn’t expect to be romanced. He was getting on in age and she was just barely getting started, and his romancing years were back in the thirties and forties with Captain America and USO showgirls. She said that was just fine with her; she’d rather have textbooks than roses, and discussions about his latest inventions were far more fascinating than any movie she could force him to go to just so they could make out in the back of the theater.

Why Howard Stark, her friends said, when she could have almost any boy their age. Maria Collins Carbonell, after all, was one of the prettiest girls in New York (at least according to the boys that kept glancing her way at society parties). But boys her age tended to want a pretty face, and Maria wasn’t interested in being anyone’s pretty face. They could accuse her of being a gold digger all they wanted (and, yes, maybe the money was nice) but at least Howard was interested in her mind at least a little bit more than all those other boys. Also, he had a nice library, and she could appreciate that.

He would be dead long before her, anyone could tell that, but she didn’t particularly care. She’d been alone before, she’d be alone again, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. She would have married any of the suitors her parents tossed at her if she wanted to have someone hovering over her for the rest of her life; she’d rather have Howard’s library and inventions.

There was no romance, and sometimes she wasn’t sure if there was even love between them, but they married in the spring anyways, to the shock of the papers and the company board and their families and, well, pretty much everyone in New York.

(“Wasn’t it worth it,” he whispered in her ear that night as her hair brushed against his face, “just to see those headlines?”)

There were no wild declarations of love; there were discussions of cars and engines and weapons and the war with the USSR. He didn’t even get down on one knee for her, since he was still in a suit and the floor of his workshop was covered with metal shavings and oil and God-only-knew what else. He placed the box on the papers she was looking over and said, “Marry me,” and she said yes because what else was she going to say? “No” would take away those inventions and that library and their midnight discussions about science over Irish coffee.

Their love was more robots than roses, more science than sweet nothings. There were no declarations between the two of them, just simple agreements and companionship. (And if she whispered of love to him while he slept, in Italian so he wouldn’t know even if he did wake up—well then, no one had to know.)

They had many agreements. He agreed to come to bed before eleven at least once a week, and she agreed to let him stay in his workshop as much as he wanted otherwise, except for Sunday dinners. Brief as they might be, Sunday dinners were theirs. On at least one Saturday a month he would join her in the library, which although not a formal agreement came to be expected. She would leave him to work on the company and his robots and his Expo, and he would let her use his money to fund her various charities. When he went out to a party, she would come too, and they would both drink too much and drive too fast and yell at all the other assholes on the road at three in the morning.

(Although the parties were nice, really she just liked the quiet days, like the ones where he said “Let’s go dancing” and while she expected to be taken somewhere fancy, they just danced through their ballroom, her in her dressing gown and him in a grease-stained old shirt.)

 Sometimes he drank too much and ended up yelling at her and smashing bottles of expensive cognac everywhere, but when that happened she just left for Malibu or Florence or Venice or Monaco or anywhere else where she could spend his money in peace until he apologized.

They agreed when they married that if they divorced, neither of them would get anything and they would just go their separate ways and happily ignore each other for the rest of their lives. If they stayed together and Howard died, though, the company would go to her.

“You’re smart,” he said, “You’re smart and I trust you.”

“I’m your wife,” she said. “Who else would you trust?” Because Obadiah was a backstabbing snake, although the board liked him too much and he had too much power over other companies for Howard to make him go, and no one else on the board had a lick of sense.

(“Foolish old men,” Howard laughed over Irish coffee. “What does that make me, though? A dirty old man, I suppose.)

Children, of course, were decided to be out of the picture almost immediately. He definitely didn’t want any, and she didn’t want any at the moment. She was young and had things to do, and Howard just didn’t want to be a father.

“I don’t have time for snot-nosed brats,” he said. “The kid would end up being raised by nannies and boarding-schools anyways. I don’t have a paternal bone in my body, and if you have a maternal one it must be buried under all your science and charities.”

“We won’t live forever,” she said.

“Fair enough,” he said. The discussion was promptly put aside until later, much later, closer to 2000 than 1990, when they had SHEILD to worry about on top of Stark Industries, and she said that if she had a son she would call him Antonio after her brother. He said Anthony, and then they argued a bit and it was never really settled, but he stopped using condoms and she stopped using birth control. 

Howard was dead before his son was born, and she did name him Anthony, if only because she didn’t like the sound of “Antonio Edward” very much, and “Antonio Eduardo” was even worse. His car crashed while she was giving birth in the hospital, and they blamed it on flooded roads and driving too fast, which was garbage because they’d driven faster in worse weather, and drunk on top of all that. Howard knew New York just as well as he knew the mansion, but she wasn’t going to raise a fuss. They (and she definitely knew who they were, even if she didn’t say anything) didn’t get Howard’s company, or his money, or his robots.

The looks on their faces when they heard. “Maria Stark is CEO of Stark Industries,” the tabloids said.

“What? The pretty gold-digger?” the readers exclaimed. “The one with the charities? The one with the baby? Nonsense!”

The board tried to kick her out, but she dug her heels in and stuck it through. Howard’s will was clear; the company went to Maria, as did everything else, and those who didn’t like it could see themselves out. He probably would have given her SHIELD if he could, and as it was she had more power than most people there, as one of the remaining founders of SHIELD.

“After all,” the will said, “If I can’t trust my company to my own wife, who am I supposed to trust with it?”

“Stealing my lines again,” Maria laughed when she was alone, sitting in the nursery with Tony on her lap. “And you said you were original.”

(“Tonino,” she whispered in Italian as she rocked him gently; it was midnight and she was tired, but he’d been left with the nanny for a week and she’d wanted to see him. “You’ll never know your father, but you will at least know about him. He told me about himself, and I’ll tell you about him, and between that and the papers I think I’ll have it covered.”)

The board put up a fuss, but Maria ignored them and focused on Howard’s notes and designs. She took longer than him, perhaps, but the designs served the company well and they didn’t lose many customers. The company did more of the testing and manufacturing than before, but everything was still original Stark material, even if Maria spent her nights pouring over journals and videos and leaving Tony to the nannies again and again.

She reserved Sunday nights for him as much as possible, and spent the day with him whenever she had a moment to herself. The company seemed determined to let her have as few of those as possible, though; it was nothing but question after question, like Howard had taken interest in her because of her pretty face instead of the fact that she went to MIT and could talk about his robots with some degree of intelligence. There were plenty of pretty faces, after all, and he could have any of them he wanted, but what use was a floozy to a genius? She was no Howard Stark, but she could follow the conversations he had with fellow inventors better than any USO girl.

(Her friends were all jealous, of course, when she talked about the robots and the library. “Wow, they said. “Maria and Howard Stark—imagine that. What did you do to catch a man like that, huh? I guess the rich ones just always end up together. He’s old though; I wouldn’t want to marry someone that old even if he had all the money in the world. He was alive during World War Two; you’re welcome to that museum piece!” Sour grapes.)

Stane was still a snake, but that was nothing new, and she worked with him just like Howard had, even after that time he’d tried to take over the company in the 60’s. The board slowly got used to her, since nothing much had changed other than that they no longer got new designs every other month. She tried, but she was no Howard Stark. His journals helped, certainly, and she managed to invent her way through the months with relatively little pressure.

She wished that she could spend more time with Tony, other than stolen moments before she slipped off to bed and a few hours on Sunday evening. Before she knew it he was two years old and she could hear him running around the mansion, followed by his nannies.

“He asks for you,” they told her. “At night when you’re gone, Mrs. Stark, he asks ‘Where’s Mama?’ It just about breaks the heart.”

Maria tried to spend more time with Tony, and although she wasn’t sure she succeeded all that well, there were no reports of Tony asking for her before bedtime, and no more mention of things that just about broke the heart.

One of his nannies was Italian, the other English, but Maria didn’t know he’d learned both until she’d knelt by his bedside and whispered, “Buona notte e sogni d'oro, Tonino,” and he’d opened his eyes and replied blearily, “Buona notte, Mama.”

“Would you look at that,” she said. “My little boy speaks Italian. Maybe I should have named you Antonio; forget your father.” Although, she conceded, Antonio Edward still sounded particularly awful.

SHIELD, at least, she didn’t have to worry about. She left that to Fury and his team, and concerned herself with them only when Fury asked for better weapons and vehicles. He would contact her roughly once a year, demand weapons, and she would invite him for dinner sometime. He never accepted, but he did send her a Christmas card, which was about as good as it got with Nick Fury.

Tony figured out how to escape his nannies by the time he was four, and managed to get into the workshop at about the same time. “What’s that, Mama?” he asked, pointing at a circuit breaker.

She looked at him, considering, and then allowed him to climb up on her lap as she explained the workings of a circuit board.

He was Howard’s son through and through, building a circuit board the moment he had access to the materials and knew roughly what to do. It was amazing, really—everyone seemed to think so. She had tabloids asking about it, pestering her for a chance to interview Tony. She allowed it, if only to expose him to the press in a controlled environment.

“So you built this all by yourself?” they asked

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Mama taught me, but I made it myself—let me tell you how.”

They made him out to be a prodigy, even more so than Howard was at that age, and Maria couldn’t be more proud.

People began taking more interest in them; Hammer began mentioning his son any time they were in the same room, and the Van Dynes introduced her to their daughter Jan at one of their parties.

(She introduced them to Tony at the first party she took him to, but he hated the suit and that he’d been taken from his projects, and muttered at them in Italian whenever they tried to talk to him. Jan didn’t seem to mind, though, and continued to talk to him even when all he did was sulk. She hoped they’d be friends; it was hard to find those in high society, sometimes)

She kept in mind everything she’d talked about with Howard, and although she left him with the nannies more often than not, boarding school was never mentioned, and as he grew older she let him spend more time sitting on the floor of the workshop, working under her supervision. He went to the best schools, of course, but they were all local, and used to the children of millionaires and geniuses. They didn’t fuss when Tony insisted on testing up through the grades as fast as he could, going from kindergarten to second grade in just a year.

“He’s Howard Stark’s son,” the tabloids all said. “Genius, through-and-through.”

(Nick told her he’d laughed when he’d first seen them. “As if Howard had anything to do with that kid other than his genes. No, he’s Maria’s boy, that one. Speaks Italian like his mother, studies his father’s work like his mother, ignores authority like his mother . . .” She protested that she’d never done that, and he laughed even harder. “Oh, so everyone thought it was a grand idea when you married Howard?” Fair point there, she had to admit.)

“Tell me about Papa,” Tony said over an engine—his first.

Maria smiled and put down her pen, and let him climb into her lap so she could tell him stories about Howard before and after she knew him, stories about Captain America and Hydra, stories he’d told her over Irish coffee, and stories about SHIELD and Stark Industries, the ones she’d seen herself. She told him about arc reactors and super soldiers and secret agents, and he drank it up like it was the only oasis in the desert and he was dying of thirst.

“I’m going to be like Papa!” he exclaimed. “No, I’m going to be like Papa and Captain America!”

(She didn’t tell him about the drinking, about the yelling and the trips to Europe to get away from him. About the drunk driving and the speeding late at night, just to get a cheap thrill. He deserved to know the good things first; he’d learn about the bad side of Howard in time.)

When she looked at Tony, she saw Howard in his eyes and smile and hands, in the way he was able to take people and make them do whatever he wanted them, even at his young age. She remembered how Howard would pull her up onto the stage of his expo and kiss her as the crowd went wild, showgirls dancing in the background, and taught Tony how to hold people in the palm of his hand without them ever knowing he did. He had a knack for the showmanship; it ran in the Stark family. He certainly didn’t get it from her; she was more likely to make the crowd run away in terror than come closer, awed and laughing.

He did have the habit of hiding away from the world with books and machines, though, and the nannies would always tell her about it, adding, “He’s so much like you it’s incredible, Ma’am.” Maria wasn’t sure whether or not to be insulted that they saw her as someone to purposefully hide herself away from everyone—although she did do that, so it wasn’t inaccurate. Maria preferred to run things from the background. She could only imagine what her relationship with Howard would have been if they’d both been trying to show off at the same time.

Tony was like her and like Howard, and sometimes it amazed her how familiar this tiny person was when she barely spent time with him. (She wished she had spent more with him, but there was no time, no time to spare at all . . .) He would sometimes say something or look at her in a way that reminded her intensely of Howard, and she would remark on how much like his father he was, and Tony would either beam or roll his eyes, depending on his age and mood, as he said, “I know, Mama.”

She stopped being Mama as he grew older; then she was Mom or Mother, and she no longer heard childish calls of “Mama, Mama!” echoing down the stairs as he raced into the workshop. More often than not, Tony was already in the workshop with her, building and inventing as their family had done for years.

“You’d be proud of your son,” she told the picture of Howard on her bedside table. “He’ll do great when he takes over the company.”

She had no doubt that he would, someday, and sooner rather than later if the Board had any say in it. They still only tolerated her, and continually challenged her and questioned her. Maria was tempted to send Tony into a meeting if only to see how he’d take to the Board; probably not well. He’d never liked it when she was insulted.

(She never forgot the time she was called into school because Tony had gotten into a fight—surprising since he wasn’t usually one to resort to the physical. “He called you a whore and a gold-digger,” Tony said as he pointed to the older boy. “No one talks about my mother that way.” She scolded him for the teachers, but had his bodyguard, Happy, teach him how to box just in case he ever needed it.)

Tony’s nannies were replaced by the time he was in fifth grade with a cheerful bodyguard and driver aptly named Happy.

“You take care of my son. Do what he needs, not always what he wants, and trust your own judgment. I don’t always have time to take care of him, so you’ll have to step in when I can’t.” That happened more often than not; Maria was being called out to the office more often than not, always being sent from state to state and from country to country. Tony stayed behind with Happy and whatever personal assistant Maria had keeping an eye on things at the time, the most recent being a scarily competent woman named Pepper.

Maria enjoyed having scarily competent women at her side; the Board seemed able to handle only one, but two made them quake in their boots. Pepper proved to be better than most, capable of doing anything Maria put her to, and she refused to be chased off by Tony’s tricks and antics on top of that. A commendable feat, seeing as almost no one else had managed to withstand him for increasingly long periods of time. And they did increase, as she began going from place to place without stopping at home in between, with barely time for a brief phone call.

“Good morning, Tony,” she would say.

Every time, he would grin, sometimes in between bites of dinner or breakfast. “Morning or evening or whatever time it is over there, Mom. Where are you going?”

“Afghanistan,” she said.

“Will you come home, after?” The question he always asked, without fail, and the one she hated the most because so often it made his expression sink before he pasted on a brave face for her.

This time, though, she was able to say. “Three days, Tony, then I’ll see you again, bar anything unexpected.”     

Unexpected things did happen, though, and she found herself lying on the sand in the middle of Afghanistan, bullets flying and people dying all around. Bombs declared themselves to be made by Stark Industries, and she cursed herself for being so foolish and not paying as much attention to finances as she should have.

She had suspicions of who it was already; Obadiah had always been a back-stabbing snake, and no one else had the brains to deal under the table and hide it from her and Pepper both.

She told as much to the man who had saved her life—Yinsen. She remembered him from a conference, recalled having an interesting conversation with him as a matter of fact. Considering his intelligence, she would forgive that he had operated on her without anesthetic. The device produced by the operation was interesting enough at any rate, and gave her such wonderful ideas.

She recalled Howard’s designs for the arc reactor and poured over them for days, finally figuring out a way to miniaturize the arc reactor. Yinsen watched from a distance as she took apart missile after missile and melted down metal and tore out palladium. He offered his assistance, but she refused; she didn’t need anyone other than herself, and she could save her own life.

Eventually, she did accept, if only because the time it was taking to build anything in such conditions was getting frustrating, and she would definitely do better with some help.

“This,” she declared, spreading out the papers, “is my way out.”

The armor was a product of many minds, inspired by Tony’s late-night doodles, designed by her, built by her and Yinsen, and powered by Howard’s arc reactor.

This was her legacy, born out of blood and fire and death. She found it fitting.

Yinsen died but she survived, and wasn’t it just typical of her to live while others died. But she was going to put a stop to the death, logically and simply, in the best way she knew how.

“We’re shutting down weapons,” she told the Board. There was an uproar, but it was her name on the building, and she always had her way in the end, no matter how much people protested or tried to stop her. She had a million ideas and a million places to go, and they would just have to deal with it because it was her company in the end.

Fury called her up and they had a good, if brief, laugh over it. “You gave me joint custody of your kid with your assistant, and just told the Board to shut the hell up while you did your thing. Don’t you dare tell me that you don’t go against what people want you do to or think you should do ever again,” he said.

The conversation took a turn for the serious as they discussed Obadiah’s suspected dealing under the table and the Stark weapons in the hands of terrorists. Already there were agents pouring over reports of finances and shipping and production and stock, looking for any small irregularity. It was nice to have SHIELD on her side; it certainly gave her time to focus on the company’s new direction.

Someone, a Junior Agent she thought, had suggested going home and relaxing and spending some time with Tony. Maria had just looked at the woman like she was insane. There was far too much to do and far too little time to do it in for her to relax. Nevermind if sometimes Tony called her asking her when she was going to come home, and she couldn’t pick it up because she was either in a meeting, on the way to a meeting, or asleep in the office. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made, and at the moment it was more important to correct her company’s errors than stop at home.

Pepper never said anything when she came across Maria listening to the voice messages she had saved in the middle of the night, listening to Tony as he said, “Mom—I need you. Please come home, Mama, I miss you. There are reporters outside and I don’t know what to say, and you’re always in the workshop or at work and you’ve never here!” She never said anything, but Maria could see the judgment on her face.

Maria just gave a tired laugh. “Aren’t I a terrible mother? I bet you wonder what someone like me is doing with a child. It would be far better for him if he had never been forced into this world of ours. But he’s the only one I have left and I love him, and I wouldn’t give him up for the world.”

“Well then, I suppose you just have to make this world a place you’d want to leave for him,” Pepper said.

Maria looked down at the colorful armor designs and smiled. She could do that. She could and she would, even if she had to miss Tony’s graduation from high school to do it. (She only nearly missed it in the end, thankfully. He got into MIT; Howard would have been proud.)

“Sometimes,” she said to the picture of Howard she kept on her bedside table, “I wish we were back in the days when the only thing people tried to bother us about was our age difference.”

At least then there had been time to curl up with a good book, to go dancing on the weekends, to take walks through New York and laugh at the photographers that tried to keep up with them. Now there was just meeting after meeting, and no time to do anything else. Any spare time she had was spent in the workshop, with perhaps a few hours put aside for sleeping when she had the time. All the sleepless nights were worth it, though, when she saw the finished product of all her work.

She put on the suit and uploaded the AI, and grinned at its smooth British tones. (JARVIS, she’d named the AI, after Howard’s old butler who had lived with them for the first ten years of their marriage.) Then she was off and flying, since she’d always been one to jump ahead before she was ready. She had run before she could walk, read Charles Darwin before her school even mentioned the theory of evolution, and now she was going to fly even as JARVIS reminded her that there were tests to run.

She took the recovery of her weapons into her own hands, although she did at least warn SHIELD as to what she was doing. Fury grunted (she took it as agreement) and then she was off to Afghanistan and Gulmira and anywhere else that needed her. Fury stepped in when the military took notice; she owed him for that one, but he had owed her and Howard some favors so she figured they could just call it even.

What with the armor and the meetings, she had even less time for Tony. At this rate she might as well have sent him to boarding school; at least then he wouldn’t have grown used to having her always available when he needed her. Now, she was never there and he suddenly found himself without her in a way he hadn’t been when she was just downstairs, working in the shop underneath the Mansion. Now she was across New York, and busy even if he did come see her.

She contemplated calling him, sometimes, but what would she say? She waited until the early hours of the morning so he would be asleep whenever she did give in and call him, but then she found nothing to say except whisper words of apology and love.

She only called once; it was just too pathetic for her to deal with. Instead, she threw herself into her work. There was the company, and the armor, and then there were the charities she had kept up over the years on top of all that. She found herself flying to California for a charity benefit, even though she would rather have been working. (There was still so much to do, and why was there never enough time?)

It turned out to her benefit that she went, though, because then she had concrete evidence to use to accuse Obadiah courtesy of a young journalist from Vanity Fair.

“You’ve been dealing under the table,” she said to him as they smiled for the press. His hand squeezed tight around her waist, but she refused to give in and wince. “You always were a snake, but I never thought you’d go this far.”

He chuckled. “Are you going to stop me, Maria, pathetic little girl that you are?”

“I haven’t been little for a long time, Obadiah; you ought to know that by now.” He did know—was that a glimmer of nervousness in his eyes? He was familiar with her, since they’d known each other for years now, and knew that she was more than the pretty face everyone assumed she was. There was more to Maria Stark than the press ever knew, but he did know, and he feared the potential that Howard had once noticed and loved her for.

Two competent ladies were always better than one, though, and Maria converted Pepper to her side with only a small amount of persuasion.

“You’ve been at my side for years now,” Maria said. “You’ve watched my son and my company grow, and helped me throughout it. You could walk away from this; I wouldn’t blame you. It will be dangerous. Or, you could stay as you always have, and help me fix my company’s mistakes.”

“You forget that I’m meant to help you catch those mistakes,” Pepper reminded her. “I don’t mind accepting part of that responsibility and helping fix it.”

“Good to have you on board, Miss Potts,” Maria said.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Mrs. Stark.”

Maria sent her to her office to search for ghost drives, while she continued upgrading the armor. There were bullet holes from her trips to the Middle East still there, and further upgrades to the AI to be done. There were always upgrades to be done; even to the arc reactor in her chest. She had fixed that one already, though, leaving the old one lying on her desk. Obadiah had asked for it so that it could be analyzed by their engineers, but she knew better than to give him anything.

Of course, Obadiah had already proven that he would do anything to get what he wanted, so she should have expected that he would sneak into her house and steal the arc reactor right out of her chest. He was a coward and a snake, and Howard really should have thrown him out back in the 60’s, but he had been young and foolish and later she had trusted his judgment too much to insist that they get rid of Obadiah. She wished she had, though, because then she wouldn’t be lying on the floor of her office, dying of a heart attack.

Thank God for private elevators; she managed to get down to the workshop and her old arc reactor before the shrapnel reached her heart. There was no time to recover from that, though, since she had to go stop Obadiah and help Pepper.

The resulting fight was rather more public than she would have liked, but of course that was the kind of thing Obadiah would aim for. He didn’t mind the wanton destruction or the attention, whereas Maria could have gone without the flying minivans.

“It’s collateral damage, Maria,” he said. “Like your husband was. Like you will be. Like that brat of yours will be.”

Maria launched herself at him, disregarding the size of the Iron Monger armor compared to hers. “If you even touch a hair on his head, dead or not, I’ll kill you and send you to the depths of hell, where you belong, you monster.”

She flew up, forcing him to follow her, but she was more advanced and prevailed once again. He fell and she flew, but of course a cockroach like Obadiah was too persistent to just give up and die. It took Pepper’s intervention to finally take care of him; Maria had always said that two scarily competent women were better than one, and it continued to prove itself true. The arc reactor was destroyed in the process, but it was fixable. Anything was, if you tried hard enough. There were things that were far harder to fix than a broken arc reactor.

(When she finally came home, Tony looked at her angry and betrayed and she just didn’t know what to say to him.)

Later, she looked out over the crowd of reporters and lied. “Iron Man” as the media had dubbed the armor, was nothing more than a bodyguard. On the day of the attack, she had been at home with Tony. “After all, I’d been so busy with work that it’s about time I was able to go home and see my son,” she said. The media laughed and asked about Iron Man’s identity, and the SHIELD agent Fury had sent, Coulson, smiled approvingly in the background.

His face almost made her want to tell them everything. She could just imagine the shock on their faces. She’d always been one to go against their expectations, after all. Marry someone young? She’d rather have Howard Stark. Look pretty, act dumb? No, she’d rather have books than lipstick. Give up the company? Over her dead body.

She was Maria Stark. She was Iron Man.

She was dying.

(Also, apparently Howard had been a colossal idiot and deported a scientist he had been working with, leaving him in Siberia with nothing but hatred, vodka, and a son to mold, but that came in later, when Tony wasn’t looking at her shocked and betrayed all over again, an expression that she wished wasn’t becoming so familiar to her.)

She should have expected it; Howard would have given her hell for not calculating any and all possible outcomes of putting palladium into her body. (He’d done far more reckless things with his life, but he’d always said to do as he said, not as he did.)

She pulled out all his old journals to look for a solution, and that was how Tony found her, pouring over notes on bombs and guns and the arc reactor and even the plans for the old Stark cars, which never really took off.

“Feeling nostalgic, Mom?” he asked, nudging a notebook with his shoe.

“Stop that, Tony, you’ll smudge them,” she scolded absentmindedly. His blank expression morphed into a sulk, but he did at least take a step back.

“What’re you doing, then?” he asked.

She sighed and put aside the papers to look him in the eye briefly, but then turned right back to them again. “Looking for a cure to palladium poisoning,” she said, tapping on the arc reactor buried in her chest.

Silence, but for the rustling of papers.

“Mom?” Tony asked, sounding lost and confused and scared, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Couldn’t bring herself to tell him that she would be fine, because it might not be true.

“You’ll be fine, Tonino,” she said.

“Mom, I’m not a baby anymore. Tell me what’s happening, Mom.”

He sounded even more lost than before, but curse her, she couldn’t find a way to make him feel that everything would be all right. They’d long ago left the days when she could easily lift him onto her lap and make everything go away just by showing him how to make circuit boards and engines and manipulate plans with schematics that floated in the air like magic. The world was harsh and cold and people left you far earlier than you were ready for, and she wasn’t going to lie to him by telling him that everything would be okay.

(When Howard had died she had yelled and called him a jerk for leaving her on the day their son was born, and then she had cried because although she knew she wouldn’t have long with him she hadn’t expected the time to fly by so quickly. Tony had lost his father before he even knew the man, and now he was going to lose her and that just wasn’t fair, but then again, life never was.)

“He needs you,” Pepper told her. “He’s your son and he’s afraid and he needs you, Maria.”

She was tempted to say what Howard always said, that Stark men were made of iron, but she wasn’t that cruel, so she just kept her mouth shut and got back to work. Now she had even less time than normal, but still so many things to do.

(At least her will was in order; she’d been prepared ever since Howard had died.)

There was Stark Industries to take care of and charity galas to attend and the Expo to plan and planes to catch all over the place, to Los Angeles and Tokyo and Monaco.

That was when Ivan Vanko decided to appear and make everything much more complicated than it needed to be. Trust Howard to make things more complicated, even from beyond the grave.

“I never thought it was possible to be this angry at a dead man,” she told his picture when she was back home after destroying a portion of the racetrack in Monaco and half of the Stark Industries racecar. “Why couldn’t you do some good from beyond the grave, huh, buster? I swear you just exist to make my life more difficult.”

To make matters worse (or better; it wasn’t clear yet) Fury was meddling where he shouldn’t and sending her SHIELD agents disguised as Latin-speaking assistants. Pepper prepared to take up the mantle of CEO, however unhappily she did it, seeing as Tony was still too young. Neither of them was happy about it, but Maria wasn’t one to care about what other people thought, even if they were her son and best friend. Natalie Rushman, or whatever her real name was, didn’t seem to care, at least, so she was slightly more tolerable than the people who seemed more caught up in glaring and frowning than in getting things done. Maria might have been dying, but she wasn’t about to slack off.

Tony’s birthday came and went, and she spent it going through journals in the attic while he watched movies with people from MIT and some of the children from high society circles who he didn’t mind so much. There would be a more public gala later for the reporters and the rest of the rich snobs who associated with the Stark family, but that would be as much a memorial for Howard as a celebration of Tony’s birth.

“You should be down there,” Fury said. She wasn’t even surprised that he’d joined her at some point; she’d learned to expect him to show up in strange places.

“And you should be at SHIELD, looming over your flying monkeys,” she said. “I have work to do; Tony understands.”

“Does he?” Fury said. Maria didn’t reply. “You might want to get your head on straight, Stark, before you lose your kid. Oh, and take a look at those film reels.”

She glanced over in the corner. “The ones from Stark Expo? You know as well as I that half of them are him fooling around. I took a look at them earlier when I began planning for the Expo. There’s nothing there.”

“Then you didn’t look hard enough.” Fury left as abruptly as he came, and Maria sighed and took a closer look at the films.

Most of them were Howard goofing off. Some of them even had her standing in the background, occasionally encouraging him and occasionally trying to get him to behave. It brought back memories; Tony wasn’t even born yet then; that was back when children weren’t even part of the equation.

(And, maybe, they never should have become part of the equation, looking at how she was doing with Tony now.)

The film reels were still running when the party ended and Tony came upstairs in search of her. Neither of them said anything, but he took a seat next to her and watched the film reels.

“You’ve never seen these,” she realized.

“No.” Tony was staring at the screen, drinking in Howard’s smile and laugh and mannerisms. “So that’s Dad?”

“Stark Expo ’74,” she said. “We hadn’t even been married for very long at that point. That’s me.”

She pointed to the door as her younger self walked in, reminding Howard that it was time for dinner and if he didn’t come down, she’d call Fury and have him haul Howard downstairs.

Tony blinked in surprise. “Wow, Mom, you were really pretty.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Thanks, Tony.”

He had the grace to look abashed, at least. “No, um, it’s just that you were really young and now you’re all old and stuff.”

She laughed even harder, leaving Tony blushing and grumbling. Silence fell as they returned to the film reels, replaying Howard’s antics over and over again. Tony stayed with her for a while, but eventually he got bored and wandered away, leaving her alone again.

She was glad when Howard stared into the camera and addressed her; she had the feeling that this was something meant to stay between her and Howard.

“Maria,” the Howard on the screen said. “I hate to be cliché, but if you’re watching this I’m probably dead. I hope it was a good death, at least, and not a stupid one. I’d hate to have a stupid death; it wouldn’t fit with the rest of my life very well. This is . . . well. I’d like to thank you for putting up with me for all these years. I know it wasn’t easy. I’m old and crabby and you could’ve easily gone with any pretty-faced young thing on the street. But if I had to spend my life with someone, I’m glad it was you. As Steve would say, ‘You’re a pretty swell dame, Miss Carbonell.’ And don’t you forget it.”

Maria smiled partly at the screen, but more at the memories of science and books and machines and midnight talks, of conversations had at whispers just to make people guess at what they were talking about. “And you’re a pretty swell guy, Mr. Stark.”

“I’m leaving you this,” he continued, motioning to the diorama of the Expo behind him. “This, my legacy. The future. So carpe diem, Ms. Stark; we’ve got work to do.”

And then she got it. “Howard, you foolish old man,” she sighed. “Why couldn’t you just say it straight and save me all this trouble?”

Now she had to drive all the way to Stark Industries in New York traffic and submit herself to Pepper’s disapproving frown as Maria gathered up the pieces of the diorama.

“You missed Tony’s birthday,” Pepper said. “He told me.”

“I gave him a present,” she said.

“What, so you’re going to buy him off? That’s not how it works, Maria,” Pepper said.

“He’s a teenager now. He can handle being alone, and I’m sure he doesn’t want me hanging around while he’s with his friends,” Maria replied.

“Maria, he’s a kid who knows that his mom is dying, and you’ve left him all alone to deal with it by himself. How many times do I have to talk about this with you?” Pepper gave a frustrated sigh and massaged her temples.

Maria finished gathering up the pieces of the diorama and directed Happy to take them to the car. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Potts,” she said as she left, leaving Pepper and Agent ‘Rushman’ behind.

Fury was waiting at her car, and he opened the door for her before sliding in the passenger seat, ignoring the pieces of the diorama piled up behind them. “If this is about Tony or the palladium, leave it,” Maria said.

“It’s not. I need to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative.”

She vaguely recalled a few emails sent from SHIELD; they rarely updated her, but as one of the founders she did receive periodic emails. “The superhero response team.”

“I want you in,” he said.

“If I survive this, we’ll see.” Maria knew better than to promise anything to anybody; she hadn’t made any promises since she’d married Howard, and even then they knew those promises would end up being iffy at best. She was too familiar with the trouble promises could land you in to agree to anything without an out.

Tony was waiting at home for her. She sighed and waved Happy on with the diorama. “What is it? I’m busy right now.”

“What,” he said. “Too busy to spend some time with your son? Is it too much to ask for you to spend just a little time with me? I thought we could go to the Expo or something together.”

Maria sighed and continued hauling the diorama downstairs. “I’m sure Happy and Pepper will take you, Tony. I’m busy right now; I told you that.”

Any remaining glimmer of hope vanished from his face, replaced with a furious glare. “Why did you even have me if you weren’t even going to bother with me? Sometimes—sometimes I wonder if you even love me. Is it really so much to ask that you give me the chance to know for certain how you feel about me?”

He stormed away before she could reply. “Ma’am?” Happy asked.

“Go with him,” Maria said. “Take him to the Expo or something. I have work to do here.”

(She never told anyone that she hacked his cellphone and listened to him talk to Tony while she worked. “Cheer up, kiddo, your mom loves you,” Happy said, while Tony just repeated, “No, she doesn’t; no, she doesn’t.”)

The diorama turned into a shimmering globe of lights, and Maria laughed in delight like she hadn’t since she was a young girl and Howard regularly twirled her around his workshop. “You magical man,” she said. “Look at you.” Because he’d figured out how to make vibranium, the rarest metal on the planet, and compared to him she was still a monkey trying to write Shakespeare.

She was perhaps a bit hastier than she should have been while synthesizing it, and the basement ended up a bit more wrecked than it should have. It was still intact, though; the thing was built to last through a nuclear war, after all. Anything less would have been disappointing. Considering the state of her health, a little haste was excusable, so Maria ignored the thought of the bill for repairs (considerable, but nothing worse than she and Howard had to pay back in their troublemaking days) and admired her new arc reactor instead.

Then Ivan Vanko reappeared, apparently having somehow managed to break out of prison. He was unfortunately still as fixed on revenge as he had back at Monaco, and apparently when it came to quests for revenge she was just as good as Howard.

He had also apparently seized control of the drones Hammer was showing off at the Expo. She’d almost forgotten about him, in all honesty. He wasn’t much when it came to competition, although he certainly seemed to think he was hot stuff. No, Maria was far more concerned about Vanko. He was more ingenious than Hammer by far, and was clearly the real mastermind. She flew off to take care of him; Pepper was definitely competent enough to handle small-fry like Hammer, especially considering that her assistant was a SHIELD agent. Maria would take care of the big fish; after all, she’d been swimming with them for years. The new arc reactor helped. Definitely.

There wasn’t much time or breath left for banter, which she was partially thankful for. What would she say to him, the son of her husband’s old partner who was almost as old as her? She was more than happy to focus on shooting and dodging than talking. She just ducked and dove and fired her repulsors, sending drones to the ground until there was only her and Vanko left among the wreckage.

“In the papers, when they mentioned Iron Man, I was surprised,” Vanko said when they found themselves caught, each one pointing a repulsor straight at the other’s head. “I knew that the Stark family would not let a mere bodyguard wear their precious arc reactor. So I wondered who was inside. I have figured you out—so why don’t you show me your face, then, Anthony Stark.”

Maria smiled and raised her face plate. “Guess again.” Vanko faltered, and she took the shot. He flew backwards, landing against a tree, still alive although extremely damaged, and about to become even more so. She made her escape as the robots began to beep in the well-known signal for imminent self-destruction. She knew the sound well, and knew that it was best to be far away from it.

Others, apparently, didn’t—namely, Tony. She caught him poking at the drone curiously, wrist deep in the wires protruding from its chest even as it beeped more and more hastily. Maria swooped low and snatched him up without a second thought.

“Hey!” he protested, only to fall silent as the drones littering the city exploded, including the one he had just been buried in.

“Oh,” he said, sheepish this time. “Um, thanks, Mom.”

She set him down on a rooftop and lifted her face plate again. “So you did know.”

“It wasn’t exactly hard,” he said. “Reactor in your chest, reactor in Iron Man—connect the dots. I’m not stupid.”

She ruffled his hair, even when he grumbled and batted her hand away. “Of course you did, clever boy. Come along then. There’s work to get done.”

“Still?” he groaned. “But you’ve taken care of Vanko already. Can’t you take a break, Mom?”

She considered it, and then shrugged. “Fair enough. I have taken care of the reactor problem, after all.”

His smile was so bright it was like the sun, and she wondered what it meant that she couldn’t remember a single other time he had smiled like that. “Really? You’re not—you know?”

“I’m fine, Tonino,” she said. He threw himself into her arms so enthusiastically that it might have knocked her over if not for the armor, and if there were tear tracks on his face when he stepped away, she’d never tell.

“Pepper and Happy can take you home,” she said. “I’ll give you a lift to the car.”

“Come on, Mom, can’t I ride with you just this once?” he pleaded.

She looked at him, considered, and shrugged. “Just don’t whine if you get cold.”

(He did, of course, but having his whoops of joy erase the thoughts of his brains blown out against the pavement was worth it.)

The government called and yelled at her for letting her ‘bodyguard’ wreck the city, and she replied by pointing out that the city would have been in a much worse state without on Iron Man, and footed the bill besides. After that she was left alone to work on the new Stark Industries tower in New York, with only Fury to occasionally distract her from her work. (Half the time she ignored him; he was used to it by now.)

Updates from SHIELD had always come in periodically, and more often than not she ignored them unless they had “IMPORTANT” stamped on them in bright red. Those came more often, now, with reports about green rage-monsters wrecking Harlem and Thunder Gods destroying New Mexico towns. And Captain America. That one certainly stood out.

She even went to the helicarrier for that one (Tony had designed it with her; only in college and cleverer than her). Captain America, alive and only slightly chilly . . . Howard would have been overjoyed.

She told Steve as such, when she saw him. He smiled sadly at his sketchbook.

“You’re his wife, then? You’re younger than I thought—oh. I’m sorry, that was rude,” Steve’s smile turned sheepish, and Maria couldn’t help but laugh.

She told him about what Howard had done after the plane had gone down, about Stark Industries and the Expo and Tony, who would be overjoyed to meet Steve and even more overjoyed if he accepted her offer of a place to live.

Tony was overjoyed, of course, and dragged Steve all over the mansion going on and on about everything and anything. Maria would have felt sorry for the captain if it wasn’t so funny, and if it hadn’t also left her free to go over the files for the other potential members of the Avengers and the notes on the Tesseract and Project PEGASUS. Fury was more interested in the Avengers, but she was more interested in the Tesseract. Superheroes were nice and all, but she was far more interested in pouring over Howard’s notes. It wasn’t quite as good as their old conversation, but she’d take it any day.

She would have loved to see the Tesseract in person, but then of course Fury had to let a Norse God, of all people, steal it, losing a scientist and one of SHIELD’s top agents in the process. Instead of looking over a fascinating new energy source, instead Maria—or, rather, Iron Man—was called into SHIELD to wait for the other Avengers.

Really, they weren’t even Avengers. They were hardly a team. Dr. Banner clearly didn’t want to be there, Captain Rogers was stiff and awkward and unused to the future, and Agent ‘Rushman,’ true name Romanov, was more concerned with her missing partner. And Maria, well, she would rather spend time with science than with people. She wasn’t one for other people. (People required conversation and attention and other things she had no time or patience for. That was why she had liked Howard Stark so much; he had even less of a need for people than she did.)

It grew even more complicated when they encountered a second Norse God while returning from an altercation with Loki in Germany. Thor, at least, seemed amenable to cooperation, but thought of them as petty children compared to himself.

Fury was right when he said that Loki was the only one who seemed like he actually wanted to be on the helicarrier. Maria, for one, would much rather have been up in the newly completed tower, checking readings from the new arc reactor powering it, and the rest of the ‘team’ had similar sentiments.

“I could do this so much faster in my lab at home,” Maria scoffed as she hunted for the Tesseract with Banner, thankfully out of the suit for the moment. It did get tiring to walk around in all the time.

“To be fair, you do have multiple buildings related to science, and we have one lab,” Banner pointed out.

“I have ten floors related to Research and Development just in Stark Towers, actually,” she said proudly. “It’s a scientist’s candyland. The scientists usually leave a bit to be desired, though.”

“I thought Stark Industries hired the best,” he asked, looking at her over his glasses as he passed a set of data to her.

“The best according to the rest of the world’s standards tends to be mediocre at best compared to Stark standards,” she said. “My son could do better work than them and he’s in college.”

“I’m surprised he isn’t here. Where is he?” Banner asked.

She didn’t say because she didn’t know. He was probably at MIT, but at one point he had called her to say that he was thinking of visiting the tower. Even after the mess with the palladium and Ivan Vanko, she hadn’t seen him much since they were both so busy.

(And, to be honest, she couldn’t forget his face, so angry hurt lost betrayed—)

She was a coward. Imagine, Maria Stark a coward. Somehow her teenage son managed to be more terrifying than the press and the Board and her family all rolled into one. He was just so sensitive, like any little move she made had the chance of bruising him like a ripe peach.

As the calculations ran, Maria flipped idly through files, catching up on everything Fury had been up to since she last checked. There wasn’t much; she kept fairly up to date on Stage Two, which was what she cared about for the most part. The Tesseract was fascinating, and although she didn’t particularly care for the theory behind creating them (she only had to think of Howard and his work on the Manhattan Project to remember that nuclear deterrents never worked out for the better) but the science involved was absolutely fascinating.

Her phone rang and she ignored it until Banner began looking irritated, and then she finally picked up. “Where are you?” Tony asked. “I came home for the weekend, but, uh, apparently you didn’t. And where’s Pepper?”

“Pepper is in D.C.,” Maria said. “I’m too busy to come home. You’ll see me later.”

“That’s what you said last time!” Tony yelled. “When are you actually going to pull yourself away from your work and come see me? At this rate I might as well come to the office.”

“I’m not at the office.”

“Typical! You’ve gone off to some far-away place on a business trip without even telling me,” Tony exclaimed.

“I’m at SHIELD, Tony, and I’m too busy for this right now. I have very important matters to deal with, and you’ll have to wait.” She pulled up one of the plans for SHEILD’s new guns and frowned; they were going about it all wrong.

“What, more important than your kid?” She barely heard him, already caught up in the latest readings trying to trace the Tesseract.

“You might be too young to understand this, Tony, but there are a lot of things more important going on. The world doesn’t revolve around you,” she said still flicking through data, completely absorbed. She missed his response—but not the hitch in his breath—as he hung up.

Banner looked at her, judging but not quite angry. “Congratulations,” he said stiffly. “You just told your son that you don’t really care about him.”

Maria didn’t have time to consider the conversation before Fury burst in, demanding their progress, she ignored him and focused on Banner.

“He knows that I love him,” she said.

He looked at her sternly over the tops of his glasses. “It doesn’t sound like you do.”

“Dr. Banner, Mrs. Stark, I asked for an update!” Fury ordered again.

Maria flicked the results to him with a disgusted noise. “Take a look for yourself.”

Fury scowled at her, unwilling to ask her what it meant and reveal that he didn’t know, but unable to understand the readings himself. “Stark,” he growled. Banner also looked at her expectantly. Then Captain Rogers poked his head in, asking what all the yelling about, but didn’t get an answer before Agent Romanov burst in and increased the yelling even more.

It really reminded Maria why she preferred to avoid people most of the time. Idiots, the lot of them.

She only realized that she had said it aloud when Banner said, “At least none of us were idiotic enough to have a child when we clearly weren’t able to handle the emotion and commitment involved.”

“Did something happen with Tony?” Steve asked.

Banner waved at him. “Even Steve, who must have known him for, what, a year, acts more like a parent than you, Stark. You should appreciate your kid; not alienate him by telling him that pretty much everything else in your life is more important than he is.”

“He needs to grow up,” Maria said. “The world won’t cater to his whims.”

“You aren’t the world!” Banner yelled.

“Wait, wait, what happened with Tony?” Steve asked.

“It’s none of your business, Steve,” Maria snapped. God, people were annoying and nosy and bothersome and everything she hated.

“Seeing as I live with you, I think it is,” he said.

“People, this is not the time to be talking about Tony Stark,” Fury said.

“Agreed. Banner, you need to remove yourself from the situation,” Romanov said.

“I don’t think I will. Stark and I are having a conversation at the moment,” Banner said.

Maria scoffed. “Speak for yourself, Banner. I’m done.”

It turned out they were all done, since Agent Barton chose that moment to attack the helicarrier. As the ship was wracked with explosions, Maria made her way to the Iron Man suit. It was time to get to work—there was work to be done. She might not have been the best with people, but machines she could understand, at least enough to cover Captain Rogers’ confusion and get the engine working again.

Banner was lost somewhere outside of New York and Loki was gone, but they’d gained Agent Barton and kept the helicarrier, so it wasn’t a total loss. They’d lost SHEILD agents, as well, including that one with the smug smile. He’d apparently been friends with Pepper and Captain Rogers. Maria had had no idea they’d gotten so close, when she swore that he was never around. She needed to spend less time in the workshop.

Truthfully, she was getting a bit old for sleeping on the couch or the desk or the floor or whatever available surface she found. She wouldn’t retire, though. She would keep working until the day she dropped dead. Tony could wait his turn.

Except, apparently, he didn’t care to wait.

Tony’s picture beamed up at her from her phone as it continued to ring. “Excuse me,” she said, standing up and only giving the debriefing half of her attention instead of all of it.

“Mom?” Tony’s voice was quiet, too quiet, and she stiffened automatically.

“Tell me what’s happening, Tony,” she ordered.

“Uh, I’m at the Tower, and there’s some wackjob with armor and a staff, and for once I really, really hope you found a boy-toy,” Tony whispered.

“Sit tight. I’ll be right there,” she said, hanging up the phone without another word; it wouldn’t do for Tony to keep talking and get spotted, after all.

“We’re moving out, ladies and gentlemen,” she said to the room behind her as she left the room. “Stark Tower. Be there, or let the world fall apart.” Because she had no doubt that was what Loki was after; he seemed the dramatic type.

The armor was ready and waiting for her to step into it. She was headed to the Tower without another word to the team, once again headed to get Tony out of trouble before it could escalate further in her absence. This was, naturally, too much to hope for, and by the time she arrived Tony was hanging over the side of a building.

Tony scrabbled at the hands hanging around his throat, but Loki ignored him and stared straight at Maria, a dark smirk spread across his angular features.

“Have a nice fall, Stark brat,” he said. “Don’t let the pavement hurt too much; don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll black out before your brains are splattered across the pavement.”

Maria caught him just as Loki let go; Tony whooped and wrapped his arms around her as she tried to calm her pounding heart.

“Best mom ever!” he shrieked into the wind.

“You are grounded until you turn fifty,” Maria replied breathlessly, ignoring the pain in her chest.

Maria dropped him off at the base of the Tower. Tony was a big boy and could take care of himself, and Maria had bigger fish to fry.

“You be good,” she said sternly.

He hesitated only a moment before throwing his arms around her. “Love you,” he said so softly she might not have heard it if not for the superior microphones in the suit.

She ruffled his hair—when did he get so tall?—and flew straight back to where Loki awaited. She wiped her clammy hands on her pants, tried to quench her nausea (brains blown out, splattered across the pavement, couldn’t there ever be a Stark boy who just lived and died happy?) and put herself back in the mindset to play with the big boys. This was no different than the board of directors, than Obadiah Stane, than Ivan Vanko. No different than Tony looking at her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. This would be hard, but nothing had ever been easy.

Loki’s staff or Tony’s feelings; she’d take the staff any day. At least machines had always been easy to understand.

The battle was long and hard and brilliant, totally brilliant. She’d never flown so fast, fought so hard, cooperated so well. She was in top form, top of her game, despite the lingering pain in her chest. She caught a glimpse of Tony tackling Loki before she was caught up in a fresh wave of Chitauri, but Romanov was teaching him how to properly throw a punch when she looked again, so there was no need to intervene. Well, not unless she didn’t want Tony deciding he wanted to be a superspy. She could always handle that later, though.

Her team was all around her; she’d never had a team before, and it was a new experience. (In a way it reminded her of back when she was young and stupid, and they’d persuade Howard to distract the police while her underage friends snuck away, each one keeping an eye out for more trouble.) Cap and Romanov on the ground and in the buildings, Barton taking aim from the rooftop, Hulk leaping to wherever he was needed. And her, Iron Man, flying around and shooting and anything else she needed to do.

The battle called for more, though.

That was okay. She was prepared to give it.

She caught the nuke over the river (and wouldn’t it have killed Howard to see one of his creations nearly destroy New York, nearly kill their son? He’d never wanted that, just wanted them to be safe and happy, but they couldn’t always get what they wanted, now could they) and then flew it up, because she had a plan and knew exactly what to do with this.

“JARVIS, call Tony,” she ordered as Steve demanded what she was doing and Romanov stared at her from where she stood, holding the staff, ready to close the portal at a moment’s notice.

She could almost imagine him, standing on the Tower near Romanov, fumbling for his phone at the sound of her ringtone. “Mom?” He sounded afraid, so afraid, and she was never good at making him feel like it was all going to be okay, especially when she knew it wasn’t.

“Tony,” she said. “I’m proud of you. You’re going places.”

“Mom,” he said, choked up and panicked.

“Don’t worry, Tony,” she breathed in deeply and switched to Italian. “You’re going to be great. So go and don’t hold back. I love you.”

“Mom, don’t.”

“Goodbye, Tony,” she said as she hung up the phone. She didn’t want him to hear anything, not the blood rushing through her ears, not her rapid breathing, not her heart pounding in her chest.

Then the world was gone, replaced with stars and darkness and cold and the explosion of the bomb—

And, she thought, it was beautiful.

Howard had always created beautiful things; beautiful things of death and destruction, with her at her side, but at least out of their terrible union the world was given Tony. Tony was young and bright, with a future ahead of him, and she just knew he was going to make the world better in ways she couldn’t. She would know; she was a futurist, after all.

She knew what was coming; but she didn’t just know. She accepted.

And with that acceptance, it was so easy, so simple, to let her eyes close.

***

Tony didn’t cry when they told him. He just looked at the helmet in his hands, at the bright colors that had been scrapped away during the battle.

“It’s okay,” he said dully to the crowd of concerned adults; Pepper hovering at his shoulder, Steve kneeling in front of him, Happy watching from the doorway and the other Avengers standing around, staring at him.

He didn’t cry when they told him, but he did when he went down to the lab again. He cried and railed and destroyed a large amount of the projects, and then he got to work. The AI she had used was trash; he could do better. He could fix those servos, make those joints move faster, improve data feeds and radio connection and everything.

He put on the suit and flew up as far as he could and laughed for the sheer thrill of it before crying because his mother had done this, she had flown in this suit and gone up to those stars and fallen down to the same Earth.

And then he dried his tears, put on the helmet, and carried on. The world was at his feet; after all, now, he was Iron Man.