The Curious Tales of Evelyn Stark

Bonus: Funerals

AN: I couldn't stop thinking about Tony post Howard and Maria's deaths. And a few Pinterest images helped cement that visual.

1991

The slap was resounding. Peggy's hand made contact with Tony's cheek. Knocking him from his drunken stupor. Evie had just rounded the corner entering the living room. Tony had decided to stay in his parents home until the funeral. Peggy had all but broken their way into the Stark residence. Impatience had kept Peggy from waiting on Evie to find her key. Tony had boarded himself up and drunk himself stupid before the two spies had broken in.

"Anthony Edward Stark. I will not allow you to drink yourself to death," Peggy snapped as the young skinny Tony Stark wiped the drool from his mouth. He smelled like stale alcohol and vomit. "Bloody fucking Starks and their need to drink themselves stupid." She threw a pointed look at Evie. "If I didn't know any better I'd think he was your son with how he's acting."

Evie shrugged, she remembered all too well how it had felt to loose a large piece of yourself.  Her body ached even thinking about James all those decades later. Grief hit her in another wave, as she held back tears. She remembers Peggy slapping her stupid in LA and her finally getting her life back together. "Tony I'm going and running you a shower. There's a suit on your bed. You're going to shower get dressed and neither one of us is going to touch a drop of alcohol until the funerals are over. Honestly I'd rather you not touch a drop for awhile. But you're an adult," Evie stated.

Tony stood, he was wobbling, likely still drunk from the night before. Evie escorted her nephew upstairs, tossing the young man into the shower fully dressed. "Evie what the fuck?!" he squealed.

"Young man don't talk to me like that. I'm old but I'll still kick your ass," she snapped.

"You don't look a day over thirty and you know it," Tony snapped, throwing his now soaking clothes out of the shower.

Evie rolled her eyes before slamming his bathroom door closed. Peggy was waiting for her in the sitting room, where Maria had her piano. "I should have been here."

"You were in London how could you know? I'm his god mother this one is mostly on me. Poor kid gets two old women to look after him," Peggy replied.

Evie sighed. "We're hardly old Pegs. On that note, I could have sworn I'd seen him."

"Evie Sergeant Barnes has been gone a long time. Maybe one of us is hardly old," Peggy stated looking her friend up and in down in her smart black dress, a design from the sixties Evie had taken care of.

"Who ever I saw could have been his doppelgänger Pegs, just with longer hair. Same profile. Hell it could have been a grandchild," Evie stated.

"You would have murdered him if he so much had looked at another woman," Peggy said.

"True," Evie chuckled. The pair fell into silence for awhile before Evie spoke. "I miss my brother and sister."

"I know darling but right now we need to hold it together for Tony," Peggy said, holding her old friend tightly.

Evelyn squeezed Tony's hand, as they buried Howie and Maria. Peggy gave the eulogy expressing how great Maria and Howie were. How their greatest accomplishment was their son Tony. Evelyn watched her nephew hold strong. He was only twenty one, around the same as her when his grandparents had passed away.