The Man My Father Always Talked About • A CAPTAIN AMERICA STORY

31

~31~

The year was 1991. Beside Howard Stark's wife sat a young girl, her bangs tucked behind her ear as she tried to read the music. "Try to remember the kind of September. When grass was green..." Clara sang along. She stopped singing as her father walked in, but her mother continued playing the sweet music.

"Wake up, dear, and say goodbye to your father." Maria said to her sleeping son.

"Who's the homeless person on the couch?" Howard said, making Clara giggle as she watched her brother stumble off the couch.

Tony, who was wearing a Santa hat, staggered to his feet and chuckled, making Clara smile out of amusement. "This is why I love coming home for Christmas...right before you two leave town and leave me in charge of little Clar." Tony said, patting Clara's shoulder. "It wouldn't be the holidays if I didn't have to babysit."

"Funny, why do I feel that Clarissa is the one that babysits?" Clara rolled her eyes, her father knew she hated when he called her by her full name. Tony rolled his eyes too as his father called him immature.

"Be nice, dear, he's been studying abroad." Maria hummed as she continued playing the piano. Clara looked up, admiring the fact that her mother wall able to stay calm while the rest of her family bickered.

"Really, which broad? What's her name?" Howard asked, tucking his hand in his pocket and glaring at his son.

"Candice." Clara answered, gaining a confused look from Tony as he crossed his arms.

"How..." Tony started.

"I know more than you think." Clara said, but Tony tilted his head further in confusion. "She left a message on the phone."

"I never received that message." Tony said, making Clara look away from him to avoid eye contact. Maria chuckled softly as she patted Clara on the shoulder.

Howard coughed to gain the attention of the two children before he pulled off Tony's Santa hat. "Do me a favor? Try not to burn the house down before Monday."

"Okay, so it's Monday. That is good to know. We will plan our toga party accordingly." He winked at Clara but she just ignored him. "Where you going?"

"Your father's flying us to the Bahamas for a little getaway," Maria answered.

"I want to go to the Bahamas," Clara said under her breath. Her parents had always left the two Stark children to celebrate Christmas with only each other and their butler, Edwin Jarvis. That particular year, Jarvis was away with his own family.

"We might have to make a quick stop," Howard said.

"At the Pentagon. Right? Don't worry, you're gonna love the holiday menu at the commissary," Maria smiled.

"You know, they say sarcasm is a metric for potential. If that's true, you'll be a great man some day. I'll get the bags," Howard said. Clara got up to hug her father goodbye, but she knew it wasn't worth it. Instead, he placed his hand on her shoulder. "Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

"Kind of impossible." Clara answered, but her father gave her a stern look. "I'll try." Clara was shocked when Howard gave in and gave his daughter a small hug. He walked out of the room, and Maria stood up to face her son.

"He does miss you when you are not here. And frankly, you're going to miss us. Because this is the last time we're all going to be together." Clara had frozen in place. "You know what's about to happen. Say something. If you don't, you'll regret it."

Howard walked back in. "I love you, Dad. And I know you did the best you could." Maria leaned in to kissed Tony on the cheek and hugged her daughter goodbye. Tony watched them walk out before his sister stood beside him. She crossed her arms and he glanced down at her before they stood, frozen.

"That's how I wished it happened." Behind the younger holograms of him and his sister, Tony stood, watching. "Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, or BARF. You can thank my sister for that acronym. An extremely costly method of hijacking the hippocampus to...clear traumatic memories. Huh." He blew on a candle and everything around him shimmered, then began to dissolve.  "It doesn't change the fact that they never made it to the airport... or all the things I did to avoid processing my grief..."

***

"11 Wakandans were among those killed during a confrontation between the Avengers and a group of mercenaries in Lagos, Nigeria, last month. The traditionally reclusive Wakandans were on an outreach mission in Lagos when the attack occurred." The news anchor said. Clara and Steve watched the news to see if the media hated them, though they already knew the answer.

"Our people's blood is spilled on foreign soil. Not only because of the actions of criminals, but by the indifference of those pledged to stop them. Victory at the expense of the innocent, is no victory at all." The Wakandan king said.

"The Wakanda king went on to..." Steve turned off the news when he saw Clara's blank reaction. The two were confused when the sound drifted from another room. "They are operating outside and above the international law. Because that's the reality, if we don't respond to acts like these." Clara and Steve walked in the direction of the noise to see Wanda sitting on her bed, watching the news on her TV. "What legal authority does an enhanced individual like Wanda Maximoff have to operate in Nigeri -" Clara picked up the remote of the table and turned it off.

Wanda peered over her shoulder to see her visitors before looking back at the tv. "It's my fault," she whispered.

"That's not true." Steve clarified.

"Turn the TV back on. They're being very specific." Wanda said, her voice laced with regret and quilt.

"I should've clocked that bomb vest long before you had to deal with it," Steve said. "Rumlow said 'Bucky' and...all of a sudden I was a 16-year-old kid again, in Brooklyn. And people died. It's on me."

"It's on all of us," Clara added. She thought back to how Steve froze at the name of his old friend. "I could have easily ended it before it started, but I didn't."

"This job...We try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody. But if we can't find a way to live with that, next time...maybe nobody gets saved." Steve said.

Suddenly, Vision came through the wall, scaring Clara as she jumped slightly. "Vis! We talked about this." Wanda said.

"Yes, but the door was open so I assumed..." Vision started before sighing. "Miss Stark wished to know when Mr. Stark was arriving."

"He's back already?" Clara asked.

"It's appears so," Vision answered.

"We'll be right there," Steve gave Vision a small smile of gratitude.

"I'll...use the door." Vision said as he began to exit the room. "Oh, and apparently, he's brought a guest."

Steve and Clara looked at each other in confusion before she asked, "We know who it is?"

"The Secretary of State." Vision left answered and left. Clara had a bad feeling in her stomach as Steve, Wanda, and her exited the room.