Saving Grace

Eighty Nine

Tony and Steve walk down the sidewalk at Shield in 1970, Steve in a military uniform, Tony in a suit, looking like a scientist or a professor, maybe even an intern, or something along those lines. At the very least, he blends in.

"Clearly, you weren't actually born here, right?" Tony says to Steve, looking around at the place.

"The idea of me was," Steve replies.

"Right," Tony says, looking through the windows they pass, seeing desks and busy people. "Well, imagine you're Shield, running a quasi-fascistic intelligence organization. Where do you hide it?" 'It' being the Tessaract.

"In plain sight," Steve says, nodding towards a squat-looking building, trapezoidal in shape. Someone in a suit walks inside it, and then a man follows him, lookin back as he goes. Tony taps the glasses on his face, getting a heat signature of the two men going down in a elevator. He looks slightly back at Steve, and then they both walk in the building, trying not to move too quickly lest they look suspicious. They look at the floor guide on the wall before getting into the elevator. There's a woman in it, reading a file. She's looking at them suspiciously.

After some, silent moments, Tony steps forward, and then the elevator beeps. This is his floor. He looks at Steve. "Good luck on your mission, Captain."

Steve nods at him as he leaves. "Good luck on your project... Doctor."

Tony ends up in a hallway, and he taps his glasses, getting scans and maps. He eventually finds himself in a cluttered lab, looking at all of the storage containers, many of them in long lines, overtop desks. Finally, one of them reads as containing the Tessaract.

Tony grabs a nearby breifcase, pushing clutter off it, and then, using a laser on the hand of his suit, he cuts through the lock mechanism on the container. It opens easily, the Tessaract glowing brightly inside it. Tony smiles. "Back in the game." Then, he grabs it, putting it in the briefcase.

As he's closing it, he hears a man's voice. "Arnim, you in there?!" The man steps into the room. "Arnim?!" Tony locks the case, the suit's hand going away, and the man turns, seeing Tony. In shock, Tony turns and begins walking in the other direction, reasonably sure that that man is, in fact, his father. "Hey!" he shouts, stopping Tony. "The door's this way, pal."

Tony turns, trying to breathe. "Oh. Yeah."

His father walks closer, saying, "I'm looking for Dr. Zola. Have you seen him?"

"Yeah, no, Dr. Zol... No, I haven't seen a soul," Tony replies, getting it together, for the most part. He runs into a chair, though, then grabs it, rolling it out of the way while saying, "Pardon me," to it.

His father stops in front of him, squinting. "Do I know you?"

"No, sir," Tony says, putting the briefcase on the chair behind him, then taking off his glasses. He pulls an ID out of his pocket, which was given to him at the front desk after a bit of fibbing. "I'm a-a visitor from MIT."

"Oh. MIT. Got a name?" His father asks.

Tony panics. "Uh- Howard."

The real Howard nods with a small chuckle. "Well, that'll be easy to remember."

"Howard..." Tony thinks rapidly, then cleverly spits out, "Potts."

"Well, I'm Howard Stark," he replies, holding out his hand.

"Hi," Tony says, going to shake his hand, but he grabs his finger instead, as Howard had folded his other fingers in on purpose, joking with him.

"Shake that, don't pull it."