Father and Son

"Then why are you acting like a child?"

Howard frowned. Tony's door was shut and locked and he wasn't answering.

"Tony! Get out here. NOW. Your mother has a meeting and you need to get your sorry hide out of bed." Howard felt his anger rising higher, along with a sense that something wasn't quite right.

A groan was the only reply he got.

He forced the lock to let him in, over-riding all his son's inovations.

Tony was half on the messy floor and half on the bed, fully dressed and odviously hung over.

Howard shook him slightly.

"Get out." Tony muttered. "I'll get up in a minute."

"I've been knocking and yelling for just under half an hour Tony. You think that's funny?" Howard pulled his son upright. "Well I don't. There is work to be done and all you ever do is complain and sit around."

"Someone never even cares if I complete my projects. Someone doesn't even bat an eye when I make my things work. SOMEONE only cares that I exist because I'm in the same house as he is every day!" Tony winced, his own yelling making his hangover worse.

"If you want me to care so much about you why don't you do something great?" Howard cut back, face red. "Stop acting like a child!"

"Then why are you acting like a child?" Tony growled, leaning forward so they were inches apart.

Howard took three deep breaths, moving backwards and trying to calm himself. "You are right. We are both being unreasonable."

Tony rubbed his forehead. Looking away.

"Just, get up. We can talk later."

"We should talk now." Tony said, not meeting his father's eyes.

"Fine. Tony, don't throw things, don't get drunk, and don't mess with my experiments."

Tony made a face. "I won't if you won't. Don't ignore me over a project of wires that I can make just as well as you."

"Just as well as me? I'm the one who made repulsers work, I'm the one who sells millions of dollars of weaponry to SHEILD-"

"Yeah, and your the one who invented stupid Captain America's SHEILD. SHEILD, SHEILD, SHEILD, is that all you think about? Weapons and sheilds. Blah blah blah work, weapons, blah-"

"ENOUGH!!!" Howard yelled.

Tony fell silent.

"I'm going to take your mother to her meeting. We will continue, reasonably and kindly, when I get back."

Tony scowled, but nodded.

Howard left, keeping the door wide open. He marched to where his Maria stood waiting. She gazed softly at him.

"Did you need to yell?" She asked, taking his arm.

"He just keeps being immature and heckfire lazy." Howard said, opening the door for her. They moved forward but then he saw a shining disk of metal lying about a foot away in the grass.

Howard stepped forward and plucked it off the ground. "How the heck did one of these get out?" He brandished the disk. "Maria look at this! Tony threw some things out the window yesterday, probably including this weapon. This could electrocute a full grown man in ten seconds, and Tony threw it out a window!"

Maria sighed, her brown hair bouncing as she shook her head. "I won't say he isn't immature, but I do think you've been too hard on him. He needs a father's praise, or at least a lab partner; not complete solitude."

"I don't trust him in the lab, I don't want him to accidentally get his brain turned to mush, after that incident..."

Howard trailed off. Tony had almost died when he was little because of a malfunction in one of the weapons. The thing had fired on it's own and barely missed Tony's head by an inch, setting the boy's hair on fire as it passed.

Howard moved the last few steps to the car and they climbed in. Howard slipped the disk into a breast pocket of his suit.

The car started into motion, moving out from where it was parked to the street. Merging with a trickle of other traffic.

Howard felt a feeling that he was being watched. He looked around their car, trying to see who it was. Rexxon hadn't acted up in years...

A man stood on the street corner, dressed in dark brown and holding a small box in a gloved hand. Dark hair framed his face, which Howard thought he recognized. The box was raised, and the man flipped a switch.

A jolt of electricity spiked through Howard's shirt, sending pain to every nerve. No! I'm driving! Tony needs me! He needs- He reached desperately for his pocket convulsing violently with the lightning running through his blood. Faintly he heard Maria scream his name, but then he blacked out. The electricity finally doing it's job; the job of killing Howard Stark.

The car slammed into a cab, flipping on its side and sliding into a building with the sound of crumpling metal.

Maria fell silent. She couldn't breathe because of the metal and glass imbedded in her body, the crushing weight of the dashboard, and the sight of her husband convulsing and dying less than a foot away.

The man on the corner turned and walked away. A strange whirring sound followed him and a crushed metal box slid from the gloved fingers as they released it.

Sirens started.

Soon Tony and the paramedics were huddled around his parents, a team working on each to try and save them.

Tony stared blankly at his fathers face. Too numb to do much yet.

After a full three minutes of CPR the medical personnel moved away from Howard Stark's body.

Tony didn't realize it, but tears were sliding down his face.

A few more minutes and they told him his mother was also gone.

He looked at both of them.

His mother was covered in blood and lying in it too. His father had small burn marks all over him, but most in his pocket.

And Tony had never been able to make his father proud.