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It was a train wreck of epic proportions.

It was a disaster waiting to happen.

It was inevitable.

Inevitable that Steve would bring up Howard in front of Tony.

Picture the scene.

It’s been a week since the invasion of New York, the streets have been mostly cleared of the debris from the fight, the buildings damaged have construction underway, the people of the city are slowly starting to move on with their lives.

Meanwhile, inside a non-descript building right next to these pedestrians and city dwellers, a meeting is taking place.

A meeting between the ‘Avengers’ and Fury.

(Well, not all the Avengers, Bruce decided to stay back at Stark Tower and Thor was off world dealing with his brother. So, it was only Tony, Steve, Natasha, Clint, and Fury)

Now, this meeting technically probably should have happened immediately after the battle, but not even Fury was brave enough to get between Pepper, Happy and Rhodey and making sure that Tony suffered no extreme effects from taking a nuclear bomb into space and freefalling over the city.

And yes, Fury could have made Stark do his part over a hologram conference, but again, he wasn’t willing to go up against Pepper and her insistence on his rest.

Now, back to the meeting.

In general, the room is pretty boring (at least according to Tony), a long, boring, wooden table and some pretty common office chairs. No projectors, no screens, no obvious technology.

(This was of course done to not scare Steve any more than he already was)

Steve of course, was taking lead on the debrief, aside from the moments when he needed someone else to fill in their perspective. Tony hadn’t actually contributed to the briefing yet, since the only thing of ‘worth’ that he contributed was the nuke. (Never mind his notes on Loki and the interesting little eye colour switch that happened post-Hulk slam)

 So, Steve was going through his briefing, Tony was meanwhile on his phone.

This annoyed Steve.

During his time in the army and as Captain America in the 1940’s he participated in many briefings. And one of the major points of any of those was that every person involved needed to be paying attention to the one speaking.

Meanwhile here was Tony Stark, on his phone.

Now, Steve wasn’t necessarily being fair. Tony Stark is a genius after all, he can effectively multitask delegating a few jobs, sending emails to his employees and reassuring Pepper that he was taking his health seriously, while also giving half an ear to Steve’s, let’s face it, very one-sided and quite inadequate description of the battle (from the ground).

Steve, however, was slowly losing his patience with Tony.

When he had first heard the name Stark, he’s wondered if maybe there was a possibility that Howard was still alive, the man had been something of a friend back in the day. He was disappointed to find out that it wasn’t him, but his initial disappointment was temporarily offset when he was told that the Stark Shield was referring to was Howard’s son.

Unfortunately for him, Tony was nothing like Howard.

Where Howard had been silent in meetings and offered advice on enemy weapons when prompted, Tony was rude and not participating at all (Steve was of course ignoring that he had been dominating the briefing so far, and that Tony had responsibilities elsewhere that were much more important).

Where Howard had treated him as a friend, Tony had treated him as… something else. Steve couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was like Tony looked at him the way he’d looked at the Shield weapons they’d found earlier.

Tony wasn’t like Howard, and Steve thought that the man would have been disappointed in how his son turned out.

When it finally got to Tony’s turn of his explanation of the battle, Steve didn’t even let him get to the Nuke part (Tony did get one dig at the World Security Council beforehand though)

“Do you have no respect for anyone in authority?”, Steve asked Tony, his voice hard and stern.

Tony paused his brief, and turn to him, there was that strange look in his eyes, amused, but he looked at Steve like he was still small.

He made Steve feel small again.

And Steve didn’t like that.

“I have plenty of respect Rogers, but even the most politically correct person would have a hard time putting anything like a positive spin on a shadow council decided to Nuke one of the most populated cities in America, because they couldn’t hold their horses for a few minutes to see that our plan had been working”

Tony snorted, “I mean seriously, in this day and age everyone is terrified of a nuclear war, what kind of public opinion did they think throwing a Nuke at a heavily populated city would create? It certainly wouldn’t be a happy one let me tell you!”

Steve stayed still, even if he hadn’t agreed with the use of the bomb, that didn’t mean that Tony should insult the council, they had tried their best.

Tony looked at Steve with a raised eyebrow, “And what does it matter to you whether I’m ‘respectful’ or not?”

Steve frowned, “It matters because how can I expect you to work well on this team if you can’t hold your tongue when needed”.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Natasha and Fury share a look. But that didn’t matter to him, what mattered was setting Tony straight.

Tony slowly stood up from his chair, Steve followed his example, both were standing on opposite sides of the table, but their positions couldn’t be more different.

Tony smirk, “I need to hold my tongue, Captain? If I want to work on this ‘team’? Is that it?”

Steve didn’t like the look that Tony had in his eye.

Tony continued, “First of all, who said that I even wanted to be on this so called ‘team’, I’m only here as a consultant for Shield, not as one of your little soldiers”.

Tony continued, bulldozing over anyone who attempted to interject.

“And secondly, I don’t need to learn how to respect people Rogers, you’ll find that I give respect when I need to and to whom I chose to, I don’t go giving it away to people who haven’t earnt it”

Tony looks Steve over, “And speaking of earning respect, you better drop that attitude because I can guarantee that the minute you speak to someone about your station, you will not like the consequences that follow. Not all people are as nice as me in that regards”

Steve didn’t realise how right Tony was. The minute Steve spoke down to anyone who was in a higher station than ‘Captain Propaganda’, he would be immediately benched and reprimanded, not to mention if any of them would take personal revenge against any slights that he put in front of them.

Compared to some people Tony had met at conferences, he really had shown great patience, and Fury knew this.

Steve, however, didn’t understand this. All he understood was that Howards son was being a brat, and even being a bit of a bully.

“I don’t appreciate your attitude Stark”

And here came his mistake.

“Howard certainly wouldn’t have approved either, clearly you didn’t get it from him”.

Now. Steve had no way of knowing what the specific relationship between Tony and Howard was.

Truthfully, neither did Shield.

But everyone had their opinions.

The main opinion shared by Shield, was that Howard was the absent father, the stern father who was never impressed, and was never satisfied with what Tony could do.

The public believes various stories, all generally thinking that Tony was closest with his mother, and that he and his father spent more time on machines and the company than just with each other.

Truthfully, Tony had spent a fair amount of time with his father, and yes, his father had been strict and stern when around employees and business partners, but he had taken every chance he could to pass on all the business knowledge that he could.

Howard Stark had turned his company into a multi-million company spreading across America. Tony Stark has turned this into a multi-billion international company spreading across the Globe.

 Howard Stark may not have tucked Tony into bed, chaperoned school trips or bothered about him eating sugar before bed. But he had done everything he could to expand Tony’s mind and encourage him when it came to building machines and running the business. He had imparted all his information, and a lot of his mentality onto Tony.

Especially, his mentality regarding weapons.

Make no mistake, Tony might have changed Stark industries from a weapons company, but he still had all the brains regards a weapons manufacturing business, a mindset that he had gotten explicitly from Howard.

That mindset included: Never build a weapon you can’t use yourself, never build a weapon you can’t shut down, and never make a weapon without a failsafe.

Always remember, a weapon is a weapon, you can dress it up, but if all the weapon is good for is killing, then that’s all it’s good for.

So, Steve’s little dig at Howard and Tony’s relationship might have made the rest of the group freeze, but to Tony, it was an amusing comment from someone who didn’t even know the man but claimed to be his friend.

“And you would be the expert on my father how Rogers?”

Tony grinned, “Afterall, you knew each other for maybe a year or two, you weren’t in contact for mare and a few hours at a time, sometimes even going months between meetings. What could you have on me, who was raised by him? Hmm?”

Steve sneered; he didn’t like Tony’s attitude.

“Howard was a good man who knew how to give people the respect they deserved. He wouldn’t be walking around with this attitude that you seem to be showing off proudly!”

Tony scoffed, “I’ll give you one thing, he did know when to give respect”

Tony looked Steve up and down, “But unfortunately for you, he also knew the art of bullshitting your way right through someone’s defences and making them think they were friends, which was especially necessary in the times when he was selling weapons to contractors. He could make even the toughest nut think that they were drinking buddies”

Tony picked at his fingers, a picture of not giving a fuck, “Unfortunately for you Rogers, while you see my dad as an old friend, to him, you were only ever a weapon”.

Steve gasped; he couldn’t believe what rubbish was coming out of Tony’s mouth! Howard was a good man! He didn’t deserve to have his son badmouth him after his death!

“Howard was a good man! You should be ashamed of yourself for saying such slander against him!”

 Tony could only laugh, his dad seemed to have played Rogers like a fiddle.

“Unfortunately for you, it’s not slander if it’s true, you were only ever a weapon to him Rogers, a way for him to win the war and make a few new contracts outside of America for his weapons business”.

Steve growled, how dare Stark say something like this! Howard had been a good man! A good friend! He’d never seen Steve as a weapon!

Tony continued, “And I know what you’re thinking, how could my dad have seen you like that right? He flew you over enemy lines. He gave you preferential treatment. He even gave you, your shield!”

Tony spun around and walked over to the windows on the other side of the room, standing across the room, directly in front of Steve, “And you know what that was Rogers? That was my dad field testing”

“What better way to test a super soldier, then to throw him in enemy lines and see if he comes back alive, what better way to keep a living weapon on your side then to make him think that he’s favoured? And how can you win a war if your weapon doesn’t have the best defence?”

Steve had frozen in shock.

This… this couldn’t be right. Howard would never have done something like this!

Tony gave him one last look, “And you know what Rogers, my dad had one saying to me that he considered his most important, you know what it is?”

Steve didn’t make a noise.

“That saying is that you should never make a weapon that can leave your side, unless you have a way to deactivate it from a distance”

Fury and Natasha paled. They realised what Tony meant.

“So, you better keep your hands and feet inside the lines Rogers, because if you go out, acting like you did in the 1940’s, ignoring boarders, fighting baseline humans without holding punches, if you go rouge on us. Dad built a way for me to dismantle you”

Fury stood up now, “What do you mean Stark? Howard couldn’t have done something like that, the army had been banking on Rogers to win the war for them, they wouldn’t have made something that could destroy him, he was a hero!”

Steve felt calmer listening to Fury, he was right, Howard could never…

“Oh, my dad could have, when Philips and Erskine asked him to develop it before they put Rogers through the fire”

What? Erskine?

Steve couldn’t believe it.

“They already had one super soldier running around and killing people, he even created Hydra. You really think that they were going to make that mistake again?!”

Natasha couldn’t believe what she was hearing, “You’re saying that the Army made a way to destroy Steve, in case he became a Nazi?!”

Tony smiled, “No, they made it in case Rogers got ideas above his station, during wartime he was a weapon, when they had a use for him, he would be working to save their soldiers and fight the enemy, if peacetime came around, they didn’t want to go and be someone else’s private soldier”.

Steve couldn’t breathe.

Fury decided to interject, “And what exactly was their method of control? How can we prevent it from being used on him?”

Tony smiled, “Well, it involves a handy little remote, one that was previously old tech but has been upgraded to be added to my phone”

Steve realised what that meant, he hadn’t felt like he could move for the last few minutes, and Tony had been on his phone, was Tony using this machine on him?

“As for making it not affect him, you can’t. Dad used some old microchips that were injected into Roger’s when he was injected with the serum. You can’t remove them because they also have mini detonators. Rogers is stuck with them for the rest of his life”.

Tony gave the agents one last looked before walking over to the door, “You lot better be able to keep as good a leash on him as the Howling commandos, from what dad used to tell me, it was a full-time job”

With that, Tony Stark left the building.

The rest of the Avengers were standing shocked, Steve was completely dumbfounded, but the spies knew what really happened.

Tony had just issued his ultimatum, if they couldn’t keep Steve under control, Tony was going to take away what made him Captain America.

Fury had no doubt that he could, if there was one thing he knew about Stark men, it was that they never jokes about their weapons.