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."

Tony chuckles. "Yeah..."

Howard looks at him for a moment. "You look a little green around the gills there, Potts."

Tony shakes his head a little. "Oh, I'm fine. Just long hours."

"You wanna get some air?" Howard asks, but Tony doesn't respond, amazed and confused. He hasn't truly seen his father since the day he left for that trip, and now, here he is, in the flesh. Not a projection, not a video, living, breathing, and standing right here in front of him with absolutely no idea that he's talking to his son. "Hello, Potts?" Howard prompts, as Tony has been quiet a while.

He laughs lightly, snapping out of it. "Yeah. That'd be swell."

"That way," Howard says, pointing to the door.

"Okay." Tony starts to walk away, but Howard stops him.

"Need your briefcase?" he asks, grabbing it and handing it to Tony, who is very glad that he remembered that. Outwardly, he just chuckles as they head for the elevator. "You're not one of those beatniks, are ya, Potts?" Howard asks.

"I, um..." Tony trails off. It's only then that he notices what his dad is holding. "So, flowers and sauerkraut. You got a big date tonight?"

As they walk into the elevator, Howard replies, "Uh, my wife's expecting. And, well, too much time in the office." He holds up the flowers.

Tony is struck by the fact that his father is talking about him, in the womb right now. He didn't even think about that when he said this year. "Congratulations."

"Thanks," Howard says. He hands Tony the flowers and sauerkraut. "Hold this, will you?"

"Yeah, sure." Tony takes them, then clears his throat. "So, how far along is she?

Howard adjusts his tie. "Uh, I don't know, um... She's at the point where she can't stand the sound of my chewing." Tony laughs; his mom still couldn't stand that sometimes when he was a kid. Howard continues. "I guess I'll be eating dinner in the pantry again."

Tony's smile falls a little, at what exactly he's not quite sure, but it does strike him that they, his parents, never got to know their grandchildren. "I have two girls," he says, the smile coming back.

"Twins?" Howard asks.

Tony chuckles, shaking his head. "No, no, they're actually..." he thinks for a moment "... seventeen years apart. One's twenty two, the other is five."

"Wow," Howard says. "Well, you sure don't look that old."

Tony laughs. "Yeah. I definitely feel it, though."

Howard sighs. "You know, a girl would be nice. Less of a chance she'd turn out exactly like me."

Tony's brows furrow. "What'd be so awful about that?"

"Let's just say that the, uh, greater good has rarely outweighed my own self-interests," Howard replies as the elevator doors open. He claps Tony's shoulder as he exits, and Tony follows.

As they leave the building, Tony catches up to him and says, "I get it. It's nutty, it's crazy-making 'cause you start worrying about a legacy, you know. You want to leave them a better world, and then you realize you haven't done all that much to give them one, and it's-it's..." he trails off, unsure how to describe it, thinking of Grace and Morgan, of their lives, their futures.

"What's your name, again?" Howard asks.

"Potts," Tony says, wondering at his own ability to think on his feet.

"Potts," Howard repeats.

"Yeah."

There's a pause, then: "You wanna come work for me, Potts?"

Tony's brows raise at that, and he somehow manages to answer him. "I'm a little... tied up in futures right now." Howard nods, and Tony clears his throat. "So, um, where are you at with names?"

"If it's a girl, we're not really sure yet, 'cause I can't find one she likes," Howard replies. "Say, uh, just out of curiosity, what are your girls' names?"

"Grace and Morgan," Tony says.

"Hmm," Howard hums. "How'd you pick those out?"

"Well, um, Grace, when she was born, she, uh, she kinda got me out of a bad spot in my life — you know, motivated me to be better than I was. So I thought of her as kinda like my... saving grace." Howard nods at that, and Tony continues. "And, well, Morgan's name came from a dream I had where my wife and I named our child after her weird uncle, so... we went with it."

Howard laughs. "Well, I can't say I've got any inspiration from dreams."

Tony chuckles, and it seems as though the subject is going to change, so he brings his dad back to what he wanted to know. "So, what are you thinking if it's a boy?"

"Oh, my wife likes Elmanzo," Howard replies.

Tony refrains from grimacing. "Huh. Might wanna let that stew awhile. You got some time."

Howard nods, then says, "Let me ask you a question." They stop, and he asks, "When your kids were born... were you nervous?"

"Wildly," Tony replies. "Yeah. Especially with the first one. Her, uh, her mom kind of... didn't want to be in her life at all. So it was basically just me."

"Really?" Howard asks, surprised.

Tony nods. "Yeah. And, you know, I asked for some advice, had friends to help when they could, but when it came down to it, sometimes it just felt like it was me and her against the world."

Howard sighs. "Did you... Did you feel qualified? Like you had any idea how to successfully operate that thing?

"I literally pieced it together as I went along," Tony replies. "Like I thought about what my Dad did, and–" he stops, spotting Steve a ways behind Howard, waiting for him.

"My old man, he never met a problem he couldn't solve with a belt," Howard says.

"I thought my dad was tough on me," Tony replies, coming back to the conversation. "And now, looking back on it, I just remember the good stuff. You know? He did drop the odd pearl."

"Yeah?" Howard asks interestedly. "Like what?"

Tony thinks of one very appropriate for the situation. "'No amount of money ever bought a second of time.'"

"Smart guy," Howard says.

"He did his best," Tony replies.

Howard sighs. "I'll tell you, that kid's not even here yet, and there's nothing I wouldn't do for 'em."

Howard walks past him, while he stands there, letting that sink in, his heart seeming to warm. And then he meets Steve's eyes, and Steve nods at him, so Tony holds up the briefcase and points to it, a bit irritated that Steve would even entertain the thought that Tony didn't the Tessaract. Steve nods again, and Tony turns as Howard walks back over.

"Good to meet you, Potts," he says.

"Yeah." Tony hands his dad the flowers and sauerkraut, then looks at him seriously. "Howard... Everything's gonna be all right." He'd been shaking his hand, but now, awkwardly, he hugs him. "Thank you... for everything..." then, realizing the situation, he adds, "you've done for this country," as he pulls away.

Howard walks off, handing the flowers to Jarvis, who's standing by the car. Tony smiles widely as he makes his way over to Steve.