Babysitting a Superhero (Stark's daughter X Peter Parker)

50. Bridges Burnt

Steve had come face to face with Zemo, separated only by the thick glass between them.

"I've thought about nothing else for over a year," Zemo replied, stepping closer to the glass. "I studied you. I followed you. But now that you're standing here, I just realised... there's a bit of green in blue of your eyes," he chuckled. "How nice to find a flaw."

"You're Sokovian," It wasn't a question, Steve stated the fact. "Is that what this is about?"

"Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell. No. I'm here because I made a promise."

Steve nodded, "You lost someone?"

Zemo clicked his tongue, "I lost everyone... and so will you." Zemo clicked a button and a screen switched on behind Steve.

Steve turned around to see what he had done and Zemo continued, "An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumbles from within? That's dead. Forever."

Tony looked at Zemo with a suspicious expression and walked to where Steve was now staring at the screen in front of him. His eyes widened in recognition.

"I know that road," he looked at tha date of the tape, and although it was in Russian, he knew what it meant.

16 December 1991.

"What is this?" Tony asked, loudly, at Zemo, but the man simply stared back at him solemnly.

Tony turned his attention back to the screen and watched as the car he knew all too well crashed into the tree on the side of the screen.

But then he saw a motorbike park up next to the car and then the man riding it getting off of it.

He saw his father, blurred, but no doubt his father, exit the car, on the floor. He called out to the man who had stopped next to them.

"Help my wife," he said. He thought the man would help them and Tony's stomach dropped.

"Please. Help."

Barnes grabbed Howard Stark's hair and pulled his head back to face him.

Howard scrunched his eyebrows. He knew this man, "Sergeant Barnes?"

"Howard!" A woman's voice called out from the passenger seat.

Tony looked up from the screen and saw Barnes looking down in shame, before turning back to the screen.

Barnes had delivered three punches to his father's, already bleeding, face. He fell to the ground.

"Howard!" Maria Stark's voice grew more and more distressed.

Barnes picked Tony's father up by the back of his neck, as if he was some form of roadkill and placed him back in the car. Resting his head on the steering wheel to face his heavily panicked wife.

Tony watched with rage as the Winter Solider walked around to the other side of the car, to where his mother was sat. He couldn't see much from that angle, but he knew. Barnes had choked the life out of his helpless mother. Then he walked back around to face the camera, held up his gun and shot, screens turned to black.

Tony stepped back, the anger clear on his face.

Steve looked at Tony, scared of how he might react.

Tony quickly turned, facing Bucky and attempted to charge towards him but was held back by Steve, "No, Tony."

Tony turned back around and looked down at Steve's hand on his shoulder. He looked him right in the eyes, "Did you know?"