Author's Note: And now for a change...this is inspired by the last episode of Agent Carter. It's from Howard's point of view. It does follow the lines of the rest of the chapters, just with Bucky's interaction with the rest of the team, and I really wanted to include non-Avengers in the story.

Read and review! Let me know what you think!

Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds.

Everything I created, everything I touched, turned the world to ashes. Even the things I created to help.

Heat vests for soldiers in winters made them into walking bombs.

Stimulants made to keep them awake and alert for days turned them into monsters that would just as soon destroy each other.

Most people can count their sins on one hand.

I need vaults to contain all of mine.

The only thing I managed to create that didn't turn to ruin was project Rebirth – and as Peg pointed out, I didn't create Steve Rogers. I just allowed him to be the man he already was. Everything that made Captain America great was pure Steve, the boy from Brooklyn who couldn't stand the idea of bullies, no matter the size. Who stood against them no matter the odds.

I was jealous as hell. I have never been brave in all of my life. Instead of standing against injustice, I am always running away.

When Maria handed me my son for the first time, I realized that this was my chance. To actually put forth good into the world.

I wanted Tony to be better than me.

I needed him to be.

The world couldn't have two Howard Starks. One almost destroyed it too many times to count. Two of them would be the end of it.

When Tony was younger, I thought for sure he was taking after Maria. As a toddler he had a smile that could light up a room, and he babbled incessantly. He loved to be held, to be near anyone that would give him the time of day. He loved to play at the park and thought everyone and everything he came into contact with was his new best friend.

Jarvis and his wife always thought of him as their own, and I know Tony didn't mind a second set of parents, and they spoiled him rotten – not that we didn't have a jump start on them.

And then came the day he turned five, and I caught him in my lab playing with a box of spare parts and tools. I heard a crash and a bang and I was terrified he just managed to maim himself with something he shouldn't even be able to reach.

When I rounded the table, Tony looked up at me, a smile so wide I thought it would split his face in two and handed me a mechanical toy man.

It had a few bumps and scrapes and was clearly made by someone unfamiliar with small craftsmanship…but it was obvious it was Tony's creation. All the tools and scrap pieces were splayed out around him as he pointed out how the arms and legs moved, and how the tiny metal soldier was a super hero who was going to help me find my friend Captain America.

He looked up at me with such pride and confidence in what he was showing me, I couldn't speak.

He told me he wanted to be just like me when he grew up.

I should've told him good job. I should've told him how proud I was. I should've done a lot of things. But what did I do?

I panicked.

I broke the toy in my hands and forbade my son from ever going in the lab again, whether I was in there or not. And as I watched his eyes fill with tears, watched as he ran out of the room sobbing to his mother, I should've felt regret. I should've felt horrified that I had just crushed my only child's spirit as easily as the toy in my hand.

But I wasn't.

I was too terrified at the idea that my son was going to do exactly what he said – that he would grow up to be just like me.

I vowed it wouldn't happen. It could not happen.

Others would notice. Others would see the genius in him and they would see it a lot sooner in him than they did in me. I was too high profile, and not with all the right people.

The first time Tony was kidnapped, I thought it was for ransom.

When no letter came, when no phone call was made, I knew the ransom wasn't money.

It only took one phone call to Peggy and SSR was on the case. Three days later, Tony was safe at home, a little roughed up but bounced back with the resiliency of a six year old.

I was reluctant to leave him after that. For any reason. Jarvis no longer took Tony to the park by himself. Tony traveled with Maria and I wherever we went, whether it was for business of vacation.

The second time Tony was taken, I was only one room over. I slept through the whole thing.

It took a week to get him back, and several more to get him to finally sleep somewhere besides in the bed between the two of us.

Security doubled. Every person who entered the property was screened. Tony was no longer allowed to go to public school.

The third time they took him, I came home to find Jarvis bleeding out in the back yard from a knife wound, and Tony nowhere to be found. This time they left a message with Jarvis – they didn't ask for money because what they wanted was my inventions. And they were going to keep coming after the only thing I loved until I gave in.

HYDRA would not have my son.

The only rational thing was to convince them that Tony wasn't the only person I loved.

I loved no one.

I loved nothing.

My heart was made of iron.

I didn't send the SSR after Tony. I didn't stay to see how Jarvis faired after the hospital. I left the country. I went to Monaco. I went swimming and drank whiskey on the beach while my seven year old son was in the hands of monsters.

Two weeks later, and Tony was returned.

When I finally came home, he tried to run into my arms like he'd done so many times before, crying for his daddy.

I caught him an arm's length away, and told him to go wash up. We were Starks. And Starks do not cry for their daddies.

The next time they came, they came for me instead of Tony.

So I stayed away. I spent even more time searching the arctic for Steve's plane. I went on missions for newly named SHIELD. I became a founding member and eventually Peg and I were running the joint. I created the arc reactor. I went to charity balls and project meetings and foreign countries for diplomatic relations.

I pretended if I had enough to keep me occupied, enough to keep me away, it wouldn't hurt so bad.

Maria knew what I was doing. So did Jarvis. And bless them both, they let me. Maria didn't question why I was never home. Jarvis told Tony that it was just business.

I had pictures of every birthday. I had letters from every graduation. I kept finger paintings of Tony and mommy and Jarvis and watched as the paintings no longer included daddy. I read in the papers about his college graduation.

Time passed. I hadn't seen HYDRA agents in years. Peggy and I retired from SHIELD as co-directors. Tony was seventeen and pursuing another doctorate in electrical engineering and advanced intelligence systems. He could hold his own in a fight, and had done so on several occasion, much to the protest of his personal bodyguard, Happy.

We didn't speak much. The occasional phone call at Christmas. Form letters for birthdays. It broke my heart every single time Tony turned away, convinced as the rest of the world that I didn't care about him. But if that was what kept him alive…I didn't regret it. I had so many sins as a father, what was one more?

We were driving to the cottage on Long Island Sound. The fog was rolling in, and even the headlights weren't doing much to pierce the low lying cloud cover.

I almost hit him, standing in the middle of the road like that. His hair was longer than I remembered, his face gaunt and haunted looking but unmistakable.

Another one of my sins come to haunt me.

Bucky Barnes raised a rifle, headlights reflecting off more metal than just the gun, and I slammed on my brakes.

The pedal hit the floor without slowing us.

Maria screamed as I wrenched the wheel to the side, but the car barely moved.

Barnes didn't budge, and I braced my arms against the impact I knew was coming.

A horn blared, and blinding lights swept across the car's interior as I heard glass shatter, heard the squeal of tires and Maria's scream of terror. I felt bones give way as I was thrown across the front seat of the car.

Another impact from the other side sent us flying across the intersection, flipping us upside down as we scraped along the road.

Maria's screaming abruptly stopped.

I tried to find her hand with mine, but I couldn't feel my arm to move it. My head was jammed between the back of the seat and crumpled metal, and I felt blood dripping in my eyes. Pain radiated from everywhere, but the world was eerily silent.

Except the crunch of boots on gravel.

I could see the combat boots walk towards us, stopping right outside my window, and then Sergeant Barnes peered in through the broken glass.

"Bucky?" I gasped, choking on blood.

Barnes frowned. "Who the hell is Bucky?"

I didn't have time to ask. I had to apologize for the sin that lead me here.

"I tried to find him," I said, my words slurring so bad I wondered if he could understand me. "I looked for Steve. I couldn't…I couldn't find him. I swear I looked."

I see a light flicker in Bucky's dead stare, and I can tell he recognizes me. "Stark?"

"I tried, Buck. I tried, I tried…" I had to get him to understand that Steve haunted me too. That Barnes was not the only ghost to plague me.

That I didn't blame him for being angry with me.

There were voices, not in English, and there was a crack of metal on bone. Bucky collapses in a heap outside the broken glass.

Someone warned that the asset wasn't ready to be out. That it was a mistake choosing a personal target.

That same someone dragged Barnes's body none too gently out of my sight.

I'm sorry, sergeant. I didn't occur to me I should've been looking for two missing soldiers.

It is another sin to add to a very long list.

Blood bubbled on my lips, and I can't expand my lungs anymore.

I am going to die.

The thought is confirmed when I hear a Russian order to leave us here.

My last thought is of Tony. I can picture him now, as that bright eyed child I loved more than life itself as he stands in front of me, asking me to come out and play.

And how his hate of me is what saves him from being in the car with us. It was supposed to be a family treat.

My sins caught up to me. And they have spared my son.

Author's note: Soooo...what'd you think? Dominic Cooper does very well bringing Howard Stark to life as a sympathetic character, and I really did love him in Agent Carter. I got the idea of Howard encountering Bucky like this I think on Tumblr. I have no idea who originated it, but I liked it and I ran with it.

As for Bucky snapping out of it momentarily when Steve is mentioned, I think Steve will always be his Achilles heel. It didn't take anything more than Steve saying his name for Bucky to start to remember and break his training. I feel like 40 years prior, he wasn't as brainwashed as he was in Winter Soldier. That maybe the mention of his friend, and recognizing Howard (they did know one another during the war, after all), might be enough to snap him out of it in his earlier years. Feel the same? Disagree? Drop me a line and discuss!