Forever Captain: “The Hemingway Trip” - 8. Old Men

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Forever Captain:
“The Hemingway Trip”
By Phoebe Roberts
~~~

Summary: “In the twenty years since Steve Rogers returned to the midcentury to build a life and family, he’s always been surprised at how close he became with Howard Stark. But it’s that very closeness that makes him the only person Howard can talk to when he’s wrestling with something big.

Nothing like a fishing trip to give the boys a chance to talk.”

Previous chapters:
1. Birds of Odd Feathers
2. In the Drink
3. Rough Time
4. Before This Day Ends
5. Nobody's Hero
6. Promises to Keep
7. Coming Clean

Chapter summary: Steve and Howard go on one more fishing trip, and Howard gives Steve some big news.

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8. Old Men

It was a couple of days until he’d be seeing Howard, but Steve had a hard time getting the conversation out of his head. He put things together for the trip in short order, but then he had a lot of free time these days, particularly since the kids had gotten older. People joked to him about his early retirement, but he found it funnier than they knew; as far as he was concerned, he’d been retired since he was forty, since the last Infinity Stone had been returned.

Howard met Steve at his place like they usually did, so they could take Steve’s truck where the gear was already packed. The Howard that parked the Aston Martin in his driveway that day was a different, older man than the one who’d crashed on his couch in 1961. Steve was, too, in his way, though you wouldn’t have known it to look at them. Thanks to the vagaries of time travel, Howard had been born one year earlier than Steve, and yet had spent ten fewer years alive on Earth. Still, anyone would have guessed Howard was the senior of the two, thanks to the way the super soldier serum kept Steve from aging like normal people. It had never been clearer than it was now, when at sixty-two years old, he could have passed for a distinguished forty.

Howard, by contrast, may not have lost the hair over which he fretted so much, but had resorted to dyeing it, since, as he once drunkenly confessed to Steve, he’d gone almost entirely silver. Moreover his features had sharpened, growing progressively more hawklike in his late middle years, until he matched the man Steve had once glimpsed briefly at Camp Lehigh, when he and Tony had made one last desperate bid to save the world from Thanos.

That day Howard seemed in good spirits, sensibly dressed for once, loading a couple of coolers from his car into Steve’s. “Hey, Old Man. How’s the fish today, you think? You feeling lucky?”

Steve closed the rear gate and made for the driver’s side door, summoning up some Hemingway for the occasion. “I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.” And Howard chuckled at the old familiar reference. It had become something of an inside joke between them.

Howard kept up a steady stream of chatter on the way, mostly about nothing. He was a salesman at core, skilled at putting up a front and keeping up a patter. But Steve knew him well enough by this point to see the nerves he was trying to cover.

“Who put a nickel in you today?” he asked, trying not to be too pointed about it.

Howard laughed a little at the callout, but didn’t seem ready to lay his cards on the table. “Hey, I’m always this fun. That’s why you’re always trying to get me out here.”

They settled in their usual spot, on the cluster of smooth rocks that jutted out into the running water of the stream. While Steve got the rods baited and hooked, Howard enthusiastically showed off his own contribution.

“Brought the good stuff,” he declared, flipping open the lid of one cooler and tipping it so Steve could see. He had indeed gone all out, with thick sandwiches and picnic sides in little plastic tubs. Then he shoved over the second cooler, this one packed with ice and cans of domestic beer, rather than the fancy kinds Howard preferred. “And… the mediocre stuff too. That’s what you drink, isn’t it?”

Steve rolled his eyes but took one. “I’m not picky. But yeah.” He withdrew a second and tossed it to Howard. “You don’t mind?”

Howard caught it and cracked it. “Eh. I dragged you out, might as well make it worth your while.” He tossed back a slug. “So. How’s Beth liking school?”

Steve smiled to be asked. Elizabeth was away at college now, studying at Northwestern, while Jamie was entering his sophomore year of high school. “Pretty well, I’d say. She’s the star of her track team.”

Howard grinned wryly. “Uh-huh. Why doesn’t that surprise me? Did she find out running down a HYDRA assassin?”

“Nah, just lousy frat boys who try to get fresh with her classmates.”

“Making her old man proud.” Howard slurped again. “And Jamie?”

Steve took a deep breath. “Better, I think. Though it’s been a bit of a road getting there.” There were complications, Steve had found, to raising children as the man out of time. By now things had mostly settled down between him and the kids, though he knew they still had a ways to go. Howard had been witness to much of it, offering sympathy after his own fashion, and advice of varying utility. “I think he’s going to find it in his heart to forgive me.”

Howard snorted into his beer. Steve raised an eyebrow.  “What’s so funny?”

Howard smiled, shaking his head. “Nothing, it’s just— you’re Captain America, the best guy I know. And even you can’t keep your kids from getting pissed at you.”

“Captain America’s what got me into that mess.” Steve’s eyes rolled again, but even so he had to laugh. “Teenagers. What are you going to do?” He took one more sip of his own beer, then carefully set it aside. “So… is that what you wanted to talk about? My kid drama?”

Howard chuckled. “Yeah, actually. In a manner of speaking. At least… that’s part of it.” He glanced over at Steve. “Am I that obvious?”

“Well.” Steve shrugged. “It ain’t everyday you ask to go sit in the mud. Figured it was something important.”

Howard chuffed. “Let me guess,” he said. “You think I stepped out on Maria again.”

That was not what Steve was thinking, but he was content to let Howard lead the conversation. “Did you?”

“Heh. No. Learned my lesson the last time.” He snorted. “I think if I didn’t, Jarvis would never forgive me.”

“Glad to hear it,” Steve said, watching him closely. “So… what’s up?”

“Well. It is pretty big.” He cracked a wry grin. “Guess you‘ll have to decide if it’s better or worse.”

Howard took a long, slow breath and let it out in a gust. “Maria’s pregnant,” he said at last. “Four months along.”

And there it was. Steve had known, before Howard ever said a word. He’d known this was coming for twenty-five years. How was it that hearing it could hit him so hard?

He was silent so long Howard had to laugh. “Yeah, I know, buddy. Knocked me on my ass too.”

Steve swallowed, toying with his reel. “How do you feel about it?”

“How do I feel?” Howard scoffed. “I wanna say like getting shoved out of a plane without a parachute. But I don’t know if you’ll take my meaning when you’re a guy who does that for fun.”

Steve sighed. “Not in twenty years, I haven’t.”

“So maybe you can extend yourself to imagine— that after reaching a certain age, there are some things you aren’t equipped to deal with anymore.”

His friend raked a hand through his hair. “I never thought it would happen,” he muttered. “Sure as hell wasn’t part of the plan— though I guess lots of folks come by ‘em that way. Beth was an accident, wasn’t she?”

“She was a baby, Howard, not a five-car pileup.”

“Yeah, yeah. But she did surprise you, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. She did,” Steve admitted. “But, you know, I’d always thought we’d have them sooner or later.”

For a long moment, Steve watched Howard fiddle with the tension on his fishing pole. “Howard,” he asked finally. “Do you want this?”

Howard barked a laugh. “At this point, does it matter?”

But it did matter. It mattered more than Steve could say.
~~~

Next chapter: 9. Wanted