The Shadow of Winter on the Starks

**December 17, 1991, Long Island Expressway, 12:47 PM**

Freezing rain beat like blades on the black limousine window. Howard was behind the wheel; Sarah was beside him, her hand on his knee. Tanya, **Tanya Maria Stark**, 17, was asleep in the backseat; her mother's blond hair, her father's sharp eyes, and a smile she didn't yet know how expensive it would be.

Howard looked at Sarah. "Tomorrow morning, we're sending Tanya to MIT. Another Stark is going to blow up the world, after all."

Sarah laughed, ran a finger across Howard's cheek. "Like her father, but with her mother's heart."

A black motorcycle emerged from the darkness.

**The Winter Soldier.**

Metal mask, metal left hand, empty eyes.

The car pulled over. Howard opened the door, yelling, “Sarah, get Tanya!”

Sarah jumped out; her 188cm tall body was still as powerful as it had been in 1944. Her old shield was gone from the trunk, but her body was still a weapon.

The Winter Soldier slammed his metal fist into Howard.

**The sound of bone crunching.**

Howard fell to the asphalt, blood spurting from his mouth. Sarah screamed, leaping forward, grabbing the metal arm, spinning it. She slammed the Winter Soldier into the concrete wall.

“Howard!”

Sarah ran for her husband, but the Winter Soldier attacked again. Sarah threw him to the ground with a spinning kick, kneed him in the neck. The mask fell off.

**Bucky.**

Blank eyes, but still the same Brooklyn jawline.

Sarah shivered. “Bucky… you… you’re alive?”

Bucky said nothing. He only looked at the command "Mission Complete."

Sara knocked him **** with a controlled punch. She tied her own titanium bracelet (which she always carried) to his metal hand.

Tanya jumped out of the car, screaming, "Mom!"

Sara hugged him, saw Howard's lifeless body on the ground.

"No... no... Howard..."

**December 18, 1991, SHIELD's secret base, Manhattan basement**

Bucky sat in a bulletproof glass cell; his mask removed, his eyes blank.

Sara stood behind the glass, his old shield in hand. Tanya beside him, tears streaming down her face.

"You were Bucky Barnes. Steve's friend. My friend."

Bucky looked up, a mechanical voice: "Mission... complete."

“You killed my father!” Tanya screamed.

Sara put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “No, Tanya. They killed him. Just like they killed Bucky.”

Sara moved closer to the glass, placed her finger on it.

“I found you, Bucky. And this time, I won’t let you go.”

**1992, Stark Mansion, Malibu**

Tanya was sitting at her father’s desk; blueprints for the rocket, Iron Man, on the screen.

Sara entered, putting down the shield.

“Mom… I want to continue. What Dad started.”

Sara smiled sadly. “I know. But first, we have to save Bucky.”

Down in the basement, Bucky was still in the cell; but this time, Sara came every day.

“Do you remember Brooklyn? Do you remember me?”

Bucky blinked occasionally. Just for a moment.

**Tanya Stark**, heir to two legends, was ready.

Her mother, Captain America.

Her father, the dead genius.

And her uncle, the Winter Soldier.

The world still didn't know what storm was coming.