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Chapter 128 – Stark Industries in Crisis
🕑 Added 2025-08-20 17:18:41 +0000 UTC
In this world, Howard Stark was still alive.
Should Henry warn him about the Hydra assassination attempts?
Only an idiot would.
First of all—he had no proof.
Second, he wasn’t even sure how this universe’s version of the Starks would die. It wasn’t like he could just play prophet and get it right. Running his mouth without evidence would only shred what little credibility he had.
And worst of all, what if he actually was right?
That would just dump a world of trouble on his head.
After all, Howard Stark’s death wasn’t some random mob hit—it was Hydra rotting SHIELD from the inside. If he revealed the truth, SHIELD loyalists would immediately demand to know where his intel came from, and Hydra would start sniffing for leaks.
Nail it on the first guess, and congratulations—you’ve just painted a giant red target on your back, with both sides aiming at you. Even claiming to be some mystical seer wouldn’t save him.
And, if he was being brutally honest, there was one more unspoken reason.
Without the death of Tony’s parents, there was no Iron Man.
Henry wasn’t sure if preventing that was even a good idea.
It wasn’t like he had a grand plan to “preserve the timeline” or “rebuild the future.” He didn’t care about the so-called greater good. From where he stood, whether Howard Stark lived or died didn’t change Henry’s bottom line.
What was he supposed to do? Cash in on a life-debt? Worm his way into Stark Industries?
That would be about as smart as standing in the middle of Times Square with a sign that read: I’m Superman, shoot me if you’ve got the guts.
That wasn’t why he was here. Henry wanted a quiet life, not a front-row seat in the hurricane. So why stick his neck out?
For Tony Stark? They’d barely met five times. Just because the man had jokingly called him a “friend,” Henry was supposed to suddenly think they had some epic bond?
That was the kind of delusion where your crush glances in your direction once, and you convince yourself she’s in love with you. The world didn’t revolve around Henry. And he knew it.
Even without Hydra, Howard Stark had plenty of enemies.
Look at American history—Rockefeller, once king of oil, forced into a breakup. Carnegie, the steel baron, dismantled the same way.
The United States might be a nation built on tycoons, but any family that grew too powerful found itself chopped down. The antitrust laws weren’t just ink on paper—they were the executioner’s blade.
Of course, that didn’t mean the families were wiped out. They just faded from the spotlight, spreading their influence quietly behind the curtain. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Rothschild—names that vanished from headlines but never from power.
The ones still visible? Guys like J.P. Morgan. Finance moguls. But in industry? Almost no one had the kind of dominance the old oil or steel barons once wielded.
Almost.
Because Stark Industries was the exception.
In the future, before Tony ever suited up in red and gold, Stark Industries was already a military-industrial titan—a weapons manufacturer first and foremost.
But under Howard Stark, it wasn’t just a weapons company. It was everything.
If it could be built, Stark Industries had a hand in it. Even if there wasn’t a production line, there was at least a lab. From aviation to automobiles, electronics to energy—hell, even Hollywood felt Howard’s fingerprints. The man marked territory the way a dog lifted its leg.
Sure, in specific niches, others had deeper roots. Boeing in aerospace. Lockheed Martin in military contracts. Ford in automobiles. Intel in chips.
But Stark Industries controlled its own ecosystem, with supply chains wrapped in its fist. Add it all up, and no combination of the #2 through #10 industrial giants could match Stark’s reach.
Howard Stark had turned the global marketplace into “one superpower and many second-tiers.”
And to make it worse—his heir was an only child. Tony Stark.
Which meant the second Howard fell, the wolves would descend. His death would trigger a capitalist feeding frenzy on par with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The feast would be Stark Industries itself.
How had the company survived this long without being gutted? Easy.
Howard had the military at his back and SHIELD at his side. He wasn’t just a genius—he was a founding member of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, the organization that later became S.H.I.E.L.D. With that kind of protection, even the vultures couldn’t make a move.
And let’s be blunt: if Howard ever wanted the Oval Office, the old money families would be forced to clear a path. He could have rallied half of Washington with a word.
But even the strongest fortress crumbles from within. Hydra embedded in SHIELD made sure of that.
The stolen super-soldier serum? That was just icing. Howard’s replication was unreliable at best. The MCU itself made it clear the formula went nowhere.
Bottom line: keeping Howard Stark alive would require Henry to be glued to his side twenty-four seven, bodyguarding him every hour of the day.
Even if Henry stopped one assassination—the Winter Soldier’s staged car accident—there would always be another, and another, until the mission succeeded.
Unless Howard handed over Stark Industries, cashed out, and retired quietly with a pension—which he never would. Not Howard Stark.
So why should Henry even try?
He couldn’t save him. And more importantly… he didn’t need to.
This wasn’t his battle. This was Stark Industries’ inevitable reckoning. Tony’s crucible.
Just as the Soviet Union was destined to collapse, Howard Stark was destined to fall. Henry wasn’t even a chess piece on that board. At best, he could scrape a few crumbs off the edge while the real players tore each other apart.
Realizing that, Henry felt no guilt in turning his focus back where it belonged: his employer.
Audrey Hepburn’s world was chaotic enough on its own.
