Tony was at odds with himself.

He understood that Bucky had been brainwashed, that he had no control over his actions, but that didn't take away the fact that he killed his mom, that he killed his dad. Tony had sworn to himself that he would never forgive Bucky that. How could he? He had lost so much and spiraled so hard and deep after their deaths.

And then to find out that it wasn't an accident. That it wasn't his father, the driver of the car that had crashed and who he'd thought had been responsible for Maria dying too. He'd taken another mental nose-dive. Of course, he had. Steve had known and not told him. That betrayal stung too: Steve chose Bucky over him.

Maybe it was petty, especially when Bucky was working hard to take back what he could, proving himself to be a good guy really. But it wouldn't have been the first petty path Tony chose to walk in his life.

He would have carried on like that, avoiding Barnes as much as possible, certainly not making any effort to be civil with him, until that revelation came out of the blue. Bucky and Howard had been an item, back in the day. It turned everything on it's head, yet another tailspin. He couldn't help his curious nature, though. Tony wanted to know more about his dad, a part of the man that he'd never known, that so few had.

It meant he had to play nice.

It meant that he was sitting in a quiet diner, at an ungodly hour, drinking coffee and wishing it was scotch, waiting for the man who both killed and loved, apparently, his dad to show.