Three posts in two days, ooh, I am being productive! On Tumblr, at least...
Is writing a fic for the capkink, and I was having a bit of an issue - was going to put it up on tumblr to see if any of the five followers had any suggestions but then I forgot and I fix it so that post was irrelevant (end run on sentence).
But hey, I'm going to humour myself and see if this does actually make sense - feel free to chip in (unorigenal).
So prompt is based on It's A Wonderful Life. Basically, Steve says he wishes he'd never been born and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (in one of her more lucid moments) hears him and makes it happen (because she's sweet like that).
That's as far as the fic has gotten so far, but now I wrote a part and Howard's in it, having not died when Tony was a teenager. It doesn't make sense but I got rather attached to the idea of Steve and him having a chat, mostly about Tony, and basically saying everything that no one ever says to Tony to make him feel like a worthwhile human being.
I should so not be watching Paranormal Activity 3 on my own right now...
So, rather than Wanda being the Clarence figure, she sent Steve to an alternate reality where she's dead (bad stuff having happened, as per prompt request) so she creates a Howard that has lived through all this, but still remembers Steve because otherwise he has no guide. Maybe Howard's 'wings' are that he finally gets closure on being a bad father because he gets to hear how awesome his son is, and Steve promises to pass on everything Howard had said to Tony so Tony knows how much his dad loved him and how highly he thought of him.