Oh! For the 5headcanon, have you done a Howls Moving Castle one? If you have my next thought is Spirited away! I would love your thoughts on these!
I have not done Howl’s Moving Castle! I’ll do that one because it’s closest to my heart from Ghibli because it was my first Ghibli film. 😊 It’s gonna be a mishmash of movie and book being I also love the book it was based off of! I’m gonna make Steve play Howl because I know everyone expects it to be Tony 👀 Bear with me here it’s gonna be great!
(I made it so long I am sorry)
((I had to end it here but guess what my next big project is going to be kill me))
Tony inherits his mother’s hat shop. It seems like he’s really the only one who wants it--his cousin Sharon already has an apprenticeship at the bakery, and his adopted sister Natasha wants to go on adventures. Tony tells himself it’s fine; it’s a fact that the eldest of three will never be successful, and just because they’re not siblings by blood, they are still three and he’s still the eldest. Sharon and Natasha deserve being successful, he thinks, frowning at a particularly plain hat he’s working on. They’re beautiful and clever and ambitious. Howard had always reminded him that he wasn’t any of those things, and that was why he wouldn’t take him to learn his trade. So his mother had taken him under her wing instead, told him that a plain life where he never struggled could be successful in its own way. He’s closing early today. Natasha is going on another great adventure, and he wants to meet Sharon to see her off. He had considered not going, because she never really seems to need him there, but he doesn’t want her or Sharon to think he’s jealous that they’ll be able to go off and be successful, because he’s not. Not really. Just a little bit sad. And they seem to know it, because Natasha always brings souvenirs for him, and Sharon brings him sweets. It’s not their fault he’s eldest, so he doesn’t want them to think he resents them. Still, there’s a hubbub when he goes to meet them at the bakery Sharon works at. There’s a festival for the king’s birthday soon, so he’s not entirely worried about it until he notices the larger guard presence on the streets. He overhears someone talking about the Wizard Steven and how he’s eaten another girl’s heart and can’t help an exasperated sigh. Of course he’d be the reason for the guards’ presence. He doubles back to take a side street that isn’t crowded at all, because he’s going to be late soon, and he doesn’t want to miss them. There are a couple of guards horsing around, but that’s all, so he figures he’s pretty safe. Not safe enough, he realizes when the fact that it’s just him and the guards really hits him. It’s about the same time the guards notice movement and swivel to face him and get these really concerning smirks on their faces. They’re both bigger than him, and Tony realizes it’s too late to turn around and run back to the crowd as they approach him. He was never taught self-defense, not like Natasha and Sharon--once they’d realized he was the eldest, Howard had said he didn’t need the training from Aunt Peggy anymore. He knows how to throw a punch and use a suitcase as a weapon, but these men are big and he’s pretty sure a punch would just anger them. “There you are, sweetheart,” someone says, and wraps their arm around his shoulders. “Huh,” Tony replies like an idiot, looking up, and nearly swallows his tongue when he sees the handsome man smiling down at him. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” the man continues, as if the guards hadn’t been just about to grab Tony and drag him into a bar or something. The guards glare at him. “Hey! We’re busy here!” The blond man looks at them, more amused than threatened. “Are you really? To me, it looked like the two of you were just leaving,” he says, lifting his hand to gesture at them with it. As Tony watches, the two guards turn on their heels and begin to march away, shouting at them and each other about how their bodies aren’t under their control. Tony finds himself allowing the man to use the arm around his shoulders to begin leading him down the alley, bewildered. “Um--” “Trust me,” the man murmurs quietly, and Tony finds that he does. “You’re late,” Natasha says bluntly when Tony finally gets to the bakery. “I was--” Tony begins, meaning to tell her about the man, and floating through the air, and the guards who had been leering at him. Then he stops, because they’d never believe him. He’s meant for an ordinary life, and just because something extraordinary had happened once didn’t change anything. “I’m sorry,” he says instead.
The Witch of the Waste comes to his shop that night. She calls him plain, and ordinary, and then she asks where Steven is. “I don’t know any Steven,” Tony says, and then frowns. “Do you mean the Wizard?” “I can smell his magic all over you,” the Witch sneers at him. “Ew,” Tony answers, and then, “Wait, what? What does it sm--I’ve never met anyone named Steven in my--” He stops suddenly. The man who had helped him earlier that day. He’d done magic, but that hadn’t been unusual, not in Market Chipping. He hadn’t introduced himself. Tony hadn’t, either, mostly because he figured he’d probably never see him again--the man was handsome and clearly powerful, and Tony was destined to be unsuccessful, so there just hadn’t seemed a point. Whenever he thought about the Wizard Steven, who ate girls’ hearts and left them empty husks, he didn’t imagine a handsome man with a charming smile and a boyish laugh as he flew them through the air. That couldn’t have been the Wizard Steven. Could it? “Tell me where Steven is,” the Witch growls. “I don’t know,” Tony tells her helplessly, because he doesn’t. Seeing Wizard Steven, if that’s who it even was, had obviously been a fluke, because Tony wasn’t meant for bigger things. So she curses him, and Tony can’t help but think that his mother had been wrong, that he was never meant to be successful even at a plain life. Well, Tony sighs, staring at his wrinkled face and silver hair in the mirror. At least he has the knowledge that he ages well, even if it is a cold comfort. Maybe he should go to Sharon, or send word to Natasha. As soon as he thinks it, he chides himself for being selfish--Sharon has been tasked with baking a cake for the king, and Natasha had gone off on a very important adventure to find the threatening kingdom’s prince who had gone missing. He’d never been meant for success anyway. This was basically par for the course. “If I hadn’t met Steven,” Tony mutters to himself petulantly. Then he pauses, blinking slowly. “This is Steven’s fault,” he says, just to try it out. Yes, that sounds correct. If Steven hadn’t gotten all of his magic on him, the Witch of the Waste wouldn’t have found Tony and cursed him; if Steven hadn’t eaten a girl’s heart, the guard presence wouldn’t have been so high that they’d have free time to harass him; if Steven had stayed away, this wouldn’t have happened. “This is Steven’s fault,” he repeats, firmer, and decides then and there that it will be Steven’s responsibility to fix it. After all. He has a hat shop he needs to run, and he can’t do that if his joints ache too much to hold a needle.
A scarecrow helps Tony find Steven’s moving castle. It’s a very polite scarecrow. It’s different from most he’s ever seen, with a pumpkin for a head instead of a turnip. He tells the scarecrow it’s very becoming before he enters Steven’s castle. There he meets a fire demon who calls himself ‘Bucky,’ because humans can’t actually say his name, and they strike up a deal where Bucky will break Tony’s curse if Tony will break the curse binding him and Steven. Tony looks around the room he’d stepped into, wrinkling his nose. What a mess. He wants to clean, but he’s very tired from the journey. Bucky seems to notice, and he reaches over to drag a stool to the hearth, and doesn’t say anything when Tony holds his aching hands to his flames. “Who are you?” someone asks, and it’s a testament to how tired he is that he just turns, blinking slowly. There’s a boy on the stairs, blinking back at him with wide, startled eyes. “Bucky, you let in a stranger?” “I’m tired of Steve’s mess,” Bucky sulks. “Tony is going to be our new housekeeper. If Steve tries to sack him, you kick him as hard as you can in the balls.” “No,” the boy says, and then looks at Tony. “A new housekeeper? I’m Peter, Steve’s apprentice. Nice to meet you, Tony. I hope you can handle Steve’s moods! The last time we had someone hired on, he scared them off for moving his potions.” “Maybe he should clean up his own potions then,” Tony says, because you can’t run an orderly shop if things are haphazard. “Oh, he’s going to loathe you,” Peter breathes, but he also looks delighted. “I’ll make breakfast.” “I’ll clean us a spot to eat breakfast,” Tony replies, and begins cleaning off a wooden table piled high with papers and used, filthy dishware. By the time Steven (Steve?) arrives, the table is washed, oiled, and dried, and Peter is setting platters of bacon, toast, and eggs on it while Tony finishes drying three plates. “Who are you?” he asks Tony in surprise. “I’ve piled your paperwork over on your desk. Please go through it at your earliest convenience. After breakfast is fine,” Tony tells him firmly. “Um, what,” Steven says, but no one else acts surprised that Tony’s there, so he just awkwardly sits at the table for breakfast.
Steve isn’t so bad, Tony realizes. He seems to genuinely want the best for people, but he can’t stand the idea of supporting either of the kingdoms he sells to in war. “I’ve seen war and what it does,” Steve says grimly, and Bucky and Peter glance at the magical knob that serves to show which land their door will open to. It has a sign on it that says ‘Brooklyn,’ but Tony has never heard of such a place. He doesn’t really care, either. There’s too much to do. Not only is he keeping his eyes peeled for hints to help break the spell between Bucky and Steve, but the castle (more like a large house on the inside) is absolutely filthy. One time he asked when the last time Steve oiled his furniture was and Steve had looked surprised and replied, “Wooden furniture needs to be oiled?” This grown-ass man doesn’t even know how to care for his things beyond a quick spell to fix something broken, Tony doesn’t know why women are so taken with him if he can’t pull his own weight around a home. “Oh, don’t worry, he’s actually terrible with the ladies,” Bucky assures him. “Huh? But--doesn’t he eat girls’ hearts?” Tony asks, confused. It makes Peter laugh. “That’s just something he encourages so that he doesn’t get chased after so much. If women are afraid of him, they won’t approach him, right?” “I wouldn’t know,” Tony answers shortly, because as the eldest of three, he hadn’t really been chased after. There was one woman he’d thought might--but then, she’d gone on to bigger and better things, and while she’d said she’d still marry him, Tony had seen that being married to a milliner would just hold her back. He’d planned on waiting until he was thirty-five to go to a matchmaker, like most eldest did, and find a partner there, but now... Tony frowns down at his reflection in the sink. Now he’ll probably never marry. Never have a family that carefully ends with two children so none of them have to suffer being eldest like him. Never get to enjoy a successful, full life like other people. “Tony?” Peter asks hesitantly. “You okay?” Tony lifts his hands up a little and sighs. “Just a little sore,” he says, which isn’t really a lie. Just because it’s his heart that’s sore and not his hands doesn’t make it untrue. Bucky grabs another piece of wood so he can make the water warmer for him when he refills the sink. Tony suspects that he also scolds Steve for “letting” Tony work as hard as he does, because Steve shoulders him out of the way at tea time to boil the tea and set some scones and jams on a tray before he takes Tony’s arm and leads him up onto a balcony to soak in some sun and rest. Tony doesn’t want to accept the charity, but the sun feels nice on his skin, and he can’t help dozing a little, hands curled around a cup of tea. He doesn’t understand why old people are always so cold. He moves enough he should be warm, after all. “Why are you here?” Steve asks softly, though luckily without any judgment. “Not that we don’t love having you here, Tony, but... what do you hope to gain? Won’t your family worry?” To his credit, Tony takes time to think about it, and finally says, “If I’m not going to be successful, I might as well be useful. I’m not dragging anyone else down while I’m here.” Steve, to his surprise, looks hurt by his answer. “Why would you think you’d drag anyone down?” Tony blinks up at him, frowning. “I don’t have any special talents. My sister and cousin are destined to do great things, and whenever they have to stop and help me, it takes time away from their own talents. They’re probably glad I’m not there to cause trouble anymore,” he adds, mostly to himself. “I know they felt obligated to try and take care of me to make up for me being eldest. Now they don’t have to worry.” Steve says nothing, just reaches out and carefully takes one of his hands, looking so, so sad.
“He’s powerful,” Steve says, poking at Bucky with a twig morosely. “More powerful than either of us can manage.” “Cut it out,” Bucky hisses, and then swallows the entire stick whole. “Give me more wood then?” Steve can’t help a sad smile as he puts a log on Bucky’s fire, then turns to look at Tony, quietly sleeping under the stairs. “I don’t think stoking your powers will be enough, Buck.” Bucky peers around him at Tony as well, frowning. “How do you know he’s that powerful?” “I asked him why he was here, and if his family wouldn’t worry,” Steve answers quietly. “And as he told me that it was better this way and they were probably glad he was gone, I could actually feel the curse growing stronger. If we were going to be able to break the curse on him, it would have been before he even left his home.” “If you gave me your eyes, I could probably do it,” Bucky muses. “Or your liver maybe.” “Nice try, but I’m finished with giving you organs, Buck,” Steve scoffs. He looks back at Tony, then carefully gets to his feet, moving toward the little nook he sleeps in as quietly as possible. He leans on the edge of the stairs so he can peer at Tony without fear of falling on him in the case of the castle’s gait stumbling, unable to help a sad smile. Tony looks so young, now. His wrinkles are smoothed out, his previously cracked lips soft and parted for each inhale. His hands are curled up near his face, and Steve delicately takes one in his fingers, noticing how different they are from during the day when they were gnarled and needed to be warmed through. His hair is still grey, but it looks becoming on him in the dim light, like moonlight spilling across the pillow. “What about true love’s kiss?” Bucky asks idly, grabbing another log to set on the grate he was resting in. “Even true love can’t break a curse someone has put on themselves,” Steve sighs, gently putting Tony’s hand down and then carding his fingers through his silvery hair. “For true love’s kiss to work, you’d have to believe you were loved. And Tony doesn’t.”
