An appointment at two barely left him an hour to return to work, and he didn't get much done in the meantime. Finally, he gave up and left early, taking his bike and dressing in nondescript clothes, including a helmet and a brown leather riding jacket. New York had a helmet law, although he was usually inclined to ignore it – helmet or no, he was the safest rider on the road, and unless cruising at high speeds it was nice to be able to feel the wind against his face. But he was sure that Stark Tower would be under surveillance by various news agencies, and he wasn't interested in running a gauntlet.

The underground parking was used by SI employees as well, and nobody took too long a look at him as he drove out onto the street, before half-circling the building to get himself pointed in the right direction. Traffic around the Tower was bad, but with his bike he could weave in and out, occasionally earning himself some angry honking. A few news vans were set up, and crowds milled about; the building's entryway pillars had half been turned into shrines, with letters taped up on them, and flowers, plushies, and other trinkets piling up at the bases. New York hadn't forgotten who had fought for her.

Tony had thought it hilarious when his goatee started being the most fashionable choice in facial grooming for American men – hilarious, and a bit irritating. "Do they not realize I picked an iconic look for a reason? Damn it, I do not want to have to change my facial hair, it is mine, I didn't – and some of these people should not be trying to pull off a – oh, that's cute," he'd flicked his fingers and flashed the picture over to Steve's phone. It had showed two four year olds, a boy and a girl, obviously siblings, with goatees carefully drawn on their faces. The little girl had been holding a toy shield and scowling ferociously at the camera.

Even weaving in and out of traffic where he could, the streets were busy enough that it would have been quicker to take the subway – but then Steve wouldn't have had the disguise that the helmet afforded, nor the opportunity to take his shield with him, stashed relatively unobtrusively in overlarge saddlebags. The New York SHIELD headquarters wasn't too far, though; all these years later, and it was still situated in the middle of New York, probably for the very same reason as it had been in the forties – although if arc reactors caught on, maybe needing to draw on a city's power supply would become a thing of the past. Or maybe not – not anymore.

When he reached SHIELD HQ, he turned off the street and steered his bike down into the underground garage, getting past the first door with his phone, and past the second with a retinal scan. The garage wasn't actually for 'employee parking', but rather for unobtrusive shipments of various things that Tony occasionally liked to rant about late at night when he was in a mood to be pissed off. He got a few looks from a group of agents standing around and inspecting something in the back of a large truck, but when he parked his bike and took the helmet off they all recognized him and stopped staring. Any of the senior-level agents would have been displeased, most likely, that they hadn't recognized him before then, but luckily for the group he wasn't about to report them.

The elevator carried him up to the fifth floor, opening to a very modern, but completely unremarkable elevator bay – or at least, that was what Steve had been told it was, when he was still getting shown around the twenty-first century in those first days out of the ice. He hadn't spent much time in skyscrapers other than the Tower since, and that wasn't the sanest example of modern interior – or exterior – design. The hallways were carpeted, enough to provide a hush to the entire place, as he walked down them, finally locating Leo's office.

The door was open, and Leo was sitting behind his desk, scribbling something on a pad of paper, wearing one of his usual garishly bright Hawaiian shirts. When Steve leaned in and knocked on the doorframe, he looked up. "Steve – come in," he said, putting the pad off to one side and rising to his feet. "Please, take a chair."

Leo's office had windows that Steve once would have considered enormous, before he'd become used to the floor-to-ceiling windows of Stark Tower. These ones had low sills, thick enough for Leo to have put out a few knick-knacks on them. At this height, the view wasn't anything spectacular – it was just the building across the street, and the street itself below, but oddly, looking out made Steve feel more grounded. Sometimes, when he pressed his fingertips to the hi-tech smart-glass windows of Stark Tower, he felt like he was already falling, had plummeted over the edge ages ago.

Steve paused at the windows, and let himself stare across at the red brick building on the other side. New York might have changed, and grown, but not everything had changed. SHIELD HQ might be new, but the building across the way looked old – it might even be older than he was. He hadn't asked, yet, although he was vaguely aware that Leo was waiting for him to do so, one of these days.

It wouldn't be today. He claimed the squashy armchair closest to the window and unslung his shield case from his back, resting it against the side of the chair.

"How have you been?" Leo asked gently, as he took one of the other two seats. He didn't have the notepad with him – the very first time he'd seen Steve, he'd asked if he minded the notepad, and although Steve had said that it was fine, he'd looked at him shrewdly and set the pad aside. Steve had felt himself relax almost immediately, much to his surprise – and Leo had never picked up a notepad again during their sessions, although Steve was aware that the doctor took notes afterward.

"Irrational," Tony would have called it – but Tony had never seen a therapist in his adult life.

Steve wasn't sure how to answer the question. "I haven't – " he started automatically, and then, "I've been – busy. Staying busy. There's a – I'm not sure how much I can tell you," he said apologetically. Leo had clearance for almost everything that Steve had clearance for – but this was different. Until they found out why Tony had been so paranoid about SHIELD...

Damn it. If he couldn't trust Leo – "Half the point of therapy is having someone you can trust," Natasha had told him, that time when he'd confessed that he couldn't trust either of the two psychs SHIELD had had assigned to him then.

"But – they both said... it's not all confidential," Steve had said awkwardly. They had – at length. It had sounded like they were there as much for SHIELD's benefit as his own. Which was fine; there had always been secrets, things kept hidden, because not even Colonel Phillips, God rest his soul, would have overlooked them if they'd made their way into the light.

Natasha had snorted. "Steve, SHIELD already knows we're fucked up. They're not going to get rid of us now."

If he couldn't trust Leo, then this was a waste of time.

"That's fine," Leo nodded, and it took Steve a moment to realize he was talking about the confidentiality, and not Steve's own thoughts.

When he didn't say anything more, Steve looked down at his shield, running his fingers over the edge of the case. "There's a lot – Tony – it doesn't... make sense," he said, falteringly. "It doesn't... make sense. Fury thinks there might be foul play, Tony – he left behind a... message, it said that – that suicide should be suspicious."

Dimly, he was aware that talking about the investigation was not the point of this meeting, but Leo nodded again, and it was just – easier.

"I saw him. Right before. He – it was less than half an hour. I didn't – see anything. JARVIS was down, but he was just – he gets like that, engineering, a lot, it's like a – " Steve stopped. The muscles in his throat felt strained.

"Tony," Leo said, in measured tones, "was very brilliant. And very good at dissembling – we've talked about that before." They had. Tony wasn't anywhere near as good a liar as Natasha or Clint, but he was very good; Bruce, as well, was eerily good at lying, and against the four of them Steve lost, and lost often, at poker. It was enough to make him feel uneasy, the first couple of months after he'd moved in. He'd caught them all lying to each other, on occasion, although as far as he knew none of them had ever lied to him.

"Oh, god, no, you might whip out those puppy-dog eyes – seriously, that's unfair, Cap," Tony had complained, once, when Steve had, awkwardly, asked him flat-out. "You can actually make me feel guilty, my god, completely unfair, I had to practice my puppy-dog look, and it's still not half as effective as yours – do you know what I could do with that look if I had it? Seriously, whenever those idiots down in R&D screw up, I could just stare at them, and then I wouldn't have to fire them, they'd be jumping out of windows to end the overwhelming feeling of shame – "

The memory made him flinch. Maybe Tony hadn't lied to him – but he'd sure as hell been doing something, something big, that he hadn't told Steve about.

"Steve?" Leo asked, concerned.

"We're – we were supposed to be a team," Steve said, only it came out as more of a croak. All those late nights when he'd wandered down to Tony's lab, all those hours in each other's company, talking or just sitting in silence together – and it had meant nothing, in the end. Tony hadn't trusted him with the most important thing in his life – and Steve, Steve hadn't known him well enough to know that anything was wrong.

"Steve," Leo leaned forward in his chair. "I promised you that I would never lie to you." He had – he'd promised that straight up, in their very first introductory session. "You may need to hear this a lot; that's normal: his death was not your fault."

Steve shook his head, pressing his lips into a thin line, and couldn't answer.


By the time the session was over, they hadn't talked much more. Occasionally Steve had blurted out a thought, almost completely at random, and since he knew Leo was listening he'd try to expand, but in the end he couldn't. Tony had killed himself yesterday. Compared to that, what was he supposed to say? Tears itched behind his eyes, but he couldn't let them fall. Not yet. Not when he hadn't done something, anything, to try to make up for what he'd done – for what he'd failed to do. Not when he had no answers.

On the way out his phone buzzed in his pocket, and he fished it out, glad for the distraction. His head hurt.

It was Pepper, and when he pressed the screen to answer it, she said perfunctorily, "Steve, I need a favour." There was a hard edge of anger under the businesslike tone.

"What's happened?" he asked, automatically checking his surroundings. The ache behind his eyes faded. There was a stairwell just down the hall; he could be on his bike and heading back to the Tower within a minute. If there was an emergency, then he could justify disobeying traffic laws enough to save a lot of time.

"SHIELD has confiscated the armours," she bit out, clipped and furious – and no longer hiding her anger. "And they're dismantling the fabrication units. JARVIS was on the verge of destroying the units – I told him to hold off. If SHIELD gets angry at him…"

JARVIS, still stuck in the suitcase – guarded round the clock by SHIELD agents – was vulnerable. He only had the SI satellite systems left, now, and was without Tony to defend him, if Fury wanted to pull the AI issue into light. No doubt Pepper would pitch a good defense herself – but Steve couldn't let it come to that.

"I'll take care of it," he promised, and hung up after she had thanked him.

He took a breath. Held it. Let it out.

Then he called Sitwell. Six months out of the ice and he still would prefer to have this confrontation face-to-face, rather than over the phone, but Fury might be anywhere – if he wasn't in New York, phone it would have to be.

"Sitwell," the agent answered promptly. He'd become their main liaison after the invasion, and Steve had always appreciated his efficiency – not that they actually interacted much, beyond wrangling press conferences. But all of that interaction had to go through Steve, since Tony had an irrational hatred for the man. It went unspoken that replacing Jasper would have been a futile move, though – Tony would have disliked anyone as a replacement for Coulson.

"I need to speak to the Director, please," Steve told him.

"I'll check," Sitwell said, understanding without needing to be told why Steve hadn't just phoned Fury – he knew Steve preferred speaking to people in person. A moment later, he reported, "If you can come to Stark Tower, he can meet with you immediately." So Sitwell was there as well – and Pepper wasn't, if she hadn't mentioned the Director's current location – she wasn't the sort to let something like that slip her mind. He wondered where she was.

"Thanks," he said tightly, feeling slightly betrayed. Sitwell, although obviously in the loop on the armour removal, hadn't seen fit to inform Steve earlier.

Since it wasn't an emergency in the truest sense of the word, he managed to keep himself from breaking too many traffic laws on the way back, although he chafed at the lethargy of the cars around him. The memorial at the Tower had only grown in size since he'd left, and there were more news vans about, now, and several helicopters circling overhead. This time, he got spotted – but he ducked into the garage before anyone could do anything more than point.

Upstairs, he went to Tony's lab first, but found although it was guarded by several agents, it was otherwise empty. The armours, he saw, were already gone, and the agents , looking nervous, directed him down several floors to the fabrication units.

There, things were busy. Nick stood in the centre of action, talking to a suited agent – Halliday – while a whole slew of people examined and occasionally, carefully, dismantled parts of the fab units that were set into the walls. Steve marched up, planted himself beside Fury, and barked at them all, "Out."

Activity ceased. Fury, beside Steve, narrowed his eye, but Steve wasn't looking directly at him – he was looking at the SHIELD techs. They were glancing between him and Fury, with varying degrees of wariness and confusion.

"Captain," Fury said, sounding entirely unamused.

Steve rounded on him, pitching his voice low enough so that none of the techs could hear him. "This stops right now, or the next person I call will be Dr. Banner."

As a threat, he wasn't sure how credible it was – but it got the point across. Fury might be able to give orders to Clint and Natasha, but although Steve called the Director 'sir' out of respect, he wasn't in the SHIELD chain of command – and Bruce was far enough off of it that he wasn't even considered a consultant.

"Everybody out," Fury agreed after a moment, raising his voice and waving off Halliday, who looked deeply unhappy about this. So did the SHIELD techs; some cast longing looks as they slowly drifted toward the doors. "Take a break. Now, people." That last command finally pushed them into proper motion, and the room cleared until it was just Steve, Fury, and – no doubt – whatever bugs Fury's people had already planted.

"I respect that you have strong feelings about this, Captain, but this is a matter of necessity," Fury said when they were all gone.

"Not your call, sir," Steve said. "It wasn't left up to you."

"That may be, but if it's not us, have you considered who it will be?" He held up a hand to forestall Steve from pointing out that it would be Pepper. "The lawsuits regarding the Iron Man weapon have been ongoing for years. They're not going to stop now."

"Then they'll restart against Pepper," Steve said firmly. "It's her private property."

"That the Air Force has been using, by contract, to maintain and upgrade one of its most prominent weapons." Fury shook his head. "With Stark gone, his estate is in serious danger of breach of contract."

"So you want to make it into a battle between SHIELD and the Air Force instead."

"I don't want to see the Iron Man wind up public property any more than Ms. Potts does."

Steve looked at him incredulously. "So you're going to hold it in trust? No. This is private property, sir."

"Private property that may be necessary for the defence of this world. The estate will be adequately compensated."

Memories of the Phase II weapons flashed through his mind. Tony was – Tony had no more been a saint than SHIELD, but at the end of the day he'd been a man prepared to lay his life down on the line for what was right. SHIELD was an entire agency, with all the bureaucracy and cracks that implied.

The defence allegation was the key. Pepper couldn't put on the armour – none of the suits would fit her. "Rhodes," Steve said abruptly. "Pepper keeps it, in trust for Rhodes' personal use." He knew, suddenly, that was it. "If you want him on the team then he won't stand for you doing this." And Fury had to want him on the team – as much as anger made Steve want to snap at him, for having the temerity to already be thinking of Tony's replacement, it would come sooner or later. That he was moving this quickly, though, felt like a slap in the face.

Fury sighed. "Colonel Rhodes' value has spiked dramatically. There are now several key players jockeying for his transfer. Possession of these facilities," he indicated their surroundings with a broad glance, "would do a great deal to secure our position. Without them, his future – and the question of who will be giving him orders – becomes much more of a toss-up."

"It should be up to him."

"But it isn't," Fury said bluntly. "He's military, Captain – you understand the rules and regulations that he's subject to."

And it grated, but Steve did – for all that he'd ignored them when they'd gotten in the way, he'd known the regs, and he knew that if Colonel Phillips hadn't been willing to humour him, he might have wound up in military prison for more than one stunt. Rhodey might not end up that lucky, if he got dealt such a bad hand that he refused to play.

But at the end of the day – this was Tony's. The Iron Man suits were Tony's – he'd poured his life and soul into them, and SHIELD seizing them – Steve remembered what he'd declared, when he'd handed Fury his ultimatum to the WSC. They were his ultimate collateral, and being taken for nothing more than a chance – no, Tony would never stand for it.

Tony abandoned his post, some deeply uncharitable portion of his soul whispered. Steve looked at it for a long moment, and shook his head.

"Work out an agreement with Pepper, then, sir," he said, refusing to budge. "It's Stark property. It stays in Stark Tower."

Fury folded his arms over his chest and considered Steve for a long moment. "Alright, Captain," he agreed, but Steve knew it wouldn't be that easy, even before he went on, "but in return I want you to consider something."

"What?" Steve asked warily.

"Joining SHIELD."

Steve frowned.

"If we can pull in Rhodes, then that makes three members of your team under SHIELD payroll," Fury said. "The majority of the team. Agents Romanoff and Barton know to keep their heads down, but having somebody who is technically a civilian calling the shots over the colonel will be a problem. No," he shook his head, "I don't want your answer yet. We need to see how things shake out, first. I just want you to think long and hard about it."

He didn't like it. There was a subtle threat in Fury's words, for all that he'd only asked for 'consideration' – that a civilian couldn't be commanding a colonel. But if he rejoined the military… that thought was just as unpalatable as letting SHIELD crate up and ship off the armours. He'd seen what people like Thaddeus Ross had turned the Army's R&D into while he'd been sleeping – there'd been a reason he hadn't re-enlisted when he'd been informed that he'd received an honourable discharge.

"I'll consider it, sir," Steve said slowly.

Fury nodded. "Then we have an agreement."

They did, but it wasn't one that Steve liked any. He needed to talk to Rhodey, figure out what he thought the best course of action was – he was the one flying the suit, in the end, not Steve. But the thought of facing Rhodey and asking him whether or not he thought it was a good idea for him to join the Avengers, to take Tony's place – it made Steve's stomach turn over, just contemplating it. He stayed standing in the room for a long time, even when disappointed-looking SHIELD agents began wheeling crates back in – taking full advantage of the opportunity to study the fab machines, Steve noted bleakly.

Finally, he went back upstairs, to the work he'd been doing before he'd left for his appointment with Leo. At least doing that he could hope, pray, that he might find some answers.


Five hours later, Steve finished lining up rows upon rows of pictures, each one with an attached name and job title. He stared at them. Each picture was extremely professional: of young adults and old, men and women, of all sorts of heritages.

"JARVIS," Steve said slowly, "I don't think all of these people exist."

"Captain?"

"Tony likes efficiency." Steve gestured to the HR setup. "His entire company – I mean, I get it's a big company, but it's still... efficient, the way it's set-up – they did a lot of reorganization a couple years ago, when he got back from Afghanistan, and it's like – it's like what I see in his workshop, sometimes..."

He went on, pointing out patterns. They were light, but constant. Tony hadn't been CEO for a while, and he'd been hopeless at HR for forever, but he was, at heart, an engineer. Furthermore, he was an engineer with so much influence within the company that most of it bowed to his tastes, following along because it was easier than trying to buck against his lead. Pepper becoming CEO had only reinforced those patterns – she'd been able to put in place the types of strategies that Tony had wanted, but had no clue how to implement.

But within the HR division were tiny, messy pockets. Oh, most of it was ordered neatly, if, on the whole, bloated. But then there were the offices where efficiency broke down: groups of people who had far too many assistants and far too many raises. It could have been explained away by corruption, but Steve's instincts had rebelled against that, and after a while he realized why – there was a faint, but definite pattern to the suspect employees. They came from all different backgrounds, but they all worked from home; their hiring dates were too even; when he read over reports that they'd supposedly written, their style varied dramatically – like a bunch of reports written by different people had been assigned to one person.

"Program matches for false backgrounds will take more time, but I suspect you are correct," JARVIS interrupted Steve halfway through his explanation. There was a long pause while Steve waited for elaboration, and then, "There is an extremely effective virus located in the accounting programs for these individuals. I have neutralized it, but it bears Mr. Stark's signature style. It would appear he was laundering money through SI from his personal accounts. I would like to run a full virus check of the mainframe, but this will require a significant amount of time with the mainframe offline – perhaps a full day. Mr. Stark was always fond of hibernating viruses, and if the mainframe remains online then I cannot guarantee its safety. Ms. Potts will have to be consulted."

"Ask her," said Steve, and then, "No, wait. The – the funeral. SI's not gonna remain open for that, is it?"

"All corporate offices will be closed, although factory operations are currently scheduled to continue normally."

"Reschedule, so they all close, and do it then," Steve suggested. "If there's another virus – it's been there for months, another couple of days won't hurt. But if we tip our hand..." he shook his head. "We still don't know if anyone was working with Tony."

"Very well," JARVIS acquiesced. "I will ask Ms. Potts. If you are not in need of a rest, Captain – "

"I'm fine," Steve said automatically.

" – then I suggest we continue." There was an eager, angry note in JARVIS's voice, something that Steve understood all too well.

Clint came in about half an hour later, sometime after nine. "Techs got results," he reported, pulling out his phone and laying it down on the table. The interface shifted about it, moving windows so that the phone didn't cover anything. "JARVIS, get Nat in on this – they got video from DUM-E, from data still in his camera's buffer. She needs to see it – so do you."

"Calling Agent Romanoff and uploading the relevant information," JARVIS replied. The air over the table shimmered, turning into a 2D screen, as Clint pulled out a chair and beside Steve and took a seat.

"Caught me at a good time," Natasha picked up after the first ring. "I'm on my way back with Happy."

"Pepper there with you?" Clint asked.

"No, she's with Rhodes."

"Good. Got a video for you, and it needs to be kept quiet."

There was a pause, broken slightly by a murmured question from Natasha to somebody else with her, and then her voice returned, crisp and clear. "Alright. Play it."

The video was clearly from DUM-E's view. The camera jittered as the robot rolled about, fetching things and moving his arm up and down to take care of the tasks Tony assigned him. The audio was low quality, even more so than the video, and mostly consisted of the sound of machines and occasionally a random comment from Tony. "Stand here," "Beautiful," or "Not without five."

It took a few minutes of watching DUM-E roll around the screen before the footage showed a clear image of Tony for long enough to get a view of what he was working on – a prototype repulsor gauntlet. It was laid out on the bench and he was poking at it with a variety of tools. "Coffee," he ordered, and DUM-E turned away to fetch it.

There was a bright, orange-white flash from just off-screen, where Tony was sitting, accompanied by the sound of a muffled thunderclap. Immediately the robot turned back, revealing Tony lying on the floor, looking dazed; the tools had fallen from his hands.

"Sir?" asked JARVIS in the video. "Energy readings corresponding to – "

"HOLY SHIT!" Tony leapt to his feet, eyes wide and terrified. "Skynet-four-five-one!" he shouted, and the lights flickered; there were pops and hisses from off-screen, the sound of hard drives physically destructing. DUM-E made a concerned whirring noise and the camera bobbed, then he cautiously rolled forward.

Tony backed up against the workbench, looking panicked, trapped. DUM-E paused in his approach; the view tilted sideways, as the arm did – DUM-E's way of conveying concern. There was the sound of U's treads from somewhere off-screen, and Tony's face went even whiter with fear; he scrambled at the bench and came up with the repulsor gauntlet. For a moment, he looked surprised – as if he'd expected it to be destroyed by whatever made that flash – and then he shoved his shirt up and connected the wires to the arc reactor in his chest. There was no hesitation in his movements as he aimed and fired.

The force of the blast blew DUM-E over sideways, leaving the camera staring off at an odd angle. The sound of the repulsors powering up repeated, and the view went black – power to the camera had been lost.

For a long moment, nobody spoke.

"JARVIS," said Steve slowly, "What was that protocol?"

There was a pause, long enough that Steve began to think that JARVIS might not answer, before he replied, "The Skynet Protocol was created by myself and Mr. Stark to allow a full destructive shut-down in the event that I was threatened with duplication or experimentation by a third party and could not adequately protect myself. But it should not have caused such complete destruction of Mr. Stark's personal files – the latest available information I have on the protocol, which is admittedly a year old, shows that only my personal programming and storage should have been destroyed. Nor can I see any reason from the video evidence that this protocol would be indicated."

"Rest of the video is just more like at the beginning... same thing he was working on then. That was just a gauntlet, right?" Clint asked. The video skipped back to the scene showing the workbench. There were a lot of other tools on it, besides the gauntlet, only a handful of which Steve could identify at a glance.

Evidently JARVIS was better-versed, though – in addition to being able to flash through the other footage far quicker than any human could process it – because he confirmed a moment later,"Correct."

"So he... something goes wrong, blows up – flash of light. He falls – hits his head?" Clint glanced up at the screen, as if to check visually with a virtual Natasha.

"It's unverifiable," she said, her voice revealing nothing. "No other evidence supports it."

Steve slammed his hand down on the table. The table dented, warping the pages and words it was displaying. "He didn't kill himself because he got a damn head injury," he grit out. His jaw hurt, again, from clenching his teeth together.

Silence, again; Steve got the feeling that Natasha and Clint were sharing a glance, even though they weren't in the same room – there wasn't even a video display of Natasha. After a moment, she spoke. "We can't rule it out as a contributing factor. But you're right that it's unlikely to have been the main impetus."

"A 'eureka!' moment," Clint suggested. "He realized – something..." he glanced at the frozen video screen, and then up at JARVIS, before he continued, his voice flattening out. Sniper-mode. "Whatever it was scared him so badly he killed his kids and then himself."

Natasha contradicted this almost immediately. "He was frightened of DUM-E and U – frightened of JARVIS."

"Without access to the missing logs, I am incapable of surmising what I may have done to so upset him," Jarvis said softly.

Without thinking, Steve reached out and laid a hand on the nearest wall. A moment later it grew unnaturally – although not uncomfortably – warm beneath his touch. The warmth pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat – the closest thing to touch that JARVIS had.

"You've never argued with him?" Natasha asked, her voice calm. Steve envied her composure, even as he hated it.

"We regularly disagreed," JARVIS said, "but rarely argued. Arguments, when they did occur, were civil. Neither of us would have hurt the other. Ever." There was helpless vehemence in his voice: Tony had hurt him. Tony had been frightened of him. Why?

"What other data was recovered?" Natasha asked, apparently moving on. Steve didn't entirely buy it – although they'd been living with JARVIS for months, Steve knew that Fury would never trust an AI, and JARVIS had to be at the top of the suspect list if something had gone wrong. But then again, if she was investigating him, she wouldn't be able to do so anywhere in the Tower and be able to keep the details from him. JARVIS might not have his servers back, but from his current position he still had full access, even if it was access that it would be easy to physically remove him from. Steve just hoped that Fury didn't let suspicion overwhelm him and loose SHIELD techs upon JARVIS – if that happened, Steve himself would have to make some very hard decisions. Not difficult decisions – he knew what he'd do – but they sure wouldn't make life easy.

"Computer records," Clint said, gesturing for JARVIS to pull up the files. "He had an isolated computer with an outside connection, bounced off of half a dozen satellites and ground stations – there're traces of files uploaded onto it that the techs are still working on. It's got an interesting internet history from after the flash of light, too." The browser history showing on the screen wasstrange. The bulk of it was online scientific journals and gibberish that Steve didn't recognise – the uploads, maybe – but in the last ten minutes of his life, Tony had been looking at... news sites. He'd done a blitz on CNN, Fox, the Times, going through the day's articles too quickly to have read them fully. Why? Of course, normally, they all got their news from JARVIS...

"We'll need to look at it in detail," Natasha said. "JARVIS, make sure that we've got exact copies of what he was looking at, nothing changed."

"Of course, Agent."

"Speaking of nothing getting changed – I've got my recruits isolated in safehouses, but you cut it kinda fine with announcing it to the public, Nat," Clint said. His voice was too laconic for the words to come out as a rebuke, but there was an element of grievance in his voice anyway.

"Sorry," Natasha said perfunctorily. "The board forced Pepper's hand – they want a full rebranding of SI's image as soon as it wouldn't be considered 'distasteful'. From a business perspective, they're not wrong."

Clint nodded. "I sourced that one out to Fury." At Steve's look of incomprehension, he explained, "SI stock plummeted – means that there'll be cuts coming up within the company, vendors jumping ship... Fury gave it to Halliday, told him to put a gaggle of junior agents on making sure that nobody takes advantage of the chaos to slip out the back."

Natasha sounded displeased. "We need to keep this between us as much as we can."

"We don't have the manpower, Nat. Not right now."

"I know." She still sounded displeased, but from the almost sympathetic look on Clint's face, Steve was pretty sure that she was displeased at the entire situation, not at Clint's actions.

"I think I may have some targets for them," Steve said, finally rejoining the conversation. It took more effort than it should have. "JARVIS?"

They explained what they'd found – mostly JARVIS explained – and Clint cast a critical eye over their selections. "Good catch," he said. "You think they're all completely fake?"

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"SHIELD never caught some of the guys that – I – hired back during the invasion," Clint said. He grimaced. "That I had to hire. They all had a head start, so some of them getting away might make sense, but there were enough that did... we thought they must have had help. Maybe whether they wanted it or not, if Tony was already as paranoid then as he was – uh, at the end."

"SHIELD didn't look at Tony then?" Steve asked, surprised. The way that Fury and Tony had kept counter-hacking each other...

"Of course we did, but the first thing Tony did after the invasion was batten down the hatches and beef up his security," Clint said. "You know how he was." And Steve did – by the time he'd come back from his cross-States tour, Tony had at least started emerging semi-regularly from his workshop, but he'd heard the stories from Bruce about that first month. "But, hell, the guy just had his home invaded and used as a power source for an interstellar portal – and Fury was inclined to give him a pass for sticking it to the Council."

Steve took his point. Fury'd had bigger fish to fry – first the WSC, and then the barely-controlled firestorm that had been the admittance of SHIELD's existence to the public. Everybody had agreed that it had to happen, after what the WSC had tried to do, but that didn't make Fury any happier that the public was aware that SHIELD existed, even if almost no details about it were known – other than that the Avengers were somehow under its oversight.

"I can't see him caring much about the grunts," Clint continued, "but there were two scientists who vanished. Chen Lu and Arthur Parks. Parks' expertise was lasers, Lu was a nuclear physicist – I'll send you their dossiers."

Steve grimaced. "We need Bruce." He didn't like saying it – Bruce didn't deserve to be dragged back.

"Let him have some time," Natasha said. There was the sound of the elevator doors opening. "He needs it." The last sentence wasn't said over the phone – it came from the other room over. The elevator doors slid shut, not quite silently, and then Natasha padded into the room on stocking feet, high-heeled shoes dangling from one hand. The other held her phone, which she thumbed off and tucked into her purse.

"It seems likely that Tony had help, though," she said, tossing her purse onto a counter and grabbing a glass of milk. She sipped it neatly, almost daintily, at odds with the image of the drink itself. "His productive output is difficult to chart – he'd always been pretty erratic – but he was pulling long hours in the year leading up to the Stark Tower debut, and it doesn't look like his R&D productivity dropped at all after the invasion."

"He was pulling longer hours after," Steve said, because he was sure he remembered her saying that at some point.

"True, but he also had a lot of personal projects on the go that we already know about," she pointed out. The Tower redesigns, the Mark VIII, the quinjet and Helicarrier upgrades... "Some of that was likely obfuscation, but unless he had significant help, he wouldn't have had much time to devote to this – whatever 'this' is. Not enough time to qualify as an obsession. Even Stark needed to sleep." She rolled her head, popping a joint in her neck and giving a faint sigh of relief. "So do I. I need to be up early for international conferences. Steve – " she caught his eye, " – good work."

Steve raised an eyebrow at her as she left, leaving her shoes behind but snagging her purse back. He didn't need to be – well, maybe he did need some sort of reassurance. Some validation that they were going to get to the bottom of this, that maybe, even if he could never make it up to Tony, he wouldn't completely screw up handling his legacy.

Clint eyed him critically, standing as well. It was still early in the evening, but they were all tired – Steve doubted that Clint had slept last night, not with whatever it was he'd been doing. Steve didn't plan on sleeping this night, either, knowing all too well what awaited him in the dark. Evidently it showed on his face, because Clint asked, "You gonna be in the gym all night again?"

Steve looked back sharply. "I wasn't – I'll be fine if I miss sleep for a few days." He would. His metabolism was wonky, burning through food like crazy but letting his body hoard water, adapting to either cold or warm-weather missions – he could go a few days on a good night's sleep. Not that he'd gotten a good night's sleep the night before last, with that nightmare chasing him from slumber.

Clint offered one of his crooked smiles, the type that screamed that he was thinking something that he knew the listener didn't want to hear – wouldn't hear. Steve ignored it.


Soon after the patterns Steve was seeing started to repeat themselves nonsensically, JARVIS matter-of-factly informed him that acquiring further information would take time – which meant he was hacking into something extremely secure, and Steve didn't want to know about it, or he was lying so that Steve would take a break, and Steve still didn't want to know about it. He went for a run instead, outside, forgoing the gym this time. It was late enough – or early enough – that he was unlikely to be approached by anyone, and the Tower had begun to feel too stifling.

In the darkness, everything was either sepia-toned or neon, throwing the past and the present into sharp relief in his head. Car alarms and sirens wailed. Nobody paid them any attention. Occasionally, a car backfired – or maybe that was a gun. The sound echoed off of the skyscrapers and pavement, making it impossible to tell where it was from, even for him. In his first week out of the ice he'd startled at everything, unable to let it go. Now he just ran on. It was a common enough occurrence. He'd become accustomed.

Funny, what you could become accustomed to, with time.

The sky opened up in a sudden downpour, and he halted, peering up at through it at the orange-lit sky. The rain didn't seem natural – a suspicion that strengthened when a bolt of lightning momentarily turned the sky as bright as daylight, and a second later was followed up by a deafening crack of thunder. He turned back, and had already been running toward the Tower for a few minutes by the time his phone rang.

"Yeah?" he huffed, pressing it to his ear. Water ran over it and down it, but didn't affect it. When Tony had given it to Steve, he'd also subjected him to a rant on how rare that was, and how Steve should appreciate StarkTech's superiority over the, "Common, low-quality, hack-job that Samsung puts out, what is that shit, don't even get me started on fucking Apple. Phones go everywhere, what is the use of a phone that fucks up after you get a drop of water on it?"

StarkTech meant quality. Clint's voice was crystal clear down the line as he told Steve, "Thor's back."


"Heimdall sees much, but there are those who have found ways to hide from his sight," Steve heard as the elevator doors opened. Although Thor was speaking at a normal volume, he nonetheless managed to make it sound like a declaration. Extreme gravitas seemed to be a trait inborn to Asgardians, if Thor and Loki together were any indication.

Natasha and Clint were both in the living room, clutching mugs of coffee. They both looked completely alert, but as if they'd had to roll out of bed to become so; Clint was dressed in only boxers and a t-shirt, while Natasha wore loose sweats, and her hair was mussed and tangled. She was still breathtakingly beautiful. Steve wondered if it was just that she'd practiced at appearing so for so long that it was ingrained, or if the spark of natural beauty that had attracted her handlers in the first place simply shone that bright. Clint, on the other hand, just looked irritated at being awoken at half past two.

Neither of them seemed particularly concerned about appearing dishevelled before the Director, who was also present, and hadn't bothered with a drink. He was dressed in his customary black, and Steve wondered if he'd even been sleeping before he'd been called from the Helicarrier... or wherever it was that Nick Fury spent his nights.

"Captain," Thor greeted Steve as he entered. Steve had skipped a shower, opting to merely grab a towel to wipe off some of the sweat. It didn't seem to deter Thor, who held out his arm to clasp forearms – and then pulled him into a hug.

Thor was one of very few people taller and broader than Steve was now, after the serum. In his head, it wasn't yet three years since he'd been scrawny and small. Back then, he'd never wanted to lean on anyone or anything, but there was something about Thor's presence that made Steve give in, for just a moment, and he let himself take strength from Thor's hug before stepping back.

Thor kept one hand on Steve's shoulder for a moment longer, looking at him with deep concern. "I will not ask if you are well, Steve, but know that you have my friendship in this dark time. If I can aid you I will," he said, his voice deep but surprisingly soft.

Steve didn't have it in him to give much of an answer to a declaration like that. "Yeah," he muttered, stepping over to the counter to grab some coffee for himself.

Thor accepted this with a nod. "As I was telling our comrades, Heimdall saw from afar the preparations being made to mourn our lost friend. The reforged bifrost is still weak, and the Tesseract ought not be used overmuch, but the bridge will hold for the rare lone traveller. I would not dishonour so mighty a comrade with my absence."

"But he couldn't see what happened," Fury stated – for Steve's benefit, it seemed, as everyone else seemed to know this already. Or the three SHIELD operatives were just being their usual inscrutable selves.

"Sorry, who is... Heimdall?" Steve asked.

"He is the guardian of the bifrost, and charged with keeping watch over the Nine Realms. His sight is of such clarity that even the All-Father attempts to keep no secrets from him. But this Tower is hidden from Heimdall's gaze." Thor hesitated, and then went on, "He said it was not unlike the spells that my brother wove to shield himself from view. Although I had not thought your science advanced enough to duplicate such effects, Tony struck me as one brilliant beyond his time, much like the good Dr. Banner; if any mortal were so capable, it would be he."

"How long has it been hidden?" Fury asked.

"I know not for certain, but from Heimdall's words I would think it several months at least."

Steve knew what the others were thinking. The program that Tony had left behind had been distrustful of aliens – of Asgard. That could just have been paranoia – of which, Steve knew, Tony had more than a healthy dose – but Thor's words meant the 'shielding' that the program had mentioned was real: Tony had apparently invented an entirely new, advanced, on-par-with-alien technology in order to keep his secrets. Secrets which he had then destroyed...

Fury turned to Clint. "I want Banner back here and looking into this ASAP," he ordered, getting a nod Clint and an unblinking stare from Natasha. Steve was pretty sure he knew why: the Hulk unsettled Natasha, but she'd had months to deal with it, and she had. Unsettled didn't mean she couldn't do her job.

But Fury was already turning to her. "You, I need to stay on SI. We need to know what Stark was up to." She nodded, and although nothing changed in her expression, Steve knew she was appeased.

Clint saluted the Director – sort of – with his mug of coffee, and ambled over to the elevator. He clapped Thor, and then Steve, on the shoulder as he passed.

"You can understand why we'd have some concerns about Heimdall's sight," Fury said bluntly, turning back to Thor, who nodded gravely.

"We are your allies," he said sombrely, "but the last time your world reaped any benefit from our presence was a millennium ago. Any aid I can grant is small recompense for my brother's actions, and while the bifrost is yet unready we cannot pay proper wergild. Nor is the funeral of a comrade-in-arms a fit time to speak of treaties and negotiations. Nonetheless, if there is anything I can do..." he left the offer open-ended.

Natasha and the director exchanged glances – glances filled with meaning and suspicion. Eventually, Natasha said to Thor, in the manner of one acquiescing to a superior's will, "The funeral tomorrow. It would be good to have you there, as a pallbearer."

Thor nodded. "I do not know what this pallbearer is, but if you will instruct me in the duties expected of me, I will carry them out with honour."

"It's not hard. I'll go over the details with you tomorrow morning. For now – " she looked at Fury. "Was there anything else, sir?"

"Nothing you need to be involved in, agent," Fury dismissed her, and then Steve, with a bland, "Captain. Thor, I've got scientists who have a lot of questions about Asgard. You answered some of them the last time you were here, but if you've got more time now..."

"I will answer your questions to the best of my abilities," Thor said, "but it is disrespectful to think about this now, while our comrade has not yet been sent to his final rest. I would instead see my lady Jane. After the death of brothers it is important to celebrate what bonds are left."

Fury, strangely, let it go. "She has a SHIELD guard on her, though she doesn't know it. You know where she is?" Thor nodded. "Then happy flying."

Thor looked at each of them. "I will take my leave. Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Director Fury. I will see you again, tomorrow morning." He turned and strode out onto the deck – which, Steve now noticed, as the exterior lights came on again, had a strange glyphic pattern burned into the concrete. A second passed as Thor whirled his hammer, faster and faster, and then he was gone, vanishing quickly into the stormy sky.

Fury's hand went up to his ear as soon as Thor was out of sight, activating his headset. "Hill, I want all personnel working on class-6 or higher projects transferred to Stark Tower. I don't care what you have to do to get agreement from Potts. No, I'll explain why once you're here. Bring a full bug sweep team – I know we already checked, but it's Stark."

"Are you going to get some sleep?" Natasha asked Steve, after a glance at the Director. Steve shook his head. "You might want to keep to our common level, or your own – stay out of the way of the incoming circus. I have a meeting at five. Keep me in the loop with what you find."

"Yeah," Steve said, but she was already heading toward the elevator.

Fury had finished barking orders and now turned to Steve, an appraising look in his eye. "Keeping busy, Captain?"

"Yes, sir," Steve murmured. Fury was, among other things, a good man. But occasionally those other things got in the way. His deal weighed heavily on Steve, at a time when he already felt like he might collapse. But he'd only promised to consider Fury's words, so far...

"Spending more time in the gym than you have been in months. Late at night, at least."

"Yes, sir. Was there anything else, sir?"

For a moment, he thought that the director was going to insist, but instead Fury just nodded slowly. "I thought you might like to know that my techs have told me that the armours are completely inoperable – and likely irreparable. Seems like the Skynet Protocol fried all of the internal wiring."

Steve winced. Jesus. How damn paranoid had Tony been?

Fury was studying him. Did he want an answer to his earlier request? But the Director didn't say anything further after a moment, so Steve nodded. "Sir."

Then he headed for the elevator. He wanted to go hit something.


His fist pounded into the bag. The brown Kevlar was dull, plain; no target painted on this bag. No memories overlaid it; no faces of the dead, or of the living.

After the Chitauri invasion, after they'd won, he'd started sleeping better, moving on. Of course, the road trip had sort of necessitated that – there weren't many gyms open twenty-four hours a day in small towns. He'd taken to running when he couldn't sleep, instead, jogging around the perimeter of whatever town he was in.

After he'd come back, and moved into the Tower, he'd gone back to spending more time in the gym with the punching bag instead of running. He hadn't been alone – he'd been aware that he was hardly the only insomniac – but trying to intrude upon others in the wee hours of the morning took more strength than he could muster, late at night, when the War loomed too far forward in his mind.

It had gone on like that for nearly a month, until one night Tony wandered down to Steve's private gym, drink in hand, at around 3am when neither of them could sleep. Steve had been deep into a rhythm with the bag, his surroundings fading away, when Tony had blithely asked, "Picturing mein fuhrer's face on there?"

"What?" Steve had halted his routine long enough to pay attention. Tony Stark, he had learned, was far less social than he seemed at first glance. Oh, he liked people – put him in a group of people and he'd immediately make himself the centre of attention – but in that first month Steve had seen Tony less than half a dozen times, because the man was always working – actually working, in his lab. Or at least whenever Steve wandered by there it sure looked like work. "No. I, uh – no."

"The Red Skull, then?" Tony had suggested, settling himself on a bench and making Steve the object of his full attention. It had felt a little intimidating, actually.

"No," Steve had snapped, and then regretted it when Tony had just raised an eyebrow. "No. I don't like – hurting people. It's just... exercise."

"Mm," Tony had hummed, with that same short, pretending-to-think tone that he'd had right before he'd insulted Steve's uniform back on the Helicarrier. But then he had seemed to change his mind. "You know," he'd said, "or – well, no, you don't know this, nobody knows this except me and JARVIS and JARVIS doesn't tattle, do you, JARVIS – "

"Only to Ms. Potts, sir."

" – because he's the best – oh, really? She's seduced my AI away from me, that woman, I knew I'd be paying for that comment about 12% - "

"I assure you, sir, she had won my heart long before."

" – well, damn," Tony had sworn cheerfully, while Steve had just looked on in bemusement. "But my point was – I mean, after I, uh, gave up the whole weapons business, became Iron Man, sorted all of that out – and it did take a lot of... sorting, paperwork, ugh," he'd made a face, "after all that, when I had more time, occasionally, and found myself wandering around at night, I'd, uh. Design weapons."

Steve had blinked at him. Tony, in return, had taken a sip of his drink, but he'd looked... discomfited. As if it were some sort of confession. Which, Steve had realized belatedly, it was.

"Big weapons, small weapons – guidance systems – oh, I finally took the time to figure out a proper, workable rail-gun – world-ending weapons – I have, on my servers, twenty..." he'd squinted at his glass of scotch, "...three entirely unique ways to end the world – not that humanity needs any help with that," he'd finished wryly.

Steve, sweat drying on his skin, his mind muddled from so many nights without too little sleep, had gaped at him. "Why?"

"Because I'm good at it," Tony had said baldly. "The best, in fact. And it's what I've been doing my entire life." He'd stood, then, and pointed at Steve with his glass. "You're not a soldier any more. You could go to school – art school, I've seen your portfolio. But when you can't sleep, you don't draw, you come down here and... you don't lift weights, you don't run – or, well, it's not your first choice. You come down here and hit things."

"It's just a bag," Steve had said, but he'd found himself unable to look at it, like maybe if he did, he wouldn't see brown Kevlar.

"And they're just designs," Tony had returned, before swallowing the rest of his scotch in one gulp. "Come on, Stevie Wonder, I've got way more interesting things in my lab these days. Let me wow you with science."

After that, when he couldn't sleep, Steve found himself – occasionally, at first, and then more often when it became apparent that he wasn't unwelcome – wandering down to Tony's lab instead of the gym. Tony was always up, no matter the hour – Steve had worried over how little sleep he seemed to get, until JARVIS started reassuring him with daily counts of hours slept, and then he still worried but not quite as much. More often than not Tony didn't bother to even try explaining what he was working on to Steve, but that didn't matter; Steve mostly just sat and sketched in the light of the holograms, and it was... good.

It was yet another thing that he'd never get to do again.


SHIELD was quick and thorough about ensconcing itself in Stark Tower, taking over the secondary training facilities before dawn and kicking out two floors of SI scientists, besides. Freshly showered and dressed in clean clothes, Steve watched the gaggle of agents carrying in equipment and setting up computers. Cords lay everywhere, presenting a tripping hazard that no one had yet bothered to do anything about.

"You think this EM shielding is the only reason Tony was paranoid about you bringing in SHIELD, sir?" Steve asked Fury quietly. The director was supervising the move with a scowl.

"Of course I don't," Fury replied. "But a trap won't catch anything without bait."

"Right," Steve muttered, turning away and heading back to the elevator. JARVIS started taking it up to the Avengers' common floor without Steve having to ask. His body was finally starting to weary, but his mind kept whirling, kept thinking whenever he tried to blank things out.

"I have finished reconstructing the data available from the drives that Agent Barton's hired technicians repaired and cleaned," JARVIS announced as Steve stepped out and headed toward the kitchen. "I believe that you may wish to review this information with the others."

"Sure, throw it up – uh, if Natasha's awake," he added belatedly. Steve wasn't sure if she'd gone back to bed after their 3am wakeup call – but she'd said she had that early meeting.

"I'm here," her voice came over the speaker – JARVIS had hooked her in from wherever she was, then. "Give me a moment to get to a secure location."

"About time you guys called," Clint said, also on speaker, as Steve took a seat at the table. The data that he'd been staring at last night – or, well, a few hours ago – popped up in front of him, exactly as it had been when he'd left it. "Trans-continental flights are the worst."

"Imagine if you didn't have a super-sonic jet," Natasha teased – well, it passed as teasing from her, anyway – before turning back to all business. "Alright, go."

"Unfortunately, I estimate that approximately 98.8% of the data from Mr. Stark's private servers, including my own servers, was fully lost to the Skynet Protocol, and most of the reconstructed data is incomprehensible," JARVIS reported in clinical tones. "I will continue to attempt to find out what the fragments pertain to, but for now, I have found few intelligible items, although I have uploaded the others to your phones for your perusal. Several hours' worth of fragmented video was also recovered, which I have uploaded as well, although most of it appears to be meaningless to me. I believe it would be in your best interests to watch the exceptions now."

"Play it," Natasha ordered.

The screen went black, and then abruptly they were looking at a human arm, one with a two-inch-long, deep cut down the side, a second shallower cut beside it, and a third, more like a scratch than a real cut, right beside that. They were not quite perfectly parallel to each other. A finger, calloused and oil-stained, prodded about them, pulling at the flesh so that the deeper wound gaped open. " – three shows no sign of – " Tony's voice said, cutting out as abruptly as the video cut in. The timestamp had been for four days after the Chitauri invasion.

"Damnit," Steve said softly.

Natasha was frowning; Steve could hear it in her voice when she spoke. "That should have left a scar. JARVIS, send a message to the morgue techs for me. Order them to check again – check everything again. There was nothing in their report about this and I want to be sure they didn't miss anything else."

Steve closed his eyes. The brief soundbyte of Tony's voice was – he sounded so clinical about it. Like it was just another one of his damn experiments, like he wasn't pulling his own arm open. That first cut had been deep. What had given it to him? Who had given it to him? The most likely answer, given the depths and positions, made him feel even sicker.

"Message sent," JARVIS said. "Shall I play the other fragment?"

At Natasha's affirmation, the screen flickered. Mostly it was black and grey static, but in the top right corner Steve thought he could make out something moving, although he wasn't sure what. " – fault," said Tony's voice.

"Sir – " replied the JARVIS in the recording, but his voice was distorted, deepened and filled with static, which grew to the point that no other words could be made out for a few seconds.

By the time the recording cleared up again, it had switched back to Tony. " – trust anybody..." the audio faded again, then recovered, "...watching. They'll have eyes on..." the recording halted.

"More evidence of paranoia, but that doesn't give us much new," Clint observed. "You've got no record of this?"

"No," said JARVIS shortly. Steve winced in sympathy. He tried to imagine what it would be like, finding out that he'd had months of your memory stripped away, and then watching himself saying things that he couldn't recall, doing things that he couldn't recall... it would be enough to give him an entirely new set of nightmares. Did JARVIS have anything equivalent to sleep? Steve resolved to ask at some better time.

"What was the non-video data?" Natasha.

Schematics popped up. In some places they looked incomplete – it wasn't as if parts of them were missing, so much as if they were only sketched out, the details not filled in. But it was enough for Steve to see that they were looking at parts of the armour. Data scrolled alongside them, filled with scientific terms that made no sense to Steve. "These appear to be schematics designed to take best advantage of a new tri-layer outer shell, some of the properties of which are given as shown. The aim appears to be to resist certain broad combinations of radiation, although for what purpose, I am uncertain. The filename was titled Project: Tannhauser."

"Tannhauser." Steve tapped his fingers on the table. The name sounded familiar – why?

"As in Tannhauser Gate?" asked Clint skeptically. "Blade Runner?"

"Quite so, Agent Barton. It is a not-uncommon reference within science fiction circles."

Tannhauser Gate... now Steve remembered. There had been a character, half machine, dying in the rain... Time to die, he'd said.

"If it's related to radiation then we need Bruce to look at it," Natasha interrupted Steve's thoughts before they could get even more maudlin.

"I'll let the doc know when I find him," Clint agreed. "I'll be landing in a few."

"It may be harder than you expect," Natasha warned. "He plays professional hide and seek."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get him. Barton out."

"Steve," Natasha turned her attention to him instead, "You did good work yesterday – I want you to keep on it." There was a pause, and slight background noise, like she was fumbling with her phone. "I need to get back to the meeting. Everyone involved is lawyered up – I don't think anyone is happy with the original Will, even Pepper, and she's the one who's been left everything."

"I thought you said the Will was clear," Steve said, confused. If it was clear, then didn't they have to follow it?

"It's exceedingly clear. It's also worth an exceedingly large amount of money. Tony's got a pissant little cousin, a complete deadbeat, who's managed to find himself some lawyers and claim that it was done under duress, that as the last living Stark, he should be entitled to the share, that it should be overruled because Pepper is also named as the executor..." Natasha sounded frustrated about it, and sour, and Steve felt the sudden urge to punch whoever Tony's cousin was, without even needing to meet the man. Tony was dead, and there was so much they didn't know, and this guy was wasting their time out of greed. If the guy had actually cared at all, Natasha wouldn't have been so harsh – but this had to be making things even harder for Pepper.

"Give him hell for me," Steve said, and he heard a vicious smile in her voice when she replied, "Will do," before hanging up.


From his investigations into the structure of HR, Steve branched out. Whatever had been happening had been happening since the Chitauri invasion – JARVIS had determined that all the fake profiles had been created up in the last six months, the shielding had gone up in the last six months... maybe it had started before then, but the signs they had currently didn't point to that. He looked at transfers, new hirings, firings, where people had been moved and why – Natasha had said that Tony likely needed help on this project, so where was it coming from?

It was slower going than yesterday's work, though, because whereas before he'd been looking for general patterns in position, wage, and hiring date, now he was trying to look at what sort of skillswere being moved around, in fields where he had an extremely limited amount of understanding about what was equivalent, complementary, or completely unrelated. So it was almost a relief when JARVIS interrupted him with a polite, "Phone call for you from Agent Barton."

"Put him on," Steve said immediately.

"Hey kids," Clint's voice said, faux-chipper. "Guess who I found?"

"Bruce is there with you?" Steve asked. "Put him on speaker. Bruce – it'll be good to have you back home."

"Yeah, I, uh. Wasn't thinking very clearly when I left. Sorry," Bruce mumbled from somewhere in the background. "Clint gave me that data that you guys pulled, I've been taking a look at it. I got nothing so far, but I've only just started..."

"Whatever you can find, we'd appreciate," Natasha said, sounding distracted. Steve started; he hadn't realized she'd been added to the call. He wondered how the legal meetings were progressing.

"I, on the other hand, do have results," Clint said smugly.

"You've spent the last couple of hours flying," Steve objected. "Tell me you're paying attention to that."

"Huh? Oh, sure. No, before I left I reassigned my recruits to hooking up with conspiracy theorists."

"Taking the long shot?" Steve could practically hear Natasha raising an eyebrow.

"It pays off sometimes. If we go with the theory that Stark snapped up Lu and Parks, then I was thinking, maybe he grabbed other people – people who would have to help him, who had nowhere else to turn. Well, no verification on those two, but we got a couple of others – and can I say, SHIELD seriously needs to start looking at the number of scientists going off the deep end. Profiles, JARVIS."

Photographs popped up, clustered within larger boxes. The first on the left showed a pretty woman in a lab coat, grey speckled through her brown hair, staring expressionlessly at the camera. Next to that was a series of booking photographs – this time, the woman was in an orange jumpsuit. Text underneath listed the details of her occupation and incarceration, which Steve skimmed as Clint summarized it for them.

"Maya Hansen – triple doctorate in nanoelectrical engineering, computer programming, and neuroscience. She was head of the Extremis Project – one of those pie-in-the-sky, melding-humans-and-technology research groups. Seven years ago her funding was in danger of getting cut due to lack of results, and she tested the project's nanoparticles out by injecting them into a couple of homeless guys, who all died horribly. Apparently she kept working on it while she was in Ryker's, though, right up until six months ago, when she got parole for good behaviour. Which is kinda odd, since the prosecuting lawyer has been insisting lately that she wasn't supposed to be eligible for parole for at least a decade, but all the paperwork said it was fine. She got out... and vanished the next day. There was a warrant out for her arrest for a few days, until that mysteriously went away, too."

"I remember Dr. Hansen," Bruce said, his voice a mix of admiring and horrified. "She was in a similar line of work."

Steve was taken aback. "The super soldier serum?"

"No, she'd given up on the idea of a chemical-biological serum – she went with a nano-mechanical-bio mix. The extremis enhancile was supposed to be a twenty-first century solution to the super soldier problem – or that's what she called it, anyway. It was really far-out-there science, a tonne of computer engineering – same results as what we were looking for, but not the same approach at all. Really – " Bruce broke off, and audibly swallowed. "It... would have been Tony's area of expertise, more than mine."

The pause after that was heavy with meaning. Means, motive, and opportunity – what potential had Tony seen in Hansen's work?

"Take another look at her work anyway," Natasha said, when the silence got to be too much. Her voice was unusually gentle. "It may not be your field of expertise, but you have a far better chance of understanding it than any of us."

"Right, I'll... add it to the list," Bruce muttered dryly.

There was another pause, and then Clint jumped in, only a tad awkwardly. "Hansen popped brightest, but she's not the only scientist gone missing – she's not even the only one missing who worked on extremis. Next guy on the list is Tem Borjigin – ex-pat from Vietnam who moved to Beijing two decades ago and got himself triple doctorates in computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and philosophy. Three years after Hansen got herself thrown in jail, he started corresponding with her – and a job review from the last quarter says that he was in danger of losing his job because he started working on extremis too much. Then three months ago, he vanished completely, and nobody's seen him since. Left most of his stuff behind, too."

"Agent Barton, Mr. Borjigin's background is sending up several flags," JARVIS cut in. "While I do not believe his most recent job history was fabricated, it appears likely that his past before that time is something other than it seems."

"If you found it that fast, then Tony must've, too," Clint said.

"Indeed. The false background looks to be his work. Very shoddy – I suspect deliberately." What did that mean?

"What was his most recent job?" Steve asked, frowning.

"Assistant director for the Makluan Group, a small international research collective looking into using biomechanical nanomachines to repair telomeres."

"They were looking for the secret to immortality," Bruce said, with an air of dawning revelation. "Telomeres – they're why people eventually die of old age, why human cells break down in the end no matter what." He paused. "I'm sensing a pattern here that I'm not sure I like."

"Yeah, well, you're gonna hate the rest of this, then, doc," Clint said. "After Borjigin we got Gina Dyson – she's got doctorate in mechanical engineering, and was an army lieutenant assigned to Project: Ultra-tech, which was what Extremis turned into after Hansen got arrested and they lost all their funding. Her superior officer got mangled up during a live-fire exercise, she tried to use the cybernetics they'd come up with to save his life... it didn't go so well. She got everything in the books thrown at her, and a long stay in Leavenworth – but she'd only served two years of that before she was remanded into civilian prison five months ago – and nobody knows where she actually ended up. She's just gone."

"People search for immortality a lot these days?" Steve asked, but he didn't quite manage to make it come out as a joke. What this what Tony's hologram had been talking about?

"It's always been an interest," Natasha said coolly. She still sounded distracted. Was she trying to pay attention to legal meetings at the same time? Well, she knew her own abilities.

"I'm not sure anyone outside of the true believers takes it seriously, but there's always been those willing to look," said Bruce, sounding uncomfortable. "And every so often they get something that makes them keep their hopes up." That just sounded bitter. Steve sympathized.

"Well, hey, sometimes they're useful. Like this next guy - Gregor Shapanka, he's, uh, familiar to SHIELD. Got himself thrown in prison in Hungary back in '99 when his attempted live demonstration of cryogenics went really, really wrong – he claimed it was an accident that the volunteer got killed, but that just meant he was charged with manslaughter instead of murder. He claimed to have figured it out years later, but of course nobody was going to trust the guy again... SHIELD thought his science was sound, though, they used a lot of it to get you thawed out without brain damage, Steve. Or too much brain damage, anyway."

Steve let a flat silence be his reply. After a moment, Clint coughed, and continued, "Uh. Anyway, he's like the rest – two weeks after the Chitauri invasion, paperwork got filed, he was supposed to be transferred – and he's gone, and nobody seems to interested in looking for him."

"Greased palms?"

"Money smoothes over a lot of problems."

"Great. Anyone else?"

"One other guy – he fits the disappearances, but he's got nothing to do with human enhancement or immortality. Alex Nevsky, he's a Russian scientist, doctorate in materials engineering, been in and out of prisons there his whole life – mostly for anti-government stunts. Five years ago he got himself in deeper than usual trouble with a series of bomb threats. Four months ago, he vanished from the system. I'd make fun of how easy it is to lose a prisoner with Russian bureaucracy to help you out, but it doesn't seem like we're doing any better, so. It could just be the Russians, or it could be another point in our pattern."

"So we've got five missing scientists, and four of them are criminals?" Steve shook his head. "You're right. SHIELD should have caught this."

"Yeah, well, hate to say it, but SHIELD palms get greased just as well as anybody else's," Clint said grimly. "I wonder if we'd find all these guys if I asked Fury to set SHIELD techs to looking."

"Do it," Natasha ordered.

Steve nodded. It would make a decent test. "The hologram he left behind – he said he had 'all the immortality he could handle'," Steve quoted. "Is that... I mean, it was in his file, how much he wanted to leave behind a legacy, but – "

"He has a legacy – the arc reactor. Why would he suddenly start searching for actual immortality?" Bruce asked. He sounded weary, like it was a rhetorical question that it pained him to need to ask.

"Well, he did just meet a couple of immortal aliens," Clint pointed out.

"He's been going grey," Natasha said quietly. Getting grey hairs, slowing down – but he had the suit to compensate for that in combat. Outside of the suit…

None of them wanted to say it, not with Bruce on the line – until finally Bruce said it himself. "Immortality's not the ultimate tie between these projects. It's human enhancement." He sounded calm – too calm. "He's been looking into human enhancement." While Bruce had been working in a lab only a few floors away.

Silence hung over all of them.

"We'll see what else we can dig up from the conspiracy theories," Clint said finally. "Maybe if we can track down one of these missing scientists, we'll get an idea what Tony was really up to."

"Yeah, maybe," Steve agreed, but he wasn't so sure. Tony had rarely played nicely even with SI's R&D department – would he have played any nicer with scientists that he had sprung from prison? Still, anything those scientists knew would be more they did at the moment.

"We'll be at the Tower in about an hour," Clint reported.

"Alright. I've got to go. Bye," Natasha said abruptly.

"Is she okay?" Bruce asked, concerned.

"Agent Romanoff is participating in legal meetings with the board of directors, who are currently concerned about many of the patent rights included in the estate," JARVIS said, sounding displeased.

"Ahh, lawyers," Clint said sagely. "No wonder she's grumpy."

"Indeed."

"Hey, your techs figure out where Tony was sending those messages – from that outside-only computer you said he had?" Steve asked. Maybe if he had an idea about where he should be looking geographically...

"Not yet. Apparently there're just too many trails."

"I have been endeavouring to shed some light on the matter," JARVIS cut in, "but unfortunately I fear that this time Mr. Stark has managed to outwit me."

"Join the club," Steve muttered.

Clint barked a laugh over the comm. There wasn't very much humour in it. "Cheer up, Cap, we've only been at this for two days. If we managed to unravel all the mysteries of Tony Stark that quickly, he'd be rolling over in his grave in shame." There was a pause. "Except that we haven't buried him yet."

In the background, Bruce mumbled, "And people say my sense of humour is terrible."

Steve felt slightly sick. He got it, he did – Clint was a professional sniper, and he'd served his time as a soldier. But trying to joke about a friend's death... "Right. See you when you get here," he said, and cut the connection before he could say anything that he'd later regret.


Skills, transfers, new hires. Had there been more changeover in the Delhi division than was normal? What constituted 'normal' for SI, a company employing hundreds of thousands of workers that had reinvented itself in only a few years? Of course, the more Steve looked, the more he found that the makeover was really just that – a makeover, changing only the surface. Stark Industries had always had massive secondary projects, and although none of them had been larger than the weapons division before Tony's change of heart, all of them put together had been.

"Captain, Dr. Banner and Agent Barton have arrived," JARVIS announced.

Steve wasn't in the mood to greet them. There was something – something in the shift of workers, the movement – JARVIS created spreadsheets for him, which he poured over until his eyeballs ached and his stomach growled and then finally he had to call it quits. On his way to the kitchen, though, he suddenly paused the elevator, surprising himself. "JARVIS," he said, and hesitated again before finally saying, "Uh. The lab."

JARVIS didn't reply aloud. The doors opened almost silently on the correct floor, and Steve stepped out, feeling a sudden wash of trepidation. The last time he'd been here...

The lights in Tony's lab were on.

Steve bit down a wave of anger. If Fury had set up shop here again – but he stepped through the doors and found no SHIELD agents lurking about. The mess was largely still as it had been, although DUM-E and U had been moved, and were now sitting in the middle of the room. Somebody had righted DUM-E, but U was still mostly in pieces, even if they were more carefully laid out than they had been before. Bruce was standing beside them, with one hand on DUM-E's single arm.

"Captain," JARVIS said quietly – not for Steve's benefit, but for Bruce's. The doc looked up at once.

"I, uh, convinced Clint to have his techs hand them back over," Bruce said awkwardly. "They'd finished looking them over for... footage, bugs, anything. But their motherboards, hard drives... Tony knew what he was aiming at."

"Although they themselves were not keyed in to the Skynet Protocol, all backups of their programs were," JARVIS said softly. "Even if Mr. Stark were here, there is nothing that could be done."

"Oh," said Steve, feeling numbed by this new announcement. He'd thought they could just be repaired, rebooted, like JARVIS had been – maybe with a bit more effort, because U would have to be put back together somehow, but he'd thought... they would be okay. Clint had said Tony had killed his kids, but somehow Steve hadn't realized – they were gone, just as surely as any human.

Gone, killed by Tony before Steve had seen him, before he'd let Tony do the same and go blow off his own head. It didn't make any sense, none of it – the fear in Tony's eyes on the recording they'd retrieved from DUM-E, the way he'd panicked... Tony didn't often show affection directly – he teased, he pulled pigtails, and he'd go behind your back and make your dreams come true – but Steve knew love when he saw it, and Tony had loved his robots – and they'd loved him back. Steve had drawn them all, many times, he'd seen it.

That first time that Tony had invited him into his lab, Steve had been nearly bowled over by all the light and colour, playing together in wondrous combinations; he hadn't realized he'd been standing there, staring open-mouthed at the holograms, until Tony had realized Steve was no longer following him and come back to collect him.

"Don't stop at the door, you'll let the science out," he'd said, smiling, and as Steve had trailed after him, he'd felt a bit like he was following the Pied Piper of Hamlin. "Just watch your step – no, dummy, go away, you're useless, I'm not falling for that again, that's probably poison – "

Steve had bristled, mostly out of confusion for the sudden insults, but then he realized that, as distracted as he had been by the holograms floating in the dimly-lit room, he hadn't noticed the robots – two of them, one holding a camera – it bobbed its arm at Steve, who after a moment waved at it awkwardly – and one pressed up against Tony, holding out a glass containing something disgustingly green-grey.

Tony had glanced back over his shoulder. "Right. Steve, meet DUM-E – most useless thing in this room, keeps trying to kill me, I swear to god – and that one over there is U - no, I'm not taking it, you know you're not allowed to mix drinks without JARVIS' supervision – "

But for all that he'd been berating the robot, one hand had settled upon the mechanical arm fondly, like a father's hand on his son's shoulder.

The gripping mechanism on the end of the arm had been blown off by repulsor fire; now it ended in a lump of half-melted metal. "I'm sorry," Steve said, but it seemed such a useless thing to say.

Bruce patted DUM-E's arm and stepped away, still staring sadly at the mechanical remains. It abruptly occurred to Steve that the look on his face had, perhaps, too much sympathy mingled with grief – Bruce wasn't here, in the largest part, for himself. Which meant... he was here for JARVIS, to mourn with him – to grieve for his fallen older brothers, whom everybody else had overlooked.

Rage and guilt and grief itched under Steve's skin, but he made himself stand there, keeping vigil with Bruce, until JARVIS roused himself from silence and announced that Natasha wanted to know if Bruce had made any progress.

"No," Bruce scrubbed at his face with one hand. "Sorry. I'm still doing a lot of background research, a lot of it... really isn't my field." He sighed. "And a lot of it is just useless. I could use some lunch."

"Yeah," Steve agreed, and he accompanied Bruce upstairs.