Deep Cover, Chapter 1
"I don't get it," Tony slurred, waving away the holograms that he'd brought up in front of him. "It doesn't make any sense. J, pull up the autopsy reports."
"Sir," JARVIS protested, somehow managing to sound both sympathetic and disproving at one and the same time. Tony shot a bleary glare in the general direction of one of the AI's sensors.
"Dad's been sober f'two years now though. And he was leavin' on SHIELD business. Th'bastard could'a relapsed, but he ought've known Aunt Peggy'd be on his ass if he came in drunk. Side's, he looked sober enough w'n he left, and I'd've known. There's somethin' else goin' on."
"Regardless of what happened, you should rest, sir. You will be neither productive nor in a stable state of mind until you have ingested some food and allowed your blood alcohol to go down. This matter is not time-sensitive, considering that your parents have already been buried."
"I said pull up the reports! That's an order, JARVIS!" Tony snapped, smacking down his whiskey glass. Amber fluid sloshed over his fingers in his agitation. "I've gotta figure thith out!"
"Sir!"
"Override S4H5R9TYΔ!" Tony managed, waving his hands as he struggled to make the words comprehensible. A new holograph sprang up, followed by another.
"There are two conflicting reports, one of which shows faint suggestions of falsification," JARVIS told him, mechanized tones straining with frustration. "As you are insistent that this matter must be dealt with, I have taken the liberty of bringing up both. May I prevail upon you to rest before you-"
"Mute, J."
The AI's voice cut off abruptly with a faint grinding sound, and Tony reached out to adjust the display with one shaking hand, eyes flicking from one page to the other. Something was not right here, but in his alcohol-induced haze it was taking longer than usual to focus, even with his admittedly genius brain. Damn. Maybe JARVIS had been right. But... "Hold up. Expand tha', will you?"
The AI obligingly expanded the display, a pale green highlight washing over the text which Tony had been pointing at.
"Th'nk you," Tony said distractedly, still staring at the text. "The hell? Where'd these come from?"
A third holographic screen popped up between the others, momentarily displacing them. "As you have not yet unmuted me, I have taken the liberty of communicating via text. The first is the report written up by the coronary. The second is the official SHIELD report. May I suggest that you at least put aside the alcohol and change into dry clothes before you continue your research into this?"
"Oh. Unmute, J." Tony squinted down at the reports again, then set the whiskey glass down on one of his work benches, nearly missing the edge. "What was tha' about dry clothes? I am..." he looked down at himself, suddenly realizing that his AC/DC t shirt was fairly clinging to him with spilled whiskey. "...Not dry. Uh, thanks J," he finished, stripping it off. The air was chilly against his bare chest, so he grabbed a blanket off of the little sofa he kept in his lab for taking naps when he wanted to get away from his family and bundled himself up in it. Then he walked straight back to look at the reports.
His brain was going at about half its normal capacity with the whiskey, but even so, something told him that this was going to be big, that he was going to be opening some cans of worms that were probably going to change everything. Something also told him that this was kind of creepy and definitely not good for his sanity, but he squashed that down at once.
"They...were murdered," he managed dumbly, staring at the SHIELD report. "They were murdered 'n SHIELD covered it up. The coronary's on their payroll, you see that? N' that wasn't caused by a crash- dad woulda' had to have turned the car on its side an banged his head int'a the wall a few times t'cause that, n'no crash ever caused strangle marks."
"Sir," JARVIS began, voice as gentle as it could be.
"I...I don' want to hear it." Tony's voice wavered. "J, make 'n new file and call it Protocol Montoya. Do a deep search on both the people doing the post mortem and the funeral home- they covered mom's neck with a scarf for a reason- she never wore scarves, always wanted to show off her pearls- shoulda known. N'then I want you to hack SHIELD within an inch of its life. Anything tan-tanj- anything related 'n any way, I want it. See if there's any reports of any special projects Dad was doing for them. See 'f they got any reports of a black ops with the names cut from the files. Anything they got, I want it. We're gonna figure this out.
"Yes we are, Sir. And right now, you need to rest so that you will be able to function optimally."
Tony sighed. He did want to rest; now that the adrenaline of his discovery was wearing off a little the whiskey was making the room spin gently around him, and he was so tired... "Jus' a moment, J. Wake me up...at some point..." he staggered up and over to the warm sofa, snuggling into his blanket. "I'll be up...n' a minute. Don' wait up." Amber eyes fluttered and slid shut, and across the lab, the holograms faded away and the lights went off with a little click. And halfway across the country, a man without a name lunged, snarling, at the technician who was trying to "re-calibrate" him, mad with the freedom he could almost taste.