AN I love this chapter. I love all the chapters, but this one truly feels like Wesley is part of the larger MCU, now. The possibilities are endless and so are my tears at them not having happened.

and look, AoU doesn't even exist in this universe it's not gonna happen everyone can take a neato vacation in the bahamas instead.

"Dammit! Wesley—Wesley get down here!"

Wesley blinked into his phone, shocked that Tony had already hung up. He was in his suite in Stark Tower (he despised living in New York, but at least he didn't have to pay ghastly prices for some horrible condo with questionable decorating policies), and had just settled in for a quiet lunch. Wesley got up, closing down the article about the shootout in DC the day before. The world had been becoming more and more insane lately, with everything from 'dark elves' destroying London to random vigilantes popping up on the street of New York. It was horrible, but it was almost a little relieving to see an old fashioned police chase through a major city taking the headline.

"What's happening?" he asked JARVIS, skin prickling as he played back Tony's frantic demand. He had sounded edgy in a way Wesley honestly didn't remember hearing before.

"I…feel that it would be best for him to tell you, sir. He's in his workshop," JARVIS said. He sounded hesitant, unhappy but unwilling to explain. Wesley looked up at the speakers in the hall, step catching. He pursed his lips and hurried to the elevator.

Things had balanced out since Killian and AIM. Tony had found proper counseling for his aggressive PTSD, and had sorted out the problems between him and Pepper. He had also decided on a membership with the Avengers, taking things so far as to move to New York. He claimed it was to be more available, but Wesley suspected Tony's motives were to always ensure there was some form of protection for his makeshift little family.

Tony had even offered the tower as a sort of rest stop for the rest of the Avengers, though thankfully they recognized it was a halfway point rather than a superhero hostel. Wesley had by now met and created a mental file for all of the Avengers. Bruce Banner was a frequent guest, awkward but polite every time he appeared. Natasha dropped by without announcing herself, often with an offbeat, sarcastic Clint Barton in tow (Wesley didn't know if she made a point of speaking to him because she enjoyed reminding him that she had managed to trick him, or if she genuinely enjoyed speaking with him. His own opinions on her had yet to fully formulate). Steve Rogers was every bit as bold as in the legends, though he had a penchant for daredevilry and a shockingly filthy mouth (the army, it seemed, was no more mild in the 40s). Even Thor had appeared once or twice, though Wesley personally found him a bit loud and a little too friendly.

Had Tony called any of them, yet? What kind of crisis was this; one that needed a lawyer or one that needed an Avenger?

Wesley stepped out of the elevator, jaw hurting from clenching it the entire five story ride. This floor was dominated by an expanded version of Tony's Malibu workshop. Different mechanical stations spread against the walls, with a small kitchen and bathroom nestled off to the side. Normally, things were quite orderly. Now it looked like there had been a mini explosion.

Tony was working frantically, fiddling with something on a worktable. He kept jumping between things like he couldn't decide what needed to be done, picking up tools, pushing aside blueprints, expanding and shrinking holographs above his desk.

"Mr. Stark?" Wesley asked. He edged a little closer, dread tightening his stomach.

Tony snapped his head up, a tense look of relief on his face. He jumped to his feet, almost sending the contraption on his lap to the floor. "Wesley! Good! I need your help, you gotta tell me what I can—all the suits are gone, I barely even have pieces left—"

"Sir, sir, what's going on?" Wesley asked, cutting over Tony's babbling. He raised his hands, a gesture that both signaled peace and tried to push Tony's panic to the floor.

Tony whirled back to his desk, hands grabbing up the machine—gauntlet?—he had set aside. "Did you see the news?"

"Yes, why—"

"It just happened, I just found out this morning. I should have checked sooner, I've had it for years—"

"Sir," Wesley said, almost yelling over Tony. "Stop. Tell me what's happening."

Tony braced his hands against his desk. He let out a breath, deflating slightly. Wesley finally noticed Dum-E and one of Tony's newer robots in the corner, welding something together. It looked like the skeleton of a new suit.

"When…when I was called in to help the Avengers against Loki, I hacked SHIELD," Tony began. His voice was eerily low, dropping in pitch like he couldn't drag up the energy to speak normally. "But after everything happened, I didn't get to look at the files. I tucked them away for a rainy day. Then—then there was the not sleeping, making all of the new suits, AIM, Pepper…I just forgot. Forgot I had it. Then I found it a while back and decided to flip through. I've been working on it for a while, sorting through everything for a couple of weeks whenever I had time. It didn't seem like much, not yet, not until I looked deeper and—Wesley, we've had it all wrong."

"Mr. Stark, I don't—"

Tony turned back around, and the hopelessness in his expression made Wesley's stomach drop away completely.

"HYDRA," he whispered. "Somehow, HYDRA…they've grown inside SHIELD. I didn't understand it at first, but…it just…it's all HYDRA."

"HYDRA?" Wesley asked. His mouth suddenly felt dry. "I don't understand."

"From what I read, it was part of Operation Paperclip. Y'know, where they brought Nazi scientists to help build bombs to kill the commies." Tony tried to force a smile as he spoke. He looked ill. "Some of them were HYDRA. And then…they laid down roots where no one was looking."

"So what can we do? Why did you call me, why didn't you call Fury? Do you think he's a part of it?"

"I don't know. I don't think so? I don't know." Tony sat down, placing his head in his hands. "Some key players in SHIELD definitely are. I don't even know how many people—shit, I worked with these people. And they—I still can't—"

"What about the Captain?" Wesley asked. He had to prioritize, he had to keep himself in check. His job was to handle the catastrophes, and this…this was the biggest one yet. "Does he know?"

"I can't reach him," Tony said. His eyes looked dead. "Him and Natasha, they're the ones on the ground in DC but I can't find them. Fury's dead, the rest of the Avengers are hell knows where, and I can't make one damn suit fast enough."

"Hold on, hold on," Wesley said, raising his hands. "We know now, we can make a plan. They don't know about us, right?"

"Not that we know, no."

"So there's no need to panic," Wesley said. Even as the words left his mouth, he knew that wasn't true. Tony wasn't a man to shut down in a crisis. There had to be something else, something that had happened to—

"Did you see the news today?" Tony repeated.

"Yes, I was just reading it."

"The shooting. In DC."

Wesley tightened his hands into fists, the pieces clicking together even as Tony spoke.

"Right in the middle of the road. Everyone thought it was a madman being pursued by the police, but they were all just hitmen in cop cars."

"Who were they chasing?"

Tony shook his head. "Nick Fury."

Wesley sucked in a breath. "How do you know this? Did someone contact you, or-"

"I hacked SHIELD again," Tony said. There was no passion in the words. "I was waiting on the suit and some of the things I was reading didn't make sense, so I got into the system again."

"The hitmen, did they…?"

"No, he escaped. But last night—last night a sniper caught him. He was at Rogers' place, and when they got him to the hospital…he died on the table. Here," he whispered, waving his hand through one of the holographs. The file dragged down to reveal another one. It was a file on a single person, Wesley assumed, a lethal, grizzled looking soldier with long hair and a metal arm. "This was the assassin they sent after him. He's all over the HYDRA files, the big guns for big problems. Fury...he didn't have a chance."

Wesley flicked through the page, stomach tightening. This couldn't be true. No...this couldn't be true. Aliens and mutants, fine, but this... Brainwashing, freezing, and then mind wiping a man for seventy years? All so he could be the world's best assassin? Wesley wasn't actually surprised, but still. It felt too barbaric for words. The most alarming part, though, were Howard and Maria Stark's pictures at the bottom.

Wesley froze, then made himself read the lines around their pictures. His stomach flipped at the words opposition and threat and terminated.

He locked his knees, forcing himself to stand straight. So the car crash that had killed Tony's parents had been orchestrated. By HYDRA. Which was still very well and alive. And they had killed Fury. And the only people who knew for sure were him and Tony.

"And you think—"

"They're cleaning shop. Something happened, someone's figured out there's a leak and I can't help!" Tony slammed his hand on the desk as his spoke, all of his pent up terror and guilt and anger breaking through. "I can't help them, James! This isn't something I can half-ass my way through like last time! This is one of the strongest policing forces on earth, I can't go against them with a few homemade trinkets and some determination! Tell me what I can do, tell me there's something I can do."

Wesley looked him in the face. He had been with Tony for nine years, and he had always told him the truth. It had never been an official policy, simply something that happened. Wesley handed out lies for a living, spinning things in whatever direction was needed. Even previous employers hadn't been spared his gossamer deceptions, accepting that the truth wasn't the most important thing in a successful business partnership. But with Tony…every time Wesley considered a lie, he found himself telling the truth. More than anything, Tony deserved the truth. And now, even though he was begging Wesley to lie and say things would be fine, Wesley knew he could not.

"You can't take SHIELD, or HYDRA, on by yourself."

"If Killian hadn't—"

"Tony. You couldn't do it even with all your suits. This isn't something one person can fix."

"Then what's the point of being Iron Man?!" he yelled, throwing the gauntlet across the room. It crashed into a shelf and landed on the floor. The hollow, devastating bangs made the room feel sickly empty. Even that didn't have anywhere near the intended effect.

"This is beyond anyone."

"I promise you Rogers is out there right now, fighting tooth and nail," Tony grumbled. He dropped into a chair and ran a hand over his face. "If there's air in his lungs, he will be fighting this. That's got to be why he's off the grid, there's no way he and Natasha...that's got to be it."

Wesley took in a breath and didn't let himself dwell on the possibility that HYDRA had finally killed Captain America.

"I'm sure there is something you can do. Attacking HYDRA outright is too risky, you know that."

"…Yeah," Tony admitted.

"If we out them, if there's some weak point to find, we'll find it. But if they're in SHIELD, they have to be in everything else. Every major organization that's come into contact with either Germany or America in the last eighty years…" Wesley worked his jaw. He hated saying it. "You can't trust them."

Tony tossed him a look, a twisted smile on his face. "Yeah? And where's that leave you?"

Wesley laughed and shook his head. "I'm freelance. I go up for auction and then I'm loyal to the highest bidder."

"And after?"

Wesley gave Tony a long look. The smile was gone from his face when he spoke. "I'm with you until the day I die, Tony. You know that has nothing to do with a paycheck."

Tony squeezed out a smile that was almost genuine. He mouthed 'thank you', like maybe he was too tired to make his voice work properly. He glanced away, eyes settling on the holographic file he had pulled up for Wesley. His eyes looked distant, even as he focused on the clean cut face of James Barnes. He looked older the longer he stared.

"It's a messed up world we live in," he whispered. "Best friend of Captain America sent to do Russia's dirty work. That's not even something you can blame on heroes changing things. That's just politics."

Wesley looked at the ground. There wasn't much more he could say to that.

"He killed my mom," Tony whispered, voice breaking ever so slightly.

Wesley watched him, then sat down on the edge of the desk. Neither one of them said anything as he put a hand on Tony's shoulder. There wasn't much to say, or even do, for that matter. This was just a waiting game, plain and simple. And even though they both weren't exactly good at waiting, at least they didn't have to do it alone.