"Never trust anyone, especially the people you admire. Those are the ones who will make you suffer the worst blows." – Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

I. II. 6 April 2014

Engineer Higurashi managed to stumble into a town only two nights later. He knew if he kept heading north from where his secret escape passage let out in the mountains, he would eventually reach the nearby town. But he wasn't that great at camping or roughing it in the woods, and if it hadn't been for the compass built into his watch, he wouldn't have found north at all. The only good thing was that the weather in Washington at this time was about the same as the weather in Tokyo, if just a tad warmer.

He knew his suit was rumpled and ripped, his shoes were missing, and he likely smelled on top of all that from too much sweaty desperation, but he knew no one would really mind out here. In these backwoods, hard labor always left its mark on people. But if his mother knew…

Swallowing that thought and a bit of his pride, he entered into the town's only bar, the only establishment open at this time of evening. And when he sat down at the counter, he took a page out of his sister's book for the first time in years by giving no fucks to the looks that he was given.

And it was with a great deal of begrudging curiosity that the bartender walked down and asked him what he wanted. Only two things were on his mind:

"May I have some water and the use of a phone? I…I got lost and need to see if someone can get me."

Tony Stark sat in his workshop, surrounded by holoprojections of all the S.H.I.E.L.D. files he managed to snag before they were reclassified again by a U.S. Homeland Security taskforce. There was something about the name Higurashi he hadn't been able to shake since Hill mentioned it to him. And before that brat arrived at the tower, he needed to know all he could about him.

Yet, for some godforsaken reason, he couldn't find the name Higurashi anywhere. Under Fury's paranoia, no names were attached to S.H.I.E.L.D. creations to keep the brilliant minds who created them in the shadows. But everyone seemed to know who this Engineer Higurashi was, where he worked (despite the base being so classified it didn't exist in any of the files either), and what he looked like enough to have no problems killing an entire facility to get to him. Even with—

"JARVIS, bring back that last file."

The A.I. rotated the last file back up to center and enhanced it. And there it was, that name. Just that last name. "Run a search for anything involving 'The Index' and 'Higurashi'."

"Of course, sir," the A.I. said. "And, as per your usual request, I held all calls until now. Ms. Potts called earlier and asked you to call her back. Mr. Hogan called as well, saying he has the engineer and they have boarder their flight back here. They should arrive in the morning, as scheduled."

Tony nodded, still staring at the file, trying to figure out what it all meant. "Good. Speed up the search. I want to know everything before they get here. And call Pepper back, let her know I'll be busy until tomorrow night."

JARVIS confirmed as he dismissed the files in front of him. That had been almost a total waste of time, only giving him more questions than he started with. He should have known doing anything for Hill would have come back to bite him in the ass in such a way. Anything to do with S.H.I.E.L.D. had a way of being a pain in his ass, and he was starting to feel that normal, acid reflux/heart burn start bubbling up. Which was why it was now the perfect time to go back to perfecting his newest (and currently, only) suit.

Yet, sooner than he thought given the search terms, JARVIS interrupted.

"Sir, I have what you requested. I could only find one report involving both. I don't believe you'll find anything of use in it. Also, I took the liberty of looking further into the boy's background and could not locate any form of identification for anyone matching his criteria."

Great. More good news. It just kept coming for him. "Bring it up." He attached the forearm and hand armor, flexing the finger joints to make sure he calibrated it correctly. Muscle memory and work was all he needed at the moment to get through all this wonderful news. Especially when he finally looked up at the file JARVIS had found. "Just like I thought. S.H.I.E.L.D. always did love playing with markers."

Aside from the logo and a few select words (Higurashi. Shrine. Burn.), the entire file was redacted. Even the date.

Updated 6 September 2014