Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"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 coroner. 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 coroner'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. 

Chapter Text

The Asset was activated in the midst of a cacophony of angry voices. Its joint rotation was far from optimal parameters, and imperfect ocular function was making it difficult to locate its Handler, but then that was normal according to its limited memory. The method of storage impeded functionality, especially after long periods, but it was usually quick to recover so that it might be in good condition when it was deployed. Any moment now, if it had not maneuvered itself out of its tank, it would be dragged, and its Handlers shouldn't have to touch it unless it was malfunctioning, so it leavered itself up and clambered out of the tank as best it could with stiff and spasming appendages. It promptly collapsed on the smooth, slick concrete below it, releasing a near-soundless grunt, (more of surprise than anything else, as the pain was not anywhere near the threshold that represented serious damage). It felt much weaker and more inept that it should have, and that, besides the fact that there was no Handler beside it to prepare it for functionality was the first indicator that something must be seriously out of proper procedure. It tried to rise, but its legs were too unsteady to carry it, and it only fell again. This one attempt, however, had told it much: it was not in the usual Siberia base, which meant that this was likely a long-term displacement (the Asset's tank was only moved if it was going to be relocated), and the absence of the Handlers could have meant a lot of things. Perhaps its Handlers had died prematurely, leaving it unable to activate the sub-imprint protocols the way it would if there was to be a change in Handler position, and so they were waiting until it was contained and ready for recalibration. Perhaps it had been taken by the enemy. Perhaps--

"Enough!"

The Asset immediately stilled, mind going blank, senses fixating on the voice. Its Senior Handler, Designation:Karpov, was here, and it didn't need to think. It waited for the reprimand it knew would come, tensed its body in a useless preparation for a blow or a booted foot in its ribs, but this time, it seemed, Designation:Karpov was not addressing it. Something nameless deep within it eased at that realization. 

"There is no excuse to be made for this," Designation:Karpov snapped from somewhere beyond the storage room where the Asset and its tank were being kept, boots scraping over the floor as he approached. The sounds accompanying him suggested at least three others with him, probably subordinates due to their more nervous footsteps, and evidently they had breached protocol, as Designation:Karpov continued to speak. The door crashed open, shuddering on its metal hinges, and the Asset promptly struggled to attention and stilled again, waiting for orders. Gunmetal grey eyes followed the Handler as he stalked over and smacked one meaty hand down on the top of the Asset's tank.

"Look at this!" he snarled, accent thick in anger and spittle flying.

The Asset flinched nearly imperceptibly, but luckily Designation:Karpov was not watching it.

"I should have you shot as a traitor to the cause," he went on, wiping a stray trickle of coolant from the side. "Do you see this? Ruined, I tell you! Not even Herr Zola could fix it."

"C-couldn't we replac--"

"The blueprints are destroyed! You know that, don't you, that they were burnt in the wake of Project Raptor? You were briefed as a Junior Handler, weren't you, Rollins? Not even one of the extant cryopods can be relocated, not while they are filled, and even if they could, I would never sign off on it, not after the mess you made of this one!" He stared back at the tank, beady eyes dark with rage. "You've required the Asset to be activated two months ahead of schedule, which will mean that we will have to arrange for long-term shelter, food, and enrichment, in a base that does not have the kind of resources needed to maintain that for longer than a few weeks. It will in addition prove a security risk if it malfunctions or becomes violent from inactivity. We will also have to perform more frequent wipes, since we no longer have the option of putting it in cryo-storage, and that will mean we risk damaging it, if it is not already damaged from being held in a broken cryopod! And if you damaged the Fist of Hydra through your idiocy and mishandling, you can be sure I will not be taking the fall for it."

Designation:Karpov straightened. "Right. Petrov! Sarkissan! Out of my sight. Rollins, you said you wanted to be a real Handler? Watch, we'll see if you have the guts." 

It was then that he turned his attention to the Asset, pulling a little stained book from the pocket of his heavy coat. “Soldat!"

The Asset straightened under his gaze. Perhaps if it was good, if it demonstrated its readiness…

“Zhelaniye,” Designation:Karpov began, now reading from the little blood-colored book in his hands. The Asset drew in a quick inhalation, its respiratory system seeming to malfunction a little. “Rzhavyy,” Why was the Asset’s pulse quicker than optimal parameters? “semnadtsat, rassvet, pech,” the Asset’s appendages were shaking now, though it couldn’t find an origin to this irregularity…”devyat, dobroserdechnyy,” its memory files were becoming inaccessible, its logical subroutines becoming more and more incoherent “vozvrashcheniye na rodinu,” its perceptions seemed suddenly to shift, the entirety of the unfamiliar place narrowing to just Designation:Karpov “odin, gruzovoy vagon.”

The Asset looked blankly at Designation:Karpov, all other details fading away, even the room, and Junior Handler Designation:Rollins standing somewhere behind him. “Ya zhdu prikazaniy,” it said, waiting for orders.

Designation:Karpov smiled, sending an odd little quiver through the Asset. It was not beneficial to its functionality when Designation:Karpov smiled, as that gesture was only extended to the Asset in three circumstances: before a difficult mission, before training, and before recalibration. “Soldat, gotev podchinit’sya?”

The Asset did not fully understand: it had already demonstrated its willingness to comply, after all, but the Asset wasn’t there to think, and this call-and-response was fairly deeply ingrained in its files, from as long as it had served Designation:Karpov. “Ya gotov podchinyat'sya,” it responded, then waited. Soon it would be at full capacity, better able to serve. Designation:Karpov smiled again, then turned back to the man behind him. "That is how you ready the Asset, Rollins. I have done it for you the first time, but, in the future, when you are running your own missions, you will not have the luxury of waiting for me to do it for you. It will comply; it does not need a wipe at this time. You are to find it some sort of lodgings; it does not need much, as the enhancements will allow it to stay functional without the need for heated rooms, and such; all it needs is a blanket and something to bar the doors, as well as the formula made to give it all the nutrients it needs. We do not have much of that at this base, but I will send for more and show you how to mix it in the meantime. It will also need enrichment, but we will come to that when we come to it. Go, get it settled in."

"Sir?"

"What did I just say? You wanted to 'do something, now that I've graduated'. Congratulations, you are doing something. Don't worry, I will be back to check on you and make sure you haven't made any more little 'mistakes'..."

"Sir yes sir," Designation:Rollins said shakily. "Uh, how do I get it to come with me?"

Designation:Karpov huffed. "Tell it to follow you, and if it doesn't, drag it by its harness, like this," he said, demonstrating. "If it tries to fight you you may either tranq. it or hit the kill-switch in its arm; non-lethal measures only or I will not be the only one wanting your head."

Designation:Rollins turned towards the Asset. "Right. Follow me, Soldier."

The Asset blinked heavily at him once, processing. "Da, Obrabotchik," it said, knowing that the newer Handlers were generally more reassured by fully verbal responses; it had read its own files and reports in order to more properly guide the newest and most untrained in the fold. It was old, after all, and while it was still perfectly functional for missions, they sometimes took it out of the tank to train other soldiers, or even Handlers, as it was less violent with allies than were its younger, more unstable compatriots. It followed that up with the English "Yes, Handler," when Designation:Rollins still looked unsure, then shakily followed as Designation:Rollins lead it out of the storage room.

Behind it, Designation:Karpov was reporting to his superiors: "...to Pierce and tell him that the cryostasis pod did not survive the transport from the Siberia Base to the Ideal National Savings Bank. The Asset appears undamaged, and is fully responsive to orders beyond lingering weakness, and does not need a wipe at this time. It will be at full capacity in…oh…about a week. We should be able to rebuild the pod, but in the interim it can be used to help train our operatives when he is not on a mission.”

Designation:Rollins consulted a few of the other agents  and then fumbled through the reports in his hands. "Um, ok," he said, leading it out in the direction of the washrooms. "You are at liberty to relieve yourself."

The Asset quietly did so, then returned to his side. It seems that for all his hard looks, Designation:Rollins was not suited to be a Handler, and had not been trained well in addition. And he didn't speak Russian. Taking orders in English didn't bother the Asset much, as it understood twenty-nine languages, but it would mean that it had to focus on speaking so as to accommodate him, and speaking English tended to make the Asset's head malfunction. "Ok, so, 'at ease, you are permitted to relax'." The Asset went into parade rest behind Rollins. Hunger was beginning to make itself known in its belly, but the Asset was trained to ignore such things, and its enhancement meant that it could survive a long time without sustenance, which was one of the reasons it was such a good Asset.

Designation:Rollins then proceeded to walk away. The Asset hesitated, discrepancies in its programming bubbling up. It should follow its Handler, but its Handler had told it it was to be at ease, which meant that all previous orders (save for the longstanding ones such as Missions and Handler Assignments) were wiped, including the command to follow, and its Handler had not given it new orders, which meant that according to previous programming it was to remain here until more orders were received. On the one hand, its training subprotocols told it that it should make Designation:Rollins aware of this breach in procedure so that it might be better able to obey his commands; on the other hand, it should not presume to question its Handler, even if it was only a Junior Handler. Only Designation:Karpov's orders could override Rollins' now.

And so it stood there in silence, in parade rest, watching as the surrounding HYDRA agents shied away from it as they saw it. The reactions gave it a strange little twinge of something warm, even if it felt...exposed and uncertain with their eyes and their careless comments. The Asset tensed a little, as if Designation Karpov were going to come upon it any minute. It shouldn't be having anomalous feelings, especially so soon after the ice. It knew it ought to report the feelings, but they probably weren't going to impede functionality all that much. And it didn't want to go in for recalibration. The Asset flinched, just a little. It shouldn't be wanting anything at all, and that, right there, meant that it really couldn't put off reporting the feeling to its Handlers. It filed the thought away for later consideration and forced itself to keep alert. If it had not been given the "at ease", it would be checking perimeters right now, making sure everything was secure. But as of now it just stood there, trying to ensure security as best it could without moving from the spot, ears alert for every scrap of passing conversation, even if it didn't like the agents talking about it.

"Creepy f*ck"

"Wonder what he's doing here without a Handler"

"Waiting for a Handler, duh"

"I hear that Karpov has better things to do than corral his Soldat these days"

"I heard Rollins is gonna take over the basic duties. Personally I don't believe it; everyone knows Karpov likes having the Fist of Hydra as his little b*tch"

"I hear Karpov has his eye on the Presidency. Can't go into politics with a dead-eyed assassin following you around like a puppy..."

"Wish he would quit looking at me. Feel like I'm his next target."

"Maybe you are. He must be batshit crazy now, if he was ever sane. Under ice for thirty years...."

"Wish its Handler would come and collect it. I don't want to be taking a piss with it right outside the door."

"Aww leave the guy alone. It's not his fault Karpov can't be arsed to pick him up..."

It seemed a long amount of time (longer than the usual assassination mission, but shorter than an intelligence mission or stake-out) when the Asset was abruptly snapped out of its vigil.

"Soldat!"

The Asset jerked back to attention. It was Designation:Rollins, with Designation:Karpov behind him. "Come," he barked, and led it back through the winding corridors of the base, the Asset consigning each and every turn and sign to memory as it went; it would need to know the layout of the base in case of an emergency. At last they came to a small, relatively plain room, and the Handlers stopped there, and told it that this would be its new quartering place. It was then fed-- a thick, tasteless fluid that eased the ache in its hollow stomach-- and the doors closed and barred behind it.

The Asset stood there in the middle of the new storage place for a long time, staring back at the doors, and then made a quick security and perimeter check (there wasn't much to check) before going down to do its exercises; it would doubtless need to stay fit for subsequent missions, regardless of this strange discrepancy in procedure, and besides, it was feeling uneasy without its mask and favorite pistol. It had never spent so long out of cryo without having been given a mission before, and so it resolved that it had best give itself one: it would inform its Handlers with full transparency the following morning, or whenever it was collected, and then they could override it if they wanted, but the Asset needed a mission. After it had completed every one of the exercises it knew (in sets of 100, twice) it did another perimeter check and then resolved to wait for its Handlers. Before long, however, the weakness that always plagued it for a few days after cryo became too much for it. It knew it was likely going against implicit orders (the Asset required direct orders or bedstuffs before its programming permitted it to sleep) but its Handlers would also doubtless prefer it at full functionality. At least that is what it told itself as it curled up on the chilly floor, although it knew full well that it was giving credence to its feelings again, and that it would risk severe discipline for a few moments of uninterrupted rest.

Chapter Text

Something was poking him. Tony shifted blearily, then raised himself to one elbow, only to immediately regret the movement when both his head and his stomach violently protested the movement. "J, lights," he called, and the AI charitably cut the brightness down to 40%, reducing the headache from sheer agony to the equivalent of a rather rigorous game of ping-pong in his skull.

Wait. Where the hell was he? Howard hadn't let him install JARVIS anywhere but his own room and the lab, both of which he normally wouldn't be sleeping in unless there was no other option. Tony cautiously let his eyes side open again, to see the familiar layout of his bunker lab around him, every surface covered with projects and the floor littered with empty bottles. Well, damn. He wasn't exactly the type to drink alone, but his back was aching in a way that was definitely a product of sleeping on his broken-down thrifted couch rather than more...fun activities, and it wasn't like he would be taking any starlets or models into his private sanctum anyway. So what had happened? And that was when everything came rushing back. 

He was halfway to an anxiety attack when something (DumE, apparently) poked him again, something almost like worry in the tilt of the bot's hand, and while it wasn't enough to derail the panic completely, it certainly helped. 

"DumE, Daddy's fine," he managed, giving the bot a shaky smile. "Just...just give me a minute here."

DumE backed up on his treads, hand tilting inquiringly, and, evidently alerted by the movement, U and Butterfingers (yes, his names were stellar thank you) zoomed over. U promptly shoved something in his lap. He pushed it out of the way, already trying to get up. He had to solve this! He could baby the bots later! U shoved whatever it was back into his lap again.

"U, sweetheart, I'm kind of busy right now, give me a minute."

U shoved the object back into his lap again. He picked it up, glancing at it, and...oh. It was a bottle of aspirin. Apparently his bots knew him better than he did. 

"Thanks, U," he managed, unscrewing the cap. Butterfingers promptly rolled over, holding a plastic water bottle in both claws so that he wouldn't drop it, as he'd never had the kind of coordination that the other bots did. Tony dry-swallowed the pills and chased them with a swig of water, then leaned over so that he could rub the bots' struts with trembling hands. 

He gave himself a few minutes to play with the bots and let the aspirin kick in before he finally managed to focus again.

"Morning, Jarvis." It was not, couldn't be, a good morning, but that was close enough for now. "Can I get a briefing?"

"Greetings Sir," JARVIS replied. "I would hope that you slept well, but the likelihood of that is less than 2%, so I simply wish that you will feel better soon, Sir. It is approximately 10:17 in the morning, the weather is mostly clear, and you have 47 missed calls and 119 unread messages. You also have several meetings and conferences to attend, and there is the matter of the company, and the funerals, and your patrimony."

Tony huffed out a long breath, then forced himself to get up. He could grieve on his own time; now he had to get to work.

"Right. What's first on the docket?"

"You have a press conference at 11:00, Sir, and unless you have already prepared a statement, you might want to do that, as I do not have great faith in your scriptwriter, and considering past data, your off-the-cuff performance is likely to result in a stock drop."

"You're not wrong. Wait, did you say 11:30 or 11:00?"

"11:00 a.m., Sir."

"Shit. That's in 43 minutes."

"Yes it is, Sir. A good start might be to get dressed in something suitable; your driver will be here in less than half an hour."

"I'm screwed, aren't I."

"I wouldn't got that far, Sir. You may want to pick up the pace, however."

Normally Tony might have made some crack about being maligned by his own creation, but he definitely wasn't feeling it this morning. "Yeah. Thanks, J."

"Always, Sir."

Tony was not actually late, but it was very close for a minute or so there. His car skidded into the parking lot a mere fifteen minutes before showtime, and he barely had enough time for Linda, the Stark family makeup artist (his makeup artist, he reminded himself dismally, as he was the only Stark left), to make the bruises under his eyes go away and (somehow) manage to make him look amazing despite him still feeling like warmed-over crap. He'd definitely have to give her a raise. He made it onto stage in record time and with a watered-down version of his usual press smile, and managed some bullshit about grief and legacy and how Howard Stark had been a great inventor and a loving father (ha!) and Maria Stark had been a philanthropist and an a pianist and a mother as well as the wife of a great man, and how despite the blow that was his parents death he had full confidence in his father's COO Obadiah Stane to show him the ropes and help him make his father's company and legacy even greater. 

It was all fake. The press would never know or care that his mother had liked to paint, or that his father had cared more for an obsolete science experiment than his own son-- well, actually, they would care about the latter, but only inasmuch as they could make bank on the exposes they'd write. Tony was so goddamned tired of the fake condolences! None of these people knew his parents; how dare they!

It was finally over, and Obie came over to clap him on the shoulder and tell him that he was proud of him for holding up, but Tony couldn't bear the stinging sympathy, and wormed his way out of Obie's somewhat stiff attempt at a hug and headed out with the excuse of a meeting with the SI board. To be fair, he did have a meeting. The entire rest of the day was meetings, in fact, meetings and paperwork and trying to talk to people who gushed condolences and hung on his every word so that they could ingratiate themselves with the new Stark heir, and just general shit which he'd been trying to avoid for years by going back to college for post grad over and over (ok, arguably three doctorates had been a little excessive, but he was Tony fucking Stark, and anyone questioning it underestimated both his own thirst for knowledge and his desire to avoid bureaucratic stuff like this).

By the time he got home it was completely dark (except for the light pollution) and all he wanted to do was curl himself up into a blanket burrito, but he'd put off trying to do any more investigation into his parents' murder all day, and he had to figure this out. 

With JARVIS's help, it didn't take long to make an algorithm that would dig for any information, no matter where he had to pull it from or how encrypted it was. It really shouldn't have surprised him that the first real information came straight from the SHIELD database.

He'd always been suspicious of SHIELD, no matter what Howard had said. Just because his father had helped found it didn't mean it was still above board after 46 years, if it had ever been completely above board. It was a quasi-legal alphabet soup organization with a classified budget which still hadn't been declassified (he would know, as he'd hacked into the Pentagon on a dare when he was fourteen and, since then used to hack into various government databases every year on the anniversary, to see if he still had his chops) and it had its fingers in so many pies it'd probably caused mass food poisoning at one point. Not to mention that there was evidence that it had probably helped overthrow the governments of various other countries, not all of which needed to be taken out. Well, if he'd been suspicious before, that was just a drop in the bucket compared to now. Apparently Aunt Peggy, still Director despite her age (and probably the only reason SHIELD hadn't devolved into a terrorist organization) had tried to get Howard to retreat to a safehouse with Tony and his mother, and had practically threatened him at his refusal, saying that it would be his own fault if something happened to his family. Tony also learned that Howard had synthesized some sort of compound whose name was redacted even in the classified and double-encrypted files, and he was supposed to have taken seventeen bottles of whatever the substance was to DC the night of the "accident". Which meant that there was just another possible reason for the murders. A bit more hacking revealed that said substance was apparently a knock-off super soldier serum-- what the hell??? Howard had been carting that goddamn stuff around with his wife in the car, what the fuck! He had to have known that there was a possibility of an attack, especially with Director Carter herself trying to warn him.

And that was when he found the video. It was more heavily encrypted than anything else Tony had hacked yet, but he was a damn genius, with an artificial intelligence on his side, and it only took an hour to crack it. 

"Sir, you may not want to watch this alone," JARVIS began, freezing the screen before anything had even happened, but Tony muted him and forcibly turned it back on, led by some sort of grim, dismal curiosity. It was not hard to imagine the content, after all.

It was a snowy road, in the evening, and Tony watched in grim horror as a dark shape raced up behind his father's favored Cadillac Eldorado and overtook it, slashing the front tire as it went and then skidding in the snowy gravel with a screech of tires, turning around to approach the car, which had spun out, swerving off-road and smashing into a tree with a sickening crunch. Howard crawled from the car, eyes glazed and desperate, and begged the spectre to "help...my...wife...help my wife," then deliriously mumbled something that Tony couldn't catch. The masked figure punched his face in, instead, and Tony had to look away, dimly aware of the figure shoving his father back into the car. The assassin then strangled his mother to death while he tried desperately to ignore the flickering screen and the desperate choking noises. Then he beat in the trunk of the car, removed a briefcase, and shot out the nearby surveillance camera before presumably fucking off to rendezvous with whoever was paying him to get the serum.

Tony was going to throw up. Actually, no, he was going to throw up, and then he was going to find and murder whoever thought they could kill his parents and get away with it.

"Jarvis?"

"Sir," JARVIS tried to soothe. "Take a deep breath. Do you want me to call Colonel Rhodes?"

"N-no. Rhodey doesn't need to get caught up in all this. No, I need you to find whoever that was, yesterday."

It took another four hours even to find a hint of an answer. Facial recognition turned up nothing, most of the SHIELD data was tangential, talking about the murder of the elder Starks in terms of collateral, and there was pretty much nothing else, while although Tony did discover the existence of several SHIELD assassins, none of them matched the size and build of the one in the video. In the end, it was the metal arm that proved a breakthrough. Tony (against JARVIS's recommendation) had been obsessively watching and rewatching the video (he'd already been traumatized by it anyway, maybe another viewing would give him some clues) when he noticed the light flashing dully on the assassin's literal prosthetic arm. A few more searches, this time specifically searching only for known assassins with metal arms, turned up only one name. The Winter Soldier. Or, as some decades-old files called him, "The Fist of Hydra".

Well, fuck.

So apparently Hydra was still around, even if Captain America was supposed to have destroyed them right before he put that plane full of bombs down in the ocean and ended WW2. Fucking typical, apparently his father's precious golden boy couldn't even kill Hydra right, and yet somehow Howard still cared more about him than his own so-- no. Tony's not going there tonight. He had enough of a pile of shit to dig through without adding his own insecurities on top of that, and it might just be a one-off, a Hydra operative with a chip on his shoulder going off on anyone tangentially related to taking down his comrades before. (Although, if that was the case, was Tony next on the list?)

Spoiler alert, it was not a one-off. Apparently not only was Hydra still extent, they had their creepy-ass tentacles in almost every part of the government, and the only reason they hadn't seriously infiltrated SHIELD is...probably because they knew Director Peggy Carter would kick their asses no matter how old she is. Even bigger fuck. This wasn't just a lone operative or even a small terrorist cell that he could report to the police or the FBI or to SHIELD; this was Hydra, the creepy cult slash offshoot of the Third Reich which had been honestly more of a threat than the plain old Nazis, since they were Nazi cultists with access to weapons that literally dissolved people into dust. This was too big for one person, even Tony Stark himself, to even think about handling.

Right?

Tony stewed in between the meetings and paperwork required to take over his company, and during the will readings, and even during the funerals themselves. He scribbled coded shorthand notes to himself during branch inspections and meetings with clients, explaining it away with the airy "inspiration strikes whenever" attitude that only rich white inventors with a history of being eccentric can pull off. He almost lost a tentative merger with a branch of Fujikawa Industries because he was busy plotting, and he had several military contracts which probably would have failed if he had not explained away his inattention by claiming bereavement. He mechanized the entirety of Stark Manor, and put so many security measures in place that it would probably be about ten times easier to break into Fort Knox than to get in without permission, and he finally did what he had wanted to (and begged Howard to let him) do ever since he had made JARVIS and hooked the AI up so that he could run the mansion. He also, of course, put plenty of analogue measures in place (in case he was hacked-- he had full confidence in his own firewalls and cybersecurity, as he coded it, after all, but he was up against freaking Hydra). In the end, it probably could have withstood an actual nuke, not that he would have wanted to test that. He drew up plans for a new mansion in Malibu and an enormous tower in Manhattan, both in case he needed bases, and built them, then bought up and stocked multiple safehouses everywhere there was a branch of SI (and some where there weren't, just for variety). 

After that, he didn't have so much time for thinking. It turned out running an actual fortune 500 company was a lot of work, even more than he'd anticipated (and he'd been trained for this his whole life; it wasn't like he was going in blind. He had to give speeches, for one thing, and he was not exactly a great orator, but he was passable, and like hell was he going to hire a speechwriter; he didn't want anyone putting words into his mouth. And there was so many things he wanted to design and pitch to the Board, and so many things he had to design, like weapons, because SI was still the biggest name in the warmongering business and the stock would go down if the Board didn't have their precious Stark weapons branded and patented and the current R&D team was so underfunded one would be hard-pressed to buy takeout with their entire budget (which also had to be remedied). 

It was not long before he also started to get suspicious of Stark Industries itself. He was going over the accounts one day in an attempt to escape his Hydra problem in a slightly more healthy way than drinking, since he'd been trying to stay dry since that bender the day after his parents' death, and he'd run across a number of shipments which had all been sent out to an abandoned SI warehouse over a period of three years, all of which named nonsensically or referencing products that SI hadn't produced for decades.

Something was going on, and it seemed like he had corruption in SI to take on before he even thought about trying to tackle Hydra. Suddenly he couldn't trust anyone, except for JARVIS and Rhodey.

Stark Industries was mostly still producing weapons, at the time, so Tony contrived to attach trackers to a few batches of several different kinds of products, and waited. Wonder of wonders, while all of the phones and most of the weapons went where they were supposed to go, a substantial portion of the weapons (mostly bombs or military-grade shells and guns) somehow ended up being marked "defective" and then being shipped off to said warehouse. Not only was the percentage substantially greater than the percentages of defective weaponry in the past, it was also only out of the most dangerous weapons that SI made, the kind of things that were only available to the US Military (and select allies, on a good day).

The simplest solution at the time seemed to be shutting down weapons manufacturing entirely, but after thinking it over Tony realized that that kind of PR bombshell was probably just what would get him shut out of his own company, so instead he ramped up production of products that were not weapons (Starkphones and prosthetics and so on) and then, in a dramatic press conference (he couldn't help himself-- he had to get his fun somehow) he revealed that, due to fraud within SI, he would be temporarily suspending weapon production and contracts, though, of course, all personnel would be kept on and he would still be producing other products, as well as non-offensive gear like body armor. Naturally, stock dropped thirty points and Obie was not pleased, but it seemed to work. That was before Obie, his COO and quasi-uncle, tried to kill him and make it look like an accident, of course.

That whole debacle started with a sonic paralyzer and ended with Tony in a hospital bed and Obadiah Stane in prison for life, but it was while Tony was still recovering in bed (and forbidden by Rhodey to use his Starkpad anymore, since "You need to rest, not work, Tones!") that he finally concocted his plan to take down Hydra.

Chapter Text

The Asset had been out of storage for more than a month now, and it was beginning to feel a sort of restlessness itching beneath its skin. At first, it had dutifully reported these feelings to Designation!Karpov, but the punishment hurt, and nothing else was done; after the third Recalibration in the space of three weeks, one of the laboratory technicians (Designation!Semenov; unremarkable, slight, and nervous) had pulled Designation!Karpov aside. The Asset should not have overheard the conversation that followed (it was none of its business what its Handler and Chief Technician discussed) but it had been told to stay put where it was, and it had not been told to plug its ears. While the Handlers always took note of the Asset’s enhancements when they were of use in the field, few noted that its enhanced strength and heightened senses were not removed with his mask and gear. Even had they, it was not likely that they would have cared, on the grounds that the Asset was programmed not to question its orders or undermine the Hydra Mission.

“Herr Karpov, sir,” the technician began, fiddling with the pad of yellow paper in his hands in a manner that suggested unease. “We can’t wipe the Asset again.”

“What the hell do you mean, Agent? The Asset will be inoperational soon; it is already reporting anomalous feelings, and the cams show that it is constantly restless in its containment chamber. We can’t not wipe him!!”

“Sir, brain tissue is a delicate matter. Just because the Asset’s increased healing rate and metabolism have thus far prevented damage doesn’t mean that we can keep wiping it at this rate; another month and it'll be a vegetable, Super Soldier or not. Send it on more missions, or give it some sort of enrichment; if it gets really bad, we’ll have to wipe it, but we can’t do it for at least another month. No matter what.”

 Designation!Karpov took a step in Designation!Semenov’s direction, closing in on him. The look on Designation!Semenov’s face was something the Asset had only seen on targets he’d had cornered, about to be killed.

“Despite what you…scientists seem to think,” he said, putting extra emphasis on that fourth word, “We can’t spend all our time babysitting the Asset. Unless you’d like to take that job? Go on, say you will. I could use the entertainment. Wonder how long it’ll take before the Asset tries to break you in half. Enrichment! Nesusvetnaya! Either you recalibrate the Asset, or you mind your own blya business!”              

Designation!Semenov shrunk back. “I will not be responsible for breaking the Fist of Hydra,” he said, but his tone and his words seemed to be different from each other.              

Designation!Karpov snarled, then turned away, boots heavy and sure on the dull concrete. “Soldat!” he bit out, and the Asset tensed just as the technician had, although it made certain not to show the response. “Come with me!”              

The Asset followed in perfect silence as it was led back to its room.               

“Mission tomorrow,” Designation!Karpov told it tersely, throwing a momentum-less kick at the Asset as he departed. He had not fed the Asset, or given orders that it might sleep or relieve itself. That night, the Asset slept despite the lack of orders, and woke with fragmented images flashing behind its clenched eyelids. It was trying to be good, it was, but it couldn’t stop thinking about what it had seen, the people that seemed almost familiar and the places that made its throat clench up against any conscious thought.               

Then it was fed and collected for its mission, and, for a moment, the buzzing noise and chaotic color in its head just faded away. Everything happened with the same comforting familiarity of a well-loved pistol grip sliding into hand, the buckles and straps of its uniform sliding into place, the mask slipped comfortably on, its favorite VSK-94 strapped on close, and knives slipped into more than 20 sheaths. HYDRA agents gathered around it, and Designation!Karpov gave it last minute orders, before it was bundled into a nondescript car for transport to the place of deployment.              

The mission itself though was a colossal failure, despite the Agents around it conducting themselves perfectly. The Asset just could not concentrate! It missed its target for the first time since its initial deployment more than forty years ago, distracted by a butterfly, a beautiful shining thing that the Asset did not quite know how to describe, except that it was a color between the brass fittings of a good pistol and the pale color of a bruise which has almost healed. It turned back the target only moments later, but the man had already moved, and had the rifle not jammed the Asset would have missed the shot. It was probably the first time in the Asset’s experience that it had been grateful for a jammed weapon, for though it knew of its failing, the Agents did not—to their unenhanced senses, it must have looked as though it had taken the shot at the proper time, and had been foiled by the weapon malfunction. It did end up locating the target and killing him with a single headshot, but it was still brought back to Designation!Karpov for discipline when it was discovered that it had taken the initiative to clean its weapons itself, as it had finished its mission with plenty of time before the extraction and it had had too much adrenaline buzzing in its veins to stand in parade rest the entire time.              

It was sent out again very soon after that, to kill a Polish politician who must have had second thoughts about allying with HYDRA. It finished the mission as smoothly as usual, using a capsule of some untraceable poison cracked into the target’s tea, but there was something curiously familiar about the part of Poland which it had been deployed in. It had four hours before extraction, and though it knew on a subliminal level that its Handler probably had trails on it, it felt that there could be no harm in scouting the area for a short time. It wandered through a market, wondering at all they sold there, for it didn’t normally get a chance to explore unless it was required to blend into its surroundings for a reconnaissance mission. There were men and women playing instruments, gathering coins in cans or containers at their feet, and street artists (a flash of blond hair and paint stained hands, accompanied by a blistering pain shooting through its skull). It stumbled, swaying, and upset a basket of some sort of fruit, so that the seller barked at it in Polish, and it haltingly tried to gather up the fruit until the woman waved it away, still jabbering.              

It retreated to a side alley, only to realize it still had a few of the fruits clamped in its hands. It looked at them for a moment—they were dark, like dried blood, one of them had been crushed, revealing a hint of sunshine-colored fruit inside. The Asset hesitated. Glanced around. It was hungry, and although it had been forbidden to eat during missions, there was no one to see…              

They tasted like sunshine, too. The Asset gulped them down, suddenly ravenous. It tasted bright and sweet on its tongue, and the Asset ate the first one in three bites, starting in shock as it encountered a woody something at the center of the first one, then realizing that it could chew around it and that all the fruits contained one. A pit, it thought, in a flash of color and sound, and wondered how it knew that word. The first fruit was a bit tangy, but the next one was sweet, and the Asset had tasted sweetness only once before, when it had pleased Designation!Kant and been offered such as a reward. Normally it had only the thick tasteless fluid that was its ordinary fare, or the foul-smelling blue gel-packs it was given on extended missions.              

The fruits were not enough. The Asset slunk back, light-footed and silent with its training, and managed to catch hold of a crate of the same fruit and vanish with it down the same alley. It gulped down the entire crate in mere minutes, wiping the sticky evidence of its subversion from its face as it might warm blood, then returning to the extraction point and waiting for its team, but it was futile, because the fruit seemed to sit oddly in its stomach and it was unable to keep them down. Designation!Karpov administered immediate punishment for both the unauthorized action and the souring pulp which had contaminated its gear.              

Things continued on like this for another month. The Asset was put under direct guard once, but the inept team of agents it was with ruined its mission, and after another equally disastrous attempt, the Asset was once again ordered to complete its missions alone, save for the agent shadowing it to cover its tracks and make any footage or news stories unceremoniously disappear. It managed to complete the next few missions with reasonable haste and minimal malfunctioning (although if it spent a few minutes afterwards looking at the sky or the foliage around it as it returned to the extraction point, who would know?) and only earned itself discipline once, after a difficult mission where it had been required to stake out a resort in the snow. The target had not appeared, so it had used the unoccupied space of time to construct a replica of the Siberia base in the snow and improve an imagined security system, as it was too cold for its normal down time exercises, and it had been unable to force itself to stay in the snipers’ blind unmoving for three long nights.               

Then came the days when it was not required to be deployed. HYDRA was lying low, and the few interventions and assassinations required were to be carried out by more careful hands than its own, as the Asset was a last, most brutal resort plan. It paced in its chamber, night and day, and, when it was let out for training, broke every machine and let the sand out of every heavy bag in the training facility, unable to stop itself and unwilling to take its frustration out on the agents around it. It broke its metal arm smashing its fist into one of those bags, and for this, and the wanton destruction, Designation!Karpov and his men punished it, but it was trained not to flinch at any blows, or anything else, and at length Designation!Karpov called off his agents, and snapped at the Asset to follow him. It was led down to the lower part of the base, and something within the Asset quivered at the thought of Recalibration, but when they reached the door to the Recalibration Chamber, Designation!Karpov moved past it, and led the Asset down to a different room—equally familiar (inasmuch as anything could be familiar to the Asset) but less unnerving. There the Asset endured three hours of several technicians pulling wires inside its arm until at last the pain was reduced to a level which would not impede functionality and the arm could move in its normal rotational parameters without sticking or grinding. As the technicians tinkered, the Asset listened in silence to the shouting match going on outside the door.

“This cannot go on, Semenov! The Asset is getting erratic and dangerous. It’ll be slitting our throats before long, unless we have it wiped!” Designation!Karpov was saying furiously.

A shuffle of feet. “Do you want your precious Asset to be a drooling mess on the floor? Cause that’s what the Chair is going to do to it if you don’t give its synapses enough time to heal. Sir,” Designation!Semenov added after a half second, and the Asset felt a flicker of…something…go through its body. One of the technicians remarked that its vital signs were starting to go erratic, and another responded that it was probably just its brain responding to the biofeedback.

“Well what do you suggest, then?”

“Tell me, sir, have you ever had a dog?”

“Don’t get cute with me! What does that have to do with anything?”

“If you had a dog, you wouldn’t lock it up in the house all day, would you sir? A dog needs exercise and enrichment, especially one of the more intelligent ones, or it will start chewing your shoes and shitting on the floor.”

“And?”

“When have you ever given the Asset anything to do that wasn’t related to missions or training? It may not be able to be wiped, but you can give it a task to do as a distraction, and that will keep it busy and under control.”

“Do I look like I have anything for it to do?”
“Sir, there are probably hundreds of things to do around here. Have it do laundry or chop potatoes for goodness sakes!”

“Are you saying that I put the Fist of Hydra to work doing menial labor?”

“I’m saying that you give the poor thing some enrichment before it goes mad, sir,” Designation!Semenov finished with finality. “If you want, I can take it down to the kitchens myself, and have it chop vegetables. That will put its violent tendencies and knifework to good use without causing any damage.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll do it myself, after maintenance is completed,” Designation!Karpov grunted, and then there was nothing more than the shuffle of retreating footsteps, marking the end of the conversation. With nothing else to listen to but the occasional “pass me the screwdriver” from the technicians around it, the Asset let its head fall back onto the seat as much as it was able, biting rhythmically on the gag stuffed into its mouth to control the pain. Its arm hurt—maintenance always hurt—but today its head ached even worse.

Only moments after maintenance was over, Designation!Karpov led the Asset up to the kitchens, where he left it with a terse “Soldat, follow Larkin’s orders on what to chop,” and a quick motion towards an older woman (Designation!Larkin: seemingly older than forty, probably little more than kitchen staff without knowledge of Hydra secrets, a plain face and ginger hair). Then, turning to Designation!Larkin, he added in English “This is the Asset. It needs to have something to do, so you might as well put it to work. It won’t hurt you, and even if it tries, all you have to do is hit that switch.”

The Asset cringed beneath its mask; it had only taken one repetition before it’d learned to take that threat absolutely seriously, because the switch on its metal arm, when flipped, deadened the arm and flooded its whole body with incapacitating cramping pain, rendering it unable to follow orders or even do anything for hours afterward. By the time it looked up, Designation!Karpov was already gone.

Designation!Larkin hesitated. “Can you peel and chop these carrots for me?” she said, voice raising at the end as if she somehow expected it to resist her orders.

The Asset glanced over at the big burlap sack of fire-colored roots, and nodded.“Ya gotev podchinit’sya,” it said, in case she wanted a verbal response, and picked up one of the roots cautiously, laying it on the counter.

“No no no,” Designation!Larkin broke in, and the Asset froze in anticipation of pain. Instead, she just took the root out of its hand. “Sorry, the counter’s not clean.” She said. “We’re kinda short-staffed right now, so you’re going to have to use a cutting board,” she added cautiously, coming behind it. “Here.”

The Asset understood maybe five words in ten, but it was clear enough that it was supposed to cut the root on the plank of shaped wood; the countertop did look rather dirty, and the Asset guessed that it would not be safe to touch with broken skin, so perhaps it was also unsafe to prepare food. It laid down another root on the board, than looked over to her. “What size pieces?” it managed, its English rather rusty after years of speaking Germain and Russian.

“Um, here,” Designation!Larkin said. “Can I…” she touched its elbow, motioning it aside, then picked up the root, rinsed it, and then scraped off its skin with a small tool before chopping it neatly into even round pieces. “Like that.”

The Asset nodded. “Like that,” it confirmed, and then repeated the same process. She smiled at it, and that smile was nothing at all like Designation!Karpov’s. The Asset felt something bubbling up in its chest, and suddenly, irrationally, wanted to see her do it again. But that anomalous thought wasn’t helping it function, so it pushed it aside and chopped the entire rest of the bag of roots the same way, and, after a few hours of following Designation!Larkin’s orders without making any sudden movements, she and the other staff in the kitchen started to relax. The Asset, too, gradually began to find itself less tense. It grew to enjoy the work, gradually became more careless, occasionally flipping the knife, or cutting the vegetables in more elaborate patterns. It liked this, the cool metal in its hand and the satisfactory slice of steel through leaves and roots, and it liked even more the realization that these were not targets, who would shriek in fear or pain, or spray blood on its tac gear, but just plants. It was not hurting them. It knew it should no doubt report this after it was collected, but it didn’t want to—this feeling was all for it, and nothing would stop it.

This loss of tensions, and these unsanctioned thoughts, were ultimately at fault for what happened next. The Asset was cutting a large, bulky root which bled a red-that-was-not-red, more of the color of those flowers Designation!Whitehall used to keep on his desk…peonies, the Asset thought. Fernleaf peonies. The Asset was distracted, and the root was hard, like slicing through muscle and bone, and the knife slipped before the Asset realized what was happening.

“Ah, Sir! Asset!” The Asset raised its head, turning to look for Designation!Larkin in bemusement. No one called the Asset sir. “You’re bleeding.”The Asset grunted. It was, but it was not a bad wound, merely a slight gash and a flap of detached skin. “Here—put that down; I’ll get you a bandage.” The Asset scarcely registered her disentangling the root from its hand, still focused on the single drop of blood, red and wet and mingling with the dark juice of the root on the cutting board. It felt, all at once, as if it was on the cusp of some momentous realization. It had definitely been wounded before, and it had killed countless targets, blood of just this very same color spilling onto its hands and face at close quarters, or painting the surroundings when it made its kill from farther away. Now, looking at that single red smudge, the Asset was suddenly struck. Its targets were all people. Enemies of HYDRA, yes, but still people. But the Asset’s blood was just as tacky, and just as red, and just as wet. So what made it different? It looked like an Agent, and it bled just as red, but even Designation!Rollin’s cat was treated better, as it saw Designation!Rollins slipping it morsels of meat and such, and it was never struck. Or Recalibrated, as far as the Asset could tell. These very thoughts were dangerous, treasonous, and it should report them…but why should it? What gave Designation!Karpov and the other Handlers the right to give it orders, or tell it what to think, or Recalibrate it? Why did it have a list of words to make it compliant, and they didn’t? The Asset knew everything it was thinking now amounted to treason, but…its Handlers didn’t have to know, did they? It could still be a good Asset, even if it didn’t share absolutely everything in its head. And in that moment, standing in an enormous kitchen, staring at the knife and the cutting board while Designation!Larkin hurried back with a roll of bandages, the Asset decided it didn’t want to be an “it” anymore.

And HE raised his head, nodded to Designation!Larkin, and walked over to the enormous sink to wash the blood and root juices off of the cutting board.