Chapter 90
Avengers Tower
September 2011
“Tony! Wait up.”
Tony paused and turned around, still mostly processing the data he’d been working through. There was scientific research Fury had never bothered to share, Hydra bases, crises all over the world that SHIELD had involved themselves in, and the team would be looking to him to sort through the whole mess. JARVIS could only do so much. “What?” he said irritably.
Steve wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Couldn’t have said it when I was in meeting mode?” Tony said waspishly.
“It’s not something you’d want to hear in front of them.”
That was ominous. Tony still wasn’t completely tuned into this conversation, but a few theories presented themselves while Steve dragged him into a smaller conference room, the foremost being that he was about to get excoriated for losing the scepter to Fury. Guilt and fear made Tony sick. He clung to the numbers and facts and dates in his head.
“Tony…” Steve said, and stopped, brow furrowed.
“Look, Darcy already chewed me out,” Tony said. “I’d as soon not hear it again, because trust me, you can’t possibly be more pissed at me than I am at myself. I won’t let it happen again.”
I refuse.
“What?” Steve looked confused. “Uh. Was she mad at you for the scepter? You know that wasn’t your fault, Fury came in with a whole STRIKE team.”
“That’s not what you meant?” Tony said.
“Of course not,” Steve said. “No, I learned something… well, technically, I saw something. And I need to talk to you about it.”
Oh. Tony returned to piecing together five different studies’ worth of data on advanced thermodynamics.
“It’s about your parents.”
His train of thought crashed and underwent a fiery demise. All consideration of science knocked from his head, Tony stared at Steve.
“What?” he said, voice barely more than a whisper. It was all he could get out.
“I didn’t tell you because the last five days have been… insane,” Steve said. “We were chasing the flash drive, then we were chasing Sitwell, then we were breaking into Fort Meade and planning and executing an assault on the Triskelion of all buildings. And we came home and everyone’s been exhausted and recovering from injuries and trying to make sense of the fact that Hydra’s part of SHIELD and–”
“Tell me,” Tony demanded.
Steve took a deep breath.
Tony’s stomach twisted.
“Your parents’ deaths? I don’t think the crash was an accident. I think Hydra killed them.”
…
…
“What?”
“Hear me out,” Steve said, raising his hands placatingly. Tony registered that he’d stepped forward aggressively and made himself back off. This wasn’t Steve’s fault. Steve was being honest. Tony bit back his fury that Steve had been keeping this a secret, because he knew, he knew, it had been the smart thing to wait, even though he wanted to find his Iron Man suit and punch Steve across the roof of the Tower for not telling him immediately–
With effort, Tony reined himself in. “Talk.”
“Zola showed us a montage of footage,” Steve said quietly. “Newspaper reports, videos, op files, things like that, when he was talking about how Hydra’s been fostering chaos for years.”
“I knew that,” Tony said.
“Yeah, but one of the things he showed us was a scan of a newspaper article.” Steve hesitated. “From December 17th, 1991.”
“The day after the accident,” Tony said, even as he knew Steve was right.
Steve nodded.
Tony closed his eyes. Desperate, shattered, flailing for some solid rock in this maelstrom. For years, he’d missed his parents. Hated himself for the way he treated them, for the fact that he hadn’t said goodbye. Wished he’d had a chance to try and fix things with his dad, once Tony was older and less stupid. Wondered if they were out there somewhere he couldn’t reach, watching him; prayed that if they were watching, they were proud. He’d bottled up all that grief, all the love and anger he’d felt for them, all the guilt and resentment and stupid, desperate hope for validation that had never and now would never come: all of it ignored and pressed down because what use was it to dwell on anger and resentment aimed at a dead person? Or love, because then the grief just got worse?
But here was a target. Here was someone to blame.
And then he found an anchor: hate.
Tony hated Hydra already, to be sure. They’d taken so much from so many people. It deserved to be destroyed utterly, and where Steve had failed seventy years ago, maybe they could succeed as a team. He’d been dedicated, committed, and rock solid in his conviction.
But this.
This made it personal.
And Tony knew himself well enough to know: He loved like few dared imagine, and hated like fewer could believe.
Hydra would regret leaving Zola alive long enough to show them that headline.